Creating a cozy life includes taking care of every dollar that comes and goes in your home. It’s much more challenging to be cozy when under financial stress. It can be done because creating a cozy home is a great deal about mindset. But the weight of financial pressures makes it much more difficult.

Most families are feeling financial stress right now to some degree. I’ve been exchanging emails with a blogging friend regarding the number of bloggers who have made drastic changes to their online work. One took her long-time public website behind a $5/month paywall. Another discontinued her email plan and moved her 15,000 subscribers to a free Substack account because it was too expensive to continue mailing them to alert them of new posts on her website. And on and on.

Plugging Our Financial Leaks

So the financial pressure is impacting everyone and our family is no different. This week one of my main goals is to plug our financial leaks. Some of these leaks were at one time necessary expenses. But as life changes, so do our needs. I thought I would share what I’m doing so maybe it would help others think through their own situations and make changes. The details might be different in your life, but the principles can still apply.

The biggest financial leak I’m addressing is food. Because I eat separately from David and Caroline, our food and eating situation has been odd for years. We cook different meals. It’s difficult for me to prepare my meal and theirs simultaneously so they have basically prepared their food for years. However, David doesn’t have the time and Caroline doesn’t have the skills to manage that in the best way. I’m not being negative, but simply truthful. Before my EoE, I did a much better job of keeping food costs relatively lower. Now that I’m done homeschooling and I have more time and emotional reserves, finding ways to reduce grocery costs is at the top of my financial list. I’ll write in more detail about that separately, but I know we can reduce our grocery bill. I will also involve Caroline so she can learn more skills in addition to the ones I’ve already taught her over the years.

I cancelled our SiriusXM (again) after it went to $25/month. I am fine paying $5/month for Symphony Hall (which I love) when they give us a deal, but I am the only one who really uses the service. David and Caroline stream their music from their phones in the car. I am not out and about enough in the car each month to make it worth $25. So that adds up over a year ($300), five years ($1,500), and ten years ($3,000).

I mean, think about that. THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS over ten years just to stream music in your car. The $25/month sounds like a small amount until you really look at the long-term impact of it.

That’s why I’m going through this here. To remind all of us how those little amounts add up tremendously over time when you stack one on top of another.

I cancelled our HSLDA membership. I happily supported them while we were homeschooling, but now that we are done it is one expense we can eliminate. Even $10/month adds up over a year ($120), five years ($600), and ten years ($1,200).

I purchased an Applecare plan when I purchased my iphone. I plan on using the phone for many years (basically until it is no longer usable). Since it barely leaves the house, the chances of anything happening to it are rather slim. Again, $7.99/month adds up over a year ($96), five years ($480), and ten years ($960).

Watching other bloggers adjust what they are doing is both encouraging and depressing. It’s depressing because it shows me that even successful bloggers can see the writing on the wall and are slashing expenses. It’s encouraging because it makes it clear that working harder and better data are not the answer to what ails my online world right now. So that meant I could cancel a service I was using at $9/month which, again, adds up over a year ($108), five years ($540), and ten years ($1,080).

Related to this, I received a notice that my MailerLite service is going up again. (I use that to send emails to my subscribers here.) So I spent some time looking for a different option. I found another one that would save me $16/month. Since I now have more time, it is worth it to make the switch before I get charged again. So I’ll save over the year ($192), five years ($960) and ten years ($1,920).

Now would I be paying all of those same amounts over ten yeas? No, of course not. Some of them I would no longer need. Some of them would have increased in price. But the principles behind what I’m sharing last a lifetime.

So just in those few changes, I’ve reduced my expenses by $68/month or $816/year. Could you use an extra $816/year? How about $4,080 over five years and $8,160 over ten years?

Check For Your Own Leaks

How many little leaks do you have in your finances? When was the last time you went through all your accounts (bank, credit cards, phone, etc.) and checked if you are wasting money on something you forgot about or meant to cancel and just haven’t done it?

• Have you shopped for a different internet service? Phone options? We did that several months ago and we now pay $40/month for internet and $70/month for our three phones. Maybe that sounds high to you, but I think $110 for all of that is pretty good. We saved quite a bit per month when we combined them all on Spectrum so that is on top of what I shared above.
• We don’t pay for any cable or streaming services other than Disney+ because it is something Caroline greatly enjoyed and used a lot. (I would have ditched it years ago.) Other than that, we don’t have anything and haven’t for years. How many streaming services are you paying for and barely using? Netflix? Spotify? Amazon Prime? HBO? Paramount? NFL? It goes on and on and on and on now.
• What about phone apps? How many do you pay for on auto-renewal and never use?
• Cloud services?
• Software renewals?
• Book or magazine subscriptions?
• Pantry? How much goes to waste because you don’t rotate? How much money could you save just this week by going through your pantry and eating up everything that is recently expired before it goes bad?
• Produce spoilage? If you waste $5/week in unused produce, you are literally throwing $260/year into the trash.
• Gasoline? If you reduce your running around, you could save $25 or $50 a month.
• Prescriptions? Have you shopped around to see if you are getting the best price?
• Gym memberships and the like? Do you use them? Could you do the same thing at home for free?
• Home and auto insurance? Have you done anything with this recently? This could reduce your expenses by quite a bit per year.
• And then there is the crippling one – credit card interest. There’s no judgement in what I just said because I have experienced it myself. Many people are struggling with credit card debt. But it is a huge waste of money each month and year. If you can find ways to cut back other expenses and pay off credit cards, you will get out from under large amounts of interest every month (and also be free from the stress of being in debt).

I hope you find this post helpful. If you are fortunate to have no financial leaks, then count yourself blessed. If you are struggling with leaks, I hope you will take some time to plug them this week and save every dollar you can for your cozy home.