budgeting

Kmart & Sears offer layaway programs to help consumers budget

September 20, 2011

Kmart and Sears offer layaway programs to help customers pay for their purchases over time without incurring debt, and insuring that they get the items that they want at current prices. It is typically a win-win for consumers, but I wondered what my readers thought about layaway. After all, it’s only recently that layaway has [...]

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New Year’s Financial Resolutions

January 6, 2010

During my giveaway for David Bach’s book I asked everyone to enter by telling me what your top financial resolution is for the year. I loved the responses so much, and wanted to share them with you. Save more My advice: If you are trying to save a certain amount or percentage have it automatically deducted [...]

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joint finances (or not?)

April 21, 2009

There has never been a time we kept our finances separate. I have been a stay at home mom for over 11 years, and from the beginning our finances have been combined. With only one income (for the most part), this was the only way to go.

I suppose if we had started out as a dual income family things might be different. I did (and do) most of the shopping for the family, and he earns the money, so separating the finances never made sense.

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Budgeting Bi-Weekly Pay

April 2, 2009

photo credit: orphanjones One of the things that held us back from being financially successful for years, was confusion over how to allocate our money. A topic that came again and again over the years was how to make a monthly personal budget when you get paid bi-weekly. It is one of the main reasons [...]

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decrease your expenses: how we saved $17,000

March 9, 2009

photo credit: TheTruthAbout… Previously I talked about gathering all your financial info so you know where you are starting. I call this digging your head out of the sand. When I started digging my head out of the sand the first thing I did was wrote down everything we spend money on in a typical [...]

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NO Spend Month

January 12, 2009

The main reason I started this blog is due to the hugely popular response our No Spend Month story garnered. We were featured in USA Today and on The Today Show as the face of families everywhere who are trying to cut back. I first read about the idea in Reader’s Digest (my grandmother’s yearly [...]

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find your money

January 12, 2009

The first step to taking charge of your finances is paying attention to what you are spending. It seems simple, but it’s always the hardest step to take. Pull out your bank statement or go online and write down everything you spent on last month, and then add a star to any expense that is [...]

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