Knyteguy posted:

I got my employer to pay me to learn react. My first project is already about to be deployed to our sales team probably next week. Kind of why I put redux in the title.

I’m not moving out of state though, it’s too hard on my son and my wife just started her very good job.

Motronic posted:

You could spend a year or so in the bay area and then end up keeping your $250k computer touching job and taking it remote. This is common.

Getting paid $65k for coding is not common. Thinking a $30k/year job is "a very good job" is not common.

You are completely self-sabotaging. You have the tools to completely fix these things very quickly, unlike the people you've surrounded yourself with who literally have no other option than living in that lovely town.

n8r posted:

You're anxious about job security because you're worse than broke and have lived like that for years. You mention being burned out from interviews a few years ago. I remember that vaguely - how long were you actively job hunting? It didn't seem that long. You've now got experience in a more in demand language you need to do it again.

Nam Taf posted:

If you were risk-averse you'd consider not taking on a risky high-interest loan. It comes across that you're actually just comfortable in this job and afraid of being pushed out of a comfort zone. I'd stipulate that it's why you so often try to spend your way out of debt - you're really spending because it comforts you that you're making an action that, in your mind, will solve the problem without actually doing the hard work.

Knyteguy posted:

I am very uninterested in this. I don’t think I’ll participate further in that case. I’m not very comfortable sharing personal stuff; one of the reasons I fight so hard in here sometimes.

I’m willing to try a shrink one more time, but I want to wait for health insurance.

Edit: or at least, can you explain what is e/n? I don’t even know what goes on in there. I might agree as long as it ends up back here I don’t know what to think right now.

Thumbtacks posted:

My Rhythmic Crotch posted:

You guys are forgetting that they made nearly 100k combined years ago, and their situation did not get any better because they didn't fix the underlying issues.

Fix the basics first

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

California's income tax rate for a 100k job is 9.3%. If we ignored marginal tax rates, you get to keep 90.7k of your 100k job after California takes its cut.

Is 90.7 higher than 65?

Is your stupid excuse for staying in Reno predicated on your inability or unwillingness to do a trivial amount of math?

Is your stupid excude for <current undesirable financial predicament> predicated on your inability or unwilling ness to do a trivial amont of math?

Motronic posted:

You could spend a year or so in the bay area and then end up keeping your $250k computer touching job and taking it remote. This is common.

Getting paid $65k for coding is not common. Thinking a $30k/year job is "a very good job" is not common.

You are completely self-sabotaging. You have the tools to completely fix these things very quickly, unlike the people you've surrounded yourself with who literally have no other option than living in that lovely town.

Nam Taf posted:

To be fair, living expenses in California are famously high, and although I'm not from the States I can expect Reno to be a bit cheaper.
But like you say, it's all an unwillingness to face challenges.

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

Also moving to California / continuing to make poo poo because you foolishly can't calculate post tax remuneration is irrelevant because of what Motronic and HP on Ice are saying. No amount of additional income will get you out of this hole. You could literally be clearing 4x what you make now and still have the exact same problems, because the decisions you make about how to use your scarce resources are why you are in an $80k hole, not some fundamental level of spend that is required of you but you can't just quite reach.

Knyteguy posted:

Where are you guys seeing these? I see jobs for $120k in San Francisco; that's why I've never bothered. My salary = 117k in SF according to https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/reno-sparks-nv-vs-san-francisco-ca

No state tax here, etc.

Droo posted:

They own six figures worth of trucks, listen to Dave Ramsay, and live in a trailer on their parent's property with 4 people and like 5 dogs. I'm guessing the reason they won't just move to San Francisco and double their income is "cultural"

n8r posted:

If you live in *lots* of the country I swear there is a gene that you are born with that makes you think trucks are cool and necessary. The Silverado is a super cool looking rig, so yeah I get it.

If KG was to relocate for work, now would be the time. Hell he can even travel with his housing! Move to one of the tech cities, live in your RV for a year or two and get yourself out of your current terrible job. Deciding to stay put and stay in a terrible job with no prospects for better pay is not a luxury you can afford. Similar to the luxury of a year long RV trip, you can't afford to stay put.

The last time you looked for a job, you only had experience in some niche/old language. Now you've deployed software using current in demand tools. Now is the time to get a better loving job.

I'm sure Janus' job has a bunch of upside, but not as much upside as someone getting paid market rate for software development. You have to get your priorities straight.

Knyteguy posted:

Yeah I agree, many of my bad spending habits came from my parents. I think they already had two bankruptcies at my age. I definitely don’t want to transfer that to my kid.


Well I guess I won’t take my ball and go home. Whatever you guys think it looks like it’s nearly the same crowd anyway, at least in careful drum’s thread. I’d definitely focus heavily on the financial aspect though. I’m just not very good at communicating feelings.

quote:

Bugamol posted:
Your car loan is $27,000 outstanding still at 10.99%. I understand that you probably rolled in the loan from your last car as part of the purcahse, but you effectively have almost a $30,000 car loan. Don't fool yourself and say you bought a $22,000 car.

How many years is your car loan? How many years do you think it will take you to pay it off?

There are varying degrees of "frugalness" on these forums the extreme being:

"ONLY EAT BEANS AND RICE AND LIVE IN A BOX NEAR WHERE YOU WORK AND BUY A USED BIKE IF YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL"

I'm not neccesarily as extreme as a lot of people on here. I bought a new car (granted I put $6,000 down and my loan is at 0.9%). I still have student loan debt that I'm not frantically paying down (I make a double payment and it'll be paid off in a few years). I spend $1,600 a month on rent (I live in CA and $1,600 is around 25% of net pay).

However it feels like you still have somewhat of the attitude, granted it's gotten better, that you had when you started this thread. Everything is a one time expense. Everything is just this once.

quote:

Hey cool I'm glad you reposted. I was just replying to your post asking if we bought the car before my wife was pregnant. The answer is no by about 2 weeks or so.

Car loan is 5-6 years. How many years to pay off? <= 1. At least that's the plan.

quote:

Just keep in mind that in November when you made this thread you were certain you were "in the black $2,000 a month!" and it's 9 months later and your financial situation hasn't really changed. At the end of the day it's your life and plenty of people get by just fine living paycheck to paycheck. It's really up to you to decide what really matters.

quote:

I mean technically we are in the black right? It's all a matter of how much money we spend on frivolous crap. I'd like to note that before I got my good job about 1.5 years ago we were living on $19,000 take home a year. Everything we spend money on at this point that isn't rent, food, or gas is all frivolous crap to me.

What matters to me is getting out of debt and saving money. Paycheck to paycheck is what I grew up learning, it's what I've lived the entirety of my adult life, but it's not how I want to live my life.

My wife and I had a philosophical conversation last night about what the hell makes us happy in life. We decided that having a big house, the latest gadgets, a fast car, or any bullshit like that isn't it. It's also not going to be going into the office 9-5 every day for the next 40 years.

We want the freedom to go take a (frugal) road trip around the United States, to hike the Appalachian Trail, to begin working on starting a charity we've been talking about for the past few years, to travel the world getting cool cultural experiences. Blah blah right?

All I know is that when I'm actively posting in this thread our financial situation gets better. I hope that by the time my toxx clause runs out in February of 2015 I'll be able to hold myself accountable and I won't need to broadcast my life to thousands of strangers on the internet to accomplish our goals. I mean for fucks sake a baby is on the way.

My problem is I've never had to save money for anything in my entire life. For about half my life I knew I had a large settlement coming (which I blew mostly on stocks and a used car), and beyond that hey hey financing. I'm desperate to overcome this problem... but it's getting better. This month has been our first real month of giving it an earnest go again. August will be the true test for us since we will have a lot of money that won't need to go towards bills.

I understand apathy after 9 months of circular behavior. I didn't realize it's been that long. I'm very annoyed at myself that we blew all of our hard work over that time for poo poo we ended up selling. Hah.

Bobbie Wickham posted:

Same, I'm ahead on car payments and boosted my contribution to retirement. I also increased how much of my paycheck goes automatically into a savings account that I forget about, so I have less money to spend on nonsense, and I've learned to live within those adjusted means.

Bobbie Wickham posted:

You know the saying, "the personal is political?" Well, your feelings are your finances. You spend impulsively when you feel bad. You neglect your finances because they make you feel stressed, ashamed, and stupid. You let your family's dysfunctions sway your financial decisions. You're staying in this job (and in your mother's yard) because job-searching makes you stressed and uncomfortable. And so on.

Your financial situation is a direct result of your inability to cope with trauma and stress in a productive manner. Same with a lot of your other choices, like living with your alcoholic mother; you let yourself AND your wife AND YOUR CHILD be pulled into an unstable living arrangement with toxic people. You've put your child in the position of continuing the dysfunctional cycle of your family's emotional and financial problems. And if you think I'm exaggerating, try thinking about it in plain words: your son is living in a trailer that's illegally parked on his alcoholic grandmother's property, and his parents don't have the money for an emergency, let alone to improve his living situation.

April posted:

"just this once"

April posted:

Here's a post from July 18, TWENTY GODDAMN FOURTEEN. Five years ago, almost exactly.

Negative equity on a vehicle "just this once"? Check.
"We used to be super broke, so we're fine now!"? Check.
"Some external factor will certainly make me straighten up!"? Check.
"Gosh, looking back, I could've done much better."? Check.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

this post is righteous

April posted:

And I forgot to point out that his "frugal" trip around the US has him 70k+ in debt now.

Dwight Eisenhower posted:

hey Knyteguy here's some more fun math for you because apparently it's scary or hurts you or something

in 2014 you were flushing away ~$247 / mo on interest for your financed vehicles

now you're flushing away $500 / mo on interest for your financed vehicles

doubling at this rate I estimate some time around 2037 you can have achieved your goals and be giving literally all of your income to some bank on interest to service debts incurred to buy poo poo you impulsively financed

okay thanks for reading later

Nam Taf posted:

If you were risk-averse you'd consider not taking on a risky high-interest loan. It comes across that you're actually just comfortable in this job and afraid of being pushed out of a comfort zone. I'd stipulate that it's why you so often try to spend your way out of debt - you're really spending because it comforts you that you're making an action that, in your mind, will solve the problem without actually doing the hard work.

April posted:

Here's a post from July 18, TWENTY GODDAMN FOURTEEN. Five years ago, almost exactly.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3586966&userid=81272&perpage=40&pagenumber=4#post432370394


KG's Reply:




Negative equity on a vehicle "just this once"? Check.
"We used to be super broke, so we're fine now!"? Check.
"Some external factor will certainly make me straighten up!"? Check.
"Gosh, looking back, I could've done much better."? Check.

Gazpacho posted:

A charity! Multimillionaires start charities, not least so that they can unload appreciated investments that they'd rather donate than pay taxes on. Starting charities is not a middle class gig. Even contributing is ill advised for anyone who hasn't secured their income in old age. Gotta focus on the You Foundation first.