Thursday, March 30, 2017

Serious austerity measures

When I told my husband we should not engage in any discretionary spending until our tax mess is resolved, I think he took me more seriously than I intended.


I got home from work this week and turned on the TV to this message:


I'm locking down the spending, but I might have a different definition of discretionary -- I'm still paying bills at the same amount I was paying before (like I round up on my new car payment so it will be paid off sooner, and I'm not stopping that practice during our "austerity measures" two month period), but I'm trying not to go out to eat or go shopping or pay for any fun plane tickets.  Maybe my husband took "no discretionary spending" as don't pay anything except groceries, car, gas, tolls, boot camp, dry cleaning, and phones. 

I think it's more likely he forgot to pay this bill than that he thought we shouldn't pay it pending resolution of the tax issue, but I can't honestly say I'm sure that's the case. 

In any event, we're paid up now and can watch TV again.  Which is good, if we're staying at home and not going out to spend money...

3 comments:

  1. Funny! I think all of us have different thoughts on what should get cut or cut back in terms of discretionary spending ...

    I've wanted to kill our landline for ages, but Lisa considered it necessary (product of when we grew up, I suppose). Then after she came around to my side ... Time Warner constantly makes new deals that make it cheaper to keep all three (cable, internet and phone) than to drop the phone ...

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    1. It's like when it's cheaper to buy a roundtrip ticket than a one-way. Sometimes that bundle pricing makes no sense!

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  2. We did away with cable a couple of years ago, but we still have the same provider for internet. They have a bit of a monopoly in our area which is frustrating because it is more expensive than other service providers. Since we have been customers for so long we never get any kind of a deal or discount like new customers receive. We did away with our landline over 10 years ago and my husband had a flip phone until the end of 2015! I love learning about how people manage their finances. It is one area I am always interested in improving.

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