Nine months...

HWDI: How we did it.

This will be a multi-part series, and I have no idea how many parts it will take. But since my husband started his new job today, I figured this was a good time to start reflecting on paper, er…the laptop. Besides, this seems to be the one reoccurring question people ask us.

When my husband was laid off on Dec. 3, 2008, we evaluated our monthly expenses. We had the non-negotiables, the ‘needed’ amenities, and the extras. This is what we were facing.

Mortgage
Condo fees
Student loan
Homeowners Insurance
Magazine subscriptions (too many to remember)
Washington Post
Monthly maid
Power
Land line
Cell phones
Cable
Internet
Day care
Food
Diapers & Formula

We dropped numerous magazines immediately. As soon as they came up for renewal, we canceled. The exception being Time, which we both like and read regularly. Among the magazines canceled: Baltimore, Washingtonian, Good Housekeeping, People and Readers Digest. We still receive Cooking Light (thanks to Marie) and Parenting (thanks to Jill). My husband also gets Golf Digest free for some reason I forget, but he already said he is not renewing, not worth it.

I called Comcast, our Cable/Internet company and told them I wanted to drop all the fancy stuff and just keep Internet (we needed for his job search) and BASIC cable, since you can’t get any stations these days without it. They renegotiated our deal. And we wound up paying about $30 less and getting MORE, including a free DVR. The catch here was and is, I have to remember to call them back when this new “promotion ends” to either get the deal again or cancel it. According to my bill, that means I call in November. I am bound and determined not to forget.

Since we believed and hoped the layoff would be temporary we didn’t want our son to forget who his daycare provider was. We liked her, A LOT. So we continued to send him once a week, giving my husband a day to look for jobs.

We canceled the maid. She came once in March before my in-laws came to visit and hasn’t been back since. In the spirit of full disclosure though, I do plan on calling her next week. Our place is a mess. An absolute MESS.

I called the Washington Post, and similar to Cable, was offered a better deal if I remained as opposed to canceling. We now pay $20 for eight weeks. I think we have to call them this month to get that deal renewed, so this is serving as a good reminder.

For those with kids, you know how expensive diapers and formula are. We were just buying diapers when we needed and were spending $23/canister for brand-name formula. Our son would go through about 1.5-2 canisters a week. We switched to Target formula, which is HALF PRICE, and now get all our diapers from Diapers.com. Our diaper bill is about $42/month.

These cuts bought us some time and money and we were still able to save at a decent pace until March 13. On this day I was “laid off” for the first time. I told my bosses this was not acceptable. Hey, what did I have to lose by fighting for my job if they had already ‘fired’ me? Nothing. As it turns out, they kept me. I convinced them I was needed and valuable. But because cuts had to be made, my salary was slashed by more than 30 percent. But hey, I still had health insurance and still had an income. It had been three months since my husband’s lay off, and I had seen how little was out there. With a 9.5 month old at this point, I did not relish joining the ranks of the unemployed.

New cuts were made though.

No more daycare once a week.

No more Friday night pizza at $15. Instead we make our own, costing under $6 total for each of us, and bonus, no fighting over toppings.

I lived a mile from the White House on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember not being able to get in touch with anyone because cell phones were dead or overloaded. I will not ever live without a land line as a result. But we were paying a ton for essentially three lines under the same roof. So I called the good people of Verizon, bundled our service and cut back some of the perks we had with the cell (picture messages for one).

I started clipping coupons religiously. I had always clipped, but this time I clipped for everything. I also started paying attention to the circulars as to what was on sale and when. And I became a huge fan of generic and making from scratch. Pasta sauce has become my new favorite thing to make; it is a recipe I plan on blogging later.

We also began combining trips. Instead of three or four different trips to the store, we made all the trips at once. And if we forgot something, unless it was literally life or death, we did without…clearly not THAT important.

We ate A LOT of hamburgers, pizza, pasta, chicken 1,001 ways, crock-pot meals and pbj sandwiches. Family members belong to Costco so we went shopping with them for some frozen dinners. If we wanted a beer with dinner, we bought a bottle of the 40 oz, for less than $2.50, and split as opposed to buying a six-pack for $7 or more.

When I was eventually laid off for good on May 14, we have very little left to cut. I had brought our food bill down to about $50/week. We did not put the AC on in our home until a string of days in the 90s in July, and even then it was only sporadic. We kept the shades closed but all the windows were open to create a breeze. The exception to the shade rule was our son’s room, when he wanted to play in there; we opened the curtains and got natural light. We ate more pasta. We drank more water.

When family members gave us money to “buy something special” we didn’t. Almost all of it went to savings. The semi-morbid exception being money from my aunt went to buying a life insurance policy for both of us. Without a policy from work, if anything had happened to us, our son would have been up a creek quite literally. So we spent this money hoping and praying it would never be of use. It’s amazing what a little piece of mind can give you during these times.

We didn’t go out. We switched from Dunkin Donuts ($7/lb) to Target (<$6 for 2lbs+) brand coffee. Instead of throwing out the trash even if it wasn’t full, we pushed down the trash to get as much use out of bags. I can’t tell you the last time I ordered a picture of my son. There are so many people due wedding and bridal shower presents since we never gave them; I have no idea if we will ever catch up.

I actually missed the wedding of one of my dearest friends, something I swore I would never do, because we simply could not afford to make the trip. I will be sad about this even when she celebrates her 50th Anniversary. My husband actually missed a wedding too of one of his oldest friends. In both cases, thank god for Facebook.

We put off purchases that under normal circumstances we would need (a trash can for our son’s room for diapers, instead we used lots of baking powder/soda on the old one). I continued to wear my post-pregnancy clothes even though they were too big and falling down. That’s why God invented belts. My husband went without haircuts, despite what he calls the thatched roof of his head.

With all these cuts and sacrifices, we were still able to spend when we “needed” to, like repairing the car to the tune of more than $400 to pass state inspection, or traveling to NJ and paying for hotels/gas so we could attend the funeral of a dear friend’s father.

Perhaps the biggest thing that saved us was how we “spent” our unemployment checks. My husband’s severance ran out in early February. When he first began receiving unemployment, my salary still covered all our expenses, so his checks went IMMEDIATELY into savings. By immediately, I mean just that. As soon as we saw online that the check was deposited and credited to checking account, we transferred to our online savings account. This account earned interest. Mind you it wasn’t much, but every little bit helped.

This post is already the longest by far, so will sign off for now.