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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I feel I could have written what you wrote. Same income, somewhat cheaper ($650K) house, and also feeling like our peers have more than we do. But - we have no family money, no help of any kind, paid for college ourselves (just paid off my loans last year), now child-related expenses. And we have more conservative views of finances ([b]no credit cards[/b], no car loans, etc.)  We are also saving aggressively, to the tune of 6K/month. Some day it will pay off, I hope. Or we'll just die saving.  :roll: [/quote]

Do you mean you have no credit cards at all?  I automatically pay all the balances on all my cards every month, but I use them strategically to get the maximum # of rewards points.  Usually we get a few hundred dollars per year back.  I think if you have the self-control it's an easy way to get money back.[/quote]

What you aren't taking into account is how much more you spend by putting items on the credit card in the first place. When we switched to cash only, we started saving hundreds a month because it wasn't nearly as easy (emotionally) to hand over cash as it was to swipe that credit card. When you're looking down at the checkout conveyor belt at Target and you're about to hand over real cash money to pay for it, you start getting really choosey about what you buy. Because when that money's gone, it's GONE. Really helpful for keeping yourself in check. I would guess that you could save far more by ditching the credit cards and using a cash budget than you could ever get in rewards points. It definitely helped us a ton!

http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/practical/2007/winter/spending-til-it-hurts.shtml[/quote]

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