EveryDollar App

I am beyond in love with the EveryDollar budgeting app. It is really helping us with our baby steps to get out of debt. Now I have to admit that we are not following Dave Ramsey to a T.  But his baby steps are wonderful. This app is an accompanying app to FPU. I love that it does the math for me because I am absolutely terrible with math and when it comes to the budget there is not any room for errors.

This app is being a lifesaver for us. We are saving money by not only missing late fees but we are keeping our budget at 100% accuracy and putting any spare money in the vacation fund. We are planning a few "lavish" vacations for the next few years. We are also putting money back for a down payment on a new home. We are so excited to be doing this and we will keep you updated on the process.

April Financial Checkup

We are in Gazelle Intensity Mode for getting out of debt. We have started using our money envelope system. We are picking up every bit of overtime that we can get. I am babysitting three wonderful little girls three days a week for a friend. I am also doing some online surveys and side gigs to earn a few dollars here and there. Brad has been donating plasma twice a week and will be receiving a bonus at the end of the month. We are also doing the surveys for the plasma center and we can save for gas cards and extra bonuses.

This month we have finished paying off the dog deposit on our rental. We have also paid off our credit card debt!!! We have came up with a game plan and budget for the next year. We should be able to pay off $20000 in debt over the next 12 months if we are able to follow the plan.

It's Been A While

We have had quite a few bumps over the last couple of weeks... but I'm back. So we moved into a rental trailer for the time being. We are wanting to stay below our budget in hopes of fixing our credit and saving up for a house. It's very small for our large family... just under 1000 sq ft. But we are  making it work for us. DS1,2&3 are in one room and the littles are in the other. I'm very thankful because my grandmother is letting me store stuff we don't have room for in her garage. That is saving me $100 a month in storage unit fees. We have been getting his boys every weekend since we moved in and are so thankful! DS1 has been having sleepovers every weekend lately but hope to have him stay with us soon. We are loving finally being under the same roof! We are making our little family work.

Goals for the month:
▪️Have a budget meeting and come up with goals for this year
▪️Get a joint account to better handle our finances
▪️Work on baby step 1 of Dave Ramsey (we got off track)
▪️Quit smoking both of us
▪️Get a "Dave job"... a side hustle to help with our budget
▪️Start couponing again and work it into a lesson with the boys
▪️Return to church (I have been unable to attend due to my engine in my van blowing up)
▪️Have DS5 birthday party and make his cake

January 2017 Financial Checkup

We are starting to get settle down into getting ourselves out of debt. We are working our butts off to get ourselves to where our family has everything they need. We had to jump around baby step 1 this month to get ready to move. But on a side note we did pay off some debts. We did our first of the month money meeting... Yup, we are that couple...and came up with our game plan. Here are a few things that helped our budget this month: 

We discovered that our cellphone company was over changing us for over 8 months! We definitely will be paying more attention to the bills. I called fussing and begging them to fix it. They credited my account $197 dollars. So that paid this months phone bills. That helped. We quit smoking. This saves us over $320 a month and almost $3900 a year. That really increases our monthly budget. That could be a car payment. I've learned to do my nails myself. Thank goodness for Pinterest and YouTube. This saved me $60 this month. I also learned to cut the boys hair at home. This saves my $45 a month. That is $425 a month savings and with the cellphone $622 this month. That all went to closing costs, but starting next month we can put that back into our emergency fund and it will be fully funded in just over two months. Next month we will get our taxes back and have our two big bills paid off and have a lot extra in savings.

Every Dollar App is most definitely a life saver for me. I can just type in our budget and it does the math for me. It lets me know what I am over or under budgeting on. I really love it. As I am saving money, I am going to be able to lower our bills and put more back in savings.

It's tax season. While we are not able to get our refund back until next month. The place that does it for us, will advance us $1500

With mile up I have been able to earn a little money toward Christmas so yay for saving for Christmas!

Money Matters:

Pest and Home Inspection: $397 we have to start paying on it next month

Savings: $27
Christmas: $6.75

Dave Ramsey Style

We are going Dave Ramsey style. We are baby stepping our way to a better life. We are just one baby step 1,but are so excited to get started. We are looking at lots of way to save money and make extra money to go through our baby steps faster. Baby step one is to save $1000 emergency fund. Right now, we don't have a bunch of money to put back, but after the holidays and after we start following a zero budget, we will make this goal quickly. To be honest, we have no money put back yet. So follow us along with our journey.

I cannot wait to get our finances on track. I am so excited that we will not be struggling as much. I am learning a few ways to make some extra money from home while we are raising our growing family... No, I am not pregnant right now, but we would like to start a family after the wedding. The wedding is a whole other financial disaster, but we will come up with a game plan. It does not benefit us to put the boys in daycare because I would not make enough to even cover daycare expenses. So I will be working from home on a few various things.