We are wrapping up our two-month shopping hiatus.
Unlike the first one or the second one, this time not shopping hasn’t been painful at all. Off hand, I can only think of two purchases that could be considered cheating: a new purse ($28 canvas to replace the H&M manbag I stole from Mr. A back in Aug 2004 which was holey, and the third Twilight book because it was my birthday and I wanted to read it, dammit. I did not not want to wait until the library reached my request 465 people from now). I think we did go out to one sushi dinner which was a bit over our $50 weekly restaurant budget too.
I have totally gotten out of the groove of shopping. When I read this article in the NY times, I started to worry that my thriftyness was singlehandedly going to lead the US down the road to economic misery. I have to wonder though, if more people had only bought what they could afford, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
Thoughts of money are never really far away for me. Last week, ThatPatti and I were talking about our finances. Without sharing too much of her personal information, we live in the same neighborhood, stay home with our kids, are in similar financial circumstances and share a lot of the same financial goals. We spent an entire playdate talking about Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman.
Patti and I talked about trying to live within our means. While we both like where we live, we don’t have big fancy houses. We don’t have lots of new furniture, new cars or closets full of designer clothes. We don’t have that stuff and for the most part, I am happy with the things I do have. I will be just has happy driving a used minivan that will cost $8,500 as I would be driving a new one that cost $30,ooo. (If we ever manage to buy a minivan that is. Still no progress on that front.)
It just becomes frustrating when I compare our stuff to stuff other people seem to have. I am working on learning to ignore other people’s stuff, but it isn’t easy. Maybe they have tons of credit card debt and car loans. Maybe they don’t have $78,000 of student loans (only 1/2 of what we originally owed!) and a stupid HELOC (from the dumb, dumb, dumb 80/10/10 mortgage) like we do. Maybe it is none of my business and I should just keep my eyes on my own plate.
Right now, I need to put my eyes on keeping our own financial house in order.
Our short term goal is to pay off the HELOC in one year. We are designating all our tax return* and all the money we save by sticking to our monthly budget to it. When we pay it off, we are going to reward ourselves by taking the next two month’s payments and visiting our friends in San Francisco. Then we will roll all that monthly payment money over and start doubling down on the school loans. I am hopeful we can be debt-free (except for a mortgage) in 5 years**.
I know I keep coming back to the topic of money, but writing it down is like a meditation on staying the course. I am shouting my goals to the universe:
- We will be debt free.
- We will live within our means.
- We will have financial security.
- We do not need more stuff.
- We have what we need.
- What we have is enough.***
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*Except for $500 for an overnight weekend away from the kids because we haven’t been anywhere alone in over 2 years. While I hate to spend the money, it is an investment in our relationship.
**Please don’t send me email about not paying off our school loans early. I know the interest rates are low, but living with debt makes me crazy. It isn’t worth a couple thousand dollars in accrued interest to live like that for the next 20 years. Mr. A and I have studied it and agree on getting rid of the debt asap.
***And while we are at it, let’s all humor me the next time I start fantasizing about a new house for the 10,000th time. A girl is allowed to have a fantasy, right? Yeah, I know. I still have work to do to really live those goals.
Living within one’s means is surprisingly hard, isn’t it?
I’m still (well, back) in school, accumulating student loans, and I want to think that when I start working I’ll continue to live at the same level for a while and pay off my student loans quickly (I totally hear you on not wanting debt lying around) but I also know from past experience that once there’s money coming in, it’s really hard not to spend it, just a few dollars here and there. Kudos to you for making such smart, sensible goals and sticking to your buying hiatus!
I completely agree with paying off the student loan debt. Even though our interest rate was super low, the debt was driving me crazy and we paid it off for our piece of mind. It was a glorious feeling to see a zero balance on the final statement!
I always enjoy your “money and means” posts because it prompts me to reflect on where I am on similar issues.
I aggressively cultivate a non-comparison approach on standard of living, but it’s not always easy. Other people seem to be able to do a lot more than us, but they are either 1) making more money or 2) living beyond their means. On the other hand, we are living comfortably on essentially one income, and other people seem flabbergasted by that. We just don’t live large, as I say. And I like living/spending prudently although I am sometimes so bad at it! I am proud of myself of not needing the latest, biggest of everything, but sometimes we get so tempted by big purchases! New chair, new mp3 player, faboo baby sling. Fortunately, my husband does great product research. Not much debt, but we did have to buy a new car last year (ow! ow!).
Meditate on. Stay the course!
you can pretty much always use my name if you want, i’m not one to hide much of anything.
you just wrote the post i’ve been meaning to for a while now!
I truly believe we live in a culture that since the end of the Depression has constantly cultivated a “value by comparison” model. I think it’s no coincidence that when my husband and I cut ourselves off of shopping for anything not necessary (we have no jobs right now, thus no real expendable income) that the desire impulse quickly shut down. Going into a store again after a few months away was very revealing, as the browsing instinct raised its head very quickly. Same thing in comparing oneself to the neighbors–inevitable, but an instinct you’re obviously aware of, as opposed to being compelled by.
I find it both really annoying and very interesting.
I don’t understand why you would NOT pay off debt. Even if the interest rate is low, it’s still something. Better to pay it off when you can. We only have my student loans now in debt, which we are paying off faster than required but not as we could. I want to start saving some money since we currently have none, but the credit cards are paid off as is the loan we took out from my FIL to sell our house.
Hopefully we will be able to buy a house again someday.
Not looking at ads is incredibly helpful in reigning in spending. I can’t know I “need” it if I don’t know what it is.
I am so with you on wanting to get rid of the student loans already. We have one that has 0% interest, so clearly the smart move is to keeping making the minimum payments. But every month I just want to pay the damn thing off and be done with it.
My husband wants to “retire” early (like, in the next 5 years — he is 36) and do something else. The something else is very vague. So we are trying to save his entire income, pay off our house, and live on my income. We are living VERY frugally. It’s amazing what we don’t need (or miss!) from cable TV to a land-line phone to a second car. We have no debt other than a mortgage, though, so that helps, and we rarely compare ourselves to other people because we are used to being freaks! I agree with Heather that not watching ads is a HUGE help.
We finished paying off everything but the mortgage in December. Whoo-hoo! The money we were putting toward the student loans got put into college funds for the boys the next month, so on a day-to-day basis it doesn’t feel different, or like we now have more money than before. But the flexibility and freedom is nice. I’m feeling a bit stuck in our house because of the poor housing market, but that’s mostly okay.
I cycle between feeling discontented and deprived because we live within our means, to being fine, to being almost embarrassed because we’re not suffering a whole lot in spite of the poor economy so far.
I appreciate your posts about money and financial decision making. They make me feel like we’re not crazy.
You know I hear you on this. How many times have we talked about it?
I enjoy your money posts quite a bit. I have been reading Dave Ramsey’s books over the last few days and really like what he has to say. I appreciate your honesty and open nature. Thank you.
Ten years ago I vowed to rid myself of debt (except for the mortgage). I finally did it! It is such a great feeling, to be free to choose what you are going to do, when, where. I used to work just to pay off those people who had kindly lent me money when I needed it. Now it is all about what I want. Wishing you the best!
I’m with you–I can’t wait to be completely debt-free!
Yup. Good stuff. Also, if you are seriously thinking of living overseas at some point, it is a good thing to be debt free. If we had been able to sell our house we would have no financial worries ‘back home’ because my spouse aggressively paid off everything before we moved. I never thought it possible to not carry credit card debt (especially during my grad school years). But it is. Now if we could just sell that damn house!
You know I’m there on living debt free-I just have mortgage and the student loan from my MBA-which I am paying off as fast as I can.
The furniture in my house is all different vintage-I like to say eclectic-clothes are from Savers-and we share one car. I do struggle with the clothes part, because I AM the worst dressed person at my office, but I remind myself that I dress well, just not the cute styles. Some days it gets to me though, because I know how it impacts interpersonal dynamics.
And I am fortunate to live in one of the top neighborhoods in the country for holding real estate value right now. And, if we are going to move to Shanghai, we need to be debt free-so I keep my eye on that. ~lmc
I agree- pay off the debt as soon as you can- it is like a monkey on your back- we have a bit of student loan debt left and a car payment- the car will be paid off in the next year and a year after that the student loan…..the kids are young so they don’t understand/care about styles/name brands (although they do wear them- I just wait for huge sales or find them at thrift stores)…..we will be buying a house this year after we move so we’ll also have a mortgage in the next year- I relate to the poster who said she is almost embarrassed because the economy isn’t affecting her family- we too are not affected and are surrounded by people who are- we don’t live a “rock star” lifestyle but we are comfortable- we go on nice vacations and drive decent cars…….but we manage our money well- we don’t use credit cards and are fortunate that my husbands job is secure……but it is still hard when people you care about are struggling while you are not……crazy times.
We are on decent financial standing. Although I don’t feel like our student loans are ever going to be paid off. Share one car which has been paid off for a few years, bought a condo because we knew we could definitely afford the payments etc. I do admire your ability to go on a spending haitus (birthdays definitely do not count) Off topic, what did you think of the 3rd twilight book?
I came back to say that I really love your mantras/goals. Especially the last three:
We do not need more stuff.
We have what we need.
What we have is enough.
– YEAH! This really resonates, and it feels really good to be reminded.