I own a boat. Or I should say the bank owns my boat as I’m 5 years into a 20 year loan. What? You didn’t know you could finance a boat over 20 years? Oh sure you can. Although 15 year loans are more common, 20 year loans are readily available for those of us [...]
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Use this Monthly Budget Worksheet to jot down your monthly expenses and track your spending. You can use the existing categories or modify them to suit your household. Simply fill in the yellow highlighted fields and the rest is calculated for you. As you track your spending each month, the 12 Month Budget Roll Up [...]
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Eating out is one of our favorite things to do, but it can get expensive. We only allocate $100 month for dining out so we’ve learned to stretch our dollars so we can enjoy more meals out without breaking our budget. Here are five things everyone can do to save $$$ when eating out. 1. [...]
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After hearing our story people often want to know the effect foreclosure has had on us including our ability to get credit, make purchases, etc. Our house was foreclosed 3 months ago so I doubt we’ve seen the total fallout from foreclosure, but I’ll share what has happened so far. Credit Scores – My scores [...]
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I can hardly believe we’re more than half way through January and I’m just getting around to documenting my goals for the year. They’ve been floating around my head for months but I’m just now writing them down. I’m one of those people that loves setting goals. They ground me. They keep me focused and [...]
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We’ve made paying down our debt and rebuilding our savings our top priority. In order to do that we really focus on keeping our expenses low. By moving a little further out, we were able to rent a house that met all of our needs (my husband had some non-negotiable garage requirements) for $1295/month versus [...]
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We decided to apply for a Loan Modification knowing that it was unlikely we would get one…but we had to try. At this point banks were only dealing with people that were delinquent on their mortgage. We had been current up to this point but it was not an issue for us to stop making [...]
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The financial turmoil was taking its toll on our marriage. My husband and I had always been able to speak openly about finances, but the stress affected every aspect of our lives. I was tense and we were arguing a lot. I didn’t know how much we could sustain. It was during one of these [...]
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At the beginning of 2009 our income took a hit. We had been renting out two rooms in our house to supplement our income. We asked one renter to leave due to personal conflicts. The second renter purchased a house and also moved out. At the same time my personal income declined in January and [...]
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At the start of 2008 my income was ramping up but I was still no where near my previous salary…and my expenses were still in line with a six figure income. We were banking on the hope that my income would continue to increase. The real estate market had been hot for years but now [...]
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Hi, I’m Cathy! I’m a former career-driven professional turned stay-at-home mom. Living on one salary has its challenges, but it is possible to live the good life while spending less. Cool to be Frugal is all about how we’re thriving, not just surviving, on a single income.
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