Christmas is December 25th again! It's coming. There are 5 months of budgeting before Christmas strikes, so if you haven't already started your Christmas sinking fund, now is the time! The thing that gets tricky about budgeting for Christmas is you don't just need to budget for gifts. This is where we usually get tripped … Continue reading Start a Christmas Sinking Fund Right Now!
If you haven't read Our $90,000 Turnaround, here's the quick breakdown. In 2012, my husband and I had $60,000 in student loans (mine) to repay. We wanted to pay them back in 5 years and ended up doing it in 3 1/2! Shortly after that, we bought a car with cash, saved up our emergency fund, … Continue reading Weird Things We Did to Get out of Debt
Beyond all of the advice we got from Dave Ramsey, finance books, articles, etc, there was one thing we did while getting out of debt that was a game-changer for us. When we first started budgeting, I would get a little stressed out having to budget every 2 weeks or guessing as to what our … Continue reading Our Biggest Budgeting Secret
If you're ready to start tackling your debt, the first step is getting them all gathered and on paper. This free Debt Inventory worksheet will help you get started!
So, when I first started learning about budgeting and getting control of my money, I kept hearing the term "zero-based budget." According to daveramsey.com “zero-based budgeting is a way of budgeting where your income minus your expenses equals zero.” I could not, for the life of me, figure out how you were supposed to save … Continue reading Zero-Based Budget Explained {quick and simple}
In the world of budgeting, sinking funds are probably my favorite thing. Before beginning our debt free journey, bills would come due or we would need to buy propane or Christmas would show up unexpectedly, and we'd be scrambling to find money to pay for the crisis of the moment. Once we found sinking funds, … Continue reading Sinking Funds & Savings Account Management {plus a tracking spreadsheet}
Arguments over money are the single biggest friction in all relationships. Sometimes I think money harmony is a bigger imperative than any other. How we spend money may be the greatest physical manifestation of our value system than anything else in our lives. it's the ultimate visceral expression of our beliefs. {Joel Salatin Your Successful Farm … Continue reading The Best Way to Avoid Money Fights
I have no idea how we did our finances before starting a budget. We started budgeting our money after taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace class in 2014, and as a result were able to pay off my student loan debt fairly quickly after kind of treading water for a few years. You can read part … Continue reading Budgeting for Beginners
If you missed the first post in this series, you can check out Top 6 Tips to Help You Get out of Debt! When we started paying off debt, our WHY was two-fold. We didn't want to be dependent on lenders for the things we wanted, and we wanted to be able to go to one … Continue reading We’ll Never Borrow Money Again {except for a house…maybe}
My husband and I paid off $60,000 of student loan debt in 3.5 years. How did we do it? We worked. We worked hard. I've seen people talk about paying off debt, and it seems like they want to find a magic bullet or get creative. The reality is, if you want financial freedom, you have … Continue reading Top 6 Tips to Help You Get out of Debt
The Simple Girl's Guide 