An Asperger's Obsession With SAVING Money?! !??

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I've always been spendthrift. I only broke $10 an hour at my job a few years ago, but have never had the slightest problem paying my mortgage, car payment, credit card bills (I pay them off in full every month), plus my food and entertainment (mostly a Netflix account plus a couple video games a year). In fact I usually have enough leftover to pay off some of my principle.

Evil WalMart subsidizes my life.

I saved money pretty hard for a few years because I had been so broke, this year I've been spending tons though. I'm sure in time I will be on a tight budget again. Saving is not as important as paying off debt though, at least when you are still far from retirement.

The Hetty Green reference cracked me up , the Guiness Book said she was awful! This is a good thread, I work construction and am out of work from time to time. I try to keep enough in the bank to cover several months of bills w/o factoring in the unemployment I can collect between jobs. Most people can budget to cover expected expenses. Its the occasional car repair or emergency that finds people short more often. Because I do budget well I was able to visit my niece with her new baby in Utah last month, it made her feel good to show off her baby and it was fun seeing her and meeting my great niece.

I've always saved much more money than anyone around me.
You often hear storys about people getting so deep into debt that theyr entire income goes to paying that rent.
I can't stand people always trying to borrow money to do really expencive things like going out or going to some park.
How on earth can you borrow 50 euros for something like that when you are broke.
Ever since i got welfare at age 19 before i got work i've been saving like a madman.
I got put in some program where u work at companies for free hoping to get hired.
Appearently companies aren't all that eager to hire someone who is on welfare.

At age 22 i had saved about 7.000 euros from my welfare, at the time though i started paying everything myself.
So from a scrawny 820 per month minus 150 euro gas/car spending to be able to drive there was no way to save any money anymore.
Than at age 23 i finnaly got a job making about 1150 a month with train fairs already taken off from it.
This enabled me to buy a proper car and make a half decent living.
Though these days with skyrocketing gas prices i spend atleast 100 euros a month on just gas when trying to travel by car as little as possible.

My main ways of conserving money these days is never eating out anymore.
Also i spend less on clothes and rarely drink beer in a bar anymore.
I can't really go without a car atm, and seeing as it's the main milking cow of the goverment i am kind of screwed.
I'd sell it of right away if i became unemployed.

<--- penny pincher

most of the time.

Now that I have a decent job, I've found myself a bit obsessed with saving/getting out of debt. Once I'm completely out of debt, I'll be saving towards a basic house in a rural area (plus another $50k, which should be sufficient for retirement in 30 years), so that I can switch to part-time work and live the lifestyle that I want to. I've also started compulsively reading finance websites for information on investing, so that the saved money can give me a good return.

I actually felt pretty bad about putting "only" $1500 towards the motorcycle payment this month (and technically, I don't even need to make the first payment for another 3 months... It's probably going to be paid in full by then. It better be, too, since then the interest rate will increase from 0% to 18%, as the motorcycle was the first significant debt that I incurred, and hence have no history). The only other debt I have is a small amount of student loans.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saving money. I've always thought of my mom as frugal since we have a lot of money, but this is just one of the reasons why we have a lot. I definitely prefer saving over spending as well. I'll typically just buy DVDs, books, and sometimes clothes with my money, but that's about it. If there's something I want that's more expensive, I typically wait for the holidays.

I love saving money
It makes me feel like I have control over something plus I would rather be hanging with animals or chilling at home.

Thats was me when I was a child. Aspies saving money must be an evolutionary trait.

I remember that from somewhere.

Yes, Hetty Green was an extreme example of this (I think she had some kind of OCD type of disorder, if I remember correctly). Saving money is good, but if someone finds themselves making oatmeal sandwiches and wearing a newspaper skirt just to save a dime, there's a problem.

I have the same problems with saving & spending money. My credit is toast. I keep dipping into my retirement funds to pay current doctor bills, so that by the time I'm old enough to retire, I'll be alive but flat-broke. My husband is a member of the Moose Lodge, and they have a retirement community down in Florida called 'Moose Haven.' Basically it's a bunch of old people crammed into a tiny apartment complex, getting drunk and paying shuffleboard all day long. That's a fate worse than death for me. Somehow, some way, I've got to get money put back into my mutual fund before it dries up altogether (the economic conditions are sucking money out of it too, at an alarming rate).

I do not want to end up in Moose Haven. There are worse places, I suppose, but I'd rather live in my own home and die there.