10 Unconvential Money Tips

When my marriage and family were brand new we made some mistakes.  One of the bigger mistakes had to do with our finances and the purchase of our home.  We bought a charming historic house with the original woodwork, a newly remodeled bathroom, and everything in sound condition.  We purchased the house seven years ago where real estate seemed to be the best investment for your dollar.  Need to pay off your soaring credit card balance?  Roll it into your mortgage!  Want a new car?  Take out a 2nd mortgage!  Doesn't matter, home values are only going UP! UP! UP! Then the housing market crashed.  And I cried.

We bought our house with the intention of staying in it for many years.  So we extended and bought a house out of our price range.  When the credit cards were becoming too large, we rolled them into the mortgage.   Two huge mistakes we learned: don't buy a house with a monthly payment of more than 25% of your take home pay and don't roll your credit cards into your mortgage.

One year into home ownership we discovered two huge problems.  Carpenter ants and bats.  Both were very expensive to remove and bats are almost impossible to get rid of forever.  Then the roof started leaking, and the newly remodeled bathroom needed $4000 worth of repairs.  Apparently the previous owner did all the work himself, and was a lousy carpenter/plumber/electrician.

Throw in two kids in daycare and trying to start a new business that wasn't bringing in money and you've got a recipe for financial disaster.   Despite the financial struggles we never once missed a mortgage payment.  Here are some unconventional tips we used to save money.

1. Canceled cable.... saved us over $40 month and my wife and I learned what it was like to actually talk to each other rather than turn into zombies after the kids went to sleep.
2. Trimmed our food budget to the bare minimum.  Lots of peanut butter sandwiches (which I love).  With the use of coupons and the purchase of generic products we only spent $200/month for our family.  We did learn one thing about generic products... most are great, but nothing beats KRAFT macaroni and cheese.  Never buy generic Mac n Cheese!  We also found out that Target brand has great prices on diapers, formula, and other baby stuff.
3. Prioritized bills.  We always paid the mortgage first.  If we didn't have enough cash for the bills on the bottom of the list, we didn't pay them.  Some months we didn't pay the phone bill, trash, or the natural gas bill.  The late fees were minimal for these and the service after a couple months never stopped.
4. Picked up a bunch of hours working as a part time bartender/waiter at the local golf course.  I discovered that one of the best part time jobs is working as a bartender for events and weddings.  Some weddings you can earn over $50/hour.  Which is twice as much as I make at the school district.  Plus weddings are awfully fun to work.
5. Stopped going out to eat, and didn't go on any vacations.  This was very hard for us.  One summer we had to make the tough phone call to family members that we weren't able to go on the family reunion in Colorado. 
6. Took advantage of daycare reimbursements through my employer so that my daycare costs were taken out of my paycheck before taxes, saving us hundreds.  We did the same with what's called a "Flex Account" for purchases like eye-glasses and dental work, things not covered by health insurance.
7. Autumn and I stopped buying clothes for ourselves, and cut back on buying clothes for the kids.  We started shopping at Goodwill for items such as shoes, jackets, and necessary winter clothing.  Nobody would ever notice.  We were fortunate, the kids did get a bunch of new clothes from grandma and grandpa.
8. Canceled the cell phone.  I know.  Huge.  10 years ago people surprisingly survived without cell phones.
9. Then, a minor entertainment savings was showing up 10 minutes late to the local high school varsity games.  I found that right after tip-off, they close the admission tables and you can get into the games for free.  Didn't save me much, but I didn't fret about having the $5 to get into the game.
10. Made homemade gifts for occasions such as Christmas, birthdays, and weddings.  My wife and mother-in-law bought me a wine making kit for my birthday.  My parents have a huge raspberry patch and people donate their used wine bottles to me.  I can make a bottle of wine for less than a dollar a bottle.  So when it comes time for Christmas, anniversaries, weddings, birthdays, New Year's Eve and other occasions, I give away my wine.  I've continued this and it has literally saved me hundreds of dollars.  Plus my wife makes play-doh, slime, bubbles, and other fun kid friendly gifts so that we don't spend a lot on our nieces, nephews, and our kids' friends for birthdays and Christmas.  Plus these gifts have a lot more meaning behind them than a gift card.  

I'm proud to say we survived our financial hardship without any handouts.  We just rolled up our sleeves and went to work.  Now that we are back on stable financial ground we appreciate the freedom that comes with money in the bank.  We have not reached all of our fiscal goals, but we will never ever again be broke.