When I told my friends & family in NY that Matt & I were taking the month of January off to spend 5 weeks in Miami with our family, the big question we received was .. HOW CAN YOU AFFORD THAT?!
See, the thing is, as a blogger you’re never really taking time off. You’re just fitting work into your life, and shooting campaigns as you go. Matt works as a freelance camera assistant for the union in NYC, so his schedule is pretty much the same as mine – you book work when you can, and that work may be in NY, Miami, Portland or wherever, as long as it’s fun! The biggest challenge and most important thing about freelancing (which by the way, I don’t do full-time, I have a job but am currently on maternity leave until April so I guess until April I’m solely a blogger) is to save, SAVE, SAVE.
Which leads me to my next point – how we save and prepare for those months when Matt and I both don’t book much work, which can be REALLY scary, especially now with a baby. It’s something people ask us about often. We are both huge planners, and we’re always looking for a way to live more efficiently and put more money away. We love using Mint (it’s a FREE app!) to help us keep our finances in order and to stay on top of money earned vs. money spent each month.
In 2017, our biggest financial goals are to max out both of our IRA’s, put money into Hudson’s college fund and to save for a trip to another country. We’re slowly making this happen with the help of Mint’s new bill tracking and payment tool, which allows us to stay on top of the bills we owe, so we know exactly how much additional money we can put aside to reach our goals. The bill pay tool also lets us pay directly from the app which makes it super easy!
Mint also lets us to set up specific budgets each month, and to designate how much we want to spend eating out, on clothes, on gas, etc. It sends us an alert when we’re going to exceed this amount, which is SO helpful when it comes to being aware of where we spend money. We’ve set up “Goals” within the app with the amount of money we need, and by the specific date so we are able to stick to our saving plan. If you’re a freelancer like me, or just need help with managing your money I can’t even begin to explain how helpful Mint is!
What are your financial goals for this year?
I partnered with Mint for this post, but all opinions are my own!