Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2017

Why I'm No Longer Purchasing from Erin Condren

  I'm fully aware that some people might not agree with me on this topic, but I really need to share my experiences with Erin Condren as well as my opinions on why I do not plan on purchasing from this brand any longer.  Customer Service Good customer service is what makes a company, and unfortunately that is NOT Erin Condren's top priority. My personal experience with the customer service has been half and half. The policies and responses to customers is never consistent which makes me believe they make do not have any rules and guidelines for dealing with customer issues. In my opinion a company should have guidelines for handling issues and complaints.  Quality Control I have placed a total of 25 orders with Erin Condren over the past 5 years. Within the last 2 years 4 out of 5 orders have arrived either incorrect, flawed, or completely wrong. Again, only in my opinion, the way that this company lets orders leave there facility tells me that they don't c

Sinking Funds

  sink·ing fund ˈsiNGkiNG ËŒfÉ™nd/ noun plural noun: sinking funds a fund formed by periodically setting aside money for the gradual repayment of a debt or replacement of a wasting asset.   I have not been doing the Dave Ramsey plan long enough to really give my testimonial on the idea of a sinking fund, but what I can share is what categories I have decided to save for! From what I do know I believe my categories are a little different for my family because we are not homeowners, when you own a home you could have other expenses arise that I, as a renter, would not be responsible for.   Currently I have 6 sinking funds: MEDICAL ANNIVERSARY BIRTHDAY CHRISTMAS RANDOM GIFTS EYEBROWS   Ok, weird? Maybe. Let me explain.   MEDICAL Lucky for me, my health insurance is pretty good so I personally have never had an experience where I owed a lot of medical bills after a doctor visit (With that being said, my dental sucks!). I've

Debt Snowball Report Card

In April of this year I started reading The Total Money Makeover, and I thought to myself, "Hell yeah! Let's do this." I would say I pretty quickly became "gazelle intense" and started planning my debt payoff as well as using cash envelopes to be able to stay accountable. I decided to do an update for my first "real" month of debt payoff as my first priority. So far I have been able to put $1467.85 towards debt! This has taken me about 6 weeks. The first two weeks I was focused on all of my minimum payments and then starts the snowball! My total debt does include my car note, which is a pretty significant amount of this total amount paid off, but hey we're getting there! My plan is to be able to put an extra $500 a month on top of all of my minimum payments. Well there we go, quick and easy! I will keep you updated (really, keeping myself accountable) on my progress!

Mid Month Cash Envelope Report Card

 I have completed my first two weeks of utilizing cash envelopes, and let me just say I'm damn proud of myself! I'm not going to say it wasn't hard, but man was it invigorating. I want to give a little update on what worked, what didn't, and what is going to change. My 6 original categories were: groceries ($200), gas ($70), household ($30), eating out ($50), personal ($100), and misc. ($25). I quickly realized my gas is not a problem, I fill up once a week which costs me right at $70, however my pets can be an issue. Not my pets in general, but my need to buy them all of the things. This month they needed EVERYTHING so I decided to switch my gas envelope into my pets envelope and put $100 in it for this first half of May. I also set up a few Sinking Funds which I don't believe I mentioned in my previous post. These include: medical ($25), anniversary ($25), birthdays ($25), Christmas ($25), and eyebrows ($100) (sorry, not sorry)! I did fill these envelo

Ways to Stop Spending and Complete Baby Step 1

  If you've been following any of my previous posts for the past few weeks you would have know that I'm trying to become debt free. Really, who isn't nowadays? I've become pretty obsessed with any and everything about budgets for the past few weeks and thought I'd share my two cents on the matter and share what seems to be working for me. Sell Your Items Now I'm not saying sell you bed and sleep on the floor or anything crazy, I just know WE ALL have a ton of stuff we don't use. You'd be amazed by how much money you are literally sitting on. I've been decluttering at the same time as trying to save money which has helped me a ton. In the last two weeks I have made over $1000 selling my personal items which I put directly into a savings account to complete baby step 1!   Cash Envelopes I know, I know, you're probably tired of hearing about it by now, but I'm obsessed. In the short time I've been using this system I have qu