Q&A Tuesday

Is it possible to survive on a $30 per week grocery budget?

by Crystal on April 17, 2012

I am single and have about $30 per week for groceries which I find hard to do and get a balanced diet. I do go to multiple stores to get the best prices and use coupons the best I can. The thing that bothers me, is when a staple item I use is on sale, I normally don’t have an extra $5 (let alone more) to spend to purchase it. How can I stock-up on sale items when I have such a little bit to get by with anyways? -Renee

Contrary to what many people may tell you, I think you can definitely eat well on $30 per week — and you can find a little wiggle room to buy ahead, too.

My husband and I both lived on a $30 per week grocery budget when we were first married. This included all the ingredients to make 21 meals for both of us each week, plus all household products.

A Can-Do Attitude Is a Must

Don’t let yourself think, “There’s no way I can eat on this small of a budget.” Instead, decide that you’re going to do the best you can with the resources you have.

Make it a game, of sorts, to see how well you can do on a little. By challenging yourself to exercise creativity and think outside the box, you’ll enjoy it a lot more. And when you’re enjoying something, it no longer seems so difficult.

Make Short-Term Sacrifices

In order to be able to scrape together enough money to start buying ahead and building up your stockpile, I’d encourage you to commit to eating really simply for a few weeks. Cut your grocery budget back to $25, and save the extra $5 to invest in those rock-bottom, can’t miss deals — or to purchase almost-free toiletries and household products.

If you’re thinking there’s no way you can eat on $25 per week, here’s a grocery list and menu plan I came up with:

Sample $25 Grocery List and Menu

Prices are approximate and will likely vary a little by area. You may be able to beat these prices with great sales and/or coupons.

Regular Grocery Store, Aldi, or Walmart

1 canister of oatmeal –$2
1 gallon milk — $2.50
1 bag of apples — $3
1 bag of carrots — $1.50
4 bags of frozen vegetables — $4
1 bag of frozen chicken breasts — $7

Dollar Store

1 loaf of bread — $1
1 jar of peanut butter — $1
1 jar of jelly or honey — $1
1 bag of dried beans — $1
1 bag of rice — $1

Breakfasts:

Oatmeal with milk (add in some chopped apples, honey, or peanut butter to change things up a little)

Lunches:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, carrots

Dinners:

Beans and rice with steamed veggies on the side
Chicken, rice, and carrot soup
Baked chicken breast on a bed of rice, steamed veggies
Rice, chopped chicken, and steamed veggies mixed together and sprinkled with salt
Homemade refried beans, baked chicken, steamed veggies
Chicken and veggie stirfry served over rice
Leftovers

Yes, this isn’t a very exciting menu. But if you’re willing to scrimp for a few weeks and eat very simply, it will free up that extra $5 or so each week to start buying a few extra things that are on a great sale (like a bag of flour, like that incredible deal on strawberries — some to eat now, some to freeze for later, or that fantastic special on beef).

As you invest some of your grocery money in the rock-bottom specials and deals, this helps you to build up more of a stockpile so that, over time, you’ll be able to have more and more variety without increasing your budget.

For more grocery saving ideas, be sure to check out my 31 Days to a Better Grocery Budget series.

Do you think you can eat well on $30 per week? What advice or suggestions do you have for Renee?

photo credit

{ 354 comments }

Ask Jesse: How do you feel about keeping life insurance as a form of inheritance?

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by Crystal on October 25, 2011

My husband and I are currently switching our life insurance policies from whole life to term, thus resulting in better coverage for the same premium. We are wondering how you felt about keeping our life insurance as a form of inheritance for our three children (our youngest has severe autism). We are in our lower 40′s.

I understand the premium will go up as we grow older but we want to insure that all of our children, especially our son with a disability, is covered. He also has a special needs trust. – a reader

I applaud you for taking the bull by the horns and thinking long-term. It is not often that people, when still younger, not only think about but make preparations for the care of their children, in the event of your death.

I think it is important for anyone, whatever their age, if they have dependents, to make sure to have a lawfully executed will with guardians set up for their dependents. So many people do not have this and, instead, leave it to the state to determine who gets what and who takes care of the children, if both parents are gone.

The purpose of life insurance is to make sure your children have something to take care of them for their support and maintenance when you die. It should actually be called “death insurance” or “care insurance” but that is beside the point.

Because you have a special needs child, it sounds like you have done the necessary estate planning to make sure he is cared for with a special needs trust. This trust can be funded with life insurance by naming the trust as beneficiary of the life insurance. The trustee would then disperse and manage the money according to the terms of the trust, while the other children would be named as beneficiaries and get the money outright (unless they are minors at the time).

If you did not have the trust set up by an estate planning attorney, I would highly recommend it and have them look at the methods of funding. Most trusts go unfunded and the last thing you would want is to have this special trust not funded properly and your child not benefit from your planning. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

That said, while at this point you can fund with that life insurance, your goal should be to fund it with other assets developed over time so you don’t just have to rely on the life insurance–especially if that life insurance is the term insurance. While you could always reapply for term insurance, which is wise to do when the term gets close to being up, it would be good to have a real asset there to fund the trust if that life insurance is no longer available.

Thus, I do not think that it is necessary for you to keep both the whole life and the term policies going simultaneously, especially when you can get quite a bit more insurance for the price of the whole life with term insurance. The term should work just fine as long as you keep on the ball with estate planning.

Again, I would recommend you talk with an estate planning attorney in your state to make sure all i’s are dotted and t’s crossed.

Jesse Paine is a licensed attorney who owns his own law firm. He’s married to Crystal and is the numbers nerd of the MoneySavingMom.com team! If you have a question you’d like him to answer in a future column, you can submit it here.

The content of this column intended for informational use only and is not to be construed as providing legal, investing, accounting, or other professional advice. Your situation is factually specific and you should accordingly seek qualified professional counsel concerning your specific legal, investing or accounting needs.

{ 10 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: Advice for a brand-new stay-at-home mom?

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by Crystal on October 11, 2011

My husband and I are about to enter into parenthood in a month. Do you have any advice for how to prepare for a baby to come? I have all of his things, I am nearly done packing my hospital bag, and I am well on the way to having lots of meals frozen before his arrival. What I mean is this: how do I prepare for going from a 32-hour-a-week-worker to a mostly-stay-at-home-mom? -Paige

1. Realize That There Will Be Hard Days

Congratulations, Paige! Having a new baby is a wonderful thing. It will change your life in so many fantastic ways.

However, since I’m a realist, I’m going to tell you that there will be many days when it feels far from wonderful and fantastic. There will be crying and fussing and dirty diapers and spit-up. Later, there will be messes, whining, more messes, and more whining. And unless you’re a nurse by profession, you’ll probably be dealing with more bodily fluids on a daily basis than you’re used to.

2. Embrace Each Day

Motherhood is not for wimps. It’s one of the hardest professions on the face of the earth, but it’s also one of the most rewarding professions on the face of the earth. You’ll discover depths of love inside you that you never knew existed and your heart will forever be walking outside of your body.

Instead of focusing on the pile of dirty laundry, the exhaustion you’re experiencing because you only got three hours of interrupted sleep last night, or the just-changed shirt that is now has spit-up on it, choose to embrace today.

Soak up your precious baby. Don’t be too busy or harried to just sit and enjoy the little moments. They are fleeting!

3. Get a Good Routine Going

If you’re used to running a pretty tight ship when it comes to your work-outside-the-home schedule, making the transition to being a stay-at-home mom can be hard–especially because life with a newborn baby can be full of so much unpredictability. If you can, set up a basic routine for your day from the get-go. Read my advice to an overwhelmed mom of a baby here for more on setting up a basic routine.

4. Find Some Great Mom Friends

You need support in your new role. Find a small group of moms who understand you, who will encourage you on your hard days, and who will rejoice with you in your victories.

5. Don’t Let Yourself Go

It’s important to continue to take care of you. Don’t neglect to get some exercise and fresh air, make healthful eating choices, take a multi-vitamin, drink lots of water, try to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night (as much as is possible with a newborn!), and allow margin in your life for things that energize and refresh you. You’ll be a better wife and mom if you make your own health and sanity a priority!

There’s so much more I could share, but I’ll stop there and let the rest of you jump in in the comments. What advice and tips do you have for someone who is preparing to be a brand-new stay-at-home mom?

{ 178 comments }

Ask Jesse: What should we consider when moving from irregular income to regular income?

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by Crystal on September 13, 2011

I have been a stay-at-home mom since the beginning of 2011, but before then I worked hourly and my schedule constantly changed. My husband own his own small seasonal business, is in the ministry (he receives a housing allowance), and has worked any job that has come up for the past two years (always temporary, part-time, changing schedules).

He now has a job offer in another state that is a full-time position with a set salary and benefits. This would be the first time ever in our marriage of four years that we’ve had a full-time job like this. We are very excited, but we are quite nervous as to how to figure out what our budget changes might be.

What are some things that we should consider when looking at the job offer? Also, any tips on what to do when considering a change from one state to another and how to figure out the cost differences between states? – a reader

Making a move for a career change is a momentous event, even if you are not moving out of state. We have moved a number of times and have always had an irregular income, so proper budgeting is always key to making the transition a success.

First, I would make sure that you and your husband are where you are supposed to be, that you are on the same page, and that you both have complete peace about making the jump. These are the most important considerations to make and you can easily be overcome by the enticement of the regular paycheck. If you make this move prematurely, without family harmony, or for the wrong motives, that regular check will probably not go as far as the old irregular income–or at least there will probably be conflict and frustration attached with it.

Second, if you pass the first test, determine the lowest amount you could live on, add some wiggle room, and then create a budget based on that amount (provided it is still less than your set income). If you’ve never budgeted before, you’ll want to give yourself some breathing room as a cushion while you get settled into the new area and become more accustomed to budgeting.

After you get somewhat acclimated (usually somewhere around three to six months), reevaluate your budget and your financial priorities to see what areas need to be tweaked. Remember, a budget is a living document. It should be changed as your needs and priorities change.

Do keep in mind that just because you don’t use all of the money you budgeted in a category doesn’t necessarily mean you need to lower that category. I’d wait for at least six months to a year before deciding to significantly cut a budget category because many categories will fluctuate throughout the year. For instance, if we have money leftover in our utilities budget (a category that tends to fluctuate quite a bit based on the time of year), we always keep that budget “bucket” balance accumulating to make up the difference on months when our utility bills are higher.

Another thing you should consider in analyzing this job opportunity are tax law changes. I once worked in a city other than where we lived that imposed a municipal income tax. We had to make sure we included that in savings just in case the employer withholding was insufficient to cover it.

Finally, the last consideration would be housing. I know that there are a lot of people adamant that you need to buy buy buy, especially in this economy. But, if you are moving to another area, my recommendation would be to rent, especially in this economy, and definitely if you are moving to another state.

Before buying a home, not only do you want to make sure you have a good down payment saved up and know that you’ll be living in an area for longer than a year or two, but it’s also helpful to have a better feel for the areas of town you’d want to live. You’d much rather rent for six month or a year and scout out your home and location options, than to just run ahead and buy something when you’re really unfamiliar with the area.

For those of you who have made a similar jump, I would love to see your other recommendations and considerations in the comments.

Jesse Paine is a licensed attorney who owns his own law firm. He’s married to Crystal and is the numbers nerd of the MoneySavingMom.com team! If you have a question you’d like him to answer in a future column, you can submit it here.

The content of this column intended for informational use only and is not to be construed as providing legal, investing, accounting, or other professional advice. Your situation is factually specific and you should accordingly seek qualified professional counsel concerning your specific legal, investing or accounting needs.

{ 32 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: How do you keep your kitchen countertops cleaned off?

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by Crystal on September 6, 2011

I am decluttering our house like a crazy woman because I believe, like you, that less is more. But I still struggle in the kitchen. I see your kitchen photo when you do your freezer cooking and I can’t believe you have only crock pot on your counter. How do you do it? -Nami

Growing up, my mom never liked to have anything on the kitchen countertops, so I’m pretty sure that’s where my love of clean countertops originated. I try to have mine completely clean and cleared off as much as possible. Sometimes, when we’re in the middle of homeschooling around the kitchen table, things will pile up. That’s life–and I’m okay with it.

However, I try to make sure the countertops are clutter-free every night before dinner and then again before bed. At least in our home, I’ve found that if I purposefully clean everything off the countertops and put it away at least twice per day, they never pile up beyond control.

To give you a little peek into my kitchen, here’s how I try to have it look every afternoon and evening (try being the key word there, believe me, it doesn’t always happen!)

And here’s a view from the other direction (don’t ask me why the lighting is so bad; I still have a hundred thousand things to learn about photography–as is very apparent from all the pictures I post!):

I keep our weekly menu on the side of the refrigerator. Having it there has been working so well for us to stay organized and to remind me of what I had planned to fix! I just print off the menu I format for my blog post each week and then cross things off as we make the meals:

I don’t keep a lot of cookbooks, since many of the recipes I make are online (thank you, Pinterest!). However, I do have a few favorites that stay on the shelf. And then I have a few others that are kept in one of the cupboards.

This house is the first we’ve lived in that has an actual pantry! It’s taken some shuffling and re-shuffling for me to determine what works best to keep in the pantry. Here’s how it looks now:

Our Busy Bags are on the top shelf in separate tubs. Jesse’s protein stuff and vitamins are on the second shelf. The third shelf holds the crock pot and lunch bags that we use when we take a field trip or have a picnic. The fourth shelf has my bread machine and a canister of oatmeal on it. The floor has the juicer, food processor, and some bulk items.

Since we do much of our homeschooling around the kitchen table, I wanted to have some place handy to keep all our current school books and notebooks, but I didn’t want it to take over our kitchen/dining room. I finally decided upon these storage tubs:

They don’t match our kitchen, but I got them free and they are fun and functional. We store the rest of our homeschooling items on the shelves in our school room/exercise room down in the basement and I just bring up what we need each week. I’ll probably need to revisit and revamp this system as our children grow and our schoolwork/books multiply, but this is working well for us right now.

We do keep a tea kettle out on the stove at all times since I use it often. But other than that (and the knife set you see in another picture above), all other appliances are stowed away when not in use. The built-in Lazy Susan serves as a perfect place for the Vita-Mix, toaster, grain mill, popcorn popper, and a few other items

It might seem like a lot of work to put appliances away when you aren’t using them, but I honestly have found that the extra seconds it takes are worth the clutter-free look it brings to our kitchen. This system might not work for others, but it works well for us. An added benefit is that I have a lot more countertop space to use when working in the kitchen!

{ 240 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: How do I develop patience while waiting for something I really want?

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by Crystal on August 23, 2011

After some financial difficulties, my husband and I are back on track in our lives. I am at home with the children and he is working very hard. I do clean a condo on the weekend for some extra money.

Since we are on a tight budget, saving for a home of our own is going to take some time, maybe even several years. I know you were once in this situation. How did you stay patient? I find myself dreaming of cottages and looking at the real estate listings. I don’t want to feel like I am “just passing time” until we reach our goal.

How did you find the patience when “waiting” for a home? You always seemed so at ease and calm during that time. -Dawn

First off, I will tell you that I’m not naturally a patient person. I’m a get ‘er done and get ‘er done now type of gal.

However, God has taught me a lot about patience in the last nine years of my life. Over and over, things haven’t worked out in the timing or way I would have chosen. There have been unexpected job losses, there have been multiple times when we didn’t know what we were going to do for employment or where we would be living the next month, there have been business failures, and there have been many other setbacks.

It’s been hard, but oh-so-good for me to have to learn to wait and to learn to embrace less-than-ideal situations because that was pretty much the only choice I had. And looking back, I can truly see that God’s timing has always been much better than my own timing.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t be writing this blog, I wouldn’t be writing a book, and my husband wouldn’t be running a successful law practice if it weren’t for the hard lessons we learned through times of waiting. So be encouraged; waiting can be a wonderful thing!

Here’s my advice for you:

1) Set Big Goals and Break Them Down Into Bite-Sized Pieces

Where do you hope to be in three to five years from now? Sit down with your husband and map out some specific written goals of where you want to be at the end of three to five years.

Then, break these down into small monthly and weekly goals. For instance, if you hope to have $15,000 saved in three years to use as a down payment on a home, you’ll need to save $5,000 per year. This translates to $417 you need to save per month, or around $105 you need to save each week. If, after reviewing your budget, you realize this is just not feasible, either revamp your goal, extend the timeframe, or find some areas in your budget to cut.

This specific weekly figure gives you parameters to work with. You now know exactly how much you need to save each week to hit your goal on target. You may not be able to hit the $105 figure each week, but proactively aiming for it will give you much greater momentum in actually achieving your goal.

2) Don’t Look At What You Can’t Have

You can’t afford a house right now, so don’t even look. Window shopping almost always evokes discontentment.

Avoid real estate listings, don’t stop at any open houses, and don’t shop for future furniture online. Just block all of it out of your mind right now–except to let it propel you towards your weekly and monthly goals.

3) Make the Most of What You Do Have

Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, seek to embrace and make the most of what you do have right now. Maybe you are crammed into a crackerbox apartment. Rather than waking up and going through your day grumbling about the lack of space, let it motivate you to pare down, get creative with organization, and be thankful that a smaller home means less to clean and more time to spend doing things you enjoy.

4) Remember That You Are Richer Than Almost Everyone Else in the Whole World

According to statistics on WiseGeek.com: “Over three billion people — more than half the world population as of 2010 — live on less than $2.50 US Dollars (USD) a day. More than 80% of the population lives on less than $10 USD per day.”

Most of us know nothing about true poverty. Times might be tough, finances might be tight, and you may be worried about how you are going to stretch your paycheck to cover all the expenses you have, but most of us cannot imagine what it would be like to live without a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, shoes to wear, food to eat, running water, a working toilet, and so many other things things we consider necessities that many in the world would deem to be luxuries.

If you didn’t have to rummage in the garbage to scrounge up something to eat for lunch today, if you didn’t sleep on a cardboard box under a bridge last night, and if you own more clothes than you are currently wearing, you have much to be thankful for.

I’d love to hear from the rest of you: what helps you to be patient while waiting for something you really want?

{ 109 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: What do you buy at Aldi?

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by Crystal on August 16, 2011

I have a question. I noticed you do a lot of shopping at Aldi. We have one where I live, but for some reason I am hesitant to shop there. I was wondering if you could go over what you do and do not buy there, or if it does not matter at all. -Chelsea

Before I got married, I’d never been inside an Aldi store before. And I was hesitant to do so as I’d always had this impression that it was a dirty store with low quality food. However, since my husband and I had such a meager budget in the early years of our marriage, I quickly decided to get over my inhibitions and just go check out the store to see what I thought.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover Aldi wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. Sure, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles that a traditional grocery store has, but I’ll gladly give those up for the money I save by shopping there.

Here are a few tips for successfully shopping at Aldi:

1. Shop in a Nicer Section of Town

If possible, find an Aldi nearby that is in a nicer section of town. The Aldi stores in more run-down areas tend to be less clean and the food does seem to be poorer quality (it might just be my imagination–or the fact that it’s a lot more picked over many times!).

2. Shop With an Open Mind

Go to Aldi with an open mind (and a strict cash budget) and start carefully looking over all they have to offer. Right away, you’ll probably find some things you wouldn’t buy there, but you’ll probably be surprised at how similar other items look to things you usually buy at the grocery store.

Buy a few items to try and take them home and see what you and your family think. You’ll probably find some things you don’t care for, but you’ll probably also discover that you actually like some of their products better than the name brand products at the grocery store (for instance, we think their canned green beans are better than name brand green beans!).

The one thing I’ve found that varies the most at Aldi is their produce. At times, their produce will be great. Other times, it’s downright awful. You can always price-match their weekly deals at Walmart, so don’t feel like you need to buy produce there if it looks less than ideal. Stick with what looks fresh and high quality and skip the rest–no matter how inexpensive the price.

3. Stick With Staple Ingredients

In most cases, you’ll save the most at Aldi if you buy primarily staple ingredients there. Many of their processed foods aren’t much less than you’d pay at the grocery store (they can actually cost more than what you’d pay when combining a coupon with a sale!).

However, their every day prices on baking supplies, canned goods, frozen fruit and vegetables, peanut butter, oatmeal, eggs, milk, and butter will be at least 20% less than you’d pay at the grocery store. Plus, while you’re family might be able to tell a difference in ketchup brands, they probably won’t be able to tell if you use Aldi baking soda!

Do you shop at Aldi? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what is best to buy there and what items you won’t buy there.

{ 212 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: Advice for becoming a stay-at-home wife?

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by Crystal on August 2, 2011

Any advice you can share on becoming a stay-at-home wife would be greatly appreciated. My fiance and I are getting married in two weeks, and we’re thinking about having me stay at home. I’m a little nervous as we live in LA (high cost of living area), and he works freelance in the entertainment industry.

We’ve prayed a great deal about it, but as I don’t know any stay-at-home wives, I’m having a difficult time seeing how this works in “real life” not just how I think it’s going to work out. -Rhiannon

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, Rhiannon! What an exciting time in your lives! Everyone’s situation is different, so it’s hard to give clear-cut principles that will apply to everyone, but here are some suggestions I thought of for you:

1) Be on the same page as your husband.

I made this point in last week’s Q&A post, and it bears repeating again here: if you are not in complete agreement with your husband on decisions like whether you stay at home or work, it can cause serious friction in your marriage. This decision must be made mutually, with both of you realizing the sacrifices it will mean if you choose to stay home.

2) Get on a strict written budget.

I believe that if God calls you to something, He will also provide a way to financially pull it off–even if it doesn’t always work out on paper. However, it’s important to put feet to your faith. Thus, you need a clear plan of action.

Sit down with your soon-to-be-husband and make a detailed, written budget that includes every single category. There are free downloadable budgeting forms available here if you need help getting started.

Commit together to live on this written budget no matter what. If you are going to be a one-income family and you want to avoid debt, a budget is imperative.

3) Hold regular Budget Accountability Meetings.

Not only is a budget a must, but you need to regularly review your budget and see where you stand. This is why I heartily recommend monthly Budget Accountability Meetings. Schedule these on your calendar and make them a priority.

During these meetings, you’ll go over your budget categories and make sure you both stayed within them during the past month. If you didn’t, or you struggled to stick to them, discuss why and what changes can be made to help you adhere to the budget during the next month.

This is also the time to talk about tweaking, eliminating, reducing, and/or raising budget categories. Remember, a good budget isn’t set in stone; it will change somewhat as your priorities and situation in life changes. The ebb and flow is healthy, so long as it’s something you’ve both planned and communicated about.

4) Make sacrifices to achieve your goals.

If your desire is for you to stay home, it’s going to require sacrifices. In the early years of our marriage, it meant that we went for months at a time without buying anything but the bare necessities. It meant making most all of our food from scratch, planning our menus based upon what was on rock-bottom prices at the store, not eating much meat, being a one-car family for three years, shopping at thrift stores, not buying gifts for Christmas or birthdays for a number of years, and looking for any possible way that we could earn additional income on the side.

I won’t tell you that it’s always been easy, but I feel beyond blessed to be a work-at-home mom. Our mutual decision for me to quit working outside the home when I was pregnant with my first is a decision we’ve never regretted.

{ 200 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: How do we prepare for a layoff?

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by Crystal on July 26, 2011

We just got word my husband’s company will be totally shut down by March. How can we be proactive with this information months in advance? – Paula

Hi, Paula!

I’m so sorry that you had to receive such devastating news! My heart goes out to you! When my husband and I were facing his potential unemployment a few years ago it was such a difficult time in our lives.

At the same time, I’m so impressed with your desire to do everything you can to wisely prepare for this. Since you have around eight months, that’s a lot of time to get your family in a great position to weather the storms that might be ahead.

Here are some ways I’d suggest you prepare for this looming layoff:

1) Get on the Same Page with Your Husband

One of the best things you can do is to sit down and create a game plan together. If there was ever a time for you to be a united team, it’s now.

Take a weekend sometime in the next few weeks to make a master plan for the next eight months. Post this game plan in a conspicuous place and refer to it constantly as you make decisions. If possible, sit down and review it on a monthly basis together to make sure you’re still headed in the same direction and see if there are any tweaks or changes you need to make to stay on course.

2) Create and Follow a Budget

A written budget must be the cornerstone of your game plan. If you are not on a strict budget right now, creating a workable, realistic budget for all of your spending is of utmost importance to allow you to get as much financial traction as you can before March comes. In addition, it will help you know exactly how much money you need to live on.

3) Whittle Your Budget Down to the Barebones

Take your written budget and analyze every category: “Could we live without this in the short-term?” If you can’t live without it, ask yourself, “Could we lower our expenditures in this category?”

Again, this is something you need to do together as a couple. You both need to agree together to the short-term sacrifices you are making.

4) Put Every Penny You Can into Savings

Any extra money you can free up in your budget by reducing expenses should go directly into your Emergency Savings. The bigger your Emergency Fund, the better. Not only is it reassuring to know you have this cushion, but it may end up putting food on the table and paying the light bill next year.

5) Stockpile Food & Household Items

As you well know, I encourage people to practice the Buy Ahead Principle and have at least three to six months’ worth of food and household items on hand to save you from paying full price. However, in your case, I’d suggest buying at least a 12-18 months’ worth of all deals that are shelf stable and don’t expire for at least 18 months to two years.

If you can get shampoo for $0.30 per bottle or toothpaste for free, go ahead and buy enough to last you at least a year. That way, in case there aren’t great deals on some of these items or you have no income coming in, at least you know you won’t have to worry about paying for basic essentials.

6) Experiment with Side Income Streams

My husband and I are big believers in having multiple streams of income. The more income streams you set up, the less you have to worry if one is taken away.

If you think there’s even a remote possibility your husband won’t be able to get a job immediately after his company goes under, I’d strongly suggest beginning now to research and experiment with possible side income streams. The book, The Other 8 Hours, has some excellent ideas and encouragement for setting up income streams while still working a full-time job.

What suggestions or advice do the rest of you have for Paula? Share them in the comments.

{ 94 comments }

Q&A Tuesday: Advice for first-time renters?

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by Crystal on July 19, 2011

My husband and I will be selling our home soon and relocating for his job. We plan to rent until we know for sure if the new position will be permanent. Neither one of us has ever rented. Do you have any advice or tips for first-time renters? We have two small children so we envision a house or condo.

Would you recommend a storage unit for items not used everyday or a home with enough storage to accommodate those items? We would appreciate any advice you can give us. Thank you! -Beth

Hi, Beth!

A lot of people give renting a bad rap, but personally, I think renting can be a great financial move if you are just moving to a new city, aren’t in a position to put a large down payment on a home, or only plan to live in the same area for around two years or less. We rented for the first seven and a half years of marriage and my husband and I both have no regrets about our decision to do so.

Here are a few things I’d encourage you to consider as a first-time renter:

1) Make Sure You Have a Good Landlord

Whether you’re renting an apartment, house, duplex, or condo, your landlord can either make or break your renting experience. We’ve had great landlords and we’ve had really pathetic landlords (one who made many false promises and took over a year to deal with issues).

When you’re considering a potential house or condo, do a search online to see if there is any information on the landlord or property management company. If we had thought to do this in one of our housing situations, it would have saved enormous headache.

If you’re renting an apartment or condo and there are on-site property managers, make sure you feel like they genuinely have your best interests at heart. They are the go-between for landlord and tenant, so if they truly care about their tenants, you’ll likely end up with much quicker service if your hot water tank breaks or your plumbing is clogged.

2) Consider Your Surroundings

For us, this was especially imperative because we had young children. You might love the house, apartment, or condo, but if there’s no place for your children to go out and play, it can become very difficult — especially if you’re squeezed into a cracker box house.

If possible, drive by the house, condo, or apartment at night and during the day to get a feel for what the neighbors and neighborhood is typically like. Also, ask your landlord or property manager what their policy is on loud or obnoxious neighbors. You definitely don’t want someone blaring their music in a room right next to yours at 3 a.m. in the morning if you have young children trying to sleep!

3) Look at the Fine Print on the Lease

Make sure you know the exact terms of your lease. For instance, some leases have strict rules about how many children or pets you can have. If you are planning on having another baby or getting a new pet anytime soon, they could require you to move out because you no longer abide by their rules.

Also, look at the details of what is and isn’t your responsibility as a tenant. What utilities do they pay for? What is their typical process if something breaks? Can you get out of your lease, if need be? What shape do they expect the house or condo to be in after you move out (we forgot to ask this once and ended up getting a few crazy things deducted from our security deposit that they didn’t tell us we needed to make sure and take care of before we moved out)?

4) Downsize Your Belongings

If you’re going to be downsizing in home, it’s the perfect opportunity to take a good, hard look at everything you own and see what you can get rid of. The price of storage units can add up pretty quickly, so it will save you money to just get rid of items you no longer love and/or use at least every few weeks.

Not only will this make your move simpler since you’ll have less stuff to pack and relocate, but de-cluttering your home will help you streamline your life and improve your productivity.