FRIENDS AND FINANCES FEATURING LIVING LIFE LOVING US
Welcome back to friends and finances my featured blogger series that introduces you to some amazing bloggers. The biggest reason I decided to start this new series, is because I believe in getting different perspectives on handling your finances. I also believe that the bloggers featured here each week have a lot to offer the world and deserve recognition. Some of the blogs featured will be other personal finance related blogs and others will not be. The reason I chose to include some other blogs that are not related to finance is simple, we all have a financial story no matter who we are. I believe money is not the only focus we should have when traveling our road to financial freedom, and I think discovering some fun blogs that share something different can be a welcomed break from over focusing on money. So today I welcome Jenny and Jimmy from living life loving us.
What is the goal of your blog?
Living Life Loving Us was created to share our family adventures, food and fun tips we picked up along the way, mostly with our family. Our little hobby quickly turned in to our passion for incorporating budgeting in to every day life when we realized so many of our friends, family and even strangers were reaching out for help with their own budgeting dilemmas. We paid off over $120,000 in less than 12 months and want to help others feel the freedom we do from budgeting without deprivation. We all need help, sometimes it just takes someone sharing their story to inspire you to take the first step.
1. How long have you been blogging?
I’ve been blogging for 4 whole months. Instead of spending months preparing, learning and researching before launch, like most sane people may do, I just decided to jump right in. Zero knowledge about blogging. I figured if I didn’t just hit launch then I may never get started. Don’t regret it for a second. I learn something (many things) new every day, and have met some incredible people.
2. What has been your biggest money mistake?
That’s easy! We took a cash out extension and refinanced our first home. We wanted to add this grandiose patio extension with outdoor kitchen, built in fire pit and sunken hot tub. So we did.When we sold our house a year later (downsizing to help pay for our IVF treatments), the addition had added zero value to our home. We lost out on over $60,000 that could have been in our pocket from the sale of the house.Lesson learned. We are actually in the process of downsizing yet again but this time completely by choice and with no “loss” of money. We will be able to put a hefty down payment on the next house and lower our mortgage which, in turn, increases our savings rate percentage and gets us even closer to financial independence
.3. What is your best advice for recovering from or preventing this money mistake?
Obviously it’s easy to prevent this money mistake by not reaching for things out of your budget. Not even that, but just things you don’t need. If you have to borrow money for it, chances are you don’t need it.We recovered from our mistake by selling the home. Not going to be ideal for everyone, but it worked for us. It was like hitting the reset button on our mistake. We took a loss on money we could have made but luckily we didn’t take a loss on the house. We took the money we did make and used it as a down payment on our next home. Clean slate! And we won’t be taking out cash on our home EVER again…
4. Favorite quote or money advice and who was the author?
My absolute favorite and it came from my absolute favorite person too, my hubby!!!“Stop comparing yourself to everyone else and start comparing your yesterday to your today” – James E Carroll IIIBasically it just means that if you compare yourself to everyone else, chances are you’ll feel less than. Whether it’s how fast they’re paying off their debt, where someone else's blog is, or vacations or things people have. None of it is a picture of your life. You don’t know what’s going on in theirs and it’s therefore IMPOSSIBLE to compare yourself to that.If you look at where you were yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, a YEAR ago and then look at where you are today, you can be proud of the accomplishments you’ve made.
5. Favorite money or budgeting related book and author?
The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason and The Millionaire Nextdoor by Thomas J. Stanley
6. Favorite money saving website?
I have two and they’re not necessarily websites, but incredible Facebook groups.The first is the Choose FI Facebook group. There are just so many amazingly helpful people on there willing to share their “secrets”. There are tips for anything and everything money and budget related from so many different views. You’re open to ask and talk about anything and everything. Great place for just a plethora of financial related information.The second is Publix Savings 101. Not helpful if you don’t have a Publix grocery near you, but if you do…. Single most incredible place to get the best deals! This saint of a woman matches all of the weekly store sales with the store coupons AND manufacturer coupons as well as including the links for printables. I get on there once a week and plan our shopping trip!
7. Favorite money making app or website?
We have gotten a decent amount back using Ibotta, but my hubby likes to say that Personal Capital has done the most for our family.It’s not necessarily a “money saving” site, but it tracks your net worth. Every time you see that number go up it is motivation to keep going!We started off far in the red and not only received our $100,000 phone call (read more about that awesome call on their site), but we’ve hit the quarter million mark this month. Incredible motivation considering we started out with over $120,000 In debt and have the incomes of a nurse and firefighter.
8. Do you have an emergency fund or savings account?
Both. We have a rather large emergency fund of $30,000. This comes from me having a bit of an unsteady income, and also from our previous life experiences.We’ve hit quite a few medical related speed bumps including my husband getting cancer and me needing IVF. Those are things you do not expect and we wanted to be more than prepared if life threw us another curve ball.We have a savings account as well, but we call it our vacation fund. Something else that came from our speed bumps was the realization that even though we were going to live frugally, we were also going to live life to the fullest. Vacation fund is our largest budget line item!
9. What is your most successful strategy for saving money?
Having a plan. Ours was maxing out our retirement funds and learning to live, comfortably, on the money you make. You never see that money so it’s guaranteed savings. Also, any raise you get simply goes to another form of savings since
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