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Tools That Rock
I am an amateur wood-worker. Right now, I am working on a few Christmas gifts for friends and family. I thought I’d share a few of the tools that rock – and make wood-working fun.
Last year, I purchased the PORTER-CABLE 20-volt Lithium Ion Impact Driver. Man, this is one awesome tool. It is powerful – and perfect for outdoor jobs. I used mine to build a deck for my shed. Works great.
How We Paid Off Our Credit Card Debt
Several years ago, my wife and I paid off our credit card debt. Here’s how we did it -
We changed our spending habits.
We stopped using our credit cards and started using the envelope system.
We started to have weekly budget meetings and created a zero-based budget.
We reduced or eliminated non-essential monthly expenses.
We created a debt reduction plan.
We chose to follow the debt snowball, illustrated here.
What To Do With All That Change
We continue to use the envelope system to manage our cash. We also have three kids, who get paid for some chores – so we always have change around our house.
Getting Ready For 2014
It’s almost Christmas! I cannot believe (he says, in old-man voice) just how quickly this year has flown by. It’s almost 2014. Wow.
This year has been an interesting year for our family. We continue to move forward with our financial plan – paying off mortgage and saving for the future – and we are excited for the next year.
My wife and I have created a list of financial goals for 2014. I’ll share details in a future post, but they include: (continuing) to eliminate mortgage debt, increasing side-income (is that a word?), and saving for the purchase of a car (for our oldest, who is now 14!).
I want to thank you for continuing to read No Credit Needed. Posting has been sporadic, as we all adjust to my new work schedule and our busier-than-ever-yet-very-blessed lives. Thanks for hanging in there. You guys rock!
Forgotten Budget Categories – Home Maintenance
When making a monthly budget, it is easy to forget certain budget categories.
One of the most often overlooked and underfunded categories is Home Maintenance.
It’s easy to understand. None of us want to think about stuff breaking – especially in our home – so we tend to ignore this vital category.
Over the years, we have employed two different techniques for including Home Maintenance in our monthly budget.
1. We simply lumped it into our baby Emergency Fund. That’s kinda what the baby emergency fund is for, in a way, so that’s what we did. When something broke, we stopped our accelerated debt reduction, fixed the broken item, and then continued with debt reduction. This worked well for us, but wasn’t the perfect solution.
We Have Paid Off 20% Of Our Mortgage – October Update
My wife and I continue to work hard to payoff our home mortgage.
As of the end of October 2013, my wife and I will have lived in our home for 3 years and 8 months.
We have paid off more than 20% of our mortgage balance!
We have a conventional, fixed-rate, 15-year mortgage and our goal is to pay off our mortgage in less than ten total years.
As of November 1, 2013, we will have made 44 regular, monthly mortgage payments.
We have also made several principal-only payments, too.
We usually make our mortgage payment on the first day of the month, but we made our November payment a few days early.
Additional principal-only payments are made throughout each month, as we earn additional income and find ways to decrease budgeted-for expenses.
Here is our most recent chart -
It Never Hurts To Call
I got dinged with a late-payment fee.
It happens.
Last month, it happened to me. Twice.
I’m usually very thorough when it comes to paying our bills on time. However, last month, something happened, and not one, but two bills went unpaid. Once I realized that I had missed the payments, it was too late. They were past-due and we had been charged late fees.
So, two days ago, I paid both bills, in full. Then, today, once I checked that both payments had posted to the accounts, I called each company and asked to have the late-payment fees waived.
Both companies were super cool. In less than 10 minutes, both companies had credited the fees back to my accounts. That’s $50 in savings. Not bad.
The moral of the story – We all make mistakes and it never hurts to call. Both companies recognized that I was a long-time customer, acknowledged that I had a solid track record of paying my bills early, and were cool when handling the situation.
Cool Posts – Tax Holidays – Visualize – Celebrate
Here are this week’s cool posts from my fellow personal finance writers -
Financial Ramblings has compiled a list of the 17 states that are observing some form of state sales tax holiday in 2013. School is just around the corner and it’s time to buy school supplies. We take advantage of our state’s sales tax holiday each year.
Girl Meets Debt had one of those awesome moments of pride that come during the debt repayment process. It’s always exciting and encouraging to see others reducing debt and having victories along the way. Rock on!
Printable Grocery Price Book
We use a grocery price book to monitor the fluctuating prices of groceries at our local supermarkets. When specific items go down in price, we purchase those items in quantity. The grocery price book helps us know when to purchase – and when to wait.
I have created a printable grocery price book for my readers. It’s the same, simple-to-use price book that we have been using for years to save money on groceries.
Click to download and print the free printable grocery price book.
The grocery price book is very simple-to-use.
When printed out, the price book is designed to fold in half – to create a “book”.
How We Found Our Home
Four years ago, my wife and I decided that the time was right for our family to purchase a new home. With a down-payment in our savings, we started our search. Here’s how we found our home -
We began our search within a 20 mile radius of my wife’s workplace. We live in a rural part of our state – but there are several small neighborhoods within our desired area.
Once or twice a week, I would check the local online real estate listings. We found four or five homes that we liked, but all of them were outside of our price-range. I also checked our local paper, but had no better luck.
Speaking of our price-range – we qualified for a substantial loan amount – but we were only comfortable taking out a loan that we knew we could pay back in 15 years, or less. We were not simply focused on the payment we could afford. We were focused on the house we could afford.
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