I mentioned in a previous post that I was doing a “Low Buy July” challenge.

Here’s how it’s going…

You can say that this challenge came at a right time as I was already looking at my fiances since I had cut down my hour at work [due to my knee].

I talked about limiting coffee and dine outs, but there were some other things I noticed in my bank statements that I knew I wanted to get rid of.

There were a couple of subscriptions that I decided to cancel including YouTube Premium. As a fitness instructor, it’s nice to just have all the playlists set and no ads.

I know some instructors use Spotify, but for me YouTube Premium was the most user friendly. That subscription was $11.99 a month.

I decided to just take the few minutes each week to set my playlist and download the music to my phone. It’s SUPER tedious but I usually do a set playlist for 3-4 weeks anyway for my classes.

Why not just take those few minutes to save that money?

Between that service and the two other services I cut, it was almost $30. Now it may not seem like much, but overtime that does add up.

Think about it; in a year it’s almost $350.

I’m a couple of weeks in and have been doing great. I’m thinking twice about my “impulse” spends and learning to take MORE advantage of free/ inexpensive activities to do with the kiddos.

Here’s a perfect example: there was one day that it was really hot and I was going to take the kids to gymnastics open play. I saw that the cost went up from $10 to $12 per child and took a step back to think for an alternative activity. I asked them if they wanted to do ice cream and the library.

They were super excited by the idea, which obviously melted my heart.

I already had ice cream at home for them plus the fixings (cones, sprinkles and M&M minis). Instead of spending $36, I just had to spend a bit of gas and was able to use what I had at home + do a free activity.

I still got to enjoy my time with them as well; probably even more honestly.

So, that’s where I’m currently at.

And you know I’m here… taking it one day at a time.-Sabs