I SWEAR by job hopping, I went from a mediocre salary to now a high earner by job hopping. If I didn’t change employers I would still be struggling financially today.
Great tips! Although I just learned that apparently "getting ahead" financially means getting ahead of other people? I never usually think about where other people are financially in comparison to myself. I learn something new every day! 😊
Well in my world I only like to compare to myself and where I was before. However, in RU-vid world… people don’t click on that or watch it. So I try to balance what people will click and watch with good advice. Also while I never think of where I am compared to others it does sometimes help people to do so. Hopefully that makes sense!
We just returned from food shopping for the week. Sue and I plus our two grown kids, 4 adults. Even with purchasing a few items intended for the bunker and a bunch of flowers for Sue, our weekly food shop was just under $150 Aldi and Walmart. We take lunches in a brown bag and cook our own meals. 2 or 3 times a month I go with a few co-workers out to lunch but that comes out of my monthly budget allowance, and I keep the cost at about $10 For the 5 years we were in debt payoff mode Sue and I had 5 takeout meals and 3 sit down diner's total. We eat out together about once a month now. We are going to take a 5 day car vacation in June. We have already saved up the money for that trip. We did something like that last year it was such a great feeling to come home after a several days tour and not have a bill or credit card debt to deal with.
I wonder if this is "weird", but I have 2 emergency funds. One is more so of a rainy day fund but they're aimed at specific things (car, pet, misc, weather preparedness, parents etc). The other EF i think of as an income replacement fund. Currently, I'm working on getting a month ahead on bills. I would like to finish it this year then the rest can passively go towards building my second EF to eventually cover a full year of my salary. Of course this part is WAY off in the future, but I'll get there. 😂😂
I don’t think that’s weird at all! Different methods work and I can totally see how having a job loss EF and more sinking fund style EF makes sense. Getting ahead on bills is a great thing to do!
We have this, too. We call it "emergency fund" which is truly unforseen. And then we have "sinking funds" that we know will be needed at some point (new tires, vet visits etc)
When we realized we needed to change our ways, we decided that the best course of action with our finances was to first get out of debt. This was hard work because we had a lot of it but looking back one thing that really helped us was to simply stop adding new debt. Simple. Some say this is impossible and I would say it's difficult but we went all in, and hard to believe but we haven't incurred any new debt since we started, 7 years ago. And now when "life happens" we are covered with 10 months income in our emergency fund. With that recognize what is an actual emergency? If your dryer falls apart and you don't have the money to fix or replace it, you have two choices. Choice #1 is borrow the money to fix or replace, choice #2 is to take your clothes to a laundromat or hang on a clothes line while you save up the repair/replace costs. Many people might say relacing a clothes dryer is an emergency but really is it? No it's not.
Great mindset! You’re right that many people classify things as an emergency and take on debt when there are many other options. Living without debt has made my own life much less stressful so I totally agree. Great job!
@@PenniesNotPerfection Yes and yes. For the first year living debt free the most marvelous thing was the huge reduction in our stress levels. One of the beautiful things about going all in to pay off debt was it taught us the skills needed to separate our "wants" from our "needs" and only act on our "needs ". Again this is not a skill we were born with we had to teach ourselves that skill. That skill became a habit and the scarcity mindset continued instead of paying off debt that we no longer had we increased our retirement 401K contributions and bumped up our emergency find savings. We were basically on auto-pilot for the year but at the end of that time we realized that our savings rate was a whopping 50%. 6 years earlier we were living paycheck to paycheck but changed our behavior and on basically the same income became by definition "super savers". This is amazing and seems impossible, but the numbers prove it. You are 100% on target here, we, none of us are ever going to ever be perfect but we can strive for really really good and achieve amazing results!
Great goal to have! When something comes up that will stand in the way of meeting your goal, consider looking long and hard for a way to solve that problem that doesn't derail your goal. That solution might not be convenient or impress the neighbors but if it gets you to the finish line it's a bases loaded grand slam home run!
I track all my expenses to the nearest dollar on a free calendar from our township. Many days I don’t spend money and that day is colored pink. On days I spend money that day is colored yellow then I write down amount spent and where it was spent. I’m doing another low spend year to pay extra each month towards my mortgage principal to off mortgage years early. Thank you for always keeping me motivated.
I definiely agree theres a limit to how much you can cut your spending and survive. I only work part time due to health issues but I worked out I needed to reduce my unpaid sick leave so I am really careful about what I eat to avoid foods that can make my health problems worse and try to stick to a sleep schedule and its working. I still have some sick leave but I have had weeks with no sick leave at all.😊
So many people regardless of income aren't saving anything at the end of the month or know where their money is going. I cut HBO Max and switched Internet providers to save a little money this year.
