10 Ways to Make 2016 Financially Better Than 2015

Are you dreading paying the January bills after overspending on Christmas?  Are you tired of always just making ends meet and never having enough money to spend it on something fun?  Do you want to take a vacation, but don't want to put it on a credit card?  Do you want to stop feeling the weight of being in debt and instead feel the freedom of being financially free?

I've come up with 10 things you can do in 2016 to begin to either start to pay off debt, get rid of that last lingering credit card bill, be better prepared for Christmas spending 2016, or finally pay cash for that vacation you want to take the kids on!

1.  Track your income and expenses.  I do this every month and it allows our family to see exactly where our money is going.  I simply use a spreadsheet where I record all income and then expenses.

2.  Set-up an account to have funds transferred on a monthly basis and do not touch until Christmas.  I always use a Smarty Pig account.  If you are able to transfer $100 a month, by December you will have saved $1200 for Christmas!

3.  Stop eating out so much!  When my family of 5 eats out, we average a bill of about $50 for a sit-down restaurant and $25 for fast food..  I know if I make a meal at home, It can be for about $10.  That is a savings of $15 - $40 a day!  Our family only eats out typically only one night a week.

4.  Earn some quick cash (and a cash flow) by decluttering and selling unwanted items.  I sell all the time on Ebay and Facebook garage sale sites.  On average I make about $50 a month.  I keep a log of what I make every month.  This is an easy way to have some cash on hand and not have to do an ATM withdraw.  Bonus, you de-clutter your house!

5.    If you shop online, earn extra cash by using a cashback site first!  I use EBATES all the time and have earned a lot of money that gets transferred directly into my Paypal account.  You can then use the funds to make online purchases or move the funds to your bank account.  Here is what I have earned:

6.   Consider using cash back apps when you shop for groceries.  The two apps I use all the time are Ibotta and Checkout 51.  Once you reach a $20 balance, you can transfer the money to your Paypal account.

7.  Review your grocery shopping habits and perhaps see if you can switch some of your shopping to a lower cost store.  Look into a monthly trip to Aldi's or another retailer to pick up canned goods and staples that are generally a lot less expensive than at a large grocery store chain.

8.  Couponing!  I know this is not for everyone, but every little bit helps.  I'm in a local group for my favorite store Giant Eagle, and I normally pick up a few free or really cheap items every week!.

9.  Look into a money saving challenge.  This allows you to put cash away every week and increases the amount.  Check out the one here on Simplistically Living.

10.  For daily inspiration and encouragement, follow Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman on Facebook.  They always have all kinds of ideas and insight!

I hope some of these tips were insightful and help out in 2016!  No one likes being tied down by debt and you feel so much freedom when you are able to pay your bills every month and have a little extra left!

Happy New Year!

It's Never Too Soon To Start Saving For Christmas!

I'm a planner, always have been, always will be! I do not like to have a month with monstrous size bills, especially January right after Christmas. A few years back, when my husband quit his job (you can read our whole journey here) to finish school and stay home with our kids, we tried to keep our monthly expenses as even as possible every month. This is when we started saving for Christmas in February! Our goal is to have all of our money saved up by November, that way we can pay cash and not have any "typical" holiday bills after the holiday!

Here are a few keys to success, to start your Christmas savings account now!

• Pick a place to "house" your money so that you will not touch it over the course of the year. It may be a jar in your kitchen cabinet, your local bank or credit union, or an online banking institution. We have exclusively used Smarty Pig over the past several years. It allows you to set goals and see your progress to your end goal! Smarty Pig is free and pays a 1% interest rate. You can also earn more when you cash out your savings into gift cards.

• Make the monthly contributions automatic and part of your monthly budget. It you are committing to saving $100 a month, have that money automatically withdrawn and put in your designated "savings" account. That money is off limits and for a single purpose, Christmas!

•  Make a Christmas budget now and stick to it. Here is an example of a $1000 budget we have used in the past:
• Our 3 kids at $200 each = $600
• Nieces and Nephews = $100
• Parents = $150
• Sisters and Husbands = $100
• Wiggle Room = $50

This comes out to $1000 for Christmas. It you start to save in February and save until November, you have 10 months to accumulate $1000.  You need to put $100 every month in your savings account.

• The sooner you start, the easier it will be to reach your goal. We prefer to start in February, just because we have some other bills that come due in January. If you get a tax refund, make part of this refund your first deposit. If you have an extra cash at the end of another month, add it to your Christmas savings. You can accumulate your budget mount quicker, than originally thought!

The holidays can be stressful enough, make next Christmas as stress-free as possible by establishing a budget, saving the money in advance and then stick to the budget! 

Disclosure:  You can earn a $10 referral with Smarty Pig, if you would like to be referred, please send me an e-mail at spendless2savemore@gmail.com!

The Depressing Grocery Budget

I started the year with such high hopes of maintaining a $300 a month grocery budget.  I came in under budget in January, but February and March were both "disasters" in my budget planning mind!  I continue to shop at Giant Eagle (with coupons), Marcs's, and Aldi's plus I am still playing the Drugstore Game at Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens.  I am really confused why I cannot come in under $300!  By no means are we splurging on steak and lobster!

I have noticed a spike in some grocery prices especially milk.  I did some research on inflation. 

U.S. food costs will rise as much as 4 percent this year after a surge in prices for farm goods, more than the 2 percent to 3 percent forecast last month, U.S. Department of Agriculture Chief Economist Joe Glauber said. “Higher prices for crops and livestock will again pressure food prices,” as increased commodity costs work their way through the food-supply chain toward consumers, Glauber said today during remarks at a government-sponsored agriculture forum in Arlington, Virginia. Global food prices rose 25 percent last year and set a record last month as world grain inventories were headed for a 13 percent decline before the next harvest, the USDA estimates. Tighter supplies and higher costs have contributed to unrest in North Africa and the Middle East as rising demand causes isolated food shortages and accelerating inflation in poor countries, even as it boosts incomes for U.S. farmers. (source)

Estimates include:

• Corn up 80% from a year ago.
• Soybean meal is up 37%
• Wheat is up 73%
• Coffee — 45%
• Barley — 32%
• Oranges — 35%
• Cotton — 40%
• Salmon — 30
• Pork prices expected to rise 6.5%
• Eggs expected to rise 4.5%

Known as agflation, the continual, sustained increase in food prices has been an ominous trend in the U.S. economy, indicative of the disastrous effects of the Federal Reserve and its continued manipulation of American currency and consumer commodities. As food prices rise at a rate faster than inflation, companies such as Kellogg, McDonald’s, Kroger, and Safeway have been open about the economic dilemma faced by their consumers: The public will have to shoulder more of the higher costs for ingredients. For these companies, the big challenge will be how much they can swallow and how much they can pass along to consumers, in terms of offsetting the costs and benefits inherent in the inflationary food spiral. (source)

So what is the consumer to do with all of these prices out of control?  I am trying to refocus my efforts again this month to see if I can come in under $300.  My growing boys are eating more not less, so perhaps it is the season of life to increase our grocery budget?  Watch out Giant Eagle, I am on the prowl for some great deals this month!

2011 Grocery Budget

One area in which we need to improve on is to stick with our grocery budget.  We have set a FIRM $300 per month grocery budget for 2011.   I am setting up a new tracker to hold myself accountable in my sidebar.  I will be updating this regularly so you can all see how I am doing on our budget for the month! 

Out $300 grocery budget feeds a family of four.  We have two boys who are 5 and 2 and boy can my 5 year old eat!  It seeems like as soon as we finish a trip to the grocery store, we are out of something he likes!  It takes a lot to keep our grocery spending in check, but I am on a mission to try in 2011.

Do you know what your grocery budget is?  This is one sure way to cut costs in your household if you begin to track and regulate your grocery budget!  I know if it often difficult to pass on an item, but hey there is always next month!

Tired of Couponing – I Hope This Passes!

I am having a really hard time with couponing lately. I use to be so get-up and go when it came to couponing. In fact I was a bit obsessed. I thought I had to get every great deal that came around. Well, now that I look at my stockpile of 10 tubes of toothpaste and 10 bottles of men’s body wash I had to “redefine” my limits. Now I only buy items I have a lot of already that are money makers after coupons.


The past month I have somewhat lost my drive to coupon like a mad woman. I use to get so excited when I saved over $20 in coupons in one grocery trip, now not so much. Lately our shopping habits have changed. We have been going to Aldi a lot more often since milk is cheap as well are a lot of the household staples. The store is also close to our house and easy to get in and out of for a quick milk run. I have been doing a lot of price comparisons and more often than not, Aldi is the lowest price in town and you do not have to remember your coupons.

I am still making the occasional Giant Eagle runs, but last month I only went to the store two times. Once to use my accumulated foodperks and then another time to use the Catalinas I had from the previous trip before they expired. I still buy a lot of my meat at Giant Eagle since they often run BOGO sales on different cuts of meat. I do stock up at those sales. Giant Eagle is a lot more expensive for everyday items, but on the flipside when you pair up sales with double coupons, you can really score some great almost free to free items, which I love.

I have alot going on at work right now so my time has been limited.  Plus I would rather spend time with my boys after a hard day.  Right now I feel a lot more content since I am not obsessing over coupons and deals. However, I did see a slight rise in our grocery budget for October. Our previous three months we spent:

August - $287.31
September - $314.26
October - $371.32 (ouch!)

Our family goal is $300 a month for a family of four. I know we can do it. On the flipside, I looked at the money spent eating out for the past three months:

August - $204.39
September - $189.49
October - $144.56

So now I am seeing a trend, of course if we are eating out less, then we would need to buy more groceries for at home. When I combine the 2 amounts:

August - $491.70
September - $503.75
October - $515.88

So I still think October was a bad month, I am striving for November to keep the groceries under $300 and keep the eating out under $120. Wish us luck!

Our Structured Budget – August Test Month

Since we were married 8 years ago, we have always lived with an “unwritten budget”. We lived within our means but never paid too much attention to exactly where our money was going every month! If you have noticed I have been intensely reading David Ramsey books, check out my posts here and here. August was our first month with our Structured Budget plan in place. Our budget plan went as follows:


1. At the beginning of August we created a spreadsheet and allocated where we were going to spend (or save) our money for the month.
2. For the entire month we tracked every penny we spent in the appropriate categories.
3. We watched intensely what we spent and only bought what we needed.

I am proud to say for the month of August our Structured Budget plan was a SUCCESS!! We were able to stay within our total budgeted amount and even managed to begin funding our Christmas account. Our goal this year is to have no Christmas bills in January! This goes along with continuing to fund our boys’ college funds as well as our retirement accounts. Some of our allocations to certain categories will need to be adjusted for September (such as groceries, utilities, eating out, etc), but overall we stayed under budget for August. Our key takeaways for the month:

1. If you write down everything you spend you feel more accountable.
2. We were both questioning certain purchases, it makes you think more!
3. I was able to feed our family of 4 for only $280 for the month (I budgeted for $300 for groceries) so that breaks down to only $72 a week!
4. It really wasn’t that hard to follow the budget, my husband even got In 2 rounds of golf because we budgeted for it!
5. Dave Ramsey uses the envelope system; we used the spreadsheet system, works best for us since we do not use cash all the time.

So at the beginning of September once again we will “tell our money where to go” and continue on our Structured Budget!