That's how my personal life feels right now. I know where I want to go, but I have 
no clue how I am going to get there. That's really how Irv and I have done things our entire married lives. We just went with the flow and what happened...happened. Not always a bad way to live, except where finances are concerned.
So, now we find ourselves utterly tired of working....yearning for a glimpse at retirement....with no chance in hell of that happening any time soon.
Irv has had some nice jobs over the years, but none of them offered a decent pension plan. I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) until Matt was in high school except for selling Avon and cleaning houses. No pension plans there.
Most of our married lives we barely made enough money to pay the bills, so saving and investing weren't even in our vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, we had some great times living on what we made until things like birthdays, Christmas, medical emergencies, house disasters or any unexpected expense popped up, and then our survival mechanism was plastic and even today at times, it still is. We have a very large amount of credit card debt that we are trying to pay down.
Unless we sit dow
n and take a serious look at where we are and where we eventually would like to be and figure out a way to get there...we will continue to flounder and retirement will forever be out of reach.
Getting out of debt is difficult when every penny you earn goes to pay bills. I know that we have two options...we either make more money, or we spend less money....or a combination of the two.
My plan is for us to write down how we spend our money...every penny of it. Once we see where our money is going, we will need to decide where we can cut our sp
ending. Making more money will come through my etsy business down the road....neither of us would have the energy to work a second job right now, so etsy is our best option. It's something I love and I can see it being a big help at some point.
We don't spend a lot of money on clothes, jewelry, fancy dinners, movies, cars and "toys" so our cutting will mean sacrificing the little things that we enjoy and that isn't easy. You feel like you are working so hard, but yet you can't afford to spend $15 a week on Starbucks and that sucks...but it is what it is, and if giving that up will get a bill paid faster....I know I can do it.
It's all about accountability and responsibility and sacrifice AND how badly we want to reach that ultimate goal, which is a debt free retirement before we are too darn old to enjoy it! I am not upset about it so don't feel bad. We made choices along that way that made sense at the time. It doesn't matter now if they were the right choices or not. What matters is the present and how what we do today can help us in the future.
So, if you have any little money saving or expense cutting secrets.....I am all ears!!
no clue how I am going to get there. That's really how Irv and I have done things our entire married lives. We just went with the flow and what happened...happened. Not always a bad way to live, except where finances are concerned.So, now we find ourselves utterly tired of working....yearning for a glimpse at retirement....with no chance in hell of that happening any time soon.
Irv has had some nice jobs over the years, but none of them offered a decent pension plan. I was a SAHM (stay at home mom) until Matt was in high school except for selling Avon and cleaning houses. No pension plans there.
Most of our married lives we barely made enough money to pay the bills, so saving and investing weren't even in our vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, we had some great times living on what we made until things like birthdays, Christmas, medical emergencies, house disasters or any unexpected expense popped up, and then our survival mechanism was plastic and even today at times, it still is. We have a very large amount of credit card debt that we are trying to pay down.
Unless we sit dow
n and take a serious look at where we are and where we eventually would like to be and figure out a way to get there...we will continue to flounder and retirement will forever be out of reach.Getting out of debt is difficult when every penny you earn goes to pay bills. I know that we have two options...we either make more money, or we spend less money....or a combination of the two.
My plan is for us to write down how we spend our money...every penny of it. Once we see where our money is going, we will need to decide where we can cut our sp
ending. Making more money will come through my etsy business down the road....neither of us would have the energy to work a second job right now, so etsy is our best option. It's something I love and I can see it being a big help at some point.We don't spend a lot of money on clothes, jewelry, fancy dinners, movies, cars and "toys" so our cutting will mean sacrificing the little things that we enjoy and that isn't easy. You feel like you are working so hard, but yet you can't afford to spend $15 a week on Starbucks and that sucks...but it is what it is, and if giving that up will get a bill paid faster....I know I can do it.
It's all about accountability and responsibility and sacrifice AND how badly we want to reach that ultimate goal, which is a debt free retirement before we are too darn old to enjoy it! I am not upset about it so don't feel bad. We made choices along that way that made sense at the time. It doesn't matter now if they were the right choices or not. What matters is the present and how what we do today can help us in the future.
So, if you have any little money saving or expense cutting secrets.....I am all ears!!
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