I don’t know about you, but July feels like a “calm before the storm” for our family. Here in Metro Atlanta, August 1st is the first day of school, and even though I homeschool my kids, we follow our local school calendar so my kids can have school breaks alongside their friends. But July is also the year’s halfway point—it’s the perfect time to reevaluate our goals and see our progress. So, if you haven’t already done a mid-year check-in with your finances – today is the day to do it! We have to make sure that we’ve got a game plan put together for the remaining six months of the year so we ..read more

I love summer. Maybe it’s because I’m from the South, and summer is just when all the activities happen. There’s always a BBQ, camping trip, or lake outing. Of course, it’s also usually a bazillion degrees out with humidity at 110%, but still, summer is amazing. But summer comes at a cost that can end up wrecking our finances. So, how do we keep finances in check during the summer months? Summer has always been a time when, if I’m not diligent, that’ll wreck our budget. (Did you know that, on average, Americans spend $300 more during the summer on social events than at any other time in the y ..read more

I don’t know about you, but at the very end of December, between the holidays and being sick, we ended up eating way too often and blew our budget. Not to mention that grocery spending was completely out of whack for the majority of 2023. And so, in the spirit of New Things for the New Year, we are working hard on reigning in our grocery spending. In the years of us learning to manage money well, pay off debt, and save up our emergency fund, I’m bringing back a few of my tried and true tricks for fixing a wayward budget. So, if you aren’t already doing this, here is what we’re doing to keep o ..read more

Christmas will be here before any of us are ready for it. But there’s one thing you need to make sure you have in place BEFORE you do any Christmas shopping. Serious. Don’t do ANY Christmas shopping until you have this… A Starter Emergency Fund.  If you don’t yet have at least a Starter Emergency Fund of one month’s worth of living expenses, you need to build that up before heading to the stores on Black Friday. I know I’m suggesting you avoid buying anything for Christmas until you get that Starter Emergency Fund built up, and that’s a hard pill to swallow.  But trust me. There’s n ..read more

I’ve been in a season of life where I honestly feel like I’m drowning most days. Things have been crazy and chaotic. Maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar life situation where it all just feels like a lot happening at once.  When Chaos Hits We had our major house update when we had the entire interior of our home repainted, including the kitchen cabinets and the carpet replaced, which meant that we had to move our entire home to our garage so the work could be done. Then, our three kids started in three different activities, and this is the first time in our lives that’s ever happened ..read more

Job loss is real and painful. I hope that you never have to go through it, but unfortunately, it’s a reality that many face. So how do we survive it? Pat and I survived job loss back in 2008 when the Great Recession happened, and even though there were a lot of things we did wrong, there are some things that we did right. We also learned a lot during that time. Let’s talk about making a Survival Budget of sorts.  What is a Survival Budget I know folks don’t like to think about budgeting, but the reality is when you’re facing a potential layoff, all you end up thinking about is, “How am I ..read more

It’s a brand new month! Do you know how much you’ve spent this past month? How much you’ve been paid? How much your total bills were this past month? I know these seem like intense questions to throw at you, but they’re important. Too many times, we ignore our money, or we start off a new month with the best of intentions, only to completely forget about those intentions a few days later because life is busy. That doesn’t help us get closer to our goals. We need to know how much we spent and what we spent it on. We need to know how much we saved – was it enough? How much debt did we kill off ..read more

This week, our big Money Move is to start the process of changing our main bank. We’ve been using Wells Fargo since we first got married 14 years ago, and honestly, it’s way past time to move on to a more friendly bank. So we’re going to be moving our main hub for our money to a local credit union instead.  However, as anyone who’s ever done this before knows, it’s a pain in the neck. It’s easier to stay with Wells Fargo than it is to change banks. But that doesn’t solve some of the issues we’re having now. The reality is it’s a lot easier to do nothing about it and make zero changes tha ..read more

Our home, for the past few weeks, has been total chaos. We’ve been having some much-needed “freshening up” happening. But my goodness. It’s tough when you’re a Type-A keep everything neat and tidy type of gal. We’re having the interior painted and will have new carpet installed before the end of the year.  The reality behind this chaos is that it’s costing us a LOT of money to have it all done. Yes, there are ways to save here, and we’re fortunate enough that my husband is a Contractor, so many of these things we’re getting for cheaper anyway. But the beauty behind the expenses is that t ..read more

Even though we’ve been working together to manage our money for years, we still have hiccups with our budget. Unexpected expenses pop up. Or even, as has happened a couple of times, our debit card info gets swiped from a card reader at a gas station, and we find ourselves navigating a fraud claim. All of us know that things can and do happen, and if you’re brand new to budgeting and managing your money, you may feel defeated the moment you hit a stumbling block. But these three lines of defense will prepare you for whatever life throws your way.  1. Sinking Funds I’ve been preaching the ..read more