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 I'm a stupid non American, so I don't know my cost of living numbers too well.I'm stupid and can't read caberham fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 12:49
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caberham posted:$1720 USD a month is a BIG PEOPLE JOB now? I don't get it. I think dish washers in Australia lots of developed countries make that much Haha no, it's $6840 a month combined (well, every 4 weeks), $3480 a month each (we both earn about the same). E: we just graduated uni - living in Perth, Australia. Guni fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 13:01
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Guni posted:Haha no, it's $6840 a month combined (well, every 4 weeks), $3480 a month each (we both earn about the same). Well, it's very strange that you guys do that. Are those monthly expenses or biweekly?
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Apr 6, 2014 14:30
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I think he said these are biweekly figures. I do the same, I budget per paycheck so if my phone bill is $30/month then I just put aside/mark (earmark?) (30*12/26) per paycheck to keep it easy like that.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:05
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I do all my budgeting based on two paychecks a month so those three paycheck months are a nice bonus. Much of my budgeting is convincing myself I have way less money than I actually do.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:17
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Boris Galerkin posted:I think he said these are biweekly figures. I do the same, I budget per paycheck so if my phone bill is $30/month then I just put aside/mark (earmark?) (30*12/26) per paycheck to keep it easy like that. Guni posted:Hey goons! On the other hand, are your expenses really this high? Rent: $840/fortnight = $1820/mo Food: $450/fortnight = $975/mo Electricity: $100/fortnight = $216/mo (I'm lazy and haven't checked the Perth costs of living, but that food and electricity... phew.) You have $1400 of income that has no associated budget items. Having a buffer is awesome, but you'll likely do better to get more of that allocated on the front end, so you don't review at the end of the month to find that you've spent it all "accidentally". If you've just moved and are getting started, it would be fair to reserve a large portion for "capital expenses", which might include furniture, appliances, and other things you need for your abode. Add an explicit item for "Emergency savings", since you haven't yet saved one, two, or six-months ahead. If possible, add some provisional savings for the car. Even though it is currently "all expenses paid", situations change rapidly at times and you'll want to be able to handle the expenses in emergency situations even if your parents are out of town or can't get you the money within three hours... in any case, you don't want the car trapped at the mechanics if it decides to throw you a lemon one day. You could take 1.17% of your fortnightly income, and you'd have $1000 at the end of the year as a show of good faith and maturity. In any case, I suspect you still have license and registration to cover. Whoa, they pay for fuel too? How weird. Well, if you don't want to be "under their thumb" forever, start saving now. :] Likewise, if you are dependent on family and/or friends, I expect you'd be more likely to have an item for gifts and charity --- upon reflection, maybe this is why it took me so long to start saving for gifts, i.e., that I have always operated very independently. Big spenders on clothing? Do you have hobbies or regular activities that require membership fees, travel expenses, equipment and/or maintenance costs? Those are the largest potential omissions. Everything past that point, as far as I can see, comes down to a matter of how you're tracking and recording income and expenses, if you want bulk or categorized buffers, if you're budgeting for inflation, cost-of-living increases, and price increases, and so forth.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:36
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I did this for many years as well, and it works out quite well as long as you have the starting 7.7% buffer in each category (1-2*12/26), especially if you're starting on a short month, which has only two paychecks. Budgeting income by percentages works well here as you are always building up spare savings and don't have to worry about blowing the third paycheck for the month because you "forgot we were getting all that extra money, woohoo spend!". Thanks for the advice! We already have all of our furniture (literally everything), I don't have any explicit hobbies besides PC building (which I have a good rig already) and my girlfriend doesn't really have any either...We're starting up our emergency funds now (as indicates in my first post we're aiming to save roughly $800 a fortnight into that) and aim to have 3 months up as soon as possible as my jobs a little unstable. Also I think that's an awesome idea to save 1ish% of our income and have $1000 in a years time. Regarding the car, literally everything is paid for so I doubt I'll ever have to pay for anything on it, although I am planning on purchasing a car at the end of the year (the car we have is a huge dual cab ute/truck that my girlfriend can't drive), I'm definitely going to start saving up for that and putting a line in our budget. The only thing we're actively saving for is (me) an engagement ring and jointly a couple of holidays to Bali (flights are ridiculously cheap). Both of which are indicated in the $300 a fortnight fields. This week is pretty much the start of our proper paychecks (well, mine anyway) so I'm excited to see how we will go  .Edit: that rent price is correct my friend, it's for a 2brm, nice apartment ~10-15mins away from the city in a nice area. And yeah that's about what we spend on food, as my girlfriend is coeliac and she makes a lot of things from scratch, plus we eat heaps of fruit, veges and good meat, also coupled with the fact neither of us buys lunch on a regular basis (I've spent $20 in 6 weeks). Double edit: Regarding electricity, we have no clue so we just put $100 a fortnight away for it...We did get an electricity bill that was for 17ish days and it was around $78, so it worked out to be about $2.xx a day (there was a $30 or sp connection fee), but I'd rather be over cautious and put more money into that line and not ever need to worry about any other bills and how we'd afford them, especially if something that's small (say $200 or so), but unexpected comes up. Also, another question - things marked with an asterisk (health insurance, bike payment and contents insurance) aren't actually real expenses yet, but will be in the near future, should we just sock that money away into the bills account and build a buffer? Guni fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 17:05
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loving aussies and your dumb heaps and fortnights. I know nothing of retirement funds in australia, but it doesn't look like that is in your budget. Also I'd include all the APR on all of your payments that are going out if they have interest attached to them.
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Apr 6, 2014 19:54
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Veskit posted:loving aussies and your dumb heaps and fortnights. That's because in Australia your employer takes the money out and sets it aside for your superannuation before you even see your payslip. Here in Australia super is mandatory and part of the reason why our economy has fared so well over the past 20 years since everyone working in Australia has to have a superannuation account which leads to them being invested in the Australian economy as a whole. That said if they have so much money left over after their main expenses they could salary sacrifice extra into their superannuation. Edit: to elaborate on this, you can minimise your tax and bolster your super savings quickly and easily this way. So say I salary sacrificed $100 out of my regular pay per fortnight, I would be paying tax on $x-$100. So while I'm socking away $100 per fortnight into my superannuation, I might only be getting $60 less than what I would normally. Obviously rich people nearing retirement use this as a way to get out of paying taxes, but it's open to everyone and so long as you're not making minimum wage at Coles or something it makes sense to set aside a little extra - only disadvantage is that you (obviously) have to wait until retirement to gain access to it. froglet fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 00:42
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If I can get some advice on how to approach our finances, I'd appreciate it! My wife and I recently got married and we'd like to share our finance situation. Our questions are: how should we spend our current savings? Should we use it to pay off our two smaller credit cards or just one? How should we spend the cash we save each month? Income $130,000/year (me: $65k / her: $65k) $6,400/month ($3,200/$3,200) Savings Cash: $12,000 401k: a whole bunch Roth IRA: $8,000 Debt AmEx: $20,000 ($25,000 limit / 16% APR) Citi: $6,250 ($10,000 limit / 8% APR) Chase: $7,000 ($10,000 limit / 12% APR) Expenses (total: $5,100 monthly) Rent: $1,650 Cable: $0 zero! Internet: $60 Cell: $170 Gas: $10 Electricity: $75 Car gas: $250 Car payment: $325 Car insurance: $75 Toll road: $180 Entertainment: $250 Food: $850 (groceries and eating out) Student loans: $325 Personal hygiene: $150 Gym: $80 Cats: $100 AmEx: $300 (min payment we choose to make) Citi: $125 (min payment we choose to make) Chase: $125(min payment we choose to make) Money into savings $1,000 - $1,300 depending on if there's a random gift needed Credit score Me: 780 Her: 720 This is a budget based on just 2 pay checks a month ($1,600 each) and not counting the additional 2 checks we get or our tax returns each year. We are happy with our expenses and do not wish to adjust them.
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Apr 7, 2014 19:59
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I would drop savings to 1k or 1mo expenses max (based on your risk tolerance) and pay off higher interest card first. I would prioritize getting out of (omg) double digit interest debt over savings, too. Throw that money at your credit cards. You can do it by lowest balance or highest interest rate. I would advocate highest interest rate, but do whatever makes you feel like you're making the best headway. You need to list your car and student loans under debts. Your expenses don't look too out of line. A bit more to food than I would want to see myself, but it doesn't seem unreasonable. You may consider adjusting your tax withholding if you keep getting tax refunds, or use that for lump sum debt payoff.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:33
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Hand of the King posted:This is a budget based on just 2 pay checks a month ($1,600 each) and not counting the additional 2 checks we get or our tax returns each year. We are happy with our expenses and do not wish to adjust them. I'm about to post some stuff that might ruffle your feathers, but here goes. You make plenty of money, but you have a shitload of credit card debt - nearly 6 months of your take-home pay. That's money you already spent, so you need to think about cutting back your expenses until you're out of the hole. You really need to do some soul searching here. You say you are happy with your expenses, but you have no line items for medical, clothing, maintenance, and I'm sure a bunch of other miscellaneous things that seem like "one-time events" but in reality are always happening. You could probably cut back on your cell phones, personal hygiene, and food categories. If you have absolutely nothing go wrong (which is impossible) and need nothing outside of your budget (also impossible), keep 100% to your budget (unlikely), and throw every extra penny at your debt (  ) you are looking at around 22 months to clear out your credit card debt. That's the best case scenario, which you know is not going to happen.You are wasting $4,500 a year on interest payments for your credit cards alone. That's pretty much your car payment with insurance being wasted just to have things now instead of saving money for them. You're not that bad off if you keep earning, but what would happen if one of you lost your job? Or needed to take a couple months off for a surgery/injury/pregnancy? Sit your spouse down and take a long, hard look at the numbers. Don't assign blame; you are in this together. Figure out what you really need to survive and start pounding away at your debt. If you want to knock out just your credit card debt in 12 months, you're looking at about $3,000/month. That's how much more you spent than you actually have. Nocheez fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 21:27
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Hand of the King posted:
You have a shitload of debt while spending a shitload of money. You financial situation is kind of hosed. Don't worry though a lot of ours are hosed and we come here to fix it. But you should really understand your finances, are hosed as we speak. I don't even know how much student loan/car debt you have left, but it looks like you have more debt than money you make from what you've shown so far. Which is bad. Really really bad when your debt is on depreciable goods. Seriously you're in a bad financial situation and really need to fix it. You shouldn't be happy with your expenses! Budget issues alone, go figure out your total debt, so add in how much you own on cars/student loans. You need medical categories for medical expenditures. You need a fund for tires alone, and I'd recommend a general car repair fund too because those are going to hit for sure.  YOU SHOULD BE ON GOD drat RED ALERT WITH YOUR BUDGET THOUGH RIGHT NOWThey're like right on the border of being Slow motion levels of debt while making around the same income. I don't get why you have no sense of urgency in your post. Veskit fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 22:37
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Veskit posted:They're like right on the border of being Slow motion levels of debt while making around the same income. I don't get why you have no sense of urgency in your post.  No doubt, they're deep in debt-central and should make efforts to get out. But he clearly stated he doesn't want to change anything besides what they do with savings, which should be entirely debt repayment. They are too poor to save. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 22:48
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Okay, my wife and I will take a look at our budget and trim down where we can. I didn't know we were in the nuclear stage, but I shall heed everyone's advice. But so what are some smart things to do with our current savings and the $1k we save each month? Dump most of it into the debt and pay those off ASAP?
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Apr 7, 2014 22:50
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Hand of the King posted:Okay, my wife and I will take a look at our budget and trim down where we can. I didn't know we were in the nuclear stage, but I shall heed everyone's advice. Approaching the subject with yourself, and with your spouse especially, will likely be tricky. Modeling your savings after you're debt free has been an encouraging way I've done it, eg you can save $1k now and $1.6k if you are debt free, that sort of thing. Do you have purchase goals like a house? It'll be easier to do that if you're debt free. I would say what I said, and most will agree with me. Drop savings to a minimal level and throw 100% everything at debt, highest interest rate first. Re-thinking your budget and expenses would absolutely benefit you. Think about how much more money you'd have today if you had no debt repayments to make. It's a lot of money.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:56
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Hand of the King posted:Okay, my wife and I will take a look at our budget and trim down where we can. I didn't know we were in the nuclear stage, but I shall heed everyone's advice. I mean, we don't really have a good grasp on your debt until you post your car loan and students loans with their respective rates and principal. First things first is getting all this down and figuring that out.
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Apr 7, 2014 23:08
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Sigma, thanks for your post. I'm really leaning towards doing that. I appreciate you approaching it the way you did and advising us to view it different (i.e., $1k vs $1.6k). I think that'll really help us open our eyes. Veskit, I have no idea what my wife's student loan status is as she's got like 3 or 4 different loans. I think the total is at the low $20,000s. And her car payment just started. $325 for 72 months (1.9%). One payment down  Please don't tell us to trade in the car - that is not going to happen (I don't want to get into this). We will cut down on our spending on going out to eat, personal hygiene, entertainment fund, cell phone, and stuff like that.Are there any issues with dumping our current cash into CC debt over car or student loans? Thanks, by the way. Also, I don't have any student or car loans. Nocheez, thanks for spelling out how much we're throwing away in interest payments alone. It's pretty shocking.
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Apr 7, 2014 23:24
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Hand of the King posted:
Feasibly it looks like you two could get by if one person lost a job. In that sense I'd say, and this is just me, I'd drop your cash saving down to 5k and take a gigantic chunk out of that amex card. Right off the bat and you'll have massive savings from that down the road. Next, I'd take your food budget, and make it SPECIFICALLY GROCERIES. I'd budget out 500 a month for that, which is a good amount. With that extra 350 add 50 to your entertainment budget (300 a month) and take the extra 300 you saved toward food and put that toward debt. Your entertainment budget now includes going out to eat. It's discretionary spending, so you should categorize it outside so you treat it as a non necessity. I have no idea wtf personal hygiene is or why it needs to be 150 dollars. Facials? manipedis? gently caress if I know. Split that poo poo out and make it more clear what that means. If it feels like something that is discretionary throw it into a non essential account like entertainment so you can have a clear picture of what you need. Stop puting money into your savings and put it toward those albatrosses of credit cards. It's time to pay back what you owe! You are in debt because you got more poo poo than you could afford, and now that you're a responsible adult it's time to act accordingly. Go fix all this stuff report back and if there aren't immediate positive changes then make a thread and get yelled a... I mean helped by many knowledgeable goons far more knowledged than i am.
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Apr 7, 2014 23:39
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Hand of the King posted:Are there any issues with dumping our current cash into CC debt over car or student loans? Thanks, by the way. From the point of view of emergencies, you only have a few thousand of wiggle room on your lower-interest cards, and you probably have all sorts of monthly expenses going through them. In short, other than savings, you don't have much of an emergency fund. You could drop all but $1k onto a CC payment and then have a $1500 medical bill or radiator repair that goes right back onto the CC. You need enough in savings to pay your monthly, revolving bills without running out of money, and you should have enough to handle small emergencies. I'd agree that $5-7k is about right, but that only leaves you $0-2k for emergencies when all your bills come due. Some loans have an effective utility above others, even though they charge slightly more interest, but this seems unlikely since none of your CCs are under 8%. As an example, if you carry an 8.5% private student loan or something, it might currently be in your best interest to not send any extra money on the grounds that student loans tend to be deferrable during hardship. Some loans penalize early repayment, though this doesn't seem to happen as much lately, while others might not be worth early repayment if the interest rates are alarmingly low; for example, paying back a 4% auto loan early is fine, but you might want to save for a down-payment for a house, so you decide to carry the 4% charges a bit longer to do that. This is all somewhat minimal to the scenario everyone else has described, however. You have enough cash to cover two months' of expenses and no other emergencies. In a "severe" emergency, you have access to around $10k of CCs, but that really limits the types of severe emergencies you can handle in a hurry; wouldn't you say? Your current CC debt constitutes a minimum 26% of your next year's earnings, and that's not counting any interest. Are your minimum payments really that low? I thought all companies had moved to a minimum around 2% of balance after the CC laws five or so years back? If you put $700/mo just toward the three credit cards, always paying the highest interest rate first and minima on the rest, until they are all paid off, you save 7% over a plan where you just put 700/3 toward each and only spread the money around after the card is done. If you make it $900/mo, the savings goes up to 17%.
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Apr 8, 2014 00:52
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Hand of the King posted:Debt Good luck with getting rid of your debt! I'm just curious, what kind of expenses were they? Student loans? Having more than 1 credit cards near max limit will hit you hard.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:10
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Hand of the King posted:If I can get some advice on how to approach our finances, I'd appreciate it! My wife and I recently got married and we'd like to share our finance situation. Our questions are: how should we spend our current savings? Should we use it to pay off our two smaller credit cards or just one? How should we spend the cash we save each month? It looks like there's another $24,000 in car debt and another $20-25,000 in student loan debt. What should you be doing with your "savings"??? Paying back the over $70,000 in debt you've accumulated. Seriously, that's a lot. Especially since it's mostly car and card debt. That is a staggering amount of debt for someone who seems to think they are just fine. How did you get over $30,000 into credit card debt? Was it some major emergency like a medical emergency/house burned down/etc. or is this just from normal spending accumulating? How long have you guys been making your current salaries/saving $1,000 - $1300 each month? If you haven't already, I would definitely sign up for something like Mint.com. Like someone pointed out, you guys have nothing like a clothing budget or a maintenance budget or a gift/christmas or a travel budget, so while you may *think* you're saving $1000 - $1300, it is likely that you're actually saving less. Make sure you know where your money is going. If you do have a mint account or you've been budgeting -- have you guys been successfully and consistently under budget? If so, by how much on average? What percentage of your salary are you currently contributing to your 401k? Is it just up the match or are you contributing more? Do you guys currently only have one car? If your wife's car is off the table. I know you said you don't have a car loan, but do you have a car? You need to sit down with your wife and get a handle on your finances as a whole. There are a lot of places in your budget that you can cut down on and you really should. You've dug yourself into a hug hole. Since you guys are interested in combining finances and figuring out how that works, you should at least know how much you've got in your 401ks and you should know how much student loan debt you guys have and what their rates are, etc. You need to sit down and get the big picture on your finances now that you're a married couple.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:31
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Veskit posted:Feasibly it looks like you two could get by if one person lost a job. In that sense I'd say, and this is just me, I'd drop your cash saving down to 5k and take a gigantic chunk out of that amex card. Right off the bat and you'll have massive savings from that down the road. Good stuff. I think I'll rearrange my budget for food, groceries, entertainment, etc. like the way you outlined it. Personal hygiene is like facial care, make-up, skin care, hair products, contact solutions, toothbrush, floss, mouthwash, cologne, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, and all miscellaneous things we use to keep ourselves clean. My wife has eczema so if she doesn't use prescription medication (skin/facial care), then her skin turns to poo poo and she goes into misery scratching herself raw. Unfortunately, that's the only thing that works for her and the stuff is expensive, but she wouldn't last a week without it. I bolded that part about paying back what I owe because god drat it, you are right! PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Mathematically you want to put all extra money on the highest interest-charging account to produce the best long-term savings. This is countered by the practicality of keeping some money in savings for small and medium emergencies. It could also be countered by the utility of a slightly higher interest being charged for more security. I don't know why but all minimum payment amounts are just around what I said. Maybe it'll change in the next billing cycle. caberham posted:Good luck with getting rid of your debt! I'm just curious, what kind of expenses were they? Student loans? Having more than 1 credit cards near max limit will hit you hard. Thanks Many, many misdiagnoses for my cat's condition ($8k), wedding debt ($6k), tuition ($3k), and the rest are my wife's debt, into which I obviously married. I only had like $2k in debt.HooKars posted:It looks like there's another $24,000 in car debt and another $20-25,000 in student loan debt. What should you be doing with your "savings"??? Paying back the over $70,000 in debt you've accumulated. Seriously, that's a lot. Especially since it's mostly car and card debt. For some reason, I wasn't factoring car loan and student loans as debts. I don't know why, I viewed them separately from CC debt. In retrospect, I feel dumb as hell, but I'm aware now. My wife and I recently hit $65k each (February) where she got a 23% raise, and there's a good chance I'll be switching over to a higher paying position this year. I use mint.com and I'm pretty good with my own budget, but my wife doesn't really budget and that's one of the reasons why she got into so much debt before we married. It's hard "managing" someone else's finances especially when you're not married. I'm hoping to have a better sense of things now. She and I both work at the same company and we contribute up to the company match, which is 4%. We have 2 cars. You asking me about my car scares me. I've had my car since I was in high school and after 184k miles, she still runs great! I don't want to give her up nor do I think it. We both work for the same company, but I'm in another office which is the opposite direction of where her office is.
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Apr 8, 2014 05:08
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Did you talk to your wife tonight? Is she on board? Does she understand how dire of a situation you both are in currently? Is she a goony goon? Does she get if I found a kid on the street, and handed him a 5 dollar bill, he would probably have more net worth than you as a couple?
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Apr 8, 2014 05:53
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If you've had your car since high school and it runs reliably, then it's yours to keep. Your wife does however have a very expensive car and I can't think of any reason why someone would need a particularly expensive car aside from *I want* that would put the car off the table (with the exception of perhaps certain handicaps). If there's no wiggle room in the cars, is there any wiggle room in your commutes (eg biking, carpooling together or with coworkers, public transportation). You spend way too much on food - esp considering that $850 of groceries and eating out is separate from personal care items like mouthwash and your entertainment budget. Eating out IS entertainment. It's much better to group restaurants and fast food and lunches in with entertainment so you can see how much is just discretionary spending vs. food needed to live. If you're not already bringing In lunch to work, that is always a good place to start and really does save a lot. Similarly if anyone has a daily Starbucks/fast food habit, that's an easy and painless cut as well. Get together and talk about your goals. You asked us what you should do with your savings and you should put it towards debt but it can make it easier if you have talked about long term goals (a house, kids, travel) and you see in your head how your current debt and little things you don't want to sacrifice may impede on your larger goals that actually mean something to you.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:43
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Hey Hand of the King, make a thread. Your finances are pretty bad.
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Apr 8, 2014 15:59
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BFC is awesome because at any time someone might come by and casually drop the fact that they are $70K in mostly high interest consumer debt while simultaneously declaring they are happy with their expenses being pretty much the same as their income after minimum payments.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:02
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BFC needs more success stories! Go make a thread Hand of the King. It's kinda like TFLC but for money. It'll make you way more accountable.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:26
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I recommend a thread title of Hand of the Market: King of debt.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:52
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I've loving relapsed. This is my situation without including my wife's debt. Pardon the sort of hosed up categories. This is my checking account for the last year plugged into YNAB with my loans on the side.code:I've racked up a fuckload of student loan debt and I still have 1 year left to go on my grad degree. Once I'm out of school I don't really know how I'm going to manage it. I am on the income-based repayment plan for my federal loans but I'm going to have a total of like 1000-1200 bucks taken out of my paycheck once I am done with school, and getting a better paying job isn't guaranteed so I don't know what the gently caress I'm supposed to really do other than cut way the gently caress back on like everything, but I am really unsure how I'm going to manage that. So basically, I know how to make a budget. That's fine, but I am apparently addicted to buying poo poo I don't need. I thoroughly believe I am hosed up psychologically with regards to money. I was doing good for about two months with my credit cards disconnected from amazon and steam. I zeroed my credit card. I still haven't started really saving any money, and the least I could do is throw more of it at my student loans. But I can't even seem to manage that. How do I cultivate good spending habits?
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Apr 14, 2014 20:24
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signalnoise posted:How do I cultivate good spending habits? Stop buying things. Quick answer is to read some of the logs around here. Zaurg, Cornholio, mine, Slow Motion, others? That question is answered many times at length in all those threads. The long answer is to start changing your habits. Cutting spending is nearly identical to dieting for weight loss in terms of the self talk and strategies you'll have to do. The steps I took as I see them are: 1. Analysis. Track everything, you've got this. 2. Motivation. Calculate freedom that you've lost and what you could have. Make that poo poo your mantra. 3. Habit formation. Figure out your "triggers" for spending and design your lifestyle around ways that make those inconvenient compared to poo poo you find valuable regardless. If there is no poo poo that you find cheap and valuable, find some of that poo poo. Start jogging, whatever. This takes work and reflection and is honestly the hardest part of the process.* 4. Return to step one. Every time you make a change, evaluate the effects on your finances and happiness. It makes no sense to cut out a line like squash (the sport) if your squash expenses are 5% of your income per month but make up 30% of your recreational life. However, chances are you don't get the same amount of recreation from, say, coffee but it makes up a much more significant expense, especially relative to its intrinsic value to you. These two examples could be reversed and you love coffee but are meh about squash, it doesn't matter. Just do the evaluation. Don't kill yourself by crash budgeting and living in a forest because you'll just take the next windfall and go to Dubai for ~reasons~. *For this I recommend you check out Mr. Money Mustache and read the books he recommends. I really benefited from Your Money or Your Life and A Guide to the Good Life.
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Apr 14, 2014 20:42
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signalnoise posted:So basically, I know how to make a budget. That's fine, but I am apparently addicted to buying poo poo I don't need. I thoroughly believe I am hosed up psychologically with regards to money. I was doing good for about two months with my credit cards disconnected from amazon and steam. I zeroed my credit card. I still haven't started really saving any money, and the least I could do is throw more of it at my student loans. But I can't even seem to manage that. How do I cultivate good spending habits? Jesuuuuss christ that video game spending  Are you hosed psychologically in more ways than your regards to money? You really can't fathom a life where you don't buy over 5 brand new video games a month? 
Veskit fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 21:50
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Yeah this might be a case where "seek therapy" is the answer you need. You could do a lot if you cut the games and smokes out of your budget. The only way to cultivate a habit is to do it constantly for an extended period of time.
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Apr 14, 2014 22:07
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Veskit posted:Jesuuuuss christ that video game spending Yes I have some issues, and Yeah I'll see if I can't find a psychologist to supplement my psychiatrist
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Apr 14, 2014 22:37
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I think video games gets an extra bad rap. I eat out every other day and buy lunch. I'm not much better. My money literally turns to poo poo and makes me fat
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Apr 15, 2014 02:06
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I don't think the problem is that I'm buying a lot of video games. I think it's that I'm buying video games before I'm done with the ones I already have. That's what I am seeing as I think about this more. If I had an unlimited budget for gaming but I was only allowed to buy a new toy when I was finished with the last one I bought, the amount I spend on games would decrease dramatically. That's all it is, I'm just wasting my money. I followed up on Mr. Money Mustache and the latest link he posted talked pretty directly to the problem I'm seeing here. It's a blog post called How To Make Money Buy Happiness. The gist of it is that I'm not spending money on things that make me happy, I'm spending money on the promise of being happy if I buy the thing. This is a cyclical problem of buying poo poo because I dream of being the person who is happy using the thing I bought, and then not using it, so I buy another thing. If it's possible to be addicted to buying poo poo I think that's what I have. At least if I was spending the money on food I'd use the hell of out it 
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Apr 15, 2014 02:59
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signalnoise posted:I don't think the problem is that I'm buying a lot of video games. I think it's that I'm buying video games before I'm done with the ones I already have. That's what I am seeing as I think about this more. If I had an unlimited budget for gaming but I was only allowed to buy a new toy when I was finished with the last one I bought, the amount I spend on games would decrease dramatically. That's all it is, I'm just wasting my money. Check out How to Make Trillions of Dollars by the Raptitude guy as well. I like the Raptitude guy.
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Apr 15, 2014 03:35
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signalnoise posted:I don't think the problem is that I'm buying a lot of video games. No the problem is that you're buying a lot of video games. The problem is you're buying a lot of video games. If you want to dig deeper down, you have issues with money, issues with your brain, or issues with your dad molesting you who knows who cares. Problem is you just said you don't think the problem is you're buying a lot of video games. Read that back to yourself until you go huh, I can't believe I just wrote that.
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Apr 15, 2014 03:56
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Veskit posted:No the problem is that you're buying a lot of video games. The problem is you're buying a lot of video games. If you want to dig deeper down, you have issues with money, issues with your brain, or issues with your dad molesting you who knows who cares. Problem is you just said you don't think the problem is you're buying a lot of video games. Read that back to yourself until you go huh, I can't believe I just wrote that. I acknowledge this post and agree with you
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Apr 15, 2014 04:14
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signalnoise posted:
Your categories are reasonable, as they permit you a good deal of mobility in your spending. Look at all these extra expenses. You spend as much on music as you do on alcohol; $40/mo is probably "about right" for that type of entertainment expense, but you have two such categories and probably need to exercise a little caution. See if you can bring them down to $30/mo, for example. Meanwhile, you've got 45% more than those two combined going to nicotine. I've never had to worry about how to stop smoking, but it's pretty clear that's burning a hole in your pocket. On the other hand, it's nothing compared to your restaurant runs. You're a grad student; you're smart enough to know how to cook, to know how much more efficient it will be, and how much more healthy it's likely to be than restaurants. If you need to use your brain, eating right and staying healthy will keep that brain functioning a lot better than a bunch of restaurant sodium and fat glop. Make restaurant runs something special instead of something regular. "Postage"? WTH. We have this thing called the Internet now. You really need to milk this "poor student" thing a bit more. "Sorry Mom, I can only afford to send lab equipment once every two months; I hope you don't mind". Or whatever. And then you have this nice little undistinguished category that hides all sorts of misbehavior: Amazon. Three quarters of the other (above) categories combined. Let's look at the above categories a different way: Over $950 per month. As tuyop suggested, and you've reflected, is that keeping you happy? Grad school can really suck if you have too many other things begging for attention, particularly if one or more of them are deeply psychological in nature. If you're at a sizable university, there are likely a number of alternate forms of entertainment, and they are probably rather inexpensive. If you're categorized as a student or university employee, you can probably get to all sorts of museums for the price of a triple caramel macchiato double whip with a float of vanilla. Don't plan to succeed at dropping all this stuff cold, but set goals for yourself. In the next three months drop your combined music+games to $300/mo, $250/mo, then $200/mo. Drop your restaurants+alcohol to $150/mo, $125/mo... and then maybe a little bit less. Think seriously about a game that you'll want to play for three to four weeks before buying it. Go drinking during happy hour, or otherwise stock your personal bar when things are on sale. And, to repeat, brains like healthy food and exercise; get off your rear end, away from those blinky lights, and go for a walk. Look at the trees. Watch the funny looking people. During periods of intense research, some good flashes of insight can come from the outside, particularly the natural world. Smoking, yeap, research that stuff online. Thanks for listening. These are all suggestions from an ex-poorgradstudent, but you're free to take 'em or leave 'em.
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Apr 15, 2014 04:50
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