There are a lot of little things we do to "live like no one else", but it all boils down to three basic tenants that we follow and have followed since we married. The best advice we've gotten over the years essentially boils down to the following three things:
1) Do not get into debt. If you're not in debt already, do everything you can to stay out of debt. If you're in debt, move heaven and earth to get out of debt. We came into our marriage with my husband's student loans as our only debt, and we made a commitment to not get into any other type of debt , especially credit card debt! If we did not have the cash, we did not buy it.
2) If you must get into debt, make it as short term as possible and only on things that will pay off in the long run. In our case, my husband took out student loans. He took out approximately $54,000 in loans out during his entire college education. (EEP!)
That is a huge number, but it is also about one year of the starting salary of his chosen profession, and we figured that we could pay it off in a reasonable amount of time. As of this writing, he's been out of school for three years, and we still owe about $12,000. The majority of that has been paid off in the past three years, although we started paying in bits and pieces here and there before he left graduated.
3) This third thing is the best financial advice I've ever gotten, and it comes from an offhand remark one of my teachers made my senior year of high school. Thanks Mr. M, wherever you are! Here is is: If you are a duel income family, do your best to live on one person's income. Send the other person's salary (minus retirement savings of course!) to your debt. If you have no debt, save it for major expenses.
Learn to live on one income and you will not panic if one of you loses your job. If children arrive and you want someone to stay home with them, you will not have to figure out how to cut expenses. We decided when we married that we would ignore my income as much as possible so that I could be a stay at home mom if and when the time came. This has served us extremely well over the years. Learn to live on one income and you can do some potentially awesome things!
What's the best advice you've ever gotten?
1 comment:
I look forward to following your blog. I've been staying home with my three kids for almost seven years and always looking for a good deal and on a tight budget. It did take awhile to get used to one income, but it can be done. We have learned how to cut costs, esp. groceries. I discovered Aldi and it has saved us so much!!
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