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There are two sides to money problems. Spending more than you make and not making enough. Nobody pays enough attention to the making enough side. Fact is if you don't make enough. I don't care how frugal you are. You won't be able to save squat. So if you decide to stay in that dead end job for the rest of your life keep on keeping on. Figure out a way to make more money. A lot more money. I left home without two nickels to rug together and no college education. Started working at a dead end trade and after two years decided I could start my own business. It took long hours and about 10 years but eventually had 50 or so people working for me. That's when the money came rolling in. I lived comfortable and invested the rest in real estate and banks. Both have made me a ton of money in passive income. When your money works for you and not you for your money. You have arrived.

Spot on. Making enough starts with planning in middle school. What do I want to do? Then make it happen.

I didn't burden myself with reading all the post..........but, the best way to save money is to lag behind the norm in most things.
Don't be afraid to drive around in a ten year old car. My daily is 1997 Tahoe.
I keep phones way longer than most.
I have shirts that are 15 years old. I NEVER pay full retail for clothes.

Try my best to stay out of credit card debt.
And I started paying myself first. (well after tithes) Whenever I received a raise I increased my savings contributions first. Way before that money got mixed into the daily spend.

I am in a rather high paying industry if you are in sales. I'm in middle management. I've had sales guys make 500K a year and ask me to cover a house note for them until commission checks came in.
High income has very little to do with living comfortably. Spending has way more to do with that.

Can you make a pound dry red-beans last a week? It can be done.

I put my life on hold in my early 40s and went to work in Japanese owned heavy industry. That went on for 10 years and went a long way towards getting myself flush. I also avoided debt like the plague. I was also fortunate in the purchase of real estate a couple of times.

Also, some vehicles can be a money pit. I bought a 3 year old Toyota Camry for cash in 2014 and have been driving it since for the cost of oil changes, tires and brakes. I've added a couple of vehicles since. But for many years my wife and I had dependable cars with no payment. I still have no car payment and the vehicles I own have enough miles left in them to last me forever.

Mostly, I just never allowed myself to get so financially stretched that I had to worry about it-- and I worked my life away for a decade. from my 40s to my 50s.

No I can relax just a little bit.

Car payments keep most folks broke their entire lives. Not only are you throwing money after a depreciating asset, you also have the added expense of paying full coverage insurance, which is quite expensive; especially if you happen to have teenage kids in the mix.

We drive well maintained, older vehicles with a reputation for trouble free service. So far, this has proven to be a good plan financially.

Going even further in this vein, I'm retired, and my wife works from home, so we've made transportation a very small cost for our household.

It makes more sense to me to destroy a $5k or $10k vehicle than a new $80k truck. If you are using a vehicle for daily transportation, that is exactly what you are doing...destroying it.

I kicked Satan's sister to the curb almost 10 years ago. Since then my budget has balanced far easier, my money is a lot bigger, and my life has gotten MUCH better.

Your choice in a spouse is definitely a big factor in building wealth. It is so much easier if you are both pulling on the same end of the rope.

Best way to save money? Stay out of the Classifieds........

The key is to live within your means. That means saying no (which is never popular), but necessary. Avoid credit cards and as hard as it is save some money each month. Have an emergency fund saved up instead of having to use credit cards. Joe Biden has made keeping a budget very difficult, but it can and has to be done if you ever want to be out of debt.

1000 percent agree.

The first five years we were, and had the world by the ass.

The last 15 though, something changed and it was nothing but tug of war. I had to let go of the rope for my own sanity.

No one mentioned it, but if you want to save money, getting into reloading is. It the way.

Some of the best advice I’ve seen for saving, though it will not help in the short term is to invest in your companies 401K or other retirement account they may have to at least get the matching amount if offered. As has been said, it’s free money and you will appreciate it once you retire. My wife ah flea our finances and it’s for the better. She was raised poor and going to bed hungry a lot of times. She likes nice things, but I think the only thing she ever let me buy. It on clearance or a big sale for her, was her engagement ring. I bought it on my own, so she didn’t o ow if it was on sale or not.

This is what I have recommended. You'll give a waitress a 15-20% tip just for doing her job. The key is to take 10% (or any percentage near that) of all money you take in and set it aside for investment, NEVER to be spent. You can start out putting it in a coffee can, then a savings account, then CD's, stocks, bonds, real estate... For true emergencies you can borrow against it at the most favorable rate, but never spend it. One day you won't have to work because of your accumulated wealth and the passive income it throws off.

Aren't you still working and in your 80s?

Yeah, life and stuff.

Vote Republican would be some good advice to add here. Also good advice to live some while you're living. My birthday was over the weekend and the oldest put up a post with pictures of some of the fun [bleep] we did along the way. No one ever puts up posts of their dad's account balances.

I started putting away money for my girls educations when they were small. Came out of my account every month and into investments. Each had/will have a small student loan, because they have to have skin in the game in my mind, but neither will struggle like I did.

Best advice I suppose is to work hard, play hard, earn more and be thoughtful about what you spend.

Yes it’s getting harder in this climate and it’s going to get worse.

Baby steps. Before you start download a budget app and log EVERYTHING you spend so you know where you money is going.

1. 1,000.00 emergency fund
2. Pay off all your debt except house (smallest debt first, everything else gets minimum payment, then take what you’ve been paying smaller with and put on the next lowest debt, sell everything you can to do this as fast as you can)
3. 3-6 months of emergency fund (this shouldn’t take long if you aren’t paying everyone else your money on consumer debt)

Do all this first in order then start (or restart) investing. 15%

Time in investments is more important than large amounts going into your investments.

Dave Ramsey is right, his plan is hard to do but guess what, if you do it by living within your means (not borrowing money) and are able to invest you’ll be more than fine when you hit retirement age.

Pay for a financial peace university go through the whole class (I just listed a few of the baby steps) and try something new for a while and see if it works.

I’m sure I’ll get blasted for mentioning Dave bc a lot of people think he’s a prick but he isn’t going to make you broke.

I (we) were doing budgeting before we married and still do. That was 48 years ago. We were doing Dave Ramsey stuff before I ever heard of Dave Ramsey. Jimmy Carter Era was tough, though. Never missed any payments on anything. Many months all we had left for groceries was $60, but $60 in the late 70s went a lot farther than it does now.

I do agree with much of DRs approach and advice, but you need to be a little bit flexible to adjust on the fly. We have 2 credit cards and they do get paid in full every month. Our house and vehicles are paid for We each have decent IRAs if needed but for the most part, live on our SSA monies month to month and still manage to have some left to put into investments and 'play around' expenses.

This is the trend, lately. They are moving most middle class people into the lower class, and the lower class into the government dependent class. It's all according to plan.