Where to Even Start?

Saving.

Budget.

Debt Free.

Smart Credit Use.

Building credit.

All of those are words and phrases that everyone has to think about, but no one wants to. How do you start saving? How do I make a budget? What do I need in a budget? Debt Free, what does that even mean? I’m so lost in credit I don’t even know how to get out? These are all questions that have crossed our minds at some point in time. If you’re reading my blog, that means you want to start getting your life on a financially responsible track so that one day you can do your big financial goal. 

Before you start panicking, the first thing you need to do is be honest with yourself and with what you have in front of you. 

This was my starting point: 3 store cards with $250+ that need to be paid off, 3 credit cards with $1500+ that need to be paid off. Student Loans that look scarier and scarier the closer I got to the end of the month. Car loan, insurance, cell phone bill. A bank account with a very low balance. Gas prices going up. A boyfriend that lived an hour and a half away that likes going out. 

I lost sleep over that. Everything felt like it was against me. I was 23, out of college working retail. But I was smart, I knew how to use excel. I knew I needed to do something. And I started with google. I started reading different peoples thoughts on how to “snowball” your debt away. How to get this that and the other thing in line. And I started trying.

I think my first budget listed all my credit cards, store cards, student loans, car issues, the total owed on each card and the words “Help me.” An example of what my excel sheet looked like is this:

Debt	Owe	Minimum Payment	due date
Store Card 1	$250.00	$25.00	14
Store Card 2	$250.00	$25.00	3
Store Card 3	$300.00	$25.00	28
Credit Card 1	$1,000.00	$25.00	22
Credit Card 2	$1,300.00	$25.00	3
Credit Card 3	$3,000.00	$25.00	15
Student Loan 1	$2,000.00	$25.00	28
Student Loan 2	$7,000.00	$98.00	25
Student Loan 3	$13,000.00	$113.68	14
Cell Phone	$100 Month	$100.00	14

Listing that out made me realize: Yes I have a problem. Yes I need to do something about it.

Snowball payments: Looking at all your accounts and their interest rate. Finding the card with the highest interest rate and paying that one down first. Then when you pay off that account, moving that payment to the next highest interest rate. So if you are paying $50 on card 1, and $25 on card 2 and you pay off card 1, then the following payment to card 2 will be $75 until that card is paid off. Then continue this down the line of debt. 

When I started paying these off, I took that advice and changed it. Since the 3 store cards had smaller balances I wanted them gone first. I paid the min payment every pay check, while making sure to pay the other bills on time. Once those three cards were at zero, I took that money and divided it among the other cards. Slowly those balances began dropping and I started feeling better.  I will go into more detail about paying off debt in another blog.

I have been learning the hard way how to save money, get out of debt and use credit cards smart. This blog is things that I have learned along the way. Things that I am doing to save money.  I am not an expert in this field, I am only sharing things I have learned and things that have worked for me. I am also sharing my mishaps with finance, short coming with savings. And ideas that I tried . Ask me questions. 

Budgeting is scary, and I'll share what I've learned to do. 

It can be hard to get started saving money, but you can do it!

There are many resources out there. Not everyone will work for you, but keep looking, you will find one that does.