Expenses since catching the FIRE bug

Things have not been progressing as quickly as I would like in reducing expenses for November.  I will say that November was significantly better than October! That said, October did have some expenses that were out of the norm.

Please note we are a family of 2 adults and one crazy 5 year old that eats nothing, living in a low-cost, small Canadian city. Let’s have a look-see at expenses for November:

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There you have it. Unfortunately December is tracking rather high. We’ve nearly hit the November spending amount and it’s mid-month. Not good. I may skip posting December expenses because it will be painful. That said, maybe that is a good thing? No pain, no gain? I don’t know.

Anyhoo, here are my areas to challenge expenses for January:

1. Reduce fun money spending. November was ridiculous. My FIRE-Y neighbor friend is having a January no-spending challenge. Might go ahead and join that…now to get the Hubs to agree. 🙂 – Goal: Try to get it under $400.
2. TV, Phones, and Internet – We need to cut the digital TV subscription. This has been lagging because I’m trying to come up with a more affordable alternative to watch my 2 favorite shows, and give Hubs the required level of sports action. Goal: Reduce bill by $50 perhaps? TBD how much I can save here. Local internet providers have a monopoly and are evil.
3. Switch home and auto insurance to another provider. I know I can save here, even with the extra month cancellation penalty from my current provider. Back in October, I posted about the fact that I was GOING to switch. For some reason I never pulled the trigger. I was in the process of analyzing the differences between the coverage levels and reading 1000 reviews of Sonnet.ca. This got dropped and just needs to happen.

I think I’ll leave it at that for January goals. I find if I take on too much I become ineffective. If I can knock off these 3, I’ll be very happy and want to tackle more in February. Wish me luck.

I would love to hear any expense-chopping tips you’ve implemented lately! Please tell me about them in the comments.