Thankfully, the freelance writing business has done well and my income has actually increased since leaving my day job. But we still strive to be conservative with our spending.
We also don't have any student loans and our cars are paid off. Those are two big expenses many families deal with that we don't need to worry about. Also, since my wife stays home with our two boys, we don't need to pay for childcare.
Third, we have a low mortgage payment — under $650. I realize that in some areas, it would be impossible to find housing that is so affordable. But it definitely helps us keep our budget low.
Fourth, freelance writing happens to be a business with low overhead. I don't work in a profession where I need to rent office space or buy inventory.
However, I do have a few business expenses for things like invoicing and accounting software, email and cloud file storage, and web hosting for my personal blog, The Wallet Wise Guy. And it just so happens that I had an unusual amount of business expenses this month (more on that later).
Some of our expenses like insurance, home improvement, car repairs, and vacations aren't necessarily spent every month. For instance, if we don't have any car repairs, we simply move the full $150 we budgeted for to a dedicated savings account. That way when a repair pops up, the money is sitting there waiting to be used.