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posh spaz posted:Yes, you might make errors when you enter your expenses, but that's why Jesus invented account reconciliation. I do agree, in principle, that double-entry bookkeeping is a good idea, but only for people who actually know how that works. In any case, the general principle is "A transaction must have a source and destination". If your software doesn't enforce that, good luck doing reconciliation when it goes bad. Heck, banks and credit cards can be so bad about posting transactions that there are times balances fail to match because items post in the past. Suspicious Lump posted:What the gently caress do you do for a living? You're correct in every instance and you've even predict what I'm planning on doing; remove certain categories that are redundant in my eyes and use it to only track my expenses.  What do I do for a living?  Create walls of text like the OP of this thread until such time as someone gets so pissed off and buys me a new avatar.
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Aug 6, 2014 23:09
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There's been a little personal finance software chat lately, so let me in on that. Does anyone have experience with the newer versions of Quicken and their mobile apps? I've had Quicken 2010 for awhile, and I like it, but I'd like something that synchs to my phone (and ipad). Quicken 2014 looks good, and has an Android app for my phone, but the reviews are almost entirely people complaining it's either totally broken, or just does't synch to the PC data. Anyone have good experiences with it? Is there something else I should look at? I'd prefer to stay away from stuff that auto-inputs transactions.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:24
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I quit drinking July 1st, and it's seemed way easier to keep to my budgets since then. I went through my credit card statement from May, and I found $1237 in charges that were obviously alcohol. That's not including any cash purchases, either. drat.
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Sep 8, 2014 02:52
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Celot posted:I quit drinking July 1st, and it's seemed way easier to keep to my budgets since then. I went through my credit card statement from May, and I found $1237 in charges that were obviously alcohol. That's not including any cash purchases, either. drat. As with anything else, alcohol, drinking, and entertainment should be part of your budget. When you've used up your monthly allocation, you are at the mercy of friends for the rest of the month. It sounds like you'd be better served to have credit/debit card receipts for each such purchase, so you should likely never use cash to buy alcohol; if you must, keep that cash separated so you can reconcile at the end of the evening. If you need help getting rid of friends, I have seem to have a natural talent for that.  Drinking at home, alone is significantly cheaper. If you must keep the friends, try to get them to start drinking in instead of having to pay a 500% markup at a drinking establishment. You'll probably find that the drinks start tasting better as well.
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Sep 8, 2014 13:58
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I'm trying to come up with a minimum amount of salary that I will need to live comfortably. I've never had a set in stone budget. I've also never had to try and negotiate a wage from an employer, so all new experiences up in here. Right now I have a few main categories: Student loans (65k) Apartment (Rent, internet/cable, utilities, furniture?, cell phone) Car (insurance, gas, set aside for repairs) Food (eating in, eating out, alcohol) Taxes (I'm figuring about 20% of my paycheck. My potential salary is somewhere in the 28-40k (?) range.) 401k (As much as is matched, then have to decide on this vs student loans) Entertainment (I don't know what it says about me, but this is a low number. Most entertainment expenses can be safely filed under alcohol) Savings (Excess to here until I build up a decent buffer, then all back to student loans) Right now my estimated dollars needed per year is way lower than I think it should be. Maybe living in the midwest is actually paying off? Am I missing any big expenses? I'm currently living with my parents after leaving grad school in August and have a decent amount of money. I've never really had to have an exact budget and lived pretty spartan during the 2 years of grad school. Coming up with potential expenses that I'm not aware of has been difficult. packsmack fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 18:06
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packsmack posted:Am I missing any big expenses? I'm not seeing anything in your categories for medical. That could be because you're relatively young and healthy so it doesn't pop up much yet on your radar, or because you're still on your parents' insurance, but it's still something you should be keeping in mind for the future even if it's just to know that your emergency fund is shored up for a medical mishap. Medical insurance is also a benefit that can be a big factor for your compensation beyond the basic salary you're given.
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Sep 8, 2014 20:17
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packsmack posted:I'm trying to come up with a minimum amount of salary that I will need to live comfortably. I've never had a set in stone budget. I've also never had to try and negotiate a wage from an employer, so all new experiences up in here. Right now I have a few main categories: Most categories for student loans are pretty flexible to your salary, so do not pass on a long run successful career opportunity because of that. You can cap the monthly cost of your loan and de-facto take another loan every month for the difference in payments automatically. It's not a great way to pay down your loan quickly (though it is if you have numerous loans at different APRs and can focus on one at a time with the difference), but it's a great way to make sure you don't get stuck in a catch-22 of needing a few years of experience to earn the salary you need to handle your loans vs needing an entry level job that can't cover them. For the loans that qualify, I believe it's 15% of your effective income (difference between your income and the poverty line). If you're a more recent grad there's some other options as well that they decided grads from a few years ago don't get because gently caress people who graduated into a recession! apparently, but it's a strictly better payment plan.
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Sep 8, 2014 20:21
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I am swearing off cash back at grocery stores. It seems to disappear in a day no matter how much I took out, and I just sit perplexed in front of the computer screen trying to pin down where that money went to. Given the choice between cash-only and cashless, I think cashless is going to make it easier to stop the drain.
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Sep 13, 2014 20:09
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packsmack posted:I'm trying to come up with a minimum amount of salary that I will need to live comfortably. I've never had a set in stone budget. I've also never had to try and negotiate a wage from an employer, so all new experiences up in here. Right now I have a few main categories: In addition to medical, you need some kind of budget for personal stuff. People always forget to budget for things like haircuts, clothing, a new pair of shoes, stuff like that. Especially starting a career. A career wardrobe can cost a lot of money to put together. I find a generic 10% of my take home pay 'flex' category works for things like that. YMMV with that though.
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Oct 2, 2014 20:23
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If I have 4K in credit card debt and 3K left on my car to pay, my credit limit is 8.5k, and my credit card has 0.5% lower APR than my car, would it be smart to pay the rest of my car off with my credit card and redirect my car payments towards my credit card account?
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Oct 4, 2014 21:46
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Zook posted:If I have 4K in credit card debt and 3K left on my car to pay, my credit limit is 8.5k, and my credit card has 0.5% lower APR than my car, would it be smart to pay the rest of my car off with my credit card and redirect my car payments towards my credit card account? Moreover, if you stuff your car onto your credit card, you won't have much remaining in the way of emergency funds. Emergency car repairs tend to go around $1-2k (transmission replacements, blown radiators, etcetera), and you won't have that buffer on your credit cards if you stuff another $3k on them. And don't even think about using some paper-based "credit card check" or any technique that counts as a cash withdrawal on the card, because they'll charge you a fixed rate right at the start. Unless you can have it entered as a direct "purchase", there's no chance the CC will be worth it.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:19
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How do you budget in using bonuses towards savings goals on Mint? I have a pretty aggressive 2 yr savings goal which I wouldn't meet without bonus income, which is a large % of my yearly income. Right now I have set the total goal amount, set the monthly contribution to what I would expect to require from my normal income to make up the non-bonus contribution to savings, and have it running like that. The only issue is that this makes it look like I won't make the goal, since like 40% of what is going towards the goal (the bonus) isn't included at all. Any ideas? the current situation isn't bad, just not ideal.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:47
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semicolonsrock posted:How do you budget in using bonuses towards savings goals on Mint? I have a pretty aggressive 2 yr savings goal which I wouldn't meet without bonus income, which is a large % of my yearly income. Right now I have set the total goal amount, set the monthly contribution to what I would expect to require from my normal income to make up the non-bonus contribution to savings, and have it running like that. The only issue is that this makes it look like I won't make the goal, since like 40% of what is going towards the goal (the bonus) isn't included at all. Any ideas? the current situation isn't bad, just not ideal.
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Oct 5, 2014 04:02
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So I don't need help creating a budget so much as advice for how much of my income is reasonable to spend on a new car. I've only had a beater that was given to me three years ago, and it may die in the next six months to a year. I make ~50k pre tax and pay 9k a year in rent, and have no debt to my name (college graduate, two years into my career). I want to start aggressively putting money into my 401k/roth but don't want to just buy a total clunker. What is a reasonable amount of money to budget for/how much of a down-payment should I want to put down?
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Oct 6, 2014 03:22
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If you can, 100% down payment.
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Oct 6, 2014 04:24
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I super don't care about cars, but you can buy a "nice" used car for $5-8k. you can buy certified used cars for like $10-13k. I don't see any fiscally sound reason to pay more than that.
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Oct 6, 2014 05:16
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semicolonsrock posted:How do you budget in using bonuses towards savings goals on Mint? I have a pretty aggressive 2 yr savings goal which I wouldn't meet without bonus income, which is a large % of my yearly income. Right now I have set the total goal amount, set the monthly contribution to what I would expect to require from my normal income to make up the non-bonus contribution to savings, and have it running like that. The only issue is that this makes it look like I won't make the goal, since like 40% of what is going towards the goal (the bonus) isn't included at all. Any ideas? the current situation isn't bad, just not ideal. What most will do, and indeed have to do, is what you're doing. You budget your life against your salary and then start making plans for the bonus. When it arrives, you try to actually do what you said you'd do with it, instead of spending it on blow. In any case, you know you're on target to meet the savings goal, and Mint isn't going to report you to your bankers or something for being naughty, so what's the trouble?
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Oct 6, 2014 13:48
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Spikes32 posted:So I don't need help creating a budget so much as advice for how much of my income is reasonable to spend on a new car. I've only had a beater that was given to me three years ago, and it may die in the next six months to a year. I make ~50k pre tax and pay 9k a year in rent, and have no debt to my name (college graduate, two years into my career). I want to start aggressively putting money into my 401k/roth but don't want to just buy a total clunker. What is a reasonable amount of money to budget for/how much of a down-payment should I want to put down? Assuming your credit is very good/excellent money right now is dirt cheap to borrow on vehicles. My credit union is offering 1.65% vehicle loans. This goes against the grain of most BFC advice, but don't put anything down. If you can get a sub 3% interest rate on your car note, your money can be better used other places. Usually I recommend people at least put tax, title, license, and fees down and only finance the actual cost of the car, but money is stupid cheap right now. In another thread I posted this skipdogg posted:Assuming you take a 21K loan @ 1.9% for 60 months, you will pay $1029.90 in interest over the life of that loan Pay an extra 1000 dollars in interest over 5 years, so your money can go work for you in the market and earn you over 10,000 dollars over that same 5 year period. As for how much to spend on a car, I don't know your budget, but I would try to keep my vehicle expenses at 15% or less of my take home pay. Assuming you don't drive much that should be a doable number for a late model car and insurance premiums. Gas and maintenance might stretch that to 20%.
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Oct 6, 2014 18:03
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The difference between buying a car for $21k and buying stocks for $21k is one of those assets rapidly depreciates. It's apples to oranges, and any calculations on cost of ownership for a car need to include depreciation. skipdogg posted:Pay an extra 1000 dollars in interest over 5 years, so your money can go work for you in the market and earn you over 10,000 dollars over that same 5 year period. Over 5 years I'm sure that $21k new car will depreciate by $10k or more, wiping out that difference or putting you negative, on balance.
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Oct 6, 2014 18:11
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posh spaz posted:The difference between buying a car for $21k and buying stocks for $21k is one of those assets rapidly depreciates. It's apples to oranges, and any calculations on cost of ownership for a car need to include depreciation. His comparison is not car vs stocks, it's the following: Starting with $21k (or any other amount of money) are you better off: a) paying cash towards the car b) financing the car at sub 2% + investing the cash in stocks at an expected gain of ~8% At the end you are left with: a) a depreciating car, having paid no interest b) a depreciating car, having paid an extra $1029 in interest while your stock investment earned around $10000 B is the mathematically better option, putting you ahead by almost $9000. This mirrors every normal piece of advice in here: put your money where it earns the most interest (or costs the least). It's pointless to pay off your student loans at 2.5% when you've got CC debt at 15%, for example.
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Oct 6, 2014 18:22
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Cruseydr posted:B is the mathematically better option, putting you ahead by almost $9000. This mirrors every normal piece of advice in here: put your money where it earns the most interest (or costs the least). It's pointless to pay off your student loans at 2.5% when you've got CC debt at 15%, for example. The difference is the interest you pay is guaranteed, the return on your investment is speculative. Don't act like it's a slam dunk no-brainer when there's risk involved. Comparing it to a risk-free investment makes more sense, in which case there's no way the amount you borrow will be less than the risk-free rate of return. In the example of paying off high-interest debt before low-interest debt, that one is actually a no-brainer because they're 100% certain rates, (unless they're variable then they're only certain for short periods.) posh spaz fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 18:30
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posh spaz posted:The difference is the interest you pay is guaranteed, the return on your investment is speculative. Don't act like it's a slam dunk no-brainer when there's risk involved. Comparing it to a risk-free investment makes more sense, in which case there's no way the amount you borrow will be less than the risk-free rate of return.
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Oct 6, 2014 18:47
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Cruseydr posted:His comparison is not car vs stocks, it's the following: This comparison still isn't accurate as in option b you have to pay 22k over 5 years. Either option b needs to pull the payments from the investment lowering returns or option a needs to account for the extra money that you would presumably invest. If we do the second option, option a earns $5.8k off investments, which may still make option b worth it, but the difference is around $3k, not $9k.
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Oct 6, 2014 19:27
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So I ran the numbers in a spreadsheet. Borrow $20k @ 2% Payments = 350/month for 60 months 350 * 60 = $21k Invest $20k @ 8% APR or .6667% per month 20k*.6667 - 350 = x1 x1*.667 - 350 = x2 and so on for 60 periods, you'll pay $1000 in interest on the car loan, earn $5080 in interest from your investments, netting you $4080. If the investments yield 7% you'll be $3294 ahead, at 6% it'd be $2557. If your auto loan is 3% and your market return is 8% you'd be $3418 ahead. All of that is assuming no transaction costs. Realistically, there's enough variability in stocks over a year, you'd need to have enough cash coming in to leave the money invested the whole time, and have enough money to make all the car payments. So it's not really an either/or thing, you'd be buying both the car loan and the stocks, and just hoping the stocks work out 5 years from now.
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Oct 6, 2014 20:00
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Predicating your ability to make your car payment on market performance seems like a spectacularly bad idea. If you can support maxing out an investment while also making a car payment, go for it, but don't invest a big wad and make a monthly withdrawal on it expecting to pay your bills with market gains. If the market takes a sudden downturn (last week is a convenient example), you end up paying a disproportionately large amount of your assets toward your car.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:26
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I could understand getting a car loan to allow you to put more money into a retirement account, as opposed to a lump sum amount toward a car and missing out on puting that money toward maxing 401k/roth/whatever your hearts content. Maybe I could even get behind a very safe bond fund and growing 4% of your investment tops for that. However, speculating a stock fund over a years time while taking a car loan out just because it's cheap APR is some of the worst financial advice I've seen entertained by people here. Don't do it, it's dumb, and should be addressed as a gamble. Better than craps odds probably, but still a gamble.
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Oct 13, 2014 22:52
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Veskit posted:Don't do it, it's dumb, and should be addressed as a gamble. Better than craps odds probably, but still a gamble. It's basically trading on margin, which I would never recommend to anyone asking for financial advice on a comedy forum.
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Oct 14, 2014 00:38
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When you are working on paying down a large debt (without looking up the exact numbers, lets say 10k in credit card debt and 10k in student loans), is it more advisable to dump all the money you can as fast as you can into paying it off, leaving only a small emergency budget each month, or should you also be building up a larger savings? The following numbers are all in Swiss francs while the debt is in USD, but with hte current exchange rate they are roughly equal. For the past year (first year out of college) I have been doing the latter, partially because my savings account offers a pretty good interest rate (at least compared to my US checking accounts) of 1%, and I feel like I should be taking advantage of that while I can. Right now I usually put about 1500-2000 a month toward my debts, and depending on the month, try to put about 500-1000 per month into my savings account. The rest goes into rent (1680/month), food (~400-600 a month), health insurance (~300), and public transportation costs (~100). I usually have about 500 leftover after all that for miscellaneous things. Part of the reason I am building up savings is I am going to have to move in a little less than a year, probably back to the US depending on where I get hired, at which point I'll probably need to buy a car as my old one I left behind is becoming far more expensive to maintain than it is worth. My main concern is that while I think I am putting a pretty substantial amount towards my debt, it is still much larger than I had hoped after my first year making decent money.
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Oct 23, 2014 13:06
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Murphy Brownback posted:When you are working on paying down a large debt (without looking up the exact numbers, lets say 10k in credit card debt and 10k in student loans), is it more advisable to dump all the money you can as fast as you can into paying it off, leaving only a small emergency budget each month, or should you also be building up a larger savings? The following numbers are all in Swiss francs while the debt is in USD, but with hte current exchange rate they are roughly equal. First thing: Don't pay the student loans first. They're generally easier to manage. Second: Get yourself in a situation where you can survive a small hiccup. If you're putting 2k/month towards 10k in debt it'll probably take 6 months to get rid of it. If your job is secure, try to get something like 3 times your monthly minimums on the student loan and credit card, and really push to off the credit card debt. I don't like carrying CC debt; I don't mind managing student loan debt, and if your income numbers hold you'll have no problem dealing with either. You just want to have a safety net (not long term savings) to feel fine. Past that, your 1% is good, but your loans and CC are both higher interest rates and just as risk free, and if they go away you'll be able to accumulate savings at a compound faster as well. Unless you're planning to buy a house soon, I wouldn't stress long term savings (beyond employer matches) over getting rid of the CC debt and probably some of/the worst SL debt.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:33
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If you think your job is stable then get 1-2 months of expenses in the emergency fund. Pay the minimum on the student loans, put everything else to the credit cards (assuming you are paying way more interest on the cards here). Once those are gone you can decide if you want to get a 3-6 month emergency fund or go straight into killing off the student loans.
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Oct 24, 2014 05:16
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spwrozek posted:If you think your job is stable then get 1-2 months of expenses in the emergency fund. Pay the minimum on the student loans, put everything else to the credit cards (assuming you are paying way more interest on the cards here). Once those are gone you can decide if you want to get a 3-6 month emergency fund or go straight into killing off the student loans. My job situation for the next several years will not be very stable. This job I have now ends in September of next year, and I am applying for the next one now, each position lasting between 1-3 years. The pay should remain roughly constant though, which is good, but there's a real chance that each time I apply, I could get rejected from everywhere. If that happened I'd have to wait at least go 3 months before being able to apply elsewhere, although the major round of hiring is only once per year. In that worst-case scenario, I'd obviously seek out temporary employment doing something else, but hopefully that doesn't happen - employment gaps (or more accurately, publication gaps) are the kiss of death this early in my career in this field. Anyway, yeah, I am focusing mostly on the cards first - the loan is a standard unsubsidized stafford loan which I believe has an interest rate of 4.66%. I believe my highest debt card that I'm focusing on has an 18.9% apr, but there are some lower limit cards that have ~1000 on them that have 21.9% or so. I used to have only a few hundred-1000 in credit card debt, but the move here required putting about 7000 on credit at once (2 month rent security deposit, half month real estate agency fee, plane ticket, etc), and it got a little out of control.
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Oct 24, 2014 11:04
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Murphy Brownback posted:My job situation for the next several years will not be very stable. This job I have now ends in September of next year, and I am applying for the next one now, each position lasting between 1-3 years. The pay should remain roughly constant though, which is good, but there's a real chance that each time I apply, I could get rejected from everywhere. If that happened I'd have to wait at least go 3 months before being able to apply elsewhere, although the major round of hiring is only once per year. In that worst-case scenario, I'd obviously seek out temporary employment doing something else, but hopefully that doesn't happen - employment gaps (or more accurately, publication gaps) are the kiss of death this early in my career in this field. I'd try to get about 4-5 months worth of a safety fund, then. Back burner the SL debt. It's rough in the short run but if something does happen and you end up jobless you'll be in catastrophic condition. If you get the safety net, you'll be fine in the long run, but a little more uncomfortable in the short run. Is it possible to consolidate the CC debt on a low APR card?
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Oct 24, 2014 13:35
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Sounds like a stressful situation. I agree with MJ that you should get a bigger emergency fund and only pay the minimums on the student loans. Since they are all federal if poo poo did hit the fan you can go on forbearance. Good Luck.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:04
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Yeah I've gotten up to a 4 month emergency fund thanks to some windfalls and a better job and I'm pretty content with my savings. It's probably actually more like six months, I have a bunch of saving goals in YNAB I could pilfer if I really needed to. Now I'm just hammering on my private student loan debt, I've got 9k left. After that who knows, I owe 21k to the feds but I might not hammer on that immediately and take a couple month break from pulling my belt tight. 100 HOGS AGREE fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 19:36
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Now I'm just hammering on my private student loan debt, I've got 9k left. After that who knows, I owe 21k to the feds but I might not hammer on that immediately and take a couple month break from pulling my belt tight. Once I was happy I had enough cash on hand, I loaned myself the money to send a 50% payment, and paid off the federal loan at nine times the monthly rate. I still have eight months of loan payments at 0% to make to myself. 
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Oct 24, 2014 23:37
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So I'm working on a new budget. I'm trying out Gnucash again, but I'm still not 100% convinced it's worth the additional time/effort compared to my spreadsheet budget, but I guess we'll see. One thing I liked about my spreadsheet was I could keep track of accrued amounts for expected future costs. For instance, designating $50 a month to cover eye exams and glasses. I looked at the built-in budget function of Gnucash, but I don't think it can handle that kind of planning. Am I missing something? What I did was set my checking account set up as a placeholder, with sub-accounts for each budget category. That way the total of all sub-accounts should be the actual value of my checking account, while still keeping the accrued amounts distinct. My plan is to set up an automated transaction to debit the relevant asset accounts with the budgeted amounts whenever I get paid. For example, let's say I get paid $1k biweekly and rent and food are my only expenses, at $500 per month each. debit rent budget $250 debit food budget $250 debit savings $500 credit income $1k Then when I recognize an expense for one of those categories, I'd credit the asset account and debit the relevant expense account. I'm still trying to figure out Gnucash, so let me know if that approach makes sense, or if there's an easier or simpler way to budget. Also, the way I have it currently set up I have 12 budgeting categories and 26 expense categories. I'm not sure I'm actually getting anything from that granularity or if I should have the exact same 12 expense categories as budget categories. posh spaz fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 00:33
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:With most credit cards, it's fairly obvious practically and mathematically that those balances should be flat-out destroyed. With student loans, however, I'm in agreement with you here. I paid off my private student loan as quickly as was reasonable, and kept the entertainment to a minimum. With the federal loan, I maintained some minimum buffer, but paid minima for a while as a hedge against having to put an emergency on a credit card; I could have paid it all off by emptying half of savings, but at 0.75% earning versus 2.7% on a federal loan, I was willing to pay that small amount of interest for a bit of safety. Must be nice. My private and federal loans are 4.9% and 5.125%, respectively.
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Oct 25, 2014 23:38
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Must be nice. My private and federal loans are 4.9% and 5.125%, respectively. I've got a few fixed at 6.8%, if that makes you feel better. drat you, Bush!
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Oct 25, 2014 23:46
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posh spaz posted:I've got a few fixed at 6.8%, if that makes you feel better. drat you, Bush! I've got 1/3 of my total loans at 7.9% During a recession in which we hit the lowest interest rates in ever. So getting rid of those now.
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Oct 26, 2014 02:00
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| # ? May 12, 2024 20:45 |
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Ok, so, I need a lot of help in creating a budget. It'll probably be best if anyone brave enough to dive into this mess with me just goes in under the assumption that: A.) I have no idea what I'm doing. Like, at all. "Babby's first budget" doesn't even begin to describe this mess. B.) I don't know a drat thing about what I actually owe. Specific amounts owed, interest rates, etc., are all lost to me. That said, ask me and I'll try to give info that's as accurate as I can give. I'm not going to go into the how and why of what I owe, or why there's so many holes in the information, because I've got a whole other E/N thread for that, and I don't want to have it bleed into here and poison the thread with derails and the like. If we can all just operate under the assumption that I'm a massive fuckup, then then things will be easier for everyone. Ok, so, here we go. We'll start off with my debts: Judgements against me - RBS CITIZENS NA. Date Filed: 02/13/2014 Claim Amount: $15,295 CAPITAL ONE BANK USA NA. Date Filed: 04/05/2013 Claim Amount: $1,717 Accounts in bad standing on my credit report - Capital One (credit card, last activity 12/2011) Status: Account charged off. $1,777 written off. $2,150 past due as of Oct 2014. Best Buy/Cap 1 (credit card, last activity 11/2011) Status: Account charged off. $2,393 written off. $108 past due as of May 2012. Citizen's Bank (personal loan, last activity 11/2011) Status: Account charged off. $4,972 written off. Citizen's Bank (personal loan, last activity 10/2011) Status: Account charged off. $10,040 written off. Citizen's Bank (credit card, last activity 11/2011) Status: Account charged off. $1,300 written off. $311 past due as of May 2012 Credit First (credit card, last activity 4/2012) Status: Account charged off. $1,737 written off. Time Warner Cable (utility, lovely company all around. Last activity 7/2012) Status: Collection account. $436 past due as of Oct 2014. Ashley Furniture (credit card, last activity 12/2011) Status: Closed. $2,108 written off. Comment: Purchased by another lender. My wife has her own debts as well, totaling ~$40k or so. I do not recall the details of her debts well enough to confidently list them here without asking her about them first. She's at work and can't answer texts, so that'll have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest. I do know most of it is private loans that she used to pay for school. Not private student loans, mind you, but private loans that were taken out as regular private loans that just happened to be used to pay for school. I know that her parents had her do that specifically for exactly the situation we're in right now, which was amazing foresight on their part. Now, what am I doing to get this mess under control? We're both working to change our attitudes concerning money and spending. I've signed up at Mint.com, and have been slowly getting that set up so that we can more easily track our spending. At some point this week(I work the same hours that the bank is open), we'll be opening up a 3rd account between us that we're going to be direct depositing a portion of our paychecks into. This account will be used primarily to pay bills through auto-pay options, and begin saving money. The account will be set up in such a way that it will be as annoying as possible to take money from it. It won't be linked to either of our regular accounts, so money can't be transferred from it via online banking. We will clip up and throw out the card that will go with the account when we get it. This way, if we want to take money from it, we have to physically go to a branch of our bank and withdraw it. Here, have a small spreadsheet about our monthly bills and finances:  The green cells are when that particular income/expense occur. Incomes factor in taxes and garnishments, and represent what we actually take home. Another thing to note is that while my income is extremely constant at 40 hours/week, my wife's income is very flexible. Her hours vary from week to week, and when she's scheduled less than 5 days, she picks up whatever shifts are available until she's got at least 36 hours. That said, I low-balled her listed income to a "worst case" 26 hour work week, just in case. You'll also notice some cells marked with *. Those cells are flexible expenses. The utilities vary from month to month, and the listed expense is their typical high point in the year. The idea being that the money not being eaten by those utilities can go towards a different bill or directly into savings. Food costs vary wildly from week to week, depending on how much we have to restock for that week, so that expense is a rough median estimate. So, there you have it. How do I even start untangling this mess? neogeo0823 fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 02:29
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