How To Give Yourself (Or Spouse) A Raise By Altering Your Spending Habits

It's that time of year where the carefree days of summer are coming to an end, and the thoughts of Holiday spending are on the horizon.  With the current economy in a downward slide, our family of 5 and soon to be 6 is feeling a bit of a financial pinch.   The costs of many things such as groceries, gas, and our health benefits are on the rise, but we all need to have more money in our pockets or stashed away in our savings.  Here is the strategy that I have been using to help our family to break the living from paycheck to paycheck habit by increasing our single income family savings account without a whole lot of difficulty.

1. Find free fun - Want to take the kids on a vacation - try a "Staycation".  Find local parks, campgrounds, historical museums, or other cheap/free activities that you can take the kids too.   Keep your driving to a minimum, or better yet, setup the tent in your back yard. The stars still look great at night, and the fear of wild animals is just about completely eliminated (depending on where you live of course).
2. Review and document - Look over your bank statements for the previous month, and write down on a specific calendar each day you spent money, how much, and what category: Auto, school, groceries, medical/rx, home improvement, etc).
3. Don't create extra expenditures - Print out a free calendar from any of the free calendar websites online and designate this calendar for documenting only your daily spending habits, receipts, etc.  Be sure to include cash purchases and save those receipts.
4. Investigate and challenge - Once you have all your spending documented on your calendar, look over the information carefully and see what days you spend on, and the days where no spending took place.  How many days of no spending where you able to go, two, three?  Now challenge yourself and your family to try to consciously beat that record by adding on another day or two of no spending.  Then pick a day when you can buy those items you need and try to keep the overall amount within your designated budget for each category that month.
5. Learn your spending habits - Finding unnecessary spending will allow you to pinpoint the problem areas, and start correcting them. I noticed our grocery bill was over budget at least $200 for last month.  I jotted down at the bottom of the calendar what events took place for the month, then realized there was at least $200 we could add back to my husbands paycheck if we could manage to overcome this excessive spending category.
6. Have a strategy - You will obviously need supplies, such as eggs if you do a lot of baking.  One way to achieve your no spending streak is to find recipes that do not require any eggs at all.  Go online for egg free recipes and start printing out a weeks worth of them.
7. Plan ahead - put together a weekly menu.  This not only helps you to organize your pantry for the upcoming meals, but cuts your grocery bill down and virtually eliminates unnecessary purchases at the grocery store.
8. Organize your meals - Organization is the key to saving money.  I discovered that by taking old business cards, and a plastic business card holder, I could setup a system that helps me to plan my meals.  Simply write down your families favorite meals, sides, and desert on the back of each business card then place the cards into the sleeves of the business card holder.  Voila! You have a flexible weekly menu that allows you to look at two weeks at a glance, then flip the sleeve over and add two more weeks.  That's one month of planned meals.  Each week is 5 days so weekends can be left overs.  This system works great, is flexible since you can move the meals around in the clear sleeve, and allows you to use up leftovers, and all your ingredients into the next days meal so there is minimal waste.
9. Tap into your bulk storage - Don't be afraid to eat out of your freezer, pantry, or back yard.  We have two freezers with a lot of frozen food.  It's time to start making tasty meals out of everything and try to empty that freezer before restocking it again.  Our garden is loaded with fresh fruit and veggies such as Swiss Chard, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, peaches and apples to name a few.  No need to buy veggies at the grocery store, which will cut down on that bill for this month.  There are also over a dozen bags of Quinoa in my pantry right now which was purchased earlier this summer when it was on sale.  Now is a perfect time to start making all those great Quinoa recipes that are all available online.  We make ours into breakfast by adding rice milk, crushed walnuts, Agava nectar, fresh fruit, etc. It also makes a great couscous style side dish with grilled veggies mixed in. And hey, no eggs are required which will get us to our 5 day no spending streak goal.
10. Strive for success - Go easy on yourself.  Changing any habit takes time, so if you need to make a purchase such as cough medicine for your little one, by all means, make the purchase.  Then you can look at that incident, and figure out how to overcome it next time such as learning how to make your own tinctures, homeopathic, and other medicinal remedies.  But that's a whole new article.

Traveling through life with young children is challenging, but it doesn't have to be expensive.  There are many ways to save money and make the most out of the money your household earns.  Focus on giving yourself a raise by the steps provided, and you will start to find even more ways that work for your family to help you build your savings account up.

Happy travels!

Linda Walsh is a mother of 3 young children - one with special needs and a forth child on the way. She is also a family travel expert who has developed a unique system for traveling with babies and young kids, budgeting money, cooking from scratch on the road, managing life with special needs, and living an organized lifestyle to get the most miles out of raising her family. If you would like to find more ways to simplify and organize your travels through life with your children, visit her website at http://www.familytravelgear.com or her blog at http://www.blog.familytravelgear.com.