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That's really sketch regarding payroll. They should have had the bank cut counter checks for everyone. At least they told you a day ahead of time - my friends company was doing fine financially but everyone's checks were (I forget exactly) 40-50% of what they should have been and all the directors were at a retreat or something. It was resolved, the company is still doing fine, it was a processing glitch basically (their payroll person, not the 3rd party processor...) Can you get us your student loan rates when you are able to access their site? There is some great info in this thread already. I think you really need to try to reduce the interest rates on your vehicle loans, and/or get rid of the vehicles and buy cheaper vehicles. Rent problem: When does the sister move? What *I* would do is save up money for a deposit/first/last (whatever is common in your area), and list your townhouse on craigslist for a lease takeover. Its pretty straight forward usually, and you pass the lease off to the new person with the landlords assistance. It will save you a ton of money. Get an apartment within your price range so you can save more and get debt free and downpayment ready over the next 25 months. Do work!
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Nov 22, 2013 00:50
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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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You should consider posting Tuyop styled YNAB screen shots and Excel debt reduction graphs every month. Good on you for coming in "under budget". What are you doing with the surplus? Don't most company's forecast a bit longer than 6 months?! That's insanely short, or seems like it to me at least.
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Dec 2, 2013 00:42
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Old Fart posted:I mean as a loan to help him get out of debt. He's selling the car, he just needs to make up the balance since he's underwater. She has already shown interest in giving him a huge incentive. Why not make her a part of the process? It also has the benefit that if he pays her back regularly (and sooner than their agreed plan), she might be more inclined to give him the bonus even if he doesn't reach the goal, or maybe extend the deadline. Get her more involved and emotionally invested.
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Dec 4, 2013 07:37
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I've never gotten stuck in the snow in an 80's RWD BMW with studs. And man is it fun. I'd suggest a 90's or early 00's Subi with studless tires and chains for oh poo poo moments. And then a late 90's / early 00's Honda or Toyota for your second daily. That would drop a LOT of debt off your plate, and probably (for sure) less insurance cost.
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Dec 4, 2013 23:14
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So sell the car. Then buy an affordable car. If you guys can manage on one vehicle for 2 months with only minor inconvenience, you can save up and pay cash for another car. Then fix and sell the truck and get another car. Or an old truck plus another car. Operational costs will mitigate the asset expense, and you can maintain storage insurance on the truck until you get a big snow storm or go camping. It takes <5min to switch coverages with any big carrier these days. I have 2 cars but my second hasn't been driven in 3 months as my gf and I can share the one we daily and we save $40 a month in insurance plus consumables.
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Dec 5, 2013 22:02
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So when you got the new good job, you didn't think maybe you should pay outstanding small debts like the speeding ticket? I'm glad you've decided you should now, but, drat. E: and ticket cost lawls. $400 for a 11-20 over? That's nutty. My last 11-20 over was $140ish...
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Dec 6, 2013 21:07
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Pyrex storage containers ftw!
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Dec 9, 2013 23:17
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Zeta Taskforce posted:They can't legally drive it until it's registered in their name. Knyteguy posted:Alright I'll keep that in mind. I'm worried that if it's priced too high the interest will negate any savings made. The blue book on the car in excellent condition is $11,500 and like $11,300 for good I think. Maybe if I price it at $11,500 OBO and take the offer at >= $11,000?  on selling price. I would suggest pricing it competitively against other ad's for similar cars in your area, and make sure its clean-clean-clean. Take good pictures, post a VERY minimal ad with good pictures, and see what happens. Short ad's get far more results than long ad's.
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Jan 31, 2014 03:39
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Inept posted:As for the lease, that sounds really high compared to the monthly rent. I thought the usual for breaking a lease was forfeiting the deposit. You might want to double-check that.
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May 28, 2014 20:37
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wintermuteCF posted:OK, priority 1 is to build a buffer in the form of a savings account or sub-account to your checking that holds rainy day funds. Build this before you pay down your car at an accelerated rate. You say you have a $4000 surplus per month - or will, once you move to the cheaper place - so you should be able to build this pretty fast. I would consider putting away 3mo of base expenses (no frivolous poo poo) and then attack the loan with gusto, and then build the efund to 6mo *including* frivolous poo poo. Full living expenses. What's the downpayment match lookin like now? That is you, right?
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May 29, 2014 00:38
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You're like SloMo. You like posting snipit's of data and it's hugely annoying.
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Jun 12, 2014 21:10
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I wasn't saying you spend AS bad as SloMo, just that you posted a snippet of the picture like SloMo does. I'd sell the AR&9mm and keep the 22. Cheaper to shoot and roughly as much fun, IME. Unless you carry, then you should keep the 9 and budget more to monthly practice. Scares the hell out of me that one of my good buddies carries and doesn't ever shoot his carry piece...
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Jun 12, 2014 23:42
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Want to post up the details of the HSA vs non-HSA plans? I would get $1500 into my HSA account if I was married, $470 sounds über low.
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Jun 19, 2014 05:59
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Knyteguy posted:Sure we could actually really use some help with this insurance thing. We're already locked into the HSA but there were two HSA plans and one HRA plan. We chose the mid tier plan which is I think $1,500 deductible and I can't remember max out pocket. I wanted to ask more on here but we were down to the wire before we had enough information to decide to drop our current insurance. My company allows near-instant (next pay period vs next enrollment window) dropping of insurance if other insurance is available. Yours *may* have something like that, that they aren't telling you. Weird that you have to pay for an additional month, vs now and have it take effect next period. Maybe its a small business thing - tho it was not at the auto shop I worked at, where we had a whole 5 insured.
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Jun 20, 2014 01:40
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(I'm joking of course).
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AR is only $600? Is it a partial? I don't know much about them, but are they usually mid-teens? What type of 9mm?
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Jun 26, 2014 18:47
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Knyteguy posted:Nah this one isn't that valuable unfortunately. http://www.gunbroker.com/Olympic-Arms/Browse.aspx?Keywords=Olympic+Arms
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Jun 26, 2014 21:50
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Knyteguy posted:Ah, P89 then; it's metal. Post up copies of your wife's health insurance docs! I want to kill some work time calculating this for you.
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Jun 27, 2014 00:59
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So new plan is about $400/mo? I'm on my phone and failing to find that number. I'll run a comp when I get home in a few min. Pretty sure your existing plan blows rear end. Similar deductibles, lower OPM and better coinsurance for more money... Man, I'm glad my employer has kickass instance (and they pay ~80% of mine and ~50% of dependents.)
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Jul 1, 2014 01:18
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Knyteguy posted:New plan yea is about that.  Unless I'm missing something, your current plan may be illegal? New OPM is 12.7k. Maybe for small biz it didn't take effect till 2015. I am going to assume that your current plan means OPM (I said OOP in my image, do not feel like changing) of 13.5k - if they mean coinsurance and OPM is 13.5+6k, holy poo poo. Yellow is where you hit your annual deductible. Green is where your HSA hits OPM. Total column takes into account the cost of the premium ($4.8k vs $7.3k) and also takes into account your employer HSA contribution of 1k for the HSA plan. I think you said you're expecting about $9k in baby costs? If so, you're looking at about $8.6k including premium and accounting for HSA with the new plan, vs about $13.9k on the old plan. I would absolutely start contributing pre-tax dollars to your wife's HSA, too. You already know you're going to have huge medical bills shortly. You'll avoid whatever your income tax rate winds up at. My chart doesn't take into account tax avoidance savings, but it can be pretty substantial. When is your due date? If its next year, I would set aside just a bit over the required amount for this year's medical costs in to the HSA pre-tax, and then the rest into post-tax savings. Then next year, crank up the HSA contributions to fully pay for the baby and then some. Then you'll have a cash fund to spend money out of for living expenses, and less income due to higher payroll deductions. This *should* net you the biggest tax avoidance, providing the baby is being born next year. Ideally, it would fall out before NYE, so you can incur the bulk of the costs in 2014 and turn your HSA contrib down in 2015. Kids are so loving expensive. Do never have! SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 02:05
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Knyteguy posted:Wow I realized it was kinda crappy, but I didn't realize just how crappy it really was! The one thing people bitch about with the HSA plan (tho not compared to your non-HSA!! Jesus) is that you have to pay more up front. Like my work, HSA is $1500, non-HSA is $300 deductible. But the premiums, you pay ~$1300 vs $352. And with HSA, the company gives you $750 (single person, double for spouse or family). So that means I start the year at -$397 a year in medical costs/premium. $1300+$300 is $1600, which means I need to have $1500+$500 in expenses to break even. Everyone's situation is different, but with my employer, if you get sick once or twice a year, or have a $5k bill, you're ahead doing the HSA. When you get into the ~8k range, its more of a wash. I could post solid numbers if I was at work, I made a nice little chart for two of my coworkers. So for me, I have money in my HSA plus an efund, so I don't think twice about the HSA. I haven't had more than $800 in medical bills in 2yrs, and before that I have like $16-50k in bills but the were all up front or eventually covered by my auto insurance. Gotta weigh the costs/benefits, but it cracks me up when my coworker won't go in for an xray because she has to pay out of pocket, vs pay out of pocket for premiums all year that total more... I'm in the same boat, on the tight finance side of things. I hate juggling it and being tight on money. I have a couple grand in the bank for efund and a few more for downpayment/ring, and am saving more for a ring (finalllly found out she really, truly, only wants a 1-2k ring! Not what I was expecting, with her mom's massive rock) and a downpayment, and my cars keep needing repair.. At least I do my own work! My gf is finally fed up with it and is fully on board to sticking to the budget vs blowing it on .. FOOD!!! She doesn't spend excessively, outside of lunches and the occasional dinner where she buys her girlfriends rounds and meals!!! We sat down last weekend and discussed what it is going to take to stick on track, and I think she's finally on board! Good plan on the gun -> debt repayment. And food budget. Share that stuff, I need help w/ food... My gf (and I) come from families that like good food, and it often means eating out. Which I don't do myself, cuz I want bigger things than a nice meal, that I could cook at home for almost the same effect...
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Jul 1, 2014 08:53
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5.5 years - it's been a long time coming lol! But thanks! Nice re sales! Great price on the 9mm from the quick google search I did.
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Jul 2, 2014 15:56
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Bugamol posted: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). 20% off 1000 is $200 25% off 800 is $200 = $600 Right? Maybe Penneys stacks it differently. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 15:30
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You need baby savings for the 6-8k in out of pocket expenses for the birth. Holy crap kids are expensive. Do cloth diapers man. Cheaper and more environmentally friendly. My sis and I were both raised w cloth diapers and she was home birthed with a midwife. Pretty much FTMFW IMO. And my folks are/have been/were drat comfortable. I would have been at a birthing home but I didn't want to come out so the home wouldn't have me. How are Penney's leather couches? Real leather. I have never looked but when we move, we need a new couch... The hand-me-down loveseat/full hideabed is great for our siblings to stay with us during their vacations, but it's both tiny and hideous.
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Jul 4, 2014 03:14
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Whatcha think about some WFH for your wife? I don't have suggestions but that would be great.
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Jul 4, 2014 19:48
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Brennanite posted:Pretty sure my parents had that exact same couch. I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but you really should sort out if and when your wife is going back to work so you can start looking for a good daycare. Infant care is particularly expensive and may eat up a good chuck (or even most) of her paycheck. Depending on how much she makes, what kind of a job it is and whether you need her insurance, it may not make sense for her to go back for the first year.
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Jul 8, 2014 01:01
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I picked up a Core 2 Duo for $40 with 3gb of DDR2 and picked up a $10 (after rebate) video card with HDMI and have a pretty decent HTPC. Not a bad option. Or use your laptop w/ HDMI, if you have one?
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Jul 11, 2014 21:55
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bergeoisie posted:Also, I don't use YNAB so I'm not sure about this, but are you using it correctly? Are you really just supposed to enter in the amount you spent in the budgeted column? Because that makes no sense to me as it's not budgeting, it's just entering the amount you spent at the end of the month. It's not imposing an restrictions on you, so why bother? It would be a lot more useful if you had $100 in the budgeted column for restaurants and then you don't get to spend more than that. Right? Knyteguy posted:With that said, point taken. We are really interested in early retirement, so one thing I've tried that has has saved me from a couple purchases has been asking myself if the purchase was worth delaying retirement. I definitely am continuing to try to work on the impulsive behavior though, and it's definitely been better this month so far. Not perfect, but better. Knyteguy posted:I was planning to get an OTA antenna and digi converter box for football (which is what I'll still likely do next month to catch SF bay area games) but I didn't think about out of market games not playing here. I'm not trying to justify getting cable I just wasn't thinking ahead. I've resigned to deal with the reality that watching games is going to be a pain in the rear end until next season, as annoyed as I am by it. I'll be cancelling cable TV and just keeping the internet; same as now. Knyteguy posted:Well I think we're using YNAB correctly. http://www.youneedabudget.com/method/rule-three says to roll with the punches. We can do something like SloMo does and post expected and actual, and we can do that with YNAB, but I think that's a little more advanced and something we're supposed to do once we have a buffer (rule four of YNAB). That way we can leave categories red into next month and start with a deficit. If we did expected actual now I think we could really screw ourselves over since we don't have money to cover negative amounts.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:43
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Knyteguy posted:Yes we're back to square one. The slope back up has been made since I started posting in this thread again though. Internet: is this a self install fee? Comcast charged me a $10 self install fee and I chatted with them and got it waived. Maybe you can too!
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Jul 18, 2014 18:20
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n8r posted:You should sell the new car before you cover it in baby poo poo/piss. Nearly new cars sell for nearly new prices these days. You can afford to drive about a $2500 beater. Go pick up a well used minivan.
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Jul 18, 2014 21:24
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Dude.. That suit.. omg.. What state are you from? Also, you need to learn to tie a knot... Moving on, you should open a biz account for the biz. It is no more effort to open a biz bank account than a personal. The one thing I disagree with the rest of the posters on is your car insurance. $76 a month is dirty cheap for full coverage. You have 100/300/100 coverage at least, right?
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Jul 19, 2014 04:57
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Knyteguy posted:Well I was 22 when I took that picture - I'm turning 28 in a few weeks time. Knyteguy posted:I almost posted yes to the insurance without looking... but no actually. My wife must have lowered our insurance when we switched vehicles. I <3 AAA. I don't use it that often, but the peace of mind is fantastic, and I DO use 1-2 tows per year for either me or my close friends, so it easily pays off. Need a tow to the body shop to get some paint work done? AAA. Need a tow home from the body shop after a paint job? AAA. Easy! Do like. I'm still saying your insurance rates aren't something to write home about. As long as that ALSO includes collision and comprehensive, I don't see an issue. I *DO* see an issue with your frigging new Corolla, but that is water under the bridge... I'd have gone for a sub-10k reliable car and personal loan... But that is not something you can change immediately, from the sounds of your credit situation. Speaking of which, and I imagine this has been hashed out before and I've simply forgotten, have you made sure all old debts of both yours and your wives are paid off? And you always pay your car notes (are they normal notes? Are they on your credit report?) on time or early? I hope so. Knyteguy posted:Thanks for the well wishes but I respectfully disagree with the rest. Look at the optional expenses category from March to now, we've cut it by 85%.
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Jul 19, 2014 07:23
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Knyteguy posted:Hey Sigma. drat yea I would hate to be responsible for a large car injury or something both for for my conscience and financially. My cousin was in a terrible car accident that ended up breaking his back, throwing his pregnant fiance out the window (who lost the child) and nearly killed everyone in the car. It was off the road in a frigid snow storm. I know he got a ton of money... that's a bad with money story for the ages because he's broke again. Crazy how much the medical bills are. A fractured vertebrae that's nuts lucky you're not paralyzed.  Shootin for 500wtq again by 2025 now  My car will be 32yrs old by then lol.. Knyteguy posted:I didn't look at our PIP coverage but I'll do that now. The insurance does include comprehensive/collision with $500.00 deductibles all around. We both have a lot of debts from our past but the total dollar value isn't that much besides some medical bills. A $2,000.00 credit card debt finally fell off and that was my biggest one. The rest is probably $1500.00 total or so for me, and maybe $2000.00 for her. n8r posted:Are you sure you have collision? That screenshot you posted doesn't indicate you have it. That'd be very bad in an at fault accident. Aristotle Animes posted:I think you are using the household good as a big catch all. A couch probably belongs there, a mop certainly, maybe detergent (I lump that with groceries for ease, no big thing) but your wife's shower supplies are a grooming cost, no? Household goods is the one that sticks out the most and if your wife heads for Aveda or L'Occitane you probably need to reel her in a bit. Hone that category, man. Then you'll better understand where the money is going. Knyte, this is what I use for categories, outside of bills and savings. code:
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Jul 20, 2014 06:12
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Knyte, I think it's time to buckle down on the expenditures for a few months, bump savings up, and then once you know you can handle it, use Excel to do some projections. Otherwise everyone is going to jump down your throat being you haven't stuck with your goals for very long any one time in the past. That's my take on it, at least. I'm also rooting for you to win.Knyteguy posted:Yes but it is entirely unorthodox. At the moment it is keep billing my current client until they stop paying. I'll probably retire almost everything to do with it and start over later when that finally happens. There isn't a lot of goodwill associated with the name beyond my local clients anymore, since I was unable to continue focusing on it.
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Jul 22, 2014 20:22
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Knyteguy posted:So I'm a little bored at work waiting for my ride, so I decided to flesh out the budget for August using recent YNAB data. Plus there has been a little too much arguing in the thread and I'd appreciate getting back to business. I'll take responsibility for that. I think you can get a month ahead now, no? May be a good idea.
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Jul 23, 2014 02:24
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Home Depot will surely take the hand truck back. I've returned all sorts of defective crap to them. Easy! Shower curtain, $10-12 for a nice fabric one (WASH IT BIWEEKLY, COLD) or $5-8 for a plastic one (WASH IT MONTHLY, COLD). Bed Bath & Beyond. You'll get a moving coupon from them, too. Micro - I can't stand not having one. Ovens cost a lot to heat a meal (eg I can see it on my daily power consumption!) and are slow. I'd pickup a CL micro. I've done this twice, for $25 each. My current one has been in use 1yr and near daily use. Knyteguy posted:Well maybe. It's got some scratches and scuffs but it is structurally sound. The only problem is I don't have the mounting hardware. It got lost in our previous move.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:48
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Knyteguy posted:OK I'm going to try to take back the hand truck today. I was referring to cloth liners! We have a cloth pretty curtain on the outside, too. I was thinking from a über cheap perspective, you only neeeed a liner. I believe the not clear liners are cheaper and it doesn't matter what they are so much when you have a cloth one. Make sure it goes with your towels and floor-mat.. I'm sure your wife can help there haha. Ive also never bought one from the dollar store. There are no dollar stores within 15min of me, and I haven't been in one for 6yrs or so. I should go tho, I remember they had super cheap cleaning supplies back in the day... Oh boy that's some awesome Comcast BS! I'm lucky mine clocks in at maybe 48~52 *always* and we pay for 50.
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Jul 26, 2014 17:39
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You're in IT so I'm assuming that's jacked into your modem, or router? Holy poo poo that's bad. For funsies, go to speedtest.comcast.com [or is it .net] and see how bad it says it is? Mine is always faster with their site than speedtest, but speedtest is always near full rating. It was NOT when we first got service and I called and bitched. Fixed within a couple days.
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Jul 27, 2014 01:15
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Droo posted:The AT&T Uverse equipment would not work with the powerline ethernet things. It didn't even matter if I put a router in between the powerline stuff and the Uverse modem. This is tested via torrents. I get way less via SpeedTest over Wifi... Go figure?
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Jul 28, 2014 02:12
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April posted:Good luck! Also, if you put something in the slow cooker that's frozen, or you do the meat loaf thing, or any situation where there isn't liquid on the bottom of the slow cooker the second you turn it on, put a few tablespoons of water in the bottom - just enough to cover it & keep the temperature even, or the crock part will crack. I forgot to mention that before, and it's kind of important. I need to go through the 365 cookbook again and find some more things to make. We've recently made some delicious curry, and we've made lots of chili and various chicken&spices dishes. My gf just stopped eating meat last month tho, so that's been different. Once the curry was made, I chopped some oven baked chicken and simmered it together before serving/portioning. She also doesn't eat rice, so I made some rice on the stovetop and included that in the Pyrex portions.
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Jul 29, 2014 19:03
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