Kim
03-27-2008, 11:18 AM
Perhaps you have noticed my mentioning a certain budget/money software?
We've changed our lives. We finally have built a month's expenses. We are now able to live a month ahead rather than paycheck to paycheck. There is NO stress here anymore. I never thought we could do this well on the income we have. I always thought we'd need more to do better.
We are stress-free, solvent, padded against emergencies, and steadily chipping away now at debt. We have not used a credit card since July. There is money earmarked for all areas that we need, plus a cushion that would last us 6 weeks worth of living expenses with no income. :yay:
We are taking a long weekend trip to visit family in June, we have a beach rental for a week in August. We've paid cash for all of it.
Financially we feel competent and ready to handle it all. Now, the debt has to go and there is still a lot of that and we still have to determine our retirement investments and educational savings for our kids. When I increase our income, those are the areas we will attack first.
I wanted to share because for so long I felt like our money or lack of was controlling our lives, but now I feel like we are in control of our money and I can't believe that it wasn't like that all along. It wasn't hard to do afterall, we just needed a good tool and a hard look at what we were doing. It's amazing how much less burdened we feel and how much happier we are in all areas of our lives with this piece in its place.
ETA: the reason I feel like I need to return to teaching full time is because we did all of this while I work 2 part time jobs and switch off daycare. If we weren't doing that, we'd be struggling way more. Now, we never struggle but there isn't extra. We achieved our month's buffer with our tax refund and some other little windfalls we got over the past 6 months. I wanted to add this because if I could, I would still work part time, but I'm not able to continue working my 16 hour days and barely seeing my family at meals and bedtimes.
We've changed our lives. We finally have built a month's expenses. We are now able to live a month ahead rather than paycheck to paycheck. There is NO stress here anymore. I never thought we could do this well on the income we have. I always thought we'd need more to do better.
We are stress-free, solvent, padded against emergencies, and steadily chipping away now at debt. We have not used a credit card since July. There is money earmarked for all areas that we need, plus a cushion that would last us 6 weeks worth of living expenses with no income. :yay:
We are taking a long weekend trip to visit family in June, we have a beach rental for a week in August. We've paid cash for all of it.
Financially we feel competent and ready to handle it all. Now, the debt has to go and there is still a lot of that and we still have to determine our retirement investments and educational savings for our kids. When I increase our income, those are the areas we will attack first.
I wanted to share because for so long I felt like our money or lack of was controlling our lives, but now I feel like we are in control of our money and I can't believe that it wasn't like that all along. It wasn't hard to do afterall, we just needed a good tool and a hard look at what we were doing. It's amazing how much less burdened we feel and how much happier we are in all areas of our lives with this piece in its place.
ETA: the reason I feel like I need to return to teaching full time is because we did all of this while I work 2 part time jobs and switch off daycare. If we weren't doing that, we'd be struggling way more. Now, we never struggle but there isn't extra. We achieved our month's buffer with our tax refund and some other little windfalls we got over the past 6 months. I wanted to add this because if I could, I would still work part time, but I'm not able to continue working my 16 hour days and barely seeing my family at meals and bedtimes.