(Financial) Wellness Wednesday

 

 One of the first things we did after my husband was laid off last month, was to sit down and take a good, hard look at our budget. For years, if not decades, we've set it up so that it was in tiers recognizing that one day we would not have the income we did then. These tiers were set up to indicate which things were more of a luxury and which were more of a necessity. Some of the first things on the chopping block were streaming services and restaurants, but not everything I originally thought we'd have to lose ended up going after all. While every little bit adds up, these things really were little bits, so next we needed to see where we could make some big cuts. Finally, the part of our budget that has always been more discretionary is the groceries. We had to find ways to get that spending down! 

 Just in case you're thinking, "Uh-oh, the Salty Zebra's memory really is getting bad! She wrote this post a few weeks ago already." Don't worry. Let's call that a Phase 1 post, and this is an update of how it's going with some more things I've learned that perhaps you could benefit from as well!

 According to an article from Forbes, "When asked how much they were paying, consumers underestimated their subscription costs by an average of $133 a month, or $1,596 per year, according to a study by C+R Research." You see, they reported that the average consumer juggles 5 retail subscriptions (think Amazon Prime or Walmart+) and nearly five streaming services. If you had told me this two months ago I would have laughed it off. I thought I knew exactly what we were signed up for and what it was costing us. I was wrong! Ever since my husband and I sat down to put our new budget together a month ago, we keep coming across stuff and saying, "Oh yeah! We need to account for that too!" The monthly stuff was easy to find (although I will admit it cost more than I had originally thought it did), but the tricky ones were the yearly subscriptions. You see, you so often get a discount if you pay for a year at once that this is frequently our default. The downside to this is that you can forget to account for it and then when the bill comes it's a surprise. Insurance and taxes weren't an issue like this even though they are paid annually or semi-annually, because we are so used to them. But how about the yearly Paramount + subscription I started in January? Or my Visible subscription that renews in December? How about Costco? And Amazon Prime? Things just kept coming out of the woodwork! There was a traditional cooking school I have subscribed to for more than 15 years, and the filters for our air purifier that come every three months. There was the wine club and the Quicken renewal. You can't forget to budget for the budgeting app! There's no way I could have told you about all of these earlier this year, but I'm brutally aware of them now. What's the takeaway? Going forward I want to be much more aware of these expenses and choose them carefully. I want to determine if something is still holding value for me. I don't want to be surprised by bills. Could I have added another subscription to Rocket money and had them find all my subscriptions for me? Yes. Would they have found them all? Maybe. Would it have been worth it in the long run? I don't think so. I think that hunting them all down ourselves has had a lot of value!

 Next we started really looking into the monthly bills we had to see where things could be cut down. Our internet cost had recently gone up, and since my husband was no longer working 8-10 hours a day from home anymore, it hardly seemed necessary to have the screaming fastest Wi-Fi we could. So, we started shopping around and my husband landed on an option I had initially discarded as not being valid. Turns out I'm often wrong, but that's not necessarily bad! We switched from Xfinity/Comcast to T-Mobile home internet* and saved over $100 a month! The service seems to be just as good as what we had so far and as a bonus, the T-Mobile package we chose includes a monthly essentials subscription (read with-ads) to Paramount + and Hulu. So I didn't have to get rid of those after all! In addition, they gave us one month free and a $300 gift card, so we're basically getting six months of internet paid for. Not a bad deal! 

 Then we received news from our insurance provider, AmFam, that our home and auto insurance was going up 35%! This was major because we insure two homes and five cars. After talking to my friend who works in insurance, this seems to be an increase that was made across the board in the state of Washington, so if you are insured with AmFam, now might be the time to check on your rates! This insurance was through Costco and had saved us hundreds at the point we signed up for it, but their increase just priced them out for us. We have family that has served in the military, so our next stop was with USAA. They definitely beat where we were at, but my friend had recommended that I check into Progressive, so I did. Here's the thing, they had the best rates by far, but they had some of the worst customer service I've ever experienced. At this point though beggars can't be choosers, so we persisted through the ridiculous rigmarole that was their phone agent sign-up process and after speaking with four or five different agents, finally landed the policy we needed. Pro-tip, do the auto/home quote online and then sign up for the auto part there. You have to sign up for the home over the phone, especially if you want to add earthquake, but the phone agents were quoting me $200-500 more for the auto policy than the computer did. At least one of them told me that if I had a better quote on the computer, I should purchase that and then call back about the home after. At the end of the day, we saved $3,500 a year! Totally worth a day of frustration and head shaking. And I had my husband, my partner in crime, the double for my trouble along with me for the ride, which made it doable!

 That's the key to making this all work, we both have to be on the same page. I think if one of us was trying to cut back and the other was out there spending what we got left, it would be a tragedy around here. Instead, we're doing pretty good! In fact, together we've been working on our grocery prices list too. It's taken a lot longer than I expected because I just don't have the endurance for the long-game anymore. I remember when I did something similar 10-15 years ago and I did all of WinCo in one go. Now it's taking 2-3 trips per store, but we're getting it done! I tell you what, though, I've been super surprised by some of the things we've learned. I was sure Costco had the best prices on some things, and it turns out WinCo and Walmart beat them by almost 50%. Then, I'm certain Walmart has the best price on something and then Amazon undercuts them by a ton. Yep, I threw Amazon in the mix too when I realized that several pantry items we keep stocked are on our subscribe and save (future post on that one coming). Here's a sampling of the breakdown that shows how the price differences spread out:

 No store was the clear winner, and I still have a little more filling out to do, but I definitely feel more confident in knowing when something is a good price and I should stock up or if it's a really bad price and I should go somewhere else. No, I'm not going to carry this sheet around and check the price for every item I toss in my cart. Nor am I going to go to four different stores every week! But I can look at my list and know that if I am going to WinCo this week, I should pick up beans, gluten free flours and mixes and frozen chicken breast. At Costco, I'm looking for shredded cheese, apple cider vinegar, avocado oil spray, and tortillas. But I'll definitely keep Tom's toothpaste, 9volt batteries and quart size freezer ziplocs on my Amazon Subscribe and Save!

Here's the Thing: This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. We're doing what we can as we go along to make things work and getting a little better at it each week. I'm so grateful we've got some buffer so we're not in an emergency situation, but nonetheless, I want to stay ahead of the curve to avoid completely using up that buffer!

*  T-Mobile

o   If you’re not a T-Mobile customer now and you sign up through my link below, we’ll each get $100!

o   Your referred friend must not be a current T-Mobile customer. After your friend clicks the link, they will need to register as a referred friend and activate service with T-Mobile within 14 days. You will receive an email when they activate, and then again after they have been an active T-Mobile customer for 30 days with your reward. By sending this link to your friend by text message, you confirm that your friend has given consent to receive this text message from you.

o   https://referral.t-mobile.com/EUrUQGM