We weren’t sure how long it would take to get another job and what job that might be. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this was a low point in my career, or at least I thought it would be.
Now, this could be a sob story about how unemployed life is hard, but it’s not.
Since I was laid off 4 years ½ years ago, I have increased my salary by over 100%.
We love Disney movies. We’ve been to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida several times. We play Disney themed board games at our house on family fun nights. I’m typing this article while wearing pink Mickey Mouse pajama pants.
Big. Disney. Nerds.
So, when my son and daughter asked about taking a trip to Walt Disney World, inspiration struck. I knew this could be a great opportunity to teach my kids a hands-on lesson about budgeting and saving money to reach a bigger goal.
I was making about $14,000 a year when I became pregnant with my daughter… I was nowhere near my family, I didn’t even have a car or a driver’s license, and within a few months later, I didn’t have a fiancé either. So how did I go from that point to being a lawyer earning a six-figure salary? Well…
Allison Baggerly and her husband partnered together to pay off $111,000 of debt in 4 ½ years. They completed this difficult feat on two teacher’s salaries with two little kids at home.
Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials! Whether you are just starting to think about popping the question, or you’ve been engaged a while, there’s much …
Today, we’re going to be talking about something that is, for some reason, extremely taboo. So, I made sure to get my Taboo Tea here! *sips* Because, we’re going to be talking about debt. And, for some reason, bills and money and debt is something that is just not talked about.
I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was thinking about it for years before, but I never made any move. The signs just weren’t there. I didn’t know what to look for. And then reality hit and I bought a place within 4 days of being on the market.
It’s a miracle that everything turned out the way it did really.
When we really got serious was when we had our first child, and we didn’t have enough money to fix our car that had broke down on the side of the road. And we had a thousand dollars worth of repairs, which—in the grand scheme of life—is not earth-shattering, but because we did not have it and we had an infant to cart around, we were really concerned. And so what does a person do when they can’t fix their car but they need a vehicle to get to work?
Feeding primary school children can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be expensive.
First and foremost, ‘I can’t afford it!’
Yeah, that’s a myth.
Biggest myth ever! And I’m like, as much as we have so many different things that are out there online that tells you, ‘yes you can,’ people still want to believe at the end of the day, no they can’t.
Not all people who follow a frugal path are doing it for the same reasons. Some simply have to do it and find themselves making choices based solely on the sticker price. Others want to do it because they want to preserve value for other things or they have other values that align well with frugal choices.
I just… I didn’t like how it felt. I knew we had all these student loans that we had carried with us from college, and so that was the real event that got us kicked into gear and started our debt-free journey.
A good mental model can help you determine what’s essential and what’s not essential. This is critical as we’re flooded with information regularly. Think about the amount of data that’s thrown at us even just related to investing. It’s a lot.
This can actually be a very controversial topic. And we’ve talked to people who firmly believe that you should get to paying off your mortgage and living mortgage-free as soon as possible, and we’ve also talked to people who firmly believe the exact opposite!
Because in my naivete, I thought, Hey, saving $50 on this party would help out her family and make us all better friends.
The math works out, but what I said couldn’t have been more wrong.