How I Try to Live Below My Means

You’ve heard it before. Living within your means is good. But living below your means is better. I have been living within my means for as long as I can remember. And I found out it’s doable. But living below my means???

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Source: As indicated in the image.

When I started having solid “financial goals” this year, I thought about trying to live below what my income can afford. You see, the hubby and I keep our salaries to ourselves and we just share in our household expenses, mortgage payments, and other bills. (This setup is subject to change any time we I deem it necessary.) The exact percentages I cannot divulge here, but let’s just say he’s a real gentleman.

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Do You Have a Budget for Dining Out?

One random day, I bumped into an old friend at the mall and we got to chat for a few minutes. She mentioned how she gets updated on my married life thru Facebook. She also made a remark on how the hubby and I get to dine out twice, and sometimes even thrice a week. It sounded like she was amazed with our love for food, and at the same time, how easy we get to finance those food trips. I replied to her with a smile, “Paminsan minsan lang yun, pag may extra money.” That conversation made me think about our budget for dining out. Do I even have a separate budget for that purpose in the first place?

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Image Source: http://money.cnn.com

To be honest, we love to try out new restaurants but we don’t set aside money for it. A dining out fund? No, nada, zilch. The money we spend for eating out comes from our weekly budget. (The hubby and I both receive our salary on a weekly basis so a weekly budget is a must for us.) It covers our daily needs: food, toiletries and other miscellaneous expenses. So if sometimes, we don’t have extra bath soap or toothpaste in our Bacoor home or we’re eating canned goods on a weekend, that’s because we’ve already spent our money on a nice dinner at some inexpensive restaurant. Funny, but true. Haha.

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