Maybe its because we travel downtown? I dont know but somehow our are is very expensive, compared to other areas...just 50 km away.
My first and foremost suggestion is, HAVE A BUDGET. It doesn't matter how much you make, it's very important to have a budget and stick to it. If the car insurance is per month, $350 is on a higher side. My husband has a sports car and we pay $100 per month for both of our cars (full coverage). Groceries and entertainment: Track the expenses (go and check bank your bank account). If your spending is $500 a month, then go ahead and check the spending and see where you can save money. I'd suggest you to have some cushion in your budget for the first few months (just by spending within the budget will keep your excited and you want to do it every time) and slowly reduce your budget. I don't want to go above the budget in any of the categories. But still I'm always above the budget in few categories like eating out. My husband loves to eat out and he'll go mad if I say no :spin Have you ever tried Amazon.com or Diapers.com for diapers? They're less expensive than store bought. Always have a acceptable cost for each item. For example, I don't pay more than $1.99 for a 32 oz laundry detergent (Arm and Hammer or All) I don't pay more than $0.5 for a cereal box (recent only I bought was $0.3 per box). I use coupons to get these deals. You can check Iheartwags dot com or Iheartcvs dot com for future drug store ads. I look for sale items and plan for trip based on the sale. Have you tried cloth diapering? That will save some money (I don't have kids yet. But i'm planning to use cloth diapering at home for my kids) I believe your utility bill is high. Try basic cable. What are the programs you watch? Can you find them in Hulu? Can you find your favorite movies in Netflix? even if you really want to have a cable, have you ever shopped around? (for example, If a Dish customer cancels their TV service, Dish sends out $15 off for the next year, 3 months of free movie channels, and free HD for life). That's a good deal.. isn't it? Always shop around for good utility companies, insurance companies, and electricity companies. We do it every 6 months. We were using company A for electricity in the last 1 year (12 months plan). We were shopping around recently and got a plan for 1/2 the price we paid before. That saved us some money. Spread your investment - Don't put all your eggs in one basket (Even though it's not related to spending, just wanted to mention it here) Do you own a bike and a boat? That's a huge investment.. Do you think you can sell them out and rent one whenever needed? (not sure about your reasoning here. Ignore it if I'm going over board) Doesn't your company cover the medical insurance? I didn't include it in my budget as the on hand income is after "tax + medical insurance".
Car Model/Make swings the insurance amount a lot. Of course, location also adds a lot. Big cities add a lot more to the insurance bill. I remember back in college, my roommate used to have a sports car. He was not from US and saw how cheap cars were and bought a slightly used one for around $25K, a relatively new Nissan 350Z. His insurance bill was close to 270$ a month. This was 10 yrs ago in a relatively smaller town. Sports car is a very general term. People call a 3-series coupe as sports car, some call Impreza STI as sports. The latter has a much higher insurance. M3 might be higher than both.
From what I saw in this thread....what you pay in US is waaayyyy cheaper than what I pay in Ontario. For example...cereal for my DD costs me $2.99 (original price). Since I live in Ontario, the tax is 13%. We pay tax on everything. So what I am actually paying is $2.99+13% tax. As of today, the gas price is $1.32 per L. How much is it in US?
The normal price is from $2.50 here in US. But I use coupons for everything. Try "snipsnap". it's a coupon app. In addition to that, I print coupons from the internet for my regular grocery shopping. You don't get these deals every day. But whenever I get it, I stock up the things. It saves lot of money for us.
