Saving

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The current economic crisis has got me thinking about ways to save money.

We already live a pretty simple lifestyle out of our small but sufficient faith-based fixed income.  However, I feel the need to save even more.  Who knows what tomorrow brings, right? 

So here are some things we've been doing to pinch our pennies and hopefully make our money go a little further.

1. We just don't buy anything unnecessary.  "Necessary" is of course a relative term, but we try to limit our spending to food, gas, utilities, school.

2. Turning off lights and fans not in use.  Like crazy!

3. We've stopped using our air conditioners....ugh, even though it's still pretty warm.  It should start to cool off by November... hopefully we can make it 'til then.  

4. We are not getting our TV/Cable fixed (been broken since July) so we watch a lot less television, thereby using a lot less electricity.

5. We're not getting our hot water heater fixed... since it's warm, we can get by with cold water showers for now.  And this should help save electricity costs.

6. We never go out to eat.  We have pizza delivered once a week, but other than that we have home-cooked for every meal.

7. We're trying to buy simple foods.  Trying to use drink mixes rather than drink Diet Coke.  Having more vegetarian food rather than buying too much meat/chicken.  Eating leftovers before cooking new.  Having cereal instead of 'real meals' more often.

8. Baking my own bread.  Making my own pizza dough. 

9. Learning to live with a variety of things that are broken in the house rather than spending money to get them fixed.  We could repaint, we could get cupboard doors repaired, we could get new flooring... however for now we're learning to be content with what we have, albeit it in a bit of a state of disrepair.

10.  Paying off our credit card every month as much as within our power!  No interest fees, please!!

Well, as you can see, some of those are probably not saving that much money, but we feel as if we are 'blessing' our home and our family by trying to be responsible in every possible way.  Hopefully it will help... if nothing else at least emotionally/mentally for now.  We continue to pray for God's provision.

~lk

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