How We Got Out of Debt

If you read our "We Lost Our Home" post, you know our rental was sold and the new owners wanted to live in it. There were a few things I did not include in that post.

For example, when we moved into our home, I did not have a budget set up. I already had some debt when we moved in, but that debt would just keep growing. Towards the end of 2019 I was financially frustrated. I wanted to travel but was held back due to financial struggles. I wanted to purchase a house but was unable to due to finances. I was frustrated to the point that I decided to deep dive into the Budget Mom's Budget by Paycheck method.

I finally put a budget together and started saving for things like Christmas and birthdays. It was so nice to not stress about Christmas finally. I did run into an issue of not wanting to spend the money when it was time, but I quickly got over it. If you think you do not have any money to save after bills are paid, I beg to differ. I thought the same thing until I started the budgeting process. 

When I first started out, I started using cash only for variable expenses. Food was the main variable expense we had. It was already a very tight budget, but I decided to do what the Budget Mom did; I took the change and placed it in a separate savings jar. At the end of the first year, I had saved $100 just in change. That showed me I really could save more than I thought. 

Once I got the hang of the process, I went back to using my debit card as it was easier. That would end my change savings, but that did not mean saving was done. The Budget Mom used to create savings challenges for a small fee. I decided it was worth the price and for two years used her challenges to save money. At the end of the year, I would take the money saved and apply it to debt.

Once we lost our house that freed up quite a bit of money. I still had bills, but nothing compared to what I did have. I was able to pay off the last of my consumer debt within a few months of moving in with my parents. It felt amazing to be consumer debt free. Whereas I was consumer debt free, I still had some family loans to pay off.

One of the most asked questions in finance is whether one should use the snowball or avalanche method. I am not an expert in finance, nor am I a financial advisor, but I can tell you what worked best for me. In the beginning, I used the snowball method for a quick victory. My debt ranged from hundreds to thousands. With the snowball method you order your debt from least to greatest. As you pay off one debt you apply the payment to the next debt. I chose to use this method until I reached the higher debt amounts. Once I reached the higher debt, I switched over to the avalanche method. With the avalanche method you order debt based on interest rates and attack the higher interest rates first. 

Once my consumer debt was paid off, I switched back to the snowball method and just applied the full debt payment to family loans. I used the rest of my paycheck, outside of bills, to start our house savings. In one sense it felt so good to be able to start saving for a house, but in another sense it felt impossible. 

If you are stuck in debt and want out, my advice is to create a bare bones budget. A bare bones budget consists of only necessities needed each month. What can you get rid of temporarily to apply to your debt? Does your paycheck cover your bare bones budget? If it doesn't you need to find a way to bring in extra money or lower living costs. Once you have your bare bones budget, you can cut costs and apply the money saved to your debt.

We have built up our house savings enough to be able to purchase a house within our budget. We have somewhat halted our house savings as we have a big announcement to share with you all. Make sure to come back next week to see what it is!

My Amazon Favorites

 I thought I'd share some of my favorite things from Amazon.

I recently purchased a vlog camera. I was looking for a good travel case for it. After searching around, I decided to try the one below. I can say from experience it has been an amazing case. I love that it will hold my tripod, charger, extra batteries, and wind screen. I also love the shoulder strap as it made carrying it around while on vacation super easy.  

The other purchase I have been loving are the charger and extra batteries for my camera. Sony did not include a charger with this camera, which is so frustrating. Just like the Canon G7X, this camera runs through batteries fairly fast. I was skeptical about this purchase, but it has been fantastic. The batteries work with the camera and the charger works great. I have noticed the charger is slow at charging when plugged up to the computer, but if it is plugged into the wall it seemed to charge faster.

My last favorite for now has been the tripod I bought for my phone. This is actually the second phone tripod I've bought. The first one had a ring light attached to it. The ring light broke fairly quick and it seemed to constantly struggle to keep my phone straight. It also did not withstand wind well. I decided to give this one a try, and it has been great. I've been using it since April of this year, and it has only fallen once due to wind. I do not struggle with the phone holder being straight and it has felt sturdy. 

These are the things I have bought fairly recently that I have been loving. I like to share products that I have personally bought. 

If there is anything we can help you find, please feel free to reach out by either leaving a comment or sending an email to savingsmakesense@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Links listed here may be affiliate links. When you use them to make a purchase, we may receive a small commission. However, this is at NO additional charge to you.

Savings Makes Cents

 My mom and I have started a business together called Savings Makes Cents. Basically, we look for deals for you, so you don't have to. It is a very new business that is still a work in progress. We hope you will follow us over on Instagram and if you are looking for something specific feel free to comment or send us a direct message and we will do our best to find the best deal. 

The holidays are coming up and we look forward to putting together gift guides to help make shopping a little easier. I hope to bring some of the deals we find over to the blog, but it is busy season at work, so time is very limited.

Abeka Homeschool Curriculum

I don't know about you, but I feel like we did not get a summer. It seemed like we got a lot of rain, and the temps were pretty low. 

Maddy started her first week of school on July 31. Our goal is to be done before public-school kids. This year we are actually getting done about two weeks later than usual, but neither of us wanted to start any earlier. 

We chose to try Abeka's homeschool video streaming this year. After the first day I had a lot of thoughts. Some good some not so good.

The videos are amazing. The teachers do a phenomenal job teaching and engaging the video students. The curriculum itself is very rigorous. 

The main reason we switched to video streaming is because my job has become a lot more demanding than past years, and I needed something she could take charge of. With this new curriculum she is able to take charge for the most part.

The problem is the way the curriculum is designed. It is set up like a public school, and we both dislike that a lot. Before each video there is some classwork assigned. The video does not tell the students to do the work, but only checks the answers. Before she starts each video, I have to tell her what to do before turning on the video and then she can take it from there. The videos are about 40-45 minutes long. Once the video is done homework is assigned. I don't feel homework should be assigned in a homeschool curriculum. I mean technically everything she does is homework. I would like to see Abeka redesign the homeschool curriculum to be more in line with homeschool, not public school.

One thing I do like about the curriculum is I feel it will adequately prepare her for college. Her grades come from quizzes, tests/exams, and projects. She is not used to having so many tests, but I am seeing a huge improvement in her learning. The material that is covered is extremely difficult. Hearing her answer the teacher's questions as they review each day makes this mama proud. 

I am trying to figure out what we can cut out because the workload is not necessary. So far, we have only cut out one book for literature. I've been able to cut out some of the homework. 

She is on her fourth week of school now and is starting to adjust more and more. She is struggling to remember everything in history, but I know she will pull through just fine.

We will probably stick with Abeka throughout high school. I do not want to trial and error through those years. Abeka is a lot to handle, but I think she will learn what she needs to in order to succeed in life. I hope to do an unboxing next year, so stay tuned!

Current Faves

 I thought I would share all the things I've been loving recently.

The first thing that comes to mind is peach mango Bang energy drink. I know energy drinks are not healthy at all, but this is how I wake up in the mornings. I've tried several different flavors, but peach mango is the best in my opinion. 

Callie Danielle has definitely made my list. She is a small business owner who brings such joy through her art. You can order straight from her site by clicking here.

I have been testing a liquid collagen from Amazon since June. It's called Wild Fuel Liquid Collagen. I haven't noticed major differences, but I have noticed my hair is not falling out as much as it was, which was the reason I wanted to try it.

An iPhone game I have started loving again is Lily's Garden. It is free in the app store, and I am hooked. I enjoy choosing the decorations throughout the game, and the levels can be challenging, but not overly challenging.

As I think of more favorites I will make another post. 

Chattanooga Choo Choo

 We decided to check out the Chattanooga Choo Choo. It has sure changed a lot from the last time I went, but it was something different to do.

Besides the hotel, there was an arcade that looked pretty empty. Maddy had never been there, so she enjoyed looking around. We didn't get to look around long because the rain came earlier than expected.

I think I've only been during Christmas time. It is beautiful at Christmas. We plan to go back when it's all decorated. I did film a little of our adventure over on our YouTube channel. 

After exploring downtown Chattanooga, we were starved and headed to Sonic. In case you don't know, Sonic is one of Maddy's favorite restaurants. If it were up to her, we would eat there every day. We typically order the same thing, a number one combo with a lot of customizations.

We love exploring new things and hope to find more things to explore in the future.

Severe Weather

I know I've been missing here lately, but I am back. My posts are probably going to be once a week for now. I post on other social media platforms every Monday at 10:00 EST, so I think I will do the same for my blog. 

I'm not sure when my love for weather, storms in particular, happened, but I do love learning about them. I have several radar apps I've purchased and found a few weather YouTubers I enjoy following. Ryan Hall Y'all became one of my favorites because he would teach about the storm setup and show pointers of things to look for when looking for tornadoes. I've learned quite a bit from him. 

I thought I would share some of my process as we were originally in the slight risk with this system.

As it gets closer to Springtime, I typically start checking the severe weather outlook on the Storm Prediction Center's website.

This just shows the severe storm risk. If we are in the slight risk or higher, then I start looking at other things. 

After checking the SPC severe weather risk, I go to Pivotal Weather and click on Models. I start with HRRR. On the left-hand side, I scroll down to the severe weather and click on significant tornado parameters. Since I am not a meteorologist, I am unable to determine tornado parameters on my own. I would love to be able to forecast on my own, but I haven't taken time to truly learn how to do so.

You can click on any county and it will pull up hodographs, which I am still unable to read, but in the bottom right corner it will list the risk.

In this example, there is a possibility of a tornado. I also like to check the NAM as it shows different results. Another good thing to check is the supercell composite.

The date and time of the event is listed in the upper left-hand corner. You can google z weather times, but I will say I have not been able to get my times to match an actual meteorologist. I really like Ryan Hall's supercell setup because the cells show up as dots and it gives a better representation of where the supercells will be.

Dew points are another factor as to whether a tornado could spin up. If you have dewpoints in the 60's or higher that is one ingredient that is needed.

Once storm day has arrived, I utilize Radarscope and Radar Omega apps. These are both paid apps, but so worth it if you love weather. This is where Ryan Hall Y'all has helped me the most. I will try to capture screenshots to share to make it easier to follow.

Before I continue, I want to add that I started writing this post Friday before the storms rolled through. I used the storms to gather my screenshots. The storms were horrific in Mississippi and my heart breaks for all the people that were impacted. I've been learning how to read the radar for a few years now and I have never seen storms like these. 

Once storms get started, I periodically look at the mesoscale discussion on the SPC website. This will let you know if they are planning to add a watch to your area. 

In this example the circled area was expected to have severe storms develop with tornadoes becoming more likely late in the day.

This is typically my set up during severe weather. Anytime Ryan Hall Y'all is live I try to watch and follow along so I can learn. This screenshot is a PDS (particularly dangerous situation) tornado warning. This would be the storm that went on to produce the horrific tornadoes in Rolling Fork, MS. This is the velocity of the storm. When the red and green are touching and is tight that shows there is rotation.

This is the correlation coefficient. The ball that is northeast from the tornado symbol would be what meteorologists call the CC drop. This shows there is debris in the air. There was another tornado that hit the northwest section of Amory, MS. The correlation coefficient was huge! I thought I took screenshots of it, but apparently, I was so shocked in what I was seeing I failed to do so.

This is another Velocity scan that shows rotation. The red and green heart shape is where the rotation was, and I'm pretty sure there was a tornado on the ground here.

This is another velocity scan that shows two separate areas of rotation. One is above Tchula and the other above the 17. I cannot remember if there were truly two tornadoes on the ground, but if there were this is what it would look like. 

These are the things I have learned so far. I still have some learning to do. 

I think it is super important to listen to your local weather people. If they say prepare, make sure you have an action plan in place. I know meteorologists get a bad rap because it seems they are wrong more than they are right. The issue is they are sharing what they see in the model runs. I have seen models change within minutes, so I can't imagine trying to forecast days in advance. 

We have a lot of access to resources we didn't used to have. Ryan Hall Y'all is a great YouTube channel to watch if storms are expected to be bad. Dr. Reed Timmer is also another great resource to utilize. He streams on social media a lot. A few other storm chasers I have started following are Brandon Copic, Brad Arnold, Vince Waelti, Chris Hall Y'all. Andy Hill is a great meteorologist that just started his YouTube channel recently. He is active on Twitter as well.