My New Plan To Cut Back On Groceries | Budget Recap | April 2024
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2024
- It's time for our April 2024 budget recap for my Budget With Me series. Let's get into the numbers!
Links mentioned:
*Get the Budget Dashboard: tidd.ly/3EFq9ho
*Life Insurance with Policygenius: www.policygenius.com/pro/refe...
*Join my Budget Coaching Program: stan.store/laurenmiller/p/boo...
My budget spreadsheet that I use is in google sheets, and it includes debt payments, savings and investing (which I label "pay yourself first"), fixed expenses, and sinking funds! I love using sinking funds to reduce the chance of "unexpected" expenses in our budget each month. Come budget with me with our real numbers for our household budget!
Other links:
*Life Insurance with Policygenius: www.policygenius.com/pro/refe...
*Student loans got you down? Book a consult with Student Loan Planner!: www.studentloanplanner.com/lo...
*Join Arbor to Save on Utilities: www.joinarbor.com/?...
*Get my free Net Worth Tracking Spreadsheet here: moneyandmindset.myflodesk.com...
My favorite financial book:
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins: amzn.to/2KggZPy
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM! / laurensmoneymindset
Thanks for watching!
xo,
Lo
**This video is not financial or legal advice. This is just me sharing my own experience with my debt and finances.
For business inquires: lomills1017@gmail.com
FTC: This video is not sponsored. Some affiliate links are used, from which I earn a commission. This helps support and improve my channel. If you would like to support me, thank you, otherwise please feel free to search anything mentioned in Google. Thanks so much!
#budgetwithme #googlesheets
*Get the Budget Dashboard: tidd.ly/3EFq9ho
*Life Insurance with Policygenius: www.policygenius.com/pro/referral/laurenmiller?advisor=Lauren-Miller&uuid=2f238e89-1153-40ac-8542-6a174740026b
*Join my Budget Coaching Program: stan.store/laurenmiller/p/book-a-11-zoom-call-with-me-ezbnx
We have a medical sinking fund that we always try to use first before we use our HSA. Ideally, I’d love to never touch the HSA and save it for retirement, but if I have to use the HSA to cover a medical need, I’m not going to stress over it 😊
I like this approach!
That’s me. But I’m single and Childfree- it’s an entirely different thing when you have growing kids.
My mom spent a lifetime dropping off my dad at the train station and picking him up. It was one of my fondest memories as a child of my dad when he got off the train! We lived just outside of London and also just outside of Chicago when he took the train.
When it comes to planning monthly meals, I loved freezer cooking for a while. If it's not your thing, or you don't want to spend a whole day at it, consider doubling or tripling meals and freezing at the steps that make sense. Sometimes that's right before cooking, sometimes it's partial cooking, and sometimes it's just dumping everything together in a bag and remembering to thaw it the day you plan on eating it. It doesn't take any extra time for the most part, and you have all those meals ready to go.
We shop Costco monthly, and fill in with Walmart grocery pickup. Works really well for us.
Great recap, Lauren. I'm VERY interested in seeing you and your hubby in the next video. My son is graduating from college soon and will be entering the tech industry. (HOPEFULLY). 🙂 Full funded (so far) from scholarships. No student loans.
I'd love all the college tips! My son's just finishing Freshman year, so it seems far away but it's really not! I'd love for him to get through without any student loans...
Amazing! Congrats to him! A lot of the tips are applicable for new grads 👨🎓
Very motivating! Thank you for the reminder about how much you’ve already paid off it helped put everything in perspective. 💪 looking forward to hearing your husband share how he went about the job change
Great video!
Thank you for making a video like this! I really appreciate having someone break down their budget the way that you do, as I am trying to keep a similar budget for my family. I will def check out your template!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I save a ton of money on my food budget by meal planning around weekly sales.
Just curious if your HVAC installer suggested heat pumps for heat/AC? I know there are units now that work down to 0 Degrees. The house we were in previously had a system put in and it was the most efficient thing we've ever seen. In the dead of winter/summer it may have cost $2/day at most to run 24/7.
Get the BJ’s credit card for the gas savings. You will save an additional 15 cents per gallon. They have the cheapest gas!
The rule thumb is usually to try and cover medical expenses if you can and let the HSA grow, but that means you have to save your receipts somewhere and keep track of it. If that kind of admin is too much mental load for this season with small kids I don’t blame you, just use the HSA. We have some medical conditions in our family where we prefer better health insurance over the high deductible plan so I doubt we’ll ever use an HSA. But sometimes the money goal isn’t more important than others so do what works best for your family.
For medical, last year l started a sinking fund to pay cash for expenses. But honestly, if I have a medical expense i usually take the interest free payment plan option with the medical facility.
Love! Can’t wait for gross budgeting to come back 😁😂
I have a medical sinking fund and then pull from brokerage. It makes me feel better that I could still use the HSA later no problem if need be.
Congratulations 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. Have you thought about possibly enrolling in the SAVE Program for hubby's student loan. It may either lower your payment or freeze the interest while you still can pay down the principal. Might be worth looking into. Just a suggestion
Unfortunately his loan isn’t eligible because we made the mistake of refinancing from federal to private back in 2019
My employer provides discounts from transportation if we take the train, etc. May be worth checking to see if this is an incentive they offer :).
We treat HSA as an additional retirement savings account. We do have a high deductible plan but we budget for the max amount on that every year. We never even reach our deductible but we don't have kids yet so that's probbaly why.
Yeah I’m interested to see how much we spend on medical now that we’ve switched to this HDHP
We have built up a huge amount in our HSA by doing this over the years. It seems painful to sometimes pay a large bill, but overall so much more cash stays in our pocket each year than sinking it into high premiums.
I’ve just started my HSA in 2024 and so far just letting it grow and budgeting for medical a couple hundred each month
Our family does the same thing. We use our HSA as an additional retirement account and budget for the deductible every year. I use a separate checking account with debit card for when we go to the doctor. We also carry a conditional FSA for dental and vision so we use that account for dental visits and glasses.
I wouldn’t sell shares from my brokerage to pay a small medical bill. I’d just use the HSA portion that’s not invested.
Yeah that’s how I’m leaning too
Try Trader Joe's, Aldi.
Trader Joe’s doesn’t have pickup! And I’ve read that Aldi charges more per item if you do pickup. When my kids are older I think it’ll open up more options!
Hello! I am new here and watching some of your videos. Great job on the debt payoff so far. Would you mind sharing what type of work your husband does, or do you have suggested side hustles to bring in additional income? We are a family of five and struggle financially. Thank you :)
I’m posting a video next week that I filmed with my husband talking all about his job!
I live in Massachusetts too! Love to do a meet up for a coffee??? I live west of the city.
I don’t think you can prioritize paying cash for medical expenses. It would take from your Roth savings goals and I would prioritize that over the HSA
I think you’re right…there’s just not enough room in our budget right now.
your hubby is in tech, he should get an electric scooter or bike for work😅