I know that they say that we're not in a recession, but I can tell that lots of people are feeling the financial pinch. Our gas and food budgets have just gone up, and we're trying to get our dollars to stretch just a little more. What is changing around your house in these tough economic times? What's gotten worse and has anything gotten better?

Everything has gone up including our health insurance. What I did was go through each bill and see if there are any extra features on anything - phone lines, cable, everything - that can be cut to save money. I cut our internet/phone bill by $30, our cable by $10 and a couple of other things we either cut down or got rid of. I am also doing the grocery shopping at Walmart, or trying to when time allows, anyway. Instead of going to the store to buy more when we run out, we are now just eating something else so that we only grocery shop every two weeks. Believe it or not, that has saved the most money of all. Also, my son turned 10 months so we are giving him the Next Step formula from Enfamil as opposed to the Infant formula and it is $5 less per can. It's almost the exact same formula! I make the baby food myself instead of buying jars. We quit going to expensive restaurants and opt for cheaper places like Panera Bread. When we do go to restaurants, we skip the drinks. Gosh! I guess we've done a lot of crap to try to save money! I never realized until I wrote this! - Although, I did cheat and go buy two tops and jeans today. But I did get them on a great deal at a discount designer store by my work! $45 for two tops and jeans, not bad! I can still consider that saving!

We're just watching what we spend a little more. That has mostly meant eating at home more frequently and thinking twice before buying some things.

We always keep it simple. In this low economic time, we find a way to have fun locally and also a way to make the most of it. Buy RE when people have to get out. Hot buyers Market!

We traded in our trucks earlier this year for cars. We also just moved and thankfully we are not commuting anymore. Just these two changes alone have made a huge difference.

During the summer, our family takes advantage of a lot of the free community programs. THere's really a lot out there, like music in the park, evenings at the nature center, and so on. There's the library too. We'll be going there all summer for new books (and they also have children's shows and reading time there).

The recession has definitely hit us as I've encountered a work slowdown, so we just have to watch our expenses. Dinners out seem to be the first to go.

So much fun for us to bbq outside and eat outside at our home. We are comfortable, outside, and home. It's all good.
The bright side of things, be grateful. Join my be grateful group!

We had a vacation planned and reservations made before the gas prices soared, so we balanced our expenses a little better by staying in less expensive hotels and packing our own snacks and drinks for the car. It doesn't sound like much, but since it was a working vacation, cancellation wasn't an option.