How to Make it on $25,000 a Year (and live like no one else)

Are you still with me on this financial journey of learning to make it on $25000 a year? In part 1 we talked about why and how we found ourselves in a situation of needing to make drastic changes. Part 2 was about the mental change that has to occur in order to come out victorious financially, and today, I want to introduce you to the person you need to listen to while starting out.

God has a ton to say on the subject of money. It’s important to Him that we are wise with what He has given us and use it in a manner that honors Him, but God isn’t actually who I was talking about. I just wanted to say that God is, obviously, the first one you listen to and seek financial counsel from and He is the only one you follow if others contradict Him. God’s word is first, always and forever.

Someone who preaches God’s message when it comes to money is Dave Ramsey and if you want to get on the road to financial peace, start listening to what he has to say!

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I have to credit Dave for spurring us on to make some dramatic changes in the way we handle money because it was after we started listening to his radio show and bought his audio book: The Total Money Makeover* that we even realized how dire our situation was.

Dave does a really great job at making sense of things and at helping people realize the reality of their situations. Since listening to him, I have been able to make that complete mental shift that I talked about in the last post. We are probably super annoying to our friends because we are always telling them about Dave and how everyone should start listening to him, but it’s been such a game changer for us that we can’t help but share.

Here are a few benefits of listening to Dave Ramsey:

Learn how to get out of debt
Get on a better budget
Learn how to build wealth
Learn what it really takes to make it
Learn how to get out of the financially sick pattern our culture is diseased with
Find motivation listening to the stories of others
Change your family tree

So, if you listen to Dave for any amount of time you’ll know that he teaches you to handle money the way God and your Grandma would. Part of that system means using cash envelopes to budget with.

Yep, you read right, a good old fashioned, no plastic allowed cash system. At first I whined a little about the credit card rewards we would be missing out on, but it’s true that it is way more difficult to throw dollar bills at anything and everything than a card. So, the savings we have accumulated as a result of using cash rather than cards surpasses the rewards. Being someone that has never used cash before has made this a fun journey to start on. I love counting what I have left and putting the remainder in a little blue mason jar for saving!

If you want to know more about starting a cash envelope system, follow this link to Dave’s website.

Something Dave Ramsey always says is, “A budget is telling your money where to go, rather than wonder where it went”. Around the same time that we decided to get real serious about money, I was working hard on the second edition of the Stay at Home Mom Survival Kit. It goes without saying that I paid special attention to the finance section because it applied so well to our situation. I created a ton of worksheet pages devoted to figuring out where exactly your money is going and then taking that step of actually planning for it to go there in advance.

Those pages have been the glue that holds our financial journey together. They have seriously made so much of a difference for us as we learn to live on $25,000 a year and pay off a mortgage.

The Stay at Home Mom Survival Kit 2 is launching on September 15, but you can get the first edition free by subscribing to our newsletter. I just had to mention this because it applies so much and played such a huge role for us.

So, when you are looking at getting your money on track, listen to the right voices: God first and Dave Ramsey. Get on a cash envelope system to make it mentally harder to waste your dollars, and look out for the Stay at Home Mom Survival Kit coming September 15^th to get even more organized with your budget.

Thank you for joining me for part 3 of this series on how to make it on $25,000 a year (and live like no one else)! Next post will be all about practical tips for making your money behave for you. You won’t want to miss it!