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Spring … A Time for New Beginnings
Printable Budget Worksheet
Getting Out of Debt “One Paycheck at a Time�
First-Hand Results from a Program User
Eating Down Your Inventory
Spring … A Time for New Beginnings
Happy Spring! Are you ready for a fresh, financial start? For as little as $2.50 per week, you can design a debt reduction plan personalized to your unique financial situation. $2.50. That’s simply one less cup of gourmet coffee each week. Act now and receive three months of the program and a free eBook for just $30. Make a commitment to yourself to start down a new road to financial freedom and achieving debt-free status. Sign Up Now. (And, there’s no risk, as you may cancel at anytime.)

Printable Budget Worksheet
The One Paycheck at a Time program helps you get out of debt sensibly, paycheck to paycheck. If you are reading and applying the principles described in the book, you are budgeting manually. Also available, and already assisting many users, is the eTools online budgeting program, where the calculations are all automated for you each pay period. Regardless of your preference, the important thing is to work the program!

For those of you reading the book that prefer to do the program manually, I have provided a complimentary Master Ongoing Bills Log PDF for you to download and print. This document includes the log exactly as it is in the book, enabling you to copy or print it for each pay period.

ETools subscribers will benefit from the new eTools Quick Start Guide which provides an at-a-glance guide into the specific functionality of the program. The Quick Start Guide illustrates how eTools maximizes your paycheck each pay period to accelerate your progress.

Getting Out of Debt, "One Paycheck at a Time" - Budget Savvy Magazine Article
I had the pleasure of being selected by the editors from Budget Savvy magazine for an interview for them to learn more and write about the One Paycheck at a Time program. They were very gracious in allowing me to provide the article to you, Getting Out of Debt, "One Paycheck at a Time."
What a great team of people! I've really enjoyed getting to know them and their publication, which help readers to enjoy life while maintaining financial responsibility. More information about Budget Savvy magazine can be found at: www.BudgetSavvyMag.com.

First-Hand Results from a Program User
I ordered the One Paycheck at a Time eBook last year and my husband and I have had great success with the program. When I heard about the eTools program, I thought it would help us to track our financial progress even more since we both are very visual-oriented people. Etools is a great enhancement to what we learned in your book.
- Shannon, Louisiana [1 year on the program]

Eating Down Your Inventory
While revising the One Paycheck at a Time eBook and paperback for the 2005 release, I realized that I could be more disciplined with some of my budgeting practices. For instance, in one chapter, I talk about having to be creative with the food in my pantry and to stretch out the time between trips to the grocery store. I decided this past week that I really needed to curb my spending this month and chose to skip last week's visit to the grocery store. Needless to say, I've eaten some strange food combinations, which I would never serve as a hostess to anyone, but nonetheless I saved about $70 from this exercise. My pantry is substantially lighter, and my waistline benefited as well since I didn't have any quick-fix or tempting foods around.

I've eaten a lot of soup, beans, and frozen meals that have been accumulating in my freezer. I quickly learned that I could pour the dried soup starters into my crockpot in the morning before work and come home to a fully cooked dinner. I hadn't considered using a crockpot for making pre-packaged soups. After adding my own vegetables, these meals came out to less than $1.50 per serving. Not a bad deal!

This week, however, it's time to go back to the grocery store once again. I still have about a week's worth of food left in the pantry, but I need to do a fresh fruit and vegetable shopping trip. To do this, I'll just visit my local grocery store. I have decided that visiting the warehouse clubs never really saves me money. The concept of buying in bulk is a good one if you have a large family, but I'm always tempted to buy other things that I didn't intend to purchase before walking in the door. Sticking to a shopping list is what works best for me to stay on track with my budget.

Instead of reading the circulars in the paper, I now go online and look for the weekly loss leaders at each grocery store. (Loss leaders are products that stores discount considerably - far less than the usual retail price and that which other stores are charging.) I then make a list and shop at the store that is offering the best deals that week on the products I use. I do take advantage of the buy 1 get 1 free deals when I know I will eat the food. For example, individual packets of Cream of Wheat, oatmeal, popcorn, and soups are items to take advantage of when on sale.

Like most people, I don't have the time to go to three different stores to save as much as I would like. So, reviewing the store specials and making a shopping list is the best I can do. The following websites offer weekly sales, email alerts, and some even have interactive shopping lists that you can print to take with you to the store:

www.Vons.com
www.Alterbertsons.com
www.Publix.com
www.PigglyWiggly.com
www.JewelOsco.com
www.kroger.com
www.gianteagle.com

The best way I know to stay within my budget when grocery shopping is to pay in cash. I will inform the cashier at the beginning of the purchase how much money I intend on paying. It's turned into a bit of a sport for me to guess at the total. If I have money left over and purchased all the items I had in my cart, I win! It's the simple pleasures of life that bring me joy.

What I know from this week's experience is that I won't be buying any cans of tuna for a while; I've had my fill.

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"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
-- Unknown
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Click here to visit One Paycheck at a time.