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WampaLord posted:Holy poo poo, your company is delaying paychecks due to lack of cash on hand? You need to be looking for a new job yesterday. Knyteguy posted:
You really should be in complete freakout mode over the missed paycheck. A delay in expense reimbursement is one thing, but companies that are run competently don't miss payroll. It's simple business common sense - if your employees aren't getting paid, they'll stop working. If your employees stop working, revenue stops coming in. No revenue, no way to keep running the company. Either your boss is incompetent or the financial state of the company is dire. If the company is missing payroll, it probably means they're already behind on paying their vendors and other outstanding invoices. Yes, clients may pay erratically, but good business owners plan for that and keep reserves on hand for the invoices that take a few months to get paid. I would strongly suggest taking advantage of any leads you have on a new job. This isn't the time to be thinking "Well, they'll probably pull it together" - this is the time to be planning an exit strategy so you can land on your feet. Also, given the fact that your employment situation is so unstable, I would strongly consider delaying putting additional money towards your debt until you have at least a couple of months of expenses lined up in an emergency fund. Is your health insurance through your employment or your wife's? Knyteguy posted:Also we got hit with $112 in overdraft fees because we had money in Paypal, but they still decided to bill our bank when we weren't ready (I mean we used our PayPal MasterCards which tie directly to our PayPal funds). To ensure this won't happen ever again I removed our bank as a backup funding source for the card. We get 1% back for using the MasterCard, but it's not worth it. Maybe once we are very good about YNABing things and we have every single expense predicted and entered we'll go back to using it for the 1%, but that really sucks. Also it just ate most of our eBay business revenue as well (which is the whole reason for having the card and money in PayPal). We've only been in business for 2 months so there wasn't much to eat. Also our credit union charged us on 3 overdraft fees, but only let one of the charges go through. Does anyone else think that's pretty dumb? You mentioned earlier on you just put an extra $40 towards the truck for the month in the same post you mention you overdrew your checking account accidentally. You shouldn't be putting any extra money towards your debts until you have at least a minimum buffer in your account to prevent stupid errors like this from happening. The proper remedial measure here isn't to decouple the card from your account (though that's not a bad idea) - it's to make sure you have enough in savings such that every dollar you spend isn't potentially your last. Going by your first post you've had problems with overdrafts in the past (and may still have your name in Chexsystems?), so blaming this one on Paypal (as horrible as they tend to be) seems a little unfair since you already have an established problem in keeping enough money in your account. When is your sister moving out? That's a ticking time bomb to the tune of an extra $500 a month you need to be addressing before it becomes a problem. We're still not sure how you're spending an extra $2000 a month, and that extra $500 might be a huge problem.
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Nov 23, 2013 00:09
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Bugamol posted:I don't understand how you can say you potentially have $2,000 worth of "extra" cash each month, with an absurd food budget, and yet get an overdraft fee. We have around $2000 worth of free cash this pay cycle, not last paycheck. Our bills are heavily weighted to the first paycheck cycle, and we also paid off $412 in payday loans, and bought a Playstation 4, and paid off my sister more money, and etc. We were just really irresponsible. Also I kinda covered this. I bought a lot of clothes for work that I absolutely needed for travel to a client's place and a winter jacket that altogether was about $400.00. My wife needed a new pair of jeans. We bought my wife a bass guitar and Rocksmith to the tune of $430. She loves it, but it's still an expense obviously. We bought an electric toothbrush for $100. We bought a few months supply of hygiene goods such as razor blade replacements for both of us from Costco. We ate out a few times. We paid my sister back $170.00. The overdraft fee was just Paypal being loving retarded and not pulling our business expense out of our business account. I gambled and put us on a razor thin margin to attempt to make some money with the business. It would have been OK but I also delayed depositing another business check. And yea we've had problems with overdraft fees in the past. This isn't a new problem for us. It's dumb, we've been dumb, and we're trying to move forward with a more responsible lifestyle. quote:You really should be in complete freakout mode over the missed paycheck. A delay in expense reimbursement is one thing, but companies that are run competently don't miss payroll. It's simple business common sense - if your employees aren't getting paid, they'll stop working. If your employees stop working, revenue stops coming in. No revenue, no way to keep running the company. Either your boss is incompetent or the financial state of the company is dire. If the company is missing payroll, it probably means they're already behind on paying their vendors and other outstanding invoices. Yes, clients may pay erratically, but good business owners plan for that and keep reserves on hand for the invoices that take a few months to get paid. I would strongly suggest taking advantage of any leads you have on a new job. This isn't the time to be thinking "Well, they'll probably pull it together" - this is the time to be planning an exit strategy so you can land on your feet. Edit 2: Healthcare is in my name. We've had it for like 4 months; I'll be so bummed if we lose it again. I'm really trying not to freak the gently caress out; I need a clear head especially in a situation like this. I know it is dire, but I also don't think it's a time to overreact. We've been devoting too much of my time to my boss's pet project, and not enough time focusing on billing clients. That's been rectified, and hopefully will continue to be rectified. I appreciate the concern, and I'll absolutely take your advice to not throw any extra money towards our debt until we have an emergency fund. I actually just changed our car bill from the standard $600 we've been paying, to the minimum payment. I'm willing to give it at least another pay period before I really start worrying and start getting back to people who've shown interest. My boss took me from a dire financial situation (I couldn't afford a prepaid personal cell phone ffs, I even missed the first interview I had scheduled with him because of this; he realized this and gave me a chance), so I think 2 weeks worth of loyalty is at least due to him. I found this job, maybe luckily, in 30 days and that was without the 7 months of continue experience I have now. The absolute worst case scenario is I go work cable again. I was making over $700/wk on a good week. It raped my mind because I was working 90+ hours a week for that money (6 days a week, 6am to sometimes 11pm+), but it's not like we'll lose everything or something. I'll do what it takes to ensure we're OK. Re my sister: I don't know when she's moving out exactly, and neither does she. Seriously though we're not missing any big bills in that budget. If this company went under and I was forced to go on unemployment, we could still uncomfortably cover this lease to the end on that income, or until I find another good job. Literally most of our money is not going to towards necessary stuff, we've just been consuming like crazy. Obviously one of the huge goals in this thread is to stop that behavior. If our plans get screwed over because I lose my job suddenly, then we'll still benefit from everything here. I'll fast forward and post a budget tonight so we're all on the same page as far as exactly where money is going. It's a waste of everyone's time to scrutinize something that's knowingly inaccurate. I apologize for that fact. Edit: Just for precautions I'll go ahead and get my resume up to date. It's good to have even if this is a one time thing. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 01:04
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You don't have any credit card debt, but do you have credit cards? Two reasons I ask. One is that 18% auto loan is absolutely murderous, and it's harder to justify having cash sitting around for an emergency when it could be paying that loan down. If you have credit available, I'd say your case is a strong one for using springy debt as part of your emergency fund. The other is that if you use cards regularly and have just been paying them off, you can look through your past statements online to get a better idea of your historical spending habits. If you sign up for a site like Mint, it'll even categorize it all for you. I find Mint and YNAB work very well together.
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Nov 23, 2013 01:24
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Kilty Monroe posted:You don't have any credit card debt, but do you have credit cards? Two reasons I ask. Unfortunately no, we don't have a credit card. We use a really small credit union, and Mint doesn't support them yet unforunately. Edit: Also just wanted to say thanks for the help so far to everyone who's posted. Hopefully this doesn't turn ridiculous and I end up in worse shape than before the thread because of something to do with my work.
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Nov 23, 2013 01:29
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Knyteguy posted:I'm really trying not to freak the gently caress out; I need a clear head especially in a situation like this. I know it is dire, but I also don't think it's a time to overreact. We've been devoting too much of my time to my boss's pet project, and not enough time focusing on billing clients. That's been rectified, and hopefully will continue to be rectified. I appreciate the concern, and I'll absolutely take your advice to not throw any extra money towards our debt until we have an emergency fund. I actually just changed our car bill from the standard $600 we've been paying, to the minimum payment. I think you need to freak out/overreact a bit more. If your next paycheck is delayed or hosed with in any way, you need to jump ship. Companies that miss payroll are  not healthy . It's a big loving red flag.All this debt paying down business is completely hosed if you lose your source of income, even if only for a month or two while you get a new job. You'll rack up more debt/overdrafts/fees in that period when no money is coming in, as you've noticed. Seriously, whip up your resume and get in touch with a recruiter. It sounds like you have skills, so finding a new job shouldn't be too hard but you definitely need to devote some time to it ASAP. Best case scenario, your job is perfectly fine and pays you on time from now on and you wasted a few hours job hunting. Hell, who knows, you might even find something that's way better and pays more!
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Nov 23, 2013 01:32
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You spent $930 on insanely useless crap that you don't need. While you were late with getting a paycheck. Immediately after recently taking out a payday loan. And then you overdrafted your bank account. You need to be more realistic about your spending. IE stop buying whatever the gently caress you want, especially if you want to buy a house in 2 years.
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Nov 23, 2013 02:17
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Knyteguy posted:$30,000 in debt Knyteguy posted:Playstation 4 These are not compatible sets of things. I hope you are realizing it. Did you buy the Wii U and 3DS today?
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Nov 23, 2013 02:18
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slap me silly posted:These are not compatible sets of things. I hope you are realizing it. Did you buy the Wii U and 3DS today? There is something fundamentally broken with your concept of your finances. It really sounds like you're one accident away from complete disaster, and you're spending completely ridiculous sums of money. You mention not buying two additional game systems as if you should be congratulated when doing so would have been complete insanity. You talk about payday loans and overdraft fees in one sentence, and then think you're $2000 in the black the next. Have you thought about what you're going to do for Christmas? What's your budget for gifts? I honestly don't know how you can justify spending more than a couple hundred dollars in total after you and your wife just got $400 gifts each. You need to start making some serious sacrifices before life forces your hand.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:15
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in_cahoots posted:There is something fundamentally broken with your concept of your finances. It really sounds like you're one accident away from complete disaster, and you're spending completely ridiculous sums of money. You mention not buying two additional game systems as if you should be congratulated when doing so would have been complete insanity. You talk about payday loans and overdraft fees in one sentence, and then think you're $2000 in the black the next. But dude they paid off their payday loan. They deserved it.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:18
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Bugamol posted:You spent $930 on insanely useless crap that you don't need. While you were late with getting a paycheck. Immediately after recently taking out a payday loan. And then you overdrafted your bank account. You need to be more realistic about your spending. IE stop buying whatever the gently caress you want, especially if you want to buy a house in 2 years. What I find most disturbing is that, given their circumstances, they blew that money on insanely useless crap when his sister is working two jobs and soliciting money to adopt their nieces who live with them. If you're going to be making lousy financial decisions, at least make the ones that help your family. Likewise, if the rest of the family is struggling to get by and the OP is spending like he's a millionaire, I can see how they might feel resentful.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:50
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Knyteguy posted:Thanks. I realize now the PS4 was a bad decision. I Also you need to eliminate the idea of free money. You are in debt, you have negative money. Any cash you have isn't free cash it belongs to someone else and they are letting you borrow it for a little while. Foma fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 05:37
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Knyteguy's Awesome Financial Thread - I'm Not Zaurg, but I'm starting to resemble him more and more
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Nov 23, 2013 06:43
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Weatherman posted:Knyteguy's Awesome Financial Thread - I'm Not Zaurg, but I'm starting to resemble him more and more Seriously. I think MMM's debt is an emergency post goes too far (immediately moving back in with your parents without knowing the situation?), but it does help to give the proper mindset. I know it's a huge adjustment, but you're going to have to make some big changes temporarily (and some smaller, but still big changes going forward). You realize that buying the PS4 was a bad idea, but you throw out a $23/mo (~$300 a year) gamefly subscription like it's nothing AFTER saying that you're going to need to buy some games for your PS4?? This list?? quote:Playstation 4 Satellite radio?? I mean, look, there are TONS of people in your shoes in America. You're not going to die, or probably even go bankrupt if you just keep on keeping on, and throw a little more money at this than you have been, and spend a little less. Maybe you'll even eventually be debt free. But if you were happy with that life, you wouldn't have posted this thread. On the other end of the spectrum, you probably don't need to move back in with your parents, survive on dumpster dove rice and beans, and pay this off fast enough to get your grandma's house money. But there's a spectrum of options between those two outcomes and, you're still WAY closer to the first scenario than the second. Video games, satellite TV and electric toothbrushes are luxuries. If you're serious about getting out of debt in a reasonable amount of time, they're the sort of things you can pick a couple of, save up for, and buy them after you have the money, while still quickly paying off debt. I'm paying off debt, and buying a new cell phone. Is that $200 that could go towards my debt, of course! But I saved for it, know exactly what I want, have shaved down or eliminated my other luxury spending, and am at peace about it. Take cash out of the bank for your grocery and spending money, and stick with it. $300-$400 a month for groceries (not restaurants, but groceries and maybe paper products/toiletries ONLY), broken up into however many paychecks you get this month, $50-$100 each for spending (be sure to subtract off any subscriptions like gamefly and radio and such from whichever person wants them), and religiously track and report back EVERY penny you spend that isn't from those two pools (I don't track individual grocery purchases, but if you find yourself going over your pool, maybe you should). This month I spent $50 on entertainment, which included seeing two movies (second run theaters are awesome!), going to 2 parties and bringing my own beer, and eating out once. I spent $200 on groceries to feed 2 people this month (this was cheating though, we bought some meat, but we had some from previous months too. My normal budget is $300). You don't have to eat on $200 a month and spend nothing on entertainment, but I'd seriously consider the ~$350 grocery ~$75 each entertainment CASH budgets. The best part about living on not a lot is, once you're out of debt, you can raise those budgets, or even double them, and feel great about it, and you'd STILL be spending less than you are right now. EDIT: To sum up: 1) Seriously reconsider your subscription/extras spending 2) Make a CASH budget for entertainment/groceries, taking #1 in to account 3) (and most importantly) TRACK EVERYTHING YOU SPEND DOWN TO THE PENNY FOR AT LEAST A MONTH OR TWO. I'd recommend tracking as a general rule, but you need to be militant about it for a few months so that us, and more importantly, YOU GUYS, know what you're spending money on. Obviously, that $14k at 18% interest is crazy, and I'm glad you're looking into solving that problem ASAP (and keep looking for a way to deal with it), but if you were paying $2000 a month on your debt (realistic with your income, although maybe not with your fixed expenses), interest rates don't matter nearly as much. I think those 3 steps are the best way to understand your spending in such a way that you'll be able to maximize your debt payoffs. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 16:03
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Knyteguy posted:I mean Amazon's recruiters have invited me twice to expense paid interviews in Vegas and stuff, and two other firms found me on LinkedIn that would mean probably a six figure income (extremely in demand stuff) Also, I know this is a delicate subject. If your grandma is willing to give you $20k if you get your poo poo together, is she willing to co-sign a car loan? Getting those rates down to 4% would save you ~$6k in the next 2 years.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:23
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Truthfully - and I have high hopes for OP - I wouldn't co-sign a car loan for him if I had any idea of the current state of his finances and his splurge spending (PS4, upcoming Christmas, etc). It would be a nice gesture, and it's a huge savings, but it's also a big risk with OP being on the edge with regard to solvency.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:28
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Knyteguy posted:We have around $2000 worth of free cash this pay cycle, not last paycheck. Another way to put that is "living paycheck to paycheck." You should not have to budget per paycheck, and if you're doing that you're missing the point of YNAB entirely. Good news: if that $2000 becomes your emergency fund/buffer in your checking account, you can stop paying overdraft fees and stop worrying about when money comes out for individual bills, and focus on the bigger picture.
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Nov 24, 2013 08:33
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Dude. You and your wife need to stop spending to your bank account and start spending to your budget. You don't get to buy a PS4 and a guitar and a toothbrush and and and, just because you have money in your account. Let me guess, the guitar was to balance things, since you got a PS4? My ex and I had that same cycle of spending money as a reward to ourselves for spending money. Knock it off. Immediately.
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Nov 24, 2013 12:04
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Eeeee poo poo, how do you get offered a 18% APR and say "hell yeah, sign me up!" That's brutal. Getting that either refinanced or made to go away by throwing every extra buck at the principle should be your first priority.
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Nov 24, 2013 13:23
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You know that if you don't put enough money down on a house you get hit by some penalties like mortgage insurance that causes the monthly payment to go way up right? You seriously can't buy poo poo like a PS4 like its no big thing, come on man.
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Nov 24, 2013 16:21
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You should count your blessings that slow motion is the current subforum whipping boy because you're asking for it, though you don't come off arrogant or anything so I think that helps your cause to. First off, the ~$1000 of money blown on stuff on a whim absolutely has to stop. Think of it this way. In that one month, you could have been 1/20th of the way to your house down payment goal. I'm not saying you can't ever buy a video game system again or rocksmith or whatever, but there is no such thing as "extra money" sitting in your bank account begging to be spent while your job is arguably unstable AND you're in a good amount of debt. You want a fun, shiny new toy? Save for it slowly. The PS4 is an excellent example, the pricing has been released for probably at least half a year. You should have been setting aside $60/mo and you could had had enough money for the system and a couple games. This has many benefits because it forces you to save money for something you want, so when you do decide to buy it, it doesn't effect your overall financial picture for that month. Also, once you've done this a while and you have a cool $600 sitting around, you might think "Hey, I don't really have enough time to get $600 out of a new game system right now anyway, I think I'll throw that money at my debt". Best case scenario right now is that you continue to get paid at your job and fumble along treading water financially. Worst case is that you need to find a new job quick, and you don't have any emergency savings to hold you over until you can find something else, racking up more debt in the process. Knyteguy posted:I figure like someone else mentioned, we can use our house savings as an emergency fund in the worst case scenario. Before we actually put money down on a house, we can meet our goals and save up another emergency/house fund. At least that's what we were thinking. This is fine, so long as you know if (by some miracle from how things look right now) you hit your $20k savings goal, that doesn't mean it's time to buy a house. It means "Well poo poo I probably should save up another $5-10k for an actual emergency fund." Seriously, home ownership is so expensive it will make your head spin, especially in your current state of mind of "I deserve to have X and Y", a house would just be another reason for you guys to overspend. Read the "Do never buy" home buying thread in here as well. quote:Well we put another $40 towards the truck which is something I guess, and insurance pulled out. We don't budget until we're pretty drat close to our paydays, so we won't have much to post budget wise until Monday when I get paid. Everything else has pretty much come out automatically and drained us. We definitely wait until the last minute to pay bills, but generally that's because of auto deduction. We both have direct deposit, which until this week has meant we know exactly when the money will be coming. You have to realize that since most of your bills are skewed towards one paycheck does not mean "pretty much all of this paycheck will be free for whatever." What YNAB is trying to get you to is having a generous buffer in your bank account to "live on last months pay". I've gotten to a point where I'm doing the same in practice about the same thing, but just because I've slowly built up a healthy buffer in our checking account. For a while $1000 was my zero balance, I treated $1300 in checking as $300. Then we got married and it was $2k, over time we've had some fatter (and leaner) months and now it's just "whatever", they last time we were below $4k in checking was the beginning of september when our mortgage came out, and we were at $3975 until the next day when our paychecks were depostied. In my opinion auto-pay bills are not good for the person starting out with their budget. I want you to have an active role planning/budgeting/paying your bills so it becomes second nature. Your auto-pay bills are the exact opposite of that, they are easy to forget and when that stuff happens you overdraw your account or simply have less money left over at the end of the month. Get a buffer, pay your bills ahead with your fat paycheck period to even things out. Get involved. quote:Also I swear State Farm is loving us. Our insurance went up $13.00 for no reason that I can figure out. We've been with them for years, and my wife for even longer. Insurance budget went up to $184.84 from $171.85 last month. It seems like we get rate increases pretty often from them, so I'll be watching this closely in the months to come Shop around, car insurance companies like to raise your premiums, I think when swapping cars is how they manage to pad that in there. One of my friends basically changes insurance every year (he buys a lot of cars), goes from state farm to progressive and back. Another money-saving thing I've been doing this year is taking all my large, non-monthly bills (life insurance, car insurance, heating oil, wood pellets) and added them up for the year, then estimated how much I needed to put aside every paycheck to cover these bills when they come up. Last month I bought $500 of wood pellets and it had no effect on my monthly financials because the money was there in another account, I bought it with my card, then transferred the money to checking to reimburse myself. It's been really helpful not having to worry that December is Xmas AND car insurance month, for instance.
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Nov 25, 2013 16:47
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slap me silly posted:These are not compatible sets of things. I hope you are realizing it. Did you buy the Wii U and 3DS today? No, didn't buy it. I didn't get paid, but I wouldn't have even if I did. I did buy a PS4 game. I now have two. I think I'm going to cancel GameFly. I don't think it will get much use, and really over the course of the past couple years, I haven't spent much on or played a variety of video games at all barring the past 30 days or so. I've been playing the game in my avatar for 3 years now, and it doesn't usually cost me anything unless I throw like $5 at it every couple months or something. quote:Have you thought about what you're going to do for Christmas? What's your budget for gifts? I honestly don't know how you can justify spending more than a couple hundred dollars in total after you and your wife just got $400 gifts each. You need to start making some serious sacrifices before life forces your hand. The guitar was for my wife's birthday. Agreed on the rest we're going to be saving onto everything this pay period as a small buffer at least. quote:But dude they paid off their payday loan. They deserved it. Not fair. I didn't say this or even come close to implying it. The PS4 has been planned since June (literally), and the bass was almost a month ago (yes before the payday loan was paid off). quote:What I find most disturbing is that, given their circumstances, they blew that money on insanely useless crap when his sister is working two jobs and soliciting money to adopt their nieces who live with them. If you're going to be making lousy financial decisions, at least make the ones that help your family. Likewise, if the rest of the family is struggling to get by and the OP is spending like he's a millionaire, I can see how they might feel resentful. Also not fair. My sister and our nieces get 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a dining room, half the kitchen, half the patio space, and 2 bathrooms. We get a master bedroom, a loft, 1 bathroom, and obviously half the kitchen space. We pay $1,100 a month and she pays $500 a month. We babysit the kids one night a week so she can work at nights, and etc. We help her out a lot in ways that aren't giving her a ton of money. My wife and I could have easily been comfortable in a house that cost us $400 less a month if we hadn't thought about her and the kids, so I sort of resent that you say anything when you don't know the situation at all. Let's keep this to my lovely impulse spending and maybe the job. quote:Seriously. I think MMM's debt is an emergency post goes too far (immediately moving back in with your parents without knowing the situation?), but it does help to give the proper mindset. I know it's a huge adjustment, but you're going to have to make some big changes temporarily (and some smaller, but still big changes going forward). You realize that buying the PS4 was a bad idea, but you throw out a $23/mo (~$300 a year) gamefly subscription like it's nothing AFTER saying that you're going to need to buy some games for your PS4?? Edit: We're probably going to cancel Gamefly. We're paid up until January, I'll end it before that bill comes. quote:1) Seriously reconsider your subscription/extras spending 2) We've tried this and it didn't really work for us, but maybe we'll give it another go. My wife works at an outlet grocery store that has great deals so it probably won't be too much of a problem to keep our grocery budget around $75-$100 a week (which before I got my job we were living off less than that some weeks. I ate way too much top ramen.) 3) This we're definitely doing with YNAB. We're entering expenses in on my wife's phone pretty much as soon as we spend them. quote:If this is true, you're working for half your going rate at a company that misses payroll. Did you take the interviews? I didn't take the interviews, no. I kind of like living where I live. I've lived here my whole life, and my entire family is here. It's not that I wouldn't move, it's just that I'd rather not. Well it's tricky. I'm working half my going rate in a very low cost of living area. According to the cost of living adjustment calculator (http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/) I'm making the equivalent of $108,000 a year in SF, $149,000 a year in Manhattan, $86,000 a year in Los Angeles, etc. In truth, yes I could make more. However my boss literally has taught me the skills that are worth this so much I think some loyalty is due. I've only worked here 7 months, ya know? Also no I highly doubt she would cosign. I would never ask her to, just in case we couldn't make the payments for whatever reason. quote:and I have high hopes for OP Thanks. quote:Dude. I know man. That's why we're here! The guitar wasn't to balance things; it was an unplanned birthday present for my wife. Out of any of our splurges this is one I have the fewest regrets about; she's enjoying playing it immensely and is getting impressively good in a short amount of time. As a musician I think helping to foster anyone's musical interest is extremely important  .quote:Eeeee poo poo, how do you get offered a 18% APR and say "hell yeah, sign me up!" That's brutal. Getting that either refinanced or made to go away by throwing every extra buck at the principle should be your first priority. I was expecting to put student loans towards it which would have lowered the interest rate dramatically. Unfortunately I had to choose between my school and my work, and I chose the one that paid the bills. I'm bitter about the car; I really wish my boss hadn't pushed me into it so quickly. I have yet to visit a clients one time yet, and I could have taken a taxi if I had needed to. quote:You know that if you don't put enough money down on a house you get hit by some penalties like mortgage insurance that causes the monthly payment to go way up right? You seriously can't buy poo poo like a PS4 like its no big thing, come on man. We won't buy if we have to touch PMI. I actually posted in the house buying thread about the financial viability of it before posting this thread. quote:This is fine, so long as you know if (by some miracle from how things look right now) you hit your $20k savings goal, that doesn't mean it's time to buy a house. It means "Well poo poo I probably should save up another $5-10k for an actual emergency fund." Seriously, home ownership is so expensive it will make your head spin, especially in your current state of mind of "I deserve to have X and Y", a house would just be another reason for you guys to overspend. Read the "Do never buy" home buying thread in here as well. I'm familiar with the thread yes; as of right now I think we're going to halt the plan on buying any sort of house in the next 2 years and instead focus on being ready to swim if the ship that is my job goes down :itisashipanalogy: quote:In my opinion auto-pay bills are not good for the person starting out with their budget. I want you to have an active role planning/budgeting/paying your bills so it becomes second nature. Your auto-pay bills are the exact opposite of that, they are easy to forget and when that stuff happens you overdraw your account or simply have less money left over at the end of the month. Get a buffer, pay your bills ahead with your fat paycheck period to even things out. Get involved. Wow nice regarding your buffer. That's definitely something we need to aspire to and work towards. On that note yes I agree on the auto pay. I absolutely hate auto pay. I like invoices. quote:Shop around, car insurance companies like to raise your premiums, I think when swapping cars is how they manage to pad that in there. One of my friends basically changes insurance every year (he buys a lot of cars), goes from state farm to progressive and back. Cool we will thanks. They've been creeping up on us for a long time, and I think it's a little ridiculous that they get away with charging what they do when I'm 27 and my wife is 25. I'm not some crazy teenage driver anymore  , and our cars just aren't worth that much.quote:Another money-saving thing I've been doing this year is taking all my large, non-monthly bills (life insurance, car insurance, heating oil, wood pellets) and added them up for the year, then estimated how much I needed to put aside every paycheck to cover these bills when they come up. Last month I bought $500 of wood pellets and it had no effect on my monthly financials because the money was there in another account, I bought it with my card, then transferred the money to checking to reimburse myself. It's been really helpful not having to worry that December is Xmas AND car insurance month, for instance. Maybe this would be a good way for us to transition to a 6 month insurance cycle. I know it saves money, and at least one point I've learned as that it's usually (usually) cheaper to pay for stuff in bulk. I imagine that extends to insurance, at least the last time I looked it did. I was looking into raising our deductibles to $2,000, but I realized both of our banks require $500 deductibles on our loans. Thanks everyone for the replies. There's a few points in there I don't have time to respond to but they were read, and we'll try to figure out how to implement many of the strategies mentioned so far. I'll do my best to post our budget for this paycheck around lunch or so. I was going to post it on Friday but I had to step away mentally. I've got to say that every single dollar we spent this weekend made both of us very uncomfortable though. We didn't spend much, so I'm thinking that the existence of this thread is holding us accountable. e: Clarification Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 18:16
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Budget 11/25 (2 weeks) Truck Maintenance: $500 (there's about a 90% chance this will be lower based on research, liberal estimate.) Car: $340 Groceries: $200 Personal Loan: $100 (balance: $300 after this) Pets: $100 (we need food and cat litter, this will last us all month) Gasoline: $100 Cell Phone: $55 Clothing: $50 (wife needs new work shoes) Spending Cash: $50 Internet: $32.98 Stuff We Missed or Forgot: $30 Satellite Radio: $16.23 Restaurants: $0 --- Total Expenses Budgeted: $1574.21 Emergency Fund: $404.87 We usually pay rent with my paycheck from the 7th. I'll update this after we take care of the truck this weekend. The dealership was upselling a poo poo ton of services which I asked a mechanically inclined friend about, so I cut their estimate in half after clearing up what was necessary and unnecessary. Realistically it will probably be a couple hundred less for maintenance but I want to make sure we have more than enough to take care of the truck. It probably just needs an oil change and a differential lubrication as well as an inspection I can mostly do myself. Also next pay period we'll have to take care of the car's break pads. I might change them manually with some help from my step father. This money budgeted is only my paycheck, and only for the next two weeks. My wife's paycheck was $715, which is gone. That money went to: $300 on the truck payment $185 on car insurance $77 eating out at restaurants $65 on a video game $30 on groceries $16 on business $16 on gasoline $8 on Netflix And the negative balance from overdraft fees covered the rest it looks like. Next Pay Periods: Wife's: 12/6 Mine: 12/7 Things we'll work on: Spend our money less frivolously. Track our expenses better. There were some (relatively small) charges I could not find or figure out. Debate cutting satellite radio. Revisit the autos refinancing this weekend. Things we did well: Cancelled Hulu Plus Anyone see anything I may have missed when putting this stuff down? I'll need to go over it with my wife but I think we covered most of it. I tried to go liberal on all of my estimates; hopefully that will leave us with a bit of a buffer come the next pay periods. Obviously my initial estimates were off. My absolute highest priority right now is to try to get that emergency fund up as high as possible while things with my employment are shaky. Edit: dreesemonkey posted:
Basically this is where that ~$1000 of money blown would usually come from. You can see here that we would not normally budget for any kind of car repairs, so we would have $500 from that, and $485 from the savings, and the clothes, and etc. This right here is definitely what I have to work on. I was one of those people who saw "extra" money in the account (I wouldn't have quoted that before) and just blew right through it like it's going out of style. I'm done with that behavior. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 19:55
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Cancel your satellite radio subscription. It's $16/month that's pointless - regular radio is FREE. Or listen to audiobooks you can probably check out from your public library. Or literally anything that's not paying $16/month for very little value.
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Nov 25, 2013 21:58
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Also, if you have a smartphone, you could use Pandora with an FM transmitter or male-to-male audio cable.
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Nov 25, 2013 22:07
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Knyteguy posted:This right here is definitely what I have to work on. I was one of those people who saw "extra" money in the account (I wouldn't have quoted that before) and just blew right through it like it's going out of style. I'm done with that behavior. In business terms you've been treating your budget as a cash flow statement instead of what it should be: an income statement. I'm struggling to translate that, but cash flow is just making sure you keep the bank balance positive. You can fudge that with credit and timing your bill payments. Income, on the other hand, is about making sure you're earning more than you spend. In the long run it's much more important. Budgeting by month instead of by paycheck will be a huge help here. Try to set static amounts. Don't budget $100 for pets because "we need supplies." Go back a few months, figure out how much you spend per month, and put that amount in your budget every month. Same for food. Put a reasonable amount of "fun money" in there each month for you and your wife, and be accountable for hitting that number. To use the prepayment of auto insurance example, you wouldn't add $600 to your budget once every 6 months, you'd add $100 a month. At month six when it's due, the money will be there to pay it if you're sticking to your budget. You will eventually not have to worry about your checking account balance at all. Budgets should have two columns: estimated and actual. At the end of the month you go back and compare how you did vs how you planned, and you look for ways to improve. e: spending cash $0, discretionary $50, stuff we missed or forgot $30? Those are all the same thing. KS fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 23:15
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Knyteguy posted:The PS4 has been planned since June (literally), and the bass was almost a month ago (yes before the payday loan was paid off). No, neither of these were planned. You may have WANTED a PS4 since June, and maybe you had one PREORDERED since then, but you didn't have one PLANNED since then. Just wanting something for a long period of time doesn't mean you can go out and buy it when you're living on a budget. Planning a purchase like this means that, starting in June, you should have been setting aside at least $75 or so per month into savings for the PS4. Similarly for Rocksmith. The best way to handle planning of big purchases like this is to set up a certain "fun money" for you and your wife each month (memorably called "Blow" in the Zaurg thread). Want something for yourself? It gets categorized as fun money and used against your balance. No remaining balance? Sorry, you don't get to buy whatever it is. I still can't believe you ran up $100 in overdraft fees literally a week after spending your last dollars on a PS4, not to mention the fact that your company when you're on the razor's edge of not being able to pay your rent. Hell, your credit is trashed so you don't even have the luxury of treating a credit limit as a pseudo-emergency fund in case you DO have to go a few weeks without pay. You mentioned earlier in the thread that you tried going to a cash envelope system but "It didn't really work for us". Why didn't it really work for you? Is it because you kept running out of money in the envelopes? That's sort of the entire point - to limit the amount of money you can spend on impulse purchases. This will all get a lot easier once you have a minimal buffer in your account. I know it was like someone turned on a light switch for me once I had a month or two's worth of expenses saved up, and that completely broke me out of my paycheck-to-paycheck spending habits. The problem is that it's tough to get there in the first place. For the time being, you really need to cut out the impulse buys and enjoy the stuff you have. That means no more video games (and Christ, definitely no more consoles!) or other luxury items for at least a month or two while you build up an acceptable buffer in savings. NJ Deac fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Nov 25, 2013 |
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Nov 25, 2013 23:56
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KS posted:In business terms you've been treating your budget as a cash flow statement instead of what it should be: an income statement. I'm struggling to translate that, but cash flow is just making sure you keep the bank balance positive. You can fudge that with credit and timing your bill payments. Income, on the other hand, is about making sure you're earning more than you spend. In the long run it's much more important. Thanks for the input. I think we're going to stick with the YNAB method right now. Once we're feeling comfortable maybe we'll try something a little more hard-lined. I get what you're saying about the cash flow and you're right. We do push bills off a bit to make sure they fit per paycheck and such. Rent has been the one that really bothers me about this methodology, because we cut it close to being late every single time. Next month I'm betting we can avert that though by saving $500 from our next set of checks to take care of half, and then the other half from this paycycle next month. Also with YNAB they have a spending cash, and a stuff we missed or forgot. For the sake of consistency I'll keep them named what we named them on there. Discretionary should be spending cash. Plus spending cash to me sounds like the "fun money" so it's easier to keep it in a stuff we missed buffer ,I think. NJ Deac posted:overdraft fees and actually planning for purchases I mean again though, we had the money, it just came out of the wrong account. All of those expenses were in fact budgeted for in YNAB, but I got lazy and did not deposit a check. Our bank also doesn't have overdrafts, they have a "reversal fee". That basically means exactly the same as an overdraft but they won't actually cover the expenses, so they decline them. Paypal tried to re-debit our checking account when we had an ample amount of funds in Paypal, and we got charged again this reversal fee for the same charges. Only one got declined the 2nd time. The budget was really tight the last couple weeks, and a misjudgment on my part is what caused the whole fiasco. Even spending how we've been spending, those were the first overdraft fees we've had in the past seven months at the minimum. I didn't even know about this credit union's fee structure for things like that. Anyway I'm terrible about arguing semantics and I agree with you. For big purchases in the future I want to give an earnest try to save monthly. I think my mind is still all messed up from being raised poor or something. My parents went through bankruptcy twice before my mid teens, and my mother has blown through $500,000 and a free house, and still manages to have $30,000 in just credit card debt (no car payments at least). Being near poverty line for the first 3 years of my marriage didn't help either. I'm like the marshmallow experiment guy. The cash envelope system didn't work for us because we wouldn't do it for more than a few days. The YNAB method has done wonders for us, and in fact we were living pretty comfortably when we were living off $1500 a month while using it (towards the end). We weren't saving anything, but we pretty much got out of the perpetual cycle of overdrafts eating our money. Cash is really a pain in the rear end to track on there too (I like accuracy). If we're not actually sticking to the budget (and now it's actually a budget), we'll try another system though. The buffer is definitely our main goal right now. I've always wondered whether to build an emergency fund up, or start paying off debt first. In turn I did neither. I'm used to living pretty bare bones so we can go luxury free for a few months for sure. I need an excuse to go hiking or whatever with my wife and our dog, so getting a little bored and not spending will probably help motivate me to get outside anyway. quote:Satellite radio and fm transmitter Regular radio is free but it's just so terrible around here. It's at least 50% ads whenever we end up listening. As far as cell phones, I'm on my boss' family plan which is shared between like 7 people, and my wife has like 2 gigs of bandwidth. Really though since my wife drives the car she should be the one to make the decision. My truck doesn't even have a radio at the moment (really the past 6 months). I'm sure she'll be amicable about it unless she just really likes it. These posts keep getting way longer than I expect so I'll stop there.
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Nov 26, 2013 02:13
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Knyteguy posted:For big purchases in the future I want to give an earnest try to save monthly. Knyteguy posted:The cash envelope system didn't work for us because we wouldn't do it for more than a few days. Knyteguy posted:Regular radio is free but it's just so terrible around here. It's at least 50% ads whenever we end up listening. Honestly, you seem to just want to make easy, effortless changes and don't seem all that concerned with all of your crazy spending purchases at all. You've justified just about all of them in the thread.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:36
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You know what CD's are, right? A few short years ago we burned mix CD's and kept a binder in the car. Cheap++. Wife is the one w a smart phone, why can't she load music she likes onto her phone? Too much effort? Really? Get you buffer built up... Quickly. You are overpaying for auto insurance by hundreds of dollars a year if you pay monthly.
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Nov 26, 2013 03:42
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Knyteguy posted:Thanks for the input. I think we're going to stick with the YNAB method right now. I use YNAB too. Did you go through their training stuff? The biggest single thing is making purchasing decisions based on budget instead of bank balance. See the sushi example in rule one. You're definitely supposed to be splitting big bills into monthly (or per paycheck) amounts. I pretty much (unknowingly) quoted their rule two example about the auto insurance. It applies to any major occasional expense that you can project and estimate. Like a PS4 Knyteguy posted:Anyway I'm terrible about arguing semantics and I agree with you. For big purchases in the future I want to give an earnest try to save monthly. I think my mind is still all messed up from being raised poor or something. My parents went through bankruptcy twice before my mid teens, and my mother has blown through $500,000 and a free house, and still manages to have $30,000 in just credit card debt (no car payments at least). Being near poverty line for the first 3 years of my marriage didn't help either. I'm like the marshmallow experiment guy. Yeah, that's a brutal start to financial education. As she gets older you're going to get a nice first hand look at what happens if you don't control spending and it's not pretty. Good luck on breaking the cycle. KS fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Nov 26, 2013 04:21
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Knyteguy posted:Really though since my wife drives the car she should be the one to make the decision. My truck doesn't even have a radio at the moment (really the past 6 months). I'm sure she'll be amicable about it unless she just really likes it.
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Nov 26, 2013 05:06
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Thanks again for the input everyone. I think we'll be getting rid of satellite radio. I'm posting on my tablet right now so I don't want to see who said it, but whoever said we're going at this easy is incorrect. We know it will be hard, but we also have just about anything we could want right now. We traded in our unused Xbox 360 for $137 in Best Buy credit, so if one of us wants a new game or whatever we're set there. Quick question: what's a reasonable amount for a gym membership? We went to a place today that wanted a 2 year contract at 34$ a month and 83$ up front. It was 437$ contract free for both of us. That seems stupidly high. I am thinking of saving for a small home gym. A good bench set with 300 lbs of Olympic weights is 600$. Anyone in an office job that sits literally all day can probably relate how much it sucks sometimes exercise wise. I'm not talking about literally this instant, but this could be a good project to start saving for, after we get enough of a buffer to take care of insurance 6 months at a time. So basically does anyone have input on a home gym for membership? If membership what's a good amount to pay?
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Nov 26, 2013 09:04
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Yes, you should save up $600 and spend it on a large purchase.
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Nov 26, 2013 09:32
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Be careful! SloMo says he's done with his thread. You may become the new whipping boy. The thing you gotta realize is that all your justifications are nothing new to this crowd. Many of have been there. It's why we're here, and it's how we can recognize it. It's really hard to understand what it's like to live on last month's paycheck until you do it. I only started this past year. Everything is different now. I used to overdraft all the time, and worry about how I was going to pay rent if I didn't get a check deposited. But right now I'm waiting on a $500 medical reimbursement, and I don't even care. In fact, poo poo, that reminds me, I should mail it off. But it's not urgent because I live on last month's paychecks, and I have plenty of buffers. I live on budget, not on bank balance.
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Nov 26, 2013 09:55
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Knyteguy posted:A good bench set with 300 lbs of Olympic weights is 600$. Craigslist is your friend here too. Especially since you don't need it now, watching CL for the next few months, you'll run across something nice. I bought a very decent combination bench/squat/pulldown rack with an olympic bar and a decent amount of weight for $150 after trolling CL for a few months.
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Nov 26, 2013 13:57
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Danger, danger forums poster knyteguy. I'm not trying to stop anyone doing exercise but you should probably start as cheaply as possible and go from there. Go for walks/runs, you're out the cost of a new pair of sneakers if you don't have something suitable already. MAYBE buy a used set of P90x dvds or something from craiglist. IF you keep up with it, and that's a big if considering the time of year, in a few months of regularly incorporating exercise into your daily routine I think you could think about doing a gym membership or getting a home gym. Exercise equipment has to be one of the biggest wastes of money for 90% of people who buy them. It's typically not super cheap and you have to stick it somewhere. Baby steps, dude.
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Nov 26, 2013 14:29
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 DIY, dude. (don't actually DIY, it seems like a really good way to injure/kill yourself)
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Nov 26, 2013 14:55
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Knyteguy posted:I'm posting on my tablet right now so I don't want to see who said it, but whoever said we're going at this easy is incorrect. We know it will be hard, but we also have just about anything we could want right now. We traded in our unused Xbox 360 for $137 in Best Buy credit, so if one of us wants a new game or whatever we're set there. Is this your example of the hard sacrifices your making? With Christmas coming up and the fact you mentioned having nieces/nephews - could you use the Best Buy credit so that Christmas doesn't cost you guys anything?
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Nov 26, 2013 14:58
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Your thinking is still really unrealistic. Look how as soon as you saved $300 over the next two years by dropping satellite radio you thought of something else you "need" to spend $600 on right now. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Meanwhile, real advice with numbers. Is the house thing y'all's highest priority? To accomplish it, you need to accumulate $50k in the next two years to pay off the debt and get the match from your grandma. Then you will have $30k for downpayment/closing costs plus $10k for cash savings post-purchase, so you'll be able to afford a $120k house (rough estimate). To get there - that's going to be what, $1300/month above and beyond the loan payments? Where is this in your budget? You should be taking this off the top as soon as you get your checks so you don't spend it on other stuff. That's 25% of every single paycheck, assuming your income doesn't change. Make a separate account for this and don't take money back out for electric toothbrushes. Since you are worried about job stability right now, you can just let this money build for six months instead of prepaying on the car loans right away. Or can you??
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Nov 26, 2013 15:23
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Knyteguy posted:Quick question: what's a reasonable amount for a gym membership? We went to a place today that wanted a 2 year contract at 34$ a month and 83$ up front. It was 437$ contract free for both of us. That seems stupidly high. I am thinking of saving for a small home gym. A good bench set with 300 lbs of Olympic weights is 600$. Anyone in an office job that sits literally all day can probably relate how much it sucks sometimes exercise wise. I'm not talking about literally this instant, but this could be a good project to start saving for, after we get enough of a buffer to take care of insurance 6 months at a time. So basically does anyone have input on a home gym for membership? If membership what's a good amount to pay? Does your city have a city-owned rec center or something? Everywhere I've lived has had one, and their memberships are dirt cheap. Mine is $110/year for a family membership (2 adults, up to 4 kids/seniors living under the same roof) and they even offer daycare services for 2 hours for $5 if you need it. They might not have all the top-of-the-line equipment, but it's good for a beginner/light exerciser until you firmly decide that you need something that they don't offer.
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Nov 26, 2013 15:58
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