I know we need to build up an emer. fund, but there is so much other stuff it seems we need to save for. Home repairs, x-mas, etc. I'm so overwhelmed. The worst part is we don't have the extra $ to put any away. I should rephrase that, we don't save our extra $. How do you save when you're just making ends meet?

I wish I had more help for you than the following, because we are just lucky enough to be doing a little better than just making ends meet; HOWEVER, saving is the same, whether you are paycheck to paychecking it, or whether you have a little left over.
We currently have a little left over....not ALOT mind you, but enough.
You just have to find the motivation to save, and you will "find" the money! When we were shopping for a house, somehow we managed to save over $3000 in two months, something we had never willingly done before, but since we had to find a home, we managed, that being the goal in mind.
Now, our goal is to pay off our credit card debt, which is a lot to some people, but not to others. We are doing this by paying at least $200 a month (well over the minimum payment) and as soon as DH gets paid from this remodeling job he's about done with, we will be debt free as far as credit cards go. THENNNN, we have goals to save towards! Our emergency fund, our DIRE emergency fun of 6 months salary (my salary),building a small home on another piece of property we have to rent out, and then towards the building of our new home in 5-7 years, depending on how much we have saved by the 5 year mark. The way we manage to "find" money, is by cutting back on our "dates" and staying in, cooking at home more, not spending all weekend driving around and visiting friends and family (staying home), etc....we find we save a lot more money than we thought we were spending that way. If I manage to save one fillup in my car and dh's truck, that's almost $100/month. If we don't go out every week, and save it for twice a month, that's probably another $100 at least, that we save. Soon, it all adds up. But then, it all depends on what you are already doing to save, you might already be doing those things!!! If so, I'm not much help, but there are plenty of moms on here who are whizzes at saving money!! I learn so much here everyday! you've come to the right place with this question!!

If you are truly "just making ends meet" then I think saving is hard. I've been where you are, and believe me honey I know what it's like. It seems that whenever you MIGHT just get a bit ahead, something blows up in your face. At one point I considered just parking my car, taking the insurance off of it and buying a bus pass. I was a single mother with a deadbeat ex (he still doesn't willingly pay his child support), and a bum/loser boyfriend who was living off me (and I was afraid to kick him out because he was EXTREMELY emotionally unstable and verbally/emotionally abusive). I lived this way for a few years, and it was tremendously stressful. I couldn't save a dime, and had to count all my groceries to make sure I didn't spend more than $70. It is so depressing to count your income and count your expenses and realize that you really have nowhere to save, kwim?

Now, it is a few years later. I kicked out the bum (good riddance - but he stalked me for months and keyed my car, etc.). I am now married to a great guy (who works full time - yeah). I spent so long supporting 3 people (the ex bum, my daughter and I) on my income (which is only in the mid 30's) in a high cost of living area, that it almost seems too good to be true that I can now save money each month instead of going into the hole more deeply. We are not rich by any means (both he and I earn about the same money), but the two incomes are so much more powerful than one.

I don't have a magic bullet for you (wish I did), but I assume you've put everything in writing (income, monthly expenses, yearly expenses, etc.). I did this regularly back then (and still do) and trimmed where I could. I went from a haircut every couple months, to every 6 months, stopped buying new clothes for myself for awhile, trimmed my grocery spending as much as possible, stopped ordering pizzas, etc. It still didn't help me save at that point (you can't save what you don't have), but it did help prevent me from sinking under.

I wish you all the best, and hopefully things will be looking up for you in the near future (like they did for me). Take care.

The only real way to save when you dont have any extra after the paycheck is cashed is to freeze all the spending. I slashed and burned my budget all I could and that still didnt help me save actualy money in the bank. SO I made a cometment to not spend for an entire month, I figured to the penny how much gas I would need in my car and a planed our menues around what we already had. So I figured that out of my 300 grocery budget if I just bought milk bread and eggs I could save about 250 for that month. Well obveously we cant eat like that every month so the following month I restored my grocery budget and slashed my gas budget, I allowed myself 50 a week for gas but I found that if I only went where I had to and strait back home I could get buy on 30 for the week . I did that all month and that cave me anohter 80 to put into saveings. I rotated where ever I could cut the money until I have what I needed in the saveings. I hope this makes senses.

I also have pets and I spent a lot of time online applying for free samples of cat food. I got enough free samples to feed them for a month so I put the money that I would have spent on cat food into the saveings.

That rotating idea is brilliant, I honestly never thought of it!! Just brilliant!!

Thank you but after reading all my typeO's I didnt feel very brillant


The best advice I can give is to actualy save what you save. If my budget is 50 for groceries but because of sales and coupons I only spend 45.00 I put the 5 I saved into the jar or saveing account right way , otherwise I will spend it and then I didnt save anything.

To answer your specific question, it depends on your circumstances.

The savings 'funds' you mentioned: emergency, Christmas, home repairs, etc are usually one pot of money. That is short term savings.

Then there are long term savings. Most of us think of a 401k or IRA as our only long term savings and that is a good place to start. However, you can save MORE money above the tax-deferred limits and put that money into long term investments, too. That is a really good idea.

In our house we have other savings that we do, too. For instance, we have a medical savings account. That is kept separate because of tax considerations. We also have a college fund that is separate because of tax requirements.

So we have:
Checking account that also contains our 3-month emergency fund. It is an interest earning account and the emergency fund acts like our over draft protection / minimum balance, too. If I want to save up for a big ticket item, new bedroom furniture for instance, I put extra money in this account.

We have separate, non-tax deferred long term savings and investments. These are stocks, bonds, money-market funds, etc. I can liquidate some of these investments if an emergency calls for it.

We have separate retirement investments.

We have separate college investments.

We have a separate medical savings account.

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"Poor people work for their money. Rich people make their money work for them."

I think Focusing is a good goal for me. We started focusing of the e-fund
Now we are working on paying off our CC debt. After that we will focus on saving for something else even if it is just getting a higher e-fund. We are TTCing so if that works out we will need to put medical bills as our highest priority. If I had funds to save up for all the things then they would all grow very slowly. You need to set priorities for your savings. Things like christmas and birthdays I buy through out the year so there is less of a bite come the holidays.

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006

I read her post and thought the exact same thing.

Great idea 2littleladies!

Type-o, schmype-o! It irritates me when I do that too, but when I'm typing quickly, who cares..lol