My husband is proposing radical budget cuts and I do mean radical! He read an article about a couple that didn’t spend any money for 1 year other than rent, utilities and food. Their estimated spend avoidance was $36,000. A very tidy sum.

You’d think being a financial blogger that I would happily jump on board but I haven’t. To say that I hesitate is putting it mildly…I don’t want to give up cable/internet, recreation or travel. I totally support restraint and frugality and willingly cut out treats (coffee out), adjust our menu, reduce meals out, slash the clothes and stuff spending, change our vacations to local car trip and family-stay-style but I don’t want to cancel Thanksgiving in the Okanagan with the family or miss out on playing soccer or field hockey this season (my knee has just been fixed!). We have two kids and they keep growing out of their clothes and want to play soccer.

Rather than saying ‘no way’, I plan to look at our previous years’ spending to see where we have opportunities to ‘slash’ our budget without missing out on the things I think are important. Let’s see if I can put some game rules in play that will work for the household. We have a big trip to save for and this will be a great way to do it.