I just celebrated my 28th birthday, and it is bothering me a ton that at 28 and almost 30 years old, we still do not own a home. It drives me crazy actually. In reality, we could never have owned a home in the Seattle neighborhoods we lived in on the eastside. Home prices there are sky high. And now, we have chosen one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Florida to live in, so...we are kind of making it a lot harder for ourselves. But for me, no excuse! I see my friends all around me owning homes. I'm ready for that to be us.
We have some work to do first before that can happen and I want to make this a journey on my blog so that it keeps me more accountable! I have decided that in my 28th year, I want to spend less and make more so that we can achieve our goal of owning a home. Here's my plan because by my 29th birthday, I want us to be in a position to be looking at homes!
-Change the way we eat! No more eating out all the time. No eating out at Disney. No snacking at Disney. No more Starbucks runs all the time. And... Matt's not going to like this one - less meat! We are going to be eating healthier and on a more vegetarian style diet. This is for both health and financial reasons as Matt is also on his own journey right now. I want to help him.
-Set aside specific hours each day where I sit at my computer to do marketing work for both my dance and fitness companies. I also want to delegate more so that more things are accomplished.
-No more Target runs. They kill me. I'm going to avoid going to Target. I never leave Target without spending at least $100. Never. I usually go at least once/week. That's about $5,200/year!
-Every Sunday I will plan out our meals and we will stick to them so we are not constantly buying more food or eating out because we failed to plan. I will do my best to keep our grocery budget as close to $100.00/week as I can. We have done this before so I know it can be done. Lately, I've been too relaxed about it and usually spend at least $200/week on groceries. That's a $400/month savings! $4,800 in a year!
-More crock pot meals. This will save both time and money.
-Every time I go grocery shopping I will get $20 back in cash and put it in savings that we aren't allowed to touch. That's $1,040 in a year if I do it every week.
-We will cancel Netflix, Hulu, and our SeaWorld passes (we rarely go). This will save $45.00/month between the 3. That's $540 in a year.
-I will homeschool Lilly Belle. We were planning on homeschooling her for preschool but are also looking into a co-op preschool for her. I think we will pass on that for this year even though it looks so cute. That will save over $1,000.00.
-Teach more classes. If I teach just two more classes/week than I am right now, that will save us at least $1,560!
-Grocery shop at Aldi, Trader Joes and Walmart.
-I am hoping I can start blogging more too!
-Matt always talks about getting a part time job, but we're not there yet ;)
Just with the numbers above alone, that is a savings of $14,140 in a year just from small changes! That is a down payment on a house.
On top of being really good at saving, we need to pay off some medical bills from my miscarriage and my hospital visit this pregnancy. We have one other debt to pay off, but hopefully my working extra hard will cover all of that. We have a goal of 30 dance kids/session and 100 mamas as members in my fitness company.
Starting on May 1st - because it's a good solid #, we are going to do a ZERO SPENDING MONTH. Nothing extra.
I am excited to write about this and keep updating our progress each month. We are already on the right track and have an amazing budget that I update every morning, or sometimes 3 times a day (obsession). We have lowered our health insurance and got rid of cable. Now if only we could all cram into a one bedroom for the next year. ... I'm kidding.
28 is my year of savings and progress. I want my babies to grow up in a home, not from apartment to apartment. We can do this!
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