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P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:2015 GOALS  Doing well here. I had a couple paychecks where I was traveling for work at least part of both weeks, dropping my personal restaurant spend. P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:Finish paying off my student loan by the end of June. I owe about $5K (down from $89K!), and I've been throwing about $1000 per month at it (after maxing out my employer 5% 401(k) match and my Roth IRA) for the past few years, so this wouldn't be too challenging -- except that my old paid-off truck got to the point where I'd had it in the shop six times in two months, so I ended up buying a car last October, and I have a car payment again. Fortunately, literally doubling my fuel efficiency has offset the car payment somewhat, but it's brought down what I can contribute to the loan a little. At least both the student loan and car payment are under 3% interest, and I have no other debt.  I was also able to pay off quite a bit of the student loan this month. P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:
Still on hold; student loan not yet paid off.
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Apr 18, 2015 03:59
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Fantastic job and great update. 
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Apr 18, 2015 12:46
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Progress post! Background: - 27 y/o single child-free woman. - Moved back home with my parents in December 2014 to un-gently caress my finances - Income: $42,000 - A note for people kind enough to give advice: Thank you all so much for reading and being sweet enough to give advice! But when you give advice, please remember that I am extremely impulsive. Ideally I would be a disciplined person that makes good long-term decisions based on my understanding of money, but I'm not there yet. For now the best thing to do is to hide things that are bad for me. I know it's childish and doesn't make sense, but if any advice you give relies on my making decent decisions with large amounts of money, it is probably just advice that would result on my blowing it on a trip to China or on extra sushi for lunch. 1) Paid off my credit card, been doing great at staying away from it! I did put some car related expenses on it when I got into a car wreck last month, but I paid it off right away. 2) Savings goals: - 401k: Total ~$25000, vested in ~$21,500. Continuing to put 10% of my paycheck into my 401k, company matches 7% with 5% additional matching in stocks. (As a follow-up to the note above--I purposely have my 401k so high because I used to have a very bad impulse spending problem and I still don't really trust myself to make decent decisions with money that I have easy access to.) - Roth IRA: $2687.90, up from ~$1000 at the beginning of the year. I increased my automatic biweekly transfer between my checking and Roth to $100, so that starts in May. - Savings: $2522.68. Yay, for the first time in five years, I have more than $500 in emergency savings.  *** On 6-month emergency savings goals: I live with my parents so I don't really have any large bills, but I'm saving this with the assumption that I'll move out into a 1-bdrm within 30 minutes of my job, that there will be at least one $1000 car repair... Sigh ._. It sounds crazy, but I feel like my six-month emergency savings should be at least $7500. *** After I save my emergency expenses, my next goal really needs to be maxing my roth and then saving a down payment for my next car, and putting the extra savings in some kind of high interest account. I have a Toyota at 80.6k miles so the car down payment isn't super urgent, but it's something I shouldn't let sneak up on me. *** I feel like I shouldn't have easy-access to more than $1000 in cash at a time, and once I break $3000 in savings, I should move $2000 to some high interest account. I have a savings account with Ally bank that had a $1 minimum deposit so maybe I can see about moving to that. Then as I save more, I can find accounts with better interest rates/higher minimum deposits. *** I really want to spend this poo poo on a trip to China, but really my next goal after emergency savings really needs to be maxing my roth, saving a down payment on a car, and then a down payment on a condo. ._. 3) Began driving a lot more in March/early April during a busy time at work/recovering from my surgery/getting super sick. I miss riding the bus! 4) After my surgery I had to stop working out over lunch, so I began eating out again. ._. I'm working out over lunch again with my doctor's clearance, so way less lunch-time eating out 5) Medical expenses folder: dang it, I didn't end up starting this. I even have the folder too... 6) Canceled all my monthly subscriptions. 7) I ended up canceling my LASIK surgery because my prescription changed again. Also, it's pretty scary to me that I was seriously planning on spending my *entire* savings on LASIK so I'd be back to 0 again. More proof that I'm not really over the impulse spending thing. 8) Potential career development: Finished CSS tracks on two different training websites. I'm now moving on to Javascript, which succcccccccccccccks. I'm really glad that I haven't had to spend anything at all on new clothes besides a cute $60 sailor costume and some temporary tattoos I treated myself to on my birthday (which is bad now that I've typed it out, but depressingly this is actually an improvement considering that my typical costume budget would usually be around ~$200... yeahhhhhhhhhhhh.......). I've lost 20 pounds since the beginning of the year, but I picked out my new work clothes carefully (lots of stretchy dresses, skirts) and they all still fit really well despite the weight fluctuation! I also have old smaller-sized clothes that I expect to fit me better as I lose more weight. Part of why I moved home was because I was scared I would need new work clothes every time I lost 10 pounds, so I'm glad this is turning out way be a way smaller expense than I expected. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 19, 2015 23:15
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legsarerequired posted:It sounds crazy, but I feel like my six-month emergency savings should be at least $7500.
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Apr 20, 2015 13:16
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legsarerequired posted:A note for people kind enough to give advice: Thank you all so much for reading and being sweet enough to give advice! But when you give advice, please remember that I am extremely impulsive. Ideally I would be a disciplined person that makes good long-term decisions based on my understanding of money, but I'm not there yet. For now the best thing to do is to hide things that are bad for me. I know it's childish and doesn't make sense, but if any advice you give relies on my making decent decisions with large amounts of money, it is probably just advice that would result on my blowing it on a trip to China or on extra sushi for lunch. There's that classic trick of freezing your credit card - but that's pretty old school for 2015. Putting large amounts in your 401k to protect you from yourself is a good idea! I did it too. What also helped me for some reason was to split my paycheck into both savings and checking. I put a specific amount in checking to cover my budget. That way, when I needed to pay credit card bills over my budget, I had to dip into savings, and it made me feel dirty. Also if you online shop a lot, try just adding things to your cart and then only allowing yourself to make purchases one day a week, like Sunday.
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Apr 25, 2015 05:03
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Goals for 2015. 1) Probably about $4000 left to go. 2) Im officially a risk on my vps list of risks they have to defend to the board for being underpaid (where difficulty and cost of replacement > increased salary). But that does not appear to translate into a raise so dusting off cv as we speak. 3) Done, also rebalanced this month. 4) $1500 this month. Although not commited as Ive discoversd that our fixed rate mortgage ends in october and if I apply around $3000 to the balance when it ends it may drop me down a ltv banding which could give better rated when we refix. So keeping it liquid until then so we can select the best option. 5) Paid.  6) Failure so far been busy but not so busy I dont have an excuse.
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Apr 27, 2015 11:20
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or negotiating this at current company)
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Salary is currently $36,000/yr gross. Time for a check-in! - Private student loans are paid off as of 2/20/2015. Along with my tax return I cut my emergency fund in half to just wipe it out and be done. My emergency fund was too big anyway. - My net worth has gone up by at least 1.5k every month this year so far, feelin good! - Net worth will be -$7,300 when I get paid on Friday. I'm on task. - Currently $11.3k I think I'm on task here too. I took a bit of a hit when I paid off the private loan but I should be able to get there, unless I decide I don't need that much and dump it on the federal loan instead. - Savings goals are on task - Decided to pay down my federal loans aggressively instead of funding the Roth. Paying at least $600 a month. Still not totally sure about this, my loan is 5.125% and currently floating at $22.2K so I kinda feel like the Roth is more optimal, but I also want that psychological win when I am out of debt ASAP. - Moving out is on hold, life stuff, nothing to do with finances. - Vacations are on track. - Extra money inflow is eh. I got my COLA raise at work but that doesn't really count towards much. I'll figure something out. Not really creative, not really comfortable spending money to make money later. Did apply to a different job at my current employer, I hope that works out.
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Apr 27, 2015 20:00
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District Selectman posted:There's that classic trick of freezing your credit card - but that's pretty old school for 2015. Putting large amounts in your 401k to protect you from yourself is a good idea! I did it too. What also helped me for some reason was to split my paycheck into both savings and checking. I put a specific amount in checking to cover my budget. That way, when I needed to pay credit card bills over my budget, I had to dip into savings, and it made me feel dirty. Also if you online shop a lot, try just adding things to your cart and then only allowing yourself to make purchases one day a week, like Sunday. Normally I PM people who respond to me because I don't want to distract from other people's progress posts, but I see that you don't have PM so I'm responding. I rarely use my credit card except for necessities that cost over $500 (I'm thinking the car repair from last month) and then I pay it off right away. I already have automatic transfers from my checking to my savings and to my IRA. This post also motivated me to finally transfer money over to my online savings account so I'll have a more tangible sense of "Car down payment/emergency savings/DO NOT TOUCH" money. I can ask my company if they could split my paycheck between the online savings and my regular checking, but I doubt it since they said they couldn't put a portion of my check into my IRA. I definitely quit online shopping. I basically don't shop/windowshop for fun anymore and I think that's helped a lot. I have been casually looking for a date-type dress since I've lost 30 pounds since the last time I went shopping for casual clothes but I'm super picky about the price (since I have to lose 50 more pounds) and about the type of outfit so I basically keep going into thrift stores and leaving emptyhanded. Thank you for your advice! legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 16:34
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Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. Monthly update #3: Things are going well! Got my raise earlier this month, raising my base salary by nearly 5%. If I count my reimbursement for school this year, I'll easily clear $80k gross. On track to max out my 401k, Roth IRA is already funded for this year. I have not yet decreased my housing costs. I'm considering moving back home for a spell while I look for a roommate. Girlfriend has tolerated me thus far. I've helped her put together a good budget, and she's helped me feel less guilty about spending fun money on myself. Communication is awesome. Clinched the B in one class, the other is pretty breezy and I only need to get 50% on the remaining design project and final to reach that goal. I should be able to get As in both, provided I have enough time to study around the crazy deadline at work. GPA doesn't matter in the real world, but I have my pride. I've been able to consistently make efforts toward my stretch goal, but I'm probably only going to be able to make it to $3-4k unless I really tighten my belt in regards to fun/convenience spending. If I end up moving back home, though, I'll be able to accomplish it very easily.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:28
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Veskit posted:1) Be free of consumer debt, which stands at around $6,000 1) Consumer debt down to $5,000 now and will be more focused on 2) 2 months saved, one month to go and should be completed by EVO 3) Pffft no 4) Well I priced it out, and bought tickets. I don't have to fund my girlfriends half so really it's about a 600 dollar trip for 4 days and airfare. Easily doable especially since I planned out June to be a 3 paycheck month! 5) It's kinda done at this point depending on how you look at it. My company matches my donations so I'm up to 700 total, but only 350 out of pocket. On track however you look at it! April was a good month. Gunna keep the train rollin.
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May 2, 2015 19:42
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quote:2015 Goals: (In order of priority, highest to lowest) End of April Update: #1 - NO BABIES. Tada! #2 - ON PACE. I wrote a check for $2,500 for April on the loans. This is lower than I wanted to, but I had to help my brother out financially. Still on pace after the March overpayment. #3 - STRETCH GOAL AHOY. I just turned a nearly $12K month in April and am on pace for $14K-18K this month. Fingers crossed for continuing success! They arrive on a net-60 schedule, so June and July should be fantastic loan payment months. #4 - ON TRACK. I had a wonderful 90-min massage in April, and I'm about to leave for a week-long vacation in Florida. One nice thing per month keeps me sane. #5 - Will Review in July. So far, so good! I'm really excited for the side biz growth. If this keeps up, I'll be done well ahead of schedule with all my goals.
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May 6, 2015 02:21
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5) Don't spend any money in a casino unless it's on drinks with free music I blew it! But I won $30 on my first spin and actually had the discipline to walk away. :/ 4) Take on $7k in additional freelance web development clients (Now new job instead) The new job is going awesome!!! I've learned so much in the first few weeks any my take-home pay has increased from $1100 to $2000 per paycheck 3) Release (now partially) completed Android game Headed to Australia for a wedding next week so I'll have loads of time to wrap this one up! Almost 2 weeks of down time. 2) Save an additional $5.8k for a $7k savings total The dust has settled after the tax burden. Our total cash on hand at the moment is ~6k, we have roughly 3 in expenses so really this one is back to square one for now. 1) Pay off 2 credit cards @ $4.4k and an additional $2k in the final card (remainder of 8k) This one is on hold until the Oz trip is wrapped up. Since I changed jobs I won't have enough PTO to cover the whole thing and I'll take a pay reduction those 2 weeks. It was bought and paid for by my wife's parents so backing out would have been more expensive (and bogus) than just taking the reduced pay. Now that I have my first take home numbers at the new place, we'll be able to sit down and make a balanced budget. I opted to do additional withholdings from my paycheck so we don't hit the 1099 issues with my wife this year. This plan is to apply 100% of my wife's income to debt, and use my income for the budget and expenses. Any surplus will send half to savings and half to debt. I think we're gonna make this happen! Bonus news The new job is 6.5 miles from my house in a very bicycle friendly community. Full bike lanes, crossing buttons at the street side, all residential, and a bike/pedestrian only freeway overpass. I've been biking 3-4 days a week and it's been great. only 3 flat tires so far hahaha. Additional news We are back on the cash system. All fun/entertainment purchases come from a shared $100/w fund, with an additional personal $100/mo for non-sharing fun moneys. root of all eval fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 6, 2015 20:57
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spwrozek posted:My goals really took a turn the last couple weeks for next year. I hope to have some time to revisit them in a few weeks but generally here they are: Random Update: 1) Sounds like going to happen for sure, need to start all the paperwork...sigh. 2) This will take some time but I hope to have it done by July, I think all will be well. 3) Looks like I will hang onto the house another year. 4) 1st roommate was solid, Looks like I got #2 lined up (also why I am staying in the house another year) 5) 2nd half goal after I get #2 all set 6) We shall see. Owe 13K, worst case I pay it off with my bonus next March. The good news is I have been spending money like crazy due to my emotional state (going out, eating out, trips) but I am still $14K in the black on my net income/spend.
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May 12, 2015 05:51
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Sundae posted:End of April Update: What is your side business, out of curiosity? So curious what everyone is doing.
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May 21, 2015 02:23
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P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:2015 GOALS  I went over budget once due to our anniversary dinner (that all alone cost more than the budget). However, I've been far enough under most periods this year that my biweekly average is still only $119. P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:Finish paying off my student loan by the end of June. I owe about $5K (down from $89K!), and I've been throwing about $1000 per month at it (after maxing out my employer 5% 401(k) match and my Roth IRA) for the past few years, so this wouldn't be too challenging -- except that my old paid-off truck got to the point where I'd had it in the shop six times in two months, so I ended up buying a car last October, and I have a car payment again. Fortunately, literally doubling my fuel efficiency has offset the car payment somewhat, but it's brought down what I can contribute to the loan a little. At least both the student loan and car payment are under 3% interest, and I have no other debt.  Doing very well here; I paid off nearly half of the remaining balance in one payment. I don't think I'll quite be able to finish it off this month, but it should be gone in two months. P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:
Still on hold; student loan not yet paid off.
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May 22, 2015 16:35
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My goal was going to be "pay off all credit card debt", there are just the two of us - my wife and I - but she's currently unable to work. She may be able to soon, on the other hand she also handles things at home. I am 25 and I graduated from law school with about 15k in debt, and then just today the family had clubbed together 25k so I applied it to the debts - boring but practical. I now owe 0 dollars, including an absence of loans (I worked during school). I have sufficient emergency savings so I put the remaining 10k into an investment account (I'm Canadian so weird tax free savings accounts and such) Basically in Canada you can put upto 10k a year (and it stacks and is carried forward, used to be 5.5k) into an account where all interest or realized capital gains are generally (subject to some limitations) tax free. The money can be withdrawn when you need it at no penalty, so I'm a fool for not having it maxed out and I really should soon to begin accruing those tax-free gains toward eventual retirement planning. Income: 25k a year right now. May increase now that I have more time and will increase by about 20k a year once I get an articling position (and more once I can open or join a little practice somewhere quiet) We live very much within our means - wife and I own our vehicle, own family land in a low-cost-of-living area where work can likely be found. I self publish as a side-business and am doing decently out of that, though I have a bad habit of giving money to friends and family when they're down and this ate up basically all the income from this business for a while. I am now being more frugal and saving for the future. I'd like to find the times to submit something for traditional publishing someday, and hey if that takes off you'll see "moved to warm place, writing forever" posted here someday. Pure Financial Goals: Begin investing, invest something like 150 dollars a week, I have the budget room since we are living within our means, and maybe I can get this up to 250 if we kill off some bad habits.. I'm set to inherit canadian real estate and funds, I work in Canada for Canadian dollars so I'm going to diversify into some global equity, nothing in bonds really since I was given some (pretty crappy but hey, family means well) very long term guaranteed investments which can backstop an equity-heavy approach, plus we're young. Reduce eating out to once or twice a month, no more than 90 dollars total. Reduce food budget, especially since we're moving soon, to something less ridiculous (we are really bad for non-essentials and not shopping wisely. Improving.) Career goals: Secure an articling position (had one lined up but it fell through because the practitioner decided he'd rather retire than work, he's 85 so that's a good thing but it left me in the lurch) I have a solid resume with relevant skills, if I don't get a job in the next month I'm going to find a legal aid clinic to volunteer at, or one of the regional legal information services jobs, pad said resume even more and make connections to get a position. But people in the legal profession are generally pretty sympathetic about the occasional person who doesn't get a position as easily.
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May 29, 2015 02:35
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quote:2015 Goals: (In order of priority, highest to lowest) End of May Update: #1 - No babies. Yay! #2 - ON PACE. I'm writing a check for somewhere between $6,000-8,500 tomorrow on my wife's student loans. Makes up for the lower April payment. (Note to future generations: If you consolidate your daughter's student loans at almost 10% interest rate, don't act all hurt when her eventual spouse curses your name once a month. I could seriously buy a loving house with the money I've thrown at this thing.) #3 - STRETCH GOAL AHOY. I am turning $13.5K this month for the side-biz. I hope it keeps being awesome. #4 - ON TRACK. I spent a week on the beach Florida practically for free (friend's condo, points for airfare, free rental car voucher), which is actually why I only turned $13.5K this month on the biz. I did zero work during that week, and it was fantastic. One nice thing per month keeps me sane. #5 - Will Review in July. So far, so good. quote:What is your side business, out of curiosity? So curious what everyone is doing. Romance writing. quote:I'd like to find the times to submit something for traditional publishing someday, and hey if that takes off you'll see "moved to warm place, writing forever" posted here someday. Minus the trad-pub part, you've basically described my goal. I'm going full-time writer next year once I kill this loving loan.Edit: Check for $6,000 written over the weekend. Sundae fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jun 1, 2015 |
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May 29, 2015 03:51
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fuzzy_logic posted:Goals for next year, by priority: 1) haven't gone into savings yet, practicing not using the super granular itemized budget. 2) DONE 3) ughhhhh I don't even 4) DONE 5) working on it 6) haven't done this yet 7) slaughtering this one 8) nope. But I have been on a yarn and pattern moratorium and finished up a bunch of old projects. have not begun smoking again.
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May 29, 2015 05:21
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District Selectman posted:March: $144k so that's cool Missed a month, but May: $165k in liquid non-retirement assets.  I"m $10k away from my original goal of $175k, and $35k from my stretch goal of $200k. I'm pretty confident I'll hit my original goal next month. 6 months early! Also like Sundae, I continue to have no babies or own a house 
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May 29, 2015 14:47
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Not a Children posted:2014 was good, but not great. Gonna see if I can't improve this year. End-of-May Update: With the incoming educational reimbursement, I should blow past $75k even if I put in zero overtime for the rest of the year. Goal is to surpass $80k this year. In my last update, I said that would be easy -- it is not looking so easy now that I realize reimbursement for the fall semester won't come until January. Roth IRA is maxed. 401k is on track to max, and since I was maxing before my raise last month, I actually saw a pure take-home increase now that I can draw back my contribution %.  I have not yet decreased my housing expenses. I'm in a bit of a limbo right now, waiting for a couple of friends to finalize their work situations so we can figure out if a roommate situation would be palatable. May was a bad month for frugality, but not terrible; I got my tax refund, shoved it all into savings, and used the extra wiggle room in my monthly budget to treat the girlfriend to a couple of nice dinners. We're going on vacation next week, and after that have vowed to keep eating out to a maximum of twice a month as long as we can stand it. My grades are in! I probably could have gotten away with studying way, way less, but a pair of A+es isn't a half bad way to make my grad school debut. That's slightly less than $5000 of reimbursements banked right there.
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May 29, 2015 15:51
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Everything Burrito posted:This year was crappy because I took an unofficial temporary pay cut due to my boss being a bad at budgets (I was at least not alone in this and he suffered along with me) but it paid off in the end because we got our funding back and I got a pretty substantial raise out of it along with back pay.  My boss is still being bad with budgets so I've been paid about 4 times this year, but have still managed to hit part of my goals. If I lived somewhere else I probably would have ditched this job, but I'm not going to find anything that will let me slack as much as this one at anywhere near the yearly salary and I'll get my back pay eventually. CC balance: was paid of, promptly ran it back up again. Currently is ~$2500 split between two cards. Depending on if I get one or two paychecks next month I will pay either one or both completely off. I'm dumb for carrying balances though, and am not meeting my 0 balance goal at all. IRA contributions: complete  HSA: still gotta do this one Efund: Up to roughly 4 months of expenses, so just a little more to go. So still have some work to do. New goal: kick my boss square in the rear end every day until some money falls out. Everything Burrito fucked around with this message at 16:09 on May 30, 2015 |
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May 30, 2015 16:05
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Zuph posted:2015: 1. Credit Card Debt down to $3200 (from $4700) 2. Car loan down to $1200 (down from $2500) 3. No progress 4. Sold some junk, so combined with the big raise earlier this year, this goal is technically achieved, but the spirit of it was to generate some sustainable side income, so I'm still working on that. 5. No progress Still on track to meet goals 1 and 2 by February. This was going to be the "get back on track" month, but we had a couple major appliances fail unexpectedly. Fortunately, this year's diligent budgeting meant that this event didn't cause us to lose ground, so I'm happy.
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Jun 1, 2015 12:56
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Can I change my goal to "financially survive my wife giving birth to twins and leaving her job?" I think we can get by without touching savings but in the worst case I can get a part time job. Ill be getting a raise this month too.
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Jun 2, 2015 17:41
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Sephiroth_IRA posted:Can I change my goal to "financially survive my wife giving birth to twins and leaving her job?" My wife and I are looking to adopt if you'd like us to take one off your hands.
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Jun 3, 2015 23:04
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How much will you pay for a mixed (latin/white) male? Both parents have excellent genetic profiles.
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Jun 3, 2015 23:33
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Progress post! Background: - 27 y/o single child-free woman, very few bills since I live at home. - Income: $42,000 1) Doing great at staying away from my credit card except for emergency expenses that I collect for points and immediately pay off. I'm avoiding putting daily small expenses such as gas and food on it because that feels like something I would start to abuse. 2) Savings goals: - 401k: Total ~$26000, vested in ~$21,500. I'm a dummy that increased my 401k contribution to 22%, when goes into effect starting on my next paycheck. The rules on my plan say that I can change the contribution only once a month, so it's going back down to 12% in July. I asked the financial adviser at my bank to give me some savings goals since I feel I need direction and he told me I should aim to have $40k (including gains from stocks, interest, match, etc) in my 401k by the time I'm 30. I saw an infographic online that said you should aim to have half of your annual salary saved by the time you turn 30, and you should aim to have your entire annual salary saved by the time you turn 35. The infographic might assume that the reader is making more money than I do, but it's a little comforting that I've already hit it's goal for 30 year olds. - Roth IRA: $5342, up from ~$1000 at the beginning of the year. Adviser told me to max this out each year. - Savings: $1100. Adviser told me to temporarily slow down the retirement savings and increase my emergency savings to at least three months' worth by the end of this year. I've requested to decrease my 401k deposit to 12% so it will be easier to save. I've decided I'll keep $1500 in the regular savings account, and anything extra will go into the Ally savings account or possibly another flexible option suggested by my adviser. 3) I've driven to work every day since my surgery even though I know the bus is a better choice! 4) Still buying lots of snacks and eating out for lunch. I reconnected my mint account to my bank accounts so I can better see how much I'm spending here. 5) No new medical expenses for my folder. 6) I'm doing really well about not spending unnecessary money on clothes since the last update. I've 25 pounds since last December (60 pounds lost in total), with 40 left to go. I want to feel accomplished and satisfied when I buy clothes, not worried about how much longer they'll fit. 7) Looking over this, I feel like I need to really set myself up for a promotion at my job or some other increase in income. I'm certainly able to provide for myself as a single 20-something without kids, but I'm realizing that it'll be very difficult to save as I get older. I already feel constantly overwhelmed and afraid sometimes when I think about things like buying a house or raising kids. When I talked to the adviser at my bank about getting on track with my savings, he also told me to remember to enjoy life. It made me feel a little better about how far I've come from my really bad spending days if a financial adviser was telling me to relax a bit about savings. Between this and my annual physical showing significant improvement in various metrics since I lost 60 pounds, I'm finally starting to feel like I'm crawling out the rut I created for myself. I also did a great job at preventing myself from buying a theremin over the weekend! It would have been my first multi-hundred-dollar impulse purchase in a long time.
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Jun 4, 2015 04:13
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Veskit posted:Very late to the party but here goes 1) Down to 5000 dollars 2) loving DONE, So on target 3) Lol Nope 4) Got the evo tickets, plane tickets, just need the hotel and stash some cash for the event, totally on target 5) On target I need to stash 800 dollars a month toward CC debt and I'll be out of the hole. I'll be happy to get it down to 1000 dollars and if I do then excluding retirement savings about 30% of my take home went toward net worth building and I'm ok with that.
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Jun 4, 2015 14:58
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Moneyball posted:
Update time with some good news about the car loan. 1. Maxed my 2014 IRA, won't contribute to my 2015 until my tax return next year. I have been working some overtime and a hours at the other jobs, so I've brought in some extra money, however.... 2. I found out the balance on the loan as of may, and holy poo poo I am/was getting screwed. I can't remember the dollar figure of the original loan, I'd have to go look it up, but after several months of payments, it went from something under $12,000, to still over $11,000. I've basically been leasing it. I dropped $3,500.00 into it last month, bringing it down to somewhere around $7,000. This is my #1 priority now. I hope to have it paid off by the end of the year. 3. Paying just the interest on my student loans before it capitalizes so I can get the tax deduction and concentrate on the car loan. 4. Job has actually been less secure as of late. Might need to update my resume. 5. As Mr. Money Mustache would say, this is unacceptable until I deal with my DEBT EMERGENCY. Once I get rid of the car loan and my 6.8% student loans, I'll try this one again. 6. Opened up the HSA- only contributed $120 to it so far. My company contributes $500 a year so that's a plus. All in all, from the beginning of the year I've gone from about a -$29,000.00 net worth to -$19,000.00 , grossing basically $35,000k. I'd call that progress.
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Jun 5, 2015 02:45
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pig slut lisa posted:March update It's mid-month, but I'm a couple updates behind so here we go: -Max out both Roth IRAs and my 457(b) Status: done -Have wife begin contributions to 403(b) at new postdoc in the fall Status: Still waiting to find out if this new position will have a 403(b), but it probably won't. -Increase frequency of grocery shopping trips made by bicycle instead of car, especially between April and October Update: We've been doing better with this, although we were recently out of the country for 2.5 weeks and so our most recent grocery trip was via car. On the plus side we've started receiving weekly produce from our CSA. We pick it up at the farmers' market which is only a few blocks away. -Keep home alcohol purchases below $50/month January total $17.99 February total $43.47 March total: $46.28 April Total: $35.50 May Total: $42.66 Monthly average: $36.98 I also met the goal of not drinking anything at home while my wife was at her conference, and didn't go to the bar either. -Designate a purpose for the few thousand we should be getting back in our federal tax refund. Leading contenders here are starting a 529 or holding the money in savings for a lump sum boost for the 2016 IRA cycle. The refund was around $3,000. We've decided to start a 529 for our as-yet-not-conceived first child to the tune of $2,000. We're 95% sure about this, not 100%, so I'm going to move the $2,000 to a separate account and see what it's like to have that hole in our assets for the next couple months. Once I feel comfortable I'll start the 529. The 529 is also a little lower than what I originally thought we might do since we will both need new computers relatively soon, although we're both going with fairly inexpensive Chromebooks. -Devise a plan for earning enough points/miles for free international business class airfare and at least 4 free hotel nights for a 2016 international vacation. We haven't moved much on this. We'll probably do another round of Alaska Airlines card apps in a couple months since we're leaning towards Asia again, and Alaska miles have a great redemption rate on Cathay Pacific.
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Jun 12, 2015 05:27
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Congrats! This sounds terrible, but does the 529 get refunded if you end up not being able to have a kid? Also, update: I sold my house!!! SO excited to be done with it. Now to find a new, more expensive house 
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Jun 12, 2015 18:52
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moana posted:Congrats! This sounds terrible, but does the 529 get refunded if you end up not being able to have a kid? I've been trying to find information on this too and it's surprisingly difficult to find. According to this website, it looks like you can withdraw the principal, but earnings are subject to penalty (Source). The funds could also be used for another relative's education.
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Jun 12, 2015 19:21
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legsarerequired posted:I've been trying to find information on this too and it's surprisingly difficult to find. According to this website, it looks like you can withdraw the principal, but earnings are subject to penalty (Source). The funds could also be used for another relative's education. That's my understanding. Since you're opening it before the kid is born you'll presumably name yourself or your spouse as beneficiary, so when you have the kid it would be like a typical transfer to a family member. There's no "we didn't have a kid" loophole. We were considering doing this but neither of us is ever going to school again and we had no relatives who haven't gone to college yet until our daughter was born.
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Jun 12, 2015 21:38
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moana posted:Congrats! This sounds terrible, but does the 529 get refunded if you end up not being able to have a kid? Congrats to you as well! It's a good question, re: 529, and one I thought about. I decided to go ahead for the following reasons: 1) There's a possibility I'll never have a dependent who incurs qualified educational expenses, but that could happen a number of different ways: kid never born, kid born but dies (  ), kid is first pick in the MLB draft coming out of high school, etc. So since risk still exists even after birth, I figured why not start now.2) We plan on having a kid in a few years. If we find out that we can't conceive we won't have too much socked away, so it won't be a major hurt to pull out. 3) I have two siblings (one twin, one younger) who will likely have college-bound kids. So I'd probably redesignate the beneficiary to their kid(s), maybe pulling some back out for my wife and me and taking the gains penalty on that portion. Obviously the best case (and, I like to think, most likely) scenario is that I'll have at least one child who will be able to use this thing. But in the event that we don't have a kid, I'm pretty comfortable with my options and anticipated situation.
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Jun 12, 2015 23:22
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Really not much of an update from previous. 2015 Financial Goals Update
Non-financial goal(s) Update
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Jun 19, 2015 15:26
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Omne posted:
Well, things have gotten interesting. In late May, the little lady and I got engaged, so now there's a wedding to plan. We'll be paying for it ourselves, which makes my goals dificult... 1) This WAS on track, until I bought an engagement ring with my non-emergency fund savings... 1a) Still on track with this, though. Current balance is up to $7900 2) I stopped after April, so I'm technically two months behind on this goal now 3) I stopped contributing to this line item, which currently sits at $1850 4) Haha nope 5) Successful once again. Credit card is always paid off every two weeks, and my 401k contributions are at 9% as of March. Merit increase happens in October, at which point I'll likely bump it up to 10%
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Jun 19, 2015 21:59
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Omne posted:Well, things have gotten interesting. In late May, the little lady and I got engaged, so now there's a wedding to plan. We'll be paying for it ourselves, which makes my goals dificult... Congrats on your engagement! I hope you are able to do things in a more BFC fashion than my former law school classmate: pig slut lisa posted:Here's something from Facebook:
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Jun 21, 2015 17:34
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Omne, do BFC proud!! It's just a fancy party after all. I have no experience planning a wedding or getting married so yeah, take my opinion for what it's worth. I bet that would be a cool thread though. BFC Weddings: Got My Mind on My Matrimony or BFC Weddings: Sash Rules Everything Around Me or you know, choose your own pun.District Selectman posted:Missed a month, but May: $165k in liquid non-retirement assets. $165k to $170k in June, the struggle is real
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Jun 27, 2015 17:19
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District Selectman posted:Omne, do BFC proud!! It's just a fancy party after all. I have no experience planning a wedding or getting married so yeah, take my opinion for what it's worth. I bet that would be a cool thread though. BFC Weddings: Got My Mind on My Matrimony or BFC Weddings: Sash Rules Everything Around Me or you know, choose your own pun. Thanks all! There's a weddings and engagement thread in Ask/Tell that I follow. We have set our budget and will stick to it! We know what our priorities are and will focus on those, while skimping on other crap (flowers, invitations, etc.)
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Jun 27, 2015 19:25
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spinst posted:Goals: Progress: June was the first month I did not pay an extra $100, I paid an extra $75. June was also moving month - so I guess I met my expectations. Summer paychecks are smaller. Move is complete! I withdrew $40 from my e-fund to pay for my dad's gas... Will be paid back on June 30th. Oh well. No credit card debt. Grad School fund is at $2155 - should meet my goals! $3k in October and $3k again in April '16. Very pleased. Adding new goals: July: $325 on car loan. August - September: $300/mo. October: $400. November & December: $550. This would bring my average back up to $400/mo for the year. Get my $6k of student loans forgiven. (I have $6k in student loans from last year I am working on getting forgiven, but I have hit some hiccups. Now I am trying to get some paperwork from my previous employer which sucks now that I'm 3 hours away. But I need to get this taken care of! Navient are such bitches.) Have a positive net worth for each month in 2015. spinst fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 19:42
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District Selectman posted:$165k to $170k in June, the struggle is real I'm finding the mid-year struggle myself. I have a slip on my property that I'm waiting on the final engineering design and the sum of the insurance payout. Due to the way the insurance works I suspect I will be paying for part of it out of my own pocket as well as the cost of the fixing up my garden. So I'm just not investing anything until I have some certainty. That's all good though as it means my revolving credit account for the house sits at a nice level keeping the interest payments down. It does feel like it's a fight to move forward.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:30
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