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Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
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.

Also you bought a $400-$500 "new game system", talk about the other "new game systems" you want to buy, and you get an overdraft fee?

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Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
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.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

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.

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.

But dude they paid off their payday loan. They deserved it.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

A good bench set with 300 lbs of Olympic weights is 600$.
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.

Just because you "budget for it" doesn't mean you should be spending the money. I think this is the same problem you're facing with the PS4 and Rocksmith.

"Oh we budgeted for this so it's okay to spend the money"

It's not okay when you're living paycheck to paycheck, taking out payday loans, and trying to save for a house. This is the same problem that Slow Motion had. You're justifying your spending any way you can.

"Oh well gym membership is $X amount of dollars! We can "save" money by just spending $Y amount of dollars now! Plus it will teach us to "save"!"

You are finding a "reason" to buy whatever it is you want to buy, and then filling in the blanks to get there. It's like trading in your Xbox for a gift card so you can "buy more games". At this point you should be selling it and putting the money in savings.

You're literally afraid of losing your job, living paycheck to paycheck, and STILL justifying spending money because you think you "need" it. Stop self justifying spending large amounts of money every month.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

Definitely won't be buying tons of games. I'm actually really god damned cheap when it comes to my video games, and probably spend less than $100.00 a year before we decided to start getting serious with money. I won't buy something (generally) unless it's under $10 on Steam. And even then I'm picky.

Knyteguy posted:

We have enough money now to buy another game, but I'm holding out just in case we need extra gas or something. Both of these decisions actually took some willpower.

I'm fighting myself to ensure I don't buy a Wii U and 3DS this Friday (a couple new things are coming out).

These things don't add up.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Zo posted:

This thread is great. "Rocksmith? Uhh that's hardly even a game!"

:lol: seriously some impressiveness mental gymnastics in these posts.

This is pretty much what I'm trying to get across. A continuation of justification for spending.

Maybe we are looking at such a small sample size of Knyteguy's life and these really are one offs. However the attitude that he's come into this thread with "At least i'm not Zaurg" and "Well I'm not as bad a Slow Motion" leads me to believe he will continue to develop "reasons" to buy things.

"Oh we've saved a bunch of money and haven't really been spending... We deserve a $3,000 vacation! Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"There was these new must have video games coming out that I just had to buy. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"My wife got into a fender bender and it cost $1,000 deductible to fix the car. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"I got sick and missed a week of work which cost $800 in wages. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

EDIT: Out of curiosity what games did you get with your PS4? Hopefully not something that was available on PS3 or Xbox 360.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I got a 75 in a 65 9 months ago and it ended up costing close to $400 with traffic school. Most of that must be late fees.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

SiGmA_X posted:

E: and ticket cost lawls. $400 for a 11-20 over? That's nutty. My last 11-20 over was $140ish...

Gotta love Bay Area California. We also don't get free bags at grocery stores (they cost $.05) as people voted that into being a law.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

It was this exactly. They're just Wells Fargo collecting on behalf of Wells Fargo. Any input on whether we should let it say "settled" and save $600 or just pay it in full for "balance paid in full" or just let it be sold to an outside firm and forget it for now? I'm irritated that they tried to trick my wife saying it would be balance paid in full no matter what, or whatever. She had to call back to clarify after she told me the whole situation.

Ask if you pay in full if they will do a deletion. If they agree get it in writing before you do it. As far as settled versus paid in full I would just go for settled. Like Kilty Monroe said the difference between the two is likely going to mean very little.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Bugamol posted:

This is pretty much what I'm trying to get across. A continuation of justification for spending.

Maybe we are looking at such a small sample size of Knyteguy's life and these really are one offs. However the attitude that he's come into this thread with "At least i'm not Zaurg" and "Well I'm not as bad a Slow Motion" leads me to believe he will continue to develop "reasons" to buy things.

"Oh we've saved a bunch of money and haven't really been spending... We deserve a $3,000 vacation! Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"There was these new must have video games coming out that I just had to buy. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"My wife got into a fender bender and it cost $1,000 deductible to fix the car. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

"I got sick and missed a week of work which cost $800 in wages. Don't worry it's a one time thing!"

EDIT: Out of curiosity what games did you get with your PS4? Hopefully not something that was available on PS3 or Xbox 360.

Well let's look at my post from earlier this month.

Must have video games? Check.
Unexpected expenses? Check. (Technically I guessed an accident and it was a ticket)
Getting sick? Check. (Technically I thought you'd miss wages, I'm not sure if you did)

3/4. Not bad. I'll do another 5 predictions at the beginning of January.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

Definitely won't be buying tons of games. I'm actually really god damned cheap when it comes to my video games, and probably spend less than $100.00 a year before we decided to start getting serious with money. I won't buy something (generally) unless it's under $10 on Steam. And even then I'm picky.

Knyteguy posted:

Also I spent too much during the Steam sale.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I think Knyteguy is doing a great job all things considered. He still just needs a reality check on his spending habits. There are a million one time expenses you can justify every month.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
January 1, 2014 is the perfect time to set hard goals and stick to them. I don't know how you are handling cash flow at the moment. If you're essentially waiting until the end of the month and reconciling what you've spent I recommend you take a more hands on approach until you get more comfortable. What I would do is start inputting your spending into YNAB as you're spending it. Once you hit a limit in a category stop spending, or like another poster suggested, make sure you reduce next months budget accordingly. I would not recommend doing this early on as it's a slippery slope.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

Quick update:
Wife is thinking of enrolling in this semester in our community college's dental hygiene program. The market for that position is expect to grow 38% from 2010-2020, and the average pay is $67,000 a year (more than I make). It's only an associates program too, so with the credits she already has it would probably only take 1-1.5 years. If she just took the placement test and knocked out a math pre-req or something it wouldn't set us back too much, and she wouldn't have to cut work hours. What's everyone think? My mom is in the field so she'll find out more about the lifestyle before committing.

My biggest comment on this is to make sure that it's something she wants to do before you spend any money. I know this can be a relatively hard thing to figure out (as she could get to the end of the program before she realizes she hates it), but I know too many people that do this.

Get a degree, certification, or whatever. Look for a job half halfheartedly for 2-3 months, don't get any "perfect job offers", and then repeat the cycle. The whole while sinking further into debt.

I'm not saying that is your situation, but I would just really think about whether or not it's something she would want to do long term. Similar to the selling real estate you mentioned previously. $67,000 a year seems really high for that type of job, but I can't remember if you've said/or where you live.

Again I'm 100% not saying "Don't do it". I'm saying, make sure you think about it rather than jumping in feet first.

Questions you should be asking yourself:
Are there jobs in the area?
How much do those jobs pay? What is the work environment for those jobs?
Is this something she really wants to do or is it simply "Oh I can make $X after Y amount of work?"
Do you plan on having kids in the next 3-5 years? If so will she continue to work or stay at home? Meaning will she get to do the job long enough to pay back the costs?

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Uncle Jam posted:

I have to agree with the other guy, $1000 for a couch is nuts, and there is a ton of questionable things in hour budget.

Why doesn't buying a $300 couch and putting $700 in savings sound good to you?

He's saying spending $750-$1,000 on a couch where he can get a 45% discount (so really spending $410-$550 on a couch).

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

SiGmA_X posted:

Iirc (been a while since I did retail math) it's 45% of 1000 is $400.

20% off 1000 is $200
25% off 800 is $200
= $600

Right? Maybe Penneys stacks it differently.

You're probably correct. I was just looking at it is a additive flat discount rate. Personally I would spend a little extra money (a few hundred dollars is what we're talking about) to get a quality couch that is going to last. Big Lots has great deals but my experience with them has always been that you get what you pay for.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Did you buy the $30,000 car at 11% interest before or after you found out your wife was pregnant?

It's very easy to use as spreadsheet or program to look 12 months into the future and go "WOW Look we'll have $50,000 saved up!". It's a much harder thing to resist spending money as your savings climbs.

I find often times that as your savings starts to hit milestones it's very easy to end up spending more.

"Oh wow we have $10,000 in savings! We should go on one more trip before we have the baby with just the two of us!"
"We've got $8,000 saved we can get the more expensive car seat!"

I believe you've already admitted that to some extent this already happened once. IE that you had a decent buffer, got cocky with your money, and then spent it all back to $0.

We just don't want to see another Slow Motion where you constantly change your numbers as you don't meet your goals while you scream "BUT I DESERVED IT! I DID SO WELL LAST MONTH! AND I HAVE $XXXXX COMING SOON SO IT'S OKAY".

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

It's not $25,000, and it's not $30,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

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

Just to confirm. You plan on paying on making, on average, a $2,500 car loan payment each month for the next 12 months. While going through having a baby, losing work time, and possibly your wife deciding if she wants to work or stay at home.

Have you put this into YNAB and figured out how this changes your savings goals?

EDIT: Being proactive it looks like you put in $2,000 a month which will not be enough to pay it off in <12 months with interest. 12*2000 = $24,000. Your loan = $27,000 ignoring interest.

EDIT: Checking more closely it appears you put $500 for July.

If you're going to budget to pay the car off in 12 months you should be budgeting the car payment you expect to make. Don't accidentally count your money twice. "We're going to save $2,000 this month! And we're going to pay an extra $2,000 on our car loan!" That equals $0.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jul 18, 2014

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Personally I would focus on getting a serious emergency fund built. Worst case scenario is that everything goes perfectly with your pregnancy, you find a cheap daycare, your wife quickly returns to work, and you take the money you've been putting in your emergency fund to pay off your car if you feel it's appropriate.

It's very clear you have the desire, what is unclear is if you have the long term follow through. An overused phrase would be that budgeting isn't a sprint it's a marathon.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I don't know if you mentioned this already, and I apologize if you did, but what is your plan for when you have the baby?

Things to be thinking about:

1. How long are you going to take off?
a. Will you be using all of your PTO? Will this put you at risk of going unpaid in the future if you get sick?

2. How long is your wife going to take off?
a. What sort of benefits will she get during this time?

3. Will your wife be returning to work?
a. How much are you budgeting for daycare? Can you afford to pay daycare?
b. How much will your cost structure change if your wife stays home?

4. What have you budgeted towards baby expenses?
a. How much are you budgeting for monthly baby expenses?
b. How much will your insurance change when you add another dependent?
c. How much are you expecting to pay out of pocket for the birth (ie Hospital Bills)?

5. Is your emergency fund the same thing as your baby fund?
a. Are you double counting your money again?
i. How much is "baby fund"?
ii. How much is "emergency fund"?
b. Is it realistic for you to pay off your car considering the above?

If you're making 1+ year goals these are definitely the things you should be thinking about. If you've answered/thought about all of this then please just ignore me.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

n8r posted:

The cost of insurance on a new car is a hidden (not so hidden) cost where you are literally lighting money on fire. Put the car up for sale asking $500 more than what you owe for it now and keep lowering the price as you pay it down. This is easily the largest expense you can easily change.

He rolled an existing loan into this loan. He owes $27,000 and the car was only worth $22,000 on the lot. So that's just not going to happen. They've also ignored this advice time and time again.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Why is your goal for a baby fund $5,000 when you know you're spending at least $10,000 out of pocket on medical bills?

Shouldn't your goal be about $10,000-$15,000? $10,000 for medical bills and $5,000 for miscellaneous expenses related to having a new baby. Car seats, cribs, clothes, etc.?

Due date is February so you're looking at about 6 months to build these funds. Just to save up enough for your out of pocket medical expenses you are going to be stretched. You'll need to devote almost $2,000 a month or on the flip side this is going to be another bill to pay going into next year.

You still seem like you're splitting your money too many ways. $2,000 towards car payment, $2,000 towards emergency fund, $2,000 towards baby fund, etc. This is one of the reasons I don't like YNAB. It does a great job of forcing you to look at the money you're currently spending (every dollar has a job), but often times causes people to not look at the big picture and what expenses they'll have in the coming months.

Also did you ever answer on whether or not you have collision insurance? Your insurance seems insanely cheap for a new car that is grossly underwater. I'm paying $108 a month for a 2012 Honda Fit that isn't underwater.

Lastly are you sure that your wife is getting 100% paid maternity leave for 6 weeks? It varies largely on the company and she may just be receiving short term disability which is only 60% salary I believe. Some companies will let you supplement this with partial PTO and others may pay 100%. Just something to make sure you get clarification on so you don't get caught by a surprise by not understanding your benefits.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Did you report your car as "low mileage"? This could get you in some serious trouble if you get in an accident. If not then hey congratulations because that rate is incredible.

My only parting advice would be to start putting all of these numbers into YNAB. If you plan on saving $2,000 a month put it in YNAB. If you plan on paying off the car in 12 months or even 24 months put it in your budget. This will hopefully give you a more realistic idea of how much money you have at the end of the day.

I think one of your big focuses right now should be finding a day care so you can adjust your budget appropriately for post February. A quick Google search says that daycare can cost on average $1,000/mo. While I personally don't have kids the stories I've heard, largely depending on where you live and the quality of care you want, can change that number drastically. A guy I was working with at my last job was paying $1,600 / mo for his child (Bay Area CA).

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

RheaConfused posted:

Please have your wife check in regarding her benefits while on maternity leave re: her insurance. What I mean by this is, if she's getting paid through disablity, you guys may be required to cover the cost of her insurance yourselves. Many companies who cover maternity via disablity require the employee to pay insurance themselves during that period.

I agree with this. It's fairly uncommon for companies to offer 100% salary while on maternity leave, but definitely not unheard of. You should just have her clarify how she will be paid.

There's a variety of ways this can be handled:

State Disability (60% I believe)
State Disability supplemented by company
State Disability supplemented by PTO use
Employee Paid

As RheaConfused mentioned depending on how she is being paid will affect lots of things. You also need to be sure that there will be no lapses in your medical benefits as I believe you mentioned that you are both on her insurance at this point.

She should also get clarification on what the maximum benefit is. It's also probably a good idea to have at least a base plan in place in case she can't return to work during that benefit period.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
The below thread from July 19th, 2011 gives me some perspective on Knyteguy. I hope you pull through this time buddy, but your track record is messy. Stumbled upon this on accident looking for another thread, but hopefully this will give you some perspective on your willpower.

Archive Link: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3425957

Knyteguy posted:

Hello Goons,

In my previous thread, many mentioned the idea of starting a log thread. I thought this sounded like an excellent idea because I could have both accountability for my impulse buying, and a complete history of both negative and positive progress.

I will try to answer many repeat questions from the previous thread to help clarify our situation. (Thanks Goons, you always give me a non-sexual, warm feeling inside )

Goals:
1) What I hope to accomplish is for my wife and I to save a 20% downpayment for a modest home. I have read some of the buy a house megathread, and we would like to see a home in our future.

2) Save a nest egg, and hopefully enough money to have the option to retire by 45 or earlier. I'm not sure this will be achievable if our income levels stay the same, but this is the goal nonetheless.

3) Curb my impulse buying.

Background
My wife is 23 years old. She will be graduating with her Bachelor's degree next Spring in Art. She has an excellent scholarship that negates all but $800 every semester + books. She has a history of being good with money. Often times I feel like she may enable my spending. She has worked at the same job for 5 years, but the pay is pretty bad ($10.00 an hour for her position as a manager at a grocery store), and there are literally no benefits.

I am 25 years old. I dropped out of college in my junior year to pursue a business. Part of this was due to bad grades (I felt really unchallenged at a community college, so I didn't try very hard...) I'm still running this business (more on this later): http://www.pluswebhost.com/. I am currently starting a new job as a cable installer to help maintain the finances my business requires, and to get off unemployment. I am on unemployment because the business I was working for went under, and because I quit my previous well paying job to pursue college.

Currently we are living in an apartment that is $790.00 per month, plus utilities. The reason this apartment was chosen is that A) it's nice B) it's 5 minutes from my previous work (more on this later as well). My previous job would have afforded this luxury apartment, but I lost it 5 days after moving in. But because our apartment lease is up, we are moving out in a few days to live with my parents, where rent + utilities is $300.00 per month. This is a double whammy of increase income because I am starting my new job.

Did I mentioned I blew $89,000? I was awarded this amount in a lawsuit. I bought an Infiniti G-35, went to Thailand to train Muay Thai, and lost about $20,000 that I invested in stocks in 2007. >_<... Yea, I'm terrible with money.

As you can see: she has her head on straight, and I can be a bit flaky.

New Job, New Income
I will be starting my new job as a cable installer within the next 2 weeks. They've already taken my picture for the badge, and the head secretary is family; it's pretty much guaranteed at this point. The job will be crap, but being able to work nearly as much as I want seems to be a great thing to help us get our finances in order.

I will be receiving a truck to use as long as I'm with the company, as well as all the necessary tools. Pay will start out as minimum wage, but move to piece work after 1 month of training. The secretary told me that workers are being paid $600.00 - $900.00 per week NET pay, depending on how much they work.

The downside? I'll have to pay gas. I may try hypermiling to increase my profits while I'm working. I'm unsure exactly how much gas I may end up using per week. I would assume this is tax deductible however.

My Business
My business, PlusWebHost.com was a project I started to try to get myself a somewhat steady income, and to get myself out of an unfulfilling situation (unemployment). I'm currently grossing about $179.00 per month, and it's growing pretty steadily each month. 5 months ago it was making $5.00 per month. My business niche is slowly paying off.

The catch? Expenses equal slightly more than $330.00 per month. Because I want an actual career in my future, my business will not be forfeited to meet our goals. It is expected to be paying for itself in the next 5 months (maximum). It isn't exactly hemorrhaging money anyway.

Our Car
Before our current car, a 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco, my wife and I had separate cars. I drove a 2006 Subaru WRX that was guzzling $60.00 a week on gas, and I was paying an insurance premium of $210.00 per month. It also needed new tires, brakes, rotors, and registration. Her car was a 1986 Honda Accord that was OK on gas, but needed a new transmission badly. The repair would have been worth 3x the value of the car.

Our current car payment with insurance is $330.00 per month.

Current Income
Wife: $10.00 per hour, roughly 35 hours per week. No benefits.
Myself: $377.00 per week unemployment insurance. Should be starting new job in 1-2 weeks (waiting on background check). No benefits. I have been unemployed for about 1 year
Total: $2,848

Savings
$1,750 ($750.00 is wedding money)

Current Debt
2011 Chevy Cruze Eco - $10,500 @ ~7% APR
Credit Card in Collections - $3795
Current Credit Cart - $1300.00 @ 16% APR
Television - $675.00 @ 0% APR for 3 years
Family Member - $3,000 @ 0% APR (My wife borrowed from her Grandma for a study abroad trip to Japan last year)
Misc. Collections - $500.00
Total: $19,770

Monthly Expenses History
Our current monthly expenses equal about $1,500. This should go down to about $1,000 after moving in with the parents. I can't even tell you where the remainder of our income (~$1,000 per month) is going unfortunately. This is where my impulse buying comes in. We bought a dog, a 3D television, 2 cats, new video games, TF2 keys, etc etc. Extra money burns a hole in my pocket. This month we managed to keep most of it though.

That's all I can think of right now. I apologize for so many . We want to achieve our financial goals as soon as possible, and really could use some help going about it.

In this thread
I will keep this thread updated as long as necessary until our financial goals are met (buying a house). My pipe dream is to post a picture of our new house in this thread. We want to go about this responsibly (with a rainy day fund / nest egg) though.

Thanks a lot Goons

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Well Knyteguy at least you're not as silly as this guy who thinks that his car situation is better because he rolled over his loan + expected interest into a new loan with interest. That logic escapes me.

HonorableTB posted:

1. My car situation is actually a lot better than it used to be. My old car had severe engine problems (was struggling to make it up moderately big hills), the tires were completely shot, was coming up on 185,000 miles, and a whole host of other problems. The repairs were more expensive than the car. So I did a dumb thing and traded it in, got $3000, put a $1500 lien on the new(er) car (2013 Corolla) and the Toyota dealership slapped me with a $13,000 loan at 24% INTEREST. I called USAA, they took over the loan for me, and negotiated a 4.5% interest loan but Toyota wouldn't let go of it unless they paid the entire amount + expected interest at once so that's how I ended up with a $19,000 car loan. I was stupid and got bent over on account of it.

I think at this point what may be best for you, rather than everyone berating you for past mistakes, is to make a weekly spending post. That way if people are berating you it's at least for the actions you're currently making. Not ones in the past that you can't change. Knowing you're going to be reporting your weekly spending to SA may also give you a mental double check when you go to spend money as well.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jul 23, 2014

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I think you should be able to relatively easily just clip your YNAB screenshot once a week for month to date. It might help create some more accountability even though we're just internet strangers. At the end of the day you're somewhat like Slow Motion. You talk a big game. However over the past almost year of this thread OR the past 3 years from your last thread, you've yet to actually back it up long term.

I truly hope it works out for you because you really do seem to want it, especially more than Slow Motion. Every time you try and justify an expense just think about where you would be today if you'd gotten your poo poo together when you made your last post in 2011.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
As was mentioned in another thread. Do you have GAP insurance on your car? It's something you might want to look into because if you were to total your car you could be looking at a $7,000 loan balance still.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

OK I'm going to try to take back the hand truck today.

I kind of dig the dual shower curtains - 1 clear plastic inside with magnets to stick to the tub and one cloth one outside for looks and privacy. Gonna get this today.

Nothing like cutting your effective square feet to 1/3 to realize you have/buy too much poo poo.

And also just to complain: the loving internet tops out at 8mbps, even though we pay for 60mbps. I'm going to call them but I guarantee they say they don't guarantee the speed.

Also agreed on the microwave thing. From a power perspective it makes sense. I'll check out CL.

I thought they made it illegal to for companies to advertise top speeds but instead were forced to advertise guaranteed speeds? Maybe that's just in CA? We always get 50 MBPS and we pay for 50 MBPS

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

We have an additional $5,400 in income (again conservative) coming in this month so we should still be on track to meeting our larger goal at hand, which is saving $3,800 this month (August).

Is this number taking into consideration the fact that you don't have to pay rent for the month? So you're "saving" more in August by "missing" in July?

EDIT: It also appears that you're doing the same thing with groceries. Spend more in July so you can be under budget in August. This may be incidental, but be careful that you're not playing mental gymnastics.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jul 30, 2014

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

It's incidental - we're counting it against our budget. So we have $130.00 left in groceries according to our budget in August. I'm not trying to fool anyone, including myself.

Rent was really paid for in July though. I consulted the YNAB thread for the best way to do it. We technically paid rent twice since we couldn't move in on the first of the month. Our expenses in September will go up aptly, and our income will go down because my wife will only be paid twice like normal. August is probably one of the best opportunities we'll get to save for awhile.

The fact that you have a gaming computer on your budget scares me. Please don't use the opportunity that you have a higher cash flow in August to buy a gaming computer.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Also I don't use YNAB, but why is the repayment to your personal debt negative for the month? Does this mean you borrowed more money?

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Thanks for the clarification. I'm not a huge fan of YNAB personally. It works for people that can make it work (ie saving up a month's worth of expenses). However I feel like it gives really poor line of sight to getting to that goal. It's almost as if the program needs two functions.

Step 1: Budget / Goals to reach 1 months savings
Step 2: Convert to traditional YNAB

EDIT: The program may facilitate this in some way, but I see people floundering often times. I like a traditional budget personally. IE Category, Budget, Spend, Variance. Simple excel worksheet does the trick.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I would highly recommend setting up some sort of budget in excel, or better utilize YNAB. It seems that you're almost using YNAB as a way to track spending rather than actually budgeting, but again I'm no expert at that program.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

Knyteguy posted:

OK I put the Excel stuff on hold for the moment since I forgot I need to install Excel on my desktop at home. I'll make something neat this weekend (I like Slo Mo's graphs).

I also just re-remembered through reading the YNAB thread that I can roll values over to affect the budget this month instead of just taking away income, so I did that. I didn't realize that's what you meant Sigma; I thought you meant change the date on all the relevant transactions. I think in this particular scenario that is OK. The Aug budget looks a little more like a budget now.



If you answer some various questions for me I can set you up an excel template that you can import your bank statements into. You'd need to give me a sample of your bank statement download so I can align the columns (you can change the numbers or whatever).

I'd need to know:
How often you get paid and what amounts (bi weekly, weekly, monthly, etc) for all incomes.
Your current reoccuring (ie bills) spend budget by category
Your current non-reoccuring (ie groceries, entertainment) spend budget by category
Your current reoccuring savings budget by category
How many accounts you have and their balances (ie savings, checking) (so the spreadsheet will update your balances accordingly)
Your current debts, balances, and interest rates (so the spreadsheet will calculate a rolling balance based on your payments)
What version of excel you use (so I don't use formulas you don't have access to)

EDIT: Clarified a few requirements

EDIT 2: Alternatively if you give me a download of your last 3-6 months bank statement (assuming you only have one bank) I can make my best guesses on what you should be doing.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 31, 2014

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006

SiGmA_X posted:

I would love a copy of this. It can all be blank, I can setup the macros and formatting, I just would like to see what you're thinking of.

My work blocks pretty much every site I could upload to, but I'll upload a blank template when I get home. It requires very basic manipulation to get working (ie adding/deleting lines with a few minor tweaks), so if you have a strong Excel background it should be pretty easy to use.

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
Below is an image of the budget with some generic/template items. I have another tab for debt balances which has the interest rate / fees (if applicable) which is why the debt balances are negative (I didn't set it up to have a payment go against it). The same items in debt balances would be under bills and they would cross update. There's a final tab which stores all of the transactional data which I either hand input if I'm trying to get to ending/current account balances, or updated via a download .csv

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jul 31, 2014

Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I'll upload the template somewhere when I get home. If anyone wants me to set theirs up just send me a PM with the details I asked Knyteguy (or send me bank statements and I'll do it for).

EDIT: I do realize one of my formulas is broken in the screenshot. It's because I somewhat broke it while templatizing it and hadn't done a full redundancy check review on it.

EDIT: Got caught up with poo poo at home so didn't upload this. I'll figure out a work around tomorrow morning at work to get it uploaded. I didn't forget.

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Aug 1, 2014

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Bugamol
Aug 2, 2006
I can't upload anywhere at work. I made some revision to the template. I may have understated how much Excel you need to know in order to get it working from scratch, but I did some additional legwork to try and make it easier. I'm more than willing to set people up with their own customized template at which point you would only need to fill in transactions (unless you wanted to make major changes).

If you PM me your e-mail (or put it here in a reply) I can send you the basic template. To get it working you essentially need to fill in your bills, expenses, income, balances, and tie in an identifier. For any debts you also need to fill out the debt tracker page with interest rates and any annual fees. When logging a transaction you have to fill in two columns. The first is the spend identifier IE "RENT" and the second is which account in came out of "CHECK1" etc.. I've put in some dummy transactions to hopefully help people logic through it, and below are a few screenshots with examples.

Budget with unhidden columns:



I normally hide the identifier column and + / - columns under balances

Transaction input:



For something like savings it's a "negative" to check1, but will get picked up as a "positive" to save1.

I'm also willing to answer any questions / help people along if they want to use it.

EDIT: For anyone wanting to know how much Excel you would need to "easily" navigate it below is a sample formula:

=SUMIFS('trans upload'!$E:$E,'trans upload'!$G:$G,J12,'trans upload'!$A:$A,">="&EOMONTH('monthly budget'!I2,-1)+1,'trans upload'!$A:$A,"<="&EOMONTH('monthly budget'!I2,0))+(K12*(SUMIFS('debt tracker'!$D:$D,'debt tracker'!$B:$B,J12)/12))+(SUMIFS('debt tracker'!$E:$E,'debt tracker'!$B:$B,J12)/12)

Bugamol fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Aug 1, 2014

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