Budget Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How I Paid Off My $40,000 Student Loan Debt In Less Than One Year

Last Updated: February 1, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

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 interested in learning how to pay off student loans? Are you looking for the best way to pay off student loans?

Today, I want to talk about how I paid off my student loans, tips to pay off student loans, and answer many of your top questions about how student loans work.

I graduated college with $40,000 student loan debt, and I paid off my student loans in just 7 months. It’s been several years since I paid them off, but I still receive so many questions about this topic.

There are approximately 45 million student loan borrowers in the U.S. with a total of $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. Yes, that’s trillion.

With so much student loan debt, it’s not surprising that I receive so many questions about how to pay off student loans. Student loans can stay with you for years, and they can affect almost every financial decision you make until they are paid off.

Student loans can prevent you from saving for retirement, make it harder to pay off other types of debt, find the job of your dreams, and so on. [Read more…]

How I Earned Up to $4,000 Per Month Baking Dog Treats (With Zero Baking Experience!)

Last Updated: February 27, 2021 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.

Hello! Are you interested in starting a dog treat bakery business? Well, good news, this article will tell you what you need to know. Plus, you can sign up for this free training workshop that will teach you how to start your own side hustle baking and selling dog treats.

Hi! My name is Kristin Larsen, and I run Believe in a Budget, a blog about personal finance and my experience with various side hustles. (It feels like I’ve tried them all over the years!)

As I’ve written about before here on Making Sense of Cents, my favorite online side hustle is working as a Pinterest virtual assistant. Managing Pinterest accounts is a great way to earn an income entirely online.

But today, I’m here to talk about a completely different side hustle, one that can be run entirely offline if you want (or entirely online, or a combination!).

While I love being able to work from home (or anywhere) on my computer, there is something to be said about stepping away from the computer and doing work that doesn’t involve the ‘virtual world’ – work that requires you to move around a little instead of being planted in front of a screen all day long!

In the case of this side hustle, it involves moving around the kitchen baking up beautiful and delicious dog treats. [Read more…]

My True Travel Insurance Story – A Broken Leg & Surgery in the Dominican Republic

Last Updated: December 2, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 8 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, I have a great article written by my sister-in-law and editor, Ariel Gardner. She is sharing her travel insurance review story, and goes in-depth on the travel insurance process. I asked her to write about this because I feel like it’s not really discussed, yet there is a lot to learn! You may have seen her here before talking about taking her side hustle full-time, living in a small house, real life frugality, and more.

Earlier this year, I was enjoying myself on a relaxing Caribbean cruise with one of my best friends.

I had breakfast delivered to my room every morning, drank fancy cocktails in the evening, and barely thought about the travel insurance policy I bought just in case.

On the fourth day of our cruise, we docked in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and disembarked to explore the city. Our group ended up at Fortaleza Ozama, a Spanish fort built in 1502.

We walked up four or five flights of stairs to get a view from the top, and on the first step back down, I fell and broke my leg.

It wasn’t a major fall.

But I twisted my leg in just the right way to end up with a spiral fracture that broke several bones in my ankle, my tibia, and fibula.

There was so much chaos as we figured out how to handle everything, from whether or not to have surgery in the Dominican Republic and how to fly my husband down.

On top of everything, this was at the beginning of March 2020, just as the U.S. and many other countries were shutting their borders down because of COVID-19. [Read more…]

How To Stick To Your Holiday Budget & Avoid Debt

Last Updated: December 19, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 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.

Do you want to learn how to stick to your holiday budget?

The holidays are here, and you may have a lot of expenses and spending on your horizon.

The average person spends around $900 on gifts during the holiday season.

And, this doesn’t even include other holiday spending that you may have, such as travel, food, decorations, and so on. There are also other expenses many people forget to budget for, like stamps, cards, shipping, etc.

According to a survey by MagnifyMoney, American consumers took on an average $1,325 worth of holiday debt in 2019.

That is a lot of debt to take on for holiday spending. And, the same study found that holiday debt has gone up by 34% since 2015. [Read more…]

How To Rent An RV: The Best Tips For Your First RV Rental

Last Updated: February 21, 2021 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.

Want to learn how to rent an RV? Today, I’m going to talk about the best way to rent an RV, if renting is cheaper than a hotel, what to know before renting an RV, and more.

While I no longer live full-time in an RV (we’re now living full-time and traveling via sailboat!), I lived in one for several years and still own one. When we’re not on the boat, we live full-time in the van.

RVing is something that I absolutely love, and I think that traveling or living in an RV will ALWAYS be a part of my life!

What I love so much about living in an RV or van is that you have your whole house with you while you visit beautiful places. You can park right next to hiking and biking trails, next to the mountains or beaches, and more.

When we first sold our house to live in an RV full time, people thought we were crazy. We got rid of more than half of our stuff and started driving across the country.

But, as I started sharing our experience with our friends and family, more and more people started to realize it wasn’t crazy at all – it was amazing! [Read more…]

18 Debt Free Stories That Will Inspire You

Last Updated: December 29, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 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 love a good debt free story! If you are interested in learning how to pay off debt, the 18 stories I’m about to share will teach, motivate, and inspire you.

When I was paying off my $40,000 student loan debt in 7 months, I spent a lot of time online reading how other people paid off their debt.

Because I wanted to pay off my debt as quickly as possible, I knew I needed some extra motivation.

Finding a good debt free story would give me the boost of energy I needed to keep working on my side hustles, finding new ways to save, and put all of my extra money towards debt.

I also learned so many great tips and tricks to help me pay off my debt that I wouldn’t have learned about otherwise. Not all of the tips I read about worked for me, but some did.

By reading other people’s debt payoff stories and learning how to become debt free, I believe that you can find motivation to pay off your own debt. [Read more…]

Pay Off Debt Or Save Money – Is One Better For You?

Last Updated: November 8, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 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.

Should you pay off debt or save money?

I wish this was a super easy article where I could just give you a clear answer about whether you should pay off debt or save money, but that’s just not how personal finance works.

Every situation is different, and today, I’d like to go over different circumstances so you can figure out the best answer for your personal situation.

Whether you have a mortgage, student loans, a car loan, credit card debt, medical loans, or something else, you may be wondering if you should only focus on paying off your debt and how saving money fits in as well.

And, you may be stuck.

A big question when paying off debt is if that should be your sole focus. Should you still be trying to save money while paying off your debt?

Or, should all of the extra money you have be going towards your debt?

You may be wondering things such as:

Should I pay off debt or emergency fund first, as in set some money aside for emergencies?
Should I pay off debt or save up for a downpayment?
Should I pay off debt or save during a recession?
Can I pay off debt AND save money at the same time?

And so on and so on. [Read more…]

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