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I know how it feels! The weight of all your financial worries makes you feel like you can barely tread water for one more second before your head goes under! You find it mind baffling that for some unknown TO YOU reason you can not stick to a budget even if your life depended on it.
Living paycheck to paycheck feels hopeless. Nothing to look forward to. Sitting down to “do the budget” is something that you dread and put off until it is absolutely necessary. You’re probably too scared to actually take a good look at your bank account and track your spending in fear of what bad habits you might uncover.
I have totally felt that! Ugh! We lived that life for way too long! Before hubby and I started having kids we were out of control with our spending. We had zero savings. Overdraft fees looked like a recurring charge on our bank statements. We would set “budgets”. Nope! We didn’t stick to them for more than three days max!
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We Were The Only Problem
We had a decent income with nothing to show for it. We also had big dreams! We had dreams of owning our own home and one day I could quit my job and become a stay at home mom.
The problem was we were standing in our own way! There was no way either of those dreams were going to happen if we kept living the way we were. No way! The good news is we figured it out!
That is what I want to teach you here on Pennies Into Pearls! How YOU can figure out your own family finance rescue plan!
Our Bad Attitudes and Bad Habits With Our Money
Growing up I always viewed the word “budget” as a bad word. The only time I heard it was if it meant that we couldn’t buy or do something. A budget was restrictive! Maybe you still have the same views and thoughts as I had?
As an adult hubby and I never really sat down and tracked our spending. You know what we found out when we finally ripped the bandaid off? We were spending over $1,000 on food and it was just the two of us!
We were the textbook definition of living paycheck to paycheck! “Stop spending!” That’s exactly what I would text hubby on a regular basis. Not because he was the one always spending. It was definitely the both of us that were spending unintentionally. Sadly, about 99% of the time my text would come too late and we would overdraft and rack up the fees.
It took us a very long time to learn our lesson. As soon as payday came, we would go out to dinner, the movies, stop at Target and shop for random stuff that in reality we had no idea if we needed or not. Ca-ching! We spent and spent and spent until… the overdraft notice came.
Paycheck to paycheck, this was our cycle.
Our Family Goals
I mentioned them before but I need you to understand how badly we wanted these goals for our family and how far out of reach they felt at the time.
We had been trying to get pregnant for four years. In our eyes, it felt like an eternity. We pretty much had given up hope and were expecting to look at the options for adoption. Then it happened!
8 months pregnant and I DID NOT want to go back to work after what I new would be an all too short maternity leave. But how could we make that happen? We could barely make it paycheck to paycheck, remember?
Not only that, but we were stinkin’ tired of paying rent. We hated the idea that we were paying money towards someone else’s mortgage. We wanted to create a more self-reliant life for our growing family.
Again, how could we make that happen when we were continually spending more money than was our the bank account?
Getting our Finances in Order
Slowly we picked up good financial habits that helped us create a life where I was able to quit my job, we got out of over $20,000 in debt in just one year, and quickly saved enough money to buy our first house just one year after becoming debt free!
Not to mention our amazing couples trip to Costa Rica we were able to sneak in along the way!
The first hurdle was getting rid of those bad attitudes about the word “budget”. We realized that if we took the time to plan out where we wanted our money to go, we could spend where we wanted and at the same time incorporate our long term goals. This got us super excited!
We came to understand that a budget was exactly the opposite of restrictive! If we were intentional with our spending, we could choose to spend where our family found the most value and held at the highest priority. All while still providing for the needs to live a comfortable and low stress life!
Can You Relate?
Is there any part of our story that you can relate to? Do you get to the end of the month without enough money for rent? Do you start a budget and stick to it for about… 3 minutes? I’m guessing that you are probably nodding your head right now.
I hear from our Pearls on a daily basis reaching out for help. Pleading for guidance as they drown in their family finances.
Maybe you’re too scared to look at what is actually going on. Only because you don’t know how to fix it. Sure you have read some articles online and watched some YouTube videos. But how do you actually put that information into practice with your family’s unique circ*mstances?
Everything hubby and I learned in those agonizing six years of trial and error are laid out systematically in my online course 30 Day Family Finance Rescue. To help you avoid wasting one more day living paycheck to paycheck!
The whole time we were tripping our way through our journey trying to figure things out, I remember repeatedly thinking to myself, “I just wish someone could tell me what to do and what’s next!” That is exactly why I created this online course!
FOR YOU! My Pearl who is trying to get thingsfigured out for your family. I don’t just show you how to eliminate bad attitudes and bad habits with your money. I don’t just show you how to realistically dream big and turn those dreams into a financial action plan and worked into your goal based budget. I teach you how to do all this customized exactly to how your unique family finances work.
Keeping the system goal based and custom for your family is how you will be able to once and for all stop living the paycheck to paycheck and start working towards some seriously amazing dreams for your family!
By the time you are finished with this course, in just four weeks, you are going to have a solid foundation for your financial future!
You know what’s crazy? What we learned wasn’t anything mind blowing. There isn’t a secret formula locked inside a titanium box, hidden deep in an unknown cave somewhere. But it was confusing and it was absolutely scary! It can feel very overwhelming when you are trying to navigate it all on your own. When trying to get your finances under control, there are so many questions that race through your mind and the fear of uncertainty in each of those decision is unnerving.
Unless, you have someone holding your hand, taking you step by step showing you what needs to happen right now, what’s next, and how to set things up for the future! That’s exactly what you’re going to find in 30 Day Family Finance Rescue!
You Can Do This!
You got this! I don’t have a fancy pants financial degree and you don’t need one either to get this figured out! Stop living life in fear and one paycheck at a time, and take control of your money starting today. I promise that you can have an irresistible life. You just need to take the first step.
Talk to you soon! Xoxo
Brittany
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