I attended their free webinar on estate planning, which provided a discount code for the classes. This class cost me $60 with the discount code, and was worth every penny. The course is six chapters plus a bonus chapter of FAQs, and each one is roughly an hour long. 

It’s a bit of a time commitment but the course is engaging. There are short quizzes on the material to keep you actively listening throughout. I took a lot of notes while I watched and watched roughly one lesson a day. 

Jeremy from Personal Finance Club provides the basics of investing, how to set up investing accounts, and answers questions about college savings and more. This course was truly invaluable. After I finished it, I set up a Roth IRA account for both myself and my spouse. 

We used Fidelity and chose a target date index fund. We have a few other accounts through Fidelity, so it seemed like the easiest option. But you can use any brokerage firm, like Vanguard or Charles Schwab. 

I set up monthly reoccurring investments from our bank account to our Roth IRAs. Make sure you choose the option to have your auto payment automatically invested into the fund(s) you’ve selected. If you don’t do this, the money will just sit in the account and never grow. Check out Personal Finance Club’s blog post on this for more info.

Based on this course, I also made small tweaks to the AZ529 plans we have set up for the kids. I switched them from the “Fidelity Blend” fund to the Age-Based “Fidelity Index” fund. 

When it comes to investing, it feels like a whole other language that’s not easy to understand. I really appreciated how Jeremy from Personal Finance Club presents the info and trust this advice. I left the class with a much deeper understanding of investing. 

As a person with a Dave Ramsey Baby Step foundation, I noticed that what Jeremy teaches is different than what Dave teaches. Jeremy prefers index funds, whereas Dave recommends mutual funds. With anything personal finance, there are varying opinions on what’s best. 

While I used to trust all of Dave’s advice without question, recent experiences have left me feeling otherwise and open to learning from other folks in the industry.

Regardless of whose advice you follow or what investment options you think are best, it seems like everyone agrees that investing early and often are the key factors for success.

Millennials are facing sky-high housing costs, student loan debts, and other economic challenges that make it difficult to prioritize retirement. I know that our student loan debt delayed us from being able to invest for years and we’re now trying to make up for lost time. Sometimes it can be discouraging but if you’re able to put yourself on a budget and prioritize your financial goals, it can also feel really empowering. 

At age 36, I’m just now opening a Roth IRA, I have a 401(k) through work, and a couple of retirement accounts from previous workplaces. We’re not where we want to be yet with investing, but we’re getting there and that feels really good. Especially on the days when it all seems exhausting and overwhelming. 

If you’re looking for budgeting help and advice on how to get organized with your financial goals, I offer free 1:1 60-minute sessions. And if you’re looking for more posts on personal finance, click here. 

You can also purchase the Personal Finance Club investing course that I took with a $20 discount using the code SHARETHELOVE at checkout.

Now make a plan to get organized and set up a Roth IRA

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Books

The Psychology of Money: This book was pulled from @chrisssjohnson‘s IG account and I’m so glad I read it. There were many excellent points made, examples used, and topics discussed around the psychology of money, and how it’s evolved in the US. It also provides suggestions for how to manage your own money. Great read and definitely a new favorite.

Grow Your Money: I read this after I left a job in the summer of 2021. I needed to learn how to roll over my retirement account from the job into my own retirement account. I had no clue what I was doing or which accounts to choose, and this book was a huge help in figuring that out. I used a few other resources too, but this was a huge help. I highlighted a lot of key points to revisit when we start to focus more on our retirement goals.

Budgeting Tool

YNAB is the tool that we personally use for budgeting. For the most part, I like this app but I think it has some unnecessary features that overcomplicate budgeting. It’s a bit more cumbersome than what I need it for, but as long-time budgeters, we were able to figure out how to make it work for us after a few budgeting cycles.

Generally, I recommend this tool. It’s relatively cheap and easy to use. If you’re new at budgeting, stick with it and you’ll hit your stride. Check out my previous post on the 5 Tools I Use for Budgeting for more details.

Instagram Accounts

Instagram is my social media platform of choice. My favorite personal finance accounts are Clever Girl Finance and Personal Finance Club. There are plenty of great ones out there but these are the two that feel most in line with how I do things myself. I come back to these accounts often and share their content the most. I definitely recommend giving them a follow if you’re in the market.

Podcast

The Momentum Advisors is my favorite personal finance podcast to listen to. The banter between Tiffany and Allan is highly entertaining and I always leave the episode re-energized around my personal finance goals. I love putting this on while I’m driving around delivering groceries for my side gig.

This sums up my current, favorite financial resources. Personal finance is personal, and there are so many resources out there. Find the resources you connect with and check in with them when you need inspiration and encouragement.

What are some of your favorite personal finance resources? Be sure to check out some of my previous posts on the topic. Happy Financial Literacy Month <3

The post Favorite Financial Resources in 2023 first appeared on Mind Tchotchkes For The Crotchety Millennial.

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This is where the “snowball” effect comes in. Once you’re done paying off the smallest, you automatically wrap that minimum payment amount into the next one, and keep going like this. The idea is that you’re already used to making that payment, and by automatically putting that into the next one, you’ll be paying off extra by default every month now until you reach your last debt. 

Tips:

• Use a tracker for motivation
• Pay off even more than the minimums when you can
• Make it a priority to get rid of the debts you no longer want around
• Write your interest rate for each debt on your debt snowball sheet as well
• When you pay one off, call the creditor and schedule your new, automatic minimum payment 

Some folks say it’s better to pay the debts with higher interest rates first. I’ve heard the debt snowball method is more effective because you get quicker wins and it’s more motivating, etc. It worked for us but ya know, do it a different way if you think you’ll stick with it better  

Some say don’t prioritize paying off low-interest debt (like student loans). And part of me gets that. If the gov’t does pull through on forgiveness, that’d be cool. I just tend to be skeptical of it. Plus, to me, low interest is still interest and I don’t want debt payments in general. 

Once we paid off this debt, we freed up roughly $1300 a month in expenses. That’s huge! Getting rid of debt gives you more disposable income to work with in the long run. Here’s a picture of our original debt snowball:

We started this a bit before we got married around 2011 and we paid it off in March 2020. The timeline will be different for everyone depending on what’s going on in your life, your job, and all of that. Some months we put a lot extra on our debt and some months we only paid minimums. Life is always changing and so will the amount that you can pay down.

Do try to stop using debt during the process so you’re not directly working against these efforts.

Click here or follow me on Instagram to read more posts on personal finance.

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Budgeting and learning about personal finance have been game changers for us personally. You probably know we started with the Dave Ramsey FPU class, but in recent years we’ve distanced ourselves from the company due to discriminatory and problematic policies/views. We do still follow the Baby Step plan for personal finance (for the most part) though. It’s what got us out of approx. $130k in debt.

Often with personal finance, it’s a matter of not knowing where to start, coming to terms with your situation, and getting organized. That’s why I still like the Baby Step plan. It’s clear and doesn’t try to do too much all at once.

*And it’s also important to acknowledge the wide range of external, systemic, and personal factors that affect a person’s ability and chances of success in doing these things.

But if you’re looking for a general place to start with organizing and managing money, here’s a good first step (Baby Step 1):

Build a $1000 (or $500) emergency fund.

The idea is to get this in place as quickly as possible so that when something unexpected comes up, you’re not putting it on a credit card (i.e. going into more debt).

We keep our emergency fund in a separate savings account at another bank (credit union). This way it’s harder to access and not being used for things that aren’t actual emergencies.

This step isn’t super exciting tbh, but it’s an important one. Consider the below:

• What are some ways you can work toward prioritizing an emergency savings?
• Are there any areas where you can cut back spending or ways you can increase your income?
• Starting a budget will also help you see how much $ you have left over at the end of the month to put toward your goals.

Once you get your savings in place, try not to spend on credit cards anymore. Unless you’re one of the few ppl who actually pays off the balance monthly – ok do you. Deciding you want to stop wracking up debt is part of the first step.

*Make it a priority to rebuild the emergency fund if you take money from it.

Click here to read more posts on personal finance topics.

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Now that we’ve financed a home, we’re evaluating our next financial goals. There were a few different ways that we felt we could approach our next steps. When we bought the house, we dipped into our emergency savings account by about $10k in order to have a 10 percent down payment. So we need to rebuild that (back up to about $20k). 

We also need to focus on retirement savings. Having graduated with so much debt post college, we postponed this for a long time (and longer than Dave Ramsey recommends) in order to direct all extra funds toward paying off the debt. 

While it was an active choice to do that and we don’t regret it, we know that we need to start making up for lost time. 

Thirdly, we have a few home improvements we’d like to prioritize. 

Figuring out how to decide where to put our attention next took a bit of processing and talking through. 

We made a list of the home improvements to make and ordered them by necessity, priority, and cost.

I revisited the Baby Steps and a few articles on Dave’s site to figure out the guideline for how much more we should contribute to retirement. We’re both contributing now to our 401k’s with our employers. But we know we need to increase it and wanted to figure out by how much and where we should do that. 

*There’s also the very real fact that we’d like to start paying off our 30-year mortgage as if it’s a 15-year mortgage and start contributing to our kids’ college funds. 

But for now, here’s what we decided:

1. First, we’re prioritizing a tile job for our kitchen and dining room. Both are currently carpeted and with kids, that’s just not ideal.
2. Next, we’ll rebuild our emergency fund savings account.
3. Third, we’ll open Roth IRAs and start contributing more $ into those accounts.

Once we have these done, we’ll plan on incorporating some of our other items, which include a bathroom remodel, paying more on the mortgage, and working in the kids’ college funds. 

Moving comes with a lot of extra, unexpected costs that add up. For example, we bought new bookshelves and a mattress and paid for a plumbing improvement.

I’m excited to continue to get settled in the new home and budget. I’m also excited to transition into our next goals with momentum. 

While budgeting and being detailed about your financial picture isn’t always fun, I’m thankful that we have no (other) debt. This has made the fact that we can afford this mortgage payment and pursue our other financial goals possible. 

Having disposable income is huge and it’s difficult for me to imagine ever going back to a tapped-out lifestyle. If you have the means and ability to get on a budget and pay down/off debt, I highly recommend it. Click here for other personal finance posts.

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This is a post about purchasing a home with no credit score. We used to be huge Dave Ramsey fans and followed his Baby Steps for personal finance. Thanks to that plan, we paid off approximately $130k in debt. After learning about numerous problematic issues around Dave Ramsey and his brand, we pulled our support for him a few years ago.

Dave Ramsey teaches his followers that you don’t need a credit score. It’s one of, if not THE, most counterculture recommendations he has. He recommends getting rid of all debt products. And because the credit score is a measure of a person’s relationship to debt, the score goes away if you don’t use debt.

We’re fans of this idea, even still. As people whose lives were deeply affected by debt, not supporting the predatorial debt industry is something we easily get behind.

So when we paid off ALL our debt, our credit scores did disappear. Dave Ramsey tells his followers that you can obtain a mortgage without a score through a process called manual underwriting. He heavily endorses Churchill Mortgage to be able to competently handle this process.

About midway through 2022, inspired by a stressful moment of being completely over renting, I decided to look at the process of securing a mortgage. I started with Churchill since I figured they would understand our unique and specific situation. The whole experience was truly awful.

I’ll save the details of that story for another time, but it left us with a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about the reality of securing a mortgage with no score. An idea I believed in so strongly, backed by Dave Ramsey’s word that it would be no big deal, was starting to fall apart.

After a few months, we decided to call other lenders. Most couldn’t even comprehend how we didn’t have credit scores. They did not know how to handle borrowers in this situation and weren’t familiar with manual underwriting. (Some places told us it’s more common to do with FHA loans, but we knew we wanted a conventional loan).

Eventually, we called Elements Financial, a credit union in Indianapolis that my sister and her spouse used for a mortgage. In hindsight, I should have called them much earlier. I hesitated because we were looking for a loan in Arizona and I wasn’t sure they’d service our city/state.

I called them and briefly explained our situation. It was an easy and seamless process from the beginning with Elements. The woman I spoke with knew exactly what we were talking about. She didn’t shame us, act shocked, mansplain, or condescend us, or anything like that.

What we got:

I asked for a $400k conventional loan. We were approved for $400k at 10 percent down, a 30-year loan term, and no PMI. We ended up with a 6.125% interest rate, which is the same rate they currently offer to folks with a 740 credit score.

*I didn’t specify the term of the loan we wanted, so we went with the default of a 30-year mortgage. Dave Ramsey recommends 15 year mortgages. In the future, we can refinance when/if rates go down. We could refinance later for a 15 year mortgage. And of course, we can pay more on the 30-year mortgage as if it were a 15 year when we’re ready.

I can’t stress enough the contrast in service that came from Churchill Mortgage v. Elements Financial.

Elements Financial made purchasing a home with no credit score such a seamless process. We truly couldn’t be more grateful.

We purchased a home for $390k, put $39k down. And tomorrow we move in!

Now that we’ve purchased a home with no credit score, here are my tips to anyone else considering the process:

If you’re planning to own the home with another person, be sure to have two “nontraditional” bills each, together or separately.

I’m typically the person setting up all our bills. My spouse is always an authorized person on each account but the statements were set up in a way that only reflected my name. The lender needed payment history that showed his name too.

I called all our utility companies and asked them to add his name to the statements. It usually can’t be backdated, so I’d recommend ensuring this is done months in advance of when you want to buy. We were able to get a personalized payment history from our car insurance payments that showed both of our names. But it was hard to track down a bill that had my spouse’s name on it.

Our lender wanted us to have 12 months’ worth of payments “in reserve. Which I believe means retirement accounts or savings that can be used to cover the mortgage payments in case of emergency. You can always call and ask what specifics you’ll need but we needed to prove this.

Thankfully, we have a few retirement funds with enough money in them to get approved.

Start the process early to get an idea of what you’ll need in case you can’t get approved right away.

One good thing about the Churchill experience previously, was finding out I’d need to add my spouse to our bills. This helped when we got to the point of reaching out to Elements, who requested the same thing.

If you’re doing manual underwriting, call around. It’s likely going to take time to find a lender who is familiar with this process, and it can get discouraging. I highly recommend Elements Financial.

As a last-ditch effort, you can use Churchill. We were eventually approved by them after tons of back-and-forth frustration. If you use Churchill, make sure you confirm they actually submit your application for manual underwriting. This was the huge, obvious step they failed to do for us the first time they handled our application. Which was unexpected considering how heavily they advertise themselves as experts in this process.

(Side note: When we were approved by Churchill, they gave us a higher interest rate than Elements, even on a 15-year mortgage, and they had PMI insurance included).

With Churchill, I’ll hold space for the fact that it could depend on which representative you happen to talk to. I’m not sure. But I know who we talked to clearly didn’t understand the process.

If you do have to go with Churchill for “a no score” mortgage because you can’t find someone else, consider refinancing when it makes sense to another company. I personally wouldn’t trust them with handling such a big purchase/loan and their customer service is awful.

*Keep in mind that once go back into debt for the house, you’ll have a credit score again. This will hopefully make it easier if you want to refinance with another lender, for a better interest rate, loan term, or whatever.

Below is a summary of documents we provided to Elements:

• Retirement account statements
• Savings and checking account statements
• 12 month rental payment history
• Two nontraditional payment histories for each person applying (phone, insurance, electric, internet, etc.)
• Standard ID verification stuff (license, etc.)
• Income verification: paystubs, tax statements, employment histories

TLDR:

It’s possible to get a mortgage loan without a credit score. I can’t promise it’ll be easy to find a lender who is competent and familiar with the process. I highly recommend using Elements Financial since we had personal success and a great customer service experience with them.

Check into the process early so you can make sure you have everything you’ll need. And hopefully, this post will help if you’re purchasing a home with no credit score.

Click here to read more posts on personal finance.

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One option is to roll that amount onto your next debt payment or financial goal. So if you were used to paying $600 a month on debt, and now one debt is paid off or paid down, call the creditor and change your monthly minimum payment to the amount you’re already used to paying. This will help pay it off even faster.

This is part of the debt snowball plan that we followed to get out of debt. Every time we paid one debt off, we’d change the minimum payment on our next one to include what we were paying on the previous one.

And the same thing goes for random bits of $, like this $650. If you get that and already weren’t planning on having it, you can go ahead and throw it right on your next financial goal (debt, down payment, retirement, etc.)

This recommendation is also only if you’re already able and making enough to pay your monthly bills. If you’re behind on bills or haven’t been paying on some debts as it is, that’s a different situation.

Ultimately, you get to decide how to spend unexpected income and it’s fine to spend it on whatever you want. You CAN have financial goals and still have fun. It’s just important to consider opportunity cost and priorities. Ex: If it means more to focus on a vacation than paying off debt right now, that’s fine. Vacations also mean different things to different ppl.

Just remember that wherever you decide to spend money, it will obviously mean less to put toward other areas. So think about your priority now and where you want to focus your attention and extra income. (Click here to read other posts on personal finance).

The post Planning for Unexpected Income first appeared on Mind Tchotchkes For The Crotchety Millennial.

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My Last Active Budget

I use the last active budget that we have to pull accurate amounts for my new one.

Example: Last budget period I projected spending $150 on going out to eat. I actually spent $250. What will I plan to budget for in this category for the current period?

My Current Budget Template

We use YNAB as our budgeting tool. I used EveryDollar prior to this for years until we distanced from the Dave Ramsey brand. I won’t like when I say it’s been a tough switch, but we’ve made this new app work.

YNAB Pros: All my budget categories automatically transfer over to my new template. My bank account is linked to the app and are automatically pulled in, which makes it easy to drag and drop transactions to their proper category within the app.

YNAB Cons: The app feels overcomplicated to me. With budgeting, I’m a firm believer in keeping things as straightforward and simple as possible. And this app just seems like it has a lot going on. I also can’t set up budgets on a 2-week basis, which is how we budget, so I use workarounds to make it fit our own budgeting needs and preferences.

List of Bills

I always have my list of bills handy when I budget. It’s a list of every regular expense that comes out in a month, quarter, or year. Be sure to include the amount that’s due and the due date next to it to save time when budgeting.

Calendar

We budget on a two-week basis. So I look at what’s coming up during that two weeks, such as:

• bills that are due
• who has a birthday, baby shower, etc.
• a car that needs an oil change
• extra income from a side gig

Basically, anything that’s happening during that 2-week timeframe that we need to account for.

Calculator

I use my phone or computer calculator to close out the previous budget and do any other basic math that comes up while we’re budgeting.

And that’s it! The five tools I use to budget.

The more you do it, the easier and more intuitive it gets. Budgets are always changing and evolving. They’re very specific based on the person’s individual style and life situation. A budget isn’t a stagnant document you look at once or twice a year. Your budget adapts to and reflects your life.

I’m almost always happy to help people (for free) with budgeting. So contact me with questions or to set up a session to set one up together! You can also check out my other posts on personal finance here. Happy budgeting! <3

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In our society, people make it seem like it’s literally impossible to function without a credit score. And just to be clear, NO credit score is different from having a LOW credit score. Having a low credit score can definitely create very real barriers for you in the U.S. and that’s a different situation.

Fun fact. Many countries don’t use a credit score at all and it wasn’t until the 80s that we even started doing it here… Anyway.⁣
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Since we personally don’t have debt anymore, we don’t have credit scores. A credit score is only based on the debt you have and the relationship you have with your debt, so if you have no debt, you have no score.⁣
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I’ve wondered if not having one would eventually cause issues for us. So far, I’ve been able to rent a car no problem – just did that in AZ. And we also just signed a rental lease without one. We applied to two properties, were approved for both. With two separate property management companies, we were never asked for a higher deposit, to provide additional payment history, a co-signer, nothing.⁣ (I have heard that these could be additional requirements).
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You CAN still see the payment history on our previous debt accounts. See below screenshots from my credit report. So I think that most likely helped us avoid any hassle, since most landlords just want to see that you pay your stuff on time.⁣
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So anyway, that’s it. That’s my story for now. I wondered if we’d have trouble, and we personally did not. Oh. And we signed a lease and are moving back to AZ in January (all the emotions). If you’d like to read more posts on personal finance, click here.
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P.S. Gonna turn off comments cause I don’t wanna risk my night and mental health if someone comments arguing with me about credit scores. I’ve already heard it all. Reminder: that this is my personal page where I share what I learn and experience when it comes to $. Thanks

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