JOIN THE CHALLENGE!
Money controlling you? I know the feeling. My family has been living this real life on a budget for a long time and I can tell you that there's never a perfect season, but with a few changes you can start to reign in your money issues.
Join the 5-Day Challenge today and start getting your money life in order this week!
Rachel says
Car maintenance can be so pricey! My husband and I drive old cars, but thankfully he’s very mechanically skilled and he fixes them himself in our driveway. Still the parts and the tools cost money–we regularly set aside short-term savings for the unexpected-yet-expected car repair!
Jessi says
It’s awesome having a handy husband! 🙂 And sometimes the parts can cost just as much as the labor it’s insane! Good for y’all being prepared!
Rabia Lieber says
We seem to have one unexpected bill per month, so that just takes whatever is left in our account at the time. Not a great strategy, but it’s pretty much all we can do for now. We are working really hard to get our credit cards paid off and hopefully then we can build some savings.
Jessi says
Getting out of debt is such a challenge. We are still working on some of ours (student loans, car, and mortgage). It took some real scrapping by to get our credit cards paid off but it’s so worth it in the end. Keep going and good luck! 🙂
Adrian's Crazy Life says
I just got a great deal on snow tires for my car. We found them on Craigslist. We found ones with 80% wear for the front and about 60% wear for the back for about $200. I figure we saved a good $400 or more dollars over a brand new set. I don’t know why people have such a problem with buying anything uses. I think it’s so much smarter.
Jessi says
Buying used really does save! I think that in our society we’ve become so accustomed to everything being ‘throw away’ that we get freaked out by using something used. And that’s a great deal on tires! 🙂
Cat says
Great idea. I just had to buy 4 new tires. Luckily I had the funds but given the age of my car, I def need to transfer some $ automatically to a car maintenance fund every month! xo, Cat@BudgetBlonde
Jessi says
Thank you Cat! My hubs truck is pretty old and he’s a road warrior for work so he literally has to change the oil almost every month so it can get expensive! lol
Abby Lawson says
Love this idea! Question– do you have actual separate accounts for car maintenance, Christmas presents, etc. or do you have one account and keep your own register for how much is car, how much is Christmas, and so on? Right now we have one account, but I’m not the best at remembering to separate it all out in my register, so maybe different ones would help? Thanks for the great tips!
~Abby =)
Jessi says
Yes we do have separate accounts. I use Paypal as my ‘gift account’ to pay for Christmas, birthdays, or special occasion presents. I used to have one account but the money would always end up getting spent on something else. It’s been a lot easier to track with a separate account. 🙂