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        • A detailed look into my January 2019 budget. Don't just blindly follow a budget. Understand the reasons behind your financial choices, and look at what your budget is telling you.

          January 2019 Budget Recap

          A detailed look into my December 2018 budget. Don't just blindly follow a budget. Understand the reasons behind your financial choices, and look at what your budget is telling you.

          December 2018 Budget Recap

          When thinking about your WHY, it should be something so important that it lights a fire under you. Your level of passion and dedication to your WHY should leave you feeling emotional.

          How to Close Out Your Budget Every Month

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        • My hope through this blog post, I can show you that MLM can be a legitimate source of supplemental income that has its perks over a more “traditional” career or your average side hustle.

          How MLM Has Changed My Life for the Better & How It Could for You Too

          Living on a budget is great. Unless, of course, it’s not. Because sometimes even living within your budget calls for more money than you’re bringing in.

          10 Legitimate Ways to Make Extra Income from Home

          Are you ready to save in the new year? Let's save more of our dollars by completing a different savings challenge for every month in 2019!

          12 Months = 12 Savings Challenges

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        • Does it feel like you just can’t get ahead when it comes to money? Even now that you’re earning more, there still seems to be nothing left over to help you get out of debt or save for the future? Your finances may be the victim of lifestyle inflation.

          Lifestyle Inflation: Getting What You Deserve

          A realistic view into my $400 per month meal plan! Get every recipe that I used in my January meal plan, my grocery lists, costs, and so much more! Read about how I am utilizing my Instant Pot to save time and money!

          January 2019 Budget Monthly Meal Plan

          Are you looking for ways to save money on your grocery budget? Try completing the Freezer Challenge, and start eating what you already have at home.

          Save Money Meal Planning: The Freezer Challenge

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        • How I paid off over $77,000 of debt in less than a year. During my financial journey, telling myself, "it's impossible" was never an option. You have to believe in yourself enough to strive for the unimaginable.

          My Debt Story – Accomplishing the Unimaginable

          Should you consolidate your debt? Before using a debt consolidation company, make sure you know all of your options. Getting out of debt is all about changing the behavior that got you into debt in the first place, that's where you should start.

          Should You Consolidate Your Debt?

          Refinancing your home can be a serious financial decision. Make sure you know about hidden fees, the interest rate, and other factors before making any decisions.

          12 Rules for Refinancing Your Home Loan

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        • When thinking about your WHY, it should be something so important that it lights a fire under you. Your level of passion and dedication to your WHY should leave you feeling emotional.

          How to Stay Motivated on Your Financial Journey

          Looking for a financial advisor that will meet all of your unique needs? Explore your options and find out what questions you need to be asking using The Budget Mom's complete guide!

          How to Find the Best Financial Advisor for Your Needs

          Being in debt while you are still working can be a nagging problem and even prevent you from saving for retirement. But carrying that debt into retirement can also be dangerous, and in some cases, even more so. When you are in retirement, you are working with a fixed income. The simple truth is, you can't afford to have a majority of your income eaten up by debt payments. To get the most out of your retirement, you need to make sure you have as much money as possible to fund the lifestyle you desire. Here are three types of debt you should work on eliminating before you retire. Read: How To Save For Retirement When You Are Self-Employed UNSECURED DEBT If you are living with a fixed retirement income, you might not be able to afford to make the extra payments on the money owed. If you are spending years in repayment, much of your fixed-income ends up going to high interest payments. Credit card debt can not only wreck your credit score, but it's also costly to pay off. For example, if you have a credit card with a $5,000 balance with 18% interest, it will take you roughly 84 months to pay it off. Not only that, but you will pay close to $4,320 in interest over that period. HOW TO PAY IT OFF It's best to come up with a plan to eliminate unsecured debt during your working years. An easy approach to paying off credit card debt is to list out your present debts, figure out which cards charge the most interest and pay those off first before moving on to the ones with less interest. Here is a list of articles that will help you come up with a plan to pay off credit card debt: Pay off Debt With the Debt Snowball Method How to Pay Down Debt Using the Avalanche Method How to Create a Plan to Pay Off Debt Taking advantage of balance transfers to eliminate debt faster might also be an option. You can transfer your total balance to a card with a lower interest rate than what you are currently paying to save time and money on interest payments. Read: Saving Money When You Have Debt – What You Need to Know STUDENT LOAN DEBT Student loans are often viewed as a "younger-aged" problem, but the truth is, more and more older Americans are finding themselves on the hook for educational loans. Not only is this debt they took out for themselves, but the major problem is when parents take out loans for their children's education. The process of being accepted for a Parent PLUS loan is minimal. There is only a basic credit check and no underwriting to determine whether the borrower has the income or ability to repay the loans. With emotions involved, it's easy to take on more than you can handle. You may not realize it, but in retirement, even a small amount can prove difficult to repay. Funding your child's education can be an emotional topic. I would love to help my son attend college without feeling financially stressed, but I won't sacrifice my own retirement to do so. Instead, I took another approach and started planning and saving early for his educational costs. Two weeks after my son was born, I opened a UTMA account. Throughout the year, I save my leftover change from my cash spending and invest it in his UTMA at the end of the year. I will save what I can during my working years, and I will help him as much as I can financially, but only to a limit that I can honestly afford. The truth is, helping my son pay for his education is important to me, but he also has more time than me to pay off his student loans. When I am a senior living on a fixed income, I will not be able to generate more money to repay these debts, and I can't replace the retirement savings that I take out for repayment. HOW TO PAY IT OFF When you are in a financial bind, there are different ways to you can repay your student loan debts that make it a little easier on your budget. For example, if you only have Direct Loans, there are Income-Driven repayment plans that allow you to make a monthly payments that is based on your income and family size. If you decide to use one of these options, you have to keep in mind that it will extend the period of time for your loan repayment. I recommend using these options if you are in a financial hard spot, but to make your time on these plan limited. If you can, I recommend sticking to the Standard Repayment Plan, which will pay of your student loans in the shortest amount of time while saving you the most money on interest. Read: Should You Consolidate Your Student Loans? MORTGAGE DEBT Many people who own homes or property take out 30-year mortgages in their early 30s and manage to pay off their loans by the time they retire. But what happens when you buy a home or property later in life? If you end up carrying mortgage debt into retirement, that will make what's already your greatest monthly expenses even more burdensome. Just like with people, the older a home becomes, the more money it costs to keep them "healthy." Dealing with a mortgage payment and the upkeeping costs of owning an older home during retirement can cause substantial income restrictions. If you work on getting rid of your mortgage payment before retirement, that's one significant bill you don't have to worry about. If you can pay off your mortgage before retirement, you can significantly decrease your housing costs, eliminate your biggest expense, and you can make your savings last much longer. If you can, try buying a home on the low-end of what you can afford and avoid refinancing your home, which usually extends your repayment period. HOW TO PAY IT OFF One way to tackle your mortgage debt is by making extra payments to your loan. Think of it this way, the more extra payments you make on your mortgage, the more each one of your regular payments goes straight to the principal balance. Try making an extra house payment every quarter or dividing your mortgage payment by 12 and add that amount to each monthly mortgage payment that you make. Just a word of caution. If you are thinking about making extra mortgage payments, make sure you talk to your mortgage company because they might charge prepayment penalties. When completing an extra mortgage payment, make sure it's getting applied to the principal balance of your loan and not next month's payment. It's critical to take steps to ensure you have an effective debt management strategy in place and to take early action steps to eliminate debt before you retire.

          3 Debts You Should Eliminate Before Retirement

The True Cost of Waiting for What You Really Want

January 15, 2017
FINANCE 101

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One of the most painful lessons about life is realizing you don't always get what you want.

Have you ever woke up in the morning, looked at your to-do list and said to yourself, “I’ll just wait to do that tomorrow.” If you are the worst kind of procrastinator, it could be costing you more than just money. Here on TBM, most of the articles you read are about money management and finance. Today, I am writing about one of the most painful lessons we all face in life, the one thing we try so hard to avoid.

Yes, it’s true that procrastination and life limitations can hinder you from reaching financial goals, but in the end, it could also be costing you so much more – happiness.

The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments. – Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s easy to think that there will be a point in your life that once you reach it, you will have finally “made it.” I learned this weekend that there is no such point out there that is waiting for you. The only thing that you truly have is the power to control this exact moment, the moment you have right now. While you are waiting for satisfaction to find you, and for the hoops you are jumping over to disappear, you ultimately end up putting your happiness off into an unknown future.

It’s not uncommon for people to say, “Once I find my soulmate, get married, and start a family, then I will truly be happy and finally have everything that I want.” In fact, this is a belief that I once had. We spend money trying to impress people we think we want, we go on far too many horrible dates, and end up getting hurt more than we should, all so we find a future we believe will bring us everything that we have ever wanted.

  • Read: Yes I Am That Mom – And I’m OK With It

Are you waiting to lose 15 pounds, to write a book, travel the world, get promoted at work, make a six-figure income, buy a home, get married, or start a family? Are you happy in this exact moment that you have? If not, then when? Maybe Thursday, maybe next summer, maybe next winter, two years from now? When you finally find the man you have dreamed about since you were a kid, have enough in retirement, save enough money, pay off more debt?

What ever happened to wanting the moment you have now? Isn’t it enough? The hard truth is, when you finally “make it” to where you want to go, and have everything that you think you wanted, there will always be more challenges. There will always be roadblocks, imperfect moments, and hard lessons that have to be learned along the way. These are the things that make what we actually want worth it.

For a long time, it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacles in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last, it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. – Alfred D. Souza

The hardest thing to swallow is that sometimes in life, you simply can’t have what you actually want. That’s one of the most painful lessons about life. It’s one of the first things we try teaching our children. We try saving them from the hurt we know is bound to happen. As adults, it has happened to us, probably multiple times. It has definitely happened to me. So what do we do? We gaze up at the sky and ask a higher power to make things better. We stare off into space, wondering what our purpose truly is. We desperately search for the meaning of life and wonder, “why can’t we get what we want?”

  • Read: How Spare Change Is Helping Me Teach My Son about Money

The simple answer – because if you got everything you ever wanted, you wouldn’t actually be living.

I could throw you financial statistics that say waiting costs money. I could tell you that consumers paid $12 billion in credit card late fees alone in 2016, or that the number of people who identify themselves as chronic procrastinators increased last year. I could make this article only about saving money or paying off debt. If I did, then I would be leaving out the most important information of all. There are no statistics that can measure our personal lives. No one can give you accurate data about the helplessness we feel when we are overloaded with debt, being rejected, dumped, used, or the fear we feel when we lose a job.

Only you can write it.  You have to grasp the true presence, even if it’s not what you want. It’s the only real time and place in which we have any influence or choice to make things different. A chance to write statistics about our lives that matter.

Stop waiting for what you really want. Instead, accept this moment and go find it.

Is this the reason so many of us fail to change our financial situations, or is it only about happiness? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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kumiko Ehrmantraut

kumiko Ehrmantraut

A little about me: I love helping women take charge of their financial lives. As an Accredited Financial Counselor, I love teaching about money management and realistic budgeting. Away from the computer, you can usually find me behind a camera lens or coloring with my 4-year-old son.Want to share your financial journey with me? Tag @thebudgetmom on Instagram or give me a shout-out on Facebook. I WANNA SEE IT!
kumiko Ehrmantraut
kumiko Ehrmantraut

kumiko Ehrmantraut

kumiko Ehrmantraut

Latest posts by kumiko Ehrmantraut (see all)

  • Lifestyle Inflation: Getting What You Deserve - February 15, 2019

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Filed Under: FINANCE 101, Financial Planning Tagged With: LIFE, MY STORIES

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Comments

  1. Melissa Mensing says

    January 15, 2017 at 1:12 pm

    Thank you.

    • kumiko Ehrmantraut says

      January 15, 2017 at 1:20 pm

      You are so very welcome Melissa!

  2. Mystery Money Man says

    January 15, 2017 at 6:28 pm

    Love this post Miko! It’s related to an idea I’ve had floating around for a few weeks now. I think you’ve inspired me to get to work writing it.

    What ever happened to wanting the moment you have now? Love this!

    • kumiko Ehrmantraut says

      January 15, 2017 at 6:48 pm

      Thank you so much! I can’t wait to read your post!

  3. Dyana says

    January 16, 2017 at 10:54 am

    I’m guilty and sitting back and waiting on “tomorrow” to be happy. Fear and a lack of confidence often causes me to proscrastinate and I am just left daydreaming of what can/will happen when I just put one foot in front of the other. Going for it is definitely a goal of mine this year.

    • Dyana says

      January 16, 2017 at 10:55 am

      *of

    • kumiko Ehrmantraut says

      January 16, 2017 at 10:58 am

      I am also left daydreaming most of the time. It’s time we stop dreaming and start doing. We deserve the best kind of happiness after all, right? Thank you Dyana!

  4. Sandie says

    January 31, 2017 at 5:27 am

    This is definitely not the easiest lesson to learn! I am one of those people who is always looking forward to the future–the day my husband and I are debt free, the day I can quit my job, etc etc..I love the quote you posted by Alfred Souza. “These obstacles were my life” really stuck with me. Thanks for writing this!

    • kumiko Ehrmantraut says

      February 3, 2017 at 2:49 pm

      Thanks Sandie!

  5. Tracy Serno says

    February 14, 2017 at 7:29 am

    You just brought me some new insight! We don’t need to have a perfect partner to be happy, just like the finance part as well.

    • kumiko Ehrmantraut says

      February 14, 2017 at 11:03 am

      Thanks Tracy!

About Kumiko Ehrmantraut

Hello, I'm Kumiko, but everyone just calls me Miko. Welcome to my blog, The Budget Mom. I am an Accredited Financial Counselor® , and mom to a rambunctious 5-year-old boy. Come along with me as I strive to live a life I love on a budget that I can afford. Read more about me.

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