It never occurs to them that maybe the others don’t spend all they have and more. That they live below their means and save the balance. That they exercise self-control that they are not self indulgent, they don’t think they ‘deserve’ those little luxuries and treats on a daily or even weekly basis!

Yup, responsible is the word here!

Money holds a strange place in our society – its one of the few items where people are encouraged and even rewarded to be “bad” with it – witness BUY BUY of ads and the message that “thrift is good – but this is no time to be thrifty-paradox of thrift” hammering that savers have heard in the last year.

Consider yourself a free spirit willing to buck the system.

As for luck – haha. Literally 10 minutes ago one of my coworkers was congratulating me on my plans to pay off my car tomorrow. She said, “that’s great, you’re so lucky!” On one hand, I am lucky. I haven’t had any recent misfortunes (car wrecks, hospital visits, etc). But on the other hand, it isn’t luck that I’ve been systematically putting more and more money towards my car loan. Just like it isn’t luck that I’m then going to put more effort into bulking up my emergency fund and my down payment fun for my first house.

Oh well, I just take it at face value and take the well wishes.

I occasionally overdraft as well, but its not because I don’t have the money, but enough money in the right account. My wife and I have difficulty with budgeting and keeping track of things.

It has helped that we have one checking account for bills and one for expenses. I put the average of the last six months expenses in the expenses account, and the rest goes into savings. Sometimes we both go crazy with the little purchases and empty our expenses account, resulting in a overdraft. But when we are out, we are out, and don’t rob from the other accounts. We make ourselves feel the pain, regardless of how stressful it is.

I guess I would say that it is possible to be somewhat disorganized and irresponsible with money and still be debt free. But I am always amazed that people much more educated and intelligent than I continue to make the dumbest financial mistakes. Risking the security of their families because they want more stuff. Oh well…

& I think that is REALLY the key. You don’t know how many conversations I have had with friends who made all sorts of excuses for being up in debt up to their eyeballs. Everything is everyone else’s fault, so why bother trying, right?

This REALLY came to light recently when a couple of different people told me I was lucky I never had any financial setbacks. All my success is chalked up to LUCK. HUH? Who said I never had setbacks? We just suck it up and move on instead of whining about it for the rest of our lives. That is what responsible people do.

Organization helps and makes it a little easier. Of course, you could argue that responsible people are organized. I am actually not a highly organized person by nature. I prefer chaos on some level. I don’t care if things are askew. But to function, I need to know where things are. I am organized as I need to be.