Reply #54: Many things like you [View All]

[salin]

I rarely use credit. I drive cars forever (til they are 10 years old or so) - buy cars outright (save in front rather than in payments and many thousands more for financing.) I *save in advance* - a couple of years before I was ready to buy - the car had need for major repairs - I calculated how much I could pay and how much I needed to be able to save a month in order to buy a car in two or three years and used that to calculate how much I would be willing to pay for the repairs. Then lived by that. (Because my income has increased, I was able to save enough to buy my first "new" rather than "used" car this time around. I normally would never buy new due to the steep depreciation - but I opted for a Prius - and the rate of depreciation is much less steep than most other new cars... so I gave into the impulse. It will probably be my first and last "new" car - as I don't expect to be buying for another decade.)

When income rises, I spend like it hasn't gone up (keep on the smaller budget.) I used to do the prepaid Virgin Mobile - but ended up needing to use it more ... so went with a contract - higher minutes per month - but lower cost and don't have land line (so I have no "long distance" and no local phone bill.)

I bought the house (transitional neighborhood) at a great price -- about 60% of the original asking price (it had been in foreclosure and on the market for several months and had dropped the price once already.)

Avoid the newest technology costs til prices drop and then don't get the high end stuff. I liked the LCDs - so I got smaller ( 19 inch) rather than a larger, similarly priced larger tv.

I could cut more on 'eating out' - though even there I tend to go very low end.

But like you, I do not have kids. I think these rules would be harder to follow if I had kids. That isn't why I do not have children (that is just how life has worked out - didn't plan it that way.) And I would hate to moralize to those that have a family as there are very different economic rules in play.