As we enter the 11th month without a job, Scott and I have started to look at how we can reduce expenses.  Over the past year we’ve slowly been cutting our expenses, buying less, taking time to evaluate need versus nice to haves, that kind of thing.  But now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and knuckle down to cost cutting where possible.

The first thing we looked at was our utilities.  There really isn’t a lot of savings to be had in the water/sanitation department.  Sanitation is a fixed rate for all residents of the city, anyhow.  Water we’ll work on, but we don’t expect a huge saving there either.  We’ll be more careful to see to it that the dishwasher is totally full before washing.  Same for laundry.  We’ll pay on time (if we pay by a given date each month, we save about 10%).  But again… our water bill is only about $25 a month.

The electric bill was the next to be evaluated.  Over the past 3 years, we’ve been converting all our lights to the newer style fluorescent bulbs that are supposed to last longer and use far less electricity.  We’ll keep that up, even though the bulbs are a lot more expensive… they last longer so it evens out.  About all we can do here is to recommit to making sure no lights are left on when we are not in the room.  Frankly I’m the worst offender here.  Lights on the main floor and upstairs are no problem.  I’m very good at turning those off when I leave a room.  But the basement is a different story.  I go down there for a purpose… namely, to do laundry or get a tool.  When I come back up, my hands are usually full.  The light by the washing area frequently gets left on all day.  Once upstairs it’s easy to forget it’s on.  No more.  I’m going to make a huge effort to get those turned off.  I’m thinking about getting one of those motion sensor switches.  It’ll turn the lights on automatically as I head downstairs, then after 15 or 30 minutes will shut them off.  It’s worth looking into.

The gas bill was next.  This will be a little easier to cut down.  We’ve traditionally kept the thermostat set at 73 to 74 in the winter.  Because of Gary’s issues, we’ve liked to keep the house a little warmer, and frankly, I enjoy it warmer too, in winter.  But not now.  We’ve set the thermostat to 68 for December.  When January hits, I may well drop it down to 66.  In turn, we bought Gary a warmer comforter for his bed… well, HE bought the warmer comforter.  We gave him our electric heater from the camper, but have asked him to only use it when it gets too cold for him.  I’ve committed to washing our clothes in cold water, only using hot or warm for certain loads.  We hope to see the greatest savings in the gas department.

Next we hit the Cox Cable bill.  Cox provides our TV, Internet and telephone.  We turned off our land line.  Saved something around $35 per month.  We cancelled HBO, Showtime & Cinemax.  Another $25.  And we’ve had two old converters setting around for far too long which will save another $10.

Verizon was next, our cell phone carrier.  I had hoped to drop the data service, and just use our Blackberries as phones, but Verizon won’t let us.  We would have to turn them in and get new, less functional phones.  I use my blackberry for a lot… calendar, notes, info on Dad, and a heck of a lot more.  But I did turn off the annoying “Voice2Text” feature that converted all my voice mail into text messages.  If the caller had good enunciation, that was great.  But it had to be impeccable enunciation!  I’d get messages like “Sky Derrick hits Marlborough. Can you come church the cow broken. (???) chairs charity (???)”

That translated to: “Hi Eric, it’s Carla.  Can you come to the church now?  One of our vendors spilled tar on the stairs, and they’re dirty.  They need to be cleaned.”  And just so you know, Carla has pretty good enunciation! 

We also cancelled the insurance on the two phones.  So we’ll end up saving maybe $25 there.

Finally, we took a look at our grocery and dining out expenses.  Oh, my goodness.  When I look at the trends over the past 11 months in groceries and restaurants, it’s hard for me to see how I’ve lost weight (a good thing, of course) or how everyone else has stayed thin!  We actually spent over $1000 in one month, though most months were down around $700.  For three people.  That’s just ridiculous.  Over all, in the past 10 months, we averaged $23 a day in combined groceries and eating out.  We set a budget of $70 a week for all three of us.  Hopefully we can stay with that!

One of the reasons for high grocery bills for us was we bought groceries daily for that night’s dinner.  And Scott has LOTS of meetings at church, so we tend to eat BAD food on those nights.  No more.  We’re shopping for 2 weeks at a time, now, and Scott gets to take leftovers on days he is going to be home late.  Our first shopping trip on the new plan, for food for next two weeks, we did quite well!  $105 for the two weeks.  How it turns out, however, remains to be seen.  I imagine we’ll need to supplement here and there (we’re already out of milk, and running low on bread.)  Still $35 for two weeks of incidentals ought to do it.

And then… our austerity program comes crashing down.  Like a house of cards, one of the bottom cards gets pulled out, and WHOOSH!  The whole thing collapses.

This week we had to do a bunch of vehicle servicing.  The camper needed winterizing.  That was expected (and actually budgeted for).  The pickup needed an oil change… that’s okay.  Today, it’s the Buick’s turn.  It also needs an oil change… in fact it’s way overdue (2+ months overdue).  That’s okay.  Still within our new budget guidelines.  Then, they drop the hammer.  Over the past month, we’ve noticed the brakes were deteriorating… they were mushy.  When we stepped on the brakes at anything over 35 miles an hour they… I don’t know how to describe it, really… they pushed back… They’re anti-lock brakes and you could REALLY feel the pulsing of the brakes.  We never had problems stopping… but it just was rough.

And that’s because both the front AND the rear brakes are completely shot.  Rotors are all but gone.  We need NEW rotors, new brakes.  Not counting the oil (and air filter) service, we’re facing over $600 of brake work.

So, December ain’t gonna be so austere, after all… well, actually, yes, it WILL be austere.  But not cheap.

It’s been a little too long since I posted last.  There’s really no reason.  I just haven’t felt too much like posting!

Throughout the summer, I’ve been working on trying to find a new job.  Of course, I’ve also had a little health concern, but it turned out to be pretty minor.  At the time, though it was extremely scary!  In July, I had an episode of pericarditis that was extremely painful, and sent me to the ER to find out what was going on.

Then, of course, was the trip to Wyoming for Rendezvous which I wrote about in 6 postings early in August.  Late August, everyone in the family had a run-in with the summer cold, but that too is pretty well over and done with.

This past weekend, the Labor Day weekend, Scott and I joined 2 of our best friends, Royal and Jonathan, for a camping excursion.  We were joined by two other men, friends of Royal and Jonathan.  I’d like to hope that now they’re our friends as well. 

We picked a local state park, actually the Louisville State Recreation Area down along the shores of the Platte River, in Louisville, Nebraska.  The park was packed, as you’d expect over the Labor Day Weekend.  There are at least 255 campsites at this park, most of which are for RVs.  We chose to leave the trailer in storage and do a little old fashioned tent camping in one of the tent restrictive sites.  Scott and I guessed that there were probably over 1000 people camping.

We set up our compound  over two sites; our compound consisted of our three tents and a dining fly.  Most of the weekend was spent sitting around the campfire.  James and Phillip did a bit of fishing and bike riding.  Royal retreated to his tent periodically to do some reading.  Jonathan jogged, or tended the fire, or swam.  Scott and I just sat around, either napping or chatting.

Other friends came down to visit from time to time, Carla & Sharon, Frank & Kent – with Frank’s Mom.  Marcus came for a visit, as did Michael. 

It was a nice, lazy way to spend the weekend, just reconnecting, somewhat, with nature.  I didn’t take any pictures, but I’ll bet the others did.  I’ll see if I can’t update this blog later with some of those photos!