And the Stars Laughed...

I found this chart today. It's the 2007 USDA estimate of food costs. For my family, an adult woman, an adult man, a teenaged girl, a teenaged boy, and a three-year-old, the thrifty plan comes out to $656.90.

I've been trying all morning to figure out what we spend on food each month. I know it's astronomical. My best, conservative estimate for all food (including restaurants) is about $1000 a month.

We spend a lot of money on food that never gets eaten. Especially when we go out of town and I go a little nuts on the produce that doesn't get eaten quickly enough and ends up spoiling. We spend too much money on crap like soda and chips. If we could cut $300 off what we spend, that would go a long way toward paying off our debt and gaining some freedom.

I learned in my economics class this semester about how debt is a form of slavery. It's true. We are forced to work in order to service our debt. It's true that we made the decision to go into debt, so we have sold ourselves into slavery. What a sad, sad state. I want out.

There are only two ways to get rid of debt. Spend less. Earn more. Spend less. Earn more. One more time. Spend less. Earn more.

I've taken a job that pays more for essentially the same work. I figure I'll be bringing home about $500 more per month than I was as an aide. We'll have to pay for health care out of that amount. The best we're going to be able to manage is a high-deductible plan and then be incredibly careful.

We can spend less in a hundred ways. We have so many extras and a zillion minutes on our cell phones...we could cut the bill in half by just reducing to the minimum. If it were up to me, I'd cancel our satellite service. Without it we'd have no TV service at all. There isn't a chance I'll be able to convince the rest of my family, but there might be a way to reduce the amount we pay every month. For instance...we don't really need HBO. We have to keep high speed internet because I take my classes online, and Nick uses the computer for homeschool. We're so rural that without it, we have almost no service.

We spend about $300 a month on gasoline. That figure makes me feel a little sick. We spend a lot less for rent living in McGill than we would in Ely, so take at least $100 off that for the offset. Without moving, I don't see a way to reduce this much. Adrienne takes an early-morning music class before school starts, so she can't take the bus to school. Kevin and I both work in Ely. This summer we might have to look into moving back to Ely.

So I figure if we put our minds to it, we can cut our spending by $500 a month. Add to that the $500 extra I'm making and we should be able to get out of debt relatively soon.

Ah....I can almost hear the Universe laughing at my plans.