Having a family with a kid, it feels like we just bleed money. We started taking meal planning more seriously, but we basically funded Jeff bezos’s wedding alone. Any tips for staying on top of it all? We just moved to a HCOL with lower paying jobs :(

Delete the Amazon app off your phone… it’s amazing how much you can save when you don’t have things easily available at the click of a button. I did this for about two months and saved quite a bit.

Meal planning has helped cut down our grocery bill. We are pay for grocery delivery (works out to just over $1/week when I pay annually). But that extra cost saves me TONS of time and money too because I’m not impulse buying things at the store as I’m browsing around

Don’t move to a HCOL with lower paying jobs

Just to clarify - I want to cut spending. My son is 2.5 and we are wasting money - bad habits, not unable to afford our lives. I want to be saving a lot more and to run a tighter ship.

Here is what I find works best. Stock up on groceries and carefully plan meal prep for your weekends. Wherever you are going bring a picnic cooler, snacks and drinks in the car whether the beach, for after the movies, a playground or the mall or kids sports, There is always the tendency for someone to say I am hungry after going somewhere which triggers adding a restaurant to your plans which is ridiculously expensive - even McDonalds. Limit restaurants for special occasions. One night a week is pizza night pick up. Teach your kids the joys of nature, hikes, swimming st lakes, visiting farms, bike trails. Activities that do not involve any shopping. Same for you and your spouse. I also stocked my bar items so I can make Aperol Spritzes, French Martini’s or a nice beer or wine at home by the pool instead of going out for drinks. Other than that really look at the cost of your cars - you should have at least one used with no car payment. Get rid of subscriptions. If you kids are old enough they can help earn their wants with dog/cat sitting, whatever. Good luck!

Hi OP. It’s really hard when kids are small. We are also in a HCOL area and childcare was more than our (not super low) mortgage. What we did during that time (and still do most of):

- Spent time planning out grocery lists instead of just going where convenient. No grocery delivery, because it costs more. Certain things were cheaper at certain stores and we drove around to several places shopping sales and stocking up on sale items. We got a second fridge for the garage off Facebook marketplace for this purpose. When you do shop, stick to the list. Those extra items you impulse-picked up add up.
- Set a small “fun” budget and stick to it. If you go over, the next month you get zero. If you stay under, the amount rolls over to next month.
- Thrifting most household items, clothing and toys. Our table cost $40. Some rooms sat empty for years and we slept on a futon until our financial situation got a little better.
- The library for books and movies. No buying.

Good luck! It’s hard but you’ve got this! It is very rewarding to see the savings add up.

My gameplan:
Meal planning and sticking to it
Delete Amazon from phone
No more UberEats, Instacart
Auto save weekly, even if lower at first. Every bit counts
No spend months once we finish the major purchases for our new home (just 2 left!)

I appreciate you all!

Freecycle, garage sales and second hand stores for kids clothes. Put toys away in a storage bin and then bring them back out again after 6 months.

I just went through this exercise with my spouse as we just had our 2nd child and now with having to pay 2x the childcare, we’ve been looking at ways to cut down on some costs. I am lol-ing at your Jeff Bezos’ wedding comment. Here are some of the changes we’ve made:
-Transferring $1000 per month automatically to our investment account so it’s removed from our checking/savings and we don’t even see that money.
-Using credit cards to pay for childcare so we get the travel/rewards points. That is thousands of dollars each month that we’re spending and realized we could use our card to pay instead of having it wired.
-In the spirit of giving less to Bezos, we stopped shopping at Whole Foods. We found that 95% of the brands we buy there can be found for less at one of our other local grocery stores.
-Stopped going to Target and only order from their website now if there are essentials we need so I’m not tempted to impulse shop.
-Only eating out on weekends. And we’re trying to keep it to 1-2 nice meals out a month and have the rest be more fast casual.
-Rotating subscription services
-Do you have friends with older kids and younger kids? We try to help each other out amongst my friends with hand me down clothes which ends up saving a lot! I have received so many clothes, jackets, shoes etc from friends who have older kids and I return the favor too. Check your area for buy nothing FB groups too. Or at the very least, for large purchases, check FB marketplace to see if you can buy something used vs paying full price. Just scored a really high quality pump bag for over half off the retail price.

Also check out Ramit Sethi’s podcast “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. He has some great advice for couples/families! My husband and I are going to be having monthly money conversations at the end of each month to continue optimizing.

Create a set menu and repeat it every week. Sounds boring but makes meal planning so much easier. Also makes cooking faster as you get used to making the same things. And then if you can’t stand something specific, switch one recipe at a time.

Cooking from scratch is so helpful in saving money. Using ChatGPT to put in meals you like to organize a month's worth of groceries. Keep an eye out for when meat is on sale and use the freezer to stock up. Food is typically the biggest budget variable. Aldi is a great store that has helped us save dramatically on our bill and we supplement with going to a normal grocery store 1x/month for things Aldi doesn't have.

Selling cars that you have a payment on to create more space in your budget also helps. Going to less attractive but still safe cars with maybe higher mileage works as well. Toyotas and Hondas are cars with the cheapest maintenance costs long-term.

I liked what one person said about writing things on a list for 24 hours before you purchase to be more mindful that way too.

Good luck! You can do this!

Start using coupons and select a few stores to shop at to get the most store reward points. For example, cvs gives out 40% coupons that you can use on baby formula if you sign up for their rewards

You could look into YNAB - basically a modern version of the old “cash envelope” budgeting technique - https://www.ynab.com

Check out the Finance bowl, there are a lot of tips there.

I make rigid and specific rules about spending and saving.

Here are a few examples I've leveraged in the past:

EX: Sam's Club or Costco for EVERYTHING
this forces planning, stops impulse online and budget creep. Bulk buying also allows you to only enter the store once every 2 to 4 weeks depending.

EX: If you shop higher end kids like Nordstrom or Janie & Jack (they're adorable) you have to downgrade :(
But of course you need new clothes almost monthly for a 2 1/2 year-old. Macy's has a tight kid's clothes sales game, consider buying secondhand for critical holiday outfits, and the rest of their clothes come from where? Sam's Club or Costco

I have a whole set of rules for Amazon:
I don't browse, I don't look at what they are discounting, EVER. I comparison shop more expensive items from specialty stores and Sam's or Costco.

I will also set a no "fun" shopping rule for a set period of time or until I hit a specific savings goal.

His discretionary funds go to gambling while yours goes to stocks? Unless you were daytrading, this is something I would be very concerned about. Perhaps a financial advisor might or marital counseling might be helpful. I’m all for spouses having discretionary accounts, but when one is being used for gambling while the other theoretically is being used for a long-term investment, that’s a real concern.

If the two of you are not on the same page regarding your financial situation and what must be done for the conscious decision you made moving to Florida … This isn’t so much a “how do I manage the short-term pain for the long-term strategic benefit?”, but it sounds like you and your spouse are not on the same page for your long-term goals.