Meagan left the following comment on my August Financial Update post:
I just wanted to tell you something. This morning I have about a week’s worth of dishes piled up. We don’t have a dishwasher and I hate it so much. Although this sounds weird, this post and others you’ve posted before have inspired me to get my life in order. We aren’t in the position to be debt free yet but you’ve inspired me to do the dishes. I can’t do the huge things yet, but I can do the little things, so that when we are in a position to do the big things, we will be ready to face the challenge. -Meagan
Meagan, your comment was right on the mark. You are so absolutely right!
My desire in sharing our financial goals and progress here is not to discourage others who are in different financial situations but hopefully to inspire everyone–no matter what your financial situation–to do something and start somewhere.
You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t stand up and take the first step. It’s easy to dream big dreams and make big plans, but the execution of them must happen one step at a time.
Back whenever my husband and I first had this crazy idea to pay cash for a home, we thought it truly would be impossible. We crunched a bunch of numbers, talked about all sorts of money-saving and income-earning ideas, and we both wondered if we’d lost our minds to set this goal and then share it with the world by publicly posting it on my blog back near the beginning of 2008.
But we did anyway, because we knew that, if we were going to pull this off, we’d need all of the accountability and cheerleading we could get. And then we dove in and took the first step: we set up a house savings account and we started setting aside every penny we could squeeze out of our small budget.
The first hundred and then the first thousand we saved were very rewarding. Little by little, things started picking up steam: our efforts and years of work on various income-earning things started to produce real fruit; we found new ways to cut our expenses even more; and we were the recipients of some unexpected financial gifts. The snowball just kept rolling downhill and picking up more and more snow–at a much greater rate of speed than we had originally ever envisioned.
Last October, God supernaturally opened up the door for us to be able to move back “home” (where cost of living is low) and start our own law firm. We used some money we’d set aside for extras, made the move, took a big leap of faith to start the law firm, and watched in amazement as God has blessed it far beyond our wildest expectations.
We kept plowing forward and our momentum grew. We continued to live on a modest budget (see a basic idea of that here) even as our income increased and we were constantly on the lookout for ways to earn extra income on the side (we’ll be talking more about these in the new Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom series).
One day last June, we woke up and realized we were half-way to our goal! Lord-willing, by the end of 2009, we are hoping to be at 85-95% of our goal–miles closer than we could have ever dreamed we’d be at this point.
How do you run a mile? One step at a time.
It is the same with financial goals or any goals, for that matter. They can only be accomplished one small step at a time.
It’s takes faithfulness in the little things to eventually see big progress. For us that’s been little things like: matching coupons with sales, planning a menu, purposing to live on a budget, reusing something instead of buying another new item, shopping around to get the best rates on insurance, making homemade pizza instead of ordering carryout, driving older vehicles, shopping at thrift stores, and learning to be content with what we have. All of these things might seem like a drop in the bucket when done individually, but, over time, each of those drops can start adding up.
Maybe you can’t save up to pay cash for a home, but you might be able to save $5 on your grocery bill this week and set that aside for savings. Start with the small things, be faithful in the little things, and stick with your goals–even when it feels like you’re going nowhere.
Start somewhere, do something, and don’t give up! Over time, as you become more experienced and adept at saving and earning money, you’ll likely start to see those little steps add up to a large amount of ground covered… and it will be worth every little sacrifice!
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Now for the numbers:
We began September at 65% of our house savings goal and we ended the month at 69%!
(If you’re new here, be sure to check out this post where I explain in detail why we’ve committed to this “crazy” idea to pay 100% down on a home. )
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How did you do in September? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2009, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and/or failures in September and, if you’d like, the areas
you hope to improve in October. 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!
Thanks for inspiring us all and reminding us that it doesn’t have to be leaps and bounds to begin, just baby steps and faith that we will have help in reaching our goals.
The first “story” was awesome for me to read this morning. My goodness, there Is Hope! I can Really have a real life yet. Thanks.
Wow, I just discovered this site a few days ago, and I feel empowered by the sense of community that has been built here. I really feel like everyone is really here to support one another.
I have been a stay at home mom for almost a year now, and have finally gotten the courage to stop looking for jobs and waiting around to hear back from potential employers and instead I decided to get out there and start finding ways to make my own money while staying at home with my children.
The tips and ideas provided here are fantastic and encourages me that I am making the right moves. I find the more and more I research, I find some great educational information that keeps me staying positive and motivated. I even just bought Loral Langemeier’s new book. It’s called “put more cash in your pocket” and it says that it provides you information on how to make money with skills you already have – I can’t wait to get it and see if I can help me pin point exactly what it is that I want to do.
It even came with some free bonuses which included a quick reference guide with tips on using quickbooks and a report on how to produce info-products which is something I am DEFINITELY interested in doing.
Since this blog has helped me so much already, I thought I would pass some research I have found on to anyone who might need it since it has a bunch of freebies!
Thanks again for reassuring me that I can do this! and I look forward to reading and learning more and more!
Crystal,
Thank you so much for these posts. These are the pick me ups I need. It makes me think back to 3 years ago when we moved 3 hours away from home for a job opportunity for DH. He was promoted but since the cost of living was so much higher, he actually took a pay cut. He was working 6 days a week, 14 hour days. our relationship suffered and money seemed to slip through our fingers before it was even in our hands. We were both extremely unhappy with how things turned out. It got to the point that we were no longer even friends, let alone a loving union like we were supposed to be. I would be so stressed about money and how I was going to feed us and our 2 kids, that even tho I knew it would overdraw the account, I would run to the grocery before everything else cleared and stock up, spending $600, cuz I wouldn’t know when I’d be able to get us more food. I was in a new place and didnt know where to go for help. All I knew was what it was like where we had come from and it wasn’t the same in the new place.
I finally lost it one day. our landlord had sold the house out from under us, giving us a week to find a new place. I had always come through in a clutch before, but i couldnt this time. Maybe it was because i didn’t want to stay there, i didn’t want to make it work, and I didn’t want to be in such a cold place any longer. The people were so mean, no one was friendly. DH told me he was disappointed in me since I didn’t find a new place for us. I said “I’m going home. You can either stay here or you can come with us, but I’m going home.” He chose to stay and try to make it work at his job.
The kids and I stayed with my mom in 1 bedroom, while DH slept in his truck. A month later I got online and printed off my own divorce papers and sent them to him at his job. I think thats when he finally took me seriously and quit his job and came back home. He found a new job with a company he’s been with for 2 years now. We have struggled this long and are finally getting our footing. We have a savings account now. There’s not enough to fill up our truck (we had to upgrade from a car after adding 2 more babies to the family, but its the only vehicle we have), but it’s there and we are so proud of it. We add a little to it at a time, but we are cutting back more and more. It’s still hard but we are stronger than ever. We grew up a lot, hard and fast.
I know its a terrible habit, and we are working on quitting smoking. We have set the date to quit as our next birthday, 4 days apart in january. We went from spending $360 a month just on cigarettes to $28/month by buying the supplies online and making our own. Its also helping us quit as its discouraging. It goes like this “You wanna smoke?”
“Only if you make them.”
“Paper, rock, scissors?”
“Nevermind, not worth it.”
🙂
Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you. I don’t see us ever being able to pay cash for a house, but we are working on our credit to be able to call a house our own. And trust me, coming from someone who let their credit get out of control, WHEN we get our credit back in good standing, it will NEVER be bad again. 🙂 It’s not much, but last month I was able to pay 2 hospital bills I had been avoiding. That was such a great feeling! Like “see?! I CAN pay for my obligations!” 🙂
I think your goal is wonderful. We did things a little differently, but to the same ends. We bought a house in a fantastic neighborhood, but smaller than some of our friends were buying. We didn’t have kids and both of us worked modest jobs (I was a teacher; my husband is a deputy). We were able to put down a fourth of the house cost and took out a mortgage. Within 2 years we had paid off the house completely. It is a wonderful feeling to be completely debt free. Good luck in your goal. You can do it!
This comment is for Sarah.
Please remember that God doesn’t want you to tithe out of guilt. He wants it out of love. I encourage you to pray each time before you write the check out for your tithe. God won’t disappoint. He will lead you in the way you should go. Something that helps me is to remember that our money is not ours anyway. It is His! Everything we have is because of His grace and mercy. If you give Him what you feel He is leading you to, He will bless you beyond measure. (Whether it is a $.01 or $1 million!)
God bless you in your walk.
Thank you so much Crystal for taking the time to do this blog. It has helped my husband and I retake control of our lives. In 2004 we bought a house with a mortgage at the highest end of our allowed loan amount. I didn’t take in account my inability to work as many hours if I had children and since then we have had three. We ended up losing our home to foreclosure and moving five of us into a one bedroom apartment. We had to rehome all our pets. It was heartbreaking. I didn’t know how to cook so didn’t. We ate fast food constantly or convenience meals. Then our wages were garnished. We thought we were doomed and were going to have to go bankrupt. Well then I found your blog and started couponing. Our life has changed and dramatically. We are living on more then $400 less due to garnishment and we are survivng just fine. With coupons we have been able to shop for a quarter of the cost we use to spend. We now have a stockpile and I am cooking. I am not the best cook but your posts on how to stretch meals and eat out of the pantry have inspired me to experiment with recipes. I’ve come up with some weird conconctions. My favorite one is whole wheat noodles mixed with refried beans and scrambled eggs. It sounds gross but is really good. The noodles cost $0.50 the refried beans were $0.50 and the eggs we got free. I can feed my two tots and I a meal for a $1. AMAZING! We have almost cut out all of our fast food. Seeing your shopping trips have made me realize I can afford more fresh food on our budget. We are buying more fruits and veggies then ever before. I have stopped drinking pop. We are trying to eat more whole foods. We bought a bread machine for $8 from the thrift store and have been making whole wheat bread every week. Our lives will never been the same. We plan on never getting another loan and paying everything by cash. Slowly my mess of a life is getting organized. Truly it is a God incident. Thank you for being such a blessing to my family and for showing me new life skills. So many of us grew up in broken homes and just did not learn these things. It is such a blessing to come to your blog and learn things threw your example and by reading your readers comments. Find this blog was like an aha moment. : )
Thanks for sharing the comment about doing dishes. Truly, sometimes, just doing the dishes is a HUGE step toward meeting financial goals. While they do not seem connected, they are…clean dishes means a clean sink which means a clean counter which is so much more conducive to cooking at home! Dirty dishes in the sink often = eating out.
Congratulations on how far you’ve come with the house savings – I’m rooting for you!
Crystal,
Your blog is such an encouragement to me. I found it 3 years ago, during an extremely difficult financial time. My husband and I were owners of 2 rental houses that were not renting, plus our own rent, utilities for all 3 places, and massive amounts of credit card debt – we were over $500,000 in debt. We started on the Dave Ramsey plan, and with some changes in our lifestyle and the grace of God, we dug our way out and have saved up a decent down payment for a house. 3 years ago I would never have imagined it could be possible. Thank you so much for all you do on this blog to encourage me and others. You are truly a blessing, and I can’t wait to read about the house you eventually buy!
Melissa
I am really looking forward to hearing some of your work-at-home ideas! I feel like I have the energy and can make time to do more, but I just don’t know what to do. I am not so much an idea person as a person who can take ideas and implement them. I’ll keep checking in for when you post your thoughts!
I made a promise and bought absolutely NOTHING in September and managed to save and sell some stuff worth $12,000! It’s midway through October, and I still haven’t bought a thing except for food.
It’s so fun! See ya at FS one day.
Crystal,
Let me first tell you how much I love your site. There are other sites that I have bookmarked BUT I love yours. I love the deals, but what I love is that you get personal and really share personal stufff. So I feel like I know you.
I am really excited to read your series on work @ home mom. I am a SAHM with 2 kids. My husband works full time and is also going to school to get his masters. What my problem is while yes I am blessed to stay at home, I would like to work or do something to use my talents. My religion encourages women to stay home when possible, I am just struggling with the idea.Not that I want to go and work 9-5, but do something else on the side. So how do you do it??
Thanks again, I really… feel touched and connected to what you write!
I enjoy reading every month how close you all are getting to your goal. We are debt-free except for the house…we got the house before we should have. Murphy seemed to move in as Dave always says.
Good job!!!
Thank you for that encouragement, Crystal. I’ve been very discouraged for several days about our financial situation. We just faced a tripe digit increase in electricity delivery costs (this has little to do with our electricity usage); our cars are continually in need of repairs, costs are going up, up, up. Our income is probably not going to go up in 2010 (i.e., no cost of living raise), but our expenses are. I’ve been asking the Lord what to do, but thinking that we need to make huge cuts somewhere. But now I feel encouraged that we can start small. Try to save $20 on groceries this month. Then try for more next month. We can look at insurance changes, although we think we have the best deals. Just take it one step at a time. Thanks.
Yay Crystal! That is such great news. It is so awesome to see what God can do when we take that leap of faith. I’m glad things are going well.
Crystal,
Do you have a budget or a separate account set aside for Christmas, birthday, baby/wedding presents for family and/or friends? How do you handle those misc. expenses?
Thank you.
Yes, Yes – again you are right on the nail or is it hit the nail on the head and right on the mark? Well I was never very good with sayings. You also inspire me. It is nice to “know” (well I feel I know you) someone that is actually an ordinary person who is soon to be the outright owner of a house. I feel that this goal is also in my (our) reach too. I have sent my husband on a course to re-build his faith so that we can both think more positively about life and money. I’m a positive person anyway unfortunately he’s a worrier.
Can’t wait for your series on working from home. I already work from home but if we are to achieve this goal too we have got to work and save harder.
Thanks many times over for your wise words
Crystal,
A financial goal I’ve had for a long time has been to be able to tithe. I always felt discouraged because there is just no way we can give 10% right now. We have medical bills coming out of our ears and a lot of debt. (We are getting rid of one of our two cars, however. I don’t want you to think we are just coasting through this.) Anyway, I attended church this Sunday and was so freed by the pastor’s words. He said that I wasn’t a bad person for not giving a full 10%. Right now, he said it was okay for me to start with a lower percent, even if it hurt to give even that much. Then I could raise it by 1% as we paid off our hospital bills and learned how to re-arrange our budget. This was such freeing news to me. I want to trust God to take care of my needs, but I also want to have electricity and not be late on my car payment.
Thanks for sharing. I agree with you about goals. I used to be a counselor and goal setting is very important in every area of your life. When you create your goals it is important the goals is both measurable and concrete or you will not know when you achieved your goal. I recently wrote an article
Creating and Achieving Your Goals
http://www.swapsavers.com/group/moneysavingarticles/forum/topics/creating-and-achieving-your
Good attitude on life and money. I am one of those who live the frugal life and have benefited from it. My husband and I did not save up the whole house payment, but were able to pay off our mortgage in just under 5 years. We have been DEBT FREE for almost 10 years. This means we fully fund our retirement, put money in the kids’ 529 plans, use credit cards and pay them off every month and when we need a new car (about every 12-14 years or so), we pay cash for it. A very liberating feeling!
Because of this lifestyle, when my husband lost his job for over one year, we hardly had to change our budget. We lived on my smaller income (with benefits, thank goodness) and continued our frugal ways.
Money is a means to live a good life (not extravagant – there is a difference), not a reason to live. Once you are on the frugal path, the things that are really important rise to the top!
I don’t think it is “crazy” at all to want to pay 100% down for your home. My husband and I recently started Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps to be Debt Free and we are hoping we soon can start our own house saving account and save up enough to put 100% down on the house of our dreams. Your blog gives me hope that we too can do this! We just have to take things one step or dollar at a time 🙂
You inspired us at the beginning of this year to set some financial goals. We aimed high, much higher than we thought we could ever achieve. 4 months ago, we passed that goal, and this week, I sent off the last check that pays off one of our student loans. I feel that just by setting that initial goal, we have been blessed to achieve so much more than we ever could hope for. And…we still have 2 more months until the end of the year!! Thanks for your inspiration!!
This is wonderful! I love reading your updates, and I love your radical approach to living debt free. We just put 50% down on a house, and we plan to pay it off in fifteen years, and that’s fairly crazy. You guys took it a step further. Thanks for taking on the challenge to live debt free. It’s a gift you are giving yourselves and your future.
Check out my new blog if you have time. [email protected]
Crystal,
I want to thank you for your blog – I first found it when I got stressed over an unexpectedly high tax bill. I knew we had to cut spending, so I went online looking for help and found this blog. I’ve been reading for 6 mos. now and we have our budget under control.
Your house savings is inspiring too – I can’t wait to someday land upon your blog and see posted pictures of your family in a totally-paid-for house. Wow!
Best of luck, and thank you . . .
Thanks Crystal, I just want to say thank you for every single word. It’s very inspirational. God Bless You & Your family.
Crystal,
How do you handle gift giving for Christmas, birthdays, baby/wedding showers for family and/or friends? I am curious to know if you have a separate budget and account for that. Thank you!
I agree with Meagan. You have inspired me to do the little things, and I’m already seeing how those little things add up. Thank you for sharing your many insights.
Yea, Crystal!
Wonderful, wonderful news. I always enjoy your updates ~ I’m cheering y’all on. 😀
Awesome accomplishment! How much are homes going for in the area of Kansas where you live? Have they decreased in price much due to the downturn of the economy? Fill us in on the details!
KarenM in Charlotte, NC
Hi Crystal,
I love your blog. Read it daily. But I would like to see some “real” numbers (actual budgets, savings, or at least generalities)… I know that may not be something you want to show, but it makes it a bit difficult to see that you are truly like many of us. I am a numbers girl and that makes it important to me. Your blog is very encouraging and uplifting and I praise God for you!
Great work!
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Money Saving Mom here: Click on the link in the post to see an idea of our budget and that should give you a great idea of how much we’re spending every month on budget categories. Hope that helps!
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I am curious…how much is 100% for the house? I can not find anywhere exactly how much you are savings towards the house.
At this stage in our lives, my 2 most pressing goals are to be able to remain a SAHM and to pay cash for my oldest daughter’s college fees. She is attending an instate univ but doesn’t live at home as the campus is not in our city. This year that is $7000 total each semester, but it is important to me that she not have student loan debt (we are still able to contribute to my husband’s 401k). Thank you so much for all you do to help all of us meet our financial challenges. I have always been careful with our finances but was one of those people who had trouble using coupons because store brand items were cheaper. Thanks to people like you I have now been able to realize greater savings, although I still cannot commit to CVS or Walgreens. I am trying to work on my mindset though. God bless!
Good for you. May the Lord richly bless you for all you have shared with others. Remember the little ones are only little for a short time.
Just wanted to leave a comment to tell you how much I appreciate your spirit and encouragement. We are in a rough spot these days financially, but are working to take those 1st steps (no matter how much they pinch)…thanks so much for your transparency!
http://www.southerness.blogspot.com
I have been at this since the end of May. I keep all my expenses in quicken so this week I looked at my grocery expense on a quarterly basis. I saved $1100 from 1st quarter to 3rd qtr. Thank you so much for everything. Now that I have figured it out, I am going to start putting that extra money towards debt. I could not have done it without this website.
Thank you for the bottom of my heart.
Crystal,
Thank you so much for encouraging us to plug on. We had been able to completely rid ourselves of credit card debt. We do have two student loans to the tune of about $16,000 still. We had hoped to be able to add about $400 a month to our payments on those next month, but our savings (Praise God we HAD savings!) was decimated by a furnace failure this past weekend. I felt so discouraged that we would be starting back from almost scratch after having about $1,600 in our account just so that we could start paying down our student loans faster.
Thank you for encouraging us to keep plugging along even when we feel like we aren’t doing very well.
Great Job at this rate you will be there soon! While we are striving for other goals I love seeing every month the amount I have managed to do. In fact I use sticky notes and post one right on my computer to keep me focused daily!
Wow, you all inspire me… My husband and I have 4 children under 7 and expecting another in 2 months… our house is too small, however we have decided to finish the basement giving us more room as we are not able to move… He is a teacher, although in teaching standards he makes a very decent living. Just last night I told him, we HAVE to set up a savings, God forbid anything happen we don’t have anything. I have learned to save money on groceries since May, and usually end up saving $35-$60 a trip, however we don’t eat “dinners” per say, my kids eat something then later my husband and I do so I can’t say we spend tons on food…
I am going to look up this Dave Rampsey and see what I can find… It is time to start and I really thank all of you, reading what you have done does give me some hope… I guess we will start with a budget! :o) Thanks again!
Very encouraging!!! I’m looking forward to more of that “Work-at-home Mom” series.
My husband and I both currently work for companies full-time. My salary is larger that my husband’s and we live easy, but by no means extravagant (why would I freqent a money saving blog if I wasn’t into that kind of thing, right? 😉 I’ve recently looked at the potential budget if I quit to stay at home and it would require much more disicpline and be quite a bit tigheter. The goals you are able to set and achieve along with other close friends as examples are very encouraging.
Keep going! God is working with you! Congrats!
Hello,
I just wanted to say that all of the blogs on this site inspire me SO much. Neither my husband nor I realized how much of a strain having a second child would put on our income. We’re very much struggling with it. But because of this site, we’re not necessarily reducing our grocery bill/week we’re getting more than what we were before with the same money. I think it’s taking a while to get my husband to buy into the “stock piling” notion of anything other than meat, but I’m doing it anyway and I think he’s recognizing the benefits of it. I would love to have a basement where we can go “grocery” shopping in our own house sometime! But because of this site and the blogs on it, my husband and I spent the weekend doing anything and everything we could think of with apples after going apple picking. We now have our own homemade applesauce, pie/crisp filling, breads, frozen waffles, dried apples, and frozen apple chunks to use for later. I would have never thought to do anything other than applesauce if it weren’t for you ladies. Thank you all SO much for your wonderful and inspiring ideas!! Keep them coming!!
I think Beth said it best. I love that you focus not only on great deals, but an overall “wise” lifestyle. And I really love that you don’t advocate getting stuff for free if you don’t need it, just because it’s free. I can never tell you “thanks” enough!
Crystal,
I am so proud of you. Way to go. This post is RIGHT ON. When we began to “Dave Ramsey” three years ago, having no debt and a bunch of cash in savings seemed an impossible dream. Here I sit today, and we have arrived. We tackled all of our consumer debt in just 4 months. (Gazelle intense, girl!) We then scraped, and scraped, and scraped…and rather than “deal shop” or “coupon” we simply SPENT. NO. MONEY. Ha. No new furniture, no new cars, very few new clothes, very-very-very cheap vacations (camping!), and lots of menu planning, avoiding restaurants, “living like no one else.” We have now accumulated 6 months of basic living expenses, have a smaller “expected emergency” fund (can’t stand to touch that 6 months savings for a broken furnace!), contribute 17.5% to retirement, and have saved 50% of our “new used car” goal. Our next “tackles” are the college funding and the mortgage. With four kiddos, that seems insurmountable…but I KNOW now that it is not.
We have also felt that God has blessed every step we have taken toward greater financial accountability and responsibility. We are now able to tithe, where before we simply “couldn’t find the money.” We have reaped very unexpected blessings by stepping out in faith and showing discipline…$400 “grandma checks” for new clothes for the kids, bonuses, etc. We have truly been abundantly blessed.
I can’t wait for the day you post about the new house! Woo-hoo!
I have 18 month old twins and have been feeling the pinch in my current home, but similar to Meagan, your financial goals have inspired me to make the best of our current home and continue saving. Thanks for the inspiration!
I’m a number cruncher at heart and would love to know if there was a point when the interest you were earning really started to kick in and be a huge boost to your savings.
Crystal, I just wanted to share a word of encouragement. You are an inspiration and I look forward to this post the most each month. Count me in as one of the cheerleaders!
Great job to you Crystal and Jesse!
In an effort to encourage those of you that are starting small. It can be done! It took me 10 YEARS to save up enough for a generous down payment. $20 was all I could set aside to make the initial house savings. Do not despise the day of small beginings.
Now we are trying to pay off our home early. It’s taking what seems like forever, but we keep plugging away at it. It feels so good to see that balance go down.
Thank you for this encouraging post. We are always amazed at how savings can snowball (just as spending can) when we PURPOSE to do it, (or in the case of a spending snowball, when we are purposeless). One of my favorite quotes is, “Use it up,wear it out, make it do, or do without!”
I like your response to the discoragement that people sometimes feel. My suggestion for getting started when that pile of dishes, cutting that grocery bill, or saving that first $15.00 seems insurmountable seems and the effort seems insignificant is to pray for discipline and motivation even before you cut that first coupon. The Holy Spirit provides the “skills” you need to be successful and steadfast at acheiving goals (financial or otherwise)- peace, patience, self-control, etc. It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t a spreadsheet that I lacked, but rather the self-control. There have beent imes where I really skimped and saved all month only to blow it on a really great “opportunity.” There are other stumbling blocks too. Sometimes, though I’m happy for their circumstances, I feel jealous of all my friends buying homes- but my faith grounds me- I know there is a season for everything and everyone, and I know that with that self-discipline will come eternal happiness. That’s a real payoff. 🙂
Your blog is different, it isn’t just about what store has the best deal on canned peaches, but about living your life in a way that honors God, and some practical steps to making it work in the realtime. Thanks so much for this unique blend that helps to remind me of those Fruits.
I love reading your house savings goald updates I’m curious as to what type of house savings account you chose to put your home savings money into?
My newest challenge is to save on groceries!! I currently have a $680.00 budget for my husband and I as well as my 4 month old dd (includes diapers/formula/baby supplies). I personally think it is ridiculous to spend this much money (sometimes more) on groceries every month. I’m striving to cut that down – it just seems so hard at times. We are following the Dave Ramsey plan and will be debt free except for our house in 2 years – I have seen amazing results following his plan. Anyway – thanks for all you tips and encouragement. I am slowly but surely starting to coupon and use CVS more and more. Thanks!!
As with any habit, the experts say it takes about 20 times to break a bad one and get used to the new one. Same with me and grocery/impulse shopping. I used to really (and I mean really) stock up on sale items because it was such a good deal, and we will eventually use it. But of course, I was charging things on my credit card (which we were paying off every month), but at the same time, the balance would be so high from all my impulse buys that we had nothing left over to save. I have finally trained my mind to make a specific spending plan, stick to it, and believe it or not, most of those fabulous deals and coupons, roll back around in a few weeks. We have been able to save so much the last few months…just because I stuck to my plan and did it a little bit at a time! Thanks for the inspiration!
I just wanted to thank you for your blog. I have truly been inspired by you and so many others that I have found as a result of your blog. My husband and I have a long way to go to be debt free but we are taking baby steps to get there. He has been laid off for quite a while and so getting out of debt is not really attainable right now. Not getting further into debt is though and that is what we are working hard on. Your blog as well as a few others has helped me save HUNDREDS of dollars on groceries the last few months and for the first time in my life I have a stockpile of food and health and beauty products. It feels good to know that if I don’t have the money for groceries every week then my children will still be well fed. I also have a freezer full of meals made ahead which is a GREAT feeling. THANKS AGAIN for your inspiration.
Not sure where to post this, but some KFCS are offering Free minimelts Mondays from 11-2
September was a good month for us. We were recently able to make an extra $1000 to pay down debt and feel like we are really making progress! Congrats to your family, you are doing awesome!
On a side note, have you considered becoming a motivational speaker? Or are you already one? It seems like this would be a great calling for you (in addition to all the other hats you already wear, lol).
-Money Savin’ Momma @ Engineer a Debt Free Life
I was discouraged at first, looking at the debt we have and the time it would take to fully be debt free… but then I rearranged my thought process and recognized that it truely is one step at a time. We started by literally saving $10 a week on groceries, which we put on the credit card… now we save over 50% on groceries every week and are nearing the end of our credit card debt, but it’s taken 7 months just to get here, and we still have a LONG way to go, but it feels good. I figure within a year’s time we’ll have much more mastered the budget and Lord willing, be saving more and spending even less. Thank you so much for all of your help and encouragement!