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QUARANTINE
We are all experiencing it and I don't know about you but I am going a wee bit crazy with it. In our house we both currently work from home so this hasn't changed things too drastically. Aside from the daily homeschool battles, getting the kids outside to move battles and trying not to consume too much media; we are doing just fine! (I hope you feel this dripping with sarcasm...)
I want to share with you all some ways that we have saved tons of money in the past when life has called for us to tighten up a bit. It has proven to work magic for us and we were able to pay off about $60K in 17 months.
Here is what we did:
STEP 1.) We sat down and printed out our last statement to our bank accounts. Then we went through (with a highlighter!!!) and found where all our money was being spent. Big chunks were going to food, eating out, and at the time; childcare. Which, at the time I was making less than it cost to have our children watched so we cut that cost. We call this unnecessary spending FAT, and we had A LOT of it. $2500/month in total!!! That is a lot of money going NOWHERE!!! (On average we have found the average amount of FAT in a house is $500/month.)
STEP 2.) Once we found all that FAT we decided where the money needed to go. We concluded on our debt at the time. Credit cards steal our money and money we haven't made yet with their interest rates of 18-24%. So we slowly but surely paid it off using this money.
STEP 3.) Our money is always going somewhere...So make sure it's where YOU want it to go. I use an app call DIGIT (Click the word "DIGIT" if you're interested. This is not an ad and I do not make money from them for putting this in here.) It helps me manage and save for necessities as well as investments and bills. It's $5/month and it keeps my money working for me instead of against me. I have 6 different accounts for things such as bills, investments, savings, business and so forth.
STEP 4.) Check into the little things. I make sure to go through my statements monthly. And my cell phone subscriptions! (Click here to see how you can do this on an Apple Phone.) Those add up very quickly! Right now I am spending $35/month on subscriptions, but I know exactly what they're for and I use them constantly.
It's important to know where our money is going. I am constantly in a state of learning to be a better manager of my money and how to invest. I find it interesting! I know, boring...but we like what we like. If you ever want to dive deeper into detail on some books that helped me I have a few:
1.) War on Debt by Dani Johnson; it's actually a debt system but it worked for us. We only now hold business debt...but we are close to paying that off as well. Click the link for a short video insert.
2.) True Wealth Formula by Hans Johnson; a great book to learn money management and a simple how-to in investing wisely.
3.) You Are A Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero; I love this book and all the aspects it teaches us about the psychology, and often wrong; mindsets behind money. It's far more emotional than I ever wanted it to be!
Best of luck in being responsible with your moolah! All I can say is when you work it; it works!!!
Health & hugs,
Yolanda