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I just spend less than I get. I know how much comes in and my spending habits are fairly predictable, so nothing too fancy. For obvious reasons I tend to charg

I just spend less than I get. I know how much comes in and my spending habits are fairly predictable, so nothing too fancy. For obvious reasons I tend to charge everything to my credit cards and then just pay them off before the due date. I have an account and a debit card that's only for ATM usage. The account behind that card has a nil balance unless I'm about to get cash, in which case I just use a banking app to do a quick transfer. It takes about a minute or so from app launch to available funds. I have this separate account in case the card gets skimmed. In essence, with this separate ATM account and my credit cards, I'm keeping my cash in cold storage until it's go-time. Other than this, I don't really do anything magical or fancy. I used to diligently keep track of every expense but it didn't really add anything to my life so I stopped doing it. I'm not a fan of wasting time. As a contingency against losing my wallet (which has happened exactly once!) I have a second set of bank accounts and credit cards. These backup cards stay at home. If my wallet disappears and departs from my life I don't have any downtime; I just switch over the backup while replacements are on their way. I keep my wallet as empty as possible and only carry the bare minimum I need for my day to day. Most of the time I don't even get my wallet out and just use my phone to pay for things. Most places where I go have PayPass enabled terminals.

abustamam 10y ago
It's interesting to see the dichotomy here. Some people meticulously manage every penny, and others like you and me just make sure we spend less than we earn. I'm curious to see the financial status of everyone writing in this thread now though. As a person just entering the work force, I don't have much in the way of wealth so I know I'm not a good example here.
- nicolas_t 10y ago
  I've found that the best way to save money is not to manage every penny but manage your own expectation of what is expensive and what is cheap. A lot of people increase their spendings proportionally to their income so when they get more money, they acquire more expensive tastes, go to more expensive restaurants, buy more expensive cars and so on. It's an easy trap to fall into especially with peer pressure but if you can avoid it, then it becomes easy to spend less than what you earn without tracking every penny (or at least it's easy for most people here who tend to earn more than the median salary).

abustamam 10y ago

It's interesting to see the dichotomy here. Some people meticulously manage every penny, and others like you and me just make sure we spend less than we earn. I'm curious to see the financial status of everyone writing in this thread now though. As a person just entering the work force, I don't have much in the way of wealth so I know I'm not a good example here.

nicolas_t 10y ago
I've found that the best way to save money is not to manage every penny but manage your own expectation of what is expensive and what is cheap. A lot of people increase their spendings proportionally to their income so when they get more money, they acquire more expensive tastes, go to more expensive restaurants, buy more expensive cars and so on. It's an easy trap to fall into especially with peer pressure but if you can avoid it, then it becomes easy to spend less than what you earn without tracking every penny (or at least it's easy for most people here who tend to earn more than the median salary).