Savings Archives - Page 5 of 5 - Making Sense Of Cents

Using Savings to Pay Off Debt

Last Updated: July 14, 2017 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.

I’m currently trying to build up my emergency fund to $15,000. This fund is to cover job loss, anything wrong with the house or cars, and so on. I don’t separate my different emergency funds just yet.

Anyways, I often ask myself when I should apply more money to paying off debt or to use more to fund my emergency fund. And then I also wonder if I should just take some of my savings to pay off my debt. Here’s a great article on this. Here are some tips in order to help you figure out what you should do:

First off, do you even have an emergency fund? If your savings are earning you less than the cost of your debt/loans, then of course you will be saving money by paying your loans first (instead of saving). But if you don’t have an emergency fund set up at all, then paying off your loans completely first might not be a great choice.
I would try to make an emergency fund of around 3 months pay. That’s what I’m trying to do right now. In the article it says just to have an emergency fund of $1,000 at first, but I do not think that’s enough.
After I have my emergency fund set up, then I would start aggressively paying of any debt like it says in the article.

I’m still paying my debt right now, I’m just also trying to finish my emergency fund also.

How much do you have in your emergency fund? What’s your plan of savings versus paying off debt?

Saved 51% on Groceries!

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 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.

I didn’t do super great last night, but I did good! I spent $48.03 and saved 51% altogether! I had $38.00 in coupons (only 6 coupons, I had a $10 off total purchase and free coupons) and saved $9.64 in store savings. I would have saved more, but I bought dog food and that was $16.77 and I also spent around $15 on meat.

I bought:

Purina Chicken Stew Food
Beneful Dog food
Chesters Hot Fries
Cottonelle Bath Tissue
Libby’s Corn
Dole Pineapple
Cream Corn
Taco Shells
Prego Pasta Sauce
Sara Lee Bread
3 Tuna pouches
Salsa Chips
Boneless Chicken
3 pounds of ground beef
Steak
Tomatoes
Sweet Onions
Plantain
Cilantro
Fresh and Express Lettuce
Ice Cream
3 Microwave Dinners
Kraft Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
American Cheese
Ricotta Cheese
Sour Cream

How has your grocery shopping been?

Would you Couch Surf?

Last Updated: July 13, 2017 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.

People will do many things to save money while on vacation. Not eating out, getting an inexpensive hotel, not flying too far away and so on. Vacations can be expensive and something I heard of a couple of months ago was called couch surfing. I heard about it on the radio and the morning talk show host was trying to convince his intern not to do this and then many people called in and called her crazy also.

The website for this is CouchSurfing.

The website touts that this is very safe, and just like with Ebay, couch surfing hosts are verified and rated by others who have used their couches. This can be a very easy way to save money. Also, it’s not always a couch that you get, most people have extra rooms or beds for you to use.

I on the other hand have a hard time trusting someone. I don’t like the thought of leaving my stuff at someone’s house while I am sightseeing.

What do you think? What would you do to save money? Would you sleep on someone else’s couch/floor/room without knowing them? Would it be more about the experience of meeting new people who are locals or about saving money?

Daily Deal Websites

Last Updated: July 13, 2017 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.

Do you use any daily deal websites? Such as Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, and so on?

Are you addicted? I only buy it if I know that it’s close and that I’ll actually use it. However, my mother buys ANYTHING! She recently gave me a big stack that were about to expire and told me to start using them. While this is nice that I get to use all of them, she is insane! You are not actually saving any money, if you wouldn’t have gone to the place in the first place.

Here are some tips so that you aren’t wasting money:

Make sure that it is something that you will use.
Figure out what the WHOLE cost will be. So if you buy a hair certificate, how much will tip be afterwards? You should be tipping on the FULL amount.
If you’re traveling, maybe look into deals in that city, but if you have any doubt that you won’t use it, then don’t buy it.
Verify that the value that you are saving is actually “saved.” My Groupon deal one day that I saw was for a photography session. The session was one hour long, at the studio, and with a not-so-great photography company. Groupon stated the value of this was $1,495! This is obviously over inflated.

Are you addicted to any daily deal sites? Which ones do you like? Have you made any mistakes with the daily deal sites?

Here are the pictures that some of you were asking for!

Last Updated: August 26, 2011 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 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.

A lot of you had questions about the secret shopping that I do. Trust me, I was VERY skeptical at first. Here is a picture of the recent check that I received.

And then some of you also asked for a picture of my cute bulldog! He is a runt and only around 10 pounds (they usually weigh around 30-40 pounds). He is always sick since he’s a runt and always gets hurt. I feel so bad for him 🙁

Also, what does everyone think of the new background? Is it ok? I guess while we’re at it, does anyone have any tips on the layout or suggestions for new topics for my blog? Thanks!