With a daughter in college, we’re having to scale back our spending. Things that we’ve taken for granted are now luxuries. Yesterday, we went through all of our streaming services and took a “hack saw” to the ones we didn’t use. That saved us $50 a month. We switched most of our grocery shopping to Costco. That’s probably another $150-$200 a month saved. I thought about applying for a higher paying job, but we’d need to move to Dallas. My wife might divorce me if I did that. 
Any ideas or inspiration?
1 Like
I found that when my daughter was in college, it was hard to live frugally. During that time. we ended up spending a lot on travelling to see her (train, hotels, etc.)
8 Likes
Can’t really help without knowing more but the fastest way to save money is by not eating out. That includes the coffee on the way to work or buying a lunch. Buying at Costco may or may not be a savings unless you’re willing to freeze meals.
22 Likes
Just do the best you can. Some regular expenses will be less. We found out electric bill decreased…less lights on all the time. Less food costs…one less mouth to feed at home. Less gas costs…no carpooling or driving all over kingdom come. Our kids were both musicians who studied two instruments privately and were in Precollege wind ensemble and orchestra. That expense went away (the music expenses were sizable ones). Our heating oil costs went down…less long showers, and heat could be turned down for more of the day because no one was home.
So…a lot of little things that added up.
9 Likes
Will she be driving? You could check if the car insurance rate might be lowered. I believe ours went down since the kids didn’t have a car at school.
This is what I got when I Googled:
“Yes, car insurance rates can go down for college students who don’t have a car:
- Remove the student from your policy
If your child is not driving your car and is purchasing their own insurance, you can remove them from your policy and save money. This can potentially save you more than $1,000 per year.
- Get a discount for a distant student
If your child is attending college more than 100 miles away, you may be eligible for a discount. Some companies offer a discount of 15–30% for students in this situation.
- Change your child’s driver status
If your child is staying on your policy, you can change their status from primary driver to occasional driver. An occasional driver is someone who drives less than 25% of the car’s annual mileage.
- Take advantage of other discounts
Some insurers offer discounts to college students for good grades, driver’s education, and other factors.”
5 Likes
We actually found that our costs were reduced when the kids were away at school.
6 Likes
Thanks for the reminder, mine are back in SC and MA without cars, going to let geico know
4 Likes
GEICO may send you a refund check! I was shocked by how much the premium dropped when the first child went away to college.
4 Likes
I think this is a suck it up period. My expenses were a lot higher when my kids were college. There were a lot of trips to the school for various things. I also had to pay for their trips home, activities in school.
But, here is the good news…once they were out of school, I felt like I got the biggest raise.
18 Likes
Love this thread. Right now, sports training costs have gone down exponentially for us - with traveling costs going up (might have to replace a car - argh).
Line items for two: the streaming, car insurance, home costs, eating out, shopping choices…
Cutting is quick. Figuring out more income is always challenging. Side hustles for us empty-nesters are a thing: consulting, part-time - and we can’t forget bartering skills. Although our family can technically afford to furnish my kid’s dorm with new items, I am a competitive sale shopper and thrifter (of easy-disinfect items, anyway). So working on the final touches of storage/etc. for the new digs.
One thing I made clear last year to the kid is that I expected them to bring scholarship money to the table. This is their job for the next four years, and it can be very cost-effective even with the hours spent on applications. (Our kid’s acceptances last year ranged from full-pay to tuition merit - 25% off to fully covered. Kid also earned a few outside scholarships.) So already I am expecting them to come up with money for next year.
1 Like
My first 3 were within 100 miles (some barely), so it was nice to get a break when #4 went far. Then she took her car to college and it went up,$1000. She left it home this year, but recently mentioned having yo have us drive down and back after graduation. Um, let’s look into renting a parking spot next semester, I’m not doing a 24 hour driving weekend.
1 Like
Geico dropped our insurance by a LOT when we called.
3 Likes
When things are tight or you’re looking to cut expenses, my first suggestion is to track your expenses. Every single expense. All too often we don’t realize exactly how much money we’ve spent and then we’re surprised when it’s time to pay our credit card bill. You can do this in an Excel spreadsheet, a program like YNAB (You Need a Budget), or old-fashioned paper and pencil, but it’s definitely mind-opening. And sometimes even the activity of tracking in and of itself will keep you from making a purchase because it’s not worth the effort or feels frivolous, etc.
If you do end up tracking expenses, I like categorizing things into four buckets. Needs, wants, giving, and savings. Needs are things like water, electricity, rent/mortgage, car insurance, etc. This also includes anything that is under a contract for a certain length of time (i.e. cell phone contract, cable contract, etc.). If your spending is categorized, you can take a look at your “wants” category and know that it’s ripe for slashing.
Speaking of bills, call your cable, phone, and internet companies up. Either threaten to switch companies or actually switch companies to those that will offer you significantly better rates. This is one of the easiest ways to cut down on expenses. (I’m also not a fan of contracts for utility services, as I like the ability to be able to switch or cut down if I choose/need to do so, but others don’t feel the same.)
And seconding the eating out piece. Even making lobster and steak at home will generally come out much less expensive than a modest restaurant meal. So make date nights with your spouse about trying new recipes or doing something fun around food but without needing to fork out an arm and a leg.
10 Likes
We are better at the big ticket items than the small ones.
So taking a whack at our insurance coverage… increased our deductibles (have never had a claim on either cars or home) to reduce premiums, realized after doing the math that we could stop paying premiums on our whole life policies so they’d be “self funding” going forward; going through every bank statement, credit card, Paypal to see if we were paying monthly fees for things (and we were…), etc. And something I felt awkward about initially but got comfortable with-- discussing costs with medical providers. Switched to a generic which worked just as well as the pricier stuff, paid out of pocket for a colonoscopy (the Dr. was LOVELY about it…I’m not the only person who did the math and realized how much money I could save) and switching to the optometrist at Costco for the annual exam and el cheapo glasses which were great- not elegant but sturdy.
We did a deeper dive to include the daily living stuff after we unexpectedly went from two incomes to one while we had two in college (yikes). We made a game out of it… who could have the shortest credit card bill that month? (we have separate cards and checking accounts). When you want the fewest charges it’s surprising how motivated you are to skip that “just a few things” trip to the supermarket after work and just make dinner with stuff already in the pantry! I found that focusing on “not buying stuff” was easier for me than trying to keep up with my previous level of consumption but paying less…
5 Likes
Repair kitchen appliances using instruction from Youtube videos
Library instead of books/magazines/newspapers
No gym membership
Own far fewer clothes and just wear them all the time like a uniform.
Buy household items from thrift stores/estate sales/garage or yard sales
Cut/color own hair
Stay at very basic hotels, hostels, or with friends if travel is needed
Drive old cars
MInimize restaurants
Aldi or other inexpensive grocery store
Plan meals, don’t let food go bad in your fridge
Do all your own yard care
Eliminate presents, except for something small like bake something or make a craft
9 Likes
fiftyfifty1 that is about my lifestyle. Also, when youngest was in college, I sold the house and got a small affordable rental. That helped a lot.
3 Likes
We found paying cash is a great way to figure out where money was going (and how quickly we were spending it).
We pay for groceries, eating out and any (non-large) discretionary purchases in cash. While I know lots of people love to get their credit card miles, and we definitely take advantage of that when it makes sense, we found that paying cash helped us save money because we were so aware of the amount in our wallet getting smaller. We save more not buying than we ever do earning miles.
The only things that go onto our credit card monthly are utilities, the few subscriptions we maintain and medical bills/prescriptions that can be paid via credit card.
Saving money on groceries is easiest for us when we batch cook. We made 10 quarts of red sauce this weekend. Put 3/4 of the batch into the freezer in pre-portioned containers. We’ll use the remaining red sauce in several recipes this week and be able to defrost the rest as needed over the next month or so.
We eat a primarily plant based diet which saves a lot of money - the pricey ingredients at the grocery store are meat, dairy and convenience foods. We start most batch cooking with dried legumes, rice, lentils, etc. Even buying Rancho Gordo brand, it still is very cost effective. And yay, healthy diet!
The other big piece to living frugally is deciding how much money you want to save and save first, spend second. We have a ‘state of our budget’ meeting once a year where we set our savings goals. We have planned savings auto-directed out of each paycheck before any spending can happen. At the end of each month, we roll any ‘extra’ money out of the checking account into either a savings account or investment account so we don’t spend any ‘extra’ that we create during the month.
4 Likes
your hair comment reminded me- Barter!
A woman I worked with had a completely different hairdo every month. Color, cut, style-- and intricate highlights which looked like they had been carefully painted with a tiny brush (and they were). Her next door neighbor owned a salon-- and one day when they were each taking out the trash, the neighbor commented “I need to clean my kitchen and I hate cleaning!”. So my co-worker immediately said “I can’t afford your salon even though I’d love to… but I am kind of a clean freak and I love to clean”.
So there it was. Once a week “light tidying” and once a month “deep cleaning” of her neighbor’s house, in exchange for whatever hair services she wanted once a month or whenever the color needed refreshing.
10 Likes
You may already be doing this but at least once your daughter gets a semester under her belt, express your expectations that she needs to find a part time job. Either for her spending $, or her books, or her clothes , whatever you decide would be a help to be off your plate.
Speaking of clothes, I’ll throw shopping at thrift stores for some clothing and household items for her and for your family! We actually all love thrifting so it doesn’t feel like a hardship at all!
6 Likes
Costco will not save you money. I try to avoid it as much as possible due to very big packs and need to run to another store after it. However, Aldi if available will cut your spendings. Another option is Wallmart superstore.
I would totally stop all streaming, avoid eating out, bring your lunch to work etc.
1 Like