A more naive version of myself thought I could plan a wedding for $12,000-$15,000. I guess if we had really tried, we could’ve made it work in that budget. Our catering and venue alone blew that original pipe dream out of the water. Luckily for us, the Army has played a big role in paying for the wedding. As I mentioned, Mac and I are paying for everything. While he was deployed, I lived more than comfortably off of my smaller salary. He saved his salary for a year. That’s pretty incredible in this day in age.
We are fortunate to have two incomes. Most Army and military families only have the income of the service member. My dad was Air Force, and my mom generally worked part time. My father-in-law was Navy, and my mother-in-law didn’t work because they lived oversease. The upheaval of moving every two-three years and the added component of kids mean that most spouses choose not to work. It’s a decision that every couple needs to make. For us, it makes sense for me to work as long as possible. I have a fair amount of student loan debt, and we decided to pay as much of our routine expenses (groceries, etc) from my salary.
Now, I’m not a financial planner, and please don’t take my advice as gospel truth. This is just what has worked for us. First, look at your take-home pay, the money that goes in your bank account after taxes, retirement contributions, and insurance. What do you need to pay every month? Loans, credit cars, car notes, groceries? List these and their standard amount (or an average). Subtract all of these from your take home pay. This should give you a good idea of how much monies you have left at the end of each pay period. If you need to, start a budget in Excel. Hit up your local library and check out some FREE books of money management. Dave Ramsey has some great (but occasionally drastic) methods for reducing debt.
But we always have room for improvement. My biggest money saver is couponing. My couponing techniques are a post for another time. It’s a great way to start saving money. Another choice I made was to pay more than the minimum on my loans. The excess is paid to the loan principle, not the balance. This means that, in the long run, I’ll pay less interest. If you have loans, look to see if you can throw even $20 extra a month at the principle. We also make a conscious effort to not carry balances on our credit cards. Obviously, this isn’t an option for everyone. Credit can be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you use or abuse it.
And spend your money wisely! Nowadays, we go out to eat only on the weekends. We rarely order take-out during the week. I’m really good at talking myself out of shopping or buying new clothes. Why? Because I don’t need them! I have so many clothes that I can literally do laundry less than once a month. I went from before Valentine’s Day to last weekend without doing laundry (I wash jeans and underoos when I run out of clean ones). Also, I drive a ten year old car. It’s a bad-ass that’s taken me on many adventures, both good and bad. Regular (read religious) maintenance by my father has allowed me to drive my car for years after he gave it to me. And I plan of keeping it as long as it still runs. I don’t need a new car, so I don’t plan on buying one.
Whew, this was a looonnnggg post. How do y’all budget? What money saving tips can you share?
