Staying home now...what ways can I save money over working?

[freemotion]

Can you live with one car? We were forced into it suddenly, and at my insistence, we are still using one car. It is challenging, and we had to rent a car for a day once or twice, but that was cheaper than maintaining two cars. Not everyone can do it, I know. We have unusual work schedules and can make it work at this time. It has been almost a year and a half and it is fairly easy now.

Remember that when you work to earn money to spend, you have gross vs take-home pay. When you make broth, cook beans from scratch, grow a garden....it is all gross pay. You don't pay taxes or SSI on the value of those green beans from your garden! So the value goes up just by virtue of your tax bracket.

If you have a small home-based business, you can offset your dh's earnings by a surprising amount. Get the book Lower Your Taxes Bigtime for some interesting ideas on this. It saves us many hundreds of dollars a year. More paperwork, but it is well worth it. You CAN earn a certain amount a month and not impact your disability. It can be hard to get that number, because so few people either want to work or want to report their earnings, so the powers that be are rarely asked the question. My friend can earn up to $800 a month in her little jewelry business without it affecting her full disability. She can make and sell jewelry when she is feeling well enough, and will never hit $800, but what she does make helps a lot.

Yup, I think we need to start a seed sharing thread by the end of January. I think we have enough trust here that it does not have to be a seed train, since some don't have anything to offer, others have quite an abundance. As far as I'm concerned, I will share what I have and you can pay it forward, or if you are so inclined, can send me a little something from your area that is unique, like a giant pinecone or some other cool found item that I can't get here. Or not. I'm happy to share just because, and I know others here are. FD sent me some bay leaves from her neighbor's tree and a couple other things like that, and I was THRILLED! And it was free for her. See what I mean?

And in a year or two you will be helping others by sending them saved seeds from your garden!

 

[ksalvagno]

A big savings for me was putting all electronics on power cords that you can turn off. It really didn't take long to get used to having to turn the power strip on before using the remote and then turning right back off when done. We also unplug all the little kitchen appliances. Also made sure that chargers got unplugged as soon as something was charged. Saved us about $70 a month.

Anything with clocks or remotes take up a lot of electricity even when not in use.

Also, be careful about letting the Jeep sit too much. We found out the hard way that when I stopped driving the truck much, we ended up with more repairs because the truck was sitting to long and some parts need to be used on some sort of regular basis. Now I make sure to do one long trip a week with the truck and it helps (my parents live an hour away). So it may not be a bad thing to once a week drive the Jeep to shop.

 

[patandchickens]

Another advantage of being home, that can help you save at least a bit of money, is that you can open and close curtains/drapes according to the sun. In cold or hot weather this can save nonzero money on your heating/cooling bills. (This time of year, except on very mild days I only open the drapes on the sunny side of the house, or when it's cloudy [for the day or just for a few hours] I leave most of them closed except the rooms I'm using. Just having the sun coming thru the window in the winter, and NOT having it do that in summer, makes a lot more difference than you might think! Obviously this works best if you have reasonably-well-insulating drapes of course.

Best of luck,

Pat

 

[tortoise]

I need to find a way to limit computer use or something. My laptop battery is shot so I keep it plugged in. Yup electricity bill went up. I'm thinking about putting it on a timer so I don't sit on the couch with my computer sucking juice all day.

Even though you are home, resist the temptation to turn up the heat. You'll get used to it. We keep it at 58/60 degrees.

Check with your electric company. We have it set up so the water heater doesn't run between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and electricty after 7 p.m. cost 1/4 of what is during the day. So we only do laundry, run the dishwasher, etc, after 7 p.m.

 

[savingdogs]

That is a great idea about the curtains!

We did have to use a small electric heater at the far end of the house sometimes and I'm trying to keep the fire going and hot air circulating back into that room (wood is free for us) instead of turning it on.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I need to find a way to limit computer use or something. My laptop battery is shot so I keep it plugged in. Yup electricity bill went up. I'm thinking about putting it on a timer so I don't sit on the couch with my computer sucking juice all day.

Even though you are home, resist the temptation to turn up the heat. You'll get used to it. We keep it at 58/60 degrees.

Check with your electric company. We have it set up so the water heater doesn't run between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and electricty after 7 p.m. cost 1/4 of what is during the day. So we only do laundry, run the dishwasher, etc, after 7 p.m.

Ihave been hinting to DH that we need to get our internet allowance cut down to only 30 hours per month.
It would save money, and , well...time

 

[tortoise]

The curtains trick can be amazing. It doesn't make a big difference HERE, but in my little house in my hometown, I could keep it at 70 degrees all summer (90 degrees) just with the curtains trick. People thought we had air conditioning!

We have an east patio door that would be great to have covered on summer mornings.

I'm going to go grab one of those outlet timers now before I forget.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

The curtains trick can be amazing. It doesn't make a big difference HERE, but in my little house in my hometown, I could keep it at 70 degrees all summer (90 degrees) just with the curtains trick. People thought we had air conditioning!

We have an east patio door that would be great to have covered on summer mornings.

I'm going to go grab one of those outlet timers now before I forget.

We can't do the curtain thing. With our extreme winters, it means iced up windows if we use curtains. And the heavier they are the worse it is
We try to use the plastic film for windows .

 

[tortoise]

I just plugged in a powerstrip for the things I use at my "desk" - my perch on the end of the couch and the end table. Very satisfying. I wouldn't unplug because it was inconvenient to reach the outlet and I usually skin my knuckles.

I had another thought - time how long it takes to charge a cell phone (etc) and set a timer so you unplug it right away when it is charged. Or use an outlet timer if you usually plug it in and leave it all night.

 

[framing fowl]

What about being your own boss? What I mean by that is rather than trying to do everything at once, set assignments for yourself and prioritize. For example, maybe do all of the one-time adjustments this week such as calling your insurance agent, checking on phone plans, etc. Then set aside time to plan the garden, set aside time to plan your menus, set aside time for animal planning. That way it won't be all hodge-podge.

Another thing that may or may not help is planning structure for your day. For example, maybe after breakfast is animal time. Then after lunch is food prep/planning time. Then evening is ________. Or you could do the old-fashioned thing where Monday is wash day, Tuesday is ironing, Wednesday is bread baking, etc. Find a new rhythm that works for you. Something consistent but where you're not getting overly tired.

It will be an adjustment for sure but how exciting!