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Well, at least starting now I will be paying my debts. Come join me in this journey in which I crush my debts and conquer my desires to spend recklessly. I'm apparently a dumbass and didn't realize how much of a hell hole I am in with my debt. I'm going to have to work on this with my wife. Finances are important! Income $130,000/year (me: $65k / her: $65k) $6,400/month ($3,200/$3,200) Savings Cash: $12,000 401k: a whole bunch Roth IRA: $8,000 Debt (total: $82,250) AmEx: $20,000 ($25,000 limit / 16% APR) Citi: $6,250 ($10,000 limit / 8% APR) Chase: $7,000 ($10,000 limit / 12% APR) Car payment: $24,000 Student loans: $20,000 - 25,000 (I don't know, it's all wife's loans) Current Expenses (total: $5,830 monthly) Rent: $1,650 Cable: $0 zero! Internet: $60 Cell: $170 Gas: $10 Electricity: $75 Car gas: $250 Car payment: $325 Car insurance: $75 Toll road: $180 Entertainment: $300 (fun + eating out) Food: $500 (groceries only) Student loans: $325 Personal hygiene: $150 Gym: $80 Cats: $100 AmEx: $1,300 Citi: $130 minimum payment Chase: $150 minimum payment ------------------------------------------------- I recently paid $1k for my AmEx, so my next payment is on May 4. I'm going to dump $7k into my American Express, which would bring down my AmEx to $13,000 and my total CC debt to $26,250. Then I'll be dumping as much as I can into the AmEx each month while paying the minimum on the Citi and Chase. If I put in $1,300 each month to the AmEx debt, then theoretically, I can pay it off in like 11 months or something, right? Goal 1: Pay off AmEx by April 2015 Goal 2: Pay off Chase by November 2015 Goal 3: Pay off Citi by ??? Are these goals too aggressive or mathematically impossible? Cheers
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Apr 8, 2014 20:24
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My wife is mostly on board, but only because I haven't fully fleshed out the strategy yet. She's traveling a lot for work at the moment, so I probably won't have a time sit her down and break down the budget piece by piece until next couple of weeks. However, she's told me to do whatever to get rid of our CC debt, so I have no worries as she already anticipates a change in our budget/habits.SpclKen posted:$800 a month on groceries and entertainment are most likely excessive for two people as in debt as you are. Yeah, $800 is probably pretty high. Many, many misdiagnoses for my cat's condition ($8k), wedding debt ($6k), tuition ($3k), and the rest are my wife's debt, into which I obviously married. I only had like $2k in debt. skipdogg posted:Have you analyzed your spending yet? I'm curious as to where that much credit card debt came from. You guys pull in great money, and your basic 'keep the lights on' living expenses is about half your monthly take home. You've got to be living one hell of a lifestyle with with 3K a month to spend, and racking up 33,000 dollars in credit card debt. My wife and I recently hit $65k each (February) where she got a 23% raise, and there's a good chance I'll be switching over to a higher paying position this year. I use mint.com and I'm pretty good with my own budget, but my wife doesn't really budget and that's one of the reasons why she got into so much debt before we married. It's hard "managing" someone else's finances especially when you're not married. I'm hoping to have a better sense of things now. Bubbacub posted:Plus the $150 a month on personal hygiene. What exactly is that? Personal hygiene is like facial care, make-up, skin care, hair products, contact solutions, toothbrush, floss, mouthwash, cologne, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, and all miscellaneous things we use to keep ourselves clean. My wife has eczema so if she doesn't use prescription medication (skin/facial care), then her skin turns to poo poo and she goes into misery scratching herself raw. Unfortunately, that's the only thing that works for her and the stuff is expensive, but she wouldn't last a week without it.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:27
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skipdogg posted:It's Personal Hygiene. Haircuts, Salon Trips, stuff like that. 150 a month is not unreasonable for two young professionals. Not every goon has to get an 8 dollar haircut at GreatClips. A haircut for him, a trim and a couple trips to get her nails done for her, some makeup from somewhere not Target or WalMart and that number is easy to hit. I put clothes money into Entertainment because I call that shopping and wife finds shopping to be fun. I'm wearing some Cole Haans right now and they're comfy as heck! Veskit posted:Wifes on board. Mostly on board. Seems reasonable enough. Step 2 is figuring out how you're going to start budgeting. YOu're going to need a spreadsheet of some sort or some decent budgeting software. If you need recommendations throw it out there, otherwise can you make an expected out/actual out spreadsheet to make this easier for us to visualize and easier for you to use? I'm going to use Mint. Maybe I'll check out YNAB but I don't want to pay for it. SpclKen posted:Yeah you guys are in for a fun time! Getting married and working through a budget as a newlywed can be very difficult. My wife and I took a Dave Ramsey course while we were engaged and it was great. Helped us talk about shared goals and sacrifices we were willing to make. I would suggest it, but I believe the most productive part of the course is sitting down together to work out a budget. We both agreed we'd keep our money separate and deposit X amount to pay for our monthly expenses. I hope it works out! HooKars posted:Another thought is that while you've grouped everything together under "Entertainment," a lot of couples find it helpful to parse that out a bit and have a specific category of "his" and "her" fun money. Nah, we don't go out much, but when we do, it's together. And, we wouldn't resent one another for spending the monthly fun budget either. That's definitely not something we'd do. crazyfish posted:If you guys budget well, you definitely have the income to make this not drag out forever. $325 for 72 months @ 1.9% There's no way we can avoid driving both cars. She and I work at the same company but in different offices which are in opposite directions. There's a chance we may be able to if I end up transferring my position to her location, but I don't know. The debt snowball sounds fun because I can knock out that Chase card this week (payment is due on 4/11). But mathematically, it makes sense to hit the AmEx with the $7k to minimize fees incurred from the interest. Man, I'm so conflicted. Please, help me, internet. Make decisions for me!!!
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Apr 9, 2014 00:14
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Hi guys, I don't think I want to touch the Roth IRA. I'll just deal with the cash we have in our savings. The reason why I have saved all that cash is because I thought it was perfectly normal for people to have tens of thousands of dollars saved up. Well, maybe it's normal if you are not $80k in debt  Anyway, my Chase, which is actually has a $9,000 limit, allows me to do a 0% APR balance transfer until the billing cycle ending in 06/2015 and there's a 2% fee. Here's my plan, pay off the Chase completely, do a balance transfer of $8,500, and end up with $8,670 (2% fee) in my Chase with 0% APR for 14 months. I'll just keep paying the minimum on that Chase while I dump all the free cash I have into the AmEx, which should only have $11,500 at this point after the balance transfer. I'll keep focusing on the AmEx until it's zeroed out. Then, I'll start knocking out large monthly payments on the Chase or Citi until the balance on both are gone. How does this plan sound? As for my rent, it's actually one of the cheaper places for where I live.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:47
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Veskit posted:Really really really need to sit down and make your budget. Unless you're great at spreadsheets I really recommend the 34 day free trial of YNAB. I'll take a look at YNAB and see how it is. I'm actually an Excel wizard, though. Sephiroth_IRA posted:How secure do you consider your jobs? My wife's job is 100% secure. Mine is kind of iffy. If I don't figure out a job by end of July or August, I might be out of a job. They're probably closing down my office by end of 2014, so I'm trying to jump ship and on this weird work arrangement where I fly on the charter plane 2-3 times a week. However, I don't know how long it's going to last. It's really complicated. But I keep getting people telling me to go work for them (I know a lot of consultants), so I feel better about the situation than I normally would if I didn't have any connections/networks. HooKars posted:Can I ask what age range you're in? Wife and I are both 29. SiGmA_X posted:I have a lot of comments but I'm on my phone and don't want to type so much. SloMo's thread seems like a good read. Maybe I'll head on over there for a quick glance 
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Apr 9, 2014 03:18
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Boris Galerkin posted:I've never lived in or even been to an area where there are toll roads so I'm just wondering what the hell $150/month in toll roads get you. I mean are there no other roads you can take? Literally never driven on a toll road in my life. Is $150/month considered normal for that? I'm really curious about this one. It's $6.05 each way. My fiance takes the toll road once each day (going to work). 5 times a week for 4 weeks at $6.05 is $121. Then, I factor in the number of times that she or I may decide to take in addition to the 20 times a month. The 405 and 5 are absolute nightmares. She lives 16 minutes away from work with the toll road, but if she takes the hell freeways, then it can take at minimum an hour to get home or get to work. Time is money. quote:Can I also ask what you spend $500/month in groceries on? I mean jesus seriously, I shop local/organic and pay extra for that but still I can't imagine spending $250/month (I'm single) on just groceries alone. I guess things are just cheaper there? I don't know. It may just be a conservative estimate or I just really love my Chilean seabass at $30/lb.  quote:e: I've also never owned an animal in my life so I'm not critiquing you on this one, but is $100/month normal for 2 (I'm assuming) cats? I mean I figured cat food would be like $20/month for a huge bag but like I said I don't own animals and never have. Yes, we have 2 cats. We feed them Nature's Variety Instinct wet food at night and dry food in the morning. 12 pack of the canned food is $22-30. One can + dry food each day. Then there's pet toys, vet stuff, flea medication ($60 for 3 months), and etc. It adds up.
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Apr 9, 2014 04:37
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I tried switching over to all dry food for 2 weeks and somehow ended up with both cats getting crystals in their bladder and hundreds of dollars in vet bills. Even worse, I feel lovely for putting my cats through that. I'm not 100% certain it's the wet vs dry, but I already went down that path and it was unpleasant. Cat stuff is non-negotiable. Gotta draw the line somewhere. v  vSeattle? There's a 405 and 5 freeway there?  I live in Laguna Hills (Orange County).
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Apr 9, 2014 05:30
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I checked out my 401k and my wife's. We're both at about $30k right now, so $60k total. Our company matches up to 4% and puts in another 5% for retirement contributions. However, I'm only 60% vested in the retirement contributions while, my wife is 80% vested. I learned something new about freeways from this thread.  The $7,000 payment for Chase has been scheduled and will be posted this week. After that, the balance transfer of $8,500 from AmEx to Chase will be done. Yay, baby steps.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:01
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Veskit posted:That is a grown up rear end step not a baby one. Way to go! Please make your budget in excel or YNAB so we can tweak it some pleaseee. I'll take a look at my spreadsheet when I get home. I keep forgetting to upload it cloud so I can access it anywhere. Rockzilla posted:Agreed, $500 is pretty high for 2 people. Do you guys cook for yourselves or are you buying prepared meals from grocery stores or shopping at somewhere like Whole Foods? Nah, we just shop at Vons/Ralphs and occasionally at Costco and Gelson's. THE RED MENACE posted:What's up Laguna/Aliso buddy  Don't do that to yourself! Enjoy the empty toll roads! Traffic completely diminishes my quality of life too much.SiGmA_X posted:We have a 5/405 here in PDX too. I know a fair amount of people who call freeways "the #", likely due to how many Californians moved north in the 90's. I should have known better though - I think it's the 90 not 405 that is a toll road in Seattle. Do people actually say "I-5" or something? waffle posted:Well, your budget isn't unreasonable, I guess you are just getting killed by the monthly CC payments and transportation-related costs (I assume you live in an area with pretty high rent). Some small changes you could try making though We both own our own phones. I've had mine for 3 years and wife's had hers for 1. She spilled water on her phone like 3 months after getting it and now it's going batshit crazy, but she refuses to buy a new one. The eating expenses for the last 3-4 months have been off the charts due to us being so busy with wedding planning. We just haven't had time to cook so we ate out a lot. But now that the wedding is over, we should be able to go back to our normal schedule of cooking our own meals. Someone asked if we buy processed foods, and the answer is no. It's always fresh produce and meats. I do have Amazon Prime and I buy a lot of my things from there. I already take advantage of the websites with the cheapest cat food/toys/etc. I've done my homework in that department.
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Apr 9, 2014 23:08
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My $7,000 payment to Chase CC is being processed. Hooray
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Apr 11, 2014 18:27
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Some highlights from over the weekend. - Wife happily agreed to pooling our assets. She concurs we'd have a better sense of our finances/budget. We will have one account to where both of our paychecks will deposited, but we'll also have our own separate where we'll have our "fun" money. - Wife wanted $200/mo of fun money instead of $150, however. Ok. - $8,400 balance transfer from AmEx to Chase was requested and it's currently pending. Chase wouldn't let me do any higher. This brings the AmEx total to under $12,000. - Rent may be going up a $100 soon. - My search for a new job continues. Edit: I also found out my auto insurance is actually double what I thought it was. I was only looking at the 6 month payment total. Heh Hand of the King fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 21:14
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You seem kind of hostile, man. Chill out. My wife and I already had our own separate checking and savings account before we even met. I don't know why this is some kind of unfathomable possibility. Also, this: CountOfNowhere posted:FWIW I find it very useful (mentally) to separate my fun money into a separate account. I don't want to track fun poo poo - I just want to spend to my bank balance there. This was our reasoning.
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Apr 14, 2014 05:55
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The balance transfer on the Chase went through on Chase's end but it shows nothing on the AmEx. Hopefully I did this right I've been trying to land a senior position at my current company in another office and in other companies, but I haven't been successful. I've only had one interview so far and I got turned down as they went with another internal candidate. Should I just suck it up and apply for a lateral move instead? As I've mentioned before, I may be out of a job come end of July. Should I be in desperate mode yet?
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Apr 16, 2014 03:59
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Hello, thread. We're in the middle of moving from one apartment to another due to the rent price increase. Also, wife's been traveling for work a lot and she's been spending the "$50 per day for meals" allowed during travel and will be reimbursed later on, so the monies are all a big mess. May shouldn't be so bad, and June should be back to normal. In the mean time, the direct deposit of both of our paychecks is still pending. It takes a few pay periods. Good news is that, according to my forecast, we will be able to pay the $1,300 (probably more) on the AmEx.
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Apr 24, 2014 16:54
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I've been paying my debts like any good Lannister would. Things are going well for the most part. However, we moved twice in the past 3 weeks and that drained a lot of our left over money. The first apartment was a NIGHTMARE to live in when it came to peacefulness (neighbors wouldn't shut up day and night) so we had to get out of there ASAP. Thank god for the 30 day guarantee. The new place is much better. I forgot to mention, my wife chipped her tooth and it needed to get fixed. Goodbye lots of money. I should've been a dentist. I've had a couple of phone interviews and a job I really, really want scheduled an in-person interview for 21st. Hooray! Please send me positive thoughts. This job pays more than my current one, so I'm really hoping I get this. Our monies are in 1 account and it's made paying bills much easier and I can keep a closer eye on it. Since my last post, we've gone out to eat only 5 times, which I think is pretty good. We've been making lots of meals at home, so I can already see the difference.
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May 9, 2014 02:31
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I went on an interview today which lasted about 3 hours. I was interviewed by 6 people - 4 in-person and 2 via phone. 3 of them went great and the other 3 were good to average. 2 of the 3 that went great were with the hiring manager and director, so that's real good. I hope I get this new position. I am tired as all hell. OF EVERYTHING
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May 23, 2014 06:06
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The hand of the king is still breathing. Married life owns so far – 5 months in! It’s been about 3.5 weeks since I’ve started my new job in a stable company and I got my first full paycheck. I’m now making $80k/year and $2,293 per paycheck. This should be around $2,100 as my 401k contributions haven’t gone into effect yet (occurs 30 days after start date). My wife and I now earn $7,400 a month together and our expenses have changed a little: Income $145,000/year (me: $80k / her: $65k) $7,400/month ($4,200/$3,200) Savings Cash: $4,000 401k: $30,000 (mine only) Roth IRA: $8,000 Debt (total: $71,300) AmEx: $9,400 ($25,000 limit / 16% APR) Citi: $5,900 ($12,150 limit / 8% APR) Chase: $8,500 ($9,000 limit / 15% APR) (0% BT) Car payment: $22,500 Student loans: $20,000 - 25,000 (I don't know, it's all wife's loans) Current Expenses (total: $5,880 monthly) Rent: $1,700 (includes water and sewage) Cable and Internet: $75 Cell: $180 Gas: $50-75 depending on laundry Electricity: $25 Car gas: $250 Car payment: $325 Car insurance: $170 (it’s actually 1 payment of $500 every 3 months) Toll road: $60 (we stopped using it so much) Entertainment: $300 (fun + eating out) Food: $500 (groceries only) Student loans: $325 Personal hygiene: $150 Gym: $45 Cats: $100 AmEx: $1,300 Citi: $210 minimum payment Chase: $90 minimum payment Based on our total monthly income minus the total monthly expenses, my wife and I should have $1,500 left over at the end of the month. This seems like a lot of money left over, am I missing something? If not, then I would like to pay $2,600 a month on the CCs starting with the AmEx, which means we could be CC debt free in like 9 months??? Why does this sound too good to be true…
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Aug 7, 2014 18:35
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Slow Motion posted:Those spending numbers are made up. Reconcile them to your spending last month and this month then report back. How are they made up? These are from what we've spent historically from mint. I may be misunderstanding.
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Aug 7, 2014 18:51
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Bugamol posted:If you're saying this it leads people to believe they're not actual numbers. What was your total dollars spent per month (not broken down) directly from mint or whatever you use to track? Also how much spending did you do on credit cards? Are you including that in these numbers? If you've been spending $1000+/mo on credit cards and are only looking at your bank account transactions you might be hiding spend from yourself. My wife and I have not used our CC for anything since making this thread. We've been making minimum payments our CVs except the American Express, in which we've been making $1,300 payments. Everything is on our debit cards for now until they're all at zero.
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Aug 7, 2014 19:22
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EugeneJ posted:Are these figures pre-tax or post-tax? The $145k is pre-tax and $7,400 is post-tax.
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Aug 7, 2014 19:23
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You guys are scaring me and this IRS withholding calculator is confusing as hell. Next year will be the first time filling taxes together as a married couple. Should we head off to HR Block and ensure we're wordings are fine so we don't owe?
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Aug 7, 2014 22:53
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