How are you doing for money, single mom?
At the beginning of the month, I took out all the money I was going to allow myself to spend this month on food and entertainment.
$400. Not a lot in the big city, let me tell you.
I think I’ll have half of it left by the 15th. I haven’t gone so far as to put my bank card at home and forget about it, because that kind of life without a net is scary… though I can remember life before ATM cards. I just can’t remember what it was like to actually have to plan your cash spending. This kind of concrete limitation has done wonders for curbing my impulse buying though. If you’ve only got so many twenties burning a hole in your wallet, it’s hard to spend them like water.
Here’s what I’ve learned about money and work. If you’re lucky enough to work somewhere with great benefits, USE THEM:
Does your company offer flex spending? Take it. Some companies offer medical and dependent care flex spending accounts. They take an amount of money, determined by you, out of your paycheck–befre taxes–and put it into a spending account. Catch is, you have to spend it all by the end of the year.
Got a 401K? pay into it. Doesn’t matter how much, every little bit counts and is matched by your employer.
Put the check card away and spend cash. You’d be surprised how hard it is to give in to those impulse buys when it’s physical cash leaving your hands.
Planning is everything. Make grocery lists and meal plans.
Did you know, you can bring laundered clothes to the dry cleaners to have them pressed? That way, you can have your shirts professionally ironed and not have to pay an arm and a leg to have them cleaned, too!
Any money you can put aside automatically is money you don’t think about, that you learn to live without. Take advantage of these opportunities to save without having to touch the money yourself and you’ll be saving more than you know!
Best of luck, ladies. You can do it!
Tags: saving-moneyRelated Stories
POSTED IN: budget
2 opinions for How are you doing for money, single mom?
Ike
Jun 13, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Thanks for the important tips! This is a great topic. I am making a concerted effort with my daughters to teach them about money. They are young and receive only a small allowance ($2 a week) but are learning about saving and spending, and how great it feels to be able to buy something they really want when they save up for it. My hope is that by starting them young, I will help them become good money managers in their adult years!
Joanne
Jun 15, 2007 at 12:45 am
I fully agreed with you, to us, single mother we just can’t spend our money like water. Maybe I should say I’m lucky since I never have the chance to spend my money in that way while I was still in my marriage, it trained me to plan for my money every month.
I think a journal is a good one, it helps to sort out and review how you spend your money and cut off those unnecessary spending.
For long term saving purpose with higher return, I choose to put some of my money into mutual fund, and auto-transfer a small amount of my income to my saving account every month, to be prepared for the rainy day.
Sad thing is I just completed a project on translation, and yet to get a new project. Hopefully it will come soon.
Joanne
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