Kayla Buell – Ambassador

Thank you, Carla! Yes, will definitely be working on increasing that emergency fund! 🙂

I love the idea of gifting kids money or some kind of investment that will grow in the future. I can’t wait for our little one to get old enough to understand the basic concepts of saving up for things and teaching her financial lessons along the way!

How cool! I didn’t know you could sell gift cards online. That definitely makes sense. No point in holding onto a card that you’ll never use when you could trade it in for something else.

Now that I’ll be taking care of our newborn, I’ll be cutting back on my hours meaning we’ll have a whole lot less income coming in. For that reason, we’ll be taking a much closer look at our budget and reducing as many unnecessary costs as possible.

I’ve heard that these aren’t worth it, but I’ve honestly never really looked into them. This is the first car I’ve purchased so prior to this one all my leases included the maintenance, but I think I’d rather pay for what I actually DO need as opposed to throwing away money every month if I don’t need to.

I’ve tried all kinds of apps but my all-time favorite way of tracking my money is on a plain old Excel spreadsheet where I have to manually enter all of our information. It’s a little tedious at times, but I find that spending a little effort putting all that info in shows me that I’m committed to keeping track of our finances and that I’m making…[Read more]

Oh heck no! LOL 🙂 I have zero problem asking my friends for their share of whatever it is we agree to do. I think it’s just important to communicate all of the details up front. Before you make that reservation, say, “hey…I’m gunna put this on my card, but I need you guys to pay be back within x amount of days or I’ll be hounding you.” But I…[Read more]

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind when negotiating a raise is that your employer should only give you a raise if you deserve one. Therefore, you’ve gotta go into any kind of meeting with your boss with clear examples of your successes and what makes you deserving of that raise. Did you increase sales by x percent? Did you reduce costs by x…[Read more]

Hahaha I love that analogy! The two definitely don’t mix!

Yes! I’m with you right there! The other day our A/C broke and we had to come up with $300+ to fix that…then a few weeks later, our cat’s emergency vet visit set us back another $300. Definitely stresses me out when I have to deal with these unexpected expenses during the holidays, but at least you’ve got a little emergency fund that should…[Read more]

I’m on the Dave Ramsey plan and yep – that’s what he teaches. Pay off debt before contributing to retirement. I’m currently in the same boat because I’m contributing to retirement and still have about $12k of debt left to pay (my car). I’m trying to convince my hubby to temporarily stop our retirement contributions until we’ve finished paying off…[Read more]

Oooo a pup on a plane is definitely going to be an extra expense. I have a lot of friends who swear by AirBnB to save money on their out-of-town stays. I think that sites like Groupon and Living Social also have pretty good deals on hotels too. As far as flights go, I just try to book as far in advance as possible, but I haven’t done much…[Read more]

Goodness I’ve had the same savings account since I was like 16 years old lol. When it comes to my regular banking accounts (checking/savings) the interest I earn on my savings is so little that I’ve never thought of looking to switch.