I’ve always considered myself fortunate. I grew up with a single parent. We were never dirt poor, but looking back on it I realize our dollars were pretty stretched. My mother did a great job of balancing her career with my school/sports events while she was getting her bachelors degree via night classes. The point is, I grew up knowing the importance of budgeting.
As I graduated college, I got a better job than I deserved making around $65k in the Midwest where cost of living is cheap. Fast forward a few years and I now make just over $100k while still living in the same house (I have a mortgage).
The amazing thing I’ve noticed is that lifestyle creep is very real (even though I’ve always tried to be aware of it). The crazy thing is, I feel like I had more discretionary spending back when I was making $65k than I do now. So I finally realized that my spending was just absurd. I was going out to nice dinners with my girlfriend (now fiancé) almost every other night. As she is getting her masters and paying for it without loans, I always buy. I was going nuts on little things on Amazon as well.
I still know the importance of investing. My company has a super generous retirement plan and I have about $130k in my 401k at the age of 30. I have almost used this to justify my spending.
I signed up for Mint to track everything and was just blown away at where my money was going. By simply logging into Mint daily I have dramatically reduced my spending (legitimately spend about 1/3 of what I used to) and feel like things are back on track.
I wanted to post this to see what things you all do in order to keep your spending on track and live within your means!
Submitted November 29, 2018 at 08:36AM by MoneyMillennial https://ift.tt/2FNHskO
