When you are trying to pay off debt and save toward financial freedom you can get pretty creative in trying to save money. But sometimes taking [Read more…]

It’s difficult to purchase a home in today’s market. Pent-up demand and an extreme shortage of homes have led to a rapid increase in prices that outpaces recent wage gains.

The problem is acute in the market for starter homes and critical in high-value markets like San Jose, Seattle, and Austin.

Desperate homeowners are stretching their finances to buy a home, and lenders and mortgage backers are increasingly willing to accommodate them.
[Read more…]

Contact lenses are those items that you need but hate to buy because of the price. Every time I buy them it hurts, especially if I can get them cheaper elsewhere! My husband and I both wear contacts and our vision insurance covers our yearly eye appointment and one of the following: up to $300 for glasses or up to $130 for contacts. Because of the better deal, we always opt in for using the insurance for glasses when our vision changes. So, that means we are paying out of pocket for contacts for the entire year.

My husband wears the 1-Day Acuvue contacts because he has a lot of allergies year around and his eyes are really sensitive. Before switching to the 1-Day Contacts from the 30-Day he would have to get prescription eye drops as well.

We normally order his contact lenses from the eye doctor and they were costing around $170 for a 3-month supply. Ouch! About 2 years ago we began ordering them through 1-800 Contacts and they normally run around $145.00 ($72.25 per eye) with free shipping.

After researching Walmart.com and Walgreens here is what I found:

Contacts Comparison
Store	$ Per Eye	Shipping	Additional Steps	Misc. Information
Local Eye Doctor	$90	Pick Up	Order on-site	N/A
1-800 Contacts	$72.25	Free Shipping	Submit Prescription	Price match guarantee and you can also get a discount when you buy larger quantities. ($61 for 4+ boxes)
Walmart.com	$66.00	Free Shipping	Submit Prescription	Can get a discount if you buy larger quantities. ($56 per box for 4+ boxes)
Walgreens.com	$49.50	Free Shipping	Submit Prescription	Currently offering 25% discount on any contact order.

Walmart.com always has very competitive prices on almost any item they carry. I also found that Walgreens.com in now selling contacts as well. Walgreens always has promo codes to add to online orders and they have been having a 25% promo code for the last 2 months on contact lenses. Their contacts were originally $66 per eye, but after 25% off it came down to $49.50 per eye!

After much research, I ordered my husband’s contacts through Walgreens. I submitted his doctor’s name and fax number. Walgreens was able to verify the prescription that same day! I ordered his contacts on Monday afternoon and we got his contact in the mail that Friday and saved about $45 compared to our last contact purchase from 1-800 Contacts! That means we will be saving $180 a year on my husband’s contacts alone!

1-800 Contacts has a price match guarantee and you can also get your contact lenses cheaper via rebate if you buy 4 or more boxes. I normally don’t purchase more than a 3 month supply for my husband’s contacts because they are so pricey to begin with. Also, if I don’t have to deal with rebates to get the best deal I gladly decline. The price match guarantee also seems like a lot of trouble. Especially if you are in a hurry to order more. It’s always important to read the fine print with these.

When it comes to saving money I don’t mind going the extra mile in getting the prescription verified as long as I order ahead of time just in case there is any delay. $180 is a lot of money to save in a year on a product you can buy somewhere else and it’s the same brand. Right now ordering our contacts through Walgreens.com is a no brainer!

For more ways to save check out these great articles.

8 Ways to Save Money at Target
Save Money at the Grocery Store with this Quick Tip
52 Week Challenge: Save $1,404 By Saving No More Than $52 a Week!

What about you? Do you wear contacts? If so, where do you purchase them? do you know of any other places that have great deals?

Average Homebuyer Score Rose from 700 in 2005 to 732 in 2016

 

Welcome to the 2018 home-buying market: Rising demand and an extremely tight supply of homes, especially in the critical starter-home market, make it difficult to realize your goal of home ownership.

In this market, you’ll need two important things to land your dream home – more money and a higher credit score.

Data from the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University highlight the credit score issue.

According to the 2017 JCHS study, “The State of the Nation’s Housing – 2017,” the median credit score for successful mortgage loan applications increased from a FICO score of 700 in 2005 to 732 in 2016.

Lenders are still conservative in their risk assessments – aided in part by regulations put in place during the housing crisis.
[Read more…]

When I introduced myself on Our Debt Free Family blog I wrote that my husband and I paid for our wedding on our own. With our 6 year anniversary coming up I wanted to share a bit more about how we did that.

Why did we pay for our wedding? [Read more…]

Where You Can Make the Best of a Bad Credit Situation

It’s no fun having a bad credit score. You pay higher interest rates for your credit – if you can get credit at all. You have little room for financial error. A small, unexpected bill can cause big problems.

At least your hardships may not be as bad if you live in certain states.

RewardExpert, a site that helps users optimize credit and debit card reward programs, examined factors that affect residents with poor credit – such as typical expenses, usury laws to limit predatory lending, and the status of debt collectors – and how those factors vary in each state.

Where is bad credit more tolerable? Consumers with bad credit should avoid the coasts and stick to the Midwest – not surprising, given the typically high costs of living in coastal areas.
[Read more…]

As parents, it’s so important to teach our kids about money, so when they leave the nest we can feel confident that they won’t learn many money mistakes the hard way like [Read more…]

Are you having difficulties paying off your student loan debt? If you don’t qualify for other methods of help, refinancing your student loan might be a suitable option.

Consider these seven questions to see if refinancing makes sense in your case.
[Read more…]

You know the saying, “When you hit rock bottom the only way to go is back up.” I’m sure that this is where many of us begin our journey to becoming debt free. This is when you truly want to live a life with no more debt. What does rock bottom look like to you? Maybe you don’t really know how much money you owe in total because you are in denial about the whole thing. Every month you are making the same amount of money but you are short every single time. You are stressed out to the max that you are moody and snappy at everyone around you. Maybe you haven’t had a good night sleep in months because all you can think of is how you are going to pay all the bills. You wonder how the heck got to this point in the first place.

It seems so easy to get in these types of situations, yet so tough to get out of. That is why it takes drastic and radical changes to begin to dig yourself out of the hole that you created.

Here are 3 radical ways to dramatically reduce your debt.

1. Liquidate

Have you ever gone to a store liquidation sale? This is exactly what you need to do with your life. In this day and age, you have countless ways to try and sale items. If you have nicer items you can post on Ebay, apps like Poshmark, and even local Facebook groups. For everything else, you can have a huge garage sale and even try to sell to consignment shops too. Not only will this put major money in your pocket, but this will help clear the clutter from your life and give you more breathing room. Go through your house with the entire family. If you think you have a lot of “junk” guess again. Sometimes the junk is what other people are most interested in at garage sales. It’s worth a shot to try and sell everything you don’t need.

Many people even take drastic steps by selling their vehicle/s that are not paid of. Buying something cheap with cash and putting the extra toward their debt. Sounds pretty lame, until you realize you won’t have that huge care note hanging over your head every month, your car insurance will decrease too.

If you are really overwhelmed with your debt. Consider selling your home and get in a rental. See what your local housing market is doing. If you have been in your house for several years, you might have some equity built up. Even if you are paying a couple hundred less than your mortgage now you also won’t have to deal with house insurance and any maintenance issues that can put a dent in your monthly budget. If you downgrade to smaller square footage your utility bill can reduce drastically and other expense can decrease as well.

2. Cut Expenses to the Bone

Sit down and figure out all your bills you have for the month. What can be cut out? Cut cable completely or downgrade package, cut pest control maintenance. Monthly subscriptions are very popular. If you are signed up for several monthly subscriptions like razor clubs, IPSY, bark box, any magazine subscription, as well Netflix and Hulu. It’s time to cut them all. Even if they seem relatively inexpensive they do add up so serious cash. Don’t forget to cut out that gym membership as well.

If you have anything set up under a contract consider calling each of them and asking what the cancellation fee amount is. If it’s not worth to cancel and pay the fee ask them if you can drop your package deal to anything else less expensive until you can cancel. Call you credit cards to see if they can lower your interest rates. Lastly, this is also a great time to call your insurance company and shop around to see if you can get a better rate for home and car insurance rates.

Why do you want to cut all this out? Because you will be too busy doing step #3.

3. Bring in More Cash

After cutting out all items that you don’t need you’ve made a little bit of breathing room. Now, to really get the progress rolling you need to bring in more income. Many people opt for a second job or even start a profitable side business. Many people opt for a part time gig in the evenings and weekends like a grocery store, delivering pizza, clothing store, or a restaurant. If your family is keeping you from going out to the work force in the evenings and weekends you can also look into part time stay at home jobs. Just be sure to do your research before signing up for any jobs online. Make sure they are legit and that the company is legit. Also, keep in mind with some of these businesses the income is not immediate.

Another way to bring in more cash is to reduce your expenses.  A classic way to do this is to refinance your debt. There are a number of reputable companies which might be able to help.  A lot of these are pretty new, but they might be worth your time.  Here is a short list.

Lending Tree – Is a loan “supermarket” type of exchange.  The business pretty much links up borrowers and lenders in a single platform.  Its bigger than most of the lenders out there and can offer loans for all needs and credit levels.

SoFi Loans – SoFi is a newer company, but they’ve been sucking up a lot of business due to having good rates and a low fee model.  These guys are definitely work checking out.

Many times we try to look for quick fixes or to “cheat” our way through paying debt off faster. Yes, you can pay off debt fast, but it will be hard grueling work and require a lot of sacrifices. Not only sacrifice from you but from your family as well. Once you get some momentum and get the debt pay off rolling it will all be worth the sacrifice once you can live free from the shackles of debt.

Our Best Articles

If you want more practical resources for getting out of debt, consider our most popular articles:

Yes, You Can Pay Off Debt When You’re Behind On Your Bills
Ron and Thu Paid Off $137,000 in 7 Years
In Just 7 Years Alice and Scott Paid Off $200,000 In Debt
Save a Ton of Money With Paribus

What about you? What is the most radical thing you’ve done to pay off debt?