Peace of Mind - Priceless!
A simple way to budget, explained by Cheapskater Merrilyn.
"We used to have four children at home and we survived on one wage for 20 years. Things were very tight but we did not miss out on anything that mattered. It is really encouraging to see that people are living the same way and not struggling. We now only have one child at home and we have turned 50 this year. We are planning to go to England next year and we are madly saving for this, using a lot of your principles. It is amazing how much money we have been wasting since things have not been so tight! Anyway I just wanted to share the best thing we ever did when things were tight. I sat down and worked out exactly how much bills were for the year, including all the kids sport, music, scouts etc. and then worked out how much I would have to put aside each fortnight to cover this. I added a little extra to cover any rises. I then got a separate bank account with a cheque book (there was no internet or telephone banking then) and had this money put into this account. It took a while to gradually build up the money in this account so that there was always enough to cover the bills but we got there. This is the most stress-free way to manage bills. I still get a surprise when I hear people who are not struggling say that they have their car rego etc. due and they will need all their pay to go into that this week or that they wonder where they will get the money from. We may not have had a lot of money left over but I NEVER had to worry how we were going to pay the next bill. This is the most stress-free way to live. Hope this helps someone."
"We used to have four children at home and we survived on one wage for 20 years. Things were very tight but we did not miss out on anything that mattered. It is really encouraging to see that people are living the same way and not struggling. We now only have one child at home and we have turned 50 this year. We are planning to go to England next year and we are madly saving for this, using a lot of your principles. It is amazing how much money we have been wasting since things have not been so tight! Anyway I just wanted to share the best thing we ever did when things were tight. I sat down and worked out exactly how much bills were for the year, including all the kids sport, music, scouts etc. and then worked out how much I would have to put aside each fortnight to cover this. I added a little extra to cover any rises. I then got a separate bank account with a cheque book (there was no internet or telephone banking then) and had this money put into this account. It took a while to gradually build up the money in this account so that there was always enough to cover the bills but we got there. This is the most stress-free way to manage bills. I still get a surprise when I hear people who are not struggling say that they have their car rego etc. due and they will need all their pay to go into that this week or that they wonder where they will get the money from. We may not have had a lot of money left over but I NEVER had to worry how we were going to pay the next bill. This is the most stress-free way to live. Hope this helps someone."
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