Right now we are paycheck to paycheck. We are slowly working on living below our means. Sometimes we have a little extra but not very much & when we do something unexpected comes up. About 2 years ago we were living beyond our means. We are trying to not let that happen again!!!

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Mommy to Ariana 8/11/01 & Davis 4/11/05
I love my kiddos!

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All my extra goes straight into retirement and investments and savings before I even see it. After I pay my bills, buy food, and gas I have less than $10 in my acct till the following payday. If I work any OT I sometimes get a little extra spending money but that doesn't happen often because I value my time off more than the money.

We are living below our means. The best way for us to do this is to have what we want saved taken out of dh's paycheck before he even gets it. We have a college fund set up for ds, we automatically add a certain amount every month. We have our 10% 'emergency' fund, whatever you want to call it automatically taken out every month. Also ds's school tuition ~ we divide the tuition for the whole year by 12, and have that automatically taken out every month. Similarly, every week when dh gets paid, I have a 'can' that I put either $20, $40, or whatever in every week. Sometimes it's used for a weekend away. Sometimes it's put in ds's savings account for school expenses. This year I'm starting a new can for our annual trip to Canada to visit dh's family. The airplane tickets usually run us $1000 plus all the added expenses with the trip. Next year we'll be able to pay for it in cash. It is surprising how $20 a week accumulates!

I think this 'bit by bit' philosophy has helped us tremendously. Saving for what you want in other words, just bit by bit. It adds up and allows us to enjoy some luxuries that we'd otherwise still be able to afford, but would have to put on credit. This way, I have the $ saved up, we put the expense on our cc to get the points, and when the bill comes deposit the $ into our checking and pay the bill. That way we get the points in order to buy Christmas presents with (we have an amazon visa and I typically buy ds's Christmas presents with these coupons. We usually get $25 in the mail for amazon every month).

well i would say now we are pay check to paycheck we used to be beyond our means. we learned a hard lesson when we could not afford our mortgage payment and got 2 months behind...now we have improved and happy to say we are slowly making progress and some months have extra leftover wich we put towards debt...we put 12% right off the top to dh's 401k and 50 bucks a month to a money market acct. we do not touch these though if we ever got in a huge bind we could take a loan from the 401k we would have to pay ourselves back plus they would make us pay ourselves back an additonal 10%. and we could use the moneymarket but these are for our retirement.

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.

We now have more coming in then we have going out.I also have a savings started.It is getting beter for us each week..I just need to stay out of the grocery stores lol.

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~~Sharon...wife to Bill for 17 yrs and mom to Kevin,16; Stephanie,14 and Tyler,8~~

We live below our means. We have a nice amount in our savings and no bills except for mortgage and utilities. We do not use credit for anything, if we cant pay for it we don't need it. We've only been living below our means for the last 5 years, before that things were extremely tight.

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DS-17
DD-13
DD-6
DS-3

Me and my husband were living paycheck to paycheck up until about a month ago, but we started a home business together and it was the best decision we ever made. The Lord has truly blessed us. I urge all of you to do something similar where you get to use your talents and passions for something fun, that can get you out of that cycle!!

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus" Colossians 3:17

-neesie

When we started out as a married couple 7 years ago we decided to always try and live off of one paycheck. That has paid off immensely now! I am at home with ds at the moment and it hasn't been much of a financial adjustment because we were already used to living off of one paycheck. Of course we have less of a buffer each month and are more careful with our spending, but we are certainly living below our means: dh recently calculated that we are saving close to 25% of his income each month (including all savings plans, retirement, and the principal on our mortgage payments). That made us both feel great!!! :happy dance:

Even before we were married, though, I didn't live beyond my means. I saved half of every paycheck and lived with roommates to lower my expenses. Saving has always been a high priority for me, and i was raised on the notion that you don't buy something that you can't afford, so I never have!

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~ mama abroad

"Be the change that you want to see in the world." -Ghandi

check out my culture shock blog: A View from the Outside

Every once in a while do we not live paycheck to paycheck..however, most of the time we do. Once we get some of our credit cards paid off, we will be more than fine! But, we have almost $4,000 in credit card debts and old medical bills. I am aiming to pay one bill off every three to six months by making larger payments on the one I'm trying to pay off first until it is. For instance, if the first debt I want to pay off is $500.00 and I want to pay it off in five months, I will divide the $500 into 5 equal payments and pay $100 a month on that debt. If it's something with interest, I will either pay that with the last payment or pay it off the next month. We really want to start saving up to build a house on the property that dh's father gave us.

We live below our means. It's taken us a few years to get to this point, but we are here now and never going back to living paycheck to paycheck. We use cash only. We take out a set amount to get us through two weeks and it covers gas, groceries, entertainment. I was too tempted to spend more than I should with my debit card. We pay ourselves first by putting money into our savings as soon as we get paid, and it doesn't get touched. Money for our investments is automatically deducted before we see his paycheck.

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Vicki
Mama to Princess, 5 and Wild Thing, 3
Progress Since 1/6/09: