The very first month I tried to increase our savings, I failed. Only one week in, I freaked out about the growing overdraft in one of our bank accounts and the pending cash I would have to transfer out of it for business expenses. As a result, I took the 20% of our monthly income that I had saved at the start of the month and the sabbath round up money and transferred everything over to the overdraft. I helped reduced the overdraft but I felt awful. I couldn’t implement the savings plan. I can’t save.
Looking at our account, now with it only being the 12th of the month, not even half way to pay day, we cannot reasonably save that much money and pay off our debts simultaneously. I’m not sure we will make it through the month without going into overdraft. So, I’ve had to make a choice and I’m back to debt repayment being the plan rather than savings. I’m not sure how good it is to have an emergency fund when you have a lot of debt anyways. I’ve read a couple of things that seem to give competing advice about this. I mean, we have credit we can use in a real emergency. Why pay interest rates on debts while you save for lower than inflation savings rates?
So, in order to try to make myself feel better, I updated all our information on undebt it. If you don’t know this program, it allows you to keep track of your debt payments and also helps you plan your debt repayment strategy. By the time I finished updating our accounts, I was really happy because it told me that we were half way there to having zero debt and only a few more months (years) to go.*1 Half-way there! I ought to go and buy a bottle of sparking wine to celebrate. A cheap bottle, but not too cheap…
The only thing that has been really tough this week is that I am traveling for work and consequently eating so many meals out that I am blowing through money like its Germany during the Weimar Republic.*2 Anyone out there travel for work and manage to stick to a budget? I have to meet friends and coworkers and of course, everyone wants to go out for dinner / lunch. And then, because I’m on the Continent, everyone wants to go for coffee after dinner / lunch. Oh and water isn’t free when you go for coffee / lunch / dinner, so I have spent a lot of money on sparkling water this week. Big bottles of sparkling water because who wants to only drink a mini bottle of sparkling water? The mini bottle is maybe good for a small creature, maybe the size of an iguana. The small bottle of sparkling water is definitely not water drinking human animal size. Can’t we all stop meeting in these restaurants? But, it is one thing to force your friends and family to come and eat three day old carrot soup but its something different entirely to try to make your coworkers do that, especially when you haven’t seen them in awhile and they were never at your house even when you lived there.
So, I managed to pay down some debt and get us past the debt-halfway mark! But I also consumed at least a week’s (maybe 2?) worth of groceries in restaurant meals and a mobile phone subscription in sparkling water. You win some you lose some. I’m not sure how I did on net this week at all.
References
*1 This is not a sponsored post. I have been using this program for three years now but I just joined their Affiliate program after I decided to mention them
*2 Yes, that really is a hyperinflation joke.
The first few months are the hardest once you really decide to buckle down. Keep at it, things will settle out.
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I agree with Tread Lightly! Stick with it because sooner or later you’ll find a system that works to pay down your debt. When Mr. FE was at the start of his career, he also found himself eating out more than he wanted, but the networking paid off and he landed himself a much better opportunity. I would suggest you examine whether or not this will propel your career, if not, maybe pass on a few meals out. If the travel is strictly for business, maybe you can get your company to help out and reimburse you for some of the meal expenses.- Mrs. FE
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Yeah unfortunately, I work in a sector that both requires travel but doesn’t pay expenses beyond hotel/train/flight. I like the idea of thinking that its an investment though. I did manage to only spend money on food/drinks and did not spend even 5 min shopping. That actually saved a lot of money and time.
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I’m also trying to dig my way out of debt. I think we’re about 18 months out.
I like to practice “symbolic savings.” I put $25 in a savings account, $25 each into mine and my husbands retirement accounts, and $10/month into my daughter’s college 529 savings accounts. It’s a small enough amount of money that I don’t really miss it while we’re living on less, but it’s just enough that I do see it growing over time (whereas when I was stubbornly putting in 10% and constantly using it for overdraft protection, my savings was shrinking over time).
We’re also thinking we’ll have a month of “Jubilee” when we pay off one thing (the thing we’re putting the bulk of our repayment towards is a roof loan that should be paid off in a month or two, we get to take half the money that we’d usually be putting towards debt and put it towards a special treat for our family. We’re either going to get season passes to a local attractions for our family for our first one or go on a weekend family get-away. It’s something to look forward to and I think it helps us stay motivated.
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So I recently got my drivers permit so that we can stop paying a ridiculous sum of money for parking at the train station. It will require me to drive my spouse and pick them up but maybe we can use half of the money to pay for a date night or something. That is a good idea.
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