Amanda, Author at Simple Steps to Debt-Free Living

February 20, 2016 by Amanda

5 Things to Keep in Mind When Paying Off Debt Gets Tough

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It's tough to get out of debt - use this tips to help you stay on track.

It can be really easy to feel defeated when working through a monstrous pile of debt. I can remember sitting down with our finances one day and realizing it was going to take us years to pay off the debt we owed – and that didn’t include our house. It was discouraging to say the least, but once we made a plan and started working it, the goal seemed nearer than it first appeared and now we are ending our debt journey (except the house).

So how can you find the will to keep going when you get discouraged by your debt? Here are a few things to keep in mind and a few things that can help to motivate you.

1. The Sacrifices Are Totally Worth It

It’s hard to give up things you love like going out to eat or to the movies. But when you are focused on seriously getting out of debt you forgo those things, unless they are in your budget. I know sometimes we get to the end of the money in our envelopes and it feels like we never have any money. And we don’t have much that isn’t going to debt. So we try to find free or cheap things we can do with our kids that are still fun. For instance, the Nashville Symphony had a free day of music and we went downtown and took advantage of that. Our oldest son is musically gifted and plays the violin amazingly well at 6 years old. The kids really loved it and they even had an Instrument Petting Zoo where they could try out all the instruments! Only cost to us was gas to get there.

You have to want it really badly to keep going when it gets tough. Remember Dave Ramsey’s saying “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” Make the sacrifices now and you won’t have to make them later in life.

2. It Will Take Time

You didn’t get into this debt situation overnight (well, at least most of us didn’t), so you can’t expect to get out of it overnight, either. Sure, there are ways to help speed the process along, but usually there is not a quick fix. Remind yourself that it just takes time.

If you find yourself unmotivated by long-term debt goals, try breaking them down into smaller goals. That way you will feel small “wins” instead of waiting for the big payoff. For instance, if you owe a very large credit card sum, break it up into smaller chunks and celebrate when you reach each new goal.

3. You’re Already Doing Better Than Most People

Most people are in debt up to their eyeballs and aren’t working a plan to pay off their debt. They are getting deeper in debt while you are climbing out! Don’t be fooled by appearances. Just because someone looks well-off doesn’t mean that they are. They could be borrowing from one card to pay another all while wearing expensive clothes, driving expensive cars, and living in a fancy house.

According to the book The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, people who have money often live in middle class neighborhoods, drive used cars, wear simple watches, and buy ready-made clothing. Most people who look wealthy actually aren’t.

4. You Are Learning Lessons You Can Pass On To Your Kids

Think of all the things having debt has taught you. No, they definitely haven’t been fun, but they have helped make you who you are. It is important that we teach our kids how to handle money so they don’t make the same mistakes we have. Hopefully you now have a plan in place to help dig out of debt and are learning how to make your money work for you.

It’s so easy to fall back into old habits. You have to constantly apply your life lessons to stay out of debt. I know several people who have filed bankruptcy and then went on to get credit cards again as soon as they could and went right back to being in credit card debt. Don’t do it! Don’t be those people! We are guilty of paying off a few thousand dollars in credit card debt and then finding ourselves back at the same place soon. It’s so easy to get into debt, but much harder to get out. Be careful!

5. You Will Get There

When you get discouraged, remind yourself what you are working for. There is nothing like the feeling of being debt-free. We are still working on our debt, but since we are so close we are really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and being debt-free is right within our grasp. Even that feeling is amazing!

It’s hard when you aren’t seeing progress, but just break it down into those smaller goals and keep getting excited when you reach them. It can really help to make your goals visual, either with a poster of how much you are paying off, or a picture that motivates you. There’s a reason places raising money use big posters where they color in how much money they’ve brought in – it motivates people! Use the same principle to motivate yourself to get out of debt. Remember: It’s not forever. You will get there. Just keep working your plan.

Another thing that can help keep you on track is to keep reading and learning about finance. Sure, it sounds boring, but it’s actually not. I love to reread my favorite financial books and they really motivate me. My two favorites (although totally different perspectives on building wealth) are Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover and David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire. They both make great reads. Read other financial blogs, listen to podcasts, watch financial videos – anything that keeps you on track and motivated.

Above all, don’t give up! Have any questions or ideas for when debt gets hard? Leave a comment below!

February 18, 2016 by Amanda

9 Common Budget Mistakes You Are Probably Making

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Help with common budget mistakes!

When it comes to budgeting, it usually takes a while to get good at it. It took us several months to get it right and we still have to tweak it from time to time. When you are starting out it is easy to make some mistakes and you probably will, but use them as experience to help you get better with the next budget. There is usually a common theme to budget mistakes, so I’ve made a list of nine common budget mistakes you are probably making (or will at some point). Need some help with your budget? Download a FREE Budget Template for Excel at the bottom of this post! I personally use and love this one.

1. Buying on Impulse

Impulse buys can really add up. I know it’s a killjoy to deny yourself because “it’s not in the budget”, but you would do well to remember what your goals are when you are shopping and find yourself tempted to buy something not in your budget. Even a simple item that is only $1 will add up in the long run. Let’s say you give in and add an extra dollar item twice a week – that’s $104 a year. One of the things we had to do was simply not go shopping unless we really needed to. We used to go to Wal Mart just to get one or two things and then just walk around. Inevitably we would find things we “needed” and spend way more than we had planned. Now, we go with a list, get what we need, and get out.

2. Forgetting to Keep Track of Your Expenses

This used to be very difficult for us, because one of us would go shopping and then we would just see “Wal Mart $135” on our debit. Without the receipt, how did I know how much went to toiletries/food/clothing/etc? It was a major hassle and was one of the reasons we started using the envelope system. Now, we don’t have to track expenses – we just use the money from that particular envelope and when we run out we can’t buy anything from that category again.

If you do use debit or credit, keep up with your receipts so you can figure out how much you are spending in each category. That way you will be able to adjust your budget for the next month if needed.

3. Making Too Drastic a Change at Once

When we started budgeting, we found we were spending over $400 a month on eating out. That was way more than necessary! If we had suddenly said, “okay, we are only going to eat out once a week for $25!” and tried to implement that suddenly, we would have failed. You can’t change your habits overnight. You should slowly wean yourself off of spending so much on a category. Let’s say we spent $25 a meal for two people so that means we were eating out on average 16 meals a month, or four times a week. To be realistic we should change it to 2 or 3 times a week to start, then move down if we felt it necessary. If we had tried to change it to one time a week immediately, I’m sure we would have given up.

4. Forgetting to Budget for FUN!

You must make fun a priority somewhere in your budget. Even if it is only a few dollars it should be in there somewhere. We never know what we might find to do during the month so I allot a $40 “Entertainment” budget. One month we went strawberry picking, another month we saw a movie, and another we used it as an extra dining out opportunity but took the kids to a play place.

We also plan for what Dave Ramsey calls “Blow Money”. We have a “Pocket Money” category that my husband and I each get $25 per paycheck to spend however we like. If you have any extra at all I would definitely recommend this. Sometimes mine goes to cover an unexpected birthday present or even dining out, but it always feels nice to have just a little bit that you can spend on yourself. My husband uses some of his to buy sodas since he drinks them at work. The beauty of it is that you can do whatever you like with it and not deviate from the budget.

5. Beating Yourself Up.

You will deviate from the plan sometimes. Everyone does! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just adjust next month’s budget and keep trying. Like I said before, it will take you several months to get it right. Be flexible. You will have to adjust your flexible expenses sometimes. We recently had some unexpected medical bills and had to cut out a few meals out to pay them. Not a big deal. We just ate at home instead and adjusted the budget.

6. Not Making a New Budget Every Month

Even though I have been doing this for a long time, I still make a new budget every single month. Now, I do not sit down and write out a budget from scratch every month. What I do is look at last month’s numbers and adjust for the new month. Most expenses pretty much stay the same, except our utilities, so it is easy to come up with a budget for the new month. In fact, now that we’ve been doing it for so long, it only takes about 15 minutes to create the new budget – and that includes figuring out how much cash I want to include in each envelope.

7. Forgetting to Save for the Unexpected

You really need to have some type of emergency fund. I remember thinking that it was interesting that Dave Ramsey made the small $1000 emergency fund his Baby Step One. Then I read that he originally started with the debt snowball but people would have unexpected expenses come up, put them on credit, and get discouraged. When you have a small emergency fund you can catch the things that come up unexpectedly without have to charge anything else on your credit card. You will have to stop paying back extra on debt to refund the emergency fund, but having even $1000 in the bank to catch unexpected expenses is a huge help. Something always comes up.

8. Forgetting to Budget for Once- or Twice-a-Year Items

This past year for some reason I didn’t put money aside each month for Christmas. What was I thinking?! We know when Christmas is and should not wait until the last minute to think about how to pay for it! Luckily my husband got some extra money in that was almost enough to cover it (and we do not go crazy with gifts, either). There are things that should be in your monthly budget that you will put aside until you have to pay them. Christmas is definitely one. Also, things like car tags, car/home insurance, or property taxes if you don’t pay monthly. To figure out how much to save, take the cost of your item and divide it by how many months you have to pay it. For example, if you pay your car insurance every 6 months and it is $600, divide $600 by 6 to get $100 a month. If you have a bill you only pay once a year, divide by 12.

9. Giving up.

This process will take time! There have been lots of months that I wanted to give up in the beginning, but I am so glad we didn’t. Now we are so close to paying off all debt except the house and we live beneath our means and plan to stay that way. If you are new to budgeting, please give it at least 6 months. By then you should really start to get the hang of it and see that it’s not as hard as it seems. You can do it!

I hope you enjoyed this list as much as I enjoyed coming up with these ideas. If you have any other ideas or questions, please leave a comment below!

February 18, 2016 by Amanda

Make Money from Home with Textbroker

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How It Began

Right before 2016 began I found myself checking out Pinterest to kill some time and ran across a recommended post that started my life down a new path. It was about making money in your spare time online and it really interested me. I mean, who doesn’t want to make more money, right? I clicked on it and found out there are so many different ways you can earn money from home, even if you don’t want to give up your day job.

I pinned it and from there began lots of recommended pins related to making extra money at home. One thing that came up over and over again was freelance writing. I’ve always been pretty good at writing and my grammar skills are pretty good (I know I make the occasional mistake!) so I thought I would give it a try but didn’t know where to start. Then I found this post about how the author left her job for a freelance writing career and went for it!

I didn’t know anything about content mills or that anything like them even existed. I thought you had to think of an idea for an article, write it, then try to send it around to magazines or websites and hope that they like it. Then, when you have worked with some publishers and they like your stuff, they might contact you and ask for a particular article. In my mind, that was what freelance writing was. I’m sure that is part of it, but what Textbroker does is content writing. You write content for websites based on what the client wants.

How to Get Started

To begin with Textbroker, you create an account. They ask for a writing sample and you have to wait a few days to hear back from them. Before they will look at your sample you have to prove you live in the US by sending them a copy of an ID (like your driver’s license, but you can black out the license number). I did a ton of research on them first and really liked this post from Equipping Godly Women. She even has a video that walks you through Textbroker and it was helpful for me to know what I was getting into while I was waiting to hear back from them. I submitted my sample and ID and waited.

While I was waiting I got the go-ahead from another site and was so excited I started working there. I did a few jobs but found that writing 300 word articles for $1.27 wasn’t worth it. One even got rejected and I was really hurt, but in my defense, the client was extremely vague about what they wanted so I guess they had something else in mind. As soon as Textbroker approved me with a 4-star rating I jumped right in!

I found the pay on Textbroker to be much better than the other site I was writing for so I quickly wrapped it up with that site (on both you have to get a minimum amount for them to pay you) and asked for my payoff. That site charged me $1 processing fee, so essentially I wrote a 300-word article for nothing!! Now I have only been using Textbroker and really like them a lot. One 2,000+ word article alone netted me over $30 and it was a topic I love to write and learn about – food!

When you look at all the possible orders, you can click on them to read more information, then if you like the article idea and want to write it you go forward with it. You generally have between 1 and 3 days to complete the article and the time limit will be clearly stated before you start.

How Do You Get Paid?

You need to have at least $10 in earnings to have Textbroker deposit your money into your Paypal account. You get paid when a client accepts your article so you don’t have to wait for it to be published. It’s easy to earn at least $10. A client can accept your work and give you feedback, or they can wait 3 days and after that time it will be automatically accepted. I’ve only had a couple of them that waited, most of the clients will go ahead with your work when they receive it. They can choose to have you revise the article or they can reject it, but Textbroker keeps up with their rejection rate so you can check that out if you like before you choose to write their article.

They pay every Friday, all you have to do is ask for a payout by the end of the day on Thursday. They pay on time and I haven’t seen any processing fees like I did with the other site. So far I am just taking open orders (anyone at your star rating can complete them) but you can also join teams and clients can request you if they want. Team Orders and Direct Orders pay more, but so far I am just doing it casually and don’t mind the open order system.

The Verdict

Textbroker is a legitimate way to make extra money on the side if you have any kind of writing talent. I’ve seen people posting online that they easily make $100 or so a week with them and I think this is very doable if you don’t care what you write about. I tend to be picky and if I don’t see an article I particularly want to write I don’t write anything, but if I really needed the money I would be writing as many articles as possible.

So what do you think? Is online writing something you’d try? Leave a comment below and check out Textbroker if you are interested in joining and making some money with your writing!

February 16, 2016 by Amanda

8 Creative Ways to Pay Down Debt

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Get out of debt with these 8 creative ideas

Once you have a budget in place and start living below your means (or, at the very least, within your means), you will find your desire to pay down debt usually grows and you want to do it NOW. I know, I’ve been there. It can be very easy to get discouraged if you think it will take years to pay off your debt so you need to get creative and find ways to pay off even small amounts soon. It’s a huge motivator. When you see that debt start to go down it’s a great feeling.

How Much Do You Owe?

So how do you go about paying off debt as quickly as possible? The first thing I would recommend is to list all your debts and plug them into a debt snowball calculator. I found a couple of free calculators online that do this for free at What’s the Cost? and Undebt.it. I tried both and found them to be similar. I like to do the debt snowball method where you list your debts in order from smallest to largest no matter the interest. Some people like to do the debt avalanche where you pay off the highest interest debt first. These calculators allow you to calculate both and you can decide which is right for you.

For my three current debts if I only paid the minimum payment we would be paying on these until October 2020. That’s a long time! It would be easy to get discouraged by that. I went back and added an extra $100 a month and now the payoff date is April of 2019. A year and four months earlier! Can you cut back or make extra to pay $100 a month toward debt? If you get really focused, I’m sure you can!

Sell Stuff You Don’t Need

This may sound obvious, but if you really don’t use it – sell it! Dave Ramsey says “sell so much stuff the kids are afraid they’ll be next.” Now, while we’ve never sold quite that much, we are definitely finding that we can do without a lot of things that we thought used to be important. I really can’t stand too much stuff all over the house now. If you don’t really use it – sell it!

Now, you may be wondering why the title of this post says creative ways to pay down debt. Selling stuff isn’t creative! Okay, here are some things you can sell that may be thinking outside the box a little:

Sell your hair. Yes, there is a market for human hair! A lot of people who make dolls like to use human hair. You will have to have at least 10″ that hasn’t been treated with chemicals, but there is quite a market for it and you can check it out on eBay.
Sell plasma. This is something I have considered doing but haven’t yet. You can get around $15-40 each time you sell plasma. The weird thing to me is that they take out your blood, run it through a machine to separate the plasma, and then put the rest back in. That seems odd – if you’re going to take some blood, just take it – I really don’t want it back.
Sell scrap metal. You will have to do some research to figure out what types of metals are best and where to sell them, but people make decent money sourcing out scrap metal and selling it. Once you know what you are doing, it can be a decent side income. Keep in mind you will need something to haul your scrap around in.

Get a Side Job

Sure, you can pick up a part time job delivering pizzas or working retail and make extra money. I like the idea of being a little more flexible with my spare time, though, instead of having set hours. Maybe one of these ideas would be better:

Try freelance writing. This is something I have been doing for a while now and it can be decent pay, depending upon how well you write and what sites you write for. I haven’t taken it seriously and am still working with sites like Textbroker, but for what time I do put into it I feel it is a decent way to make a side income on my own terms.
Become a mystery shopper. There are several legitimate mystery shopping networks out there that will pay you to check out businesses and restaurants. I sometimes use a local one for the Nashville area that reimburses you for a meal (great way to go out to eat!) and sometimes offers bonuses as well. You won’t pay off all your debt with this method, but you can cut back on the dining budget and let someone else pay.
Mow lawns or dog walk. I could go into a huge list besides these two of side jobs that you can do around town, but if you have a good lawn mower you can make some decent money cutting other people’s lawns. A lot of our neighbors don’t want to cut their own and hire someone else to do it. Also, there is good money to be made walking dogs during the day when their owners are at work. I am a teacher and a fellow teacher at my school actually quit to buy someone’s dog walking business. Apparently in their neighborhood dog walking is big bucks.

Use Online Money-Saving Sites

I could kick myself when I realized how much money I could have saved for my Christmas shopping if I would have used sites such as Swagbucks or Ebates. Sites that give you cash back to do shopping you were going to do anyways? I didn’t know they existed! When I made my first purchase through Ebates I got a $10 Wal Mart gift card. How easy is that? I was shopping at Amazon anyways, I just went through their site first and got cash back and a gift card. Oh, when I think of all the Amazon shopping I did over the holidays…

There are also grocery money saving apps like Ibotta and Checkout 51 and lots of other sites that help you make money with your phone. This is an area I’m looking into more as I’ve read about apps that will pay you to take pictures of items while you shop. I’m interested in learning more about this!

Cut Back on Expenses

Okay, so this section isn’t really that creative, but it could really add up to some savings! You may think there is no way you could cut back, but check out these ideas.

Cut back on food costs.
- Eat at home! This one tip has saved us about $200 per month even though we’ve added three people to our family!
- Cut out processed foods and make as much from scratch as possible. Not only does it taste better, it’s healthier, too.
- Learn to love leftovers. I used to hate them, now I love them because they taste good and I know they are saving me money.
- Shop with a plan. Use the sale ads. I don’t coupon much because most of them are for processed foods that I really don’t want to eat.
- Shop at Aldi. Yep, we love Aldi. We save a ton and the food is great – they are even expanding their lines of organic and gluten free foods.
Cut transportation costs.
- Try to combine errands as much as possible.
- Shop around for insurance rates. Even within your own plan, make sure you are getting the best deal. We weren’t driving one of our cars because it’s not working that great and we found out we could put it in “storage”, still keep it insured in case something happens to it, but it cost a lot less! If we drive it and get in an accident we would be in trouble, but it’s not being driven right now so it’s a great option.
- Raise your deductible. If you have any kind of emergency fund, consider raising your deductible to save on insurance premiums. We always try to have the $1000 starter emergency fund to cover things like this, and having higher deductibles helps save money each month.
Rethink what you spend on entertainment.
- We got rid of cable about 5 years ago. We don’t even have a TV anymore! If we want to watch something we use our computer to get on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or we hit a Redbox. Who needs to spend over $100 a month on cable?
Lower utilities and other fixed expenses.
- Check your thermostat and raise or lower the temperature a couple of degrees, depending upon the season. It’s okay to wear more layers in the winter and keep the house a little cooler, or let it get a little warm in the summer. Heating and cooling costs a lot.
- Check your cell phone plan. We were paying over $150 a month for unlimited everything, but when I dug into how much data we were actually using I found that we use less than 1 GB a month for the two of us. I switched us to a 2GB plan, just in case, and dropped our bill to $85 a month. We are usually always somewhere that has wi-fi, especially at home and work, so we didn’t need the unlimited data plan. I never knew until I checked into it.

So there you have it. Creative ways to pay down debt. There are a lot more that could go on this list, but it would take forever to get through them all. Any other ideas you would like to add? Please leave a comment!

February 14, 2016 by Amanda

Basics of a Successful Budget

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Learn how to budget with this free budget template!

The biggest thing that has helped us reach the point we are at now is a monthly budget. Yes, I realize I just said what most people consider a dirty word. When most people hear the word “budget” they think of living a life without fun or happiness. Nothing could be farther from the truth! In fact, a budget can become a dear friend. (Okay, maybe not that far…) If you don’t like the word, call it something else. Call it your monthly spending plan instead. In the words of Dave Ramsey: “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.” I’ve always loved that.

It’s been several years since we started budgeting and only three since we’ve gotten any good at it. We really didn’t get control of our finances until we started using the envelope system. One word of advice about budgeting: It will take work to get it right. You will sit down and create a budget and things won’t go according to plan. Adjust your budget and try again. It took us three or four months to get it down, but now it is only a matter of adjusting it slightly depending upon what is going on that month. In fact, our budget is so similar each month I started using an Excel spreadsheet and just changing out the amount in the categories slightly (such as utilities). It’s really easy once you get it going!

Step One: Track Your Expenses

If you are anything like us, this might hurt a little. Write down everything, and I mean everything you spend money on. When we first did this, we found that we were spending over $400 a month dining out! Talk about wasted money! Now, I’ll be the first to admit I love going out to eat, but it’s not the healthiest (usually) and a lot of times it really isn’t as good as I thought it was going to be. So now, we eat at home more often (especially since we have kids). Keep track of everything for a month to get a good idea of where your money is going.

Step Two: Figure Out Your Income

You have to know how much money you have coming in each month. This should be an easy thing to check – just look back at your previous month to see how much was deposited. You can see this either by looking at your pay stub or checking your bank statement. Take into account every source of income – your regular job, spouse’s income, irregular income, etc. Write it all down.

Step Three: Make A Plan

Take time to make a plan every month. Like I said before, once you get it down it really just becomes a matter of tweaking last month’s budget and really doesn’t take long. In fact, now that we’ve done pretty much the same budget for the past two years, I can do the next month’s budget in about 15 minutes. That’s all it takes.

Write down all income and all expenses and give every dollar a name. This is called a zero-based budget and is especially important. Many months I will write down all our expenses and still have money left over, so that gets to go to debt. (Yay!) Some months there is none, but every dollar goes somewhere. You can write out your budget with paper and pen (I did this for years), get a spreadsheet, or use software such as Quicken. It really doesn’t matter – just do it!

An important note is to do the budget before the month. I actually budget from the 15th of one month to the 15th of the next month because my husband only gets paid once a month so we get a big paycheck then. It just made sense to us to go from one large paycheck to the next so we’ve been doing it this way for about seven years now.

When you are planning for expenditures, don’t forget things that only come up every so often. Gifts, license plates, insurance, etc. are all things that should be in the budget somewhere. I love it when we get invited to a birthday party and I’ve already got some money in my “Gifts” envelope!

Also, don’t forget to plan for FUN. I know it can be hard but try to factor in some fun in there. There are so many cheap or free activities you can do when you are on a really tight budget. We budget $40 a month for entertainment and $100 a month for personal money ($25 for myself and my husband twice a month) because sometimes it feels like you never get to buy anything spur of the moment and having just that little bit of freedom in spending can make a big difference, or at least it does to us.

Here is a little snippet of our budget (and you can snag this FREE Sheets spreadsheet template below):

Yours, of course, will look much different than this. For example, this has daycare, violin lessons, baby expenses, etc. that you may not have. Just budget your own categories (probably less categories than this example). This budget was made on an Excel spreadsheet. You can get this FREE Excel spreadsheet template below!!

Step Four: Be Flexible

Like I said before, your budget will change. And it’s okay. The important thing is to adjust and not to give up. The first step to winning with money is to get control of your budget. If at all possible, live below your means and put all extra to debt. If you need to change anything, agree with your spouse if you have one, make the change, and learn from it. Just keep going. One of my favorite quotes since college says “It’s the joy of the journey, not the destination.” Yes, debt-free is our destination, but we are also having a ton of fun with our family while we’re getting there.