Savings

[elvenwine26]

I pay roughly about $1000 in bills each month and that doesnt even count transportation and food.  I make decent money busting my butt 50+ hours a week but after all the bills and basics there is hardly anything leftover. What is this obscure notion of "savings" that you mention? 
It ain't easy being a pimp...err friendly neighborhood retail drone.

[Beldarna]

I think we manage our economy just fine. I have enough in my savings to cover two monthly paychecks. I used to have more but it has slowly drizzled away due to travel, vetbills, moving and an unexpected and high bill. But now we're settled and hopefully I can start to put away some more. 

We always make sure to pay our bills before using money for fun. We buy everything on debit (no need to build up a credit in Sweden, I find that system weird to be honest), and always save up for our wants and pay in full directly. The only loans we have are our studentloans and Johns will be payed off next year and mine in five. We have a joint bankaccount for groceries to which we each deposit a sum every month,  not to be used on take out or fast food restaurantes. I make most food in bulks so I have leftovers to bring with me to work.

[cricket]

Saving and budgeting is hard work and takes a lot of resolve to do.  My husband and I both have good salaries but have resolved not to allow our lifestyle to match our income.  We purposely live below our means so we are prepared in case of disaster or unexpected expenses.  I have several saving accounts set up for certain things, Christmas, bills, home improvement, vacation, back to school for the kids as well as our main savings account.  Every time we are paid we fund those accounts.  Some weeks that's $25.00 and some weeks it's only $5.00.  The point is that SOMETHING goes in every time.  It's amazing how helpful it is to have the money set aside when life pops up and you can pull the $ from that particular savings account.  Then the saving starts over again.  We also pick a bill, usually the one with the smallest balance and work on putting extra money towards it.  When it's paid off that money immediately goes down on the next smallest bill along with that bills payment.  It's called debt snowball and my husband and I have been doing it for years.  It is amazing how fast you can get out of debt as long as you don't take out new money or spend those payments for something else.  My pony money and other recreational spending happens once both of the these things have been taken care of.  It there is not money left at the end of the month there are no ponies. 

[NovelNerd]

I'm not saving well at the moment since it seems all my extra money is going towards bringing Nevada home and paying vet bills on all the critters lately.

Typically though my usual method is to separate things out. After I pay for all my bills I typically sort out what I have left for savings ect. My checks automatically have my insurance and other things taken out so lets say I have 1,800 a check for example. Then I will pay all my bills and pull out enough for gas by estimating, or I'll put gas on one credit card for the month.

Then after I pay all that I might have 1,000. I'll take out whatever I plan to do that month be it go out with people or get my hair done ect, then the rest goes to savings. I can always take out money if I need it, but it keeps me from overspending to have it put away from sight. 

[CadePony]

All of my savings are currently under the $1,000 mark, namely under the $500 mark. I've been trying really hard to get my money back up to where I can make ends meet and still have plenty enough money to do whatever I want for the past couple of years, but there's ALWAYS something to come along -- property taxes, car maintenance, etc. -- that ends leaving me with less than $100 left in my savings account. And with me working minimum wage, it's just very hard to try and build my income back up to where it was before I got roped into buying a house with my brother.

I do, however, have a jar of money that I've been putting any spare change into that's going to go towards buying myself a new -- or at least new to me -- Jeep. I think I just surpassed the $100 mark in saving up for a new Jeep not too long ago (I need to do a recount of what I've saved so far).

[xeevee]

I used to be really good at saving money.  But then I started collecting ponies and that was that. 

I should be out of most of my debt pretty soon.  Still have a loan we took out to buy out airfare and a computer back when we moved to China.  But given I have to pay for us all to get to Germany soon,  I'll probably end up back in debt again pretty soon.  Haha.

[ringwraith10]

Money, what money?

Haha, yep! Technically I have $5 in both of my savings accounts just to keep them open... but otherwise I barely even know what money looks like (but hey, I know what ponies look like! My mom reminds me of this whenever I grumble about money problems).

[sparkykandy]

Since other people have brought up school loans, I'm proud to say that mine will be paid at the end of this month.  Yay! 

Anyways, despite the fact I have been saving my whole entire life, the amount I had in savings was pretty pathetic.  (Unemployment eating into my money didn't help either.)  It wasn't until I got a career job that the amount in I had in savings really blossomed.  I'm hoping to save up until a certain amount where I'll truly be comfortable.  (Once I reach that point, I plan to try my hand at doing more investing.)   

[Tap Dancer]

I voted in the poll, but no comment down here.  <---- Except for that comment.

[BerryMouse]

I voted in the poll, but no comment down here.  <---- Except for that comment.

This

I don't talk about money lol

[Pokeyonekenobie]

One of the things that helps me is the way I write down my spending in my check transaction register.  Let's say I get paid $245.67.   I'll write down $245.  Why?  Because that 67 cents adds up.  Let's say I spend $7.48.  I write down $8.  Why?  Just from those two transactions I've got $1.19 that is in my account but doesn't show up as spendable money in my check register.  I use this as overdraft protection as well in case my math is wrong (because let's face it, mistakes happen).  I currently have $1000 extra in my checking account.  Occasionally I pick an amount to transfer over to my savings account.  I also put all of my tax returns into my savings account so I have it available for emergencies (or when my friends call me up and want to go on vacation the next month).

Change adds up.  I cannot stress this enough.  Every time I spend cash, I keep the coins and put them in a bank at home.  I also pick up coins that I find on the ground.   I had friends tease me about this until they realized that I had about $40 that came from parking lots in one summer.  (Granted I was living in an apartment complex where almost everyone used cash, so it got dropped all the time, but you get the idea.)

Don't try to save so much that it makes it impossible to save.  I had a friend try to put $25 a week in savings and she was constantly pulling it out because it was more than she could handle.  Once she dropped it to $5 a week, she actually managed to save her money because she could afford to leave it there.

Another tip, make regular payments on your debts.  I made regular payments on my student loans the summer after I graduated and the bank actually forgave the last $500 of my debt, which was a lovely Christmas gift that year.  I also managed to pay off my car a year early because I made extra payments when I had extra money.  Now that I'm out of debt, I can start saving for other things I want, like my own house.

I am also able to convince myself to completely quit spending money on everything but the essentials (insurance, gas, phone, rent, food) when I have a goal to save up for, such as a trip to Disney World.  So if that helps you as well, create a goal you want to meet and see if that helps you stop spending on unnecessary things. 

Also, if I get a raise, I continue to write down my previous pay for a while to let the extra money accumulate.  After all, I'm already used to living on the pay I was getting before, so the raise is really extra savable money.