Financial Success

Financial Success is the meaning behind the mailbox. It all started over 4 years ago. We found out we were having a baby. That was a wonderful gift. Then the mommy guilt set in. We were able to provide for our first child but not for our second. I do not mean the necessities I mean the extra gift I wanted to give. You see I am a teacher by trade and I believe one of the greatest gifts you can provide for your child is an education. I believe that planning for our children’s educational future is as important as what they want to do now. In fact this whole site was a catalyst from my desire to save for my child’s college.

If you have read my about  Madame Deals page you know that I make up my mind and I do the work it takes to make it happen. So back to the mailbox and the story. I often digress but I always stay on track with my goal. I looked at my budget. I didn’t have the benefit of apps like Spense so I had to type it into excel. I believe at the time my husband made $75,000 which I know seems like a lot. It really wasn’t since I didn’t have a job and we have three houses. That is a whole different story. I looked at what we were spending. I should say what I was spending because my husband doesn’t buy anything but gas in his car and an occasional trip to Lowes. He hates shopping and rarely does any. I looked at our budget and I was spending $200 a week on food, health and beauty products, and household stuff. Well I decided that is where I was going to find the money to pay for our daughter’s prepaid college fund. I helped create a best buy price list and a Madame Deals Shopping list.  Then I got on the ball and started using coupons.

I would find 5 items a week that I could buy with coupons and I began to stockpile. We are extremely normal coupon shoppers so my stockpile was like 3 or 4 of something. You know just enough until it went to sale again. I believe in living life not sleeping with your groceries. That brings us from April in 2009 until March in 2013. I bet you are still wondering why I have a mailbox on this page with the label FInancial Success. The truth is we reached our goal. It is fitting that the mailbox says four because that is how old our little girl is and we just paid for 4 years of prepaid college. She is officially done. The whole reason for this site initially was to pay for her school. I knew I needed some accountability. I knew if I didn’t have somewhere to report in and some way to keep myself on track that it would have taken 18 years to pay for her school.

I am sure you all have read my article in ALL YOU by now and you know that I have my vices. You all know that when I have a goal we are going to meet it. This is what happened we sat down and decided that we were going to pay off my daughter’s college. We looked at the interest rate and determined it was more than what we were making in the bank. We used our tax return from last year since we didn’t need it last year. We scrimped and saved and we wrote a check. It was my husband’s idea. This is a huge departure because he wasn’t convinced that paying for college was all that important because our kids will get scholarships. I am not someone that banks on maybe. I believe if you want something you need to make small changes because small changes add up. I mean save just $5 a day using our $5 savings plan and you could be on the road to your dream.

The mailbox is the place that we put our hard earned money. It is the place that we invest in our daughter. It is the place that we gave to our child something that can’t be taken away we gave her the opportunity to go to school and to follow her dreams. We are very proud of ourselves. We did what we set out to do which was to provide 4 years of college for our daughter. The question is what’s next. The answer is we had a third child and the cost of his 4 years of school is 30% more than his sister who is less than two year older. We are now saving for his. We have $42,000 to go before all of our children have college paid for. We hope to have his paid off before he goes to kindergarten. I believe you have to have a real goal in order to be successful you can’t say I want to save money to put in the bank. You have to instead say I want to save money to pay off my house or pay off my student loans. Your money needs a place to rest and you should focus on paying off your debt. I am a prime example of how paying even $5 off when you have an extra $5 can make a huge difference.

I hope you realize your dreams.

Topic: Financial Success