I’ve Been Cutting Back – How About You?

Prices are still going up. It seems like every month something (or many somethings) costs more than the previous month. Keeping up with it all is proving to be a challenge these days. I am finding that I have to cut back on services and find more creative ways of pinching those pennies. I keep asking myself when it is going to end, and I am a little worried it won’t be soon enough. How about you?

Back at the end of December I started reevaluating my purchases. My needs, and my wants. Categorizing this way is helping me to make decisions on how I am going to cut back on things this year. What needs to go? What needs to stay? And, maybe more importantly, how do I want to bring in a little more money to get a few things I know I am going to need this year and next? I know I have to make some purchases.

I ended last year working extra hours, so I did start out this year pretty well. I just need to keep up with things now. Cutting back is my priority at the moment. I already cut one of my streaming channels and find that I am fine with the ads so that bill isn’t so high. And this is the month I am making decisions on other subscriptions. Will I keep them or not? Decisions will have to be made.

I am also cutting out some other purchases and finding ways of cutting costs on some items. I’m looking at how I can spend less on food, cleaning, and personal hygiene items. I am deciding what clothing items I really need and hoping to find a few things at a discount.

Clothing is the most difficult thing for me. A couple of years ago I sold a lot of 2x, 3x, and 4x, clothes because I had lost a lot of weight. I gave away what I couldn’t sell. I had to replace a lot of items and was working within a budget. I was able to find some items second-hand, but not as much as I would have liked, so I wasn’t able to make all the purchases I needed. I lucked out and received a spring/fall jacket for free, and a well-used winter coat that I used for two years but now needs to be replaced. But I went without some things, and now am finding that I need them.

One way I have cut expenses on clothing was by using Temu. Say what you will about that platform, but I decided to try out a nightgown through them and fell in love with it. It’s the most comfortable nightie I have ever had, and I paid less than $10 for it ($7.99, I believe). I loved it so much that over a few-month period, as I could, I ordered enough to get me through the week plus a couple of extra nights. It was more affordable than buying them any other way at the time. I can’t complain about them either. They are holding up so well.

I’m now looking for a new winter coat and a few other items. I am cutting back in some areas to come up with the money for these things, hoping to get decent things at a reasonable cost. When I tried before winter to get the coat, I was looking at having to pay $60 to $125 for something nice enough. My hope is that I can get one for half the price, at least, now that winter is pretty much over.

I’m getting creative with things, trying to not go overboard on cost as I get what I need.

What are you doing to cut costs? Any ideas for finding good deals on items? I live in Maine, near the Bangor area, but I am finding I may have to order some, if not all, of the things I need online.

~ Shannon

Learning to Live with Rising Prices

I can’t be the only one who has noticed that prices on necessities keep going up. One day I think I have a handle on it. The next week something else has gone up. I am now paying almost $8.00 for a package of toilet paper, when I used to pay under $4.00 for the same package. It’s crazy how much we are paying for one-use items!

One has to wonder if it will even out and there will be a break in the rising prices, but it doesn’t seem this will ever happen. Every year I get a raise at work, but I never seem to realize it because prices on necessary items go up as well. It’s so hard just to get ahead. I have to wonder if I ever will. Every time I think I’m doing all I can to cut costs, I am forced to find another way.

I rent a room in a house, sharing a bathroom with another tenant. I have no real kitchen, and my room serves as that, my bedroom, my living room, a craft room, and an office. It’s a pretty cramped space but I am making it work. I can’t afford the prices on apartments here in my area of Maine. They are expensive, even though most are not very good places to live. Landlords don’t seem to want to fix things up anymore, but they want more and more money for the places. And many of those places come with a slew of problems that will take the landlords months or years to take care of, Slumlord is thrown around a lot. Apartments with landlords that take care of things are even more expensive.

I am only one person, just trying to get through life on her own. I have a job, and a side hustle, and I earn a few dollars doing other things here and there. The rents in my area are prohibitive. I’d love to find a landlord in my area who cared about keeping up with his places in a timely manner, who would offer a lower rent to someone who would not destroy the place, who would be a long-term tenant and would let him know when his property needed attention. One who wouldn’t mind if said tenant had a food garden, kept a compost bin going, and was fine with recycling. A quiet tenant who, as long as the other tenants were also quiet, was content to do her part to keep things looking nice. Someone who’s not a smoker, of anything, an addict, or a person who drinks too much.

I am not holding out much hope for what I want, which is really pretty basic: A one bedroom place with an actual kitchen, my own bathroom, washer and dryer hookups in-unit, and an air conditioner. The icing on the cake would be a dishwasher, and the space and right to have at least a small freezer, as well as a pantry or space for food storage. Even better would be my own porch or deck and a garden plot of my own. It’s a lot, I know. But a girl can dream.

I recently received a bonus from work. $50.00 that I spent on a shelving unit for my “kitchen”. Its shelves are wired, so I also bought shelf liners. I paid $6.96 after that $50.00 bonus was applied for the shelf, and then I paid $24.25 for the liners. That savings was just what I needed to reach that food shelf goal.

I am planning to make two more purchases for the little kitchen corner in my room. One is a stand for my dorm-size refrigerator. The stand has two drawers that will store my meal containers and storage bags, freeing up space for food storage. These are about $70.00. The other is a baker’s rack so I can have a sort of sideboard to work on rather than always having to do things on my bed. Shelves below will hold my toaster oven, hotplate, blender and two crockpots since I do not have a stove. Above will hold other important things. But this rack needs to have a Power strip attached for plugging the appliances into. With the $50.00 saved for the food shelf, I should be able to pull those other purchases off this year.

Why am I doing all this? With the prices on items rising all the time, I need to be able to take advantage of sales on food items so I can be at least a little stocked up. I want to be able to purchase in bulk for a few items that I am positive will save me money in the long run. I can’t do this with my current setup. There is not space for stocking up. I need storage pieces that are taller rather than wider to take the best advantage of my space. By spending some money now, I will save money in the long run.

I am only buying furniture and storage items now that I know I will be able to put into a new place if I get one or can sell if it won’t fit. What I have right now is so old, and not particularly sturdy. If I can’t repurpose something myself, its best place will be at the dump. This stuff is not even good enough to try to sell, or to give away.

I also need to work on the other parts of my room to be better organized so I can stock up on other things when on sale for the best deals. Personal hygiene, household, and office things are also going up in price. And I want to feel happy and at home in my space, but I don’t right now. So, I have decided to get my space organized this year and looking cute. I know it is going to cost some money up front, but prices don’t seem to be going down, so the longer I wait the more it will cost.

I can’t do everything at the dollar and thrift stores. Not when my goal is certain items that are sturdy and will last. Pieces that are also light weight enough for me to be able to handle moving on my own. I know I will get to where I need to be.

Organizing my space and life is one of my main goals for 2024, and I am excited to see where that leads me.

A couple of years ago I decided to follow a popular YouTube channel for frugal lifestyle tips and information. I watched two episodes on grocery shopping and unfollowed the channel. I was appalled at how the women on this channel were responding to queries about grocery prices and the way people were handling their food dollars. They were being so rude. Without knowing or even having been to the areas, they were putting people down and treating them as though they were stupid for not shopping a particular way to save the most on food. People had been writing in to them explaining that their grocery bills had gone up too high. These women were saying that food costs had only gone up about 6% and going online to shops in the writers’ areas and finding all these great deals and telling them they had to shop this way or that. I knew that, in my area, some of those grocery items were already almost twice the cost they had been pre-pandemic.

I can’t tell you how to shop. I can give tips according to what is working for me, but I cannot tell you what is best for your situation. I don’t know what gas prices are in your area or if, like me, you do not drive and can only carry so much food home on the bus, how far you live from what shops, or what items you actually need. I don’t know what health concerns you have. Maybe you have to buy water because the water from the tap isn’t good for drinking. Maybe, like me, you have a health condition that requires you to spend money on more expensive foods. Maybe your shops don’t carry the healthy items you need and, like me, have to order some things online making your grocery bill higher. I don’t know your situation, as you do not know mine, so I won’t try to tell you what you have to do. I am just here to offer up suggestions, kindly, with heart.

If you want to join me on the restart of this blog, I am happy to have you here and I hope you will comment, offering up your own ideas, and helping to turn this blog into a community of people who care about others and want to help. Whether someone is low-income, or just looking to make better purchase decisions to hold onto the money they have, I want this to be an inviting, helpful place for everyone. There is no shame in not having enough, and no shame in trying to hold onto what you do have. Let’s help each other, with respect and love.

~ Shannon