Our family started turning over our finances 1.5 to 2 years ago. We set ourselves a goal: to be able to live on half a salary. An ambitious goal, which certainly. But how did it come to this? Why did we decide? You can read that in this blog.

The day we decided this was a beautiful day in the summer holidays. We were with our family on vacation in England and, as often goes on vacation, we had a lot of time to talk and think. The conversation of that day was about the future. How did we see ourselves in 10 years? What we thought was important in order to be able to? Soon we came to the conclusion that our vision of the future didn't really match what we were doing with our finances.. Not that we had the financially extremely bad for each other, certainly not. We had no debts (except for the mortgage), we were able to pay our fixed expenses well and there was plenty of space. But still, somehow, the money was always on at the end of the month. And we couldn't think of what. Apparently, it wasn't so important to us that we remembered it, but it swallowed up all our money.. That had to be different.

We decided to set a number of goals for ourselves. Because what exactly did we want to achieve? We wanted freedom. Freedom to decide how we would organize our lives. Freedom to work because we liked it, not because it had to. We wanted to have the freedom to do something fun with the kids on a free afternoon or to help out at school if needed. So, in short, we wanted to be in charge of our own lives and not have to be guided by accounts. Specifically, this meant that we were the first to make substantial savings on fixed expenses and to start paying extra money on our mortgage.

That day we decided that we would throw everything at the head, the moment we got home. And we did.. The day after returning from our vacation, we grabbed our laptops and started making Excel files. One with all our expenses, one with our income and one with our savings. We were hoping to get some structure in there. And that was necessary, because it really went in all directions. The money flowed into things we didn't even know about (“What did I have to buy at the Action to get to €64, -”) and we decided that it had to be different.

We started with our fixed burdens. These were actually the same for years. Switching was a hassle and we thought we were fine cheap with our current providers. A small comparison immediately showed that switching from gas/light, health insurance, car insurance, home insurance and internet could easily save us €200, - per month. That was a scare. But also nice, because this was pretty good at bringing down the costs. Our goal was to be able to pay all the fixed expenses of half an income. So that there was enough financial space, even in times of crisis, to be able to continue living in our home properly.

The second part was a start to repay on our mortgage. Our monthly amount was not very high: we paid €620, - per month. Is quite easy, you might think. Meanwhile, 2 years later, we only pay €498, - per month, so I find €620, - really extremely much money for a mortgage. We decided at that time to pay at least €1000, - extra on the mortgage. And that money had to come from the savings on our fixed expenses and our pin-expenses. It was an ambitious goal, absolutely. But here we had to do it with. So we had to go to jail.

And so we started. We threw out all our unnecessary subscriptions, we set up a budget for the groceries, we switched where we could cheaper and, most importantly, we asked ourselves at every issue, 'Will this really make me happy? '. With everything we buy, we think about whether we need it or really want it so badly, that we're talking about spending money on what we've worked hard for.

We are now 2 years further and we can indeed pay all our fixed expenses, plus the groceries, from half a salary. We still pay at least €1000, - extra every month and we really think 3x before we buy something we don't need. In the beginning, it was getting used to, but after we made that turn in our heads, it actually makes sense. The fact that we think about each issue, is only pleasant. The money is no longer flying out, and we have complete control over our finances.

It's certainly not the case that we don't live any more fun. We now have enough money left to save for several vacations a year or to go spontaneously for a weekend away. Things we really like, we just. If my husband wants to have a new road bike, we buy it without (too long; -)). It's not a punishment either, I really like being so busy with our finances.

The ultimate goal: to buy a repaid house, to buy an investment property (as a pension provision), low monthly costs and only work if we feel like it. We are not there yet, but we are absolutely well on our way at 32!


#personalfinance #economize #budgettips

When we decided to cut our fixed burdens in half...