Community: Examples in our Life
Here are some more examples of how being a part of a community has not only saved us money, but allowed us to help out friends in need as well.

We moved in with another family. They live upstairs, we live downstairs. We split the utility bills, share meals several times a week, and let our kids wrestle around. This has saved our families so much money and is a ton of fun, especially for the kids (and for the husbands who always have someone to play video games with!)

We baby sit for our friends and they baby sit for us. I can’t remember the last time we paid someone to watch our daughter so we could go out on a date. We watch the kids one night and the other couple watches them the next. Everyone gets a date, the kids get to play together, and we’re all happy!

We borrow baby stuff. What do you do with all your baby books, toys and clothes when your little one grows out of them? Put them up in the closet for the next one of course!! But what if you could let another family borrow them for awhile? This has saved us hundreds and hundreds of dollars. A sweet family let us borrow a huge box full of 6-12 month baby girl clothes when we moved here. Samantha wore them well and this week I am packing them back in their box to return them to the family.

We network. We always have a great mechanic, a reliable insurance guy, a good doctor, and any other professional we might need. Through friends and family our network has expanded so much. We never feel stranded in a situation because we know that someone will know someone who can help us out.

There are so many other advantages to being a part of a community…Financially, emotionally, spiritually….It is just such a blessing to care for others and to be cared for. Investing in others is truly the best investment you can make.

During the challenge, Miguel and I have been surprised over and over by all the people who tell us they have been voting for us. So many dear friends and family members have rallied around us and this is nothing new in our life. We have some of the most wonderful relationships anyone could ever ask for. Our family and friends are truly an incredible group of people.

One of the most important lessons we have ever learned is that people are made to live in community. Now, by community I don’t mean a group of facebook friends, I mean the people you share life with….the people you know and care about deeply and who know and care deeply about you.

Throughout the Pay Yourself First challenge, we have been continually reflecting on this idea of community and how much our savings journey has been affected by our friends and family.
When we moved to Omaha from the Dominican we had three suitcases; within a week we had a fully furnished basement apartment. The funny thing is… we didn’t spend a dime.
Friends and family gave what they could and many storage units were emptied out. What a blessing!

In my next blog, I am going to share some more of the ways of how being a part of a tight community has enhanced our life and spared our wallet.

But for now, I want to say thank you a million times to our wonderful group of friends and family. We love you all so much and are where we are today because of you.

In survival situations there are three elements you must have to come out alive. Shelter, food, and water. My husband Michael is a bit of an adventurer and has his fair share of stories. A couple of them are tales of survival where he had to brave the elements. But most of our life is not a survival plot. Clothing, however, is something we deem necessary. You need to be clothed for the great outdoors as well as urban jungles, and trips to the grocery store. Let’s face it folks, you just can’t function in society running around naked all the time. Hence the wardrobe category in our budget.

Buying clothes can be more about fashion and image than about protecting you from the elements. Jack Johnson sings in one of his songs “these clothes can keep us warm just like those”. You certainly don’t have to spend a lot on a wardrobe. In spending too much, there comes a point where it’s not about quality but about the label. On the other hand, we have learned the hard way that buying cheap clothes often leads to quick blow outs and continual spending on new items that don’t last. In our 4 years of marriage, we have settled on a store where quality, price, and style meshes perfectly with our taste. Welcome to the world of REI.

By the way, we don’t gain anything by talking these guys up, we just love ‘em that much. REI stands for Recreational Equipment Inc., and it is our favorite company…hands down. About 90% of our wardrobe money gets spent there, and for good reason. This is why we love REI...

• It is a Coop so becoming a member means company dividends to you. On average we get back 10% of all of our purchases. In additional to that, we signed up for their REI VISA card which gives us an additional 5% back when we use it to pay for REI purchases. That's an automatic 15% off!
• The stuff they sell is meant to take a beating so we can easily expect anywhere from 1-3 years of life out of each piece! Michael will blow through most non-REI clothes in 2-3 months, so getting clothes that last is well worth it.
• Although there on no brick-and-mortar stores in our area, their website is very well done making it easy to find what you are looking for. Products are reviewed and rated by members of REI with honest critique on how they perform.
• Shopping off season with these guys pays off. In the fall when they sell off their entire summer inventory, we can grab a full years worth of clothes for under $100. For winter clothes, we wait until the spring line rolls out to find great deals.
• REI has the world’s best return policy. In case something doesn’t last as long as we expected, they will refund our money no questions asked. As a member, we don’t even need to show them a receipt. Even if it’s years later, if we aren’t satisfied, they will keep their word and give us cash back. This means we never worry about something not fitting right, or not lasting long. They stand behind their products.
• For members, they offer monthly discounts which will usually net you an additional 20%-30% off.

As you can tell, we love this store. Making them our primary supplier of clothes has payed off. We have been able to keep our wardrobe budget low, the stuff looks great, and outlasts everything else. To check them out for yourself see their website: www.rei.com. When there, make sure to check out the best deals at the rei-outlet. Happy shopping and happy trails!

Looking over our past 6 months of savings, we have done a pretty good job of sticking to our budget. Although we have developed a healthy habit of disciplined spending, we are not immune to the muse of impulse buying. And because we don’t allow ourselves a very large guilt-free allowance, a shiny pretty something over $20 can throw a wrench into our smooth systems. In the past, we were hard core about unnecessary purchases. The answer was always no. This had the tendency to create tension in the marriage, and often led to unnecessary guilt. Neither of those are good, so over the course of the challenge we adapted a different approach to impulse buying. Here are a few of the tactics we’ve implemented when either one of us get’s the urge to splurge.

STEP ONE: Sleep on It. Most impulse purchases are driving by emotion. Rationale gets thrown out the window as the desire to have something takes the wheel. If you can’t keep your emotions in check, spending can get wildly out of control. Taking 24 hours (or more) to think about the purchase allows time for the emotions to cool off and reason to have a chance to speak. The longer you wait, the better chance you’ll make a decision you won’t regret.

STEP TWO: Talk it Out. A close friend can help you see the light. Are you getting duped by marketing, dreaming that owning this thing will change who you are or give something to your life that money just can’t buy? Or is it a very reasonable thing for you to own that will last long and add value to your life? These are questions someone who knows you well (and isn’t afraid to speak the truth) can help you determine. Whether it is your spouse, a significant other, friend, or family member, find someone to talk it over with.

STEP THREE: Is it Worth your Work. One way to determine something’s worth is to compare it’s price tag with hours of work. Let’s say you want a new outfit that costs $200. If your take-home pay is $10 an hour, than figure 20 hours of work. Would you be willing to work 20 hours just to own the outfit? If it seems like too much work, than it’s not worth buying.

STEP FOUR: Shop Around. If you finally decide to get it, don’t rush out and buy the first one you see. Although this can be fun for the moment, exercising disciple here is much better in the long run. Check out the local stores to find the best price as well as looking for deals online. And when you find the right seller, do a search for coupons or discounts (like signing up for a store credit card). Many times you can snag an additional 10%-50% off.

This is a system that has worked well for us. After doing all of this we end up either not spending the money at all, or buying something we really like at a great price that we don’t feel guilty about. Another thing you can do is give yourself an allowance. Every month give yourself X amount of dollars. It’s guilt-free spending money. Either plow through it every month, or save it up and get yourself something really nice after a couple of years. In our experience, the good stuff comes through waiting.

There you have it folks. Don’t get beat up by the impulse buying monsters. Instead, practice these four steps and you can come out the victor in every trip to the store.

This is not our last blog, just the last time we are going to show this chart again. (Beware, lots of numbers down there!).

We wanted to help you see just how we saved …... $8,555.45! Wow, I still find it hard to believe. As a reminder, we have been saving to pay for my nursing school in order to return to the Dominican Republic. We live there long term and will be providing free health care to the underprivileged nationals. To read about our goals, look at this post on the The Nitty Gritty Details. When we came into the PYF challenge we were $5,308 short of paying for tuition. Here’s where we stand 6 months later:

As you can see, not only have we met our overall savings goal, but we saved an additional $3,247.45! How did we do it? Well, this past month, like the other months, we put away $468 just by cutting our budget back to the bare essentials. Saying no to all the unnecessary stuff really can add up. Also in March, we were able to save $2,370 through alternative means. The bulk of this came from our tax refund of $2,046! The hard part about getting a big unexpected check like that was not going out and spending it. Asking the IRS to deposit it directly into our online savings account helped us save the entire amount. Besides that we earned money through doing odd jobs, offering bilingual services to local business’, and cash back from credit cards. It was a good final month.

For us, the whole point of this savings contest is to be able to help the developing communities of the DR. We aren’t celebrating the money, we are celebrating the help the Dominicans will be able to receive. It is important to keep in perspective that it’s never about the money but always about the dream.

Another noteworthy detail: combining our additional savings of $3,247.45 with FNBO Direct’s match of $5,000 gives us $8,247.45; a great start to saving for the clinic we want to build down there. We went into this thing hoping to not go into too much debt by studying nursing. We walk away not only with the debt-free knowledge of how to help the people, but also with the beginnings of whereto help the people.

We thank GOD for HIS provision, our great group of supporters for their encouragement, and FNBO Direct for the opportunity. Thanks everyone, and keep voting!

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Thanks for reading my blog. If you like what you see, vote for me! Feel free to email me at kristenpyf@gmail.com, or visit our personal blog. God bless you.
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Can't vote any more(?)

Great job guys. It is

Whooot!

Congratulations!

One of my classes this term is nutrition, and the other day in class I had a bit of a revelation. I think that in a lot of ways, savings can be compared to weight loss. Put a person on a crash diet for a few weeks and they will definitely drop some pounds, but nine times out of ten that weight will come right back. It takes a lifestyle change, and that doesnt happen overnight. This same concept can be applied to frugality, which I believe is a way of life. If your family has never saved money, frugality may sound very scary. The list of things you would need to give up is daunting and most people look at that list and think they could never do it. Or maybe you think Ill give it a try. For a week you skip your four dollar coffee drink that you love and always have, you don't go out, you don't use your cell phone, you keep the lights off, you eat lots of rice and then you say, "FORGET IT!!!" Lets face it, if you have never been a good saver, its not going to be a quick and easy thing to become one.

What I am suggesting for those of you who would like to save money but don't know where to start is a four week plan that will introduce you to the world of frugality. Here is what to do. Every week for one month, choose one aspect of your budget to concentrate on. Make sure you just choose one a week! For example, work on your gas spending for the first week. Carpool with your spouse once or twice or let the kids ride the bus to school (even though they hate it, it wont kill them!).

Back in the Dominican we don’t own car. Instead, we get around on a super family friendly vehicle - a 125cc Yamaha dirt bike. Because our town is small you can walk just about anywhere in less than 2 miles. We end up footing it most of the time. But when speed is the key, the motorcycle can come in handy. Two wheels are the preferred choice of travel by the Dominicans, even for our family of 3 (some families of 6 do it too!)

But when we came to Bellevue to pursue the nursing degree, it was clear that we would need an actual car. The one we thought we were going to use broke down on the day of our arrival to the States at literally the very time we were getting off the plane. After a few days of doubt and discouragement, GOD provided a car for us through a complete stranger, free of charge. A miracle happened. It’s a really great story, but I won’t go into detail about it here. If you want to know what happened read part 1 and part 2 from our family blog.

In our last post we talked about simplifying your life in order to focus on what really matters. Getting all that clutter out from under you can increase the quality of your life... and more. For starters, it saves you money. Leading a life of simplicity will impact your finances by:

• spending less on new items
• spending less on entertainment
• reusing what you have so you waste less

It’s a no-brainer. Simplicity = Spending Less = Saving More

But not only does your wallet feel the difference, the environment does as well. Now you might not have bought into the whole global warming parade, but I think one thing we can agree on is that we have a responsibility of making sure we are minimizing the negative impact our consumption has on the planet. Personally, Michael and I wouldn’t label ourselves hard core environmentalists, but we do thoroughly enjoy nature, seeing the value of cutting out harmful habits.

There’s a phrase floating around out there. You might have heard it, ‘less is more’. The idea basically goes against the notion that the more stuff you have, the more activities you are involved in, and the more crammed your day-to-day is, the higher your quality of life will be. ‘Less is more’ refers to simplicity. It says that removing the extras and getting down the basics is where life really gets good. It’s something we as a family endorse and try to live by. Not out of obligation, but out of choice.

For our family, life contains a short list of things that really matter to us. Our relationship with GOD, the people around us that we love, and the dreams we feel GOD has given us to do our part in this world. Now there are a whole lot of good things out there to get involved in, to possess, and to spend time on. But in the end, if we take a look back, I’ll bet there are a lot of things we pour ourselves into that don’t really mean that much to us. We just get distracted.

For our part, living in communities struggling with true poverty has taught us that we don’t need a lot of what’s out there in order to live a full life. In all actuality, a lot of times that stuff detracts from life instead of adding to it. It can become too easy to spread ourselves so thin that we end up performing with mediocrity on all levels, and miss out on our dreams. But it takes discipline to say 'no' to the good stuff in order to say 'yes' to the great stuff. However, good marketing can make that a hard line to distinguish.

Here is a way we potentially saved a bundle. This tax season, instead of visiting one of those tax professionals, we checked out what the IRS had to offer on their website. I bet there are a lot more folks out there who qualify for free tax software than know it. We sure did. For most people who made less than $56,000 in 2008, you can access the IRS free-file link and file your taxes at no charge. The best part is the professional software will often find money for you that would have been missed if you did it by yourself.

In our case, we were simply hoping to not owe uncle Sam any money. But after going through all of the Q’s & A’s on the website (we used Turbo Tax), we were pleasantly surprised when we were told we qualified for a substantial 4 digit return. Now I’m not holding my breath, but if it turns out to be legit…sweetness. And although there isn’t a tax expertise bone in my body, my guess is being low income, having a baby, and being enrolled in school full time has something to do with it.