Ways That We Save Money & Live Frugally – Part 4

If you missed Part 1, you can read it here…

If you missed Part 2, you can read it here…

If you missed Part 3, you can read it here…

*Credit Cards – If you are going to have & use credit cards – make sure you get one that has no annual fees. Be careful not to overspend. It’s so easy to spend more when using a credit card! We do use them, but pay them off every month. This is super important! The credit card interest rates are so high! If you can’t pay it off every month, you shouldn’t be using them!

Cash back is the main reason we use credit cards. We have 2 – one is a Costco credit card that we get 4% back on ALL gas purchases, and at least 1% on everything else (2-3% on certain other purchases.) We got a ridiculous amount back this year! It definitely makes using the card worth it, although I have to admit we probably spend more because we use it. Thinking that way, is it worth it? 🤷‍♀️

Our other credit card, we get a standard 1% back & each quarter they have a different promotion that you can get 5% back on certain purchases. We get a couple hundred dollars back each year. We do put whatever we can on it – example – our cell phone bill is set up to be automatically charged on our card each month. That gives us 1% back on our cell phone bill each month. It all adds up.

*Education – We do homeschool & yes, it is an expense. You can find ways to do it free or spend less, but it’s something that is important to us, so we choose to spend our money on it. (We have an extensive library, books are something we have always invested in.)

We do a lot of educational CDs & DVDs, again it takes some money to build up a collection, but they last a long time & we just add a few here & there. Often for Christmas.

*Entertainment – We have never taken the whole family to the theater. We don’t spend a lot on entertainment, to be honest. We do things like yearly trips to the apple orchard, lots of day trips that aren’t too expensive (like going on free days at the Shedd Aquarium.)

*Making Memories & Kid Dates – this is something that is important to us & we choose to spend money on. It started out as free trips to the library (our old library used to have Lego kits, so I used to take the kids there & build together) & then we would get an ice cream cone at Culver’s.

It doesn’t have to be expensive, it’s the time that’s the most meaningful. A couple times a child has wanted to go on a particular hike at a State Park, so we’ve done that, just the 2 of us. Every child is different & has different interests. It’s a bit more challenging now with our food sensitivities, since we can’t really eat out much, but we still find ways to make each child have a special time. Last week I took 2 girls out…they had burgers minus the bun, fruit smoothies, then we went to The Oregon Soap Shoppe. They had a blast!