Keeping Our Monthly Costs as Low as Possible

[Spiffster]

My Wife and I are in our mid-30s. We have one kid (18 months old), a dog, a nice house, and two late model cars. Another baby is on the way.
I take pride in locking down our monthly expenses while not sacrificing our quality of life. Just thought I would share some of our tricks... hopefully we can refine our methods with the suggestions we find here.

Our cars are EVs, a Volt and a RAV4 EV. We also have a solar PV system that provides a yearly average of 75% of our energy needs, EVs included. We basically pay almost nothing to get around, though the initial investments were relatively high. We definitely splurged on the EVs, but living in Colorado, we had 13500/ea in federal and state tax kick-backs (!) on both the Volt and RAV4 EV. Both cars are financed 5 year at 0%. Though buying new isnt the most frugal approach, we would have paid about the same for non-EVs with similar options (new). We both drive about 12k / year and plan to keep both cars until the wheels fall off... moving on.

I shopped extensively to get the best coverage / cost on car insurance and settled with Liberty Mutual Insurance. Both cars are $110/month for full coverage with $500 deductibles and some other add-ons. No complaints with them so far.

Our Mortgage is 3.675% for 30 years, we put 20% down and pay no PMI. Our payment is relatively low for our area ($1315 total).

We have cut the cable... there are three TVs in the house all hooked up with Roku boxes with Simple TV for OTA streaming and DVR. Dont miss cable one bit. The 1.5% we make on our checking account where we keep our emergency fund more than pays for Hulu, Netflix, and our Amazon Prime accounts which allow us to stream just about any tv show.

We get whatever we can via Amazon using Amazon gift cards we purchased at the grocery store with our Amex card with 6% cash-back. We also utilize amazon prime subscriptions for many of our consumables which saves us another 20% on already great prices.

Here are a few examples of what we pay for some items:

Huggies Snug and Dry Diapers Size 4 74 count: $14.38
Huggies Baby Wipes: 648 Count: $16.05
GoGo SqueeZ Applesauce (Our Daughter LOVES these) 48 Count: $23.24
Finish Powerball Tabs (Dishwasher Detwrgent) 32 count: $4.78
Tide HE Laundry Detergent 50oz pack of two: $9.58
Pedigree Healthy Weight Dry Dog Food (15lb bag): $10.38

So yeah, our dog (a rescue mutt) costs us 10 bucks a month to feed, and about 30 bucks a month to insure using petplan.

We also share the cost of a yearly Costco membership with my in-laws. Most of our food is bought either there, Walmart, or King Soopers.

So thats kinda a summary of the "system" we have in place. Suggestions? Comments? Thanks!

[jungle123]

Great job! Are you a two person or a single earner family? What is the annual income? How are the savings ( short term and retirement)?

[Spiffster]

Great job! Are you a two person or a single earner family? What is the annual income? How are the savings ( short term and retirement)?

Together we gross 120k/year
We have 20k emergency fund in a credit union checking account that earns 1.5% (up to 25K)
Off hand, I believe we have about 150K in our retirement accounts... Roth and 401K.

[gogirlanime]

Awesome job you two! The only thing I suggest/I am going to critique is this: On average you save about 10% total with Costco and most people spend $100 on the membership so you must spend $1,000 to break even and for every $1,000 after that you are only saving $100. I suggest shopping in bulk at different grocery stores when something goes on sale or have Walmart price match all your local grocery stores so you only have to spend the gas to go to one grocery store each week. If you have the time use coupons, there are coupon clipping service websites where you can buy as many as you like and whatever you like pre-clipped and mailed to you. Invest 10% more time and you'll save 30-40% off of your grocery bill, best thing I ever did. This suggestion is not for everyone it's the only thing I have to critique about what you're already doing, I dropped Costco 3 years ago and haven't looked back.

[bzbee]

I see you use lots of brand name product.
Those usually have coupons for them.

[snafu]

you're doing great! It's important to review your various retirement accounts to make sure you're getting the most effective investments for the fees and MER [Management Expense Ratio] that silently transfers from your holdings. Frontline did an important expose which is available on YouTube I think. I suggest you list your holdings on the Investing Banking thread for comments.

When I first got a front load machine, I began making my own detergent because it was easy, remarkably inexpensive and most important did a fabulous job cleaning sons stinky hockey uniforms. That success led me to make dishwasher detergent whose easy peasy combination is likewise available on You Tube.

My best money saving tip is meal planning for both cost and healthy ingredients.

[Sean_DeSilva]

Seems you're pretty good on the savings side, if anything you'd get more mileage looking for ways to make more money. I see that only half jokingly, because I went through the same thought process and really took it up a notch after I started freelancing.

[EarlyRetirementJoy]

One suggestion - I would research your PetCare insurance - rarely is pet insurance it worth it when you really take a look at what is covered. Insurance is generally to protect us from catastrophic losses, and pet care does not usually fall into that category. Take that money and direct it to a pet fund instead, and I suspect you'll find yourself with an excess over time.

Remember that insurance is a for-profit enterprise. Meaning, the company makes money over time, they don't lose money. Rarely will purchasers come out ahead in other words.