At savingsadvice, a forum I read, I read an interesting article explaining the difference between living below your means and living within your means.  The difference is that people who live within their means are able to meet all their monthly obligations.  But they are not necessarily saving for the future or for any unexpected [...]

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A friend/commentator said that they got into debt because they were intimidated by getting started on budgeting.  Sounds weird right?  But I wonder how many people fall into this trap and it snowballs into a bigger and bigger debt?
How this happens?  Well it happens because you know you make a good income, and have low [...]

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Since I use pear budget I can see how I stuck to our budget for the year or not.  I can also plan accordingly for 2010 based on our spending in 2009.  Since I do an annual budget broken down monthly, this is the most important time for my budget.  I don’t worry about going [...]

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This is going to come off as stupid, but I read a lot of people on message boards posting about how they have a budget, but don’t seem to have any extra money at the end of the month.  Somehow during the month the money was spent somewhere else.  They “should” have extra money say [...]

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how large an EF you should have.  I said it depends on whose being supported by the EF.  If you have other cash savings like short term and long term cash savings.  If you have a two income or one income family.  All details that factor into [...]

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I mentioned looking over my annual budget last week and being over in a few categories and under in others.  I said that I annually budget and track it monthly, and as long as by the end of the year I’m within 5% I consider it a success.
The monthly budget is a lot harder for [...]

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Are you under or over budget in your spending for a year?  Did you stick strictly to your budget?  Did you miserably fail thus far?  There still are another six weeks to make small tweaks and changes to get your annual spending in line.
Definitely this year was a pretty big spending failure for us.  I [...]

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Grace and Frugal Zeigiest both mention this article in the WSJ about a man living on severance.   The background?  A 44 year old man lost his $200k job in March 2008.  He got a severance package of $200k and had $100k in savings.  At the current burn rate he will run out of money in [...]

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A recent article in US World News and Report gives people 8 Tips to affording a baby.  Interesting list.  Currently we’re on a hiatus on baby spending, no diaper/wipes deals and no time to shop and look at stuff for our baby.  Plus I’m still waiting for more used stuff from friends before buying anything.  [...]

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Does it suck to live within your means?  Honestly yes.  Hey the title of my blog says it all. I enjoy life and would one day love to live large.  Or live without financial worries.  The truth of the matter is, it will take discipline and sacrifice to get there.
A coworker, who graduated last year [...]

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