If you’ve been following along for a while you’ve probably heard about our debt-free journey before, but you may not be familiar with our journey with buying a foreclosure and remodeling it. We haven’t always lived where we do now. Barry and I bought our first home about 15 years ago. It was a townhouse that we bought before construction had even begun! It took about 1,100 years for them to build it (not really, but it seemed like it took FOREVER). While we were waiting for it to be built, we lived in the apartment that Barry’s parents had at their home.

We lived in our townhouse for 8 years, and completely paid it off in after 7 years. That’s when we became debt free! We decided that we didn’t want to get another home mortgage loan EVER.

We’ve made a kind of a name for ourselves as far as living debt free goes – and teaching other people how to make it a real thing in their own lives. Barry does a lot of work with people on the side trying to help them live debt free as well. Our whole debt free story is available both on the Humorous Homemaking and on Facebook under videos. But recently we asked if y’all had any specific questions related to living debt free and decided to answer them today in kind of a speed Q&A round. [Read more…]

I have told our family’s debt free story before, but it’s been requested a lot lately. And I have to admit, in recent years, I’ve almost been resistant to share. I guess it’s because I’m worried that people will think I am bragging or I am trying to point fingers at other people for the choices they make. I promise I am not trying to do either of those!

I’m just telling where we’ve come from, where we are now, and how we got there.

We’ll call this the new and improved version – but it’s really the same old story a lot of you have probably already heard. And this may come as a shock, but we weren’t born into wealthy families and we didn’t get here by chance or luck. No, our family is debt-free thanks to hard work and dedication. [Read more…]

I often get asked… “Stacy, how do I budget for unexpected expenses?” A huge part of homemaking is budgeting, y’all! Today, I’m going to share how Barry and I handle unexpected expenses each month.

To start off, what are unexpected expenses? Any expenses that you were not expecting! I love when definitions work out so easily like that. Every single month there will be times when you will say, “Oh no! I didn’t budget for this!”

Things you don’t plan for ALWAYS pop up. Let me give you a few examples of some unexpected expenses.

[Read more…]

As you probably already know, our family loves to shop online and we love to save money. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know most of the benefits of shopping online already, but humor me for a bit because I may teach you a thing or two about simplifying your online shopping experience and save you some money along the way. [Read more…]

We all know we should eat healthy, get plenty of sleep at night, exercise, and be proactive with managing our finances. And yet we’re a society that hits the drive thru, stays up too late to get up early, sits on the couch Netflix binge watching and lives on credit cards. We want all the benefits without being disciplined enough to earn them. Wouldn’t it be nice if just one thing in our life could be easy?!

I’m at least 20 lbs. overweight, sleep and 4 small children don’t mix, and I only run if being chased…so don’t look for my expertise on the first three of those items above. However, we’ve done pretty well with our finances. In fact, we were able to become 100% debt free in 2011 (including our home) and have never looked back. That means one of two things: 1) we make a ton of money and can blow it all at will, or 2) we make a budget every month and stick to it. Trust me…it is #2. [Read more…]