5 tips that helped us save an extra $1,000!

**In 2018, I feel like God is leading me to share more openly about our financial life! We live on a SERIOUS budget, but we also travel a lot and are aggressively paying off debts. I believe that God’s desire for His people is for us to all be debt free and financially prosperous, so I’m going to be sharing tips and things that have helped us as we pay off debt and save money! I hope this new part of my blog encourages you!**

Who has an extra $1,000 on any given day?

I do! Above and beyond all of my bills and spending money, I have another bank account with $1,000 in it that I don’t touch. It’s called an emergency fund!

Honestly, I NEVER had any extra money before I read the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. The book teaches you to “live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else” AKA do crazy things to save money now so that in the future you can be financially prosperous. My husband and I read it together, and it has totally changed our lives and the way we do finances. The thing that I really love about the book is that Dave Ramsey is a Christian and writes with a Biblical perspective, all the while giving practical tips and advice about money.

Surprisingly, saving $1,000 has been really easy! And, believe me, we don’t have any more money that you do. We actually probably have less. Full disclosure, as I write this, I’m a Teacher and by husband is an Associate/Youth Pastor that recently turned volunteer youth pastor so that he can keep our kids and do grad school full time. See, I told you we are working on a budget! 😉 We just sacrifice things in a lot of different areas so that we can achieve our financial goals… Like spending under $200 on Christmas this year! (The one thing that we do make a priority and choose not to sacrifice right now is travel, and I will write more about that soon!)

I firmly believe that there is nothing that we, as children of God, cannot do. I even wrote a devotional about it! So, why wouldn’t that belief include our financial lives as well? God cares about the way we handle our money! Really believing that is what led us to transform our finances for good!

Here are 5 tips that helped us save $1,000 fast!

1. Make a budget and know where every dollar goes. This is the number one most important thing you have to do. There are a lot of apps for this, but honestly we just use a google spreadsheet. It is simpler for us, and we use Google Drive to share it with each other. We budget for every single thing, including going out to eat or buying drinks at the gas station. Seriously, buying random things at gas stations can add up!
2. Speaking of going out to eat, do it less, or don’t do it at all. We budgeted eating out once a week on Sundays last year ($40 spent each time), but this year we are giving ourselves a challenge not to eat out from January 1st to June 1st! The challenge works like this: We don’t go out to eat ever, but we do give ourselves one slip up that we can use once a month to get a $5 pizza from Little Caesar’s. Other than that, no eating out… unless you want to invite us and pay for us! 😉 That saves our family $120 a month, or $600 total! (also, say you eat out 5 times per week at $10 per plate…. that’s $200 that you could save in a month toward your $1,000 emergency fund if you just pack your lunch! If your whole family eats out 10 times per month at $50 each time… That’s $500 bucks! Don’t eat out and you’re already half way to your $1,000 goal!)
3. Sell stuff! We just looked around our house and realized we have a bunch of extra stuff that we don’t use. A good yard sale can bring in a few hundred dollars! Or maybe you have an extra camera, lap top, iPad, or something else you don’t use. We have a motorcycle that we are about to sell, because ya know… 2 kids! lol! A good rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used it in the past month, you don’t really need it! We built our emergency fund partially by selling some text books that we had from college.
4. Shop less. This is the hardest part for me, because I think shopping is so much fun! However, shopping less means shopping more intentionally, which is also fun. Our family started doing Capsule Wardrobes this past Fall, which means that we only shop for clothes 4 times per year! You would be AMAZED at how much money you will save by not picking up an outfit for yourself or your kids every time you’re out and about!
5. Use your bonuses. Did you get a Christmas bonus? Do you get a tax refund? Did anyone give you cash for Christmas? or for your birthday? SAVE it! If you’ve already spent it… then start now! We usually ask for cash or gift cards as gifts so that we can save it… or go out to eat. When you make a goal not to eat out until June, an Olive Garden gift card is a really awesome gift to get! 🙂

That’s it! Those are the 5 simple ways that we built up our $1,000 emergency fund above and beyond our monthly bills. Believe me, you can do it too! I know what it feels like to think that there is no possible way that you would even have $5 extra dollars at the end of the month, let alone enough to save $1,000. By following the 5 steps above, we realized that we not only had the extra money if we were willing to “live like no one else so that later we can live like no one else,” but we could also still live an awesome lifestyle, albeit a bit different than what most Americans would consider normal.

Now, the next steps in the Total Money Makeover are to pay off each debt aggressively, starting with the smallest one. Our 2018 goals include paying off our cars and the remaining credit card debt that we have, which will make our student loans the only debt we have on December 31, 2018.

Want to jump on the crazy train with us?! The first step is to buy the Total Money Makeover book! I promise, you won’t regret it.

Happy savings, dear one!

With messy hair and wild grace, (and some crazy God-sized financial goals for 2018)

Ellyn

Ps. Need some motivation?

Romans 13:6-8 is our motivational verse for this debt pay off journey. Please, feel free to adopt it as your own!

The New International Version says, “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.”

I especially love the way it is worded in The Message version of the Bible. It says, “That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders. Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other.”