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Knyteguy posted:I'll try to keep that in mind more. Text only communication can be difficult. Quoting the edit so people can see it. Top of the page anyway.
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Oct 5, 2015 17:34
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Knyteguy posted:Sacramento trip cost - Roughly $60 or so. You still have time to save for both of these items. Why not make specific entries into your budget for them?
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Oct 5, 2015 18:29
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Knyteguy posted:My bottom categories are truncated with the header data showing. I'm not going to upload two screenshots every time I share the budget. My intention here isn't to hide stuff. I find this incredibly petty. I'm just flabbergasted that you so easily shrug off $4000 of overspending. You don't even care where it went. Your truncated categories aren't telling the whole story. If you're confused about how YNAB works, let me help you. These figures aren't magic, they come from somewhere, and you've not shared the source. You have two months in a row of outrageous spending, and you've waved it off as "meaningless". Something is missing here. If you want to use this tool properly, you need to know how it works. If you're not deliberately hiding something, then something else is screwed up somewhere. Why don't you care about figuring this out?
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Oct 5, 2015 18:37
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Couple more. It's always busy when my boss gets back from a trip.SiGmA_X posted:It was an edit. But its the issue. You're over spending and rolling it forward, and not clearing it. Has this been resolved in October now? spwrozek posted:A baby needs Christmas presents?? I'll try to do this, thanks. Urgency and plain necessity has driven our successes. I didn't consider saving for the hospital birth fees to be optional, for example. I know you're not asking for this to be typed out, but it helps me think when I do so sometimes. Stress as mentioned above has heavily correlated with failures. The apartment, the lack of a car - these are things that caused a lot of stress, and consequently they're things that many would feel I failed on. We've been over this point quite a few times before I believe. Unfortunately the answers to my normal stress issues are constantly just out of reach. I'm taking 24 hours (of work) of vacation in 10-14 days where my plan is just to stay at home, do some wood working, play some instruments, do some yardwork. 16 hours of that will attach to a weekend. The remaining 8 I'm watching the baby, but beyond that I'll just relax, basically. To segue back into thread relevance: I can say with certainty that if I tackle most of the stress and anxiety more often than not, then I tackle most of the emotional spending more often than not. n8r posted:You still have time to save for both of these items. Why not make specific entries into your budget for them? Alright will do. I'll add them for the visual data. Old Fart posted:Maybe I am being petty. I get your point of view now. I'm sorry for overreacting a bit. I will still hit this point, but it's not something I can answer without looking into it.
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Oct 5, 2015 18:57
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My best guess is that stuff has been messed with so much that the numbers don't make much sense anymore. September had a starting negative saving number, but then showed $2800 going out the door, is that where the 4k happened? I think starting with negatives in the savings areas probably screws things up. When you look at the Oct income it's now showing $9k?! All I can say is if you're bringing in 9k/month you're going to be out of debt very soon. KG mentioned 'borrowed a bit from next month' which makes very little sense to me. KG, you need to only be working with one month's worth of income, because you have a very good chance of double counting things otherwise. Once again, the way you are using YNAB is not making sense. Whatever is going on with this software, you are abusing it in a way as to massage the numbers into looking a certain way, but you're doing a lot of fudging to make it happen. Why not use a basic excel file and just hand record stuff for a month? Similar to the cash envelope system, I think if you give it a shot you might find it useful. I think it's time to look at the CU / Mint issue as something that needs to be resolved. It's not that hard to switch banks, and the additional features that Mint (or some other site) offers is probably worthwhile from a reconciliation perspective. If YNAB will continue to be used, I suggest starting with a clean slate because whatever has happened over the past few months isn't adding up. I don't think KG is trying to hide anything, but I do think that KG may be trying to do stuff like 'borrowing a bit from next month' and actually double counting income - and probably expenses.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:02
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n8r posted:My best guess is that stuff has been messed with so much that the numbers don't make much sense anymore. September had a starting negative saving number, but then showed $2800 going out the door, is that where the 4k happened? I think starting with negatives in the savings areas probably screws things up. When you look at the Oct income it's now showing $9k?! All I can say is if you're bringing in 9k/month you're going to be out of debt very soon. KG mentioned 'borrowed a bit from next month' which makes very little sense to me. KG, you need to only be working with one month's worth of income, because you have a very good chance of double counting things otherwise. YNAB is more protective against what you're talking about than Excel. It is basically Excel wrapped up pretty, and what's more likely that he's doing in YNAB is previously he was one month ahead. So paychecks coming in today, get earmarked for next month. He 'borrowed' from next month by earmarking it as income for this month rather than next month. It's a dangerous game to be playing because he's assuming that he'll be able to live austerely enough to make up for only having one paycheck worth of income next month, rather than this being a perpetual situation where now he'll only be half a month ahead. His negatives in the first column was him basically raiding an envelope. He had X amount saved in that envelope that he didn't use in previous months, he decided to take Y amount out of that envelope to cover overages in other categories. n8r, you should think about picking up YNAB when it's $15 for the license just to see how it works. It's very intuitive if you're using it, imo. I can see why it'd be confusing looking at screenshots.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:14
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Since you tried to hide buying a car, people are going to be playing detective for a bit to find the llama farm hidden in your Misc. Expenses budget 
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Oct 5, 2015 19:15
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I would contend that it's not necessary to have a 'pretty excel' for budgeting. One of the obvious failures of YNAB that has been repeated by a number of the folks that have these sorts of threads is how easy it is to mess with the numbers in multiple places which results in an obfuscation of spending habits. KG has mentioned the phone app is a good way of recording purchases, but why not just get receipts? At the end of the day/week add those receipts up for each category. This would be a 5-10 minute task at best.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:24
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n8r posted:I would contend that it's not necessary to have a 'pretty excel' for budgeting. One of the obvious failures of YNAB that has been repeated by a number of the folks that have these sorts of threads is how easy it is to mess with the numbers in multiple places which results in an obfuscation of spending habits. KG has mentioned the phone app is a good way of recording purchases, but why not just get receipts? At the end of the day/week add those receipts up for each category. This would be a 5-10 minute task at best. It's just as easy to obfuscate on Excel. And that's mostly been contended by people who haven't used it. No, it's not necessary, but I'm just saying YNAB is really not the problem here.
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Oct 5, 2015 19:27
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n8r posted:why not just get receipts? At the end of the day/week add those receipts up for each category. This would be a 5-10 minute task at best. Truth be told we do more reconciling than budgeting, but it's because we're out of debt, have a big pile of savings set aside for the baby, and generally stay within our budget anyway. It's such a great feeling. We spend about as much as we did, but we're just pulling from envelopes instead of constantly playing catch-up to IOUs. It's a subtle shift, but it's very liberating, and prevents that spiral of "well, we're already $3k over budget this month, a few expensive toys won't make much difference."
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Oct 5, 2015 19:36
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I just wanted to let you all know that I am keeping up on the thread. I know I rarely post, but please let me know if there's anything you want me to answer.
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Oct 5, 2015 20:26
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Knyteguy posted:
Can you elaborate on this a little more? Is it because spending the time to take and upload two screenshots is too much trouble for you? Your reaction lately is that of somebody on the defensive. Do you feel that the comments people are making are undue/inappropriate, or do you think you're reacting to being caught on fudging your budget, or is it something else?
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Oct 5, 2015 21:20
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I'll consider moving banks, if only to supplement data with Mint. My only reluctance is we have a rapport with the CU workers, and I feel like when the time comes to refinance the car, that our current CU would be our best option.OneWhoKnows posted:Can you elaborate on this a little more? Is it because spending the time to take and upload two screenshots is too much trouble for you? Your reaction lately is that of somebody on the defensive. Do you feel that the comments people are making are undue/inappropriate, or do you think you're reacting to being caught on fudging your budget, or is it something else? It's a lot of trouble, but it's more the BS of it all. As I said - from this point forward (well a week ago or so) 100% honesty w/r/t the budget. That's what I meant by not playing this game anymore. This hiding purchases even temporarily, or not wanting the thread to see I went over budget, all of that crap. It's done I want to move forward now so we can actually work towards this goal together, instead of a "us vs thread" type of mentality that has happened before. What I wrote to Sigma wasn't written to him specifically. I've looked into August and I'm not seeing it yet. I don't know. To try to bring some resolution to that I'll look some more. No more games. If I screw up, then from here on out (last week) it's in the open in my weekly budget, and I'll just have to deal with the criticism of it all. I'm tired, you guys are frustrated, I want progress. And if I start doing well then the budget still needs to be posted weekly. If you guys can please take my word on this - just call me out if I slip on posting a budget update for a week. I feel like this is where I need you most at this point in the process. Sometimes I become comfortable and lose my edge in the process. We won't get perpetually stuck with less income. It just may take a little bit to be truly a month ahead again. I found it to be a necessary evil to get October honest and to actually allow us to hit this budget for once. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 22:41
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It'll be different this time, guys. Honest.
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Oct 5, 2015 23:13
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Knyteguy posted:I've looked into August and I'm not seeing it yet. I don't know. To try to bring some resolution to that I'll look some more. Post ALL of your July and August numbers, including the headers, including the hidden categories. We'll get to the bottom of this. YNAB is a zero sum game. The answer is there somewhere. I'm not sure why you consider showing all the numbers, even going forward, to be BS. Is this part of your rebellious nature?
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Oct 5, 2015 23:47
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Quantum Finger posted:It'll be different this time, guys. Honest.
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Oct 5, 2015 23:48
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Knyteguy posted:I'll consider moving banks, if only to supplement data with Mint. My only reluctance is we have a rapport with the CU workers, and I feel like when the time comes to refinance the car, that our current CU would be our best option. Two things. 1. Worth considering this, but against the pros of a bank move that may let you work with your budget more easily, and thus save more money than a nebulous discount that may not even happen. Not that your thinking is wrong; the CU could be a great refinancing option. 2. Could you keep the credit union account open and use it for one of your budget categories? You drain it to the new bank but now put $20 a month in and it's your Christmas/Gifts account, or it's where your monthly amount for once/twice a year costs like auto insurance go.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:22
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Janus Owl posted:I just wanted to let you all know that I am keeping up on the thread. I know I rarely post, but please let me know if there's anything you want me to answer. How do you feel about the new car purchase? Who decided that a Camaro was a good choice. Did kg have to convince you? Why is so much of both your spending on discretionary at mini marts? Does this spending bring you a lot of happiness? Are there easy ways to avoid this spending that you think you could implement? Kg has framed Christmas spending, travel to Sacramento, and a costume for the kid as something you are insisting on. Is this a fair assessment? Do you think these things are important enough and foreseeable enough to set aside money in the budget for? Why is it that after all this time you are unable to stay on budget? Do you monitor the budget as much as kg does? If either of you are going to exceed the budgeted amount in a specific category, do you ask the other person?
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Oct 6, 2015 03:00
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Janus Owl posted:I just wanted to let you all know that I am keeping up on the thread. I know I rarely post, but please let me know if there's anything you want me to answer. How do you feel when kg says he's turned over a new leaf or this time he's serious? In the past what has been your role when the budget goes off the rails? When kg comes up with a new life dream every few months (the latest is becoming the Wild Thornberrys) are these your dreams too?
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Oct 6, 2015 03:44
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n8r posted:How do you feel about the new car purchase? Who decided that a Camaro was a good choice. Did kg have to convince you? I hate spending my discretionary on food. I think this happens a lot because KG and I will be like, "hey doesn't X sound good?" and then we'll go to the store and get it. We have both talked about how much we'd rather spend our discretionary on hobbies or things that would actually bring us joy; then we get an idea about something that sounds good, and we buy it. I think the best thing we could do to counteract this behavior would be to think about it when we get these cravings. These are small scale impulses that add up in a big way, and keep us from saving for important purchases. I'm glad you asked about that because writing that just now clarified my thought process when going to the mini mart; which is almost no thought past instant food gratification. To your next point: All of the things that I want to do this month and then Christmas were things we could've easily planned for. I still do plan on taking the Halloween costume and the trip out of my discretionary. The problem with our Christmas saving was we had one "holiday/giving" category, and we have several birthdays/baby showers/etc pop up that would drain our fund almost every time. I think someone mentioned having an explicit Christmas category and I think that would be great. If we put $50 in there we would be able to buy for the baby, our close family, and even each other. I know these things are pretty trivial in the scheme of being debt free but they are things I'd like to do and I would like to do them without stress, which I recognize saving for would allow us to do. In the beginning I was right there with KG making the budget and analyzing spending. I started not paying as much attention definitely after the baby was born, but I know it was before that. The last few months especially my time was divided between working/trying to find a new job/ taking care of baby/ taking care of chores, and I didn't have the capacity for thinking about the budget too. I'm not saying this is right. I know our financial situation is our responsibility to share, and I want to be debt free. I am really tired of the struggle and the failures; I want to have our car paid off so we can focus on the smaller debts and then be free. I have talked with KG and I have been more active (though still not as much as KG which I am working on) because I believe my equal commitment will allow for us to better reach our goals. It's not fair to KG to have the stress of our finances on his shoulders and I don't want to be blind to what's going on in our financial situation. Having YNAB on my phone again helps me because when we're out, or even if I'm out on my own, I know what our financial situation is and what we can afford in each category. Baja Mofufu, I'll have to get to you tomorrow. I'm not used to posting and I'm pretty tired. I haven't been an active poster in this thread, even though it concerns my life, and I want to change that. Thinking about answering the questions you guys put forward is both enlightening and challenging. I'm actually thinking about the 'whys" of our struggles.
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Oct 6, 2015 05:43
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Janus Owl, congratulations on the new job. That's quite a change for you, and very much for the better. I hope it's going well!
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Oct 6, 2015 06:15
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Janus: I think that you should consider taking a more active role in both this thread and your finances. Kg needs the accountability that a bunch of strangers on a forum can't provide. What tasks during the budgeting process could you take on? Do you handle any of the bill payments? An area that really needs works is the flexible spending. How could you help keep the spending stable month over month. We have contended that this category shouldn't be changing every month.
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Oct 6, 2015 07:15
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You kinda dodged the question about the 'Maro, Janus Owl.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:46
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KG if YNAB is confusing you, write a parser and have it summarize your data for you. According to a post on their forums, all the YNAB data is XML/JSON which should be pretty easy to manipulate in .NET I get a much better understanding of something when I have to program it to make it work. In an example from work, I have a fairly complex report that has to take a lot of different things into consideration. When the report is processing and I'm looping through those things I need to account for, if I see something that would in effect "overwrite" the data due to one of these exceptions, I have it write out an alert saying "Hey it looks like this person might XYZ due to such and such data". You could do something similar to humanize your budget "Hey shitface this is the 3rd month in a row you've been over in groceries" or something along those lines to look for trends or just to sift through your data. FWIW YNAB has it's employees work anywhere from home  Janus Owl posted:I hate spending my discretionary on food. I think this happens a lot because KG and I will be like, "hey doesn't X sound good?" and then we'll go to the store and get it. We have both talked about how much we'd rather spend our discretionary on hobbies or things that would actually bring us joy; then we get an idea about something that sounds good, and we buy it. I think the best thing we could do to counteract this behavior would be to think about it when we get these cravings. These are small scale impulses that add up in a big way, and keep us from saving for important purchases. I'm glad you asked about that because writing that just now clarified my thought process when going to the mini mart; which is almost no thought past instant food gratification. Janus, just wanted to say I understand about getting away from being hands on with the budget. My wife and I have struggled with that as well, the past few months we've deliberately did the budget together and we've only been over in any category a couple of times. It's been wildly successful. You guys are both in this together, and while you may have the same ultimate goals, you both need to be involved. My wife has always been "Yea I'm fine with whatever, you handle it" which sounds great, but then she doesn't check the budget to see what we have planned. Doing the budget together has helped tremendously. Planning is absolutely key, it's not always easy but it's necessary. We start with the things that basically don't change each month, those are easy. Then we go to "what do we have going on this month?" That would include birthdays (+$ to "Gifts") or plans with friends (+$ to "Fun with friends", +$ to "Entertaining") or going to visit our parents (+$ to Fuel) or taking the kids to the zoo (+$ to "Kids entertainment"), etc. Historically I've been pretty frugal / cheap and not willing to spend money. Since we've been using YNAB and we're spending to a plan, I'm much more lax about spending money. It all boils down to the plan, I don't mind spending money if we've planned for it.
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Oct 6, 2015 14:01
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I still don't understand why you stopped using the excel spreadsheet I sent you. Maybe because it made it too obvious that you're overspending and it was harder for you to hide things. (Joking.... Sort of...)
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Oct 6, 2015 15:22
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I am blown away by the mini mart and random food spending. That sounds unhealthy as gently caress and really disgusts me. Don't be an average American, you can be better than that if you try. Plan your life - money, career, family, diet, exercise...
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Oct 6, 2015 16:10
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Baja Mofufu posted:the latest is becoming the Wild Thornberrys This legitimately has me laughing every time I read it. SiGmA_X posted:I am blown away by the mini mart and random food spending. That sounds unhealthy as gently caress and really disgusts me. Don't be an average American, you can be better than that if you try. Plan your life - money, career, family, diet, exercise... Yeah good call it is gross. Mini mart does include cigarettes too, though. For that I'm quitting smoking again in November when my boss takes a trip out of town. I switched to caffeine pills instead of energy drinks, and so far I take 1 or 2 a day. They cut wake up costs by probably $15-20/week. I'll probably scale even that back a lot when the baby starts sleeping through the night. Agreed on your points. Some life planning including and beyond finances would do us well. I have a lot of ambitions including health, and it's probably time to figure out a plan for this stuff. In regards to health I don't have the luxury of coasting by on that stuff anymore through a physical job and a late teens early 20s metabolism. We were walking 3-6 miles after work just about every single day only a year ago. I'd like to try that again. Busy at work still. I'll get to the rest of the points addressed to me as soon as I can. Thanks for the posts. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 18:11
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Smoking is gross. Quit that poo poo. Also the lie-downs with another marvelous performance last night...
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Oct 6, 2015 18:20
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spwrozek posted:Also the lie-downs with another marvelous performance last night... I hate football
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Oct 6, 2015 18:27
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Dude, quit smoking now. Why on earth are you going to wait until November?
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Oct 6, 2015 18:35
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Especially with a loving baby in the house.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:40
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n8r posted:Dude, quit smoking now. Why on earth are you going to wait until November? I get all irritable. I don't want to take that to work with me. It's unprofessional. I don't smoke at work, either. Chin Strap posted:Especially with a loving baby in the house. I don't smoke in the house, car, or where the baby can be exposed ever. I also take extra precautions like washing my hands after smoking if I'll be holding him, so the nasty chemicals don't get on him. You guys don't have to convince me to quit. I hate smoking. It's horrible in a million different ways. Edit: I guess I could do it through my vacation days. I got approved for 2 days + 2 half days remote watching the baby. I'll be going home that Wednesday, and I won't be seeing my boss again until the following Wednesday afternoon. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 18:51
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Chin Strap posted:Especially with a loving baby in the house. You're assuming he smokes around the baby. Still, starting in November is dumb. That's the equivalent to "I'll start my diet on Monday" or whatever. Excuses, excuses. If you're serious about it, just do it.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:54
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foxatee posted:Still, starting in November is dumb. That's the equivalent to "I'll start my diet on Monday" or whatever. Excuses, excuses. If you're serious about it, just do it. I'll commit to start the 15th. My boss is on vacation 15th and 16th, and I have the 19th and 20th off. It's not a bad idea to have a plan to quit smoking. That's how I quit last time, and hopefully this time I can make it permanent. I quit once for 1 year, then once for 2 years, and hopefully this will be the last time.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:59
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foxatee posted:You're assuming he smokes around the baby. Still, starting in November is dumb. That's the equivalent to "I'll start my diet on Monday" or whatever. Excuses, excuses. If you're serious about it, just do it. You don't have to smoke around a baby to expose them. 3rd hand smoke - the poo poo that sticks to your clothes - is exposure.
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Oct 6, 2015 19:49
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There's no time like the present. My mother-in-law quit by just stopping in the middle of a packet, without giving herself any warning. Had the packet in the drawer for years... If you get irritable say the baby kept you up all night
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Oct 6, 2015 20:07
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Tigntink posted:You don't have to smoke around a baby to expose them. 3rd hand smoke - the poo poo that sticks to your clothes - is exposure. Huh. The more you know.
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Oct 6, 2015 20:21
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On my phone and I don't know how to quote on here, but this is in regards to the camaro. Kg didn't have to convince me about getting a second car and the price was fair. I pretty much left this up to his discretion with only concerns about whether or not the baby would be able to ride in the car. Again I know we should budgeted and I could've held us both accountable to this and didn't. We've been taking about getting a second car for months, so we pulled the trigger.
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Oct 6, 2015 20:26
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Baja Mofufu posted:How do you feel when kg says he's turned over a new leaf or this time he's serious? In the past what has been your role when the budget goes off the rails? When kg comes up with a new life dream every few months (the latest is becoming the Wild Thornberrys) are these your dreams too? Just learned how to quote on my phone. I believe him when he says he's serious, because he is. I don't think intention or lack of seriousness is the problem here. I honestly believe, after reflection, that our lack of team work in regards to finances is what has been really hurting us. I believe that my involvement this month will make a big difference. Not because KG wasn't trying before, but because as a team we can both hold each other accountable. With both of our involvement there will be more understanding from both of us in regards to the budget. In the past my role has been frustration and disappointment. I haven't been actively watching the spending and have allowed myself to disconnect from the reality of our goals vs our current standing. Again, team effort here should be key to success. The dreams aren't new every month, though it may seem that way when KG brings them up here. "Wild Thornberrys" that was hilarious. For me being able to take a family vacation annually is the more realistic dream. I would love for us to take the boy and travel the world, but the reality for me is that if we could save and take an annual nice family trip somewhere I'd be stoked. Going to the grand canyon, for example, is a trip I've been wanting to take for years.
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Oct 6, 2015 20:41
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Janus Owl posted:On my phone and I don't know how to quote on here, but this is in regards to the camaro. Kg didn't have to convince me about getting a second car and the price was fair. I pretty much left this up to his discretion with only concerns about whether or not the baby would be able to ride in the car. Again I know we should budgeted and I could've held us both accountable to this and didn't. We've been taking about getting a second car for months, so we pulled the trigger. More than talking, you need to plan. As other people have said, you could have set aside money in each of those months you were "talking about" getting a car and then used that money to buy it, instead of basically taking from your future and having to make up for it in the present. Just about every large purchase I've seen you guys make has been "we're breaking the budget and we're going to make up for it in the future", and it never works. Hell, there's even some weird shenanigans going on with "I'm counting this paycheck from the future in our income this month and I don't know why but there's $4000 missing from this YNAB file now" that I honestly can't even follow.
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Oct 6, 2015 20:45
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