Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Are little money wasters eating away at your hard-earned cash? On today's Home School Heartbeat, author Jonni McCoy talks about the pitfalls you can avoid.

Mike Smith:

Jonni, how do we eliminate the little things that accumulate to take a big chunk out of our budgets?

Jonni McCoy:

Well, a lot of people thought like we did when we first started out that there was only one big chunk somewhere out in our budget that was going to make it all work. And we assumed it had to be in our mortgage. So we were going to cut our mortgage in half by moving out into the farming community. And it was through a change in the way I thought and saw that a little bit here and there could accumulate to a very large piece of money that I could use to be able to pay other bills that can't fluctuate like the mortgage or if you have a car payment or you know some other bills that you really can't play with. So I started looking at the budget and the biggest thing that we had to do was start writing down everything that we spent that month. So I kept track of receipts for a month and went through the checkbook register and categorized everything as to where our money was going. And it was amazing where those little leaks were and how much those little leaks added up to. Like going to McDonald's: I would go very cheaply. My son and I would go. We'd spend maybe five dollars. We thought oh we are doing well. By the end of every month we were spending between $35 and $50 a month just on McDonald's.