Navigate your life to Financial Freedom

Have you heard the debate that getting Starbucks everyday is killing your finances? I once worked in an office where Starbucks was in the lobby, it was no big deal... until the fall came and so did the Pumpkin Spice Latte. I had received a gift card to Starbucks and treated myself to a few until my card ran out. But then I kept getting them. Not only did I spend way too much on Starbucks in October that year but I also gained 5lbs from all the sugar. This year I told myself I would not get Starbucks, and the only time I have is when we were on a road trip to/from Florida and I needed coffee on the drive.  I often debate with my peers about getting coffee everyday or even grabbing lunch out. My stance is it is a waste of money and your money can be working harder someplace else. In the last 3 years, I have paid to eat out lunch less than 10 times. My brain also works differently than most because when I eat out, I think about how much that meal would have cost me to make at home ...

You know how people always say that getting life insurance or a will is on their list of things to do but for some reason, they never actually get to it? That is how I am with online banking, but this past weekend I finally got to it! I don't know about my readers, but with coronavirus, you should really be stacking up that cash even more than usual because we really do not know what is going to happen in the winter from this. If you stick all of that money in your regular bank, say J.P. Morgan, then you are earning nothing on your hard earned money. With Chase , I am earning 0.01% on my savings which is pennies but you can find online banking right now with 1.25% savings rates. That can amount to a few hundred dollars for us. Of course, it all depends on how much money you are going to put in your account. But if you are stacking cash, like us, then this is the place you want to be.  How do you know what online bank is right for you? First, how much money are you going to b...

I know, I know, another post about reviewing your spending. BUT IT'S IMPORTANT! If you do not consistently check your spending habits and how you are doing compared to your budget, then you will never know when to pull back or indulge. Would you even be shocked if I told you that I look at our finances for at least 30 minutes a day? It's true. I also do not use Mint or any other platform that links to your banking because it does not break everything out enough. Plus, I am a huge nerd and just love spreadsheets and analyzing different scenarios. I really do find this to be fun. When it comes to finances, June was a great month. It was our highest income month this year, highest savings month, we went on a vacation under budget , increased our emergency fund and spending was down. I believe that when you become intentional with your money, you find money that you didn't think was there.  Below is our June budget for food, alcohol, cats, etc. In my May review , I sai...

Have you ever calculated your net worth? Have you really sat down and written all of your assets and liabilities to figure out your household net worth? This is something that I think should be done at least once a year.  When JP and I went to Tennessee with my brother to do our debt free scream with Dave Ramsey in 2016, my brother and I started a financial race. The first one to x amount of dollars, wins. Now, I don't know if he remembers this, but I have taken it seriously ever since. JP and I also have an age in mind where we want to accomplish this same goal, so to make sure we are on track, I check our net worth each month. Below is an average net worth by age : How do you stack up? Below I will put 2 examples, the first is a household similar to ours without debt except the mortgage and the second, a household that has the average amount of debt in their 30s. Do you see yourself in any of those situations? Write out your balances in those amounts and add any ot...

One of the biggest topics in our house right now is when we plan to retire and how we will accomplish this goal. Retirement for us does not mean we will stop working all together, and maybe I shouldn't use the word retirement but instead our goal is to become financially independent. What does that mean? Financial independence means we will have enough personal wealth that our assets generate income that is greater than our expenses. You can make this happen thru a variety of ways, but it's important to bring your expenses as low as possible to make this easier. The first thing you should do is pay off all of your debt. My readers will know that we did this in 2016 , except for the mortgage. We are currently working on our plan to pay off our mortgage before 2025. If we accomplish this on schedule, we will be around the age of 40. Our goal is to become financially independent between the ages of 50-55. This means we need some sort of bridge account from this age to the time w...

Just like how we review our finances after each month, we review our budget after each trip. We made a last minute trip to Florida this month to see my Grandmom and hang out with family.  75% of Americans have gone into debt to pay for a vacation. It was a great trip, even if I did get severely sunburned. Yes, I was wearing sunscreen, just not the one I should have been wearing. Below is our budget to actual and you will see that we saved over $580 on this trip. We were able to save on the activities because we decided not to go jet skiing since the costs were too high. $70 for half an hour? No thanks! The other large savings was for gas since gas prices are so low right now and from food since we did not eat out at any restaurants. We typically grill out the entire time we go on family vacations to save money. When everyone in your family knows how to cook, there is no reason to eat mediocre food out at the beach. (Plus with Covid, we were not willing to risk it!) W...

The first week of June we evaluate how we are doing for the year. We will compare our budget to actuals for the year and check in on the goals we put in place in January. We will then make any edits we see fit. As you are aware from our May review , we have overspent on our alcohol for the year. This prompted us to increase our budget so that we do not overspend the last half the year. Finances is like trying to eat healthy. Sometimes when we screw up our healthy eating goals by eating a burrito in the morning, we throw our hands up in the air and declare the day as a cheat day and continue to eat unhealthy for the remainder of the day. When we could have declared that a cheat meal and made better choices for the rest of the day. Spending money is similar. We could have said that we can no longer spend any more money on alcohol for 2020, but that is unrealistic. A budget is not in place to restrict you but to empower you and allow you to make smarter choices. I began this blog to ...