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Save hundreds of dollars every month with this 5-step meal plan

In Meal Planning by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

Is your grocery spending killing your household budget? Is food eating all your income!! In this blog, I want to share with you the simple 5 step strategy I give to all my clients to help them significantly reduce the monthly grocery spending. Groceries are typically the biggest are of over expenditure When it comes to the household budget, groceries are easily one of the biggest expenses. Typically, the only thing bigger than our grocery spending is our rent or mortgage repayments. But without a purposeful plan what we spend on groceries can easily get out of hand. As a Budget Coach, I am in no doubt that grocery spending is the most common area of over-expenditure. Lack or routine, bad habits and laziness can cost your household budget hundreds of dollars every single month. A simple plan to take control of your grocery spending and your budget So one of the first things I get all of my clients to do when looking for ways to save money is to implement a weekly meal planning process following this simple 5 step process:   Step # 1 – Identify 20-30 meals you routinely eat as a family Start by sitting …

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How to meal plan to save time and money

In Meal Planning by growthlabsLeave a Comment

If you are a little like me, then it is most likely that you find pleasure in enjoying a good meal. If I had to describe some of my favorite daily habits, it would be eating. I genuinely enjoy eating a well prepared delicious dish any given day. I don’t hold back when it comes to ordering food at a restaurant or getting my grocery shopping done. The setback however, is that I enjoy eating and preparing meals so much that most of the time I tend to overspend paying for expensive dinners at restaurants, or going out of my budget buying ingredients that end up rotting in the pantry.

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How to Budget When You Are Broke

In Budgeting Tips, General Budgeting by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

How to Budget When You Are Broke It is such a simple pleasure but every time I get the ice cream out of the freezer I am reminded of the period in our lives when money was so tight the ice cream rarely made it into our shopping trolley. There is nothing fun about being broke, constantly juggling the bills and expenses is a stressful way to live. It is made particularly hard by the guilt you experience when do spend on fun stuff because you know you can’t really afford it! What I want to share with you know is the simple 5 step process I personally use and have used with hundreds of clients to show them how to budget despite starting from a financial position best described as ‘Broke’.  

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How Do I Get My Spouse or Partner On Board with the Household Budget?

In General Budgeting, Manage Money by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by a friend who wanted some advice on how he could get his wife interested – and more importantly involved – in the household budget. While they were doing okay financially, my friend knew they could be doing a whole lot better. Sure – they paid the bills on time and paid off their credit card every month, but despite a healthy income there was never a lot left over. With the prospect of starting a family on the horizon, my friend was keen to establish a budget and to start managing their money in a purposeful way. But to his great disappointment, his enthusiasm to establish a budget wasn’t exactly shared by his wife. As a budget coach this wasn’t a surprise to me; not because I know his wife, but because this is a very common issue! It is rare in a relationship that both partners share the same enthusiasm for budgeting. But that doesn’t mean you can make it work. So here are three strategies I recommend using to help get your spouse or partner on board with the household budget:

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My Personal Finances are a Mess. I Don’t Even Know Where to Start!

In General Budgeting, Grandma's Jars by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

Earlier this week I was meeting with one of my coaching clients.  She had done a brilliant job of getting her finances under control and was now wanting to refer a friend, but first wanted to warn me in advance: “She has a good job but her personal finances are a mess, she is living pay cheque to pay cheque, her credit card is maxed, she has student loans and outstanding bills and she just doesn’t know where to start!”

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Top 10 Tips For Paying Off Debt: 3 Steps to Pay off Debt Faster

In Top 10 Tips For Getting Out Of Debt Series by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

Hi guys, Phil McGilvray here from Grandma’s Jars. Thank you for joining us. This is tutorial eight of our ten part tutorial series, ‘Top 10 Tips for Paying off of Debt‘. We are taking fifteen years of experience of helping people pay off debt and take control of their finances and putting them into this ten part series.

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What Other People Spend: A Look Into William & Kate’s Budget

In Grandma's Jars, Grandma's Jars Member Stories by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

Just about every client will ask me at some point – what do other people spend on (fill in the blank)? We are all curious about what other people spend on things. We like to be able to benchmark ourselves. Over the next few months I thought I would share with you some real life budgets, along with my thoughts as a financial coach.

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Top 10 Tips For Paying Off Debt: Smallest Debt First

In Top 10 Tips For Getting Out Of Debt Series by Phil McGilvrayLeave a Comment

  Video Transcription Hi guys, Phil McGilvray here from Grandma’s Jars. Thank you for joining us. Today we are continuing on with our ten part series – our ten tutorial series – Top Ten Tips to Paying Off Debt. Today, we are really getting stuck in the nitty-gritty. This is the sixth session – the sixth tutorial and we are looking at the actual strategy in developing our debt repayment plan. I have called this particular tutorial the smallest debt first. But what I am going to give you is a real overview of the whole debt repayment process. What I have got is an example from a client I was working with just last night so hopefully that will make it a lot easier for you to understand.    Understanding Your Debts What we’re going to do as a first point of call is throw it all out there. How much debt do you have? what are your debts? So we have listed them all down here. Now, with this process it’s really important that we know everything, that we’ve got all the debts. Sometimes we are a bit fearful of what we are going to see. We sort of …