How I Saved $50,000 This Year - Minimalism + Frugal Living - YouTube

WHEW! Today we're gonna talk about how I say $50,000 in a year. Hi friends Welcome

to Freedom In A Budget I'm Kelly and my channel is all about living life

well on a budget and a budget of the constricting what you're not doing thing

no it gives you freedom and we are going to get very personal and talk about how

I saved fifty thousand dollars in a year which is crazy and honestly when I was

running the numbers and realized how much we had saved I started crying and

not like just misty I crying I mean like crying because if you guys don't know

too much about my story not too long ago I was living paycheck to paycheck I was

behind in my bills I had my power turned off multiple times I did not know how to

manage money and I just was really really in a dark place financially and

it was bad and it was scary and I was afraid to have a knock on the door which

would have been a delivery man but I thought they were gonna come and take

all of my stuff because I was so behind on bills and I know that's not how it

works but when you're that deep in debt and that just deep in financial struggle

that's the fear that you live with and it was a scary scary place and just a

couple years ago I you know decided that enough was enough and I had to turn my

life around and I have some videos coming out in the next couple weeks

where I'm gonna go step by step on how I turn my life I was able to go from

living paycheck to paycheck and fear absolutely fear to now winning with

money and contrary to popular belief it wasn't just getting married and adding

on a salary these changes happen far before Jayme and I got married and we

didn't combine our finances until we got married and I honestly believe that we

were winning with money I was winning with money far before I got married so

no it wasn't just that we combine incomes there were some really really

drastic changes that happened so if you want to hear about those stories stay

tuned I would love for you to subscribe to my channel there's gonna be some

really really fun great deep content coming and I'm going to be getting a lot

more raw on this channel I'm gonna be start sharing some of those those harder

stories that I you know a lot of times I just want to give the facts for you guys

and talk about you know different ways that you can win what's money

different ways that you can get ahead but I don't always talk about the hard

times and the things that I've been through and so I want to kind of share a

little bit more about myself in that way and be a little bit more vulnerable with

you guys so stay tuned for that also make sure you stay to the end of the

video I have a giveaway coming up so I want to share all that with you so I'm

going to give you all the details at the end so hi now to the feature content of

how we were able to save fifty thousand dollars in a year first thing we did is

cut back majorly on toiletries now I'm not saying that we went without washing

her face or hands and dish soap and stuff like that no I'm not saying that

but I personally was so guilty of just buying toiletries especially shampoo and

face wash anytime it was on sale I don't know why

but it was a hoarding problem and I have a whole linen closet full of shampoo and

it was embarrassing when I moved up how much shampoo conditioner or face wash

and stuff we have so I vowed to not buy anymore until those are gone even though

it may be shampoo that I don't really want to use anymore or there's a really

great new smelling one there different one that I want to try nope not gonna do

it so this year we really really cut back on just those items that we already

have some of in the house you know are there already items that we can use that

we don't have to you know use disposable or using cloth napkins versus disposable

napkins or paper towels we have had one roll of paper towels for over eight

months now it is that same roll we just barely use paper towels and you know the

only time we really ever use paper towels is cleaning up things like grease

or different things like that and the payment kind of like soaking that up but

other than that we use cloth and we just have dish towels and we just throw them

in the laundry like normal and just use them that way

next thing we did to save fifty thousand dollars this year was grower income and

again no not by combining finances or anything like that but we hustled that I

was out there with mystery shopping I was meal prepping for my co-workers I

was a growing my youtube channel and blog and putting out these videos and

guys there's so many times where I don't want to film right before now I didn't

want to film and I sat around for an hour procrastinating not filming but

you know at the end of the day I gotta get hustling and you know I do make a

decent income from these videos and my blog posts and all of that so just

getting out there ant hustling over time I asked for overtime and I actually got

pulled into a meeting saying I had too much overtime and it was devastating and

all I could think about was whole crap what about our financial goals what are

we gonna do we've hit some like we have these stretch goals that we really want

to hit this year and how am I gonna do it now with my or time is tough so you

know what I got creative I pulled my bosses aside and I said okay

I understand that my particular job right now we can't justify the overtime

but are there other departments that I can help and we brainstorm didn't really

like you know what this department could use some help they can use some overtime

they have some stuff that you can do now it wasn't stuff that I wanted to do it

wasn't stuff that it was stuff that I had to do some training on it was stuff

that outside of my scope and outside of what I felt comfortable with and

honestly some of the stuff sucked and I didn't want to do it but it was worth

the overtime guys you have to get out of your comfort zone sometimes you have to

put yourself in the line to make some extra money

now nothing illegal stuff but guys sometimes you have to get out of your

comfort zone and you have to do things that you just don't want to I'll be

honest with you it sucks sometimes but you got to do it next thing we did is

ate the same meals multiple multiple multiple times pretty much every single

day five days a week for lunches and it sucked and I hated it but you know at

the end of the day saving money is more important to me than eating the same

meal or burn times and a lot of times I'll think about it you know all my

co-workers and I water my coworkers go out to lunch every single day or get

delivery food or we have a cafe downstairs and they'll get that food and

Here I am eating my lunch same food and by Friday it doesn't taste as good as it

did on Monday I'll be honest but you know what it's 15 minutes of my day and

yeah sometimes it's not very exciting not very fun but it save so much money

by bringing my own food every single day in fact

one day last week I was celebrating because I was actually on CBS News and

so they came out and it just aired I think it's airing tonight maybe tonight

but CBS news so I was excited I was you know mine was my first TV appearance and

so cool and so I wanted to celebrate and so you know what I've celebrated I got

some lunch that was to go and nothing was like it $25 with like delivery and

transaction fee and all that separately online which was ridiculously expensive

it was like a whole week's worth of lunches in one meal but my co-workers

were so shocked they were like Kelly what is wrong with you who is this

person I don't even know who you are anymore

and that just shows how I truly do bring my lunch at every single day I think you

could count the amount of times that I brought that I've eaten out at work on

one hand over the years years and you know what does it save so much money and

it is really a big game-changer in just hitting those goals next thing that we

did is set weekly savings goals so we sat down with our budget and said okay

in order to hit this $50,000 what do we have to be saving every single week what

do we have to transfer into our savings account every single week we bought a

house this year that was a huge huge goal up that we really really wanted to

do we had mold in our old apartment and a lot of issues with that and so we were

motivated we wanted out of that apartment we wanted out of there quickly

and we wanted to buy that house and you know what we were actually able to do it

sooner than expected which was really cool so we had weekly savings goals that

we had to hit and one of the ways that we were able to do that is staying out

of the store so that was a really really big one of just not going into you know

targeted or Marshalls Marshalls a big one for me just to kill time you know a

lot of times before I would be running early for an appointment or different

things like that like Oh targets next door I'll just stop in no I'm not gonna

do that I would rather say my car reply to YouTube comments something like that

then go and kill time because you know when you're killing time your end up

buying a couple things let's be honest at least I do and then when you see that

savings grow and you see that you're making progress and you see your savings

account grow and grow and grow it is mo innovating guys it is exhilarating when

you're seeing that grow and grow and grow and that makes me want to cut back

even more so that I can see it grow next thing we did is maybe a little bit weird

is I made sure that I followed up on any refunds that we are expecting or any

rebates or anything like that there were a couple times throughout the year that

we were supposed to receive a refund and we never did one example is Jayme's

dentist and Jayme had switch over a new insurance plan and his dentist had to

bill him the full amount so we paid in full and then they were going to send

off to insurance and then get a check refunded so we did all that then they

said okay you're gonna be getting three hundred dollars two hundred ninety-eight

dollars back in a check we're like awesome this is great

okay so then a couple months went by and I was like "wait a second I don't think we ever

got that check back" and so I had to call up the the dentist knew like yeah we

sent that to you and I was like can you confirm the address that you send it to

and it turns out they sent it to our apartment I said can you please look

into that because I don't have it refunded cash in my my budget and

they're like oh maybe your husband asked no no no trust me we track every single

penny I don't have it cashed in our budget so can you go and make sure that

the check didn't clear and so they go okay so they said they'll call me back

week goes by no callback I'm calling back so I called back and they're like

oh yeah you were right we were supposed to call you and we'll have them reissue

another check and two and I said okay can you check the address and all of

that so guys if we didn't follow up twice on that that's $300 that we would

have missed out on so make sure that you're following up on rebates so many

stores will have these rebates especially Black Friday deals or those

big length appliances different things like that they're banking on you not

sending in the rebate you know you're saying oh and you purchased that's great

we'll get a couple hundred dollars back rebate all this stuff and then you

forget and you're like oh oh well that's a couple hundred bucks whatever no guys

make sure that you're following up with that stuff make sure that if you are

expecting a refund make sure that you're putting it in your calendar your phone

count or whatever it is to follow up with them to make sure they get that

rebate or that cash back or that refund check make sure it's

important next is finalizing a budget every single month you guys know that I

am a huge huge huge person on a zero-based budget you guys know I love

my budget report cards in I still budget every single month and one of the

reasons that we were able to hit our goal so fast is that we finalize the

budget so at the end of the month if we had $200 left over we are putting that

$200 towards our savings if we had X amount of money that was going towards

our savings that wasn't just like going into a dark hole of our checking account

and it just a it's a buffer it's a buffer it's it's fine no that needs to

be transferred to your savings account to your debt whatever your goal is you

need to make that transfer and you need to make that deposit you need to make

that payment so that you are hitting your goals if you just let it go into

the black dark hole it's gonna get lost trust me it will next is specific

spending freezes so a lot of times people and I've done this in the past

and I did a couple years ago I don't do them anymore but I would do monthly

spending freezes and you don't spend any money outside of your bills your four

walls those are great but honestly now what we do is specific freezes so no

eating out no extra entertainment no X whatever it is and just have those

specific categories and you can still spend in other places but having those

categories freeze they really help you just to hone in on your goal and so they

make it more doable and so they're not getting burnt out and different things

like pantry challenges we saved so much money

pantry challenges oh my gosh there are so many meals that you guys can make

guys from what you have in your freezer your pantry different places like that

so many meals and say you had $20 left for the month you guys can make a

stretch you guys can do it both maybe now if you have five kids but

for a couple like Jayme and I we could make $20 stretch for a week and because

we could probably go and eat three weeks out of our fridge freezer and pantry if

if it really came down to it now it all depends on how serious you are about

your goals you know how dedicated do you want to get and a lot of times you

no you just have these stretch goals and you just have just just this time that

you need to be gazelle intense and hardcore and then afterwards you can

breathe a little bit and then afterwards you can you know kind of go more to

those fuller meals but sometimes guys it's not gonna hurt you to you know II

out of the pantry eat some you know chicken that's been in your freezer for

a couple months it's it's gonna be fun so I hope that helps I don't know this

just kind of got a little intense but guys say to you fifty thousand dollars

in a year was intense it was a lot but it was so rewarding when we were able to

buy this house because of it so now on to the giveaway I have fired

up so Jamie and I like I said we have been so blessed this year and we are

just so thankful for you guys and we want to give back to you so what we're

doing is a Christmas a blessing and giveaway and we want you guys to be able

to nominate people in your life that are going through some struggles and growing

through some stuff and I have a form on my blog that you guys can fill out a

nominative family nominate someone that is going through some stuff though and

do some struggles I've already gotten some entries in and whole the tiers have

been flowing and it doesn't have to be you know a super super snap story it

could just be you know someone is going through you know a job loss or they just

lost a family member or you know they have a disease that they were just

diagnosed with or whatever it may be or maybe they're fostering some some

shelter know whatever it could be if you be a waitress that you don't know too

well but we are going to be picking one of those family and then bang them

Christmas gifts and blessing them with gifts and their children and I know that

Christmas is just such a fun and exceeding time and a lot of people they

want to be able to give especially for their kids but they can't so we're gonna

buy them gifts so Jamie and I are so excited we have a forum on our blog that

you can go and nominate that family and surprise them so we are going to be

drawing those names on December 10th and then after we draw the name we'll reach

out to you if you if we pick your entry and then we can go and get all the

details and the information so super excited I'm so I'm just so thrilled for

this and it is such a blessing for G and I to do and we can't wait to get

back to you guys so super fun and exciting there's a little random acts of

kindness that we are doing so so pumped so I'll have it the blog post down below

in the description box but it's freedom and a budget come slash Christmas

giveaway so I hope that you will nominate a family that is a need share

this get the word out we want this to be big we want to be able to bless a family

so we are so excited and I think I've said that like 10 times that I am I'm so

excited you guys all right guys next up is how I went from living paycheck to

paycheck having a car repossessed making six figures here I'll see you in that

video