Budgeting HELP!!

Hi all, I was wondering if you could throw some budgeting tips my way.. Here is a little bit about my situation. I moved in with my sister who is a grad student to "help" with some of the bills and rent. Well, her loans seem to always come late which means I end up paying for the majority of the bills. Its starting to get hard on me. I went back to school for my bachelor's degree (took loans out for that) and will be taking some extra classes at a community college in order to get my prereq's for the nursing program which I have to pay out of my own pocket. At this time work helps me with my bachelors in business. I've cut out a lot of ATM withdrawls, and don't use credit cards anymore. And let myself go have fun when needed..
I'm also trying to pay of credit cards and save $$ for the future. I was wondering off the bat if there were any good money saving tips? I'm getting rid of my cable because well due to being in school I don't watch that much tv anymore, that will save me about an extra $100 a month. I thought about getting a cheaper car as well. But that needs some more thought then just going and doing it. How about groceries? Anyways on saving for those? I need lil things that will add up... Just thought this may be a good place to start asking.

[migirl]

I'm told that planning a week's worth of meals at a time and doing your grocery shopping from a comprehensive list is the best way to budget food.

I do this and it works very well for us. I sit down on Sundays (before I do my grocery shopping for the week) and plan out a week's worth of meals. Then I make a grocery list based on the ingredients I'll need. I also try my best to plan meals based on what I'll have for ingredients for other meals, does that make sense? Like if I'm buying a bunch of broccoli, I know I'll use half of it for a side dish one day but then I'll also plan to throw the rest into a pasta dish for later in the week. This forces me to stick my list and also makes my trips to the store a lot quicker since I know exactly what I need. I also clip coupons like crazy, watch the store ad papers for sales, and buy store brands whenever possible. I always try to buy large quantities of nonperishables that I know I'll use whenever they go on sale (things like cereal, pasta), and then just keep them in the pantry or basement until I need them; same for meat since it's so expensive, when it goes on sale I buy a ton and then just freeze it. DH makes fun of me because we have about 25 boxes of cereal in the basement right now, but I don't care because I saved a ton of money on it! I pack my lunch every day (DH gets a lunch allowance at the hospital), and we eat out only one dinner per week. Some weeks our grocery bill for the two of us is only $20. 8O

I'll have to think about some other tips and post them later.

Some weeks our grocery bill for the two of us is only $20.

Wow! I'm impressed!

A lot of good suggestions here. Are you using public transportation to get to work? If so, or if you plan to start, check with your car insurer about rates for driving less miles per year (usually less than 7,500 or 10,000 miles, I think). If there are things you can't get rid of, you might be able to cut back -- like the car, a cell phone plan, the cable, that sort of thing.
I heartily second the idea of contributing to your 401(k) and maxing out your employer's contribution if you aren't already. It's free money and you are essentially giving yourself a raise when you sign up for it.
I have found it helpful to go back through a few months of credit card statements and checkbook register to see where money is going and develop a monthly budget based off of that. You could also try this with the cash envelope "system". At the beginning of the month (or pay period), you put your budgeted amount of cash in each envelope (ex: grocery, coffee, parking, etc envelopes). Once the cash is gone, that's it -- no more until next month and you don't overspend. It really helped us get our budget back on track.
Keep track of the tuition that you are paying for as it might be tax deductible. I think it is the lifetime learning credit or hope tax credit. ?? Worth checking into.
And your sister is paying you back, right?

I also plan my meals based on what coupons I have and what's on sale in the weekly ads. I actually rarely buy anything in a grocery store that isn't on sale. With the sales and coupons, I usually can save about 35-40% off of my weekly grocery bill. And I also rarely ever buy frozen foods because it's so expensive and I usually don't like the taste.

I love farmer's markets. They tend to be quite a bit less than the grocery stores and their fruits & veggies are usually much fresher.

The only thing I buy at grocery stores is food. I buy other household items, like cleaners, kitty litter, paper towels, etc. from either Costco or Target since their prices are so much lower.

What really helped with my budgeting is that my husband and I now use Microsoft Money to keep track of our bank accounts. It is really easy to keep track of our expenses in there and you can set up a food budget, clothing budget, gas budget, etc. so as you start getting near your budget for the month, the program will notify you.

When we eat out, we just order water instead of sodas. That can save at least 20% off of our bill and it's much healthier. We love to order pizza once a week, so we usually order a large for $2 more so that we can get an extra meal or two out of it and I use the pizza coupons we get in the mail. We also use Entertainment Book coupons for dining out. Since we preorder our Entertainment Book each year, we get it for $15 and it has tons of buy one, get one coupons for different restaurants in our town. Over the course of a year, I would say that book saves us well over $200 on dining out.

I love hearing everyone else's suggestions!

Erica

Thanks guys, it really is hard for me but I need to do it. My sister will pay me back "eventually" when she gets her loans. Which frustrates the heck out of me. I'll start doing the meal planning, I'm bad at learning how to use multiple grocery items for meals. But if I sit down I can do it.
I do the 401K thing @ work so that is good. Thanks for everyone's tips thus far..

[SueC]

I just started something new for groceries which seems to be helping. I subscribed to a meal planning thing ($9.95 for 3 months worth of menus, I don't plan to subscribe again, I'll just re-use the menus again). It is SavingDinner.com--anyhow, you can choose dinners for 6 or 2 and they also have low carb options. It plans 6 meals and includes a shopping list. When I shopped off of that list, I saved quite a bit of money, and so far the meals are really good. Anyhow, just a thought.