Tag: saving money

June 14, 2019

How We Bought Two New Used Cars With Cash

We have been hitting the road towards debt freedom pretty hard for the past three years now. The car loan on one of our cars was the last big thing we had to get rid of before we could start throwing more at the mortgage. How to get rid of the car loan faster was something that had been vexing me since the beginning of the year. I was getting close to an answer to pay it off faster, when it suddenly happened. We were finally able to get rid of the last car loan, and buy two new used cars, with cash only. This was a miracle! Read more

May 15, 2019

Why is Trusted Housesitters such a Fantastic Way to Travel?

My kids and I love to travel! But, traveling can get expensive, which is why we don’t do it as often as we would like. But, I recently found a way to combine two of our favorite loves: travel and pet sitting. Enter Trusted Housesitters. This is a program that makes your lodging FREE when you travel! Read more

January 15, 2019

Why Should You Consider Switching to a High Yield Savings Account?

When it comes to saving money, there are so many different ways to do it that it can make your head spin. Since it is a New Year, we wanted to take a look at how we were saving and see if we could reconfigure things to save us more. Enter our financial trainer with the brilliant idea to switch our savings to high yield savings accounts instead. So, how does this ultimately work out better for us and should you consider switching to a high yield savings account also? Read more

October 15, 2018

4 Ways to NOT Break the Bank this Halloween

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t believe that it is Fall already! Time really flies when you are having fun during the summer. But since Fall has hit, and we are now in the month of October, you can guess what has been on the kids’ brains, right? Halloween!

July 16, 2018

Was I Able to Keep Our Vacation Frugal?

If you read my last post, then you will remember that my two children and I were getting ready to head out on our annual birthday summer trip. I always try to make the trip a ton of fun, but also on the more frugal side. So here is the big question: Was I able to keep our vacation frugal? And did I do it cheaper than last year?

March 12, 2018

How to Have an Awesome Family Spring Break on a Budget

I don’t know about you, but we are thrilled that Spring is almost here! But with the new season, comes Spring Break for our kids. Of course, they all want to know where we will be taking them. The kicker is that just because they have the week off, doesn’t mean that we do. Sadly, that is not always how “adult” life works. Even though we won’t be taking them anywhere for Spring Break, we still have some fun plans in store for them. The bonus is that these ideas won’t kill our budget either!

January 15, 2018

How We Decided to Change Our Budget This Year

With the beginning of the New Year, comes the standard desire for change. At least for the majority of us. Well, we happen to be no different in that we know that we can do better. Therefore, when we had our end of the year budget meeting to go over all of the numbers, we decided to make a big change with our budget.

December 4, 2017

One Fantastic Way to Save a Bundle on Holiday Gifts!

I don’t know about you, but as our family keeps getting larger so does the cost of our holiday gifts. Due to this, we keep coming up with more and more creative ways to pile more presents under the tree for less. Sometimes, this can be tricky, since all of the kids want everything they see, plus we have family to buy for. And this doesn’t even include the food! But this year, we found yet another way to save money and keep below our budget.

October 16, 2017

How to Get Creative With Your Food Budget

When it comes to household expenses, food almost tops the list. This is true of most American households, which makes it one of the best places to start cutting back to save money. But how is it possible to do that with the ever creeping price of food? Oh, it can be done! Sometimes, we just have to be a bit creative, but cutting the food budget is definitely something that can happen.

October 2, 2017

How to Teach Money Lessons Early For the Win

Editor’s Note: Hi everyone! Please welcome our new staff writer, Shanah Bell. Shanah will be sharing her story and advice on the blog twice/month. We thought she’d made a great second voice on the blog in addition to Laurie’s. Enjoy!

Teaching children about money, and the power that it truly has to make or break your life, is one of the hardest parts of parenting. As a family of 5, with the age ranges of our children vastly different, that gets even more difficult to navigate. How we need to teach the 5 year old is completely different than the way we can teach the 12 year old.