|
Combat Pretzel posted:A mid/long-term strategy is tracking everything in a tool or application and then tear things apart in the relevant reporting functionality. Soon I'll finally have a year worth of data in YNAB, but drilling down into the reports, it's eye-opening how much money goes to stupid poo poo. Yeah, once you have the data it's time to start doing a Pareto Analysis of your spending. Basically, a large portion of your happiness or satisfaction or whatever will probably come from a minority of your spending. You'll have a discretionary budget that kind of looks like this: Phone: 80 Cable: 60 Restaurants: 200 Bars: 200 Volleyball: 60 And it's up to you to look at what, in your past month and $600 of blown money, you really loved. Say, in this case, that you loving LOVED volleyball. You just live for that poo poo. But the vast majority of where your money went was kettle chips at Boston Pizza that honestly kind of sucked, and cover and whiskey sours at clubs that you didn't really have much fun in and only served to give you a vague sense of guilt and worthlessness. A Pareto, or "80/20" analysis, will show that you really ought to spend more time and money on volleyball and less on bars and restaurants. So you rejig the budget the next month and end up with: Phone: 80 Cable: 60 Restaurants: 100 Bars: 100 Volleyball: 260 You're now taking lessons in volleyball, saving to go to an away intramural game and playing twice as much per week. You notice that you're really not using your cable anymore because of all the volleyball you're playing, and if you stop drinking on Fridays you can do another day on Saturdays. And so on. Through analysis and honesty, you've increased your happiness and decreased the amount of poo poo you've wasted. The "volleyball" is irrelevant, but nearly everyone has a metaphorical volleyball in their budget and a metaphorical bar/restaurant line.
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 17:16 |
|
|
Volleyball being broken iPods and restaurants being shelter? 
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2013 00:54
|
|
|
UnhealthyJoe posted:Hello, I really am in some desperate need to figure things out. I know I posted a while ago but never really followed up, which is my fault. I know it's been said, but student loans, student loans, student loans. Before I consolidated and got into the IBR (income based repayment) my loan payment was $1900 a month (thanks law school!). Now it's about $600, including the $11,000 private loan from undergrad I couldn't consolidate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2013 23:50
|
|
|
Combat Pretzel posted:A mid/long-term strategy is tracking everything in a tool or application and then tear things apart in the relevant reporting functionality. Soon I'll finally have a year worth of data in YNAB, but drilling down into the reports, it's eye-opening how much money goes to stupid poo poo. I've actually started tagging stuff with #junk in YNAB so I can quickly and easily see how much money I am blowing every month. I don't find the reports super useful. Just shows me that most of my income goes to bills, rent and debt.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 16:14
|
|
|
Demon_Corsair posted:I've actually started tagging stuff with #junk in YNAB so I can quickly and easily see how much money I am blowing every month. Well it's really supposed to be sliced deeper than that, like sure you spend 100 on groceries, but if you want to optimize that, look at how much goes to veggies, meat, etc. The same goes for everything else.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 16:20
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Well it's really supposed to be sliced deeper than that, like sure you spend 100 on groceries, but if you want to optimize that, look at how much goes to veggies, meat, etc. The same goes for everything else. How do you even manage that? Do you go down your grocery bill line by line and add them to separate categories?
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 20:59
|
|
|
Demon_Corsair posted:How do you even manage that? Do you go down your grocery bill line by line and add them to separate categories? I only grocery shop once every ten days so it was pretty straightforward. I just bought my groceries, took the receipt went into a spreadsheet, and recorded dollar amounts for poultry, fruit, veg, grains, beef, pork, etc. Oh, then I made a pie chart and it was like, man milk and cheese do not give me that much happiness. 
tuyop fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Oct 8, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 21:05
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Well it's really supposed to be sliced deeper than that, like sure you spend 100 on groceries, but if you want to optimize that, look at how much goes to veggies, meat, etc. The same goes for everything else. I don't know anyone who does this unless you're really trying to specifically change some particular habit, like your diet. I can't imagine doing this for each category each month.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 22:20
|
|
|
HooKars posted:I don't know anyone who does this unless you're really trying to specifically change some particular habit, like your diet. I can't imagine doing this for each category each month. I do this in YNAB in a separate budget. It's not that arduous.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 22:31
|
|
|
I may just be weird but I also do this as a cost/calorie or gram of protein field as well. I find value in knowing that eggs are like 5.6c/g of protein or whatever I guess. v  v
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 22:44
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I may just be weird but I also do this as a cost/calorie or gram of protein field as well. What's your ranking by protein? I haven't done it that way because it's pretty much guaranteed that chicken will win any day. (69c/lb versus 3/lb for beef and 7/lb for seafood)
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 23:35
|
|
|
Rurutia posted:What's your ranking by protein? I haven't done it that way because it's pretty much guaranteed that chicken will win any day. (69c/lb versus 3/lb for beef and 7/lb for seafood) This is Canada, and I haven't done it again since moving to Edmonton so the values are significantly different: Cheapest -> Most expensive Bulk Whey Concentrate (~7.50/lb) Eggs (~$3.50/doz) Beans White fish (sole in particular) (~$2/lb) Low fat cheeses Tuna Weird organ meats (~$3/lb) Pork Beef Chicken (~16/lb) (Canada is loving weird this way) tuyop fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Oct 9, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 00:52
|
|
|
tuyop posted:This is Canada, and I haven't done it again since moving to Edmonton so the values are significantly different:
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 01:47
|
|
|
Kenny Rogers posted:Seriously? I could probably FedEx you chicken on ice for less than that. When I was in high school, my friend's dad made a good side living selling illicit cheese, chicken and marijuana out of his basement.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 03:14
|
|
|
tuyop posted:When I was in high school, my friend's dad made a good side living selling illicit cheese, chicken and marijuana out of his basement. It can't possibly be "O Canada!"  It's got to be "Oh, Canada!"  What I wouldn't give to live someplace that was English accents, Australian cars, New Zealand scenery, Canadian sensibilities, and American pricing... In budgeting news, the GF and I got moved into our new place, and split our Need categories (Rent, groceries, etc.) by our relative incomes (currently about 75/25 - she makes way less, but gets to do it from home. Totally jealous of Pantsless Tuesdays, actually) which freed up another $500/mo from "my" budget (we use separate instances of YNAB) to pay down debt faster. This makes me do a little happy dance. Kenny Rogers fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 9, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 05:41
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure that the cheese and chicken taxes are directly paying for our sweet health care. So yeah, sure cheddar cheese costs $9/lb, but if you break your leg it doesn't cost anything! The savings!
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 12:50
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I'm pretty sure that the cheese and chicken taxes are directly paying for our sweet health care. So yeah, sure cheddar cheese costs $9/lb, but if you break your leg it doesn't cost anything! The savings! This is the same logic I do when I compare anything with Americans. Sure you get Amazon prime and I pay $20 shipping for anything, but I get healthcare!
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 16:53
|
|
|
Demon_Corsair posted:This is the same logic I do when I compare anything with Americans. Sure you get Amazon prime and I pay $20 shipping for anything, but I get healthcare! But drat, that's some expensive cheese and chicken.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 23:13
|
|
|
UnhealthyJoe posted:Private Student Loan Monthly $185.55 $185.55
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 00:45
|
|
|
Hey how would you guys categorize a car insurance deductible expense? It's coming out of my "Debt repayment pool" category (which is my defacto e-fund as well), but it's not debt so I can't categorize the transaction that way. I'm just going to subtract 1k from that and then allocate it to... another category. It's not really an emergency, so it doesn't feel accurate to put it in the emergency fund line. It's also not a car insurance payment, so yeah. Should I have a specific deductible category that I save into in the future as a sort of car-specific e-fund?
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 21:11
|
|
|
I feel like it would still be out of the emergency fund. It's an expense you don't really plan on, the same as a home appliance going out. Sure, with some things you can figure that they're getting up in age and start saving for repairs or replacement, but sometimes they just surprise you. It's not bad to take it out of your emergency fund, and you can easily see that you need to work on putting money back into it. That seems a lot easier than trying to budget for every unexpected expense in their own category. If that really bothers you for the car insurance deductible, go ahead and bump your car insurance budget category up by whatever your deductible is and build a buffer. I just think keeping it more generic and pulling from a shared fund would cover a lot more possibilities.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 21:34
|
|
|
tuyop posted:It's not really an emergency, so it doesn't feel accurate to put it in the emergency fund line. It's also not a car insurance payment, so yeah. Should I have a specific deductible category that I save into in the future as a sort of car-specific e-fund? (YNAB: Let it be red, and click the red to "arrow it forward" to next month's budget, instead of subtracting from your overall budget next month)
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2013 17:58
|
|
|
Kenny Rogers posted:I'd categorize it as "Car Repair", which is where I budget all my regular maintenance items - 1/60th of a 5-year battery, 1/18th of a set of tires, wiper blades, oil changes, Car wash/detail supplies. Since you probably don't have (or haven't been using) that category so far, initially, you'll be over-budget in that category. Shuffle budget money around to cover what you can this month, and add funds to that category over the next while to 'catch it up' to zero, and then have money going in for maintenance items going forward. It really eases the pain when replacing a set of runflat tires can be $800+. Yeah, I had a $600 car maintenance fund for exactly that. I work it out by kilometer and adjust it accordingly, though. Except for tires which get their own line.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2013 18:02
|
|
|
In YNAB, I wish you could set a desired budget value in the settings of each category, that'll get displayed in light gray (or something) in the next month's budget column, if the category budget's not set. Cluttering the category names up with these values feels kinda icky.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2013 19:22
|
|
|
Combat Pretzel posted:In YNAB, I wish you could set a desired budget value in the settings of each category, that'll get displayed in light gray (or something) in the next month's budget column, if the category budget's not set. Cluttering the category names up with these values feels kinda icky. I've thought about how they could manage this. It seems like it would really complicate the whole "rule" system, unless they created a goal-setting mode or something like that where you could establish goals but not interfere with the learning curve of spending only money that you have.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2013 20:55
|
|
|
I posted it on their forums and someone replied with a pretty goddamn obvious way. Just put the values in the next months unset budget and copy them over to the month after it with the quick budget option, when you start setting up next months budget. A goal-setting mode would be nice, as well as sort of a screen with progress bars for select categories. Numbers are nice and all, but don't give me quick visual feedback about how fast I'm filling say my groceries and restaurant categories. I like the way some personal finance solutions do it, display a progress bar based on your current expenses, with an overlay showing a theoretical progression based on the current day in the month.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2013 21:10
|
|
|
What are good things to read to learn how to manage one's money? Graduating this year so I kind of need to learn what to do next. I'm in a pretty fortunate position where I am making way more money than I think I will need to live on as a recent grad with no debt, so I'd really like to save as much as possible. I've seen the 50/20/30 rule, but feel like I probably won't need to spend 50% on essentials -- probably I could live happily on half of my income. I'm thinking about just literally walling off half my income and automatically saving that, and then living on what I have left. I'm also not sure about how to budget in bonuses and profit sharing -- I know what they will likely be, but feel like I definitely shouldn't count on them. Is it better to make those discretionary spending so I am more motivated, or put it into savings? I'm just super confused. Also taxes WTF? Is there some way to save that avoids some of these? I just did a calculator thing which told me I would lose like 30% of my income, which seems way high. So lost.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 08:32
|
|
|
Living in America I pay $949.45 of tax on a biweekly salary of $2878.04... which is 32.99%. It makes me so sad; but I would not recommend trying to avoid it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 09:53
|
|
|
semicolonsrock posted:What are good things to read to learn how to manage one's money? Graduating this year so I kind of need to learn what to do next. My partner and I paid about 36% taxes last year, IIRC. Welcome to adulthood. You have tax sheltered accounts (401(k) + Roth IRA in America???) available to you and you can always give some of it to charity! As for reading, I can't recommend these enough: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Life and Relationship With Money - Joe Dominguez, others (If you read nothing else, read this one) The Four Pillars of Investing - William Bernstein I Will Teach You to be Rich - Ramit Sethi this is ok but I think it's worth reading for the section on automation alone, it was very succinct The Millionaire Next Door Rich Dad Poor Dad And I think philosophy and money are closely related so: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine Oh, and read all of Mr. Money Mustache, from day one. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 14:37
|
|
|
I've never considered the parts of my wages that I pay as taxes to be a part of my earnings at all, it's a complete non-thought. No sense getting wrapped up in it because there is basically nothing that can be done. death and taxes
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 14:54
|
|
|
It's kind of confusing because many things tell you to calculate spending based on gross salary. I never really got that, why care about gross salary when it comes to your mortgage/rent and poo poo?
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 14:57
|
|
|
Yeah that seems dumb. Why would you calculate spending based on money that isn't yours to spend?
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 14:59
|
|
|
tuyop posted:It's kind of confusing because many things tell you to calculate spending based on gross salary. I never really got that, why care about gross salary when it comes to your mortgage/rent and poo poo? Well your net salary wouldn't take into account something like 401k savings. If I look at my take home pay, I only save 5-10% per month and spend 50% on rent, but that completely discounts the fact that 20% of each of my paychecks goes into my 401k for retirement, which completely changes my spending to savings ratio.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 15:24
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:Yeah that seems dumb. Why would you calculate spending based on money that isn't yours to spend? In many jurisdictions, the first X number of dollars of gross wages are essentially exempt from being taken for child support because there is a minimum amount that the jurisdiction considers to be "how much you need to live, so you can pay child support". Unfortunately, that floor is generally only updated to state a specific dollar amount, and isn't stated as being something sensical that keeps up with inflation and changing times like, a positive fraction (140%, say) of the national poverty level.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 16:31
|
|
|
In my girlfriend's budget (we both use YNAB), it's pre-tax dollars because that's what all her income is, and she budgets for estimated tax payments. I receive money from both a regular job and side income, so my budget is in post-tax dollars. I take a percentage out of every side payment I receive for taxes so that it's like it was never mine anyway. That all happens off-budget, so that I can maintain consistency in my budget and not mix pre- and post-tax dollars. But yeah, when you have a small business that isn't its own entity, and all your income comes from that, it might make sense to just track those dollars and budget for taxes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2013 23:12
|
|
|
Alrighty, I'm fed up with my money situation, I really need a set budget. I went through my accounts and broke out my monthly and yearly bills, my spending habits, etc. I have a good baseline for what are my bills on a monthly basis (including things like insurance that aren't monthly) and what a weekly budget after that looks like. My problem, historically, has been to stick to it for a few weeks then slowly veer off course. Part of that is I need a better way to track what I spend. Is YNAB and its corresponding phone apps a good way to monitor/track/stick to it? (haven't yet downloaded the trial, probably tonight) Any extra advice to setting up a fledgling budget? ChiTownEddie fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Oct 22, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 18:32
|
|
|
tuyop posted:I don't know what your problems are, but fill this in with your monthly values: Start here! Then sign up for mint for the hands off tracking approach, or ynab for more hands on. I think people should use both.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2013 21:24
|
|
|
ChiTownEddie posted:Is YNAB and its corresponding phone apps a good way to monitor/track/stick to it? (haven't yet downloaded the trial, probably tonight)
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2013 15:01
|
|
|
YNAB also has a free demo that's good for thirty-something days, which should be enough to decide whether you like it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2013 15:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 17:16 |
|
|
tuyop posted:As for reading, I can't recommend these enough: Working my way through Your Money or Your Life, seems like the first 100 pages has been A) consumerism is bad, B) more money will make you unhappy, C) have 6 months expenses in savings. It gets better, right?
|
|
#
?
Oct 24, 2013 23:56
|
|