Living within your means

[PrincessFiona]

How do you do it? (First world problem)

We are constantly in our overdraft and just can't turn ourselves around. Share your magic with me! Make me more responsible (or at least commiserate).

Kris

[BonBon]

In your defense, you DO have five kids, one of whom is in college!

[HouseofWool]

How do you do it? (First world problem)

We are constantly in our overdraft and just can't turn ourselves around. Share your magic with me! Make me more responsible (or at least commiserate).

Kris

Honestly? For me, the best policy has been to carry cash. I take out a set amount each week and then I have to stick to that amount so I can curb my spending. Otherwise it is so damn easy to just keep buy stuff.

[Pollyanna]

We do cash, auto savings, I reevaluate our insurances every year. It's still tough though, we still need more and better savings/investments and we lack savings for just fun stuff (vacations etc). If we could get down to one house that would be a huge help, lol.

[diggitydot]

Living within your means

Living in an isolated rural area, most spending is thoughtfully done because we either have a stupid drive to shop at anything not available locally (which is a short list) or need to order online. I also pay all the bills and then let DH know what we have to spend for the month. He's become MUCH better about reigning in his spending, so it's a lot easier.

We haven't had an overdraft in probably 7 years, which included residency and fellowship.

[MsSassyBaskets]

Well, we're still in med school so technically, if you count taking out loans for tuition & school expenses, we are not living within our means. But to make the most of a single income while we accrue crippling debt, I'm a squirrel. I hide money. Any time there's more than enough to get us through 2 weeks in the checking account, I transfer it out so we can't get at it. Then I tell myself and DH "We're broke, don't buy anything!" He knows we're not, but we both play the game. I under-withhold on my taxes so we get a big refund every year, and then it goes straight into the long-term online savings account, which takes up to 10 days to access if we want to withdraw. If there were a short-term emergency, we would use credit cards until the money transferred from savings. I invest a portion of this little nest egg in mutual funds and have done pretty well with that. We will be able to put a downpayment on a house whenever we finally stay somewhere for more than a couple years.

[SoonerTexan]

Mint helped a lot when I was using it regularly. I'm not right now :/

[SuzySunshine]

We pay ourselves first - auto withdrawals for IRA's, 529s, savings, etc. then I use a finance software and I check it EVERY DAY! DH and our FA say that is to much, that I over analyze but its the 22nd of the month and I could tell you exactly how much we have in each category for the next week. I fudge across categories regularly as unexpected things always come up but if I stay on top of it we rarely have to dip into our savings.

[peggyfromwastate]

In your defense, you DO have five kids, one of whom is in college!

This is so true.

Ugh

I just can't carry cash. I just am not comfortable with it. The main way I can control spending is to limit trips to Costco to 2 times a month max.

I used to send dh with a strict list, but he does more impulse buying than I do. (Wow look those water bottles are on sale!! Let's buy 10!). He has literally said, "well, we had to get them because they were on sale. I saved $2.40...

It also helps me to not shop with the kids, especially my dd18. She has very expensive taste and it's always for some thing we don't need. But I'm tired when I shop bc I hate that chore, and so I give in too much.

Other than that... I feel like I need at least a $1500 cushions month for emergencies. And we just do not have it in the budget. At all.

I'll have to check out Mint... But I've tried all sorts of things. Just not cash bc I can't stand the thought. I burn through cash much faster than I use a credit card. In my mind, if it's cash it's already paid for... It makes me more likely to spend.

[moonlight]

If we really don't need it we don't get it. Anything fancy or new we have was a gift from family. All of our extra money goes to eating out so that's where I focus my energy on reducing.
We have the bare basics when it comes to bills. Our cell phones are not fancy and costs $49 per month. We drive safe and get less insurance. Last four years we didnt pay for cable. In our new city we couldn't get over the air channels so we pay for basic cable only.
Like someone said you have a big family and two properties. That's going to be hard with one income regardless! I'd say start looking at where you can cut back and take it slow. You can do it!!

[Bittersweet]

Out of sight out of mind is my most effective strategy. There are certain stores I cannot be trusted in. Target, Costco (go figure) and children's clothing stores are the worst, so I either avoid them or go with DH (the $$ nazi).

[Ladybug]

We royally suck at this. The kids suck our bank account dry. It's completely embarrassing.

I do best when I log and check our spending daily. When I'm not watching the balance closely money seems to fly out. Life is expensive though. We don't live a crazy lifestyle, but we don't have a lot of extra cash to burn either.

[JDAZ11]

Out of sight out of mind is my most effective strategy. There are certain stores I cannot be trusted in. Target, Costco (go figure) and children's clothing stores are the worst, so I either avoid them or go with DH (the $$ nazi).

Target and costco are terrible for me too!! I literally just picked up a prescription at target - and $110 later....

[PrincessFiona]

Target and costco are terrible for me too!! I literally just picked up a prescription at target - and $110 later....

That's how it is for me. I almost have to stay out of stores to keep from spending on crap!

[MAPPLEBUM]

I've taken over 99.9% of finances, purchases, and decision making. We used to try to share responsibility but he'd always forget paying his bills . Since then I've invested a lot of time becoming fluent in finance, debt management, and retirement planning. Now when it comes to making a decision I present him with my argument for why I think we should make decision X and my sources for determining this. One of my brothers is a CFO so I always cross check with him.

We tend to have two modes: "we have money to spend" or "it's time to reign it in for awhile." We went all out at Christmas but I don't even think I had to mention that we need to spend less for awhile. We just naturally have scaled back extraneous spending like eating and drinking out, clothes purchases, whatever. We use credit cards which I pay off throughout the month. That might seem aggressive to some people but it's what works for us. Personally, I detest paying for last months spending but haven't been able to ween myself off of the crack which is POINTS! One of my jobs takes directly out of my paycheck for a 403(b) and we both have Roth IRAs. My 4 jobs are all on different pay schedules so I chip away at the CC throughout the month. His paycheck pays rent, loans, etc.

I say it works best to have one person committed to keeping on top of spending however often your situation requires, be it daily, weekly, or throughout the month.