[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] how are you you want to go ahead and start talking about whether you budget
[speaker001:] yes yeah well I I I I feel like um I am from Mars I mean I'm fifty years old and uh I've been divorced for um eighteen years but I've two kids and all but I uh I I've never had a budget and I don't uh I don't do any planning and I don't know I don't uh uh I don't have a long-term financial plan and I don't try to control my expenses but I'm I'm glad you're a stranger
[speaker002:] that sounds kind of like me
[speaker001:] but really I'm I'm in a happy I I well I'm curious how other people live uh so maybe we should start with you what do you do
[speaker002:] about the same thing yeah
[speaker001:] really oh maybe they're going to arrest us both
[speaker002:] I'm even even in worse shape because I have eight children and uh we live from hand to mouth we hope that there's enough money at the end of the month to pay for the bills and if there's not then we try to due for the next month
[speaker001:] wow
[speaker002:] a couple a couple of times we've tried some things and they worked but I'm not disciplined enough to keep doing it
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] the best program we ever had is at the beginning of the month we took and uh took my check and divided it out into envelopes
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and then paid for the expenses out of that envelope and when the envelope was empty then you didn't have any more money to spend in that area
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and that worked out real well cause we didn't have to keep writing down what we'd spent
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] it was just that when that was empty you knew you were out of money and we did that pretty successfully for about three months and then we started borrowing from one envelope to put it in the other envelope and in about two months we were back to doing the same thing we always do
[speaker001:] huh the um I had a part-time job around oh gosh fifteen years ago seventy six and uh uh this was a sort of a career shift at the time and so I was willing to take a half time job to do that and I actually did my bank account would uh I had I I kept bouncing checks just at the end of the month but I I had miscalculated I well I didn't keep a balance it's one of the problems I never had to in the past I always kept plenty of money in my checking account but when you're only earning half the salary even though I wasn't spending much money I sometimes would just things would get to tight uh and sometimes what I would do is keep a piece of paper in my wallet and every time I uh I spent money I mean cash mostly I would uh write it down so I could see at the end of a month how much I spent on food so I could do better planning
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] but I would forget to write the things down and it it that I I don't know if I ever went as far as three months or not in in keeping that kind of data I certainly haven't done that in sixteen years or whatever
[speaker002:] I even find now like with the automatic tellers I'll go take money out of that and then I forget to take that out of my checking account
[speaker001:] yeah uh-huh
[speaker002:] and uh
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so I I I leave a little bit of a slush fund in my checking account and I figure that so the balance showing in the checking account is always somewhat different that what's really there
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and I figure that gives me room for the mistakes I make
[speaker001:] uh-huh the uh I I I have to say that let's see at this point on I don't run out of money um and it uh and and I don't I mean someday if I were to get remarried I might want to buy a house which requires lots of money which I don't have and I I I I think my strategy if if I may is is is is to is to not spend money I mean I don't have expensive tastes I don't go out I mean I buy a car well the last car I got rid of I'd had it was nineteen years old people people were embarrassed for me I mean it was it was a good car and
[speaker002:] yeah  it was still running
[speaker001:] oh it was great my my mechanics loved it because it was an old it was a sixty five Buick and it just wouldn't stop um and it I I just didn't feel the need for a new car it isn't like I couldn't afford one
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh and now I mean I I don't uh I tend to eat expensive food I mean I don't mind buying a good steak but for me I only do that every week or um without even I mean maybe once a month
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] I mean you buy a a tenderloin steak it costs outrageous like twelve dollars a pound you buy a a less than half a pound so it's six or seven dollars to me I realize if you have eight kids you're not going to run out and do that
[speaker002:] not very often
[speaker001:] but but I'm just I'm just saying as a single person that's that's a drop in the bucket and so if you're extravagant on how you buy food it doesn't add up if you're buying mean if you're not going to super expensive restaurants which I don't care to go to
[speaker002:] that's right
[speaker001:] so so that's I think one of the reasons I don't need to budget is that I don't have I don't I don't have to hold myself back from buying that expensive thing because I can't afford it because I'm not interested in that expensive thing