Phew, April has simply flown by!  It has been a good month for us.  We’ve had two birthdays, and a visit from my mother in law. We’ve also have visited the beach twice, which has been lots of fun.

I thought it might be nice to at times share our spending on the blog, mainly for accountability.  We became debt free by finally kicking my student loans to the curb in November.  It has been such a blessing.  The weight has been lifted!

We have been following Dave Ramsey’s baby steps, and I must say that his plan is pretty amazing when pursuing debt freedom.  I guess you would call us Dave-ish since we didn’t follow his plan perfectly.  After all, we did take on two mortgages temporarily when we moved for my husband’s job.  I’m sure Dave would never have approved of this, but it was important for us to remain together.  Not many people would rent to a family with eight kids, eight chickens, three rabbits, a dog, and pet birds.  Getting rid of our pets was a non-negotiable for us and so we went ahead and purchased a house with some land.  I hope to share the second part of our debt free story before too long.  You can read about the first part here.

Once we arrived at the “wealth building” baby steps, I really thought there has to be more than this.  I want for our family to be financially free, but I do not want building “wealth” to be our end goal.  The Dave Ramsey “Live Like No One Else, so One Day You Can Live Like No One Else” mantra kind of started to rub me the wrong way.  Yes, there are many ways that we can “live like no one else” without buying an abundance of material things, but I found myself looking for more.

And so, I started to expand my reading material.  I have found that I probably identify more with people who pursue frugality for the sake of frugality, instead of those who pursue frugality only to build their assets.  This sounds so nuts to me since not too long ago this wasn’t my mind set at all!  But while embracing a simpler life with less bills I realized that joy and happiness is found in the here and now.  I don’t need to look at a life of frugality now as something I’m forced to do just to “build wealth”  Frugality means concentrating on the simple and meaningful things in life.  While I still have a long way to go, thinking about these things has increased my joy.

*Spending time outdoors with my kiddos is both fun and free!

And so, I would like to share a few frugal things that we have done this month to strengthen our financial picture.  Our main goal right now is to pay off our home early.  It is a wonderful feeling to pay down our mortgage as quickly as we can, despite the intimidatingly big number staring at us.

Mortgage Payoff in September 2017: $242,500

Mortgage Payoff in January 2018 (we used $38,000 from our other house sale to pay this down quickly): $202,000

Current (April 2018) Mortgage Payoff: $189,991

A few frugal things we accomplished this month:

• We stopped dance lessons.  These lessons were far and expensive.  Approximate savings including gas per month: $600
• We looked for free activities.  We went to a free concert at a local church, and visited several state parks.
• I opened a couple of credit cards.  Yes, I know this is a huge Dave Ramsey faux pas, but if behavior is in check then credit cards can be beneficial when using them for regular purchases (no splurging!) for cash back rewards.  This only works if you pay the card in full each month, so no interest is accrued.  If you do not have the motivation to do this, then credit cards are not for you! I took the $70 Gift Card offer from Amazon to purchase a large pack of diapers, a huge pack of baby wipes, a violin bow for my son, bird seed, shampoo, and clothes pins for my new clothes line. *I must admit that I was a little frustrated when my debit card information was stolen last month for a second time, which is another reason we opened these accounts. It is not fun to worry about your bank account being drained.
• My husband put up a clothes line!  Once my clothes pin are in I hope to put it to good use to save on our utility bill.
• I found a forgotten $19.30 in my Walmart Savings Catcher App. Woo hoo!

Our April Spending

• Mortgage: $1344
• Pure Talk USA (cell phones for four of us): $106
• Electricity: $159
• Internet and Security System Bundle: $65
• Car Insurance (for van, truck, and camper): $151.32
• Life Insurance: $13.30
• Gas: $558
• Groceries: $857
• Eating Out: $103
• Lowe’s: $24
• Tractor Supply: $91
• Eye Patches: $21.55
• Drivers Ed Course: $25
• Misc.: $140
• Violin Lessons: $120
• Birthdays ($150 (x 2 birthday children) for gifts, $86 dinner out, $30 misc. family party/food supplies): $416

Total: $4194.17

Total minus mortgage: $2850.17

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Unaccounted for here is our savings, 401k contributions, giving, extra we threw at the mortgage, and health insurance which is mainly covered by my husband’s employer.  The birthday funds came from a savings account sinking fund. We really need to work on lowering our grocery and gas budget. We spent substantially more on groceries this month than we usually do, but we spent less on eating out since we were not at ballet.  However, my favorite discount grocery store is one hour away in the town we drove to for dance lessons, and we didn’t go there at all this month.  I’m trying to think of a better plan.

My goal is for our spending to eventually be in the $2000-2500 range per month excluding our mortgage.  We want that mortgage payment to go away as quickly as possible!

So, it’s been fun sharing this financial update.

Thank you so much for stopping by!