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Just cook sometimes. If you make enough money and are meeting your goals there's nothing wrong with buying lunch 1-2 times a week or getting pizza on friday after work. It's somewhat silly to expect someone to cook every single meal or imply they're some manchild if they don't, and it's also silly to eat every meal out because you generally eat too much, eat like poo poo, and it costs a ton of money. If you live in the right area though you can eat out in a healthy way and use leftovers as extra meals, which helps lighten the cost. If $14 in Chinese food is 2 meals for you, that's not budget breaking. I've tried to realize that nobody is perfect, and as much as we try to cook, sometimes you're out of something, forget to defrost something, just friggin exhausted, etc. Budget for both and it's not a huge issue.
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Feb 13, 2015 16:41
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Eating out at nice places is somewhat of a hobby of mine and I really look forward to it, but I couldn't imagine doing it every day/night.
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Feb 13, 2015 16:43
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LorneReams posted:Eating out at nice places is somewhat of a hobby of mine and I really look forward to it, but I couldn't imagine doing it every day/night. Same here, although I pretty much eaten out for lunch and dinner every day this week as I've been off work and had family visiting. I couldn't do it any longer, my body and wallet hates me for it!
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Feb 13, 2015 16:58
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When I was totally single, I probably ate out for either lunch/dinner 3-4x a week or so. Most days I skipped breakfast or had cereal, took a soup/sandwich/frozen meal and yogurt for lunch, and dinner would be either: 1) Frozen meal 2) A bit batch of spaghetti or stuffed shells. But not TOO big...I have a weird paranoia about eating leftovers more than 2 days old. A bag of cheese stuffed shells and a jar of spaghetti sauce from Target is ~$5.00, and is good for 3-4 meals as a single person. 3) Pork Chops or Chicken breast on the George Foreman and a microwave frozen vegetable. Rinse it off, put the grill plates in the dishwasher, done. Yeah, not amazing. But truthfully, cooking is an annoying chore for me 90% of the time. Especially after driving an hour to work, doing a job that alternates between dreadfully dull and ridiculously stressful with very little in between, driving over an hour home, possibly visiting the gym, etc., I totally don't feel like cooking, and if it takes more than 10-15 minutes of effort, it won't happen. I'm lucky to be with someone that enjoys cooking, and I do have a few recipes I can pull out when I need to make something a bit more fancy. But if given the choice, I'll pass on it.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:20
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blackmet posted:I'm lucky to be with someone that enjoys cooking Thank God for a spouse that likes to cook. My husband does all the actual cooking, but I do all of the meal planning and etc. We work together as a team. I agree that saying no one comes home from a long day and cooks themselves dinner is ridiculous. I mean, come on.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:33
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The bad with money side to it is when both of you like to cook. My girlfriend and I fall into that category and things can get crazy because we like to go do extravagant home-cooking things that cost as much as, or more, than eating out for a meal. Also, kitchen gadgets can be expensive. "Bad with money" is tongue in cheek really though because we both enjoy it, we don't break our budgets with it, it's something we can do together, and it usually ends up being delicious, even if it's not the BFC-stoic beans-and-rice thrifty meals.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:54
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I think we can all agree that owning a salad spinner is bad with money
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Feb 13, 2015 18:04
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Not a Children posted:I think we can all agree that owning a salad spinner is bad with money How else am I supposed to clean my lettuce? 
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Feb 13, 2015 18:06
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DJCobol posted:How else am I supposed to clean my lettuce? You mean dry, right, after washing it?
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Feb 13, 2015 18:12
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I wash it in the colander looking part, and then put it in the spinner part. So yeah, wash and then dry?
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Feb 13, 2015 18:13
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Oil ain't going to stick on wet lettuce so a salad spinner is good with money imo if you eat a lot of salad.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:16
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LorneReams posted:Eating out at nice places is somewhat of a hobby of mine and I really look forward to it, but I couldn't imagine doing it every day/night. Absolutely. I travel a lot for work which results in dining out every single meal for a week or two straight (on a per diem, fortunately). When I get home, the last thing I want to do is eat out.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:16
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Seven-year-old-me loving LOVED my parents' salad spinner, and would declare it, easily, the coolest kitchen gadget money could buy. At least in straight price terms they're not that expensive?
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Feb 13, 2015 18:17
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overdesigned posted:Seven-year-old-me loving LOVED my parents' salad spinner, and would declare it, easily, the coolest kitchen gadget money could buy. At least in straight price terms they're not that expensive? I think mine was on sale on Amazon for like $10? And for the use I've gotten out of it chopping up and washing Romaine lettuce for mason jar salads I'd say I've gotten my money back at this point.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:21
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cowofwar posted:We plan our meals for the week, that way when you get home in zombie mode from work you just check the meal board and make what it says - no thinking. Most of our meals are fairly straight forward and take less time from start to finish than going out to grab fast food. It's me, I'm following the derail this time. I talked about this a bit in the KG thread, sorry if you've read it in both places. My wife and I are in this boat too, but we use crockpots to have some fresher meals too. I freeze chili and various soups in individual-serve containers. Once a month or so, I'll spend a weekend cooking up a bit batch of chili, pour it into containers, and then immediately start on some lentil or split-pea soup and do the same. I end up with anywhere from 20-30 single-serve meals. I usually eat these for lunch and "filler meals," mixing in pb&j sandwiches, and going out with coworkers every once in a while. It makes it brain-dead easy to be able to grab a single bowl of soup or chili, and they're easily transportable to work. This will usually last me more than a month (my wife doesn't eat 'em.) We also buy (frozen) chicken and (fresh) pork shoulder in bulk at Costco. We separate the chicken into bags of four breasts and we chop up the pork into five or six 3-lb pieces depending on the size we get, and we freeze 'em all. Every week, we have most days planned out. Mon: She makes a simple pasta with red sauce (made in bulk and frozen!) and chicken breast Tue: I make 10-hour slowcooker carnitas for Taco Tuesday Wed: She makes a slowcooker chicken dish (butter chicken, traditional broth+veggies, morrocan-inspired stuff, etc) Thu: She makes some random ravioli (costo; frozen; we buy a bunch of types) with white sauce. Fri: We go out to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place where we know the owner. Sometimes we'll be craving something else and we'll go there instead. Sat: I make pizzas. We have a breadmaker and it basically makes the dough for you if you pour in the right amount of stuff. It takes an an hour and 45 minutes from start to cutting the pizza, but only 15 minutes or so of that is me actually interacting with the stuff, the rest is a robot kneading dough or letting it rise. (continuing the theme, we make large batches of pizza sauce and freeze it in mason jars, and we buy shredded mozzarella in bulk and freeze the extra bags. Sun: We like to grab a burger for lunch before shopping for fresh veggies for our various meals. I haven't been able to convince my wife that I can grill one as good as Five Guys, but I don't mind going out twice a week. My wife goes out to "girl night" with her friends, which usually entails her making something to share with them while watching TV and talking. She makes a little extra for me, and comes home with little bits of whatever they made. It varies every week. We aim to only eat out twice a week. I know by some BFC standards that's still too much, but we used to be the sort of people who ate out every single day. We've kept this up for two years now, changing the "routine" a bit whenever we get bored of a specific meal, and we've managed to be more good than bad. That's all I can really ask of myself. We slip up, and sometimes we go a whole week "off the rails." Nobody's perfect. But now we joke about it with each other and we get back on the wagon because it's so easy to. It's boring and not cool or flashy or anything like that, but setting up planned set of meals and preparing for them ahead of time will save you loads and loads of time cooking, and make it a much easier decision for you. If you're hungry driving past a McDonalds after work and you think that "cooking" implies an hour of you mixing things up in just the right amounts and not burning everything, you'll probably grab that burger. If you know you've got a delicious bowl of chili waiting to be microwaved, it gets a little easier. When you can wake up and prepare pork tacos in ten minutes and have them ready when you get home, you're less likely to want to eat some lovely food. You'll save money. You'll save time (and more money!) by not driving to/from restaurants and waiting around once inside. You'll save stress, because your meals are planned and ready to go. You'll lose weight. Bad with money: My sister's baby shower now has a guest list of 115 people, and it taking place in a mansion that is usually used for weddings.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:55
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overdesigned posted:The bad with money side to it is when both of you like to cook. My girlfriend and I fall into that category and things can get crazy because we like to go do extravagant home-cooking things that cost as much as, or more, than eating out for a meal. Also, kitchen gadgets can be expensive. This is pretty much what happens to us. We average about $50/month in restaurants (a nice meal every couple of months) but we spend $600/month in groceries for two people. A lot of the upcharge comes from buying local/ethically-raised meats, eggs, and dairy. We can afford it easily, want to support local farms, and think it tastes better. Our home-cooked meals can easily cost $7-10/serving, so yes many restaurants would be cheaper but the quality would be much worse. The gadgets do get expensive. No doubt this is bad with money! Cue 10 replies about how we should be buying a 20-pack of Foster Farms boneless chicken breasts from Costco and throwing it into a crockpot with whatever veggies happen to be to be going off in our fridge, some separated ketchup, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and 10 soy sauce packets we've stolen from Chinese restaurants.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:56
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Who the gently caress cares. No one loving cares. Goons with spoons is some other loving place. Talk about stupid people spending stupid money on lego equity and investing in radioshack. No one clicks on this thread thinking I hope they are talking about their personal eating habits again. Man I really want to read page after page of goons explaining in excruciating detail about their perfectly reasonable eating expenses. In other words stop ruining my flickering moments of joy at other peoples expense to talk about loving beans. Please?
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Feb 13, 2015 19:12
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Who the gently caress cares. I like you.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:25
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Who the gently caress cares. Content from reddit: quote:For several months I've been complementing surveys from PineCone Research. Found out about it through /r/beermoney. Once or twice a week I get an email to survey my buying habits/interest and later a survey comes to review a product, usually food. That's been going great, no problem.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:38
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BFC, the way I handle meals as a single person is... No but seriously, have some r/PF. Assuming that old debts are magically gone forever if they're not contacting you is bad with money. quote:Me and my wife have a joint account at Wells Fargo. Yesterday morning when my card declined when purchasing gas I contacted the bank, thinking it was a simple mistake; but the reality was a nightmare I didn’t even think possible. After some investigation, Wells Fargo had implemented a “Hard Hold” on our joint and savings account at the behest of a legal order from Dominion Debtors out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Apparently, my wife has a $4500 dollar balance from a $900 dollar Capitol One credit card she had when she was 19. I didn’t know her back then so I have absolutely nothing to do with this debt. We were completely blind-sided by this, there was no notice of legal action, evidence of debt, or correspondence of any kind. They had already pulled the $800 dollar savings balance in our account but we were more terrified of the fact that my bi-weekly paycheck and her paycheck will be coming through early Friday morning and will be pulled from our account as well. quote:She's 27. Debt is 9 years old. This type of thing (not the same circumstances where they froze the account, but a large debtor taking action) has happened before in the past. This is now a pattern with her I'm sad to say. And various comments note that they're not going to warn you about the debt levies, because then they could just withdraw all the money and keep hiding from the debtors. OP needs to have a serious talk with his wife about any other "surprise" debts hanging out there.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:40
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Haifisch posted:
I almost shared that one instead. The OP needs to pull a credit report with his wife sitting right next to him and find out all of her dirty little secrets.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:43
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I was about to say something about SOL, but it sounds like this would have been the result of a judgment. They can't do this in this way without one. More then likely SHE was notified of this action, but kept it to herself.
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Feb 13, 2015 19:48
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Taco Box posted:My parents are 60 and 58. My Mom, 60, has no retirement savings. My Dad, 58, has a nice 401k and a lifetime Air Force officer's pension that gives them roughly $2500/mo after taxes. Along with that they have health care provided by the govt. because of my Dad's 23 years of service. Quoting myself from a few pages back for some stories not about beans & curds.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:04
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Their plan is to live off the pension, sell their home in Houston and move to CO with their recently purchased Subaru Outback. I think that's pretty cool, but they've been living off of my Dad's ludicrously high income + pension for the last 10+ years and I don't think they can make it in retirement on just that $2500 a month. Also, I'm amazed they haven't factored in the possibility of the govt. deciding pensions cost them too much and say 'gently caress you' to their older service members. Their hobby is basically finding poo poo to spend money on.
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My newish co-worker is pretty stereotypically bad with money. He's just started, out of college and makes about $50k/year (which is pretty drat good for the area). He lives at home and his last job was working at sam's club. He's a fat video game nerd and despite having a few months of regular paychecks now he still has no money. He pays no rent, so he's blowing through ~$3k/mo on video games, beer and food (living the dream). He recently bought a $12k used subaru with 150k miles on it to replace his previous subaru that also wasn't paid off. He promptly ran it into a curb trying to dorifto in the first snowstorm of the year and was out $600 for a control arm and wheel bearing. He's completely upgraded his PC, and was just contemplating buying new RAM because the color would match his mousepad better. But of course he continues on about "Gonna save up some money and get myself a place". Why yes, I'm sure you'll be able to afford ~$1000/mo in additional costs given your track record of the last 4 months. No problem.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:17
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dreesemonkey posted:My newish co-worker is pretty stereotypically bad with money. He's just started, out of college and makes about $50k/year (which is pretty drat good for the area). He lives at home and his last job was working at sam's club. A parent not charge their adult, employed son even nominal rent... a shameful parent
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Feb 13, 2015 22:16
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dreesemonkey posted:was just contemplating buying new RAM because the color would match his mousepad better. 
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Feb 13, 2015 22:18
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dreesemonkey posted:My newish co-worker is pretty stereotypically bad with money. He's just started, out of college and makes about $50k/year (which is pretty drat good for the area). He lives at home and his last job was working at sam's club. I think fresh out of college grads making good money in their first job get a bit of a pass to blow it on bullshit for a while. As long as you don't develop bad financial habits and/or carry on too long (both tall orders for a lot of people), whatever, enjoy yourself a bit. Buying RAM because the color matches your mousepad, however, is always bad with money.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:27
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my dumb hardware purchases were at least utilitarian, natch
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Feb 13, 2015 22:30
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And if you reaaaallly have such a need for color coordination, at least buy a new mouse pad instead of new memory.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:32
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Barry posted:I think fresh out of college grads making good money in their first job get a bit of a pass to blow it on bullshit for a while. As long as you don't develop bad financial habits and/or carry on too long (both tall orders for a lot of people), whatever, enjoy yourself a bit. Fresh out of college is when hoarding needs to be done as much as possible. You probably have debt you have to pay down, and besides that, compound interest has the most time to work its magic. If you're responsible at a young age, then you can slack off in a couple years when you have a decent base built up.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:49
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Craptacular posted:And if you reaaaallly have such a need for color coordination, at least buy a new mouse pad instead of new memory. Who still uses a mousepad?
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Feb 13, 2015 22:50
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Craptacular posted:And if you reaaaallly have such a need for color coordination, at least buy a new mouse pad instead of new memory. Maybe it was this mousepad?
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Feb 13, 2015 22:56
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DJCobol posted:Who still uses a mousepad? Uh people whose desks don't work well with laser mice?
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Feb 13, 2015 22:59
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DJCobol posted:Who still uses a mousepad? edit: the real answer to your question is probably "the same kind of person who has a mechanical keyboard"
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Feb 13, 2015 23:10
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DJCobol posted:Who still uses a mousepad? Anime nerds. His waifu probably had the wrong hair color.
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Feb 13, 2015 23:28
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ChipNDip posted:Fresh out of college is when hoarding needs to be done as much as possible. You probably have debt you have to pay down, and besides that, compound interest has the most time to work its magic. If you're responsible at a young age, then you can slack off in a couple years when you have a decent base built up. In a perfect world, sure. I think putting off being a completely responsible adult for a few months when you're young at the expense of either working longer or tightening the belt when you're older is fine.
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Feb 14, 2015 00:05
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Barry posted:In a perfect world, sure. I think putting off being a completely responsible adult for a few months when you're young at the expense of either working longer or tightening the belt when you're older is fine. It's basically betting on yourself. If you're clever, employable, and willing to make life decisions (kids) that prevent you from taking on huge long-term costs, go ahead and buy a few things. Like, don't lease 3 vehicles, but I feel it's fine for certain types of people who are willing to take on some amount of risk to not do everything financially by-the-book early on in life. A person will generally never be more broke than they are when they're young, and some things are only available when you're young. Like, one of my favorite memories in life is me on the great barrier reef, laying out on a boat deck, chatting up a beautiful woman. In my early 30s, that's just not available to me like it was in my mid-20s. Now i'm approaching a point in my life where I start trading money for time, and I'm glad I spent the way that I did young.
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Feb 14, 2015 00:41
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Who the gently caress cares.
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Feb 14, 2015 01:00
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dreesemonkey posted:My newish co-worker is pretty stereotypically bad with money. He's just started, out of college and makes about $50k/year (which is pretty drat good for the area). He lives at home and his last job was working at sam's club. wait... what about the RAM? Does it hang outside of his PC or something?
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Feb 14, 2015 01:02
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Translucent case?
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Feb 14, 2015 01:06
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