Blogging Away Debt

What Do I Feel Constitutes a “Super Saver”

Yesterday, I posted a brief recap of an article in the New York Times about people saving up money for down payments on homes. On that post, I received a comment from someone wondering why I called them “Super Savers” and I thought I would devote a post to it, because it brings up good points about how I now look at things.

I’ll single out the first couple, Janey Lee and Pablo AgÃ¼ero. They were saving $18,000/year with their $100,000 income. That comes out to 18% of their income being saved. Does 18% seem that impressive right off hand? It might not to some. But do I think it is? YES!

Here’s the big reason why:

I have no idea of all of the particulars of their life. The story in the New York Times only gave a glimpse into their financial lives and aside from sitting down with them and hearing their life story, there’s no way I can judge their spending against mine. Sure, there are the things like eating out and entertainment that can (for the most part) be reduced and/or eliminated for most of us. And from the article, it appears that they were targeting those areas. But I don’t know if perhaps one of them is paying child support, or helping to pay for an elderly relative’s nursing home, or if they give a percentage of their income to worthy causes…the list goes on and on. Until I know all of those details, I cannot say whether the percentage of income they were able to save was enough or not enough.

Now, since I don’t know about the particulars of their life, I look at their goal and what they accomplished. Janey and Pablo set a goal of saving a down payment for a home and they made changes in their lifestyle to make it happen. It took them 5 years to save that money, but they kept with it and made their dream happen. I have nothing but a great deal of respect for that. My guess is that they’ve learned a lot in the process and I hope they will have a brighter financial future because of it.

With my finances detailed on here for all of the world to see, probably the most difficult part is having people tell me that I am not doing enough. Sometimes they are spot on (like with our grocery spending), sometimes it’s a matter of them not knowing the whole story. There’s no way I can give everyone all of the details of how we live. Unless you can live in someone else’s shoes…you can’t know everything.

The same can apply to stories about debt reduction that you read. I’ve read a few debt reduction stories where people paid off over $30,000 of their debt (or some high number like that) in a year and they make $150,000/year. Before starting my debt reduction journey, the first thing out of my mouth was, “Of course they could do it, look at how much they make!” I don’t say that anymore, because I am missing the point. The point is that they had to change the lifestyle they were used to and stick to their goal. Again, nothing but respect for those who have done it. I understand now that I cannot compare my life to others.

To sum it all up, to compare lifestyle to lifestyle and merely looking at the numbers is dangerous and can have negative results on your morale. However, looking at what others have accomplished can provide a great source of inspiration.

That’s why I called those people “Super Savers.”

Finally…Here’s June’s Spending Report

by Tricia

I’ve had the report ready for some time now. I just never got around to writing a post and really looking at the numbers and discussing them. Prepare yourself, there was some major spending in June. But we still spent less than we earned.

Ok, here’s the report. My comments are below.

Automobile – We had a one, two punch with car troubles in June. First was the oil filter being clogged. The second was a flat tire, so we bought two new tires. The tires needed to be replaced anyways.

Entertainment and Recreation – Both of these categories were zero. We knew it would be a pretty expensive month so we decided to cut everything out here.

Finance Charges – These are starting to creep up since my balance transfer offers expired. Now that all of our credit card debt is at 9.9%, this will really be going up.

Dining – Very high in June due to my in-laws visiting. We treated them to two meals total. It was the least we could do for them bringing doors to us and helping us to put them in. They saved us so much money over having to hire someone.

Groceries – There was some money that was spent to purchase more groceries for when my in-laws were here. We ate sandwiches quite a few times. But it still doesn’t make up for the rest of the spending…it’s still too high. I know exactly what is killing us with grocery costs…we are not planning before we go to the store. My excuse is that I lack the time. But, I’m working on changing that as you will see shortly. I am going to become one lean, mean, productive working machine.

Household – I saw that number and my mouth dropped. Then I remembered that it was $500 alone for our new doors. Quite a bit of the rest was for some new trim and some supplies related to the repairs.

Pets – The spending here is still higher than normal due to the increased members of the family (the pregnant stray that had four kittens). So far, we have found a home for one kitten and the momma. So there are three kittens left.

Utilities – These were super low in June compared to May. I enjoy the lower overall utilitiy costs in the summer!

Final Thoughts – Not too bad. We ended up having a surplus of over $700 and I am pleased. I love seeing that. It is helping a lot that my husband has work for his temp jobs. One of them is now over, but the other one looks like he will have work for a while.

Like I mentioned briefly above, I’ve found myself saying way too often, “If I only had time.” I know the time is there…I’m just not very effective at using my time. I had some credit at Amazon.com from an gift certificates I won with Blingo and one that I won through a contest. What I ended up doing was purchasing three personal productivity books to learn some better skills. Of course, I’ll review them as I go through them and pass on some interesting tidbits to you.