Living pay cheque to pay cheque!!

[Nathan]

Im harsh on myself so harsh on others to... but blunt.

I dont have children (that im aware of) however, I think the football coach approach is best, and will use this on my children when they arrive.

Kid crys in shops I want lolli pop i want lollipop... kicks swears and chucks tantrum... what does parent do? give kid lolli pop to shut him/her up? or disipline the kid?

Most give in and give the kid a lollipop, myself I would say have a good life and leave the child there...

(Id come back after a min of course so i dont loose the kid, but show who is boss)

Because psycologically the child knows all they have to do is be a eyesore to get what they want.

And those traits follow us all throughout our lives.

they are all just habbits, and we all have habbits, good and bad, just need to be careful of what habbits were teaching ourselves and those around us.

 

[keithj]

I think the football coach approach is best, and will use this on my children when they arrive.

Yup.. kids learn from about 90% of what you do, and about 25% of what you say.

If you teach them that whinging/crying/dummy spits gets them a good result, guess what they learn. They are teaching the parent how to behave, and not the other way around.

NO is a really powerful word, so many parents are afraid to use it.

 

[travelbug]

Im harsh on myself so harsh on others to... but blunt.

I dont have children (that im aware of) however, I think the football coach approach is best, and will use this on my children when they arrive.

Kid crys in shops I want lolli pop i want lollipop... kicks swears and chucks tantrum... what does parent do? give kid lolli pop to shut him/her up? or disipline the kid?

Most give in and give the kid a lollipop, myself I would say have a good life and leave the child there...

(Id come back after a min of course so i dont loose the kid, but show who is boss)

Because psycologically the child knows all they have to do is be a eyesore to get what they want.

And those traits follow us all throughout our lives.

they are all just habbits, and we all have habbits, good and bad, just need to be careful of what habbits were teaching ourselves and those around us.

haha Love it Nathan.

People don't give kids credit for how smart they are.

Kids learn really quickly how to work the system.

My kids learned quickly that no meant no (no amount of winging would do any good). Maybe meant they were in with a chance.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

She thought it was all quite funny and was joking about he she went into negative equity to buy stuff. She said she was $500 overdrawn.

She buys her lunch everyday, buys a coffee in the morning, smokes. I talked about how I couldnt go on holiday if I didnt have any money, I'd feel too guilty to enjoy it. She said it doesnt matter and that she doesnt need money to go on holidays. I guess she meant she puts it on credit.

Since then we have had a couple of interesting discussions about money. She knows I have some education in regards to money and property so she has been seeking a bit of advice. I have tried to give her advice but she doesnt seem to want to take it. I dont go to her telling her stuff btw, I give my opinion if she comes to me. I offer suggestions. I am not judgemental or anything.


The first piece of advice was to put aside a set amount into a separate account from her pay every fortnight and not to touch it.


One convo we had was about expenses. She said I could save more than her because I had less expenses than her. She had electricity expenses.... Thats the only expense she mentioned. I have expenses I cant save!!


I said I have electricity expenses too also a mortgage etc I think I have the same kinds of expenses you do. (She rents with boyfriend btw) I said I am able to save 35% of my pay a fortnight. She replied "but I have more epenses than you" Didnt offer anything more.


I said maybe its the other types of spending that you do. Have you thought about filling in a diary for 1 full month and write down every cent you spend, to see where the money goes, this might help you to cut back and then be able to save some money. "Oh no that wouldn't work, I know what i spend my money on"


She was happy to win a higher paying job in the department and she commented about how she needed the extra money because she doesnt earn enough. She needs money to pay her bills! Trouble is - its not the amount she earns. Its a good amount. Its the amount she spends!! A penny saved is a penny earned " You need to live within your means. Or in my case below my means.


It will be interesting to see how she goes with the extra income. Whats the bet she will live up to her new income and be in no better state financially. The way she is going she will probably spend 100% of what she earns still. Or maybe she spends more than 100% of what she earns. I know that she is in credit card debt. She mentioned the other day when we were arranging to have lunch together that she couldnt that day cos she had to pay an overdue bill. I think she needs to get in control. She is in her late 40's.


What I think would be a good plan for her would be to:

- Use the extra income to pay off her debts first

- Then put the extra $250 a fortnight from her new job away into a seperate account and not touch this account. She needs to pretend that she didnt win this new promotion, and lock the money away, save it.

- She definately needs to budget, and start to learn to live within her means and not above her means.


I save $500 out of ($1450 net income) a fortnight on my salary of $48 K pa gross. What I wouldnt give to earn an extra $250 a fortnight!! I'm working on it!!

 

[wylie]

I reckon she will spend every extra cent she earns. If she hasn't got a clue by her late 40s then she is not likely to ever get it.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

I reckon she will spend every extra cent she earns. If she hasn't got a clue by her late 40s then she is not likely to ever get it.

Yeah she is set in her ways!!

How will she live when she cant work any more. She will have no income and probably just a little bit of super. I wander if she gets scared thinking about this. I think she doesnt want to think about it and just lives for today.

 

[wylie]

When she is retired, she will probably whine that she cannot live on the pension .

 

[gg1965]

Ask her the scary questions upfront. Questions like:

have you thought about how much your super will be?
what will you do when you retire?
what are your plans for when you retire?
etc

I did a forward estimate on what my super would be worth for when i am meant to retire and i tell you what, it is a scary figure (and I'm in a generous super fund). There is no way I could live comfortably on what i am meant to get from 65 - that is why i have chosen to seek property investment as i want a more independent and satisfying life that my so called "generous" super scheme will not give me. Basically i don't want to be counting the coins when i retire.

I think many people, if not most of them, are not fully aware as to how much their super will actually give them. As a result, most people are going to get stuck with a very poor retirement.

So ask the scary questions up front. scare her into saving money...



g

 

[Alex P Keaton]

She was happy to win a higher paying job in the department and she commented about how she needed the extra money because she doesnt earn enough. She needs money to pay her bills! Trouble is -its not the amount she earns. Its a good amount. Its the amount she spends!!

It will be interesting to see how she goes with the extra income. Whats the bet she will live up to her new income and be in no better state financially. The way she is going she will probably spend 100% of what she earns still. Or maybe she spends more than 100% of what she earns. I know that she is in credit card debt. She mentioned the other day when we were arranging to have lunch together that she couldnt that day cos she had to pay an overdue bill. I think she needs to get in control. She is in her late 40's.

I chatted about this with her the other day. I asked her if she was able to save a bit now that she is earning more in her new job. Same answer, she cant save she has bills.

She doesnt have any disipline to save or control with her spending.

I've had a promotion just recently and will be pretending to myself I havent even won it. I'll be saving 100% of it!

 

[Alex P Keaton]

Ask her the scary questions upfront. Questions like:

have you thought about how much your super will be?
what will you do when you retire?
what are your plans for when you retire?

g

lol i asked her this a while back and she laughed and said she wont be retiring, she'll just keep working.

Thats sad

 

[travelbug]

lol i asked her this a while back and she laughed and said she wont be retiring, she'll just keep working.

Thats sad

Great goal Agree sad. But not uncommon.

Good on you Kim for saving the extra money. I had no super so as my wage went up I salary sacrificed it to super. Now I'm buying property.

Most people live within their means. What I mean is the more we earn the more we spend. There were times (when I was at Uni) that we lived on next to nothing (we had 2 kids too). We spend a lot more now. Nothing excessive though. We earn 5 times the amount we earned then so can afford holidays etc. But I was bought up poor so cannot bring myself to buy gadgets and things we don't need. Even if I won millions on lotto I would still look at prices on things. It's inbuilt.

Good luck and keep doing what you're doing.

 

[jingo]

I know plenty of people who live week to week or worse than that, they live credit card statement to credit card statement which is pretty sad.

Funny thing is they mostly have well paying JOBS. Wonder what they do with their money? If a minor glitch minor occurs they are in trouble.

Whats even worse tho is many of them know they will be saved when their parents die and they get the house or proceeds of the house to save them. As they are in their 40s, they know it wont be too long.

If you think that's abit harsh, a few have told me exactly that straight up.

One couple i know with two teenagers led a life of consumer spending, no saving, travel, lots of doodads, renting houses as could never afford to save a deposit to buy one.

When the husbands parents died (the parents had a ppor & few IPs) they bought a house and new cars etc. They then boasted to everyone how well off they were, how great their house was etc etc.

Not a mention of how they didnt do a thing themselves tho. I hate that attitude and i've seen quite a bit of it in my 40s.

I have a good friend who is relying on the inheritance to secure her future. My friend and her husband are around 48 yrs old. They both have good jobs with reasonable pay. They live in a beautiful house (Yes, it is their own) and have lovely furniture, latest gadgets, etc. I know they live pay check to pay check and they are constantly refinancing their credit cards into their mortgage.

Luckily (or perhaps not), both their parents are very wealthy. (Owning, amongst other assets, water front properties) Often the parents send money to them to help them out with things. I know they are counting on the money they will inherit in the future to fund their retirement. The trouble is, I don't know how well they will manage it!

 

[Alex P Keaton]

Great goal Agree sad. But not uncommon.

I dont think she has thought about the consequences if she were to get sick and not able to work anymore. Or when she hits 70 it might get too much for her to keep working full time. She's living for today.

I'd hate that feeling. The feeling of being out of control like that.

thanks yeah, im working hard to save an invest for my future but also so I dont have to have sleepless nights wandering how i'll pay a bill.

 

[Sheryn]

Kim

I worked out today my daughter could manage to survive 9 weeks if no money coming in.

Not too bad as she moved into her new PPOR this year and she still has sheets up on the windows.

What I admire her for is her boyfriend moved in with credit card and telephone debt + a few other lack of money to fix problems eg. car needed repairs.

Daughter has worked out a budget and a schedule for boyfriend to pay off his debts and she has implemented a system using a A-Z dividing file labelled with names of commitments eg food, petrol, mobile etc.

Funniest thing was daughter lent her mobile to boyfriend for weeks until he could pay his bill off. Really pleased that daughter is not tied to her mobile phone like I see so many people!

Boyfriend is willing to work everyday BUT not able to find work everyday and has enrolled at TAFE to complete a Certificate III course.

Anyway - When he gets paid she puts his money into his divided file, then she takes it out and banks it for him and pays his bills off online.

I am proud of her because she worked it all out her self, discussed wtih boyfriend what he needed to do and put in a little system so he could see what he needed to put aside / save each week.

Boyfriend is struggling, due to lack of labouring work (he rode his trail bike until he saved up money for his car to be repaired and now his trail bike is unregistered as he didn't have money to pay for rego).

I am proud of her boyfriend as an easy option would have been for him to live at home (with his parents) & claim unemployment benefits and if he did then he would not have had to pay his TAFE enrolment fee. Of course he would ahve slept overnight at daughters unit on the weekend.

They are experiencing 'hard street' now so if they get to 'easy street' (both employed fulltime) daughter will remember hard street.


Sheryn

 

[grubar30]

I dunno, unemployment/pensions are very high. Single with two kids and you'd be on about $40k tax free and no excuses at all not to save a tonne of that. No real reason to look for work either, but that's another story.

Our taxes are very well spent....

We need more welfare people popping out kids and higher taxes to accomodate it....that's the answer

 

[BayView]

How's this for living "paycheck to paycheck";

We had a lady who needed a puncture repaired yesterday - $25.

She came in to pick it up and asked if she could pay $15 this week and $10 next week.

I thought about saying she could "work it off" as she was not bad at all , but my immense sense of morality got the better of me and we said yes, pay next week.

 

[Perp]

She came in to pick it up and asked if she could pay $15 this week and $10 next week.

That's truly breathtaking.

 

[bespoke]

haha Love it Nathan.

People don't give kids credit for how smart they are.

Kids learn really quickly how to work the system.

My kids learned quickly that no meant no (no amount of winging would do any good). Maybe meant they were in with a chance.

Agree, my daughter knew what the word whinging meant very early (shes still only 3). Right from a few months old I used to say to her "No whinging, mummy doesn't do whinging".
She now asks politely for things and often says "I'm not whinging mum".

Hows this for teaching a kid about money:

My now ex- SIL and my brother are shocking with money. They have a 8 YO boy.

A couple of years back I was babysitting for 2 hours after he finished school for the day whilst his mother was working. I had to go to the supermarket and took him along. We called in to his mothers work as she worked part time in a bottle shop next to the supermarket. He says "we are going to Bi-Lo mum", she whips out a $10 note and says "here you go, you can buy yourself something"

Same child & mother: was nephews birthday. The child has every toy you could possibly imagine, what do you get for a child like that?

Hubbie has a X box limited edition thingy that he no longer plays. Nephew loves it - doesn't have it we are on one wage at the time, so we say you can have it for your birthday. Birthday comes around, child gets X box (I now see that child also has playstation, playstation 2, nintendo, and some other game console thingys that I cant remember the names of (not a fan). Hubbie goes to plug into childs TV (in his bedroom), doesn't have the right outlet to plug into. Child then chucks a massive fit and goes and sulks in the corner. Mother then goes and says "oh don't worry, I'll go out now and buy you a TV that the X box can plug into. WHAT THE..?

And I might add, this was both when my SIL was seperated from my brother and always crying Poor Mouth.

I could fill a small book with the fiscal misdemenors of my brother and ex SIL.

 

[evand]

Some people don't have money and/or aren't financially literate. Big Deal. Doesn't mean they are sub human to be ridiculed.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

I dont think she has thought about the consequences if she were to get sick and not able to work anymore. Or when she hits 70 it might get too much for her to keep working full time. She's living for today.

I couldn't help but overhear part of a convo she was having with her boyfriend on the phone today. She sits right beside me at work and she talks very loudly it was kind of hard not to hear it. She read to her boyfriend an email from someone I dunno who it was but the email was saying that she should really have some medical tests to rule out some things. But she cannot afford it.

Anyway throughout the day she's buying the little fundraising chip packets and chocolate bars that sit nearby. Then on her way out at the end of the night she told me she was off to go to the target sale to buy some pillow cases. I'm thinking where are her priorities. If it were me I'd prioritize my health and have those medical tests. Whats more important than your health, and I'd cut out buying the coffee, lunch, chips and choclates that she buys each day, and not go splurging at sales.

It think I might know what it is. Some people just have to have everything that they want all the time!! They dont say no to themselves. They spend money on all sorts of crap and then have very little left over to pay their bills.

Evand - Some people don't have money and/or aren't financially literate. Big Deal. Doesn't mean they are sub human to be ridiculed.

I agree, they are not sub human to be ridiculed. I think some people are just getting things off their chest here in this topic and creating a discussion. We/I am so frustrated to watch how some people act with their money. I can see how badly it is effecting her. Wish she could get some help.

Oh well theres nothing I can do i just keep telling myself