An Income Issue

Hello Lovely Savers! Today I wanted to talk about an issue that pulls on my heartstrings… income issues.

“Taylor, why does income pull on your heartstrings?” you might be asking. Because I am a personal finance nerd, obvs. Also, because sometimes, no matter how hard you try to save and budget- the spending isn’t the problem.

I see this with clients every once in a while, they cut EVERYTHING from their budgets and they stick to those budgets like it is their purpose in life, but even with all their sacrifices they can’t get ahead. They feel stuck, and like all the sacrificing wasn’t even worth it, and they feel hopeless. I would know, I’ve been there.

And it’s at this point that I ask them to look outside of the budget, I don’t ask them to try to cut more than they already have. I ask them to look at where the money comes from. There are so many people who work at their jobs for years and they don’t even consider any other options because they are comfortable and it “pays the bills”. But what about when it isn’t paying the bills?

In one of my really old blog posts I talked about leaving the non-profit world because it couldn’t pay the bills (and several other reasons). I felt SO GUILTY leaving the job I had worked so hard to get, and I was made to feel like I was being GREEDY to ask for more hours and thus more money. I left in June that year, and when I did my taxes the following year do you know how much they had paid me in 6 months? $5,000. They wanted me to work there for $10,000 a year. And it wasn’t until that moment that I realized I was right to leave, I am worth more than $10,000 a year.

Sometimes it isn’t even the salary. Occasionally I have had a client, and when we are going over their budget I naturally ask how much they bring home each month, and they explain that it is a little lower than they’d like because they only work 30 hours a week.

“Well”, then I ask, “why do you only work 30 hours a week?”

“Because they only want me to work 30 hours a week.”

Like, I’m sorry, what? Then they can find someone else to work 30 hours per week! And I understand that some people have limitations and that inhibits them from being able to work 40 hours, I am obviously not talking about that in this scenario. If you WANT to work 40 hours per week, then find a job that will pay you to work 40 hours a week!

It’s also my experience that if a job is only willing to pay for a half-time employee or a part-time employee (less than 40 hours per week), then they are NOT giving competitive compensation. And they are probably not providing benefits either.

Even if you are an Administrative Assistant, and they pay you $18/hour which is the going rate for Administrative Assistants in your area, if you are only scheduled for 30 hours per week you are making less than $600 per week. If you worked 40 hours you’d be making a little over $700. And sure, that $100 doesn’t seem like a ton in the grand scheme of things, but if your financial goals could really use that $100, it isn’t anything to sneeze at. AND if you don’t receive benefits from work, and you have to supply them yourself, you might be out another couple hundred per month to pay for things like health insurance and dental and vision, etc.

I am not suggesting that anyone working less than 40 hours should go get a second job to compensate for the missing income, if you want to, go for it. If you find somewhere willing to hire you for 10 hours a week, they probably are not paying higher than minimum wage, and it might not be worth the stress.

What I am really suggesting is that you determine what your goals need, and if they need more income to make them a reality, don’t be afraid to ask for it or find it somewhere else.

YOU ARE NOT OWNED BY YOUR EMPLOYER. You may feel loyalty toward them, toward the job and your coworkers, but no one can hold you back from reaching YOUR goals. As disheartening as it is, if you leave, they will replace you.

So there you have it Lovely Savers. If you have worked your butt off to stick to a budget, and cut the cable and all the fun stuff, and you STILL can’t make it past Baby Step One ($1,000 Emergency Savings)- time to look outside of spending. Is there enough coming in? If not, what are you willing to do about that?

Sorry that today’s blog might be a little bit of a downer, but thank you so much for all of your support, Lovely Savers! I love sharing my tips and tricks for money and how to deal with everything in between. Please join the Facebook Group: Sugar and Savings- Budgets and Saving Money to be a part of our community of other lovely savers. We share our thoughts, and plans with money, and we celebrate each other’s wins! And each month I go live to answer YOUR questions about personal finance!

Until next time, wishing you all Sugar and Savings,

Retail Therapy

Hello Lovely Savers,

I must make a confession… I am prone to Retail Therapy.

What’s Retail Therapy? It’s when you shop to make yourself feel better! What do you need to feel better about? I don’t know but have you seen TJMaxx? It would make anyone happy.

Retail Therapy can, and probably does, affect everyone. It can be such a problem I even included it in my book “If I’m an Adult… Where is my Money?”.

My Retail Therapy habit started when I was very young, and as much as I love her dearly I FULLY BLAME MY MOTHER. One day, when I was but a wee tot, a friend from school was going to be moving away. I distinctly remember not caring very much, because I was young and honestly did not comprehend what that fully meant, but my mother was very sure that I was sad. I sort of remember my mom picking me up from somewhere and going to run an errand somewhere, and I distinctly remember her buying me candy. She bought me candy to feel better. I didn’t even feel bad, but I didn’t care, I got candy!

Whenever I had a crush on a boy, which truthfully was often, I would be so in love I would lose my appetite. This would worry my parents very much, as they did not know my bizarre lack of hunger was due to my being heartbroken over my imagined love. They would assume I was upset and to get me to eat, they would order my favorite take out food.

When I was in college, the first love of my life broke my heart. I was devastated, and after the breakup, my mom took me to the Mall of America for THREE DAYS. Even though we didn’t buy anything (as my broken heart could not muster up any interest in anything), the act of shopping was once again being used to soothe my soul.

My poor parents were doing the best they could, I was not an easy child to understand as my mental health would not be explained for two decades and I had a LOT of feelings. They love me so much and I know they were just trying to make me happy! But even years later I would be in Target, buying trinkets in the dollar section, or using my day off to walk around TJMaxx to “relax”. And while my natural saver inclination didn’t allow me to drop buttloads of money on random crap, it is clearly not a great coping mechanism.

I am willing to bet you have seen yourself in the same or similar situations! Stopped off to peek at nail polish while at the grocery store? Added items to your Amazon cart while inebriated? Drawn to food when having a bad day? Lots of people use food or money or alcohol to adjust their “mood”. And just as we recognize that alcoholism is not a healthy addiction, neither is Retail Therapy. You might not have it so bad that you spend all the money to your name and ruin your family’s life, but it can very easily creep into your life and throw you off of your financial goals. It can trip you up and give you excuses to put off your budget and savings plans.

If you recognize this trend in your own life, seek out some new or additional self-care ideas to use when you feel down. And for the love of God, step away from Target!

If you would like some of my self-care/depression tips, you can read my blog article about that here, and if you’d like to read my book “If I’m an Adult… Where is my Money? : A quick guide to money for the aspiring adult” you can get it on Amazon on December 20th, 2018!

Thank you so much for all of your support, lovely savers, I love sharing my tips and tricks for money and how to deal with everything in between. Please feel free to join my Facebook Group: Sugar and Savings- Budgets and Saving Money to be a part of our community of other lovely savers! We share our thoughts and plans on money and we celebrate each other’s wins!

Until next time, wishing you all Sugar and Savings,

Taylor

xoxo

How I Saved $5,000 In Just 6 Months!

Hello Lovely Savers!

I am so happy to be back to writing this blog and really excited to share this savings plan with you! As most of you know, Handsome Man and I just bought our first house and have been working into the wee hours of every day trying to get the projects done before we moved in. *Spoiler Alert: we did NOT, we moved in this weekend before we had a functioning bathroom! But more to come on our home adventures later.

Today’s post is about how I personally saved up for down payment. I originally saw this as a pin on Pinterest, how to save $5,000 for a down payment in one year. But I said “That’s not crazy enough, I’ll have it done in HALF THE TIME!” and *Second Spoiler Alert you guys: I DID.

The original pin from Larissa Swany, a realtor I believe, was how to save $5,000 by saving a certain amount off of each of your paychecks. Here’s why I don’t suggest that.

First, it takes too long for you to see results! I have tried many a Pinterest inspired savings plan, only to find I have a hard time remembering to make the deposit or I grow bored with it. This time, I was so freaking pumped, I was giddy when the 26th week came around.

Second, bills follow your paycheck cycle too. This savings plan is aggressive, and I don’t want you to skip weeks or pay periods because all of a sudden you remember another bill coming out and panic. It’s important to remember that a savings is just that, a savings. If you need the money in an emergency you have every right to transfer or use it. What really matters is that you see the savings account growing, and growing fast! It will keep you going every time.

Here is the best part, we didn’t use this money for our down payment. We were fortunate enough, and had other savings, that all $5,000 is still sitting pretty in my new “wedding fund” account. Now, Handsome Man and I are not getting married yet, but we already have $5,000 for when we do! (Have you ever looked into catering?! It’s crazy!)

My tips for making this work.

Start the cycle so that the bigger savings amount are for the week you get the paycheck. I didn’t at first and I ended up having to transfer money around a few times until I switched to this way.
Budget for the savings! While this seems like a “get rich in 6 months” kind of a deal, it’s not. It IS still you putting away money, money you do not get to spend on clothes or movies, or whatever. Make sure the amount saved in the month is allocated away from the other categories of your budget or you won’t have enough to save!
Make a visual check list or tracker so you can have a reminder of your progress every time you see it or fill it in! Coloring is fun, saving money is fun, they are basically a match made in heaven.

I am so so soooo proud to have made this work over the last 6 months, and I am even going to do it AGAIN. $10,000 for the wedding by 2019!

I 100% recommend this savings plan to anyone looking to save for a down payment on their home, or a wedding, or a new car, or whatever! And I am super looking forward to sharing all of our home improvement projects with you guys, and how we kept it on a budget.

Until next time, wishing you all Sugar and Savings,

Taylor

xoxo

Don’t forget to sign up to my email list to get reminders when I post new ways to save you money! Also, I am now booking clients over on my Facebook page or else you can email me here at sugarandsavings@gmail.com. Work with me personally to get yourself on a budget that WORKS!

Tracking my Goals in my Bullet Journal

Hello Lovely Savers!

Today I thought I would share with you all how I keep track of my goals in my bullet journal. Previously I explained how I set goals and actually complete them, you can read about that here, but this is where I keep track of my progress!

Here are a few goals I set for myself for the beginning of 2018:

In 2018 I plan to -Buy a Home, -Get my Passport (check!), -Perform (check!), -Host a Money Seminar, -Pay off my Smallest Student Loan, – Save $5,000 for a wedding we are not actually planning yet, and – Relaunch Sugar and Savings (check!).

I am a visual person, so not only do I find that writing down my goals helps me keep track of them, but I like to be able to see my progress as I go. In the -Pay off my Smallest Student Loan area I made a little square maze that I can color in as I make additional payments toward that principle. I simply divided the total due by the payments I planned to make and then drew a box around that many squares. When I make a payment, I color another box in! (My colors of choice happen to be Tombow Dual Brush Markers, you can find a pack of them here! Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Markers, Bright, 10-Pack)

As for the wedding I am not actually planning, I broke it down into smaller budgets. I decided that with a savings of $5,000 I would allocate $600 to a dress budget, $2,200 to catering budget, and $2,200 to a venue budget. Then I got a little creative, each box is worth $50 or $100 that I put away, and then I drew a design for each of those areas. The dress covered 12 squares and the others 22. As you can see, the dress is all colored in! With the savings plan that I have in place for this, I should have it all saved up by June. I’m sure I will share that savings plan with you all in another post soon.

When relaunching Sugar and Savings, I decided I needed to keep track of social media better. While Handsome Man would tell you that I spend way too much time on Facebook, I am not one for actually posting anything. I used this monthly tracker below to plan out what I would be doing to promote the blog and my coaching services.

So there you are! Just a couple of ways I use my bullet journal to keep track of my goal progress. I firmly believe that you need to be able to see results to stick to your goals. How do you keep track of your goals? Comment below!

Until next time, wishing you all Sugar and Savings,

Taylor

* This post contains affiliate links. This just means that I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase something through the links above. You will never see me post a link to a product or service that I haven’t used myself and love! Thank you for supporting Sugar and Savings!

Apps for Financial Peace? Part One: Penny

Hello Lovely Savers!

The blog post is a little late today, my only coworker has been out for the last few weeks so I’ve been busy, busy, trying to keep up. Silver lining, we’ll have a nice over-time padded savings account for our move next month! Without any further ado, let’s get into today’s post.

Today we are starting a short series on online financial tracking apps/websites. The first app we are looking at is one I had never tried before working through it for this blog, Penny. Penny is a relatively new app from the company Friendly Finances, Inc. The app is supposed to be able to track your spending, income, and bills. All while delivering you the information like a text chat with your new best friend, Penny!

Let’s start with the beginning, super cute hello and sign up!

Ok, so far, so easy, then we get to see how exactly this “texting” thing is going to work.

Evidently, you don’t get to personalize your responses to her, but it’s straightforward and I see where this is going.

Then you will enter which bank accounts you’d like to connect to, I was even able to attach my student loan accounts. AND she sends you cute gifs to emphasize how she’s feeling!

She asks you to answer quizzes, like “where is your favorite fast food place?” This was not entirely applicable to me because I rarely eat fast food and if I stop somewhere it is for fries. However, she decided my favorite fast food place is McDonalds based on that I was there two times in the last three months. And she gave me some fun facts about how terribly the average person eats.

Then things went a little wonky. For instance, when I paid taxes for my bakery, she marked that as a food transaction. Understandable mistake, but it didn’t end there.

She only breaks things down into five categories. Food, Transportation, Bills, Income, and everything else… which is not very specific. Simple for those who like it that way, not my personal favorite. You can also have her ignore certain transactions, like transferring money between accounts, so it doesn’t mess up your tracking. When I went in to look more closely at how she was breaking things down, she was ignoring a lot of them or marking them “everything else” when it should have been falling under transportation for a gas stop. She apparently learns from what you change them to, but she is not very intuitive at the beginning and ignoring expenses could be dangerous for careful trackers.
The five categories she does offer, are able to be viewed in different ways which make them easy to read, but again, a little too simple. It is cool to see the different graphs and visuals, but when things are so general it is easy to nickel and dime yourself into trouble.

As a details person, Penny might not be the right app for me, but I can definitely see her charm! If you really spent the time to go through all of the charges and try to teach her what you want her to track and which category you want it in, Penny might work for you! Otherwise, I personally will be waiting to use it again, at least until the company adds a bit more to its features.

That charm though.

If you’d like to download Penny you can find her on the Google Play app or the Apple store.

Next week I will look closely into Mint, an app that I’ve used off and on for a few years. Comment below which apps you use or which you’d like me to do a review on!

Sugar and Savings,
Taylor

XOXO

Bullet Journals and Budgets

Hello Lovely Savers!

If you are like me, you need to revamp your schedule and life organization every few months. When I was younger my poor mother tried every planner system she could, trying to help me keep my school work in order… unfortunately for me (and my wallet) this led me to an obsession with getting new office supplies every time I drove by an OfficeMax. And if the Target dollar section had any office supplies, you can bet I HAD to have them. This is not budget friendly! In all honesty, this wouldn’t work for a lot of other reasons too, I would lose track of things trying to transfer information to the new system every time I switched.

That was until I discovered Bullet Journalling!

At first I thought Bullet Journalling would be just a creative way for me to have a calendar and schedule that I’d be able to change up to fit my needs as necessary, now I know I can put everything I would ever need in there!

Fun fact about me, I am no good at keeping my important stuff on my phone or a google calendar, I just don’t operate that way. I like to have everything written down, pen to paper. I know that is not the usual these days, so if you’re better at keeping an ongoing calendar and spreadsheet online, the more power to you! I now keep everything in my Leuchtturm1917 Notebook I got off of Amazon.

If you’d like to know more about Bullet Journaling itself, I recommend looking up BoHo Berry– she has a great Bullet Journal 101 section on her blog. Here, I am going to talk about keeping a budget specifically.

Here is my upcoming budget for February, I am a visual person and I like to color in the sections as I spend them. Right now this does not include my rent or utilities but that will change come March/April.

February Budget

Keeping my budget all in one place, in a notebook I carry everywhere, allows me to keep track of every dollar I spend. It is just too easy to nickel and dime yourself if you don’t!

I also make a point to write down my income every time I get paid (I work a lot of random jobs so it is nice to have it all in one place), and a place for what I’d like to save as well!

I mark the sections in increments I know they go in, for example, my Chiropractic appointments are $5 each time and I go once a week, vs. my gas is easier to keep track of $10 at a time.

My bullet journal is also used as a habit tracker, I keep track of the habits I want to do/encourage myself to do daily, like checking in on my finances. I also keep a “No Spend” area in there that I get to mark off when I go a whole day without spending money!

Habit Tracker

The bullet journal system is great for keep tabs on your goals and the time you spend in certain areas of your life. Next month my goal is to spend more time on my personal development!

Color coded!!!

And of course, my planner. Which is the best part because you can add whatever you like! For planner ideas, I suggest BoHo Berry again, or pinterest!

Thanks for tuning in this week Lovely Savers, next week I will be working on the 14-Day money finder by Rachel Cruze and keeping you updated on how it works out the first week!

Sugar and Savings,
Taylor

XOXO

30 Days to $1000 Challenge- Review

Hello Lovely Savers!

Today I am breaking down my experience with Coffee and Mascara’s “30 Days to $1000” challenge. I highly encourage you all to read her blog post about how she came up with this idea, she also talks about how she made it less daunting for herself, because believe me- it’s daunting!

Credit- Coffee and Mascara

I first saw her challenge on pinterest, and after some financial set backs in 2016 I was looking for a way that would help me rebuild my $1000 emergency fund. $35 dollars a day? Doesn’t sound too hard! Yeah, well maybe I shouldn’t have tried this during the Holiday season… The first week started out GREAT, I saved $245 and I was feeling awesome. Then a few more days passed and some more gift shopping happened, and I skipped one or two days just to make sure I’d be able to cover- blah blah blah. Excuses.

I rallied and kept going but $245 was a lot of money per week, and I found that even after I tried to cut corners to save more toward it, it was still a lot of money. I was sitting here, thinking, “how much money did she start with?! WHAT DOES THIS LADY MAKE PER HOUR?!”. Then I decided to actually read her post and felt like an idiot, because she wrote her post only one week into starting this. Well of COURSE she felt great, week one was a cake walk! It was every week after that was so annoying!

Well slow and steady wins the race so I started again, now I had over $500 saved, which in truth was pretty great considering I’d started with nothing. However, once again I had to peter out, because I needed to watch the amount in my checking account while all the purchases for Christmas went through.

So to review, ‘30 days to $1,000 Challenge’ awesome in theory, not so achievable in practice unless you already have some excess in your checking account and just can’t bring yourself to dump it all at once into savings.

Next Monday post- Inexpensive Date Ideas! Wanted to make sure you have time to plan before Valentine’s!

Sugar and Savings,

XOXO

Taylor

Hello 2017!

And hello to you again, Lovely Savers! Sugar and Savings kind of went MIA last year after being hacked and the momentum never really picked up again to restart. However, here I am today to tell you that we are back! 2016 was one rollercoaster of a year, through trial and error (ok, maybe a LOT of errors) I learned one heck of a lot. Sugar and Savings is taking on a new form this year, I am sure that the events of 2016 will be regaled for you in the blog posts which will be posted every Monday. THEN on Thursdays I will be posting a recipe that can be made for a cheap meal or snack, just as another way to help you all save!

As promised, we still have some of the older blog post ideas coming up- Inexpensive (or free!) Date Ideas! – along with a lot more of different savings plans I got off of the Pinterest universe and tried for you! I also came into bullet journaling last year and I can’t wait to share with you all how that has impacted my budgeting and time management!

Happy New Year, lovely savers! I will see you all Monday!

Happy New Years from us to you!

Budget!

Hello friends!

I must apologize for my absence, I was in the process of opening my latest show I directed. It was a Murder Mystery, but the real mystery was whether or not I’d make it through the opening while dealing with some… let’s say Diva-ish… personalities. On top of all the drama that comes with- well, drama- I got the flu! Which is no fun to say the least!

We made it through the opening night and my cast was spectacular!

But I am back now, and ready for some more Sugar and Savings. Many people have been asking how I created my budgeting system. I did, and continue to, use Mint for tracking my bank activity and also my credit score. However, I felt that Mint never gave me enough options for how to really look at an overview of my month. Everyone looks at information differently and of all the programs I tried, I found Mint to be the easiest to navigate, easiest to categorize spending, and it syncs with your bank information for free! As a Dave Ramsey fan, I did try Everydollar.com but I found it hard to use, it was difficult to figure out how to add categories, and it does not sync with your bank information for free. You have to pay. Which I question, because if Mint can do it for free… why can’t Everydollar? But I digress.

Even though I keep Mint for double checking purposes, I more regularly use my bank’s app and my own personal budget pages I created on Google Drive. By making my own, I can customize my categories, how much I may spend on something in a given month, and what my savings goals are for that month. SaS Blog 5 1

Here is what my overview sheet looks like: It isn’t a full picture of what I might spend money on in a given month but it serves as a basic starting point for each month.

SaS Blog 5 2

This is what each month starts to look like: I write my categories, what I budget for spending in that category, and make my little total calculations.

My categories are Home (home supplies: toilet paper, soap, toiletries, etc.), Food (groceries, restaurants, coffee shops, etc.), Medical (prescriptions, etc.), Fern (my puppy! Her food, treats, vet trips, grooming, etc.), Gas/Auto (Gas, car maintenance), Parking (I have to pay for parking at work, so this one gets it’s own category), Shopping (my downfall…), School Loans.

SaS Blog 5 3

I like to break it down by categories because I have a variable income, and this allows me to see before the month starts whether or not I need to make changes.

Then I use my bank’s app to keep track of any spending I do, then I put it into it’s category, and list it by date. I also make a note on each purchase so I know where it was and what it was for. So if I over spent in the shopping category (which… is often…) then I can see what I was spending money on. One month I could spend a lot on gifts for others, and some months I fall into my retail therapy clothes shopping habit…

SaS Blog 5 4

I make totals at the bottom so I can see the whole picture and see how much I have left in each category.

Also, when my income is so varied, I keep track of that right next to everything. If I’m making less than I thought, then I know I should be conservative in my spending.

So that’s what I do! I really like my budgeting sheets, it took me a long time to get them to be just right. Everybody is bound to need something slightly different, so this is just an option when you find you don’t quite fit the mold of online systems.

Thanks so much for checking in with Sugar and Savings! Coming up soon I will be going over “Grocery Shopping for One” and date night ideas for cheap!

Sugar and Savings,

Taylor

xoxo

Savings Plan/ Debt Pay Off!

Hello Lovely Savers!

savingsjar

In previous posts I’ve talked about my savings jar, which is quite literally a giant jar that I keep next to my bed. I throw all of my loose change and bills in this jar, and after a few months take it into the bank to put into my savings account. When I was waiting tables, the cash that I didn’t set aside for my envelope system, all went into the jar. This would add up really quickly, which was really great and motivating to be able to see the jar filling up. Due to some “life happening” the savings had been pretty depleted by the end of 2015.

After graduating, I took an unpaid internship with a local theater, which I didn’t plan to stay in for long but couldn’t find a full time job to save my life. I was working part-time for my favorite theater, The Southern Theater in Minneapolis, but that wasn’t really paying the bills. Aside from “the bills” I wanted to pay a significant amount on my student loans each month, which left nothing for saving. Eventually my internship turned into a full-time temporary position, which really helped me start putting some money away again. When my car started to die, I was able to sell it to a family member for cheap, and buy a great used car for cash!

Then, of course, more “life happened” and my savings was practically gone AGAIN. I understand that this is why we save, “life happens” and the savings is there to protect us. However, I’m pretty obsessed with watching my bank account, and I like to have a full savings account. So around November, I was on Pinterest, looking up different savings plans and seeing how I could put away my very small paycheck to where I wanted it to go.

The plans I found were great! Very easy, very doable, and very small results over the course of a year… Wasn’t good enough for me. So I made up my own, a very doable, very steady way to save over the 52 weeks and in the end I would come out with over $11,000.00!

SandS money chart

This plan worked for several months, but I wasn’t making my progress toward my loans like I wanted. I reevaluated where my money was going, according to Dave Ramsey you are only supposed to keep $1,000 in your savings account and the rest goes to your debt pay-off. That sounded awful! What if I needed it? What if there was an emergency?! It was true that I couldn’t think of an emergency that would come up that would be likely over $1,000…. but still! What if someone kidnapped my adorable German Shepherd, Fern, and demanded I leave the ransom in a duffel bag in the park under this tree marked by a temporary tattoo and they were demanding $1,001?!?!?! Well then I thought about it and figured I could find an extra dollar in the couch cushions and borrow a duffel bag from my parents. (Why do parents always have a million duffel bags?)

So I continued on with my savings plan, but instead of putting the money into my savings account, I put it directly toward my smallest loan and celebrate as I watch it get smaller and smaller!

I am a very visual person, so I also made up charts like this to fill in as I pay off my debts. As it gets closer to the top, I know I am moving towards being debt-free!

Sand S debt chart

I know this plan is a HUGE commitment. I am ready to tackle my debts and I’ve been able to work out being able to put this much away each month, I am also lucky enough to be living at home while doing this and therefore have the freedom to put that much toward my goals. However, there are much smaller and slightly easier to chew plans on pinterest. These calculations were based on a combination of several of those and my own finances.

Coming up, I’ll be posting how I budget each month, on a variable income. I’ll also be keeping you all posted on how this plan is working!

Sugar and Savings,
xoxo Taylor