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When we first were married, we lived in a 600 square foot apartment without air conditioning, a washer and dryer, or a dishwasher. While it feels like we live leaps and bounds from that now, we try to keep our budget in check constantly. We like to spend money eating out sometimes, but generally we live a pretty affordable life. I still have a few items I wear from high school and our house is full of hand me downs and thrifted finds. While we have traveled internationally twice, I’ve known people that spend more on Disney trips than our trips. I’m always interested in how other people cut back; these are areas where we save money.
Photo taken by BRC Photography
AREAS WHERE WE SAVE MONEY
PLANE TICKETS
Our parents are in three states alone. Devin’s brother in another state and his maternal grandparents are in another. We found the only credit card that has hubs for all of our parents, Southwest, and signed up as soon as we moved here. We pay it off monthly immediately. Even though there is a $100 yearly fee on our credit card, using Southwest ends up saving us about $400 after expenses every two years. The two times we have traveled internationally, we have actually flown for cheaper than we can fly in country- you can see my tips below.
RELATED // the simple way we book international round trip flights for under $400 a ticket
HOME DECOR / FURNITURE
Almost all of our home decor is from the thrift store. If it isn’t from a thrift store, it is probably from a hand me down box that I sorted through. I can literally count the furniture items we’ve bought on one hand: our couches, our mattress, our bed frame, and our Ikea bookshelf.
TRAVELING
When Devin travels a lot, we use his hotel points and we arrange a lot of our road trips around his work trips. When we went to Europe, our dear friend Selja let us use her hotel discount when we traveled with her. When we do road trips, we almost always stay with people we know. We have family spread out everywhere which is definitely a benefit in this situation.
We spend a lot of time going to free attractions and are very open on what we see. I feel like we saw every church in Rome simply because they had free admission and it was such an easy way to see beautiful art for free! We wait in long lines instead of paying for tour groups and we don’t get buy souvenirs (exception: I bought some clothing items in Ireland because the wind was brutal because of the hurricane).
We walk everywhere when we can’t drive our own car and only use a taxi if it is absolutely necessary. We never spend more than about $10 a meal per person on vacation or at home; if we do, it is almost always for a special time like a birthday.
RELATED // how do you afford to travel?
DATES
We have $100 a month to spend on dates. That includes anything we do together from eating out to movies we go see. We only see matinee movies when we don’t Redbox them and we routinely buy things like board games to play together. Our favorite board games? Redneck Life and Dominion.
SALES
When we want something, we save up and we wait until that thing is on sale. It always ends up saving us money!
PRICE COMPARE
We have a Costco membership, but we price compare before we actually purchase anything; it doesn’t always save as much to buy in bulk.
HAIR PRODUCTS
There have been many seasons in our marriage where I cut my own hair to save money. I shouldn’t admit this, but I haven’t had a haircut since October and I probably need one ASAP. I cut Devin’s hair half of the time by myself because it starts adding up with how quickly his hair grows. I have dyed my hair once since we moved to Georgia, but otherwise, I keep my hair my natural color because it is a lot cheaper. My hair helps out by being so dark that it is hard to dye anyway 🙂 .
RELATED // my favorite grocery store hair products
CLOTHING
I buy the majority of my clothing second hand through Thredup which is an online consignment store. I also love thrift store shopping for tops and dresses, but I typically buy my jeans and other basics from Walmart and Old Navy. I need to start actually investing in some quality clothing, but I’m not there yet.
BRAND NAME ITEMS
We normally don’t buy them. This includes food, clothing unless it is second hand, or any other type of thing. We have started branching out for shoes that have a reputation for being great for walking and water proof items that make traveling easier.
CLEANING PRODUCTS
Dollar store and Walmart. Again, no brand name items.
