Fixed Costs Continue to Rise

I've recently begun to address some of our fixed costs to try to pare them down as much as possible.

Unfortunately, it seems that we are fighting a losing battle -- all our efforts have merely kept us in the same place we were a year ago. The chart at the top shows our monthly gas usage for the past year; even though we used about 2/3 the amount of gas for the month of January 2008 than we did for January 2007, it cost us a third more. Our gas bill, which usually runs around $85/month in the wintertime (we live in Tucson and keep the heat around 64 degrees in winter), shot up to $144, 169% of last year's cost. We cut our use by about a third by buying gas-efficient appliances and turning the heat down as much as possible, but we are paying about 2/3 more -- which means the cost of natural gas has doubled in Tucson. This is unbelievably frustrating! Although I suppose, on the brighter side, that it could be worse; if we hadn't upgraded, we'd be paying well over $200/month for gas this winter, which is unheard of in Tucson (our house is only 1200 square feet and we have a brand-new furnace and new gas stove). We usually save money on utilities in winter here, so it's especially hard.

Whether or not this is fuel-related I don't know, but the cost of groceries in Tucson has also skyrocketed. We buy healthy, whole grain bread and usually I don't balk at the cost -- about $2.99/loaf. I tried making the same in a bread maker a few years ago and found I hardly saved any money doing it, and if I counted all the loaves I messed up, well...I was losing a bit in the process. I noticed that my bread went up to $3.29 this summer, which is high but not horrible. Then, just last week, I went to the grocery store and my bread is now $4.29 a loaf! That's a 143% markup in just six months!

This comes just after I started using the Amazon Subscribe and Save Program. Basically, if I order an item to be routinely delivered, I get free shipping plus 20% off. I can choose 1, 2, 3 or 6 month intervals. Since my daughter has extremely sensitive skin, I can't buy a lot of regular soaps or diapers, and it's been killing me to spend $12/pack for non-chlorine diapers when the regular cost $9/pack for about 1 1/2 times as many. I pay close to double; fortunately, the "hippy diapers," as we like to call them, are close to the same price if I buy them in bulk via Amazon. Unfortunately, our savings here are going to pay our expanding grocery bill in other areas. I'm not sure what to do about this, except that maybe it's time to renew that Costco membership and start shopping on the other side of town again.

I will be pulling out the bread machine again. If I can still make a loaf of multi-grain bread for $3, I can save myself over a dollar a loaf now. Other staples have gone up as well. Maybe it's time to pull out my Japanese cookbook and switch to rice?

What are you doing to save money this winter? Leave a comment and share! I need all the help I can get. :)