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Budget To Pay Off Debt

How To Improve Your Budget to Pay Off Debt

Making your first budget to pay off debt can be scary. It’s not as simple as assigning percentages because every person's finances are different. But the results are in and budgeting is a necessity to achieving your financial goals. Sure you can get by without a budget but you won't get ahead without one. My husband and I have been budgeting together since before we got married and it's set a foundation for us to be able to pay off over $64,000 over 18 months. There are a ton of methods, spreadsheets, printables, etc. to create a budget, but I…

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Personal Loan Traps

Don’t Fall for these 3 Personal Loan Traps

Understand the three most common personal loan scams to use this type of debt without it using you. Hey frugal friends! Today's post is from Joseph Hogue of Peer Finance 101 (and other great personal finance sites.) It's on the touchy subject of personal loans. I like his perspective on it and I hope you will too. -Jen In 2009, I couldn’t get a loan to buy a pack of gum. That’s how bad my credit was after the housing bubble burst. I got caught squarely in the worst financial crisis in a century. I ended up losing most of my…

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How To Save Money On Groceries Without Coupons

How to Save Money on Groceries Without Clipping a Single Coupon

The number one money-saving tip people search for on Google is "how to save money on groceries." Of course it is, food is one of the few things you need to survive and eating at home is way cheaper than eating out. But it’s also easy to go to the grocery store unprepared and walk out with way more than you can realistically eat. That’s why saving money on groceries is an easy way to drastically cut your spending, pay off debt, and reach your financial goals faster. If you like this topic I cover this and much more in…

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The Baby Steps Explained, And Why They Work!

These are the steps that introduced me and my husband to what financial independence is and for that I am eternally grateful. But a lot of important considerations get looked over if you just find a list of the steps and start crackin. The articles circulating the web are from two camps: Dave Ramsey people, who are relentlessly devoted to the man, and people on the other side, who do math. My goal is to neutrally answer the question: What are The Baby Steps? The Baby Steps, outlined in the book The Total Money Makeover, are the foundation of personal…

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How To Spend Your Stimulus Check, Stimulus Money, Stimulus Payment

How to Spend Your Stimulus Check | 7 Ways to Optimize Your Stimulus Money!

Trying to figure out how to spend your stimulus check to optimize the stimulus money? I’ve got 7 ideas that I think will help you protect yourself and get ahead, no matter where you’re starting from. Subscribe for money-saving tips and frugal personal strategies every week. And please, stay safe and stay home! If you’re searching for how to spend your stimulus check, you’re in one of two boats: You’ve got so many financial obligations you’re not sure what to prioritize.You’re not suffering but you want to know the best way to optimize your stimulus money. No matter which boat…

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Save Money Online

5 Ways to Save Money Online

With 2 weeks to go until Cyber Monday, it’s a good idea to start planning online purchases so you can take advantage of as many deals as possible. I’ve never been a big Cyber Monday shopper but I strongly prefer shopping online over in-store at this time of the year. Actually, any time of year. If you do your due diligence you can find dozens of ways to save money online. And I don’t even mean haggling or timing your purchases. There are really simple ways to get the stuff you need and pay less for all of it. Also…

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What is 3-6 Months of Expenses and Which Should I Have?

The traditional emergency fund is 3-6 months of expenses. Most people don’t have it and some have way more. The one thing most people can agree on is that they have no idea what their 3-6 months of expenses should look like. The first step to having a solid emergency fund is knowing why you need it and what it’s for. If every time you save $1000 you have an “emergency” haircut, you’ll be battling this vicious cycle of emergencies forever. Why do I need an Emergency Fund? An emergency fund is for unexpected emergencies. You know they’re coming but…

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Best Personal Finance Podcasts For Millennials

10 Best Personal Finance Podcasts for Millennials

I used to not consider myself a big podcast person. While everyone else was hopping on the Serial train I was calling NPR like “Can I just hear some Justin Beiber?” But since writing about the best personal finance podcasts for millennials three years ago, I've become a podcast pro in my own right. This article started as a list of podcasts I wanted to try to save my readers the trial and error of finding them on their own and has led to me starting my own podcast about frugality with my friend Jill. It's called Frugal Friends Podcast and…

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Emergency Fund Tips

Tips to Help You Fund (and Keep) Your Emergency Fund

Everyone who’s ever had an emergency will tell you money is key to making good decisions. We make bad financial decisions when we're broke and desperate. That’s why having an emergency fund is vital to starting any personal finance journey. We currently keep a mini emergency fund of $1000 while we’re paying our debt and so far it’s worked out great. Now we have a five-month emergency fund because we're debt free! But it’s hard to save, hard to know how much to save, and hard to avoid the temptation of $1000 sitting in your bank account screaming to be used.…

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How to Make $27K by Eating out Less

When I think about places where money goes to die it’s not into fixer upper houses or trips across the globe, it’s everyday stuff. Stuff that in the moment I think I need then a few hours later I wonder why it was such a big deal. There’s nothing wrong about these purchases, it’s just that over time they add up. And this year, we’ve crossed the line. Americans now spend more at bars and restaurants than on groceries. A few billion dollars more.  And millennials spend more than any other generation. Millennials (ages 20-34) are now America’s largest generation making…

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