Budgeting For Free

Load Google sheets to your phone or use on your laptop or pc for free.  Watch the video for formulas and ideas on how to start your own personal budget. 

Hit me up for any questions and help. I am pretty good at making a dollar stretch 

This is a budget for beginners. Beginners without credit card debt.  If you have credit card debt you need to also factor that in and get it paid off as it’s a high interest payment.  There’s an order to getting credit cards paid off while also putting money into savings to stop the vicious cycle. 

If you’re good with credit cards and always pay off monthly,  I say keep using for the rewards. That’s what I do. That’s actually my vacation savings. If you’re not, don’t use them at all. Make everything come out of your bank account so you can’t get behind. 

I know I’m not in the majority but tithing, vacation savings, entertainment etc is not a necessary. Those are amounts you can tweak to still be able to pay for essential living expenses like home, food and utilities. 

Please use this or at least try something. Everyone should be able to save some money even if all you can put away is $10 into this worksheet line. Do what you can and if you start a side hustle or get a raise add to it. I’ve done that for years and while it would have been fun to just blow the money we put most of it away each time and always had money when we needed it most including to eventually buy cars without loans.   Tell yourself yes sometimes but tell yourself no more!

Don’t get frustrated. Be patient. If you stay the course you will see it pay off. Remember it’s a marathon not a sprint.  Endurance matters.  I will cheer you on. Leave a comment if you want to try this. If you want to get your finances in order. I want to see everyone grow financially even if that just means not having credit card debt , a tiny savings and paying your bills on time. I call that successful. I’ve been there. 

Fun, bougie, lighting

 

These easy, magnetic motion lights and motion switches are the bomb!  We’ve had these switches in our home for awhile and they keep handprints off my walls from the kids and make sure lights get turned off!!  

The magnetic lights are rechargeable or if you have an outlet nearby you can leave it plugged in. The one in our medicine cabinet has made my husband very happy.  Very easy to just find a Tylenol or a cough drop late at night when you’re tired.  And the light sticks perfectly to the metal brackets under our pantry shelves.  That one gets a lot of traffic so we have to charge it about once a week. The one in the cabinet is triggered at least twice daily and is still going strong a month later. 

Both are very convenient and relatively inexpensive for a fun. ….and in my daughters words….bougie home. 

Go to my Pinterest link 🔜➡️🔜➡️Enjoy!!

Or click below

Rechargeable Cabinet lighting

Lutron motion light switch

#affiliate

Budgeting 101 for Beginners

 Run the race and then go the extra mile.

If all of your commitment bills are $2,000/month and your household brings home $2,300 then allow yourself a little cash, maybe $50 to $100 for eating out or some entertainment and then make that extra $200 per month a bill. Have your bank transfer it automatically from your checking to your savings so you can’t fail to do so. 

Now, keep in mind this is after, hopefully, things like health insurance and retirement savings is already taken out of your check. If not, you need to save a little for retirement. Again start small but start. Compounding interest at a young age is a beautiful thing but if you never start, even if you’re older, you will never get to witness those benefits. 

Each raise you get add a little to retirement and a little to your emergency savings account. Eventually, you’ll be able to start a fun account. 

And don’t rule out side gigs. We did them for years.  Extra jobs doing anything we were capable or doing. It really helped to pay for those emergency things like a broke down car or appliance while we were trying to get our emergency savings started. 

Don’t forget to coupon clip. Even Amazon items have coupons. Try coupons.com.  Great for everyday items, in store.  Use Rakuten to get money back on things you need. Always Google for discount codes when buying online. 

Don’t set a goal so big it makes you feel like you’ll never get there and then you quit. DON’T QUIT!

I promise you all of this hard work, sacrifice and being careful with your money will pay off and then you’ll be in such a habit you’ll continue and really get ahead. 

Almost 30 years of marriage, 5 kids, multiple medical emergencies and we are finally starting to see these benefits. We started with  nothing and refused to give up. 

Follow me in Instagram and here for how to save on things in life, how to budget and share.  I promise I’ll cheer you on!

 #makesavingsapriority #moneysavingtips #payyourselffirst #gettoretire #savingisabill #saveeffortlessly #moveforward #startnow #retirementplanning #moneygoals

Great kitchen drawer organization

 These inexpensive freezer bins are actually perfect for storing hot pads and dish rags.  I took two drawers and got all of the items into one.  This gave me more uncluttered space in my kitchen making things easier, more efficient and me a happy girl. 

Check out my Pinterest saves  and other affiliate faves  or click on Fridge organizer bins

Put yourself in your budget

 👀SERIOUSLY!!👀

💰💸Do you want to save some money or not?

You have to start somewhere, so why not start today?  

You have 11 months to get this started. 

If you’re struggling at all to pull any amount together by June, August, December for insurance, taxes, Christmas etc then this is for you.  I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years and it’s a great start to budgeting if you don’t already budget. 

You just have to have the bank set up a separate account (my credit union does this for free) and have them automatically deposit the amount you need by the end of the year divided by 12. So if you needed $10,500 to pay these bills then you would have them transfer $875/month to that savings on what we date you select.  This becomes a monthly bill. 

Can you pay insurance monthly?  Of course you can. But they charge you more. Did you know you can get a pretty steep discount to pay semi annually or annually?  This is HOW you do it!

You’re paying YOU first AND earning a little interest on the money AND not accidentally spending it and then accumulating credit card debt because you don’t have all this cash by these dates. 

Try it today. Call the bank today. You will never look back once you start. 

Lid drawer madness

 Our lid drawer is always a mess.  I think most people have one if you have leftovers. I, so often, have to toss every single lid out onto the floor to find one single, smaller, lid.  So when I saw this item on Amazon I had to try it. It’s now been a bit of time and our drawer still looks neat. The larger kids in the back and the smaller ones in the organizer where we can FIND them!  Success.  You can find this awesome, inexpensive, product here

#affiliate

Cleaning is your peace

 

Cleaning gives me a sense of control and peace. 

Cleaning and reorganizing is a FREE way to make you feel better. It always makes me feel better. And you can do little bits at a time. One cabinet at a time. 

I found one container I had leftover after cleaning out another zone and used it to help organize the small things in this one. 

Let’s face it. Everyone’s cabinet above the fridge is where things go to hide and you to forget. 

Cleaning it out gave me the opportunity to throw things away, sell things and make it look neat again. And now I know exactly what’s up there again. And, well, it gave me a reason to wipe the top of the fridge off. 

Try it. Just one zone at a time

🔥declutter

🔥sell

🔥clean 

🔥repurpose

On sale now…pantry organization

 These are an awesome deal right now. Click here for vertical pantry storage containers  Check these contained out at the link or via my Pinterest saves. I have had these for several months and really love them and I paid $10 more than the sale price right now. Grab things when they go down in price for once!!

#affiliate

Real deal in tax filing

 I officially dumped TaxAct. I switched all of us over to FreeTaxUSA. My daughters both filed for free, my middle son filed for free and we paid $14.99 total to file our state and federal taxes with all of the education credit documentation etc. The free version even allowed for my daughter to file a 1099B and my son filed his federal and two different states for nothing.  All because their incomes are under $41,000.  

Remember to use the link in last nights post to the MO Department of Revenue and then link from there. It will not be totally free without that link. 

File taxes for FREE in Missouri

 If you’re on a budget or just money conscious you’re always looking for a coupon or deal, right?  Taxes are no different. 

I have used TaxAct for years, religiously.  I’ve even had my kids use it. Now, I generally have to pay a fee but they give out discounts every December via email and you just have to log in to get them and they will be effective at tax time.  If something goes wrong and it doesn’t get applied simply call them and they will refund you the difference.  The kids’ taxes have mostly been simple enough to qualify for the free versions.

But this year my 17 year old had to file since she made just enough earned income and unearned (from an old custodial account) combined that she was required to. Last year she didn’t pay any taxes and didn’t make enough at her job so we did not have her file. This year, we knew she wouldn’t owe and she only stood to get $4 back between state and federal but she was required to file and filing the forms required for a 1099B for her investments, though small, meant TaxAct would charge her about $70. Umm what?  No. 

I set out to either do her taxes manually or find somewhere to file for free. Low and behold when I looked for a way to file the state side for free Missouri had links. Please keep in mind if you don’t use these links you could be charged for the state filing even though they all do federal for free. 

I chose FreeTaxUSA and it took all of 15 minutes to fill out her employee info, 1099B gains and 1099INT info. It even allowed us to e-file for her for free. It literally didn’t cost a dime. And she paid the state what she owed electronically. 

Now, I think it would cost us because of HSA and other things but I’m going to seriously look into using them before I file. I mean if they’re less expensive than TaxAct and they have a fixed state return fee really could be worth it. 

On a side note:  Even if your child only has earned income of less than the requirement to file, if they paid taxes from their checks they will get it all back. HAVE THEM FILE 

👇🏼Here’s the link to those free tax filing web sites:

https://dor.mo.gov/taxation/individual/tax-types/income/vendors.html

Save money….eat leftovers

 We try to make really large anoints of food that we can reinvent into something else when we have 3 or more of the kids home.  And barbecue beef sandwiches with coleslaw are a hit and then the next day we make homemade queso (real cheese etc) and finish the beef. And we need lots for that because they eat DO much!!  

But today, I ate a leftover sandwich but wasn’t feeling the slaw.  I found a half an avocado that was going to go bad and some tzatziki sauce that I actually made over the weekend with leftover cucumber kimchi.  This was an AWESOME sandwich  as in I’m going to have to introduce the whole family to this one and tzatziki sauce goes so far!

Enjoy and save money.

#moneysavingtips #savemoneywithleftovers #savemoney #eatathome