Need Your Advice Please

Today I calculated our take home income. It isn’t very pretty. Both of us work full time jobs and yet, after taxes, child support, medical insurance, and life insurance, our household income is roughly $38,000. This is roughly 63% of our combined wages.

Straight away, we put $2,400 aside for savings. This money ends up being used for our property taxes each year ($1,065 for 2006). I want to change that if I can. I would like to find ways to pay off our credit card debt (around $5,500) and save more money for emergencies.

I feel as if I am already doing most all of the things posed by other people as being frugal. I already use cloth napkins, shop at Aldi or Save-a-Lot, make food from scratch, etc. We wear yard sale or thrift store clothing 99% of the time. I'm already paying an extra $50 to principle on our house payment each month. In fact, the way we've set up payments, we also make an extra payment each year.

I've been a thrifty person most of my life. I don't really know of any other places where I can cut my spending (besides the item I’m mentioned in my previous post).

My challenge to you is for you to suggest ways that we can tighten our financial belts and save more money.

I will be posting all of our saving techniques here and will let you know if they work or not.