|
I have significant credit card debt that, excluding my car and student loan payments I have already budgeted, basically cancels out my checking account balance. I'd say between my wife and I we have about 1000 dollars if we were to pay off all our cards right now. I've already stopped using my credit card but I still have a balance right now because I'm afraid of not having spare money. My plan is to make steady payments on the cards and not use them while building up what's in our checking accounts because our fallback right now is basically that we live with her parents so we're not about to be homeless. Should I go with this plan of steady payments, or should I clear off my cards now and start saving from scratch?
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2013 05:44
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 02:34 |
|
|
To be clearer it's about 2500 bucks of CC debt (significant to me anyway) and APR is 9%. I take home maybe 2300 a month after taxes, medical insurance etc.. My students loans I have to pay like 550 a month and car is 200. If I lived ridiculously lean I could probably kill the CC debt in a short period of time but I'm apparently loving terrible with money.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2013 06:28
|
|
|
Yeah I'll get a full budget worked up as soon as I get time to work on it with my wife. Unfortunately we have A Thing coming up over the next week that removes us from our computers for a week but next week I'll get that out first thing. Thanks! 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2013 13:04
|
|
|
Something you should be able to do though is find out how much money he's getting base on his paycheck and manually enter that amount and keep track of it. Any company that can take money out of a check should be able to tell you how much you'd be getting before that happens. Does he not get check statements?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2013 01:55
|
|
|
Mint is too automatic for me. I need to be forced to LOOK at my spending.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2013 19:28
|
|
|
I've loving relapsed. This is my situation without including my wife's debt. Pardon the sort of hosed up categories. This is my checking account for the last year plugged into YNAB with my loans on the side.code:I've racked up a fuckload of student loan debt and I still have 1 year left to go on my grad degree. Once I'm out of school I don't really know how I'm going to manage it. I am on the income-based repayment plan for my federal loans but I'm going to have a total of like 1000-1200 bucks taken out of my paycheck once I am done with school, and getting a better paying job isn't guaranteed so I don't know what the gently caress I'm supposed to really do other than cut way the gently caress back on like everything, but I am really unsure how I'm going to manage that. So basically, I know how to make a budget. That's fine, but I am apparently addicted to buying poo poo I don't need. I thoroughly believe I am hosed up psychologically with regards to money. I was doing good for about two months with my credit cards disconnected from amazon and steam. I zeroed my credit card. I still haven't started really saving any money, and the least I could do is throw more of it at my student loans. But I can't even seem to manage that. How do I cultivate good spending habits?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2014 20:24
|
|
|
Veskit posted:Jesuuuuss christ that video game spending Yes I have some issues, and Yeah I'll see if I can't find a psychologist to supplement my psychiatrist
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2014 22:37
|
|
|
I don't think the problem is that I'm buying a lot of video games. I think it's that I'm buying video games before I'm done with the ones I already have. That's what I am seeing as I think about this more. If I had an unlimited budget for gaming but I was only allowed to buy a new toy when I was finished with the last one I bought, the amount I spend on games would decrease dramatically. That's all it is, I'm just wasting my money. I followed up on Mr. Money Mustache and the latest link he posted talked pretty directly to the problem I'm seeing here. It's a blog post called How To Make Money Buy Happiness. The gist of it is that I'm not spending money on things that make me happy, I'm spending money on the promise of being happy if I buy the thing. This is a cyclical problem of buying poo poo because I dream of being the person who is happy using the thing I bought, and then not using it, so I buy another thing. If it's possible to be addicted to buying poo poo I think that's what I have. At least if I was spending the money on food I'd use the hell of out it 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2014 02:59
|
|
|
Veskit posted:No the problem is that you're buying a lot of video games. The problem is you're buying a lot of video games. If you want to dig deeper down, you have issues with money, issues with your brain, or issues with your dad molesting you who knows who cares. Problem is you just said you don't think the problem is you're buying a lot of video games. Read that back to yourself until you go huh, I can't believe I just wrote that. I acknowledge this post and agree with you
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2014 04:14
|
|
|
I agree with all that I talked to my wife about it and she agreed to the following plan: Open a savings account and put a reasonable amount per month into it. Open up a checking account for each of us at USAA because they don't allow overdrafts and don't have charges or minimum balances. Direct deposit 200 bucks from my paycheck (two weeks) into each of those, and that's all the fun money we get, period, including the Amazon and Alcohol items. Those accounts will be for our debit cards and will be the primary accounts we go to for whatever bullshit we buy day to day. That way we can see how much money we actually have instead of having an inflated sense of our money because our money buffers are in our checking accounts right now. That also makes it so we get "paid" at the same time, for purchase coordination if we need it. Everything else goes into our joint account, which we pay regular bills from, like doctor visits, insurance payments, etc.. Any purchase not previously discussed that requires going into the joint account requires a conversation. If that 200 per paycheck isn't enough, that's something to talk about and budget around. If I hit zero on my fun money, I get declined, which hopefully should send a good psychological message. We will not carry around the debit card from our joint account, and anything like a doctor visit or something like that will require writing a check. Sound reasonable? If nothing else it'll finally consolidate our accounts so we don't have unbalanced bill payments.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2014 00:27
|
|
|
Sockser, I think it's worth noting that the options I was able to come up with regarding a special fun money account were 100% stuff designed to teach your child about having money in an account. I'm intentionally giving control of my money to my wife who does not spend money like she's a 12 year old with an adult's paycheck. The only reason I think this might work is because I have someone other than myself to hold me accountable for my spending. Do you have someone like that in your life? Cause if you don't, my thinking is that it likely won't work for you because you're still going to have to hold your own self accountable and you'll have free access to all your money.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2014 14:34
|
|
|
I have an update since my last post in this thread. Here's some success talk. My budget was way the gently caress out of whack a few months ago. I posted here and Veskit rightly told me I'm spending money like someone who has mental problems. I have since gone to a new system with my wife where we both get 200 dollars every 2 weeks (out of my paycheck) and that's deposited directly into a spending account. We each have our own, and there is no overdraft protection. If we try to spend more money than we have, we just straight up get declined. I've had this happen to me more than once in the past couple of months. We spend this on eating out for lunch, clothing that we don't need (like shoes when our current shoes do the job just fine), games and other entertainment, that kind of thing. Silly money. After the 200 each paycheck, all of the rest of our money goes into a joint account that we pay bills from. Bills are anything that benefit both of us or is health-related. If I buy a Dremel for my hobbies, that comes out of spending money, but if we both decide we need a circular saw, that's utility money. Other than known bills like monthly doctor visits, absolutely any time we spend utility/joint money, we have to consult the other person and tell them about the expense. This is a great deterrent for spending joint account money on things that are really stupid or unnecessary, because we're not afraid to tell each other that we don't need something. I run out of spending money fast. Like sometimes, I have a purchase on my mind and when I get paid I am nearly out of spending money the same day I get paid. But the cool thing is, when I'm out of spending money, I manage to go weeks without spending a dime. I eat at home or bring lunch to work or just skip lunch sometimes. I am stopping the use of my e-cigarette because I don't want to spend the money to get new juice, and I am drinking water at work instead of spending the quarter it takes to buy a soda. It's been fantastic. We are saving money and paying down our debts, but at the same time we feel liberated in our spending. We are being responsible with the amount of money we spend, but when we have money to spend, we're allowed to spend it as irresponsibly as we want, and just not get more. I remember Veskit made a huge deal about the amount of money I spent on games, and that was a legit thing to bring up. Now I spend not quite as much on games, but still a lot, but I am not buying other poo poo on the side, nickel and dimeing myself on Amazon. So overall, I'm spending way less on stupid stuff while not feeling bad about the stupid stuff I do buy. Anyways that's my update and future success story. Thanks to all the people who said I was being an idiot because I really was, and still sorta am, but now I get to be an idiot with boundaries.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
Not a Children posted:Glad that you found something that is working out for you, but keep in mind that you've still got around $800 of "silly money" going out the window every month. I'm not saying you shouldn't have fun, but that's still a pretty hefty sum, especially if you're only bringing in $2500 or so a month -- That's practically a third of your earnings that you're throwing at momentary gratification. You say you have an easy time managing yourself when you're out of that money -- why not try reducing that amount? I'm sure you'll find that you don't need to spend $100 a week on frivolities to keep yourself satisfied. If you even just cut that fun money in half, that's $400 a month you could be socking away! True, and we should be reducing that amount to 300 or less, over time. Compared to what we were spending this is tightening the belt quite a bit, but I'm sure we can cut out more.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2014 19:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 02:34 |
|
|
I just got a new job and I'm moving from like 42k/year to 60k/year, and 65k/year if I do well for the first 120 days. Right now my wife and I have spending accounts that we put a set amount of money into every pay period. My plan is to take the extra money and NOT increase our spending accounts by a cent. Then we pay down credit cards. Right now we live in my wife's parents' basement. What kind of financial shape should we be in before we move out?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2014 19:33
|
|