Tiny Homestead Projects vol. 2 - Saving on bills
In this edition of THP I will share with you how we managed to lower our internet bill significantly and even save on our daycare bill from January 2018.
Having a Budget
It is my humble opinion that everyone with any kind of income and expenses should have a budget no matter their age and their income/expenses. We are avid fans of the Dave Ramsey style zero based budget and one of the great things about doing a budget on paper, every month, before the beginning of the new month is that you know exactly what you spend your money on, down to the penny.
As we are trying to pile up money we had a good long look at our budget. Most months, the only part we tinker with is our spending money. This time we were looking specifically at our bills. We got a new insurance provider last year, which lowered our cost there. Our phone bill is as low as it can get with our needs. But there was one big, ugly, stinking payment in there - our internet.
Biting the Bullet
We've been discussing changing our internet provider for a while now. There's only one provider that can give us the kind of speed we are used to in this area, so when we moved here, we simply kept that provider although it is expensive. We used to love our internet, but at this apartment it's rubbish. It cuts out, is painfully slow and even watching a simple youtube video is often impossible.
Source
After a lot of discussions, we finally bit the bullet. If we are going to deal with crappy internet, it might as well be cheap crappy internet. I was able to find a provider that will lower our bill from DKK 469 to DKK 209 per month. We have no idea how much worse, if any, our internet will get since our current provider told us they don't have any data on our current actual speed and usage (as if I believe that).
Next in Line
With that major success, at least on the budget front, under our belt, we moved on. Daycare is another big line item in our budget, but not enough for me to stay home based solely on that. I'm in the final stretch of my master's degree, with just a year left (Lord willing) and to focus on that I recently quit my part-time job, since we were only getting about DKK 300 after taxes from it and I was gone 1 day a week and we wouldn't get anything in 2018. I know that sounds odd, but Danes can earn just over DKK 40K without paying taxes. Because we are married my husband gets my portion if I don't earn anything, so I would have to earn a good deal more than 40k for it to be worth it for us that I have an income.
Anyways, because I quit my job, our daycare cost will go down next year. It's very difficult to figure out how much, so we didn't bother figuring out the exact amount. I think we'll save about DKK 300-400.
Total Savings
As I said, we don't know exactly what we will be saving, due to some rather complicated tax calculations. My best guess is that we will save around DKK 600 every month from January. That's a good DKK 7200 a year and all it took was about an hours worth of work total.
Feel free to join the conversation at
It's amazing how much money you can save by just writing down your expenses and doing a little work to find cheaper alternatives. When I started writing down my daily expenses I was absolutely appalled haha
It really is. We have always done it, but I get how people say they feel like they got a raise.
What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
- Mahatma Gandhi
We have to do what we can to make ends meet. Every little bit helps. Thanks for the post. 🐓🐓
You're welcome. :)