chinaco
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2007
- Messages
- 5,072
This is a regular topic... but since I will ER soon, I thought people might express their thoughts on the subject.
DW and I have always spent less than we earned. We have splurged from time to time, made the inevitable remorseful purchase decision, etc.
However, our LBYM lifestyle has largely been due to habits learned from our parents. We have not really managed our spending to a budget.But we are careful with our spending and periodically hunt down alternative to reduce recurring expenses with a substitute or alternative.
We never made a concerted effort to manage a tight budget except in the really young years and that was governed by the limited income and a desire to not take on debt. By the time we were in our 30's we had fairly good paying jobs and careers so we simply made more than we would normally spend (we are somewhat frugal).
Now that we are intending to FIRE, I am intending to make accounting, budgeting and household purchasing management a priority. That is not to say we intend to go into an extreme LBYM lifestyle (bomb shelter mode). But we will manage a budget to keep much closer track of expenses and get the biggest bang for the buck on purchases.
I am almost certain, I can either lower our expense by 5 to 7% by managing it better or perhaps increase our purchase yield similarly... I suppose, some of that will be elimination of certain expenses that do not provide high benefit (i.e., things rarely used or not high on the priority list) but that is a guess at this point.
How about you?
DW and I have always spent less than we earned. We have splurged from time to time, made the inevitable remorseful purchase decision, etc.
However, our LBYM lifestyle has largely been due to habits learned from our parents. We have not really managed our spending to a budget.But we are careful with our spending and periodically hunt down alternative to reduce recurring expenses with a substitute or alternative.
We never made a concerted effort to manage a tight budget except in the really young years and that was governed by the limited income and a desire to not take on debt. By the time we were in our 30's we had fairly good paying jobs and careers so we simply made more than we would normally spend (we are somewhat frugal).
Now that we are intending to FIRE, I am intending to make accounting, budgeting and household purchasing management a priority. That is not to say we intend to go into an extreme LBYM lifestyle (bomb shelter mode). But we will manage a budget to keep much closer track of expenses and get the biggest bang for the buck on purchases.
I am almost certain, I can either lower our expense by 5 to 7% by managing it better or perhaps increase our purchase yield similarly... I suppose, some of that will be elimination of certain expenses that do not provide high benefit (i.e., things rarely used or not high on the priority list) but that is a guess at this point.
How about you?