Category: Frugal Living, Saving Money & Life Hacks
Is A Zero Based Budget Right For You?
One of the budgeting techniques that has gained some popularity in recent years is the zero based budget. In this budget, you make sure that every dollar is accounted for at the beginning of the month. You look at what you expect to get in terms of a paycheck, and then use every penny to pay bills, or accomplish your goals. As part of your budget, you decide what will go to debt reduction, or to building an emergency fund, or to your retirement account. You can also put money toward a vacation or some other goal, on top of making sure your groceries, gas, insurance premiums and other expenses are covered. Every dollar of income is assigned to a spending, saving or giving category. No dollar
How To Recover After Bankruptcy
For the most part, bankruptcy should be the action of last resort when it comes to your money issues. However, there are times when bankruptcy really is the last option you have left. If you have experienced a long-term employment problem, or if you have had a medical problem that causes you financial distress, bankruptcy might be your last option. Once you have filed for bankruptcy, however, it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of your financial life. You can rebuild after bankruptcy, but it takes effort. As you work to overcome bankruptcy, and avoid financial setbacks in the future, here are some things to keep in mind: Make Sure All the Qualified Debts are Included in the Bankruptcy The first step to rebuilding
Ways To Pay For College Without Breaking The Bank
Going to college can be stressful in so many ways. If you are just getting out of high school, you are being pushed into the real world on your own. Your responsibilities just increased ten-fold. You now have to get yourself to class everyday, do your homework, study for tests, and maybe even work. As if that is not enough, you also have to worry about how you are going to pay for college. If you don’t have money saved up to pay for tuition, you are basically on your own trying to find out how to pay for it. Luckily, you have quite a few options. College is far from cheap, but if you are wise you can pay for it without totally breaking
Do You Believe in Psychics?: My Experience with Psychic Source
My first experience with a psychic was getting my palm read at a local fair. Everything the fortune teller told me was spot on, and I left thinking “she knew me so well!” The next year, I went to the same fortune teller and heard the exact same spiel. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I kind of gave up beliefs on psychics after that but would occasionally get sucked back in by shows like “Long Island Medium” and through co-workers who were into tarot card reading. When I was contacted by Psychic Source about doing a free reading, I was definitely interested. I set up my appointment, called in, and waiting for my reading to begin. Deanna described herself as a Tarot
Get Off the 50 Shades-Bashing Wagon
Let me start by saying that I never finished the book, even though it was a book club selection, because I just couldn’t get through it, I found the writing that bad. And I read the whole Twilight series so my expectations of decent reading material are pretty low. Also? The main character really annoyed me. I consider myself a pretty strong assertive female, and the mouse-y type anti-heroine just wasn’t doing it for me. That aside—I have been really bothered by the backlash on 50 Shades and I couldn’t quite place my finger on it until I came across this post on Facebook (because few things anger me more than a status update that I disagree with, amirite?) My response is the last one,
How To Avoid Falling Into A Bad Credit Score
Building good credit is a years-long process, while destroying credit only takes a few bad decisions. With this in mind, it’s important for new credit users to avoid the many mistakes which lead to bad credit scores. Too often it seems inexperienced credit cardholders underestimate the ease through which bad credit can be acquired. For these folks – the young ones especially – we thought it necessary to highlight the five best ways to avoid a bad credit score: Maintain A Healthy Debt-To-Income Ratio Credit score criteria includes something called the debt-to-income ratio. Basically it’s all your monthly debt payments added up and compared to your gross monthly income. If the former makes up more than 25{7dabfd103aa443fce219eea47f0f346a11a54ce587a1a0cbb74f06b9f7a304ca} of the latter, then credit
How We Saved More Than $1,000 on Vacation with Credit Card Rewards
Eric and I went on a Mexican getaway to the Riviera Maya earlier this month, staying at Tulum and Playa del Carmen for a few days each, and happily we were able to use credit card rewards to pay for vacation (or at least a large chunk of it!). We had a wonderful time and it was so great to celebrate Eric finishing his year of work probation, which means no more studying, test-taking, or being the rookie firefighter anymore, he is officially official! It was also wonderful to get away from the stress of new home ownership. While it has definitely been a dream of ours, I also have to admit that we can get overwhelmed by the amount of projects we want to
How I Started Getting More Freelance Jobs
I recently learned that I may be losing a major freelancing client of mine, through no fault of my own. For the past two years, I’ve had to really limit my freelancing. Between working full-time and going to school full-time for my MPA, I just didn’t have much spare time to devote to my side hustle business. So I kept the work that I had and took leads that came to me, but when it came to actually going out there and pursuing business? I pretty much took a break from that. And still, I managed to earn $20K a year from my side hustle income for the past two years in a row. I consider that a success. Now that my master’s program
Two Months as Homeowners: Update
Eric and I have been homeowners for two months now and I thought I would give an update on the reality of it. For us, it has absolutely been a dream come true. We live in an expensive housing market. In fact, the third priciest housing market in the United States, behind only San Francisco and San Jose. Almost 5 years ago, when we first got married, we were earning less than half the income we make now. At that time, prices were the cheapest they had been in a decade, and it hurt so much to not be able to afford our own place. We had to pay off our debt first, work on our careers, and save up for a down payment. That we were able
How far would you go for a price adjustment?
I have to tell you a story that made me feel really dumb. Its the kind of incident that leaves you reeling because you feel pretty stupid even though you know you’re right. And the kind of moment that you can’t shake off your head–so I decided rather than to continue to feel stupid about it, I would blog about it, because somehow I know you guys will all understand. After suffering through a cold and hardly getting any sleep, I went to CVS to get some Nyquil. I specifically chose the CVS brand over the name brand because it was on sale–a two-pack for $10.99. There was only one cashier on this lonely Saturday night, and there were three people in
How Our New Mortgage Will Affect Our Budget
So now that I’ve talked about the cost of buying a home in Southern California, it’s time we talk about the real important stuff, like how this new jumbo mortgage payment is going to affect our budget. Before I give you some financials, I want to present to you some numbers about salaries in Orange County, CA and the cost of housing–because let’s face it. You can’t compare the cost of living in southern California to the cost of living in the mid-west. And before I start getting all those comments about how we should just move to Kansas–it’s not happening. People choose to live where they live for a variety of reasons. For some, cost may be the
