Money Management tips tricks and hacks?

I'm sitting here putting a budget on paper for the first time in a long time. And I got to thinking - what tricks do people use to help them manage their money or be effective with it????

I know people who make very little money but they are budget hawks - I don't know how they do it - they're happy people and do OK for themselves.


The 2 things I do and advice I'd give to anyone is:

-Pick a set amount to put in savings every paycheck no matter how big or small - for me it's $250.00 a paycheck
-I also deduct or have $125.00 every two weeks go into a vehicle expense fund - payments, insurance, repairs, maint etc - whatever I need it for.

What do you do to help you manage your money?

 

You have the right idea. We spent carefully when we got married and were totally debt-free in about 10 years. Like my wife said, we ate lots of pasta and beans for the first few years.

We haven't had any car payments. When one is paid off, save the amount of the payment and pay cash for the next one.

We have noticed excellent quality items in thrift stores, costing significantly less than new. If we had to replace furniture we would do it there. A few dings are not a problem--they get those with use, anyway.

Our philosophy is it isn't important to look wealthier than we are. We live comfortably.

 

Don’t buy random chit with a credit card. I use a CC for budgeted items like gas, phone and gym. But for everyday discretionary items like coffee, food, random junk at WalMart, etc. I use cash. I give myself a certain amount of cash each week and I don’t exceed that.

There is a different process that takes place in your mind when you buy something for cash vs. swiping your card. Your brain doesn’t realize you spent money if you swipe a card because there’s no exchange. When you give up sweet cash for stuff you spend a whole lot less. Trust me, it works wonders.

 

Compounding interest and automatic investment, as early and as much as manageable.

Buckets help. From smallest to largest.
Checking acct bucket
Savings bucket (six months of income)
Money market at investment broker
Index funds diversified small to large cap
Buy and hold for your goals.
After that, you have to start thinking.

 

Oh, I forgot a couple.
Delete your TW account
Delete you Ebay account
Don't stand in line for iPhones
Use things until they no longer function or cannot be repaired.
Respond to advertising like its attempted robbery.
Eschew the dominant paradigm.

 

All good posts and will taking them as “Tips” in my daily spending life, for sure!!!

I personally, was very much into the of spending without even noticing and/or jotting down the outpouring money coming out of my pocket...each paycheck! Little did I know that noting down my expenses and leaving some small money aside would help me rethink my young buck strategy I had before.

That can become harder when you have a partner and then come the kids! It’s all about them right after! Cutting down expenses like earring our, buying only the “Needs” vs. the “Wants” really helps us tremendously. Chopping down those Credit Cards/Loans balances help big as well.

My simple advice would be to keep track of your expenses without aggravating your needs in this world. And keeping your wife/significant other HAPPY!! That’s the key...LoL!!!

 

we live off of my salary and put the wifes into savings. we use things till they cant be used anymore and we typically go for quality over quantity (think clothing with lifetime warranties etc). the biggest change was when i stopped going to bars after work and slowed down the drinking. i was amazed by how much extra cash i had laying around. dont eat out every night. make your own damn coffee. butter noodz kick ass and theyre dirt cheap. make large meals and just freeze or eat on them for the week. we use our crock pot weekly and always plenty of food in the fridge.


the biggest thing to remember is that you didnt save $300 on that $1600 "upgrade" you spent $1300 needlessly.

 

-Use QuickBooks or Adobe Scanner or Google Drive to keep and tally your receipts. Nerd out on that data.

-Automatically invest with Wealthfront or Acorn or your favorite investment channel. Even after all these fed rate cuts, Wealthfront is still paying out 1.25% on savings accounts FDIC insured to $1m. That's ten to one-hundred times better than what the normal banks are paying (though many other services are also getting into the high-interest savings accounts).

-Get a good credit card that pay cash-back (or air miles if you fly a lot), and use the crap out it - BUT PAY THAT SUCKER OFF! I see other people shy away from credit cards, but I don't have the mindset that a credit card is free money. I have a mindset that my CC is directly linked to my checking account, and I treat it that way. I use my CC for every little thing, pay it off entirely each month, and reap the rewards. It is one of the very few ways to literally get free money. I have the Bank of America Alaska Air Miles card because I fly up and down the west coast a lot. No yearly fee, great mileage accumulation, no baggage fees for me and six people traveling with me, blah blah blah. It's a no brainer.

-I am terrible at picking stocks and have had my ass handed to me a couple of times, so I stopped trying. Now I invest with highly rated managed and robo mutual funds that are boring but have steady decent returns.

-Dont have kids so you can enjoy your money and free time before the world is turned into a lump of toxic waste.

 

i second the credit card part too. pretend its a debit card and dont spend what you dont have. my card does 2% cash back on everything so that helps in the long run.

 

2% of everything you buy adds up quick! Free money from the credit card company is awesome.

 

Sage advice!

 

Alot of good advice here, but make sure you pay attention to your own tendencies. I use a credit card for darn near everything and don't carry cash, and I'm okay with it. The key is being a cheapskate

But, if you do go the CC route - pay it off every month, on time. CC interest is brutal.

The thought that goes through my mind a lot is "If I spend X on this, I won't be able to spend X on something I really want later."

 

The wife and I have three bank accounts:

-Emergency (Only if we both lose our jobs and are going to be on the street. Never used).
-Savings (Next vehicles, home/car maintenance, laptop, personal business expenses, etc.)
-Checking (basically to pay off our monthly expenses which we minimize/prioritize to have the rewarding things we enjoy (family/travel) and make sacrifices to have those things).

We do maximum Roth IRA ($500 each) and her job has a 401k (mine no longer does, but when I end up at another job that does it’s back to contributing to that)
Extra goes into other investments (we don’t do HRA or Education investments because we have plenty of savings and rarely get sick (I know the worst can still happen) and we don’t believe in traditional college costs unless there’s a real good reason for our someday future kids to go and they can hustle their own way and be wise with life/money themselves.

Next goal is to save to build a house in case we ever actually stop moving haha

 

We also get the oldest cars, oldest phones, used work equipment, etc. that is still functional but cheap and do. not. believe. in. debt. Period. No debt allowed. Ever.

Our three savings accounts above^... We have a “minimum” for each one. And if they ever dip below that minimum (after a major car repair or work purchase) we immediate realize that we’re in DEBT to Ourselves until we get it back up.


The only thing we do that I don’t recommend for most people is travel hacking. I tell most people to never get a credit card but we fly several times a year so we to the points churning whenever we have major purchases we already need. We have never once carried a balance though and never intend to. We check to get sure we have the cash for the item we’re about to use the CC on in the account already before using it. Never spend money you don’t already have and Always. Always. Always pay yourself first.

 

we're bad about the new vehicle and phone part. but i seem to get 4-5 years from each phone before they do their "planned obsolescence" deal and become unusable. and i guess i dont trust people or how they treat their vehicles so i literally got super anxious looking at a used truck and ended up going new. i always assume people got rid of their vehicle because it had a problem that was expensive enough to get rid of it. crazy, i know. but my brain really screws with me sometimes. but we only have this truck payment and a mortgage as far as debt goes. everything else is paid off. and this things getting payed off as early as possible.

 

I get that worry. And trust me, there have been a couple lemons I bought where I was missing when I was young and ignorant and bought brand new haha. But the pure numbers, all worries aside, are what converted me.

There are ways to mitigate risks. Look at what vehicles are reliable, what ones owners keep the longest, etc. Those types of used cars tend to have one owner who waxed it every other Sunday and changed the oil early just in case. I’d never buy a 20 year old used WRX STI. Thing has been murdered by ten teenagers. But an old no frills gutless Toyota that still looks minty, I’ll take it.

I buy vehicles in the 8-10 year old range and have even bought 20-25 year old vehicles and fixed them up some. But I tell people to at least wait until their 5-7 years old and lose most of their depreciation.

I look at it this way:

I bought my 4Runner for $3,500.
My brand new Tacoma back in the day was around $35,000.

They both serve the same purpose, but even if I had to straight up replace the engine, transmission, suspension, what have you... that still won’t add up to half of what the brand new truck cost.

But wait, there’s more haha

For the $10,000 to $15,000 I save by buying new I am:
1.) Not in debt and therefore not paying high interest..
But equally or more important..
2.) Can invest that money and get back compound interest.


If you drop $500/mo. into a Roth IRA instead of $500/mo. into a DEPRECATING asset haha..
Multiply that by your whole life of new car after new car (which most people do)..


Here’s $500/mo. @7% return for 10, 20, 30 and 40 years for ya:
10 years - $85,527
20 years - $253,772
30 years - $584,733
40 years - $1,235,785

If you take our 4% for the perpetuity of your retirement that’s:
- $3,421/yr.
- $10,149/yr.
- $23,389/yr.
- $49,431/yr.

You get the idea. 90 something percent of “millionaires” are people who just made smart financial choices consistently. The vast vast majority didn’t inherit any wealth. You can look it up. They just made a few smart choices while everyone else made excuses.

Knowing you could leave debt to your children or wealth to your children and not choosing to be as consistent as possible now, mistakes and all, just to impress some boys in the internet haha, seems insane to me

 

oh yea, sadly i never learned these things till what i consider was too late. im still trying to fix bad habits that got ingrained in my head my whole life. not that its anybodys fault but my own, im kinda pissed that early school didnt do a better job explaining this stuff to us. oh well its never too late to start if theres anyone else reading along.

 

School didn’t do much for anyone unfortunately haha

It’s all just good information to get out there for everyone!

 

Take care of your health.

Don't get tattoos

Delete your Amazon account

Don't fall victim to the I need this mod because I saw it on the gram or tw

Delete the girlfriend

STOP EATING OUT

 

Good stuff, but, zero debt? No mortgage?