Living Small

Huh?

Living Small?

Usually, people talk about living large. Unfortunately for most people, forcing ourselves to live large puts us in financial situations we regret later.

Being married to a United Methodist pastor and being on disability myself, keeps us from living beyond our means. When we were first married, we had some issues juggling three houses after moving to a new city. It took a while to get out from under two of those houses and we were concerned about getting into another home right away so we rented when we first made our latest move.

Living Beneath Your Means

When we made this latest move, we decided to live on my wife’s check and start to save my check. It has worked well for a while now. It sure helped that we were debt-free when we made the last move. Sure, there have been things that have interrupted that plan of savings. An auto accident, physical therapy and doctor visits, and the purchase of a new (for us) car have taken its toll right now but we still live below our income.

Results

As a result of living below our means, we have maintained a debt-free lifestyle. The exception right now is the car. We financed the car because we are working on a settlement from insurance for it.

We have recently made the decision to purchase a new home which will give us our first home together as a married couple. It is an exciting time and although we are financing the purchase, we are already talking about plans to pay it off early.

For instance, did you know that if you split your mortgage payment and pay it every two weeks instead of once per month, you can save a ton of money in the form of interest savings? Also, paying just a little extra on your mortgage can save a lot. For example, on a $300,000 mortgage, if you pay an extra $100 per month, you can cut the length of a 30 year loan by a few years. Now that’s some savings.

Savings Challenge

Here is an update on the savings plan.

We are up to $312.00 in savings. There was a $100 jump from last week because it is the new pay period. We decided to pay the larger amount on the weeks we get paid and the smaller amounts on the weeks where there is no paycheck. This will balance out the savings so that we are not scrimping every week or running into a situation where we are short on cash around Thanksgiving and Christmas when historically we need more liquidity in our funds. Let me know how you are doing with your savings plans.