This weekend our daughter will have her First Communion. I’m wondering why I thought having a party at our house was a good idea as I frantically try to clean the house between writing blog posts and cleaning pounds of baseball dirt from the bathtub.
But it’s important to celebrate these occasions! Hopefully our loved ones will overlook the state of our home and celebrate our little one on her special day.
My middle schooler walked with me into the store and helped me lug bags of dog food this week. I paid for everything with my debit card as usual, and we left.
On the way home, he asked why I was still using a credit card. And I realized that we hadn’t talked about the difference between debit and credit in a while.
It reminded me of a talk I heard recently. A mom was imploring other women to read real books. When we read on our phones or a tablet, our kids always assume we are playing games. (After all, that’s what they do on a tablet!)
But there’s no denying a physical book.
What appearance are we giving to our kids when we spend or save money? Using cash is a better way to show them good money habits. But in a society that is getting farther away from paper every year, it’s a good idea to explain the concept of a debit card to your kids. And tell them why it’s different from borrowing money!
Baseball season is in full swing. That means choosing between eating supper at 4:30 (sometimes 4:00) or 9:00. (Or, if you’re a teenage boy, the answer is, obviously, both.)
Sometimes eating on the go is just a must. Using my handy snacks for trips list has helped, but I’m planning to add to my bag of tricks this year! If you have a favorite tip for eating meals on the go (and avoiding fast food or dropping $20 at the concession stand), let me know in the comments!
This week I put together our goals check in for April, and I’ve gotta tell you…it’s way more fun to write goals when you aren’t giving all your money to credit card companies!
Of course we aren’t splurging on a bunch of “stuff” now that we’re debt free. (Ok, we did a little splurging on our trip last week!) Most of that debt money is now going to fill our savings account.
But watching money build in an account is a million times more fun than sending it off to pay for things you bought years ago. It seems so silly that we lived that way for so long! Setting those big goals was sooooo worth it!
One evening, when our #yearofno was wearing thin (and getting on our nerves a little bit), Hubby and I talked about the first thing we’d do when we were free from credit card debt. We considered a few ideas, but finally decided that a little getaway was the perfect reward for our family.
We sent in our last payment a couple of weeks ago! So we decided to book a hotel for one night of spring break. We took the kids to Indianapolis for a couple of days of fun.
I can’t tell you how relaxing it is to get away with the family on a trip you can cover with cash. It felt truly rewarding after years of looking for free things to do over spring break.
Not that there’s anything at all wrong with having a frugal or free spring break. You can bet we’ll still have plenty of those in our future! But sometimes a cash splurge is just what the doctor ordered.
One of my big concerns with reaching our big goal (paying off a ton of credit card debt) was…what’s gonna happen next? Will we really be able to keep our money saving ways once we paid off debt and our #yearofno was over?
But in my next couple of shopping trips, I discovered a funny thing. Now I’m actually more protective of our money than I was before! Maybe that has something to do with the fact that every dollar I save…is a dollar I save!
Now I’m not saving money so I can ship it out to a big corporation. (Not that I have anything against big corporations, per se. It just isn’t much fun when you aren’t getting anything in return.)
We’ve been talking about this a bit in the Facebook group. If you’ve always wanted to be part of a group that gets it…no need to explain your frugal ways or the reason your celebrating saving $2…this is the group for you!
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. Learn more. 
