The Frugality Project

So five days into the month and every penny is accounted for.  In fact the city (finally) got around to informing me of how much (in general) my utility bill would be.  Unfortunately, it will be more like $300 instead of $200.  As a result I had to reorder my budget a bit in order to find $100.  The first $50 was easy; I had that left over anyways.  I did, however, have to pillage $25 each from my car savings and my planned spending.

I must admit I prefer to have a bit of a surplus in my budget.  So, here begins the frugality project.   Frugal - Sparing or economical with regard to money or food.  Ok, I have no intention of skimping on food.  I am, however, interested in seeing how I can reduce costs in an inventive manner.  So my attempt will to be to find one or two frugal projects a month and post them.  The only rules are that it has to save money, it has to be something that I would do/have/use anyways, and it has to be fun.

The big goal of the frugal project will be to reduce the amount spent per month by 10% of my take home pay.  This decrease needs to be sustainable by the end of 2 years without a decrease in quality of life.  I am not allowed to decrease savings to any account unless the savings accounts are up these respective amounts.

Emergency Savings - $10,000
Car Savings - $10,000
Big Ticket Items - $5,000

Retirement Savings and extra mortgage payments are off limits.

Let the experiments begin!