The last month of the year! How has your budget been this year? Did you finish where you wanted?
I would say that my hubby and I are happy with where we ended the year. We don’t have exactly the amount of savings we were hoping for, but if you check out November’s One Income Family Budget Update you will know that we made a decision (on purpose) that we knew would leave our budget where it currently sits.
We are totally okay with that!
And let’s not forget about how our family finished paying off over $20,000 of debt this year! We put in a lot of hard work to become debt free! Lot’s of overtime worked by hubby, strategic budgeting and meal planning, and careful cash spending.
Figuring out a family budget can be super challenging, especially if you are just getting started.
The hardest part for our family when we were just getting started was learning that we need to continually be adjusting our budget to make it fit with our changing life.
This month our family budget is the perfect example of that. We made a few temporary changes based off of what we currently value the most.
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Debt can be crushing, discouraging, suffocating, distracting, and depressing all in one breath! It doesn’t matter how much debt you are in, it is prison!
I know very well the physical and emotional expense debt can have on a person. Our family had racked up over $20,000 in debt! Oh. Oh no! I’m getting lightheaded just thinking about it!
Oh but wait! Never mind. I’m okay! That’s right… as of October 20, 2016 our family is completely DEBT FREEEEEEEE!!!!!!
When you are really good friends with someone, you want to do nice things for them. Which is why… ta-da! I have put together this meal planning on a budget toolkit for you, my Pearls!
This is the exact method our family uses for meal planning on a budget that has saved us over $6,000 this last year! That is based off of an already frugal lifestyle. If your family is in the beginning stages of cutting your expenses, I am sure you will be able to save even more money then we have!
Raise your hand if you have debt… Don’t by shy because there is a good chance that pretty much everyone reading this article is right there with ya!
That nagging payment you have to make every, single, month! It is so irritating to be paying someone else money and not getting anything in return! Right?!
Not only are you paying back money that you have already spent, but you are actually paying back more money than you borrowed because of the crazy amount of interest you are paying. Blah!
Okay, deep breathes and let’s move on!
I have a fun idea for us to hang out!
What do you think about once a week, we get together, eat something super tasty, pretend like we don’t care how many calories we are devouring, and all the while we have some heavy (in a fun way!) girl talk going on!?
The chitchat will all be centered on a few chapters taken from the current book that we are obsessing over.
Doesn’t that sound super fun! I’m a lot excited about it! What a great way for us to better get to know each other?
Our first book is THE PERFECT read for someone who needs a heavy dose of shopaholic’s anonymous! It’s for someone whose desire to spend is borderline addiction.
We used to be those people who say things like, “Yeah! I think we can afford that.” Then spend the money without another thought. Four days before payday, we would get the dreaded notice of Overdraft & Fees!!
This literally was happening to us more than once a month! Things are quite a bit different now!
What did we change? Well, it’s not complicated at all. It’s called a B-U-D-G-E-T. Don’t freak out! (I feel like I say this a lot! Haha!!)
What in the world happened to our family budget updates? Remember I used to be sharing these things every month? Yeah, sorry about that!
The complete honest truth is that I just forgot. Going forward, I don’t plan to share these every single month, but you are more likely to see a scenario of me sharing maybe every other month. Unless something important comes along, then I will share more frequent.
