The year was 1982. We were young, married with very modest incomes. Hey, we said, let’s go to Europe! We can afford it, right or could we?
When we were young, our thought was “Save and then spend”. Today with most people it seems just the opposite, “spend and then try to pay off the credit card bill”.
When we decided to save for a European trip after our first year of marriage, Betty and I went to an office supply store and purchased our very first budget book; but, instead of making a budget, we initially used it to track our budget, to see where our financial mistakes were. It only took one month to realize that our habit of ‘eating out’ was our downfall. That same reality has been repeated today in a study from Penn State University. It was discovered that expenditures of eating-out takes up over half of the food expenses among most families. That’s something we discovered over thirty years ago. When we looked at the records of our ‘spent’ money over a month, we were astonished how much of our income went to food eaten away from our own kitchen table; and here’s the thing, this recent study indicated the very same thing today. People think they know what they spend on eating out, but they greatly UNDER-estimate.
So, here’s what we did back then to save for our big European trip – We stopped eating out…completely. In fact, for one whole year we stopped all extra purchases. That might sound drastic, but here’s the thing, one year later we had saved twenty percent of our very modest incomes. So, don’t tell me, it can’t be done. Been there, done that. Want to take control of your budget in 2018? Don’t do a budget. Instead, begin tracking what you’ve spent each day. You’ll see where the problem lays, soon enough. Then take action.
Oh and that trip of ours? PAID IN FULL.
