Commit. Plan. Take action.
In 2019, only 29% of people in America considered themselves financially healthy.
The good news is that there are several things you can do that will help you save money and improve your financial situation – and one of those things is using the right money management tools.
If you want to learn how to manage money in the easiest of ways, keep reading and discover more about seven useful apps!
Buying a home is a huge deal. When you need a mortgage loan to finance your house, the process can be quite stressful. To get approved for a mortgage loan quickly, you need to start thinking like the lender and know the right steps to follow and how to qualify for a mortgage loan first before even applying for one.
Have you ever heard of a money challenge? It is something the internet thought up a few years ago that helps people meet savings goals (usually within a specific period of time). The original challenge, the 52-week money challenge, helps people save right around $1,400 over the span of a year. However, that method and timeframe don’t work for everyone. If that includes you, here’s how you can hack the 52-week money challenge…
First, before we talk about hacking the challenge, you should have a good understanding of what the 52-week money challenge actually is. It was created online to help motivate people to increase and track their savings. Along with it came message boards and forums for support with people doing the same thing. Pretty cool, right?
The challenge also introduced free printable tracking sheets where you can record your weekly savings. It also walks you through how much should be saved each week.
With this challenge, you save an additional $1 per week (i.e. $1 on week one, $2 on week two, $3 on week three, and so on). You can see how this adds up in the graphic below (via Saving Advice).
“Hacking” an internet challenge like this is fairly easy. All you need to do is figure out what needs to change for the challenge to better suit your financial needs. Here are three ways you can do it…
Throughout the article, I’ve been referring to the 52-week money challenge, but that is far from the only internet challenge out there to try. No matter what your goals are, financial or otherwise, there is probably a challenge out there for you. Take a look at these other money challenges you may want to try…
Here at Our Debt Free Family, our motto is “Commit. Plan. Take action.”
The first step before committing is to decide that a change is necessary.
Maybe you know that you could be smarter with your money. Or perhaps you recognize that if you lose weight, you’ll be able to lead a healthier, more energetic life. Maybe you realize that there should be more to life than counting down to the weekend every day at work. It could be there is a relationship with a loved one that needs some extra TLC.
There is just a little more than a month left until we get to meet our new addition! While we have most of what we need for our little girl material-wise, we still have a bit of planning to do. There are a lot of things we now need to take into consideration with our little one. Here is a quick review of what we’ve been looking at.
Of course, having a baby costs quite a bit of money. In the first year alone, parents can spend up to $2,000 on diapers. Just diapers! However, that isn’t the only thing you’ll be spending money on. So, we’ve been trying to plan for some of the following upcoming expenses…
Looking at the rest of the year, we have some hefty expenses coming up. First, my insurance has a maximum out-of-pocket cost per year of $6,000. I have already paid a little over $1,000 out-of-pocket for prenatal care, so when the bill comes for the hospital stay for delivery I expect to pay around $5,000. We will likely make payments on this.
We also need to renew the car’s registration and pay taxes in North Carolina in August. This will likely cost around $500 total. We will want to prep for this cost annually. Another one-time expense we are prepping for is the cost of two new computers for our home office. Because we are both working from home, it is important that we have reliable machines to work on. Right now, we both work on rather spotty laptops. Better performing machines will open more opportunities for us.
Two more one-time costs will be dental work (I desperately need some teeth removed and a deep clean) and our rental renewal. The exact cost of these has yet to be seen.
Lastly, we have some new budget line items to add to our monthly expenses. We will be getting life insurance for ourselves. Now that we have a child, it is important to us that we be prepared in case anything happens to either of us. We also need to get our child health insurance, which will likely cost around $300 per month. As you know, kids grow fast, so we are going to add clothing to our monthly expenses as well.
There are a few other financial things we’ve discussed in preparation for the baby as well. Both of us would like to send her to a private school. The public schools in our area aren’t the best and we want her to have a good education. This will cost around $6,000 per year in elementary and climb through middle and high school. We’ve been looking at educational savings plans to help us mitigate some tax liability for paying for her education.
Both of us are looking into starting other savings accounts and opening IRAs for the future as well. Something about having a baby has put us into full preparation mode for retirement and savings. We will start a family vacation fund, Roth IRA, first home fund, and savings account for our little one too.
Now, let’s shift our focus to our remaining debts. The biggest thing we will be focused on paying off now is our car. The monthly payment on our vehicle is $488. If we were able to eliminate that monthly payment, we will be able to have a lot more wiggle room in our budget and improve our finances significantly. Once that is paid off, we can focus on some of our other smaller debts and begin saving for a down payment on a home.
That’s a lot to think about at once and, sometimes, it feels a little overwhelming. However, both of us are looking forward to a bright future for our family.
Readers, how did you financially prepare for your firstborn?
If you have bad credit, your future may feel pretty bleak. This is understandable, as poor credit comes with a number of side-effects including high insurance premiums and problems getting approved for loans. A negative score can even affect your ability to get a good job.
I’ve talked about tax season on the blog before. As you know, the closer to Tax Day we get, the more anxious I become. However, this year looks a bit different for our family. Thankfully, I’m not feeling very anxious about filing this year and we should have all of our paperwork soon to get things done.
If you’re like me and feel anxious around tax time every year, we are not alone! In fact, surveys have shown that at least 69% of Americans feel anxious around this time of year. The pressure differs from generation to generation too.
I happen to fall in the category of millennials. Seventy-eight percent of this demographic reports feeling anxious around tax time. Additionally, 82% of Gen Zers, 69% of Gen Xers, and 50% of baby boomers report some kind of anxiety about filing.
This year, it seems the top concern for most people is that they will not get a refund that will make a difference in today’s economy. Many people are reporting refunds of only a few hundred dollars when they may have been expecting thousands. The average refund so far in the 2023 tax season has been about $1,997. That’s a startling 14% lower than last year. For some families, this makes a huge difference.
On top of that, there are worries about refunds being delayed for an extended period of time. Of course, everyone is concerned about getting audited because who wants to go through that?
I’ve been able to relieve some of my tax time anxiety this year by doing a few things to better prepare myself, mentally and otherwise, for Tax Day. First, we’ve been slowly gathering our paperwork since January 1. We both worked at a few different places last year, so there are a few things to sort through.
Next, give yourself time to file. The government is going to take its time getting you your refund either way. So, make sure you leave yourself room to go over your return a few times before submitting it to the IRS. Remember, if you need more time, you can file an extension as long as you do so before April 18.
Don’t ignore the IRS or the fact that you have to file. It’s part of life. Accept it. Grab some snacks and file your taxes! When you are done you can sigh a breath of relief and treat yourself to a nice meal. It can be stressful, but Tax Day doesn’t have to rule your life at this time of year.
Readers, do you have Tax Day anxiety? How do you cope?
I’ve come to the blog to talk about how we manage our money month-to-month before. I manage most of the money for our family, paying the bills and making sure we have cash where we need it when we need it. It’s not an easy task all the time, but it is well worth being able to live without scrounging paycheck to paycheck. However, I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without our personal finance calendar.
When I started talking about my financial calendar to some of my friends, I realized I’m the only one taking this approach to money these days. For the most part, the people I talk to are plugged into some kind of app or tech solution that helps them keep an eye on their finances. While I’d love for that to be my life (so much less paper involved), it just doesn’t work for me. So, if you’re wondering about how you can create your own personal finance calendar, here’s how I organize mine.
A personal finance calendar will help you organize your financial life. Initially, I started using my PF calendar to get my budget down on paper. I marked down the days I’d go grocery shopping + the budgeted amount for the said shopping trip. I also jotted down the bills and what days they are due, plus the amount. Additionally, I added in the days we were getting paid and how much. Seeing everything written down on paper helped a lot.
That didn’t give me a full-picture view of my finances though. While it helped me pay my bills on time and stick to a budget, bigger expenses and other things tended to creep up on me. So, I decided to make some changes by adding bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, and annual expenses to the calendar as well. This included things like car maintenance, property taxes, registration fees for the car, doctor’s bills, birthdays, holidays, vacations, celebrations, etc.
Going through and adding all of those things really made my financial calendar more well-rounded. It gave a full view of what we had going on, where our money is going, what we have planned, and what we are saving for.
If you’re interested in creating your own personal finance calendar, it’s fairly easy. First, you need to gather a few things…
Once you have what you need, it is time to start organizing your calendar. The first thing you want to write down is all of your expenses that remain the same month-to-month. For instance, we pay $1,767.50 in rent every month. That will not change until the end of the year when we renew our lease or move. The number $1,767.50 is written down along with “RENT” on the 1st day of every month. Similarly, our car payment of $698 is written down on the 14th of every month. Until we get it refinanced, this is the static monthly cost.
Once that is complete, start listing the expenses that may vary in cost each month. For example, you have to pay utilities on a monthly basis. However, our electric bill goes up in the summer due to running the air conditioning. In the winter, the gas bill is higher. Make an estimate for how much you’ll spend on these items (it’s a good idea to round up).
Following the addition of those costs, you can start adding in the less frequent expenses. For us, this includes our annual registration fees for our car, property tax on the vehicle, car maintenance, paying our taxes, renewing annual subscriptions, celebrating birthdays, holidays and vacations, and ensuring we have enough money to pay for annual check-ups.
That’s it – once you’ve jotted down all of the financial “things,” you have a reference point for managing your money throughout the rest of the year.
Readers, how do you stay on top of your finances? Do you use a personal finance calendar or other methods of organization?
This update has been a couple of weeks in the making but we wanted to make sure everything was final before announcing. In some of my most recent blog posts, I talked about planning a debt-free wedding. That will definitely still be happening but in a different timeframe and manner than we’d originally planned.
I’m ditching the dream wedding. We are having a courthouse ceremony next Monday. Then we are moving four hours South to Atlanta!
My (very soon) hubby-to-be has gotten his dream job offer down in Atlanta. He’ll be running a Porsche shop there. This is a huge career move for him and it comes with a ton of perks for us as well.
Of course, I work from home so there is nothing keeping me rooted here work-wise. In addition to the “dream job,” he will be getting a decent pay raise and we will also have a rental house to live in “rent-free.” I say “rent-free” because it will be considered a portion of his initial salary.
The house is only four miles from the shop he’ll be managing. Not to mention, we will finally have a yard for Enzo!
All those small perks aside, what has really driven our decision to move forward with this move has been the financial aspect. Yes, of course, this is an absolute dream come true and this could be where my other half spends most of his career.
On the financial side of things, we have the opportunity to finally pad our emergency savings the way we’ve needed to. We will have the money to pay off debt (and way faster than we’d initially planned). In fact, if everything goes to plan, we could find ourselves being debt-free in a year and on our way to buying a home.
Since my husband-to-be received the offer, we have been over-the-moon excited. It almost seemed to good to be true and I am thrilled to get to start our married lives together in a city neither of us has spent any time in before. It will be a fantastic adventure and will put us on the right track financially for the rest of our lives together.
That isn’t to say we won’t miss being close to family and friends. Of course, we will. We will also miss out on the big “shebang” of a wedding we were planning later this year. But, we can always throw a celebration down the road and will celebrate with the immediate family able to make it this week.
Incidentally, you probably shouldn’t move without a job waiting for you. However, if you are in the situation, my friend Kelan over at Moneyminiblog has a good article on things should think about if do find yourself forced to move, here.
All in all, I can’t wait to see what this next move does for our family, our relationship, and our finances. And, I can’t wait to keep you updated about it here!
It may seem a bit early to you, but I’m ready to start prepping our family’s summer spending plan. Generally speaking, the warmer months tend to be more expensive for us. We go out more. This year, we may even get to take a day trip or two to the beach. Not to mention, the cost of cooling our home in the South can be shocking at times.
So, now that spring is officially here and warmer weather is on its way (it’s 85 degrees and sunny today), I’m ready to start plotting out some of our plans for the summer.
As I briefly mentioned above, the summertime tends to bring along some additional expenses for my family. Nobody wants to stay inside when it’s a beautiful warm day. So, there are often additional expenses that pop up.
Namely, our electric bill usually goes up to about $200/month from $100 or less during the winter months (we have gas heat). On top of that, it is generally a time of year when we take more trips, have more day adventures, and living is easy. We simply don’t always pay as close attention to our finances as we should from June to September.
That being said, we started tackling a summer spending plan a few years ago that helps us map out necessary expenses as well as things we’d like to do during the warmer months.
I haven’t written out our summer spending plan in its entirety yet, but I know we are planning to do a few things…
Right now, we are working on nailing down what our budget for the summer needs to be and how much money we will need to save for certain holidays, trips, etc. For instance, Father’s Day falls in June, we will budget a little extra money for the holiday and find something my husband would like to do.
We are still hashing out the details, but these are the four things impacting our summer spending plan right now. Readers, do you construct a different budget or spending plan for different seasons? I’d love to hear about how you manage it.