Perhaps you’ve looked into alternative products or service and they won’t meet your needs. Perhaps you’ve already cut back to the minimum use on that product or service. Perhaps there are only a few providers in the first place for that item.

Brian J. O’Connor, who is writing The Grand Experiment cost-cutting series for the Detroit News, ran into that situation with speech therapy expenses for his son:

The other big budget item devoted to my boy is untouchable: speech therapy. Li’l Money could also be nick-named Li’l Talker, because of a severe language delay. He’s been diagnosed as a late talker, and his speech development will catch up — but only with a lot of help.

That includes private speech therapy, specialists and consultants, as well as a $190-an-hour special education attorney who has had to help us keep some specialists from making the common – but harmful — mistake of pushing a late talker into programs for autism.

None of it comes cheap, and none of it is covered by insurance.

But Brian did figure out how to save money through the method he uses to pay for that speech therapy. He can set up a Flexible Spending Account to pay for the eligible medical expenses, which results in savings on his tax bill.

I have used FSA myself for many years. Yes, there is paperwork and hassle involved. But if your employer offers it, do look at the list of the eligible expenses to see how it would work for you.

The bigger point is: be as resourceful as you can on a particular expense, and then look for savings in other directions in your family budget.

As Brian’s series shows, you will likely have to take multiple cost-saving steps throughout your family budget in order to noticeably improve cash flow.

A snippet:

After you’ve set your bottom-line figure, go to about.com and type in “holiday gift spending budget worksheet” and “holiday spending worksheet.” Use the gift worksheet to list each recipient and a spending limit. Keep the list with you when you shop. If you go over budget on one person, cut back on another.

Did you remember all the extra expenses that come up that time of year?

Life Off the Shelf has a good list at A Simple, Frugal Christmas Part III.

He’s attempting to cut $1,000 a month from his family’s budget.

Here’s the news story.

Here’s his twitter feed.

This could be fun to watch.

The money comes in. The money goes out. Basic needs are always taken care of. There’s enough to take on enough “extras” that nobody feels deprived. Nobody knows exactly how the cash flow works, but somehow it does, and so that’s the extent of the discussion.

But families who are on tight budgets, for whatever reason, cannot afford to be complacent about the details. It will take research, time and organization on your part to make the finances work.

First, you need to avoid late fees, bounced checks, payroll advances, credit card charges and personal loans much as possible. There are too many long-term financial problems that can result from those situations. You need to track and plan your finances so well that you don’t need to do these things. As a practical matter when you are getting started on organizing your finance, or when you are getting overwhelmed by a loss of income, set a goal to not do those things “this month.”

Second, you need to be prepared take advantage of the programs, services and opportunities that are available to families right in your own community. There are a lot of ways you can stretch whatever funds you do have, and some of them are available to anyone of any income level. But if you miss a deadline, or ignore the paperwork details, or don’t show up at the appointed time, you won’t earn those savings or be eligible for that program.

Here are some of the things you need to be doing:

• Track your spending. It doesn’t matter whether you use a paper accounting system, a computer program or a spreadsheet. But you absolutely need to know where that money is going. I hate all the time that is involved with putting paycheck information and expenses into a Quicken program – but it’s the most effective way I’ve found for us to track our finances. If you can’t account to the penny (very few people do write down every vending machine candy bar purchase), then discuss with your spouse what is a reasonable cushion for unaccountable funds each month.
• Run a comparison of your actual expenses against your actual income. If someone in the family is unemployed, has been on furlough or temporary layoff, sent into early retirement, took a pay cut, lost hours on their part-time job, etc., you need to calculate the numbers for what that means for annual income. If the year’s finances are an overwhelming unknown, then take a detailed look at the next two to three months. Do your family expenses still fit in with the income? If not, you need to back down your family expenses accordingly and / or postpone some plans.
• Set aside places for important financial documents and receipts. All of our medical receipts go in a plastic accordion file. All of my daughter’s college financial aid paperwork is placed in a manila envelope, marked with the date of each school year. The bills are kept in a pile separate from the event notices and invitations. The tax records are in a fireproof box. I have an “in box” for all the receipts to be kept before I put them in the Quicken database. We know where to find those papers and documents when they are needed. You might be surprised just how short of a notice you will have to pin down a detail such as “What is your household income?”
• Use a binder to hold your shopping lists and fliers. You probably have a no-longer needed binder that sitting around your home or office that can be recycled for this use. Those of you who follow the FlyLady housekeeping system already have a household binder. Some of you keep your coupons in your binder. Add this to your binder: your grocery shopping list, the household project shopping list if that is separate (I did that in preparation for our last move), all of the grocery and drugstore fliers for stores you might shop at during the week, and all of the rebate catalogs or fliers you are tracking.
• Set up a separate binder for special needs. My husband keeps all of his unemployment insurance benefits instructions, phone numbers and notes in a separate packet. When we had an exchange student in the home last year, all of her documents and paperwork were in its own binder. When my ex-husband was deployed to Iraq with the Army, any insurance and benefits information my daughter might need to access, and information about military discounts that she qualified for, were in its own binder. You might also want a separate binder for each child where you can put things such as after-school activity information packets.
• Use the family calendar to help with your financial details. It doesn’t matter whether this is on paper or on computer or on a white board. You need to keep track of things such as early bird registration deadlines, tuition and bill due dates, special opportunities such as giveway promotions and free community events, paydays and unemployment benefit payment dates, unpaid days off and deadlines to use up medical benefits.

“Money Matters,” a free program for the public that discusses budgeting and tips for cutting costs and saving money, is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28 at the Ellis Reference & Information Center of the Monroe County Library System, 3700 S. Custer Rd., Monroe.

The program is part of MBTeach, a series of financial literacy sessions presented by Monroe Bank & Trust. For more information, call (734) 384-8269.

No Credit Needed has this post How to create a zero-based budget.

A snippet:

Your goal is to create a scenario where total income minus total expenses will equal zero.

If you subtract expenses from income, and you get a negative number, you need to decrease the amount you have allocated for expenses.  Consider decreasing non-essential categories, like eating out or entertainment.

If you subtract expenses from income and you get a positive, you need to decrease the amount you have allocated for expenses, savings contributions, or debt reduction.  Consider allocating more for debt reduction or college savings.

The next question is: How much can or should you realistically expect to spend on household and family expenses? I have an analysis based on the cost of living in Monroe, Mich., and an income of about $55,000 at Monroe County median income: What can you spend on what?

Bible Money Matters’ contribution was Doing your first budget.

A snippet:

A lot of people don’t ever get started on a budget because they don’t think they’ll be able to get it right, or that they won’t like what they find.  The truth is you WON’T get it right at first, on average it will take 90-120 days to get your family budget where it needs to be.   Even then it will still be in a constant state of small revisions and updates through monthly budget meetings.

And yes, an accurate annual family budget that accounts for all “unexpected” things such as car repairs, kids’ sports expenses, take-out dinners, etc., will probably require cutting back on expenses somewhere. That’s often why people don’t want to even look at the numbers.

But if you are among those families whose income has been cut back recently for any reason – layoff, unemployment, furlough, pay cut, downsizing, early retirement – you’ve got to at least start tracking your actual expenses and comparing them to what is realistic for your situation.

Do you have a better alternative?

Monroe Church of the Nazarene, 3401 S. Monroe St., will host Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class for 13 Thursdays starting 7 p.m. Jan. 22.

Details and contact information are posted at the MonroeTalks calendar.

MCCC’s schedule skews more to the career skills and small business owner than the typical community education programs, but there is also a variety of fitness, music and art classes.

Announcements of interest include a “senior citizen scholarship” program in that any resident of Monroe County, Mich., age 60 and older qualifies for free or reduced-cost classes depending on details listed in the course schedule.

And on page 36 of the catalog, there is a Basic Home Recordkeeping and Budgeting course. The fee is $39, which is cheaper than some of the other popular home finance programs. The class meets 7 p.m. Thursday March 12 and 19.