The combination to get as much into savings as possible, pay down debt, and avoid adding to our debt pile, means that some weeks money is so tight! Agh. In the old days I'd just use my credit card or something to float by during that time and keep spending as usual - but living within my means forces me to basically have to go on a total spending freeze now and again, like this week. It is a good lesson I suppose, but yikes, it is kind of a scary feeling.
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Yes.... right now. We're paying off our roof and until we do (only a couple more months, yay!) We have to be crazy careful with spending money. Its been hard, but worth it because it literally is putting a roof over lo's head.
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Yes. We are trying to save all of my PT salary for baby, pay off student loans, and carry no credit card debt. Most of my husbands first paycheck goes toward rent, so it seems like a while till the 15th. Our motto is basically buy nothing.
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Yep. I thought that once I was out of college and had a "real" job, I'd never have to worry about/deal with it...wrong. Sigh.
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Yep, the week we pay the mortgage is always an 'ouch' week...and I imagine when we have LO every week will be tight! I definitely wish I could go out right now and buy things for the nursery, but X-mas presents come first, and I can't do both this week! Darn!
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We totally have tight weeks, and I can't help but feel it is partly my fault because I'm a SAHM now. I work part time (six hours a week) as a tutor and pull in a tiny amount of money, but it isn't anything. I just know that even if I had a job, two in daycare would basically take up my whole pay check and we would be exactly in the same spot but I would be more exhausted.
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Hubby gets paid only 1x per month. Usually by the end of the month my heart is in my throat thinking about spending anything. We've had times when it was like, well can we pay that bill a bit late......eeee not fun!
@mamabehr: I hear ya Im SAHM work very very part time(10-12 hours oer month) too and I feel bad that money may not be as tight if I had more income -
Yup! That would be right now! It's hard, but we make it work. Even if it means eating pb&j for dinner : )
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I am a teacher and we only get paid once a month! It sucks, but makes you manage money really well.
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@lydg: I get paid every single Friday and it does absolutely nothing for me as far as money management goes LOL
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@mrs. bird: Ha I just had some canned turkey chili for dinner! Cost about $1
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all month
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Every week. Day before payday we usually don't spend a penny, because we don't want to go into the safety buffer.
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@highwire: yes! DH grew up very comfortably though and doesn't understand stressing about finances. He's a full time student now though and I don't make much $$ at my job and there are weeks I really stress and he doesn't understand why. Drives me nuts
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We've been there, thankfully not so much anymore but we paid our dues and are still pretty carefull not to go beyond our means. DH reminded me this just today when I wanted to spend $1000 on a play kitchen for LO and we should probably put that into our new carpet downstairs :S
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@prettylizy: I'm really hoping this season of our lives gets us in the right frame of mind and helps us get our finances into a position where we don't ever feel like there isn't enough to go around.
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@highwire: I think that's a great mindset to be in. We just paid off my student loan last week and thats the last of our debt (other than house and car). It's a strange feeling now that we're not having to pay something off. DH wants to put extra money into our mortgage now, I want a new Kate Spade bag! lol!
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@prettylizy: Nice!! We're about halfway through paying off all of our junk. Those dang student loans are all we have left and it will be so lovely to get those paid off. Hopefully just a few more years to go.
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every. single. month. i try to tell myself that we're still both young (24), and recent college grads, and it won't be like this forever... but, most of the time i just don't believe it.
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for sure
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Right now because we just bought a new house, our old house hasn't closed and we haven't sold our Seattle house yet either. Tight for 2 more days and then we should be ok with the other house closing. But we're really good at not spending after years of practice!
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Ugh, constantly. I am a student and DH cannot work yet (still waiting for his papers). We currently live on my graduate stipend that covers rent + groceries, and not much else. I just try to keep in mind that within 8 months we should be going from a no-income household to a 2-income household, and we will have some freedom to contribute more to savings/pay down debt and make an occasional fun purchase.
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Yes
we have those weeks about once a month. So stressful.
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Right now. Money's been tight, especially with LO due next month. Hubs has been pretty good about not complaining about money, but I know this is especially hard on him. I grew up without a lot, but he's always had a decent amount in the bank. We just keep reminding ourselves, that it'll all get better in a few months.
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Yes. Like right now. We combined our finances and we haven't mastered the way our paychecks are staggered. Nor have we mastered spending freezes. There have been times we've moved money over from savings to get us by. It makes me feel like we suck.
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Yes. Right now! Don't get paid again until Thursday, and pretty much have zero left in my chequing account for a few reasons: (1) All my deductions (benefits, pension etc.) come off my first pay of the month, so it's a few hundred dollars less than my second pay, (2) I do the whole "pay yourself first thing" where as soon as I get paid I pay my bills, put money in our property tax account, toward my line of credit and put money into savings (and quite a lot, as I'm trying to pay off debt and save rather aggressively) That generally means that I only have enough money left for groceries and a few incidentals. I did this week's groceries yesterday afternoon, so now I seriously have zero spending dollars until I get paid again on Thursday.
Our finances are only somewhat combined (works for us). So I'm not totally destitute, as DH has a good chunk of change in his account if I need more, but I'm trying to get used to living frugally since I'll be on mat leave for a year.
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It happens to us a lot... honestly, not because we are saving or paying off debt diligently, but because we both lose track of our spending. I've been thinking of putting us on the envelope system to really keep us to our budget for discretionary spending.
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@daniellemybelle: The mint.com app is awesome for this! It makes my life so much easier. Every time I swipe my card, it automatically categorizes it. Then I can see where I am spending the most money and adjust accordingly. You can make budgets for each category and it will tell you when you're getting close or go over. It's fun seeing your savings go up on the app, too!
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@daniellemybelle: THIS.
We make enough to pay all of our bills, no problem, but lately we've been having to shift money around to make payments on time, and I can't figure out what we're doing wrong! I'm going to look into that @char54: !Anywho, lately we're stressed about money from the 1st to the 31st when it *should* only be about a week at a time.
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@MrsTiz: Mint.com was crucial in getting me back on track - I was working on my Masters for 2 years and was using that (tuition) as an excuse for why I always had no money. Suddenly though, my M.Ed was finished and I was no longer paying tuition - and I had even received a salary increase at work for finishing - and STILL had no extra money! Lol. I was feeling super guilty b/c DH has lots of money and it so financially smart but my personal savings were pretty much zero. He was super sweet and always says its 'our money', but I felt like I should definitely be contributing more.
This helped me see things very clearly (WAAAYY too much on groceries and gifts!!) and make realistic budgets that I can stick to. Now I log in every day and don't feel stressed about money.
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It's been really hard the last couple months. We moved into a new apt that is $200 more than we were paying and we have no leftover money and have had extra expenses lately so even making minimum and required payments has been soo hard!!!
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@char54: @char54: Do you know if there is a way to split up charges on Mint? I really like the interface and concept, but when I go to Target and buy groceries, household stuff, and baby stuff, I wasn't able to separate those costs into different categories. So, I never felt like I could get a totally accurate picture of my finances so I quit using Mint.
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@highwire: Yep, just click the transaction and then hit "split". From there you can categorize different amounts based on how you'd like (just enter the $)
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@char54: Ah, thank you!
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absolutely - we are doing the same as you guys - paying a lot towards paying off debt and not using credit cards. It can be really stressful sometimes!
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@highwire: I used to be in that same position when we were paying off debt. Now that we have paid it off, it doesn't happen anymore! We are able to budget so we always have a buffer of "just in case" money. By not using your credit cards, you're doing great!!! Keep up the good work!!
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ha our tight weeks are every week. I am a SAHM so DH is the only income and he doesn't make a fortune, unfortunately. We have one small credit card but it's only used for emergency situations. We don't have much of a savings, however my car will be paid off THIS month, so we will be able to roll that over into savings, or paying off other debts.
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I don't use mint but I know its helped a lot of people. One tip that helped me (probably more than anything else) was to divide up my debts by my paychecks. So; I get paid every 2 weeks, and every 2 weeks I pay a portion of every bill so I never have a "biggie" to pay at the end of the month and am never late on any bill. As long as you make a partial payment on a debt, they won't report you to the credit bureau for being late...so even if you are having a really lean month, you won't get your credit dinged.
The other upside if you get paid every 2 weeks is that there are a few months where you get 3 paychecks instead of 2; so over the course of a year you end up making extra payments towards your debt, without feeling like you're out in extra money.
Hope this is helpful for someone!
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Yes, and sometimes I wonder where the heck all the money goes. I'm pretty darn frugal! I'm also constantly checking the bank account and crunching numbers. It drives me insanzy. I can't wait to finish paying off some wedding debt (which isn't much, thankfully) so I don't have to stress myself out!
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@yoursilverlining: I get paid bi-weekly on Thursdays! So, my next three check month is January. Stokement!
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