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 […]
Want to see everything our family spent and earned last month? Here are all the details.
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 […]
Sweet Potato Soufflé– Our Favorite Thanksgiving Side Dish
One of our most favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner? Sweet potato souffle! While it’s not the healthiest version of sweet potatoes for your Thanksgiving spread, this sweet potato souffle is absolutely the tastiest. And let’s face it, covering your sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar, like many people do, isn’t healthy either. But sweet […]
Budgeting gets much better than Mint anyway. We switched to YNAB nine years ago and haven’t looked back!
If you are one of the 3.6 million people who uses Mint for managing your personal finances, you might be panicking with the news that Mint will be shutting down completely by January and is hoping to push users to Credit Karma. As a long-time user of Mint, I can tell you that budgeting gets […]
3 Inexpensive household items we use to save hundreds of dollars each month
The internet is full of “money-saving” products with all sorts of promises to make your life easier while keeping cash in your pocket. I’m sure some of those gadgets are great and for the right people would make a financial difference, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Today I want to share […]
Let’s normalize talking about budgets. Here are our actual expenses and income numbers for September
Want to see what our real budget looks like? Every month we share our family’s actual budget numbers with you because we think talking about personal finance shouldn’t be taboo. In fact, talking about budgeting is a great way to learn. Your budget won’t look like ours because your priorities are different, your family is […]
How to make your own pumpkin puree (from ANY pumpkin)
Fall means it’s time for pumpkin everything! I love eating pumpkin all year long, but in the fall the rest of the world (well, at least the country) joins me. Do you know what makes pumpkin recipes even better? Making your own pumpkin puree! Seriously. If you’ve never tried making homemade pumpkin puree, then make […]
If a future government shutdown would affect your paycheck, make these 3 money moves now
If you work for the federal government or depend on work as a government contractor, then you probably breathed a sigh of relief when Congress managed to pass a 45-day budget just hours before the government was preparing to shut down. We managed to avoid a government shutdown on October 1st, but we might be […]
The simple 3-step calculation that will save your gas budget
Unless you own a gas company or an oil well, you’re probably not a big fan of the gas prices lately. I paid $5.67 per gallon yesterday and that was at the cheapest station in town! It’s easy to throw our hands up in the air and decide there’s nothing we can do about the […]
Here’s a detailed look into everything our family 8 spent and earned in August
Welcome to another Family Budget Update where we share our real numbers with you! Why do we share all the details? Budgeting is such an important skill for everyone, but very few people are taught how to do it! It isn’t taught in most schools (except, eventually, in the School of Hard Knocks!) If you were […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- …
- 32
- Next Page »
