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Quick question about budgeting: I'm about a year out of college and I've been lucky/frugal enough to not have student loans or credit card debt to deal with, so I've gotten kind of lazy with budgeting and saving and all. I started putting together an emergency fund but I just got slammed with car repairs in the ~$2000 range. Luckily, between my tax return and the next paycheck I should be should be able to cover it, but money's going to be tighter than I'd like for a while. What are some good basic budgeting tips to just cut spending in general? I'm trying to treat this as an opportunity to become more fiscally responsible. Thanks 
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Apr 12, 2011 19:05
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 19:51 |
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Consider selling your modern deck? I know you're primarily looking for budgeting advice but if you're sitting on $500 (half your debt) in Goyfs or whatever, maybe it's worth selling it and either playing a $200 deck or just drafting a couple times a month at ~$10-15 instead of having a hugely liquid asset sitting on your desk when you're drowning in debt (and at your income ratio, you are). Also, maybe allot $20 to weed a month? Nobody's expecting you to go from $60 to $0 and it's easier to budget if you're being realistic. $60 for food also seems ambitious, that's only 1 "Go out to eats" and perhaps a fast food every two weeks. Bump that up to $100, maybe? Forget the new watch and the new computer and unless it's a matter of utmost importance, whoever you were going to pay to extract hard drive data can wait. If you're actively paying down your debt, it's okay if it takes an extra month. If you get a week into budgeting and you're too restrictive on your discretionary spending, you're going to say gently caress it and get a second credit card. What about this? Income: $1,133 Debt: $1,000 Fixed expenses: $668.50 Debt repayment: $250 Magic: $30 Food: $100 Devil's Lettuce: $20 Other Discretionary Spending (because something will come up and if it's not budgeted you're going to sink): $65 Emergency fund: $0, you have a "safety net" living with your mom and you're paying 20% APR on a card, get rid of that balance
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Jan 9, 2018 18:13
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Hi folks. I'm looking for advice about a particular problem i've identified with my spending. I've gotten pretty good at cutting out fast food and making rice and beans and grilling chicken or whatever at home, saving like, $5 or $6 a day. The problem is that I then regularly convince myself to make stupid $300-$400 luxury purchases and then think "well, did some good and some bad this month, way to go me!" and the result is my cc debt growing by a couple hundred a month. I'm trying to right the ship before it gets (more) out of hand. I make a new budget every month and then blow right past it and say "okay, now that I have [x lovely useless expensive thing] i'm not going to need to spend more money next month" and inevitably i do. The day-to-day spending is under control but i convince myself that i need and deserve things that i definitely don't. Does anyone have any hints to be a goddamn adult? (Mostly I'm asking if anyone has had a similar issue and has some specific advice for this case. Trust me, I know how incredibly stupid of an issue this is, feel free to mock me relentlessly.)
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Feb 5, 2018 18:45
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Quick question -- I'm going to be on a game show in the near future and I'm estimating that I'll win somewhere from 10k-100k (probably wishful thinking for the top end, but who knows). If I receive this money in April/May, is there anything wrong with the idea of throwing it in a bank to earn a few hundred in interest before taxes are due next year? I'm concerned that this is either stupid or illegal for some reason I haven't thought of yet but figure I'd rather ask here and be embarrassed for a day or two than end up the focus of the BWM thread when I go to tax evasion jail next year.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:56
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The criticism isn't about getting to 12k, it's about cutting from six months to three-and-a-half to save a couple bucks of interest on a debt that already has a payment plan in place that's working
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Mar 7, 2018 20:47
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Loel posted:May 2018: Half your paycheck is going to rent, and at 11 hours a day you're making $9 an hour (on the good months, not sure what the deal is with the $1000 month or how likely it is to recur). There's nothing in there for food or anything like that. It seems like you're in a lot of trouble and would probably get a lot of mileage out of your own thread.
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May 9, 2018 15:06
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If I'm very, very, very, VERY risk-averse (to the point that no loss is acceptable in this scenario) is there anything better than CDs? I'm aggressively funding my 401k, so I understand that even if the market seems volatile there's no better long-term plan than putting whatever money you can in and waiting 30 years. Separately from that, though, I have a chunk of money that I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with yet, but I don't want to leave it in a savings account earning 0.0021% or whatever. I'm probably going to want to draw upon it in 2-3 years and I'm okay not touching it until then. Thanks!
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Jun 1, 2018 17:41
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DJCobol posted:100% vested in the company match immediately, or after 1 year? I've never heard of such a thing personally. Usually you get like 33% or 25% a year so that you are fully vested after 3-4 years. Just short of half of employer plans have immediate vested matching, per Vanguard's How America Saves 2017 (p. 15)
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Jul 18, 2018 21:40
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:uhh with that consumer debt burden may i suggest making a thread in here 
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Jul 19, 2018 20:30
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Duckman2008 posted:$11k in debt doesn’t come from no where. I would recommend creating a thread , posting your honest current income, savings and budget. Getting some advice from this forum could really help. I’m assuming there has to be some spending habits that you have that are hurting. (seriously, this would at least help you be honest with yourself even if you don't take any advice)
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Sep 26, 2018 07:05
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velocirapstar posted:If I'm basically living paycheck-to-paycheck (although I have a decent chunk in savings, retirement, etc) while on a $130k salary, I'm assuming making its own You earn over 10k a month and have no debt. Hell yes I want to read this post
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Oct 9, 2018 00:00
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post about my spending and budget would be the best way to be ridiculed and/or assisted by thoughtful goons?
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velocirapstar posted:I'll post more details as to monthly spend in its own thread and link it here. Please do! Honestly you could probably c/p that post into its own thread and go from there. $9200 income $0500 health insurance $0900 pre-school $1750 mortgage You have over $6000 that isn't accounted for here. Where does it gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?  I'd say post your mint categories (if not the specific line items) for the last couple months so we can take a look and berate you
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Oct 9, 2018 02:07
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Edgar Allan Pwned posted:Typically with large purchases I save for the total and buy stuff when I have the money, but I would like a laptop sooner than later and I'm hoping to capture a good deal on black friday. Additionally, and this might be better for a tech subforum, but at what point does more cost NOT mean a better computer? for laptops, about $600-650 -- there's a thread on this here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3552651 (i know it's impossible to navigate the forums this month) Going into (more) debt to get a computer strikes me as a poor idea. It sounds like you haven't really thought this out (which is fine! you're getting more information to (ostensibly) inform your purchase). I would definitely not open a new credit card or get a weird internet loan if at all possible. I'd say figure out exactly what you *need* from the computer, and if you actually need it right now. If it's just writing code, can you do that in a chromebook or something? Having a new laptop is definitely sweet, but you don't want to ruin the next two years+ of your financial life for it
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Oct 23, 2018 19:37
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Mocking Bird posted:Highly recommend Food Maxx and Grocery Outlet. I can't get enough of grocery outlet. Everything is so cheap!
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Oct 29, 2018 19:24
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:in my opinion there will probably be changes made at some point to the rules for HSAs once regulators realize that they are going to turn into giant second IRAs for rich people I have some bad news about the people that make the rules edit: i also have some bad news for myself about missing the entire last page before posting, oops
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Jan 8, 2019 23:18
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Thanatosian posted:Psychiatrist. 
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Feb 19, 2019 18:54
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Just Offscreen posted:her industry(I won't go into the details but it has been dead in the water due to Covid) starts back up we are considering other options. Is she like, a teacher? or is she like, a masseuse or a theater usher or a dave and busters manager? There's a lot of industries that you simply can't expect to come back this year if ever, and as unpleasant as that is to think bout you gotta factor it in when you're considering taking out a loan (even from yourself).
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May 3, 2020 22:54
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i'm with moana here. the vultures are hungry. what DOES your apr/minimum payment look like here? 50k? this is a level 10 hit-every-panic-button-and-eat-ramen emergency. So, 50k debt, you make 100k combined. god willing, wife gets her job back at a normal salary very soon (pessimistic about this, but for the sake of argument) You're talking about spending 6 months of your combined salary on the black hole that is your debt (or your 401k loan). This is doable over five years, I don't think it's doable over two. You're talking about cutting all your spending by 25%. And things like rent and insurance and gas can't be cut like that, so you're really talking about slashing discretionary spending by a much larger amount. It's easy to say "we'll spend 25% less on fun/food" but what about 60%? I know you said you turned things around, but you also ostensibly also saw the credit cards hit 10k and then 20k and then 30k on their way to 50k. Not that it's tremendously relevant to the question you asked, but how much are the student loans? I know some are in forbearance at the moment but that'll only last until sallie mae or whoever wants blood again. Make sure you don't factor not paying those into your planning.
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May 4, 2020 21:08
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Oh boy!
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Dec 27, 2020 21:14
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'll make a thread, but if "Sell the SVX" turns into that thread's version of "sell your shitcoins" I'm just going to abandon it and try to keep myself honest without it. With the utmost respect and kindness, I ask "how is this working out for you right now?" e: this is coming from a bfc success story--i made a thread when i was hopelessly addicted to Daily Fantasy Sports (gambling) and needed people to yell at me for two full pages before i stopped playing. now i'm married, debt free, and recently bought a car (old honda) with cash! i'm not sure exactly how emotionally beneficial it is for you to have that albatross of a car but i can tell you that it feels very good to be able to buy a similarly priced one in cash !! Spokes fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Aug 23, 2021 |
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Aug 23, 2021 20:25
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Unsinkabear posted:Is Empower (formerly Personal Capital) still the go-to for seeing all your accounts and transactions in one place? I find need to review all my credit card transactions (across quite a few cards and banks) going back through last July. In the past I used Personal Capital for this, but they don't play well with at least one of my banks. Just curious if there is anything else out there with more polish that isn't evil incarnate like Mint. I started using it again earlier this year--i'm not sure what the alternatives are but I'm really enjoying it. it did fight me forever on removing an old car loan but i think that's probably a bank sync issue and not anything directly wrong with empower
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Mar 22, 2023 19:29
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Ally also offers no-penalty CDs that have anywhere from 0% to 0.50% over their savings account rate where you can pull your money out without penalty BUT the difference between 3.85 and 4.25 is far less important than the difference between 0.05 (or whatever you're getting) vs 3.85 so really just find a savings account you like and park it there
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May 24, 2023 17:22
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 19:51 |
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jimmychoo posted:can i just like have someone sit down with me and plan out my cc debt + other stuff? it doesn’t seem worth a CFP but maybe that’s what they’re actually for - i work in finance and am not allowed to invest at my current job so there’d be none of that. just need someone who understands money to guide me on my stupid bs. i don’t make a you could make a thread!
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Apr 22, 2024 21:50
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