In 2013, I completed my English degree. Up to this point, I had been living in the typical fairyland of student loans and credit card debt that I never bothered to check. As my years in school rolled on, I became the queen of “If my credit card is letting me buy this, I must be fine.” I didn’t even…
Steve Jobs didn’t have an impressive sense of fashion, did he? We kept seeing him in the same type of clothes, day after day. Maybe he chose minimalism because he wanted his company’s products to be the focus of attention. Maybe he did it for the same reason why many other successful people choose to stick to simplicity: decision…
“Never spend your money before you have earned it.” -Thomas Jefferson With a regular 9-5 job and direct deposits into online bank accounts, it’s easy to become detached to money. Numbers on a screen don’t always seem real. We work hard and do our jobs, but it can be hard to see how we truly earned our money. When I…
Woo-hoo! I made it one year! Blow the horns, pop the champagne and set off the fireworks! Let’s dive right in and see how I did: Credit Cards/Personal: $0! (down from $4,998.93) Medical: $1,001.36 (down from $4,521.62) Student Loans: $24,182.89 (down from $26,000.56) Bringing my GRAND TOTAL to $10,336.86!!! WHAT?! Are you frickin’ kidding me?! I paid off more than…
“We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties.” -Anna C. Brackett What we often don’t think about when we add stuff to our lives is the weight that stuff carries– physical and mental. When we add things, even when things seem like a convince, we also…
It’s that time of the month where we get to see how all the hard work we’ve been doing with the Spending Fast and Spending Diets have been paying off! We had another great month! Seriously, I’m constantly blown away! Are you ready? In May, we saved an incredible $67,190.48! That brings our Collective Savings total to $2,597,040.87! You guys are killing…
I’m an all-or-nothing person, but until I read Anna’s book, The Spender’s Guide to Debt-Free Living, it never sank in that perhaps I should try that approach toward my debt. I’d reached a point where my debt was piling up over my head and beyond. I couldn’t always make minimum payments with my part-time paycheck. I felt embarrassed every time…
“Know what you own and know why you own it.” -Peter Lynch Lately I’ve been doing a bit of spring cleaning. And even though I live in a small house and I try to be a minimalist, I still keep discovering stuff that I didn’t know I had and I have no idea why I own it. But getting rid…
When starting out on a Spending Fast, so many of us assume that we must focus solely on paying off debt. While there is some truth to that, it doesn’t mean we should forget ourselves altogether. No spending shouldn’t equal no fun. “But I don’t have money to go out anymore,” you protest. Who said anything about going out? These…
“Only buy something that you’d be happy to hold if the market shuts down for ten years.” -Warren Buffett Warren Buffett was probably talking about stocks when he made this statement, but lately I’ve been thinking about this sentiment in terms of physical stuff too. I recently bought a new home and it’s been a big fixer-upper. And although I…
Have you ever sold your home before? If you haven’t I’d like to let you know that it is stressful. I’m sure other people have handled it better, but I was a nervous wreck. I remember waiting inside my hallway listening to the bids from the auction outside. All I could think was ’What if we don’t get the price…
“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” -Epicurus This is one of those quotes that I had to read a couple of times to truly understand. Not only because it sounds like something Yoda would say, but because it’s such a powerful statement. Each day, I almost instinctively tell myself that I need more money,…