HOW TO SAVE MONEY // Learning as we go!

Oh man...money. Everyone deals with this, and it SHOULD NOT be a taboo topic! We CAN learn from one another! Saving money is not easy, but nothing feels better than buying something that you have worked towards for a long time. So...how do we save??

We are are very frugal. Not annoying frugal, we still eat out and occasionally buy stuff that we want, but for the most part, we keep things pretty tight. For example: eating out once a week instead of three times, when we do eat out we only get water, we make a grocery list and we stick to that list (no extras!), I have not bought any new clothes in two months (this is a major sacrifice for me), and we talk about almost every purchase before buying. These are just the few that I can think of at the moment.

We have also found the capital app very helpful. With each purchase that we make, money is rounded up and deposited into savings...this adds up fast! We use this as our fun money.

We have our bank account broken down into different categories. This helps us because we can see our money and where it is at. In our account we have these categories: joint account, emergency savings, wedding savings, travel savings, and car+home purchase savings. Joint account is where all the money comes and goes out of. We pay all bills out of this account. The extra that is left over, then gets moved to the other categories. We set a goal for the amount that we want in each category, then we just work towards reaching that goal! Our main rule is that once money is put in the Emergency category, it DOES NOT come out unless there truly is an emergency. For us this would be unexpected illness, car issues, home issues, or job loss.

We also strongly believe in a budget. Having an outline will help you see where your money is going and not over spend!! Eventually I will do a separate blogpost about the budget outline that we use. We attribute our success so far to our budget.

It is also so nice to talk to someone, who is not a family or a friend, about your finances. We have a financial advisor, and we have found it super helpful. She gives us her honest opinion and helps to guide us on big decisions that require a little bit of debt. For example, with her advising, we are able to pay for my college tuition and our wedding completely out of pocket, no loans needed.

This is real life ya'll. Money is hard, but it can also be fun.

Photo by Mary Zirkle @marypstafford