Better on a Budget Mama

 It's been a while, and for that I apologize! I have a lot of content soon on its way however, so get ready! ;) Here we are, in October - halfway through October, actually. Holy cow, this year has been the longest year ever but at the same time I can't believe how quickly we're approaching the holiday season! NOW is the time to prepare, if you haven't already. Let's make these holidays memorable and awesome without breaking the budget! It really just takes planning.  How do you organize your holiday spending? Does it go on the credit card? According to a poll done last year, 61% of Americans with credit card debt are willing to go deeper into debt for the holidays . Eeek! With everything that has happened around the world since then, I wonder how much that number will have changed for this year. My hope is that it's down.  If you're looking to be more purposeful about your holiday spending this year, read on for some ways you can do so.  START SAVING EARLY L

I know, the title is...weird. Usually you see a post with a specific number included: "40 ways to save money on groceries!" Or, "10 ways you can save on car insurance!"  This is my running list of ways that I've found to save in ALL areas over the years, so I will be adding to it on a regular basis. That kinda kicks out the specific detail as well as the number. Who knows, maybe I'll make an effort to organize the list into categories...maybe not, ha ha! In the meantime, enjoy this rather random list of ways you can save money in your life. Food & Groceries: Eat out less - shocking, right? I'm not saying to get rid of eating out altogether...but you know, maybe cut back a little or a lot. It depends on you and your situation. Meal plan, meal plan, meal plan. Plan what you will eat for the week based on what you've already got in the pantry. Then you can shop based on what's on sale and stock up on those good deals. Cut the coffee, or make it

June was a pretty intense month for us, financially speaking.  We made some big changes and decisions. We of course made plenty of small changes too, because those most certainly add up! If you're looking for some ideas, check out what we did and see if any of it may apply to you: Completed home refinance, taking 4 years off our loan and dropping the interest by over 2%. (long term savings) Paid off $2,940 of debt (just over $2,000 to go!) Turned off speakers/monitor on the computer when not in use...every time. I kept my showers to 1 song...every time (around 3-5 minutes). I wasn't able to convince the kids/spouse of the virtues of this. 😂 Took advantage of an end of month sale at our local Co-op. Spent $120, but ended up getting over $1,000 retail worth of product! Because they had cleared up their invoices for the month, they offered a $1 per item blowout on a bunch of different items. We got $520 worth of all natural meat sticks alone. I love when I can find deals on more

Let's talk money goals. Most people who set goals/resolutions each year have some sort of financial goal on their list. Were you one of them? If so, the year is nearly halfway over - it's probably time to take stock of where you were, where you are now, and what you can to do stay on track. One goal I set was to pay off our remaining consumer debt - $10,481.00 What goals, financially or otherwise, did you set? Share if you feel comfortable. Then take stock. Where are you at? What more do you need to do? In the interest of transparency, let me share my update: As of today, we have paid off $7,396.31. Our remaining debt balance is $3,084.69. I do believe we're going to make it! It hasn't been easy. We've had things come up, including cut income due to the current situation. We've also had some unexpected expenses, and unexpected blessings! Such is life, right? So...here's the skinny: In January we paid $974.76 to debt. I basically used every penny (except fo

Hey there, friends! 2020 is the year that I've dubbed Visions Realized...since you know, 20/20 is perfect vision. I'm so clever (not really). Last year I joined a local group in a savings challenge: to build an emergency fund of at least $1,000. I was able to complete it and have continued adding to that savings, but I also had another goal I didn't talk about a ton: to lower our consumer debt. We started 2019 with $20,000 of debt. Yikes! Between car loans, medical bills, unexpected home repairs, and just plain too much purchasing, we had gotten into a nasty place, and I wanted out. I'm very happy to say that we were able to cut that number in half.  Yay!  That brings me to this year's goal: get rid of the debt completely! Now, we had some crazy advantages that helped us last year that will not be present this year. My husband's company did a one-time extra bonus last year, and that knocked off a little over $1,000 for us. My daughter was also hit by

First things first:  Happy New Year!! I am dubbing 2020 as the year of visions realized. Perfect vision is considered 20/20, after all, right? More about that later... In the meantime, I wanted to share an experience I had last month (with tips at the end). I had an awesome opportunity to join KSL NewsRadio's Dave and Dujanovic show segment titled " Right On the Money " a few times near the end of 2019. They started a $1,000 emergency savings challenge, based on the statistic they had found showing that over 50% of Americans DON'T have at least $1,000 in an emergency savings fund.  I love a good financial challenge, and any excuse to motivate me to up my game is something I want in on, so I joined in. I reached the $1,000 in just a few months, and then life happened, as it does, so I had to start back from almost $0. In the end, I was able to make it happen, and during the Christmas show they had me on to talk for just a few minutes about how I did it.