Re: Do you live within your means?

Not that I need to justify myself, but I will.

DH and I paid for our entire wedding, honeymoon, etc. ourselves, plus DH and I got married fairly young - 25. That's only 3 years out of school. We had our own apt from the time we graduated, so there was no living with mom and dad until I saved some money. I could have, but honestly after going away to school, I had no desire to go back home.
So, having a LOW paying job to start off, my own place, and paying for a wedding - yes, we racked up a substantial amount of debt.
Would I do it all over again? Yes. I know for myself once we are out of this, I never want to be overextended again. I'd rather live and learn now while I am young and without too much responsibility - no kids, no house, etc.
Plus, we have really learned to appreciate the dollar!!

Re: Do you live within your means?

FH and I just cut our debt in half a few months ago and have been able to start saving and we continue to chip away at our debt.

We live within our means NOW (now that my credit card is frozen in the middle of a block of ice in the freezer and neither one of us can get to it... ahhh, the extremes we must go to...) while paying off credit cards and student loans, while saving, and spending the $$ we alot for extras..

Re: Do you live within your means?

Re: Do you live within your means?

I have some cc debt, but not much. I probably could pay most of it off, but I just keep spending and also I don't like to leave my checking/savings accounts with less than a certain amount. We save each month and I have a profit sharing plan.

We rent, so we don't have a mortgage and we lease a car, so that is a never ending debt.

I would say we live within our means. I probably should spend less, but whatever.

Re: Do you live within your means?

We try to live within our means, but we have two children. Our medical expenses with our disabled son are astronomical. The insurance only covers so much ... then it all falls on us. We will be paying forever .....

Re: Do you live within your means?

we do have some debt especially from being younger and stupid.

We really don't live the way I wish we did, we struggle a lot but we don't have college degrees either.

Re: Do you live within your means?

We are by no means "set". We have a baby, I am a SAHM and he works his butt off for us. But we manage to save every month, we don't splurge a lot and we know we're "rich" in other ways. I think the day we are financially 100% "set" is prob some time off! It's cool with us though!

Re: Do you live within your means?

Re: Do you live within your means?

we live below our means. We have a mortgage (Coop) that's pretty low, no car payments, no CC debt. We have student loans w/ a low Monthly pmt as well.

Re: Do you live within your means?

We don't have any debt, but our savings doesn't really increase much month to month either.

Re: Do you live within your means?

I think it's a tough question because I can afford my payments every month, plus still go out to dinner and buy myself things and then save ontop of that, however, I think that having a car payment or a mortgage is kind of living outside your means, no?

Re: Do you live within your means?

I have student loan debt...but when i got married I inherited DH's CC debt too....we don't live paycheck to paycheck...we are able to pay our bills every month and still have money left over...we are hoping that by the end of this year or beginning of next to be out of CC debt

Message edited 5/24/2007 7:41:20 PM.

Re: Do you live within your means?

not including my mortgage, Id be a rich little girl!

even with our mortgage we are able to save a little each month. we put alot of home improvements on 0% credit cards, so at the end of the year we will have no debt, a nice house, and be able to save a good amount of $$$.

Re: Do you live within your means?

Re: Do you live within your means?

Posted by Elbee

Posted by SweetTooth

Posted by MikesWife

Posted by Erin0602

Everytime this topic comes up, I always feel like the odd one out, because Yes, I have debt. Mixed in with the student loans and car loans is credit card debt.

I'm not struggling financially though. I work, I get paid, I pay my bills.

Don't feel like the odd ball. I right there with you.

I don't think you are the odd one out, I just think the ones with the cc and other debt tend not to speak up as much as those without it.

I also don't think that having debt means you are not finacially stable. You can have debt and still manage to pay the bills AND save money.

I agree and to add that a lot of people on this board are young newlyweds ...many have paid off debt recently or maybe haven't gotten into any yet. Debt affects different times in people's life --- I would never assume I will always be debt free .. you never know what the future can bring. I personally just answered for what it is NOW.

ETA: I have worked very hard to keep myself debt free and financially secure in recent years and hope that I can continue to be so ...

Re: Do you live within your means?

financially secure - our only debt is the mortgage.