So, I'm having a really tough time with my finances. I work a fairly low paying job, by my standards, from which I bring in around $1,500 a month or $18,000 a year, after taxes. I know plenty of people make less and have far more to pay for, which is why I'm here asking for help. I'm beginning to believe that I must be doing something wrong. How do you all save money?!

Before anything else, I have the following monthly bills:
$200 - car note
$400 - school tuition (amount mom and I agreed on to pay her back for the $2,500 of tuition that she paid outright)
$230 - gas
$50 - birth control
$120 - cell phone (since I recently had to get off the family plan)

I'm at $1,000 already! That's before food, vitamins, and whatever other random things I should need like a haircut, incidentals for work (scrubs, undershirts, books for school, etc. The price of my tuition will go up to around $4,100/semester in the fall as I have to take two more class than I'm taking right now, which means I'll have to dole out more money per month to my mother.

As it is, I live at home so I don't pay rent or utilities. I'd love to move out, but simply don't make enough money to do so. My parents also still cover my car insurance since I'm on their policy.

How on earth do I make this work?

I save a lot of money by not buying prepared foods. I make a lot myself. For example, in preparation of the week ahead, I just made a batch of hummus (for lunch sandwiches) and a batch of granola (for breakfasts). I also cook enough for leftovers so that I rarely go out for meals. It turns out that making these foods yourself is not only cheaper, but healthier too!

I buy a lot of my dry goods (like the dry beans for the hummus, flour, rice, spices, etc) in bulk at the local health food store. (I bring in my own containers, which are old jars and such.) Buying in bulk can really cut down on costs (since you aren't paying for packaging or name brands).

Do you have a savings account? For the job that take taxes out I put 10%of my paycheck in my savings and for my job where I am an independent contractor I put in 20% (I would make a separate account and split it but I am lazy).

I also live at home with my parents rent free. I am making about the same amount as you (a little bit less actually at the moment).

Do you buy your own food for at home? Or are you included in your parents groceries?

Coupons.

Budget out entertainment and the work stuff/ school supplies etc. If you spend about $1000 on the important bills and you have approx. $500 left over say you can spend about $100 a week on these other things and what is left over is emergency money,and should be saved.

Plan ahead with haircuts etc. put it in your budget. You know how much you spend on that and how often you need it.

As simply just a trick, I find that after all bills are paid, if I use cash for the rest of the things I purchase, I spend less. The other thing that helped me is finally using my savings account. If you have direct deposit with your job, it helps. See if you can split your check to deposit into different accounts, put 10% of your checks to deposit directly into that account. You will be way less likely to spend it, don't have your debit card or anything linked up to it, that way you would have to go into the bank to even get it out, and you will get used to not having it because it is not easily accessible. Do it for a couple of months with just having about $150 from your paycheck in there, if you find yourself easily living off of the $350 you have each month, increase the amount you are putting into savings.

Incidentals happen, oil change, hair cut, etc... trying to schedule them helps.

First things first, in that list the thing that really leaped out at me is the cell phone bill. Do you really need $120/month? Can you scale back your plan to one that's more reasonable? Even if you're paying off a handset, that's an extraordinary amount for a phone bill.

And like Majere said, if that's $1000 gone already, you still have $500 per month up your sleeve. Set up a high-interest saving account (I like smartypig.com for this) and put a certain amount in it - even just $50 - every pay. Set yourself a goal, and don't touch it until you've reached it.

Give yourself a certain amount - say $40, or even $20 - of spending money per week to cover essentials like lunches and vitamins. If you have extra by the end of the week, take it out of your wallet and put it in a jar somewhere. This adds up really quickly, and can be used for non-essential purchases without dipping into your savings.

If you need things like scrubs or a haircut, budget for it - you might have to make sacrifices elsewhere in your "fun money" to pay for them (less going out, brown-bagging your lunch, no starbucks), but it's doable.

When I was in my early 20s I was in the same situation. Of course, back then there weren't any cell phones. I didn't even have a land line. I would not pay that much for a cell phone, I would get the cheapest pay-as-you-go type phone possible.

I bought my scrubs, and other clothes, at the thrift store.

You mention vitamins, those can be really expensive. Unless you absolutely need them for some sort of specific deficiency I would spend that money on fresh fruit/veg instead.

I used to get my birth control pills from the local health department which accepted a low amount depending upon income. I got them for $5 a month if I remember right. If that isn't an option perhaps condoms would be cheaper?

I did not have a nice car, I paid cash for a cheap car and ran it until it died. I also did not really go anywhere, I walked quite a lot.

My point is look at each area you think is set in stone and see if you can get the cost down to the bare minimum. We tend to spend as much as we make. If you had to live on less you would find ways to do it. If you get in a bind, don't forget your local food bank.

I do have a savings account and I do have direct deposit through work. I rarely ever go out these days as I simply don't have time for it, and when I do, I'm not racking up big bills. I very seldom buy restaurant food because, again, I just don't have the time! Either I make my food or eat left overs that my mother made, and that includes what I bring to work. Especially since I've been dieting lately. I do buy my share of groceries, as I eat different foods than my parents who only eat certain things for religious reasons, and because I'm dieting. Food here, for whatever reason, is very expensive and ends up being a fairly large chunk of the left over $500. I haven't actually calculated how much I save each month, but I know that lately it hasn't been much. I'm really good at not being an impulse spender and don't buy what I don't need, so I'm still really confused as to where I'm going wrong, if I am at all.

Lori - The vitamins are for deficiencies. But I try to buy the cheapest ones like the store brands. As for my BC, I take it for medical reasons, not for birth control at this point. And with the amount of sex I used to have, condoms would be astronomically more expensive than my $50 worth of BC. I actually just switched health insurance so my BC went up from $21/month to $50/month, which really does suck, but I can't control that. In regards to my vehicle, it's not fancy. It's got 100,000 miles, and I love it. Walking isn't an option as I live in suburbia, 12 miles from work, 25 miles from school, and 15 or so miles from doctors that I have to see on a regular basis. I feel like I sound like I'm making excuses, but I really think that these are things I can't change.

I'm really dying to move out of this house and would save a heap in gas if I lived closer to school, but if I did that, I'd be way in debt after I went through my savings.

The cell phone thing really got to me. My phone was supposedly the best phone out there a year ago when I got it, but it died in a year and since I went from being the account holder on our plan to just a user, I no longer was able to upgrade my phone once a year, so I had to either set up my own account or buy a phone outright for $800. Of course Verizon's smallest "talk" plan is 450 minutes for $40, but realistically, I only need 200 minutes, so I'm paying for 250 minutes that I don't even use. I need the data and the texting, as that's how I interact with people from work and school. AT&T and T-Mobile don't work at all in my house (seriously, it reads "no service") and Sprint barely works. Heck, Verizon barely works, but works enough to do what I need to do.

I'm going to try to do some couponing and see if that helps any. And I think I'm going to open up another bank account and split my money and see if that helps any. Keep the ideas coming!

Before I got married, I had a lot in savings. However when I tied the knot it kind of dwindled out slowly because we had some unexpected stuff come up and didn't have the money for it. So for our first two years of marriage we didn't really save anything at all. However now that he's in the military, we set up his checks so that a certain amount automatically comes out and goes into a savings account every time he gets paid. We definitely didn't have the diligence to do it ourselves so this works out really well for us.

I'm getting pretty good at couponing - nowhere to the level of extreme couponing, like you see on the show, haha.

What I do, to help me save a little extra, I keep track of the amount I saved in coupons each week, and set that amount of money aside. I've wanted a tattoo for forever, and Jim doesn't want to pay for it, so I told him that was how I was going to come up with the money, haha.

I also shop at the kind of shady market right by my house, because they double coupons, so I get that much extra milage out of my coupons! Target will allow stacking coupons, as long as one is a Target store coupon (they post them on their website) and one is a national level coupon.

I'd also look into the phone, cause YOWZA, that's a big bill. The Metro PCS by my house is selling four lines, for less than what you're paying for the one...

Yup. Our 4 line AT&T family plan was $180, 4 line family plan on Verizon is $220, yet my single plan on Verizon is that much. What crooks!!! I'd have many more options if I didn't live in a dead zone.

Dang, Verizon is evil where you live...mine is about $85/month for the smallest talk plan/500 texts/unlimited data and that drives me crazy, as I don't talk on it much for the "I live in the middle of nowhere" reason. But I do use it when I go places, which is fairly often, and I utilize the texting/internet, so yeah...

One way that my budget differs from yours and thus "saves money" is that I drive the same car that I've had for forever. It's paid off and the insurance doesn't cost a ton; it gets good gas mileage so that helps as well, especially since I have to drive a decent distance to and from work (about 23 miles each way). I'm not sure if you drive a car with low miles per gallon or if you just drive a lot, but $230/month is a whoooooole lot for gas to me. Gas might cost more where you live, of course. How long do you have until your car is paid off? Once that's off your shoulders it will help quite a bit, for sure!

Is there a Planned Parenthood you could go to for BC? Or a Wal-mart? Even when I made above the income limit for low-cost BC my pills were still only $24/month from PP. Wal-mart has some BC for really cheap prices if you can use any of them.

Unfortunately the tuition is the final straw...that's a lot to pay out of pocket when you look at your take-home pay. Do you qualify for any kinds of grants/scholarships/financial aid?

Your phone bill is nuts. Mine is less than $50/month and that's on a business plan with more call and data included than I even need.

Helen

Have you applied for any scholarships? Even just a $500 scholarship would give you an extra $50 a month.

Is it possible for you to refinance your car to a lower payment? Or trade it in on a cheaper model? How much longer til it's paid off? If you didn't have that car payment, you'd have some breathing room.

kk~

OK, I'm going to suggest something that's probably really whack, but what if you INCREASED your car repayment? It will be short term pain for much longer term gain, but I'm guessing that you're paying more interest on the loan than on the loan from your parents. Always better to reduce debt as quickly as possible, as that frees up discretionary income sooner.

Things I'd do in your position:

* Wrangle for a better phone plan if you can.
* Negotiate with your mum regarding repayments. Depending on how much you have left on your car loan, you might be able to make a difference by decreasing the repayment to your mum and increasing the car repayment by the same amount (or more if you can). You can increase the repayments to your mum again once the car is paid off.
* See if you can car pool to reduce running costs of your car.
* Others said to put money in savings first before anything else. Personally, I'd put a little away for emergency money but the rest should go to reducing your debt before your start saving. The interest you earn on savings is less than the interest you pay on loans.

Helen

I don't know ifyou can do this where you live, but in the UK, sometimes if you call your phone company, tell them another company are offering a better deal and you're going to switch to them, they'll give you a special deal. My boyfriend did that with his phone - he harangued the poor woman on the phone for so long that in the end she agreed he could have an upgrade for the same as what he was already paying - when the proper deal would have cost double the price.

It doesn't really matter then that you can't use another company, they don't know that - but you're a bit stuck if they call your bluff and say "ok, bye!"

I'm in the same boat and I make a lot more money than you. I just suck at saving. I contribute money to my 401k and I have a savings account, but it's linked to my checking account so I can transfer money really easily. No advice, just totally understand how you feel.

If you haven't already done so, you may want to check with your employer and your university to see if being affiliated with either could get you a discount on your cell phone plan. I get 10% off on my Verizon plan because they offer this to families with students at my kids' university. My brother gets an even better discount on his family plan simply because he works for a large company. I would never have known this 10% discount was available to me except that someone at college mentioned it to my son. It's not a lot but it helps.

SaraTheGrouch wrote:

So, I'm having a really tough time with my finances. I work a fairly low paying job, by my standards, from which I bring in around $1,500 a month or $18,000 a year, after taxes. I know plenty of people make less and have far more to pay for, which is why I'm here asking for help. I'm beginning to believe that I must be doing something wrong. How do you all save money?!

Before anything else, I have the following monthly bills:
$200 - car note
$400 - school tuition (amount mom and I agreed on to pay her back for the $2,500 of tuition that she paid outright)
$230 - gas
$50 - birth control
$120 - cell phone (since I recently had to get off the family plan)

I'm at $1,000 already! That's before food, vitamins, and whatever other random things I should need like a haircut, incidentals for work (scrubs, undershirts, books for school, etc. The price of my tuition will go up to around $4,100/semester in the fall as I have to take two more class than I'm taking right now, which means I'll have to dole out more money per month to my mother.

As it is, I live at home so I don't pay rent or utilities. I'd love to move out, but simply don't make enough money to do so. My parents also still cover my car insurance since I'm on their policy.

How on earth do I make this work?

Why is your cell phone bill so high? I have an unlimited plan for $50 per month. See if you can get a lower rate plan.

Do you drive to school? I know that many college students out here, who live on campus, use bikes, if they have far rides. Is there anyway to cut back on gas? What do you use your car for when you drive?

I do many things, in one trip, planning my trip along the way, so I use little gas.

Hair cuts can be done cheaper, if you can get to a local beautician's school. Car repairs, too, if there is a tech school nearby and they are offering it to people.

If you are buying things that you can live without, or doing things that you can live without, or cut back on, is that possible?

Start writing down every little penny that you spend. You may find little things that you can do without and then put that money aside.

Here are some links that I found, that may help. Remember, sometimes you really have to sacrifice but the payoff will be big.

www.savingsguide.com.au . . .

www.dumblittleman.com . . .

Call your cell company! Tell them you need to get a lower rate, whether it's with them or a different company. Tell them the minimum services that you need and see what they can do. There are usually options available if you tell them you may leave for a different company. Big tip on this one: Be suuuuuper nice to the employee that you speak with. I used to work for a phone company and was amazed at the deals we could give out when we wanted to.

This thread reminds me that I need to get my cell phone bill lower. I have an IPhone 3G3 and I pay about 75 bucks a month. I have 500MB of data and all the bells and whistles in terms of voicemail, caller ID, and call waiting. I think I should get rid of those last three (they are a bundle) but I will miss caller ID. I hate picked up the phone and not knowing who I'm talking to.

Apart from what's been said above Your diet really shouldn't take up "a big chunk" of the $500. There are heaps of nutritious meals out there which will make a healthy meal for $4 a serving or less. Especially if you're amenable to freezing, and buying meat in bulk to freeze, the curry I made last night

green curry paste - $4 a jar
mixed vegetables - $6
half a kg of chicken fillet - $6
coconut milk- $1
rice- $2

This made 7 serves (I froze 3), so that's $2.70 a meal

Other meals that are amenable to this are

- stews
- casseroles
- curries - green, red, indian etc
- soups
- mince based dishes; spag bol, meat balls, tacos
- egg based dishes - fried rice, keish

I move into a new house in January and its going to be pretty tight. Our monthly outgoings are likely to be in a region of £1500 a month and we are only bringing in a little more than that.

Having been on a tight budget before here are my main money saving tips:

-Only buy new clothes when needed and buy from charity shops.
-Make do with furniture and household items (buy second hand if you need new ones).
-Don't use your mobile as much.
-Keep the car topped up with essential fluids and keep tyres pumped up. (Saves fuel)
-Make 1 pot meals which can be bulked out with veg/rice/pasta and freeze.
-Pay in cash. It seems to go a lot further.
-Shop around.
-Walk a little further than normal.

Check out Mint.com. It's a free financial program that helps you track your income and spending. It analyzes your budgets and expenses and gives you tips for improving your financial picture. Sends you an alert if you go over budget in an area and also sends you bill pay reminders.

It takes a couple weeks to really get it going full force because it analyzes your spending and you have to enter in data on purchases until it learns your spending habits.

I've been using it for about a year and just got my parents using it a few months ago. It is really awesome for helping you manage your money.

During the Summer I was working making about 800 quid a month but by the end of the 3 months had saved nearly 500. I was living rent free at home but on my own so was buying all my own food, phone bill, transport etc.

I got paid every two weeks and on payday id put a portion of my paycheck, generally about 80-100 quid straight into a 7day savings account which meant I had to give 7 days notice to access it, I would then immediately give notice for 50 euro to come available the following week.

This meant that if by the following week when I was gonna be waiting another whole week till I got paid I felt I wasn't going to have enough to get me by I had another 50 as almost backup but I only had access to it for 24 hrs.

Im not sure if that was explained well at all but basically It just meant I thought twice about spending my money and also it meant that I learned to live on less, if I was running low instead of spending my savings (because I couldnt access them) I just bought a jar of pesto and some pasta and had that for dinner. Although it did help that I had staff meals at work and was able to take home leftover stock.

Would it be an option to talk to your mum or does she need this money? I mean of course it's important to pay back the money to your mum, but you won't run away from her. So maybe you could explain the situation to her. If you could pay her back less, you could pay more on the car (it would be done sooner) and then you could put a higher amount of money into savings. Besides haircuts, clothes and little accidents, there will be also a time after school, when you move out, you will need lots of stuff for the appartement and for your future work.

The paying cash for your fun time is a really great idea. Some people suggested it. You see $50 in your purse and suddenly after starbucks and a new shirt or a book there are only $20 left. It makes you thing about what you really need to buy. I also run a list of wishes (new mobile, the cute skirt, winter boots I don't really need) and put it aside. After one or two weeks I can already put something off the list because I don't want it anymore.
I also buy my favourite shampoo etc. when it is on sale and use it all up (I haven't bought shampoo in half a year). I also don't buy lotions or cheap perfumes, mascara, eyeshadows just because I like them (I have enough at home), that way I save a lot of money.

I live with my boyfriend and we empty our coints into a jar in half a year we saved over $65 that way, without even noticing it was gone.

Food is a high cost as I heard that's not good. Of course you need to eat healty but almost $500 for one person is really much money. For example in January my boyfriend and I spent only $250 for food. We eat 3 times a day. 2 times with bread and veggies and 1 time warm. Maybe 2 times left overs a week. We even gone out for dinner twice in January and had cake and three or four times guests for dinner.
Do you buy special products? Or do you buy special brands? Is there potential to save money with buying pricier stuff?

Money matters really s**k.