Hellobee Boards

Good post! I think many of us are guilty of putting things on credit and not cutting our lifestyles (raises hand).

We actually pay for everything on our Southwest card each month and then pay it off every month. If we have a big month (like this month where we booked 2 sets of plane tickets, a course for my husband, and bought 3 wedding gifts) I let myself pay it off over a few months.

For the past year, we saved about 20% a month (10% to my 401K and 10% in general savings). DH's salary covers our mortgage and all of our bills. My salary goes towards savings and entertainment. Now that baby winnie is on the way I'm trying to put more into our actual savings (I say I because I'm in charge of our household finances). I can only take 8 wks paid maternity leave (but can take an additional 16 wks unpaid!) and want to be able to take more and not completely stress out over it. Plus, I might go back to work part time and with child care costs.....yikes.

Within the next few months, I'd like to up our savings so that we are putting 15% in general savings. I have a target $ in mind for what I want saved when the baby is born - basically 6 months of my salary for unepxected expenses, to finance my unpaid leave, and to cover the first few months of child care. Luckily I have 8 more months to save : )

Our only debt right now are our cars and the mortgage. We don't use credit cards anymore (went through the Dave Ramsey plan, as well).

We put everything other than our monthly bills and expenses into our joint checking account. We give ourselves just $150/ea each month to "play" with. That money has to cover things like new tires, oil changes, eating out, clothes, camera lenses, video games, etc. so we have to be careful with it. At this point, we should have about 4 months of living expenses by June of next year if we stay on our current plan. We know we won't be able to save like this when a baby is here so we're doing everything we can to save, save, save now.

I'll be honest with you, I'm worried sick about not being able to afford life when a child comes along. Hearing how much it costs just to be pregnant is now worrying me even more. We don't have an extravagant lifestyle and we don't "do" a lot of stuff. Daycare costs scare me and we can't afford to have me stay home if we continue to pay down the mortgage and put 20% each into our 401k's and max our our IRA's. We want a child and will love them to pieces, but we don't want to not be able to retire someday b/c of one. Ok, I know that was a little OT, but it does help to show where all our money is going.

Yes, we did. I wasn't sure if I would be returning to work and I wanted to feel comfortable that we could live on one salary. We made a budget and each month, we entered in what we spent and made adjustments as we went along. I felt very strongly about not incurring any credit card debt and being able to fund a savings account for our child. It wasn't easy and there are things along the way that I lusted after, but I am glad we put the money away instead.