We’ve recently started canceling some of our monthly bills and expenses since we’re working hard to pay off debt and save money. We have big goals and dreams of a new house (me) and a new truck (Jerry), so saving money wherever and whenever we can is a must. Below are the things we’ve canceled recently and how much we’re now saving each month.
Gym membership | $83
we canceled this in June because we couldn’t justify the high cost for the amount we were actually using the gym. Yes, we were using it, but not nearly enough to make it worth the exorbitant cost. We’re now looking to purchase a treadmill once I return to work from maternity leave. More on our decision to cancel here.
Private life insurance | $53
we signed up for life insurance via State Farm a couple of years ago because we had Caleb and wanted to play it safe in case anything happened to either of us. We wanted Cal and each other to be taken care of. However, I discovered recently that we both have death benefits through work (we’re both in the state pension system), that actually have better pay outs than our private policy did, AND we aren’t paying for it. Made no sense to pay out of pocket for a policy when we’re covered through work.
Dollar Shave Club | $10
Jerry subscribed to this for a few months, but he didn’t actually love the razor refills he was receiving, so it made sense to cancel.
MoviePass | $10
This one hurt my heart a little to cancel. I got my MoviePass last September and paid just $10 a month for unlimited movies in theater. Some months, I saw as many as 6-8 movies, which meant I was saving more than $60-70 A MONTH on movie tickets. It was amazing… while it lasted. A few things made me cancel. One, Jerry’s on days now, so we spend our evenings having family time. Two, I haven’t been seeing more than 1-2 a month lately because I’m exhausted, and that was only going to go down even more after the baby’s arrival. Three, MoviePass has gotten notoriously bad with their customer service and constant changes in their terms of service. They’re bleeding money, and are now limiting people to three movies a month, and instead of letting you choose anything, are only showing a few movies a day.
Total Savings: $156 a month
Of course, Murphy’s Law has kicked in and some other expenses have gone up. A few months back, Jerry discovered he somehow owed the state of CA some tax money from nearly 10 years ago, so now we pay $50 a month on that. Our garbage bill also went up a few bucks a month without warning. Lastly, I upgraded my phone because my old iPhone 6 was starting to kick the bucket, so our cell bill is going up about $40 a month too. The bad news is… more money for all these things! The good news is… we can absorb these expenses better now that we’re saving a lot each month on unnecessary expenses. Plus, the CA tax bill will be paid off late next year, so there’s an end in sight on that one.
What bills have you cut? We’re trying really hard to take a look at what the luxuries and necessities in our lives are, and these all seemed like a good start! There are plenty of other luxuries we can cut down the road, but we’ve at least made a dent!
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