As most of you know, we are in the very beginning stages of buying a house and possibly moving to Colorado. However, that’s not planned to happen for at least 1.5 years from now.
Some of you have asked why we’re waiting to buy a house and why we’re not moving right away.
Well, we still have to save for our down payment.
We would like to put around $100,000 on our next home (GAH that is scary to even think about), and that means we really need to buckle down and start saving since we still need to save for retirement as well.
We need to save money so that we can go to Colorado a decent amount and find our dream home. I don’t want to buy a home or live in a brand new town that I haven’t researched or visited at least a few times.
We’ll also have some big expenses come up and we need to start paying for and saving for those too. I’m assuming that selling our current home will be a disaster, and we will either break even or owe a few thousand dollars. we’ve had some odd disasters happen at our home and we need to replace some things (for example: our garage door needs to be replaced after our truck flung into reverse, all by itself when no one was in it, and slammed into our garage).
So, because of all of the above, we need to save a decent amount of money over the next two years. However, we are not freaking out. We know that we have some time to save and that we have fairly low budgets already.
There are many ways we are currently saving money. These include: lowering our food budget, switching to a more fuel efficient car (we are saving hundreds each month now!), finding frugal entertainment, cutting our cable bill, switching to a cheaper cell phone plan (read here to find out how you can save $2,000 a year on your cell phone), and more. Most of these are lifestyle changes and we have been extremely happy with the changes we’ve made since they’ve allowed us to enjoy life more and save money as well.
Here are some of your responses to my question “What would you NOT cut from your budget (i.e. what do you value) in order to reach a current savings goal?”
@SenseofCents Travel saving. That’s a non-negotiable for me.
— Marissa (@Thirtysixmonths) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents The monthly fee for my gym membership!
— Theresa (@Foothills2Fog) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents Pet related expenses. Hawkeye never gets cheap food or knockoff flea meds, and she goes to the vet and groomer regularly! — Stephanie (@NotEntrlyPrfct) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents good food, travel, home comforts and our cats 🙂 we’d never cut these out, ever! — Nicola (@thefrgalcottage) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents Therapy! At first maybe but it’s been really helpful 🙂 — Athena (@accordingathena) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents eating decently. I would rather pay a bit more for groceries to get food I enjoy rather than a bunch of cheap junk! — Chelsea (@chelseaoliviaxo) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents annual pass to my local comedy club. $150 for 2 people. Great laughs, cheap date and we get out of the house! — Kate (@goodnightdebt) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents I would never cut internet. I think it’s so vital to life today. It’s become a need not a want — Allison (@LSLWBLOG) October 9, 2014
Even though we are saving money in many different ways, there are certain things we will not cut out of our budget unless we absolutely need to. The “old” Michelle would have probably freaked out and cut everything in sight (except for number 2 below, of course) just because I used to let money control my life.
1. I won’t downsize my home.
I won’t sell our current home right at this moment (and move into a cheaper place) in order to save money more quickly. Our home is relatively cheap and to me it’s not worth it to move into a cheaper place in order to save a tiny bit of money
Also, moving twice seems like a nightmare. we moved many times before we moved into our current home so I will do anything to limit the amount of times I have to move all the stuff into my future home.
2. I won’t get rid of my dogs.
Some people don’t understand why dogs are so awesome, and that is fine. However, I am an insane dog person. I remember when someone once asked me why I spend money to have dogs. It’s because I LOVE them.
I will not get rid of my dogs to put more money towards my down payment.
3. I won’t stop traveling.
We love to travel, so I don’t see us completely eliminating vacations from our lives in order to save for a home down payment. Our trips are usually fairly cheap, and I just signed up for a new credit card in order to gain some fast rewards points again. I will be talking about this soon.
4. I won’t jeopardize my health.
We recently received a letter stating that our health insurance will be going up a little over 64% each MONTH. Even though this is happening, it does not mean that I’m just going to completely eliminate health insurance from my life.
I’m also still going to go to any and all annual preventative appointments I have as well.
5. I won’t drain my emergency fund.
We have a large emergency fund, and we could put it towards our house down payment fund. It would definitely help us reach our goal more quickly, but this isn’t something I want to do.
My emergency fund is there to help me in case something bad happens. Also, you just never know if something bad will happen with the future move, so keeping my emergency fund intact is very important to us.
6. I won’t stop having fun.
We have relatively cheap fun. We go for bike rides, walk on trails, go hiking, and more. However, even though it is a cheap hobby and all we really have to do is pay for the gas to get places, I won’t cut that out of my budget.
Too many people think that you can’t have fun when you are on a budget. That is just not true!
7. I won’t get rid of internet.
Nope, nope, nope. This is something I could never get rid of. Keep in mind that in order to work, I need internet. Yes, I could go to the library and get it for free, but I’ll pay my very minimal internet costs so that I can work in my home.
What are you currently saving for? Are you cutting everything out of your lives in order to save for it? Why or why not?
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That is CRAZY about the truck!!!! Colorado is so beautiful, Michelle – you’ve picked an awesome place to move. 🙂 The one thing we’re committed to spending on throughout our debt payoff is our pets. They bring so much joy – especially to the kids – so it’s well worth the expense. And dogs are AWESOME! 🙂
Yes, I love our dogs and I would do anything for them! 🙂
Good list…although there are some I’d cut back on to save up a down payment. I wouldn’t get rid of my pets either, but I (personally) would consider cutting back on travel to increase my savings rate. But, everybody’s different with different priorities.
Yeah, we could cut back on travel, but our “travel” will mainly consist of us trying to decide what town we want to live in. I don’t want to buy a house without visiting the area a few times.
As a pro blogger, you’d probably lose more money by getting rid of your internet than you would save. I wouldn’t sacrifice that, food, or travel.
I agree!
I am all about good food, travel, and fun. I just want to do it as inexpensively as possible. You are a super focused person so I have no doubt that you will get this done quickly.
Thanks Michelle!
Right now we are saving up for my sons’ college fund. We eat out less often and have cut down on our travels .
Thanks for sharing! Gonna check them out now.
some of the things I won’t give up are like you said, having fun and changing homes, even though my husband and I just finished this one:) But things like going out as much, cable TV, etc went!!
Good job Marilyn! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
I am now saving to get an apartment with my fiancé. When it’s something that I really want, it’s easier to buck up and save more.
Good luck Eliza with saving 🙂
Thanks Mike!
I think all those are excellent things not to cut. I think almost all of the money we spend currently is for things we really value. At one time, I would have said saving $100K was impossible, but I know that isn’t the case. Good luck with your saving. I can’t wait to see where you land.
Thank you Kim! Maybe we’ll land near you! 🙂
Good job Lance! Sounds like you are doing well.
We are also hoping to buy a place soon, but realistically, it’s still at least a year away. We got into a bit of debt over the summer (me being unemployed and my fiance being under-employed) so we gotta tackle that first, but then saving for a down-payment is next 🙂
Thankfully, housing here isn’t too pricey, and would could get everything we want for somewhere in the $200,000 – so we won’t need to save quite as much as you do!
Hope you found the perfect house Amanda 🙂
These all seem like reasonable things to keep in your budget. Most of them are things I wouldn’t give up either. 🙂 Good luck with your savings goal! Can’t wait to see how you progress in reaching it!
Thank you Kayla!
i agree with most of those although we would be fine with a smaller house to save money but we’re already in a tiny duplex! and we dont have any travel funds now so we wouldn’t have that to cut out. if we did, i’d be alright with temporarily not traveling to reach our goals sooner
We wouldn’t save much money by moving to a smaller place for just one year, plus the costs and hassle of moving for just one year would be too stressful. I hate moving! 🙂
Each of us has our “must have’s”, and there is no point in making day-to-day life miserable (or taking away happiness) if these expenses can be afforded. The downpayment isn’t worth sacrificing everything for!
In particular, the ones that really jumped out at me from your list were the ones on sacrificing health and giving up the internet.
Sadly, a lot of people sacrifice their health, so that was an important one for me to point out.
Haha I agree! I’m not going to switch to cloth toilet paper to save money. AHHHH!