Living within your means

[DrBandMe]

DrBtobe and I are about to embark on the journey that is figuring our our joint finances. To date we still have separate accounts but we plan on combining them once we're married. Generally speaking though, neither one of us like to part with money ever!

[v-girl]

No willpower. Stopped at Target for photo paper (because CVS didn't print the damn pics I uploaded and request that should have been ready yesterday) and hair ties and bandaid tape. This is now in my trunk:



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[v-girl]

Living within your means

Duplicate

[spotty_dog]

Wait, DR says $1000 for an emergency fund? (He does, I just googled it). Wow, I swear I thought you were supposed to have more like $100K. (Which seems like a lot, but I swear I've read that multiple places). Ha! Well super. Glad we've been putting off having kids and buying houses because I thought we needed like a $100k cushion. I clearly need to reread some financial planning books!!!

No way! I get flack all the time for having about 6 months' expenses in our low-risk emergency stash. Many think we're way conservative (and 6 months' expenses for us, even at dawkter levels, is below $100k). If you have job security and good health and/or good insurance it can be much lower. But you have to have SOMETHING and it needs to be untouchable except for actual emergency. And savings for specific purposes are separate.

[JDAZ11]

Living within your means

Um yeah. 6mo expenses are nowhere near $100k (no kids, no house, old cars... Nowhere close). So oops! Glad we had this chat!

[spaz]

Ok the 1,000 is just the first step!!!!!!! It helps people to be successful. I want to say it is step three that you need to have 3 to 6 months of salary in a savings account. But it is baby steps. I watched the program with my children last summer. It was all stuff that we do and have done, which is why we have no debt and lots of savings. I actually like Larry Burkett before he died. Dave Ramsey's sarcasm gets on my nerves, but my kids thought he was hilarious. I really liked this program
:http://www.daveramsey.com/store/kids...HOMEPKCUR.html

I know that a lot of you don't homeschool,but this would be great to do in the summer. You can watch it as a family and discuss it. You can print off all kinds of worksheets to show how starting to save just a little bit early is better than saving a lot later, the difference between stocks and mutual funds, etc It was really eye opening for my boys and opened up tons of discussions. It would work for middle school and up. Very helpful if you don' t have children. The worksheets were great to investigate the principles and applied to real life...things I've actually done!!!

I

Wait, DR says $1000 for an emergency fund? (He does, I just googled it). Wow, I swear I thought you were supposed to have more like $100K. (Which seems like a lot, but I swear I've read that multiple places). Ha! Well super. Glad we've been putting off having kids and buying houses because I thought we needed like a $100k cushion. I clearly need to reread some financial planning books!!!

[diggitydot]

We have two houses (residency/fellowship house hasn't sold yet), two cars, and 3 kids. $100K is WAY above our 6 mo expenses.

[ladymoreta]

DrBtobe and I are about to embark on the journey that is figuring our our joint finances. To date we still have separate accounts but we plan on combining them once we're married. Generally speaking though, neither one of us like to part with money ever!

Married for 13 years, and I still won't give up separate checking accounts! It just makes things so much simpler for us.

[SoonerTexan]

What's going to be really hard is if we do match here, I plan to keep my job for at least 2 more years. That means a 50k increase in income a year. It's a great problem to have, but I know it is going to be SO HARD not to spend more than we need to given I still want to stay home in a few years. But it also seems wise to take care of some things like paying off the minivan and replacing our heat/cool system. (It's ridiculously old and inefficient. I want to replace it and get some use out of it instead of having it go out in 100 degree weather or right before we sell the house). And then there are house things I want to do early so we can enjoy them while we are here. See how it happens???

I shouldn't be complaining because the alternative is moving and taking a significant pay cut!!!

[ides]

We almost have 6 months living expenses saved up. Should have it by the middle of next month. It's nowhere near 100k either.

[peggyfromwastate]

Living within your means

Hmmmmm...

This year I started us aggressively on retirement savings. I was waiting... Telling myself that we'd pay off CC debt first. But that just hasn't happened. We have managed to start saving for retirement, and we have 529s for the 4 younger kids. Dd1 has nothing saved for college... But she's getting the GI bill benefits assigned to her so out of pocket costs for her should be less than $15K a year... And dh should be able to cover it with moonlighting.

An example of emergencies common with older kids: band trip to disneyland, swim meet in Colorado, summer camp, sports camp, diabetes camp (yikes), allergy covers for all mattresses and pillows, new blankets bc other blankets are dust mite factories, college visits, computers, cell phones... Sigh. I think we won't get ahead. I'm just hoping that dh will find moonlighting gigs. He has not been allowed to moonlight ever yet-- none allowed while in training. So I kinda put my eggs in that basket.

The big splurge I would like to budget in would be $ for me to pursue a masters. I just don't know if I'll be able to make myself a priority to do this though.

[wiva]

We recently had a "budget meeting." It was actually really helpful. We budgeted everything out clearly, and found ways to find 'more' money (consolidated my student loans, transferred balances on credit cards to a 0% card, etc). I do 98% of the purchasing for our family, so I have a separate account that I transfer a set amount of money to each month for groceries, household items, dinners out, entertainment, etc. Once that is gone...it's gone. I try very hard not to use the joint account that bills are paid from. It helps me personally to have that because it's easier for me to see how much money is left to spend when it is separated out from the 'general bill' fund.

[OrionGrad]

What's going to be really hard is if we do match here, I plan to keep my job for at least 2 more years. That means a 50k increase in income a year. It's a great problem to have, but I know it is going to be SO HARD not to spend more than we need to given I still want to stay home in a few years. But it also seems wise to take care of some things like paying off the minivan and replacing our heat/cool system. (It's ridiculously old and inefficient. I want to replace it and get some use out of it instead of having it go out in 100 degree weather or right before we sell the house). And then there are house things I want to do early so we can enjoy them while we are here. See how it happens???

I shouldn't be complaining because the alternative is moving and taking a significant pay cut!!!

I agree with paying off high interest loans, etc. But, as far as how to avoid the lifestyle creep when you go from 1 income to 2, we've had a lot of success with just depositing my income straight into savings. For all intents and purposes, we live like he is the sole earner. The saving acct where my income goes isn't even at the same bank as our checking acct so sometimes I forget it's there. It's only when major things come up (like household repairs, car repairs, etc.) that we've needed to dip into savings.

[metroguy]

ok, here's my cheapskate version
1) no eating out (minimal-- i think we eat out 5x a yr).
2) packing lunch- i been packing lunch since 2000.
3) cheap vacations. on the last vacation, i signed up for a hotel rewards card--so the hotel stay was free
4) used clothing for the kids. now they're older, it's not working. dw buys stuff. i only buy onsale stuff. before 2yr olds, the cost of each kid was about $5/day. clothes/crip were free. diapers was 25c each (onesale). formula was about 11c/ounce (on sale)

several things helps for us.
1) i been working/saving/living at home for 10 yrs before meeting dw.
2) i grew up poor.
3) we used my mom as free childcare.

several things not working out...
1) dw likes to spend (her favorite activity is shopping--shoes/bags)
2) dw likes to spend on the kids activities
3) dw don't know how much money we have or what the bill is (and don't really care)
4) i like gambling on the stock market. (high six figure losses and counting)

[SoonerTexan]

Savings accounts at another bank isn't a bad idea. It's so easy to transfer now...I really need to look into that. Then we can dip into it as needed without transferring for stupid things