Those of you who are frugal and have a low income...

[Kristen]

Do you ever struggle with feeling jealous of people who have more money, esp. if those people are spendthrifts?

I sometimes feel like this. My sister and brother in law make at least twice as much money as we do, but they're not nearly as frugal. As a result, they don't really live much better than we do, which is kind of sad for them.

Occasionally, I let myself think of what I could do with the kind of income they have, and that usually isn't too good for my contentment level. If I had that much money, we'd be in such good financial shape...we'd spend way less than we earned, we'd have a nice savings account, we'd be working on paying down our mortgage, etc., etc.

Anyhow, it's not that I'm jealous of their lifestyle, because as I said, due to their not-so-wise spending, they don't really live much more nicely than we do. I just wish I had that much income to be frugal with!

[Polly]

I think that frugality is the logical outcome of being on a restricted income. The people I know who continue to be frugal after living on a fixed income are usually older people, like my parents. It's a generational thing with them-my parents were born in 1939, right after the Great Depression. They both came out of families with fixed incomes and learned how to be frugal. I wonder how and why this attitude towards over-indulgence and wastefulness developed. More to the point, how do we, as a society, stop it?

Polly

[Mary]

Kristen, sorry to go a little off-topic but I have a question. I don't mean this as a challenge; I truly want to know what you think. Anyway, if you woke up tomorrow and your annual income was higher by, say, 35k, would you continue to be AS frugal as you are now? Or would you be a little freer while still trying to be wise with your money? Like would you run your a/c a bit cooler in the summer, for example?

I'm just curious because it's something that dh and I struggle with. We are like your in-laws. If we have money we spend it. I honestly don't know how much we'd have to make before we quit spending it all. :( I wonder if it's just a character defect we have or if most other people would be similarly tempted to increase their spending exponentially along with their income increasing. I wish we had more self-control or....something.

[Beka]

Ohhhh Kristen you possible hit on my worst trait here- the jealousy part, not that I resent or would ever swap my own life for others but purely the resentment many people don't realise how easy they could have it if they kicked their brain into gear (and then I think actually I have a pretty good life compared to many so i should quit whining)

Right back to the question- Yes, yes I do. My own sister has an income of 7 times what David and I bring in, they have no children. My sister was complaining she's in a worse situation than me as her debts are 4 times what mine are so says she's in a worse situation but she doesn't get her debts are less than 1 year of her DPs pay AND they have her income too, our debts are around twice what David earns in a year and we have no other money coming in (and work with child care costs would actually cost me to work!)

My sister told me I wasn't broke as I've bought my kids their christmas gifts (I'll admit, I splurged, we have a Wii as a family gift but we've wanted one forever, we just had some cash back from a scheme we were in) and she couldn't even DREAM of buying her Dp a wii for christmas- however I grocery shop for 6 on less than 1/3rd of what she does for TWO, she has also been to more than 10 concerts in the last year- I've been to one in my life (seriously!) - 2 tickets $100ish, 2 t-shirts $70ish, 2 coffee mugs $15, drinks whilst there $10, travel to- $40+ ... yet she's "broke".

It annoys me that my sister tries to pull the sympathy vote on people when she thinks she's broke but makes no compromises to her lifestyle.

She is expecting us to be at her wedding in disney next year- we have 6 people and she refuses to see why we can't do it (she refused to marry unless we're there and then told the whole family I was stopping her having the wedding she wanted when I had the wedding I wanted) she is attempting to guilt me because of the fact she's now largely having to pay for her own wedding as my dad is paying for us and can't do both! (and i refuse to put us into debt to the tune of another years entire salary just to go, it might sound selfish but I have to put my own kids first and going deeper into debt only means they live worse!)

I get resentful that my sister looks down on how we live, I get resentful that she rants on and on about not being able to "afford" a family because her dh's taxes pay for family tax credit (family tax credit is the tax break families with kids, on a low income but working, qualify for) she forgets that I get that top up, she fails to realise it doesn't put us in a financial state better than she is- even if it doubled our income we'd still be living on around 40% of what she has so if i can afford a family she needs to quit making excuses and just admit it's other issues preventing them! I hate the way she makes me feel like a scrounger because David's job qualifies us for that top up (around 70% of families with kids in england qualify for it so it's not like we're odd) I hate the way she implies we shouldn't have kids with the job David has and i hate the way her "born and always lived middle class" partner seems to equate low wage with laziness, he has this head up ass idea that people with less money are only that way because they're lazy :rolleyes

So, Yes, I am pretty resentful. If we bought in what her household did we'd have cleared the debts they have in under 2 years, 3 at a push, we'd be saving, we'd have the size family we wanted.

That being said would i swap having my 4 kids in the less than admirable neighbourhood with the husband i do for a her income, no kids and house in a nice village? Never. I'm happy being me, but that doesn't stop me wanting to scream every now and then at how unbelievably clueless she is about how some people live.

I always say i'd love for them to have to life swap us for a few weeks but that's not fair on the kids :giggle

[freebiemom]

I guess it is jealousy because of course I know people that make more than double what me and DH do and yet they (unless they are really good at lieing) have no savings and are in debt out the ying-yang. And the ones I know only have one or no children whereas we have four. And I'm constantly telling them to let me help them with a budget (when they're complaining about having no money and wonder how we do it on our income) but they don't want to have to live on a budget, and I'm constantly telling my DH how I'm so tired of hearing how they're in debt and so poor. If we can pay our bills and provide for our needs and ocassional wants on our income, I simply don't understand how they are in such bad financial shape on theirs. Really irritates and infuriates me - which it wouldn't if they didn't complain all the time!

To answer the question posed as to what would be done if I woke up tomorrow and our salary was 35k more than now - sure we'd splurge more often than we do now but after living like we do, we'd continue to live a frugal lifestyle. We want to save for our and our children's futures and if we had more money that would be a lot easier. We would continue to live on a budget and I don't see things changing much for us if our income drastically increased.

[Beka]

ohhh yes- Back to Mary's question- if it bumped by 35K? We'd look into home ownership rather than living in government owned housing like we do now, so yes- we'd stick with it because to buy a home we'd need to. I would probably buy what I'd like to eat rather than what we have to eat but not excessively so- probably an extra $20-$30 on grocery weekly, and i'd probably actually buy myself more than one pair of jeans a year :giggle

I doubt very much we'd ever bother running a car though, at least not for more than once or twice weekly trips as I genuinely do like to walk places so it'd only get used to the weekly shop and annual vacation so in actual fact, probably wouldn't be much point in us running one.

[Jo]

There is a big difference between living well and living stupid. Some people who have more money do live beyond their means but I bet they would do so no matter what budget they were on. But having more money also means having more freedom to spend it on nicer things. Personally, I would rather buy an antique than a large amount of stuff from Ikea any day of the week. Is that a personal luxury...sure. But the antiques will increase in value and last longer as they are much better made so it is also an investment. As long as I don't buy beyond my means, I think it is fine. It certainly isn't like I go out regularly and haul home antiques either...that would be living stupid.

[Mary]

Yeah, see, I don't know if we cross the line into living stupid, per se. We have almost no credit card debt. I'd say 80% of the stuff we buy is paid cash for. So we spend money fast but it is actual money that we have to spend. And we always pay all our bills first before we get fun stuff. So it's not as though we are letting our power get turned off in order to buy my new laptop, for example.

[Desirae]

I have a hard time with that too Kristen. Now, I know a lot of our situation IS due to stupid moves on our part but the lesson (I HOPE!) has been learned and now we're digging out.... however we have had a HUGE pay cut as well..... I see others making more (double the income) and living in the same situation we are and I just scratch my head over it. Their thoughts on it all is very different though. Our cc debt has us sick to our stomachs about what we're throwing away each month and desperate to get out of debt and STAY out, however they're of the mind to say "well it's not going away so whatever". Furstrating to say the least.

[Desirae]

Oh back to what Mary said, yes, we'd probably run the ac cooler, go out or order in a little more (once a month maybe every other week) and plan fun trips but I'd try to keep bills as low as possible so that we COULD afford to do those things.

[Amber]

Right now, I'm frugal because I have to be. I'd like to think I'd still be frugal if I made more money, but honestly, I don't know. I've never really HAD money to be able to know what I'd do.

That's not the question though ;) I do know people who make more money, but are wasteful about it, and yes, sometimes I do feel jealous about it.

[Kristen]

Kristen, sorry to go a little off-topic but I have a question. I don't mean this as a challenge; I truly want to know what you think. Anyway, if you woke up tomorrow and your annual income was higher by, say, 35k, would you continue to be AS frugal as you are now? Or would you be a little freer while still trying to be wise with your money? Like would you run your a/c a bit cooler in the summer, for example?

I'm just curious because it's something that dh and I struggle with. We are like your in-laws. If we have money we spend it. I honestly don't know how much we'd have to make before we quit spending it all. :( I wonder if it's just a character defect we have or if most other people would be similarly tempted to increase their spending exponentially along with their income increasing. I wish we had more self-control or....something.

A little of both. $35 K would be just a little bit less than double our income, and I am VERY sure that we would not suddenly double our spending. :p

If we suddenly had more money, I would stop teaching piano, for sure. We'd probably bump the heat up to 70(from 68) and the AC down to 78 or lower(from 80). I wouldn't stress quite so much over the cost of healthy food either(I'd buy more organic).

If we had more money, I'd still be frugal(but not QUITE so frugal), but the goals would be different. Right now, our frugality keeps us out of debt. If we had more money, our frugality could get us to a good financial spot. We'd work at getting 6 months of income saved in the bank, we'd save up for a new car(so we could buy it in cash), we'd pay off our mortgage entirely, we'd save money for the kids' college expenses, and we'd give more away. Currently, we can't afford to do much of that(hard as we try!!), because our money situation is very tight.

It's good that you guys aren't going into debt with the way you're spending, but are you saving any money, like for emergencies(car trouble, or sudden sickness, or for when things break unexpectedly), for your dh's retirement, for your children's future, etc?

If you're not, maybe you could consider an automatic savings plan. Ing direct has a good savings account rate, and it's easy to set it up to automatically take a certain amount out of each paycheck. If you don't ever see the money, you'll be less likely to spend it. :p

I guess the reason I am motivated to be frugal is because I have goals, and being frugal is going to help me reach those goals. I know you love your "stuff" :giggle, but "stuff" loses a little of its luster when you think of how buying it is going to keep you from reaching your savings goals. It's obviously bothering you that you are spending as much as you are, so maybe you and Robert could sit down and think about why that is. You could figure out some goals, so that you're not just reaching for this nebulous goal of spending less. You want to have a REASON to spend less. Otherwise, the stuff is just too tempting. :o

[Kristen]

I should add, I asked Steve about this the other night, and he basically said the same kind of things I did, but he also said that he would be happy because he could buy me some nicer things. Which was just very sweet of him. :D

[Mary]

Retirement is covered because he's a state employee so he's got his system through there. But as for any other sort of saving, no. :( We used to have some investments but had to cash those in back when we were having serious money problems. I would like to get those going again. I need to have him see if the state offers any of that stuff so they can just take it out of his check before we get it.

[Jo]

Mary-he should definitely be able to get a 401k easily. I can't imagine that would not be available. You could also look into Roth IRA's.

I like having savings but when it comes to retirement planning, I like having things in a place that are a pain to access. And I don't mean buried in the yard.:giggle But things that will penalize me if I try withdraw or just harder than getting online and transferring funds. It is the out of sight out of mind school of thought.

[Mary]

I think he has a 401k?? The state benefits package is pretty sweet. I'm trying to remember what it was we had before. It was those things where they invest the money for you in stocks and stuff. Can't remember what they're called. LOL

[Kristen]

That sounds like a 401 K...it's what Steve has through his employer.