Man the last post sound just like my friends. Just because someone put himself on a budget I am greedy and money hungry. Now greedy is big corportion presidents who takes chunks of money to resign only to leave the little worker scratching his head. I am making sure I can continue living my life when I retire like I am living now. I do not see the reason to carry much more money to work because I know I may spend it only slowing my progress to retire a little early. I am glad you talk about christ and his word but I am not greedy by no means. I give hefty to the local United Way and I will buy a person in need a dinner if they really need it. Before I started saving my money I would spend spend and spend and I was broke before next pay period so thats when I made this life changing decision. I even teach my kids about having great credit and having a surplus of money just in case something happens. I just want to live a comfortable life after retirement so that I want have to find a second job to make ends meet you can understand that right?

I'm a bit of a tight wad myself. :) I'm always looking for the sales, and even generally ask for an additional 10% discount, and often get it too. But I do have my weaknesses, and spend my money foolishly on certain things.
Guitars...I suffer G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome) :P

I have several theories I've tried lived by. One is to not buy anything on credit. If I wanted something, I got the money together first to buy it, or I just did not have it. I know the importance of having good credit though, for those times you may need it. So, I use a credit card regularly, but it gets automatically paid in full with each billing by direct Banking. That keeps my credit score above 850.
I did just recently buy a new '08 Honda Civic and financed half of the 24k at 1.9%...couldn't resist that...and crunched the numbers enough to figure that was a good idea, with the high price of gas. The car gets 40mpg.

Try not to pay full price. Like I mentioned...I always haggle the cost down. Money talks the loudest. I learned that, and it works. I won't beat a person that is desperate to sell something down though. I kinda have my limits, to how much I'll seek to drive a price down. I walk away from more purchases, than I accept. Many times, I simply walk away to "think about it" and the next day, I have a much clearer view of it all.

Lastly, the methods of savings I do is kinda Biblical. I got the notions anyway from the Bibles teachings on tithe. As a kid, I use to save my money up for something, and learned my money would burn a hole in my pocket. I'd come up with something I felt I really needed, just because I had the money. Later to find out, I didn't need something as bad as I thought I did. It always killed me to sell something, I rarely made use of, for less money.
So...what I ended up doing is realizing I needed to have a savings I never touched. I came up with that 10% theory, that I could get by without ever missing 10% of my income or savings. So, I began putting 10% of anything I made into an account, which later began to diversify, and grow in other nest egg baskets.

I wasn't always religious about it though. Lots of times, I did not stick the 10% away. Some times I even cashed in some of my precious...my precious. :lol:
I'm so screwed up...but at least I'm not broke too. :lol: :oops:

http://e.deviantart.com/emoticons/h/highfive.gif

i believe useless was being facetious, it's just hard to tell sometimes :P :D

now that we know more of the circumstances, i vote that they're envious, you've managed to do something that they haven't.

dieselpower.... Keep doing what you are doing. Tell your "friends" to get a life. Misery loves company....and they want to pull you into the morass of financial instability that they dwell in. Save as much as you can. Personally, I'm not much on anything that has to do with the stock market... I tend to prefer putting money into "conservative" types of things that produce income.... But its your money and your savings.... not being smart with you...because I am not big on giving financial advice.... just saying be careful where you put it.... But "CONGRATULATIONS" for being mature enough and bright enough to look toward the future and preparing for your retirement!!

You can use this calculator to figure what you can have after saving... you put in the amounts and it tells you the numbers:

http://www.bloomberg.com/invest/calc...s/savings.html

One thing you might consider....if you are talking to "Investment" people.... Before you spend a dime on stock..... ask them: SHOW ME YOUR PORTFOLIO! If they won't or babble about you not being "qualified" to assess their portfolio.....RUN, RUN...far away as fast as you can!! Because there's a good chance they own ZERO stocks....but are more than happy to play with your money and charge you a commission for playing with it. Right now, in my opinion...is not a good time to invest in the market.....but then that's just my "opinion".... 8)

Dieselpower ;

Lighten Up, Dude!!

:shock: :shock:

My last reply to you was a joke!!
:D

my bad useless I didn't mean to sound bitter. After reading all the posts I feel better about what I am doing with my money. Thank you all very very much.