Things I did to save money last year THAT WORKED!

let's talk about a few things that we did last year to save money and some habits that we're going to implement this year hey everyone I hope you're having a good day before we dive in I do want to thank today's sponsor audiobooks.com they are giving you a 60-day free trial to make your audiobook dreams come true you get two free books and they have a selection of over 40 no 450,000 books to choose from after your trial it's $4.95 a month for two books but you can cancel at anytime so check them out in the video description so I feel like we are doing more with less because we are like many of you we're trying to make our dollar stretch as far as it can go and I feel like we did a really good job last year of thriving in some pretty crappy Financial situations I talked about this in my January video but I made less money last year and part of that was because I took a step back to part-time hours and that was really hard for me but I needed to be available to my daughter she we went through an Autism diagnosis and that includes a lot of therapy every week and it just I don't those of you who have high needs special needs disabled children wherever you fall in that scenario and you work full-time how are you doing it and are you okay cuz that's hard um so I did bring in less money but as I said in that video I made enough and so I wanted to share with you a few a few things that we did and a few things that we're going to do moving forward I have my laptop so I have notes to look at so the first thing that we did was Thrift first so I have four kids that means four new coats four new pairs of pants four new shirts four new everything and that can add up and so for the quickly growing children and we decided when it comes to pants other clothing items we're going to Thrift first and so America's Thrift is my favorite there's one down the road they have a points program by the way and return policy it's great and so oh you outw your pants they're getting a little too short let's go and see what they have up there and my kids never complain they're getting older my older to I have a middle schooler now and that's when you start to get pushed back about what they wear my 12-year-old loves to Thrift and I always every time we go I let him pick out one thing and it's usually a graphic tea of some sort and he's happy so that's our and it's not just for clothing um we needed a speaker my son started taking drum lessons and he has an electric drum set and so we needed an auxiliary cable speaker I went to the thrift store first um my my daughter got a baby doll for Christmas and she wanted baby doll bed we went to the thrift store first so just getting in the habit of thrifting first my second is borrow first so I needed to steam clean my nasty couches they were gross and I was saying to Jason I feel like we just bought these why are they so gross no we bought them in 2017 when I was pregnant with our third son they've gotten gross over the years so before buying a steam cleaner even renting a steam cleaner I got on my mom my mom's Facebook group and said does anyone have a steam cleaner I could borrow my friend had a little green machine I cleaned up that couch and we were good to go but seeing what we have what a friend might have and this is something that I did back in our days of paying off debt I needed a new vacuum cleaner my mom had an old one she gave it to me and I was happy with it and then when the time came my husband got me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas one year 5 years ago and it's a nice vacuum but I still haven't gotten over the fact you bought me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas like I don't come to your job and buy you work equipment for Christmas or your birthday I'm grateful and I love them but put it out there text a friend can I borrow this I only need it for a few hours or a few days and people are usually happy to do that and I say this all the time when it comes to baby stuff what does a friend have that you can borrow um because how long do you need a baby carrier how long do you need a crib you know a good quality crib how long do you need a lot of these things not very long I feel like I am a part of The Sisterhood of the Traveling ringsling in fact I had a friend mail me a Ringling after my third baby was born so borrow borrow borrow borrow borrow outfits if you have somewhere fancy you need to be or your child has somewhere fancy they need to be and you don't want to buy like a nice blazer for your child to wear borrow it reminds me of parks and wck Rin a swag but instead it's ask a friend for their swag so the third thing was live that Library life but not how you're thinking so I am a big fan of the Audi book I am the physical book and everything in between but my library the Libby app or the OverDrive app at my library runs thin very quickly and we have a pretty robust library system so I Googled libraries that offer nonresident library cards and I found a ton of them for free and I'm able to use them on Libby to get stuff that I want to read or listen to by the way I finished the silent woods today it's on liby check it out it will make you cry and gasp a lot of libraries will will offer a non-resident card for a small nominal fee I think I saw that Fairfax County Virginia does it for $27 a year but there are some that do offer them for free $3.99 break Hold On by the way I am not a cup shamer I do not care if you have 17 Stanley in your house I think the craze of anything gets a little ridiculous but this is a Bubba cup that I paid $16 for and look it fell out of my car at one point it is 6:15 this ice has been in here since 4:00 this morning $16 all right so number three is it four I am not going to villainize your streaming services if you want them by all means have as many as you want but I feel like at some point we're just circling back into cable particularly all these streaming services that are like we're raising our prices so that you don't have to watch commercials we are post commercial none of us are going to be watching commercials so I'm living that free trial life if there is a a show that I want to stream I wait until all the episodes have come out then I sign up for a free trial watch all of them for two weeks or a month and then cancel or I'll sign up for like an add-on on my Amazon Prime by the way I signed up for Max so that I could watch the new True Detective and when I went to cancel it cuz I know like oh the month's going to run out I need to cancel it they gave me a 50% discount make a streaming service bleed it dry cancel it sign up for a new one also see if there are fringe benefits to things you're already paying for like your cell phone service check and make sure that you're using all of those like extra fringe benefits that you may be paying for number five use it up and I'm talking about beauty products I'm talking about skin care the dish soap use it up before you buy more it is so tempting to see a new product and to want to try something but then how many like little pieces of tubes of lotion chapsticks with stuff still in them how much stuff do you just have rolling around in drawers that you never used up so commit to using it up before you buy anym do not be influenced not be influenced by someone's 17 step skin care routine you don't need that much and use it all up before you buy anymore speak speaking of I got Ros have rosacea now and I have this like cream I have to put on every day and I am not convinced it's working I think stress makes that FL W okay so now I wanted to share three things that I'm going to do this year and so the number one is no online clothes shopping it's not that it got out of control it's that the returns process is annoys me and then I would have things that I forgot to return and then I'm like I have this pair of pants and it's 6 in too long and we all know that I'm not going to take the time to have them hemmed pray for your short friends because we are not okay but no online clothes shopping of any kind I'm I'm not doing it I'm not ordering junk from Amazon Old Navy none of it I am also not going to physically go into a store either because that annoys me so I'm probably just not gonna have new clothes for a while and that's fine but Thrift first so thank you to the lady in my town who gave all her Torrid clothes to America's Thrift Store because I'm good for a while no eating out during the week unless it's someone's birthday or an emergency now what sort of emergency situation would we have that we would need to eat out have you ever had to take your child to urgent care and then you get out at 8:30 and you're like GH everyone's hungry let's let's go get some chicken nuggies because I feel like if you're a mom you've been there and so I had to put that caveat on myself of okay I'm going to allow for life situations to occur but I'm not going to be in the habit of I'm tired do you just want to go grab some Zach bees we're not doing that seasonal purchase planning and what do I mean by that I mean I know that the end of this year my children are going to need new sparring gear for Kate and I'm going to see like talk to their karate Professor Coach master I think it's what you call karate professor and see like hey what when do you start when do you notice that these things go on sale and play seasonally my kids are doing a big outdoor thing this weekend and everybody wears camo and rain boots and so I made sure you know it's the end of hunting season to pick up some boots for them on sale just looking at what the seasonal Cycles are and trying to get that best deal possible being a forward thinker when it comes to spending so I would love to know what are some things that you did this year to just kind of like tighten things up a bit and before I go I want to leave you with just a few encouraging reminders when it comes to finance number one you can start over at any time it's January and so we feel like it's a fresh new page in the calendar and we're you know so full of Hope and brimming with possibilities but if April comes and you realize you've blown it you haven't blown it you can start over at any time you can start over in your financial Journey at any point you just delete the spreadsheet erase the budget tear up the envelope you have it written on and make a new one you do the best you can with what you have and start fresh your past Financial mistakes do not define you doesn't matter what anybody tells you you're not a loser you are not a bad person you are not dumb because you went into debt or made bad financial choices you're a human being who is still learning because this is your first time being a human being and it's really freaking hard you can learn new things when it comes to managing money you're not too old you're not too uneducated you can learn new things and sometimes those things are hard and they don't make sense and they're confusing but you can do it because you can do hard things because you're smart and I believe in you and I'm proud of you and you look great your financial history does not have to repeat itself get off that train number five it's okay to do things differently different than your parents different than your friends different than people you're watching on the Internet it's okay you can go your own way it's going to be fine you're not it's going to be fine and that wraps things up let's cheer each other on this year take a deep breath we got this maybe we don't have a good cry drink some water get back out there and try again thank you so much I'm really proud of you and I'll see you soon

Channel: Lydia Senn

Views: 10,240

Keywords: Lydia Senn, five4fivemeals, Frugal debt free life, frugal, save money, debt free, dave ramsey, frugal living, how to be frugal, how to save money, spend less money, how to spend less money

Id: 35S6iA7KYyM

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2024