Living Like No One Else

If you want something badly enough, you can usually find a way

by Crystal on April 30, 2012

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on surviving on a $30 per week grocery budget. Many of you found the post helpful and inspiring. But a handful of people really disliked the post.

In the blogging world, that’s totally to be expected. You can’t please and inspire everyone all the time and I’ve learned and grown a lot as a person and a writer from the constructive criticism I’ve received as a blogger.

However, what I found interesting was that most of the people who didn’t like the post got hung up on the fact that I was suggesting you eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch every day for a week.

The grocery list and menu I shared was meant to serve as an example that you can eat on $30 per week and still set aside a little extra toward your stockpile so that, within a few weeks, you can have more wiggle room and variety in your diet. I wanted to show that it can be done — if you’re willing to get creative and you’re willing to make short-term sacrifices.

Truthfully, Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches Are Not All That Bad

While eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for a week might sound outrageous to some, it’s actually not all that bad. In fact, one of the many little things we did to stay out of debt while my husband was in law school was to eat lots and lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

We didn’t eat peanut butter and jelly every single day of the year, but choosing to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a very regular basis over Subway or Sonic — or even turkey and cheese sandwiches — was a simple thing we could do to help inch us in the direction we were aiming for.

How Motivated Are You to Get Where You Want to Be?

Where do you want to be financially in a year from now? What about five years from now? What simple short-term sacrifices can you make to help you get there?

If eating peanut butter and jelly every other day isn’t your thing, consider what short-term sacrifices might work for your family. When Jessica and her family were working really hard to get out of debt, they set their thermostat up a number of degrees in the summer in order to save money. Jessica was pregnant at the time and I’m not quite sure how she managed, but their family was highly motivated so they made a lot of sacrifices — including sweating out a hot Kansas summer — so that they could get out of debt much more quickly.

When There’s a Will, There’s Usually a Way

If you want to get out of debt, stay out debt, save more, or give more, it’s likely going to mean making some sacrifices — especially in the short-term. You can’t change your financial situation unless you also change the way you’re doing something.

But you have to be willing to change, willing to cut back, willing to give things up, willing to eat less than gourmet meals, or willing to not have the latest and greatest gadget or gizmo. How willing you are to make changes is directly dependent upon how motivated you are to get where you want to go.

If you want something badly enough, you can usually find a way. It won’t always be easy, fun, or glamorous to make short-term sacrifices, but it will be every bit worth it.

What simple, short-term sacrifices is your family making to get where you want to be financially? I’d love to hear!

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Punching Debt in the Face

by Crystal on April 6, 2012

Guest post from Rebecca of Change Your Life in 100 Days

I can’t believe how naive I have always been about money my whole life. That just goes to show how much parents need to be teaching their kids about spending, saving, and earning money. I didn’t have any education at all about finances and I am definitely paying for it now.

I also strongly believe every student who starts their freshmen year of college should be required to sit down with a financial adviser provided by the campus. College students need to be taught about school loans, interest, planning for their financial future and paying loans back later when they graduate.

I, again, didn’t have this knowledge presented to me so I was the typical college student who took out more than necessary because it seemed great at the time. Now this, too, is a tremendous issue in my financial life.

Fact: I paid $240.91 last month for just one of my student loans.

Fact: Only $27.78 went to principal.

This makes me want to punch my debt in the face.

The positive is that I am still in my late 20′s and I am finally figuring out how to face this debt head on and trample it out as fast as I can. All my thanks goes to Dave Ramsey for being such an amazing educator on financial freedom. My hope is to be able to say I have financial “freedom” as well in the coming years.

Here is my family’s plan for getting out of debt:

Use our tax return this year to pay off a consolidation loan (and tax returns in the future to pay off student loans).

Use my husband’s bonus this year to pay off our last credit card (and bonus in the future to pay off student loans).

Use all of this year’s extra summer income (tutoring, nannying, part-time side job) to pay off one of three student loans.

Take money out of savings to pay off our car and start putting money aside to pay cash for a car in the future.

Lower our cable bill by $30 a month by switching to satellite TV (I wish we could only purchase ESPN…if it wasn’t for that for my husband we wouldn’t need cable at all).

Stop going out to eat unless it is a very special celebration. We’ve learned to love cooking at home together so this eliminates the desire to want to go out for dinner.

Stop shopping. We buy all our son’s toddler clothes either on sale or at consignment sales. Why would we pay full price for something he’ll grow out of in two months?

Stop traveling on the weekends. We have saved so much money every month by staying home. If we are home we don’t spend the necessary money on gas, food, and shopping.

Learn to say no. If your friends are really your friends they will understand when you say you can’t go to dinner, get your nails done, or on a weekend trip because you’re trying to get out of debt.

The one thing we will not stop paying is our monthly 10% tithe. God has shown us in the past two years just how much he blesses us when we tithe. We will continue to tithe diligently and honor Him with our firsts because He deserves all the glory.

One day I will be debt-free and be able to scream from the mountain tops “I am free!”

Rebecca is a wife, new mother, full time teacher, mentor, and runner. Her goal is to be more intentional with every aspect of her life – her relationship with God, her family and friends, her job, her time, her finances, her workouts, her eating habits, her relaxing time, etc. She wants to live an intentional, purposeful life that follows God’s plan. Follow her blog at Change Your Life in 100 Days.

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Q&A Tuesday: How do we set up a budget when we’re on commission?

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by Crystal on April 3, 2012

I am a stay-at-home mom and my husband works based on commission. I have been trying to work out a budget rather than living paycheck to paycheck, but am not sure how to budget when his checks can vary up to $700 per check. (He gets paid every other week.)

Some months we have a nice surplus, and other months we borrow from our savings to make sure our checking account stays out of the red. We don’t usually have a problem paying our monthly bills and usually can save a little, but are really hoping to pay off some credit card debt and our car. Any suggestions are appreciated! – Casey

Budgeting on a commission or variable income is very doable. In fact, my husband and I have never had a fixed combined income our entire married lives! Here’s what I’d recommend:

1. Create and Follow a Barebones Budget

In my book, I outline a step-by-step plan for getting on a budget. First, I encourage people to learn self-discipline through setting up a grocery budget. Once you’ve practiced the discipline of creating and sticking with a grocery budget, I encourage you to move on to developing a Barebones Budget.

If you’re already somewhat familiar with budgeting or already have a grocery budget in place, I’d encourage you to jump ahead and create a Barebones Budget. This will include all of your basic living necessities: food, basic utilities, shelter, and transportation. In your case, you’d also want to include your credit card bill(s) every month, too.

Write all of these budget categories down on paper and decide how much you need to set aside every two weeks to adequately cover all of the expenses. If there are any expenses you can lower by cutting your grocery bill, asking for a discount on your utilities, moving to a less expensive housing situation, or selling your car, I’d highly encourage you to do it temporarily in order to free up more money to save and pay off debt.

2. Build Up An Emergency Fund of 3-6 Months’ Expenses

Once you have your Barebones Budget in place, begin following it to a tee. As much as is possible, don’t pay for anything that isn’t a complete necessity right now. It’s a short season and your sacrifices will pay off. Instead, throw every extra penny you can toward building up your emergency fund to three to six months’ of barebone expenses.

Depending upon how often you are dipping into savings would be the determining factor for us as to whether to only set aside three months’ of expenses or to go ahead and set aside six months’ of expenses. This will then give you a cushion going forward on months that you come up short.

3. Pay Off Your Debt

After your emergency fund is full funded, it’s time to focus all of your energies on knocking out your debt as quickly as you possibly can. Continue to live on your Barebones Budget and put everything else that you can scrounge up toward your debt.

Be as aggressive and as creative as possible in attacking your debt and getting rid of it. The sooner it’s gone, the sooner you’ll be able to have some breathing room in your life again!

If you have some hiccups along the way — and you probably will! — don’t be discouraged. Stop and re-fund your emergency fund, if need be, and then get back to getting rid of your debt.

4. Create a Prioritized List of Additional Savings/Spending Goals

Finally, once your debt is gone, make sure you have a fully-funded emergency fund of at least 3-6 months’ expenses, and then create a prioritized list of additional savings and spending goals. Use this list as your guide for months when you have extra: put the extra toward the first thing on your prioritized and slowly start working through it.

If your debt is gone and you have a good emergency fund in place, you’ll have a lot more breathing room and will not only be able to put more into savings, you’ll probably also be able to enjoy some strategic splurging, too!

What advice and tips do the rest of you have for successfully budgeting on a variable income?

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When Frugal Goes Too Far

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by Crystal on February 8, 2012

Not too long ago, I was getting ready to check out at Aldi and noticed they had their beautiful floral bouquets on sale for half price. Since Aldi typically sells their floral bouquets for $3.99, they were marked down to $1.99 each and they still looked amazing!

I love fresh flowers and I love a great deal, so I was excited! However, as I walked over to pick one up and put it in my cart, I felt a twinge of guilt. Immediately, I started questioning whether or not I should buy the flowers. Yes, they were on sale for $1.99, but I don’t have a fresh flower budget category (!) and the money would have to come out of our grocery budget for the week.

Back and forth the arguments went in my head: Should I really use our grocery money to buy flowers? I shouldn’t spend that $1.99 on me–especially on something that’s just going to look pretty for a few days and then die. But $1.99 is a great deal and they will really brighten our kitchen table.

I picked up the flowers and then put them back three times. I was so conflicted about what I should do.

Finally, after a few minutes of standing there having my mind play tug-o-war, I snapped back into reality and realized how crazy I was being (and how ridiculous I must look to other people passing by!)

Yes, it’s a good thing to carefully examine every purchase. Yes, it’s a good thing to make sure anything you’re purchasing is a good deal and that it’s something you can afford.

For me to stand in the Aldi check out lane, though, and spend close to five minutes waffling over whether or not I should spend $1.99 on beautiful flowers is not only wasting time and energy, it’s taking frugal too far.

Frugality is not about living a miserable and bland existence, it’s about being wise stewards of our money so that we have more to save, give, and yes, spend on the occasional splurge. As long as you have the money in your budget, it’s okay to buy things on occasion just because.

In fact, if I can’t justify the occasional splurge for something that will bring beauty into my life, then I’m probably bordering on becoming a tightwad.

So, armed with fresh resolve (and the realization that we had plenty of wiggle room in our grocery budget), I picked up the flowers, purchased them, and guiltlessly enjoyed their beauty for the rest of the week.

Have you ever taken frugal too far? I’d love to hear your stories and how you’ve worked to find a healthful balance between living a frugal life, but also allowing yourself enough breathing room to enjoy life, too!

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How We Paid Cash for Our First Home

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by Crystal on January 23, 2012

I’m honored to be guest posting over on Get Rich Slowly today about How We Paid Cash for Our First Home. Here’s a snippet:

When my husband and I got married nine years ago, we had an audacious dream of paying cash for our first home. At that time, it was very much a far-off dream — we were just trying to survive the rigors and expenses of law school without going in debt. That alone was a seemingly gigantic feat.

But after three years of law school, my husband did graduate without debt, passed the bar, and we started planning for the future. Since we’d been renting for almost four years, my husband had a good job, and our second baby was on the way, pretty much everyone expected that buying a house would be in our immediate future.

I mean, after all, isn’t buying a house the responsible thing for a young couple to do? Well, maybe — or maybe not. We didn’t have much money in savings, and we weren’t sure how long we would be living in the town we were in, so we chose to go against conventional wisdom and continued renting.

Read the whole post.

There are lots of interesting comments in the comments section on the pros and cons of renting versus buying and mortgages versus cash that you might want to check out, as well. As I’ve mentioned many times before, remember that what worked for us won’t necessarily work for you in your own unique situation, but we hope that our story can serve as an inspiration for you to set big goals and work hard toward them.

Perseverance, persistence, and patience does pay off!

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4 reasons I use cash instead of credit cards

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by Crystal on January 20, 2012

I’m honored to be guest posting over at Simple Mom today on a rather controversial subject: why I use cash instead of credit cards. Here’s a snippet of my post:

We have a policy at our house: if we can’t pay cash for it, we don’t buy it. It’s a plain and simple policy, but it’s saved us a boatload of debt, fights over money, and stress about our finances.

Sure, it has meant we’ve gone without a lot of different things we wanted over the years because we didn’t have money to pay for it. But truthfully, I’ll take the peace and freedom that comes from living without credit card debt over all the bling and stuff. It’s worth more than money can buy, anyway.

Do I think credit cards are evil? Well, I wouldn’t go so far to say they are wrong or immoral, but I would say that I’d strongly encourage anyone who is currently swiping plastic on a regular basis to step back and consider a few things…

Click on over to read the whole post and be sure to leave a comment over there to be entered to win one of 10 copies of my book!

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The Small Things Add Up

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by Crystal on January 18, 2012

Guest post by Sabrina from The Unlikely Homemaker

In the same way that the small things you purchase add up to a lot at the end of the month, the small ways you save can also add up to a huge amount at the end of the month.

Spending $5 at a thrift store every week for a few children’s shirts saves you money over buying them new, but over the course of a month that is $22 (plus tax!). While that is still not much, when you have almost no money, it’s like gold. I would much rather keep that $22 in my pocket and repair clothes we already own.

Buying a Sweet Tea every day on the way to pick your kids up from school can add up $22 or more if you also buy snacks for the kids. I would rather make my own at home using tea bags and honey.

If you buy a pack of gum every time you go grocery shopping (say, three times a week?) that can total $13 per month minimum, assuming you are only paying $1 per pack.

Going out to dinner can sometimes be cost/stress effective, but sometimes it is far better to prepare a meal at home. For two adults and two children (one who is only a year old) it can cost my family around $50 to have dinner out. That includes drinks and any appetizers we choose to get. For us to go out once a week, we would be spending $216 a month! Instead, we choose to go once a month, and use coupons so our cost is about $25-$30. That’s a $191 per month savings.

Buying your children a snack at the grocery store because you forgot to feed them before you left can add up to $13 a month or even more if you aren’t choosing something for under $1 (or if you have multiple children to buy for). It is much less expensive to buy a box of granola bars (or similar) and keep them in your car. That way, you won’t have to leave the store early or buy them a snack while you are there.

Small savings every day can add up to a lot. Following just the simple tips above, we save over $250 per month and saving in the small things has freed up enough extra money for me to be able to stay home with our children without it causing too much financial stress.

What are some small ways you cut corners and save money?

Sabrina Hartman is a new-ish stay at home mom to a 2-1/2-year-old and a 1-year-old. She loves to find new ways to save money to compensate for leaving the workplace, and is finding her inner homemaker in the process. She tracks her homemaking life and tips at The Unlikely Homemaker and offers a kitchen tip/guide site at Kitchen Cheat Sheet.

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Dave Ramsey Soup

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by Crystal on November 16, 2011

Guest Post by Tiffany from Another Texas Family

I have always been frugal, used coupons, and shopped with cash only, but lately I have been inspired to save more. Our family is in the midst of saving for an adoption, and we have a dream of paying off our home in three years, so every little penny counts as one step closer to our BHAG.

As with everyone else, our food budget is where we are able to save the most money; therefore, I plan menus without fail, cook from scratch, and shop sales fliers. We eat leftovers regularly for dinner and lunch; however, we still end up with a few odds and ends being thrown away after meals.

On my quest to save more money, I read about a brilliant idea in The Tightwad Gazette and put it into practice a few months ago. Stick a bowl into your freezer and any sort of leftover from a meal gets dumped into the bowl to make into a soup at a later date. (Note: this is not food leftover from someone’s plate, which can spread germs and bacteria). It may include a few carrots left in the pot or stock leftover from soup, but it all gets dumped into the “soup bowl”.

I kept my practice of doing this a secret from my dear hubby, afraid of how the soup would eventually turn out. After a few months of gathering “ingredients” and after our first cold front blew in I gave the soup a try.

I dug through my freezer and pulled out all the leftovers I had collected:

::Tomato soup broth- leftover from a beef stew

::4 cups pinto beans — I cook whole beans and then freeze them for later use.

::4 cups black beans

::2 yogurt containers full of chicken, noodles & veggies

::Bag of carrots

The only two things I added from my pantry were corn and a packet of taco seasoning.

After cooking the soup I ladled it into bowls, added a little cheese, and then waited for my husband to arrive home. When he walked in the door he said, “Dinner smells great! What are we having?”

“Dave Ramsey Soup,” I replied, “Also know as ‘Get out of debt quickly soup’!”

He had a look of horror on his face when I told him what it was, but when we our first bites it was delicious! What I loved most is it cost me about $0.50 total and it lasted our family three nights plus lunch leftovers. I calculated it to cost about $.05 per serving with the cheese. Now that is what you call frugal!

Tiffany is a wife and mom to two preschoolers, where she is dipping her toe in the water as a first-year homeschooling mom. She lives in Texas where she blogs about all things family and shares her heart about adoption at Another Texas Family.com

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Reader Poll: What temperature do you keep your house at in winter?

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by Crystal on October 20, 2011

Brooke emailed in:

I know that keeping the thermostat low in the winter and high in the summer can be a real money saver. My question what temperatures do people keep their homes at that balance saving money and comfort? -Brooke

We all have different families and circumstances, so what works for one family won’t necessarily work for others. However, just for fun, I’d love to hear what temperature you keep your house at in winter?

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Couponing Helps Save My Sanity

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by Crystal on October 10, 2011

Guest post by Laura Ziesel

I’m not a mom, but I’ve been reading Money Saving Mom® for years because I care about being a wise money manager. Well, that and my husband is a graduate student and I’m a freelance writer and editor. We have to pay attention to every single dollar these days.

Sometimes I get discouraged when I read other people’s success stories at Money Saving Mom® because our family is moving in the “wrong” direction: our income has decreased every year that we’ve been married and we are acquiring more student debt as my husband earns his doctorate in psychology. Our retirement contributions have suffered, we’ve tapped into our emergency savings, and we are barely making ends meet.

Paying off debt is not in the cards for us at the moment. Because of our current financial situation, I catch myself wanting to give up frugality entirely. But I have to remind myself that even though our net worth is decreasing, being budget-minded now is paying off in many ways:

1) While we aren’t getting out of debt now, we are acquiring less debt because of our frugality. Less debt now = less debt to pay off later!

2) By learning to live on less now, we will be able to pay off our debt more quickly when the time comes. We now know how to live on very little money, so our “extra” income will be substantial later.

3) We have become content with the basics–food, clothes, shelter. Keeping up with the Jones’s is not an option, so we truly are not tempted to do so.

4) By keeping our costs low for food and household supplies, we have been able to maintain the amount of money we tithe and give to charities even though our income has decreased each year.

However, we have an additional complicating factor. Because I am a freelancer, I am always calculating how much I’m saving per hour couponing versus how much I could be making if I was writing or editing. I think, “Shouldn’t I simply work more to earn additional income instead of trying to save money?” You’d think.

But the other day, I had a reality check. After a full day of writing and editing, I was spent. My brain literally could not produce any more quality work, nor could I spend one more minute staring at a glowing screen.

So in those remaining hours of the evening, I had to do something away from the TV or computer that did not require deep thought. My husband was busy with school work, my apartment was clean, our meals were planned for the next few days, and we don’t have a yard or garden to work in.

Couponing was what I had left. Clipping coupons, organizing them, flipping through store circulars, and crunching numbers was exactly what the doctor ordered. I felt untaxed yet productive, and was able to give my eyes and mind a much-needed break. I’m not sure how much money I saved during that hour of couponing, but my sanity was saved.

So even though our net worth is decreasing and I might not be saving “enough” money for every hour spent couponing, I am sticking with it.

Laura Ziesel is a freelance writer and editor living in Azusa, California with her husband. She blogs on Following Jesus at LauraZiesel.com. She is also a contributing writer for The Redemptive Pursuit, a weekly devotional for women.