Welcome to my blog! I'm Natalie, military wife on a military budget! I don't have human children, but I do have Penelope, my bull dog!
I started My Sinful Savings to share
the best prices, coupons, bargains, and deals I can find -- with you! If you're new around here, head on over
to Coupon 101 and you too can master the art of saving on EVERYTHING...because with this economy ...its a sin to pay full price!

Friday, April 1, 2011

PART 1: GETTING STARTED

Path to Freedom: So you have realized that your finances aren't quite where you want them to be? Or do you have more expenses than income? Economy hit your family a hard as it did mine? Whatever the reason you came here, you made it and now together we can save money, end debt, and live a better quality of life on a budget....sorry, that is a dirty word "budget" but once I realized I needed to live on a budget and limit my excessive or unnecessary spending, I realized that my life would be a lot better, less stressful and I could have freedom from bills once again!

Budget: Long before I knew about coupons, I created a budget, more than anything because I needed to know what I was paying out every month on bills, utilities and then somewhere in there I forgot that I needed to include groceries, personal items, etc....well, you can use this excel spreadsheet for a very good break down of expenses. Once you have it filled out you can choose what you need and what you don't and eliminate extras like movie channels you don't watch, gym memberships you don't use, etc. Or you can use this as a basic idea of what you want to include in your budget or not and create your own. My income is varied so my husbands paycheck is what I base my budget on and anything I make is "extra" that is paid on credit card bills and other debts.

Negotiate Bills: Amazingly enough, most companies would rather you spend less than lose you as a customer, especially cable and phone companies! Rather than completely canceling your cable, call and tell them you need a better option, mine always offers different deals and when my bill goes from $100 to $175 (it really does!) I call and have them sign me up for a new special.

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