My Story

 For my entire life, up until August 2019, I've had a poor relationship with money. I got my very first credit card at age 18, and maxxed out the $300 limit in about 3 weeks. That was in 1984 dollars!

For the next few decades, I'd hit highs and lows, but was always living paycheck-to-paycheck. I could never seem to save any money, and with any unexpected expense I'd be sent into a tailspin trying to cover it, and usually ended up using a credit card, or using a credit card for a cash advance.

I was constantly struggling with managing the max balances on dozens of credit cards. I was constantly struggling to buy groceries. I was constantly struggling to buy gas, or bus fare. I changed jobs occasionally, and with every increase in pay, there was a short lull, and then I'd be back into the fray. I would think that with more money would come change, and the struggle would subside, but it didn't. My expenses seemed to grow with my income, even though the reality was there wasn't much change.


In early 2019 we'd reached (again) the end of our financial rope. My wife and I had been together for almost 20 years. When we got together she seemed to have everything together, and was extremely organized, so she handled the finances. Maybe it was my influence, but we eventually found our way into the same scrambling cycle. We were barely living paycheck-to-paycheck, and each day was a struggle to find the funds to pay a credit card, buy groceries, etc etc. Somehow we always managed to pay the rent, then the mortgage and utilities, but we never got ahead, and were slowly sinking further behind.

It all came to a head early that year, and my wife was practically begging me to refinance the house (again). We had gotten into a cycle after we purchased our house in 2010. We got a great deal on it, and so a few months after we purchased it, we refinanced at a higher value, and paid off some debt. Then we did it again. Then we did it yet again. After that 3rd refi, I swore we would not do that again. Ever. Fast forward a few years, and we were again drowning in 50+ credit cards and lines of credit; our mortgage was close to $300k, and our debt was about $110k. Despite making decent money and having a semi-decent house payment, we were still struggling. I eventually refinanced the house and paid off 20 or so credit cards, but I told myself and my wife that something has to change. We have to radically change how we approached money, because we are not doing it correctly.

While researching budgeting, I read about YNAB.YNAB stands for "You Need a Budget", and is a method and software that is a departure from any budgeting method I'd ever heard about. It's also called "Zero Based Budgeting" - there are a number of methods and people who use it, such as Dave Ramsey, Mint (with some modifications), and Tiller Money. It can also be referred to as "envelope budgeting" - where you literally have envelopes with dollar amounts written on them, and stuff them with cash until they are full with that envelope's allocated amount.

I strongly advocate YNAB, but the methodology can be used on your own spreadsheets, or even pencil and paper. We'll get into everything in another post.

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