New Forum: Financial Concerns

I'll be moving appropriate threads into our new financial forum. :)

Yay - Great!

:) It was jennherron's idea. :)

What a brilliant idea. This is such a significant part of our day-to-day home management. And what couple doesn't fight about money? I am looking forward to hearing some great suggestions as well as offer what has been working for us.

i have a question that i have always wondered about other families. do you spend more of your time trying to make more money or trying to spend less money? we definitely focus on keeping the money we earn instead of throwing it away, but we sometimes scramble for more when things get tight.

That's an interesting question. I had to think about it for a minute. My DH and I have worked out an allowance system, where we each have $100 of cash to work with every week. This is to pay our gas, his beer and cigaretttes, my books for school, stuff for Casi, dates, etc. It's also a way for me not to stress out about how he spends his money, since I have my own $ to work with. We also set aside $100 a week for groceries. I put $100 from each of his paychecks into savings, and pay the bills with the rest and it usually comes out even. However, if my car is acting funny or a friend is getting married in another state - Mark will usually pick up an extra job to pay for this. The advantage of him being a police officer is that that he has the luxury to do this. Overall, he does not work extra jobs unless something like this happens. Many officers get into a big hole b/c of this. They will work 2-3 jobs a week in order to keep up their standard of living. Then, they get injured and can't work these jobs to pay the $2000 mortgage or the $500 car payments. We do our best to pay everything outright. We live within a workable budget. I don't believe in having a budget that is so tight that it's like being on a constant diet. We have some savings, that we avoid touching at all costs. But if a medical or car situation comes up, then it is there to use. This month, I am working at cutting back the groceries and using some of our "spending money" towards Xmas gifts. But I couldn't imagine cutting back all the time. Mark will probably pick up another job next week for Christmas gifts.

it's easy to get addicted any extra money - i agree. it's a big problem for a lot of people. one of many reasons i will never work full-time again. it sounds like you have a budget and a routine and really focus on the keeping your money part of my question. the amount you each have for spending money would be tremendous in our family, but we have our own routines, and they are "normal" to us. i used to challenge myself each month to reclassify a "need" as a "don't really need or want" in order to use unnecessarily spent money to make our lives easier or our home nicer. i should get back into that again - it was fun. i started by playing a game with myself i called total aisle elimination. that was where i had gotten so i didn't need a single thing from certain aisles of the grocery store, so i just skipped them completely. we're at the point now where our meals are all from scratch, so i just buy basics like rice and beans and cheeses and meats at the store. big difference in the bill! all of my produce comes from the co-op, and i make all the bread except tortillas.

our income would probably be shockingly low to a lot of people, but we manage to live very well.

so that's my secret. anyone else have some tricks for living well on less money?

i have a question that i have always wondered about other families. do you spend more of your time trying to make more money or trying to spend less money? we definitely focus on keeping the money we earn instead of throwing it away, but we sometimes scramble for more when things get tight.
I think people will find that when they spend more time trying to make more money they actually spend more. So it is better to spend more time weighing the value of what you do with your money.

I agree. It really helps to put extra money in savings before you even miss it. An easy place to do this would be your car insurance. When we first got married, my DH and I were paying $260 per month for insurance. Since we are now over 25 now, we have some distance between wrecks and own older cars with no note we pay about $140. The first year the difference was only about $20, but now 4 years later ...every month as our rates have lowered I have $120 deducted from my account and I don't miss it. This can be done with electric bills, childcare, diapers. If it goes back into the pot, it disappears forever. Christine, since I have started "flying" I have been working more on keeping a clean kitchen and cooking at home. I would like to cut my grocery bill down. If you haven't watched a show or read a book by Suze Orman it's a must. My DH and I had 2 car loans and $20,000 in combined credit card debt when we first got married. With a combined annual income of about $40,000 - we paid off our debt and the 2 cars in 2 years. When my DH changed jobs and I was making more, we saved 10% for a down payment and had several thousands of dollars in the bank within months. We were able to move into a house, hire movers, take care of all the new house stuff, and pay it out. Now, that I am making much, much less - we are still able to live comfortably and put money into savings b/c we took care of all of that ugly debt. Aside from school loans, we are still debt free. It's not about how much money you have, but what you do with it.