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Starbucks Hacks from a Starbucks Fanatic

Fall is in the air! You guys, I’m excited. I decorated for fall right after we moved into our new house last weekend. I plan on doing a post on our house soon, but for now, just know that we love love love it and it was a great decision!

The holiday season tends to be when I stray from my normal tendency of saving every dollar we make. I don’t know what it is about fall that gets me, but I always go overboard year after year. I love to cook and bake during this time, I want my house to be decked out in all the latest holiday decor, I burn pumpkin candles like they’re going out of style, and I even resort back to my almost-daily Starbucks habit.

(Did I just lose all of my personal finance readers who actually do follow a budget?)

A little backstory on my relationship with Starbucks…

Financial tips for newlyweds

John and I are celebrating our four year wedding anniversary next week! In addition, my little sister is getting married a few days after our four year anniversary. In celebration of her new marriage and our upcoming anniversary, I thought I’d share my financial tips for newlyweds.

Our story

The only way to save money that actually works

CNN recently reported that more than three-quarters of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck (survey done by Bankrate). I’ll admit – we live paycheck to paycheck, but it’s not because we’re broke. We save every month, have a huge cushion and are working towards having a solid down payment on a house.

What’s surprising, though, is that 50 percent of those surveyed have less than three months of living expenses saved up and 27 percent don’t have any savings at all. What were to happen if one of these people were to lose a job? This is one of the huge reasons why I recommend freelancing, no matter what industry you work in (if you want to read more on that, check out my latest post on become a freelance writer!).

What is your entertainment budget?

I’ve recently been thinking about entertainment budgets. While they aren’t necessary and they can actually be completely free (as the Frugalwoods have shown us!), entertainment does add value and fun to our lives. We all have different ideas of what entertainment is – but I think we can all agree that it’s spending money on an item or activity that will make you happy. Superficial? Sure, but sometimes you have to get out of your house and live a little (and maybe spend some money).

To me, entertainment means seeing movies (either in theaters or renting), going to concerts, traveling, shopping, visiting museums and I’m even going to take it one step further and say it can mean going out to eat or stopping for a coffee. While those expenses can be classified under “Food,” they’re more entertainment for me as I could easily eat at home or drink my coffee at home. It’s an “extra” and therefore – it’s entertainment.

Simple meal ideas on a budget

I will be the first to admit that coming up with healthy, creative dinner ideas is not my strong suit. I want to meal plan, I really do. But following through with it is a whole nother story. Lately, though, I’ve been better (Ok, I’ve been better since we moved into our new house a few weeks ago…I can’t let a kitchen like this go to waste!!). Meal planning saves time, it saves money and it’s a huge relief knowing that you have food for the week.

I went shopping late last week and got enough meals to last us through tomorrow. The girls and I have enjoyed our days at home without having to run errands every morning, we’ve gone on long walks, made cookies and I’ve had dinner going by the time my husband comes home each night. I’ve realized I actually do enjoy cooking, it’s just all the work that has to happen before the actual cooking takes place (meal planning, shopping, spending money, etc.).

So, what have I been making lately?!

5 Reasons day trips can be better than vacations

John and I have been fans of day trips since we started dating, but our love of them has only accelerated since having kids. But isn’t it hard having kids in the car for that long? Um, nope! Sure, they scream at times and I may or may not have spent an hour massaging my one-year-old’s feet yesterday on our trip to Myrtle Beach, but they are contained and they are usually content. This gives John and I a chance to chat, listen to music and enjoy the open road! To us, life is all about experiencing as much as we can and we feel our best when we’re on the road. Who knows, maybe one day this will lead to a cross-country adventure in an RV 🙂

The expense of having babies

As many of you know, I am a mom to two sweet little girls. My oldest is 2 1/2 and my youngest is 16 months. While life is busy, it’s very full. Not a moment goes by where I have nothing to do, and I love that feeling (though it can definitely be stressful at times).

Before having my first, I was very worried about how adding a new baby was going to affect our finances. At the time, John was working for himself and I was planning on quitting my stable 9-5 so I could stay home with our daughter. We didn’t have much in savings and without me working, we knew it was going to be tough to add to our savings.

But, we survived (in fact, we thrived). Even though we went from two full-time incomes to one and added a new baby to the mix, John and I did just fine. You see…having a baby wasn’t as expensive as I thought.

Check out the rest of my article, including a breakdown of how much it costs to have two kids, over here on See Debt Run.

How we slashed $900 per month in expenses

Groceries, food, restaurants, coffee and the like used to be where a good portion of John and I’s income went. In October, we added up our “miscellaneous” expenses – expecting them to be around $1500 or less – and we’re shocked (and disgusted) to discover we spent roughly $2,100. Thank goodness we made good money that month, but still, $2,100 is not a necessary amount of money to spend on food and household items!!

So for November (and all months moving forward), we decided to make some changes.Continue Reading

How to stop stressing about money

So, first things first. I typed up a nice long post this afternoon recapping my parents visit and saying how much we spend when guests from out of town visit and then… The post got deleted when I clicked “Save draft.” That’s never happened before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

So, onto another topic on how to stop stressing about money. I don’t know about you, but I am ALWAYS stressed when it comes to finances. No matter how much we save each month, how much we cut back or how much we make, I’m stressed. It’s seriously like a sickness and it’s GOT to stop.

November Income

I’m going to be honest – I actually highly debated skipping this month’s income recap as it wasn’t the greatest. But, I want to look back and see how far we’ve come so here goes…

First, let’s take a look back at my November goals. Income goals were $3000 for John and $1800 for me but before I get into what we hit, I’m going to recap our other goals.