6 Secrets of Parents Who’ve Slashed Their Bills, Paid Off Debt and Built Empires (2024)

Life as a parent can be hard. You might constantly feel tight on time — and money.

If you’re looking for some money advice, we’ve got stories from parents who’ve paid off debt, cut their expenses and built business empires.

They share their tips and secrets for financial success. And, hey, you can even start using some of their strategies right now.

Secret No. 1: You Can Leave Your Kids $1.5 Million (Without Being a Millionaire)

If you have kids, you’ve probably worried about what’ll happen to them if something were to happen to you…

For single mom Rebekah Pearsall, this was difficult to consider. “Since my son doesn’t have a biological father in his life, I wanted to make sure he was secure if something were to ever happen to me,” she said.

That’s when she started looking into life insurance.

Before you start thinking you don’t have the time or money for that, look into policies through a company called Bestow. It offers $1 million policies, and your application shouldn’t take more than about five minutes.

Rates start at around $20 a month, and you can change or cancel your plan at any time.* Plus, the security of knowing your family is taken care of is priceless.

Pearsall had seen firsthand the benefits of life insurance; her childhood friend lost his dad and life insurance helped his family make it through that time financially. “I’ve been sleeping great since I got this,” she said.

It takes only a few minutes to get a free quote.

Secret No. 2: You Can Pay off Your Debt — Even While Raising a Kid

Paying down your debt while raising a child can feel impossible — but it is doable.

Take Kumiko Love, for example. When the 33-year-old mom graduated college back in 2011, she owed more than $100,000 in student loans, credit cards and medical bills. It took her a few years to get on track, but Love started budgeting, and she watched the debt dwindle.

No single budgeting method worked for her, so she combined three, and this year she reported she’s happily living debt-free. She quit her job to focus on her own business, a blog called The Budget Mom.

Budgeting is a great way to get out of debt — in fact, it’s an essential — but we understand it can quickly get tricky, especially when you have multiple forms of debt. So, to get yourself on stable ground, here’s what we suggest: Debt consolidation.

When you consolidate your debt, you take out a personal loan, one that has lower interest rates and more favorite terms than your current situation. Then, you’ll use that personal loan to pay off your debt. At the end of the process, you’ll have one, super-manageable monthly payment to fit into your budget.

It might sound counterintuitive at first — like you’re just moving one form of debt over to another — but the truth is, paying one bill each month will be a lot easier, and this could even lower your payments, save you tons of money in interest and/or allow you to pay off your debt faster.

If you’re not sure where to start looking, use a website called Fiona. It’ll match you with a low-interest loan up to $100,000. It won’t make you stand in line or call a bank. (We know you don’t have time for that.)

And if you’re worried you won’t qualify, it’s free to check online. It takes just two minutes, and it could save you thousands of dollars.

Secret No. 3: Cancel Your Car Insurance

As a parent, you’ve got to juggle your housing costs, your typical monthly bills, your groceries — and not to mention exorbitant childcare costs. How do you do it?

Single mom Lourdes Robles-Velazquez, of California, felt overwhelmed. She told us she watches her every penny and trims her budget down as much as possible. But one thing she couldn’t avoid was her $205 monthly car insurance bill for her car and her daughter’s car — but she did find a way to cut it by 40%…

With a digital marketplace called SmartFinancial, you could be getting rates as low as $22 a month — and saving yourself more than $700 a year.

“Right now, I’m paying $125 a month for both cars,” she says. She used to pay about $205, which means she’s saving close to $1,000 a year.

It takes one minute to get quotes from multiple insurers, so you can see all the best rates side-by-side. Yep — in just one minute you could save yourself $715 this year. That’s some major cash back in your pocket.

So if you haven’t checked car insurance rates in a while, see how much you can save with a new policy.

Secret No. 4: You Don’t Need an MBA to Start a Business

After a bad car accident back in 1993, Kate Sauls spent a year wheelchair bound, raising two kids and living off welfare.

Her injury required her to keep heat on her neck and shoulder — but imagine doing that while trying to lug kids around. That’s when she had an idea: The Kozy Collar, a hot-and-cold therapy pad that’d stay on your neck.

Sauls had no business degree and very little capital, but she hustled, and within nine months she’d made $64,000 selling her product at local craft shows and flea markets. When the recession hit, Sauls had to shut her operation down, but that didn’t stop her.

Fast forward to 2013, and Sauls created ThermaStretch, a solution to her knee pain. The idea was similar: a heating pad that fit around the knee and stayed in place. She was hesitant to launch another business, but her kids encouraged her.

She now sells her products online (primarily Amazon and Etsy). Last year, she even had the opportunity to sell on HSN, where within eight minutes she told 750 units, yielding almost $30,000 in revenue.

Sauls’ words of advice? “If you’re passionate about it, don’t be afraid of failure, because that is the road to success.”

Secret No. 5: Don’t Let Your Credit Score Limit You

You have enough going on in your life as a parent, so when it comes to taking care of your credit score, it’s easy to pass it off as a “one of these days” type of chore. But what happens when you want to buy a home? Or a car? That seemingly arbitrary number starts to play a huge role in your life.

So let’s start with the basics. When’s the last time you checked your credit score? If it was recently, good for you! If not, take a few seconds to do so right now.

We like using a free website called Credit Sesame. Not only can you see your credit score, you can also see what factors are affecting it.

When single mom and traveling speech therapist Elisabeth Nyang created her Credit Sesame account back in January 2017, her credit score was at 495. For context, credit scores on the VantageScore model range from 300 to 850. She was also $17,500 in debt.

Nyang used Credit Sesame to keep and eye on her score and her accounts with negative balances. Credit Sesame also gave her advice on how to improve her score — and reminded her to make a credit card payment when her credit utilization rate was getting too high.

“I like how everything’s in layman’s terms,” she said. “It’s user-friendly, and it’s easy to understand.”

When we talked to Nyang in 2018, her credit score was around 663, a near 200-point increase.* She’d planned to continue to use Credit Sesame to improve it. Her next goal? Take out a mortgage and buy a home for herself and her daughter.

Secret No. 6: You Can Easily Add an Extra $25K to Your Kid’s College Fund

Does it ever frustrate you that the super-rich can get their kids into any college they want, meanwhile the rest of us are left wondering how to even afford next semester’s textbooks?

But just because you’re not a millionaire doesn’t mean you can’t use some of the same strategies the super-rich use.

Here’s a secret of the rich: They save their money tax-free. With an app called UNest, you can take advantage of that same strategy, which, by the time your kid is ready for college, could mean $25,000 more than you would save in a regular savings account.

Raleigh, North Carolina, parents Scott and Jennifer Perry, opened an investing plan for their son, Isaiah, shortly after he was born.

“Ican’t stand the thought of funds sitting there stagnant for a long time,” Scott said of his decision to opt for an investing plan over a savings account. “You got to start early and get that compound interest working!”

New to all this? UNest will hold your hand through the whole thing. It makes it super easy to get started saving as little as $25 a month in one of its tax-free investing accounts. UNest even lets you invite friends and family to contribute to the plan for birthdays, holidays and other special occasions. It’s super easy to use, and those gifts will continue to grow in value, thanks to years of compound interest.

When saving an extra $25,000 is this easy, why wouldn’t you do it? It takes five minutes to download the UNest app and create an account.

*Like Nyang, 60% of Credit Sesame members see an increase in their credit score; 50% see at least a 10-point increase, and 20% see at least a 50-point increase after 180 days.

Credit Sesame does not guarantee any of these results, and some may even see a decrease in their credit score. Any score improvement is the result of many factors, including paying bills on time, keeping credit balances low, avoiding unnecessary inquiries, appropriate financial planning and developing better credit habits.

*Bestow: Policies are issued by Bestow Life Insurance Company, Dallas, TX on policy form series BLI-ITPOL. Bestow Life Insurance products may not be available in all states. Policy limitations or restrictions may apply. Not available in New York. Our application asks lifestyle and health questions to determine eligibility in order to avoid requiring a medical exam. Prices start at $10/month based on an 18-year-old male rated Preferred Plus NT for a $100k policy for a 10-year term. Rates will vary based on underwriting review.

Carson Kohler ([emailprotected]) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.