About
The Frugal Home was created to help others save money, celebrate their creative side and work from home.
If you would like to submit content to The Frugal Home please email at ;info@thefrugalhome.com. The Frugal Home is owned by M. Kaye Hash.
Melissa graduated from the University of Missouri Columbia with a degree in Art History. She is a freelance writer and a photographer for several websites. Melissa also helps run two other websites, Area Rugs by McCalls and Nature’s Thumbprint.
A Brief Bio
Where We Were
The hubby and I met in 1996 when we were both 18 years of age, one month after I began college. Within a year we were basically living together and had combined all of our finances. Neither of us had grown up poor but we also grew up before parents started giving their children everything they wanted. Nintendo (the first one) was big when we were in high school and wearing name brand clothes was a must as, at that time, there was an obvious difference between Walmart and Guess and Esprit. Our parents didn’t purchase these items for us so when we became responsible adults we quickly declined into credit card irresponsibility. By the time we were 25 we had $11,000 worth of credit card debt and felt there was no way out. I admit, we looked at all of the options and are lucky we didn’t end up wrapped in debt consolidation scam or applying for bankruptcy.
At 24, in 2003, one year before we married, we took a look at what we had and realized we had nothing but a paid for car and truck that were beginning to fall apart and a pile of debt with noone willing to even look at us for a loan or a credit card and all we wanted was to quit renting and own our own home. I had also gone back to school full time and we were finding that our life together was much happier when I was not working outside of the home.
We decided that we would like for me to stay home as I was happier, which of course made <em>us</em> happier, our house was cleaner, we ate out drastically less, and I was able for the first time to take a good look at the financial mess we had put ourselves in. I began researching the process of debt reduction and came across what was described as the snowball debt method.
By 2006, debt reduction by snowball allowed us to pay off all of our credit card debt, get our first credit card in four years, and purchase our land. We were still learning at this time so we also acquired a vehicle loan through my husbands work at a whopping 15%, a mistake we will not be repeating.
Where We Are Now
Our decision for me to work at home had created a need for me to learn how to save the money I would have made at a job. Working at home has allowed me to put more into finding ways to save money and live on less. Not surprisingly, living on less has given us more.
We lived on our land in a 1978 single wide for three years. This single wide literally fell apart around us. Floors and walls fell through, it flooded and there were many areas in the home in which your hair would blow from the wind that made its way inside. We looked at many different options for our land from building a home to mobiles to modulars. I knew it had to be cheap if we were going to keep living with me at home.
We found our home in July of 2008, just as everyone was being denied loans and the mortgages crashed, we quickly received a loan because of our credit score and debt to income ratio. We bought a 1988 double wide. It may not sound like much of an upgrade but if you saw our place you wouldn’t think that. Most of the people who set up the home and inspectors and such assumed it was brand new until we told them.
We also now have a truck payment and a car payment on vehicles we got bank loans for. We cannot trade our car in as we are still over on the loan from the previous 15% loan we had from hubby’s work.
We currently have about $2200 in credit card debt from the last month. We have been putting an addition onto our garage and it was a much bigger project than we anticipated. We put $5000 cash into it before we had to resort to our credit card to finish it.
Where We Go From Here
We are currently on a five year plan to be completely debt free. The $2200 in credit card debt is six months same as cash, it will be paid off by November. Our truck was paid off in August. Our car will be paid off next August. We will then begin working on our land loan, home loan and my student debt. These will be paid off by 2015. We will be 36 years old.
