$350

How would your life change if you took a $350/month cut in pay? Would it impact your daily life? If so, then how? That's what we're figuring out around here today. Tim got his first paycheck for this school year yesterday and it was $350 less than last year's checks. For the last two years some employees have been given a bit of an extra workload, but that's gone due to some restructuring of programs.

Before I go on, let me tell you that I'm not in a panic. In fact, I'm feeling a little excited to take on the challenge. We have a $1000 emergency fund we can access, several hundred dollars left from Tim's summer school income, and upcoming checks for Tim's basketball officiating. So, we'll have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. That takes a lot of pressure off. We are not "in need". However, I want to use as little as possible of that money. I'd rather learn to live within our new income than to dip into money that we're planning to use for paying off that stupid school debt.

I'm pretty open about money stuff, so I'll tell you how this is playing out around here. In order to pay all bills, we will have -$140. We will not have money for our flex funds, such as entertainment, gifts, clothing, etc. The plan for now is to use some of the summer income to get through this month, but have a new plan in place for next month.

You know we've been working hard to make extra payments toward school debt, so we could earn $100 back by dropping our payment back to the required amount. That prospect doesn't excite me because I hate debt, but it's an option.

We could ditch the cell phones and get a landline. However, we wouldn't really see a savings there for a while as we'd have connection fees for setting up the land line and penalties for breaking our cell phone contract.

So, do you want to help me brainstorm ways to cut costs? We're pretty frugal to start with, so I'm having a hard time coming up with new ideas. Most people can afford to cut costs a little in some area, so let's see what we can come up with as a group.

* Turn the heat down and put on more clothes. We generally keep the house cool during the winter, but last year I turned into a whiner and kept it up far more often than usual. That was the worst financial decision I made all year. When it came time to recalculate our equal payment plan our bill got raised $70/month. Yikes! Of course, I won't let us freeze to death and we always turn the heat up when guests are here, but otherwise sweatshirts and blankets will be our best friends again.

* Turn off lights. Don't let your home become gloomy, but don't pay to have it look like broad daylight in every room all day long. Use small lamps instead of overhead lights, don't leave lights on in rooms where there are no people, etc.

* Watch the water. Turn off the water while you lather up in the shower and while you brush your teeth. Use the leftover water in someone's glass to water a plant. Fill the bottom of the sink with an inch or two of water and use that for rinsing dirty dishes instead of doing it under a running faucet. I love, love, love showers that are long and scalding hot. Of course, that makes my skin completely dry out, so I only shower every two days. I'd rather have a perfect shower less often than a mediocre one every day. I'm going to cut back my shower time though.

* Beans and rice. We already eat these things regularly, but I'll probably add more to the menu. They are inexpensive, healthy, and filling.

* Hot cereal. We also eat a lot of oatmeal and 7-grain, but we'll eat more for the same reasons as the beans and rice. We serve them with brown sugar, homemade freezer jam, applesauce, or a hot cereal sauce I have on my recipe blog. I also make crockpot granola and will start doing it more often.

And that's all I have for now.

So, tell me how a $350 dock in pay would play out in your neck of the woods? And how would you stretch your dollar? Even if I already do the things you suggest, they'll probably be helpful to someone else.

And one more time, just for the record, we're fine. We have enough money to live off of. We simply need to do some rearranging of things.