Comments on: Budgeting Your Money: Avoid Spending Into a Stressful Financial Life

By: LucyW

LucyW — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 22:31:30 +0000

You say you want less financial pain but you also don’t want to change your lifestyle drastically.

You can’t have it both ways. You have to change your spending habits right now. The more you economize, the faster you will get out of debt.

You need to think of your debt as a monster that has to be slayed. Every time you redirect your money from luxury spending to debt repayment, you take a step towards killing the debt monster. Think about the stuff you don’t use anymore. How much of it could you sell in order to have more money for debt repayment?

By: Cameron

Cameron — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 00:14:05 +0000

Unfortunately this is probably a common story. Debt is the enemy of freedom and credit card debt is the worst of all.

By: Mariele

Mariele — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:53:25 +0000

This is an all too familiar story for a lot of women who are single parents.
My story anyway. For years I used mr. Plastic as a second income source. It all comes due. Bite the bullet earlier than I did. Sell the stuff and stop spending. It’s better to do it earlier than later.

By: Viet

Viet — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:26:04 +0000

@Dyphan: Yup. All these submissions are real submissions from readers.

@Misti & verena: Selling the clutter is definitely a great way to try and change the current consumer lifestyle. Although it can be an incredibly challenging process for many people to switch from a consuming mentality to sound financial lifestyle mentality.

“Bitter is the New Black” sounds like an interesting book. Premise sounds good, and the quote of “the bitch had it coming” made me giggle. Will check the book out when possible, thanks!

By: verena

verena — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:31:21 +0000

Misti stole my comment. =)

Start selling the clutter. You don’t need it, and you can use the proceeds to drop the debt. I have an excellent read for you: “Bitter is the New Black” by Jen Lancaster. She also has a website: http://www.jennsylvania.com. Get the book from the Library!

By: budget planning » Archive » Late breaking news

budget planning » Archive » Late breaking news — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:30:30 +0000

[...] Tuesday Train Wreck – Spending Into a Stressful Financial Life [...]

By: A Tentative Personal Finance Blog

A Tentative Personal Finance Blog — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:18:42 +0000

Are these stories for real?

By: Misti

Misti — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:43:07 +0000

Here’s an idea for the writter of this train wreck. Why not turn your shopping hobby into a selling hobby? Take out all those shiny new things you bought and start selling them on ebay. That’s what I’m doing. I used to buy tons of stuff I didn’t need. So I decided to clear out everything and learn to live a non-materialistic life. I know it sounds hard but once you clear out then you will feel so much more relaxed and at peace. Teach yourself not to go buy stuff. What’s the one place that you spend the most money at? Do not go their for at least a month and see how it works. Do whatever it takes. If your friends ask you if you want to go tell them you would rather go for coffee. At the end of the month count all the money you have saved. Do it another month and so on. Add more stores to your “do not go” list. Save all the money you make on ebay too. Do give yourself rewards at least twice a month. Write a list of the things you would like to have. If you stick to your goal of not spending out of control for two weeks then go buy one thing you really want on your list. Good luck!