I am so excited to share the Frugal Home with all of you in a Kindle book! I spent a great deal of time compiling the best tips and advice from my years of frugal living and writing this website. For only $2.99 you can get all of the best frugal home tips and advice all in one book!

The Frugal Home book has frugal tips on beauty and bath, budgeting, cleaning, debt, decorating, entertainment, food, grocery shopping, health care, holidays and events, children, environmental tips, remodeling, home and yard work, and weddings.

Hope that you enjoy your read! Click the link to get the book!

The Frugal Home Ebook

You would think that after years of writing about, and living, a frugal and financially responsible life that I would never find myself with a negative financial situation. But it happens to the best of us. Even I can spend too much money.

With the Big News arriving between now and whenever, we had to get our bathrooms remodeled as they were giving off a moldy smell. Its a good thing we did because there was some mold and we were able to get the leak(s) fixed and replace all the plumbing. We have now replaced almost all of the plumbing in our home.

Because of this, we were not only not able to pay off the little debt we had but we had to spend to get the bathrooms up to par, thousands of dollars worth of spending. And then we bought a $6000 truck. With a loan. Ack! I could make excuses about how it was difficult for me to get anything done when I didn’t have a vehicle to drive or how we needed a truck to clean out our garage.

None of that really matters though. If you had come to me with the same scenario I would have told you to wait and tough it out (not on the bathrooms, you can’t wait with mold and leaky pipes, that costs more financially and with your health!). A do as I say and not as I do scenario.

We are back aboard the frugal train and are trying not to spend too much money in any area. We have buckled down and we are on a plan to have all of our credit card debt paid off by June, have a $1000 in the bank as an emergency fund and then pay off the truck.

Being financially responsible isn’t always so much about doing the right thing all the time but about fixing the wrong things and making them right.

Photo By : Sigurd Decroos

The key to good debt management is starting out good. While this isn’t realistic for those of us who already practiced bad debt management, if you are just starting out you can save yourself a lot of heartache, and money, if you practice responsible spending habits from the start. If you are coming to good debt management late, like my husband and I did, then make changes now, don’t put it off any longer.

* Search for credit cards that do not charge an annual fee. You may have to do a little research if you have little or no credit history but it will be well worth it in the long run. These fees can cost you $50 a year so finding credit cards without them will save you a great deal of money.

* Look for cards with the lowest interest rate. While you may not be able to get the best interest rate when you first begin to get credit, after six months to a year of paying on time you should be able to look for a lower interest rate card. Once you have the low-interest card, quit using the high-interest card but do not close the account as closing the account would have a negative impact on your account.

* Try not to carry a balance. You should pay your balance in full each and every month, if you cannot then put all of your extra to it so that you pay it off within a few months. If you use your card for a same as cash deal then make sure that you pay it off before the interest comes due.

* Set up a savings account. Just a few hundred set aside in a savings account can help you in most emergency situations such as needing a new tire for your car, especially if you then don’t have to charge the bill and pay interest on it. The best savings account will have at least three months worth of income saved so that if you lose your job you have time to find a new one and keep up with your bills but having something is much better than having nothing.

* Save for items. This is a hard one for many of us as we live in a society where we get what we want when we want it. Saving for the things we want will not only save us money but it will also help you feel better when you have a piece in your home that is paid for instead of a piece that you owe money on.

* Stay on top of your debt. If you find you will not be able to make a payment or payments then call your creditor immediately. Some will let you skip one payment while others may lower your payment in order to help you continue making payments. Don’t make it a habit. Make sure that you call because if you ignore your bills they will just get worse.

Life is easier when you practice responsible debt management. Keeping your credit good and paying your bills will actually allow you to have more in the long run.

A credit report is a register of a person’s credit history and is made up of four categories of data:

• Identification Data – also known as the credit header data, this part includes name, address, social security number, and date of birth.
• Credit History – this contains a person’s payment history and shows account status, credit limit or credit balance, monthly payment information etc.
• Public Records – this part of the report contains data on court judgments, tax liens, bankruptcies, and collections.
• Inquiries – this section contains information about all other organisations or individuals who have looked at the file and for what purpose in the past six months.

How you can get a free credit report:

You can get a free copy of your credit report if were denied credit. You will get a letter with an explanation of why you were turned down with information on how you can contact the credit bureaus used to get your free report.

The three major credit bureaus are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. The three are not equal. One may have all of your credit information while another may have very little or none at all. It just depends on if your lenders give information to all three credit reports bureaus or just one or two.

You may be able to get a free credit report if you have been a victim of fraud. Write to the credit bureau explaining what happened and request a free copy of your report. A note will be added to your credit report stating you requested a copy due to fraud.

By law you can get a free credit report from each of the credit bureaus each year. Visit www.annualcreditreport.com to get a free copy from each credit bureau.

You can purchase a 3-in-1 report which is basically getting all three reports from each of the credit bureaus. If you have used up your free credit reports or if you want to be able to check it month by month, then you can pay to see your reports.

I am constantly learning that while I can’t have everything, I can make informed decisions to get what I truly want. I thought I was getting pretty good at it but I do find that  there are still areas where I could be making better decisions. I recently read an article at Living on a Dime asking if being frugal is too time consuming. I went in to the article expecting to just agree with it and move on, after all, I already know that being frugal isn’t too time consuming, so I wasn’t really expecting to learn anything.

As often happens, I was wrong. I have been thinking about one part of that article for the last week. I actually had somewhat of a revelation, specifically the section talking about a car payment and vacations. We made a bad decision, oh, about three vehicles ago, and got a loan through my husband’s work. Let’s just say you shouldn’t do that. On our next car we were about $3000 over on our loan, we owed more than the vehicle was worth. Over the next two vehicles we were able to bring that down to only about $1500 over on our current loan.  Still too much for us to just sell it outright and get enough to pay off the loan, especially in this economy, especially since we just bought it eight months ago.

The section talking about car payments talked about the people who want to take these nice vacations but cannot afford it, while the article speaks about how they would be able to take those vacations if they weren’t spending $500 or more on one or two, or even three, car payments. While our car payment isn’t $500, it is several hundred, you do then you have to add in car insurance, repairs, oil changes, tires, etc and we end up spending about $4000 to $5000 a year on our vehicle.

I was shocked. I don’t know why but I had never actually added up how much our vehicle cost us in a year. I knew that our vehicle was one of the items in our life that we aren’t completely frugal on. We are frugal in the fact that we only have one car payment and our second vehicle is paid off, we also keep reducing our payment each time we get a loan. We take care of our vehicle so it runs well and we save up for things like repairs and tires and our ultimate goal is to have no car payment. What we didn’t do to be even more frugal was reduce the car payment as much as we could and put the extra money towards paying it off faster, we needed four-wheel drive and didn’t look for a cheaper four-wheel drive, and our current vehicle is cute. And everyone knows cute is always a prime factor when purchasing a car. Being over on our loan never helps when we go shopping for a vehicle either as that automatically reduces our negotiating power.

I thought what we were doing was good enough for us. We were saving on our monthly payment each month as well as getting the type of vehicle that we needed. What I wasn’t doing was adding up how much it was actually costing us over the long run. We had been on a plan to pay off our previous car but it needed such expensive repairs that we were unable to come up with the money for at that time and we were often getting stuck at our house when it would snow and we couldn’t make it out of our long driveway.  Last December we began looking at purchasing a new vehicle and the weekend we brought it home to test drive it we ended up snowed in. Since we were able to get out of our driveway with no problems at all we were pretty much sold. The cute all black look of the Jeep Liberty helped too.

Now I find myself  regreting our decision. We don’t pay for gas, as that is a benefit of my husband’s job, but if he were to lose his job we couldn’t afford to put gas in it, not to mention the environmental impact. I miss my Saab Aero Wagon more than I thought I would. It was fast, really fast. A fastness that surprised others because no one revving their engine at a red light expects to get taken by the station wagon in the lane next to them. The Jeep takes an hour to work its way up to the speed limit on the highway. Our Big News may end up with us needing more seating than the five seats available in the Jeep.

Most of all, I am now regretting spending this money when I could be saving it for a fabulous vacation! Or just any vacation! I’m not regretting just this car but way back to that first car loan we took out. Before that vehicle we had never had a car loan, we paid cash for all of our vehicles but our income increased, and as many do, we increased our bills. I keep thinking it through in my head and I think about all that money spent on a vehicle meant to pretty much only get us from one point to another.

I have expensive vehicle tastes. I don’t know why. I don’t try to. When we drive around town, I point at a car and say to the hubby, “I like that one,” and he says that’s a Lexus, or a BMW, or a Mercedes. Sometimes I do get down to pointing at a Subaru. I know nothing about cars but I seem to like the expensive ones. They’re cute. And didn’t I say that the Jeep Liberty I currently am paying  payments on is cute?

My realization. There are things I want more than a cute car. I want vacations, not only want but I need vacations, and I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars a year on a vehicle that I am only in a few minutes a day, well that the hubby is in a few minutes a day, I’m in it a few minutes a week. I would rather spend those thousands on some fun for our family. So much of our income goes to doing the right thing and here we have thousands that could go to some extras. To things like a new hall bathroom, a vacation, a new computer, or putting money back for our Big News.

Which reminds me, I need to write a post about our Big News. Have I done that yet? See, this is what having a car payment you don’t want does to you, you can’t think of what you have or haven’t written.

I know this is long and rambling but that is what this revelation has done to me! A revelation, and no way out of it currently, doesn’t feel that great. Until we can pay down some of the loan so that we no longer owe more than the vehicle is worth there isn’t much we can do but it does make me want to work for that goal even more now. I was working for it just so that we paid the Jeep off, Iwasn’t thinking about what I would rather have out of that money. I may not be able to do much about it now but I can guarantee, like many of the financial lessons I have already learned, I won’t make this mistake again.

I have heard several times, and I’ve said it myself, how do I cut back when I’ve already cut back? For some there aren’t coffees there to cut back on, yet they still need more money to live better or reduce the debt in their life.

It is when you believe that there is nothing left to cut back on that you must make some serious decisions, decisions that may drastically affect your quality of life but will get you back on a better financial path.

You need the basics, food, water, and shelter. Everything else is only a want and is not a necessity. The obvious things to cut back on that you may not have cut back on yet are cell phones, internet, or the television bill. They may not seem like it but none of these are a necessity as you could get a pre-paid cell phone for emergencies or rent movies from the library.

Food and water are two items that you cannot live without but they don’t have to be gourmet meals. Peanut butter and jelly and an apple for lunch can get you through several weeks so you can catch up on a bill and rice and beans can get you through dinner. Do you want to eat the same things every day? Of course not. Are you getting all of the vitamins your body needs? Probably not, but you can make it through weeks, even a month or two with a multi-vitamin, on the very basics of food, especially if you are drinking a great deal of that free beverage we often forget about, water.

If necessary, you can pick up a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, a bag of apples or apples and oranges, a carton of eggs, rice, dried beans, carrots, tuna, and a bag of potatoes that will get you through for very little money. Remember, this isn’t about your favorite meals, its about getting yourself in a better financial position.

Shelter is the other biggie when it comes to needs. We need a roof over our heads but it doesn’t have to be the roof you are under now. Look at selling your house, if possible, and renting or purchasing a smaller place. Some people even rent their home and stay in a smaller house until they get back on their feet and can afford it again. Remember, its just a house, its not a member of your family.

Another option is to take in a roommate. Rent out your basement or a room in your home. This isn’t the best idea for most but it may be for you if you don’t want to move.

Our vehicles, our transporation, are very important to us but having a car isn’t aways a need. If you live in a town with a transportation system of subways or buses then you may need to look at selling your cars and using public transporation. For some, like me, we live in the country and need a vehicle to get anywhere. This doesn’t mean we need two cars. We like having two cars. I like to go to the grocery store when I want and he likes to just take the car without asking if I need it. We like it and we want it but it isn’t a necessity. It is more difficult having one car but we have done it on and off for years as necessary.

Sometimes, when there is nothing left to cut back on, you have to add to the pot instead. If necessary get a second job. Look for online job opportunities, work at the mall or a fast food restaurant. Sometimes the only way to help yourself is to work harder.

What are other ways you can think of to cut back when you’ve cut back already?

There is often a feeling of hopelessness when people think about debt and the stress that comes along with it. Many don’t know where to turn or how to fix it but it is important that everyone realizes, if you got into debt, you can get out of debt. It isn’t hopeless and you can put yourself back onto a good financial track.

Instead of panicking, which can increase both your debt and your stress, sit down and get real with yourself. Make a list of every single item that you owe, from your largest credit card bill down to the couple dollars you owe to the video store. Make sure you add in your monthly payments such as the mortgage payment, insurances, as well as things you may not realize you spend money on like a coffee each morning. Get out the last several months of bank statements to see where your money may be going without you realizing it.

Next, add up the income coming into your home. Look at all of your income, any income, which is reliable every month. Take your income and subtract from the amount you spend each month. This amount will tell you how much money you have left over at the end of the month, if any.

You may find that you are spending more money than you are earning, or cutting it very close. If this is the case then you need to make some serious financial decisions. Look over the list you made to see where you can cut back so that you have more money to work with. Some items may make a large impact and be rather easy to change. If you eat out all the time you may be able to make a drastic change just by eating at home or bringing your lunch to work. You may also want to look at finding a cheaper insurance rate or a cheaper apartment if you are renting. If you really take a hard look at your finances and what is actually needed as opposed to just what is wanted you will often find many items to cut back on.

If you find that you have money left over each month then you are already ahead of the game. You should also look at ways of cutting back and taking any extra money you have and putting it towards paying down your debt.

No matter which place you find yourself in you do not want to take on any new debt.

Debt isn’t just for shopaholics. People get into debt for a variety of reasons, and irresponsibility isn’t always the factor. Debt can come from an unexpected divorce or separation, job loss, or medical issues.

You may be looking at your list of debts and thinking that putting it down on paper didn’t do anything for reducing your stress. It may seem stressful now, but knowing what you are dealing with, and making a plan to deal with, will begin to drastically reduce your financial stress. Begin to look for cheap or free ways to entertain yourself such as experimenting with new recipes in your own kitchen or finding and visiting all of the free public parks and recreational areas in your town.

Instead of panicking, take charge. Be completely honest with yourself, and your spouse if necessary. Make a plan for getting out of debt, such as the snowball plan, and think of the positive effects that are going to come from getting your finances on the right track, such as buying a home, having extra cash, or taking a nice vacation. You will find that just having it all out in the open and beginning to deal with it will help lessen the stress, as will each payment you make on time that reduces your debt.

It isn’t uncommon for people to ignore the bills that come in when they become overwhelmed with the financial situation they find themselves in. You may find yourself in a situation where you just don’t have the money to pay the bills or where there are so many and with such high balances that you begin to feel as if there is no way out.

Face your bills instead of ignoring them

Start with being honest with yourself. And if you are one half of a couple then it is important both of you are honest with each other. List each bill you owe, the total amount due, and the minimum monthly payment. You will probably not like what you see but the first step in fixing it, is knowing where exactly you stand. Ignoring how much you owe does not make the numbers lessen, and will most likely create bigger problems and more debt.

Cope with your bills and create solutions

Instead of getting upset and placing blame, look at ways in which you can begin to dig yourself out of debt. Perhaps you already know areas in which you overspend and can easily cut back, perhaps you need to visit a non-profit debt counseling service, or can get a part-time job to help pay down the debt.

Whatever you do, doing something, no matter how little, will be better than ignoring your bills. Once you know how much you owe you may even find yourself relieved and excited about moving forward and finding a better financial future for you and your family.

Earning more money involves work of some kind from you. You can take on a second job (or a first job!), sell items you no longer need, or sell items or information that you create. Earning money requires you put forth an effort for the things you want but it is also a great way to keep yourself from getting into debt.

Saving money also involves work, often working on the willpower to not spend everything in your check. You can save money by reducing the amount of your bills, shopping around for better rates, reducing the amount of your debt, or giving up luxuries you do not need. You should be saving money. If you aren’t already then start putting money back, even $5 a week will add up!

Borrowing money is the most difficult of the three ways you can create more money. Borrowing money does create more money, but it is a short term fix that can have long term consequences. This is often the easiest and quickest ways to create money but only if you use it responsibly. Borrowing money is often the reason people need to create more money in their life, to pay off the money they borrowed.

Once you have created more money, the key is to do good things with it. If you have saved it for a vacation, take and enjoy that vacation, if your car needs brakes, get them put on, or if you have more debt than you need, then pay it off. If you have extra cash but don’t know where to put it, then invest it and continue to create more money!

There are a few options for renting out your home.

Rent out your entire home and move yourself to a cheaper house or apartment. While you may not be able to afford your current mortgage there are others who can afford it. Make sure that you add up all of your expenses for the home when renting it out. Do not just rent it out for the monthly amount of your mortgage but add in the cost of taxes and insurance as well. If you can’t rent it out for the full price you need can you make up the difference?

Check with your county or city on the regulations with renting in your neighborhood and make sure that your home is in good shape. You cannot rent out your home if your fridge doesn’t work and the bathtub leaks.

If you can, you may decide to rent out only a portion of your home. You may have a mother-in-law apartment, basement, or apartment over your garage that would allow you to offset the cost of your mortgage. Renting in this way means that you can have day to day contact with your renter. Decide what kind of renter you are looking for. Perhaps a college student or a divorcee if you have children, or a small family if you have more room.

Have a lawyer or property management company draw up the contract for you. You may only want to rent month to month so if you get back on your feet you can move back in sooner.

Set back extra money for repairs and in case your renters do not make a payment. Be prepared for late night repairs and people not caring for your house as you would. While this isn’t the ultimate decision, it could help you keep your house and keep you from having a foreclosure on your credit.