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Letting Money Control You

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 77 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In July, I published a post about bad financial habits. One of my top bad financial habits happens to be letting money control my life. I know that a lot of you consider this a bad habit of yours as well, as a ton of you said that you had the same habit.

I am very guilty of letting money control my life. Everyone knows this, and I probably have the label of “The Biggest Worrier in Personal Finance.” Letting money control my life is a big part of my life that I do not like. I let money control me in that I think about money before I think about my health. I am working a ton of hours every week, when I should be thinking about my health and enjoying life.

I also calculate our financial goals all day long it seems like. I am always afraid that we will fall behind with a financial goal, and I will let it eat me alive. Fact is that we are doing good, so why do I let everything bother me so much?

I keep a huge buffer in our checking account because I am afraid that I will forget about an expense. This is definitely not good because this means that I am earning around 0% interest when I could be investing this money instead. [Read more…]

77 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Budget

I’m on Vacation and $1,345 in Extra Income

Last Updated: August 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 67 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I'm on Vacation and $1,345 in Extra Income

This describes my life perfectly.

Hey everyone! Happy Monday. I’m technically not on vacation yet, as it doesn’t start until 5 p.m. today, but it starts soon!

I have the rest of the week off and I’m going to New Orleans with W and another couple. None of us have ever been. So many of you have given us great recommendations, thank you so much! Sounds like we have a ton of restaurants to try 🙂

Did anyone watch Trueblood last night? Crazy! Now I cannot wait until Boardwalk Empire and Walking Dead both start. What’s your favorite TV show?

After Trueblood, W and I went to get ice cream. Simple as that, right? Nope! We left our house to go to Dairy Queen which is only about 2 miles away. On the way there, W started yelling that this guy was getting too close and swerving in and out of lanes. I wasn’t paying attention because W is a very paranoid person and I just shrugged it off.

Then at one point the driver nearly clipped us (literally an inch away), and W swerved to avoid him, and the driver of the truck swerved ACROSS FOUR LANES and hit 2 huge telephone poles and went straight through them. The poles were laying on the road and the lines were completely down. The driver of the truck then flew down a hill and into a ditch. And he was drunk and drove away after all of this. No one is sure how he managed to drive his totaled truck away or how he survived.

Anyways, to completely change the subject, thank you to everyone who said so many nice things about my blogiversary and my blog. I love you all! The giveaway still has over a week to go, so make sure to get your entries in. There are so many ways to enter, and you can do them all or just do one.

 

Spending

We did do some spending in the past week. We needed some things for our bikes, such as for maintenance or repair just in case something goes wrong for when we are on a long ride.

My bike surprisingly broke a couple of weeks ago while riding it. I am still not too happy about this as we spent a decent amount of money on it. Luckily it was nothing major. The pedal came undone and fell off, and I came crashing down (boy, did that hurt) while we were riding on a trail fairly fast.

Luckily, there was a construction crew on their lunch break and they were more than happy to help us. They even offered us beers while they were fixing my bike! And yes, they were drinking beers while working on building a busy bridge that hundreds of thousands of people drive over every single day. Lets not even talk about how much that scared us…

 

 

I'm on Vacation and $1,345 in Extra Income

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income was good in the past week. Nothing too extraordinary, but I’m not going to complain. I can already tell that September will be a great month. Hopefully I don’t jinx myself but I have had a good amount of freelancing leads right now. WOOHOOO!

A lot of you have also been asking about taxes. Around 35% of my extra income goes towards taxes, and I will have a post on my other site, Diversified Finances, about that sometime soon.

I still don’t know when my 100% self-employment switch date will be. I’m still a little afraid to give up such a stable income from my day job, and I’m not going to lie, I am afraid of failure and that something will go wrong.

I will say that these feelings aren’t as big as they used to be. All of this doesn’t bother me as much, and I know that I am ready now. Now, we are really just trying to increase our emergency fund before I make the actual switch, so that we are as prepared as we can be.

 

Posts from my websites:

  1. What not to do when leaving your job – There will always be crazy people out there, right? People quit in the most ridiculous ways. What’s the craziest quitting story that you know of?
  2. 2 Year Blogiversary – WOOHOO! I still cannot believe that it has been two years. It’s crazy to think about. I dived into the blogging world, not even knowing what I was getting myself into. Now, I am in love with it all.
  3. Four expenses that aren’t worth the money – This post was by Jordann.  There are a lot of things that I don’t like paying for. I also hate paying for haircuts, but luckily I’m trying to grow out my hair and don’t need to do that as much. What do you hate paying for?
  4. Pay off your mortgage faster, save thousands of dollars – This was a post on my site by a blogger friend. This definitely seems to be a divided issue. Would you rather pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible or just pay the normal monthly payment?

 

 

Link love:

  1. I’m not rich, but thanks for thinking so Budgets are Sexy – I loved this post a lot. I know that I post my extra income every week, but life is not perfect. Just wanted to get that out there! 🙂 I am working hard in all areas of my life and need to if I want to make self-employment a reality.
  2. Job Burnout is Brutal  Personal Finance Utopia – Job burnout plays a big role for why many people leave their jobs. Have you ever left a job or wanted to because of job burnout?
  3. The Daycare Dilemma and Why I’m Not a Stay At Home Mom Club Thrifty – While I would love to say that when W and I have kids that I would be able to be a work-at-home mom all the time, I also see myself sending our future kids somewhere in order to get work done. I’m not talking all the time, but maybe on some days.  I think it’s just being realistic though. My freelancing still requires me to work, I’m not just sitting on my bed and only working for a couple of hours each day! Do you see yourself being a stay at home parent? Or will you be sending your kids to daycare as well?

 

 

 

Being healthy

Being healthy has definitely been much better lately. The weather has been so great lately, so it’s hard to just sit inside and not soak it all in. I went on a couple of long walks with my dog, ran on the treadmill a couple of times, and road my bike. We’ve been eating kind of more healthy, but we definitely went out to eat way too much last week. And this week will just be a disaster with being healthy since we will be in New Orleans, but oh well!

We went on a nice bike ride yesterday of around 15 miles. It would have been longer but we made the mistake of going out for a ride without eating at all beforehand. After about 7 miles I felt super hungry so we had to turn back!

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

 

67 Comments
Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Life

Pay off Your Mortgage Faster, Save Thousands of Dollars

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 60 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.


Today’s post is by Monica who is attempting to pay down her 30 mortgage ASAP. You can follow her personal finance blog at
MonicaOnMoney.

Hi everyone! I always assumed that I would have a mortgage for the next 30 years.

But why?

Until recently, my goal was to pay off my house before I retire somewhere around 65 years old. But, I recently researched some online mortgage calculators and started playing with the numbers. Now I’m excited to figure out how soon I can pay off my mortgage.

Paying off your mortgage early is an amazing way to build your wealth and gain financial independence. Figure out how much you’re willing to pay each month or each year to save thousands of dollars in interest! Let’s look at some hypothetical examples based on some online mortgage calculations:

[Read more…]

60 Comments
Filed Under: Budget, Real Estate Tagged With: Budget

Four Expenses that Aren’t Worth the Money

Last Updated: March 18, 2022 BY Jordann - 50 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Four Expenses that Aren't Worth the MoneyThis post is by my awesome staff writer Jordann. Enjoy!

The title of this blog post should really be “Four things that aren’t worth the money, when you’re on a strict budget”, but that was too long.

I’ve been on a very strict budget for almost two years now. I’m trying to get out of debt, and after that, I plan on aiming for a decent level of savings. To achieve this, I need to keep a very close eye on my budget, and keep my expenses as low as possible.

In order to achieve my low expense lifestyle, my husband and I have given up a lot of things that I used to consider necessities.

Now that we’ve gone a few years without them, I’ve come to realize that these “necessities” are just wants, and weren’t really worth the cash. Here are some things that I used to pay for, that I’ve now realized weren’t giving me very good bang for my buck.

[Read more…]

50 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Budget

2 Year Blogiversary and iPad+Cash Giveaway

Last Updated: August 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 282 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

2 Year Blogiversary and iPad+Cash GiveawayHey everyone! This week marks two years of blogging for me. I first started blogging two years ago on August 10, 2011. You can find that post here (it’s weird for me to read that post!).

When I first started my blog, I’m not going to lie, I was a complete mess. I probably did everything on a “bad blogger” list and then some more.

I quickly became addicted, and have made tons of awesome friends. The list could go on and on about how many bloggers I love.  There are so many bloggers that I would love to list right now, but I tried that and the list had well over 50 blogs and just looked crazy.

 

Oh, how life has changed.

In the past 2 years, my life has changed drastically. Back in August of 2011, I was working full-time in the same job I have now, I was a full-time Finance MBA student, and we didn’t have much money. I had tons of student loan debt also.

Neither W nor I had any side jobs, and our income was much lower than what it is now. Housing in our budget was somewhere around 30% of our take home pay, whereas now it is much, much lower than that. Food was also a budget killer for us…

We spent lots of money on things that we did not need. We were not saving. We ate out every single day, and most of the time multiples times each day. We did not have a budget.

More personal: the passing of my father and the many family issues I was going through were tearing me apart. I had to start raising my sister and I was not ready. Everything, even 3 years later after he passed, was still reminding me of my father and I would break down everywhere I went.

And that’s when I started to blog. It was a great outlet for me, and still is. Things are getting better, and are great in the financial area. In my personal life, W and I have been together for over 7 years, and we couldn’t be better.

My sister is like my child now (oh hey Lexy!) and it has been awesome watching her grow into an awesome young lady. I have begun talking to my dad’s side of the family, even though it is difficult as I am sure that I am a sad reminder.

We never thought that our lives would be like the way they are today. We have also come to realize that we can’t let money dictate our lives, and that we need to enjoy the little things. I also plan on pursuing what I love instead of stability, which brings great risks but also much more excitement and happiness.

I never thought that my student loans would be gone, and especially not so soon. << STILL shocks me.

Blogging and personal finance blogging drastically changed my life, and for the better. I definitely recommend that others should start their own blog as well.

[Read more…]

282 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Life Tagged With: Blog, Life

New Orleans Planning and $3,526 in Extra Income

Last Updated: August 9, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 83 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

My dog

My dog is crazy…

Hey everyone! Happy Monday. This was a crazy busy weekend for me, and I feel like I got nothing done.

We leave for New Orleans next week and I  definitely need to step it up and finish some side hustle work so that I am not thinking about all of it while we are on vacation.

Also, the other day marked 2 years of blogging and Making Sense of Cents for me. I have a post and a giveaway (iPad and $250 is CASH!) dedicated to that on Wednesday 🙂

Spending

We didn’t do too much spending in the past week. I had to buy a pair of wedges for a wedding that I am in but they weren’t expensive and are actually something that I would wear again.

Spending will be higher next week though because we are going to New Orleans. However, we found a really AWESOME deal on a 4 star hotel, and it will only be $500 for 4 nights plus parking and including taxes. The hotel is right on Bourbon, so it seems like the perfect location.

At first we were going to stay at a not-so-nice hotel and we booked that one with the other couple, but I found a deal for something much cheaper and hopped right on it last week.

We canceled our other reservations and I booked 2 rooms for 4 days each and it was the same rate as the 2 star hotel that we originally booked. I honestly cannot believe how cheap it is! I guess that’s what happens when you book something at the very last second.

Gas wil probably be a couple hundred bucks for there and back (for each couple), as it is around a 10 hour drive and we are taking a Jeep, so it’s not the most gas efficient. Food and drinking will probably be the most expensive part of the trip, however, I definitely do not think we will spend over $1,500 on this trip on everything (including hotel, gas, food, etc.), and that is really overestimating everything.

If there is anything that you would absolutely recommend for us to do while we are there, please let us know! The four of us have never been and cannot wait.

 

New Orleans Planning and $3,526 in Extra Income

Extra Income (does not include income from our main jobs)

Extra income was very good for the first 10 day of August. I have been working on expanding my side hustle income and I do have a few good potential leads that will hopefully go somewhere. I do have some other plans for things that I would like to do, I just need more time! I can’t wait until I have an extra 50 hours a week for expanding on everything that I want to do.

I still don’t know when my 100% self-employment switch date will be. I’m still a little afraid to give up such a stable income from my day job, and whenever a couple of days in a row are slow I definitely get nervous.

 

Posts from my blogs:

  1. $11,117 in July Extra Income – This is my monthly extra income post. I surpassed my goal and it felt great! However, I’m not sure how August will turn out.
  2. July Goals and Life Update – Life is GOOD!
  3. Things people say when I tell them I am making the self-employment switch – People have definitely not been afraid to voice their opinions on my self-employment decision. Some of the things that people have said are just absolutely ridiculous.
  4. Cheap ways to stay healthy – There are many ways to stay healthy but not hurt your budget.
  5. How to manage a side business while traveling – Have you ever wanted to travel and work?

 

Link love:

  1. Ditching the Day Job – 6 Months To Go Single Moms Income – WOOHOO! Another person who is going for their passion.
  2. The Power of Partying, I Mean Networking Broke Millennial – Networking is always important.
  3. How to get a Part-time Job at REI Teens Got Cents – I love REI, and I’ve always heard that it’s a great part-time job to have.

 

 

Being healthy

Ha, this has been a huge fail so far in August. I have been eating slightly better, but not the greatest. I haven’t really ran in forever, and working out altogether has been nearly non-existent. I’m not sure why this is, I guess I’ve just been a little more lazy when it comes to being healthy.

We haven’t touched our bikes so far in August, and that is something that I definitely want to change also. It has been kind of rainy lately, so I will blame it on that.

Have you been doing well with your extra income, spending and being healthy?

 

83 Comments
Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Life

How to Manage a Side Business While Traveling

Last Updated: July 30, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 30 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Find out how to manage a side business while traveling. This is a great list!The following is a post from my blog friend Martin, who has just launched a new course that shows you how to figure out this whole money thing in your 20s. Enjoy!

One of the greatest benefits of making online is that you can do it from anywhere. You don’t have to remain in one location. You can move around. You can travel. You can go to all of those cool places that you thought only the rich could.

I happen to be an odd type of traveler. I just go to random places to explore, drink, meet some cool people, and maybe learn the language (fluent in Polish and English, learning Spanish). I don’t really see many landmarks nor do I care to. I just hang around and chat.

The beauty of my blogging and freelancing is that I can show up in a foreign country with no money and not stress because I have an income coming in. All I need is my credit card and I’m good to go. [Read more…]

30 Comments
Filed Under: Career, Extra Income, Travel Tagged With: Career, Extra Money, Self-employment, Travel

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Hello and welcome!
My name is Michelle and I'm the author/owner of Making Sense of Cents. Learning how to save money and make more money changed my life. It allowed me to pay off $40,000 in student loans, start my own business, and I now travel full-time.

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