Yeah, I do the same. AMEX Serve cards, his & hers, with a weekly allowance. The two basic rules of personal finance I follow are:
- You can buy anything you can responsibly afford (training video, lol)
- Spend less than you make, i.e. "live below your means"
My split is pretty much:
- Auto billpay (bills, savings, etc.)
- Budget targets for variable groups (ex. a target "bucket" amount for the weekly food budget)
- Automated savings programs for various items (ex. "New Every 2" computer-savings program, vacations, big-ticket items like replacing major appliances, etc.)
- Weekly allowances per person (buying electronic toys, going out to lunch, etc.)
System protection-wise:
- Standard bank account (I don't use the debit card at all, for safety)
- Credit card for online purchases, which gets paid off every month
- Credit card for IRL purchases, which gets paid off every month (easy to track meatspace vs. virtual purchases, especially in case any fraud occurs)
- Online savings accounts for "personal layaway" projects (vacations, equipment purchases, etc.)
Allowed debt:
- Reasonable home
- Reasonable car
- Reasonable education loans
- Necessary medical fees
I'm a big fan of putting recurring systems on autopilot & really don't like having to think about my finances, so I've found this structure to be a pretty good setup for me. Stuff like expensive toy acquisition & vacations take a little bit longer to save up for, but then it's a zero-debt kind of situation. Sometimes debt happens due uncontrolled & unforeseen circumstances, like if you get whacked with a mountain of medical bills, but I've seen way too many people in my life get trapped by self-imposed debt. At a previous job, I had a coworker who was making in excess of $100k (probably closer to $150k) a year & had to continually mooch off of us when we went out to lunch because he had allowed lifestyle creep to eat his budget to the point where he was literally living paycheck to paycheck. Again, sometimes you get screwed by life & end up with unexpected debt, but in like 99% of the cases, it's through poor decision-making & lack of a solid system that prevents those types of situations from happening.
Plus, the nice thing about America is that no one is forcing you into any particular job. You can get as much education as you're willing to pursue & work as much as you want. You can pick up side gigs with Uber or Amazon Flex or any local fast-food restaurant if you need the extra cash. There's always ways to manage difficult living situations, if you're willing to think about & work on your problems & have a work ethic to push through & get yourself to where you need to be. I've always been very inspired by the story of a lady from my first job out of college - she worked in sales there right out of high school for over ten years & had maxed out at like $13 an hour, as a single adult living on her own, and spend over a decade after that taking one night class a time to get into the nursing field, which eventually got her a $70k/yr job.
Aside from math being hard for a lot of the population, I think (1) not having a solid work ethic & being willing to do what it takes to dig yourself out of a bad situation, and (2) not having a solid system setup, and an understanding of a good system (like mine, listed above), are probably the two biggest impediments that people have. In certain cases, you have a medical or mental condition that prevents you from doing higher-paying work, or you have a situation out of your control, like required medical costs, but outside of that, I think it mostly boils down to being will to work & being willing to create & stick to a good financial management system. It's not rocket science...I barely ever touch my financial system, outside of about a minute per day just to review all of the accounts to make sure everything is on track & nothing weird is going on...but it's a pretty big barrier for a lot of people if you've never done it before. Even to get it as simple as I have it above took many years of tinkering & testing to see what worked & what didn't.
And of course, you can grow things out as much as you want - churning, investments, etc. The key, for me at least, is having a solid system in place that allows you to easily meet your goals. That's why I like having weekly allowances on separate SERVE cards...I don't have to worry about overdrafts or over-spending or having to justify purchases with my S.O. or anything like that. I mean, ideally I'd just make bank & not have to worry about any of this, but I chose to shift into a job that pays less but is
way more fulfilling on a daily basis, so having a system setup to deal with the reality of my finances makes life a lot easier, haha.