<p>Hey, you can go on cruises and still be thrifty!</p>
<p>I’m a tightwad, 18% to retirement plan, I don’t buy anything unless I need it.</p>
<p>But I’m going on a 10 cruise that will cost $1000pp including tips and everything. I’m worth it and I deserve it (and my bf is paying for most of it 
I’ve never had a 10 day vacation in my 47 years of life. Can’t wait.</p>
<p>We always max out on our retirement contributions. We also have always been careful about spending. We bought our house with appreciation in mind. Our house which we purchased 21 yrs ago was the smallest in the neighborhood, we then rebuilt on the same property 12 yrs ago. Our area is sought after for the school and the rural nature. Our furnishings are not what many of our neighbors have but they are not from the goodwill. We drive nicer cars but not Mercedes like many of our neighbors. We have no debt other then our mortgage and debt on some investment properties.
We can pay full fare for school but it is painful.
When I shop I am mindful of prices but I don’t go all over town to search for the best price. I do go to the gas station with the lowest prices. My kids have everything they need and some extras that they want. They don’t get all that they want.
We could be more careful. I consider myself pretty lucky. Our employment is secure. We are feeling the economy downturn but we are doing okay. No vacations this year. But that is also due to having to come up with tuition money.</p>
<p>We’ve taken some terrific vacations…I shop a lot for the best plane fares and we tend to stay in flats rather than hotels, but my kids have still been to Europe more than many adults. I think that the vacations will have to be a lot more modest once we start paying tuition…wonder if the younger girls will be resentful?</p>
<p>I probably save about 40% of my AGI. This includes cash savings & retirement savings only.</p>
<p>Adding- when the kids were younger and had less expensive habits we took some great vacations.</p>
<p>We save approximately 30 percent of our gross income in retirement and 529 accounts. Planning to keep doing this even with first child starting college full-freight at a private college this year. Our cars are old. Our house is old. We eat out once a week. We don’t travel anywhere for vacations. It takes discipline every single day but worth it. We have no debt except our house which we will pay off within six years. D1’s college is in the bank. D2’s is half-way there. Retirement should be reasonable but not luxurious. We have not inherited anything and won’t be. In fact, we help our parents financially. Our worry is that DH will lose his job. Now that could change things dramatically.</p>
<p>Our situation is very similar to mammalls.</p>
<p>DH is a professor and his job is secured. We do save but never count the percentage of the income saved. We have two daughters; both are high maintenance with their music lessons (piano and violin for both of them) and many school related trips. As a family, we have not taken any real vacation for long time, since no one is really interested or having time for a family vacation. DH and I both max our retirement accounts and we both are very low maintenance (no time for nonsense). We occasionally eat out (eating out actually takes more time). My last hair cut in a barber shop was in 1993, since then, never spend a penny and always kept my long hair, which you can trim it at home. DHs car is 10 year old, mine 5 and neither is fancy (Toyota minivan and Camry). Lately, I am thinking about buying another car (thinking fancy this time, since DH thinks that I should drive a car similar to my colleagues, and I know he wants a fancy car).
We do have a nice house with nice view outside (brand new, bought last year, thought it was a good deal but housing price has being keep dropping). Comfortable house further prevents vacation (home is very cozy and everything is so handy while vacation can be very tiring). I went with D1 to visit some colleges on both east and west coasts in April, if those can count as vacations. D1 is going to a private college in about four weeks and we are full-freight. D1 and I will fly to her college, and we will try to make the parents weekend in Oct as a family vacation. As long as I am healthy and keep working (I am the major financial contributor in this family), tuition should not be a problem.</p>
<p>We don’t really count how much we save, but do max out hubby’s retirement 401K & he will get his max pension. He plans to retiire in about 4 years, as our younger chilld should be graduating from college (& we should also finish paying off mortgage). Our house is very old–was built in the 50s. We have a car that is a 1992, one that is a 1998 & our “new” car is a 2000. We have no plans to get any new vehicles. All run OK & keep the mechanics in business. We have no debt other than the mortgage with affordable monthly payments (lower than most rentals).</p>
<p>We live comfortably & have had some nice vacations, generally planned around hubby’s business trips, doctor visits, & previously college visits. </p>
<p>S was able to get a generous >1/2 tuition merit award to his expensive private college out-of-state. We are able to pay the balance out of current earnings. D was just accepted to the same school with NO funding, so we will figure out how to help finance her college there as well. Fortunately, she will be entering as a 2nd semester sophomore, so that should lessen the tuition we will be paying.</p>
<p>We did pay for both kids to go to private HS, which combined was more than we were paying for S to attend college (after his merit awards). D saved us some money by skipping her HS senior year & going straight to community college & then applying to transfer to the U of her dreams.</p>
<p>Not sure how much we can help the kids with grad school, but we will try.</p>
<p>We originally saved enough to put both kids thru 4 years of our state flagship U & haven’t touched those funds, but are glad they are available. We will spend them down as their bills exceed our income. We have lived below our means most of our lives and are comfortable with it. We should be able to finance the kids’ college without too much difficulty, between the earmarked savings and current income.</p>
<p>We get some “hand me down” clothes from relatives & tend to buy clothing on sale at factory outlets and other discount places. We tend to wear clothes until they wear out (I still wear many chothes I’ve had for literally decades–they’re classics & I still get compliments on them). When the kids were in grade school & outgrowing everything at a furious pace, we did go to thrift shops.</p>
<p>We prefer quality over “bling” and tend to have things that last a very long time and still look & function great. We could have saved more if we hadn’t spent so much in needed medical bills for chronic health conditions, but of course health and education are huge priorities for us.</p>
<p>Hey, susan4, I drive a 2003 Camry and my husband is still in his 1994 Previa!</p>
<p>hello, missypie, mine is also a 2003 Camry. Our minivan is a 98 Toyota.</p>
<p>Odd how no “bad” savers are posting to this thread, innit? :)</p>
<p>Exactly…no “I’ve maxxed out my credit cards and am aboutto lose my house” posts.</p>
<p>My husband’s parents are so frugal that it’s comical. Through some very lucky (yes, lucky) investments, my high school drop out union electrician FIL ended up quite well off. Although they’ve always saved a huge portion of their income, they saved nothing for their four kid’s college educations. Each kid got a job as soon as they were able and totally paid their own way through state school. (I’ve posted before that because the cost of state school tuition, room and board has risen a lot more than the minimum wage, I doubt that this is feasible any more.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if there are many like my inlaws out there anymore, but they totally expected each child to go to college and they required each child to pay for 100% of the cost themselves. It wasn’t due to lack of means; they just didn’t see it as their responsiblity.</p>
<p>Well, I feel like a bad saver in comparison to others on this thread!</p>
<p>And for me, a Camry is a fancy car! I drive a Civic, and my husband drives a Corolla; both cars are 10 years old.</p>
<p>I’ve driven a Camry since 1992. For years the parking garage at work has been filled with Suburbans and the hottest SUVs of the year. Now, my little Camry is starting to be one of the larger vehicles in the parking garage!</p>
<p>We have 2 Camrys (97 and 06) and a Honda Pilot (05). We like to buy pre-owned cars when they’re coming off of leases. The 97 Camry was 3 years old when we bought it, and we got the Pilot this spring when it was also 3 years old. We feel like we get more car for less money that way, and we keep all our cars until they’re about 12 years old and/or they are becoming too expensive to continue to repair. With gas prices so high we read that dealers couldn’t get rid of SUV’s, and it turned out to be true - we paid $5000 LESS than Blue Book value for the Pilot! Our mechanic checked it out, he said it’s a great car, and it’s given us no problems so far. The Pilot is replacing a 1995 Explorer with 125k miles that I sold on Craig’s List in one day. I priced it low, but still got 3 times what the dealer would have given me on a trade-in. </p>
<p>The 06 Camry is the only brand-new car we’ve ever bought. We couldn’t find any good deals on used ones at that time, I guess people didn’t want to give up their Camrys!</p>
<p>
Missypie-
Did I have dinner with you last night? I had this EXACT conversation with friends at dinner… only I don’t think it was her fa in law, but a friend’s father. Hmmmm…But the exact same statements expressed folks of a generation ago-- they expected their kids to go to college but told them from the get-go that the kids would be expected to foot their own bill, that it was not the parents responsibility to pay. As I have posted elsewhere, S#1 has definitely inhereted the “frugal” gene and has been very wise with spending and good with investments. S#2 is a fan of, as he calls it “passive income”. Still working on teaching him that using coupons is not a bad, embarassing thing…</p>
<p>Anyone else find that they approach finances radically differently than their siblings? All three of my siblings saved absolutely nothing for their kids’ college and expect their kids to pay 100%. They are aghast at DH and me for footing the bill to a private school for DD1. It’s been very enlightening though as our kids have reached college age. Now I understand why my siblings could afford their boats and new houses and performance vehicles.</p>
<p>We are savers and we don’t do credit, except for mortgage on our house. As h’s income has increased, we didn’t “upscale” in terms of more expensive home or cars. We drive cars into the ground (he still remembers the mini-van he drove for years with the door about to fall off and the ceiling material sitting on his head, but hey … it was paid for, and we’d just bought another, newer mini-van at the time. Once the air-conditioning went (and in Fl, no less) well, finally, he was allowed his truck. <g> </g></p>
<p>We own one credit card which we use as a debit card, essentially, by paying it off every month. We’ve always shopped garage sales, clearance racks, etc. And we were so not the first house on the block with anything new … he finally got a flat-screen t.v. as our other one of 15 years bought the dust. He was soooo excited. </p>
<p>We also tithe, which means that the first 10 percent of our income goes to the church. Between that and maxing out his employee/employer matching contribution savings never left a lot of discretionary income. But the money’s always been there when we’ve needed it. And that’s how we evaluate most purchases: needs, wants, and desires. DH truly enjoyed watching his truck desire move down the list to need. :)</p>
<p>Kids look at things the same way. They’ve had no allowance; they’ve babysat, mowed yards, tutored, etc. to earn money for things like gas in their car, mission trips they’ve wanted to go on, etc. It does my heart proud when my D passes up the Abercrombie and Fitch because she realizes she can do so much better at kohl’s or penney’s with her money. </p>
<p>If we can keep them away from the credit thing as they get older… we’ll feel we’ve done well in our home economics course. </p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>We are somewhere in the middle. I am a saver, and husband is not a good saver. </p>
<p>For the home, excluding beds, we have bought exactly 6 new pieces of furniture (2 coaches, 2inexpensive tables, one kitchen table with chairs, and one breakfront) for our entire house in 23 years of marriage. We accepted everything else as a hand me down. This means that another breakfront, desks, dining room table, and all bedroom furniture is a hand me down from an aunt, or grandparent.</p>
<p>We have taken a few trips over 23 years, never a cruise, and our vacations were always on a budget (picked one of the least expensive deals, ie: Mexico).</p>
<p>We did redo our kitchen which was over 50 years old, but we had no choice, and I see this as increasing home equity.</p>
<p>Day to day, I watch all sales, and rarely by anything not on sale or clearance. I use coupons where I can, and I buy in bulk when it makes sense.</p>
<p>We drive average Joe cars.</p>
<p>As far as clothes, I have 2 male children who do not care about designers, so I can buy whatever I want and they wear it. I do not buy clothes at regular prices.</p>
<p>We rarely eat out for dinner. I know couples who eat out at least every Saturday night, if not a couple of times during the week as well. We do not do that.</p>
<p>mammall, we have 2 sibs with kids. One sib is wealthy through marriage so it really does not matter and they can pay for full freight for their children. The other is sib cannot handle a dime. I am not sure what they are going to do because they cannot handle paying for their current lifestyle with no child in college yet. Income is not the issue, but lifestlyle is the issue.</p>