CBM: Day 2!

Ah, it is officially day 2 of cut back month, and I've been wanting to post since Larissa started the blog, but let me claim an active 2 year old as the excuse (a lame excuse, because Larissa also has an active 2 year old, and that hasn't stopped her!).

I've been both looking forward to and dreading cut back month ever since Larissa and I started talking about it in mid-December. Looking forward to it because we are really motivated to do a better job in matching household expenses to income, and dreading it because Larissa casually mentioned that we should cut our cable (GULP!!).

For us, cut back month is not just about a month but really about long-term lifestyle changes that will improve cash flow in the immediate, and once my partner starts a job (now that he has graduated with his degree to teach high school math - congratulations love!!!!!), to increase our savings.  Who knows, maybe cut back YEAR will enable us to eventually buy a 2 bedroom apartment in the North Slope (for anyone who knows real estate in Park Slope, you can stop laughing now, please!).

So, here's where we are at day 2:

• mint.com accounts set up, data analyzed, and budget made. As someone who is a total data geek, how have I lived without tracking and charting my every expense so easily for so long?! LOVE it. And in total shock when we prepared what I thought was a lean budget compared to our actual expenses, and then saw in black and white our budgeted expenses vs our actual income. Uh, that explains a lot about the past year!! So, back to the drawing board with a really, really lean budget with no frills. Can we really live without ANY budget for restaurants??? This is NYC, after all - land of ordering in (which we actually don't do that often anymore now that we have prioritized nightly family dinners, but stay tuned to find out if we can really stick to NO restaurant budget)!
   
• New York Times delivery canceled: not a huge expense as we only have weekend delivery and admittedly, ever since our daughter was born we haven't been very diligent readers, but I still enjoy looking through it...as I put it into the recycling bin.
  
• Netflix changed to just streaming: ok, also not a huge expense and for some unknown reason, it won't take effect until the end of January, so technically this is really a cut back for February (furthering Larissa's secret desire to move CBM to February - both a shorter month, and a month where she'll be visiting her parents who will take them out to eat!).
• And, our really big one: we are cancelling our cable and buying a Roku. This one is scary as I am quite addicted to DVR - no mindless surfing with stupid stuff on just to be on, an endless supply of Yo Gabba Gabba for mornings with our daughter, and no commercials. But we'll survive. (not to mention that we aren't cancelling it until the Roku arrives and we get it all set-up, so we probably have another couple of weeks to feed the cable addiction!)

So we now have a no frills budget - and I really mean no frills, except that we kept in some money for kids' activities, since after all, it is winter in NYC and we will need activities to burn off our daughter's energy during the winter months.

Spoiler alert: January is going to be a little tough to completely stick to CBM plans, since it's my partner's birthday and he actually wants to celebrate this year, and my mom is coming to visit so we'll do some things with her (and we'll have free babysitting, which surely we should take advantage of, since it's been 2 years since we've been out alone!).

Biggest aspiration for CBM: to cut our grocery bill from about $150+/week to $125 (although I'd really like to cut it to $100...but I'm trying to be realistic). So what ideas do you have for cheap, organic, healthy family meals that can be made in 30 minutes or less every night?

Oh - and I suggest roasting the hell out of those frozen yellow brussel sprouts, Larissa!