Over the past month, I've turned into a new person. I went from this girl, "Ooohhh. That's cool. Let's buy it!" to this girl: "Are you kidding me? You want to fill the tank with gas? Like all the way to the top? Do you have any idea how much that will cost?"
Oh yeah. I'm now a Crazy Budget Lady.
I'm totally addicted to saving money, not spending money, paying off debt, reading frugal blogs, scouring websites for information, etc. I've seen how much money we can save each month if we just pay attention to our expenses and it's exciting.
One thing that shocked me was how completely ignorant we've been throughout our married lives. We've only balanced a checkbook for probably 3 months over the past 14 years. We've always had a healthy savings account, so we spent money simply because we could. How crazy is that? Now I know that while having loans for cars, a home, furniture, etc. is the norm for most people, that is not the life I want to live any more.
I want to live a life where I'm not strapped to monthly payments, I can afford to take my kids on vacations without charging them, I can be generous with my money by donating to causes that are important to me, and so on. I want my kids to know that taking out loans is a way to buy the "wants" in life.
Things I've done to save money today:
- Brought my lunch to work.
- Brought my afternoon caffiene fix from home instead of raiding the pop machine at work.
