This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Welcome to my blog! I am excited to have you join me on my financial journey. I created Your Frugal Friend Blog to share the tools that helped me pay off $70,000 of debt and counting!
Contents
clar·i·ty: seeing things as they are and not as you imagine they are.
Every journey begins with a moment of clarity, and mine was in 2009.
I wasn’t always great with money. My financial education came as a result of hard lessons learned. Seeing my bad habits for what they were was the hardest lesson for me to learn.
Budgeting, what is that?
I grew up in a lower income family. I was never given instructions on how interest worked, how to budget, why saving money is important, and so much more. Every dollar that came my way was spent. I felt like I deserved it.
Reality, however, would make me see my bad habits for what they were.
The financial crash of 2008 led to my layoff and into a new job making almost half of what I made before. I was on food stamps and knew something had to change.
My first crude budget was created in 2009 as a response to being unable to afford an oil change or fix a flat tire. Over the next ten years, I would refine this budget to be the one I still use today!
Do you have an income problem?
During 2009, the budget I created showed me that the cash I made did not cover the cash I needed to live. I had trimmed my expenses to the bone, but it just wasn’t enough.
I had an income problem. To address this problem, I enrolled in a bachelor of business administration program. I knew this would improve my financial position.
By starting on the road to maximizing my income, I was building on the good habits I had already started.
Meeting my Husband and Gaining a Financial Partner
I met my husband early 2013. Along with his good humor and kindness came $20,000 of commercial debt! At that time I was finishing my master’s degree program and had only a small amount of debt. I was making $28,000 a year and he made $12 an hour.
He was a low earner and was in debt. We made the decision in 2014 for him to quit his job and fulfill his dream of becoming an electrical engineer.
Children can Make Financial Goals Change
As I was putting my husband through school, we decided that it was time to have our first child. We were in our early thirties and time was ticking! Our first child was born at the end of 2015.
What I didn’t know about having a baby, as a working mother, was that daycare is extremely expensive! It was $1,300/month to have our infant in a center. In order to work, and have my husband finish school, we decided to put our child in care and put the bill on credit cards.
Sacrificing my debt free goals, to allow my husband to finish school ,was a tough pill for me to swallow. It caused me a lot of anxiety, but I can say that we were able to keep a frugal mindset and complete all of our educational goals!
Ten Years of Improving my Habits
From 2009 to 2019 I can say I have:
- Finished a master’s degree in accounting while working full time
- Refined my budget to be a zero-based budget which helped me to stay financially on track
- Pay off $65,000 of debt
- Put my husband through school
- Started a blog to help keep others, and myself, accountable on our financial journeys
Start Your Budgeting Journey
Having spent hours creating and refining my budgeting spreadsheets, debt snowball calculator, and other goal tracking tools, I want you to use them to get on the path to good financial habits!
The hard work is done and now I am sharing these tools with you. I am here to help you start your financial journey and to stay on track.
Start your journey today by grabbing your copy of my zero-based budget and taking back control of your finances!
Over the next year I will be sharing my frugal hacks, budget tips, and spending strategies that have helped me!
Are you ready to budget to financial independence together?
Leave a Reply