Lifestyle Creep! How do you do a reset?

Anonymous · Dec 28, 2025 · 11 replies

Anonymous

Original poster

I am in the "messy middle" as another financial group calls it. Young kids, both my husband and I deep in the throes of our jobs. I had a lot of student loan debt after my master's degree but I luckily had a well-paying career to make up for that. When I graduated, I paid off all of my loans, my very expensive wedding, a new car etc all in cash within 3 years of graduating. I worked my tail off to do that! We lived off of my husband's meager salary (at the time) for those years, I couponed every chance I could get. We had meals that were less than a few bucks. Fast forward to now (5 years after I was totally debt free), we sat down to do a budget meeting, and our expenses are much higher than I expected! This does not exceed our income, but I just don't know how we got here! How do I implement a budget again and stick to it? I can't stand thinking we are spending excess amounts of our hard-earned income on things that are not necessary. I am cutting back hours and closing my not-very-successful business at the end of 2026 (it is sucking the life out of me and consuming all of my free time without any cash flow to pay myself in 4 years) so am no longer the breadwinner. My husband owns his own successful business and is always working/traveling. We are so busy juggling schedules with work, business travel, kids' things, appointments, etc., that we just pay for convenience of things at this point. Literally everything. I still cook but I buy pre-prepped things etc. I'm not sure what level/category FI we are, but we have a good balance of tax free and tax deferred investments so I am not too worried about retiring eventually (definitely before 60). However, I kind of want to be at a FI level that I work because I want to and not because I have to (which I feel I am close to since I can cut my hours and we can still life comfortably). My husband says he and his partner plan to sell the company eventually. They have had both public and private equity offers but the company keeps growing quickly and the partner isn't on board with selling because he wants higher offers due to the growth potential. I do not want to bank on this ever happening, so I have no idea what number to aim for as a FI number or when I reach that and what to do with our budget to help achieve that.

Replies (11)

JoeQ17

3 months ago

Del said it elegantly... Start with what you VALUE! If you've never created a list of your values (for each family member and as your family as a whole) I would start there. Then you can compare your expenses to it. If you value social and spend a lot going out with friends and gatherings, so be it. Investing in connection is as important as investing in stocks. If you value family time and you can't get that without paying for convenience, then it's not the convenience you're paying for, it's family time. So starting with values and then lining up against expenses has helped a lot of people I know. Then from there dial in on the items you don't value or items you can optimize (home/auto insurance). To me it's less about budgeting and more about mindful spending.

Lindsey613

3 months ago

I also use YNAB, and it's helpful to see where money is going! I don't have anything new to add other than what others have said, except to suggest that you give yourself some grace and allow a little lifestyle creep if you need it! It sounds like you are in a really stressful, overwhelming phase of life, and that it will likely become less overwhelming (kids get older, reduced work hours). If you need to pay for convenience in this season, and you can afford it, maybe that's ok! I think the key is knowing where it's happening and making sure that the lifestyle creep is supporting the areas that are important to you. If overpaying for pre-cut veggies allows you to feed your young kids healthy food instead of grabbing take-out, it's a win! I consider cancelling my housecleaners at least once a quarter to save money, but realized that they are the only way my house gets clean. Could I clean my own house? Yes, absolutely. But I'd have to do it instead of something else, and my time is currently more limited than my money. One day I'll hit FI, leave work, and I will 100% cherish having the time to clean my own house! But I have to accept that today is not that day, and the lifestyle creep gives me time to do what is most important in THIS phase of life.

Craig A

3 months ago

I'm perceiving that there are many changes happening right now and that you're being pulled in different directions. I cycle through this every 12 - 18 months. I try to control something when I feel like I am pulled in too many directions. This little control helps me feel like I can manage the bigger things. A budget has been an object of control for me in the past. In my experience controlling something like my budget feels good in the short term, but I either fail or focus so hard that I make poor decisions. Instead, I need to understand my cycles of overwhelm. What are the signals that suggest I may be moving towards overwhelm? What sustainable habits can I try to reduce the incidence of overwhelm? One thing I'm trying is to ask myself a question. What one thing can I do to create spaciousness in my life? I ask this question on different time scales. Sometimes I ask about this week, sometimes I ask first thing in the morning about today. I prioritize that thing and it helps me reset or regulate. Here's an example. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed in the middle of the day. I ask myself what one thing can I do today to create spaciousness today? This leads to canceling a meeting, going for a walk, playing the guitar, or taking a nap. I reenergize and am ready to tackle the next thing. Maybe the budget is ok for this moment in life. Maybe convenience is worth the price right now.

Del S

3 months ago

> How do I implement a budget again and stick to it? I can't stand thinking we are spending excess amounts of our hard-earned income on things that are not necessary. One suggestion is to sit down with those involved (just husband here?) and really establish in crystal clear terms what matters to you. Like really, truly, are the top 3 things in life. Then as Ramit says, "spend lavishly on those things, and cut ruthlessly on everything else". Without the focus and the why, the how is hard. Frankl suggests as much.

Arrez

3 months ago

I also use YNAB to plan and track my spending. In addition, every year I do a "frozen February", where I only pay for the "bare necessities". That means no eating out, going through the freezer and cupboards to see what food I already have and try to shop as cheaply as possible. Which subscriptions do I have, and how can I deal with none of them for a month (after the first year I kept using Netflix for the month, because of my bonus daughter. It was a need for us, but that was something we discovered through trial and error). As a family we sat down and made a list of free activities we like to do or places we like to go. I call around and negotiate the interest rate on my home loan, shop around for the cheapest insurance etc. Generally spend the month doing a reset, and figuring out what I/we really like and would like to keep spending money on, and what we could re-prioritize some of the spending to better reflect our goals.

Peter Mitchell

3 months ago

First of all, amazing work! It seems like you've worked hard to get to where you are. I can empathize with the experience of lifestyle creep. I actually have been a long time YNAB user, and even though we have religiously reconciled to the penny for 11 years, we were still seeing lifestyle creep. I think what has helped us the most is built on a few foundational things, hopefully this is helpful. 1. A budget foundation. I don't mean that we use budget software, because that isn't the important thing, it's that we look at our budget to see how much money we have rather than our bank account. If you're diligent, you can have this same foundation with a spreadsheet, but I definitely think YNAB helps train this mentality. 2. Don't try and wag the dog. It's tempting to set really aggressive budget goals and then subsequently avoid looking at your budget because your goals don't reflect reality. Align your budget with you current lifestyle, and then adjust when you're used to following a budget. 3. Transitioning to a "fixed" income. YNAB has this "available to budget concept", and we kind of changed it to suit us better. Now, I split up my paycheck immediately into a limited amount that's available for us to spend. In other words, if we make $2000 in a paycheck, I immediately carve up that transaction to go directly into our investing bucket (let's say $600) and then that means that $1400 is available to budget in the remaining categories. This isn't a new concept, I think there's a book called Pay Yourself First. But anyway, artificially creating a fixed income has helped us stop lifestyle creep. I actually think you could do this without budgeting software if you work with your W2 job or payment source and only transfer the money that you want to spend (a fixed amount and not a percentage) and transfer the rest to your investment account. Anyway, good luck to you. YNAB I know is really really overwhelming for some and it was for us too. There's multiple ways to get what you want and I wish you the best.

Westie

3 months ago

In my opinion, when most people say they "budget", it's like writing twitter posts and calling yourself an author. I grew up poor, and when you're poor you have to be RUTHLESS with your budget. That's a skill that has really helped me with lifestyle creep. You need to know where every single penny is going, not just an estimate but exactly which transaction it went to. This is not as difficult as it sounds unless you pay for everything in all cash. Budgeting software like YNAB or Monarch Money or Actual Budget will automatically track and (with some assistance from you) categorize every single transaction, then you can analyze and get cool graphs showing where it's all going. One thing I plan to do tomorrow actually, specifically to deal with lifestyle creep, is to take my budget and remove all big ticket items from the spending analysis. It's been easy to say "eh, $100/mo on fast food, that's nothing compared to the $3000/mo rent or $2000/mo medical bills for mom". But I want to get a sense of what I can cut from just my discretionary spending, so I'm going to literally uncheck the boxes for large expenses like rent, insurance etc and look at what's left and where I can cut. Once I look at it that way, fast food goes from (for example) 1% of my total spending to 30% of my discretionary spending, so it's easier to see that it needs to be cut down.

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