YNAB Summer Sale

Just wanted to pop in really quick-like to let you know about an amazing discount YNAB is offering on their budgeting software now until July 22nd!

It's normally $60, but they are offering it for $39.99 right now.

Not only that, but if you follow this link, I can get you an additional $6 off your purchase.

That brings your total to $33.99!

Don't know what YNAB is?

Check out my post about how we discovered it & how it's helped us

then check out their site to learn more...

We've gone 7 months now without going further into credit card debt.

Even with all of our moving expenses.

YNAB has been quite a blessing in our lives.

I would recommend it to anyone that wants to become more financially stable.

Click here to save $26 on your YNAB purchase until July 22nd!

That is all.

Real posts coming soon.

Promise.

Building a better budget

We did it!!!
We went an entire month without using a credit card...
One step closer to being debt-free.
Such a good feeling!



I was asked to teach a lesson at church on budgeting and family finance the 5th Sunday in December.

I knew a few months ahead of time & honestly was dreading it.
I mean really, really dreading it.
I knew that the lesson was probably Heavenly Father's way of helping me figure out what I was doing wrong with our finances though & that I would probably benefit most out of anyone just by preparing the lesson so I studied up, learned a lot, & found some wonderful resources along the way.

I talked a little bit about each of the 5 Basics of Family Finances that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has provided on providentliving.org:

                                                                1. Pay tithes & offerings

                                                                2. Avoid debt

                                                                3. Use a budget

                                                                4. Build a reserve

                                                                5. Teach family members

I learned the most when I was researching about budgets and I want to share some of the things I learned that may help you out with your budgets & staying out of debt...

When creating a budget, you can start with a basic (or complex) budget worksheet or a budget software...

There are plenty of options out there on the internet, both free & not-so-free, but what's important is that you find something that works for you!

Some other important things that you should remember while creating a budget are:

Know where your money is going...

I cannot stress how important this is! 

If you don't account for everything in your budget then you don't truly know where all of your money is going. It's more than just budgeting enough money for the essentials.

For the longest time I thought that if I created a budget where I would make sure our tithing and bills were paid first, then the rest of the money could go towards the variables like food, gas, household essentials, and other things.

Surely we would have more than enough left over to cover those things, right?

I was wrong.

When those things were only loosely budgeted for, I didn't realize how much we were spending each month

on unnecessary things, & how many things we should have been budgeting for but weren't. I knew our credit card debt was slowly increasing though. We were in this vicious cycle where we would practically pay the cards off each year with tax returns, then by the end of the year, we were back where we started.
Our yearly credit card float so to speak...

We assumed we just weren't making enough, and we were sick of this happening year after year. Back in September (before I knew I was going to teach) I decided to track our expenses more closely in hopes that we could get to the bottom of it and figure out what the culprit was, & either cut out the unnecessary things or get a job. So I did the following...

Keep a record of your expenditures...

Record and review your income and expenses for the past few months so that you have an idea about where most of your money is going. I found a budget spreadsheet in September that was helping us track our spending. I quickly realized that we were spending between $150-$200 a month on fast food in addition to the money budgeted for groceries, approximately $300 at places like Target & Walmart for household goods & who knows what else, & sometimes $400+ on other random expenses like dates, haircuts, movies, Christmas presents & things we didn't 'budget' for... No wonder we were putting things on credit cards each month! We didn't know what we were spending our money on. The second I started working on the lesson & we became more aware, we noticed that the numbers started going down & we weren't putting as much on the card. What a relief that was!

Determine how to reduce what you spend for non-essentials...

Use the info you gather to establish a family budget. Make sure you account for tithing & fast offerings first, then figure how much you will need for housing, utilities, transportation, bills, insurance, food, savings, and so on. Discipline yourself to stay within your budget plan. Budget worksheets &/or software are there to help you with your plan. This goes back to making sure you find something that works for you... I found that a simple worksheet just wasn't for me because I would leave things out of our budget that I should have saved up throughout the year for (Christmas for example).

I was teaching with someone else from our stake & learned something from him that can help you decide what non-essentials can be cut out... Ask yourself if your expenses are supporting life, or lifestyle.
If it's supporting life, you should definitely make room in your budget for it. If it's supporting lifestyle, chances are it's not a necessity & you can cut corners in those areas to save money. Brilliant, I know!

One way we recently did that was by getting a Roku instead of paying for cable or satellite TV each month. We just pay for Netflix & Hulu Plus now. At first we thought we'd miss regular TV, but we love our Roku!

Enter ALL income and expenses each time you prepare a budget...
Key word is ALL!
If you leave things out, you may think you have extra money to spend when it is really already accounted for,
which could lead to debt. We noticed a difference right away once we started doing that...
Because income and expenses can vary from week to week & month to month, prepare a new budget each and every week, bi-weekly, or monthly rather than a whole year.

I stumbled across this awesome website called You Need A Budget while planning my lesson. The YNAB
software utilizes four budgeting rules to help people create budgets and save their money.

YNAB's four budgeting rules:

                    1. Give every dollar a job (Be the boss of ALL of your money)

                    2. Save for a rainy day (Break all big expenses into manageable monthly chunks)

                    3. Roll with the punches (Be flexible & address overspending before it becomes a problem)

                    4. Live on last month's income (Stop living paycheck to paycheck)

Totally. makes. sense.

Here's what Jesse Mecham (the creator of You Need A Budget) says about budgeting from an LDS perspective: "I was born and raised LDS, and was taught that it's important to see money more as a stewardship situation than the fact that it's MY money. So budgeting is actually just making sure that we're good stewards with what we've been given."

I thought that was cool.

I decided to try the 34 day free trial of the software because we seriously wanted change and it seemed like a good method, but I wasn't about to pay $60 on a budgeting software. Seemed kind of contradictory.
I mean we were trying to save money, why spend it when there are so many free options out there?
Turns out the method really does work!
We could tell we were saving money & could see the gradual incline of our net worth.
Again, we haven't used our cards at all this month!
I fell in love with the software, and decided to budget that $60 so that we could continue to use it after the trial period because we had finally found something that worked for us!

We purchased it for $60, but they have a refer-a-friend program
which allows you (my friends) to get it for only $54...
Here's the link if you want that discount.
You're welcome.

We weren't doing terrible with our finances, but we weren't doing great either.
We lived paycheck to paycheck and still do at the moment, but with less financial stress since we're building a reserve, & without going further into debt.

"Latter-day Saints have been counseled for many years to prepare for adversity by having a little money set aside. Doing so adds immeasurably to security and well-being. Every family has a responsibility to provide for its own needs to the extent possible. We encourage you wherever you may live in the world to prepare for adversity by looking to the condition of your finances. We urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from this bondage. Save a little money regularly to gradually build a financial reserve. If you have paid your debts and have a financial reserve, even though it be small, you and your family will feel more secure and enjoy greater peace in your hearts. May the Lord bless you in your family financial efforts."

- First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -

Interested in buying YNAB? Check out this link to save $6 off your purchase!

Cluttered Countertop-itis

I have a problem.

A huge problem.

In fact, I have such a huge problem that it has spread from not just my kitchen, but throughout my entire house. It's quite a terrible disease. It affects every flat, clean surface I come across.

It's called "cluttered countertop-itis".

If you've ever been to my house you know that I have a huge kitchen. I consider it both a blessing and a curse. You see, having a huge kitchen really comes in handy when trying to cook (especially on Thanksgiving or other holidays). I have PLENTY of counter space. There is no question about that. The problem is that I tend to quickly clutter said counter space. It usually starts with mail. Then I start to notice toys, garbage, cups, dishes, and miscellaneous items that are not where they belong.

So what's the cure for "cluttered countertop-itis"?
As far as I know, there's no real cure. However, there are a few ways I plan to prevent this disease from taking over my house.

Here's my list of preventative measures:
1. Get the mail before my hubby does & take care of it right away. There's a few reasons for this... If he gets to it first, I don't always see it. Sometimes he's busy & doesn't set it where I remember to take care of it. It's not that he hides it from me. In fact, most of the time he sets it somewhere where I am bound to see it. I just tend to forget to go through it when it's not in my hand, then it piles up. Then when I see the piles I feel overwhelmed & tend to procrastinate it further...

2. Throw away any trash that's in my hand as well as any trash I see on my way to the garbage can. By keeping trash off the countertops it instantly looks less cluttered... I know it is so much easier to just set it somewhere for 'a second' rather than walk to the trashcan; but if you're like me, chances are it will be forgotten & left there to clutter the counter if it gets set down. Trash is one of the first things I attack when fighting my cluttered countertop-itis. Why? Because it's simple & it makes everything look cleaner which gives me the motivation to do more.

3. Stay on top of dishes so that the dirty ones can always go in the dishwasher. I am not a fan of dirty dishes... I don't like seeing them cluttering my counters, but I really don't like seeing them in the sink. There's just something about dishes in the sink that increases the gross factor for me. This means that if I forget to empty the dishwasher, the dishes pile up on the counters since hubby knows I don't like doing them if they're in the sink. We always try to rinse them off right after eating so that the food doesn't get stuck on, and then we put them right in the dishwasher (if it's empty/dirty). By doing this, we would probably save water too since I am OCD when I rinse dishes. If they were rinsed then set on the counter I end up re-rinsing them and practically cleaning them before I put them in the dishwasher. Silly me...

4. Pick up and organize whatever clutter is remaining on counters at the end of the day. The catch? 15 minutes. Whatever I don't get done in that 15 minutes will simply have to wait until the next day. It's amazing what can be accomplished in 15 minutes though.

Hopefully this method will help me solve my case of countertop-itis...

How to organize time & feel accomplished

Let's just face it... I'm not a very organized person. My house is almost always a mess & I am GREAT at wasting the little free time I have when I'm not chasing our 2 kids around the house and making sure they are happy while trying to be the best mom & wife I can be... 

I'm going to share some sites that have helped me feel more organized with my time & that just might do the trick for me if (a) our kids were older & could help out more or (b) if we had no kids at home and of course (c) if I had more motivation. Alright, so the motivation is there. It's the willpower that I lack. I end up wasting my time doing other things when I could very well be cleaning or doing something else. Granted, our kids do require a lot of attention at the moment, but I know I can get more accomplished per day if I plan my time more wisely, quit being such a lump, and JUST DO IT!

It seems like I get on a roll with organizing my time well, & then one day my drive is just gone or I get thrown off by running extra errands or something in my routine is different. Not fair. I want to be able to feel accomplished each day instead of feeling like... well, a lump.

The best way that I've found to feel accomplished is to make lists. Lots of lists. That way, when I cross something off, I feel like I got something done. Even if it's something as mundane as getting the mail. When I accomplish it, I get to cross it off & at the end of the day I get to see all the things that I actually got done.

Silly, I know... but it works for me. When I do it.

I started using this daily routine worksheet (the blank one) from SimpleOrganizedLiving last year & believe it or not, when I follow my routine my day goes smoother, I can fit more in my day, AND I feel accomplished.

I once had a boss that would always say, "When it's time to lean, it's time to clean". Super catchy... However, I don't feel like every spare second should be spent cleaning. Sometimes you just need a break! This is why I love the 15 minute pickup idea. Set the timer for 15 minutes and when it goes off, stop what you're doing & take a break (Obviously some things will need to be finished or picked up first. Especially if you have young kids or are using any sort of chemicals). Turn on some music. It makes that 15 minutes go by even faster. I try to keep my kids entertained while I'm cleaning, but if they get too impatient I just stop the timer and get back to what I was doing when I get a chance. Because that 15 minutes always ends up shorter than I think it would be, I've decided to attempt 20 minutes, 3 times a day so that I can get at least one full hour of 'productive pickup' time daily (I have 5 focus areas that I'll go further in detail about some other time). It doesn't usually happen since I can get lazy and interrupted throughout the day, but when I DO manage to get it done I can see the difference in our home, and I feel accomplished. (:

ThePickyApple has some great ideas on how to keep all of the dailies, weeklies, monthlies, & quarterlies organized when it comes to home routines with her cleaning calendar. She uses some FlyLady concepts, but makes it her own... That's basically what I'm attempting to do right now. I'm trying to take a bunch of different great ideas & create some method that will work for me... I have yet to find my perfect method, but I have faith that I'll find it someday.

One of my goals right now is to try to manage my time more wisely. Who knows... maybe I'll actually get to cross that off my list if I master it.

A wise, short, green, Jedi Master once said: "Do or do not. There is no try." I guess I'll try to remember that as I try to get better at organizing my time.