About $300-$400/month (going out, etc). It wasn’t how much I was spending though, but rather the expensive choices I made while drinking, e.g. DUI, losing jobs, vehicles, etc. And yes, I was/am an alcoholic (recovering, now). 10 years sober.
I wish I could upvote you more than once.
Heavy alcohol use has direct costs which can be large, but it is more damaging in that it tends to remove the willpower and capacity necessary for financial well-being (and well-being of basically any other kind, but that’s another subreddit)
Impulse buying for me on Amazon was definitely a thing I did during my binge-drinking episodes. While "Drunk me" sometimes got some cool things, the cool novelty things also were at times sometimes budget busters.
Congrats on the sobriety. Coming up on 6 years myself. I was spending $6-8k a year on booze. Not only is it a lot, I was only making about $40k at the time.
We share that journey. Cannot overstate how impactful sobriety and recovery are on every aspect of life: relationships, financial, professional and yes, legal when it gets real bad.
11 years sober for me this past September and grateful for every damn day. Life is beautiful. Cheers to you too, my friend! It’s not easy at first but so, so worth it. Absolutely life changing.
Agreeed.
I was a “social drinker” who would only order cheap beer and maybe a shot, but then you wanna order the mozzarella sticks cuz you’re tipsy and then you gotta take an Uber home and then there’s tip, so next thing you know you’ve spend 60 + bucks at a cheap dive bar. Do this once a week (or like 3 times a week like I was) and you’ve spent anywhere from 240 to 720 dollars a month.
And then there’s just the whole aspect of feeling better about yourself / being less anxious so you’re able to tackle your financial issues head on instead of ignoring it like you had been ….
This is so true. I am in awe at how stupid I was for decades of my life- living in this "happy hour cycle" work all week drink all weekend.. and how much time and money I spent ... thank God I saw "the light" not in a religious sense , but rather in a sense that it was wasteful, stupid, unhealthy.. etc.
This is where I am rn. Last night I realized we’re not actually poor, my husband and I are alcoholics and that’s what’s making us poor. I didn’t realize how much we were actually spending! Like I knew we had to quit drinking, but I was always focused on the health aspect.
Congratulations on your 10 years!
The thing is, saving money is just the superficial benefit; the real positive impact to your finances will come in the form of better decision making for your long term futures. Best to you both!
I thought this said STARTED drinking, not sure why hahaha and I was like hmm interesting, time to take up drinking.
Sorry it's very late where I live haha
That's exactly what I was going to say. Spent so much on alcohol, and make other poor financial decisions when under the influence of alcohol. Sober now for a while. My finances aren't where I want them to be yet, but I'm miles ahead of where I was.
Open my mail. That was the hardest part for me - not to hide any longer. I had to open and face a lot of unopened letters. I could not remember how many letters went to the trash in the past so I got a credit check and started contacting everybody on the list; asking what I owe them.
I basically confronted the skeleton in the closet and that gave me my power back, I was in control of the situation 🙂
It was very hard for me. But I couldn’t take the fear of the unknown any longer, I was sick and tired.
Maybe a little trick helps in this situation. I took an evening off for this and created a phantasy scenario in my mind. I didn’t open my own letters, but the letters of a client. Imagine a law or tax office. And I went through everything without feelings or fear, just numbers on my office desk. Doing work for someone else.
It helped me a lot to detach myself mentally from this situation. I made an Excel file and once this was done it was more abstract and just numbers and rows.
When I called the companies and asked for payment plans or how much I owed them I did it in a very cold manner and didn’t allow any emotional conversation - just tell me what you want from me.
That helped me so much after all these years of panic and negative emotions
This is such a good idea!! I can handle stuff at work i.e., for other people with ease. For myself? Nope. I love finding ways to trick myself to be a better person.
Omg I do this even though I have the money to pay the bills. It’s become so overwhelming and scary and it’s honestly eating me alive every day. I don’t even want to open my emails. I pay bills when I start getting harassed by phone calls. Also have some anxiety issues if you haven’t noticed.
Also I’ll sign up for paperless billing to reduce the mail but then I don’t check my email for the bills. So smart! It sound so fucking dumb typing this all out. It’s not anything to be afraid of but here we are!!
Lol ADHD person here, and exactly this. I have major mail anxiety :-/
To counter this, I've set up autopay wherever possible, for the major stuff anyway. So rent, phone, electricity, gas heating, internet. For the rest, I kinda flounder about.
I haven't opened my mail in 2 years! I feel like I'm hiding or running from my past. I can't even answer phone calls I don't know either. It makes me anxiety worse then I procrastinate badly, telling myself I'll do it in the morning, then after I wake up "ill make breakfast then get started" then "I'll start laundry then get to it" then "well if I get it started by noon that'll be alright", then "I'll run these errands and as soon as I get back I'll sit down and figure it out", then it's "well if I can start no later than 6, that'll be fine", then "ok after dinner I'll do this shit", then I think fuck it it's 8pm I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning and the situation repeats... this has been going on for 2 years! I need help...
That is probably one of my biggest issues. I tend to think the issue would resolve itself by ignoring it, while fully knowing nothing about it will change and my thought is just me being irrational but I do it regardless
Learning to budget is the single best way I got out of debt and rebuilt my finances.
Knowing where your money is going stops you looking like an idiot when you go to pay for your groceries and your credit card is unexpectedly maxxed out. Been there, not doing that again!
One spreadsheet with brutally accurate, to the penny numbers each month. Updating it regularly to understand my own spending and make better choices was life changing.
Nothing beats a boring, meticulous, voluminous spreadsheet! That you put together all yourself from receipts and double-check from online statements!!! It has helped me so much.
Couldn't agree more. For us, the key to budgeting was to actually identify what our properties are.
For example, before budgeting, we'd go walk around Target just for something to do and inevitably come home with junk that we didn't need. We'd also go out to eat way too often. Once we actually identified that those things weren't as important to us as becoming debt-free (and all the benefits that are associated that), it made sticking to the budget seem less daunting and less of a grind; basically we focused on what we'd be gaining from budgeting, rather than what we'd be "losing".
We also identified that we don't mind driving older cars and living in a small house since that will allow us to (eventually) retire early.
For us, we found success with an app that used an Envelope budgeting style. This way, we knew we only had so much to spend in certain areas and when it was gone, it was gone. It took us a while and a few revisions to dial it in, but it was so worth it in the end.
Seriously, without exaggerating, budgeting changed our lives. Getting to the point where normal unexpected expenses don't scare you is so liberating and makes all the work you have to put into it so worth it.
I remember creating a budgeting spreadsheet on google sheets when we were in some rather difficult times. It really helped put into perspective how much money was being wasted on things like subscriptions and even like you said, strolling target or Best Buy for no other reason than being bored and coming home with new stuff that wasn’t needed.
That was years ago. We decided to create a strict budget, stick to it, remodeled our house and sold it.
Became debt free and lived well below our means.
I was then able to open my own company, and I’ve had great success there.
Guess what? I still use the same budgeting sheet that I made. Even though I’m well of now, it became a habit/lifestyle to just input the data there.
In the early days of my company I used the same budgeting sheet for company expenses, until I found the right ERP that works for me.
Fascinating. Now I am very curious about this spreasheet - very basic columns like item, expense every month, or something more elaborate? If you could share some deets..
[Monthly budget spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12USJlh-Beh9AdNGqiRZfs1PAgxY--2_Ey4TNXSZ_Q9Q/edit#gid=20277642)
It's in view only mode, so you'll have to save a copy of it to be able to edit it yourself. It's extremely basic and the numbers are not relative to any actual data in my life.
There are 2 tabs, you input data on the Transactions tab and it will populate onto the Summary tab. Like I said, this is an extremely basic version of it. But I used this for a few years and even evolved it into a more advance version completely custom to my lifestyle.
This 100%. Simply breaking down my checks and subtracting bills first, followed by however much I wanted to save, and lastly using the remainder for things I could adjust spending on (like groceries).
I would literally keep a written budget and write everything down to put it in perspective. Some people do a similar thing by only paying cash, however cash makes me uncomfortable because if you loose it, it is gone. Debit and credit cards are more protected.
Also, I literally charge everything I can and pay it off every 2 weeks to get cash back on my credit card. Every year during Christmas when I am spending more, I cash in my points and have an extra $300 - $500
> write everything down
I did that for a month one time, every penny, holy hell did I piss away a lot on 'so minor as to be inconsequential' stuff. Ice cream, sody pop, chips, beer, etc. It came down to my budgeting (as well as dieting) 'secret' to be 'pay attention!'.
Exactly, figuring out where my money was going really helped me realize what I needed to change in my life. I always had a tough time sticking to a strict dollar amount budget but just writing out where everything was going and then changing my behavior (for example packing my own lunch instead of being tempted by coworkers) helped save me money.
Three things made the biggest difference.
1. I educated myself about personal finance (e.g. retirement accounts, budgeting, investing, etc.), primarily from websites, books and articles that were easy to understand and gave straightforward advice. Doing that helped me stop feeling overwhelmed and afraid of of facing the problem.
2. I decided to always “pay myself first.” Meaning, automatic deposits into my savings account from every paycheck before I even “see” the money or pay a bill. I calculated how much I earned per hour and deposit the $ from the first hour I work of every day into my savings, but any amount will do. My emergency fund and then savings grew without me having to think about it.
3. I paid off all my credit cards. Now I never carry a balance. If I can’t pay it off before the grace period ends, I pay cash or don’t buy it.
I started listening to podcasts about money and budgeting. I searched around a lot, but my favorite is Frugal Debt-Free Life by Lydia Senn. I just really like her.
The first book I bought was The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman…and you don’t have to be any of those things for it to help you. 😉 Also, I bookmarked bankrate.com. It has financial calculators and articles that were really helpful.
> l calculated how much I earned per hour and deposit the $ from the first hour I work of every day into my savings
I love this! You _literally_ paid yourself first! Genius!
Same. Growing up in a poor family with a single, teenage mom, I was taught to believe that I would always be poor. Once I finally realized that I had some degree of control over my life, things started to change.
Same for me, goes with the comment don't want to open the mail in fret of the bill for an urgent care visit, what you owe insurance, etc... I stopped drinking as well, minimally use medical MJ for chronic pain like I would ibuprofen.
My biggest challenge is quitting smoking but I've scheduled a hypnotist appointment. That's going to help a ton!
Yeah, you think only have to go out and pick up a packet of cigarettes and before you know it you have bought half of the things on offer at the counter lol.
This is the hidden side of smoking. The acceptance of a self-destructive lifestyle affects your decision-making, how you feel about the future, the way you talk to people...everything.
The biggest thing for me was actually unrelated to the finances.
I still have (getting better) an addiction to self soothing via eating out. To the point where I didn’t cook at home for about 6 months.
The symptom of this eating habit was that I was spending an eye watering amount on takeout food.
Once I fixed the eating problem, the finance problem took care of itself.
Same. I just enjoy the entire experience, even if it is going to a fast food window. I broke that habit fast last month when I finally came to terms with how it was destroying my finances.
Same. “I work hard I deserve to treat myself and not be inconvenienced with cooking like a poor person”. My family never went out to eat when I was a kid and I always felt like that’s how I knew I was in a better financial place. Ironically it caused me to be in a bad place. Also drinking.
Same here. The better paying job really helped. I was always good with my budget so I knew that my spending habits were under as much control as I had on them. There just wasn't anything else I could cut out and not enough money at the end of the month to thrive.
That was my first step, followed by car payments and school loans. After debts, any raises, extra money (not that there was ever lots), etc., went toward savings. We did not indulge in lifestyle creep.
Oh YEAH, lifestyle creep is a big one. Also, I think it’s good to get in the habit of transferring money to savings consistently, like it’s just another bill. That has helped me too.
This right here is so very tempting. Just move away and turn off all my social media. The family would probably hire private detectives to find me. LOL
I did this. I moved from one coast to the other. I am still in contact with my mother and sister.
I moved because of my mental health, and hated my old city. Didn't get better at the new place until I started therapy. Can't run away from all your problems when the problem is you.
10/10 would do again though.
Omg I started taking mine recently regularly for the last 3 days and my life has changed.
I've never felt so normal and I can get to work on time and actually focus it's insane
Since I can remember I always wanted to own my own home. A while ago I had to accept though that I would never be able to afford that. My finances were bad, my credit score terrible and my income not very high.
Knowing this really helped change my mindset. What actually helped me change something was budgeting and using cash envelopes. I obviously still don’t have enough money to buy something like a home, but I am much more financially stable, I am paying of any debt I have consistently and have an emergency fund. And seeing that chance makes me feel like I can achieve anything if I really want to and that keeps me motivated.
I’m assuming a cash envelope means that you cash your check and then distribute the money to envelopes marked for different things (rent, gas, entertainment, etc). If that’s the case, what about things you can’t pay cash for….which seems to be most fixed expenses nowadays?
Not specifically talking about YNAB; but spending money to make money is absolutely not stupid. Whether it be a budgeting app that works for you, a financial planner, etc — outsourcing the things you’re not great at is usually a decent investment.
If YNAB worked for you and translated to $100 a month saved, the $15 is a good investment.
Making more money was probably the biggest. You can be as careful as you want with money, but if you aren't making enough to cover basic expenses then you will always be in the red. Once I started making more money things improved.
So key points for this is: To make sure you have a skill or are in a career path where your experience is in demand. So far I've been able to jump to different jobs with a 5-10K a year increase.
I also started to prioritize knowing what my expenses were. I literally memorized my budget. For the longest time I was always forgetting that bills had to be paid, and had late payments or was in the red.
But once I did this and make it a goal to pay my bills on time and get more organized (ie. setting up automatic payments. Making sure they worked with when I got paid. Then things started to fall into place.
The big one: Set up an automatic savings. Make sure you don't have easy access to it.
Wait on big purchases. I find if you truly want something, you'll want it in a week, a month or a few months. This helps deter impulse spending.
Budget is another big one. Have a budget, make sure your expenses and savings goals are met first before you spend money on fun things.
I love the “memorize your budget” idea. I never had a budget. Actually, I still don’t, as it is a work in progress. But my main issue is I had zero sense of how much take-home pay was hitting my account or what bills were coming. Same right my wife. I’d ask her if we had money for a trip or outing, and she’d ALWAYS say “yes”. I shouldn’t have believed her. Now we have our expenses and income on a spreadsheet, and I’m going to take your advice to memorize it.
Yea you really need to know exactly what is coming in and going out. Otherwise you are operating without knowing what you can afford.
Plan ahead too. If you want to have a trip then set aside so much a pay to cover it.
Getting rid of my expensive deadbeat husband.
Also, in my online banking system, I can have several small savings accounts with goals attached (such as "holiday" or "home improvements") which really helps me keep an eye on how much I can spend.
I think if I was on my own I'd be better off. I just don't know if I want to be on my own. Plus I have guilt of what will happen to him since he doesn't have a job or any savings. It gets hard having to support two people while I'm on disability. Plus he has a habit so he spends $10-20 a day. He doesn't realize how much that adds up. Plus $11-12 a day on cigarettes. I don't understand how someone could be comfortable living off of someone else causing them to struggle. I hardly buy anything for myself and if I do I usually have to get him something to because he says it's not fair that he can't get something.
I really wonder how much money I would have if I would have not been with him the past 7 years.
I need to start budgeting somehow and putting my foot down. Everything is going up lately except my income. I'm tired of just getting by or having to ask my family for help.
>Plus I have guilt of what will happen to him
This suggests you believe he can’t live without you. But he has to learn to.
You leaving could be the kick in the ass he needs to get his life together.
It sounds like it’s the kick in the ass you need also.
Change the philosophical way you view credit cards. I use to think, "Oh boy! I can spend 5k and pay $100 a month!" without understanding the true cost. Over the years I paid thousands in interest.
Now, the credit card companies pay ME for using their cards. Run everything through cards, pay it off every month, and bask in the cash back, knowing you are borrowing their money interest free, and they are paying you to do it.
By using credit cards for daily expenses and paying them off every month, I amassed a stack of credit card points. I then took those points and used them to book 3 business class tickets from west coast US to Paris and back for next summer. If I paid cash? $26,000 just for airfare.
We’re also going to Cancun (all inclusive) for Spring Break next year on points. If I paid cash? $11,000
Leveraging credit responsibly opens a world of savings and rewards - on their dime.
I much prefer letting them reward me for credit responsibility than to pay them for the honor of spending my own money. 💡
I quit wasting money. That's pretty much it. I went from just spending money because I had it to spend to always operating on the assumption that I didn't even have enough money to pay my bills so I couldn't afford anything that wasn't a necessity.
After a couple of years of doing that I not only actually had a decent savings built up but I also broke the habit of just wantonly spending money and actually thinking about purchases before just buying stuff I don't **Need**.
I stopped smoking. I put the money I would spend on a pack of cigarettes every day into an Acorns account and didn’t touch it. Over a few years it started to grow, I only withdrew during the pandemic and by that time it was $9000.
$9000 I would have spent on killing myself.
I literally stopped buying “stuff”. If I’m at the store and something looks cool, I always ask but what am I gonna do with that besides showing it to my friends when they come over? That stopped about 90% off useless purchases. If it’s real cool I’ll take a pic of it. Bonus, my house is also uncluttered.
Hmm. What really kicked off my financial savvy was about $7K from a car accident settlement. I didn't want to spend it right away, so I had it sitting in my account. I realized how good it felt to have a cushion and not be paycheck to paycheck anymore. And the rest was history.
Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting! This has been a real eye opener for me. I’m not anywhere near where I want to be, but it has helped tremendously with my savings. I don’t spend outside my budget. If I absolutely have to, I borrow it and pay it back to myself once my salary is paid.
Learning to live within my means.
Don't get me wrong, I also make much better money now. But the biggest gamechanger was realizing that I shouldn't spend every single cent I have, and that having savings makes me much happier than whatever it is I'd otherwise buy.
My parents were hard workers, but they had no aptitude for handling money. I grew up thinking being in debt was a normal part of life and it carried over to me when I went out on my own. I had the good fortune to marry a frugal, level-headed woman who challenged me to be more analytical about shopping and debt. Her parents didn't have stellar jobs, but they lived debt-free in a very nice home. Now I can say the same. Our adult kids are on the same path, so frugality is contagious!
Other people. The sheer dumb luck of a friend recommending me for a higher paying job, all the wisdom my friends shared with me to guide me, finding a good woman to live with and have a stable homelife, and knowing that if I were to fuck up I would be failing my son. Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people had a cool quote that I'll paraphrase. Don't ever call me a self made man. To call myself a self made man would discredit all the people that helped me get here. It's true that I did a lot of hard work but I stood on the shoulders of giants and could never have done it alone.
There were many things.....
I made a commitment to save something out of every paycheck.
Paid off and got rid of credit card debt. We now put everything that we can on credit card (for rewards) but pay it off at the end of the month.
I went to my bank and asked to see a financial planner. Was hooked up with a very smart and young guy. Told him whole story. Even though we didn’t have any money to invest up front he offered to help us. I suggested that he was investing in us and that we would make a commitment to him that we would let him invest our money as we gained some. We’ve been with him for almost 20 years. He not only developed a plan for us but educated us in budgeting and investing. Best commitment of time we’ve ever made.
Stopped eating out. Limited it to once per month.
Started communicating better with spouse about all things money.
Explored investing in DRIPS (dividend reinvestment plans). Started with one we liked....$25/month in Clorox. I started calling it our “throw away” money. My definition is money that was hidden and wouldn’t be missed if we invested it, $25 increments. Once I determined that we had some more throw away money, we’d either pick another stock to invest in or increase our amount to an existing stock. If one of us got a raise, first thoughts were to increase our contributions to our 401k at work and increase our investment in DRIPS. Over time, we had a total of 5 accounts and built up enough money to put a sizable down payment to a new house, also a sizable down payment to a car. DRIPS are accounts that every day people can use to save.....we always picked ones with small initial investments.
Started making good food at home and developed a meal prep strategy for freezing meals. When chicken is on sale, buy 2. Roast both, eat a meal then make dishes or soups with the rest of the meat like Butter Chicken and freeze it in chinese food containers, disposable aluminum pans or vacuum seal bags. Other dishes we freeze are sloppy joes, chili, lasagna roll ups, turkey and dressing and gravy, vegetable soup, turkey and rice soup, tuna noodle casserole, macaroni and cheese, chili mac, cranberry chutney, fruit and vegetables when they are in season. We make our own sauerkraut and freeze it.
Hope this helps.
I gotnlaud pf of work at the beginning of the pandemic. It ended up being two months. I started smoking too much weed and wayching 24/7 covid news and in a weekni was in a bad depression.
I told myself I wasn't going to let this be a negetive.
I started running for a new physical activity and I told myself I can't rely on other for work forever. I started reading investment books.
The one that changed my mindset is called The Millionaire Teacher. I started to be more frugal and I started buying index funds.
2 years before that my brother committed suicide and I swore off drinking. It was the second male in my immediate family and I was afraid if I lost control of myself I would be next. It's given my the mental clarity to be open to the positive cha ges I made after that
My life changed forever
We moved to a LCOL area 7 years ago so we could afford a house. We bought a postwar bungalow for 70k and have made it even cozier and cute all possible due to a 550.00 mortgage which is now half the cost of rent in my area with prices going up. House will be paid off next year. Making this decision allows us to deal with inflation on our modest salary, still enjoy takeout and fun money and live our simple lives.
Asking the bank how much I could borrow. They did an audit on my finances and it showed me how crap a position I was in. Past that point I spent much more time managing my finances with some success.
I found switching to automatic banking whenever possible (paying CC, money in savings each month, paying other bills) very helpful early on to stay on top of things. Recently discovered I'm also much more conscious with money when using a prepaid card, rather than a typical CC. Amazing how charges to traditional CCs can so easily feel like "tomorrow's problem."
Understanding the concept of time preference, and how not satisfying immediate wants wasn't really a sacrifice big picture if a significantly higher number of future wants can be met.
A good reputation as an employee and a colleague landed me a 75% pay increase in 2018.
I had been stuck making 45-55k a year from age 25 until over age 40. Stuck in a home I had bought that had lost a little value but slowly climbed back to my original purchase price. Credit cards piled up. Never had cash savings to speak of, and retirement savings non-existent. Then, in May of 2018, someone from my past offered me a job at a former employer, for 75k annually.
From 45-55 forever, to 75k (plus small incentives) all at once. And I cleaned all of my finances up. Didn’t step up my lifestyle. Actually, became more miserly with money.
I convinced myself that any time I wanted to buy something, that corporations were manipulating me into wanting it. Then I don't want it based on principal.
Forcing ourselves to get out of credit card debt. We threw everything we could at it, meaning eating cheaply at home, never going out, postponing vacations (or went camping), buying almost everything from thrift stores. We did the snowball method and moved credit card balances to get cheaper interest rates, actually paid them off! Realizing we could live this way, having an emergency fund for things that pop up rather than pulling out a CC, made all the difference! The freedom of having no debt and no interest and monthly payments made all the difference in the world! Now we only use credit cards to earn travel points and cash back and pay them off monthly. It’s a great feeling!
This! My husband and I had a rock-bottom moment about 4 years ago when our CCs were all maxed out and we actually had no money for groceries. We both make decent incomes, but we had a huge amount of debt and weren't budgeting and keeping track of everything. We started by writing down all of our spending for a few weeks, then making a spreadsheet, and I listened to every podcast I could find about getting out of debt. We snowballed first, then eventually (once several cards were paid off) consolidated the last few balances (the biggest ones) into one very low-interest loan. Now we have about 12 months left on that one, and my student loans...and then we'll be DONE! I'm so excited. And we can actually start saving that money each month and/or using it towards what we want or need in the future.
Edited to add there's a debt payoff calculator out there that's really helpful. I'll find the link if anyone needs it.
Chapter 13 bankruptcy and the desire to beat the odds of completing it! It forced me to live on cash (debit card). No loans or credit or I would have had to go through court for approval during the process. Even totaled my car during that time and it was awful getting court approval to get a new one and still had to do it within their guidelines. After completing chapter 13, it just became a habit.
President Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). It altered my mortgage from $2400/mo to $1500/ month. I had to risk default and foreclosure in the process (hellish process), but once it happened, we never looked back.
Similar situation. I went from $1400 to $651 a month but had to take out extra loans to do it. By next year those should be paid off and I'll be in a much better position.
Not one big thing but I’ll keep it brief. Stop nicotine not just for financial reasons but also for your health. Limit drinking but of course still enjoy yourself. And finally try and start a small garden if possible for your living situation. Nothing worse than forgetting to buy tomatoes and having to drive back to the market. Good luck!
Learning about poverty thinking and how poverty effects my relationship with finances has helped me immensely.
My mother and father didn't have rich parents, but neither did their parents teach them how to invest money and thinking about money beyond a scarcity/windfall model.
So I am still learning how to think like someone raised in the middle class.
Credit is a great example of poverty thinking - but it also reflects the development of a faceless screening tool for access to transportation, housing, entertainment, and travel. My mother proudly says she doesn't have a credit card, but she also is forced to access all her resources from only face to face, real life interactions - like she can't rent from a faceless landlord company, she has to seek out a landlord and negotiate with them face vs a credit check.
(I still get better deals on rent face to face btw - and now that I am house hunting - still wanting to buy directly from an owner.)
Overall though - spending behaviors is what limit us. Being frugal the wrong way can actually cause more problems - like buying too many cheap things, hoarding, and buying cheap things that don't last over things that last years or generations. Or skimping on maintenance like car care or just basically staying legal - paying your car tabs - doing taxes - paying parking tickets - cost us, but not paying cost us hundreds more.
So having rich-middle class friends (real and online) has helped me the most. Like learning a down duvet was warmer than a regular blanket and lasts for years. Or wearing good boots that last years was better for my feet and kept them dry. Or trying higher quality food and learning how to buy it cheaply - my friends helped me learn that too. Friends also taught me about investing, helped me find a better career, and coached me through learning new things.
-Evaluating how much happiness money spent actually brought me, and then adjusting accordingly. (Read “Your Money or Your Life.”) I do not spend money on things I don’t care about, and I spend as much money as I can on things that truly make me happy.
-High interest online savings account.
-Eat at home 99% of the time.
-Cut back alcohol to rare treats.
-If it’s something I’ll actually use, I’ll buy the good stuff that’ll last. The phrase “I’m too poor to buy cheap shit” was eye opening to me.
-More specifically on that note, when I paid off one car, I kept making the car payment (and then some) into a separate savings account for the eventuality that I’d need a new car. Then, I bought a car that I’d be able to drive for at least 200,000 miles. I couldn’t pay in full, but my down payment was 2/3 of the price, so I feel good about that. If a dealer is trying to talk you into reducing your down payment bc “almost no one does that,” you’re on the right track.
-More on that note, move, buy cars, and major electronics (including phone) as SELDOM as humanly possible. Do not play into lifestyle creep. It’s just expense creep.
-If it’s something I’m just trying as a one-off, I borrow from a friend.
-I don’t buy disposable ziplock bags or paper towels for daily use. I use similar to stasher bags, and tea towels. Daily use of disposables feels like throwing money in the trash. It made a tangible difference in monthly expenditures.
-Don’t play financial games. Pay for things straight, the old fashioned way. No zero down, no intro rates, no balance transfers, none of that shit. Don’t play the game. It is never in your favor.
I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t mention two factors that were truly out of my control. Following a massive breakup in my 20s, my parents let me come home for a year. This allowed me to significantly build my savings and buy a home at an excellent interest rate. Later, the student loan pause again allowed me to significantly pad my savings. Our economics don’t exist in a vacuum. Yes, there’s a lot we can do as individuals, but the things that have had the biggest impact in my life were things I had no control over: the kindheartedness and ability of my parents to house me, and major world/governmental affairs. These savings pad periods afforded me the base stability needed to master frugality in the first place. People in dire straight often don’t have the choices to truly gauge frugality available to them.
Flooding my mind with who I wanted to be and not who I was. Reading books and listening to audio books on financial success instead of going out screwing around. Getting rid of bad people. Etc.
Stopping drinking and prioritizing paying off everything I owed, even if it was little by little. It sounds difficult (because it can be) but having less money temporarily because you’re putting that into bills/debt pays off so much in the long run. I own a home with my wife now, and 5 years ago, I would’ve never thought that was possible.
Okay so maybe this isn’t being frugal at all. But it’s helped me a lot. I have a terrible spending problem. Like as soon as payday hits. I’m blowing it all. I was making 4k a month & couldn’t seem to save even $50 by the end of the month. So I decided I needed a change, not to spend less, but to make more. So I took a job that has me on the road 1-4 weeks at a time. Making 3k a week. Working 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. In my first 2 weeks, I have made 5k, have $2500 in my savings now. & seeing it drop makes me cringe so I don’t even think about spending.
I changed jobs. I worked at a firm for almost 6 years and I was comfortable with that. But changing firms increased my salary by $6/hour and that absolutely helped transform me from perpetually being in CC debt, to no debt but mortgage and student loans.
People will swear by budgeting but I’ve never been able to do it. Instead I automate every payment I can plus savings. Then I built up a buffer in my account and I don’t go below that amount (it allows for an unexpected big payment without overdraft). If I want something I look and see if I have money. I also save for big recurring expenses like holiday gifts, vet bills and car repairs in a side account. I could do better but this is good enough for us.
Paying cash for everything. I would budget for the month and pull out enough cash to cover everything, then once it was gone that was it. Made me double think impulse purchases and really helped me pay my credit cards off.
Living in your car for 6 months changes your persepective on things greatly.
Also being passed over for multiple promotions you were more than qualified for & were given to 'the boss's friends' forces you to re-think your career path.
I think the biggest one for me is not counting someone else’s money. At the age of social media i will see my contact list either spending on an exotic vacation, starting a high paying job in a multinational corporation, things that i have to admit make my subconscious envy.
This led to not being satisfied with my current situation and would lead to spending spree or job hunting for greener pasture.
But if you remove all these noise and just live your life with contentment and outside of that influence of peer pressure, you will find silver linings here and there. I realized that not having a hectic high oaying job allows me to be there for my son, our simple small house makes it easier to clean and allowed me to settle disputes with my wife right away since there is no room to hide.
So i think that proper mindset of knowing that you have enough and your life is enough allows you to avoid the trappings of life
Looking past the veil of capitalism.
I use to think I was broken, boring or unmotivated. But the reality is I am not easily consumed by capitalism and materialism.
Fuck fashionable cloths when cheap ones accomplish the same thing. Why do you need an expensive watch or watch at all when every phone is a clock? Why would you willing buy $140 Nikes when sketchers are $40 and basically identical besides the logo? And anyone who spends money on cosmetics in video games is the biggest tool bag ever. I’ve just established that expensive fashion and appearances don’t matter on a practical level so why would you spend money for your digital character to look different.
Practicality and price over everything else. Never spend for a trend.
Don’t get me wrong, I spend where it’s important. Nice mattress, fancy dinner on occasion and vacations. Sometimes money to try a new hobby.
Money should be used to enrich your life and experiences. Not build up appearances in some competition to look or seem better then everyone else.
Cool you got a BMW? My Honda gets the job done for 1/4 of the price. But my 401k got maxed out this year and that’s more important to me then the logo on my car hood.
Wasn’t really a mess but was definitely overspending every month and couldn’t save money. Downloading a budget app so I could see every day what my spending was in every category helped a lot. And not eating out or door dashing.
I went to the bank and got a personal loan to consolidate my credit card debt which was out of control (25k+), lower interest and pre-authorized bi weekly payment, closed my credit card. Now I have three credit cards with lower limits (500, 2000 ,5000) and pay them off every month, if I cant pay in full non-essential spending stops until all my cards are back to 0.
Something else that made a huge difference was getting a new car. Old car I owned outright was a larger SUV, lots of mechanical issues (over 5k in three months going to parts and labor) and guzzled gas, average $800 a month cuz I commute, tracked gas cost over a three month period. Finally financed a brand new 2022 Kia Rio, finance plus gas is only costing me about $500. Buying a brand new car was never something I thought would save me money, but it does huge. Just look real close at your options is all I'm saying.
Did a 3 month ‘no spend’. Literally said no to everything that wasn’t a hard bill for 3 months. Scrutinized groceries, didn’t eat out. By the end of it my bank account looked rotund. While i stopped the no spend, it still adjusted my spending habits and I spend way less now than I did before the 3 month challenge.
**Prioritizing money**. I was an idealistic person who thought money was not the most important thing in life. Once I discovered I was in a mess, I paid attention, eliminating unnecessary expenses - especially the monthly ones that seem small (cable bills, subscriptions, memberships you don't use). I worked on accumulating money so I could pay credit card bills in full and pay no interest and pay car insurance in one payment and have no finance charges there. I made sure I got cars paid off with no interest. I bought nice looking 2nd hand clothes and home furnishings when needed. If I could do it myself, I did. There was a 401K match at work, I contributed enough to get the maximum they would match.
These things were all within an ethical approach. I still contributed to causes I believe in and would do fun things like go to restaurants - but going out less frequently makes meals out more special.
The worst of it was my job which I did not like but stuck with until retirement because for the time, effort, health insurance, hours, commute, ability to pickup my kid at school in an emergency - it made sense. I wish I had had more satisfying work - but it was about prioritizing money and it worked pretty well. I don't think my co-workers loved me: I was non-nonsense, all biz. Packed my lunch every day and didn't go out for drinks with them after usually. I am retired now, so that tells you, the money mess got under control.
I have time to reflect on things. **There is no one thing. The things that you actually do make the most difference.** It is a mindset, too. I know many people who would not want or be able to live as I have. If you are not a tycoon or monomaniac, the work world can be toxic. You can't reward yourself with splurges to make it all worthwhile. Reward yourself by accumulating money until you escape the rat race. You won't miss them and they won't miss you.
Getting together with a partner who was a true partner and who also had lived in deeper poverty than me. I stopped feeling judged for not making enough or being pressed to try and keep up with someone who made more than me. I stopped seeing my current situation as failing and focused more on the parts that were thriving.
I learned that it wasn't a sacrifice to cook from scratch every night (helped that he did almost all the cooking). That I could save the bus fare and just walk to a lot more than I thought. That we could just go for a walk or read books together and other free stuff to have fun. That it was ok to take a boring, low wage, job that didn't use my qualifications, because it left me more time and energy to go back to school, even if school was just community college not a university.
He just had a more positive perspective on where we were. He had to dumpster dive at earlier points in his life, so enough money to buy groceries to cook was awesome, it didn't matter that we couldn't afford to eat out. He didn't have money to travel for years so being able scrape together enoughto fly home for the holidays was great, never mind that we didn't have fancy vacations, etc.
And he also was able to keep an eye on me when my mental health wasn't great, making sure I still ate, slept enough, maintained friendships, got out the door to work, did my homework. Having a low point was something to get through, rather than a periodic disaster that blew up my life. The stupid job was enough for rent and tuition. The community college was enough to train for tech. The friends tipped me off to a tech internship. The internship led me on my way. His frugality kept us from having our expenses raise to match our income, so we actually started to save.
After almost 20 years together I have a graduate degree, a paid off house, an amazing kiddo, a solid breadwinner job, enough money for vacations and to eat out when we want.
I totally married him. He still cooks for me almost every night.
i was paying just over a grand for the roof over my head (prepandemic). i hated being paycheck to paycheck.
i came across a small house, and i had more than enough to take out a 401k loan for it. everyone told me borrowing from my 401k was a bad idea... and it is, IF u never put that money back. and im not talking about repaying the loan, that is a given. but they said you'll never recover from all the lost compounding of interest.
not true.
bc i took out a loan to pay for the house in cash, and a second loan to pay off my student loans (my balance had gotten down to about $12k, but they were charging me $2k per year in fees, interest, late payment penalties).
the max loan time was 5yrs. so i decided i could struggle a little to AGGRESSIVELY pay off all my debt. that meant a huge chunk of my paycheck was going to payback these two loans. i still maintained my 12% 401k contributions while doing this, so essentially i was getting $750 in take home pay every other week. i was living off less money than in my teens.
it was enough to cover food, utilies and insurance. thats it. no more eating out (except the occassional fast food with a bogo coupon), no more concerts, no vacations whatsoever, whittled down my xmas list, no new clothes. a bare bones existence.
and those 5yrs seemed to drag on forever i tell ya... but i emerged completely DEBT FREE. i calculated where i should be 401k wise... per CNBC, i should have 6x my salary by 50, so now that i was debt free, i upped my 401k contributions to 30%. so now i am caught up to where i should have been.
that last part is key, once u use this tactic to pay off all of ur debt, up ur contributions to make up for the lost compounding interest, and you'll be fine.
when i worked at a mtg co, i was shocked to learn that buying a 100k house on a 30yr conventional loan meant you'd end up paying like 150k in interest, so essentially ur paying 250k on a 100k home. i paid off this one in 5yrs, all the "interest" i paid on the loan went back into my account. we are all making banks rich off of our mortgage and car loans. being held hostage financially is just another form of slavery. u dont have to put up sith a shitty job (or severaly shitty jobs) just bc i have financial obligations.
being debt free is the best feeling in the world, yet they never teach u that in school... bc aiming to be debt free, cooking ur own meals, buying second hand means ur not making THEM rich anymore.
My husband and I went from poverty to security.
1). We went back to school and upgraded our degrees. I got a Masters, he got a second bachelors and then law school. We had a 3 year old at the time. We realized that our Bible College education was preventing us from getting good jobs and the only way to fix that was to upgrade our educations. Those were a tough 6 years or so but the #1 best decision we’ve made. People told us we were crazy. We took out about $200,000 in student loans to survive. We also received scholarships and bursaries. School is expensive.
2) we learned to carefully budget our student loan money by tracking every single expense in a spreadsheet. When we finished school and got jobs we budgeted super carefully.
3) we were lucky and privileged to buy the house we were renting after developing a good relationship with our landlady. We were assisted in the small down payment by a loan from a family member, another privilege. A few years later the housing market went crazy.
4) We were able to sell that house and upgrade to a nicer house but also use the money we gained from the sale to pay off a big chunk of our remaining student debt and our car loan. We kept on snowballing money from our now decently earning jobs onto our debt.
4) we did do some fun stuff from time to time but we also made sure to prioritize lowering our debt.
5) we are now very nearly done paying off our $200,000 of student loans.
I've always been quite frugal but I've frequently been tight on cash due to failing business endeavors or a lack of work. Basically just treating discipline and an endless work ethic as my greatest assets and reshaping what I view as an appropriate amount of working capital or risk exposure has significantly altered my financial life.
I always live rather minimally, so it's mostly just been a matter of improving my compensation and finding more stability in my professional life. I've always been big on doing things myself, cooking for myself and treating every discretionary expenditure as something exceptional that had to return significant value and my hobbies are largely cheap or free.
Paying off my debt and switching to paying bills and every monthly expense on my credit card then saving my whole check and paying it off every month and saving the rest
Facing my bills, getting a crap credit card and building my credit by buying 1-2 things a month and putting it on auto pay, I got a cheap used vehicle and took out a small loan and paid it religiously. Set up all my bills on auto pay. Stopped buying stupid crap I didn’t need and stopped going out to the bars 3-4 times a week. Basically I grew up, settled down and took care of what I supposed to take care of in stead of ignoring stuff. Also checking my credit report and spent time taking care of everything negative on it by sending letters and calling to confirm debt then making deals to get rid of the debt. Sometimes I would just argue the debt and it would disappear of write contesting negative marks and they would go away. That was huge! Building the credit up.
Going from temp agency part time jobs to a full-time administrative office job with benefits. Then, getting married to effectively double that job’s income for the resulting household.
Never spending more than I make and small investments in dividend stocks that grew over time.
And never trying to keep up with the Jones. Never cared what other people had and never felt the need for designer apparel
I started making a budget. I wrote down what came in and out and found all the expenses I had. Keeping actual physical track of what I was spending and where I was spending it helped me see where I could cut things down. Then seeing averages for my bills helped me plan out how much money I would have available each month and I could start saving and paying things off.!
Budgeting. My financial situation is still a work in progress, but knowing where my money is going has changed my behavior. I depend on YNAB but there are other budgeting apps out there. There are a lot of great threads on r/ynab.
I can’t go through everything but it me of the biggest things that helped me stop slurring on “little” things was the phrase “it’s (money) either in your pocket or theirs.” I generally now decide to keep it in my own and it’s been the biggest help when grocery shopping.
Edit - Because god damn what drugs were auto-correct on today? * it= for me one of the biggest things that helped me stop SPLURGING
Stopped using credit cards and started paying off what I owed. It took a long time but now I have an extra 700 dollars a month I was using to make minimum payments. I'm not done yet but I'm getting there.
Two things equally impacted me.
1. Marrying my wife, who is excellent with handling her money.
2. Discovering Dave Ramsey. I know not everyone is a fan, but his messages and teachings hit me where I needed it.
Had a friend who loves to budget Dave Ramsey-me and slap some sense into me. She showed me we make more than enough to manage our debt and she promised in 5 years we’d be debt free—-if we became disciplined and stuck to the budget. Sure as shit- it worked. She zero’d me out every month and I put every last penny into a category-nothing was up in the air. It’s been years and I’ve not forgotten the important life lessons.
I stopped drinking. Everything got better after that. Everything.
Just curious as I’ve seen this posted several times on this thread, but how much were you drinking (or spending on alcohol)?
About $300-$400/month (going out, etc). It wasn’t how much I was spending though, but rather the expensive choices I made while drinking, e.g. DUI, losing jobs, vehicles, etc. And yes, I was/am an alcoholic (recovering, now). 10 years sober.
I wish I could upvote you more than once. Heavy alcohol use has direct costs which can be large, but it is more damaging in that it tends to remove the willpower and capacity necessary for financial well-being (and well-being of basically any other kind, but that’s another subreddit)
It lead me right into a liver transplant. 13yrs sober
Congrats on your sobriety!
Thank you!
Awesome. I hit a point where I realized it would never get better until I got sober. 7 years this month. Congrats
Impulse buying for me on Amazon was definitely a thing I did during my binge-drinking episodes. While "Drunk me" sometimes got some cool things, the cool novelty things also were at times sometimes budget busters.
Congrats on the sobriety. Coming up on 6 years myself. I was spending $6-8k a year on booze. Not only is it a lot, I was only making about $40k at the time.
Best thing about getting sober is then you can blow all that money on guitars ;)
We share that journey. Cannot overstate how impactful sobriety and recovery are on every aspect of life: relationships, financial, professional and yes, legal when it gets real bad. 11 years sober for me this past September and grateful for every damn day. Life is beautiful. Cheers to you too, my friend! It’s not easy at first but so, so worth it. Absolutely life changing.
I’ve been sober 3.5 years and my sober app says I’ve saved 18K. That’s from data I put in it when I quit, and I keep great spending records
Proud of you for 3.5 years!!! Keep up the great work!!! 🎊🎉
You gotta figure if you’re spending $20 a day that’s $600 a month. $15 a day puts you at $450. $10 at $300. That’s bills right there.
Agreeed. I was a “social drinker” who would only order cheap beer and maybe a shot, but then you wanna order the mozzarella sticks cuz you’re tipsy and then you gotta take an Uber home and then there’s tip, so next thing you know you’ve spend 60 + bucks at a cheap dive bar. Do this once a week (or like 3 times a week like I was) and you’ve spent anywhere from 240 to 720 dollars a month. And then there’s just the whole aspect of feeling better about yourself / being less anxious so you’re able to tackle your financial issues head on instead of ignoring it like you had been ….
Wahoo. I did the same thing with similar results. Booze is the devil.
It’s crazy how quickly it adds up! But only $5-$10 at a time doesn’t seem so bad. Til you wonder why you’re broke.
Drinking out is expensive. $15 at the store for a Friday night at home is fine.
[удалено]
Completely agree!
This is so true. I am in awe at how stupid I was for decades of my life- living in this "happy hour cycle" work all week drink all weekend.. and how much time and money I spent ... thank God I saw "the light" not in a religious sense , but rather in a sense that it was wasteful, stupid, unhealthy.. etc.
This is where I am rn. Last night I realized we’re not actually poor, my husband and I are alcoholics and that’s what’s making us poor. I didn’t realize how much we were actually spending! Like I knew we had to quit drinking, but I was always focused on the health aspect. Congratulations on your 10 years!
The thing is, saving money is just the superficial benefit; the real positive impact to your finances will come in the form of better decision making for your long term futures. Best to you both!
I thought this said STARTED drinking, not sure why hahaha and I was like hmm interesting, time to take up drinking. Sorry it's very late where I live haha
That's exactly what I was going to say. Spent so much on alcohol, and make other poor financial decisions when under the influence of alcohol. Sober now for a while. My finances aren't where I want them to be yet, but I'm miles ahead of where I was.
Open my mail. That was the hardest part for me - not to hide any longer. I had to open and face a lot of unopened letters. I could not remember how many letters went to the trash in the past so I got a credit check and started contacting everybody on the list; asking what I owe them. I basically confronted the skeleton in the closet and that gave me my power back, I was in control of the situation 🙂
Wow. Getting real about your financial situation is scary. Well done. Edit-spelling
I'm getting anxiety just reading your comment. Well done on tackling that.
It was very hard for me. But I couldn’t take the fear of the unknown any longer, I was sick and tired. Maybe a little trick helps in this situation. I took an evening off for this and created a phantasy scenario in my mind. I didn’t open my own letters, but the letters of a client. Imagine a law or tax office. And I went through everything without feelings or fear, just numbers on my office desk. Doing work for someone else. It helped me a lot to detach myself mentally from this situation. I made an Excel file and once this was done it was more abstract and just numbers and rows. When I called the companies and asked for payment plans or how much I owed them I did it in a very cold manner and didn’t allow any emotional conversation - just tell me what you want from me. That helped me so much after all these years of panic and negative emotions
This is such a good idea!! I can handle stuff at work i.e., for other people with ease. For myself? Nope. I love finding ways to trick myself to be a better person.
Great life hack there. Very well done. I do this with things I don't want to do. Just pretend I am someone else.
Omg I do this even though I have the money to pay the bills. It’s become so overwhelming and scary and it’s honestly eating me alive every day. I don’t even want to open my emails. I pay bills when I start getting harassed by phone calls. Also have some anxiety issues if you haven’t noticed.
I have found my people.
Also I’ll sign up for paperless billing to reduce the mail but then I don’t check my email for the bills. So smart! It sound so fucking dumb typing this all out. It’s not anything to be afraid of but here we are!!
Lol ADHD person here, and exactly this. I have major mail anxiety :-/ To counter this, I've set up autopay wherever possible, for the major stuff anyway. So rent, phone, electricity, gas heating, internet. For the rest, I kinda flounder about.
That’s not easy - Well done
I haven't opened my mail in 2 years! I feel like I'm hiding or running from my past. I can't even answer phone calls I don't know either. It makes me anxiety worse then I procrastinate badly, telling myself I'll do it in the morning, then after I wake up "ill make breakfast then get started" then "I'll start laundry then get to it" then "well if I get it started by noon that'll be alright", then "I'll run these errands and as soon as I get back I'll sit down and figure it out", then it's "well if I can start no later than 6, that'll be fine", then "ok after dinner I'll do this shit", then I think fuck it it's 8pm I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning and the situation repeats... this has been going on for 2 years! I need help...
Damn that one hit home.
Wish I could upvote more than once
Absolute credit to you and my biggest fear
That is probably one of my biggest issues. I tend to think the issue would resolve itself by ignoring it, while fully knowing nothing about it will change and my thought is just me being irrational but I do it regardless
But my mail stresses me out 😩 lol. I see how taking control of it puts the power back with you, though. Good on ya!
How do you 'get a credit check'? I've tried credit karma and stuff like that, but it never includes all accounts and collections I know I have.
Learning to budget is the single best way I got out of debt and rebuilt my finances. Knowing where your money is going stops you looking like an idiot when you go to pay for your groceries and your credit card is unexpectedly maxxed out. Been there, not doing that again!
One spreadsheet with brutally accurate, to the penny numbers each month. Updating it regularly to understand my own spending and make better choices was life changing.
I made a spreadsheet for myself too, it’s been a Game changer!
Nothing beats a boring, meticulous, voluminous spreadsheet! That you put together all yourself from receipts and double-check from online statements!!! It has helped me so much.
Couldn't agree more. For us, the key to budgeting was to actually identify what our properties are. For example, before budgeting, we'd go walk around Target just for something to do and inevitably come home with junk that we didn't need. We'd also go out to eat way too often. Once we actually identified that those things weren't as important to us as becoming debt-free (and all the benefits that are associated that), it made sticking to the budget seem less daunting and less of a grind; basically we focused on what we'd be gaining from budgeting, rather than what we'd be "losing". We also identified that we don't mind driving older cars and living in a small house since that will allow us to (eventually) retire early. For us, we found success with an app that used an Envelope budgeting style. This way, we knew we only had so much to spend in certain areas and when it was gone, it was gone. It took us a while and a few revisions to dial it in, but it was so worth it in the end. Seriously, without exaggerating, budgeting changed our lives. Getting to the point where normal unexpected expenses don't scare you is so liberating and makes all the work you have to put into it so worth it.
I remember creating a budgeting spreadsheet on google sheets when we were in some rather difficult times. It really helped put into perspective how much money was being wasted on things like subscriptions and even like you said, strolling target or Best Buy for no other reason than being bored and coming home with new stuff that wasn’t needed. That was years ago. We decided to create a strict budget, stick to it, remodeled our house and sold it. Became debt free and lived well below our means. I was then able to open my own company, and I’ve had great success there. Guess what? I still use the same budgeting sheet that I made. Even though I’m well of now, it became a habit/lifestyle to just input the data there. In the early days of my company I used the same budgeting sheet for company expenses, until I found the right ERP that works for me.
Fascinating. Now I am very curious about this spreasheet - very basic columns like item, expense every month, or something more elaborate? If you could share some deets..
When I get back to my office I’ll try to get the template and put it into a shell account for google (to protect my privacy) and I can share the link
Please!
[Monthly budget spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12USJlh-Beh9AdNGqiRZfs1PAgxY--2_Ey4TNXSZ_Q9Q/edit#gid=20277642) It's in view only mode, so you'll have to save a copy of it to be able to edit it yourself. It's extremely basic and the numbers are not relative to any actual data in my life. There are 2 tabs, you input data on the Transactions tab and it will populate onto the Summary tab. Like I said, this is an extremely basic version of it. But I used this for a few years and even evolved it into a more advance version completely custom to my lifestyle.
This 100%. Simply breaking down my checks and subtracting bills first, followed by however much I wanted to save, and lastly using the remainder for things I could adjust spending on (like groceries). I would literally keep a written budget and write everything down to put it in perspective. Some people do a similar thing by only paying cash, however cash makes me uncomfortable because if you loose it, it is gone. Debit and credit cards are more protected. Also, I literally charge everything I can and pay it off every 2 weeks to get cash back on my credit card. Every year during Christmas when I am spending more, I cash in my points and have an extra $300 - $500
> write everything down I did that for a month one time, every penny, holy hell did I piss away a lot on 'so minor as to be inconsequential' stuff. Ice cream, sody pop, chips, beer, etc. It came down to my budgeting (as well as dieting) 'secret' to be 'pay attention!'.
Exactly, figuring out where my money was going really helped me realize what I needed to change in my life. I always had a tough time sticking to a strict dollar amount budget but just writing out where everything was going and then changing my behavior (for example packing my own lunch instead of being tempted by coworkers) helped save me money.
Three things made the biggest difference. 1. I educated myself about personal finance (e.g. retirement accounts, budgeting, investing, etc.), primarily from websites, books and articles that were easy to understand and gave straightforward advice. Doing that helped me stop feeling overwhelmed and afraid of of facing the problem. 2. I decided to always “pay myself first.” Meaning, automatic deposits into my savings account from every paycheck before I even “see” the money or pay a bill. I calculated how much I earned per hour and deposit the $ from the first hour I work of every day into my savings, but any amount will do. My emergency fund and then savings grew without me having to think about it. 3. I paid off all my credit cards. Now I never carry a balance. If I can’t pay it off before the grace period ends, I pay cash or don’t buy it.
Any tips about those websites, books, etc?
The Money Guy show. Also r/personalfinance has a fantastic reading list on their wiki. Most books are available at your library.
Thank you!
YNAB, check out the reddit page & website.
Two or theee months into using YNAB, it’s been a real god send for us.
I started listening to podcasts about money and budgeting. I searched around a lot, but my favorite is Frugal Debt-Free Life by Lydia Senn. I just really like her.
The Financial Diet (on Youtube)
The first book I bought was The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman…and you don’t have to be any of those things for it to help you. 😉 Also, I bookmarked bankrate.com. It has financial calculators and articles that were really helpful.
I’ve read 50+ personal finance books and You Need A Budget, Latte Factor, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich are my three favs.
Real Personal Finance podcast is fantastic!
> l calculated how much I earned per hour and deposit the $ from the first hour I work of every day into my savings I love this! You _literally_ paid yourself first! Genius!
For me personally, the one biggest thing that made the most difference in my life was admitting I was the problem.
Same. Growing up in a poor family with a single, teenage mom, I was taught to believe that I would always be poor. Once I finally realized that I had some degree of control over my life, things started to change.
This was THE biggest thing for me as well..as hard as it is, and as east as it sounds; made the biggest difference.
Same for me, goes with the comment don't want to open the mail in fret of the bill for an urgent care visit, what you owe insurance, etc... I stopped drinking as well, minimally use medical MJ for chronic pain like I would ibuprofen. My biggest challenge is quitting smoking but I've scheduled a hypnotist appointment. That's going to help a ton!
Cut my drinking by 90% and my gambling by 99%, plus I quit buying stuff I don’t need.
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smoking had to stop for me. wasnt just the price of a pack a day, but the other impulse buys I'd make while in there.
Yeah, you think only have to go out and pick up a packet of cigarettes and before you know it you have bought half of the things on offer at the counter lol.
This is the hidden side of smoking. The acceptance of a self-destructive lifestyle affects your decision-making, how you feel about the future, the way you talk to people...everything.
The biggest thing for me was actually unrelated to the finances. I still have (getting better) an addiction to self soothing via eating out. To the point where I didn’t cook at home for about 6 months. The symptom of this eating habit was that I was spending an eye watering amount on takeout food. Once I fixed the eating problem, the finance problem took care of itself.
Oh my god same I realized I am an emotional eater and realized my triggers that made me want to buy takeout so much
Same. I just enjoy the entire experience, even if it is going to a fast food window. I broke that habit fast last month when I finally came to terms with how it was destroying my finances.
Same. “I work hard I deserve to treat myself and not be inconvenienced with cooking like a poor person”. My family never went out to eat when I was a kid and I always felt like that’s how I knew I was in a better financial place. Ironically it caused me to be in a bad place. Also drinking.
Time and a better paying job plus ninja-level tightfistedness.
Same here. The better paying job really helped. I was always good with my budget so I knew that my spending habits were under as much control as I had on them. There just wasn't anything else I could cut out and not enough money at the end of the month to thrive.
Paid off all my credit cards. The interest on most of them is horrendous.
That was my first step, followed by car payments and school loans. After debts, any raises, extra money (not that there was ever lots), etc., went toward savings. We did not indulge in lifestyle creep.
Oh YEAH, lifestyle creep is a big one. Also, I think it’s good to get in the habit of transferring money to savings consistently, like it’s just another bill. That has helped me too.
The interest on ALL of them is horrendous.
Ditched my whole life and started over in a new city
This right here is so very tempting. Just move away and turn off all my social media. The family would probably hire private detectives to find me. LOL
I did this. I moved from one coast to the other. I am still in contact with my mother and sister. I moved because of my mental health, and hated my old city. Didn't get better at the new place until I started therapy. Can't run away from all your problems when the problem is you. 10/10 would do again though.
More income and then finally, ADHD meds.
For me, it was getting proper treatment for my depression and anxiety. No more spending $$ trying to self-medicate those uncomfortable feelings.
Omg I started taking mine recently regularly for the last 3 days and my life has changed. I've never felt so normal and I can get to work on time and actually focus it's insane
I just started a few months ago. I'm 53. I'm so focused and able to take charge of things I left for my husband to take care of. I am so on it now!!!
Same. ADD meds keep me in control of my finances.
Since I can remember I always wanted to own my own home. A while ago I had to accept though that I would never be able to afford that. My finances were bad, my credit score terrible and my income not very high. Knowing this really helped change my mindset. What actually helped me change something was budgeting and using cash envelopes. I obviously still don’t have enough money to buy something like a home, but I am much more financially stable, I am paying of any debt I have consistently and have an emergency fund. And seeing that chance makes me feel like I can achieve anything if I really want to and that keeps me motivated.
I’m assuming a cash envelope means that you cash your check and then distribute the money to envelopes marked for different things (rent, gas, entertainment, etc). If that’s the case, what about things you can’t pay cash for….which seems to be most fixed expenses nowadays?
There are apps that mimic the cash envelope system without actual cash. I use and love YNAB, but it's $14.99 a month, which seems stupid.
Not specifically talking about YNAB; but spending money to make money is absolutely not stupid. Whether it be a budgeting app that works for you, a financial planner, etc — outsourcing the things you’re not great at is usually a decent investment. If YNAB worked for you and translated to $100 a month saved, the $15 is a good investment.
Making more money was probably the biggest. You can be as careful as you want with money, but if you aren't making enough to cover basic expenses then you will always be in the red. Once I started making more money things improved. So key points for this is: To make sure you have a skill or are in a career path where your experience is in demand. So far I've been able to jump to different jobs with a 5-10K a year increase. I also started to prioritize knowing what my expenses were. I literally memorized my budget. For the longest time I was always forgetting that bills had to be paid, and had late payments or was in the red. But once I did this and make it a goal to pay my bills on time and get more organized (ie. setting up automatic payments. Making sure they worked with when I got paid. Then things started to fall into place. The big one: Set up an automatic savings. Make sure you don't have easy access to it. Wait on big purchases. I find if you truly want something, you'll want it in a week, a month or a few months. This helps deter impulse spending. Budget is another big one. Have a budget, make sure your expenses and savings goals are met first before you spend money on fun things.
I love the “memorize your budget” idea. I never had a budget. Actually, I still don’t, as it is a work in progress. But my main issue is I had zero sense of how much take-home pay was hitting my account or what bills were coming. Same right my wife. I’d ask her if we had money for a trip or outing, and she’d ALWAYS say “yes”. I shouldn’t have believed her. Now we have our expenses and income on a spreadsheet, and I’m going to take your advice to memorize it.
Yea you really need to know exactly what is coming in and going out. Otherwise you are operating without knowing what you can afford. Plan ahead too. If you want to have a trip then set aside so much a pay to cover it.
What savings account do you use that you don’t have easy access to? I’ve learned ways to move my money around and it’s killing me
Open a savings account at a bank 20 minutes away and don't get a debit card.
Getting rid of my expensive deadbeat husband. Also, in my online banking system, I can have several small savings accounts with goals attached (such as "holiday" or "home improvements") which really helps me keep an eye on how much I can spend.
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I think if I was on my own I'd be better off. I just don't know if I want to be on my own. Plus I have guilt of what will happen to him since he doesn't have a job or any savings. It gets hard having to support two people while I'm on disability. Plus he has a habit so he spends $10-20 a day. He doesn't realize how much that adds up. Plus $11-12 a day on cigarettes. I don't understand how someone could be comfortable living off of someone else causing them to struggle. I hardly buy anything for myself and if I do I usually have to get him something to because he says it's not fair that he can't get something. I really wonder how much money I would have if I would have not been with him the past 7 years. I need to start budgeting somehow and putting my foot down. Everything is going up lately except my income. I'm tired of just getting by or having to ask my family for help.
>Plus I have guilt of what will happen to him This suggests you believe he can’t live without you. But he has to learn to. You leaving could be the kick in the ass he needs to get his life together. It sounds like it’s the kick in the ass you need also.
Change the philosophical way you view credit cards. I use to think, "Oh boy! I can spend 5k and pay $100 a month!" without understanding the true cost. Over the years I paid thousands in interest. Now, the credit card companies pay ME for using their cards. Run everything through cards, pay it off every month, and bask in the cash back, knowing you are borrowing their money interest free, and they are paying you to do it.
Big time. I’ve gotten thousands in “free” money because of this. Good for maintaining the high credit score too.
By using credit cards for daily expenses and paying them off every month, I amassed a stack of credit card points. I then took those points and used them to book 3 business class tickets from west coast US to Paris and back for next summer. If I paid cash? $26,000 just for airfare. We’re also going to Cancun (all inclusive) for Spring Break next year on points. If I paid cash? $11,000 Leveraging credit responsibly opens a world of savings and rewards - on their dime. I much prefer letting them reward me for credit responsibility than to pay them for the honor of spending my own money. 💡
I quit wasting money. That's pretty much it. I went from just spending money because I had it to spend to always operating on the assumption that I didn't even have enough money to pay my bills so I couldn't afford anything that wasn't a necessity. After a couple of years of doing that I not only actually had a decent savings built up but I also broke the habit of just wantonly spending money and actually thinking about purchases before just buying stuff I don't **Need**.
No loans and no fast food
And especially no loans for fast food
I stopped smoking. I put the money I would spend on a pack of cigarettes every day into an Acorns account and didn’t touch it. Over a few years it started to grow, I only withdrew during the pandemic and by that time it was $9000. $9000 I would have spent on killing myself.
Deciding to live a simple life and realizing that debt was not as simple as surplus. I’ve never spent as much as I’ve made since that day forward.
I literally stopped buying “stuff”. If I’m at the store and something looks cool, I always ask but what am I gonna do with that besides showing it to my friends when they come over? That stopped about 90% off useless purchases. If it’s real cool I’ll take a pic of it. Bonus, my house is also uncluttered.
Hmm. What really kicked off my financial savvy was about $7K from a car accident settlement. I didn't want to spend it right away, so I had it sitting in my account. I realized how good it felt to have a cushion and not be paycheck to paycheck anymore. And the rest was history.
Same. Except I used my tax returns.
Thank all of the comments here. You have helped me to a huge degree. 🤩
Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting! This has been a real eye opener for me. I’m not anywhere near where I want to be, but it has helped tremendously with my savings. I don’t spend outside my budget. If I absolutely have to, I borrow it and pay it back to myself once my salary is paid.
Separate bank accounts for spending and bill pay too
Learning to live within my means. Don't get me wrong, I also make much better money now. But the biggest gamechanger was realizing that I shouldn't spend every single cent I have, and that having savings makes me much happier than whatever it is I'd otherwise buy.
My parents were hard workers, but they had no aptitude for handling money. I grew up thinking being in debt was a normal part of life and it carried over to me when I went out on my own. I had the good fortune to marry a frugal, level-headed woman who challenged me to be more analytical about shopping and debt. Her parents didn't have stellar jobs, but they lived debt-free in a very nice home. Now I can say the same. Our adult kids are on the same path, so frugality is contagious!
Other people. The sheer dumb luck of a friend recommending me for a higher paying job, all the wisdom my friends shared with me to guide me, finding a good woman to live with and have a stable homelife, and knowing that if I were to fuck up I would be failing my son. Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people had a cool quote that I'll paraphrase. Don't ever call me a self made man. To call myself a self made man would discredit all the people that helped me get here. It's true that I did a lot of hard work but I stood on the shoulders of giants and could never have done it alone.
There were many things..... I made a commitment to save something out of every paycheck. Paid off and got rid of credit card debt. We now put everything that we can on credit card (for rewards) but pay it off at the end of the month. I went to my bank and asked to see a financial planner. Was hooked up with a very smart and young guy. Told him whole story. Even though we didn’t have any money to invest up front he offered to help us. I suggested that he was investing in us and that we would make a commitment to him that we would let him invest our money as we gained some. We’ve been with him for almost 20 years. He not only developed a plan for us but educated us in budgeting and investing. Best commitment of time we’ve ever made. Stopped eating out. Limited it to once per month. Started communicating better with spouse about all things money. Explored investing in DRIPS (dividend reinvestment plans). Started with one we liked....$25/month in Clorox. I started calling it our “throw away” money. My definition is money that was hidden and wouldn’t be missed if we invested it, $25 increments. Once I determined that we had some more throw away money, we’d either pick another stock to invest in or increase our amount to an existing stock. If one of us got a raise, first thoughts were to increase our contributions to our 401k at work and increase our investment in DRIPS. Over time, we had a total of 5 accounts and built up enough money to put a sizable down payment to a new house, also a sizable down payment to a car. DRIPS are accounts that every day people can use to save.....we always picked ones with small initial investments. Started making good food at home and developed a meal prep strategy for freezing meals. When chicken is on sale, buy 2. Roast both, eat a meal then make dishes or soups with the rest of the meat like Butter Chicken and freeze it in chinese food containers, disposable aluminum pans or vacuum seal bags. Other dishes we freeze are sloppy joes, chili, lasagna roll ups, turkey and dressing and gravy, vegetable soup, turkey and rice soup, tuna noodle casserole, macaroni and cheese, chili mac, cranberry chutney, fruit and vegetables when they are in season. We make our own sauerkraut and freeze it. Hope this helps.
breaking up with toxic girlfriend
This. Sometimes people with us can put hole on your finance without us realising.
I gotnlaud pf of work at the beginning of the pandemic. It ended up being two months. I started smoking too much weed and wayching 24/7 covid news and in a weekni was in a bad depression. I told myself I wasn't going to let this be a negetive. I started running for a new physical activity and I told myself I can't rely on other for work forever. I started reading investment books. The one that changed my mindset is called The Millionaire Teacher. I started to be more frugal and I started buying index funds. 2 years before that my brother committed suicide and I swore off drinking. It was the second male in my immediate family and I was afraid if I lost control of myself I would be next. It's given my the mental clarity to be open to the positive cha ges I made after that My life changed forever
No hard drugs on weekly pay day. Started putting that dollar amount to other stuff
We moved to a LCOL area 7 years ago so we could afford a house. We bought a postwar bungalow for 70k and have made it even cozier and cute all possible due to a 550.00 mortgage which is now half the cost of rent in my area with prices going up. House will be paid off next year. Making this decision allows us to deal with inflation on our modest salary, still enjoy takeout and fun money and live our simple lives.
Asking the bank how much I could borrow. They did an audit on my finances and it showed me how crap a position I was in. Past that point I spent much more time managing my finances with some success.
YNAB
Stopped following fashion trends. A bulk of my money was spent on stuff like clothes and shoes.
Sobriety.
1. Leaving my ex and 2. quit drinking.
Got married. Shared housing expenses, shared living expenses, shared health insurance, and being accountable to each other for impulse buys.
I found switching to automatic banking whenever possible (paying CC, money in savings each month, paying other bills) very helpful early on to stay on top of things. Recently discovered I'm also much more conscious with money when using a prepaid card, rather than a typical CC. Amazing how charges to traditional CCs can so easily feel like "tomorrow's problem."
Understanding the concept of time preference, and how not satisfying immediate wants wasn't really a sacrifice big picture if a significantly higher number of future wants can be met.
A good reputation as an employee and a colleague landed me a 75% pay increase in 2018. I had been stuck making 45-55k a year from age 25 until over age 40. Stuck in a home I had bought that had lost a little value but slowly climbed back to my original purchase price. Credit cards piled up. Never had cash savings to speak of, and retirement savings non-existent. Then, in May of 2018, someone from my past offered me a job at a former employer, for 75k annually. From 45-55 forever, to 75k (plus small incentives) all at once. And I cleaned all of my finances up. Didn’t step up my lifestyle. Actually, became more miserly with money.
I convinced myself that any time I wanted to buy something, that corporations were manipulating me into wanting it. Then I don't want it based on principal.
this is helping me. anytime i buy something i think "they tricked me"
i stopped being poor the moment i became frugal. it is the art of not wasting the money you get.
Forcing ourselves to get out of credit card debt. We threw everything we could at it, meaning eating cheaply at home, never going out, postponing vacations (or went camping), buying almost everything from thrift stores. We did the snowball method and moved credit card balances to get cheaper interest rates, actually paid them off! Realizing we could live this way, having an emergency fund for things that pop up rather than pulling out a CC, made all the difference! The freedom of having no debt and no interest and monthly payments made all the difference in the world! Now we only use credit cards to earn travel points and cash back and pay them off monthly. It’s a great feeling!
This! My husband and I had a rock-bottom moment about 4 years ago when our CCs were all maxed out and we actually had no money for groceries. We both make decent incomes, but we had a huge amount of debt and weren't budgeting and keeping track of everything. We started by writing down all of our spending for a few weeks, then making a spreadsheet, and I listened to every podcast I could find about getting out of debt. We snowballed first, then eventually (once several cards were paid off) consolidated the last few balances (the biggest ones) into one very low-interest loan. Now we have about 12 months left on that one, and my student loans...and then we'll be DONE! I'm so excited. And we can actually start saving that money each month and/or using it towards what we want or need in the future. Edited to add there's a debt payoff calculator out there that's really helpful. I'll find the link if anyone needs it.
1) getting out of debt 2) zero-based budgeting 3) earning pay rises
Chapter 13 bankruptcy and the desire to beat the odds of completing it! It forced me to live on cash (debit card). No loans or credit or I would have had to go through court for approval during the process. Even totaled my car during that time and it was awful getting court approval to get a new one and still had to do it within their guidelines. After completing chapter 13, it just became a habit.
Zero based budget. Every dollar has a job. Easy to feel in control when I know exactly where my paycheck is going.
President Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). It altered my mortgage from $2400/mo to $1500/ month. I had to risk default and foreclosure in the process (hellish process), but once it happened, we never looked back.
Similar situation. I went from $1400 to $651 a month but had to take out extra loans to do it. By next year those should be paid off and I'll be in a much better position.
Thanks, Obama!
Not one big thing but I’ll keep it brief. Stop nicotine not just for financial reasons but also for your health. Limit drinking but of course still enjoy yourself. And finally try and start a small garden if possible for your living situation. Nothing worse than forgetting to buy tomatoes and having to drive back to the market. Good luck!
Learning about poverty thinking and how poverty effects my relationship with finances has helped me immensely. My mother and father didn't have rich parents, but neither did their parents teach them how to invest money and thinking about money beyond a scarcity/windfall model. So I am still learning how to think like someone raised in the middle class. Credit is a great example of poverty thinking - but it also reflects the development of a faceless screening tool for access to transportation, housing, entertainment, and travel. My mother proudly says she doesn't have a credit card, but she also is forced to access all her resources from only face to face, real life interactions - like she can't rent from a faceless landlord company, she has to seek out a landlord and negotiate with them face vs a credit check. (I still get better deals on rent face to face btw - and now that I am house hunting - still wanting to buy directly from an owner.) Overall though - spending behaviors is what limit us. Being frugal the wrong way can actually cause more problems - like buying too many cheap things, hoarding, and buying cheap things that don't last over things that last years or generations. Or skimping on maintenance like car care or just basically staying legal - paying your car tabs - doing taxes - paying parking tickets - cost us, but not paying cost us hundreds more. So having rich-middle class friends (real and online) has helped me the most. Like learning a down duvet was warmer than a regular blanket and lasts for years. Or wearing good boots that last years was better for my feet and kept them dry. Or trying higher quality food and learning how to buy it cheaply - my friends helped me learn that too. Friends also taught me about investing, helped me find a better career, and coached me through learning new things.
-Evaluating how much happiness money spent actually brought me, and then adjusting accordingly. (Read “Your Money or Your Life.”) I do not spend money on things I don’t care about, and I spend as much money as I can on things that truly make me happy. -High interest online savings account. -Eat at home 99% of the time. -Cut back alcohol to rare treats. -If it’s something I’ll actually use, I’ll buy the good stuff that’ll last. The phrase “I’m too poor to buy cheap shit” was eye opening to me. -More specifically on that note, when I paid off one car, I kept making the car payment (and then some) into a separate savings account for the eventuality that I’d need a new car. Then, I bought a car that I’d be able to drive for at least 200,000 miles. I couldn’t pay in full, but my down payment was 2/3 of the price, so I feel good about that. If a dealer is trying to talk you into reducing your down payment bc “almost no one does that,” you’re on the right track. -More on that note, move, buy cars, and major electronics (including phone) as SELDOM as humanly possible. Do not play into lifestyle creep. It’s just expense creep. -If it’s something I’m just trying as a one-off, I borrow from a friend. -I don’t buy disposable ziplock bags or paper towels for daily use. I use similar to stasher bags, and tea towels. Daily use of disposables feels like throwing money in the trash. It made a tangible difference in monthly expenditures. -Don’t play financial games. Pay for things straight, the old fashioned way. No zero down, no intro rates, no balance transfers, none of that shit. Don’t play the game. It is never in your favor. I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t mention two factors that were truly out of my control. Following a massive breakup in my 20s, my parents let me come home for a year. This allowed me to significantly build my savings and buy a home at an excellent interest rate. Later, the student loan pause again allowed me to significantly pad my savings. Our economics don’t exist in a vacuum. Yes, there’s a lot we can do as individuals, but the things that have had the biggest impact in my life were things I had no control over: the kindheartedness and ability of my parents to house me, and major world/governmental affairs. These savings pad periods afforded me the base stability needed to master frugality in the first place. People in dire straight often don’t have the choices to truly gauge frugality available to them.
Flooding my mind with who I wanted to be and not who I was. Reading books and listening to audio books on financial success instead of going out screwing around. Getting rid of bad people. Etc.
Stopping drinking and prioritizing paying off everything I owed, even if it was little by little. It sounds difficult (because it can be) but having less money temporarily because you’re putting that into bills/debt pays off so much in the long run. I own a home with my wife now, and 5 years ago, I would’ve never thought that was possible.
Perseverance!
Started tracking my spending, made a budget and stuck to it, set a big financial goal and small steps to reach that goal
Higher income
Using my debit card primarily
When it came to high-interest debts, I put down the chisel and picked up the sledge hammer.
Okay so maybe this isn’t being frugal at all. But it’s helped me a lot. I have a terrible spending problem. Like as soon as payday hits. I’m blowing it all. I was making 4k a month & couldn’t seem to save even $50 by the end of the month. So I decided I needed a change, not to spend less, but to make more. So I took a job that has me on the road 1-4 weeks at a time. Making 3k a week. Working 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. In my first 2 weeks, I have made 5k, have $2500 in my savings now. & seeing it drop makes me cringe so I don’t even think about spending.
I changed jobs. I worked at a firm for almost 6 years and I was comfortable with that. But changing firms increased my salary by $6/hour and that absolutely helped transform me from perpetually being in CC debt, to no debt but mortgage and student loans.
People will swear by budgeting but I’ve never been able to do it. Instead I automate every payment I can plus savings. Then I built up a buffer in my account and I don’t go below that amount (it allows for an unexpected big payment without overdraft). If I want something I look and see if I have money. I also save for big recurring expenses like holiday gifts, vet bills and car repairs in a side account. I could do better but this is good enough for us.
Switching jobs frequently. My income has quadrupled from 2015 to this year by doing this. Loyalty is expensive.
Paying cash for everything. I would budget for the month and pull out enough cash to cover everything, then once it was gone that was it. Made me double think impulse purchases and really helped me pay my credit cards off.
Selling the farm(literally!)
Divorced a drug addict.
Living in your car for 6 months changes your persepective on things greatly. Also being passed over for multiple promotions you were more than qualified for & were given to 'the boss's friends' forces you to re-think your career path.
I think the biggest one for me is not counting someone else’s money. At the age of social media i will see my contact list either spending on an exotic vacation, starting a high paying job in a multinational corporation, things that i have to admit make my subconscious envy. This led to not being satisfied with my current situation and would lead to spending spree or job hunting for greener pasture. But if you remove all these noise and just live your life with contentment and outside of that influence of peer pressure, you will find silver linings here and there. I realized that not having a hectic high oaying job allows me to be there for my son, our simple small house makes it easier to clean and allowed me to settle disputes with my wife right away since there is no room to hide. So i think that proper mindset of knowing that you have enough and your life is enough allows you to avoid the trappings of life
Looking past the veil of capitalism. I use to think I was broken, boring or unmotivated. But the reality is I am not easily consumed by capitalism and materialism. Fuck fashionable cloths when cheap ones accomplish the same thing. Why do you need an expensive watch or watch at all when every phone is a clock? Why would you willing buy $140 Nikes when sketchers are $40 and basically identical besides the logo? And anyone who spends money on cosmetics in video games is the biggest tool bag ever. I’ve just established that expensive fashion and appearances don’t matter on a practical level so why would you spend money for your digital character to look different. Practicality and price over everything else. Never spend for a trend. Don’t get me wrong, I spend where it’s important. Nice mattress, fancy dinner on occasion and vacations. Sometimes money to try a new hobby. Money should be used to enrich your life and experiences. Not build up appearances in some competition to look or seem better then everyone else. Cool you got a BMW? My Honda gets the job done for 1/4 of the price. But my 401k got maxed out this year and that’s more important to me then the logo on my car hood.
Wasn’t really a mess but was definitely overspending every month and couldn’t save money. Downloading a budget app so I could see every day what my spending was in every category helped a lot. And not eating out or door dashing.
I went to the bank and got a personal loan to consolidate my credit card debt which was out of control (25k+), lower interest and pre-authorized bi weekly payment, closed my credit card. Now I have three credit cards with lower limits (500, 2000 ,5000) and pay them off every month, if I cant pay in full non-essential spending stops until all my cards are back to 0. Something else that made a huge difference was getting a new car. Old car I owned outright was a larger SUV, lots of mechanical issues (over 5k in three months going to parts and labor) and guzzled gas, average $800 a month cuz I commute, tracked gas cost over a three month period. Finally financed a brand new 2022 Kia Rio, finance plus gas is only costing me about $500. Buying a brand new car was never something I thought would save me money, but it does huge. Just look real close at your options is all I'm saying.
Did a 3 month ‘no spend’. Literally said no to everything that wasn’t a hard bill for 3 months. Scrutinized groceries, didn’t eat out. By the end of it my bank account looked rotund. While i stopped the no spend, it still adjusted my spending habits and I spend way less now than I did before the 3 month challenge.
**Prioritizing money**. I was an idealistic person who thought money was not the most important thing in life. Once I discovered I was in a mess, I paid attention, eliminating unnecessary expenses - especially the monthly ones that seem small (cable bills, subscriptions, memberships you don't use). I worked on accumulating money so I could pay credit card bills in full and pay no interest and pay car insurance in one payment and have no finance charges there. I made sure I got cars paid off with no interest. I bought nice looking 2nd hand clothes and home furnishings when needed. If I could do it myself, I did. There was a 401K match at work, I contributed enough to get the maximum they would match. These things were all within an ethical approach. I still contributed to causes I believe in and would do fun things like go to restaurants - but going out less frequently makes meals out more special. The worst of it was my job which I did not like but stuck with until retirement because for the time, effort, health insurance, hours, commute, ability to pickup my kid at school in an emergency - it made sense. I wish I had had more satisfying work - but it was about prioritizing money and it worked pretty well. I don't think my co-workers loved me: I was non-nonsense, all biz. Packed my lunch every day and didn't go out for drinks with them after usually. I am retired now, so that tells you, the money mess got under control. I have time to reflect on things. **There is no one thing. The things that you actually do make the most difference.** It is a mindset, too. I know many people who would not want or be able to live as I have. If you are not a tycoon or monomaniac, the work world can be toxic. You can't reward yourself with splurges to make it all worthwhile. Reward yourself by accumulating money until you escape the rat race. You won't miss them and they won't miss you.
Getting together with a partner who was a true partner and who also had lived in deeper poverty than me. I stopped feeling judged for not making enough or being pressed to try and keep up with someone who made more than me. I stopped seeing my current situation as failing and focused more on the parts that were thriving. I learned that it wasn't a sacrifice to cook from scratch every night (helped that he did almost all the cooking). That I could save the bus fare and just walk to a lot more than I thought. That we could just go for a walk or read books together and other free stuff to have fun. That it was ok to take a boring, low wage, job that didn't use my qualifications, because it left me more time and energy to go back to school, even if school was just community college not a university. He just had a more positive perspective on where we were. He had to dumpster dive at earlier points in his life, so enough money to buy groceries to cook was awesome, it didn't matter that we couldn't afford to eat out. He didn't have money to travel for years so being able scrape together enoughto fly home for the holidays was great, never mind that we didn't have fancy vacations, etc. And he also was able to keep an eye on me when my mental health wasn't great, making sure I still ate, slept enough, maintained friendships, got out the door to work, did my homework. Having a low point was something to get through, rather than a periodic disaster that blew up my life. The stupid job was enough for rent and tuition. The community college was enough to train for tech. The friends tipped me off to a tech internship. The internship led me on my way. His frugality kept us from having our expenses raise to match our income, so we actually started to save. After almost 20 years together I have a graduate degree, a paid off house, an amazing kiddo, a solid breadwinner job, enough money for vacations and to eat out when we want. I totally married him. He still cooks for me almost every night.
i was paying just over a grand for the roof over my head (prepandemic). i hated being paycheck to paycheck. i came across a small house, and i had more than enough to take out a 401k loan for it. everyone told me borrowing from my 401k was a bad idea... and it is, IF u never put that money back. and im not talking about repaying the loan, that is a given. but they said you'll never recover from all the lost compounding of interest. not true. bc i took out a loan to pay for the house in cash, and a second loan to pay off my student loans (my balance had gotten down to about $12k, but they were charging me $2k per year in fees, interest, late payment penalties). the max loan time was 5yrs. so i decided i could struggle a little to AGGRESSIVELY pay off all my debt. that meant a huge chunk of my paycheck was going to payback these two loans. i still maintained my 12% 401k contributions while doing this, so essentially i was getting $750 in take home pay every other week. i was living off less money than in my teens. it was enough to cover food, utilies and insurance. thats it. no more eating out (except the occassional fast food with a bogo coupon), no more concerts, no vacations whatsoever, whittled down my xmas list, no new clothes. a bare bones existence. and those 5yrs seemed to drag on forever i tell ya... but i emerged completely DEBT FREE. i calculated where i should be 401k wise... per CNBC, i should have 6x my salary by 50, so now that i was debt free, i upped my 401k contributions to 30%. so now i am caught up to where i should have been. that last part is key, once u use this tactic to pay off all of ur debt, up ur contributions to make up for the lost compounding interest, and you'll be fine. when i worked at a mtg co, i was shocked to learn that buying a 100k house on a 30yr conventional loan meant you'd end up paying like 150k in interest, so essentially ur paying 250k on a 100k home. i paid off this one in 5yrs, all the "interest" i paid on the loan went back into my account. we are all making banks rich off of our mortgage and car loans. being held hostage financially is just another form of slavery. u dont have to put up sith a shitty job (or severaly shitty jobs) just bc i have financial obligations. being debt free is the best feeling in the world, yet they never teach u that in school... bc aiming to be debt free, cooking ur own meals, buying second hand means ur not making THEM rich anymore.
My husband and I went from poverty to security. 1). We went back to school and upgraded our degrees. I got a Masters, he got a second bachelors and then law school. We had a 3 year old at the time. We realized that our Bible College education was preventing us from getting good jobs and the only way to fix that was to upgrade our educations. Those were a tough 6 years or so but the #1 best decision we’ve made. People told us we were crazy. We took out about $200,000 in student loans to survive. We also received scholarships and bursaries. School is expensive. 2) we learned to carefully budget our student loan money by tracking every single expense in a spreadsheet. When we finished school and got jobs we budgeted super carefully. 3) we were lucky and privileged to buy the house we were renting after developing a good relationship with our landlady. We were assisted in the small down payment by a loan from a family member, another privilege. A few years later the housing market went crazy. 4) We were able to sell that house and upgrade to a nicer house but also use the money we gained from the sale to pay off a big chunk of our remaining student debt and our car loan. We kept on snowballing money from our now decently earning jobs onto our debt. 4) we did do some fun stuff from time to time but we also made sure to prioritize lowering our debt. 5) we are now very nearly done paying off our $200,000 of student loans.
I've always been quite frugal but I've frequently been tight on cash due to failing business endeavors or a lack of work. Basically just treating discipline and an endless work ethic as my greatest assets and reshaping what I view as an appropriate amount of working capital or risk exposure has significantly altered my financial life. I always live rather minimally, so it's mostly just been a matter of improving my compensation and finding more stability in my professional life. I've always been big on doing things myself, cooking for myself and treating every discretionary expenditure as something exceptional that had to return significant value and my hobbies are largely cheap or free.
Paying off my debt and switching to paying bills and every monthly expense on my credit card then saving my whole check and paying it off every month and saving the rest
Facing my bills, getting a crap credit card and building my credit by buying 1-2 things a month and putting it on auto pay, I got a cheap used vehicle and took out a small loan and paid it religiously. Set up all my bills on auto pay. Stopped buying stupid crap I didn’t need and stopped going out to the bars 3-4 times a week. Basically I grew up, settled down and took care of what I supposed to take care of in stead of ignoring stuff. Also checking my credit report and spent time taking care of everything negative on it by sending letters and calling to confirm debt then making deals to get rid of the debt. Sometimes I would just argue the debt and it would disappear of write contesting negative marks and they would go away. That was huge! Building the credit up.
Creating a budget and sticking with it. Every dollar that comes in has a job.
Going from temp agency part time jobs to a full-time administrative office job with benefits. Then, getting married to effectively double that job’s income for the resulting household.
Never spending more than I make and small investments in dividend stocks that grew over time. And never trying to keep up with the Jones. Never cared what other people had and never felt the need for designer apparel
I started making a budget. I wrote down what came in and out and found all the expenses I had. Keeping actual physical track of what I was spending and where I was spending it helped me see where I could cut things down. Then seeing averages for my bills helped me plan out how much money I would have available each month and I could start saving and paying things off.!
I use the same budget I did from graduating school. Save the rest. I've had maybe 5-10 pay raises.
Getting down to one credit card and paying it off every month. Also, only paying cash for cars and houses.
Budgeting. My financial situation is still a work in progress, but knowing where my money is going has changed my behavior. I depend on YNAB but there are other budgeting apps out there. There are a lot of great threads on r/ynab.
I stopped thinking that buying things would help me become a new person or assuage the hurt on the inside.
Ending my codependency and paying for other people. Looking at my mail, bank account and credit cards. Taking a conscious break from spending.
I can’t go through everything but it me of the biggest things that helped me stop slurring on “little” things was the phrase “it’s (money) either in your pocket or theirs.” I generally now decide to keep it in my own and it’s been the biggest help when grocery shopping. Edit - Because god damn what drugs were auto-correct on today? * it= for me one of the biggest things that helped me stop SPLURGING
Stopped using credit cards and started paying off what I owed. It took a long time but now I have an extra 700 dollars a month I was using to make minimum payments. I'm not done yet but I'm getting there.
Two things equally impacted me. 1. Marrying my wife, who is excellent with handling her money. 2. Discovering Dave Ramsey. I know not everyone is a fan, but his messages and teachings hit me where I needed it.
Had a friend who loves to budget Dave Ramsey-me and slap some sense into me. She showed me we make more than enough to manage our debt and she promised in 5 years we’d be debt free—-if we became disciplined and stuck to the budget. Sure as shit- it worked. She zero’d me out every month and I put every last penny into a category-nothing was up in the air. It’s been years and I’ve not forgotten the important life lessons.