So, I will preface this by saying that I am not like a die hard Suze Orman fan. I think she has some smart advice, but it's not like I live by her every opinion (although maybe if I did I would have more money....hmmm.)
Anyway, on Oprah last week she had Suze Orman on talking about finances for 2009. A lot of the advice was about credit card debt (which we have none) so it didn't apply to me too much, but I thought this challenge was interesting, so I am posting it on here. I think it really can be a challenge to show each of us where we may need some help financially.
1. Do not spend any money for an entire day. (Note: this does not include using electricity, eating food that you already have in the house, etc. It is a challenge to not spend extra money. For my fellow LDS people, I would say Sunday doesn't count. )
2. Do not use your credit card for and entire week.
3. Do not go out to eat (fast food, sit down, take out or otherwise) for an entire month.
Honestly I can say #3 is the hardest one for me. as of right now, my goal to accomplish that is March. Febuary would have worked because it's a shorter month...but then there's Valentine's Day, and it's a tradition to go out for V-day! The other two I think I can accomplish easily.
So if you are willing and interested in participating in this challenge let me know, and we can be accountable to each other for our success. Good luck!
No, I get it
7 years ago
6 comments:
You are so funny! I love how you're planning for March as your month to not go out to eat! But, I agree, it does seem like a safe month. Not eating out, for me, is going to be torture, but I'm up for the challenge!
We pretty much have those down!! I only go shopping a couple of times a week (when I go to the grocery store and when I go to Walmart), we don't really put anything on our credit cards (okay, Christmas doesn't count to me... :) ), and we very rarely go out to eat. My biggest problem comes from being tired (which I currently am) and not planning (like meals and stuff). As long as I can do those things, I'm pretty good. The thing that has helped us the most is setting aside money each paycheck for ourselves. We get paid, paay tithing, pay ourselves, then pay the bills. That way we have money to buy ourselves some little extras, or money to save for bigger items. Good luck with your eating out challenge!! You could just have a few more kids...that would definitely help you to not eat out as much! It's not as much fun when you've got three rowdy kids who are constantly asking for this or that... :)
Cory and I are always finding new ways to save more money for our future. Right now I am on a cash budget, I don't use a credit or debit card ever. Using cash, you use less money because there is an emotional attachment to cash. I have an envelope with my monthly budget in it and when it is gone, it is gone. If we run out of grocery money, then we live off our food storage!
We have an entertainment budget, an eating out budget, a grocery budget, etc. Once it is gone, it is gone. We don't have any debt either besides our house. We paid cash for our cars, and we don't believe in monthly payments at all! There is a really good quote that I like, it is "dumb people ask how much the monthly payment is, smart people ask for the total cost." A lot of poor people will stay poor because they don't go without. They refuse to save up for something so they just make monthly payments.
Those payments will bury you. Cory and I are very proud of the fact that we have assets instead of paying out interest every month. We don't even have cable, and it isn't because we can't afford it, it is because we don't like monthly payments!
Anyway, I'm in! I am already living it, so I might as well join in!
Wow I have a lot more of you to be accountable to for my month of not eating out than I expected! That could be bad for me! Ha ha.
The others are easy for me. There are often days that I just stay home with Rebecca, and Tyson never spends money.
I was thinking about doing a cash only thing for our budget for a while for the little extras. I imagine it would help a lot with not being able to just grab this or grab that whenever you wanted.
My other goal is to put more inot our automatic depsit to our savings account each month.
We do have monthly payments on our cars, and we do have cable...kindof...does the 12 dollar package for basic TV count?But we just lump those into monthly expenses and that works for us. When we pay off one of the cars, that extra money will still go into a monthly expense, it will just go into savings rather than being paid to someone else!
That was one of Suze's statements about paying off credit cards. 1) always pay the minimum on each card each month. 2) Pay as much as you can extra on the card with the highest interest rate 3) when that one is paid off, take that total balance you were paying on that card, and apply it to the next highest interest rated card.
I just realized that my comment made it sound like people with car payments are dumb. That isn't what I meant at all! Haha! I was actually thinking about our tenant in a rental property of ours and she has dish network that she pays at least $60 per month for, she has 2 animals, she has a huge big screen that she is renting to own, she smokes and she drinks. Then she is late with her rent every month and she has 3 children to care for. It is so frustrating because she has a nicer t.v than we do, she has dish, pays for 2 animals she can't afford and buys ciggs and alcohol and expects us to feel sorry for her for not being on time with her rent every month. Every month we have to threaten to kick her out! Grrr!
So when I think of monthly payments,I think of people like her that have all kinds of monthly payments that bury them and they have zero assets. If they got into serious financial trouble, they wouldn't have anything because everything is financed.
So that is what I meant by monthly payments. Sorry if I offended anyone!
No offense taken here! I think it is great if you can live without monthly payments, that would be nice!
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