With the holidays approaching, many people are interested in finding extra money in their monthly budgets.  As we head into the holiday season, my husband’s pay usually drops.  We try to plan carefully throughout the year for the typical slowdown in November and December, but we usually head into these months by taking an extra look at each budget item.  It’s not unusual to create budgets and pay bills regularly without taking a careful look at what you’re paying for each month.

We just went through this process and were able to decrease our monthly expenses without making much difference in our lives.  We have had a bundled service for cable, telephone and internet service through the same company for the seven years we’ve lived in our home.  Over the years, we’ve added and subtracted services.  We added the DVR a few years back and felt that it was well worth the expense.  We dropped HBO and never missed it.  This month, we decided to drop the company completely and go with another.  After weeks of comparing services and prices and determining the actual cost, we will be saving about $70/month while still having cable, DVR, high speed internet and land line telephone service.  That simple change will save us $840 over the next year.

Our electric company offers lower rates during specific times if you sign up for their time-of-use plan.  In the past, we always avoided this plan because we weren’t sure that we’d actually save money, and we didn’t want to adjust our electric usage since I was home throughout the day.  After an extremely high bill this summer, we finally decided to try this plan.  While it did take some adjustment to get used to planning our energy use, we saved $40 the first month alone!  I had to plan to do laundry around the hours, but realized that was the biggest change I made.  I also bumped the thermostat 2 degrees during the last couple months of the summer.  I noticed and was uncomfortable for a couple weeks, but then quickly got used to the higher temperature.

This is also the time of year when I comparison shop our insurance rates.  We’ve had the same auto insurance company for almost 20 years, and they are still offering the best rates to our family.  Just because it was true last year, however, doesn’t mean I don’t check again this year.  I also review our homeowner’s insurance to make sure we have the best possible rates there as well.

Netflix is a monthly expense that I review often.  My entire family enjoys the variety of films available, and I appreciate the convenience of their service.   They have a much wider variety of documentaries and educational programs available than our local library, which is helpful in our homeschooling efforts. I also appreciate how easily I can change our movie allotment.  I changed the service recently to “one movie at a time, unlimited rentals” for $8.99/month.  We usually use their 3-at-a-time choice, but have bumped it up to 5-at-a-time during heavy movie-watching months.  Their instant view feature has made this even less painless, since there are thousands of movies and tv shows available to watch on our computer.

I am careful about grocery shopping year round, but this time of year I become even more careful about what I spend.  I clip coupons, and watch for online coupons to save money.  Manufacturers seem to be more generous with coupons near the holidays, which is helpful.  I also try to create meals from the pantry/freezer without going to the grocery store at least one week.  I am sometimes surprised with what I find near the bottom of our chest freezer. There is almost always plenty to make, even if some of the meals are rather creative near the end of the week.

It can be easy to assume that you can’t cut your budget any further.  I usually feel this way, but when I take an hour to carefully look at each expense, I am able to find ways to save more money.  When I do, we suddenly have extra money in our pocket!