Did you know that over 70 percent of families live paycheck-to-paycheck?
How about the average family in America has $15,310 in credit card debt?
Or that about 56% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts?
That is scary to think about but I know how scary because my husband and I used to be one of these statistics for many years. We were budget FAILURES.
In 2014 we got our act together, and worked really hard all year. Why? We wanted to start a family but felt so much burden from our debt. In two years we paid off over 35k in debt, had a fully funded 12 month emergency fund, and maxed out our retirement funds. <For the most part only one of us was employed>
Why do most budgets fail?
It’s because they don’t have a WHY for sticking to their plan.
What is you plan? Do you have a plan? Before you even create a plan you need this first.
You need to know your WHY.
Do you want to:
- Become completely debt free
- Build an Emergency fund
- Go on fun, exotic vacations
- Save for your kids college education
- Invest more in retirement
Have a POWERFUL WHY.
Whatever your reasons are, write them down and put them somewhere you can see them. You want your WHY motivate you, so if that means putting a sticky note on the bathroom mirror and on the dashboard of your car so it is always front of your mind, than DO IT.
On any journey to reach a goal, setbacks and roadblocks will come.
Your WHY will be the reason you stick to your plan.
Our why was to start a family. We knew I would run into fertility struggles on my end, and having a chunk of money set aside so we could be ready for the potential cost of infertility was our why. This why was so powerful we did what we never thought was possible. It was not even that we were “bad” with money, we just had debt from cars, school loans, and things add up very quickly.
We are huge Dave Ramsey graduates, and used a variety of his books, and free resources to not only get 100% DEBT free, to saving for retirement. He is
Here are 20 AMAZING budget printables to help you get started. I actually have used many of these, and working on creating my own that is personalized for our needs.
Cash Envelope Template via Frugality Gal
Finance Binder Cover via Frugality Gal
Soon-to-Be Debt Free Workbook via One Beautiful Home
Simple Budget Worksheet via A Cultivated Nest
Monthly Family Budget via Spectacled Owl
New Budget Workbook via Cents of Sanity
Vacation Budget Worksheet via Living Well Spending Less
Monthly Family Budget via Simplistically Living
Monthly Budget Printable via A Day in Candiland
Bill Tracker via Scattered Squirrel
Family Budget Worksheet via Wondermom Wannabe
Monthly Budget Sheet via A Cultivated Nest
52 Week Money Saving Challenge Printable via Simplistically Living
Finance Tracking Printables via Scattered Squirrel
As at stay at home mom I often think about money and budgeting. Thanks for the great links! We do a money envelope but I think we could definitely use more techniques.
We are terrible envelope users! I wish we were better, but I stared using that new app Every Dollar last year and that has helped do the same. I tend to feel guilt that I don’t have a job outside the home so I really can get a tad crazy over the budget haha
We’ve used the app YNAB (You Need a Budget) for awhile but we got lazy and haven’t been using it that much now. I know the guilt thing well. I do things here and there to help contribute to the kitty but it’s not consistent. So YES. BUDGET ALL THE WAY!
Wow this post is right on time! My husband and I are getting serious about getting out of debt completely and sticking to a budget is definitely something that we’ve failed at in the past. Thanks so much for the printables!
Thanks! If you don’t love pen and paper- there is an App called Every Dollar that is free and amazing. I don’t know about you but the military culture we live around seems to be pro-debt and almost hinders the debt free vision. It’s hard to stay on track sometimes!
I found your blog through a Google search (on deployment goals) and I stumbled across this post. My husband and I are working on our debt snowball. We hope to have our credit card paid off by our first anniversary this June and the remainder of our debt paid off by our second anniversary!
Yay!! Way to go Bailey ( and hubs). Please message me if you need any help with deployment or budget! Ps. I haven’t gone to your blog yet- but based on the similarities in our .coms I am already a huge fan.