How to have a date night (on the cheap)

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Yesterday, Chris and I started talking about how we are in desperate need a some alone time. Yes, I know we don't have kids, we work together, live together. But I'm talking about going on a date, drinking wine, eating some good food. This kind of night can add up quickly.

We started looking for ways to have a date...on the cheap! So, I thought I'd share some of the ways we figured out to have an evening out.

1. Look at those points cards: Our local Mexican restaurant does a punch card: eat 5 times the 6th is free. So does Subway: 100 points equals a free footlong. We also have a credit card that gives us a % cash back on the items we purchased. I have to keep up on it but went into find $50 available last week..bonus!

2. Coupons: Every week I look for the bag ads to see what restaurant coupons they have. A lot of them have BOGO (buy one get one) coupons. Look on the restaurants website also.

3. Restaurant.com: You can buy gift certificates at specific restaurants for cheap. Usually it's $5 for a $25 gift card. I've seen these go down to $2 with website codes.

4. Groupon: If you haven't heard of Groupon you must be living under a rock. They have deals at usually half the price of what you would pay. For example, this week my local Columbus Groupon offered a gift certificate to Flyers Pizza for $7 worth $14. Now that's an amazing deal.

5. Living Social: This is the same idea as Groupon just different deals. This week my local Living Social had Sky Diving for $119. What an awesome date that would be!

6. Eversave: Again same idea as the last two but still another great site to check out. This week on Eversave they had a customized facial for $40 normally $110. Again another great date night.

**Groupon, Living Social and Eversave also give you anywhere from $10-15 for referring your friends. So remember to have them sign up from your link. Then when they purchase something you will get a credit. **

7. Redbox: There are always free rental codes floating around on the internet. Google will be your friend for this deal. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook, I try to post these when I see them listed.

So, here's the challange: How cheap will your date be? 

**Disclosure: This post does contain my referral links to Groupon, Living Social and Eversave. If you sign up use my link but I promise my feelings won't be hurt if you don't **

How are we saving for IVF?

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Since it is now 2011, Christopher and I are creating a new budget and savings plan for IVF. Our goal is to save $1000 a month. We know it's a high goal to meet but think that it is doable if we can start cutting out some of the non-necessities and cutting back on some of the luxuries.

First, we took a look at all of our bills to see what we can cut back on:

1. Cable was the one blaring right in our face. Currently we are spending $150 a month. We have HBO, Showtime, 1 DVR, cable and internet. I called and cut out HBO and Showtime, bringing our bill to $120. Still outrageous we think and Time Warner was not willing to bring it down any further. We are currently looking at other cable companies to see if we can bring this down further. But this did however save us $30.

2. Insurance (car, home, ring, life): We just switched insurance companies last year and this saved us about $100 a month so I didn't mess with this. I know we are getting a great deal but it's worth a couple calls around to see if you can get a better deal.

Second, we took at look at the extra's:

1. Eating Out: We are spending about $300 per month on eating out and 'adult beverages'. Ouch, right!?! We have cut our entertainment budget to $50 per week, totaling $200 per month. Saving us $100.

2. Grocery Store: We are currently spending $350 per month on groceries. Usually about $75 at Whole Foods and $100 a Wal-Mart per pay. We need to cut back on the extras we buy when we go to the store. So our plan is to go in with meals planned and nothing else is being bought. Eating organic meats, eggs and milk is still very important to us so we are not going to cut out Whole Foods. But cutting down on what we buy should bring our grocery budget down to $300 per month. Saving us $50.

Third, we need to start bringing in some extra income. To me getting a second job isn't worth the extra month or two earlier it would allow us to do IVF. So here are our ideas:

1.I joined Delve Market Research hoping that I can earn some money in my off time, when it's convenient for me. Since this is not consistent work, I'm not sure I can estimate how much this will bring in.

2. We will be selling items on Ebay. Chris and I like to go to thrift stores and antique stores to find deals then sell them. We are hoping to earn an extra $50 per month.

3. Chris's web design/marketing he does on the side brings in an extra $400 per month. We never include this in our monthly budget because we don't want to ever depend on this money but it's perfect to include in this savings plan.

If we add all of the budget cuts and extra income together, that gives us $680 per month we can save for IVF. So to meet our goal of saving $1000 per month we will need to come up with an extra $320 out of our paycheck. Which I know is doable. I will be doing a monthly post about the money we have saved toward IVF and how we are doing it.

Taxes Reduced

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6 months later, our property taxes have been reduced. If you remember, back in January we petitioned the county auditor to have our property taxes lowered based on a new appraisal. Well, on May 17 we got a letter saying that everything was approved and our taxes have been reduced. BUT the best part about the taxes being reduced is it is back dated to 01/01/09.

This means that since our taxes were reduced by $750 per year, we get a credit from the overpayment last year plus then our escrow payment is reduced by $62.50 per month.

In the money saving game, don't forget the look at everything. This really paid off for us!

Money Tip: Coupon Blogs

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There are a ton of blogs out there that can help you save money. I wanted to share a few of my favorites today. These blogs stay up on the latest deals and coupons to maximize your money.

1. Deal Seeking Mom: I love that she not only posts coupons but tells you where you can find the item the cheapest, then gives you the breakdown of what your total should be.

2. Cheap and Creative: She posts multiple times per day with coupons and sales.

3. Coupon Gal: She also gives you the cheapest place to find the item, the coupon to use and what your total should be.

What blogs/websites do you use to save money?

Money Tip: Paying off Debt vs.Savings

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I've heard so many different views on this subject. That I wanted to voice my own today.

Here it is plain and simple:

Pay off your debt

I've read so many books and listened to so many financial advisors about this subject. Personally, I think that paying off your debt is so important. For us, we're probably never going to be rich so everything is about our Monthly Budget.

That being said, ofcourse, you have to have an emergency fund. If the car breaks down and it's $500 to fix it, you don't want to put that $500 back on a credit card. We like to keep at least a $1000 in our savings. Notice I said, at least, some months are tougher than others and some months we decide to have a little more fun than others.

So that's my opinion. Tell me yours, Pay off Debt or Put money is Savings? Do you have an emergency fund? How much do you keep in it?

Money Tip: Movies

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If you are anything like us, we love to rent movies on the weekends. Friday night seems to be pizza and movie night. We realized we were spending at least $5 a week on movie rentals. At the end of the month that ends up being $20 spent on renting movies.

The first thing we did was sign up for Blockbuster Online. It's $12.99 a month and we can get unlimited movies. The big deal breaker for Blockbuster Online was that we can take our 'mailed movie' back to the store for a free exchange.

You can also do the Red Box Rentals (click here to find a red box near you). These are a $1 a night. What a great price, right?

**Don't forget to register for the giveaway**

Money Tip: Restaurants.com

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I found Restaurant.com from my Sister In Law but this website knows all about sticking to a budget. All you do is type in your zip code, state or city and restaurant.com will bring up all restaurants participating in your area.

Here is an example of how you save:

We love a local pub called Coaches that we love to go to:

We can get a $25 gift card to Coaches for $10. There is a minimum purchase of $35, leaving your total out of pocket cost at $20. So if you were going to spend $35 at Coaches anyways, this can really help your bottom line.

Once you get signed up for restaurant.com email list, they send you emails all the time for 50% off so a $25 gift certificate will only cost you $5. This making your out of pocket only $15 for $35 worth of food.

Great deal, huh?

Tell me ways that you try to cut corners?

Money Tip: Review your Bills

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Have you thought about reviewing your bills for ways to save money?

We listed all payees that way pay every month, in a handwritten list and tried to find ways to cut back. Here is a list that was similar to ours:

1. Time Warner (Cable)
2. Mortgage
3. Gas
4. Electric
5. Credit Cards (though we don't keep money on these)
6. HOA Fees (Homeowners Association Fees)
7. YMCA (Gym)

Then evaluated whether we could get our monthly payments lowered. Here's how the evaulation went down:

1. Called Time Warner and asked if there was a better bundle we could get on. Save $10/month

2. You would think with a mortgage that there is no negotiating but in our case there was. We paid taxes on an appraisal from 3 years ago. When we had our house reappraised last year, in came in $50K less (due to the amount of damage the previous owner did). We are petitioning the courts to have our taxes lowered. Possibly saving us $100/month.

3. We are trying to keep the thermestat no higher than 70 degrees to save money on the gas bill. We did buy a new programable thermostat, so that when we're not home the temperature is adjusted to 65 degrees. I read in a magazine that 5 degrees can save you $20 a month. Hoping to Save $20/month

4. We are trying really hard at keeping the lights off if we are not in that room, we have energy efficent light bulbs, the computers stay off during the day. Hopefully we will see some return on this. Hoping to save $10/month

5. Since we don't use our credit cards regularly, there was nothing we could do there. But if you do use your, call and ask for a rate decrease. We done this many times and most of the time they will lower it for you. $0/month

6. Our new house has a HOA that takes care of our grass outside the fence, mulches and trims the bushes. (Yes, it's wonderful) So there is no negotiating that fee. $0/month

7. Though we have been really bad about going to the Y, the last few weeks, we have decided that keeping the membership is in our best intesest. $0/month

This give our grand total = $130/month plus the $100/month we are saving from not eating out once a week gives us a total savings of $230. Take that and times it by 12, that is $2760 saved this year.

Has this sparked any idea of how you can start saving money? I'd love to hear them

Money Tip: How to save an extra $100 a month

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Christopher and I have set some high money saving goals this year. So, I thought it would be good to start including some of the things we're doing to save money here. We work off of a budget, as I'm sure most families do.

I created an Excel spreadsheet a few years ago and every pay period I update the spreadsheet. Here's an example of what we use:

(In my Dream World this is what we make every two weeks)

At the beginning of the year we set a goal that we wanted to pay off the car and save $6k by the end of the year. In order to do that we had to start cutting our budget in certain places.

So, how do you save $100 a month? We took one of our "eat out" days a week and cut it out. Usually when we go out to eat dinner can range from $20-50. If we do this every week, that is a savings of $80-200 a month. That adds up quickly doesn't it?

I'll will be adding money saving tips as we head on our journey to meet our financial goals. I hope you like this new feature. I love to hear from you guys!