I haven't weighed in on the forums, beyond contributing to a couple of threads, in quite a while. Now that I reflect on it, I must be more at ease than I have been. I usually use the forums when I'm frustrated that my version of simple living is not running right. This might go into the "Personal Finance" forum, but I always think of everything as relating to "Family Matters and Relationships". The moderator is welcome to move it if he or she sees fit.
My main observation is that paying the mortgage is not some financial get out of jail free card. We paid off the house at the end of May - about a week after my 48th birthday. I had wanted to do it before, and I had been throwing everything in that direction. Consequently, we had used up our emergency fund covering little things that were not truly emergencies. I had expected a great wooo hoooo moment, but it was more just a feeling of emptiness. There was no longer the mortgage there to fight. And, we didn't have much money on hand. It was more like a break even, now I can go take a nap moment. It might have felt different if we had a 3 - 6 month emergency fund in place and a strong budget with categories building up for expenses. I not a big Dave Ramsey fan, but I think there is something about the baby steps. We just overleapt several of them.
Over the last several months, we have built some savings, but I did not turn around and start sacking away the cash we had been spending on the mortgage. We loosened up some, and maybe we needed to. June was our vacation - that ate up most of the excess cash that month. In July, we had to have our older dog put to sleep, and near the end of the month we adopted a puppy and enrolled her in puppy classes, (total pet expenses around $831). We saved a little in August, but in September and October, I was asked by a friend of mine to come out to lead a seminar during a canoe trip on the Mississippi River. I decided to ride my Vespa out, but with all the maintenance I needed to do, and with buying a better helmet and better protective gear, the Vespa ended up being a pricey way to get across the country. I should have just stuck with Greyhound. October, November, and December cover most of the birthdays in our family and Christmas. We didn't go overboard with any of them, (though my wife wanted an iPad for her birthday in November), but we weren't socking away money in savings. December was also the first property tax bill I had to pay, rather than having it come out of escrow, and I think either this month or next month, our homeowner's insurance is due.
The differences are slowly accumulating. Like I said, I am much more relaxed without really realizing it. I started a portfolio with Betterment to try to save a little money for our kids' college years. (I think it has a mix of 55% stocks and 45% bonds). That has only $500 in it right now, or did before the market fell yesterday, but that's better than nothing. We have $1000 in our Capital One 360 savings account, and $475 in our credit union savings account. It's not as much as I would like, but it shows an improvement over the way things went in the past.
All the same, I've been a little disappointed that paying off the mortgage was not some sort of entry into financial heaven. I thought it would be easier to put aside even most of what we had been pouring into the mortgage. I thought I would have the YNAB budget flowing smoothly, and those savings categories in the budget would be filling up. I had planned to up my "allowance" from $40 a month to $80, but now, it basically means instead of taking that $40 and distributing it to other budget categories, I take the $80 and distribute it to other budget categories.
Food continues to be the bugabear of our budget. On a typical non-Christmas, non-property tax bill month, it is about 45% of our monthly expenses. But I've been over that over and over on these boards, and I've spent years trying to get it down to $600 a month, (we're usually between $900 and $1000 a month), to no avail. I might need to drill down and look at specific items. (I noticed quinoa was the big expense this past week - $8.00 compared to about $1.75 for the same amount of rice, but my wife will not eat rice, so when we have a rice and something dinner, I make her quinoa). My wife is paleo, my daughter's vegetarian, my son loves burritos - it can be frustrating shopping and cooking for a family.
I think 2015 will be the year we slowly get things in order. I don't know what I really am looking for. I still have this poverty mentality where $5 seems like a lot of money. I often feel like I don't spend money on myself, (though that's not factually true, it's just the way I feel - see the Vespa road trip mentioned earlier), and when I sign my daughter up for after school circus classes, ($455), I cringe and complain. My daughter says, "forget it dad, it's too expensive." Then I feel like s**t. (This particular instance isn't the best example. The circus classes are usually $155 for six weeks, and that's a lot to me, but doable. I filled out the online registration for the teen performance troupe class, and THEN I looked at the cost. Since it is all spring and involves taking an adult class to supplement the troupe work, it's more. When I saw the price, I said something along the lines of "Holy S**t!" And my daughter said it was too much. We're going ahead with it, and they are letting me pay in a couple of installments).
Over the years, I feel like I trained myself out of many things that I enjoy. When I was younger, I loved going to the coffee shop and reading and writing while drinking a latte. I reached the point where thinking "I'll just have a cup of coffee at home" was the natural outcome of heading out the door. I thought, when I paid the house off, I would start to do the things I enjoyed a little bit more, (which was the idea behind giving myself an allowance), but I found that I just don't enjoy them in the same way. I've become a crotchety middle-aged man.
Today I am going to go to lunch with an old friend and discuss bicycling in the city. I heard word through the grapevine that the mayor wanted me to serve on the Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee, and I have to go meet with him on Thursday. My friend is much more politically involved and will give me a good idea of whether being on the committee will allow me to make a positive contribution to my city, or if it will just be a frustrating immersion in local politics.
[Edited to add: curiously enough, with our retirement savings and the equity in the house, Google tells me that we are in the top 20% of wealth holders in the U.S. I certainly don't feel that way. I keep dragging around like a ramen-eating college student wondering when things are going to improve. If I were to make a guess based on how I feel, I would say we are in the bottom 10% of wealth holders. Maybe I have a bigger problem with depression than money management, though I never score very high on depression tests.]
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Originally Posted by catherine
Not charging a fortune for a book on attracting money ... Actually, I do believe strongly in the Law of Attraction. I think I'l go check out his work. Thanks for the link.
