How much do you have in savings?

amother

Ultramarine

Tue, Oct 12 2021, 10:08 pm

amother [ Aconite ] wrote:

Low 30’s
3 kids
0 savings
Lots of debt and bills and collection agencies hounding us.
We don’t always make it through the month.
DH works extremely hard, I was laid off by covid and am trying (unsuccessfully) to find a job that will work for me.
I often wonder about our future. How we will marry off our children etc. it’s been years and though we’ve changed jobs and moved etc, there hasn’t really been a change to our financial status.
I get very jealous of ppl who seem to have more. (Especially certain family members. Seems like they can just buy and spend on whatever, build homes, renovate, buy vacation homes etc)
But we have nothing.
We are extremely blessed in other ways and we don’t fail to count our blessings.

Felt good to vent, thank you!

It’s ok to vent and ok to feel sad about it sometimes. We Bh make a nice living $400,000+ but have a depressing marriage and other serious issues. I am bh blessed to have money and other things but a good marriage and healthy children is so much more important. I will pray for you that you can have both those things plus money and more in your future.

amother

Offwhite

Tue, Oct 12 2021, 10:11 pm

amother [ Dandelion ] wrote:

We make a decent salary (around 300k combined) but I am a terrible saver! How do you squash that desire for new things when there’s money in the bank to pay for them?

You have your savings done automatically. Like 5th of month take out 1000 and invest in mutual funds. It’s like the money isn’t even there.

We take 150 per kid in their own investment portfolio each month. Roth for my Dh. And I have 401k I put in max. We don’t have to do anything. It just happens.

And we make 1/2 of what you make.

If you work for a company with 401k and don’t take advantage it’s like giving up a huge portion of you salary if they match.

amother

Apricot

Tue, Oct 12 2021, 11:04 pm

I have to admit im getting jealous reading of some kollel wives who have so much money saved.
how do u do it?

we so wanted my husband to be in yeshiva when we firts got married... but we had 0$ coming in and I was still in school... even now as an SLP we live paycheck to paycheck and thats with my dh working...

amother

Forsythia

Wed, Oct 13 2021, 12:05 am

I’m always wondering how all these young families have so much money saved up. What kind of jobs do these people have? We are a young family in our mid 30’s with 2 elementary age kids. Bh my husband makes a decent salary. He works very hard to support us. I work very part time as well but on social security disability, so I can’t earn lots of money. We have some savings and mutual funds investments, (mainly from stimulus checks) but mainly living paycheck to paycheck. My husband wants to switch career fields with better job growth potential. He has a degree in the field but very little experience. So if he would switch to the more lucrative field he thinks he would have to start at an entry level job with entry level salary. However, because we mainly rely on his income at this point we cannot afford for him to get a much lower paying job even if it’s temporary.

amother

Cyclamen

Wed, Oct 13 2021, 7:32 am

amother [ Dandelion ] wrote:

We make a decent salary (around 300k combined) but I am a terrible saver! How do you squash that desire for new things when there’s money in the bank to pay for them?

Having disposable income and spending it are too different things. You just tell yourself - do I NEED this? Or that? No, probably not. Do I WANT it? For sure. Limit your wants to one a week with a spending cap on it (say, $75.00 per want, per week) and keep to that. Two months in, cut your wants to twice a month. Four months in, try once a month. See how it feels. Also, put a certain amount of your net income directly into savings each paycheck. That helps tremendously. Some people who love to shop and spend actually realize a huge thrill by seeing money they would otherwise spend accumulate quickly into a financial account instead. Give it a shot, see what happens. Good luck!

amother

Strawberry

Wed, Oct 13 2021, 8:19 am

amother [ Apricot ] wrote:

In my case, we started out with a nice amount (maybe 55k) that we had in investments from when we were little. We used that amount plus more to buy our home. (but we didn't buy right away, so there was time for it to grow and us to add more meanwhile)
The main way we save now is by spending very little. I was still in school when we got married, but was able to do some low-paying babysitting kind of jobs on the side. I got a pretty good job (not earning 100k yet, but I've only been working a few years.) and dh adds a few thousand with his kollel check and little jobs like tutoring.
BH I guess we are "natural savers" (which does have disadvantages, by the way) plus I'm not too bad at dealing with financial stuff because it's sort of related to my job.
I really really never expected this when I planned to be a kollel wife. I imagined living in a 0-1 bedroom basement apartment and searching the couch cushions for dimes to buy groceries. So I don't take it for granted and I don't even expect to have Hashem keep sending these same brachos forever.
I still have the same question as you, though. I know lots of people in kollel who have lower paying jobs and are much less careful with their spending and I wonder how they do it... I'm happy for them that their way works, but I can't help being curious about how it works...