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What's the KBB for that car and how bad are we talking with bad credit? If you're near the break-even point on loan:value for the car and if your credit score isn't south of, say, 600, I'd look at your local used lots to see if you can trade it in for a much better deal. Even something like an $8k loan @ 10% while not super is a considerable improvement. That's a quick way to slash down your debt thanks to having a valuable asset to go against it (compared to, say, credit card debt). You might not have as sweet a ride once you're in an '08 Subaru or whatever, but if you pick a new car that will be reliable that'll help out your financial situation quite a bit compared to sticking with the current car. If however you're way upside down on the current car this becomes a much more thorny choice to consider. But I'm not very good with the world of car dealerships and the stuff they offer, so there might be options to help that out as well. The extent of my knowledge with that stuff is try to go shopping near the end of month (or better, end of quarter/year) because salespeople will be feeling some pressure for sales goals and quotas and what have you so will be more flexible with negotiations if their desire to close more deals becomes a bigger priority. This might be a total outdated wive's tale though so best to seek out some details on that because I think the most bang for your buck right now is to get out from under that loan and into a car that costs less, has a lower interest rate, and will last a good number of years without too many complaints. For pet food, I'm personally of the opinion that it's an expense you don't skimp on. What I mean is not that you have to go extravagant and treat your pets to $10/meal top shelf "gourmet" stuff, but rather don't settle for questionable generic brands of bargain chow and put some effort into making sure they're healthy and eating right. I've got a good friend who's a vet with the ASPCA so her opinions and experiences have definitely influenced my own on the subject, but basically what they eat matters a hell of a lot in the long run so don't roll the dice on their health just to save a few bucks. Not only could it come back to bite you in the wallet if the pet gets sick or has other diet-related problems but add on the suffering it could cause and it just doesn't seem like a responsible decision. Anything at Royal Canin quality is reasonable in my book and I'd say your budget for that is in the ballpark. Bringing those costs as they are into considerations for changes to your budget also brings in the whole "responsible pet owner" bag of considerations. Don't get any more pets for sure, but IMHO this isn't a worthwhile line item to tool around with for your situation especially considering the other stuff. I'd also definitely work on separating groceries vs. dining (& vs. fast food as a bonus) so that you can get a clearer picture on where that $600-800+ is going. Price sensitivity is a strange beast, especially when basic fundamentals of existence get involved such as eating food, it's easy to take things for granted. A $13 meal out somewhere during your lunch break will barely register in the moment because you've got time constraints, hunger, stress, etc all bearing down on you, but that poo poo adds up fast. It sounds like you already make an effort to pack meals and so on, but that being said your budget still seems pretty high so I'd bet if you subcategorized it a bit more you'll find one or two culprits that are driving up your food budget just because they hide under the easy habits & second nature of eating. And to pile on about your spending sheet, you are definitely leaving things out. Not that you're doing so maliciously or whatever but definitely take some time to capture the stuff that maybe doesn't happen every month or comes up unexpectedly. I don't think you're averaging 2k left over at the end of the month and having a misleading picture of your monthly surplus can have a compounding effect where you feel like on paper you have that much extra money to spend so you make extra expenses (on anything from a PS4 to an extra heaping of debt repayment), but that wasn't really the reality of how your checking account was going to play out for the coming weeks so you end up skidding close to the margins, and that tends to be where you bump into things like overdraft fees and so on. Not that I'm chiding you for the PS4. So maybe it's not the most responsible financial decision in history but it can certainly fit into an entertainment budget if you draw back for an appropriate number of months so that the $400(?) price tag gets spread out over the next couple months. Then it's just a high upfront cost item that has a long heavy tail of utilization for your entertainment needs. Of course, the thing to be watchful of is throwing down another $400 just as quickly with games and accessories and so on (which of course is where they get you). EDIT: Wife and I, too, were on track to get the PS4 but our current budget plans include a honeymoon in the spring and eradicating the remainder of our non-mortgage debt (a ~3 year old car loan), so we got cold feet on it for the time being. But we might just postpone getting it until we're nearer christmas so it's more of a gift to ourselves, and/or when the game selection is a little broader because right now it seems to be almost exclusively shooters, which she has no interest in and I'd rather bite off my own ear than play an FPS on anything other than PC 
Bhaal fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Nov 20, 2013 |
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Nov 20, 2013 20:57
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It is unrealistic but I would go for it anyway (or rather something like it, don't literally try to make ends meet on what's nearly half your income). Not only will it get you out of debt and so on, but grandmas who make offers like that are also notorious for saying things 2 years from now like, "oh, you're debt free but only squirreled away $7k for the house? Tell you what..."
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Nov 21, 2013 00:15
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In a way I'm not too surprised, small business & revenue through billable hours to companies is a pretty inviting environment for cashflow problems. It's really easy for a company in that spot to be looking great on paper what with all these accounts receivable and so on yet get stuck on paying what's due. I used to do software consulting some years back and have had those conversations of "We're flying you out to X to spend some time with a client, but we need you to book the air and hotel on your dime. Keep the receipts and we'll reimburse you a couple weeks after you get back. Also please keep this to yourself, we've got enough to cover payroll and checks are coming in but we don't want to create any worry". If you're that small you should have a pretty good idea of how the business is doing and whether this is a sign of a failing venture or a rare and hopefully never repeated incident. If you're putting in a ton of billable work and so is everyone else, unless they are royally loving up then things should be fine. That said, usually a company will do everything in its power to make payroll and while we probably don't have the full picture it doesn't look like they pulled out any sort of emergency measures to make sure their staff are paid in full and on time. If I were you I'd be paying close attention to how they regard this situation with you. If they don't seem to be taking this as a very serious problem then that's quite the red flag. A good company that screws up payroll will make some effort to re-assure you it was an unexpected accident, working on making sure it doesn't happen ever again, very sorry etc, and will commonly offer something to the effect of "if you get an overdraft or bounced check on a bill or otherwise reasonable expense or are directly affected by this delay in any other way please bring it to us and we will see about helping cover the damages". This for an employer should be viewed on or near the level that an employee would view the seriousness of being a no call / no show for a day of work. The owners are the ones taking the risks and you're the one foregoing equity in what you're doing for a stable salary (to your point about only earning ~20% of your billable rate, part of that reduction is for the stability of pay that they're offering you). It's completely unreasonable for them to shift that risk to you when they hit a cash crunch. It's just one day and I get that the check is in this was a matter of them losing the race on having it clear the banks in time but if they don't seem too bothered by it then for me that'd be a big knock to my confidence in my employer looking out for their end of the agreement. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 01:01
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Old Fart posted:
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Nov 26, 2013 19:55
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I wouldn't call this a "spectacular habit of wasting money". Some spending problems maybe but as he's said they haven't really had income like they do now so what they're adjusting to is how to not burn through disposable income, which I think everyone more or less goes through at some point. It's not like they're making 3x their fixed expenses yet still putting the groceries on a mastercard due to wasteful spending. They're just soaking up much of their net income so they are living on very close margins for unexpected expenses (incurring more costs) and are floating the extra debt they could have knocked down for that month. On top of that they're keeping debt that they could probably reduce by giving up the asset tied to that debt. These mistakes add up to be a problem but their spending is not the overshadowing piece of it. I know I've chimed in a few times but to come back to my current thoughts on your situation: 1) Grandma set a tough goal but drat it it's a worthwhile one. This goes into the whole home-owner realm but if you're not planning on moving away and depending on where you live now is generally a pretty good time to pick up a first mortgage. If you get $20k saved and grandma kicks in another 20k you have a lot of nice possibilities. What kind of home would have a $150k price tag in your area? Because, while I'm grossly estimating with a mortgage calculator, if you had 40k to work with you could easily put around $33 down and have the rest held back for closing, moving, etc. Doing that for a mortgage on a $150k sale is great news, you'll very likely avoid any type of mortgage insurance and even adding in taxes and other escrow will put your monthly costs way under what you pay for rent now. I would say around $850/mo, round up to 900 or 950 to factor in home improvements/repairs and such. Utilities might go up a bit compared to what you pay now, and there's stuff like HOA dues and so on but by and large I imagine you'd come out way ahead. And that's at $150k! For a lot of areas a good home for a mid-20s couple just starting out will come in for considerably less than that. Grandma is doing you a solid with that offer. Think through the scenario a bit, troll through zillow, play with calculators and get a rough sense of where you could end up if around this time next year you were house shopping with a $40k war chest and no debt. Think of what your monthly budget would look like after moving in. Now think a year from now and not being in that spot, still having those upside down double-digit interest car loans, a substantially vast next-gen console gaming experience in your living room, reduced student debt, $1100 for rent if they don't raise it on you and perhaps a few grand in the bank as your established month-to-month pillow. Imagine X years from now when you finally are at the spot to buy a home on your own, and what that extra $20k would mean. All I'm saying is if you miss out on grandma's offer you both had damned well better do so in a manner that you can look back on and feel comfortable about the decisions you made and effort you gave on your end of the deal. Not trying or making a half-assed attempt might not sting right away but you're young, and a botched opportunity like that will have many years yet to sting you over and over. 2) Look into trading in or refinancing one or both vehicles. This option is potentially the largest because those car loans are bleeding you badly. Talk to your boss. Well, poo poo, it sounds like your company isn't exactly in a position to recognize they should have helped chip in on making demands about your personal property. Ask your boss if he knows anyone selling a cheap but reliable car, explain why (very. politely.) and hope for the best. 3) I'm not sure how I feel about getting a loan from grandma to get out from under the car, but the cars are such a big item that it's probably worth exploring. I suppose it depends on the kind of person she is so you'd obviously know her better to judge how that'd go over with her. But I will say if you do approach her with it make sure you have a plan of how to repay her all mapped out. Be sure to include other bits in your plan like how you'd be able to budget the repayments along with how you'd budget for another car, and how it will work out by obliterating a large bad interest debt by taking on one or two smaller and lower interest debts. She knows all that but show her that you see what you're doing and she might be comfortable with it since she's already very keen on seeing you get your head on right about finances. Step two would be to execute on selling it and buying a new car asap, there are some unfortunate risks here that could bone your plans ie. not finding a buyer for a price you expected. Step three is to absolutely in no way gently caress up your repayments with her. You or your wife should be short at least one body part, external or internal, if you ever come to her with the "we can't make this next payment" story. 4) Absolutely list your car values as assets. Sometimes it certainly makes sense to view things in a pessimistic lens so that you have an idea of what worst case scenarios look like but that should be for mental exercises and not how you view your big picture situation. So maybe you're not $30k in the hole but $13k. That's great news! Put it on there so you can see what a difference those cars make by keeping them. What else do you have? If you have more stuff that has real world value, isn't going to appreciate like mad if you hold on to it, and isn't too sentimental, really consider putting it on some sort of ledger. If you have things you can sell like that, now would be the time. They're actually going to net you a whole lot more than what it sells for if it helps you make it to that window of getting an extra $20k for free. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 10:07
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