Characteristics of Debt-Free People I Try To Emulate
When you think of debt free, what kinds of things come to mind? Check out these 7 characteristics I’ve chosen to emulate as I take my financial journey.
How Can I Best Help You?
I have been tossing an idea around in my head for a while now. What’s the best way to grow income? I really feel that there are two ways to do it, but only one of those ways will lead to unstoppable growth. You can get hired on to earn income, e.g. pizza delivery, work a job, etc. Trading Time For Dollars By taking a job, you are always going to be limited to the hours you can put in because you are always trading time for dollars. And we all only have 24 hours in a day. And, even though […]
Do You Use A Checking Account Buffer?
Ah, the good old question of whether to keep a little bit of money tucked away into the main checking account. This seems to come up quite often with people just starting out making their budgets and starting to tell their money what to do. I thought it would be a great time to dive in and explain what a checking account buffer is, advantages and disadvantages to having it, and finally, what my family do in regards to this ourselves. If you have never created a budget yourself or need help, please check out this great guide I’ve put […]
Baby Step 3: Fully Funded Emergency Fund Update
So, all the hard work has finally paid off! We finally hit our magic number in our emergency fund and I made the transfer on 8/11/15 to finish it up! This is a very exciting moment since it means that we have finally set a solid foundation by paying off all debt but our home mortgage and getting a 3-6 month emergency fund in place. We are now set up to focus on taking our extra money and begin investing it into long term growth. It has really been a long road for us to reach this milestone and took […]
The Power Of Dividends & Time
The other day I decided to check in on one of my favorite things, my Phillip Morris (Altria) stock (MO). When I was younger, I used to think that I would just invest all my money into dividend producing stocks and I would be rich. But, because of dumb financial mistakes and bills, I ended up cashing out almost all of my investments. I did, however, leave myself one share of one stock just to see what it would do over time though. And that one stock ended up being Phillip Morris (MO). I have held one share of MO […]
10 Household Budget Mistakes To Avoid
Formulating a household budget is important to put the family finances in order. Though, there’s no such formula for creating an ideal household budget, there are some basic strategies which can help you create a proper monthly spending plan. Remember, your budget should be ambitious, but realistic. At first, start with paper and pen to compose a budget according to your lifestyle. It will help you to become familiarized with your income and expenses. Gradually, consider using a spreadsheet program for easy updating. Though, the whole task is not so easy, you need to understand that the key to making […]
July 2015 – $69,108 – Net Worth Update (+$2,316.50)
An awesome month for sure as we grew our emergency fund savings a lot this month. See how we did it in this update.
Financial Challenges To Try Out
There are a ton of financial challenges out there. Today, I am going to feature a few that I feel would be great for you to look at and possibly try. Challenges are great and allow for us to focus for a certain amount of time on a goal. I don’t think that going through these is ever going to result in someone being worse off then when they started. Take a look through the list and make sure to click over to get more info from the websites I’ve linked. I would love to know if you’ve taken these […]
7 Habits I’ve Developed On My Financial Journey
So, I got to thinking the other day and started reflecting on some habits that I’ve developed along the way while working through my financial journey. I thought by sharing them, I would hopefully get you to reflect on your goals and things to focus on while you are on your financial journey.
The Many Customer Types You Meet In Retail
Working in a customer facing environment where you are taking people’s money while conversing with them, you get to meet all kinds of people. This past week has really opened my eyes to all the different people out there that are really having some struggles, whether self inflicted or just going through a rough patch, or just starting out.
I love the net worth updates. I do this monthly myself and see myself in you as i get excited for $2 a month increase in principle!!! lol. A couple questions: Do you have a sample budget that you use? Also, have you considered refinancing your mortgage again? Over 4% is still pretty high. You can get a 15 year under 3% and probably wouldn’t change your payment much. Keep up the good work!
Hi Susan! Thanks for stopping by. I love watching the interest slowing fade away on the monthly interest! It’s so motivating!
As far as sample budget, I use google sheets to run my budget. Are you looking for my numbers for that or looking for a spreadsheet you can plug your numbers into?
On the mortgage, yeah I know we are a little bit high on the mortgage, but we weren’t ready to go down to a 15 year yet because we didn’t have enough equity yet not to have to bring a large sum to the table at closing so we are down to less than 19 years left… we will revisit our mortgage again pretty soon though. Our credit is great since we don’t have anything out there but our mortgage and a Kohl’s card that we don’t use but for the discount… I will have to see about the mortgage again though, thanks for the suggestion!