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Knyteguy posted:
When I say "follow the budget" or "only buy it if it's in-budget" I just mean "don't break your budget and don't twist it around trying to pull money from other categories to increase your fun category" (such as "I'll just take 50 from groceries this month and put it in fun" because what that usually leads to isn't a reduction in grocery spending but next month going "we didn't have a lot of staples this month so we broke our grocery budget but we needed to so it's okay"). Yes, you're free to spend it on whatever without us getting on your case about it. But we're getting on your case about it because we think it'll lead you to breaking your budget. Also because you're pulling from other categories to "justify" breaking your budget because it's still breaking the budget. Aagar is exactly right: we don't believe you'll be able to spend most of your blow money upfront without it leading to a "necessary" expense that ends up breaking your budget. People said this at the beginning on August and were proven right by the end when you had, as predicted, a necessary expense that "forced" you to break your budget. People struggle with having money but not spending it, and even though you're saying "I'm going to save it until next month and buy something bigger", we're criticizing you because we don't believe you'll be able to save it. Blow covers everything that you want but don't need. Yes, this also covers chips and beer and things you get for your wife. And hobbies, and consumer electronics and vending machines and pretty much anything you do for fun. I do not buy things from convenience stores or impulse buy aisles, with only a couple rare exceptions (pretty much only I'm feeling a bit under the weather and think OJ will make me feel better on the way to work, or I planned poorly and am really thirsty while out somewhere without a water bottle). Just get poo poo at costco and stick a few in your fridge/car/whatever for when you want one. I didn't even realize spending so much money on overpriced snacks was a thing people did regularly until reading this forum.
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Sep 4, 2014 19:45
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Knyteguy posted:I refuse to make concessions on my football because I earned that I feel like you mistake "facing the consequences of past actions" with "earning a treat for all this self-restraint". If you take 3 steps back and then 1 step forward, you shouldn't congratulate yourself on that 1 step forward by taking another step back.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:04
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Horking Delight posted:When I say "follow the budget" or "only buy it if it's in-budget" I just mean "don't break your budget and don't twist it around trying to pull money from other categories to increase your fun category" (such as "I'll just take 50 from groceries this month and put it in fun" because what that usually leads to isn't a reduction in grocery spending but next month going "we didn't have a lot of staples this month so we broke our grocery budget but we needed to so it's okay"). Yes, you're free to spend it on whatever without us getting on your case about it. But we're getting on your case about it because we think it'll lead you to breaking your budget. Also because you're pulling from other categories to "justify" breaking your budget because it's still breaking the budget. Hm ok I see where you guys are coming from then. I figure if we don't spend it all at the beginning of the month we should be pretty solid then. Also Aagar the word "OR" is for poors. "AND" is for ballers. Help me out here Slo Mo. (just playing guys). Like the way I kind of think of it is our goal is to save $1500 this month (30% net income), really. So I think we're on track to save like $1,650 this month if the budget goes as expected this month. I feel like as long as we hit that goal of $1,500 then it doesn't matter too much if we got $20.00 over household goods (which we're going to do. I forgot we needed to reup the laundry card. New expense for us). As long as we hit that $1,500, then I figure the budget is ultimately just the middleman tool to do so. So assuming our HSA will be (factual unless wife loses job) $1,400 and our efund savings being (probable but not guaranteed) $1,500, isn't that really still good enough? I don't know it just doesn't make sense to get upset too much if something is like $20.00 over like our entire spending category was last month. It's so comparatively small. Obviously we want to try to hit the goals because otherwise why make them, but it seems like wasted energy to worry about it too much as long as we're getting close. Philosophically how far off am I?
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Sep 5, 2014 00:48
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I'm curious, too, because for me so far that's worked pretty well. We got a month ahead, we put 25-30% into retirement and emergency savings without fail, and have averaged 10% specifically for baby/matleave. Half of the rest goes to expenses and the rest we spend on whatever. Our subcategories flex, but I think by and large we do ok. Could be better, could be a lot worse. Just stop spending. That's the key. Give it a break for a while. Just chill for a month, see what happens.
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Sep 5, 2014 01:51
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If your goal is to save $1500 then your budget should reflect that and the extra money can be allocated as more blow or something (but as long as you're realistic about your budget and good at following it, you can see what that extra 100 or 200 in blow means for your finances further down the line). You're the one who sets your budget and we criticize you the loudest when it looks like you won't be able to meet your budget or saving goals. You did say you were going to reevaluate things after your competition with SloMo, and it seems like now is a good time. The point is to have realistic goals, meet those goals, and be able to trust your ability to follow future budgets when making plans for the future. Whether your blow category is 100, 200, or 400 isn't as important as you making the decision at the beginning of the month and saying "yes, this is how much I am going to spend, this is financially healthy, and I will not spend more". The point is to control your spending. (I have a very flexible budget as well, with a soft cap of "expect to spend about this much normally" and a harder cap of "what the gently caress stop spending money" if I go too far over that.) EDIT: I definitely understand where you're coming from because yeah, 20 bucks out of 1500 shouldn't matter. But do that enough times and suddenly you're saying "it was only a few meals here and there" while wondering where the $600 dollars you spent on restaurants went because you'd earmarked it for a car payment you no longer have the money for and now you're hosed because you need a payday loan or something equally awful. Colin Mockery fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 03:05
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Horking Delight posted:If your goal is to save $1500 then your budget should reflect that and the extra money can be allocated as more blow or something (but as long as you're realistic about your budget and good at following it, you can see what that extra 100 or 200 in blow means for your finances further down the line). Er yea definitely don't want to go where that edit goes ever again in my life. I would probably become depressed. I think I'm going to adjust my budget again; that's good advice. Maybe I'll expand my MISC (flex) to cover stuff that goes negative, and if that runs out then we're not going to hit our ultimate savings goal and we're screwing up. I'm worried that if I just put more in discretionary then I'll spend it thoughtlessly, but if I'm running into the MISC then it is time to hit the brakes big time. This way I won't feel so guilty as long as I hit my savings goal, but I won't encourage additional spending. I'll ensure I memo whatever goes negative so I can still tell where it came from. Plus it can be easy to say screw it if we go over by $20.00. It's like well we already went over so another $10.00 won't matter, or even $100.00. It's just an additional barrier kind of like what you mentioned. The goal here will be to keep this category positive or at the very very least 0 no matter what though. The consequence will likely be a ban if I go under that. It also needs to cover -all- categories, not just discretionary or whatever. What do you guys think?
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Sep 5, 2014 04:57
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Knyteguy posted:I'm worried that if I just put more in discretionary then I'll spend it thoughtlessly This is how my mind works a lot of the time. Spending can be an emotional thing - you have to find the right balance between cajoling yourself into better behavior vs making yourself feel guilty all the time. While being constrained by your income. Feeling too guilty makes you blow stuff off and get even more off track. On the other hand setting unrealistic goals to avoid guilt results in spending too much too.
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Sep 5, 2014 05:01
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I think having a MISC category for flex is a good idea, as long as you stick to treating it as a bright "STOP SPENDING SO MUCH" warning flag that you actually respect. I'm still a little worried that you'll just end up using it to do what you want and end up in a "I used all my blow money by mid-month, so now I'm just gonna spend out of MISC because my wife was having a bad day so we HAD to go to the movies for her emotional well being and then I was really anxious about money so I spent twenty bucks at a bar...." type situation. Ultimately, though, all this moving numbers around doesn't change anything if your spending habits don't permanently change as well. Did you compare your August numbers to your previous month's spending totals? You did much better with spending than you did even just several months ago, right?
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Sep 5, 2014 05:44
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slap me silly posted:This is how my mind works a lot of the time. Spending can be an emotional thing - you have to find the right balance between cajoling yourself into better behavior vs making yourself feel guilty all the time. While being constrained by your income. Feeling too guilty makes you blow stuff off and get even more off track. On the other hand setting unrealistic goals to avoid guilt results in spending too much too. Yea I think some of my goals tend to be unrealistic, in timeframe, in amounts, etc. I thinking loosening the belt so to speak might actually help us more for the reasons you mention. Moderation is likely the key. Horking Delight posted:I think having a MISC category for flex is a good idea, as long as you stick to treating it as a bright "STOP SPENDING SO MUCH" warning flag that you actually respect. I'm still a little worried that you'll just end up using it to do what you want and end up in a "I used all my blow money by mid-month, so now I'm just gonna spend out of MISC because my wife was having a bad day so we HAD to go to the movies for her emotional well being and then I was really anxious about money so I spent twenty bucks at a bar...." type situation. OK I kind of sort of reworked the budget but we're going to the inlaws this weekend so I won't be able to finish it up until Monday at the earliest. I'll post it when I can. I wonder if I should do blow money in weekly amounts. So basically this week I can spend this much, next week I can spend this much, ad infinitum. If I want something then I save some or all of the weekly amount. I'm pretty sure someone (you I think) mentioned doing it this way. I need to remember to try that in October. I think it might put numbers in perspective. July Optional Spending:  It's kind of hard to compare 1:1 since we moved to the spreadsheet budget in August, but I can definitely tell that Alcohol was cut back by some, and household goods by a ton. I'd say overall we did slightly better in August, but not by a ton. Edit: Before that though? This is March, April, May, June, July:  (columns are budgeted, outflow, balance) We've done so, so much better than we were doing. Fun little graph of our checking account balance over time. Provides some insight during our hiatus from the thread as well as current progress. This only pulls every so often too so that's why the slopes are extreme. 
Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 19:22
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Credit Card: Got the CC approved apparently as they pulled the security deposit from the account. We're going to put it in our "important paper's folder" (wife's idea). Pretty much where we put stuff like our passports, yearly taxes, and such in there. I know some people mentioned putting just one bill on there - phone bill, something like that. So we're going to do that plus internet and maybe one more (1 student loan?). Should only have a balance of around $60-$100 at any point; probably less. Then I'm just going to have it automatically withdraw the balance in full every month like I would with a normal bill. I see what you guys are saying about this being a commitment now... I didn't think it through all the way which loving sucks because I thought I was doing better with that. I mean it can be a beneficial tool, but if we fall back into our old habits of living paycheck-to-paycheck this could be something that could lead to bankruptcy, terrible credit for another decade, or worse. That cool off period of two weeks would have at least let us evaluate the pros and cons of this instead of jumping head first. I need to try to remember that in the future with important decisions. Budget: OK so I'm having trouble visualizing this new flex category, but here is the new budget and also our spending report as always:  So I put in a savings goal in one of the cells. Right now this is the goal I set at the beginning - $1,500. The flex is then Income - BudgetedSpending - BudgetedBills - SavingsGoal. Basically just the remainder of expected income less expected spending less savings #. The actual number is kind of meaningless. I'll need to keep a mental note of where we actually are. Too many variables. I might want to take a ban in October and just reevaluate how much we should save based on some input with you guys. Since it can be hard to see yourself from an outside perspective - how would everyone here recommend I proceed? I think it was foolish of me to say we would save 40%/30% no matter what. I know for some people that's easy to do (MMM/some of you here), but for me maybe I took on a bigger bite than we could chew - at least month-after-month. I should have set it for just August maybe instead of 6-7 months out. Like so far we have and I know we still can (meet our savings goal) this month, but is this sustainable for us? I don't know. Would really appreciate some opinions here. I wish I had :toxxed: something more important like keeping to these weekly spending reports or something. Edit: And I'm not trying to get out of challenging ourselves. I simply want to ensure we're somewhere between saving $100/mo and $4000.00/mo every month until we find a comfortable level and can try to gradually save more. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 17:19
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Did I read your budget right in that you have spent over $420 dollars on bullshit in the past 8 days? Are you just going to gloss over that one and go on about next month?
Veskit fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 17:35
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Veskit posted:Did I read your budget right in that you have spent over $420 dollars on bullshit in the past 8 days? Are you just going to gloss over that one and go on about next month? Well the $ amount is slightly off - we need to take back the Chromecast which was about $40.00 after tax, since we decided to go with something else. The actual number is a little bit double dipped at least until I can remember to take that back. But no I'm not trying to gloss over it. What I think happens is like last month and July - we spent everything up front, and then we saved and saved and saved with little spending. Then we hit the beginning of the next month and it's like the faucet opens. We get a little bit of spending cash available and we've been austere on spending for two+ weeks so we go a little crazy.
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Sep 8, 2014 17:49
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I like the way you're thinking about behaviors instead of goals. Yes, toxx the weekly spending reports or something if you feel you have to toxx something. That original toxx was kind of vague and dumb and probably another example of you getting all full of enthusiasm un-damped by reality. My opinion, do what's realistic because that is what is sustainable. If that means a ban, take the  out of your blow budget and re-reg right away so we can continue to verbally abuse you. I give you permission to put that on your new credit card  So knowing what you know now, what do you think is a realistic target for September? For October? $100 is NOT enough, try again. Everything has changed in your life just recently, it's fine to go month to month on some of these goals while you figure it out and get calibrated. If anybody even thinks you are trying to weasel out of good financial behavior this thread will call you on the carpet double-quick. Looks to me like everything is in budget except restaurant, right? If you're 40% over the month's restaurant budget in the first week - is this something you need to re-evaluate, either the budget or the behavior? By the way that percentage column looks utterly useless. What's going on there? Knyteguy posted:What I think happens is like last month and July - we spent everything up front, and then we saved and saved and saved with little spending. Then we hit the beginning of the next month and it's like the faucet opens. We get a little bit of spending cash available and we've been austere on spending for two+ weeks so we go a little crazy. This makes perfect sense. On the one hand it's great that you are starting to keep this behavior within your budget. On the other hand it's a habit that easily leads you back to where you were before, spending money as soon as you get it with no long-term thinking. So something to think about - how to set yourself up so the last 2 weeks of the month aren't so austere? But... staying within the budget of course. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 17:52
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Knyteguy posted:Well the $ amount is slightly off - we need to take back the Chromecast which was about $40.00 after tax, since we decided to go with something else. The actual number is a little bit double dipped at least until I can remember to take that back. No loving way I call shenanigans especially since you talked about how buying the kindle so early caused you the headache of going over the blow budget later when something came up. It especially doesn't add up when you bring into account blowing the restaurant budget so hard so fast. Spending 380 dollars on discretionary spending doesn't add up right. How exactly did you plop down that much money so quickly....
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Sep 8, 2014 18:01
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Knyteguy posted:But no I'm not trying to gloss over it. What I think happens is like last month and July - we spent everything up front, and then we saved and saved and saved with little spending. Then we hit the beginning of the next month and it's like the faucet opens. We get a little bit of spending cash available and we've been austere on spending for two+ weeks so we go a little crazy. This is what I was trying to get at way back - it seems like you want to budget month-to-month based on what you think your revenue and expenses will be. By doing that you had a great August by covering a lot of big expenses in July and holding off some spending until September. It's ultimately a lie and will make you feel like you aren't making progress because any gains in August will be wiped out by over-spending in September. Veskit is right - it's shenanigans to the extent that you are just juggling numbers. I think this is why you have problems with ideas like carrying over blow money - it's because that number is fixed. It's $100/mo (or $200/mo, or whatever) and that's it. I recall you wanted to up blow money for September and everyone freaking out - this is why. You don't set the numbers month to month and adjust your savings goal, you set the savings goal and decide if you want to blow all your blow in one month or save some of it to buy something more expensive the following month. I honestly think that this will become a lot easier when you approach it this way - the rewards of meeting your budget month-to-month will be far more satisfying than just having one great month that gets chewed up in subsequent months. I'm sure it's been said before ITT but it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. You have to pace yourself if you want to see a long-term payout. I still think you can do it - over the course of the thread your mentality has changed for the better. I just think you still have a ways to go before you hit true success. The problem is that it will take months to realize that success, which is why it's hard for someone who wants to turn things around all at once to appreciate very small incremental positive changes. But that is the only way it's going to work. For now it's good you've recognized the urge to spend after weeks of austerity - if you can beat back that instinct you'll be well on your way to long-term success. It will start with another 3 weeks of austerity to make up for your back-to-school spend-a-thon.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:46
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Knyteguy posted:Then we hit the beginning of the next month and it's like the faucet opens. We get a little bit of spending cash available and we've been austere on spending for two+ weeks so we go a little crazy. This is exactly the wrong thing to do, and you know that.  
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Sep 8, 2014 19:21
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No, don't use the credit card to pay off any loan, especially loans that have lower interest rates. There should be a $0 balance on the credit card at the end of every pay period. Never ever let any interest accrue there. Ever ever ever ever.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:27
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Knyteguy posted:Since it can be hard to see yourself from an outside perspective - how would everyone here recommend I proceed? I think it was foolish of me to say we would save 40%/30% no matter what. I know for some people that's easy to do (MMM/some of you here), but for me maybe I took on a bigger bite than we could chew - at least month-after-month. I should have set it for just August maybe instead of 6-7 months out. Here's what I recommend: 1. Set a minimum monthly savings goal that you withdraw at the beginning of the month. Let's say $500. This is a bill you have to pay, no different than your rent. 2. Budget all your fixed expenses (rent, bills, typical groceries/gas/pets/etc.), give each of you some mad money, the rest is your Flex money. This is your one number you should have in your head throughout the month, and be subtracting from as stuff comes up. Cat needs to go to the vet, wife needs new shoes, you decide to get beers with your coworkers, groceries end up overbudget for the month, it all comes out of Flex. 3. Do not buy yourself anything out of the Flex category at the beginning of the month! Ever. No Kindles, no nothing. You don't actually have any money until the month is over. 4. The end of the month is when you look at what is left and decide what if anything you're going to spend on yourselves and what you're going to save. Ideally, you'd have at least that $1000 sitting there waiting for you to stick in your savings account to hit your $1500 monthly goal. Or maybe you'll decide to only stick $800 in there and buy yourselves a present / hold back $200 to spend on an upcoming expense, e.g. football. At that point, you're making a conscious choice to prioritize a purchase over savings rather than closing your eyes and hoping it all works out by month's end. Note that if every single month you have nothing left at the end, then you seriously need to reevaluate your spending. IMO, your primary goals should be (a) maintaining a general awareness of your spending throughout the month and adjusting your spending decisions based on where you're at and (b) setting up a sustainable budget that you can live on long term. To me, how much you save in the next few months is secondary: from the diet analogy, I'd rather you lost two pounds a month if it meant you could keep doing it for years vs. starving yourself down ten pounds and then giving up and gaining it all back.
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Sep 8, 2014 21:51
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slap me silly posted:I like the way you're thinking about behaviors instead of goals. Yes, toxx the weekly spending reports or something if you feel you have to toxx something. That original toxx was kind of vague and dumb and probably another example of you getting all full of enthusiasm un-damped by reality. My opinion, do what's realistic because that is what is sustainable. If that means a ban, take the Thanks. You're right the toxx was dumb and vague. Hah and yes I'll re-reg. Everything (discretionary) so far is in budget except restaurant yes. Restaurants are kind of our bane. I don't know if restaurants are more expensive here or what, but it usually costs us like $40-$50 for a sit down, and maybe $15-$20 for fast food. Go out 3 times and we've blown the budget. I think it's going to take both behavioral modifications and budget modifications here. I think maybe a realistic goal for restaurants would be maybe... $200. $200 if we partition weekly for maybe 1 sit down restaurant or 2 fast food meals a week. Do never eat out. Percentage is how close is actual spending to budgeted spending, I think. Veskit posted:No loving way I call shenanigans especially since you talked about how buying the kindle so early caused you the headache of going over the blow budget later when something came up. It especially doesn't add up when you bring into account blowing the restaurant budget so hard so fast. Spending 380 dollars on discretionary spending doesn't add up right. Wasn't that hard really... Took my sister out for dinner because some crazy family poo poo was going on and she's broke Took my mom out for drinks because some crazy family poo poo was going on and she's broke Went out to dinner and got a couple drinks on Friday because woo weekend Got a few beers for football Went over to a friend's place as well and that cost a little. Then we went out of town so we had fast food on the way out (had a frozen pizza after the trip back at least). Add on the wireless HDMI and it didn't take much unfortunately. Aagar posted:This is what I was trying to get at way back - it seems like you want to budget month-to-month based on what you think your revenue and expenses will be. By doing that you had a great August by covering a lot of big expenses in July and holding off some spending until September. It's ultimately a lie and will make you feel like you aren't making progress because any gains in August will be wiped out by over-spending in September. Yes I agree on the 'true success' thing. I think we've achieved mild success which is great, but yea we're not there yet. If I get cocky I need to remember that. I'm really not trying to manipulate numbers, even if I do 'borrow' from other categories. It's just more of us using available capital to hit our savings goals. We did save about $300 more than expected last month though so I don't think that's too much of a problem. Definitely not looking forward to another month of sitting around, but yea that's what it is going to take I think. Savings goals: Agreed on the setting the savings goal at first. I'm trying to think of a way to do this with an additional savings account so we can perhaps "pay ourselves first", but our checking account interest is so appealing at 2.5%. I guess we could open a high yield savings, but I know wires can take a couple of days to go through so I would hate to keep our emergency stash in there. Inverse Icarus posted:This is exactly the wrong thing to do, and you know that. I know. It feels like knowing is only half the battle. We've been making leaps and bounds, but I think I'm finding it hard to get over the 'X category is burning a hole in my pocket'. At least it's not the whole bank account balance that makes me feel that way anymore. Uncle Jam posted:No, don't use the credit card to pay off any loan, especially loans that have lower interest rates. Er yea I guess I made that a little unclear: we definitely won't leave a balance on it. Going to setup autopay. Also cool (probably old) tip for anyone trying to save money on cable: Install XBMC.org, and then there are tons of first and third party addons that do lots after install. Have a laptop or desktop HDMI into your TV, bluetooth up a PS3/xbox/whatever controller to your computer, and voila great experience on your television screen. Probably the neatest media experience I've ever found on the internet outside of Netflix, at least for us. Have to find the right addons though. Fake edit: Giraffe I typed this whole thing up and I saw you posted while I was previewing it. It looks like there is some great info but this post is already too long. Would like to give my input there as soon as I can. Real edit: re-added quote text. Too hard to tell what the hell I'm rambling about without it
Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 22:01
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Yeah, eating out is loving expensive even when you're doing it on the cheap.Knyteguy posted:I'm trying to think of a way to do this with an additional savings account so we can perhaps "pay ourselves first", but our checking account interest is so appealing at 2.5%.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:08
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You made it all of one month without spending money like a total dope. Have you thought about doing the cash in envelopes thing? You clearly need to come up with some way of 'hiding' money you've saved because your habits seem to have reverted quite a bit since managing to control yourself for all of 30 days.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:47
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So how do you teach someone impulse control and not budgeting exactly? It's now starting to feel like Knyte is entering the dark territory of using his budget to justify his bad spending. Don't all the BFC superstars have a phase where they begin learning to budget, and immediately after the budgeting part all clicks they figure out how to categorize and justify dumb spending with numbers? God drat I'm so baffled by all this. Now that I think about it at the end of the day wouldn't it have just been cheaper to buy the NFL package...
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Sep 8, 2014 23:06
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I think it's because the spending is a bit of an addiction for a lot of the folks that post these threads.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:28
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Knyteguy posted:Impulse things in mind for the future: Knyteguy posted:I talked to my wife about the wireless HDMI thing yesterday. We're thinking of getting some little garden hooks and running the cord along the wall when we want to use it. We were kind of talking about if we would regret this purchase in the future, or not. Not sure what we're going to do yet, but I think it's a positive step that we discussed it. Knyteguy posted:Then we went out of town so we had fast food on the way out (had a frozen pizza after the trip back at least). Add on the wireless HDMI and it didn't take much unfortunately. We went from it being a future thing, to trying to work around it to impulse buying it, in a total of 4 days (first post was was on sept 4th). One of the things i used to do was find little problems I needed to buy toys/equipment/etc for. Almost every single time it ended up being worse than just doing the simple think, and I spent money on it so it become even more frustrating. I'm guessing this thing has a decent delay or interference that will cause you issues. If not, that's great as well, but it seems like you're searching for the holy grail. My advice again, write these items down, and give yourself some arbitrary limit before you can buy them. Make it two weeks, a month whatever. This helps in two ways, if something else comes up that is more important, you can choose to spend money on that instead of not being able to do it. And if you're fine waiting a bit, you can watch for sales and deals or maybe something will happen where that isn't even a huge deal anymore. Basically, take some deep breaths, and slow down, it's not a race.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:34
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I think the suggestions of "get a cheap hobby" are spot on. Right now the hobby/stress relief is all tied up in spending money. If there was something else to redirect to, it would be way easier to resist temptation. Got any old video games you need to replay? Or some f2p game (that you don't sign up your credit card for)? How about just getting a cheap old drum pad and learning some snare rudiments? Believe me, that will keep you occupied for a while, no matter how good you are at drumset. Every time you think, "Oh man, I really need to buy this thing. I NEED it," go play video games or read or drum or whatever. Do that for the week or however long your cool down period is. See if that helps.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:58
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slap me silly posted:Yeah, eating out is loving expensive even when you're doing it on the cheap. Good points. I will look into perhaps a Schwab checking account or something instead of a savings account, and we'll ice the card or put it with the credit card. This will be our emergency fund and just our general savings. Anyone have other checking accounts I should look into beyond Schwab? I don't even know if I qualify there I just recall looking into it at some point in the past. But I think I'll wait a week or two before committing to anything either way. For that matter should we just pay all bills that we can at the beginning of the month like Old Fart does? Seems that it might help us get a clearer idea of where we stand for discretionary/flex, especially with our savings out of our main account. n8r posted:You made it all of one month without spending money like a total dope. I'm really uncomfortable having envelopes full of money around the house. It's seriously a concern of mine that someone will break into our apartment. Veskit posted:So how do you teach someone impulse control and not budgeting exactly? It's now starting to feel like Knyte is entering the dark territory of using his budget to justify his bad spending. Don't all the BFC superstars have a phase where they begin learning to budget, and immediately after the budgeting part all clicks they figure out how to categorize and justify dumb spending with numbers? God drat I'm so baffled by all this. Definitely would like to hear more about the top part. NFL was $108 but I would have had to watch on PC which I hate doing at home. The non-pc version was $200 or $230 (Sunday Ticket). We chose the middle option at $128.00. MrEnigma: I'm been thinking of creating a little website for this, and it's been at the forefront of my mind for awhile now. Maybe I'll bust out a little weekend project and make this website this month. I have a couple other good financial tools I wrote as well that I can add on there. HDMI streaming video lag is so small I can't see it. Great for a little gaming (more info below). With the way the apartment layout is though it would have been totally screwed up to run an HDMI cable... it was the best solution I could come up with. Hawkgirl posted:I think the suggestions of "get a cheap hobby" are spot on. Right now the hobby/stress relief is all tied up in spending money. If there was something else to redirect to, it would be way easier to resist temptation. Got any old video games you need to replay? Or some f2p game (that you don't sign up your credit card for)? How about just getting a cheap old drum pad and learning some snare rudiments? Believe me, that will keep you occupied for a while, no matter how good you are at drumset. Every time you think, "Oh man, I really need to buy this thing. I NEED it," go play video games or read or drum or whatever. Do that for the week or however long your cool down period is. See if that helps. One of the really cool things that this wireless HDMI thing did for us was emulation (XMBC addon). And it's all on the bigscreen and multiplayer so wife and friends can play too. Drum pad would be fun and yea I could use some rudiment work. I haven't done that in years. I do spend a few hours a week playing a f2p (TF2) right now but I very rarely spend money on it. Will try substituting a hobby though when I get some dumb urge. Thanks.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:57
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Knyteguy posted:We might get a storage unit 
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Sep 9, 2014 01:00
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Meh I took it out. If you saw the place though you may agree. It doesn't matter because even though I have the urge to do so, we're not going to. As much as we dislike it my wife and I decided to stick with what we've got.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:03
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I can't believe you are posting during the lions game. E: 97.1 the ticket works great on maybe a two minute delay. spwrozek fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 01:03
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spwrozek posted:I can't believe you are posting during the lions game. I'm at work! I came in 10 minutes late so I'm staying 10 minutes late. Plus I have a 40 minute drive home. loving PST->EST difference.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:04
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Knyteguy posted:I'm at work! I came in 10 minutes late so I'm staying 10 minutes late. Plus I have a 40 minute drive home. loving PST->EST difference. Live feed on the radio
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Sep 9, 2014 01:11
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Knyteguy posted:Restaurants are kind of our bane. I don't know if restaurants are more expensive here or what, but it usually costs us like $40-$50 for a sit down, and maybe $15-$20 for fast food. Go out 3 times and we've blown the budget. I think it's going to take both behavioral modifications and budget modifications here. When we had the twins, the first thing to go was eating out. We had fallen into the same habit - delivery pizza once a week ($20), eating out ($60-80 depending on drinks/desert) 2-3 times a month... it adds up fast. Now we get pizza maybe once a month and don't eat out. Here's what I would suggest - a challenge if you will - if you think you could realistically pull it off. Instead of upping the budget to $200, keep it at $100 and then don't eat out at all for 5 months. Put the $100/month in a jar. Then, at the end of 5 months, take the $500 in your hand and then go out for dinner. While your eating it hold the money in your hand and while you chew decide what you enjoy more: the $500 or the food. It's drastic, but here's what I realized after a few months of not eating out and budgeting - it's not worth it. You are paying a premium to have food made and served to you that you could (likely easily) make yourself. And what you make would be far healthier than fast food. The reason why it doesn't seem ludicrous is that it's habit. Take a long break from eating out and you'll feel sick paying $50 for a couple of so-so entrees. What I like about the challenge is that it got me into the mindset of thinking about what everything costs on a yearly basis. Hey, we only spend $200/mo on eating out. Well, that's $2,400 a year. $2,400! I bet you could think of a lot of fun things you could buy/do for $2,400 that you are foregoing because you wanted to eat some fast food or a steak at the Keg. Think about what you are saving now on cigarettes. What's a pack in the US now? $5? $6? A pack every other day would run you about $1,000/year. Ditto booze (the other thing I gave up after the twins) - I bought a case of beer for my dad and his buddy who were helping me build a shed and was floored that it was $40 (however the time and labor savings more than compensated). Again, something I never thought about until I had gone months without buying it. The long, belabored point I'm making here comes back to opportunity cost - what you spend now limits what you can buy later. I thinking looking ahead at the yearly cost of things helps cement the idea that the money is worth more than the happiness derived from eating out/alcohol/etc. What budgeting does is help to give you the whole picture and realize the value of various things/categories (and by contrast the lack of value of other things). quote:Wasn't that hard really... This comes back to behaviors and spending habits. You could have just as easily done this: Had my sister over for dinner because some crazy family poo poo was going on and she's broke Had my mom over for a beer because some crazy family poo poo was going on and she's broke (still would have cost you but less than drinks at a bar) BBQed a couple of steaks and had a couple of beers on Friday because woo weekend Had a few beer for football Packed a picnic for a bite to eat/break on the long drive to another city That would have saved you a lot of the $380. Family poo poo sucks, but not meeting your savings goals sucks worse. Also, what's the point in picking up the tab for family members when you are not much better off than they are? Sure you have money in the bank, but you also have over $35K in debt. IIRC if your vehicle gets smoked your on the hook for the difference in the current value and what you owe on the loan. And you still need to reach your savings goals for when the baby comes. I'm not advocating being a dick to your family, but it's not out of line to say money is tight while you save for the baby and you'd rather cook for them/exchange cards for Christmas as opposed to spending tons on gifts/etc. Another trick that helped me (I may have posted it before but meh) - I changed my way of thinking to consider everyone outside my door as wanting to take my money. So instead of "man I'd like some beer" it's "the guy at the Beer Store wants to take my $40." It seems odd, but it makes me think again about what it is I want to buy, forcing me to consider if it's really worth $40. It's very easy to just buy something and because it's under $100 so it's not that much money. But (as we've seen time and again) it adds up. So it becomes beneficial to start begrudging even $20, and to again think in yearly terms (I could spend $20/week on beer or have $1,040 at the end of the year). Added since refreshing Not literal envelopes full of cash on your dining room table - sheesh. You don't have innocuous containers where you could stuff money? Also, you don't have to do it for every category - you can accept that rent/utilities/etc. are automated payments which you've budgeted for. You really just need to have cash for discretionary spending divvied up into the various categories. I do this personally for vacation, small house repair and blow. I stick $100/mo into a super secret hiding place for small house stuff. When the washer broke down I reached in, pulled out $1500 and took what I needed for a new washer. Because it was already planned for and stashed away I didn't have to cut into anything in order to get the washer. Ditto vacations ($50/mo) - whatever is stuffed away is whatever we can afford for a vacation - if we want a nicer one we forego and keep stashing away until we get there. But usually it's just an overnight getaway to see a show in the city and is covered by the $600/year saved up. Edit: Today is my birthday. Instead of going out for dinner I BBQed a couple of nice, big steaks from CostCo and had them with some potatoes and veggies, and a nice cupcake with a candle in it for dessert. Living the BFC dream (well sort of - I guess I could have eaten a cup of corn meal in a bowl of hot water but steak tastes better). Fake Edit: God I have to stop writing novels ITT. Aagar fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 01:18
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Aagar posted:Fake Edit: God I have to stop writing novels ITT. This was a great post! Thanks for writing it.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:03
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Great game by the lie downs. 1-0 so far so good. And stop spending so much money dude.
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Sep 9, 2014 03:17
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Knyteguy posted:Credit Card: This is seriously the theme of your entire thread. Why did you buy the wireless HDMI? What happened to not buying it? You seemed so sure that you weren't going to buy it. What are you going to do for the next three weeks? Maybe you really should try the weekly accrual system for your budget except that you already set yourself up for failure this month AND next month, because you're not going to be able to handle not spending any money for the next three weeks. WHAT HAPPENED TO A COOL-OFF PERIOD FOR THE WIRELESS HDMI? Also, Nocheez's post is great and you should print it out and stick it in your pocket and look at it every time you want to spend money on something. Hell, I mentioned wanting to eat an expensive steak a while back and my friend, who likes to cook, basically said he'd make me one instead if I brought him the steak, and me and him and a couple other friends did that just last weekend and played some games together afterwards and honestly, it was a way better experience than a 60-dollar steak at a fancy steakhouse would have been. (It goes without saying that this would not have been possible if the time between "I want to eat a good steak" and "I blew a bunch of money on eating a good steak" was only four days.) We don't want you to be unhappy and I know sometimes you feel like we're just being badguys always getting on your case and telling you not to buy things that you think you need. But what we're trying to get you to realize is that you don't need those things to be happy and you absolutely do need to spend less. Also re: cash in envelopes -- if you're super afraid of it (when was the last time your house got broken into), just put paper in there and write how much cash it represents on it, and only take cash out from the bank if you can trade it for an equivalent amount of paper from the envelope? That might be kind of weird, but if you think it'd work, you can try that. We're all rooting for you, but you really, really need to re-evaluate how you spend your money and the dangerous relationship you have between spending and happiness. EDIT: Here's some possible hobbies, picked from what me and my friends do: TV/movies (from Netflix or Amazon Prime if you already have access to an account) Reading (amazon prime lends you kindle ebooks, libraries, used bookstores/library sales, free books online (there's a lot of stuff out of copyright or otherwise offered for free), webcomics, forums, blogs, etc, etc, etc) Video games (they're really not that expensive if you get them on sale or play free ones or play one game for a long time) Arts/Crafts (drawing, knitting/crochet, writing, programming) Cooking Exercise/working out (gym, running, biking, etc) Colin Mockery fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 03:57
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Knyteguy posted:For that matter should we just pay all bills that we can at the beginning of the month like Old Fart does? Seems that it might help us get a clearer idea of where we stand for discretionary/flex, especially with our savings out of our main account. At the beginning of the month you know exactly how much money you have for the month. VERY FIRST PRIORITY is putting money into your savings goals (for me it's 25% of income! and I round up). Then you assign all your monthly bills and grocery/housewares budget. Then you know what you have for fun money. And with the fun money, all it takes is one tiny month of not spending, and then suddenly every month you have a nice big cushion because it keeps carrying over. Get a month ahead, dude. It will make the rest of it much easier.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:02
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Knyteguy posted:Add on the wireless HDMI and it didn't take much unfortunately. Also, with a lot of the gadget purchases, there are much cheaper alternatives. I once sprung for powerline networking thingies because I JUST HAD TO get a wired connection somewhere and didn't want to have a cable running along the ground. I could have just got a 50 ft cable for like $5 on Amazon. The powerline networking things were like $200 and sucked, and I have not been able to sell them because everyone knows they're garbage. The same exact thing could have been done for your HDMI situation - and you could also run into problems trying to sell them later, like I did with the networking doodads. I know you said the wireless HDMI is pretty good, but these are exactly the kind of devices that have horrible resale value.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:24
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Knyteguy posted:One of the really cool things that this wireless HDMI thing did for us was emulation (XMBC addon). And it's all on the bigscreen and multiplayer so wife and friends can play too. Okay but seriously take your debit/credit card off your Steam account so that you have to enter it EVERY time you want to buy dumb TF2 poo poo. Don't make it easy to go "oh man but it's just $2" (I haven't played TF2 in like 4 years so I have no idea how much anything is, but you get it). Take it from me, I have a Hearthstone addiction and I could probably break it easily if I just took my credit card off my Battle.net account. But it's just so easy to buy another arena ticket...Anyhow I'm biased because I'm a band teacher but the number one thing that calms me is mindless music making. It makes me really want to go "yeah just buy an expensive drumset and you'll be good" but obviously that's lovely advice. But poo poo, I would buy you a drum pad if you would promise to practice your rudiments. Drumming is so soothing (and I am a truly awful drummer). Vic Firth has an amazing amount of free educational content on their site, too. http://www.vicfirth.com/education/rudiments.php
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Sep 9, 2014 05:44
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Hey everyone can't address all of the points I'd like to as we're in crunch time at work starting today. Aagar: Thanks a lot for that post. My wife is all caught up as well and we've discussed some of the points that you've made. I like the idea of stashing eating out money, as like you said usually the food is just so-so anyway. I appreciate the help, and I hope some others can get some value from it as well. spwrozek: Woot yea good start. Hopefully Caldwell and the new defensive coordinator can get these guys to stop with the penalties and turnovers. We'll be pretty scary. Horking: The wireless HDMI was just something that was practical for our situation. We can't hang stuff on the ceiling because of asbestos, and there was about 10 feet of open space from door jams alone. I think in this particular case not waiting was OK. I'm not going to regret this purchase because of what it enables for us. I do like the idea of printing Aagar's post; I'll do that if I get access to a printer. Agreed that there is a sort of spending:happiness ratio here. Probably just instant gratification. I will try replacing a hobby in its place if I start to feel like that. Old Fart: We should be a little over a month ahead right now, I think. Even after bills. My only concern is spending so much money right at the front, and then coming to need it when we could have just been late on a bill or something. We're talking emergency scenario but still. My Rhythmic Crotch: Yea the tech stuff is hard for me. I have been doing things like staying out of the "Games" subforum so that I'm not tempted by that stuff, as well as not reading (all of the) Amazon emails, Newegg emails, etc. I used to go into Best Buy 2-3+ times a week just to see if there was anything I wanted to buy  . Really wish we had a permanent place to stay; I would just run cables through the walls.Hawkgirl: Hah that's a very gracious offer, thanks a lot for that. I think I can find a little cash to pick up a practice pad though. Our local music store generally has a few beat up ones like you were saying. I definitely will start practicing using the Vic Firth videos and such. Great idea, thanks. I'll definitely consider removing the CC info from Steam too. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 16:34
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Knyteguy posted:I do like the idea of printing Aagar's post; I'll do that if I get access to a printer. Get a pen and some paper and copy it out like Monks copied the bible. It will give you a deeper appreciation for the material if you have to transcribe it versus just reading it.
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Sep 9, 2014 16:45
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