Spinoff: How do you live below your means?

[Anonymous]

Work hard to the point that there is no time left for me to spend money.
I work 6 days a week. I have a high paying job. I work a second job on the week end.
I'm always working and there is no time left for me to do anything else.
I live way below my means. I rent a bedroom in a basement for $500.
I have been doing this for 10 years. My savings keep growing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Work hard to the point that there is no time left for me to spend money.
I work 6 days a week. I have a high paying job. I work a second job on the week end.
I'm always working and there is no time left for me to do anything else.
I live way below my means. I rent a bedroom in a basement for $500.
I have been doing this for 10 years. My savings keep growing.

You can’t be American, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Work hard to the point that there is no time left for me to spend money.
I work 6 days a week. I have a high paying job. I work a second job on the week end.
I'm always working and there is no time left for me to do anything else.
I live way below my means. I rent a bedroom in a basement for $500.
I have been doing this for 10 years. My savings keep growing.

You can’t be American, right?

Or have a family, I am guessing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- we both work but technically we could survive on 1 pay check
- our checks are auto deposited and I just spend what's necessary
- we do public school
- We have a 2012 certified preowned van and a hatch back from 2007.
-We payed off our house in about 5 years thanks to our prior savings (both my husband and I came from low income families)
- We eat home most meals
- I mostly only buy clothes for my 2 kids - my husband still wears stuff from college. (we avg 40yo)
- vacations don't cost more than $5K/year
- Our mattress is over 10 years old.

When I last checked our net worth was just a bit below $3M. I don't feel rich, but we're both fairly prudent with spending and don't have any expensive hobbies.

That 10 year old matters is going to cost you in the long run when your back is messed up!

[Anonymous]

Read All Your Worth. The problem isn’t lunches or lattes.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Love all the responses. For the record, I don’t even drink coffee I was just using it as an example! To follow up, here’s what it means for us.

Young family late twenties/early thirties
-State schools on HOPE Scholarship. DH has masters paid for and I had partial law school scholarships.
-Still driving my old *17* year old Honda Accord.
- We never lived in trendy parts of DC. We have always lived in the suburbs and metro in.
-We don’t take fancy vacations. We only go on vacation every other year for under $1000 and we had a *big* vacation for $3K which was disney world and split the trip with family.
-We purchased a house below what we were qualified for that we could pay for on one income.
-When we needed a second car when I had a baby we bought a 2010 car in 2016. Never buy new even though we can afford it.
-I do not shop at thrift stores but I do buy on sale.

What I really like and want to explore further is completely living off of one salary. Maybe once dd starts school as we use one of dh check for childcare now. Now we do eat out a lot for the sheer conviencence since we do commute. When I get home I want to spend time with my family, not get in the mitchen. And no, we aren’t cooking together with a blue apron box and smiles all around. That was a two hour nightmare!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought a fixer upper 2 family. Fixed up the rental real nice but only did the basics for our unit. Our kitchen is horrible. No intention of renovating. Make do....

Nope. If I work every day I can "make do" with a decent kitchen. Doesn't have to be high end but horrible is unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- we both work but technically we could survive on 1 pay check
- our checks are auto deposited and I just spend what's necessary
- we do public school
- We have a 2012 certified preowned van and a hatch back from 2007.
-We payed off our house in about 5 years thanks to our prior savings (both my husband and I came from low income families)
- We eat home most meals
- I mostly only buy clothes for my 2 kids - my husband still wears stuff from college. (we avg 40yo)
- vacations don't cost more than $5K/year
- Our mattress is over 10 years old.

When I last checked our net worth was just a bit below $3M. I don't feel rich, but we're both fairly prudent with spending and don't have any expensive hobbies.

That 10 year old matters is going to cost you in the long run when your back is messed up!

True, except I've bought a few new mattress toppers over that time and sleep pretty well with that extra padding.

[Anonymous]

Here's what I did/do

My parents paid for most of my college so I had very little debt that I paid off quickly.

I never went to grad school because no one (parents, employer) was paying for it and I didn't want school debt.

I paid myself first when I started working. The amount was small but I invested in a traditional IRA. Roth didn't exist then.

I bought a modest house in a safe but not hip or trendy neighborhood in DC when I moved here, instead of renting. I made capital improvements to it over time. Still live in it.

I buy gently used nice cars that I drive a min. of 10 years. I take care of them.

I am divorced and childless so no kids or deadbeat spouse sucking up my income.

I max out 403b. I have the traditional IRA mentioned earlier, and a Roth IRA.

I have savings go into an account I can't touch automatically drafted from my paycheck.

I don't drink coffee regularly and when I do want it I can make it at home. I drink decaf anyway.

I travel to far away locales and stay in nice places because I am a single woman and sketchy isn't an option.

I DO eat out -- not regularly but when I want to. I DO buy clothes and make up and shoes but not frequently. I like to look nice, I take pride in my appearance and life is too short to pinch pennies in every area of life.

I am not deferring every pleasure in hopes that I will be able to live some grand life in my old age because not everyone lives long enough to get old. Tomorrow is not promised. My mother retired at 55 lived her best life spending time with my niece, volunteering at her school, traveling and spending time with my grandmother. She turned 65 in October, had a stroke in Dec. and died in January. My grandmother (her mom) was in her 90s, with living siblings, and it had never occurred to me -- or anyone else -- that my mom wouldn't live to some ripe old age, too. Life is for living and should just be tolerated until you die.

[Anonymous]

Life is for living and should NOT just be tolerated until you die.

[Anonymous]

We kept our last home as a rental and the house we live in has a much smaller mortgage than we could afford. Our tenants are paying off the mortgage on the rental while it appreciates in value.

[Anonymous]

We max out on 401k and IRAs and fund the 529s every year. Every time our salary would increase we increase the amount of our savings allotment that went directly to savings. As a result we did not see the increases as available to spend. We bought a decent house within our means many years ago and didn’t upgrade to the huge showy house. We prepaid the mortgage and it is paid off. Yes, we buy new cars, but we drive them until the need replaced (10+ years). We take care of our cars and get the preventative maintenance done. We don’t do luxury vacations. Our vacations are modest but fun. We buy clothes when we need them, not want them. We use coupons, buy in bulk, wait for sales, comparison shop, and avoid impulse purchases as much as possible. We don’t feel the need to impress other with our possessions. Our one guilty pleasesure is eating out at work every day, but we don’t go to expensive restaurant all the time.

[Anonymous]

We have a $350K HHI. Which according to DCUM is chicken shit! We actually are not at all frugal with things we like to spend on - eating out, cleaning service, lawn service, foreign travel at least once a year (10-15K), buying books, enrichment for our kids.

Here is how we live below our means.
1) Beautiful SFH with lovely yard, in a low COL area. Paid <300K for it. It is substantially less house than we can afford. And we pay ridiculously low interest rates for it.
2) Public schools. (Low housing cost meant not that great schools. Kids have always been in magnet. They are outliers with no cohort in their home school.)
3) No student debt. Parents paid for us, just like we will pay for our kids
4) No childcare cost. We managed to juggle flexible work-schedules to raise our two kids and our family helped.
5) Max our retirement, max out college saving and then save more. We live on 33% of our HHI.
6)Compound interest. When both of us were working, we invested 100% of one salary and forgot about it. We lived and saved on one salary.
7) Shop the best prices and best quality goods at Amazon, Costco etc. However, not into overpriced designer stuff. We dress very well, but we do not buy overpriced stuff.
8) Buy cars new (usually Toyotas) and use it till the end of its natural life. We do not lease.
9) No credit card debt, unless it if for zero percent interest and we can pay it off without penalty. All credit cards get paid off every month in full.

We live well, eat organic food, eat frequently in restaurants, have cleaning service, one SAH parent now, pay for 1 foreign vacation (1 week at least) for 4 of us, have Amazon Prime, entertain a lot, fully funded retirement and college, amazing medical insurance, good life insurance.

All of this is possible because we do not have the top 4 money drains in this area - high mortgage, private schools, student debt, childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a $350K HHI. Which according to DCUM is chicken shit! We actually are not at all frugal with things we like to spend on - eating out, cleaning service, lawn service, foreign travel at least once a year (10-15K), buying books, enrichment for our kids.

Here is how we live below our means.
1) Beautiful SFH with lovely yard, in a low COL area. Paid <300K for it. It is substantially less house than we can afford. And we pay ridiculously low interest rates for it.
2) Public schools. (Low housing cost meant not that great schools. Kids have always been in magnet. They are outliers with no cohort in their home school.)
3) No student debt. Parents paid for us, just like we will pay for our kids
4) No childcare cost. We managed to juggle flexible work-schedules to raise our two kids and our family helped.
5) Max our retirement, max out college saving and then save more. We live on 33% of our HHI.
6)Compound interest. When both of us were working, we invested 100% of one salary and forgot about it. We lived and saved on one salary.
7) Shop the best prices and best quality goods at Amazon, Costco etc. However, not into overpriced designer stuff. We dress very well, but we do not buy overpriced stuff.
8) Buy cars new (usually Toyotas) and use it till the end of its natural life. We do not lease.
9) No credit card debt, unless it if for zero percent interest and we can pay it off without penalty. All credit cards get paid off every month in full.

We live well, eat organic food, eat frequently in restaurants, have cleaning service, one SAH parent now, pay for 1 foreign vacation (1 week at least) for 4 of us, have Amazon Prime, entertain a lot, fully funded retirement and college, amazing medical insurance, good life insurance.

All of this is possible because we do not have the top 4 money drains in this area - high mortgage, private schools, student debt, childcare.

What does the one spouse do that makes $350k?
What a city do you live in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Work hard to the point that there is no time left for me to spend money.
I work 6 days a week. I have a high paying job. I work a second job on the week end.
I'm always working and there is no time left for me to do anything else.
I live way below my means. I rent a bedroom in a basement for $500.
I have been doing this for 10 years. My savings keep growing.

Why? And how long you planning to "live" like this?