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Some Years, No New Debt Is Reason To Celebrate

December 14, 2015 By MelissaB 4 Comments

When you’re in debt, it’s easy to be hard on yourself.

You shouldn’t have let yourself go into so much debt. 

You weren’t smart with your money. 

You’re not paying off the debt fast enough. 

On and on we berate ourselves.

It’s even easier to do this at the end of the year when you feel financial pressure to buy gifts for not only family members, but associates, hired help, etc.

In addition, if you’re anything like me, you may have set some lofty goals last January that you could not achieve.

Our Lofty Goals

Last January, I could see nothing but clear horizons.  I set some ambitious financial goals (for our financial situation).

  • I wanted to put at least $3,000 in our emergency fund.
  • I wanted to save $1,000 for a family vacation.
  • I wanted to save $3,000 for a new-to-us car.

Guess how many of those financial goals I accomplished?  None!

Guess how many I partially accomplished?  None!

No new debt celebrate

Sometimes Finances Are Just about Survival

What I could not see that fine January morning when I set my goals was that we were on the precipice of a financial cliff.

Within just a few weeks of setting the goals, we experienced a number of financial difficulties.

  • My husband had to get a root canal and a crown at the cost of almost $600.
  • I had to see a periodontist and several dentists for a cyst on my gum that finally resulted in a root canal in April and a corrected filling. The cost of all the treatment was approximately $700.
  • Our daughter had to have several fillings filled and then later had to have a tooth pulled. $300.  (This was a special year for dentistry; I promise, our teeth aren’t as bad as this year makes it sound!)
  • Our car needed a $1,500 repair.
  • Our car needed new tires. $700.
  • My son needed braces. We saved and paid the first $900 out of pocket.  In a few months, we’ll need to come up with another $900, and then we’ll be on a payment plan with zero interest for the rest.
  • Our 18 year old A/C unit was leaking Freon, causing one electric bill to be $150 more than normal, and we also paid $200 to have it serviced for a grand total of $350.

In short, this year was a financial disaster as far as paying off debt went.  This year was all about financial survival mode.

And that’s okay.  Some years you can’t be gazelle intense or even pay any extra on your debt because you’re too busy just surviving.

Even though the year didn’t go the way we had planned, at all, it wasn’t a complete wash financially.

The good news is that we learned more creative ways to stretch our money even further.  We’ll continue to implement those strategies this upcoming year.

The even better news is that we didn’t acquire any new debt.

Sometimes, treading water is the best you can do.  Overall, for this year, I’m happy with that.

If you’re paying off debt, did you make the progress you wanted to this year, or did you have a year like ours?

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Debt Reduction, ShareMe Tagged With: budget, debt, Debt Reduction, Saving

Are Good Deals Putting You in Debt?

October 28, 2015 By MelissaB 2 Comments

We all love a good deal, right?  There’s nothing better than paying $2.40 for a pair of kids’ shorts that retail for $16 or paying $0.25 for Christmas wrapping paper at an after Christmas sale when it would cost you $2 or more to buy it new.

After all, buying things on clearance is what savvy shoppers do, right?  This is an excellent strategy for being frugal with your money, right?

Well, yes. . .and no. Are those good deals putting you in debt? Ask yourself these questions and decide if you really need that good deal.

Do You Buy More Than You Need?

Good Deals DebtWhen something is on clearance 80% off, it’s tempting to buy alot. . .more than you need.  After all, why buy one sweater at $5.00 on clearance when you could buy 8 for the cost of what just one would cost retail?  Besides, you’re not paying any more than it would cost to buy a $40 sweater brand new, and you’re getting 8.  What a deal!

But do you NEED 8 sweaters?  Will some of them languish in the back of your closet, with the tags still on, until you decide to purge your closet and give them away or try to sell them at a garage sale?

Can You Afford It?

Sometimes, you need to pass up good deals.  If you can’t afford the deal and put it on credit card, are you really saving money?  By the time you figure in the interest you’ll pay, that clearance sweater may end up costing you nearly as much as it would cost retail, or, if you pay only the minimum payment on your cards, even more!

Some people have gone in debt in pursuit of good deals.  Kristine Rogers, who was featured in Money magazine, explains that she went in debt buying children’s clothes on clearance: “Gymboree held a clearance sale in which every item was priced at $7.99. ‘I grabbed clothes my daughter didn’t need.  I bought four of the same coat in different colors.’  By the end of the day, Rogers’ compulsion had cost her $800.”  Rogers developed a full blown shopping addiction in the pursuit of sales and ended up with $50,000 in credit card debt!  Sure, she got good deals, but in the end, after interest, she likely paid much more than she would have if she’d bought the items at retail.

Are You Tying Up Current Cash Flow?

Assuming you don’t go into debt to buy good deals, you may still be tying up your cash flow.  If you spend $40 on 8 sweaters that you buy in May but won’t wear until November, you’re tying up cash flow.  If you don’t wear some of those sweaters at all, you’ve wasted money despite the good deal.

Be More with Less explains, “If you buy wrapping paper on December 26th and stock up on sale items year round, you are spending more than you would if you just bought what you needed.  Don’t be fooled by the cashier that tells you, ‘you just saved $22.00’ when you just spent $300.”

What do you think?  Is it worthwhile to pursue good deals, or can it be a slippery slope to overspending and debt?

Do you buy items on clearance?  Do you always use all of the items, or do you accidentally buy too much?

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Consumerism, ShareMe Tagged With: credit cards, debt, Debt Reduction, Good Deal

Living on What You Earn Can Make You Feel Broke, and That’s a Good Thing!

February 23, 2015 By MelissaB 4 Comments

Living on what you earn can be a difficult thing.  For many, it seems like a little like a foreign language; difficult to learn to do, and backwards.  But, if you can learn it, and transform your life into one where you’re living on what you earn, it can make a whole lot of difference.  You’ve got to start somewhere, though.  I, like you, haven’t always lived on what I earned.

Almost all of my life, I’ve owed someone something.  When I was 19, I needed a car.  My parents, tired of having me call them late at night after my old, beater car had broken down—AGAIN!—, decided I should buy a new car.

I didn’t qualify for a loan yet, so my grandpa lent me the money, and I paid him back with a small amount of interest, which was less than I’d pay borrowing from the bank and more than he’d make in a safe investment.

Soon after, I went away to college and took out student loans and started running a balance on my credit cards.

By the time I finally paid off my student loans a few years ago, my husband had his own loans that we had to pay.

Can you see me, just like the proverbial hamster running on the hamster wheel?

Living on What you EarnI owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.

Until one day, I said, “Enough!”

No more.

Time to live on what we make.

Time to stop borrowing.

Time to start saving.

And that’s when the real challenge began.

Our society is built on borrowing.  Borrow for school, borrow for a car, borrow for a house, rent to own, pay in 10 easy installment plans.

I’m done living that lifestyle, but in turn, I’ve picked a much more challenging lifestyle—living on what we earn.

Cutting Until There’s No Room Left to Cut

The first thing I did was develop a frugal, written budget.  That meant taming our grocery budget from $700 to $1,000 a month to $500 a month to feed our family of 5 with gluten, dairy and corn intolerances.  It isn’t easy, but we’re doing it.

The next step was to keep a record of everything we spend.  Honestly, I hate keeping this record, so that alone is incentive to spend less.

I spend an hour or so every week, reconciling the budget and making sure we’re on track.

I also started regularly saving for irregular expenses.  Every other week, I put $120 in an account earmarked for utilities.  In the winter, our utilities fall far below that, but I still keep saving the money for the expensive summer months.  This way our utility costs are the same all year long.

Handling Unexpected Expenses

While the new budget can feel somewhat restrictive, what I find most difficult are the unexpected expenses.  Just recently, I found that two of my kids have cavities (quite a few!), and the price for fixing them is around $400.  I have money set aside in a medical fund, but filling the cavities will just about wipe that money out.

The problem is that we have many other medical expenses–$188 for my son to get new glasses and an eye exam and a pending $3,300 expense for him to get braces.  I could put his braces on an interest free payment plan, but we don’t do payment plans anymore, interest free or not.

Instead, we had to make hard decisions like canceling our trip to see family this summer.

Living on cash is definitely not easy, but I know once we get through the next couple of years, as our income increases, it will get easier.

We are, as Dave Ramsey says, “Living like no one else so later we can LIVE like no one else.”

Do you eschew debts and payment plans, or do you use them in moderation to meet your goals?

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Frugality, Saving, ShareMe Tagged With: budget, debt, debt plan, debt repayment, Saving

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