One of the biggest reasons for creating MommyLuvs2save was to create a community of moms and dads who want to help their family save money when buying essentials in order to free up money for debt repayment. My own family has paid off over $111,500 in consumer debt including credit cards, student loan debt and 2 vehicles. I am a teacher at heart. I want to use the skills that I have learned to help YOU ditch debt. I want to encourage each of you in your efforts so that one day you can feel the freedom of being debt free. I’m not quite there yet either (we still have a mortgage) so I need encouragement as well 
It can be very difficult to pay down debt. There are many temptations to spend money. We live in a culture that encourages debt and spending. In addition, expenses come up and there never seems to be any extra money for paying down debt. I want to urge each of you to participate in a challenge. Just leave a comment about one positive step you’ve taken for your family each day. Did you eat in instead of going out? Did you save money at the grocery store? Did you pay extra on your credit card? Leave a comment below and we will cheer one another on every day and every step of the way.
The challenge is to leave a comment about what YOU have done to work on getting debt free each day. One winner will be chosen to win a $50 Amazon gift card at the end of each month. To participate in the challenge you must comment on at least 10 posts during the month.
* I will also be sharing my progress from the day prior.
My Progress: Wow, February already ! So, we’re one month into 2013 now. What have you accomplished this year so far. I’m excited to have paid off the mini-van. I guess that’s my main January accomplishment. I also just last night paid an extra $700 on the mortgage. I was hoping to pay $750, but I’m still happy. I also paid off the Discover in full (as usual). That’s about all I’ve done so far in 2013. Our emergency fund hasn’t gone up much, but I’m putting my Discover on ice for a few months to see the difference. I’m going to start using the envelope system TODAY. I’m splitting up our money for the week and once the $$ is gone, it’s gone.
Ro was able to go into work an hour late yesterday, so we went and had our $1.59 breakfast at our favorite diner. It was nice. That was really the only money that I spent. I spent some time getting ready for our little puppy that will be coming to live with us tomorrow. Olivia and Kayla (especially Olivia) are so excited. I’m not looking forward to all of the work of a puppy. I think they are harder than babies in some ways (you can’t stick a diaper on ‘em).
I organized our paperwork and coupons. I have several deals that I plan to do for food for the girl’s upcoming birthday party. I’m going to make chili in the crockpot and I have everything I need for that. I think I have coupons for most everything else I need. I downloaded some new FREE Kindle books. I love getting free books. I also snagged the free chips sample I posted yesterday. My brother in law was over and he fixed the ice maker on our fridge. It stopped working during Hurricane Sandy and hasn’t worked since. I’m happy to have ice again (ahhh, the little things).
What did you do? Leave a comment We’d love to hear about it You could make 2013 your year. Who will the February winner be ? We’ll see…
In the first month of 2013, I managed to stay on budget and pay off the last credit card with a balance. My goal for feb is to start attacking the home equity loan. Stockpile is pretty good.
Awesome. That’s a great start to the year
That has got to feel good!
So far this year we have grown our Emergency Fund/Savings from 1K up to 4700. With tax refunds coming soon and whatnot, I’d like to get it up to 10K in the next couple months and at that point we will focus on paying down our mortgage.
Sounds like a great plan to me
Holy cow! That’s amazing!
Some money spent on groceries but not bad. I have all our tax stuff together, I think so hoping to get those done soon. Nothing so special done in January but have 11 more months to go. I just can’t get it together. We have zero in savings. It seems everything I get some in there something happens.
We paid our mortgage yesterday and my hubby did a mystery shop, so that was $11, but will be reimbursed plus $7 next month. We use our Discover card for everything, other than when we shop at Target for groceries. Then, I use our Target visa to save the extra 5%. Both cards are paid in full each month. I figure if we put everything on the Discover: gas, other groceries, our wireless bill, our comcast bill, our electric bill, etc. we have to pay for those things anyways. So, if we put them on the card, we earn the cashback, but never pay interest. Therefore, we are essentially “making” money using the card! The cashback adds up quickly when you charge everything in a month on there. I use the rewards to purchase things on Amazon or turn them in for a slightly larger gift card. We just record everything that is spent on the card in a spreadsheet each month, so I can see that we are staying on budget. In January, we got our savings up to $7000. Our previous home, that we were supposed to close on in September, was hit by a drunk driver a month after we moved out. No one was there thankfully, but there was $35000 worth of damage to the home. So, through the home owner’s insurance, we got reimbursed some for the time the sale of the house has been stalled. So, that went right into savings! It’s all going towards a down payment on our next home, so I feel like everything has to go to savings right now that can! Good luck to everyone else on here. It’s hard, but let’s keep on going!
Which company do you use for mystery shopping Nicole ? I’m always looking for new reputable ones.
Felt like going out to eat last night because the fridge seemed pretty empty. I resisted and ended up using the rest of a block of Velvetta and the rest of a container of fat free yogurt I’d made; mixed together and heated with some onions and spices, it made a nice sauce for some leftover shredded chicken and hash browns in the freezer. Not fancy, but there was a time I would have let the cheese and yogurt go bad and would have gone out to eat…Spent no money on food but found a good deal on gas so filled the tank. Happy weekend.
Driving home from the grocery store last night, I was reflecting on how the month had gone. January was our first month of tithing on our first fruits. Even with making our full tithe, we still managed to pay off $1,490 of principle. I couldn’t help but to feel extremely blessed as I was putting away my huge purchase ($377.77 before my loyalty card, $166.44 after my card/coupons) and thank God for continuing to take care of all of our needs. I continue to pray daily for the readers of ML2S. 2013 is our year!
Again, you guys always motivate me! I plan to call the cable company this weekend and lowery bill.
DirectTV wouldn’t lower mine more than $15, but it was going to almost triple what I pay now, so I left them for Netflix. Good luck! Hope they’re are willing to work with you!
Yesterday was payday, so that meant grocery shopping for the next two weeks, getting gas, and paying bills. Still had money left over to pay a couple extra bills, which is nice and that will help for the babysitting costs for our night away when hubs comes home.
The first month of the year wasn’t as great as we wanted, but a few things changed for hubs on deployment that ended up costing him more money, so that has kinda been stinky. I guess one thing is that I got the manager position at work and will be able to afford my son’s tuition (and doing a scholarship application to help there be a little more wiggle room), but no matter what he will be in school next year 3 days a week. Also finally got hubs to agree to pay off his car before trying to get the credit card paid off since it’s about half the card balance. We’ll get it–just like you eat an elephant–one bite at a time.
For January 2013, we started the Dave Ramsey plan (love it) still plugging in final numbers so I will let you know. We sold our truck which we still owed 11 months on. We made money on it which we promptly put into savings ($3000). We are currently a one car household but that is ok because I stay at home and hubby only works 9 miles away. That also saves use $385 a month in a truck payment plus cost of Insurance. Eventually we will purchase a used vehicle for my husband to get back and forth to work in and pay cash but for now we are good. I have put back $150 (squirrel money) as we call it down here. This is emergency money that I have that my hubby doesnt know about (he he) for emergencies. I will continue to add to it as I sell things. Goals for February are to pay off last old hospital bill of $200 on the 15th and pay off recent hospital bill of $157. We are canceling are Directv and our AT&T contracts. This will put another $200 back into the our savings each month. So I will let you know how much we added to savings at end of February.
That is awesome Shelly! Amazing how you can “find” money just by being smart with your finances. I am seriously going to talk to my hubby about completely ditching our DirectTV. It makes me sick when I see how much money we spend each year on this.
Me, too. I think it’s absurd what we spend on tv. But it is like beating my head against the wall trying to get my husband to let it go.