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Our Debt Free Family

Commit. Plan. Take action.

Creating A Personal Finance Calendar

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<p>I’ve come to the blog to talk about how we manage our money month-to-month before. I manage most of the money for our family, paying the bills and making sure we have cash where we need it when we need it. It’s not an easy task all the time, but it is well worth being able to live without scrounging paycheck to paycheck. However, I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without our personal finance calendar.</p>::Pexels

I’ve come to the blog to talk about how we manage our money month-to-month before. I manage most of the money for our family, paying the bills and making sure we have cash where we need it when we need it. It’s not an easy task all the time, but it is well worth being able to live without scrounging paycheck to paycheck. However, I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without our personal finance calendar.

When I started talking about my financial calendar to some of my friends, I realized I’m the only one taking this approach to money these days. For the most part, the people I talk to are plugged into some kind of app or tech solution that helps them keep an eye on their finances. While I’d love for that to be my life (so much less paper involved), it just doesn’t work for me. So, if you’re wondering about how you can create your own personal finance calendar, here’s how I organize mine.

What is a Personal Finance Calendar For?

A personal finance calendar will help you organize your financial life. Initially, I started using my PF calendar to get my budget down on paper. I marked down the days I’d go grocery shopping + the budgeted amount for the said shopping trip. I also jotted down the bills and what days they are due, plus the amount. Additionally, I added in the days we were getting paid and how much. Seeing everything written down on paper helped a lot.

That didn’t give me a full-picture view of my finances though. While it helped me pay my bills on time and stick to a budget, bigger expenses and other things tended to creep up on me. So, I decided to make some changes by adding bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, and annual expenses to the calendar as well. This included things like car maintenance, property taxes, registration fees for the car, doctor’s bills, birthdays, holidays, vacations, celebrations, etc.

Going through and adding all of those things really made my financial calendar more well-rounded. It gave a full view of what we had going on, where our money is going, what we have planned, and what we are saving for.

Creating Your Own PF Calendar to Use

If you’re interested in creating your own personal finance calendar, it’s fairly easy. First, you need to gather a few things…

  1. Get a planner or a calendar to write down the necessary financial information . This doesn’t need to be fancy. You can get one at the Dollar Tree or Family Dollar!
  2. Scrap paper for lists, etc. is also a good idea. You will want to list out monthly expenses as well as other costs throughout the year before they go into your personal finance calendar.
  3. Buying a nice pen to write with might make a difference. I just love writing with a good pen. It makes me feel organized.
  4. Stickers and fun items can make the process more fun. You may even find some that correlate to your bills. For instance, we have “payday” stickers for the days we get paid.

Once you have what you need, it is time to start organizing your calendar. The first thing you want to write down is all of your expenses that remain the same month-to-month. For instance, we pay $1,767.50 in rent every month. That will not change until the end of the year when we renew our lease or move. The number $1,767.50 is written down along with “RENT” on the 1st day of every month. Similarly, our car payment of $698 is written down on the 14th of every month. Until we get it refinanced, this is the static monthly cost.

Once that is complete, start listing the expenses that may vary in cost each month. For example, you have to pay utilities on a monthly basis. However, our electric bill goes up in the summer due to running the air conditioning. In the winter, the gas bill is higher. Make an estimate for how much you’ll spend on these items (it’s a good idea to round up).

Following the addition of those costs, you can start adding in the less frequent expenses. For us, this includes our annual registration fees for our car, property tax on the vehicle, car maintenance, paying our taxes, renewing annual subscriptions, celebrating birthdays, holidays and vacations, and ensuring we have enough money to pay for annual check-ups.

That’s it – once you’ve jotted down all of the financial “things,” you have a reference point for managing your money throughout the rest of the year.

Readers, how do you stay on top of your finances? Do you use a personal finance calendar or other methods of organization? 

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Now Is The Time To Prepare A Summer Spending Plan

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Our Summer Spending Plan

It may seem a bit early to you, but I’m ready to start prepping our family’s summer spending plan. Generally speaking, the warmer months tend to be more expensive for us. We go out more. This year, we may even get to take a day trip or two to the beach. Not to mention, the cost of cooling our home in the South can be shocking at times.

So, now that spring is officially here and warmer weather is on its way (it’s 85 degrees and sunny today), I’m ready to start plotting out some of our plans for the summer.

How Does Summer Impact Spending?

As I briefly mentioned above, the summertime tends to bring along some additional expenses for my family. Nobody wants to stay inside when it’s a beautiful warm day. So, there are often additional expenses that pop up.

Namely, our electric bill usually goes up to about $200/month from $100 or less during the winter months (we have gas heat). On top of that, it is generally a time of year when we take more trips, have more day adventures, and living is easy. We simply don’t always pay as close attention to our finances as we should from June to September.

That being said, we started tackling a summer spending plan a few years ago that helps us map out necessary expenses as well as things we’d like to do during the warmer months.

Our Summer Spending Plan

I haven’t written out our summer spending plan in its entirety yet, but I know we are planning to do a few things…

  1. We would really love to take our daughter to the beach. She hasn’t been yet and both of us would love to be able to do that this summer. We live within a 3-hour drive of several great beaches here, so that is doable on a budget. If necessary, we wouldn’t even have to stay overnight.
  2. Another small pool needs to be purchased for the backyard. Last year, we bought a baby pool for the backyard and, even though it cost about $10, it provided our little one with countless hours of fun!
  3. We need to adjust our monthly budget to account for the increased electricity and water costs for our home during the summer months.
  4. Our little one is also going to need new clothes. We don’t have any spring or summer clothes that fit her currently.

Right now, we are working on nailing down what our budget for the summer needs to be and how much money we will need to save for certain holidays, trips, etc. For instance, Father’s Day falls in June, we will budget a little extra money for the holiday and find something my husband would like to do.

We are still hashing out the details, but these are the four things impacting our summer spending plan right now. Readers, do you construct a different budget or spending plan for different seasons? I’d love to hear about how you manage it.

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The Second Best Time to Make a Change

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Here at Our Debt Free Family, our motto is “Commit. Plan. Take action.”

The first step before committing is to decide that a change is necessary.

Maybe you know that you could be smarter with your money. Or perhaps you recognize that if you lose weight, you’ll be able to lead a healthier, more energetic life. Maybe you realize that there should be more to life than counting down to the weekend every day at work. It could be there is a relationship with a loved one that needs some extra TLC.

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I’m Ditching The ‘Dream’ Wedding and Moving 4 Hours Away

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<p>This update has been a couple of weeks in the making but we wanted to make sure everything was final before announcing. In some of my most recent blog posts, I talked about planning a debt-free wedding. That will definitely still be happening but in a different timeframe and manner than we’d originally planned.</p>::Pexels

This update has been a couple of weeks in the making but we wanted to make sure everything was final before announcing. In some of my most recent blog posts, I talked about planning a debt-free wedding. That will definitely still be happening but in a different timeframe and manner than we’d originally planned.

I’m ditching the dream wedding. We are having a courthouse ceremony next Monday. Then we are moving four hours South to Atlanta! 

Why The Move?

My (very soon) hubby-to-be has gotten his dream job offer down in Atlanta. He’ll be running a Porsche shop there. This is a huge career move for him and it comes with a ton of perks for us as well.

Of course, I work from home so there is nothing keeping me rooted here work-wise. In addition to the “dream job,” he will be getting a decent pay raise and we will also have a rental house to live in “rent-free.” I say “rent-free” because it will be considered a portion of his initial salary.

The house is only four miles from the shop he’ll be managing. Not to mention, we will finally have a yard for Enzo!

What This Means For Our Debt Free Journey

All those small perks aside, what has really driven our decision to move forward with this move has been the financial aspect. Yes, of course, this is an absolute dream come true and this could be where my other half spends most of his career.

On the financial side of things, we have the opportunity to finally pad our emergency savings the way we’ve needed to. We will have the money to pay off debt (and way faster than we’d initially planned). In fact, if everything goes to plan, we could find ourselves being debt-free in a year and on our way to buying a home.

Considering All Things

Since my husband-to-be received the offer, we have been over-the-moon excited. It almost seemed to good to be true and I am thrilled to get to start our married lives together in a city neither of us has spent any time in before. It will be a fantastic adventure and will put us on the right track financially for the rest of our lives together.

That isn’t to say we won’t miss being close to family and friends. Of course, we will. We will also miss out on the big “shebang” of a wedding we were planning later this year. But, we can always throw a celebration down the road and will celebrate with the immediate family able to make it this week.

Incidentally, you probably shouldn’t move without a job waiting for you.  However, if you are in the situation, my friend Kelan over at Moneyminiblog has a good article on things should think about if do find yourself forced to move, here.

All in all, I can’t wait to see what this next move does for our family, our relationship, and our finances. And, I can’t wait to keep you updated about it here!

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Get Faster Broadband For Your Family

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Having trouble with your broadband? You’re not alone. These days, having a good internet connection is as important as having running water. Even though tons of different internet service providers SAY they’re the best – they can’t all be, can they?

If you’re looking to switch broadband providers and get the best value high-speed internet possible, then you’re in the right place.

In this article, we’re going to look at how to find the fastest broadband – so that whether you’re considering the best satellite internet options in your area or settling with the greatest wireline internet services you can find, your family can download, game, and stream to their heart’s content.

Put a stop to arguments over slow download speed

So many different things rely on a fast internet connection these days. Gone are the times when you’d fire up your dial up connection just to read a few pages of text.

Now you can stream TV shows, play high-spec games, shop and more. And often, in a family household all of this is happening at once. Fed up of the complaints from your son about the lag time on his games? And fights over slow Netflix streaming?

You need faster broadband.

It’s understandable so much demand on the service you need a better internet connection at home. While one PC might have been hooked up to the web in the past, now you’ve got multiple laptops, smart TV and phones all accessing the internet simultaneously.

That’s why considering speed when looking for a broadband supplier is so important.

Mbit per second, Ping & Contention Rates

When you have a look at switching broadband providers from your current provider to spectrum internet, for example, look at overall speed. This is normally represented in mbit per second. While it’s a hugely important factor in choosing a good broadband provider – it’s not the only one.

Those speeds generally refer to how quickly you can download data. Whether it’s something quick (loading a page), or something slower (downloading a film).

However, that’s not the only measure of speed that’s useful.

If you play a lot of online games, you’ll also want a low ping. That’s the speed it takes for a signal to bounce back to you, and it has a huge impact on how smoothly most online games perform.

You’ll also need to consider contention rates. If lots of people in your area use the same broadband provider, will this slow down your activity?

How to find the best broadband supplier for you

Thankfully, it’s easy to find good deals for broadband in your area. You can start with price comparison sites online and have a look at reviews. You might also want to consider how good the customer service ratings are and look at any other issues people might have had with a particular ISP.

The right broadband comparison service could save you a lot of money.

Some broadband suppliers use the same line

Just because you switch broadband providers, that doesn’t mean you’re getting a new line put in. Many of these ISPs (internet service providers) will use the same telephone network but simply package and charge differently.

If you want to take things to the next step, you can consider getting fiber installed to make your connection even faster.

How hard is it to switch suppliers?

Switching is easy these days. All you have to do is phone up. You shouldn’t notice any downtime and should be able to start using your new connection straight away.

10 Fun Budget-Friendly Family Vacation Ideas

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Everyone needs a vacation once in a while, but a family vacation shouldn’t put a huge gap in your wallet.

You deserve a vacation that is relaxing and not going to be a financial strain on your family.

Whether you plan on traveling near or far keep reading to see a list of 10 fun budget friendly family vacations.

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Cheap Kids Birthday Party Ideas for This Summer

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If you’re like many parents, then you try your best to make your children feel special on their special day. Every year when their birthday rolls around, you take stock of what they like, look at what’s trendy, and put together an invite list for a birthday party.

However, there’s often one thing in your way, your budget. And you’re not alone. Despite what they show on reality television, the average American just doesn’t have the money to spend on elaborate celebrations.

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7 of the Best Money Management Tools You Need to Control Your Finances

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In 2019, only 29% of people in America considered themselves financially healthy.

The good news is that there are several things you can do that will help you save money and improve your financial situation – and one of those things is using the right money management tools.

If you want to learn how to manage money in the easiest of ways, keep reading and discover more about seven useful apps!

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