Do you pay yourself first??

[tgavin71]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

No... I know rather drastic but I am throwing all extra money at my debt!! I know risky considering not much of an EF! My family is supporting my reason to hit my debt which started out as around 65,000 and now which I still can not believe is 10,300! I am hoping to pay this off by December.

I just wanted to say congratulations. What a huge effort you have made. You should be very proud of yourself. It is good that you have family to support you if something unforseen occurs. I personally don't have an emergency fund per se. I do set money aside for regular bills and expenses. My credit card is my emergency fund. But through good money management and perhaps a bit of luck I haven't needed to touch it.

[wai98007]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Yes! We (my wife and I) found it important to put aside some $ designated as fun $ in addition to our Em. Savings and Retirement each month. It has been great for us. We like to go out to eat every once in a while. That has been a good way for us to justify having fun some times.

[pearlieq]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Well, I suppose the pension money and 401k money comes out before we get our grubby little hands on it, so I guess in some respects we "pay ourselves first".

The rest of the savings gets taken out with all the other bills, so we're probably more like "pay yourself with everyone else".

[tgavin71]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

"pay yourself with everyone else".

LOL. Well said.

[Ima saver]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

I was real good a this in my younger days. Now, it seems I have so much more in expenses. But I try to save at least 10% if we have a normal paycheck. I also put away $30 a week for christmas and $100 a week to pay property taxes, car and house insurance. Plus when I paid off my dh's van, I kept paying the payment and I put it in a new car fund.

[Fizgig]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Yes, I pay myself first. Right now about 25% of my after tax income is automatically transferred to a savings account, because I'm hell bent on getting my emergency fund up to 6 mo. of expenses by the end of the year. (I started at 0 at the beginning of the year and am really pleased with my progress.) I also have 8% going to my 401k, which is the max that my employer matches.

The "stash away whatever is leftover" approach never worked for me - I have to treat it like a bill and have concrete goals.

[Ima saver]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

You are smart, Fiz, it has to be treated like a bill. I have talked to some people and they say they can't save that much, they have no money left over. That is the problem, they don't pay themselves first.
I say, If you can't put away 10%, then start smaller. Start with 5% or even 2% and increase the amount every 6 months.
I had a friend who said she could not save anything, I asked how about $5 a week. Oh yes she said, I could do that, but what good is $5 a week.??
That was 28 years ago, and $5 a week would be $7280, but with compound interest is would be closer to $15,000-$20,000.
Gues how much she has saved?? nothing!!
So, start now even if you have to start small.

[krisann]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Yesterday I put aside $3.00 in a drawer at work. This is my only savings. I thought you had to pay every penny you earned to those you owe(mostly credit cards,finance co's & banks), but I'm 39 and always have worked & have no money saved. I found this site & wife.org, so now i'm trying not to feel guilty about saving a little each time i have a paycheck, or commission check. is that allright?

[Ima saver]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Sure that is alright, anything you can save is great! You need to try and save an emergency fund to have. Find out what the minimum is to open a savings account and then save until you have enough to open one.
Read about the $20 challenge and get some ideas on how to add to that savings. Before you pay the bills, pay yourself first!

[DivaJen]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

The "stash away whatever is leftover" approach never worked for me - I have to treat it like a bill and have concrete goals.

Same here. I try to do both, but having the money automatically withdrawn guarantees a certain level of savings for us. Anything over that is great, but at least we can sleep at night knowing we're working towards our goals.

[Broken Arrow]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Don't worry Krisann, you're not alone.

Can you help us out by breaking down your budget? Itemize your expenses and debts? Depending your debt load and personal habits/preferences, if you have credit card debts, it may be worth paying that down versus saving up some cash. That way, you may be able to use that as a temporary form of emergency fund, and at the same time, you'll be paying down a credit card while minimizing the interest fees. That may get you further than just saving up cash.

However, I do agree that anything is better than nothing at all, or worse, incurring more debt! So, I think you're doing just fine!

[Ima saver]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Even with credit card debt, everyone needs to have some emergency money saved up. I would reccommend aiming for an emergency fund of $1000 and then tackleling credit card debt if you have it.

[disneysteve]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Definitely. 17% of of my gross and essentially all of DW's goes to savings. That gets divided between our Roths, 3 taxable mutual fund accounts, short term high yield savings and some extra principal payments on our home equity loan. The money that remains is what we live on.

[Ima saver]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

today is payday. I should have no problem paying myself 10% before I put the money in the other envelopes. I love payday.

[Bookie]

Re: Do you pay yourself first??

Payday for me too, although in a different sense. I get my weekly cash on Monday. AND, since tomorrow is the final day of my Challenge, I'm busily figuring up my savings for the two-week period. Real money saved, the kind I can put in the bank.