Category: getting out of debt

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Frugal Christmas – Our Story

Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition paperback cover

Throughout our years together, Mr. SF and I have lived a rather frugal life. But once we were blessed with children we had to learn how to make our money stretch even further.

We had all the regular bills, housing, utilities, food, transportation and on top of all of that lots of medical bills, so when it came to Christmas, I had to be creative. I wanted to make sure we focused on the true meaning of the season in a very budget friendly way.

Now that my kids are older, Christmas looks a bit different, but we still enjoy many of the ways that I wrote about in my book, Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition, 101 Ways to Celebrate the Holiday Season on a Budget.

You can buy it on Amazon or read it FREE with Kindle Unlimited.

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February’s FREE Financial Reading

This month is our Frugal February and we are on a mission to spend as little money as possible this month. This got me thinking of free things we could do and reading was one of my first thoughts. Since we are trying to spend so little, I didn’t want to even drive to the library to search for some good reads. This encouraged me to search for finance and success focused books that are free to read on the internet. I was shocked at all of the great reading I found and wanted to share it all with you!

If there is a book that you have read that encouraged you in your financial walk and is free to read on the internet, please leave a comment below, we would LOVE to share it.

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Happy Veterans Day

The FrugalSource would like to take a moment to thank our brave men and women in uniform for all they do for our country.  I, Mrs.FrugalSource spent several years working at VA Hospital and it was the best job I ever had. I was deeply touched by the many sacrifices and stories that I was honored to witness during my time there and it has forever changed the way I view the world and those that work tirelessly to protect our part of it. We are extremely grateful.

Below are a few links to sites listing numerous discounts and freebies that our offered for these brave men and women.  We hope all veterans will take advantage of as many as possible.

Veterans Day Freebies

Veterans Day Discounts

Veterans Day Sales, Deals, and Free Meals.

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who doesn’t love a list?

“Failing to plan is planning to fail”
– Unknown

There is something about lists that make me intrinsically happy. I actually enjoy writing down what I hope to accomplish over a specific period of time, be it that day or 5 years from now.

These lists allow me to plan and to dump all the thoughts bouncing around in my mind and free up space. But what I enjoy doing even more than writing out a list is crossing things off. Yep, I actually get a small rush of happiness each time I take my pen and make a horizontal line through the achievement written on my index card, which is now my preferred way to write out my lists (using both sides, of course). Sure, I could create a list on my phone but then that would deprive me of drawing a line, and that is more than half the fun of creating a list in the first place.

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Baby Step #7 – Build Wealth and Give

Give freely of your time; it is far more valuable than any amount of money.

We have finally reached the very last baby step. And if you personally have or will soon arrive at this step, congratulations! It takes an incredible amount of work and dedication to get here, and you deserve to sit back and enjoy this part of the ride.

Even if you’ve been investing 15% or more, have set aside enough to help your kids get through college debt free (we think they should pitch in; it’s good to have “skin in the game”), you still may not be in a position to give much more financially than you have been throughout the process, and that’s okay. While we think you should certainly give whatever you can, and hope that your ability to give financially continues to increase over time, there are so many other ways you can give that may have an even bigger impact on the lives of others.

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Baby Step #6 – Pay Off the House Early

In our last post, we discussed baby step #5 and mentioned how steps 4, 5 and 6 are to be worked on simultaneously. And, that it is our humble opinion, steps 4 (investing 15%) and 6 should take precedent over saving for your children’s college (step #5).

Now, on to the debate that every single personal finance blog has touched on at least once; do you pay off your home early or invest more money? Which one will be better, financially speaking, in the long run. There are a ridiculous number of variables to consider: Do you plan on staying in your home long term? What is the interest rate of your mortgage? How much is your home worth? How much principal do you have remaining to pay off? What return do you expect on your investments? How soon do you plan to retire? What do you anticipate the rate of inflation will be? It’s enough to make you dizzy.

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Commentary on Step 5 – Saving for College

Here we are at baby step #5, saving for your children’s college.  As you likely know, Mr. Ramsey’s guidance is to work on steps 4, 5, and 6 at the same time.  He does keep this step more vague then the others due to the differences in family circumstances, from those who do not have children to those who have a boat load, creating a much bigger challenge in saving for college for the entire brood.

Most of what we’ve read, heard, and watched from Dave himself about this part of the journey implies it’s a non-negotiable step if you have children.  This is concerning, as everyone’s situation is different.  To be fair, Chris Hogan, one of the “Ramsey Personalities”, has shared on more than one occasion that one size does not fit all and, furthermore, making sure you can afford to retire should take priority.  Amen to that!
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baby step # 4 – investing

Once you have reached this part of the Dave Ramsey plan you are now instructed to invest 15% of your household income into ROTH IRAs and pre-tax retirement. We will not get into the pros and cons of various types of investing in this post, but instead of focusing on the amount. So, this will be a short one.

Investing money is a very important step in winning with money. It is a necessity to save money for your future if you ever plan on retiring. On the flip side, none of us have any idea what life will throw at us and we may not be one of the lucky ones who actually get to choose when to stop working.

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How Much is Really Enough?

This week we continue our commentary with baby step 3, which is to save 3-6 months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund. We absolutely agree that you should have a fully funded emergency fund. However, if you are already dealing with extenuating circumstances, or you are a one income family, we believe six months is really the minimum you should consider having in reserve before moving on to the next step; depending on your circumstances, a year may be more appropriate. Just think about how fast this summer has flown by; Memorial Day seems like it just happened, and yet we’re only a couple of weeks away from Labor Day… that span is just over 90 days, or three months. I can’t imagine how fast it would seem if we were in the midst of a financial crisis and were eating through our emergency reserves.

To reiterate, we’re not in disagreement as to the point of this step, or its order in the process. We just think that those of us who have more going on would be well advised to take a bit more time to build a bigger cushion before moving on to ensure we are able to weather our brand of storm.

Continue reading “How Much is Really Enough?”