On Money

A few months ago I came across a website on budgeting and saving for early retirement.  In an effort to divert my attention from all things fertility I have been reading some personal finance stuff.

I am after all almost 40.   I don't feel 40 or act that age for that matter.  I think I still have some maturity to do.  I look back at when my mother and aunts were around 40 and boy oh boy such a gap.   Since they started having kids at an early age and have a large extended family to manage on top of  multiple kids their maturity level at that age was nothing comparing to mine and this included finances as well.

Any how, in general I am not reckless with money but not frugal either.   I never had credit cards debt any other debt besides a small student loan and car loans.   Besides a couple of store credit cards I don't use much I only have one credit card in the last 10 years and I never use it either.   I hate owing money.   I have never carried a credit card balance ever.

During my last year of college I had to do an externship and needed a car.  So I took out some student loan and bought a new inexpensive car.    My sister was paying my car insurance until I started working after graduation.   A few months before I started working I had less than $1000 in my account which I sent half of it to go visit a friend on the west coast.    Yes crazy, and I didn't have a job lined up either so it is not like I knew I was going to be employed anytime soon.   I think that is the most irresponsible thing I ever did.    With three years of working I went to Europe twice (just vising friends), and traveled in the country a few times.   I spent a lot but  I have no regrets visiting places but I wish that I had put in more in my retirement account.

When it comes to money DH and I are pretty similar.  He is a minimalist and doesn't have a need to buy stuff or drive a shiny car.  He has no ties to material stuff.  He held off buying a car for as long as he can.  I on the other hand like to buy cloth and small stuff but unless I have the money I won't buy it and it has to be reasonably priced.   I am so glad that we are not that different when it comes to money so we rarely fight about it.

All though we have no debt except a mortgage we lack in the retirement department.  DH has a PhD so he spent a good amount of his time in school so retirement saving started very late and I did not put enough earlier on and with me  not working contribution has stopped.   In addition, we both immigrated to this country so that is an additional time spent settling in a new place that delayed any kind of saving.

Since working for me is far from reality now (endometriosis have me flat on my back again) I have been looking at ways to cut our household spending in hopes of being able to save a little more for retirement. 

Our utility bill is high, water is high and we have cable and phone bills.   We don't need cable but when we moved in to the house we couldn't get the stupid antenna to work for the basic channels.  For the first 8 years DH and I have lived together we never had cable until we moved in to our house recently and didn't miss it.  When I lived with my sister earlier on we had cable and I would sit and watch some stupid show for hours and waist a good half a day of my weekend and I wanted that to stop so when DH and I started living together I decided not to get cable.  In the process saved so much money. 

So where the saving needs to happen is to decrease our utility usage and also cut coupons for groceries.  I am aiming for 25% decrease over the next six months and see how it goes.   I am looking for ways to cut our cable.  We shall see how this will work out.   I don't want to do any extreme frugality here, after all we have to enjoy the now.   In reading up some ways to cut cost I came across a site that had listed "pooping at work" as one of the ways to save toilet paper.  Hehehehe, now that is crazy.   I hope I don't became that frugal in the process.

I am writing this so that I can be held accountable for the goal :).