More money more problems?

[drewid]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that the more money they have, the more they spend?

We just moved recently and our biggest motivating factors were :

- 20 mins closer to DH's work, so could save a fair chunk of petrol money
- substantially reduced rent, $60 less per week!

So we should really be rolling in it, sort of! But no. DH gets paid monthly and its the 20th and we are already down to bare basics cash wise. I mean, I budget to be able to pay all our bills in cash (thank god!) so we are in no danger there, but there is NO spare cash. Nothing!

I don't understand! Of course, it doesn't help having a DH go out on his day off work and spend a small fortune (thanks very much for taking a cash advance off the credit card....ggrrrr!)

Anyway I hope I'm not alone in this. It just bites. I hate not having savings, it makes me feel reallly uncomfortable.

[draught]

We have always been the same - a pay rise, a lump sum, etc - all seems to get absorbed very quickly. I think DH has spent his tax return three times already and yet the cheque only arrived today . (every time I ask - how are we paying for this he says - my tax return will cover it.....hmmmmmm)

The only time it didn't happen was when we had an automatic transfer from our pay into a savings account so that the extra income didn't hit our "spending" account - just the "savings" account.

[drewid]

I tried the savings account thing. It went really well - the baby bonus went in there, and my sale of shares money. But we have just had to keep digging into it and now its really pitiful!

I applied for a new bank account today - I am giving DH his 'own' money every month and he can do what he likes with it, but can't come crawling back to me for more when its gone!! He has such bad spending habits, it wrecks all my careful planning!

[aardvark]

My DH was paid monthly, and it was awful when I wasn't working.

I found that I needed to go to the supermarket just once per month for a major shop, and I bought EVERYTHING aside from fresh fruit and veg, and meat. I bought all the milk as UHT, and I bought meat monthly at the market, just getting fruit and veg weekly.

I generally found we managed OK, but when we all got sick, and needed to see doctors or have prescriptions filled, sometimes it was really a matter of "why is there so much month left at the end of the money".

[Chickadee]

The cost of moving and re-establishing a house always hits our wallet pretty hard, so maybe that has been part of it this month?

We don't budget exactly, but do try to make sure our total debt level stays below 40% to 50% of our after-tax income. So that's rent, investment loans, car loans and any other big bulk outgoings. When our debt creeps up above that we have to watch what we spend and fights break out.

Some really really basic things that we do here though are to try not to buy lunches, cut back on the number of high priced coffees we buy (used to get ridiculous), never take cash advances on credit cards and always always pay off credit cards as priority. The interest rates on cash advances and credit cards are just too high to be worth it. We also don't have any store cards because of the high rates on them.

We've been lucky to have arranged a low-interest line of credit with our banks in Canada, so when we do temporarily have cash flow problems (like at moving time, grrr) we can borrow from that and not run up our credit cards. If you have some decent collateral as a loan gaurantee it might be worth talking to your bank about a line of credit or overdraft.

[Rockett]

I know just how you feel Nicole.DH just started a new job,getting paid double than what he got before and whats the first thing he did when he got paid? Did he pay all the way overdue bills? NO,he went and bought himself some boys toys didn't he! Well,we did pay a couple,but his purchase has left us short.

He gets paid fortnightly,and now we are down to virtually nothing until he gets paid next week.It is soooo frustrating! I want to get all our debts out of the way first,then we can relax a bit.Grrrr

[xkwzit]

Hi Nicole

I absolutely should not preach to you (DH and I were going to sit down over xmas and do our budget - just to make sure we can afford to send DD to school this year and we didn't ).

But I guess the reason that you are stressed about it is because you don't have that money for a rainy day. Maybe you need to sit DH down and decide on nothing but basics until you get that $ (whatever you need to be comfortable) in the bank. Try to put some money directly into a separate savings account first, so you don't miss it (although that money initially should go to paying off your CC cash advance - the bank will charge you interest on that until your CC balance hits zero again - b*stards).

To quote our beloved Dr Phil "you can't solve money problems with more money" you've got to manage what money you've got. Now I'll go and practice what I preach (instead of bubhub? - nah )

Cheers

[ThomasMum]

Maybe.

Joshua and I are very good when it’s come to money. We have never spent over our limit, and always always pay our credit card in full. Mind you though we have a really good financial advisor and accountant who would remind us about our spending whenever we spent “almost” too much!
I love my shopping but I do know that I wouldn’t shop over the limit and I always pay my credit card in full each month.
If you have credit card, you should always shop with the card not only to accrue the points but so that you don’t’ always use your cash therefore you will have some cash in your account iykwim

Like MarthaM said, be very wise with credit cards-because they can be very evil lol. I guess thats how they make money huh. We used to “collect” lots of credit cards lol because we were silly and young, but now we just using 2; NAB and Amex because they both are great and worth to have. Maybe try to open an ING account, so whenever you have some “extra” cash you should transfer the $$ there straight away for the rainy day?

TM

[tpham]

DH got a payrise last month and gets paid monthly. We are so bad with money that at the end of the month, we got nothing. I usually give DH his own money but its never enough. I give him $200 a wk to spend on whatever he wants. Now he wants $300.

Last month i dont know how we did it, but we spent just over $10 000. There were heaps of large bills like car insurance and rego, not to mention we had to register FIL's car because they didnt have the money.We also paid off our credit cards which was also a large chunk of money....besides that it was spending on the house, kids, and the christmas sales didnt help either! This month, im hoping so save some and not have it all spent!!!

[CJJHRA]

I give him $200 a wk to spend on whatever he wants. Now he wants $300.

MY DH dont even get that much to spend on himself in 3 months!