Works for me Wednesday: Budgeting Helps

A while back almost a year ago I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University Class offered by my church. It was really an eye opener in many ways. Some of the awesome things I got from this class you can get too for free!

Check out Dave Ramsey's site offering free budget tools. This includes a download-able quickie budget, monthly cash flow planning, and an irregular income planning. Also you can sign up for the Dave Ramsey podcasts for free.

Check out the 7 Baby Steps that will change your Budget and your life! These steps most people will never get too, some have gotten to them and have to start over for various life reasons, some just need a reminder.

Baby Step #1 - $1,000 to Start and Emergency Fund
This step can be very hard to come by for some, and very easy for others... I urge you if you do not have a $1000 emergency fund set up start working on one today. This emergency fund can help in many ways, one of those ways is taking the annoyances out of things like your refrigerator going out, or a death in the family that is out of town. With this emergency fund in place you will feel at least a little more secure.

So start today, Get your budget in order. Check out the links above help you get on your way to financial freedom.

Frugal Friday! - Making Money Online

There are several different ways to earn giftcards online like Mypoints and Swagbucks. Today I am going to tell you a way to get money deposited into your Paypal Account on a weekly basis!

YouData is a website that offers you the opportunity to check out some really cool websites and earn money for looking at there advertisements. This is not time consuming or difficult. You also wont make tons of money. I made .46 today. On fridays they send out your payment to your paypal account.

This is not tons of money but since it took less than a minute too look at these ads, I consider it a nice way to make a couple of cents. There are some people who make $4 a week, this depends on your MeFile - which is how they know what ads to show you. Make sure you fill this out to the best of your ability to see the most ads!.

So check out YouData here today! I love to see the little additions to my paypal account it makes me smile knowing it wasnt that hard.

Budget isnt a bad word part 3

Budgeting really helped me in several ways as I have posted about the emergency fund, and car repair fund. Today I am going to talk about having a clothing budget. Many of you may be thinking are you kidding me Clothing is one of my first priorities, and others may be thinking like i did "I dont have money for clothes" All the while spending money when you just have to have a new pair of jeans because the only pair you had left that fit got a hole in it.

I have been there, many times I have been there. When I went through the Financial Peace University class with Dave Ramsey I listened when he said clothing was a necessity. I kind of laughed at first because I thought we cant afford a clothing budget then I started to think of all the times I had to buy something and the money had to come from somewhere else. We were spending money we might as well budget for it.

That is when I started budgeting for clothes for the whole family! I didnt budget much and many would laugh at how little I budgeted. We have $30 a month for my husband and I each and $13 a month for the kids each. We shop at resale shops for the kids or catch really good sales at stores like The Childrens Place and Old Navy.

I will share more on shopping on a budget for kids later on!
But I encourage you check out your budget this week and make sure you have a clothing budget even if you have a closet full of clothes and your size never changes you might need socks or underwear one day! And if you don't use your clothing budget each month keep the money in your clothing envelope and save it. You can use it later to buy something fun.

Budget isnt a bad word part 2

Last week I discussed how it was before I went to the Financial Peace University class, this week I would like to discuss how it has helped us to have an emergency fund and Car repair fund, and ways it has helped us with the rest of our budgeting.

Dave Ramsey suggests you start with $1000 in an account that you can easily get to (but not too easy) for an emergency fund. If you have debt you are to make minimum payments on these until your $1000 emergency fund is in place.

An emergency fund is just that for emergencies, things like a death in the family and you have unexpected traveling, get laid off from work. Christmas is not an emergency, neither is that new outfit you have been wanting that went on a drastic sale.

When we put our $1000 into the account we did not want to have to touch it. So we kept it in there even when things came up that seemed like emergencies. One time our car broke down and we did not yet have enough in our car repair fund to fix it (more on car repair funds later) and so we decided since we had two cars we would just wait until we had the extra money in our car repair fund. We were patient and when it was time we got the car fixed.

You could argue that needing a car fixed was an emergency, but we did not want to pull from that account if possible so we waited.

Car repair Fund:
In Financial Peace University Dave Ramsey talks about having a car repair fund. This is for things like oil changes and other normal repairs. We did not have a car repair fund really, yet we were taking in one of our two cars in for a repair about every 3 months. Both of our cars have high millage and are older cars with quiet a few miles on them so we expect repairs need to be done on a regular basis.

This is how our car repair fun works for us. We set aside $100 a month for car repairs, taxes, ect. if we do not use the money that month it stays in the envelope. It amazes me that as I think we are getting quiet a bit of money in there something always comes up. But it is no longer an emergency. It turns into an inconvenience. It is inconvenient to take our car to the shop and use only one car. It is a blessing that we do not have to stress over little repairs.

It is amazing to me that we did not have this in place before, we have always had repairs that needed to be made on cars, yet it was not budgeted in our budget it was always an emergency. Not anymore! Thanks to our Car repair Fund Car repairs are not an emergency for us anymore.

The emergency fund and car repair fund bring a peace when it comes to the rest of the budget. Knowing that we have those there really help when I think we are extra low on money that month at least I know we are taken care of in a real emergency.

So I encourage you to reevaluate your budget and set aside some time to figure our how you can get an emergency fund and car repair fund going for you!

Budget isnt a bad word part 1

When my husband and I first got married, we decided then I would take care of paying the bills and dealing with the finances. I had paid small bills like insurance and a phone bill, but never budgeting for 2 people and lots more bills.

I tried for several years to come up with a budget that worked for us, and have failed many many times. Last year I took the Financial Peace University Class offered at our church. After starting with that Our finances have drastically changed.

Before the class we did not currently have very much of an emergency fund, we had nothing for car repairs or even a clothing budget. All of that changed when I did a budget based on what Dave Ramsey recommends.

Next week I will discuss more in depth why having a budget will help and how we budgeted.

Groupon Deal: $20 Barnes and Noble Voucher for $10

Right now at Groupon you can get a $20 Voucher for $10 to spend at Barnes and Noble.

Just head to this link to purchase your $20 Barnes and Noble Voucher for $10. It will show up in your Groupons list Print it out and take it to Barnes and Noble or use it online!

Use this in conjunction with the clearance section to get an even better deal!

6 easy steps to Rounding Up Checkbook

6 Easy steps to saving money without cutting anything out:

1. Balance Checkbook (if you are like me this takes some time because it had not been done in a while)
2. Starting with new transactions Round up to the nearest dollar (Example: $1.04= $2)
3. Keep rounding up every time you enter your transactions in your checkbook
4. Count on your checkbook balance not the bank balance!
5. Wait a few months
   
6. Subtract the bank balance from the checkbook balance to figure out how much you have saved! ( Example: Bank says $1,223.82 Checkbook says $1,200.00 what you saved by rounding up is $23.82)
   

At this point you can either add that amount back into your checkbook and spend it or move it to another account to save, or you can let it keep growing. It is VERY important that you keep balancing your checkbook.

Don't forget to make sure you account for items not yet on your online or paper statement. (Example you have a check out to Aunt Susie and she hasn't cashed it yet.... one day she will make sure the money is in there.)

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