Are you overwhelmed by bills? Do you feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck? Are you sick of not being able to save for the future? You may need a budget. Okay, take a deep breath. Budgeting is a lot of work, but it's a lot less scary than letting your money control your life. If you can take responsibility for your spending, you will own your money instead of it owning you. But how do you start a budget? Well, you start a little bit at a time. (Remember that saying? "How do … [Read more...]
When Two Incomes Get Reduced To One
Note: The following is a guest post from Trisha Wagner from Destroy Debt. Some people are frugal by nature, others become frugal due to circumstance. I have recently learned that I fall on the wavering line between the two. 2008 brought a lot of changes to many families; the recession wreaked havoc on the economy, people have lost both homes and jobs and sound financial planning is finally in the forefront of many peoples' minds. All things considered I think the last year served as a much … [Read more...]
On the Road to Home Re-fi
So, we finally decided to start the process of refinancing our home. I thought we'd try our current mortgage company first. First off, let me say that I've had three years of bad customer service from this company. I should have known better than to try to talk to them, but I thought, after reading the comments on JD Roth's post at Get Rich Slowly, that maybe, just maybe, they'd do a rate adjustment rather than force us to do a total re-fi. I spent 87 minutes on HOLD, while listening to … [Read more...]
Cash is Better Than Layaway
Two major retailers, Kmart and Sears, have announced they will offer Layaway to their customers. More than 1,000 other merchants have set up similar deals through eLayaway, which claims to be "The Smart Way to Plan and Pay."But is layaway really the smart way to pay for gifts?Layaway (for those who may not be familiar with the concept) allows you to purchase merchandise on a payment plan. The store holds the merchandise for you (for a fee), while you make payments. When the item is paid for, … [Read more...]
Budget Review: Financial Planning Edition
October was a great month for us in terms of reigning in our expenses. I finally realized how out-of-control my stockpile was getting and curbed my deal hunting a little bit. Our expenses were down in nearly every category, with the exception of groceries (needed to stockpile a few things here)and snacks (a difficult 3yr old led me to some stress eating. Blah).Because I shopped less, I was a little lax about updating my coupon binder, so I didn't use as many coupons either. (Gasp!). I still … [Read more...]
Save Money with an FSA
It's coming up on on open enrollment time at my husband's work. This is the time of year where we get to make decisions on our health care, dental, life insurance, and more. Last year was the first time I ever gave much thought to the choices we were making. It's also the first year that we opted to set up a medical flexible spending account (FSA). If you don't know how an FSA works, it's simple: You can set aside a portion of your earnings pre-tax to use for certain health care expenses such … [Read more...]
Reflecting on a Year of Budget Billing
I've just completed my first full year of being on my electric company's budget billing plan. Here's how it works. When you sign up, the utility takes the total amount you paid them for the year and divides it by 12. They then use this number as an estimate for your monthly bill. The perk to this program is that your power bill is exactly the same every month, no matter how much electricity you've used.Every August, looks at what the actual readings versus what you have been paying each month. … [Read more...]