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ExtrudeAlongCurve
Oct 21, 2010

Lambert is my Homeboy

Aagar posted:

Whatever you did or did not intend to do/research/understand in the future, your response is very definitive, leaving no room for discussion. It makes it sound like this is the way it is, and this is how you will proceed. If you had said something like "I've planned it this way under the assumption that there is no interest on this payment plan,* but I am planning to have the full amount ready to pay on time in case I'm wrong" I doubt anyone would have had an issue (other than to say "Yes there is interest good call saving it all up for a one-time payment.") The latter statement, in fact, is how you were intending to go about it, but it was completely misrepresented in your earlier post.

Quoting this because I was pondering how to say the same thing earlier, but you summed it up pretty well and I want to make sure KG sees it.

Don't sound so sure about your financial decisions if you aren't? How can people (who give a poo poo about your thread) NOT get angry when you up and declare your intentions to make a bad financial decision without leaving room for discussion/questions/answers?

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Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!

n8r posted:

Yah - and then for the next month it's showing the money carrying over..

This budgeting YNAB thing seems stupid as poo poo.

The money you don't spend carries over into next months budget. It's not really designed to be done the way he's doing it but if it works for him then it's fine.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I'll preface by acknowledging that this an internet forum and connotation can be hard to interpret. I could also :walloftext: you, but I'll keep it brief as it's been said a few other times by a few other people.

That being said, you often come across annoyed that we are asking you these types of questions and when you get called out for being blatantly wrong you just try and brush it off. When the base behavior of doing minimal research and not considering ALL OF THE COSTS is what continues to get you in trouble.

Yes you had planned to save the money to pay it off if you had to, but you were also counting that money as "savings" when it's not really savings. I think you said it best when you commented that you will think of things in terms of how they affect your bottom line. Not saying you're doing it, but don't trick yourself into thinking you're better off than you are because you're financing debts.

Droo
Jun 25, 2003

I think everyone is being unfair. He has clearly learned his lesson, and in the future if he owes too much in tax to the IRS while he has a baby on the way and he initially plans on doing a payment plan for his tax debt... well now he will know there is an extra fee for that.

DogsCantBudget
Jul 8, 2013
Holy poo poo, I just noticed this. You have 123$ in your baby fund. 123...loving...dollars.

I get that you have saved for the birth. Congrats. My mind is blown how you expect baby expenses to be 50$ a month. or are you planning on combining this with your monthly baby fund of 510$(this is a more realistic number) after the birth?

silicone thrills
Jan 9, 2008

I paint things

DogsCantBudget posted:

Holy poo poo, I just noticed this. You have 123$ in your baby fund. 123...loving...dollars.

I get that you have saved for the birth. Congrats. My mind is blown how you expect baby expenses to be 50$ a month. or are you planning on combining this with your monthly baby fund of 510$(this is a more realistic number) after the birth?

Hey, you're a dog that can't budget. What do you know about babbies?

Kids can be as inexpensive as you really want them to be after a certain point. I know my parents never spent poo poo on me once I was past the formula age.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal
Well I had something big and rambling posted, but I'll just say this:
Thanks for pointing out these patterns. I do need to learn something from all of this before I let myself and my family get bitten in the rear end again. I'm not sure exactly how to implement the changes quite yet, but it's obvious to me that some things need some work.

DCB I do read your thread, yes. The baby fund has just been to cover small things my wife and I wanted for the baby room, or like a couple blankets or something. It has never been meant to be a large expense fund. That will be covered by the $510 now, $710 going forward, and $910 after my wife goes back to work.

Tigntink good insight thanks. Luckily we have a whole bunch of boys in the family so we'll have some hand me downs and stuff for awhile.

DogsCantBudget
Jul 8, 2013
I'm glad. I was a bit concerned TBH.

We're at different places in our lives/budgeting needs, but some things are definitely analogous.

I think Tigntink is right, at some point kids are cheaper...but that point (i don't think) comes well after they are in their teens...

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
Statistically people spend more on their kids as they get older, not less. Although it's possible that this is just because on average people with older kids also have higher incomes.

silicone thrills
Jan 9, 2008

I paint things
The most expensive thing will always be medical as long as yall keep your poo poo insurance. Everything else can be thrifted.

Easychair Bootson
May 7, 2004

Where's the last guy?
Ultimo hombre.
Last man standing.
Must've been one.

Tigntink posted:

I know my parents never spent poo poo on me once I was past the formula age.
I suspect they'd disagree with that statement.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Tigntink posted:

I know my parents never spent poo poo on me once I was past the formula age.

You never ate food? Drank things besides tap water? Went on field trips? Did school projects? Got school pictures? Played sports? Got presents? Had hobbies? Went out to eat?

EDIT: Got sick? Broke a bone? Had toys?

EDIT 2: Wore clothes? Wore shoes? Had a pet?

EDIT 3: Went to a sports game? Saw a movie? Went to a show? Went on a family vacation?

EDIT 4: Rereading your post history in this thread it sounds like your parents really did hate you. Bummer. Regardless kids can be extremely expensive even if you don't buy them a $45,000 BMW on their 16th birthday.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jan 9, 2015

silicone thrills
Jan 9, 2008

I paint things

Easychair Bootson posted:

I suspect they'd disagree with that statement.

Cheapest food imaginable. Vienna Sausages, kraft meals, etc. Peanut butter jelly sandwhiches for lunch every day until I got my own job. My mom was OG coupon hunter and would buy like 50 boxes of hamburger helper for nothing. Shopped at piggly wiggly for the just past date meats. (yay for getting worms from bad pork!)

Dad had good insurance provided by his city job so healthcare wasn't a big cost. 10$ copays.
Parents worked split so my mom was on nights, dad on days. I had a key to my house when I was 6 years old. Never once had a baby sitter. My grandmother watched me on the rare time that my mom had to do something during the day but she also slept.

All my clothing was thrifted ... pretty much until I was in college. I wore hand me downs as well from neighbors and friends.
Never got school pictures. Never played a sport. Couldn't afford it.
Never did family vacations. Just drove to family and stayed with them. Didn't stay in a hotel until I was an adult even.
Went to 1 movie my entire early childhood. 1 later on when my older brother got a job at a theater.

Kids can be as cheap as you want them to be.

(I'm in no way endorsing my lovely upbringing - just pointing out that is possible)

Rurutia
Jun 11, 2009

Tigntink posted:

Cheapest food imaginable. Vienna Sausages, kraft meals, etc. Peanut butter jelly sandwhiches for lunch every day until I got my own job. My mom was OG coupon hunter and would buy like 50 boxes of hamburger helper for nothing. Shopped at piggly wiggly for the just past date meats. (yay for getting worms from bad pork!)

Dad had good insurance provided by his city job so healthcare wasn't a big cost. 10$ copays.
Parents worked split so my mom was on nights, dad on days. I had a key to my house when I was 6 years old. Never once had a baby sitter. My grandmother watched me on the rare time that my mom had to do something during the day but she also slept.

All my clothing was thrifted ... pretty much until I was in college. I wore hand me downs as well from neighbors and friends.
Never got school pictures. Never played a sport. Couldn't afford it.
Never did family vacations. Just drove to family and stayed with them. Didn't stay in a hotel until I was an adult even.
Went to 1 movie my entire early childhood. 1 later on when my older brother got a job at a theater.

Kids can be as cheap as you want them to be.

(I'm in no way endorsing my lovely upbringing - just pointing out that is possible)

This is pretty close to my childhood. Our beds were picked up from the sidewalk. Food was leftovers from my mom's job. I didn't go to a dentist or doctor until I was 18. All my clothes were thrifted. Literally never went to restaurants or vacations.

Being poor didn't make my childhood lovely. But my parents were very good at budgeting and they made a buck stretch very very far. I know that even though we were poor, I was still a considerable expense for my parents.

Rurutia fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jan 9, 2015

silicone thrills
Jan 9, 2008

I paint things

Rurutia posted:

This is pretty close to my childhood. Our beds were picked up from the sidewalk. Food was leftovers from my mom's job. I didn't go to a dentist or doctor until I was 18. All my clothes were thrifted. Literally never went to restaurants or vacations.

Being poor didn't make my childhood lovely. But my parents were very good at budgeting and they made a buck stretch very very far. I know that even though we were poor, I was still a considerable expense for my parents.

Yeah. I just feel like most people in this thread read that article about kids costing 250,000 over 18 years took it as gospel. There's a note that the less money you've got the less people were spending. My parents raised us on a dual income of maybe around 45,000. And that was towards my adult hood. Honestly not sure how bad it was when we were kids.

My husband's family raised 4 kids on a single Navy income as well.

Big thing to remember is don't bother buying any toys and if you do, don't bother getting them new. Kids don't care if a toy is new. Same with clothes. They won't notice their clothes are thrifted or handme downs until they hit the teens usually. It's easy to buy kids foods in bulk and to make your own baby food. Just go to goodwill or whatever thrift store and find a used food processor. This honestly goes for any kitchen goods. You can find used everything. If your kid gets into sports, there's usually a used sports goods shop around town.

(I'm sure your parents were cool. Mine were total assholes and my dad told me straight to my face that he never wanted children - he spent most of his money on his guns and dogs. There's a reason I haven't spoken to my parents in 10 years)

silicone thrills fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jan 9, 2015

Ghost of Mussolini
Jun 26, 2011

Tigntink posted:

Yeah. I just feel like most people in this thread read that article about kids costing 250,000 over 18 years took it as gospel.
Or don't want to bring up their children in the sort of situation which you have just described, which doesn't sound desirable at all.

If one is willing to give up the things that you and Rurtia posted, then yes obviously one is able to raise a child on the cheap. But the posts above (sadly) describe childhoods were, for example, you didn't get to go to the doctor or play sports. Most people would note that these are things children should have access to, and you are just describing living in poverty. Presumably, not parent wants their child to be brought up in poverty, even if they feel that as adults they can truck on through and tighten their belt. I'd know I would be comfortable (if not utterly thrilled) with just a few basic things, but I wouldn't have children until I could provide plenty for them (I don't mean that as a reflection on your parents, but rather as the fact that its a serious matter and financial awareness means recognising this).

Having children is going to get more expensive as time goes on, and this applies even if you thrift every possible piece of clothing or equipment, and make the cheapest food possible. It is just an issue of scalability. Even with a bare-bones budget and finding all the second/third-hand clothes possible, a child is going to get bigger and bigger. This will result in things like larger and larger clothes, a larger minimum healthy caloric (and nutritional, not just past-due pork with worms) intake, medical expenses (the older they are the more time they are running around and risking themselves, also a lot of stuff may pop up as you hit puberty), etc. And this is hoping that one lives in a place with a good educational system and they can be sent to a state school, in many countries/places people have to budget for schooling as well, unless they want their kid to go to an overglorified soup kitchen. Educational expenses matter even in the first world though, unless you are betting that your baby is going to be some math genius or professional-grade at tennis or basketball or whatever, in which case unless you start saving now you are significantly raising the possibilities of debt for your child once he/she becomes an adult.

And those are all just things which are essentially bare necessities. What are you going to say to your child when they want something that their classmates have which is the fancy new toy/gadget that everyone has. Tough luck? That will work sometimes, but not every single time, and if you're thrifting every piece of clothing and living off the leftovers from mom's food-related job, its just going to make not only the child but also you, as a parent, feel like poo poo. You have to be able to budget for all the necessary things, and then budget as well for some useless consumer item that your kid is going to want for a week because everyone has it and then never touch again.

A child is never as cheap as when it is a baby that is just sitting in its crib 95% of the time. This cannot be stressed enough, and the massive chorus of people in this thread who say they are parents and are saying it should be proof of that.

Rudager
Apr 29, 2008

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

A child is never as cheap as when it is a baby that is just sitting in its crib 95% of the time. This cannot be stressed enough, and the massive chorus of people in this thread who say they are parents and are saying it should be proof of that.

Even then at the very least they're growing out of clothes every few months.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal
The recent discussion piqued my interest in the subject, so I looked at this: http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator which gives an estimate based on your current household income, whether you're a single parent, and the area that you live in.

The only problem is, how accurate are these figures? For example my area is grouped in with the following areas (numbers shown are compared to Reno):

quote:

Price difference in San Francisco, CA
Groceries 25%more
Housing 235%more
Utilities 27%more
Transportation 6%more
Health Care 29%more

quote:

Price difference in Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
Groceries 7%more
Housing 129%more
Utilities 43%more
Transportation 5%more
Health Care 20%more

quote:

Price difference in Seattle, WA
Groceries 10%more
Housing 69%more
Utilities 26%more
Transportation 10%more
Health Care 26%more

Parents: do you really spend $400 more per month on housing for a child (especially per child)? That calculator estimates that's the average additional monthly housing cost for someone in our situation. For anecdotal evidence we would be in the same home regardless of having a baby (although we may have put off the move until the lease was up). $400 more a month and we'd be renting a pretty bitchin suburban mcmansion.

The calculator lists childcare, but does that include the tax credit received for paying childcare?

Has anyone on here tracked total expenses of a child for the first year, including gas, car depreciation, etc? I don't think BFC constitutes the average American's finances (though I'd wager the amount of debt we currently have is close).

And the calculator uses government numbers, so I don't think babycenter.com is pulling these out of nowhere, for example.

I'm tempted to change up YNAB to track the whole first year of baby expenses using the same categories listed. For science :science:.

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!
How about you start by lowering your discretionary spending so you can offset the money you're hemorrhaging from being a dum dum.

MrEnigma
Aug 30, 2004

Moo!

Knyteguy posted:

Parents: do you really spend $400 more per month on housing for a child (especially per child)? That calculator estimates that's the average additional monthly housing cost for someone in our situation. For anecdotal evidence we would be in the same home regardless of having a baby (although we may have put off the move until the lease was up). $400 more a month and we'd be renting a pretty bitchin suburban mcmansion.

Isn't the difference in your old place and your new place about this amount? The whole point is that you're going to need at least two bedrooms, which is probably ~$400 more a month. In your situation, sure you might have been in a larger place without a child, but if you need to save money, you're probably not going to go into a 1 bedroom with a child, while that could easily be the case without a child.

I think most people absorb the cost of kids pretty easily as it eats into your other categories pretty naturally. Your going out to eat budget will probably be cut down naturally (although could go up if you get used to ordering food in), Entertainment, yeah, well, probably not going to happen for awhile. You realize the needs of the child are more important than something for yourself, or at least hopefully that happens for most people.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal

Veskit posted:

Seriously why the heck is your discretionary so high given all these events. Also why do you have a gifting fund you need to not have a gift fund and convert it into a I need to pay my taxes fund.

Just being realistic man. It's important to remember that ~7 months ago we were spending $1,200-$2,000 per month on these things. I remember one month we had $750 in restaurants alone.

Our whole budget was posted for 6 months (I know you saw it you posted right after). I think we have a pretty good plan in place for tackling taxes. I'm open to input though. What would you recommend our discretionary values as?

So I just counted the taxes and apartments as new debts this month, even though they're both from last year. Here's our new net worth graph.


I don't think this includes our income for the rest of the month though. If it does, then that should go back up. Again our liabilities are current, so this should be a decent estimate with no mental gymnastics included. The car value should be adjusted to account for new depreciation as someone mentioned. I'll do that before the next time I post this graph.

Eris
Mar 20, 2002
Most people don't have a house/apartment with extra rooms in it for their dogs/unused drum sets that they convert to a nursery. And my guess is if you had a second kid, you'd move to an even bigger place. More rooms = more money. Especially if you also want a yard, specific school district, etc.

Droo
Jun 25, 2003

Not to mention all the extra housing-related costs you'll eventually incur from your kids destroying things.

in a well actually
Jan 26, 2011

dude, you gotta end it on the rhyme

Knyteguy posted:

The only problem is, how accurate are these figures? For example my area is grouped in with the following areas (numbers shown are compared to Reno):

You can't cherry-pick the highest-cost areas without also looking at the low-cost areas like East Compoundland, Idaho, Methview, New Mexico, or Loggington, Oregon. You're better off being conservative and overestimating expenses.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Eris posted:

Most people don't have a house/apartment with extra rooms in it for their dogs/unused drum sets that they convert to a nursery. And my guess is if you had a second kid, you'd move to an even bigger place. More rooms = more money. Especially if you also want a yard, specific school district, etc.

My wife and I live in a 3 bedroom town house and it's just the two of us. Depending on where you live sometimes "more bedrooms" is directly correlated to "nicer living conditions". Granted our rent is still only 25% of our net income (18% of gross).

EDIT: I don't think it's that uncommon for people to convert a room once a child is born, but maybe I'm misreading the point you're trying to get across.

Colin Mockery
Jun 24, 2007
Rawr



Okay. See, this right now is an example where I feel you're starting to become too caught up in the idea of "well what if it's LESS than what people are saying I should be prepared for?", and you're wasting time trying to calculate and talk about "but what if I did these things, then it would be cheaper right?" And then you'll end up budgeting around "if we're able to stick to the everything-goes-right low estimate we'll he okay", and then something will go wrong and force you to break your budget and you will come here saying, "we broke the budget but there was no way to know the kid would get a piece of kibble stuck in his nose this month", and we will get angry and frustrated and you will get angry and frustrated and it will suck.

I'm not saying that will definitely happen. I'm saying this looks like the first benign step (wanting to know exactly) that COULD lead down that path (relying on everything to go right).

It doesn't matter how expensive, exactly, kids are over a lifetime. That's not relevant to you. It's interesting, for the sake of knowing, which is why people are talking about it, but it should not impact your immediate plans.

What's relevant is getting a realistic ballpark estimation that is on the high end, because the overestimated portion is your buffer in case bad things happen.

If your kid going to cost you 5k in the first month after delivery? Almost definitely not. 1k? Highly unlikely unless you end up ordering takeout way too much. 500? Well, hmm, maybe, yeah. 750? No loving idea but other people in the thread seem to think budgeting 500 with cheap childcare is reasonable so I'm deferring to them.

If you overestimated? Great! You still have that extra money so you can spend it later, after you're sure you overestimated (ie, after the month ends). If you didn't? Well, then it's a good thing you were prepared.

(This is "prepare for the worst but hope for the best".)

Edit: ^ You can only convert a room if you have a spare room to convert. If you don't have a spare room, getting a bigger place is pretty common.

Colin Mockery fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jan 9, 2015

n8r
Jul 3, 2003

I helped Lowtax become a cyborg and all I got was this lousy avatar

Knyteguy posted:

Just being realistic man. It's important to remember that ~7 months ago we were spending $1,200-$2,000 per month on these things. I remember one month we had $750 in restaurants alone.

Our whole budget was posted for 6 months (I know you saw it you posted right after). I think we have a pretty good plan in place for tackling taxes. I'm open to input though. What would you recommend our discretionary values as?

ZERO

How hard is this to comprehend? You are in no position to waste any money on anything. This is what I and a lot of people have been harping on since forever. You've made some pretty huge mistakes this year financially. You seem content to continue to play a shell game with your budget and not make any real hard cuts. You flat out cannot afford to buy any stupid poo poo that is 'discretionary'. Those graphs - which have no timespan so it's hard to tell - look to me like your financial situation is at best staying status quo - if not getting worse. You may think you've made a bunch of sacrifices, but you have exactly jack poo poo to show for it.

Just because you were spending like a complete idiot in the past, does not justify spending like a semi idiot now. If you take the $200-$300 per month in discretionary and add it to savings or whatever you're talking about $2400-$3600 in additional savings per year. This is huge for someone in such poor financial straights as you.

Once again to make the exact same post over and over - your car is a huge financial drain on you that you flat out cannot afford. If you can somehow get yourself out from under that horrible $500/month and OWN - not finance - a reasonably priced (think $2500) used car - your finances will become so much easier. If you combined the car payment and the discretionary spending - you could potentially have $700+ in breathing room down the road. Living well within you means is how you will finally be able to tackle your long standing debts, and how you will be able to live comfortably month to month without the stresses you feel today.

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
The problem is that they're underwater, so they can't sell it outright. But here's an idea for the car:

Grandma.

She's willing to help you get a house, so she has cash. Go to her with the attitude that you want to save for a house, but your car is a huge financial strain that's hobbling your ability to get there, not to mention making it more difficult with the baby, and you'd like a *loan* from her to enable you to get a cheaper car. You sell the car to a private party, and have grandma loan you the difference so you can pay it off. Then you use your savings and your buffer from YNAB Rule 4 to buy a $3000 car and you're good to go. You can pay back grandma and the buffer at the same rate you're currently paying for the Toyota, and you'll be back to where you were in no time, with an extra $500 a month to spend.

How many shifts of KW's work does it take to bring home $500? Because that's what this is worth to you.

Potential hurdle: grandma or other family members will freak the gently caress out that you're driving baby around in a $3000 car. But gently caress them, it's fine. I'd be lucky to get $3000 for my car, and I have no problem driving a child in it (relative to other cars; they're all death traps).

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!

Knyteguy posted:

Just being realistic man.


loving Knyteguy.




You're going to eat away your emergency fund to pay off these debts instead of your discretionary spending because you hosed up. How do you BOTH not see this as a major issue.

April
Jul 3, 2006


Veskit posted:

loving Knyteguy.




You're going to eat away your emergency fund to pay off these debts instead of your discretionary spending because you hosed up. How do you BOTH not see this as a major issue.

Knyte believes that if he just figures out all the line items, he doesn't have to change his behavior. I posted a few examples of unexpected expenses, like prescription formula, and his response was "I'll just add a line item for prescription formula!" not "I should probably have a plan in place so that I can handle whatever expense comes up like a mature adult."

This is a man who insisted that he could afford and was certain he needed a PS4, when he only owned one pair of pants that he could wear to work, and his wife was pregnant. He has no idea how to prioritize.

Neophyte
Apr 23, 2006

perennially
Taco Defender
I'm not going to be mean to KG, but yeah.

The first thing to go in an emergency (which, frankly, your finances count as for the next few months at least), ISN'T the "emergency fund", it's the discretionary/optional spending!

Maybe renaming the "emergency fund" to "OUR LAST RESORT" (and mean it), or something along those lines, might help keep that in mind.

My Rhythmic Crotch
Jan 13, 2011

Please don't go to grandma for cash.

n8r posted:

Once again to make the exact same post over and over - your car is a huge financial drain on you that you flat out cannot afford. If you can somehow get yourself out from under that horrible $500/month and OWN - not finance - a reasonably priced (think $2500) used car - your finances will become so much easier. If you combined the car payment and the discretionary spending - you could potentially have $700+ in breathing room down the road. Living well within you means is how you will finally be able to tackle your long standing debts, and how you will be able to live comfortably month to month without the stresses you feel today.
The problem is they need something on the order of $5-7K in cash to do that (depending on how far underwater they are, I forget). The most realistic option is to re-fi through their credit union.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal
I feel like you guys are now telling me to be unrealistic with the allocations, when we've had many months where you told me to be realistic since I was underestimating discretionary costs. We also cut our groceries by $200 this month, cut our pet costs (pets will be reflected next month), cut our discretionary next month by $100, and more. It's not just our savings that are getting taxed, and our discretionary is not just fun money.

Horking: I'm not planning off of my questions there. It's purely for curiosity, and perhaps challenge. We already have our baby budget set, which is I think from the same site, and therefore very likely derived from the same figures.

Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 9, 2015

My Rhythmic Crotch
Jan 13, 2011

Knyteguy posted:

I feel like you guys are now telling me to be unrealistic with the allocations
At the very least, people need to pony up a hard number of what they feel is realistic, rather than just saying "well that's too much dum dum"

April
Jul 3, 2006


My Rhythmic Crotch posted:

At the very least, people need to pony up a hard number of what they feel is realistic, rather than just saying "well that's too much dum dum"

If you already have other line items for gas, groceries, clothes, and eating out (he does) then $50 each is probably fair. What do they need to blow money on that costs $175/month each?

Veskit
Mar 2, 2005

I love capitalism!! DM me for the best investing advice!

My Rhythmic Crotch posted:

At the very least, people need to pony up a hard number of what they feel is realistic, rather than just saying "well that's too much dum dum"

200 a month until your "unforeseeable" debt is paid off. Restaurants included. That's not asking for much. You don't reward yourself with a 400 dollar have fun budget when you loving LOST AN EXTRA 500 DOLLARS.

Colin Mockery
Jun 24, 2007
Rawr



Good: budgeting less and spending less
Bad: budgeting the same and spending the same
Worst: budgeting less and spending the same


I think you guys can't manage the good solution and so should settle for the bad one. Other people think you should go for the good solution, but I worry that if you try, you'll end up doing the worst one.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal
Our discretionary is also for grooming supplies such as razors, haircuts (I need one this month actually), household goods ranging from cooking utensils, shower rods and curtains, etc.

Also:
Deodorant, body wash, laundry soap, shampoo, conditioner? Discretionary. *
More than $25 in clothes? Discretionary.
Sister's baby shower plus a kid's birthday this month? Well if that holiday/giving fund runs out (and it will this month), then... Discretionary.
In March I need to buy a refill on formal work clothes as I have a business trip (shoe conditioner, probably a shirt or two, maybe a pair of slacks or two). Discretionary.

I can blow through more than that $25 in clothes on a new baseball cap. With work clothes coming up, I don't think there is much room as it's mandatory I present myself as a professional while on site with a client.

I think we're running pretty thin here already. Our discretionary doesn't have much room for fun money with our current budget.

* When our grocery is exhausted. Which it is now, even though much of the food we bought is for February.

Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jan 9, 2015

interrodactyl
Nov 8, 2011

you have no dignity
Why are those part of your discretionary fund if you're describing them to BFC as necessities?

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My Rhythmic Crotch
Jan 13, 2011

On the one hand it's good that you're raiding the blow category when you have an overage. On the other hand, you could decrease blow and increase grocery/clothes/whatever without changing the net total, which would make your budget a bit more accurate. It might be a little less stressful too, if you don't have to constantly pay for necessities out of blow money.

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