I quit my job when I gave birth to our first child four months ago. Now my "job" is to find creative ways to save as much money as I can. I have actually found that life would be more expensive for us now if I WAS working!
We downsized to 1 vehicle. This saves us the cost of a car payment, insurance, gas that I would have used to "run around" when I got bored, and all of the incidental expenses of picking up impulse items that I would be bound to pick up if I was in stores a few days a week...I stay in my house instead, and it saves us tons of money!
I prepare food that can be frozen well, so that when we are in a hurry or feeling lazy we can just pop that in the oven instead of being tempted to eat out or order pizza.
I use cloth diapers on my baby. The modern cloth diapers are completely different than what your mother or grandmother used, so check them out! We have figured out that our stash of one-size-fits-all diapers will pay for themselves by the time our first child is 6 months old!
I hang our laundry out to dry to save on the electric bill. Also the sun does amazing things for getting stains out and keeping whites WHITE!
I open all of our blinds during the day instead of turning on lights to help keep our electric bill low.
I make my own laundry detergent. We save about 90% in laundry detergent costs. And it's only about 20 minutes worth of work for 52 loads worth of laundry detergent.
I cut my husband's hair. We considered it an investment to purchase a nice pair of clippers and then put an ad on craigslist for a professional hairdresser to come out to our house and teach us how. We got some friends in on the fun, and then were able to split the cost of what we paid the hairdresser and they all got to learn how to cut hair too! It worked great.
We have friends over for dinner several nights per week. Since I don't have a car to be able to leave the house during the day, this is my social interaction. I'm happy to cook for our friends and then watch TV or play games afterwards and the cost of cooking for lots of people is far less expensive then going out to eat just one evening a week would be. We get several nights worth of entertainment for probably about the cost of my husband and I to go to the movies once.
