My wife and I recently decided to radically reduce our spending to save money, pay down some debt, and start getting out of the mess we've been in for several years. However, having taken a long, hard look at our monthly budget, we're coming up short on ways to substantially reduce our monthly expenditure further.
Currently, my job is our primary source of income. I work remotely for a software company based in Boston, and earn between $45-50k (gross). Please note I work as a 1099 independent contractor, and am therefore on the hook for purchasing our own health insurance coverage and setting aside quarterly estimates for the IRS and state taxes.
In terms of our predictable monthly expenses, this is what we're looking at. All costs/expenses are monthly unless otherwise specified:
- Rent - $850
- Car payment - $150
- Car insurance - $150
- Utilities - $100
- Smartphones x 2 (inc. line rental/data plan/minutes etc.) - $210
- Internet - $110
- Health insurance - $250
- 1 x loan repayment installment - $110
- My wife's student loans - $595 (split across three private lenders)
- Taxes - approx. $1,500
TOTAL: $4,025
As you've no doubt noticed, the above breakdown does not include food. Right now, we spend around $400 p/m on food for the two of us. We almost exclusively prepare our own meals, and we try to shop as thriftily as we can. The primary reason we haven't budgeted for food is because it seems like one of the very few somewhat "fluid" costs we have.
We do have a handful of other minor expenses, such as our Netflix subscription, hosting/domain registrations etc., which total around $50 a month or so, but we'll leave this out for the sake of simplicity, since we've pared this down as much as we can for the time being.
We're taking steps to reduce this figure as much as we can. Our car is almost paid off (it'll be paid off in full by Jan/Feb '18). In one more payment (of around $40), my smartphone will be paid off, which should bring our phone bill down from $210 to around the $160 mark (which is still outrageous if you ask me). However, we're coming up short on what else we can do to reduce our outgoings.
Here are some of the issues we're running into:
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We live in an economically depressed city in New England. There's no work here (in my field or otherwise), and the only way we could save a significant sum on rent would be to move to an even sketchier neighborhood -- the one we're in isn't awful, but it's not great, either.
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I'm considering switching from a smartphone to a dumb phone that just allows texts and calls, since that's what I use it for primarily anyway. (Having a smartphone is definitely helpful for work, but it seems like one of the few areas in which we could potentially save more than $50 per month.)
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In terms of our lifestyle, we "do" very few activities that cost money, and our discretionary spending is virtually nil. In the past month, we went out to eat once and ordered take-out once. Next month, this will most likely be reduced to zero. We almost never go out, very rarely buy stuff, and live an otherwise quite austere lifestyle. We don't budget for clothes since we can never afford them. We don't go to the mall or spend money on shit we don't need. Despite this, there just doesn't seem to be anything left, and we're keeping a very close eye on our spending.
Whenever we browse similar threads on this sub or others (like r/Frugal etc.), we often see advice that suggests minimizing discretionary spending and wasting money on frivolous things. Our problem is that we feel like we've already done this and it doesn't seem to be "saving" us anything; it feels like we're living as frugally as we can with none of the benefits, and we don't feel like we're "saving" anything by living this way.
We considered moving from the city to a more rural area to try and save a significant sum on rent. For instance, we considered moving to Western Massachusetts, as the rent can be a lot lower than it is where we are currently (1-bed apartments go for around $550 p/m as opposed to the $850 p/m we're in now). Although this would be helpful, it would put us many hours away from our family, and wouldn't do anything to help with our already precarious employment/income situation, since work is even more scarce out there than it is where we are.
Right now, just keeping our heads above water is hard enough. We don't have a terrible amount of debt, but there just doesn't seem to be anything left, even after trying to streamline and downsize our spending even further than we already are.
What are we missing? Beyond the measures I've already mentioned -- switching from a smartphone to a dumb phone, paying off the car etc. -- what else can we do to significantly reduce our overheads?
We're taking this very seriously, but we're at a total loss as to what we can do to get ahead of the cost of living.
Apologies for the lengthy post, and thanks in advance for any help, suggestions, or advice you can offer.
Submitted October 22, 2017 at 10:46AM by help_us_save http://ift.tt/2xf7TY1
