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How would your life change if you had $15,000 sitting in your bank account RIGHT NOW?
You immediately think of everything that you’d do with the money. Pay off debt, take a vacation to Cancun (my favorite place), help a family member, buy a NEW CAR! There’s an endless amount of options.
The truth is, I WANT you to have an extra $15,000 sitting in your bank account in the next 4 months. And I’m going to show you exactly how.
In this post you’ll learn:
- What we bought with the extra $15,000
- The #1 system that transformed how we save money
- And the 4 specific things we did to get extra money to save
BONUS: You’ll also get a free savings tracker down below to help you stay motivated as you start your journey to save $15,000.
Get the free 15K Savings Tracker here.
Little did we know how easy it was to save up the $15,000.
It was such a big goal that we had and we were pretty skeptical at first if we were really going to hit it in that short amount of time.
The reason we had a deadline was because we wanted to buy a new car before ours got much older.
Our car was starting to get some pretty high miles and just wasn’t suitable for all the traveling we do. So, we made a savings plan to get a new car.
A Jeep to be specific.
Before we started saving for the Jeep, we were never intentional about our money or about putting it into savings.
It’s not that we didn’t have the money. We were just too busy lazy to move it to the savings account.
We already had a system of saving money, but I knew that there was something missing. I knew that we could save even more money if we really put in the effort.
So we buckled down and figured out how to make it happen.
And within 4 months we had a Jeep!
You may want to use this $15,000 for something other than a vehicle, the point is to have a goal in mind of what you are saving for.
The #1 system that transformed our savings
The cash envelope system.
That’s right people, and before you click away just hear me out.
Like you, I’ve heard about the cash envelope system a bunch of times and always figured it wasn’t for me because I couldn’t stand carrying around cash.
There’s seriously nothing worse than having a whole pocket of change jangling around your bag. This is why I have a debit card, so I don’t have to carry cash.
I also didn’t think my husband would be on board with doing it (which I was totally wrong about …. Sorry!!)
After using the cash envelopes system for 1 month we were able to save an extra $300 dollars from our budget!
I couldn’t believe how much of a difference using the cash envelope method made.
Now, we didn’t take out all of our money every month.
Most of our bills are on autopay (which is a huge life changer). And there are some household items we buy online so we leave some money in the checking account for that.
I also forgot the envelopes a couple of times and had to use my card. But, I feel like we did pretty good staying within our budget.
The big plus is my husband didn’t even mind doing it, and I think he even secretly liked it!
How you can use the cash envelope system to save money
When I use my debit card all the time I don’t think about the amount I’m spending until after I look over my expenses.
Studies have even proven that using a plastic card can cause you to overspend versus using cash.
That is me to a T!
When you pay for something with tangible money and see it leave your hands you’re more apt to be conscious of what you’re actually spending.
For me, using the debit card is so easy and I easily get carried away while shopping at Target.
When I had the envelope full of cash I was actually conscious of what I put in to the cart and paid more attention to what I really needed versus what I wanted.
After creating our budget for the month, anything that we have extra goes straight in to the savings.
The real question is, how much did we end up making per month when we used the cash envelope system?
I know it’s shocking, but we ended up saving an extra $300 – $500 cash a month just by just using the cash envelope system!
I feel it’s important to note that I NEVER felt restricted from what I could buy, it was more like a game to me.
I was excited to see how much cash I would have left at the end of the month.
We did include “fun” money for each of us so we didn’t feel like we were missing out on anything.
Quick lesson on how to use the cash envelope method
The cash envelope method is exactly what it sounds like.
Put cash in envelopes.
The only catch is it has to be your cash.
After creating your budget for the month you’ll take out cash for the budgeted amounts in each category and put them in separate envelopes.
From there you only use cash in the envelope for that category.
Some of the categories that my husband and I use for our envelopes each month are:
- Grocery
- Restaurant
- Lunches
So when you go grocery shopping you take your grocery envelope with you and just use cash.
— I have a full, detailed post on how to start and use the cash envelope system to make extra money. There are also frequently asked questions such as what I do with all that change I hate jangling around 🙂 You can check out that post here.
The second thing we did to save up an extra $15,000 dollars
The second thing that contributed to our savings fund was selling products on my blog.
Yes, I mean this blog.
And yes, it is TOTALLY possible to make extra money blogging.
Here’s a screenshot of what I made from one of my planners in just 1 week! (proof that you actually make money blogging.)
For me, money and personal finance is such a huge passion and I talk to people about it all the time.
Starting this blog was a way for me to connect with more people and really share what I’m passionate about.
At the same time – we still needed to support our family. And to make this blog worth my time I knew I needed to generate income from it.
So I started selling the planner that I made myself. I knew other people trying to figure out this whole budgeting thing would love it just as much as I did.
I’ve been able to sell my planner and make extra money every month (a few hundred) – and it continues to grow!
Having this extra income seriously helped to fuel our savings fund.
When I first started out blogging I didn’t realize the time and effort that it would take. Although it’s so worth it now, you do have to prepare to be willing to learn and put in the work.
One of the best resources I’ve found for people who are curious about starting a blog is by Amy Lynn Andrews. Her guide is detailed and really helps you realize if starting a blog is something you want to do or not.
Third thing we did to save up an extra $15,000 dollars
We worked our butts off and took any and all overtime hours.
It wasn’t always easy to save up that much money that quick. It took a lot of hard work and some overtime hours.
Whenever there was overtime we could do in either of our jobs we would take it.
When you’re saving for something and you know you want it quick (like a Jeep), find ways to make extra money doing something you’re already good at it.
Are you a pro at your job?
One of the best ways to make extra money is by doing something you’re already good at and passionate about.
For instance, my husband started doing side jobs for what he’s great at, which is telecom and electrical work.
For me, I know websites and personal finance. I’ve been able to help people with those two things and make some extra cash doing it.
Figure out how you can help your family, friends or neighbors doing that exact thing. Make some cards and hand them out to people to get business.
Can’t think of anything right now that you can do?
Don’t worry, I have a list of things that you can start doing RIGHT NOW to increase your savings account.
Side jobs you can do to increase income and save more money:
- Tutoring
- Working a seasonal job
- Survey apps
- Do a garage sale
- Transcription (Rev is my favorite transcription company)
- Cutting your cable bill
- Working overtime (not the funnest one!)
- Getting a pay raise (this guide by Ramit Sethi is the best one I’ve found to negotiate a raise)
The fourth thing we did to save up an extra $15,000 dollars
We sold our car.
This is pretty basic. And I hope you all know how to do this.
All we did is Kelly Blue Booked how much our car was worth, found the right buyer (who happened to be my father-in-law) and sold!
You’d be surprised to find out how much your car is really worth. By the way, ours was worth $5,000. We still had to work hard to save up the other two-thirds of savings.
Conclusion:
There’s 4 money hustle moves we made to save up that $15,000:
1 – Started the cash envelope system
2 – Sold products on my blog
3 – Did extra side jobs/worked overtime
4 – Sold our previous car for $5,000
Doing those 4 and hustling like we never hustled before got us our new (new-to-us) Jeep!
It’s amazing what can happen when you really put your mind to something. Having a specific end date for our goal helped motivate us to push that much harder during that 4 months.
One of the things that I always have when saving money is a savings tracker. I made a savings tracker specifically for the 15K, and you can snag it for FREE below.
GET THE FREE 15K SAVINGS TRACKER + WEEKLY TIPS ON HOW TO SAVE EXTRA MONEY!
Enter your name and email below to download the FREE savings tracker so that you stay MOTIVATED while saving money.P.S. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Now we know that we can do anything we really put our minds to. Your $15,000 could be in your savings account a lot sooner than you think.
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