Finding Inspiration to Save: Why Not Use Lent to Increase Your Motivation?

Written by Lyn Brooks, Staff Writer

Sometimes, it's hard to get motivated to save money. Even when your finances are in a shambles and you know you need to take some drastic actions to get a better handle on your money. Finding the inspiration to save is especially difficult around the holidays. Even when it's not a "major" holiday, like Christmas, or New Year's Eve, the minor holidays that are "sprinkled" throughout the year can be especially dangerous and tempt you to go off your budget and spend. Parties and other celebrations are especially hazardous to our budget's health.

Last night was not only the New Hampshire primary, it was also Mardi Gras, the last night of festivities for Carnival. Sadly, I didn't get to enjoy any King Cakes this year, or go to any parties. I've not even made any gumbo or jambalaya, which is really pitiful when you consider how frugal and low cost these great dishes can be!

In addition to Mardi Gras, this week was also the start of the Chinese New Year, another holiday with plenty of temptations to spend!

Today, however, is the date of a much more subdued tradition. For Catholics, today is Ash Wednesday, and the start of the Lenten season. Traditionally people give up something that is seen as an indulgence or temptation for them during Lent.

Even though I am not a member of this particular faith, I often feel led during this time of year to increase my prayers and to give up something meaningful in the days and weeks that lead up to the celebration of Christ's resurrection. As with many things, you don't have to be Catholic or even particularly religious, to observe Lent, or even any other holiday. Holidays are what you make of them.

So as I was thinking about what I should give up for Lent this year, I also began to think about how to use this holiday to increase my focus on improving our finances, rather than blowing our budget by throwing a party.

Even though we've started this year out well and truly broke, there is one area of our finances where we still splurge a little from time to time, and that is on eating breakfast out.

Two to three days of the week, my husband and I enjoy eating breakfast out together. Whether we go in and sit across the table from one another waiting on our order, or, just go through the drive through and order biscuits, coffee and tea off of the dollar menu, it's nice to have something hot and warm to eat and drink first thing in the morning that we didn't have to prepare ourselves.

We spend about $17 a week, each week, doing this. Quite frankly, that's $17 that could be used to increase our weekly savings, or in keeping with the theme of the Lenten season, that's $17 we could donate to charity!

Still, it's awfully tempting to continue eating breakfast out so that we don't have to get out of bed so early in the morning to make it ourselves. This is something that is meaningful for us and that won't be so easy to give up. That is why we have decided that eating breakfast out is our little indulgence that we are giving up for Lent this season.

Our local McDonalds' had the following special this week: two bacon, egg and cheese biscuits for $3. We got the special, a coffee for my husband and a sweet tea for myself as our last breakfast out before the start of Lent. They now serve breakfast all day, so I am already tempted to cheat on my resolution. It's a whole 46 days until Easter, so we'll see how it goes over the next few weeks,

If we are successful with this challenge, who knows, maybe we will stay on the straight and narrow and continue this new tradition long after Lent ends.

Do you observe Lent? If you do, what did you decide to give up this year?

Photo Credit: Flickr, Randy Heinitz

Zero in Savings? A New Year Means New Opportunities to Increase Your Savings - The 52 Week Money Challenge

Written by Lyn Brooks, Staff Writer

Zero in savings? We started 2016 with $0 in savings. Sadly, my family and I are not alone. According to a late 2015 survey by GoBankingRates, 28% of Americans have zero in savings, and 62% have less than $1,000 saved. What are any of us thinking? Who do we expect to help save us should a financial emergency occur? Santa Claus?

Whenever I think about the current state of my family's finances and our lack of savings, which is almost constantly, I start to feel a bit down, but then I remind myself that a new year means new opportunities!

How We Ended Up with Zero in Savings

The last few years have been extremely difficult, financially. I've survived several critical, and expensive to treat, illnesses. I then lost my job in the Great Recession.

When I couldn't find a new job in my area, I turned to freelance writing to try to make ends meet. For those of you that aren't freelancers, writing is truly a feast to famine proposition, but in my area there really isn't any other opportunities to increase my income.

My local economy is still depressed, with new layoffs being announced each week, so it continues to look unlikely that I will find a new job any time soon that will bring in more than what I manage to rake and scrape together freelancing.

In addition to my unstable income issues, last year my husband needed to resign his position of nine years and was then unemployed for another six months.

During this time, our home and garage suffered extensive damage during a winter storm that saw over three feet of snow fall in our area in less than 24 hours. Then the temperatures slipped to 24 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, taking out all of our plumbing. We lost a good portion of our personal belongings. We are still having issues getting the insurance settlement released so that we can finish repairing and rebuilding everything that we lost.

A few months later, my mother, who has been staying with us after surviving a stroke, accidentally caught a pan on my stove on fire. It took out the stove, the two walls around the stove and the exhaust and two cabinets above, as well as smokey soot on the ceilings and surfaces throughout my home. So, now we are without a stove to cook on, in addition to the other issues.

We've  ended up spending our entire life's savings in order to survive through all of these trials. It was the only way to avoid filing bankruptcy. It's still difficult to make ends meet, but slowly we are clawing our way back.

I am 47, my husband is 54, and, we have no savings!

Steps We Are Taking to Begin Rebuilding Savings

This is a new year, hopefully it will be a better one for us, and millions of others, financially. As this new year is starting, I know this is the year that we must at least begin to think about rebuilding our savings. We are both getting older, and not in the best of health, so, realistically, there really isn't a lot of time left to rebuild our retirement nest egg.

401(k) Savings

Our main issue at the moment is that we realistically don't have a lot of expendable income to divert to savings. My husband just became eligible to contribute to his new employer's 401(k) and so he is contributing 10% at the moment.

It's the start of the new year, and my income from writing really doesn't start picking up until later in the spring. I suppose I could wait to being saving, but I really feel that it's important to start now, while I have this "new year, new opportunity" mindset and momentum  going for me.

Saving Tax Refund

Of course, we already plan to save the bulk of our tax refund that we will receive later in the spring, and that should be a little over a thousand dollars. I really want to do something in addition to this and my husband's 401(k) contribution though, something that will get us back in the habit of setting aside money for our savings on a regular basis.

Start Small and Build - The 52 Week Money Saving Challenge

That's why we've decided to do the 52 Week Money Saving Challenge. It's a really simple strategy to help folks get back in the weekly habit of saving money. I like it because it starts with a small amount, just $1 the first week, and lets you slowly increase the amount you are saving each week, so that it feels less painful to your budget. It also works out well with the cash flow cycle that is generated by my freelance writing income.

Getting started is really simple. Set aside $1 at the end of the first week, $2 for the second week of the year, $3 for the third, and then continuing on and adding just one additional dollar that you set aside for each week of the year. At the end, you should have $1,378 saved.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, $1,378 is not really a lot of money. Certainly not enough to retire on in a few years. But, it does help us to begin rebuilding our savings.

As the year continues, I plan on looking for more ways for us to increase our savings. To reach our goals, we will need to cut back on spending, as well as looking for ways to grow our income. I plan on sharing my journey with you. I hope that sharing my successes and failures, will help others, and, I hope that you, dear reader, will help me by sharing your tips and words of encouragement in the comments section!

Getting Started Saving Money

2016 began on a Friday, and so, I began my week 1 on the first day of the year. This year will also end on a Saturday, so my week 52 will end on Friday, December 30th, instead of the 31st. Week 5 just recently passed, and so, I have $15 in my savings at this point. ($1+$2+$3+$4+$5) This coming Friday, February 5th, will be the start of Week 6 and so I will deposit $6 to our savings account on this date.

Again, I know this isn't a lot, but it's a start! It's also still not too late to join me! Just deposit/transfer $15 into your savings account, or, if you don't have a savings account yet, put it in a jar or other container to save up and deposit later. Then, as each week passes, increase the amount that you add to your savings by just one dollar more. At the end of the year you will be $1,378 closer to reaching your grand savings goal.

We are saving to build an emergency fund, and then, add to our retirement savings. How do you plan to use your savings?

Photo Credit: Flickr, Images_of_Money

How We Are Breaking the Cycle of Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Written by Lyn Brooks, Staff Writer

Editor's Note: This article, How We are Breaking the Cycle of Living Paycheck to Paycheck, originally appeared on Yahoo! Finance in 2014, where it was a featured article. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall unemployment in America was down to 6.6% as of January, 2014. While this is certainly good news, significant challenges to long term economic growth remain, so, it's wise for households to prepare for another economic downturn. That's difficult to do if you are living paycheck to paycheck.

According to a recent article in Time magazine, over half of all Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck, 44% of American families have less than $5,887 in savings, and 56% have sub-prime credit. Sadly, after losing my job in the Great Recession, and facing unprecedented, catastrophic medical bills, my own household is part of that statistic.

At one point, after we had exhausted our savings and 401(k) plans, maxed out our credit cards, and ran out of unemployment benefits, our financial situation was so desperate that we almost lost our home to foreclosure. Slowly, we've managed to claw our way back from the brink of total financial ruin, but, we are still living paycheck to paycheck. I know that even though our finances have started to improve along with the nation's economy, we have to take action now to break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

We've taken the following steps to break this cycle and regain control of our finances.

Take Stock of the Situation

The first step that we took to gain control of our finances was to take an honest and complete inventory of what we were spending our money on. We used a spreadsheet but you can take the old school route and write it down a piece of paper. Regardless of what method you use, make a list of where each penny goes for the next 30 days.

Create a Realistic Budget and Get Everyone on Board

Next, sit down with your spouse, or significant other, and talk about where the money is going, and where you can cut expenses. This is harder than it sounds. My husband and I had several painful conversations when we started this process, and to be successful, everyone has to give up their "sacred cows." It's very important that every member of the family gets on board and contributes to making the new household budget and commits to sticking to it. Otherwise, you will just sabotage one another's efforts and you will fail before you even start.

Negotiate with Service Providers

As part of the budgeting process, contact every provider and attempt to negotiate reduced rates for all of the services that you pay for. Many providers offer discounts based on bundling services, or if you belong to certain groups, organizations or even where you bank. By contacting our car insurance carrier, we were able to get our bill cut by 20% and save $600 year just because of whom we bank with. We were able to slash our telephone bill in half by eliminating certain features that we hardly used, and bundling our phone service with our internet service. This saves us $360 a year. We got rid of our triple digit cable bill, saving us over $70 a month and now use a popular streaming service that also allows us to choose unlimited DVDs each month for less than $30 a month. By talking to these three providers, we save over $1,800 a year.

Slash the Grocery Bill and Costs for Eating Out

Look at how much your family spends on eating out, as well as on the grocery bill, and learn how to drastically cut costs by learning how to cook at home. Even if you have a busy lifestyle, you can make delicious, filling, and cheap soups and casseroles in a slow cooker by tossing in fresh produce that is in season, bulk dry goods such as dried peas and lentils, cuts of meat that are on sale and marked down. 

If you have the space and the know-how, try planting a small garden and growing some of your own produce and herbs to save even more. 

Sometimes, for a treat, we do eat out, but we usually go during lunch hours instead of dinner. Many sit down restaurants offer lunch specials and other discounts during this time, and you will save money if you get water with lemon rather than paying for coffee, tea, soda or other beverages. Using this strategy saved us over $5,000 on our annual grocery bill when we first adopted it.

Set Savings Goals and Pay Down Debt

Once you have slashed your expenses, start savings goals and stick to them. Start by saving $100 in a rainy day fund. Then, move on to bigger goals, such as $1,000 in an emergency fund, and then saving at least three months of living expenses. 

Start or rebuild your retirement fund at the same time. In addition to establishing savings funds, use part of the savings from your budget to pay down your credit card and other debt and make a resolution to not incur new debt.

Enjoy Less Stress as You Get Your Finances Back on Track

My husband and I earn a modest salary, together, we earn less than $50,000 a year. Using these strategies, we've managed to save $100 for a rainy day and $1,000 in an emergency fund this past year. Now, we are working on saving three months worth of living expenses. 

We've also managed to rebuild our retirement fund to over $10,000, pay off $14,789 in credit card debt, and over $10,000 in medical debt and not incur any new debt in the last two years. It is a relief to no longer worry about how we will pay our bills.

We still have a long way to go to get back to where we were before The Great Recession, but we are slowly breaking the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Anyone can if they take the time to create a realistic budget and savings plan and be determined to stick to it.