First baby step and cutting fat
It's time to get hard.
But for real, if you haven't seen this movie, go check it out! It's HILARIOUS!
First step for our REI plan is to save up some $. Here's what I did to really cut all the fat.
I pulled up budget that we use to for our monthly expenses. I totaled the highest expenses to the top and went on a descending order from there. Guess what were the top 3?
- Mortgage
- Car loans/ expenses
- Food
That wasn't a surprise was it? Anyone who knows anything about where their money is going should know that these expenses are the highest for most Americans. That is, unless you have a crazy shopping addiction or do extremely luxurious things outside your budget.
Now that I've analyzed where all the fat is, time to start cutting. (For those that don't know, cutting the fat means cutting the excess so you are left with just the lean meat and bones. In the case of budgeting, this means cutting excess or unnecessary expenditures.)
Mortgage
The first thing to tackle was the biggest. I thought to myself, what is the best way to do this? Since I like keeping my posts short, I'm going to cut to the chase and "cut the fat" of the long drawn out story.
TLDR: Discussed house hacking with wife, no go. Discussed moving in with parents again at the ripe age of 33, eh, not really enthusiastic about it. Discussed some more. Showed my plan. Discussed some more. Wife is on board now.
I do have the most understandable, loving and open-minded wife in the world though. So your experience here may vary.
Plan - sell the house. Live with parents. Take money from the sale + savings to start on rental property. Probably a duplex or other MFH.
P.S. It was rather easy to convince the mom for us to move in. Not only because she is happy she won't be alone anymore (parents are divorced and other kids are off to out of state college), but she also gets to be with our adorable 11 month old daughter. Win-win!
Car loans/ expenses
Have you read Mr. Money Mustache's The True Cost of Commuting? No? Well here's the link. Stop reading my post and check that out instead! It'll change your life.
Back? Great. After doing the math I would be saving about $3495 from my commute and about $1814 for my wife.
Let. That. Sink. In.
By just adjusting our commute times we save a total of about $5,309. We got lucky and moving in with the parentals ends up being a 2 bird 1 stone kind of thing. We save that much money due to the closer commute and also turn our mortgage bill into a donut.
Food
Not much to say here. We are already very budget oriented with our food. We plan our meals and only eat out 2 times a week. It's still the highest because everything else is so low already. We don't really splurge much on entertainment so food just ended up really falling into the 3rd slot by default.
If you don't have your food budget in control though just take note:
- Stop eating out so much
- Plan your meals
- Make a list when you grocery shop
Hope that post was delicious for you! See y'all next time!
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