As most of you know, we are in the very beginning stages of buying a house and possibly moving to Colorado. However, that’s not planned to happen for at least 1.5 years from now.
Some of you have asked why we’re waiting to buy a house and why we’re not moving right away.
Well, we still have to save for our down payment.
We would like to put around $100,000 on our next home (GAH that is scary to even think about), and that means we really need to buckle down and start saving since we still need to save for retirement as well.
We need to save money so that we can go to Colorado a decent amount and find our dream home. I don’t want to buy a home or live in a brand new town that I haven’t researched or visited at least a few times.
We’ll also have some big expenses come up and we need to start paying for and saving for those too. I’m assuming that selling our current home will be a disaster, and we will either break even or owe a few thousand dollars. we’ve had some odd disasters happen at our home and we need to replace some things (for example: our garage door needs to be replaced after our truck flung into reverse, all by itself when no one was in it, and slammed into our garage).
So, because of all of the above, we need to save a decent amount of money over the next two years. However, we are not freaking out. We know that we have some time to save and that we have fairly low budgets already.
There are many ways we are currently saving money. These include: lowering our food budget, switching to a more fuel efficient car (we are saving hundreds each month now!), finding frugal entertainment, cutting our cable bill, switching to a cheaper cell phone plan (read here to find out how you can save $2,000 a year on your cell phone), and more. Most of these are lifestyle changes and we have been extremely happy with the changes we’ve made since they’ve allowed us to enjoy life more and save money as well.
Here are some of your responses to my question “What would you NOT cut from your budget (i.e. what do you value) in order to reach a current savings goal?”
@SenseofCents Travel saving. That’s a non-negotiable for me. — Marissa (@Thirtysixmonths) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents The monthly fee for my gym membership! — Theresa (@Foothills2Fog) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents Pet related expenses. Hawkeye never gets cheap food or knockoff flea meds, and she goes to the vet and groomer regularly! — Stephanie (@NotEntrlyPrfct) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents good food, travel, home comforts and our cats 🙂 we’d never cut these out, ever! — Nicola (@thefrgalcottage) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents Therapy! At first maybe but it’s been really helpful 🙂 — Athena (@accordingathena) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents eating decently. I would rather pay a bit more for groceries to get food I enjoy rather than a bunch of cheap junk! — Chelsea (@chelseaoliviaxo) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents annual pass to my local comedy club. $150 for 2 people. Great laughs, cheap date and we get out of the house! — Kate (@goodnightdebt) October 9, 2014
@SenseofCents I would never cut internet. I think it’s so vital to life today. It’s become a need not a want — Allison (@LSLWBLOG) October 9, 2014
Even though we are saving money in many different ways, there are certain things we will not cut out of our budget unless we absolutely need to. The “old” Michelle would have probably freaked out and cut everything in sight (except for number 2 below, of course) just because I used to let money control my life.
1. I won’t downsize my home.
I won’t sell our current home right at this moment (and move into a cheaper place) in order to save money more quickly. Our home is relatively cheap and to me it’s not worth it to move into a cheaper place in order to save a tiny bit of money
Also, moving twice seems like a nightmare. we moved many times before we moved into our current home so I will do anything to limit the amount of times I have to move all the stuff into my future home.
2. I won’t get rid of my dogs.
Some people don’t understand why dogs are so awesome, and that is fine. However, I am an insane dog person. I remember when someone once asked me why I spend money to have dogs. It’s because I LOVE them.
I will not get rid of my dogs to put more money towards my down payment.
3. I won’t stop traveling.
We love to travel, so I don’t see us completely eliminating vacations from our lives in order to save for a home down payment. Our trips are usually fairly cheap, and I just signed up for a new credit card in order to gain some fast rewards points again. I will be talking about this soon.
There are other ways to travel for cheap as well, such as using Airbnb (my favorite website to find short-term homes to rent), Booking.com for hotels, taking an Uber instead of a normal taxi, and more.
Related articles: How To Use Credit Cards To Earn Cheap/Free Vacations and Are Rewards/Bonus Credit Cards Right For You?
4. I won’t jeopardize my health.
We recently received a letter stating that our health insurance will be going up a little over 64% each MONTH. Even though this is happening, it does not mean that I’m just going to completely eliminate health insurance from my life.
I’m also still going to go to any and all annual preventative appointments I have as well.
5. I won’t drain my emergency fund.
We have a large emergency fund, and we could put it towards our house down payment fund. It would definitely help us reach our goal more quickly, but this isn’t something I want to do.
My emergency fund is there to help me in case something bad happens. Also, you just never know if something bad will happen with the future move, so keeping my emergency fund intact is very important to us.
6. I won’t stop having fun.
We have relatively cheap fun. We go for bike rides, walk on trails, go hiking, and more. However, even though it is a cheap hobby and all we really have to do is pay for the gas to get places, I won’t cut that out of my budget.
Too many people think that you can’t have fun when you are on a budget. That is just not true!
7. I won’t get rid of internet.
Nope, nope, nope. This is something I could never get rid of. Keep in mind that in order to work, I need internet. Yes, I could go to the library and get it for free, but I’ll pay my very minimal internet costs so that I can work in my home.
What are you currently saving for?
Are you cutting everything out of your lives in order to save for it? Why or why not?
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