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Which Student Loan Should You Pay First?

The financial camps are divided between paying off your smallest first vs. your highest interest student loan. So who’s right? Finance people can agree on a few things. Some debts like payday loans and IRS back taxes are worse than others and ideally, you should get rid of all debt that keeps you from having a positive net worth. But how do you decide what goes first? This is something I stressed over when we started out. I had a large high-interest student and a small low-interest car loan while my husband had a moderate student loan with moderate interest.…

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No Spend Month

Is Being Debt Free Worth it?

I had a great talk with Millennial Money Man yesterday and my favorite piece of advice he gave me was to “write what you’re passionate about.” It took me literally five seconds to think of the one thing I’m really passionate about right now: Getting out of debt. A lot of people don’t understand why we’re doing this. They’re living great lives with money in the bank, shiny cars in the driveway, all with a six-figure negative net worth. So why would I deprive myself in my 20’s, the “best” years of my life, to sacrifice 60% percent of our monthly…

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Budget To Pay Off Debt

How To Improve Your Budget to Pay Off Debt

Making your first budget to pay off debt can be scary. It’s not as simple as assigning percentages because every person's finances are different. But the results are in and budgeting is a necessity to achieving your financial goals. Sure you can get by without a budget but you won't get ahead without one. My husband and I have been budgeting together since before we got married and it's set a foundation for us to be able to pay off over $64,000 over 18 months. There are a ton of methods, spreadsheets, printables, etc. to create a budget, but I…

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Best Personal Finance Podcasts For Millennials

10 Best Personal Finance Podcasts for Millennials

I used to not consider myself a big podcast person. While everyone else was hopping on the Serial train I was calling NPR like “Can I just hear some Justin Beiber?” But since writing about the best personal finance podcasts for millennials three years ago, I've become a podcast pro in my own right. This article started as a list of podcasts I wanted to try to save my readers the trial and error of finding them on their own and has led to me starting my own podcast about frugality with my friend Jill. It's called Frugal Friends Podcast and…

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Emergency Fund Tips

Tips to Help You Fund (and Keep) Your Emergency Fund

Everyone who’s ever had an emergency will tell you money is key to making good decisions. We make bad financial decisions when we're broke and desperate. That’s why having an emergency fund is vital to starting any personal finance journey. We currently keep a mini emergency fund of $1000 while we’re paying our debt and so far it’s worked out great. Now we have a five-month emergency fund because we're debt free! But it’s hard to save, hard to know how much to save, and hard to avoid the temptation of $1000 sitting in your bank account screaming to be used.…

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Marriage And Money

3 Habits for Blissful Money Matrimony

As of this month my student loan has a 1 in front of it. That started as a 5! I realize I couldn’t have done this without my amazing [frugal] husband. Through this journey, I am constantly reminded how important it’s been to be on the same page with our finances. Our shared goals and vision for the future have made the hard months bearable and the pitfalls easier to climb out of. By the time I met Travis I’d seen more couples divorce in my age group than I want to count. It was so significant to me that…

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Budget Myths Debunked

Budgeting is a B Word – Budget Myths Debunked

Everyone I talk to about debt tells me “I know, I need to get on a budget.” In my head, I’m like “duh!?!” But the truth is, I remember what it’s like to be single on a 36K income staring 60K of debt in the face. It’s horrifying, overwhelming, and seemingly impossible. So I just ignored it. I let the interest pile up and said I just can’t do this. Flash forward two years and the budget is a vital part of my life. I am by no means a master budgeter and I’m always the one that ends up…

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Survey Sites Worth Trying

Make Extra $$$ With These 10 Seasonal Jobs

I’m trying to wake up earlier. I keep reading about really successful people and they all wake up before the sun. I’m not that ambitious but my alarm did go off at 7 on my day off so I’m feeling pretty confident so far. It only get’s harder when Daylight Savings ends in November and I’ll be up before the sun even if I sleep in. Then throw in the exhaustion of the holidays... yikes. Holidays are hard; I can’t imagine them with kids. But they are also the easiest time to make extra cash. Waiting tables, delivering pizzas, putting…

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We Paid Off $45K In 11 Months!

How We Paid Off Over $45K of Debt in 11 Months

It seems pretty normal to me now but people still drop their jaws when I tell them we’ve paid over $45K on our loans in less than a year. We still have a year to go and most days I have mixed emotions of accomplishment for what we’ve done vs. annoyance for how far we have to go. UPDATE: As of August 31, 2017, Travis and I are STUDENT LOAN FREE! We paid off $77,646.54 in 23 months! We’ve made conscious decisions to hold off on things like buying a house, going on trips, and even getting a couch that’s not…

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Eat Out Less

A Month of Dinner Recipes for Families on a Budget

Growing up I did not have a Suzy Homemaker mother who taught me my grandmother’s secret dinner recipes or how to separate the yolk from the egg white. The extent of my cooking experience came from the instructions on the back of the Chicken Voila bag in the freezer section. In college, I became a vegetarian but I was more than satisfied eating dinners of Steam-in-Bag vegetables and fake meat corn dogs (honestly better than real corn dogs.) But when I got married and we decided to pay off our debt I knew I had to learn my way around…

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