Finiancial Tools to Budget Money

My husband, Ryne, and I are on a journey to get out of debt.  We cannot do this alone.  Helping track of out financial situation is hard.  With the access of online financial tools and this has helped make our journey a little smoother.

My husband and I have been studying up one Davey Ramsey's budgeting plan.  He has several resources for people to use.  When my we first began our journey, I purchased The Starter Bundle.  I think when I purchased the bundle it was $50.  But there are times when Dave Ramsey hold sales, especially around the holiday season.  This bundle includes 2 books, an audio book,, envelop money system, cash flow and dump debt DVDs, and a couple of ebooks.

The package when I purchased is was a little different but are great resources to refer too.   This has made me consciously aware of my budget and some of the mistakes that we have made along the way.  Ramsey answers a lot of common questions and gives reasons as to why or why not it is financially healthy.

Several other resources can help you develop and make you consciously aware of your budget. Please note that following tools financial advisors.  Everyone will have a different budget because everyone has a different lifestyle and life circumstance, so what will work for one person will not work for another person. But this tool can help you set up your budget and keep track of finances.
There are several tools out there to help you budget your money:

If you have not already, you need to download you bank app on your phone.  I have two different banks that I work with. One is a big change that is nationally known and we have a private small town bank.  Both have apps so at anytime, I can log on to them and see how much money we in our accounts at all times.  I also have my bank accounts set up so that I if my accounts fall below $100 I receive a text message notifying that I have limited funds in my account.

EveryDollar: 
EveryDollar is a budgeting to provided by Dave Ramsey.  This is a free tool that allows its users to create a budget.  You are allowed to put in your own income, create different categories and to set up your budget.  On the side, it shows you percentages of categories to how and where most of you money is being spent.

Every Dollar has an app for iPhones and Androids to help keep track of your spending as your spending.  For example, you go grocery shopping, you can keep track of your spending and will show how much money you have help in that budget.

For a small monthly fee of $8.25 or $99 annually, you can link your bank card to your account.  Shortly after your bank processes them, they will show on your EveryDollar account.  You then can click and drag your spending in your budgets and it will automatically withdrawal from your budgets to show how much you have left.

Change: 
Change is a service that sends our a text message to notify you of your daily spending.  Not know much about this app when I signed up was a large leap of faith for me in hopes that I would suffer from identity fraud.  Even when I reviewed their site I told them of my skeptism, and they assured me that my information was secure.  I have utilized this too for about 6 months and haven't had any problems with it.  It is nice to be informed how much money in my account, so I am not tempted to spend my money and is a great reminder of my ultimate goal.

Prosper Daily
Proper Daily is an app available for iPhone and Android.  This app, when given you account information for bank account and credit cards shows the balance on each account,  What purchases were made, a monthly spending tracker.  This great reference when trying to figure out how much money you have in all of your accounts and a compilation of how much money you have spent in total for them month and then compares it to previous months

All of these resources are secure sites.  They have personally kept my information safe.  I am not paid for these reviews, they are tools have helped me become more financially aware.

Snowball Effect- Debt Reiief

My husband and I have been wanting to get out of debt, more so me than him because I sit close to $60,000 in student loan debt and am still taking graduate courses.  We have dabbled with the Dave Ramsey plan of getting out of debt.  The cash budget, is very hard for us.  This is a challenge in it of itself.  We now have two separate bank accounts and one account is our daily living money, and one is strictly just for bills.

Some piece of debt relief that we have done is the snowball effect.  For those of you who unfamiliar with the snowball effect it paying extra on one loan.  When that loan is paid off, you take the what you paid over and the payment from loan that you paid off and put it toward your next loan.

For example:

Loan 1:  $1000
     Minimum payment $50 +$50 over pay means you can have this paid off in 10 month opposed to 20 months.

Loan 2:  $2,000
      Minimum payment $50.  You start paying $50 for 10 months until Loan 1 is paid off.  Then on month 11 you will pay $50 + $100=$150. After 10 more months, this loan will be paid off. This loan should have taken 40 months to pay off, but instead using the snowball effect will take 20 months to pay off.

Loan 3: $3,000
      Minimum payment $50.  You start paying $50 for 20 months until Loan 1 and Loan is paid off.  Then on month 21 you will pay $50 +$150= $200.  After consolidating the payments, it will take 10 more months to pay off. This loan should have taken 60 months to pay off, but instead using the snowball effect will take  a total 30 months to pay off.

This $6,000 of debt should have taken 120 months by paying the minimum  every month to pay off got cut to 30 months.

My husbands student loans are now paid off, now onto focusing on mine!

Tax Refund

What to do with our tax return money? My husband and I have a couple of options as to do with our tax return money.  Both options are and will be a good investment for our furture and both options will get done at some point it is just a matter of what order to do them in.

It's amazing how much more money 1 kid can bring in from our tax return.  Our tax refund doubled from last year.  Now,  Ryne and I have to decide what we are going to do with our money this year. We have two options that we could do.  We could use the money to insulate our basement or we could use the money to pay down Ryne's student loans.  We are stuck in a dilemma.

 If we decide to spray insulate our our basement, it will take a good chunk of our refund.  I have been doing some research and have decided to go with Foam It Green Home Energy Kit.  This would be a $1500 expense.  This will help keep our house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.  There is a lot of air leakage coming from our basement therefore this would be a wise investment and cut down our gas and energy costs. This kit is a DYI kit so I can do it when I want too. I am an impatient person and want to do it right now; however, after doing some research, if I get an energy audit, I  could get a 70% rebate. This option would mean I would have to be patient.

Our other option is to paying Ryne's Student Loans. With our full refund, we would be about $600 give or take a few hundred away from being able to but his loans in forbarance.  The last $5000 would be paid off through the Teacher Loan Forgiveness plan.  This would free up $232  and though the Dave Ramsey snowball effect, we could have one of our credit cards paid off in 4-6 months. In the long run, this would defiantly help pay our debt off quicker.

Ryne has taken on two additional coaching position so we will be able to do both. The question is which should we do first?  After talking with my husband, we are going to call the energy company and see when they can do an energy audit.  I think this will help determine which direction we should go in first.

Dave Ramsey Plan Beginning Months Struggles

Another suprise expense!  Yesterday, I went to go get the mail from out mailbox.  There was a letter addressed to me and my girls.  It was an invitation to my sister-in-law's baby shower.  Well, we all know that you cannot show up to a baby shower without a gift; however, it is my daughter's first birthday in this same pay period.  I have a dilemma.

My husband's and my New's Resolution was to do the Davr Ramsey Plan and stick to it.  We attempted before Christmas and failed miserably. So this time we wanted to put together a budget and stick to it.

With it only being the second month of the plan, our savings for each budget hasn't  accumulated.  It is my daughter's first birthday on March 17th.  On February 15, it was my daughter's 3rd birthday.  So, in my head, I was planning on using the allotted money set aside for gifts for their birthdays.  I don't set aside a whole lot, just enough  for what we can afford for right now. And in this day and age $60 does not go very far.

I have looked through my budget and every penny has been stretched and pinched.  A couple of things have already popped up that are needs such as my husband needs an eye exam and my car registration need to be paid, because once again, I haven't had enough time to save.

Luckily, my in-laws are having a girl, and I have two girls, I hate regifting, but might have to go through my girls' old clothes and find ones with tags on them. It's not exactly ideal but for right now it's what we can afford.

Pay day!!

     Praise the Lord!  It's PAY DAY!  my husband and I only get paid once a month and our paycheck come in two days apart so he and I feel like we are scraping by at the end of the month.

     This month was a little different though.  We both decided that we were going to stick to the Dave Ramsey Plan as a part of our New Year's Resolution.  Well, we survived. We did a no- no and borrowed from other budgets because we didn't plan very well.  But the important thing is that we didn't put anything on our credit cards and we're didn't borrow from money set aside for quarterly bills.

    I sat down and did our budget. One bill that was unexpected and kinda of puts a damper on our paying extra on out debt, was our car registration.  It's one those bills you know you have to pay once a year but forget when you have to pay it.  Now that I know that it is $150, I can put that into my budget that every month I need to set aside $12.50 for this car registration.  

The Breakdown of the Dave Ramsey Plan

      After  reading and listening to Dave Ramey.  I have found that it is very important to get the support of your spouse.  My husband, Ryne, didn't really know a whole lot about the Dave Ramsey Plan.  So, I put together our budget and my husband and I sat down and tweeked it so both him and I were happy.
      Let me tell you at this point, I know that I think I have have everything covered in our budget.  But, I bet I am forgetting something.  It is amazing how much money that we have going for our bills and how little we actually get t spend on ourselves for our needs and our wants.   I know that we are going to have to make sacrifices to be able to afford everything in our budget.
     So where did we start?  Well, we started with Dave's Seven Baby Steps.  Ryne and I acutally have double the recommended amount of an emergency fund, so were good to go.  The second step is to pay off all the debt with the snowball effect.
     The second step is a HUGE step.  This is actually a the step when you come to the realization of how much debt you actually are in.  This step does not include your mortgage payment.  I had to recored EVERY student loan amount, interest rate, and minimum balance.  With each individual loan, we have like 20 loans.  These have been consolidated to the point so we only paying 4 creditors.  Then we had to write down all of credit card debt information.  We currently do no have a car payment, so there is nothing to write down here.
   There are several Apps or Websites that can help you keep track of all your debt and can actually run the snowball effect for you.  You can get it set up to either pay smallest amount first or highest interest rate.  I personally like the smallest amount because though I would be saving money on interest rates,  I like the fact I woud like I am making a dent in my debt.  A website that I would recommend is the Dave Ramsey's My Total Money Makeover.
   After writing down, all of our debt, bills, and mortgage. The percentages were shocking.  One/Fourth of our monthly income goes to our debt,  One/fourth of our monthly income goes to our mortgage.  Another  fourth of our debt goes to bill and the last fourth goes toward groceries, clothes, toiletries, etc.  The thought of only having a forth to live off of is kind of suffocating. But I hope we can get to the point where it doesn't feel like we are on as tight of a leash.

Decision: Dave Ramsey Plan

       I am soo sick of living paycheck to paycheck.  My co-workers and I have been talking a lot about our finances.  I told them that I just want to pay off our debt but I don't know how.  I was so tired of feeling like I was poor. 
      They  had asked me if I have ever hear of the Dave Ramsey Plan. Dave who? Ramsey who?  Plan what?  What in the world is that?  They told me about how he recommends cash budgeting and the snowball effect.  What? Who? How?  Where do I begin?  Cash, huh?
    I had all these questions and I would subtly ask my questions as time went by.  I didn't want to sound stupid.  I eventually went to the Dave Ramsey website.  Holy cow!  Where do I begin? 
   I decided that if I were serious about getting rid of my debt,  I cannot go at it alone.  I purchased the the The Starter Bundle from his website. It was $50 at the time of my purchase.  But I can tell you that it has been worth every penny. 
   Everything thing that he says or has written has  given me hope that I can get out of debt.  I know that I have a long way to go and this is only the beginning of the on the road to becoming debt free. 

How we got into debt!!

      How in the world did we get here?  Between my husband and I, we are thousands of dollars in debt.  Through student loans, car loans, mortgage and credit card debt, we both feel like we are both swimming in a sea of debt just barely scraping by.  A few months ago, after talking to some co-workers, my husband and I decided to start on the Dave Ramsey Plan.
     We were young and dumb and did not value the dollar.  While in college, my husband, Ryne, and I took out the maximum student loans.  Looking back now, what a huge mistake!!  My husband got his college education for free and lived with his parents for the first two years of college.  He had no expenses besides gas.  I took out my maximum student loans because I was too proud to ask for money and I didn't want to get a job because I played softball in college and this was a priority for me.   I sent my money on fast food, even though I could have eaten in the cafeteria since I was paying for it anyway.  I bought items I did not need.  My family didn't have a lot growing up and I wanted to spoil myself.
     After college, Ryne and I both got teaching jobs in the same school.  Luck for us, that doesn't happen very often.  We had money coming out of our ears. But, we were not smart with our money.  We blew it on fancy electronics that we did not need.  We ate fast food a lot. 
     A few later, the school was making budget cuts.  My husbands position got cut and he got let go.  Though threw several applications and job interviews, there was no luck for finding a new job.  I still had my job and Ryne took a significatly decrease in pay as an associate at the school.  Come to find out, we were going to have a baby during this school year.  Which Ryne was my sub while I was on maternity leave.  This lead to a lot of credit card debt because we were not making as much as what we once were.
      A year later, Ryne got a new job.  Yay! Praise the Lord.  This would make for some big changes in our lives.  We were going the have to move.  We had to sell the house that we were living in and look for a new one 50 miles from where we were.
     Still not making as much money as with our house on the market it was very stressful. Ryne was driving 100 miles a day, I was working part time, and we were having to pay for updates in the house we currently owned. More money got put on the credit cards.
     We eventually sold our house and moved in to the school district where he taught.  We bought a 3,000 sq ft house that was a the maximum of our price range. I had to resign from my teaching position.  So then he was teaching. I wasn't. I substitute taught some but wasn't bringing in enough.
    I eventually got a job and Under Armour as a manager.  This was nice because I was bringing in a steady pay check.  The bad thing is that they give a 50% off discount to their employees.  In the long run, I think I paid to work there.
    The next school year, I got a teaching job and a neighboring school district.  FINALLY, steady pay with benefits.  This was huge!  So what did my husband do? We made another baby.  So just when we could have started paying things off,  we were paying doctor bills.
    Ugh!  Debt! Debt! Debt!  Medical bills, mortage, credit card bills, car payments!  Ugh!  My husband and I were close to 200,000 in debt including our house payment.  How are we ever going to get out?