Ebay and cutting costs

My auctions ended Sunday and 27 of the 28 items I had listed sold for a total of $384. That's a bit more than I expected. So after ebay and Paypal fees I should still be able to pay off two small bills with the money and still have $25 left over for a little reward for me. Hee! It always feels good to write a check to pay off something for good. I've got another stack of items to list tomorrow that will hopefully bring in a few hundred dollars as well.

We got the electric bill a couple of days ago. It had dropped $49 from last month, thankfully. Probably would have been even more of a drop but we had some unseasonably HOT weather a couple of weeks ago. It's getting down in the low 40s here at night now, but for the most part I'm holding off turning on the heater. I did turn it on briefly the other night around 4:30 a.m. because it was just a bit TOO chilly, but it was only on for 15 minutes or so and hasn't been back on since. I open all the blinds on the windows facing the sun during the day to get some warmth inside after the chilly nights. I'd love to have an electric bill below $200 next month because I know once the cold weather is here to stay this winter, it will be much harder to keep the bill low. Of all my monthly bills, the only two I have any power to lower are the electric bill and groceries -- everything else is pretty much the same amount each month. So these are the two I focus on the most.

I bought some baseball card sheets at Wal-Mart and have begun the process of organizing my clipped coupons into my spiffy turquoise binder. It will be so much easier when I know where to find everything I need before hitting the stores. Also need to organize all of my Sunday inserts. I have a huge pile dating back to July, so I'm going to store them by month in an accordian file.

It may be a bit early to start this as I'm still stockpiling, but I want to try the envelope system for my groceries starting Nov. 1. I'll start with a bit of a higher amount, but ultimately I want to get it down to $50 per week. There are four of us to feed, plus the cat and dog, but I know that it is VERY attainable. I've seen countless blogs of families, some larger than mine, eating on $50 or less per week. No reason why we can't do the same.