Triumph of cheapness - Weekly report - Feb

It has seriously been a busy month for our family. So busy that I haven't had time to really get out there and spend OR track my budget. The good thing, is that we are really under budget in some areas, and doing great overall. 

If you notice on our money manager graph, our Utility column is bright red! We have a quarterly utility payment that is pretty substantial (its like two grocery trips!), and it was due this month.  Because we have our money manager, we remembered it, and remembered to cut back in other categories of spending in order to make up for that cost.  

One area where we'd like to cut back is in our grocery bills. We were kind of shocked last month to see how much we really spend on food. We eat half organically, somewhat locally, all very high quality nutrition.  We eat very good quality food, and I'm not interested in sacrificing quality of food in order to save money. We also have special dietary concerns (gluten free), and have to be brand specific for health and safety reasons. 

So if we want to spend less, we will just have to eat less.  This is a noble quest, as this family is a bunch of chubby food- addicts (but we are very lovable!).  Seeing our combined grocery and restaurant tally from last month, was a big wake-up call.  We have started being cheaper and eating less, and the results are seen in this month's spending in those areas.   I also have to add that we had some sort of stomach virus run through the family, and that probably helped stretch the food in the fridge a little longer than normal.  (no, it definitively did).  Next month will probably be more telling.  The thing that varies with groceries is sometimes you have stock-up months, where you get TP, paper towels, or a big order of meat from the Amish.  So, months will vary, but as long as we stay under-budget every month, we are going to be ok.  

I hope everyone is working towards their goals. We are feeling more confident in our abilities to save and not spend. The triumph of cheapness is permeating all we do - and that is a huge accomplishment! 

busy and thinking about paid interest

This past week I was way too busy to spend any money. I didn't even buy gas or grocery shop. I know my husband is out there shopping - so money is being spent, but that's ok. We've got to eat!

So I've been looking at all of our payments and debts and stuff. One major thing I'd like to accomplish is getting rid of my student loans.  I was just looking at student loan info and we're paying $60 in interest every month on one of them, and the other one is about half. We're paying $100 bucks in interest every month and that makes me sad.

Besides paying them off faster - and lowering the interest by lowering the principal - is there anything else we can do?  Does it benefit our family to pay them off faster? Isn't student loan debt, "good debt"? Don't we get a tax break for this interest?

I need to look into it.  I consolidated my loans when interest rates were high, is there a way to get a lower rate? Would a personal loan be better, would a home equity line of credit help us?

If you have any ideas for me, please let me know because I'm going to start working on this problem. $100 is a lot of money to be "wasting" every month on interest....