Sticking to your grocery budget can be challenging for a lot of families.

But it’s so important if you want to cut your spending so you can pay off debt and achieve financial freedom.

Today, I’m giving you three simple strategies for sticking to your grocery budget.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that in 2015, we had a hard time sticking to our grocery budget.

In fact, in January 2015, we spent more than $1,000 on groceries when our actual budgeted amount was only $500.

No bueno!

But by March, we’d cut our grocery spending to just over $500, and I had a reader ask how we did it.

I wrote this blog post to explain how we did it.

So far in 2016, we’ve been able to keep our grocery spending under $450 per month.

We’ve had to be focused and diligent, but we know that by doing so, we’ll be able to reach our financial goals a lot faster.

Here are my top three tips for sticking to your grocery budget:

1. Stop buying whatever is on your list when you reach half of your budget, and then be very diligent about buying only those items you need until the end of the month.
   This tip alone has helped us stick to our budget.
2. When you get home from the grocery store, review the items you purchased and pay close attention to the items that cost the most.
   When you’re getting close to reaching your budget, those are the items you’ll want to put off purchasing until your budget is replenished in the following month.
3. Keep your meals simple.
   I’ve been following the Paleo diet for over a year now, which can be super expensive. That’s part of the reason we spent more than $1,000 in groceries in January 2015. Plus, we eat mostly organic food, and that definitely adds up.To be able to continue eating healthy while keeping our grocery spending low, we’ve opted to keep our meals simple.For me, I eat eggs or meat with a side of veggies and sauerkraut for almost every meal. The kids eat oatmeal almost every day for breakfast. And my husband takes leftovers to work for lunch. We don’t make fancy meals that require a lot of ingredients.We figure that we can do that when we’re 100% debt-free.

If you follow these strategies and find that you’re still having a hard time sticking to your budget, then maybe it’s time to up it a little and decrease your spending in other areas.

We’ve worked hard to be able to get our monthly budget down to $450, and we know that anything less would be unreasonable for our family. And right now, our kids are only two and four so they don’t eat that much. When they get bigger, we’ll definitely have to increase our budget.

So give yourself some grace if you’ve got more mouths or bigger kids to feed.

Here’s a bonus tip:

Get really clear on what sticking to your budget will allow for you.

[bctt tweet=”Get really clear on what sticking to your budget will allow for you.” username=”MonicaRLouie”]

Maybe it means that you can buy another pair of jeans or save up for your son’s birthday party.

Maybe it means that you can start saving for your daughter’s college fund or give more to your favorite charity.

Or maybe it means that you can pay off more debt so that when you’re debt free, you’ll be able to do all of those things and still have more money for the fun stuff.

When you get really clear on why you’re sticking to your budget, it will be so much easier to make the necessary changes in order to do so.

If you’re on the website because you have debt, consider getting in touch with SoFi. They’ve got an interesting business model and good rates if you have debt you want to refinance. You can visit their site from this link or click on the banner above.

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Have you joined our free private community on Facebook yet?

I invite you to join me in our private Facebook group called Your Debt Freedom Family, where I share more tips like this. We’ve got a fantastic community of people who are kicking debt to the curb so they can break free and live life on their terms.

Click here to join the fun!

I’d love to see you there!

Keep moving forward toward your goals. You really can live the life you dream about!

Okay, so I have to admit that I’m a little over-excited in today’s post.

Why am I so excited?

Well, over the past two years, I’ve earned over $500 in gift cards by using Swagbucks!

Sounds too good to be true, right?

[Read more…]

What do I do when my spouse spends too much?

How do I keep my spouse on track?

I hear these questions all the time.

If you’re married or in a committed relationship, then you know that there are a lot of complexities involved when two lives join together.

Your two paths must move in the same direction with similar values, lifestyles, and goals for your future.

While all of your interests don’t need to be exactly the same, the direction you’re both heading in life must follow a similar trajectory.

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, but most long-term relationships can’t foresee a future together if one person wants to live in the hustle and bustle of New York City while the other person has their heart set on raising a family in the quiet plains of Montana.

As is the case if you want to live a life of debt freedom and your partner wants to continue living above their means, relying on debt to fund their lifestyle. Those two worlds are not aligned.

Being out of alignment with your spouse in such a huge area of life as financial goals can create a lot of tension, to say the least.

That’s why fighting about money is the top predictor of divorce.

Here are four strategies that you can use if you’re completely committed to kicking debt to the curb, but your spouse is sabotaging any progress you make by spending whatever he wants whenever he wants.

1. Make sure that you’re on the same page.

If you and your spouse haven’t agreed on your current financial goals, then review my article on how to get your spouse on board. Follow those steps to come to an agreement on where your financial life is headed.

2. Make sure that you’re giving him a chance to provide input.

Because I love numbers and spreadsheets, my husband is more than willing to let me run with creating our budget and then tell him how much we have to spend on things.
But he needs to have some ownership of the process too.So each month when I create our budget, I always show him the numbers that I came up with and explain any areas that are different from the previous month. I ask him for his input on what those amounts should be and explain how I came up with the numbers I chose. I always ask if he agrees, and since we’ve been doing this for so long, a lot of times, he does, but there are still times that he changes the numbers.And that is perfectly okay.

Instead of arguing my reasoning further, I agree to his numbers because I WANT him to be part of the process. I don’t want him to think his opinion doesn’t matter because I know that having him share ownership of the budget is more important than a $10 or $20 discrepancy in a spending category.

3. Make sure that you both have spending money built into your budget, and of course, that you AGREE on those amounts.

Whether you come up with a weekly, monthly, or an annual amount, make sure that you both explicitly agree to those amounts AND that you agree on what comes OUT of those amounts.For example, our spending money is used for when we want to buy ourselves something that isn’t included in other categories of the budget like a new gadget for my husband or a mani/pedi for me. Oftentimes, it’s our coffee or lunch money when we’re out by ourselves.I’ve heard time and time again from moms that they often use their spending money to buy things for their kids or someone else. So if you find that you’re using your spending money to buy things for someone else, then consider whether those purchases should be included in another category in your budget, such as gifts. For us, anything we purchase for someone else (even our kids) comes out of our gifts budget

4. Set up a reward system to keep you and your partner on track.

For example, I spoke with a woman whose husband would occasionally buy expensive sports equipment, even though it wasn’t in their budget.He worked hard for his money, and they both felt he “deserved” it, but it was throwing their plan to become debt-free in a few years off track, and it was causing her to have growing resentment because she was doing a better job of sticking to the plan and avoiding “splurges.”I suggested that she have a conversation with her husband about their common goal to become debt-free and set up a reward system. They could add a savings category to their budget for her husband’s sports equipment and add to it each month.

Or they could agree that once they paid off their next debt or reached their next milestone on their journey, he could buy his next piece of sports equipment then. I also suggested that she have some sort of reward at each milestone, too.

Doing so will keep them both moving forward toward their goals and satisfied that they’re making a point to enjoy their money, as well.

She’ll have peace of mind that they’re making progress, and he’ll no longer be sabotaging their hard work.

[bctt tweet=”Set up a reward system to keep you and your partner on track with your #budget.” username=”MonicaRLouie”]

If you follow these strategies, and your spouse is still spending too much, then review your budget categories and make sure the amounts are realistic.

Even if you both agree on the amounts, you might be trying to be too stringent. It’s better to loosen up a bit on the numbers and extend your payoff date by a few months than to get discouraged and give up entirely.

I truly believe that working together on your goal of becoming debt-free will bring you and your spouse closer and make your marriage stronger. I’ve seen it happen in my marriage, and I’ve heard the same from my clients.

Now I’d love to hear about you!

Have you experienced one partner in your relationship spending too much? How did you deal with it? What advice do you have for those in this situation? Please share in the comments below.

Have you joined our free private community on Facebook yet?

I invite you to join me in our private Facebook group called Your Debt Freedom Family, where we share more tips like this. We’ve got a fantastic community of people who are kicking debt to the curb so they can break free and live life on their terms.

Click here to join the fun!

We’d love to see you there!

Keep moving forward toward your goals. You really can live the life you dream about!

The other day I received an excellent question from a reader, and I thought it would be best to answer the question publicly so that everyone could benefit.

This gave me the idea to make this question and answer format a regular series on the blog.

So today is the first installment of Monica’s Two Cents!

[Read more…]

Every year or two, you should take the time to review your family’s financial plan and assess whether it is still relevant. There have been a plethora of changes for our family over the last several years. Because we hadn’t reviewed our financial plan since before our daughter arrived last August, it has been a topic of discussion in our household fairly often recently. So, what’s next for the Blankenships?

While much of our financial plan remains the same, some things have changed. Overall, we still aim to be debt free (minus our future mortgage). However, several things have changed for us.

Changes To Our Financial Plan

A couple of weeks ago, I updated our debt numbers here on the blog. We were pleasantly surprised with our progress. It is easy to feel like you are standing still in your debt journey, especially if you’ve been paying on a loan for years. Looking at the numbers re-motivated us in our financial journey.

However, if we want our financial plan to be successful, we need to be honest with ourselves. We don’t have all of the same goals we did four years ago when we started our planning (hell, four years ago we said we weren’t have children). A lot has changed, so changes need to be made to accommodate! Here are the things we are adding and taking away from our current plan…

• More savings – Saving money has become increasingly important for our family since adding our daughter last year. We want to be prepared for emergencies, have cash for her educations, money for a down payment on a home, etc. So, we are hoping to establish a five-figure emergency fund, open a 529 savings account, and set aside money in a separate back for our down payment. We also plan to have separate accounts for different savings (sinking funds).
• Investing – I’m not overly comfortable with the investing world, but we are educated enough to know that investing is how we become wealthy. We are going to learn more about what investments make since for our family and make them.
• Retirement – This kind of goes hand-in-hand with saving but neither of us has any retirement savings set aside (panic). I’m about to be 30 and my husband is 33. So, we need to get started ASAP!
• Debt – Pay more than the minimum on everything until it is gone. Have savings for unexpected expenses so we don’t stack up more debts.

Final Thoughts

As mentioned above, our bottom line is still the same: we want to be financially free. On top of that, we want to be able to work for ourselves and work on projects we care deeply about. Being financially free will make that possible. Having more money in savings will also help make that possible. We will have more peace of mind and, better yet, we will be setting a positive example for our little one.

Readers, when is the last time you reviewed your long-term financial plan? 

Read More

• When Are Student Loan Payments Coming Back?
• Reflecting on the ‘Cost of a Baby’
• You Might Be Surprised By Our August Update (We Were)!
• Researching 529 Savings Plans and the Benefits

I love sharing stories of real people who are taking control of their money, getting out of debt, and on a journey to financial freedom.

So far on the blog we have heard from Ron and Thu Noble and Alex and Megan Barker who have shared how they have paid off their debt.

Today I am pleased to bring you Amy Nickson’s story.

Amy is a single young woman living in Atlanta, Georgia. She openly shares with us the habits and influences that led her to enormous financial stress during one of the saddest periods in her life.

She reveals how she took control to change her financial future and is using her experiences to help others do the same.

Here is the interview:

ME: Thank you so much for agreeing to share your story with Our Debt Free Family! Please tell us a little about yourself so we can get to know you.

Amy: I am Amy Nickson. I am 28-years-old and live in Atlanta, Georgia. I lost my adoring mom two years back and broke up with my ex-boyfriend last year.

ME: I am so sorry to hear that. Did that play a part in why you decided to focus on becoming debt free?

Amy: It was a really hard time for me three years ago. My mom was seriously ill due to liver damage. I wanted to get a better job but didn’t have the opportunity due to my low credit score. I had $88,000 in outstanding debt during that time.

Being absolutely helpless and grieving, I consulted one of my friends, John, who is a personal finance expert. He advised me first to calm down. Then he said, “Megan’s (my mom) medical issues can be resolved by her medical insurance. The rest you can manage from her savings. Your first concern should be your debt.” I was at a point where if I failed to pay my debts, I would become bankrupt.

ME: How much debt did you pay off, and how long did it take you?

Amy: Well, I have paid off $51,000 in the last three years and six months. Now I just have my student loan debt left, which I couldn’t pay off during that time due to some financial hardship.

ME: What kind of debt did you pay off?

Amy: I had four credit cards, a car loan, and a student loan. My biggest blunder was buying a brand new Volkswagen Beetle during my college days.

ME: What did you do for work while you were paying off your debt?

Amy: During that time I had joined a small non-profit company as an assistant account manager. My salary was fair.

My friend convinced me to leave my job to start my own business. I have a small financial consultancy now. It is still growing, and there is lots of work to do.

I love writing so I started blogging. I used to write on a variety of topics, but now I specialize in finance. I am a freelancer and a contributor for the Oak View Law Group. I earn a big part of my bread from there. Recently, I started my own blog as well to establish my expertise in the financial field.

ME: What was your annual income during this time?

Amy: It was approximately $57,000 during my struggling phase. I earned this amount from my job, but my boyfriend at the time was too casual about his career. He was a fickle-minded guy and loved to switch jobs frequently. For this reason, I used to support him.

During that time I started using my cards on a regular basis. We spent lots of money on Starbucks, and the result was a complete financial mess.

ME: I see. Did you do anything to increase your income during that time?

Amy: Well, my mom had medical insurance so her needs were taken care of. I sold my car to pay off the huge car loan. I rented my garage out to a friend to earn some extra money. I did what I had to do.

ME: What sacrifices did you make when you were getting out of debt?

Amy: Once I sold my car, I began using public transit to travel. I put an end to the habit of spending money on Starbucks with my boyfriend. I used to go to movie theaters every weekend. But I felt like these were nothing but bad financial habits that were sucking a lot of my money and leaving me with a long list of credit card bills and nothing else.

ME: So you became more intentional with your spending. What are your top money-saving tips?

Amy: Budgeting, budgeting, and more budgeting.

My mom always did it. And my friend John told me about the benefits of budgeting and taught me how to do it.

Take a piece of paper and note down all of the expenses that you incur on a regular basis. Cut down all your extra expenses that are a total waste of money. This helps you to save some money and make bigger payments to your creditors.

ME: I love that advice! What other advice would you give to someone considering starting their own debt free journey?

Amy: Adopt frugal living habits and saving habits. These are the most effective weapons to kill any debt troubles. You need to be determined and have patience to come back from the financial strain as well.

[bctt tweet=”You need to be determined and have patience to come back from the financial strain. @AmyNickson86″]

I would like to share some frugal tips with those who are facing a similar situation:

• One of the best ways to save is to cut down on your extra expenditures. You need to differentiate between luxuries and your daily needs.

• I made a list of all those items that I would need to buy every week such as groceries and consumer goods. Make sure that you keep your shopping list in your handbag whenever you go to the store. This will help to ensure that you don’t end up buying more things than necessary.

• I believe that excessive use of credit cards is one of the main reasons that people get into trouble with debt. I am no longer a crazy fan of plastics. I have decided to stop using my credit cards altogether, apart from emergency situations.

• Generally, I use cash for little shopping. This actually helps to keep track of your single expenditures. And you can trim extra expenses accordingly.

• I saved a lot of money after disconnecting my land-line in my house! If you are paying for the Internet, then don’t waste money on other prepaid text messaging packages or talk-time offers. Simply download apps to socialize or to stay connected with friends and family.

• I take care when it comes to using my electrical appliances and make sure to keep them turned off when they are not in use. 🙂

• I made it a point to pack a brown bag lunch for myself to take to work every day. My cost of eating out was reduced to zero. I gave up the habit of eating dinner in fancy restaurants on the weekends, as well. When I was racking up my debt, there were so many times that I would pay the restaurant bill by credit card. Alas! This was another big mistake.

• Get help from a professional settlement company if you need it. As per the advice of my friend, I opted for debt settlement. The debt settlement company that I selected actually negotiated with the creditors and collection agencies to reduce my outstanding debts by about 25%.

I admit that it was not easy for me to adjust to a frugal lifestyle. It was especially hard for me to give up buying clothes and accessories that I used to splurge on. But I am glad that by adopting these good habits I have been able to get past my debt troubles and have started living a normal life again.

ME: Thank you for those great insights! Have you made any big purchases with cash since starting your debt free journey?

Amy: Luckily, I already have my house that my mom bought several years ago. Thanks to God Almighty I was able to keep my mom’s hard-earned shelter.

While I haven’t made any big purchases, I am trying to save money to buy a low-maintenance car in the future.

Also, I have a plan to start my postgraduate studies. This will help me to improve my expertise in the area of finance. I will use my degree to facilitate my career through blogging and take up some freelancing work. I think it will take 2-3 years.

In the mean time, I will plan for short and inexpensive trips for refreshment. No big trips at this time.

ME: Thank you for sharing your story with us, Amy! What is the best part about becoming debt free?

Amy: Peace and freedom. I can now sleep peacefully without worrying about creditors’ threatening calls.

And more importantly my credit score has improved since I started dissolving my financial obligations. Thus, I will have more opportunities to apply for new or better jobs or apply for a loan.

Currently, I have only one federal student loan which I am thinking I will pay off with the help of a repayment program. My main goal is to build a solid career so that I can save more money and become rich. 🙂

I want to thank Amy for sharing her story and so many great money-saving tips with our readers. I am inspired by how she took action to improve her situation during one of the toughest periods a person will ever go through — losing a parent.

What About You?

Participate in the conversation.  What parts of Amy’s story did you find most inspiring? What tips from Amy can you apply to your life? Share in the comments below.