
I’m super excited to share this story with y’all today and I’m even more excited that Money Saving Mom agreed to share it! One of my favorite memories from working in retail, while being a credit card welding maven and “up-selling” customers by “let’s just charge it”, is when I came face-to-face with the girl that I deep down wanted to be.
The one without massive debt weighing me down and the ability to pay my own way. Read the full story on Money Saving Mom or read more of the teaser below! 🙂
I used to feel rich, as if I had “made it” when I whipped out one of my shiny credit cards.
I loved the rushed I’d get purchasing a brand new Coach bag. I loved spoiling my loved ones with expensive gifts that were well above my pay grade.
I loved going on well-deserved vacations and spontaneous weekend getaways. I felt like a reality TV star. I always looked like a million bucks and felt that I looked good too.
But then, in the dark of night, it would seek me out.
The fear.
The looming.
The dread.
The truth.
I was broke.
Sure, I had nice things and I had amazing credit, but I was broke. I was scrapping by living paycheck to “please God, let this paycheck last me until next payday”.
I thought I was happy living the good life with all my stuff. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.
I mean, aren’t we supposed to enjoy life? Enjoy the fruits of our labor by spending our money how we see fit?
Yes. We are supposed to enjoy our lives and spend our money in a way that does God’s Will but we too often forget that cash is real money. Debt just means you borrowed the funds to pay for it.
I used to love my credit cards. I couldn’t live without them. I had to always have them with me. I felt empowered when I used them, but then I’d spend the night stressing about how I was going to pay back the money plus pay rent and buy groceries.
One day, while working a huge sale as a manager of a jewelry store, I came face to face with the person I wanted to be.
Read the full post here on Money Saving Mom!


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I love writing about my family's journey towards financial freedom and about ways to optimize your life, save money, and live well! Here are a few more ways you can save money:
- Cook at home. During our debt-free journey we NEVER went out to eat because we honestly couldn't afford it, and now, even though we could afford it, we still don't go out to eat that often. But I'll be honest, meal planning was such a struggle for me during that time, but it totally saved our budget when I did it effectively! I ended up using a meal planning service for about two years which helped me not only meal plan better, but also helped me to create wholesome, healthy, and delicious meals for my whole family! You can see all the details and try different meal plans based on your preferences here .
- Earn gift cards. A simple way to earn a little extra money from home by using the Swagbucks site instead of Google for searching. I actually still do this to earn Home Depot gift cards for all our home projects. You can also do surveys and a few other things to earn points, which you redeem to purchase gift cards from them. Swagbucks is what we used to earn Amazon gift cards to help pay for Christmas or cash through PayPal to help pay off our debt faster. You can sign up for Swagbucks here.
- Switch Cell Phone Providers. One of the best things we did on the debt-free journey was to switch from our super expensive $150+ a month cell phone bill to a much more affordable plan! In fact, my cell phone bill is only $30 a month (my husband's plan is paid by his business)! Check out Mint Mobile here to see if you can save your family some money!
- Create a budget. It took us a while to figure out a budget that works well for our family, but the two things that we have used over the years and still do (and still love) are my Budget Binder and Personal Capital (online budgeting software). You can see my Budget Binder tutorial here and check out Personal Capital here.