Steps we've taken this week to debt-free living

For us, becoming debt-free means being intentional and making little goals each week. A couple questions I ask myself each week:

1. What is one thing we can do this week to chip away at our debt?

2. What is one way we can bring in a little extra cash?

3. How are we doing with our budgets?

It is so much less overwhelming to take baby steps! I also look back on the previous week to see how we're doing with the changes we've made (such as a lower food budget).

Here are some steps we've taken this week to improving our finances:

1. I switched our electricity rate to an At Time of Use rate (A-TOU). Our new meter was installed this morning. I will post all about this tomorrow.

2. I switched to a different electricity supplier (our deliverer, Central Maine Power, remains the same). The new supplier has a lower, fixed rate and better contract. I'll explain more about this in tomorrow's post as well.

3. Yesterday, my husband sold a pair of boots to a co-worker for $100. He took $20 for two weeks of coffee and I deposited $80 into our Emergency Savings Account. We are up to $105 on this account. We are $895 away from our goal. Again, baby steps!

4. I'm creating a budget for toiletries and cleaning supplies. I'm thinking $20 per month on toiletries (toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, etc.) I'm not sure what budget we'll need to make for cleaning supplies yet. However, I did score free dishwasher detergent today after mail-in rebate!

5.  We applied for a gas program that will save us 10 cents per gallon! This program is completely free. A friend who recommended it to me said she has saved over $200 in gas since July! Thankfully, this particular gas station is right in our town, and on my husband's route to work.

Those are the steps we've taken this week. We aren't at the snow-ball phase yet, as we're still getting caught up on current bills. We also had to have the oil tank filled today ($685) and Monday we have a propane delivery coming for our stove ($68). Our driveway is nearly impossible to get up in the winter, so we definitely needed to make those deliveries priority.

The only change we've made so far in our current budget is we had to increase hubby's coffee budget by $2 to account for tax.