Budget Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How I Paid Off $30,000 of Student Loans in 2 Years by Paying the Minimum Balance

October 11, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

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Hello! Today, I have a debt payoff story from Alyssa Hunt. Alyssa is the creator of TheLifeHunt.com a blog that helps busy hustlers work towards business success and financial freedom all while managing full-time jobs. She is currently working towards a Master’s degree in English Literature and she teaches writing composition to university freshmen.

When I graduated college in 2014 with my undergraduate degree, I had racked up $30,000 in student loan debt. During my four years of college, I didn’t think much of taking out a loan here and there.

After all, I needed a way to pay for tuition.

Once the excitement and celebrations of graduation ended, I felt a mound of debt on my shoulders.

It was then that I decided to focus all my attention on paying off my debt as fast as I could. And by fast, I meant that I wanted to have all $30,000 paid off in exactly 2 years after receiving my first bill.

Setting my goal of 2 years felt entirely achievable to me, but to everyone else, it was crazy and impossible. I don’t believe a single person thought it could be done. So many people tried to convince me that student loan debt is “good debt” and that it’s “normal” to have debt. [Read more…]

18 Of The Best Ways To Make Extra Money For The Holidays

October 7, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 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.

Because the holidays are quickly approaching, meaning many people will be spending more money, I want to share some ideas for how you can make extra money for the holidays. Let’s make this holiday season as happy and stress free as possible!

See, for the average person, the fall and winter holidays can be very expensive.

Between Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year's, and the many other holidays, the average person tends to spend around $1,000 just on gifts.

That’s a lot of financial stress.

And, that $1,000 amount doesn't even account for other holiday spending, such as travel costs, food, get-togethers, decorations, clothing, and more.

We don’t nearly spend as much on the holidays as we used to do. Now, we’re only buying gifts for the kids in our family and the adults draw names. While this has cut our holiday spending by a lot, I know many people who buy gifts for dozens of people. [Read more…]

How To Reduce, Reuse, And Save More Cash

October 2, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 12 Comments

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Hi, this is Michelle’s editor, Ariel! You may have seen me here before talking about taking my side hustle full-time, living in a small house, and real life frugality. When I’m not working for Michelle, you can find me spending a lot of time over at M$M, working as a staff writer and editor-in-chief.

The other day I found myself asking this question in a popular FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Facebook group:

Anyone else focusing on a zero/low waste lifestyle and merging that principal with FI?

I asked this question because, while I don’t hang around in those kinds of communities a ton, I find that what I often see is more focused on sexier topics like investing strategies and increasing your income.

Both of those are incredibly valuable tools when you’re working to improve your financial health, even if you aren’t working towards FIRE, but I was searching for advice that felt a little more relatable to my personal goals.

It turns out that I wasn’t alone. [Read more…]

Are Budget Airlines Worth It? Here Are 6 Of The Best Tips To Cut Your Costs

September 30, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 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.

Are you thinking about saving money on airfare by flying with budget airlines such as Allegiant, Frontier, or Spirit Airlines? Here are my tips to find cheap plane tickets and the best flight deals.

Recently, Wes (my husband) took a couple of last minute flights to visit family and we booked his flights on budget airlines. I had first started looking for flights like I normally do, with traditional airlines like American, Delta, and Southwest. But, everything was super expensive because we were booking last minute.

Then, I got the idea to look at some of the budget airlines, such as Allegiant, Frontier, and Spirit so that we could save some money.

I found a super affordable flight on Allegiant, AND it was direct. Whereas all of the expensive flights had multiple stops and would take all day.

My first thought was that something had to be wrong since the price was so low, so I asked around to see if these discount flights were the real deal.

I had numerous people tell me not to do it, but I had more people tell me that these cheap plane tickets were too good to pass up.

Well, I bought the Allegiant flights, and it went well. Then he flew again a few weeks later, and he used Allegiant again. [Read more…]

16 Alternatives To Cable TV That WILL Save You Money

September 19, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 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.

Around five years ago, we decided to cut the cord. We have never watched a lot of TV, but we researched some alternatives to cable TV anyway. With cable alternatives, we knew we could still watch our favorite shows if we wanted to while saving money.

Like many people who are looking for alternatives to cable TV, we decided to go with Netflix. Now that we travel full-time, we often cancel and restart our subscription depending on whether or not we’ll have reliable internet.

Also because we travel full-time, we have met many, many people over the years who go to great lengths to keep their cable/satellite channels. Luckily, in today's world, there are so many great alternatives to cable TV.

There are options for people who love sports, people who want lots of movies, people who want to watch current seasons of shows, and more.

We cut the cord and got rid of cable, and we haven't missed it one bit. Seriously, we haven't even thought about it! [Read more…]

Want To Make Money From Home? Here Are 17 Of The Best Online Jobs

September 17, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 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.

Are you looking to find one of the best online jobs out there?

Luckily for you, in today's world, there are actually quite a lot of online jobs that pay well.

Some of the best online jobs are work from home jobs that involve you working for someone else, or you may be able to even start your own business.

And, yes, many people earn a full-time income while working online jobs from home.

So, if you are looking to start making extra money or if you want a new career path that lets you earn money from home, this list of best online jobs is especially for you.

My hope is that what you read in this article will spark your interest and possibly inspire you to learn how to earn money from home. [Read more…]

Is Thrift Store Reselling Good Or Evil?

September 12, 2019 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 15 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.

Thrift store reselling is when you purchase items from a thrift store and resell them somewhere else for more than you paid for them. You can resell clothing, shoes, accessories, furniture, home decor, and more. And, it can be an interesting way to make extra money.

When I was younger, I worked in a popular secondhand clothing shop called Plato’s Closet. We mainly sold brand name, young adult clothing. And when I worked there, I met many, many people who would scour our racks looking for items to resell.

I also met many people who purchased items from yard sales and charity shops just to sell to us. Many of these same people also went to garage sales and thrift stores like Goodwill in order to find items for thrift store reselling.

I saw a lot of thrift store reselling going on. Some people did it for a full-time income, and other people did it as a way to make money on the side.

And, some did it because they loved finding treasure and going on a hunt.

Sometimes people would score big, and other times they would make only make just a few dollars. [Read more…]

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