We've been on a strict budget for years now. In the process we've paid off almost $50,000 of debt in the first 18 months, kept ourselves from getting behind for the winter, saved up money for a down payment on our new house, and watch God reward us for our obedience.
It hasn't been easy. Our first year and a half we had a bare bones budget. Our grocery budget was almost nothing which meant a lot of beans and rice and other very cheap meals. We spent no money on vacation and used all our tax return on bills. There was no fun money for movies and dates. We buckled down and got that debt paid off leaving us with almost $1,000 a month extra to put towards other things.
We used the snowball effect to pay down debt and boy did it snowball. When we started we had a couple payments left on my husbands emergency room ride, which was only $100 a month. It doesn't seem like a lot but when the next lowest payment was a little more then a $100 a month and you are making almost 2x payments every month, it gets paid off quickly. Within a few months we had an extra $300 that we put towards medical bills. That summer we were sent a letter that stated if we paid XXX amount, our bill would be forgiven. They took like 40% off our bill! I don't know how we did it, but we found that money. Now we had about $600 that was going to my last student loan. It took a year to pay it off but we did it.
There was such a relief when that last bill was paid and we had that extra cash in hand. We started saving for vacations, enrolled our kids in activities, paid extra on our house, and had plenty of money set aside for the winter when my husband is unemployed.
I have become more aware of what money was being spent on. We were in control of where our money was going and being spent, instead of the money controlling us. I cannot tell you how important it is to set a budget and stick with it. Get debt paid off and make your money work for you.
Check back on an upcoming post on what budget program we use.
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