How far above your means do you live?

Ive met a few folks in person and online that when the price of gas goes up a few cents, service fee for a cell phone, satellite radio, etc they throw a hissy fit and get all bent out of shape. Its my understanding from econmics that Americans live 113% above their means, but many I know and work with do not.

I , myself have a balance on my credit card and am slowly paying it down. I also buy stuff in between, but know I will get it to zero and start saving in just a few weeks. I allow a few hundred to enjoy and a few hundred for the credit card.

My folks are at their income and have some savings. THey do have a mortgage to pay off, but meet their monthly needs.

THe guys in the shop where i work drive older, less efficient cooler cars and trucks, a hike in gas is no concern to them. One guy who went to college and has the student loan to pay off seems to work just enough hours to cover his means.

What about here?

I think how close my cashflow is to my means seems to fluctuate. Sometimes I live within and sometimes stretch out of my comfort zone. It's really a moving target of growth for me. I guess it depends on what is important at that time and how focused I am towards it's fruition. Not for the items from my means but the means for my items/lifestyle. Both are moving targets motivating each other.

You've reminded me of a few of inspiring quotes that are sorta relevant.

"A mind once stretched..." (cannot go back to what it was)
I mean, can you conciously unlearn/forget something you like, use or understand? How high are we willing to allow our means to become? D2D

Here's a great quote from a good friend...
"It is not to have earned a million dollars that matters, rather it is what earning that million dallars will have made of you." (spoken in a thick baroque accent) This is what I mean by both means and debts motivating each other.

Anyway, I pick Moving Targets for 500 points Alex

I live within my means. I do have a managable credit card debt that I'm paying down, and I owe the IRS some money.

I have over a months' wages in the bank and typically see a surplus every month. I could afford to pay off my credit card debt immediately, but I'd rather keep my monetary cushion.

I know that some members buy flashlights compulsively; I have trouble justifying new purchases, thus my collection is perhaps smaller than average.

When I was an employee with a steady paycheck I lived within my means.

Right now I'm still in the early stages of starting a business and I'm spending more than I'm making. If it doesn't change soon I will return to being an employee again.

Outside of when I borrowed money to pay for college I live within, probably below, my means. I have no charge card debt, and don't charge something unless I can afford to pay it in full each month. I regularly save some (actually most) of my income, even though my income is sporadic since I'm in business for myself. Right now I have the equivalent of a few years pay in savings. Eventually once I save enough I'll consider buying a house-with cash. I'm really old school when it comes to money. I just don't believe in carrying any debt whatsoever. Living beyond your means, or carrying any significant debt, is a recipe for disaster which I liken to living under a house of cards. Once one piece of the house of cards collapses usually it takes everything else with it.

I live well within my means. I put something in savings every payday and some in the 401K for the distant future.

I can still hear my grandfather's voice many years ago telling me that if I don't pay all my bills on time and put something (even if only a dollar) aside every payday it's living above my means. Maybe that's why I only have one credit card and leave the checkbook at home. If I see something I don't have cash for I have to decide whether it's worth a trip back home to get the checkbook. I do have enough willpower to leave the credit card alone most of the time.

Even so, with the cost of living it's difficult to see the day when I will be able to retire. At least I have no worries and I've got good friends and family.

Well I still live with my parents so...

My sister gave me a book for christmas last year: BOOK (non-affiliate link, BTY)

Pretty good, and easy read. It's all common sense, and nothing you didn't already know, but it's handy and powerful to see it all right there. The general idea is: there's no reason we can't live well and have nice things, but if we'd be a little more patient about getting them, and start paying ourselves, we'll end up a lot further ahead in the long run. You read the title of that book and think "No way can it be automatic." But a big part of his plan is leveraging the tools of the computer age to automate things like deposits to your savings account and such, so that you build up some future savings painlessly.

my general attitude about money, is that i like having it, and don't like spending it.
as a result, combined with the fact that i don't have house payments or bills to attend to, means that i live within my means.

the problem i face at this point, is that i want to not spend money and work on my savings, but at the same point, i've spent an enormous amount of money in the past few months. not on wants, but on things that i more or less "needed". it's not like i'm blowing the money, and all of my purchases are considered "investments", but i still hate spending so much.
in the last five months: new tires-$400, minimill-$500, home tooling-$300, tools for work-$200, new toolbox-$600, ghost mountain gathering-$1000ish(counting time off work and such), and another $600 this week for the next 6months car insurance. this is in addition to health insurance, cell phone bill, food, gas, misc.
yes, i'm still making more than i'm spending, but i'm not happy with what i've got in the bank at this point, and there are a few other big purchases that i need to make in the near future as well...

I have only borrowed money to buy two things: My college education, and my house. I paid both off long befre they were due.

I have purchased 9 cars; 4 used, and 5 new. I paid cash for all of them.

I pay off my credit card every month.

I have about 2 year's woth of take home earning ib the bank(s).

If I can't buy it with what I earn every month, It doesn't get bought. Period.

I only take money out of the bank for major purchases: home repair, and new(or used) cars. Period.

Owning money is a trap that's very hard to get out of. Every bank in the USA wnats to give me a credit card with a huge max credit. I cut them in half and throw them away. I only use two credit cards for everyday purchases: food, clothing, gasoline, etc.

I don't earn all that much money, but I keep a very modest lifestyle. I just replaced a car that was 18 years old, and I still own one that's 17 years old; (I store it during the winter).

My parents grew up during the Great Depression, and I learned the value of both saving money, and living simply, and wisely.

I buy things when they are on sale: this week: 3 cases of oil for my cars, and 250 lbs. of kitty litter. A year's supply of a few other things I regularly use.

Same with clothing: I buy summer clothing late in the summer at 40 to 60% off, and winter clothing late in the winter. I bought 13 short sleeved shirts in Sept. They will last 2 to 3 years.

I try never to have to pay full price for anything. I watch like a hawk for things to go on sale, and for coupons for grocery items, etc. I buy generic foods, if palatable.

Living withing one's means is simply common sense.

goldenlight said:

I buy things when they are on sale: this week: 3 cases of oil for my cars, and 250 lbs. of kitty litter. A year's supply of a few other things I regularly use.

Same with clothing: I buy summer clothing late in the summer at 40 to 60% off, and winter clothing late in the winter. I bought 13 short sleeved shirts in Sept. They will last 2 to 3 years.

I try never to have to pay full price for anything. I watch like a hawk for things to go on sale, and for coupons for grocery items, etc. I buy generic foods, if palatable.

Click to expand...

Yep, never paying full retail price for anything and buying in bulk things you know you'll need are two great ways to save lots of money. I even go one step further with the clothes. When my pants get small rips I put patches on the inside. I make the patches from an old, unsalvageable pair of pants, and glue them on with clear silicon rubber. Works great, and probably doubles the life of a pair of pants. In general I don't buy new clothing of any type until the old is simply no longer useable (i.e. more than a few holes, or the material is worn thin from too many washes). My grandfather used to put cardboard in his shoes when they were worn through. I think having two sets of grandparents who lived through the Depression gave me my mindset about managing money.

Cars are another huge expense for many people. Living in a place where you don't need to own a car can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime, all other things being equal of course.

We live within our means..We only have a house payment which will be paid off early. I'm 46 and have never had a car payment and hopefully will never have one..

We have a favorite credit card that we pay off at the end of most months..and we earn cash using it..

and thankfully I'm not a shopper!
OK, I do like my starbucks!

jtr1962 said:

Cars are another huge expense for many people. Living in a place where you don't need to own a car can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime, all other things being equal of course.

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Yes, cars are my big weakness. Not big, expensive, or fancy cars. All of my cars have been sub compact, or compact cars. but since 1984 I've owned 2 cars. a huge expense. But I do all of my own maintainence, and most repairs, so I have saved probably 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the life of my all of my cars; and that's the cost of a car right there(!)

Ans when I talk maintainence, I mean putting in new front and rear brakes, torqueing the cylinder head, and adjusting the valves every 10,000 miles on 8, 12 and 16 valve 4 cylinder engines (mostly Japanese). Rebuilding brake calipers; installing new radiators. I can't do everything, because increasingly, cars require special tools, but for example: in 1988 It cost about $100 to get the valves adjusted on my Honda (required every 15,000 miles; I did it every 10,000 miles. Figuring the price would have increased at least 50% over the 18 years I owned my Honda, just that one service saved around $1000.

I've owned my home for 26 years. *All* electrical and plumbing repairs were done by me. Same with most maintainence. The savings are *enormous*.

I bought a condo over renting a year ago and I'm still having buyer's remorse. I'm a little over 40 and my finances have not been so tight since starting out in my work field in my early 20s. For an instance the beer I'm drinking tonight is Keystone!

I do not live beyond my means at all.
I have a fixed income, no car or truck, do not own or have a morgage on a house, and no charge cards - so once the money's gone, it's gone.
As in "over, finished, done, gone, out".

jtr1962 said:

Cars are another huge expense for many people. Living in a place where you don't need to own a car can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime, all other things being equal of course.

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Very OT.

There are very few places in this country where it's practical to live without owning a car. Notice that qualifier - practical. I can only think of a few cities offhand - NYC, some parts of DC, Chicago, and Portland Oregon (amazing mass transit for a city well under 1 million!). I could be wrong about DC & Chicago - I've never been there - but I'm confident about NYC despite never having visited.

Dallas/Fort Worth is a sprawling suburban hell. >5,000 (five thousand!) square miles with maybe 5 million people in the metro area. The density is greater than 1000 people per square mile in the core areas, but that leaves low-desnity areas a-plenty that can still call themselves "suburbs" of Dallas or Fort Worth. I can drive in one direction at an average speed of 30 MPH and still not be out of my suburb in 10 minutes.

Dallas has about the best mass transit system possible given available funding, but it's really only good for going downtown. I guess you can hop on random busses downtown and expect they'll go somewhere predictable, but you'll be lucky if you hop on a random bus outside downtown and you end up at a transit center - where you might be able to catch a bus to a nearby destination or another transit center closer to your destination. The light rail goes downtown ... good for some or good if your destination happens to be on a rail line, but next to useless for traversing the suburbs where most of the population lives.

Maybe if they'd stop building so many highways...

I do not live above my means. I also do not live the "normal standard" in my neighborhood. I know many of my nieghbors. The only ones who do not owe tremendous amounts are the ones who live similarly understated lives. They have higher paying jobs and can spend more in turn.
I have two debts. A mortgage and a car loan. I use one credit card that has the lowest APR I could find. I pay that card off each bill to avoid interest payments. I regularly pay off any balance on the card, and rarely use the card anyways. I have friends who owe huge balances on cards and I just don't understand it.
If you can't afford it, don't get it. I pay cash out of my pocket for most everything. I don't worry about robbery because I live in a good community and carry a gun in the other pocket just in case. Cash speaks loudly and gets a discount at times.
I had huge debt earlier in life, but I also was married then. I could not control either at the time. I have cut my losses and I am in control of a lot more now. (Not married anymore either)
I believe too many Americans are living now on money that is not here now. I don't pretend to know economics well enough to profess any great advice.
All my lights are paid for at the time of purchase or when the bill comes in. I consider myself fortunate to be able to afford this indulgence.

Hey IP, where is your suburb located? I'm there two months out of the year visiting family...and they live in a suburb that may be as big as yours...

As far as my spending goes, I live within my means(just barely) until I turned 21. I'll be paying off a few big bills(2 1911s and 2000 rounds of ammo does that to you) for a while so no lights for me until Christmas. But I only use check cards to stay in my budget and use my only credit card(AMEX) for big purchases. That way I almost always know how much I spend. I had once credit card when I was 19 and I made one purchase, paid it off, and cut it up, so I have a clean record as far as credit is concerned...

Nick

idleprocess said:

Very OT.

There are very few places in this country where it's practical to live without owning a car. Notice that qualifier - practical. I can only think of a few cities offhand - NYC, some parts of DC, Chicago, and Portland Oregon (amazing mass transit for a city well under 1 million!). I could be wrong about DC & Chicago - I've never been there - but I'm confident about NYC despite never having visited.

Click to expand...

No argument there, just one qualifier-it's quite possible to live in the NY Metro area (i.e. the outlying suburbs) or some of the outlying areas of Chicago without owning a car. I'll even go so far as to say it's practical if you're within walking distance of a commuter rail station (look at a map-there's a lot of them within 75 miles of NYC). Basically between the two areas I mentioned you have maybe 30 million people, or 10% of the US population, for whom a car is more a convenience than a necessity.

Just one question regarding Dallas/Forth Worth-why on earth did they spread it out so much instead of just concentrating everything in a smaller area? It would have been cheaper, used less resources, reduced the amount of travel time for everybody, plus made car ownership less necessary. Maybe that's a common theme I see as a New Yorker when I look at development patterns in most of the US. I see wasted space when there's empty land between buildings. Even in the NY Metro area, the outlying suburbs could probably accommodate ten times the people they do and still not be horribly crowded. That would be about 300 million people (incidentally the entire US population) in an area about 100 miles square (i.e. 10,000 square miles), and nobody would ever need to buy a car again. That's 30,000 people per square mile, a quite manageable, very nice medium density amenable to a mix of single family homes and small apartment buildings. Some parts of Manhattan or Tokyo exceed 1 million per square mile during business hours just for comparison. Even NYC proper is roughly 400 square miles with 8.5 million people for an average of 21250 people per square mile, although the outer boroughs probably average about half that density.

On the theme of managing money, even if you're stuck in an area without practical public transit a bike or a motor scooter are practical alternatives unless you need to carry heavy loads. I see widepread use of both overseas.

Way beyond my means.. I am self employed so I have no steady income to develop any type of budget.
My friends say I live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget.
My wife has her bachelors in behavioural sciences, a few years ago when we started our family she was faced with a big decision, to stay working or to stay at home, she chose home. Her income dissapearing didn't really affect our finances but we did have to sacrafice some luxeries.
I still live as though our home is generating 200k, and it doesn't. This year I bought my first used car.
It used to be just money to me, I could make as much as I wanted as fast as I wanted, but with kids growing up in my home I have started to let my debts subside, they need an example..

Once I learned about the hazzards of credit card in my early 20's I make sure I pay them off every month and control my spending, now I live way below our means. The biggest thing that make people live beyond their means is a home. They get the wrong advice on what to spend and are told that their income will increase to make up shortages. Most people will tell you that spending one third of your net income is perfectly ok for a 30 year loan. I think that is way to much, I have one neigboor that is spendin 42% of his net income on house payments. When his hot water heater broke last winter it took him 2 weeks to scrape up the money to replace it, his kids took showers at my house.

A good rule of thumb is to no more than 25% of your income for a house with a 15 year loan, but of course some areas of the US are so priced out of reach. We currently spend only 22% of our net income on a 15 year loan