KadyDidIt

Let's throw the truth out there real quick...June was hard! I was so close to overspending in the last four weeks of cash envelopes it gave me a panic attack! Now that is not the right way to go about this process, but I do like that I'm pretty darn committed to this!  The first half of the month did not get it's own separate post so I will break down the month for the biweekly periods. Really only because I did so much better at the beginning of the month.                                                Planned                     Actual                                                                Groceries           ...

  Hey guys, another quick cash envelope update since it is officially June (WTH?) It's been one official month since I've been using the cash envelopes and I've been loving it! It has really helped me, and honestly others around me. I keep getting asked about my progress from my co-workers and friends and they seem very interested in starting this process themselves. If you're asking me, do it! It seriously works!   So as I had mentioned in the middle of the month I had adjusted a couple of the categories, and I'm thinking I might make one small change for June. When I go to the grocery store I separate my household from my food items, which most grocery stores are ok with this, however I've had my pet items as well...this has been an issue. I'm thinking that I might combine household and pets just to make grocery store trips easier. I haven't fully decided, but I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going to do.   ...

  sink·ing fund ˈsiNGkiNG ˌfənd/ 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 ...

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!

 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...

  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...

I have fallen into a worm hole reading and watching information on cash envelopes. Really, it's a freakin genius idea and I don't know why I haven't been doing this my whole life.  As you all know, I use a personal size Kate Spade Wellesley planner as my wallet. I purchased the above cash envelopes from Little Red Papers on Etsy. These come punched for different size planners as well as unpunched for every day use without a planner.  I figured out my income and broke down my budget for the biweekly period. This will be for the period of April 28th through May 11th. The envelopes come in a set of 6.  My categories are:  Groceries - $200 Household - $30 Gas - $70 Fun/Dates - $100 Eating Out - $50 Misc - $25 This is my first time using the cash envelope system and already after two days I've had a surprising change of heart for my budget ready self. It's true that when you actually have to use the cash yo...

  How does debt happen? I think it's just something that is such a normalcy it makes me think, does anyone really think twice about opening a credit card and then unfortunately for some of us become overwhelmed with the amount we've accumulated? I know this is not everyone, but I know from my personal experience it does happen to more people then we might think. For me personally I did open a credit card as soon as I turned 18 and thankfully I did accumulate some debt over the last 10 years, but I have been fortunate enough to not be TOO out of control. I do have some debt that will take me some time to pay off, but nothing that is not possible. I've decided to share what I'm doing personally to help myself out which includes the following Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball method. So stick around if you're interested!