Give yourself 'financial peace of mind' (2024)

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Its the holiday season. We are all tempted by amazing deals and the enormous savings that companies and brands are flashing in our faces. It’s hard not to want to jump on every great deal. I know I have a difficult time passing up on tremendous savings. Unfortunately I have to keep a realistic mind.

Many years ago we found ourselves in dire straights. We were greatly in debt and didn’t have two dimes to rub together. It was a really rough time in our lives. Thankfully we were able to dig ourselves out of the “black hole” of debt. We have stayed out of debit for about 10+ years. We do have some debit (mortgage, one car payment, medical bills) but they are manageable.

We were foolish years ago. We didn’t create a reasonable and responsible budget. We spent money frivolously. We didn’t take to heart the consequences of spend-thrift spending.

Not all of our spending was foolish. There were times were we genuinely needed to spend the money, such as replacing the fridge when ours broke down (the cost of repair was a lot – it was cheaper to get a new fridge), or unexpected car repairs.

That whole experience taught us a VERY valuable lesson – you must have a reasonable budget and stick to it. At the same time you need to allow yourself a little flexibility so that you are able to enjoy yourself too.

The first thing we did was take a look at all our monthly expenses (electric, phone service, satellite dish, insurance…). Once we had a list of what our expenses were we tried to come up with the average monthly cost each expense cost us. Once we had some idea where our money was going we took each bill one by one and looked at ways to cut the expense down – even a little. For example, did we REALLY need all the channels with the satellite dish? If we cut down the gigs on our phone’s data plan, could we save money? What is we called the electric company and asked about savings plans.

It took a bit of work, and a lot of phone calls, but we were able to cut down our monthly expenses.

The next thing we did was look at other areas where we were spending money (trips to the coffee shop, ordering pizza, getting our haircut at salons…). After looking them over we were able to come up with a budget for all of these miscellaneous things.

We finally came up with a budget – one that was reasonable but also a bit flexible since there are times when “life happens” and you find yourself with an added expense.

We’ve adopted the motto “If we don’t have the money we don’t buy it”, meaning if we don’t truly have the miscellaneous cash for something we don’t buy it until we do – even if that means giving up a great sale.

If we HAVE to buy something on credit (for example, a new dishwasher to replace the one that died) we make it a point to pay it off in full the following month (if possible) or within a few months. We never “only” pay the minimum. We pay as much off as we possibly can.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to be swayed by awesome holiday deals, but don’t lose sight of your finances or financial goals.