Cutting Costs

This summer we have had some unfortunate house type things bite the dust. The remnants of my husband's bachelorhood in the form of a 65" wide screen TV died (playing of taps here) and while I did a little happy dance that Noah's Ark was leaving our living room I quickly put away my dancing shoes when I realized to replace it with about 10 less inches of viewing screen would be about $1400. Then we needed a stand for the little gem because our mammoth 65" one was all inclusive. So $2200 later we were invested in a nice TV with stand.

Of course, the story doesn't end there. We were having our July 4th BBQ and to get ready for it our grill decided to bite the dust and literally went up in flames. Luckily I remembered a friend of mine (Holla Tricia) had recently commented on how baking soda puts out a grease fire so when my husband was frantically searching for what to do about the shooting flames when no gas was on, I calmly walked out with my box of Arm & Hammer and we smothered the fire but were left with no grill and a party less than 4 days away. So off to Sears to get the on sale Kenmore grill with external burner to the tune of $350.

Now it's been a roasting hot summer and we have loved our pool for every single minute of it. But, our pool cover from last year was no more than an out of shape, hole infested tarp that the previous owners had purchased probably at the dawn of man. This thing was so old and I quivered every time the girls went outside for fear they would somehow manage to excel in their fine motor control and unlock the triple locked pool gate. So we knew we would want one of those put-an-elephant-on-here-pool-covers. Luckily the guy at the pool and patio store let us purchase it on the tax free weekend. Wh0-hoo. But another $2600 gone. I really hope that things happen in 3's because we can't afford another major purchase right now. (knock wood)

So, today I get to thinking of our bills. We will have a slight raise because we are cutting down on daycare costs since Aimee will be braving the public school system in a mere 13 days (sniff sniff) and Nicole is taking a stab at nursery school. So with the promise of my mom to help us out and my continued reduced workweek plus a husband who works for himself we hope to breathe a little easier in September. However I am still looking at how to cut a few costs. So I am putting all non essential kid clothes and outgrown things into a consignment sale, I have some bigger ticket kid items (pack and play anyone?) to go onto Craigslist and today I decided to call the cable company to get a lower package because who needs 100 movie channels?

So I called at 9AM and talked to a very nice woman who walked me through the packages. Now my husband definitely loves his TV so I was unsure how he would like a reduced package. So I was able to get a slight reduction and the promise to keep calling in once in a while because they do run specials. So I called my husband and asked him how many channels he wanted to keep and after careful consideration he decided that he could lose a few. So I went back to the cable company and asked them again what my options were and another lovely woman said she could keep us in the same service level for $50 less per month and would I like to do that? I am sure it's part of the "form" call they need to do but I really think it's a no brainer. So I have effectively just saved us another $50 per month on our cable/Internet/phone. I am doing my own little happy dance here knowing that one second phone call is now going to save us $600 per year! One little phone call and now we're locked in for that year.

So now I am off to said cable company because our DVR isn't working. I was planning on going anyway to trade in our DVR for a regular box because it would save us $15 per month and I just might kiss whoever greets me at the desk.