Here’s a breakdown of my husband and my monthly obligations:
Mortgage: 06
Car payments: 6
Electric: 0
Natural gas:
Verizon:
Cable/phone/internet:
Water/waste disposal:
Life insurance:
Auto insurance: 4
Student loans: 0
Credit card:
Currently, my husband is getting a lot of overtime, and we are bringing home ,400 a month. However, in June his overtime will end for about 8 months, and his income will settle back down to approx. ,000 per month. Both of these figures are after health insurance, taxes, and our 401(k) contribution of 4%.
I am extremely grateful that we are making what we are in this terrible economy, but it’s very frustrating because once the overtime ends, we will just be making it, with room for few extras, and I just don’t know what else we can cut down/cut out.
Our mortgage is not going to change; in fact, it could very well go up if our homeowner’s insurance premium goes up or our city decides to raise the real estate tax;
We owe 3 more years on our cars, and 6 TOTAL between both payments is quite cheap, and it’s silly to trade one of our cars in for something cheaper since we have already paid so much on them, so there’s not much to do with that;
Our natural gas, electric, and water bills are right on par with the local average – we are very conscious of our lights, heat, and water usage, and can’t cut these bills back anymore without major discomfort;
We are in the middle of a 2 year contract with Verizon and are on the cheapest plan available (they actually don’t even offer our plan anymore… we are grandfathered. The cheapest plan currently for two lines is extra a month);
Our phone/cable/internet bill cannot be reduced – I work at home and depend on the house phone, since my husband and I share a mere 500 peak minutes on our cells, our cable is the minimum package at a month – basically just prevents us from needing rabbit ears, and our internet is the cheapest available in our area;
We just acquired life insurance, which is ,000 each whole and 0,000 each term – that’s a necessity, especially since we are 23 and 24 and locked in our rate for life;
Our auto insurance could be lowered by upping our deductible to 0, but I called and asked about it, and it would only make a difference every 6 months, which doesn’t seem worth it considering we’d be upping our deductibles so much.
The student loan… well, there’s not much we can do about that. We could get it financed for more than the standard 10 years, but then you are just spending SO much extra money in interest.
We have recently paid off ,100 furniture, 0 department store charge, ,500 Best Buy, ,600 on my credit card, and now all we have left is my husband’s credit card, which has a ,000 balance. Most of this debt was from early in our marriage and we decided quickly that we didn’t want to carry debt, so we have been working hard to pay it off. Before my husband’s overtime ends, we will have paid the credit card completely off.
So… any realistic ideas of how we might cut our expenses? All the articles on the internet are so cheesy or unrealistic. For instance, I’m not in dire enough of a situation to reduce my heat to 60 degrees!
– OUR income will be ,000. Not just his.
The insurance deductible reduction would only lower my auto insurance every SIX months, not every month. I wish it’d lower it per month! 
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