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Veskit posted:I thought Sheps were way bigger like 80 pound dogs on top of having the long hair. It'd explain why the dog is a nutbag though with either breed. Nah they're usually on the large end of medium to the small end of large (45-60lbs) and a lot of that depends on male vs female. Most of mine have been around 50lbs. Cute dog though, definitely will want to exercise her. Mouthy is a good description of some of the ones I've had in the past -- not really snapping or biting but play involved a lot of teeth so something to watch out for with a baby.
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Nov 17, 2014 21:39
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Looks like an Aussie to me, too. And those dogs are straight nuts and need a LOT of exercise, and even more training.
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Nov 18, 2014 02:35
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Yeah, I'm really glad my hound/pit/possibly Dane mix is usually content with sleeping around the house all day, especially with it too cold to leave him out while I'm at work. Easiest dog to take care of that I've ever owned!
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Nov 18, 2014 05:39
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I'm surprised with the amount of out doors time the aussie was getting that it didn't start self mutilating. We used to see them come in with chewed up feet and bald spots because they loose their poo poo when they can't run around. They need massive stimulus from owners when not in farm environments. The amount of people who think they can get a dog and just walk it once or twice a day blows my mind. Glad he has some out doors space but remember that isn't enough. You need to give the dog alot of face time and challenges.
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Nov 18, 2014 18:02
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Tigntink posted:I'm surprised with the amount of out doors time the aussie was getting that it didn't start self mutilating. We used to see them come in with chewed up feet and bald spots because they loose their poo poo when they can't run around. They need massive stimulus from owners when not in farm environments. We take our dogs on 5k or 10k walks and jogs, mountain hikes, normal neighborhood walks (with as much off leash time as I can swing legally), geocaching, just up in the mountains, etc. We even bought dog shoes at one point because their pads were starting to get a little raw from all the walking. Dog is an Aussie yes. Here is our other dog which is a Heeler mix (rescue dog so we don't know exact breed) getting ready before a hike:   No we didn't make her wear the backpack. It was for picture purposes only. Edit: Two of our jerk cats. They have names but I pretty much just call of them rear end in a top hat at this point. They tore up the fringe of that rug. 
Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Nov 18, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2014 19:31
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I'll post more cool pictures later, but it's important to keep some business here too I think. So let's get literal. Sold 3 microscope for a net profit of $90 this month. Woohoo. Not too shabby I s'pose. This business usually picks up around the holiday season. Getting ready to pick up my lead generation business again shortly. My wife is studying marketing and copywriting and I'm building it. I feel like we have a pretty good start here, and getting the office up and running is a top priority. I just found out my sister's boss makes $450,000 a year, or $38,000 a month as a head cardiologist at a hospital. Definitely makes me want to aim higher in my career and our business at the same time. Luckily the scope of my business is all English speaking countries (and beyond with translators) so the goal is to make a little bit of money from a lot of people. As far as my career goes I'm getting offers from companies to apply once or twice a week. Cicero keeps telling me to pursue I'm just so frickin comfortable where I work. Maybe around the 2 year mark I'll reevaluate. I'm also really considering contracting as a developer in the mean time. I love setting my own hours since I'm not much of a morning person, and I'm good at making sure I get work done. Budget: Don't know yet. Moving fees and deposits and waiting all has everything in a loop and I don't really know where we stand. We've been eating out since we haven't gotten groceries (doing that today), but we've been keeping it cheap and not going to sit down places at least. I'll update this section when I know more.
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Nov 18, 2014 19:47
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How much do you estimate you're going to spend on eating out this month? At the end of the month, compare the real number to your estimate.
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Nov 19, 2014 03:02
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Horking Delight posted:How much do you estimate you're going to spend on eating out this month?
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Nov 19, 2014 03:13
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What are the odds these changes have totally blown any progress made in the last 6 months?
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Nov 20, 2014 20:24
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n8r posted:What are the odds these changes have totally blown any progress made in the last 6 months? 1:1! Dammit, Knyteguy... Nah it's not that extreme. It's been expensive yes, but I expect us to have around $5,000 (roughly two months worth of expenses) in the bank and $2,100 in the HSA by the end of November. Oh and the delivery doctor will be paid off as well so that's I think $2,600 of the baby delivery prepaid. We're also expecting ~$500 of our $550 rental deposit to come back in December. It's a bummer because of just how expensive moving has been, but truthfully my wife and I don't have regrets about any of it. Plus we're still going to sell that television and the violin to help cover the costs spent; we've got it all out and ready - just need to get the pictures. Horking I'm not even going to bother estimating eating out expenses because I stopped tracking individual expenses during the move (and Mint doesn't work with our CU). However until the point that we moved out, we were doing our best to eat all of the banked up food (esp perishable) that we had. We went grocery shopping yesterday so we don't need to eat more lovely take out. Just found http://www.goonswithspoons.com a couple days ago for more great recipes. Oh and sold another microscope. $120 this month in profits. Up $400 this year.
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Nov 20, 2014 20:58
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The GWS wiki sucks. Read GWS itself, especially the "I'm poor and want good food" thread.
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Nov 20, 2014 21:27
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So how many months were you able to keep to a budget? 2?
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Nov 21, 2014 05:00
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n8r posted:So how many months were you able to keep to a budget? 2? I think he pulled of Spartan August, and that was pretty much it.
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Nov 21, 2014 14:00
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Having 5000 saved up and 2400 toward medical expenses saved up is very impressive. 5 Grand being 2 months of an emergency budget.... not so much.
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Nov 21, 2014 16:04
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Veskit posted:Having 5000 saved up and 2400 toward medical expenses saved up is very impressive. No, he said he "expects to" hit those numbers. He's expected to meet or exceed every budget number in the thread so far. I thought he was making progress, but now I'm starting to doubt again.
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Nov 21, 2014 16:30
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April posted:No, he said he "expects to" hit those numbers. He's expected to meet or exceed every budget number in the thread so far. I missed that part.... Ohhh god it's worse than I thought 
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Nov 21, 2014 18:22
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At least he understands that he doesn't have to spend every penny of his budget every month, and that it's not supposed to change much from month to month. I think.
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Nov 21, 2014 19:18
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Well, he's about to have a baby but yet has gotten a more expensive everything since he originally started this thread, what do you think?
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Nov 22, 2014 02:40
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Guys my $5,000 estimate is pretty solid sheesh.Uncle Jam posted:Well, he's about to have a baby but yet has gotten a more expensive everything since he originally started this thread, what do you think? Like what, exactly? Rent at start of thread: $1,560. Current rent, $1,100. Interim rent: $775. Veskit unfortunately our debt keeps us from keeping expenses down much more. In an emergency situation we would of course cut back where we could though, so the estimate is definitely high. I'm just looking at actual spending for the past couple of months to come up with that number (including $200/ea discretionary, etc). Anyway I'm not getting all back into this stuff. We're totally fine and there wasn't some huge regression. This has been the most expensive month since July, but putting a $2,200 deposit down will do that. Like I said selling the couple things we're looking to sell and getting our apartment deposit back will help even the expenses out. The business doing really well this month did as well.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:24
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I don't think these one time expenses and deposits are the problem. You mention that you've been spending more money in areas like eating out, which indicates to me that you are not budgeting or at least not sticking to your budget. Just because moving is expensive - which frankly you should have been able to pretty accurately estimate - doesn't mean you should just let discipline go in other areas. I don't know when this new dog came into the picture, but I think taking on any animal in your situation is especially foolish. The breeds that you have require tons of attention, and your ability to devote that attention in is going to be significantly reduced when the kid shows up. Animals can be huge money hand grenades if they have health issues as well. Even very fixable health issues for a dog or a cat can skyrocket into the thousands of dollars very quickly. I still think your perspective on money or perhaps your perspective on life is still being driven by an unwillingness to plan ahead and an unwillingness to sacrifice. It's one thing to live like this when it's just you and your wife, you are only really responsible for yourselves. Now, when the kid comes into the world it's going to be 100% dependent on you and your wife. I'm not saying you can't raise kids on limited incomes as well as someone who has all the money in the world. You need to be able to provide a stable life for your kid first and foremost. A huge part of a stable life is stable finances, I can guarantee that kids raised in households where people are living within their means do much better than families that are living paycheck to paycheck. I think there is a very good chance when the kid shows up that your eyes will be opened up and you will get your priorities right.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:44
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n8r posted:I don't think these one time expenses and deposits are the problem. You mention that you've been spending more money in areas like eating out, which indicates to me that you are not budgeting or at least not sticking to your budget. Just because moving is expensive - which frankly you should have been able to pretty accurately estimate - doesn't mean you should just let discipline go in other areas. You make some good points. Budget: We had to go off budget for stuff that I've never had to worry about, and didn't plan for. For example one of our duties is being responsible for the front lawn. We had to buy a lawn mower, a trimmer/edger, a manual aerator, a rake for leaves and grass trimmings, lawn food, etc. We usually use dog bags to clean up after the dogs by hand... well screw that in a yard this big and with my wife being pregnant (hard to bend over). Picked up a pooper scooper. Also turns out we're having Christmas at our house this year... had to buy a Christmas tree ($40 artificial). I went with the cheaper options on all of this stuff wherever possible. I just put all of that stuff in a big fat "moving" category. Yea it sucks we broke budget, but I've never lived in a house before so I wasn't really prepared for it, and at least this is all stuff that should come along with us for the next couple of decades. Also on the restaurants we're talking probably < $200 and that's with taking my cousin out to pizza and wings for helping me move the place. Dog: yea it was a bad move. Right now we're fortunate enough to have all of them in good health, and we've been under budget every month so far (incl this mo). Sacrifice: I've done a ton of sacrificing what do you mean? I've been riding my bike in the frigid cold morning and night (although once I warm up it's awesome) 10 miles a day instead of buying a second car like 95% of Americans would do (especially suburban Americans), we lived in a really awful apartment, with my sister as a roommate, yada yada. We've been making plenty of sacrifices. We're doing fine man we're still stacking cash. Yea the budget was sort of meaningless this month, but moving is really hard to budget for. Or at least in this case it was hard for me to budget for. Like I said there wasn't some huge regression or something; we're already back on track. Luckily we love this place and we won't be moving until lease end at the very minimum. Onward to December.
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Nov 23, 2014 05:02
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Knyteguy posted:moving is really hard to budget for. Or at least in this case it was hard for me to budget for. Knyteguy posted:We had to go off budget for stuff that I've never had to worry about, and didn't plan for. For example one of our duties is being responsible for the front lawn. We had to buy a lawn mower, a trimmer/edger, a manual aerator, a rake for leaves and grass trimmings, lawn food, etc. We usually use dog bags to clean up after the dogs by hand... well screw that in a yard this big and with my wife being pregnant (hard to bend over). Picked up a pooper scooper. Also turns out we're having Christmas at our house this year... had to buy a Christmas tree ($40 artificial).mo). It was hard for you to budget for because you're bad at planning ahead. Matter of fact is, you have a tremendous resource here in your thread and in SA. You could've asked this thread or the House thread what addtional expenses you could expect from moving from an apartment to a house. What expenses to plan for. No one is expecting the world here, just use the resources at your disposal. All of those things are things that any homeowner would see a mile away. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 05:11
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Knyteguy posted:You make some good points. Do they expect you to water the lawn to keep it nice next summer? Your area is in a pretty nice drought...get ready for some crazy rear end water bills.
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Nov 23, 2014 05:13
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Knyteguy posted:We had to buy a lawn mower, a trimmer/edger, a manual aerator, a rake for leaves and grass trimmings, lawn food, etc.  Did you get any of this off Craigslist or was it all bought new? Did you price out any lawn care services before buying a bunch of tools?
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Nov 23, 2014 07:21
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I believe you have made some sacrifice and some progress - and I think it's great that you care enough to keep trying. I would say far more important than sacrifice is discipline and forethought. You made up your mind that you wanted to move, then you created a whole bunch of reasons (many legitimate) to move in a way that was quite expensive. A person who is disciplined and thinking ahead would have made the sacrifice of staying in the dump apartment until you can get your deposit back, and taking that time to find a nicer place that isn't a significant increase in rent. What is the scenario that seems to happen every time with someone who repeatedly makes poor financial decision? I see a rather impulsive want in their life - all of a sudden you want a new dog - then all of the forethought/planning goes into justifying why you should have this dog. This happened with the car as well - a big bunch of rather lovely reasons were made up that allowed you to make a crappy call about your money. I would say that for every sacrifice you are make, you're sabotaging with an equally lovely large financial decision. The irony of this situation is if you could just resist making these big expensive mistakes, you wouldn't need to do much sacrificing. Real sacrifice at this point in time would be to get rid of that drat huge car payment, get rid of the ticking timebombs of most/all of your pets, and then sticking to a reasonable budget for more than 2 months. I would argue that your pets will be better off re-homed once you have a kid and are unable to devote much time to them. You already had a budget in place that still allowed you to waste a few hundred bucks a month and still do some eating out and all sorts of stuff. You really weren't doing much sacrificing to begin with. I'm going to guess there is a 95% chance that you bought all this yard equipment brand new about 24 hours after you realized you needed them. Why? Who gives a poo poo about brand new mower and you definitely don't need a trimmer. If you still can, return that crap and spend a week trolling craigslist for a $50 mower. IF you did track down used stuff on the cheap - way to go - that's how someone in your financial position continues to make smart choices and dig themselves out of the position they are in. n8r fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 17:09
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Knyteguy, this is part of what I was trying to say the last time I posted in this thread. Every time you get called out on a bad decision, you immediately bring up how much you've worked and how much you've sacrificed and how hard you've tried. But the person putting you in that position is you. The lawn care issue is a great example. Okay, you've never lived in a house before and didn't anticipate this need. Nobody deals with only known situations in life, there will always be something you're doing for the first time. That's what the internet is for. The rational reaction would have been: 1) keep cool, 2) decide based on the weather (wet/dry, hot/cold) how urgently the lawn will need care, and 3) use the time available to research your options and put the best/most cost effective plan in place. What you did instead was to fly off the handle and throw money at the easiest solution you could think of, which is exactly what you've done in every similar case in this thread to date. By the way, your failure to track spending during the move? Same situation. If you'd just thought about it for a minute you could have taken a cheap notepad, written down your budget positions as of the time you were going offline, then recorded expenses as they happened and tracked your numbers with fair accuracy. But the easiest solution was to say "lol too hard" and just overspend, so that's what you did. Suffering the consequences of your own bad decisions isn't sacrifice, and constantly playing that card makes you look bad. Try engaging your brain before you pull out your wallet next time something comes up.
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Nov 23, 2014 22:28
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Your lease actually says that you are responsible for the exterior upkeep?
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Nov 23, 2014 22:53
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CuddleChunks posted:
Can't you borrow most of those from a neighbor in exchange for a batch of homemade cookies or something?
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Nov 23, 2014 23:05
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Planning for lawn care supplies has got to be patently obvious to anyone who thinks for more than a minute about moving into a place with a yard.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:17
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Where does Knyteguy live anyway? Even if he lives somewhere that doesn't have snowfall, the grass really doesn't grow over winter, right? Why was it necessary to purchase a lawn mower now instead of the following spring?
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Nov 24, 2014 04:17
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Robo Boogie Bot posted:Where does Knyteguy live anyway? Even if he lives somewhere that doesn't have snowfall, the grass really doesn't grow over winter, right? Why was it necessary to purchase a lawn mower now instead of the following spring? I dunno in Western Washington or Oregon grass seems to grow during the winter I remember mowing the lawns occasionally for allowance money at my parents house.
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Nov 24, 2014 05:30
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He lives in Nevada. Still calling shinanigans on this lawn mower thing.
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Nov 24, 2014 05:44
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Knyteguy posted:
Has it ever occurred to you that if you weren't such an impulsive child with your purchases, then you wouldn't have to make so many sacrifices?
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Nov 24, 2014 13:27
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Lawn mower: we got a $100 manual reel mower from Home Depot, and I haggled it down to $90. Yes I checked Craigslist for weeks and they didn't have any, or I would have had to buy a ton of tools to restore one. Didn't check Craigslist for anything else because only the trimmer was worth the effort, and I wanted a battery trimmer because gasoline can be wasteful. Considering that: batteries are not only the most expensive piece on battery driven tools, they're usually the first thing to go out. Buying used may have cost us more money since you need some acumen that I do not have yet to buy used. Lawn yes it's in our contract. But that's a big reason we got $200/mo off of our monthly rent. The tools are nothing because I already saved us $4,800 over 2 years by agreeing to take care of the lawn. Same with the water required to water the lawn. No it couldn't wait - fall is the best time to mow -> aerate -> feed to have a great lawn in the spring time. April posted:Has it ever occurred to you that if you weren't such an impulsive child with your purchases, then you wouldn't have to make so many sacrifices? OK I'll bite. What purchases have I been impulsive with in the past 6 months? If I were this "child" you've called me twice now, why wouldn't I go buy a $1,000 car or truck instead of riding my bike to work, and calling it good? Or I could go finance one. My credit has risen nearly 50 points since we bought our previous car. Hell I could even justify going the MMM route and buying an electric bike kit. I don't have to make these sacrifices, I choose to. strawberrymousse posted:Suffering the consequences of your own bad decisions isn't sacrifice, and constantly playing that card makes you look bad. Try engaging your brain before you pull out your wallet next time something comes up. You make some fair points. However, if someone calling me out on not making sacrifices, why would I not list the sacrifices I'm making? I'm not playing some card. Rurutia posted:It was hard for you to budget for because you're bad at planning ahead. Matter of fact is, you have a tremendous resource here in your thread and in SA. You could've asked this thread or the House thread what addtional expenses you could expect from moving from an apartment to a house. What expenses to plan for. No one is expecting the world here, just use the resources at your disposal. You're right; fair enough.
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Nov 24, 2014 17:43
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Knyteguy posted:
If you agreed to pay for the water bill and lawn care in Reno to save $200 a month, you did not make as good a deal as you seem to think you did.
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Nov 24, 2014 17:53
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You don't need a great lawn though, just a tolerable one. I know nothing about lawn care so maybe I'm off base, but aerators and edgers sound like some hank hill poo poo to me. A manual mower is going to be a huge pain in the rear end in my opinion and I'd probably have skipped the edger and bought a mower with an engine if I really cared to mow.
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Nov 24, 2014 17:53
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Droo posted:If you agreed to pay for the water bill and lawn care in Reno to save $200 a month, you did not make as good a deal as you seem to think you did. It's maybe a 300 sq/ft lawn. It's not going to take very much to water it. My mom who lives in the area with a much bigger lawn, and more people in house pays maybe $75/mo in water. And that's only during watering months. We're not quite Las Vegas. I think our water bill at our old house a few years ago was like $35/mo with 3 adults. Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:You don't need a great lawn though, just a tolerable one. I know nothing about lawn care so maybe I'm off base, but aerators and edgers sound like some hank hill poo poo to me. A manual mower is going to be a huge pain in the rear end in my opinion and I'd probably have skipped the edger and bought a mower with an engine if I really cared to mow. I've already mowed. It's hard yes, but for the lawn size it's a good work out. Plus it hadn't been touched for literally months so it'll be easier to maintain than mow a jungle. Someone posted this in DIY which is what sold me on reel mowers: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/23/in-praise-of-the-push-reel-mower/ (really a good read) The trimmer turns into an edger, so it's mostly the trimmer I'm using, which is absolutely necessary with how the lawn bounds some stuff. I wouldn't have bought a separate edger. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Nov 24, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 18:01
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I'm just amazed at this idea that there's no way to plan ahead for what a move will cost. There's every way to know what a move will cost. Nothing is a surprise. I'm not really judging because I suck almost as much, frankly. I don't really budget, I just make sure everything sorts out every month. But I did set some hard savings goals, and I had $10k saved for a baby without even being pregnant. I also didn't get a super high maintenance dog with a pregnant wife. Congrats on the better job and pulling yourself out of a totally poo poo situation. But looking back at myself when I was in my 20s and got a big career boost... Goddamn did I just piss it all away and continue to live paycheck to paycheck buying really stupid consumer poo poo. And I rationalized every single penny spent. Just be careful, dude. Stop making excuses for all these surprise expenses that should in no way be any surprise whatsoever.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:46
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Old Fart posted:I'm just amazed at this idea that there's no way to plan ahead for what a move will cost. There's every way to know what a move will cost. Nothing is a surprise. Thanks. Yea it was huge going from a monthly income of about $1300/mo to what we're making now. No there were definitely ways to plan for the move better, but there were some surprises thrown in too. For example I was going to give my cousin my electronic drum set instead of paying him to help me move, but day of the move he said he actually needed the money instead. That's fine since the drums are worth more, but it still threw the budget off. Wife wasn't pregnant when we got the dog. We had the dog for a few months before hand, and I kind of expected the pregnancy to take a longer to take. Definitely trying to be careful. I don't feel like we're really making awful decisions or anything either though. The move has truly been worth every penny considering just how much happier we are with everything. I can absolutely respect people who could make it in the apartment situation longer than we did (with animals and a baby on the way), but being miserable for the next 9 months just didn't fit in to what I wanted to do. I'd rather focus all of that energy into trying to make more money on the side, which is kind of the plan right now. I can't guarantee success of course, but I want to give it my best shot at least.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:05
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^^^ I think you're doing mostly fine (if non-optimal), but I have to mention that even if it "took a while for the baby to take," you'd still have an expensive high maintenance dog for 10+ years with the kid instead of 11+ years.Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:You don't need a great lawn though, just a tolerable one. I know nothing about lawn care so maybe I'm off base, but aerators and edgers sound like some hank hill poo poo to me. A manual mower is going to be a huge pain in the rear end in my opinion and I'd probably have skipped the edger and bought a mower with an engine if I really cared to mow. I mostly agree with what you're saying (I do not care 1 single bit what my lawn looks like, I just mow it when it needs it), but manual mowers are great. They aren't much if any harder to push, and they make way less noise, so it's easier to listen to music and stuff. It is more important that the blade is sharp, but that's easy enough to do, or cheap to have someone else do.
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Nov 24, 2014 19:49
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