How is your job being affected right now?

[paintmered]

Try doing your grocery shopping at Aldi.

That's a good call no matter your financial situation.

[Roy Tucker]

Eat at home and don’t waste food.

[RedsfaninMT]

What's this A/C thing some of you are speaking of? Heating, now THAT'S something I can relate to. Supposed to dump 5" Saturday (after being 60 tomorrow).

For us, we've not eaten out/carry out since I was ordered home on March 11. Every scrap of food leftover from the night before goes into the next day's meal. I'm lucky in that I still have a job and can easily do phone calls from home to supporters...face-to-face meetings are done for awhile.

And Doug, don't go without car insurance. You drive a car, have insurance, at least liability.

[Slyder]

PM me any details you can share. I live in the Parkersburg area.

sent.

[westofyou]

What's this A/C thing some of you are speaking of? Heating, now THAT'S something I can relate to. Supposed to dump 5" Saturday (after being 60 tomorrow).

For us, we've not eaten out/carry out since I was ordered home on March 11. Every scrap of food leftover from the night before goes into the next day's meal. I'm lucky in that I still have a job and can easily do phone calls from home to supporters...face-to-face meetings are done for awhile.

And Doug, don't go without car insurance. You drive a car, have insurance, at least liability.

AC... haven’t needed it since I moved west, saves a bundle every summer

My wife won’t do carry out during this, so we’ve probably saved more money than usual because of that

[Roy Tucker]

When I had 3 children and a wife at home and I was a sole breadwinner, we rarely ate out and I was a Nazi about not wasting food. Menus were planned and nary a speck was wasted. After the kids grew up and moved out and my wife started working, we relaxed all that. But since we’ve all been home, we moved back into that mode. A pork loin gets cooked and part of it gets eaten that night, the next night some of it goes into a frittata, next day or so it gets shredded for sandwiches etc etc. I can really be a cheap ass bastard if I want. I’m well-practiced.

[westofyou]

When I had 3 children and a wife at home and I was a sole breadwinner, we rarely ate out and I was a Nazi about not wasting food. Menus were planned and nary a speck was wasted. After the kids grew up and moved out and my wife started working, we relaxed all that. But since we’ve all been home, we moved back into that mode. A pork loin gets cooked and part of it gets eaten that night, the next night some of it goes into a frittata, next day or so it gets shredded for sandwiches etc etc. I can really be a cheap ass bastard if I want. I’m well-practiced.

Yep, me too. I never made any money until my mid thirties, thus I never fell into having expensive tastes and I learned how to cook. If you can cook and entertain yourself you are going to save tat extra cash over the long run

[BernieCarbo]

When I had 3 children and a wife at home and I was a sole breadwinner, we rarely ate out and I was a Nazi about not wasting food. Menus were planned and nary a speck was wasted. After the kids grew up and moved out and my wife started working, we relaxed all that. But since we’ve all been home, we moved back into that mode. A pork loin gets cooked and part of it gets eaten that night, the next night some of it goes into a frittata, next day or so it gets shredded for sandwiches etc etc. I can really be a cheap ass bastard if I want. I’m well-practiced.

We never went out either, and even now we rarely buy a meal in a restaurant. It is so easy to cook great meals at home, and if we do go out, we'd much rather go some place and sit outside with bottle of wine and listen to music instead. And now, there are a lot of places that just charge retail for a bottle of wine plus $5 corkage instead of the restaurant markup of 300%.

My butcher friend gets a lot of customers who come in for a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine for dinner, and they end up with a meal every bit as good as Jeff Ruby's or Ruth Chris at an eighth of the price. I think this will turn out to be a good time for direct to consumer producers.

[NachoMan]

My wife's company laid off a bunch of their entry-level people. She says they start at $50k salary, so from what I can tell, most will be getting a pay bump from current unemployment.

With the additional $600 per week in unemployment until July 31, they'll pull in about $1000 a week, payroll tax free. Plus at least one stimulus check, probably more.

[dougdirt]

What's this A/C thing some of you are speaking of? Heating, now THAT'S something I can relate to. Supposed to dump 5" Saturday (after being 60 tomorrow).

For us, we've not eaten out/carry out since I was ordered home on March 11. Every scrap of food leftover from the night before goes into the next day's meal. I'm lucky in that I still have a job and can easily do phone calls from home to supporters...face-to-face meetings are done for awhile.

And Doug, don't go without car insurance. You drive a car, have insurance, at least liability.

I definitely wasn't going to cut off car insurance - that's illegal. But I was thinking of dropping my coverage quite a bit.

Food wise, I don't think I've eaten food from somewhere that wasn't prepared in my kitchen since February? Even when things were right, I'd only eat out maybe once a week.

Air conditioning is a bit tougher - though I fully understand what you're saying because of your location. I've got asthma, so there are times, starting soon, when the combination of humidity and heat make it tougher for me to breath - air conditioning solves that. It's one of those things where I can't just "tough it out" by utilizing fans/curtains/shade - AC is kind of an actual life saver during the year for me. Right now, it's not an issue. But soon enough it will be.

[BernieCarbo]

I definitely wasn't going to cut off car insurance - that's illegal. But I was thinking of dropping my coverage quite a bit.

Food wise, I don't think I've eaten food from somewhere that wasn't prepared in my kitchen since February? Even when things were right, I'd only eat out maybe once a week.

Air conditioning is a bit tougher - though I fully understand what you're saying because of your location. I've got asthma, so there are times, starting soon, when the combination of humidity and heat make it tougher for me to breath - air conditioning solves that. It's one of those things where I can't just "tough it out" by utilizing fans/curtains/shade - AC is kind of an actual life saver during the year for me. Right now, it's not an issue. But soon enough it will be.

No one suggested not using AC. But shades and blinds will make it work less and save electricity (the R value of a homes applies to AC as much as heat). Also, isolating rooms by closing vents and doors when AC is rarely needed (assuming you have central air) saves a lot.

[westofyou]

If I lived in Ohio I'd be using AC, I lived in a house with no AC summer of 1988 and it was brutal

[dougdirt]

No one suggested not using AC. But shades and blinds will make it work less and save electricity (the R value of a homes applies to AC as much as heat). Also, isolating rooms by closing vents and doors when AC is rarely needed (assuming you have central air) saves a lot.

Oh, for sure - I understood that. I just kind of expanded on the whole thing since I was talking about it. I'm trying to limit it as much as I can right now - and it's going well. I'm just also saying out loud that I will only be able to do so for so long, too, because my body wants to betray me in a lot of ways.

[goreds2]

We have a NuWave Oven, Air Fryer, Pressure cooker and Hot Logic Mini. These make it more easier to cook plus make it more fun to make meals at home. These save on electricity compared to the big appliance stove and oven.

[vaticanplum]

Doug, I heard that AllState is reducing insurance premiums by 15% now since nobody's driving. It's not a ton, but it's something. Call your auto insurance and see if they can cut you a deal or lessen your coverage, as you mentioned.

A water bill is usually a place where you can cut costs too. Stretch out your laundry, wash dishes instead of using the dishwasher if you have one, and not to be gross, but there's no reason to shower every day unless you exercise/sweat excessively.

My cooking's definitely gotten very creative. The other day I mixed up sauteed canned sardines, ricotta, and cooked frozen peas, put it on grilled bread, and topped with dried dill. It looked disgusting but was actually delicious. There was a period of my life where I had a food budget of $1.39 a day (and a much longer period when it was more than that, but not much), and it's totally doable, if not probably the best diet for years at a time... Also, alcohol is expensive. If you drink, I'd never recommend giving it up right now, but find out what you drink slowest. I drink wine much slower than I drink liquor or beer. The liquor stores in Pennsylvania are closed and that'll teach you to ration your alcohol real fast