Don’t let our upcoming epic trip to Guatemala mislead you. Road trips are our normal vacation style. As a frugal family of eight, we get a lot more bang for our buck when we take road trips than any other kind of vacation. We get to see so many hidden treasures throughout our country and […]
Everything we’re packing for 2 weeks of backpacking in Guatemala
Not too long ago, I shared with you our budget for our family adventure in Guatemala. I have literally been packing and planning since I booked the flight. Although it’s still a while until we’re actually leaving, I thought it would be fun to show you what we are bringing. Though we’re packing super minimally […]
Zucchini Brownies with Perfect Chocolate Frosting
In addition to talking about budgeting and finances, I love to share from-scratch recipes, frugal dishes, and ways to use garden produce. Today I am sharing one of my favorite ways to eat zucchini– zucchini brownies! We don’t have any zucchini yet this year, but hopefully we will soon! Zucchini lovers and haters alike will […]
May 2024 Budget Update
How is it already June? While time may be flying by too fast, I always enjoy finishing off one month’s budget and having the fresh start of a new month’s budget. As one month ends and the next begins, it’s a prime time to review your budget and financial goals, resolve to make improvements where […]
Find Money You Didn’t Know You Lost– Search Your State’s Unclaimed Property
Can you imagine a lost and found that has millions, even billions, of dollars in it? Neither can I. Yet every state has a lost and found like this. It’s the unclaimed property division, a part of the state treasury or controller. The billions of dollars of unclaimed property is spread out among everyday people like […]
Freezer Meal Prep for the Month
A couple of months ago, I started making freezer meals our go-to plan for dinner. Before that, getting dinner on the table used to be so tough. With all of our kids’ sports and other activities (for which I’m the main driver), plus all of the commitments that Mike and I have, our evenings are […]
My Shoulders and Your Budget
When I very first started blogging in 2013, I would often have “debt discussions” with my early blog readers. At the time, my husband and I had just decided to pay off our law school debt as fast as we could. Since we had six figures of debt, we knew it was going to be […]
Monthly Grocery Haul for our Family of 8 in May 2024
It’s been a while since I shared our monthly grocery haul. This past year has been a whirlwind, so I haven’t been as organized and intentional as I like to be. With rising food prices, our grocery spending has been higher than it ever has. Still, in the past 12 months, our average monthly spending […]
Our detailed family budget with all of April’s income and expenses
I’m always a fan of living by a budget, no matter your means. Budgeting allows you to be in control of your money instead of having your money control you. Your budget gives you the freedom to spend where you want because you are the one who sets the budget. If you don’t prioritize your […]
How we budget for an epic international family trip
The closer our kids get to leaving the nest, the more we are prioritizing family travel and adventure together. Our oldest will graduate from high school in just two years, so we are eager to take some of the trips that have been on our short list for a long time. If you read our […]
How much can you actually earn on Airbnb? Here’s how to find out!
If you have a space to rent, whether it’s an entire space (even your own home) or just a room, there is money to be made on Airbnb. When we were looking for a house to buy back in 2016, one of our soft requirements was that the property have an extra living space, like […]
The Power of Asking– Simple Questions Have Saved Us Thousands!
Sometimes saving money just requires asking a simple question or two. With very little effort you can be saving money on your monthly bills and beyond. In many cases it is just a matter of asking to pay less. It never hurts to ask, right? The worst that can happen is… nothing, which is exactly […]
What we spent and earned in March 2024
It’s no secret that I love budgeting! Sure, sometimes it’s annoying trying to reconcile accounts and it’s frustrating that saving takes so long. Progress can feel slow when you’re working to pay off big debt, but then feeling the peace that comes when you have control of your finances is worth all of the hassle. […]
6 Ways You Can Help Your Adult Children With Debt (without paying it)
As parents, it’s tough to see your children struggle. Watching them suffer in sickness or pain tugs at your heart strings. You want to relieve their suffering or take their place. It’s easy to see how the parental love that compels us to rescue and save our children would extend to other areas of hardship. With […]
5 Smart Ways to Use Overripe Bananas (and how to freeze them)
If you’re trying to save money on groceries, the last thing you want to do is throw food away! Wasting food, simply put, is wasting money. In the past I’ve shared 7 ways to use milk that is almost expired to help people not waste one of the most common staples in our kitchens. Today we’ll […]
Everything we spent and earned last month– February 2024 Family Budget Update
Every month we share our family’s real budget with you in an effort to break the taboo about money and help you see how a budget can help you reach your financial goals. When we started openly sharing our finances on 2013, we had six figures of student loan debt. Through hard work and diligent […]
Frugal Feats, Flops, and Funnies: Goodbye Sleeping Bag, Hello Long Arm
Living frugally can be quite an adventure. As with anything in life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. And sometimes you just have to laugh. Years ago I regularly shared frugal feats, flops, and funnies posts to share with you some of the daily ins and outs of living the frugal life and hopefully […]
29+ Non-food items you should keep stocked at home
Until about four years ago, we all took for granted the ability to purchase whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. When covid hit and the world started shutting down, many people raced to the store to stock up on the most important things. Before supply chain issues had even begun to surface, panic buying cleared […]
4 Things you should tell your kids about YOUR finances
Learning to talk openly with your kids about your own finances is one of the best ways to give them the financial education that they’re not getting anywhere else. Keeping finances hush-hush does more harm than good. If you don’t teach your kids about finances, they’ll likely have to get their education from the school of […]
January 2024 Family Budget Update
We’re back with a fresh 2024 budget! It might look very similar to last year, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?! While the general budget hasn’t changed a lot with the new year, we have a new goal to work on. I can’t overstate the importance of setting financial goals. If you […]
December 2023 Family Budget Update
Talking about personal finance shouldn’t be taboo! That’s why we share our real budget with you every month. In fact, talking about budgeting is a great way to learn how to budget Our budget will look different than yours, and that’s how it should be. Our needs, values, and priorities are different, so it only […]
Cost Breakdown for Our Epic San Diego Trip
You loved hearing about what we spent on our 3-week cross county road trip, our 10-day Washington DC trip, and our Yellowstone Family Trip so I know you’re going to love hearing the financial (and fun) details of our family’s San Diego trip. For Christmas 2022, we did something we’ve never done before. Instead of […]
Money talk without the taboo. Here’s our family’s real budget from last month.
Where did you learn how to budget? Did your parents teach you? Did you learn in school? Of all of the really impactful things you could learn in high school, I think money management is near the top. Yet most people don’t learn about personal finance in high school. I know I didn’t! The informal […]
5 Habits that Helped Us Pay Off $144,000 in Debt in 3 Years
When we started paying off our law school debt, we owed over $130,000. At the time, my husband was making $39,000 before taxes and I was bringing in some side income with my Etsy shop. We set an audacious stretch goal of being debt-free in three years, but when we calculated how much we needed […]
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