Thanks for answering this. I know you’ve been blogging for a long time, and have really put time and energy into finding whatever ways you can to earn money from home. I’m glad to see that it’s paying off, and that all along the way you’ve stayed true to God and family in the midst of your efforts. I’m not sure I’m that good of a blogger, but am trying other things right now. We’ll see .

We’re definitely huge believers in first getting a good 3-6 month emergency fund and having good insurance in place as well as setting aside money for retirement while saving. That way, in case a crisis happens while you’re saving, it doesn’t sink you!

We cut back on retirement savings some while saving for our house just because we’re young and have time on our hands. But now that our house savings is complete, we’re bumping up our retirement savings as well as our children’s savings accounts.

And yes, how much you spend is much more important than how much you save! We need to be reminded of that over and over again. That’s why it’s important to have a budget and stick within those parameters.

Thanks for your input!

Also, don’t get caught up in SPAVING (spending to save). Be choosy about which deals you chase.

You can read more about why we’ve chosen to go this route here:

http://moneysavingmom.com/2009/02/get-your-finances-in-line-in-2009-monthly-check-up.html

If you’re living on a lean budget already and finding you can’t squeeze much out of it, I’d highly recommend looking for ways to increase your income instead. There are thousands of ways to do this–and we have many more ideas than we’ll ever have time for! Start looking, start trying things, keep at it, get creative, and you just might be amazed. We certainly have been!

The fact is…there is nothing wrong with putting down a nice down payment and taking on a mortgage. The time lost not owning is worse. You miss out on price appreciation and tax deductions. And, of course, your rent is just thrown away as profit for someone else’s business.

The way to do it is to put down at least 20% to avoid PMI, and do a lot of research to find the lowest rate **15 YEAR** mortgage you can find, with low fees. Rates are still considered low. If you’re not thrilled paying that rate of interest, you can make additional principal payments that will drastically cut down the term of your loan. Remember, too, that you are not in debt if your assets are more than your liabilities. Bills to pay, yes. But not in debt.

With all my earnest saving and frugal living in my lifetime, that is my biggest and MOST COSTLY mistake. I urge you to start looking for a low-priced home and get a low-rate mortgage soon, before you miss the boat!

I’ve been reading your blog for sometime, and have really learned a lot from how you budget. I’m so glad to hear that you’ve finally reached your goal of paying for a home in cash, but was wondering if you could address one of the questions I’ve always had: did most of the money you guys were saving each month come from just your husband’s extra salary, or were there other streams of income? And if there were other streams, what percentage, roughly, did those other streams represent in how much extra you could set aside each month?

The reason I ask this is that I’ve seen budgets you’ve posted in the past, and sometimes we’ve actually lived on less than the budgets you’ve posted, but there’s no way we could set aside enough to save for a house in 3-5 years. I’m guessing that part of this is due to living on a teacher’s salary in California v. a lawyer’s salary in Kansas, but I also know that you’ve said in the past that your husband doesn’t earn six figures, and that just because he’s a lawyer doesn’t mean he’s rolling in money.

I guess I’m just wondering what the biggest ways are to increase your other streams of income. I don’t find taking surveys or squeezing our already lean food budget just a bit more to be a way that we could set aside a couple of extra thousand each month. I hope I’m not being too nosy in asking this – I know it’s probably not safe to post specific figures, but I’m more just curious as to where most of the money came from (i.e. blogging revenue, other streams of income, etc.).

Feel free to ignore this question if you don’t want to answer it .

Thanks,

Jenni

Thanks!