I have heard the philosophy of “paying yourself first” before. I agree that it is helpful to keep a separate account for such things. We keep the largest chunk of our savings in an ING account. We leave a small amount in the savings account with our credit union that is linked to the checking account in case of sudden emergencies or an unexpectedly large monthly bill. This rarely happens much anymore, but having a few hundred dollars in there as a buffer reduces the risk that we would ever accidentally overdraw the account.
I wish I could pay myself first. The problem is, I never know from one month to the next if there will be any money left to pay for our dreams until I see if all of the monthly bills are paid for. At the end of everyone month I go back over the monthly expenditures to see how much we’ve spent in each category. If we consistently spend less every month, I lower how much we budget each month for that area and shift the money to another category. It seems like for every $1 I save in one area an expense increases in another area to eat up $2. For example: I was able to reorganize the budget and spend less on clothing and gifts so that I could pay my yearly registration fee for the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group I attend. But recently I found out that this year we are going to have to pay $5 per meeting for babysitting. That’s an increase of $75 a year to my MOPS budget, nearly doubling what I already pay for the yearly registration fee and parking. So much for my sliver of savings. I could give up MOPS, but it brings me a great deal of joy and it is currently one of the only social activities I am involved in. Plus, I’ve already paid my registration fee for the year anyway. I feel like I’m trapped between trying to live and trying to save towards living better.
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