Navigate your life to Financial Freedom

These times are insane right now. Everything seems to be collapsing before our eyes and people are losing their jobs right now. My heart goes out to those who have found themselves in a situation where they cannot pay their bills. If you are this person, you are among the, at least, 59%. 59% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. If you are tight on money, here are the only things you should care about until you get paid again and on your feet.  Food - groceries only  Shelter - rent/mortgage  Utilities - electricity, water, not cable I think that if you have money in your bank, those are the only things you should be putting your money towards. You should only care about food and the necessities. Of course, if you have medications or other required medical items in your life that you must pay for, add that as well. If you have credit card payments or mortgages that you cannot pay, call up the credit card company/bank. Many credit card com...

I have seen so many food prep pictures online from the Coronavirus, did you food prep anything for your freezer? The average American spent $178.44 on Coronavirus supplies. We prepped meatballs , dumplings and lumpia. We also split up any meats we bought into meal sizes and chopped up different vegetables like bell peppers and froze those too. This is such a weird time and staying inside all the time will make me stir crazy for sure. I have been able to find the silver lining by getting excited about trying new recipes, working-out from home, running again and enjoying working in my yoga clothes.  While I don't think we over-prepared like others I have seen online, I do think we have prepared just enough. I saw people out there spending up to a $1,000 on stocking up. Each time we went to the store, not once did we fill an entire basket up. It makes me happy to see that the average American spent less than $200. Our grocery stores are now restocking and although man...

Looks like we all are going to be having a ton of date nights in this month. Hope my readers and family are doing well during this time and staying safe. JPs favorite meal out at Pappasitos or Pappadeaux is always the shrimp brochettes. Since Colorado is unlucky and does not have a Pappasitos, we decided to bring this meal home. I will be comparing this to Pappadeaux today since that restaurant is in town. So, like all my date night in posts , let's break down the costs. Shrimp $12.99 Bacon $3.99 Jalapenos $0.15 Asparagus $1.99 Lemon $.25 Dirty Rice $1.00 Garlic Cajun Butter Sauce $1.00 Total $21.37 Plus ingredients not above that I already had... $23.00 This meal actually made us 16 shrimp brochettes so the next morning we were able to enjoy more of these. They were delicious. You can stuff these with cheese, seafood, whatever you want, but we chose to just do jalapenos with shrimp wrapped in bacon. We then topped it with a Cajun garlic butte...

This is a continuation of my last entry . Speaking of what is going on in our world right now and how people will handle it if we get to a point like Italy, Europe or China. One thing that JP and I have on our goal list is to one day have rental properties. We have not yet gone that route because the only way I will do it is if I pay cash for the rental property. I have spoken with colleagues, friends and family over this, and I will not change my mind and now that our world is taking a turn to where people may be out of work for a while, I can share my view with you in a way that you may better understand it now. When you overextend yourself to purchase more properties, you become more desperate when your properties are not filling up with rentals. Maybe you decide to take a chance on a less desirable tenant or feel the need to lower your rent a bit to fill your rental quicker. Not all of those that have rental properties are overextended, but we will surely see what will happen i...

According to my brother, we are entering the real life Walking Dead, are you ready? There is a lot going on in society right now. We have the Coronavirus, the markets are down and oil and gas is taking a hit. I hope you stocked up on toilet paper, because the stores are out. "What is happening" seems to be the phrase I have used a lot this month. It appears things are only going to get crazier.  While most of us are out blowing our food budget, again, due to stocking up our pantries in case the world collapses, there are serious events happening in people's live right now.  People in the oil and gas industry are losing their jobs, the markets are down which is more job loss, and travel is down due to the markets and the Coronavirus. And while this time in our lives is pretty extreme and it all seems to be happening at once, this is why you save up your emergency fund. Now if we only knew we needed a toilet paper emergency supply as well.  Let's break this down. ...

JP and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary early last weekend. What ended up being a Sushi Den dinner out turned into a Downtown night out. JP and I didn't want our night to end when we were finishing up our amazing meal at Sushi Den, so we got a last minute hotel in downtown Denver and celebrated some more. We decided we could increase our budget to $500 for 5 years of marriage and it was so much fun! Just looking at the picture makes my mouth water, I just love sushi. I have mentioned before that JP and I really do not do that much when it comes to birthdays and anniversaries. We usually just do a date night out and enjoy each other, so for us to impromptu have a Downtown Denver night out, it's a big deal for us. We went to a speakeasy, found the best green chili that we have had in Colorado and continued the night into brunch the next morning. We always have the best conversations and of course we discussed budgeting and how bad we were being for staying downtown. I...

A new meal prep! I have been eating so much rice lately and it is catching up to me. This week I wanted to be healthier, so I did chicken thighs and kale. This meal I made only for me. JP is not a fan of chicken, so he made a veggie dish. The prices below will reflect meals for one, instead of the usual two. Average meal out that I have seen is between $10-15. Average lunch out: $12.50 Weekdays: 5 Total each week: $62.50 Total for the year: $3,250 Cost of my Chicken Thighs and Kale: Chicken Thighs $4.81 Kale $1.99 Total: $6.80 Total for 1 per day: $1.36 Total for 1 per week: $6.80 Average per year for 1: $353.60 Average difference between eating out and bringing your lunch: $2,896.40 This week is a much lower cost lunch than our normal lunch costs since it is so plain jane. I seasoned my chicken with just salt and pepper and my kale had a splash of red vinegar, salt, pepper and fresh garlic. Very simple meal and pretty good too.  If you a...

Most people will tell you that when it comes to charitable giving they do not allow tax deductions to get in the way. But the truth is, it does. Charitable giving by individuals declined in 2018 for the first time since 2013. This is partly due to the tax reform that increased the standard deduction to $24,000. Even religious institutions saw a decline in tithing in 2018. We cannot for sure say that is all from the tax reform, but it likely does play a part in it. When you decide to itemize your deductions, charitable contributions is an item to that list of deductions.  You can also ask your tax professional how much more you can give to lower your taxes for the year. Sometimes those tax professionals stick their nose in the air and say that you should give what you feel is right and sometimes they do their job and tell you a number. If you want to figure out this number for yourself you just need to add up all your itemized items , such as mortgage interest, property taxes, m...

Vacation number two is coming up and we are headed to Dallas. When you are planning a vacation, do you budget? Or do you go on vacation and pay for it later? Whether you are planning an extravagant trip to Hawaii or a quick trip to see family, budgeting is key.  The average vacation costs $1,145 per person . JP and I are headed to Dallas at the beginning of April. We are going to a friend's wedding and it will be another quick trip. We have found ways to cut costs by using points for our flights, using Priceline for hotels and using Uber instead of renting a car. One handy trick that I found out is that you get a lower rate on Priceline if you call in the hotel reservation versus reserving online. I will usually do all the research online and then call the number and reserve over the phone and it saves you more money. We have been debating what we should eat while we are there since this is Texas but it is such a short trip, we will not have much time for eating out really....

Do you ever look around your house and see all the junk you have accumulated over the years? Especially those with children, do they really need all that stuff? Did you watch the Netflix Series, "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" ? JP and I watched that and purged our closets and kitchen. When we were doing a review of our expenses for the 2019 year, one that caught us by surprise were gifts. Yes, I have a category for gifts. We started talking about cutting back. JP and I have never really gotten into major gift giving. When it comes to birthdays and anniversaries, we just go out to a nice dinner. And at Christmas time we just spend a $100 on each other, usually just to fill up our stockings with little presents. Our house isn't filled with knick knacks and I am not buying junk when we go on vacation. Do you really need to buy that extra item at Target? And maybe it is our mindset of what we need versus what we want .  For 2020, JP and I decided to cut out gifts all toge...

JP and I went to Houston and had the best time with family and friends. As I mentioned a month ago, we always make a budget for our vacations . The moment we start to seriously plan a vacation is really when we start to budget. One, because we want to see how much the trip will cost. Two, I love to plan and make budgets. And three, everyone should stick to a vacation budget so you don't return home scared to look at the credit card bill. Below is our budget to actual.  You will notice that we went over on our food and had some miscellaneous costs. We really should know by now that we need to budget better when it comes to food on vacation. Let's dig into why we went over and how we can improve. I threw a surprise engagement party for my bff while in Houston and I did not account for the cost of the food. It was a great time but if we have any events like this one or plan to treat the family out, we should plan a realistic budget. The other high priced meal ...

It's already March! A new month, new budget and new goals. JP and I worked so hard on cutting our food budget for the month of February since January we had gone over and it was tough! We just kept reminding ourselves about our Houston trip and Sushi Den Date Night in March. We logged in our spending and reviewed the finals results this weekend. People in Colorado spend $3,387 on average, per year, on dining out. Below is a breakdown of our budget to actual. Reminder that our food budget includes groceries, eating out, alcohol, household goods, coffee, tea, and kitty litter and cat food. Most families struggle with the food budget the most, including us. Last month , JP and I had struggled with staying within our food budget so we decided to be more strict on ourselves this month. As you can see above, we stayed within our food budget - we spent lower in groceries and eating out. We did spend money on alcohol this month. The $157.07 was for a birthday night out for ...