Uncle Jam posted:

What I'm saying is there is a lot more than college. There are a lot of big expenses for kids entering adulthood, you should read LoveMeDead's thread which is a better demo of that than I could ever explain. Also, everything you're experiencing right now.

April posted:

Ordinarily, I would agree, but we are talking about someone who is down to his last surviving pair of pants. I think that learning to budget effectively is far more important right now, not to mention, possibly something better than a college education to give to his children.

Knyteguy posted:

Here you big jerks I was having trouble sleeping with this in the air, so budget draft #2.

n8r posted:

I think this budget looks fine with a few conditions. Can you stick to this budget month after month? At least until the kid is born?

I think if you can stick to this budget you'll be setting yourself up for success. If you want something like a PS4 under-spend your discretionary budget for a few months until you've saved up enough to pay for it. I'd encourage you consider setting up a 'discretionary savings' line item (and probably even a real savings account). Treat it just like another savings account that comes out at the beginning of the month. Instead of having $450 budgeted for discretionary you toss $100 in your 'discretionary savings' and you only spend $350. After four months or whatever you've now got $400 built up to spend on fuckall if you feel like it. Oh, but if you bust your discretionary budget, you have to pull money from that discretionary savings first.

April:
You've got a lot of thoughts going on in that most recent post. I don't think it's really fair to toss out that many thoughts all at once without much given to the priorities that Knyte should be focusing on.

The last question I have on this is why is your wife only making $400 a month? If this was explained it was a long time ago. Why is it that she can't contribute more at least until she's very pregnant. Even if she just doubled her income every little bit would help.

April posted:

Ok - there's a lot of budgeting/tweaking talk in here, but I want to go back to this:

Personally, I think it might be good for Knyte to keep his budget broken down. He still hasn't figured out yet that Christmas comes periodically, and it might be good to plan for that, or that clothes don't last forever, or that cars need oil changes and new brakes every so often. Knyte, I think you're going in the right direction, but you need to go further. It's great to plan to spend the minimum on everything, and put everything into savings but it's also unsustainable if you have to spend your savings every month because you didn't remember that birthdays come every year.

I guess what I'm taking forever to say is: what is the purpose of your savings? DFA and I have both short-term (see above) savings, and long-term (Roth IRA, 401k, some CD's we can cash out in a crisis that we don't touch, some other stocks & mutual funds).

So - are your savings short-term (something you are planning to spend for a specific purpose in the next few months) or are they long-term (we are going to save up for a house down payment, a solid 10k emergency fund that we'll never touch, etc.)?

You need to find a balance between the two. Otherwise you're going to keep putting X into savings for one of your major goals then taking out Y because you didn't plan for the stuff that will happen every month or every few months, and getting frustrated and saying "this isn't working!" because you aren't saving as much as you thought you would at the beginning of the month.

Bugamol posted:

I think Knyteguy should spend his entire savings on gift cards. Now stay with me here. That way going forward he can be on budget because anytime he wants to spend money he'll just use the gift cards he bought in a previous month and it won't count.

As stupid as that sounds it's basically what you're doing buy going WAY OVER BUDGET in one month just so you can STAY IN BUDGET the next month. Spending $700 ($400 above budget assuming it was $300) on groceries in June so you can spend $100 ($200 below budget assuming it was $300) in July still makes your total YTD over budget.

You need to set a budget, and stick to it, even if that means making hard decisions like telling your friends/parents/grandparents that you can't go out to dinner for their birthday. This is probably the hardest part about budgeting because most people don't want to give off the perception that they are "cheap".

As always good luck. Hopefully someday it will really click. I can't remember where you said you live, but if you think $300 is enough money to take a vacation to the bay area, with your spending tendencies, .

n8r posted:

I think this budget looks fine with a few conditions. Can you stick to this budget month after month? At least until the kid is born?

I think if you can stick to this budget you'll be setting yourself up for success. If you want something like a PS4 under-spend your discretionary budget for a few months until you've saved up enough to pay for it. I'd encourage you consider setting up a 'discretionary savings' line item (and probably even a real savings account). Treat it just like another savings account that comes out at the beginning of the month. Instead of having $450 budgeted for discretionary you toss $100 in your 'discretionary savings' and you only spend $350. After four months or whatever you've now got $400 built up to spend on fuckall if you feel like it. Oh, but if you bust your discretionary budget, you have to pull money from that discretionary savings first.

April:
You've got a lot of thoughts going on in that most recent post. I don't think it's really fair to toss out that many thoughts all at once without much given to the priorities that Knyte should be focusing on.

The last question I have on this is why is your wife only making $400 a month? If this was explained it was a long time ago. Why is it that she can't contribute more at least until she's very pregnant. Even if she just doubled her income every little bit would help.

Knyteguy posted:

I try not to make promises I may not be able to keep, but I'll say I'll do my best with this budget for the months going forward. I think we've learned some really great strategies and gotten some great insights, and we just need to remember to stay on track. Again I really think that having our discretionary as one big category will help. Plus my own words said it well "It's not just the two of us anymore, so we need to give it 100%."

I think having a bunch of stuff in discretionary will help us stick to budget, because then it's not just "fun money" it's actually something that needs to cover everything else.

The plan is to go even more austere in 3 months though, as we'll be budgeting without my wife's income, and with a higher rent expense. It will let us really evaluate what it would be like if my wife was a stay at home mom, and in a nicer place.


ExtrudeAlongCurve: Congrats to you too! We're going to find out the gender in... 3 hours. I felt the kid kick for the first time last night gently caress.

Edit: clarification

Knyteguy posted:

Here you big jerks I was having trouble sleeping with this in the air, so budget draft #2.

April posted:

The problem with one big discretionary fund is that you haven't shown yet that you can prioritize effectively. I can very easily see you saying "We'll put this much back for clothes, holidays, car repairs, pet meds, etc., and just lump it all into discretionary", and then in a couple of months saying "Ok, I have two pairs of pants that fit and a chunk in discretionary, time to buy the PS4!"

This is where the multiple savings accounts helps. I KNOW that the kids are going to need clothes, and if I didn't have it split out, I could've accidentally spent all the money for school clothes on fixing the shower this past summer.

What you really, really, really need to do is go back through the thread and look at all the times you went over budget, and why, and unless it's something idiotic (hundreds of dollars in restaurants), start planning to do it again. Only this time, you have some money set aside for that issue. I mean, if you work in any kind of professional environment, you need clothes that fit decently, aren't stained or torn, and enough of them that you aren't the guy wearing the same pair of pants 3x a week. Ditto on haircuts for both of you. You need reliable transportation. And so on.

It's far better to plan to get another pair of pants or a shirt every couple of paychecks, and accept it as necessary for a while, than to constantly beat yourself up over going over budget. And I understand you're going to try to do it on a reduced budget (I'm the one that suggested it!) but the hard truth of life is that just because you have less money doesn't mean your needs disappear. I mean, if you had started putting away just, say, $25-30/month for Christmas in January, how much nicer and less stressful would your holiday be?

I know it seems like so much more of a hassle. I maintain a total of about 20 savings accounts (capitalone360, holla!), but it makes my life SO MUCH BETTER when I'm able to say, hey, the little one wore holes in her shoes, or the big kid needs new glasses, or my brake pads are going bad, or the clothes washer died, but look! here's the cash for it!

AbsenceVsThinAir posted:

Finally, you should split your discretionary budget in half for you and your wife. You are equal partners, and your spending shouldn't be eating up her fun money.

moana posted:

You asked not too long ago what people's budget would look like if they were in your shoes. Okay, so let me put myself in your shoes. I have debt riding at 10%, I'm super stressed on that plus saving for my upcoming kid. And EMERGENCY I need new pants and shoes!!! (this should not be an emergency but w/e). This is what I do in order of steps:
1. I ask my sister or friends if they want to do a clothes swap.
2. I bring my less practical clothes to a consignment store, get credit, buy pants with my credit.
3. Goodwill/Savers shopping trip on a 50% day off to get $5 pants and shoes.

There is no way in hell, no way at all, that I would ever spend "a couple hundred dollars" on one pair of pants and a couple pairs of shoes. I don't do that now with a six-figure income. I definitely wouldn't do it with debt and a baby on the way. This is part of your emergency thing where you freak out and overspend. You don't HAVE to overspend. You are justifying it as an emergency but you have to learn better ways to deal with an emergency than spending a shitton of money.

April posted:

Basically - Knyte needs to figure out what he is going to NEED (clothing, car repairs, etc.) and plan for that, and keep it separate from "discretionary", which is just for other unnecessary expenses. The fact that he is planning to buy a PS4 when he and his wife need clothes and shoes is very, very bad.

Knyteguy posted:

Clothes were $150 included 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts. All of it was on a good sale. I'm loving tired of buying cheap clothes and them tearing. The button popping crap is my fault but our clothes expenditure is higher than it should be this year because we always buy the cheapest poo poo. I rectified that situation.

Knyteguy posted:

Clothes were $150 included 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts.

Knyteguy posted:

What's the point in focusing on what I had to buy, instead of focusing on how to prepare for the same situation next time?

Knyteguy posted:

Also I've been trying to freelance web design/program a little to help pay for this PS4. I should have mentioned that. Just leads so far but I could probably pay for the PS4 completely just doing freelance stuff nights and weekends a few times.

a worthy uhh posted:

You probably could have just sewed the buttons back onto the shorts but that's not 'throw money at it' so it's not a viable solution I guess.

Knyteguy posted:

Look my failure this month was in 1) Not having enough discretionary to cover poo poo that may come up

Knyteguy posted:

OK well I'm going to spend a little time with my wife so we can think it over. I agree it's kind of been a recurring thing that we haven't been prepared for X expense, which I think is kind of a live and learn situation. However I feel like we've lived and learned enough.

I did try to do something like this in the initial budget I posted though. What was I missing with that and what you're saying?


Thanks for the input on the categories. Not sure what I'll do yet.

My wife has this cool problem where she doesn't actually want anything. Like hardly ever. As long as she has Netflix and some small hobby stuff or makeup or something every month she's good. Anytime she says she actually wants something it always takes priority. 95% of the things we buy are shared between us also. We're of course equal partners.


I needed clothes for today. My shorts broke at work.

Clothes were $150 included 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts. All of it was on a good sale. I'm loving tired of buying cheap clothes and them tearing. The button popping crap is my fault but our clothes expenditure is higher than it should be this year because we always buy the cheapest poo poo. I rectified that situation.

The rest of the budget overage has been in my weekly spreadsheet posting, and it's bills and medical stuff.

I already said I'd pay for the clothes out of our discretionary next month, so there it will be right let's drop it. What's the point in focusing on what I had to buy, instead of focusing on how to prepare for the same situation next time? It's not that I think it's some small thing, it's that I already realize we screwed up. Not by buying the clothes no, or even the price of the clothes, but by forcing ourselves to dip into the savings because we didn't plan well enough.

n8r posted:

I already asked but didn't see why is Mrs. Knyte only making $400/moth?

Veskit posted:

Actually you spent too much money. That's why. The way you write it allows you to say "I need to increase my discretionary spending" instead of saying "I need to buy less poo poo"

Veskit posted:

Actually you spent too much money. That's why. The way you write it allows you to say "I need to increase my discretionary spending" instead of saying "I need to buy less poo poo"


Also I vote splitting the spending into hers and yours and if she doesn't go over you can watch how nice it is to have your discretionary spending roll over. Or you can ID her as a person who actually spends money and you're being blind to it.

April posted:

See that's the problem. How many things have you already decided will come out of discretionary? Are you budgeting enough for all of them? How will you know "hey, we have enough fun money in discretionary to go out tonight" if discretionary is also covering necessities?

Also, yeah, split it with your wife. Maybe she just doesn't want things out loud, because she knows that you place a lot more importance on buying poo poo than she does.

SpelledBackwards posted:

He already said his apartment is cramped because there's too much stuff, but he still wants to get more.

Along the thrift shop line but in reverse, are there things you don't use anymore that you can sell via craigslist/ebay/half price books, or pawn shops? A cluttered home in and of itself is a stressor, and spare cash for clothes, books, movies, electronics & computers, car parts, tools, etc. can give you a buffer.

One decluttering rule that some people live by is that to bring a new thing into the house, you have to get rid of one (or two!) to make up for it. Keeps things from spiraling out of control and keeps your ears to the ground on what kind of stuff you actually need.

For a real world example, I just made some money selling video game stuff to rubes on reddit with too much cash and too little sense. I'm also trying to sell a rifle and accessories I no longer care for much anymore that's just taking up room in my safe. There's nothing I immediately want to spend on right now and I've got enough "stuff" taking up space in the house. My savings and retirement goals are on track too, so I'm just sitting on the cash until an unexpected expense or opportunity comes up, or toward birthday and Christmas presents for the family if that doesn't happen.

To bide my time without a shiny new thing to entertain me, I've recently picked back up one of my favorite old PC games again, stated watching Let's Play video series of other favorites on YouTube, picked up a new show on Netflix, and I'm playing soccer 3-4 times per week to keep from devolving into a complete fatass shut-in (used to just be twice a week for the last 3 years, but I doubled it starting last month). The video games and TV are nearly free-to-me, and two nights of the soccer are free pickup games in the park, one night is a team where my company covers our league fees, and only one of them am I actually having to pay for myself. It's worked out pretty well, and it also means I go out and spend less.

Knyteguy posted:

I said it was a spending failure like two sentences later


Not sure will reevalute after work and probably post a third budget draft.


Nice. Going down the park would be nice. I'd like to get into shape a little bit before the baby comes. Exercise is a great stress relief too.

Unfortunately most of the stuff we have is stuff we've always had problems with. It's family heirlooms/important gifts and childhood mementos from both of us. Not stuff that is easily gotten rid of, so no choice but to store it really. A garage would be handy here.

I don't like the idea of splitting discretionary because it's not blow money, it's money we need to mutually make decisions on like that pet trainer. I'll talk to her about her getting some personal spending money too though. I probably wouldn't mind a little myself.


Baby is a boy. Healthy as can be according to the ultrasound.

imabanana posted:

To briefly revisit the ps4:

Did you finish Millionaire Fastlane? Are you still reading Mr. Money Mustache?

Not yet. Still working on the book. Got distracted by some fiction. Need to finish that in the coming weeks. I read MMM about once a month or so still though.

Mentally, if you are like most people, you want treats like a ps4 at least partially because you are under so much stress with your living conditions. Even on the way up I never skimped on rent (within reason, my wife and I paid between $600 and $1600 in rent over the years after we got married, and we mostly enjoyed every place at every price point - this is in Ohio.) I never lived in a situation like you were describing.

Yea we're kind of the opposite in that we've always skimped on rent, including living with my sister and her animals, plus two little girls in a 900sq/ft house. The townhouse wasn't skimping, but that was only hours for a couple months. For anyone else reading this isn't a good idea. You don't have to go all Slo Mo about it, but don't go about it like we did either.

You have too many animals for someone who is in debt and doesn't own a home. Makes it tough to find a decent rental. If at all possible, I would recommend renting houses/duplexes and not apartments, but man as a landlord I'd hear 3 cats and 2 dogs and run away. If the cats are getting in the way of a business then give away the cats. You don't need them.

You are misallocating your stoicism. Be stoic about the ps4, splurge on things like rent. Be stoic on having so many freaking animals.

Spot on I think. I tend to be stoic about some stuff (clothes usually I'll buy at Costco, rent, groceries, little more)

Spend on things that will make your wife happy. Your marriage is an investment, and I don't care how strong your marriage is, a baby will test it. You need to be thinking about making life easier for your family when possible. And making your life easier! You know what would make your life easier? Not a ps4. A shorter commute. There are studies that show commuting is a huge factor in unhappiness.

As tempting as this is (moving would make my wife happy) I think it's important that we feel the pain of this poor decision.

I can't help you on breaking your lease, but I imagine there are resources online that discuss it. If I were dropped into your life I'd break the lease, I'd give away the cats, I'd give away the difficult dog, and I'd find a better place to live. I had a golden retriever when we had our first baby and I worried about how it would work out! The kids climb all over that dog and she doesn't care at all, and I still worried beforehand. You have a dog you describe as difficult and you don't worry about this at all? Toddlers get mauled by dogs all the time.

Dog isn't dangerous, just hyper. She's absolutely loving to people and animals alike. I would consider the cats, but we can't find them homes. Not gonna take them to a shelter.

Finally, reconsider your kids college fund. It's not at all the same as a car. Giving your child the gift of not having crippling student loans is not something to dismiss lightly. I hope you've seriously considered their life and not just glibly thought "hey this'll toughen them up and college isn't for everyone anyway." I disagree with other posters that you can't think about this now - I think you could put a nominal amount away every month and not miss it. $25 a month in a 529 is better than nothing, and you're not going to miss $25.

We're willing to look into again down the road a bit. I didn't think of small contributions

This is all just advice from my experience, and my opinion, I don't pretend that it's universal, just what has worked for me, and I have done well. I hope you find some of it useful.

Thanks for the input.

April posted:

Congratulations on the good baby news! At the end of the day, that's what is most important.

April posted:

I guess my suggestion is, keep an account for "unexpected necessities" such as car repairs, clothing, medicine, etc. Give yourselves both $X in cash every pay or month or whatever for fun stuff like games or meals out (save up for your PS4 out of that). And maybe one more account for planned expenses, like Christmas, or next summer's vacation, or whatever. This way, when you want something you haven't planned & saved for, you can tell immediately if it's something you can do without touching your "real" savings - emergency fund, house down payment, etc.

imabanana posted:

You have too many animals for someone who is in debt and doesn't own a home. Makes it tough to find a decent rental. If at all possible, I would recommend renting houses/duplexes and not apartments, but man as a landlord I'd hear 3 cats and 2 dogs and run away. If the cats are getting in the way of a business then give away the cats. You don't need them.

imabanana posted:

Spend on things that will make your wife happy. Your marriage is an investment, and I don't care how strong your marriage is, a baby will test it. You need to be thinking about making life easier for your family when possible. And making your life easier! You know what would make your life easier? Not a ps4. A shorter commute. There are studies that show commuting is a huge factor in unhappiness.

a worthy uhh posted:

You probably could have just sewed the buttons back onto the shorts but that's not 'throw money at it' so it's not a viable solution I guess.

Death From Above posted:

Personally, while I am not an indoor pets person, I do love animals, but I am a realist. Whether or not you see this, you are feeding 8 mouths right now in a cramped space that you are miserable with. Lighten the load on the pets. Keep one, get rid of 4, if they are ankle biters, get rid of them all. It stings, and if you are an animal person it sucks to think about it, but the reality of the situation is you need to get your life in order first. Look at the position you are in. You have to take care of yourselves first.

Sorry man can't do it with the dogs... I'll talk to my wife about the cats but I don't think she'll like that much.

Strangely enough, I was thinking this exact same thing, why in the hell didn't you [the OP] just sew the button on and call it good? If the pants were worn thin or your "Sunday best" that's one thing, but it takes two minutes to sew a button on, and if it popped due to your gut (I've had this happen to me, so not shaming at all), you can slightly adjust the button position to make the pants a bit larger. Dude, I'm a guy, I do all the sewing around the house here including but not limited to sewing ballet shoes, darning socks (on occasion), I can do zippers, you name it I can sew it. Another option that was mentioned is Goodwill. I LOVE Goodwill. Bought two suits and a slew of clothes from there as well as LP's.

Hah. I think that's cool, but I wouldn't even know where to start to sew on a button. I can probably salvage one pair of pants it's just the button on those, but the other pair was just crappy quality and the pocket was nearly falling of and the button was just the last straw.

Do you use a slow cooker? I can't remember. Go and spend some time on making (the key there is making) prepackaged meals and freeze them. You can make just about everything and freeze it and put it in the slow cooker when ever you want it. You can usually eat off of each meal twice if you make them big enough, or take them for lunch so you are not eating out.

We try to yes. Wife being pregnant has understandable made me rely a little more on frozen waffles and pot pies. I probably need to step up and get the meals going myself though like you mention. Will try that when we do a grocery run again.

I try not to eat out because It's about $10 each time I eat out, and for $10 that's a full meal for the 4 of us.

OP there are a lot of things that you can do to actually tighten your belt. I refuse to get into "Don't spend on groceries or this or that", just know that you have options for just about everything.

Yep you're right. Thanks again.

Veskit posted:

If you look back at my previous how to set up your budget priorities chat, I think going about it the following way would be healthy:

1) Pay off all monthly one time bills that are required including rent, groceries, minimum payments ect
2) Put at least 25% of your total take home into savings
3) Fund your discretionary accounts up to 500 dollars per month
4) Take the left over money and split it between savings and rainy day type poo poo stuff AKA "Unexpected necessities". Though, you'd have to talk over what goes into that account I'm not a fan of blowing out that account for comfy 150 dollar pairs of shoes.

Also you said your business is off budget which is cool, but if you're income from the business is off budget then you need to also keep your expenses away from this budget. Otherwise you'll fuel retarded spending through your current budget.

Old Fart posted:

I'm just curious where in SF you're staying for $75, after fees and taxes.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITZ09CW posted:

Knyteguy posted:

Gonna stay outside the city. Maybe Berkeley gotta check the prices. We're going during the week so rates should be cheaper too. After fees and taxes though? We'll be within $15 of the estimate I think.

Knyteguy posted:

Come to Reno where a suite at a casino is like $50/night a lot of the time. Don't recommend gambling though tourists make it so we don't pay state income tax, which covers a lot of schools, roads, and more.

Old Fart posted:

Rule of thumb is to estimate high. You're already planning to bust your budget and you haven't even checked prices. I just did it. Looks like you have your choice of one or two star motels and hostels in Milpitas and San Pablo. Hope you don't get bedbugs. And I'm with ya, I can stay on the cheap. But this poo poo is super easy to get an exact price right now. Do it.

I've been to Reno. I lived and worked in Las Vegas. I also lived and worked in San Francisco. So I know these towns, too.

Grouco posted:

lol silly plebs planning vacations and booking accommodation months in advance so you can stay in a location that is congenial both to personal finances and all your tourism desires

but don't worry, Knyteguy is REALLY looking forward to driving around California on a budget!!