I've been asked a lot of questions lately about my journey and thought what better way than to answer them in a blog post for everyone to see. If there is something you have ever wondered hopefully I will cover it in this post and if not I'd be happy to answer for you in future posts!
The easiest question that I have been asked is who am I? Well it seems like a easy question doesn't it and just stating my name would be the easiest answer but I don't think that is what people are really asking. I am a mother to four amazing children ages 9, 7, 5 and 3. My eldest son is Autistic which brings on a whole lot of different expenses and challenges than average families face. I have been married to my amazing husband for nearly 3 years and we have spent the past 7 years together. I was a high school drop out when I had my first son at 16 but have since went back to school and amongst my other goals I will be a high school graduate this year, in just a few months actually. I am a stay at home mom who stretches every penny as far as I can so we can achieve our goals. I am a only child who was raised with very little financial sense and found myself in a whole lot of trouble when I entered the real world. I am determined, motivated, thrifty, very money wise now and equally as concerned about our environment.
Hopefully that will give you an idea of who I am. There are many layers to me, some which contradict the others. My purpose in writing this blog is to help others who have found themselves in the same position that we are in, little income, lots of expenses and big dreams. I've been watching Til Death Do Us Part and learned one very important thing, if you want to get yourself out of debt you either a) cut back on expenses or b) get more income. My husband and I have decided to get where we want to be in the next year we are going to do both and boy has it shown in our plans!
I have been asked many times why now and why have I chosen this route to get ourselves out of debt and build savings. The answer to this is simple, we couldn't go on living the way we were without finding ourselves under a huge pile of debt with ruined credit ratings and absolutely no chance to get out! This was the easiest decision we made, now putting it into action wasn't nearly as easy.
What is our plans? My husband and I plan to be debt free by the end of 2011, we plan to have a nice little savings cushion to fall back on, have education savings begun for our children and a budget that we can work with for years to come. We have huge plans and have worked very hard towards them.
How are we going to accomplish everything above in just 11 months remaining? With a tight budget, extra income whenever we can get it and watching where every penny goes. Before we even entered 2011 my husband and I both sat down and wrote out a very detailed budget which included everything from car insurance and rent to hair cuts, gifts and savings. Everything that we will spend money on is accounted for. We are using an envelope system to keep track of our money and to ensure that we do not over spend. The only thing that we do not use the envelope system for is car insurance, debt repayment and our utility bills since those are automatically taken out of our accounts on a date that we have chosen or we pay online on pay day.
Extra income is a huge blessing on building our savings, stock pile and paying debt off faster. There are many ways that you can earn extra income no matter what your talents are. We have sold many things that we don't need on a website called kijiji. You can also do things like babysitting, having yard sales, selling crafts that you make or baked goods and doing handy man work. The possibilities are endless! What may seem like just a few dollars here and there can end up as a huge amount of money at the end of 12 months.
Lastly we have kept track of where every penny that we spend is going. This will give us a detailed view of where our money is going and where we can cut back. For example if you need to tighten up your budget further because of sickness or having an unexpected bill you may see in your detailed spending sheet that you are spending $1.75/day on coffee from Tim Hortons! It may not seem like much but when you start considering you are buying a coffee every day that becomes $638.75 every single year! That could easily be a few utility bills covered just by skipping that one cup of coffee and making it at home instead.
We have spent countless hours researching how we will save money. Couponing has become a huge part of that. Wednesday night when we receive our weekly flyers we take a look at what will be on special for the week and pair that with the coupons that we have available for big savings. Having a stock pile at home will ensure that we spend the lowest possible price for the grocery items that we use. Watching for sales rotations will help you determine just how many months supply of pantry items you may need, for example if you use Cashmere bathroom tissue and see that it is on special for $5.55 as it was at No Frills this week that maybe the lowest price that you will find it at. If you watch the sales rotations you may find that it goes on special every 6 months so you would need to buy a 6 month supply at that time to make sure you get the best possible price. SmartCanuks.ca has been amazing with helping me find all the weekly deals available paired with coupons and the ladies there have been fantastic at trading coupons with me for the products that I use.
There is a lot that you can do to save money. You may not have a pile of debt haunting you but unless you have 6 months to a year worth of emergency savings you could easily find yourself with debt if illness, injury or job loss was to affect your family. It's always a good idea regardless of income to take a look at their finances on a regular basis to see where there money is going, ensure that you can't get a lower rate with companies and make sure you are keeping as much of your hard earned money in your pocket as possible.
I hope that some of these tips will help you on your savings journey and have cleared up any questions you may have. I will be touching base on saving money on your utilities in my next blog post with lots of energy savings tips that anyone could do!
Happy Savings!
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