s/o is money tight for you right now?

[InvaderGIR]

Yes, but only because we lived so far outside of our budget for so long. We're in debt payoff mode.

[Deleted]

I have never felt like money isn't something we need to watch. But IDK that I'd say it is "tight". We do pretty much everything we want within reason, but there isn't a lot of extra for things like vacations and shopping and the weddings I'm standing in this summer.

So IDK I'd say tight, but definitely not loose! lol.

[5thofjuly]

Yes- we're selling our house next week and will be writing a BIIIGGG check to make up for the difference between what we sold it for and what we owe. I have to keep telling myself it's worth it to be able to take my dream job and move infinitely closer to friends and family.

[aqua2005]

No, but we still watch what we spend and try to cut back where we can. We are building a deck and paying cash so that is draining a lot of our "slush" money.

[chicken]

Yes, DH just got turned down for a summer school position we were counting on, since he's done it for the past 3 years. Summer school is a hot commodity and I guess he has to share it with the other teachers.

[brittmk0922]

Yes I feel like we are. I mean, compared to lots of others we're not. We still pay everything in cash and have a larger savings account building, but a lot of that money will go away quickly with the wedding in September.

[EllieArroway]

Things are pretty tight right now because we decided to cashflow the money to prepay the hospital & obgyn for this baby instead of pulling it from savings. It's about $800 extra per month (stupid horrible insurance) so we have to buckle down until October when that will be paid.

[Ashley&Scott]

Nope.

[h]

Things are fine, but we have had $17k of unexpected expenses over the last two months ($4k to redo a flooded bathroom, $2k for car repairs, and $11k to replace our HVAC system). So that sucks.

[Deleted]

No but we're watching our spending closely because we're approaching 25% over our original budget on the custom house we're building which we hope to be completed in July. Then we'll put our current house for sale. After we close on the sale, that's the only time I think I can breathe normally.

[mccallister84]

Well my car needed a new engine and my car fund was only about halfway funded. However I ended up putting some of the car fund money into my Roth since I got a really low interest rate on the car loan. And honestly the payment is only about half of what I was already saving monthly in the car fund so in all reality, no. However I had worked so hard to be debt free except for student loans and mortgage that the idea of having a car payment in freaking me out a little.

[crazycakes]

It's about to be. We have to buy a car because DH totaled my car. It was paid off and I was planning on driving it for many more years, so we hadn't been actively saving. Which means we will likely be taking on a car payment. And our rent is going up by $45/month.

It won't be TOO tight, but less in savings each month and we're going to have to rethink our frivolous spending.

Boo.

[bronxgirl]

I feel like it's always tight, but we make it work.

[mollybrown]

It sure feels that way. That's because we're saving almost half of our take home pay right now for rest of the down payment on the home that we're currently building. And we have 2 vacations (1 international) this summer. And we'll have to buy window coverings, a fridge, washer, and dryer as soon as we move in. No pressure here...

[thelongroad]

Only when we start following our budget, which began again today The last month has been party time in our house.

[Lovecows]

Relatively. We're hemorrhaging money like there's no tomorrow. We're moving soon and will be maintaining two households for a bit, we just bought a new (to us) car, are attempting to do the minimal amount of repairs required to sell our old car and I won't be working for approximately a month.

Overall, though, it only means forgoing some luxuries here and there to build up the e-fund to its previous level.

[wanderlustmom]

No, I think it's because when DH and I got married, he taught me a lot about living MMers before I found this board. We aren't rich by any means but with our budget, we are financially secure. Just paying ourselves first and aggressively saving for retirement.

[soveryexcited]

We are tight right now. DD#2 was in the NICU for eleven days, resulting in us owing 10k more than we had planned and set aside. It sucks.

[audette]

Nope. I'm nearing the end of two weeks on an expense account, with a crazy amount of overtime earned, and DH recently came home from a work trip where he had no internet access.

It's like we've been on a spending freeze without actually having to do anything...

[Deleted]

Yes. We had to take some vacation time from work so that we could be around to care for our son after surgery and had no sick pay left. And since I'm only working part time most of the time I get shafted sometimes on what I get paid for vacation. Plus we had a couple mix ups that we are still trying to catch up from. We are slowly getting out of it though and it really won't be all that much longer.

[aliciar6]

mmmm sort of, but it is self imposed, i'm still buying things here and there for myself that I don't need and signing up for a lot of races, but I'm focusing on savings since we are getting married end of AUG and are paying for it ourselves, and I have 2 loans to pay off by then, hopefully 1 will be paid off by the end of this month and the motorcycle loan paid off end of AUG before we leave for our honeymoon.

once we get married things won't be, but we will be looking to pay down FI's mortgage faster (we are on track to have the house paid off in 3 years at the current payment rate), rebuild savings, and we need to sell my house.

He had to dip into his savings to build me a garage, it was the only way that I would agree to move to PA rather than have him move back to Jersey (where we work) because I have 2 vehicles that have to be in a garage, and he knew that going into things.

[chessie]

May 16, 2012 16:59:06 GMT -5 ijack said:

No. We've been spending a ton of money lately, but we're still doing okay. I'd like to control it a little bit and start saving more though.

This is us in a nutshell. Summer we spend more though. More projects, better weather, repairs, get the farm back into shape..

[everam01]

Tighter than before, but we're still ok. We were VERY comfortable with having a child and the related expenses but ended up with twins so we had to re-assess everything. Double the daycare and double the cost of EVERYTHING...it adds up.

[aspentosh]

Yes and no. It doesn't have to be tight, but I am pinching my pennies because we're closing on our new house in less than a month and we don't have a renter lined up. I'd like to still save as much as possible and the new house needs a few things (fence, some furniture, etc), so we're watching what we buy.

[ReenaP]

Not right now. We've been spending more lately but still reach our savings goals.

[Deleted]

Yes. My grandpa passed away and his funeral was last week. My sister and I provided a family dinner, which included renting a community hall for it. Plus, was extra gas money spent going back and forth several time. We could take money out of our e-fund, but I'm trying not too.

[jlt19]

Tighter than we had planned/hoped for at this point. We were hoping to take a nice vacation this year, then I got unexpectedly pregnant. We can't afford the weekly costs for 2 in daycare w/o drastic cuts, so I decided to save the vacation money to cover the "deficit" until the end of 2013. We were all set and were about to start saving for a vacation again, but then one of my dogs got really ill and we had to spend $3,000 on him. So we're back to funding the "daycare shortage" fund.

[juris11]

Mmmm not really. We are putting out a lot fo money in the next couple weeks to pay for the furniture when it is delivered to the new house. We have money in account though. We won't be making any other big purchases in the next few months after all the furniture, carpet, etc. is paid out, but we won't not be able to eat out or spend any fun money.

[phunluvin82]

Sort of...we are throwing over $1k/month at debt payments ($800 to CC's, remainder to SL's) which is a lot per month on our income. But our CC debt will be paid off in July and then we will have more wiggle room and more money to put toward other goals.

We honestly still live a higher lifestlye than I think we should be (i.e. take vacations, $100/month eating out, etc), but I am much more open to sacrificing all the little luxuries to get ahead...DH just is not as motivated to sacrifice so it's hard to find that balance.

Overall, we're doing okay, but I tend to always feel like we could be doing better.

[quickstepstar]

Well yes, because we are aggressively saving for down payment. So we intentionally made our budget very very tight with very little wiggle room. Does that count?