I charged $7,000 on my brand new credit card within one month...

I graduated college in 2013 with no student loan debt. But it was also the same year I applied for my very first secured credit card.After using it for a while to build my credit, I was able to apply to a few more credit cards and I think you can guess where this story goes..For the next four to five years, I charged everything under the sun on my credit cards without budgeting and tracking my expenses.I once even opened a new credit card and charged $7,000 within the first month!

The eye opening experience - one night in 2018..

That one night in 2018 when I sat down and actually created my very first budget, I added both of our income. I also went through our banking and credit card accounts to calculate our monthly bills.After subtracting our monthly bills from our income, we had about $3,000 leftover every single month.I planned to allocate $700 per month to help pay off the last $10,000 of my credit card debt so it will be paid off within one year.BUT my husband, Ricky, challenged me to allocate $1,500 per month to pay it off in half of the time.So that's what we did - we allocated $1,500 toward paying off my credit card debt and $1,500 toward our lifestyle expenses.

What I'm up to these days.

Ever since I paid off the last $10,000 of my debt, I've been living debt free. I set a goal to fully fund my emergency fund in 2021 by having saved $20,000. I didn't meet that goal but I did saved up $11,650 in 2021.I'm also teaching others (like you!) how to budget but still live your life. I realized that a budget is a powerful tool to achieve anything you want to do with your money. You can:

save up for your emergency fund,
pay off your credit card dent like I did,
give away some of your money toward a cause you're passionate about,
invest in real estate or stocks and
most importantly, spend your hard-earned money without the guilt.

If you want to learn how to budget but still live your life, make sure you follow along! All of my social media platforms are linked on the top navigation bar.See you somewhere on the 'net ;)

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