COVID19 has had a huge impact on the economy of America. I won’t pretend to be an economic expert, but from the very beginning Jake and I knew that we should be careful with our extra spending the next few months as the future is uncertain and almost everyone will be taking a hit. It’s always good to have extra money each month whether or not you are impacted significantly by this pandemic.
Here are some budget friendly ways we’ve done this.
1. Cut cable!
It’s true what the millennials say, cutting cable and paying $50/month for a YouTubeTV or Hululive is exactly the same as having cable, but better. When I saw our Cox monthly bill was up to $230 last month, I just felt robbed! Now we pay just for internet and we still can watch live tv with all our favorite channels (including all the sports!) and have unlimited DVR. Yes, unlimited! You do need to make sure your internet speed is capable of supporting the streaming though! I recommend trying out the free two week trial of YouTubeTV and then test it out before you cancel anything to be sure your speeds can support it (country towns may have problems with this). We bought a $30 Roku for two TVs and you get free premium network trial periods with that too!
2. Become your own restaurant
This was done more out of necessity given the recent pandemic . Our pizzas turn out just as high quality as a restaurant, and we’ve expanded to other dishes now. We even have been making our own delicious artisan bread, it’s not hard! Yes, the grocery bill is higher when you are buying tasty, high quality ingredients for fancy dishes and alcohol for mixed drinks, but for us we still spend much less money than we did going out to eat. We are still doing once a week takeout and will definitely head back to our favorite restaurants once per week, when this is all over. The atmosphere of restaurants is what we miss the most!
3. Digital library books
A year ago I started using the Libby app for checking out new and popular books instead of buying them on amazon. For avid readers this is a much better way to read the latest books , and at no cost! Just call your local library (or visit if they are open?) and get a library card if you don’t have one. If you do have a card, you can enter the details on the app. For us this cut out audible (you can get audiobooks too on Libby) and amazon purchases!
4. Mix in affordable skincare options
For me, skincare is tough to make budget friendly. I’m very much the mindset that skin needs taken care of well with high quality ingredients and not by scam products. I wrote a post about The Ordinary skincare and this company is a great way to cut costs in this area.
5. At home workouts
We never were gym members, so technically this didn’t save us money but maybe it will for others. We normally worked out at our apartment gym. This has closed so we now pay for Beachbody Ondemand for about $10 a month. It is so good! Jake and I are five weeks in the T25 program but there are tons of other programs available. I can’t speak for other at home workout streaming services from other companies, but we are very happy with our new subscription! There are also a lot of Instagram live free workouts going on right now too! Kelly Ripa recently said she's been doing instagram live workouts from @isaacboots daily at 11am.
6. Utilize credit card rewards.
Our capital one credit card has allowed us to use our “travel miles” rewards for food delivery, phone bills, tv bills, and streaming services. So instead of saving it all for travel expenses like we normally do, we’ve been taking advantage of this limited perk.
7. Avoid extra spending
The stores I typically shop at are desperate and offering amazing deals during this pandemic. My two favorite stores have been 25% off everything the last five weeks! I did use this as an opportunity to pick up a few items (some necessary, some not), but then I stopped looking at them. I’ve been carefully curating a closet the last few years of classic mix and match items of all pieces I really love, and this has reminded me that my closet is full of things I love and can rewear in so many different combinations. I slimmed down my closet this month and only kept things that make me feel good wearing, and it's made a huge difference. More posts about that here , here, here .