Spokane Valley woman shares budgeting advice on ‘Good Morning America’

Spokane Valley resident Kumiko Love appeared on “Good Morning America” on Thursday morning to share her method for eliminating more than $77,000 of debt in eight months.

Love, an accredited financial counselor, began her financial journey to eliminate debt after struggling with spending and accumulating student loan debt.

She began tackling her finances after her son, James, was born.

“He was that life-changing moment for me,” she said. “I knew that it was no longer just a want, I had to figure it out for my son. So I changed my mindset.”

After trying various ways of budgeting with minimal success, Love created her own: the “budget by paycheck” technique, which combines the calendar method, the envelope method and the paycheck method.

The calendar method calls for listing monthly expenses and pay dates on a calendar. The paycheck method is a plan to track and categorize spending based on paychecks. The cash envelope system divides a set amount of cash among several envelopes labeled for such expenses as groceries, gas or entertainment.

Love founded her blog “The Budget Mom” in 2016 to share budgeting advice with others. It has garnered more than 210,000 unique monthly visitors. Love also created a YouTube channel this year to share budgeting techniques in an in-depth, step-by-step process and now has more than 63,000 subscribers.

Love said her appearance on “Good Morning America’s Ultimate Debt Diet: Debt Free at Any Age” segment, which features people who successfully worked to become debt free at various stages in their lives, is an opportunity to share financial advice with others.

“I don’t want my (blog) readers to see me as some celebrity,” she said. “I want them to know I have the same struggles. I’m not perfect. I live a real life. I’m a mom and I’m just like them.”