We have done a few things during the second half of the year that has saved us a lot of money each month, that has in turn allowed us to invest more.

1] We started getting home food delivery. Mainly consists of all meats, frozen stuff like corn and other veggies, potatoes like hash browns and french fries, frozen lunch things like pizza to take to work. All we buy now is milk (6 gallons or so and freeze all but one at a time), pasta, canned goods, bread, things like that. Basically what it has done id kept us out of the grocery store and cut sone on "impulse" buys. So far, we have cut our food bill by $200 a month.

2] The Subaru (ScoobyDoo) I bought. My truck took about $50 a week to fill up, the Subaru is $20 every week and a half. That saves about $120 to $140 a month. Not to mention the wear and tear on my truck.

3] The wood buring stove. Our propane bill was about $2500 last winter. I installed a new wood burning stove the first of October and got a little over a cord of wood for $75. I cut the wood ans split it in an afternoon (chainsaw and homemade gas powered splitter). So far we have gone through about $70 worth of our wood. The propane truck came today, and it only took $38 to fill the tank! For the same time frame last year, it was $450. I haven't figured up the actual savings yet, taking into account the cost of the stove broken down over the months it will be used, but it is safe to assume that once it has paid for itself, the savings will be around $2100 a year.

Needless to say, our investments have seen a resurgence of money flowing in. I can't wait to see what the next year does to our investments with the added comtributions!