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Hmm...am I that behind?
I lurk on the money board every once and a while and either I'm really behind in saving or those girls are lying. They all seem to have 6 months to a year of monthly expenses saved, no debt, no car debt and then a 6,000 or more baby fund for future kids.
Does anyone actually have this! 6 months of living expenses for us is $18,000...I wish I had that in savings but only have 6,000 and they put that down saying I need so much more....when I talk to other people around me they all laugh saying they've been trying to save that much for 20 yrs and things always come up.
So now I'm wondering...does every girl on that board really have it all together like that and does everyone else and I'm just that behind...or are they all freakishly responsible and debt free!! We are not big spenders and save everything but still can't get to that point
Feel free to respond if you don't mind...I'm curious
Re: Hmm...am I that behind?
We do have some credit card debt but have been paying it off and haven't used them in almost a year....my husbands car is paid off and we just have mine at this point and we only have $5000 in student loans so I think we are doing pretty good.
I just get grasp the whole 6-12 month emergency fund they all have...I WISH!!
I don't want to get into too much but I'm in the same boat as Lily I think. I do owe on my car as well as my husbands but we are planning on paying mine off shortly. I do have the 6 months of savings but it's because I pay myself like it's a bill. Anything leftover after "x" amount we agreed on to go into savings is our "fun" money. Credit cards are paid off each month. I think it's very hard to get out of debit once you are there so we try to not overspend.
That being said... we have never had any real "emergencies" that could burn through money quickly. We are lucky in that way.
I would say it's best to continue to lurk over on MM. They are really helpful when you can pick and chose what you want to use from them to create your own success.
Hi~I'm totally with you. I would love to get to that point where we have an "emergency fund" that is 6 months of our salary, but it always seems that something comes up(whether it be for the house,cars,etc) that we can never seem to get to that point! I was just telling DH the other day that when we get our tax refund this year that I want to start a savings account for our little girl(we haven't even done that yet!) with a substantial amount to make up for the last year not having one. I wouldn't even know where to get started to figure out how to get six months worth of salary aside~I think it would take us a couple years to get that money aside if we put a little bit each month away and not touch it! Money is SO stressful isn't it?!?!?!
I am thinking that the ones that are comfortable posting specifics about $$ are the ones that are very comfortable financially for one reason or another. I am sure what you posted is the exception rather than the rule, but how many people with less favorable money situations would want to post about their finances on a public messge board? It is kinda like a poll about engagement ring size I remember from my knot days-- overwhelmingly, the girls who responded had large rings, when I am sure plenty of girls had a carat or less.
With money, you never know where the $$ comes from I have a married friend that has received $10k from her dad each year since she was 18 and a couple friends who have received inheritance money from deaths of close relatives.
While my H and I don't have any so called "bad debt," we do have a mortgage, student loans and his car loan. Our emergency fund covers a few month and our back up plan is to sell $$ my H has in company stocks if we needed more than that. While I don't think we will ever be 100% comfortablly financially, we are taking the next few years to really save our money and build for our future.
I agree with the other girls...you never know where people get their money.
H and I have a joint account with over 6 months of expenses saved up, but that's also our house fund. We each have emergency funds of our own and we don't know exactly how much the other has, but it's a significant amount. I also have some stock I got from my grandparents years ago.
The only debt we have is our mortgage, my car loan (which will be up in 2012) and my student loans. We pay off all of our credit cards every month.
Not everyone's situation is the same, so you can't really compare savings to savings. I think it's more what you're capable of saving. I just got a raise and I calculated the difference between what I was taking home each paycheck and what I'm taking home now. I made sure I upped my automatic deposits into the other accounts that I don't really "see" so that I wouldn't even notice that I was making more money. That way I'm saving more without even realizing it and don't try to spend it.
That board makes me feel like a loser. We also don't have 6 months living expenses in savings. We obviously have investments we could reach in an emergency. We are close to being credit card debt-free. Other than that, we just have our mortgage and student loans. Our credit card debt is from before we were together - when we were younger and made mistakes. We don't use credit cards anymore - if we do, we pay them off.
I would like to keep establishing our savings, so we do have 6 months though. I do think it's a very good idea. We're just not there, yet.
I think Krista hit the nail on the head. People post about what they "know" and/or are comfortable with within themselves. Maybe those girls do have this money saved up, but they can't get pg or they have family issues. They aren't going to go onto other boards and speak negatively about themselves, but they can talk comfortably on the money boards.
That said, we do have close to 6 mos of expenses saved up, but like eb, that's also our next house down payment fund as well. And we are lucky enough to be in a position where we do put all of our tax refund in savings and my H's bonus. If we couldn't do that, we wouldn't be nearly as comfortable.
It's a money specific board so naturally most of the regular posters on the board are very skilled and knowledgable about financial matters. Kind of like the fashion and beauty board where some of the girls have every lipgloss from MAC known to mankind....very beauty specific where those girls are knowledgable about products, etc.
I like to lurk on the MM board because I get really great tips and information. I also think that it is entirely possible to save 6-12 months of emergency funds and be debt free. It takes some financial planning but you can do it. I recommend the total money makeover if you are trying to figure out how to up the ante on paying off debt and establishing solid savings.
thumbs up for this book recommendation
i lurk on the MM often and really enjoy hearing about other ppl and thier situation. hubs and i are very into making sure we are being smart with our money. that being said we have quite a bit on savings(4-5 months with TWO mortgages) and some fun money that we don't know exactly how we want to invest just yet.
Our biggest savers are that we rarely are able to take full-on vacations, it's usually 3 day weekend b/c of our jobs and we rarely eat out, unless we get a gift card or something. If we do...the expensive part of the tab is usually the drinks. LOL ( i didnt realize how much this added up till talking with some friends who eat out like twice a week)
At first a lot of the women on MM freaked me out but when you look at where some of them are located it can be a much lower COL etc. not to mention property taxes! It's all about what works for you.
I'll check that book out....I guess it suprises me b/c I've been into saving and financees from a young age and always read the way to do things and I've been trying to get to the point of having 6-12 months but it seems something always comes up or breaks in the house or the car. We both had $20,000 saved at 25 and put all $40,000 down on our house so we pretty much started from scratch after that. The debt that we had came from stuff we had no control over after we bought the house like a broke hoter water heater, flooded basment and then car problems.
That's a big reason I'm trying to do the emergency fund, I guess like some of you said a lot of others get their money from other sources that not everyone has or it's just luck of never needing the $ for a big expense. If anything I am greatful that I don't have some of the school loans that some of them have.
It's defiently something to look forward too
I've set up ING accts to take out a certain amount every week and I'm gonna start putting whatever extra $ is left at the end of the month into that same acct.