Finances
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Top Ten Free Valentine’s Day Ideas
Looking for Free Things to do on Valentine’s Day?! While Valentine's day can be a great, love-filled day for many, it does put a lot of unnecessary pressure on couples, who often, end up spending a lot of unnecessary money on gifts. You can actually have a great time with your partner without spending a lot! Read on to discover 10 awesome free things you can do this Valentine’s Day!
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No, Spend February 2021
Simply put, a no spend month is where you don't spend unnecessary money, and stop impulse purchases throughout the month. This helps you become aware of and stop, your unnecessary spending. ??
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February No, Spend Month UPDATE!
In February we decided to do a No Spend Month I had several requests to update you on how we did! If you missed the first blog you can read it here. Food $0 Going Out to Dinner $49.29 Personal Items: $0 Pet’s: $0 I think we did great Ryan and Gillian went to the Butterfly Kisses Dance. We had this expence planned before the no spend month. Food We have been doing fabulous with our food consumption. I think we did a pretty good job meal planning before we started this challenge. This time we DID NOT run out of creamer! I made sure of that this time! lol…
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No, Spend February
“A fresh month has come! Open your mind for opportunities, and you will be amazed at how much you are capable of achieving!” It’s that time again! Time for us to do a NO SPEND MONTH!! We did this back in November 2018 (read more here) As well as back in July 2019! (read more here) By doing these NO Spend Month Challenges not only does it help us control our spending, it really is fun to get creative with our cooking by using what we already have! This challenge also helps us get a little bit closer to our goal of FI! {Financially Independent!} Read more about our FIRE…
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Money Saving Apps You Need Before You Shop!
We all want to save money. I’ve been using these money-saving apps that actually pay you to shop!! The coolest part? You can use these apps alongside sales most of the time! Today we are going to talk about ways we are earning money back shopping! Earning money back on our shopping is a simple way to get us closer to our goal of FIRE. (Financially Independent Retire Early) Read all about it here. BEST MONEY SAVING APPS 2019 YOU NEED BEFORE YOU SHOP I’m all about saving that money. I’ve found 4 money-saving apps that actually pay you to shop. The coolest part? You can use these apps alongside sales…
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SHOP YOUR KIDS SCHOOL SUPPLIES!
Wow is it really August already! This summer is flying by! My kids are back in school! Jack is starting his Sophmore year and Gillian is a 7th grader this year. July was our no spend month you can read about it here. I am so glad we did this it was very rewarding plus we saved a lot of money. With a new month and the challenge over we still don’t want to overspend this month just because it’s no longer a no spend month. That would almost defeat the purpose of the challenge last month. With that said it is a month we do have to spend a…
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No, Spend Month UPDATE!
July we decided to do a No Spend Month and today marks our halfway point so I wanted to do a little update. If you missed the first blog you can read it here. Food $0 Personal Items: $0 Pet’s: $27.75 Bedroom Remodel: $46.04 Bike Tire Tube $9.40 (Paid with Amazon Gift Card) Two of the items we spent money on so far were on our approved spend list. One of our dogs got sick so we had to get her a pill to take care of the issue. We bought double to treat our other puppy as a preventive. Along with that, we got both dogs a tick collar.…
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Bathroom Remodel on a Budget
Time for a fun update to our master bathroom/ guest bathroom. Yep, that’s right Ryan and I share a bathroom with our guest’s. When this house was built it was meant for the upstairs bedroom to be the Master Bedroom/bathroom but Ryan and I wanted to be on the main level. We actually don’t mind having our bathroom as a shared guest bathroom. BEFORE!!! After!! Breakdown of cost: Grey Paint: FREE {Thanks to my wonderful MIL it was left over from her house!} Behr Falling Snow White Paint: $45.98 Light: $44.97 Counter Top: $65 Counter Side Kits: $19.95 Drywall: $4.98 GFCI: $18.98 Push Switches x2: $21.98 Shower curtain: $19.99 Shower…
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No, Spend Month
July is one of my favorite months! It’s my birthday month!!! Yay!!! Also the fourth of July has a special place in my heart. ❤ My husband Ryan and I first started dating on the 4th back in 2003! =) This July we have decided to do a no spend month! Ryan and I have put this no spend month challenge on ourselves!! This challenge is going to help us get a little closer to our goal of FI! {Financially Independent!} Read more about our FIRE journey here. Ryan and I have been very aware of our spending these last few months but the temptation to fall back into a…
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Tracking Our Spending!
Do you track your spending? For years we had a budget, but we would never really tracked our spending. Anyone else? ??♀️ We just spent what we spent and on occasion, we would sit down and go over our budget. We would set a new budget again. And then we would spend what we spent not sticking to it. If we did it would be for a few weeks or maybe a month. This cycle went on and on for years! When we would decide it was time to look at finances and it was always a stressful thing to do. I always felt I was in trouble or I…
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Simplifying Our Retirement Accounts
Disclaimer: I am not in any way a financial advisor. I am simply sharing what we are doing as a family to become financially independent. If you have been following our journey to financial independence. You know that we are taking steps to FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early) {You can catch up here.} We are One Step Closer to FIRE One of the latest steps we have taken was to simplify our investment accounts. If you are anything like us, you probably have several retirement accounts all in different companies. This can be difficult to keep track of everything not to mention the FEES… We will be talking about that…
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How to get Money back from Grocery Shopping
Today we are going to talk about ways we are earning money back on our groceries! This will be just an overview I will later do a full blog post on each topic! Earning money back on our groceries is a simple way to get us closer to our goal of FIRE. (Financially Independent Retire Early) Read all about it here. Ibotta Have you tried this app yet? This is a must app to have! Basically, before you go to the store check this app for all the specials and deals. Click the deals to add to your offers. Then go shopping after you get home, open the app scan…
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Shop your Pantry
In the United States, we waste between 30 to 40 percent of our food supply, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. As a family we are guilty of this as well but we are trying our best to cut back on our food waste. What we have been doing to cut back on our waste is first we shop our pantry and fridge before heading to the store. I try and make a meal plan for that week with items we already have. Next, we freeze any leftovers that we are not going to eat in the next couple of days. If we do have any food that…
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Our Journey to Financial Independence
This is going to be a bit of a different blog series then I normally write. But I wanted to share this journey with you! Our journey to financial independence may seem like an extremely off-topic for my blog but in my eyes, I see quite the opposite! Our finances can really put a toll on our health in several different ways. It can add extreme stress and we all know that stress has a major negative effect on our health. Same with our jobs they can be extremely stressful and demanding of our health. I also wanted to start blogging about our journey to keep up more accountable. It’s…
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Grocery Shopping
Grocery Shopping Can be overwhelming without a game plan! I have put this blog post together to hopefully help you shop! =) The grocery store can be a stressful, agonizing experience if you don’t have a good strategies in place before you get there! If you don’t have a plan of attack, you may be tempted to toss into your cart various items that may very well hinder your energy goals, cloud your focus, lower your self-confidence, make your jeans fit more tightly and your body feels sluggish. My advice for grocery shopping is to “keep it simple”. The food industry spends a ton of money researching how best to manipulate us…
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No Grocery Shopping!
No Grocery Shopping! Back in November my husband Ryan and I decided we were spending way too much at the grocery store each week. When we had 3 freezers full of wild game and frozen vegetables from our garden. Why were we spending so much at the grocery store when we had plenty of food and even homemade ready to go meals I had froze. First thing was first we organized the three freezers. It was amazing what we found and honestly we probably didn’t even need to go to Costco to stock up on anything we could survive and thrive on all the food we had! Freezer #1 Upright Freezer:…
