Girl On A Mission - Journey To Financial Freedom

How do I stop renting and buy a house?  Save for a down payment?  Fix my crappy credit?  Learn to live within my means and stop living paycheck to paycheck?  These are just some of the big questions that leading online Mortgage Loan Advisor, Nichole McCloy, digs into on her Girl On A Mission - Journey To Financial Freedom Podcast.  In addition to mini-lessons in saving money every month with step-by-step instruction, each episode is designed to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for saving, budgeting, and making your money work for you while helping clean up your credit and save for a down payment to purchase your first home.  Nichole's specialty is getting in the trenches with you, she has been on her own financial journey for the last 18 years and has made enough mistakes to learn what works and what doesn't.  She is not just your normal Loan Advisor, Nichole cares about you being financially secure and debt-free once you purchase your home.  She has gone to great effort to ensure that you learn the foundation that is needed for continued financial success - and she is learning right along with you.  Come discover why so many women just like you who came to Nichole for help buying a house have ended up learning not only how to repair their credit, save for a down payment, purchase their home, but so much more!

How do I stop renting and buy a house?  Save for a down payment?  Fix my crappy credit?  Learn to live within my means and stop living paycheck to paycheck?  These are just some of the big questions that leading online Mortgage Loan Advisor, Nichole McCloy, digs into on her Girl On A Mission - Journey To Financial Freedom Podcast.  In addition to mini-lessons in saving money every month with step-by-step instruction, each episode is designed to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for saving, budgeting, and making your money work for you while helping clean up your credit and save for a down payment to purchase your first home.  Nichole's specialty is getting in the trenches with you, she has been on her own financial journey for the last 18 years and has made enough mistakes to learn what works and what doesn't.  She is not just your normal Loan Advisor, Nichole cares about you being financially secure and debt-free once you purchase your home.  She has gone to great effort to ensure that you learn the foundation that is needed for continued financial success - and she is learning right along with you.  Come discover why so many women just like you who came to Nichole for help buying a house have ended up learning not only how to repair their credit, save for a down payment, purchase their home, but so much more!

Today on the podcast we will talk about all things grocery shopping and where you can REALLY save some money!  We will talk about how to maximize your grocery budget and how to seriously cut down your budget in order to put that money toward something much more important than food…like paying off debt, saving up an emergency fund or maybe saving for a vacation!

In today's podcast, I’m sharing with you how to plan your meals ahead to save money on your grocery budget to use for paying down debt, saving for a vacation, or whatever other financial goals you want to crush!

Today I’m sharing with you how to save hundreds in your grocery budget even if you are not a great cook, whether you are feeding 1 person or 100 people these practices will work!  We are going to break down whether using coupons is wise or foolish, and we are going to take a good look at large warehouse-type stores like Costco and Sam’s to see if it is beneficial to have a membership to them when you are trying to save in your budget. The world is filled with health issues that just didn’t exist years ago and there are more dietary restrictions and allergies than ever before.  We will talk about how to still save money and shrink your waistline by using these practices.

Today I’m sharing with you 20 Money-Saving Tips that should be common knowledge, but they just aren’t. I wanted to share them with you because they are amazing and if implemented they can make a HUGE difference in the amount of debt you are able to cut out of your life.  I started implementing many (not all, I am still a work in progress you know) of these tips a few months ago and it has made a really big difference in not just the amount of money I have left at the end of the month to tackle debt with, but it is helping me shift my mindset to a place where it is becoming easier and easier to live on less and be happy and even encouraged every single day.

Today I want to share with you what I share with my clients about credit and credit scores in particular.  I talk to 3-4 women a day who are renting a house, but their dream is to buy their own place.  They all have a different motivation, but often it stems from wanting a place to call their own so that they don’t have to depend on anyone else (like their landlord or family members they live with) and for many they want a house to raise their kids in.  A place to call home, a place of their own.  One thing many of these women have in common is that this will be their first home, or maybe they owned a home in the past but went through a divorce or maybe they just made some poor choices and during these hard times, they watched their credit score plummet. Today I am going to share with you how to help yourself and get back on track.

Today I’m sharing with you how you can get out of debt once and for all – all on your own even if you have failed 1000x before. I am not talking about someday. Not tomorrow. I mean Right. Freaking. Now. As a college student and even as a newly graduated nurse living in Miami, Florida, I ran up credit card after credit card living like my salary was about four times its actual size. Stupid things I bought on credit included weekends in Las Vegas, eating out every meal, buying designer handbags and clothing I had no business buying, lots of weekend getaways, and then there is the one time I bought a brand spanking new Cadillac without having any possible way to pay for it. Hey, I never said I wasn’t having fun. Back then, I actually thought I could graduate with a nursing degree and find a $90K a year job—because I knew people who did! We all know that didn’t happen, and soon enough, the debt caught up with me. As I approached my 23rd birthday, I maxed out with debt of around $200,000. All of a sudden, I couldn’t keep borrowing my way out of trouble anymore. At the same time, I realized that the stress of barely making my monthly payments and owing three times what I earned in a year was taking its toll. Have a listen to the podcast today and see what I did, that you could do too. 

Today I’m sharing with you how you can Create Wealth without making more money! One thing that I have found to be true is that building wealth will be faster and easier if you learn how to save money. Sure you can earn more, and I talked about that last week, but if you don’t know how to save, you can end up broke no matter how much you earn. This is why you hear stories of lottery winners and pro athletes who managed to blow through more money than we can fathom making in a lifetime. A big part of building wealth is determined by your habits. Today I talk about some good habits to adopt.

Today I’m sharing with you how your credit score affects your mortgage rate. If you’re just starting the homebuying process, you’ve probably read stories about just how much your credit score can influence your ability to get a mortgage. While it’s true that you need a good credit score for the strongest interest rates and loan terms, less-than-perfect credit doesn’t have to be a roadblock to your dream of homeownership. By knowing the ins and outs of how your score can affect your mortgage rate, you can build and improve your credit before closing on your new home.

Today I’m sharing with you how Credit Repair Services work and how they compare to the Do It Yourself version. Credit repair involves fixing your bad credit in any way, shape or form. But when most people use the term "credit repair," they’re talking about the process of disputing errors on credit reports. You can go through the dispute process for free with each of the credit bureaus on your own. This involves filing a formal dispute with the credit bureau(s) in question either online or by mail. In your formal dispute, you want to provide a detailed explanation of the error and include any supporting documentation you have along with it. A lot of people don’t have the time to do their own credit repair or don’t understand how to make their case. So they look into hiring a credit repair company to dispute the errors for them. These companies charge a fee for their legwork—more on how that works later. There are times when extra help is valuable. For example, if you have multiple errors across credit reports or you’ve been the victim of identity theft, or you just have a bunch of negative items and not a lot of time to spend writing letters yourself or following up on everything. Today we are going to talk about both types of credit repair—DIY and paid—starting with credit repair businesses.

Today I’m sharing with you how to decide what you NEED in a home vs what you just WANT in a home. How do you make sure you buy the right home? Between the home itself, the all-important location, and the limitations of your budget, there are a lot of variables to consider. It’s quite a balancing act.

Today’s episode is near and dear to my heart.  This is something that I have made huge traction on in my own life over the last year.  Living with a spender when you are a saver is not an easy thing to do. Today I want to give you some tips to make being married to a spender a little easier.

Today I’m sharing with you how to set financial goals that you will be able to stick to without fail! First, we need to talk about the word fail.  My favorite book right now is Everything Is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo.  I am literally listening on audible for the 3rd time.  One of the best chapters happens to be called “the truth about failure”

Today I’m sharing with you how to rock your goals by working backward.  

Today I’m sharing with you how to eliminate debt with the right mindset. Now I know mindset isn’t something that is talked about a lot when we look at paying off debt and living within our means, but when you make debt mean something bad about you, you hurt yourself.  That is your money mindset.

Today I’m sharing with you how to help your kids understand that you are in debt without totally scarring them for life. This is something I was so afraid of.  I never really talked to my kids about our debt for a couple of reasons.  One:  I didn’t want to scare them and Two: I was embarrassed and my kids are basically a tell-all-open book to the outside world. 

Friend, there is good news.  You can be grateful and still want more - and you don't have to feel bad about it! This is what I dive into on today's episode made especially for you.

Black Friday is tomorrow!  Has your email inbox been blowing up? That’s actually what I want to talk to you about today.  How to rake in the biggest savings of your life this Black Friday and with Christmas coming up as well. The best thing I have ever done to save money – that’s what I am telling you all about today.

Today I’m sharing with you the one thing that determines whether you will get out of debt or not.

I know this is a hot topic in some financial circles, and today’s podcast is simply my humble opinion on the topic of whether or not you NEED a credit score to live in today’s world.  I know that there are several people out there who I greatly admire, even if their programs did not fit with my journey to financial freedom or my definition, who would say you do not need a credit score and credit scores are simply useless. 

Today I’m sharing with you how to figure out if you have a spending problem and how to get help to fix it so you can move forward toward financial freedom. When I talk about a “spending problem” I really mean that you are spending more than you have budgeted (which makes that more than you can afford).  So, if you are someone who is living outside your means…this applies to you.  If you don’t have a budget and you have debt, this is you.  If you have a budget, but don’t stick to it and are in debt, this is you.

How was your Christmas this year?  Was it stressful?  Was it fun?  Are you sighing with relief today that it's over for another year?  Are you excited about the way you spent the day and the weeks leading up to the day?  Today on the podcast I dive into Christmas regret and that dreaded clean out that happens in July where I send half of the gifts I purchase to the donation bin as well as some themes that have been coming up in financial facebook groups that I am a part of.  

Today I want to take a look back with you.  I want you to think WAYYY back.  Way back to last year at this time.  Let's take a look at where you were, how far you've come (or not), but more importantly - where are you right now and where are you headed this year?

Today I’m sharing with you 10 things I wish I knew before I tried to fix my own crappy credit. Repairing your credit yourself is 100% possible.  If you have errors on your credit you should definitely get them removed and get your reports reading correctly. What you will find online about DIY credit repair is a lot of information that talks about what to do if you have an error. What about what to do if, in fact, the thing on your report is accurate?  Can you do anything at all?  Well, the answer is yes.  You can still repair credit that is accurate and has legit items reporting.

I hope you are sitting down for this one.  This one is a lie I told myself for years.  It’s a lie I repeated to myself every single time I decided to give up on budgeting and getting out of debt.  It’s the lie I told myself every time I booked a family vacation on my credit card that I knew we couldn’t afford – or shouldn’t afford.  This lie is the biggest lie of the last 14 years of my marriage. When I turned this around, my entire life turned around.  You can do this too!  Come have a listen today.

Today we are talking about the poor choices I made that landed me running and hiding from debt collectors for years.  The situation I got myself into that had me terrified every time the doorbell would ring, and the way that I dug myself out from underneath the heavy weight of ridiculous amounts of debt and a credit score that was well below 450.

Today I’m sharing with you how to know if you are ready to buy a house or if you should just keep renting.  Is the investment worth it?  Is being a homeowner really all it’s cracked up to be?  If you are in debt does it even make sense to try to buy a house or should you pay off your debt first and then save up cash to buy a house as some financial gurus will tell you?  What’s the smartest, wisest, best thing to do?  That's what we will talk about today on the podcast!  Have a listen.

There are 2 things you need to implement today that have the ability to change your life by the end of this year.  You don’t believe me?  Try it.  I promise if you do these two things you will be well on your way to homeownership by the end of the year. 

Today on the podcast I interview Lauren Mochizuki who is an ER nurse, Momma, and wife of a California firefighter.  Come hear how this couple paid off over $266,000 in debt - and learn how you too could make some lasting changes that will make a big difference!

Come have a listen today as I uncover the answer to this question:  What's A Girl To Do When Her Husband Isn't The Most Supportive Person Around And She Wants To Be Debt Free? What are you thinking the answer is?  Come have a listen...the solution might surprise you!

Today on the podcast I am talking about side hustles.  Lady Bosses, Boss Babes, Boss Moms, Mom Bosses...you know what I mean. I have had a crack at quite a few Side Hustles in my day and today I am getting real with you about a few things when it comes to these types of gigs...Come hang with me and have a listen.  It's timely that I was thinking about all of this as tax season is in full swing, right?

You are on this journey to be debt-free, but how do you still have fun?  How do you still do birthday parties for your kids while you are on a tight budget?   If you have been wondering this, have a listen to today's episode because it is MORE than possible to raise grateful kids who will join you on the journey and be better for it!   It's totally possible, and I will tell you how I have done it 3 times already with my own kids.  Let's just say they love the way we do birthdays now;)