We Are Failing
Aug 20th, 2009 by Carlos
Hey Sol, do you ever wonder at what point you gotta stop living up here and start living down here? — B. Rabbit in 8 Mile
I love that line and recently I realized M and I have to start facing reality.
We are not meeting our financial goals. Our budget has ballooned a little bit because of some important things we want to save for, but we’ve ignored the fact that we have to make some changes or we’ll continue to fail at these goals.
You can’t just say “I want to save more for X” without taking that money out of somewhere (or making more money somewhere else). The end result has been that we’re missing our budget and it’s not a good feeling.
We already have some ideas to change this and face reality, but I thought it was important to come out and admit that what we’re doing right now isn’t working and something needs to change.
Not meeting our budget has monetary consequences, sure, but it makes you feel so defeated every time it happens. Will we ever have enough for the place we want to buy? Are we OK in terms of our retirement accounts? Will we be able to travel?
A successful, realistic budget needs to be able to answer these questions to some degree.
We’re on it.
Image by Nesster
Wait to you own your own place and have kids, than you will really fail.
At least you have a budget. I just started budgeting when I see my income disappeared every month without knowing where I spent it. Most of my college mates don’t even have the word “budget” in their vocabulary. Hate to think what will happen to my generation when almost every one is living way way way beyond their means. I’m not that different but I’m trying to change that now. It’s nice to see someone is truthful about about their financial so I feel like I’m not the only one. thanks.
Frugalgrad, you’re way ahead of a ton of people by starting a budget. The rest of this stuff will start to make sense. The thing I’m learning is that you have to be realistic. Just because you “want” to be saving X amount, it doesn’t mean it’s a realistic amount.
WC – Just saw this post after i read your “housing 13% down” post. After reading this post, I definitely think you should wait for that condo/house purchase. Unless, it is the lack of the 20%+ down payment which is bumming you out to write this post in the first place?
Best