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My first step was to budget and follow our money in a way that made sense to us. I talked to many folks about how they managed their finances. Including my parents who lived debt-free their entire life with one tiny exception: the occasional XX-days-same-as-cash and their mortgage. Now, they had six children. Took us on family vacations. Put all of us through additional education after our high school graduations. And retired quite comfortably. I wanted that legacy to continue. So, what budget tool would work for me? We had to diminish our debt so we tackled it by adapting our own methods. Debt Reduction Ain't Easy It took two tries at debt-consolidation to realize that was not the answer. In both cases we ended up with the loan to consolidate and added more debt onto our credit cards. No reduction happening, yet. Plus, I had an impulse buy issue.  You know those handy-dandy items located by the checkout lanes? Those were made for me. I would stand there and ...

So in our 30s we had little to no savings; 5-figure debt; two boys we wanted to send to college and then we needed to think about retirement. And our income was pretty small - I recall about $45k for our household. By now, I was a Primerica Financial Services representative (2nd job). Through Primerica I brokered mutual funds and talked to people about liquidating their whole / universal life insurance policies, buying term insurance and, with the money left over, save into mutual funds sheltered in an IRA for their future. We called this "buy term and invest the difference." Conversations covered how much money is enough for life insurance and how much is enough for retirement. Determining the life insurance piece was easy. Here's how: Think of the insurance as income-replacement. To your current salary, add a zero. That's the amount of life insurance you need. Example: Someone making a $25,000 annual salary would need $250,000 of life insurance. Dur...

Since my last post over a year ago, I've accomplished some crazy things. At least, crazy for me. I have completed two classes through two different organizations that empower me to help answer investment questions during formal training at Transformational Investing Workshops by Phil Town and I have completed my Financial Master Coach certification through Ramsey Solutions . If you had told past me as a young mother 30 or so years ago that I would be helping people with their financial goals, I probably would have laughed (possibly hysterically). The next several blogs will review this little journey. Hopefully, it will add to your life. Looking Back Our financial picture wasn't very good. We didn't have $1,000 saved in anything. No IRA. But we had credit cards. A lovely assortment of colorful plastic that were well used and "helped" us get from one paycheck to the next. This is the cover of the book I read. However, Crown Ministries still has c...