Personal finance thoughts: September 1

So in May I spent less money then any month I could think so in the past 5 years. Without counting debt payments, I lived for $1,330. I ended up paying off a credit card for nearly $2000, and will put this payment into a different card with the highest interest rate.

A few of the ways I was able to do this are as follows...
- I created a budget and stuck to it. This is the most important step in order to have financial freedom. I ended up spending $80 less in gas, $40 less in food, and $30 less in miscellaneous.
- I setup a clear goal of saving at least $1000 this month so I could pay off a credit card. Knowing that I could stop paying interest on one card and placing this into additional debt payments was reason enough to follow this plan.
- I prioritized my expenses in terms of my life goals. In the excellent book, http://www.yourmoneyoryourlife.org, the authors talk about figuring out how much money you make per hour and then relate expenses to how much time you work to get enough money to do so. I find that this is helping me control random purchases that I will not see much use for.


I have continued to set realistic yet difficult goals for the rest of the year and I will save at least $800 a month until 2009.

Doing without in your 20's

Here is a good article on deciding whether to be frugal or splurge away in your 20's

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2008/08/27/doing-without-in-your-20s-by-choice.aspx