I like talking about money and finances. It’s an area that interests me greatly, and it bugs me that as families, that we don’t talk about money more. I get that parents don’t want kids to worry about where the next meal is coming from, but once they are older, how are they supposed to understand balancing a checkbook, budgeting, credit cards, if their parents never teach them?

I never want to seem like I am bragging or whining when talking about our financial situation. I just want to learn for other people, and maybe help them learn something, too.

My husband was laid off a year ago. Today, we are better off financially than we were then. This is not a story of a get rich quick scheme, taking internet surveys, or doing direct sales. The only income he has had is unemployment.

How did we do it? We put ourselves on a budget. We powered through credit card debt, then the car payment (which was our biggest non-mortgage mortgage bill) to pay it off. I got my first raise in two years (despite earning an MBA in the interim), and now we can live on my salary alone.