Before I married:
- Buy a home that is no more than 2x salary. Use hand-me-downs and Ikea for furniture. DIY painting, improvements.
- Limit car payment to $300/mo. Keep putting $300/mo. away after loan ended until could pay cash.
- Develop reasonable budgets, then play the budget game and try to come in under budget in every category but savings.
- Max out tax-deferred plans.
- All bonuses and raises to savings, with potential little splurge for bonuses. All savings into general mutual funds.
- Do vacations with family so basically free.
- Buy generic whenever possible. Always ask whether I really need something first (answer is almost always no).
- Bulk cook every weekend; avoid lunches out, happy hours, etc., except to actually socialize. Choose happy hour locations with free hors d'oeuvres so one drink buys you dinner too. ;-)
- Buy as many things as possible that allow me to do for myself -- e.g., work clothes that can be washed vs. dry-clean-only. Minimal focus on "extras" like makeup, fancy shoes/purses, etc. -- enough focus to not stand out at work, but nothing beyond that.
After marriage to Mr. Spendy:
- Ensure we can meet all our needs on the lowest of our two incomes.
- Both stay in the workforce even after kids -- part-time as needed for sanity vs. quitting entirely.
- No debt except for housing. Period. If we can't pay cash for it, we can't afford it.
- Live in a neighborhood where the neighbors match our desired consumption level, not our income. Best way to avoid any kind of pressure to keep up with the Joneses is to buy where the Joneses have to try to keep up with you.
- Corollary: spend online time on MMM, instead of on "influencers" and the like, to keep my head grounded and my wants/expectations in line.
- Avoid the kind of lifestyle inflation that increases our bottom line -- stay in the same house, figure out what level if "nice" is "enough" and stick with that. E.g., we did increase vacation spending when kids started school and we were limited to school holidays (when everything is $$$$$), but that's the kind of thing we could have cut immediately if things got tight vs. something like "let's buy a summer home!"
- For all spending decisions, go for the knee of the curve. Super-cheap crap that breaks right away isn't useful, but you also don't need the highest-end whatever. Think about what specific characteristics I actually need vs. bells and whistles that sound cool, and then look for what's good enough -- what meets that need and is the best value for the money.
- Corollary: remember to still ask if I actually need something. Just because my budget is more flush doesn't mean I need anything more than I did before.
- Continue to max out all tax-deferred options and divert raises/bonuses to savings. When I "feel" flush, I am much more lax on the budget, so creating an artificial constraint helps maintain normalcy.
- Note that this became much more powerful as more and more of our income came in end-of-year profit-sharing and stock grants and such.
- Corollary: follow career paths that provide options for things like profit-sharing, stock grants, etc. Talk about speeding up the path to FI!
- Give up on the budget game and acknowledge that money for things like vacations can be spent. But budget for savings goals first (including college for kids) before spending what is left over. Always at least 20%, even during ridiculously expensive daycare years.
- Transition everything to VTSAX.
- Protect downside risk with life insurance, disability insurance, home insurance, umbrella policy, etc. Biggest risk to long-term success was something completely unexpected throwing us off-track, like a permanent disability, so did as best we could to minimize the damage those risks could do.*
*Note that this ultimately paid off this past year due to the house fire. So in the end, the investment in protection was ultimately worthwhile, because we were able to live in temp housing for 18 months and completely rebuild the house without throwing us off-track.
