Thank you to Ramsey Solutions for sponsoring this post. All thoughts, opinions and experiences are 100% mine! That life changing afternoon is still etched in my memory. I sat there anxiously waiting to have THE conversation with my husband that would literally change our financial future. Earlier that day, I had been on the phone…
I’ll never forget the afternoon that I spent on the phone with my credit card company desperately trying to get back money from several fraudulent charges. I was on the phone for hours. When I hung up I knew I just didn’t want my hands tied down anymore like this. My solution was to read…
Thank you to Dave Ramsey’s ELP program for sponsoring this post. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are 100% mine. I still the remember the day that we decided to pursue freedom from debt with everything we had in us. We sat down, looked at all of our expenses and had to…
The number one question people ask me when they hear that my husband and I paid off our $93,000 mortgage, on one income, in under 2 years is what it felt like to walk through the front door of a completely paid for house. The honest answer? Not much different at all. BECAUSE, that wasn’t…
This post was sponsored by Regions Bank I remember when my son was one and we were tackling our $93,000 in mortgage debt with vengeance. Every day became this sort of game for me to see if I could contribute to the household financially, even though I wasn’t bringing in a full-time income for my…
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of BB&T for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine. It’s a new year and that means we are all re-evaluating what we want out of life and even what we want out of our finances in the next 365 days. Regularly, readers write me and…
Thanks to Dave Ramsey Solutions for sponsoring this post. All thoughts and opinions expressed are 100% mine! Budgeting isn’t the easiest of tasks. For some people it’s extremely intimidating, especially if you are a non math lover. Lucky for you we live in the age of some of the most fantastic apps created for budgeting…
Does the idea of saving for retirement overwhelm you? Do you feel like you never have time to focus on your financial future? In today’s podcast I interview Natalie Bacon from The Finance Girl and she gives us some great tips and insight on how to better understand retirement, how to save more efficiently and…
Besides eating healthy and exercise, one of the hardest things in life to stick with is a written budget. Money management is stressful, especially when you don’t feel like you have enough cash to even survive. Each day people are faced with monetary mountains. Do any of these monetary mountains ring a bell with you?…
I think one of the things I used to hate about budgets before I had a REAL one was the idea that budgeting took “FOR-EV-VERRR” (that was for all my Sandlot loving friends out there). I assumed I would spend endless hours trying to figure out where all my money had gone all month from…
There is no doubt that people greatly differ in how they handle their finances. Some people’s plan revolves around paying all their bills using whatever forms of payment they have. There are people who make sure that they never spend more than what is in their bank accounts in cash. Then there are those accountant types…
For all you other frugal loving people out there, one of our favorite shopping days is quickly approaching. Black Friday will be here before we know it! And while your kids and most everyone else is in a turkey-induced coma, you’ll be up with your coffee in hand ready to get every good deal you can…
Have you ever wondered how to make the transition to a stay at home mom? Check out my guest post on one of my favorite blogs, Creative Savings that shows you 6 smart ways to make the transition! These are tips that I learned in my own journey home. Here’s an excerpt from the post: “I still…
“I’m just barely staying on top of bills right now, much less saving.” This is a really common statement I hear from friends who are struggling between the economy, jobs and various situations that life has thrown at them. I was this way for several years just out of college, which was also my first…
If you are reading this post, you must have some interest in creating DIY cash envelopes as a simple form of budgeting. In this post I’ll give you instructions on how to make them plus a free printable cash envelope template. Back in 2010, I found this approach to budgeting after experiencing a great deal…
This post is the 3rd article in my series on Budgeting 101: How To Start Bossing Your Money Around. In this 3rd post I’m going to be helping you understand what to do at the end of the month with the money that’s left over. This is important when you are evaluating your spending and…
In my previous Budgeting 101: How To Start Bossing Your Money Around post, I detailed setting up a budget and included free printables. If you don’t have a budget going, consider taking a look at that post before jumping head first into this one. If you’re reading this post it means that you have started…
I haven’t always had a real budget. Early in my young adult life I would have told you I had a budget because I knew that I had not over drawn my bank account. Even in my early married life our “budget” was simply making sure that we didn’t spend more than we could pay…
You want to know one of my main secrets to paying off our $93,000 mortgage debt in under 2 years? This is it. The Cash Envelope System. This quick start cash envelope system kept my overspending rear in line for two straight years when nothing else had worked in the past. Every month, I took…