[speaker001:] your turn
[speaker002:] oh I I start okay well uh we keep a budget to an extent um and really it it we were really forced into keeping a budget because I'm I'm paid once a month which sort of sort of forces some uh uh restrictions and you need to make sure all your bills are paid uh how about yourself
[speaker001:] well I have to say I really don't have a budget both my wife and I uh grew up in uh families of rather modest means and uh our family income at this point is comfortable upper middle class I guess you might say and uh we're both so uh frugal that um we really don't need a budget you know we just sort of invest the money and go on vacations and always never seem to have any money problems which I guess is a comfortable thing
[speaker002:] yeah well I guess that really is sort of of keeping a budget you know you stay within your uh
[speaker001:] well we stay within our means but we don't do it uh by conscious effort it just sort of happens automatically
[speaker002:] within your means yeah
[speaker001:] although we just moved to California and uh the cost of living here in California is um I would say rather pathological
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] uh housing prices are you know like from four to ten times more expensive than um um they were where I came from in uh Dallas yeah so uh
[speaker002:] oh you moved from Dallas to San Francisco that is a huge difference
[speaker001:] uh that presents um a real shock actually actually our standard of living has gone down somewhat since we've moved to California but
[speaker002:] yeah but you have good sour dough and it's a beautiful place to live
[speaker001:] yeah it's God's country uh and one way you know that is that only God can afford it
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] um so budget is not a problem for us uh least it hasn't been it may it may be at this point but uh up until this point it really hasn't been when I uh was in uh undergraduate school a long long time ago I uh noted that the monthly salary starting average monthly saly salary for engineers that in my discipline was like oh six hundred and ten dollars a month or something like that and uh I noted at that point that I was
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] you know if that's what my salary was that I drew then I would be making almost twice as much as my father made during his best year ever so I stopped worrying about money and uh never have worried about money since then
[speaker002:] yeah well that's that's a system too
[speaker001:] sometimes uh it's a bit of a a problem you know because I guess I don't really manage my money the way I should but uh I suppose I've lost money on not taking good advantage of of uh investments but
[speaker002:] well then again you know you said you you are able to take trips and you do obviously have enough to live on so I guess you're indirectly budgeting
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] uh just by by the fact you said that you're both very frugal uh in spending the money so I mean that's that's a form of budgeting I would think it's kind of a kind of a strange topic to to try to for two people who don't really have a budget to talk about budgeting and how they manage their money
[speaker001:] well I guess we're both lucky in that regard then
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] uh how big is your family
[speaker002:] uh well we're we have one on the way um my wife and then we're we're having one on the way in uh in uh September
[speaker001:] I see so how do you and when once you get ten children though you may have
[speaker002:] no I think it's just going to be one
[speaker001:] oh all right
[speaker002:] how about yourself
[speaker001:] I have two kids uh one nine and one thirteen and they are beginning to be a budget problem but uh have not been really up until this up to this point
[speaker002:] oh do they budget at all I mean do you have them on an allowance or
[speaker001:] I give them uh I give them an allowance and they um I basically give my son ten dollars a week and I put half of it in the bank and I give give him the other half in cold cash
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and uh he has a teller card so he can uh do what he wishes do what he wishes with the money that I put in the bank but at least it isn't you know burning a hole in his pocket
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] if he wants to use it he has to go get it and that usually