3 Ways to Reduce the Financial Burden of Living Away from Home

Living away from home can put added stress on your financial situation especially if your family frequently contributed to your entertainment. No longer are family members treating you to dinner out or at their home. Mom and Dad are not conveniently saying “My treat.” If you continue to exchange gifts, you are now paying for shipping and if you decide to nix the gift exchanges, you might find yourself buying more presents to fill in the gaps for your children.
There are many other ways living away from your family can cost more. If you generally use your father, uncle, or brother as a handy man to make minor repairs in your home, they are no longer an option. If you find yourself stranded with car trouble, your family members cannot be the ones to come to your aid.
Here are some ideas to reduce the financial stress of living away from your family.
AAA or other car club

If you have a car, join an auto club. While it won't offer you any type of social benefits it can potentially save you thousands of dollars in towing fees if you should find yourself stranded while traveling.
AAA.com is just one option available to you. Aside from offering towing and lockout service AAA offers a variety of travel discounts and trip planning services which may come in handy when traveling back to visit your family.
GM Motor club is very similar to AAA but does not limit the amount of miles you can have your car towed. Other places to look for motor clubs are your car insurance and your cell phone companies.

Good budgeting

Budgeting skills are good for any family and there are many resources to help you gain these resources. Finding ways to live below and within your means will do wonders to reduce or prevent the stress of financial worries.
David Ramsey's Financial Peace University is offered online at the Dave Ramsey website however taking the class in person may also help you meet other people and eventually meet some of your social needs.

Thrifty Living

There are a lot of blogs out there to help you stay thrifty as well. One of my favorites is GroceryShrink.com The writer of that blog, Angela Coffman has a lot of practice being thrifty and teaches others how to do the same through her blog. When you read and comment on blogs such as these you can build yourself a virtual community of people who are also motivated to live a thrifty lifestyle.
These three steps should help your life away from your core family a little easier financially. More ideas on how survive child-rearing when you live far from home can be found in my book Make Your Own Village available through Amazon.com and at my website MyParentingCoach.com