Are you looking for a path to life without debt? Then you should most definitely enter to win your own hardback copy of Dave Ramsey’s bestselling The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness.
I’m currently reading this book, and am really liking it. I always have felt that I shouldn’t be putting money aside while I still have debt. (Stupid fixer-upper!) I’m realizing I need to take care of myself (emergency fund) before I can move forward to true financial freedom.
I am stupendously good at stretching a dollar, and am freshly inspired to knock out all the house related house debt that has snuck up on us.
To win, just enter your favorite budgeting tips in the comments section below. I will randomly pick a winner in one week, April 16, 2009 at midnight P.S.T. Only one entry per person please.
Thank you very much to the generous folks over at daveramsey.com.
Good luck!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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Hey,
The thing that’s worked best for me is to have multiple saving accounts (or at least to track the $ as if you do). I break up my emergency savings account into categories (car repair, pets, travel, etc.) that way if I have an unforeseen expense I usually have the $ saved for it – and I don’t have to take the $ out of a fun category like travel to take care of it.
I have to say that the best thing for me to staty financially fit is to establish wants vs. needs. This was hard for me to do after years of being spoiled (I can admit) with things that I just wanted and not necessarily needed. I have a 18 month old son and instead of going all out on lavish gifts for holidays, he gets something he will appreciate. I have also mentioned to family about savings bonds, savings accounts, etc. for him to be able to use when he comes of age. That way he will see that we thought about financial fitness since he was younger and he can see how it pays off to be financially fit.
Insteand of using conventional oil, I use syntheitic oil and wait one to one and a half year to change it. Wait for it to go on sale at autozone, pepboys… Saves money and time. Always check it and use your best judgement. (No oil causes auto seizure.) I discovered as of this year I can watch three additional movies on my netflix account using the watch instantly bottom.
To make budgeting more effortless, focus on your fixed expenses first (rent/morgage, car payments, cell phone, internet, TV, anything that comes in regularly). By keeping these fixed expenses low you have a lot of wiggle room when you want to make a larger purchase, increase your savings and investments, or if your income declines.
Consignment shops for clothing my family. Clothing at these shops is more expensive than thrifting but I find really nice clothing for a quarter of retail price. Im a plus size and often have difficulty finding my size in thrift stores. This saves me thousands, yes, thousands of dollars a year. Thanks Katy!
We’re working on making a financial uturn in our lives right now via the uturn challenge. We just started and have a ways to go but the best thing we’ve learned so far is to operate on a CASH only basis. We have a weekly budget for groceries (we try to limits ourselves to one big trip per week) and on the way to the store we stop at an ATM and pull out that much in cash. It forces us to keep track of what we’re putting in the cart and how to make that money stretch the farthest. If we walk out with extra green in our wallet, we know we’ve done a good job! It’s worked great so far but there are plenty of other tips that we’re sharing on our blog at http://www.uturnchallenge.com one of the families is a big supporter of Dave Ramsey’s method and I’d love to get my hands on a copy. Thanks!
All of the tips are great and a lot of them are ones that I use. I would reiterate the use of craig’s list, eBay, yard sales, consignment shops, etc. So many of my major household items came from craig’s list — sometimes the item is barely used but the person is moving away, etc.
I’ve been making my own laundry soap for over a year now and it works out to be 1 cent per load!
I won’t stop buying Downy though, I just love the smell!
My tip is definitely the envelope system for gas, groceries and my ‘blow’ money. I have found that it keeps me from using my debit card, which in turn, allows me to save more. I use Dave’s zero-based budgeting concept, and when it’s all spent, it’s all spent. It makes me think long and hard about my expenses for the month, and what is important and what I can skip.
My tip is to have an allowance for the adults. Having a bit of money that we aren’t held accountable for has saved my husband and I many, many arguments! As our finances have changed, this amount has gone up and down; it started at just $25/month. We periodically discuss whether something is “paid by the house” or “paid by our spending money” and negotiate it.
My favorite budgeting tip: no impulse spending and sew, sew, sew as many things as possible. Each piece of clothing that is headed for the give-away pile can also be refashioned into something else. So, I split up the refashions and the give-aways so there’s a purpose for everything.
We are low on funds with my husband in grad school, so we never have enough money to budget fun and dates into each month. Instead we use whatever tips he receives working at Starbucks to use for that next week. Sometimes it’s kind of a challenge to do a date on $10, but we’ll get a coffee those weeks. If it’s a mega-cash week and he gets $30, then we go somewhere nicer, or split it up into 2 dates!
Keep a spreadsheet of all spending; bake bread for the family, take all hand-me-downs for myself and the kids, trying to sew some of my own clothes…still struggling with my hair — tried to color it myself (hey, I’m too young to be gray!) and realized it was better to spend money on having it well done. I did not look good as an accidental red head. Finally, with five little kids and full time work, I gave up on the library. Our house is minimal, but at least once a quarter a library book is ruined or missing, so I gave up and started buying books as our big surprise treats — usually used. At least they give and give entertainment, and it’s only a little more costly then my library fines (though it saves me the humiliation…). I guess I still have frugal work to do.
I am a fan of Mary Hunt’s “Freedom Fund.” We listed the various categories of intermittent expenses, both fun (vacation, Christmas gifts) and necessary (auto insurance, auto maintenance/repair, annual furnace cleaning) and calculated an annual amount for each. This was divided by the 26 payroll periods in our year to come up with the amount per paycheck which needed to go to that account. We maintain a separate checking account for our Freedom Fund and keep that money as sacred to its designated purpose. New categories can be added and categories that are no longer needed are deleted, but the proper amount goes into the Freedom Fund from each and every paycheck.
I think my best budgeting advice is to take the Financial Peace University. It had so many good ideas and inspirations and motivations on getting yourself on the right track financially. My husband and I were not able to take the class in person so we did it online together at home when it worked for his schedule. For the first time in 12 years of marriage we were on the same page financially, what a gift! And having a partner on the same page helps make budgeting, sticking to it, planning ahead, setting goals, all of it successful and that much easier because we did it together!
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