It’s July and guess what that means? It’s time for our monthly financial check-up. How did you do in June?
We began June at 48.5% of our house savings goal and we ended the month at 50%!
I cannot even begin to tell you how exciting it is for us to have reached the half-way point in our house savings. We had set the bar a little high in our savings goal so we’re getting very close to the point where we can actually start looking at houses.
We’re going to begin our house search by doing more research into what our options are, what areas we’d like to live in, and what features we’re looking for in a home. Once we’ve done that, enough time will likely have elapsed that we’ll be able to begin looking at homes–for real!–which are in the price range of what we have saved up.
It is amazing for us to look back over the last few years and realize how far we’ve come. What once seemed like a “big, hairy, audacious goal” is starting to become reality. The beans-and-rice budget is paying off and it feels weird to realize how close we are. Yet, just because we’re inching closer and closer to our goal, we don’t want to let our resolve slide or our frugality slip–something we’re having to guard against.
I’d really like to be at 55% of our goal by the end of July so that we will have saved over 20% towards our house savings goal this year so far. But we’ll see how the month goes!
Thanks so much for encouraging and cheering us along. It’s a huge help to have so much accountability in this! If you have recommendations for us when it comes to buying a home (books we should read, things we should consider, or any advice you’d like to give), please do pass it along. I feel like I have so much to learn and I want to be as well-researched as I possibly can be.
(By
the way, if you’re new here, you can read more about our financial
goals for this year and our progress so far by scrolling down on this
page here. And if you’re wondering why we’re attempting to save to pay 100% down for a house, be sure to read this post.)
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How did you do in June? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2009, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and failures in June and, if you’d like, the areas
you hope to improve in July. Then, come back here and leave your link
below. If you don’t have a blog or would rather share anonymously, feel
free to leave your update in a comment. Let’s all keep each other
accountable to be better stewards of
our resources!
Congrats, you guys are doing great!!!
Learn from our mistake. Don’t buy a house from a family of smokers! We didn’t think it smelled so bad, until about 2 weeks later. I visited a friend and when I opened my suitcase, it smelled like an ashtray! that’s when I realized that everything in my house smelled that way. We had the entire house painted and/or wallpapered, the carpet cleaned, the ductwork cleaned, blinds replaced, etc. It was very expensive, but made it like a new house inside. It took all that to get rid of the lingering smoke damage. don’t buy a house from smokers!
Congratulations that’s amazing news. It must be so exciting to be able to buy a house that you own completely. I wish I knew what I know now. We have paid most of our debts and are saving like mad. We have a car loan which we are aiming to pay off completely by end of this year. After that we will be tackling the mortgage.
Its hard to keep in the mindset of saving and paying off debts – this site is a great inspiration and I thank you for all your encouragement. Your advice has made a BIG difference to my family.
We paid off our car this month! Our car was our debt with the highest interest rate and we just sent in the final check a week or so ago. I’m very excited to get the pink slip soon. We are a 1 car family and have worked very hard to get it paid off even though our first child is 14 months old and we’ve had to add $800-1k/month in daycare costs to our budget every month. It is the best feeling to know we own that car. We paid it off 1 1/2 years before the loan was scheduled to end.
Congrats on your major milestone!
Halfway mark! That is fantastic!! You are an inspiration.
I love to read your updates. I talk to my dh every day about working our way up to saving 100% for a house.
Keep up the good work.
I am linking to you from facebook if you don’t mind. = )
I am always giving people your url so they can be inspired and save money too.
Thanks,
linda
Congrats! What an accomplishment! Your site has been of great inspiration and benefit to me and my family and I have read almost everday for over a year! I do have some questions about your future home purchase. Since you and your family are so budget conscience, are you going to take into consideration how your new or new to you home will impact your family finances in terms of things like: Cost of utilities, quality and type of materials used (i.e. hardie siding vs. vinyl, single pane windows vs. triple pane low-e windows) , energy star appliances, energy efficient furnance, insulation in walls/ attic, etc? I could go on, but I am just curious if any of these things are on your radar in terms of how they will impact your future budget once you purchase the home? If these things are of importance to you, I would highly recommend a home energy audit prior to purchasing the home. An energy audit will help determine what types of improvements you could make and what type of payback they will have (life-cycle cost). You can check out our website http://www.symhome.net to see pictures of a sample energy audit and blower door test. This would be a great starting place for purchasing a new or existing home and very budget friendly (approx. $300).
I love reading your financial update, and everyone elses who post in the mr linky. We will be completely debt free including our current house in or before November, and we want to begin saving to build our dream home on land that we own. We want to pay cash too. It seems like it may take 5 years to reach that goal, but that seems better to us than a 15-30 year mortgage. We are able to keep our living expenses low currently since we own our home, so maybe we can aim to get to our goal sooner. Thanks for the inspiration.
We bought our home 5 years ago. Hindsight is 20/20. Here is my advice:
*buy LESS than what you think you can afford. Even if you have saved 100%. Things come up. Within 6 months of purchasing our home, we had to: repair the furnace (transformer blew); install steel beams in the basement $5400; sewer line got clogged $300; carpenter ants came to visit $400; garbage disposal malfunction $100; roof leak $500…
*Get a home inspection as well as a pest inspection (see above!!!)
*Do an internet search to locate parolees, wanted criminals and sex offenders for any address you are considering moving to. My personal experience– when we bought our house, there were none within 6 blocks of us. Then a convicted rapist moved back in with his wife when I was 7 months pregnant, into the house caty-corner from mine. Then a convicted murderer and aggravated robber moved in next door to me. There was nothing to prevent any of them from moving into a family neighborhood, and we already owned the house.
*Consider what changes you may want to make, and factor that in to your purchase price. We had a fence installed when our daughter was an infant, and that cost $2000.
*incidentals- if you have never been responsible for things like lawn care, you’ll need access to a mower, trimmers, clippers… you may have to purchase garbage bins, recycle bins, a mail box, light fixtures
*security system if you want or need one
Also, consider the energy costs of the home you are looking at. Are the appliances effcient? Enough insulation? Old drafty windows? No trees to shade from summer sun? Damp basement that will require a full time dehumidifier?
Some house-hunting tips that I haven’t heard mentioned:
1. Walk the neighborhood. Don’t just drive through. It might give you a better feel for the community you’ll be moving to, and alert you to nearby parks or businesses that you might not have noticed. (We found out after the fact that there were THREE bars within the two blocks between our house and the school, for instance.)
2. Look for old people. (and talk to them!) I was very comforted by the sight of older folks sitting out on their front steps talking to one another; it gave us the sense that people in the neighborhood look out for one another.
3. Ask yourself (or the potential neighbors when you’re on your walk) where the nearest grocery store, bank, and post office is. It is wonderful to be walking distance from those resources–especially when weather is snowy or transportation limited. (Being close to public transportation is also good to consider.)
Thanks for being an encouragement to me to keep going and sticking to the plan. We are all so grateful for the way God has used you that it gives us great delight to watch you stay focussed and reach your goals–and to cheer you on!
My biggest suggestion would be to start meeting with realtors. When I bought my condo in Chicago, my realtor made all the difference. She was knowledgeable, patient and explained things to me whenever I asked (even if it was the 10th time I needed clarification). Having a realtor who you trust is a big MUST-HAVE in house buying.
An easy thing to do while looking at a house is to not only look at the large issues, but look at some of the details. Are their emergency shut off valves on all toilets and sinks? (Our house had zero which we found out about when a bathroom flooded in the middle of the night) Are the faucets a good heavy duty metal, or the cheap flimsy kind. Do the windows open and close right. Do all the light switches work for what they are supposed to work for. The reason these things matter is that it can give you a good idea of the level of quality of house. Like I said, our house had no shut off valves, no crawl space vents, light switches that do nothing, plastic handles on the faucets that have all broken off. This is reflected in the general construction of the house as well. Our whole neighborhood is the same way, wish I had talked to some neighbors first, and knew then what I know now, we would have NEVER bought this house.
Congratulations, and prayers for you in the months to come.
Yay! Good job! What a great accomplishment and a testament of God’s grace and mercy to you and your family as you seek to honor Him with your finances. We are in the process of buying a foreclosure, and, if you decide to go that route, you can get a really great deal, but my advice is to expect delays and frustrations that are outside your control. Also, definitely shop around for the best deal on combined home and auto insurance. There’s a huge variation of coverage costs between various providers. I look forward to following your house hunt via the blog.
Crystal,
I am a former teacher turned Stay at home Mommy, and I live in your area, so if you have any questions about schools, just let me know and I will give you some insight or at least what I know. Congrats on your success! Have fun with the home buying experience!
I admire your loyalty and perseverence to reach your goal. I wish I could be debt free. I am a single mother of four children and your emails and money savings tips are a huge help to me. I appreciate all of the help you give to me and others.
Congratulations! We are slowly making our way to funding our emergency fund (I can’t remember what step that is), and hopefully by the time Baby #2 arrives in September, we will have 6 months fully in place.
Living in California, it feels impossible to even dream of saving for a house on my husband’s teacher’s salary. But what we have learned through reading your blog and listening to Dave Ramsey and others is that even on a limited income, great things are possible. We have some family members who have no kids, make more than 3 times the amount that we do, and are still in debt because of their lifestyle. We can’t spend whenever we want to, but are thankful that we have no debt, two old, but operating vehicles, and a spacious apartment where I’m able to stay home with my kids.
Congrats on such a huge step towards your goal. I apologize if this has already been mentioned before and I am quite sure you are already practicing it, but the greatest thing I learned through our first home purchase is to pray through every single step of the process. From the moment we got the listing of homes, we started praying that God would direct us to the right home. As we drove to each house, we continued that prayer. I still remember getting a call from our realator during the final negotiations on the price of the house and telling my husband about it. We looked at each other and said we need to stop and just pray. The best part of praying so much during the process is that I have no doubt we are in the house God wants for us. It was a faith building experience for my husband and I (and we had already gone through his battling cancer, a kidney transplant and me getting through lawschool together, but I guess God still wants us to teach us to put our faith in =)) Good luck as the time gets closer but I pray the process grows you and your husband together and grows your faith.
I wish we had done this now! We live in the same area as you and homes were inexpensive here even BEFORE the recession! It is possible. We’re now working towards paying off the mortgage (our only debt! YAY!) as soon as possible- it should be gone by 2012, God willing!
Congratulations! You and your family have such resolve!! I think it should be pointed out that you also have reached this goal saving and scrimping…and being ethical about it all (I know you’ve had a rough week)…and look..you are still making leaps and bounds towards your goal!!
I’m happy for you…I’m PROUD for you!!
Great job Crystal and Jesse! June was a little shaky for my hubby and I. We overspent because of unexpected medical expenses and some impulse celebrations because my husband became a master mechanic. Our goal for July is to have a category in our budget for unexpected medical expenses : ) and if we don’t use all of that money, we’ll throw it into savings. We are encouraged though because at the end of June, we did decide to almost double our goal for saving for the year since we have been blessed with extra income so far for 2009 and then we’ll have Dave Ramsey’s Baby Step 3 out of the way!
we bought our first home last year. i kept a binder with color samples and magazine clippings for each room. i called it my “ideas” binder. i kept all of the colors i painted throughout the house in that binder for future reference. i continue to add ideas to it for when we have $ for the projects. this week i added a picture of a deck that i liked from a magazine. i have shared your story with my FPU class. such an inspiration! mistyG
Great job. One thing I didn’t realize (though maybe you already know this) is how much money you can save in closing costs if you pay your property tax and home insurance yourself instead of putting it in escrow. It’s not hard at all to do it yourself (you just put money away each money and then pay them both at the beginning of each year when they are due). It’s just something people never get told because I think it’s a money maker for banks/mortgage companies. And once it’s in escrow, you have to pay a substantial fee to get it out. Annoying.
Congrats on reaching your goal. 2 pieces of advice – location is everything. We have been in good locations and bad and again location is everything. 2nd piece – I have always heard you should look at upwards of 100 houses before deciding on one. With our last move we looked at more than 75 and ended up finally in the best town and the best house we could imagine. TAke your time and good luck!
What fabulous work, Crystal! I’m so happy you’ve reached the 50% mark.
I found a book called “Home Buying for Dummies” to be very helpful. I needed someone to spell out the entire process for me, and I thought this book was a good starting point. It got me familiar with the terms and knowledgeable enough so that I could start asking the right questions. Knowing how organized and thorough you and your family see, Crystal, I’m certain you’ll be thorough with your home hunting research.
My advice? Buy a home you’ll still be happy in 10 years from now. Imagine what your life and family will be like then, and always keep that in mind. Look past cosmetic issues like rugs, paint color; these things are easily changed. We made a “priority list” for our hunt; each families will be different. We wanted a cozy home with enough room to welcome family and friends. We didn’t need a gigantic, super high tech kitchen but preferred one with sufficient space but more charm. We didn’t want to be “lost” in a big, echoing house, but wanted enough room so that we were comfortable; after all we WANT to see each other and spend time together! Sometimes realtors, though they have good intentions, will try to tell you what house fits your family and lifestyle. Make your priorities and desires clearly known to them from the beginning. Also be firm when telling them your price range; many times they will take you by a house “just to see it” and it’s 20-30k more expensive that the top of your range.
Best of luck!!
Kim from Philadelphia
just wanted to say congrats on getting halfway to your goal! My DH and I are new to Dave Ramsey’s ideas and I have to wonder if anyone is changing up the baby steps due to the economy? We already have baby step #1 completed, but instead of paying off the car loan and student loans we have in the debt snowball, should the money go in the savings account instead? I’m curious to see what everyone thinks…
I so appreciate all of the great deals you find! You rock!!!
I just wanted to say thank you for writing this blog. I’ve been reading for about a month and it’s changed my life. I’ve been so inspired by your efforts and my family has definitely been blessed because of the information you share.
Thanks again and God bless.
My advice is…
You can always change the inside of a house, but you can never change the lot/street/location. I’d drive by at all times of the day/night to check out traffic, neighbors, etc.
Also, if you aren’t handy, don’t buy a house that needs a lot of work, even if it’s small stuff that can wait. A few minor things are fine, but even projects that seem small can really cost you if you can’t do it yourself.
Congrats to you guys!! How wonderful. Praise God for His faithfulness.
We’ve bought and sold three homes in the past 4 years (my husband’s job has had us moving a lot) – and my best advice is to look into a Dave Ramsey approved realtor. You probably already know that, though. 🙂 We used a Dave Ramsey realtor during our last move, and she was truly wonderful. It was nice dealing with someone who understood where we were coming from. Also – location, location, location! Like someone else already said, it’s so much better to pick your area (or even the neighborhood you want) and then look for the home instead of the other way around. And – when you start actually looking at homes, try your hardest to see the “bones” of the house and nothing else. You can change wall colors and flooring and lighting and appliances and countertops, but you can’t change room sizes and layout or lot size/location.
Congrats again to you! Your site has made such a difference in my ability to budget our grocery money wisely – and I thank you so much for that! I’ve told everyone I know about your site.
Congratulations on making it 50% to your house savings goal! My $30,000 school loan (private variable rate loan) will be paid off in August. Originally, with the high payments I was making the payoff would have been February 2010. Then at Christmas we decided to put gift money toward my loan rather than a trip. When our tax return came around that went too. I was able to push my payoff back to October 2009. With encouragement on here, I decided to push myself even more and make my payoff this August. I am excited the hard work will pay off soon. My husband and I are going on a smaller vacation to Myrtle Beach in September. (I have never been there and the plus is we can drive and will have a kitchen, so I am stockpiling now). It will be a nice reward for my hard work. I will make my five year payoff goal on that loan (although most of these payments started in Sept. 2006 so it is more like three years). I will then have about $14,000 left on my low fixed rate school loan and hope to get that paid in another year. I cannot wait! I am excited that I continue to get better at couponing and saving money in other ways. I also continually encourage my friends to coupon and find ways to save!
That is so awesome!! I so wish we had had the financial wisdom that you guys have, back when we bought our own place. We have a small mortgage compared to many people, but it is still a burden in a lot of ways! I wish we had discovered Dave Ramsey much earlier in our marriage!! Thankfully our house is our only debt, but still . . . we’d do things differently if we could go back a few years. Anyway, congrats to you for being halfway to your goal–that is super exciting!! 🙂
That is so wonderful for you! I’m so happy for you. I wish that that was a goal that we could attain in a reasonable amount of time, but we’ve done the math and realize that it is not, so we are buying anyways. (We already live on a beans and rice budget and are both very frugal, so please everyone don’t judge us for not being able to do that. We are making huge strides towards student loans that my husband occured in undergrad (I didn’t have any) and we did not occur any new debt in his 4 years at seminary getting his masters. I do have a suggestion for your home buying. Look at http://www.familywatchdog.com or a similar site (each state seems to have their own, but this one is national if I understand correctly) and make sure that your home is in a safe place. We recently put an offer on a house and thankfully someone checked that website for us and told us that the house was next door to a registered sexual offender. We withdrew our offer and are looking for another home.
Seriously, you all are rockin’ the budget! Dave Ramsey would be proud 🙂
You are a wonderful inspiration and congratulations for going against what most people do – I doubt you will ever regret it!
I think if you are do-it-yourselfers, you could buy something that has good structure, in a good area, size of lot you want, etc. and then invest in fixing it up. Without a mortgage, you should be able to allocate a good amount monthly to fixing things up.
How exciting!!!! I don’t know if your area has this or not, but my husband and I went to to a First Time Homebuyer’s Seminar. Very informative! I think some of the information covered won’t really apply to you since you won’t have a home loan, but it might be something to look in to.
Are you going to try and take advantage of the $8000 first time homebuyer’s credit through Obama’s stimulus package?
Always, ALWAYS, get a home inspection done before buying the home you want!!!! It could very well be the best $300 you’ll ever spend.
Most of my house-buying advice has to do with choosing a realtor… I know not everyone uses a realtor when buying, but we decided to, especially after we realized it wouldn’t cost us anything (since the sellers have usually already promised a commission to their realtor — to be split with the buyer’s realtor if there is one).
First of all, we found out that we had some financial incentives to choose realtors from specific companies. For example, my credit union would give us money toward the home (cash, not a loan) if we used the realtor they referred us to. It might be worth checking into similar incentives if you’re already affiliated with a financial institution of some kind.
However, we found out that the realtors we had a financial incentive to choose were NOT good fits for us. And the best piece of househunting advice anyone gave me was to choose a realtor who was a good fit. The first realtor said she usually deals with people who have twice the money we do, and she was clearly not interested in spending a lot of time with us. She also wasn’t very familiar with what WAS available in our price range! So we switched to someone who was courteous, never made us feel bad about our budget, and was willing to take time with us when we were trying to buy a house on short notice. She was so helpful!
The first house we were looking at ended up falling through. The people who owned it weren’t ready to move out by the time we needed to move in. We felt crushed for about a day, sure we would never find another house as wonderful. But people who had bought houses before us told us that we’d get over that feeling quickly, and we did! We bought a house that needed more work but cost less, and we are ultimately very happy that our “dream home” was out of reach at the time.
I am in awe of what you guys have done. We’re getting things paid off – student loan left and mortgage.
My only advice, because everything else has been said; I just read an article this morning about houses that were formerly used for meth manufacturing. I would assume a lot of these might be foreclosures, so my recommendation would be to make sure you have a great home inspection (I doubt checking for that is included in a “normal” inspection), talk to the neighbors about the previous occupants if possible…kind of common sense, but so many things you would think about AFTER buying the house. Good luck to you!
Being in the real estate business I can tell you that this is the best time to buy. You can get a lot for your money or buy a house cheap and fix it up. I would look in the newspaper at auctions and foreclosures we buy most of our houses this way. Love you website and keep up the good work. My husband and I are on our third year of being totally debt free. Its a great thing. The most important thing to remember is to give God what belongs to him FIRST before you do anything else.
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Money Saving Mom here: Absolutely, Elizabeth! One of the things my husband and I purposed from the beginning was to give to our local church a tenth of our gross earnings from the first day we were married. We have seen God bless this commitment over and above what we could have imagined. It’s all His, anyway, we are just managers of it and we want to constantly acknowledge this in giving God of our firstfruits. I’d highly encourage any of you who are not making giving your number one priority in your finances to try it. You’ll not only be blessed for doing so but you’ll also likely find that the rest of your money stretches so much farther!
Thank you so much for sharing. I always look forward to these monthly updates.
My advise for house hunting / education…I would start searching the internet for potential areas that you would like to live for price, sq. footage, condition of house, etc. Once you have an area, start driving by the homes currently on the market. This not only gives you the real condition of the home but also might shed some additional information on the neighborhood (kids, loudness, quality of neighbors, etc.)
You can probably skip the books on house buying since most of them will focus on the mortgage aspect. However, do an internet search on your state / city to see if you will need attorneys, approximate closing costs,misc. fees, etc. Also, a house inspection is the most important part of the process. Be willing to walk away from your dream home if it has a bad inspection!
We are all getting excited with you. Keep up the good work.
I’m sure you have heard this time and time again, but your family is so inspiring. I love reading the monthly check up. Thanks for sharing with us.
Good for you Paine family. Praise God
In my opinion, most of the stress in buying a house comes with all the mortgage issues and you guys won’t even have to deal with that! Have fun with it! You’ve worked so hard for so long!
🙂
Crystal,
As a former full-time realtor with 10 years experience, I can count on one hand the number of times my clients paid cash or even put more then 20% down on a home. Congratulations to you and your husband for having already saved 50%. The ONE time I represented a buyer who was paying 100% cash for her home, the sellers were so happy they moved out in 3 weeks and even left all the furniture for her. You have a lot of negotiating power when you are paying with cash! And peace of mind! Congrats again to you!
Congratulations! My advice is 2-part. First, call the police or sheriff’s department and ask how many times they get calls for the street and/or neighborhood you are looking in. They can also tell you if the calls are for loud parties, domestic situations, etc., things you wouldn’t know until after you moved in. Second, drive by the area at different times – weekends, nights, middle of the night even, to get a better feel for the neighborhood atmosphere. Good luck!
One of my best tips for buying a house is to make sure that you cannot see the kitchen sink from the front door!
Great job! Wish I was so dedicated about paying the house off! Working more on building a great savings in case Hubby’s job goes sour… he’s in the car manufacturing business and w/me being a SAHM we’re trying to keep what extra we have “just in case”. If something happens and his job is secure again I look forward to putting some of that towards the morgage 🙂
Way to GO! You and your family are such an inspiration. Some big financial changes are happening in my life right now, and your site has been a huge help.
Hooray! You are doing such a great job!
We briefly looked at houses and then realized that we needed a LOT more saved up before getting a mortgage would be a good idea.
Still, we learned quite a bit in the process.
When you meet with your buyer’s agent, be sure to get a good idea of what your closing costs and prepaids (property tax and homeowners insurance) will be. It can be several thousand, so it’s good to come prepared for that.
Also, don’t forget that if you purchase by Nov. 30 you can take advantage of that $8,000 tax credit. Just sayin’!
What an inspiration you and the other linky ladies are!
I think it is incredible to think that you have 50% of your house savings in place. I know how much my home cost and I can begin to guess how much you must have in the bank and how hard it has been to save. Congratulations on being halfay to your goal!
When it comes to buying a house, I can only tell you that when you find the right home, you will know. You will walk in the door and say…this is it! That’s what happened to me. And, funnily enough, because of the name of our street and the number of the house, there just happened to be an appropriate Bible verse that further proved this was the right home for us!
Good luck on continuing to save.
My advise regarding the home buying process is this: Be sure to think long-term when selecting an area of the city/town or when determining which features would make you most comfortable in your home. You need to think about how well the area and house will fit as your family grows and life changes.
You know, June was not a good month for me. I think it was the snowball that threw us into breaking into our “stash” now in July. I have many excuses I could use for our shabby financial state, but I also overlooked areas in which I could have held it together a little better (mainly in planning).
We are hoping to refinance our home and I think that will be a good launching pad for us (me!!!) to regain some control over our finances.
The percentage that your up each month, do you factor in intrest or is that strictly what you have saved?
Excellent work! Congratulations!
A little advice on home buying–character goes a long way. Our house is not huge, but we’ve worked hard to make our 80 year old bungalow adorable. In this shakey economy, our house has retained it’s value (we had it re-assessed recently). A lot of it is all because of the hard work we’ve put in ourselves–scraping our own wallpaper, refinishing our own hardwood floors–that has helped it to keep it’s value. We could have bought a big, cookie-cutter house for the same price 2 years ago, but now it would be worth about $20,000 less than what we paid would have paid for it. Old houses are a lot of work, but in my opinion, they are sooooooo worth it!
Hello Crystal,
I think you and Jesse have done a fantastic job on your goal, thank you so much for sharing with us. I know how daunting those big goals can seem. But, somehow a goal that’s just a little out of reach brings out our resourcefulness and creativity so that we feel inspired to find some way to make our goal happen.
About this time last year, we decided that I needed a newer car (my old one was becoming very unreliable) but we didn’t want to get a car loan or draw down our emergency savings. So, I set the gigantic goal of earning enough money to buy a new car debt free within one year. Boy was that scary! How could I do that? What if I failed?
Well, that’s when the creativity kicked into full gear. I sat down and made a list of all the things I could do at home in my spare time to earn the money and then got started doing them. Sure, it was work, and sometimes I got weary of it all, but it was such a thrill to get closer and closer to my goal.
WOW! What a feeling it was to write out a check for that car. You can read about my story here and see a few pics of my new car and little beagle at the link below:
http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-i-bought-new-car-debt-free-well.html
I would like to encourage anyone reading this to reach for your dreams — it is possible to accomplish your financial goals. Any you know what, even if you don’t make it all the way, you are still A LOT farther ahead than you would be if you did nothing.
Take Care,
Trixie
Hop, Skip and a Jump – we finished steps 3 and 4, skipped 5 (cause we’re childless) and jumped to step 6. We’ve got 25% saved for our home purchase!
Congrats on getting halfway to your goal. My advice in home buying is to find the town/area/neighborhood that you want you live and then pick out a house. Many people do it the other way around. They fall in love with a particular house but it’s not necessarily where they want to live, but they love the house that they buy it. Then they realize the location is as important if not more important than the house itself.
Whoo Hooo!!!!!
I’m so excited for you guys! It’s been fun and inspiring to watch you cross off as completed your finanical goals over the last year and a half. Looking foward to seeing you get to 100%!
I wish we’d been that smart when we bought out home 9 years ago…
You might want to check your local community education programs for a class on buying a home. Yes, they have info on mortgages, specific realty companies, and the like but also about local regulations for inspections, fees and all kinds of other things we weren’t aware.
Can’t wait to hear that you actually found your dream house!
God Bless!
Lea
You’ve probably answered this before, but let’s say by the grace of God you get 8,000 away from your goal by the end of the year, would you go ahead and take a bridge loan until you got the tax credit, or take the money out of your emergency fund and cross you fingers? I mean personally, I think 8,000 is a crazy amount of money to just pass up if you’re very close. 🙂
Anyway, how exciting! And it seems like you’re going to end up poised to buy at exactly the right time.
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Money Saving Mom here: No. 🙂 We’ve made the commitment not to borrow money and $8000 is not worth the compromise, however nice it sounds.
There’s a very slight possibility we’re going to make the 100% before the end of the year (we’ve run the numbers and seen that it is a remote possibility). However, even if we do, we don’t want to rush into buying a home. It’s not worth $8000 to rush into buying a home and end up with a total lemon just because we were in a hurry. So unless something drops into our laps and we know it’s God’s will, we’ve planned that we won’t be getting the tax credit and we’re okay with that.
At this point, we want to keep saving, do our research, and take our time figuring out what we’re looking for in a house and what our best options are in our current housing market. We’re hoping to for sure have purchased a home and moved by next May. But we’ll see how it all works out. We’re willing to wait and keep renting if the right house in our price range hasn’t turned up.
Just read/heard about your plan and did some back reading. I am so happy for y’all! What an accomplishment.. 50% I hope you did a happy dance!
I think it is a wonderful idea, and very inspiring too.
Have a wonderful day!
Angel
I’ve been checking every day to see if you have posted your update. Congratulations! Through your suggestion, I read The Total Money Makeover in December. Since that time we have paid off $4500 of debt. This month we are trying the envelope method for budgeting and it is going really great. We have cut our grocery budget by about $300 thanks to your site. The only regret I have is that we bought a house that we couldn’t afford just a year ago. We can afford the payments just fine. But we didn’t put 20% down so we have to pay personal mortgage insurance and we only have the baby emergency fund. So we cross our fingers hoping that my husband stays employed and that Murphy stays at a distance. Good luck with your house hunting. They only advice I really have, is like anything, shop for the best deal. Banks can compete to give you the lowest fees and best interest rate. We shopped for new Hazard Insurance in January and got the exact same coverage for $200 less than we were paying. You can also ask the sellers what their average utilities cost. Sorry for such a long comment, I pray that you will be blessed in your desire to reach your goal!!
Woo Hoo! Congrats on reaching the half way point of your savings goal! I love Dave Ramsey’s advice that a house should be a blessing and not a curse. But I’m sure you two already know that!
My only comment, besides “way to go!” is that man, I’d be so happy/sad to see that much money go flying out of a bank account at one time. But then I’d think about not having to sign in monthly to schedule a mortgage payment….
And I’d praise God for that! 😉
My husband and I started having a budget for the first time ever this month ~ Thanks to you, and Dave Ramsey!!! I have been so inspired reading your blog that I am determined to stop living paycheck-to-paycheck, and to cut up all our credit cards. Over the past 3 weeks we have paid off or caught up lots of bills, and after telling our money where to go SURPRISE!! we have more money floating around than we used to!!!! I’m looking forward to getting current with our bills so that we can start baby step #1!!! Thank you for your inspiration!!!