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We wanted the option of a land line, and business class has no data cap. We eat hella data and comcast data caps are super low at least in our area.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:28
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signalnoise posted:We wanted the option of a land line, and business class has no data cap. We eat hella data and comcast data caps are super low at least in our area. Something something moderation. Go get the prices again along with the caps, I just don't believe 170 dollar internet is your only option.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:32
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170? And no, it's not the only option.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:33
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Sayingsignalnoise posted:We made the decision that internet speed is more important to us than whatever else we'll have to sacrifice for that money. Means that anything less isn't an option. Not in those exact words, but that's effectively what you're trying to get across. I'm saying you should research the amount of dollars per MB/cap you're getting because after 100 dollars a month (which is absurd already) there's no way you're getting any real value. You're making a bad financial decision and sticking your heels in the ground over it because it's wahhh I want it. That's being childish and bad with money.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:37
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I'll eat this one then Veskit, I'm a child I guess. Sorry I don't want to pay for a data cap.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:39
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signalnoise posted:I'll eat this one then Veskit, I'm a child I guess. Sorry I don't want to pay for a data cap. You're not being a child because you don't want to pay for a data cap, it's the fact that you're not exploring all of the residential options in your area before pulling the trigger on spending 140 dollars a month on internet and a phone you don't use. You could also go check your internet history and see how much data you actually use then price it accordingly. Are you sure you're going over the cap each month? This is a huge luxury expense, and you could easily free up room in your budget for whatever the gently caress dumb table you want at some point but you're making an effort not to act on it because........ Reasons.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:55
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I'm sure I go over the data cap, and I did investigate options. Does the fact that I made this decision fully-informed of the options frustrate you more, or less?
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Aug 7, 2015 20:57
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signalnoise posted:I'm sure I go over the data cap, and I did investigate options. Does the fact that I made this decision fully-informed of the options frustrate you more, or less? You went over the options when?
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Aug 7, 2015 20:58
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Veskit posted:You went over the options when? Before buying the package we got. I shopped around for internet which is essentially you have the option of Comcast residential packages or Comcast business packages or satellite if you're even dumber.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:00
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signalnoise posted:Before buying the package we got. I shopped around for internet which is essentially you have the option of Comcast residential packages or Comcast business packages or satellite if you're even dumber. When as in around what time. Month and year.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:02
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I think what Veskit is getting at is Comcast isn't doing required data caps anymore. You can opt-in to a data cap for a savings on your internet. I have Comcast in Seattle and go way over the "soft data cap" of 250gb every month. You should call and ask. I pay ~$75/month for cable, HBO, and 100mbit cable per month.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:04
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Veskit posted:When as in around what time. Month and year. The last 2 months.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:06
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Also please consider that my wife and I just dropped a combined 800$/month in spending cash and we're switching from eating out to making our own food and you're giving me poo poo about a 50$/month difference and it's really making me not give a gently caress what you say Veskit. I would appreciate it if you dropped this particular point or take a different approach on it because it's taking a toll on my ability to listen to you. I signed a contract. It's not changing this month.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:10
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signalnoise posted:Also please consider that my wife and I just dropped a combined 800$/month in spending cash and we're switching from eating out to making our own food and you're giving me poo poo about a 50$/month difference and it's really making me not give a gently caress what you say Veskit. I would appreciate it if you dropped this particular point or take a different approach on it because it's taking a toll on my ability to listen to you. I signed a contract. It's not changing this month. You didn't drop 800 dollars a month in spending, you labeled a budget with a drop of 800 dollars a month. cutting your internet is a tangible change to how much you're paying. Also you can cancel a contract if it makes sense or negotiate a better price. Also if you can't see the importance of saving 50-100 dollars a month at this point then....  Also what were you doing before you moved into the new house? signalnoise posted:I'm sure I go over the data cap, and I did investigate options. Does the fact that I made this decision fully-informed of the options frustrate you more, or less? If this was a fully formed decision then you have problems with financial decision making, and if you got it without all the information then you have issues with information gathering. Both are real detriments to good financial decisions, but they're not the same thing. Veskit fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 21:13
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Veskit posted:You didn't drop 800 dollars a month in spending, you labeled a budget with a drop of 800 dollars a month. cutting your internet is a tangible change to how much you're paying. Also you can cancel a contract if it makes sense or negotiate a better price. Also if you can't see the importance of saving 50-100 dollars a month at this point then.... I was living with my inlaws. I just closed on the house last month. Actually it was so recent that I still haven't fully moved in yet.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:15
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signalnoise posted:How the hell do I determine what's a legit expense vs what's a "spending" expense? I'm sitting here like thinking "I want to build a desk" and sure, it's not that expensive if I buy the materials and build it myself, but at the same time, am I responsible for the lumber out of that last 100 bucks I got to last me months? This is very, very frustrating. I mean, ok my wife doesn't want to split the cost of a reciprocating saw because she says she'll never use it, but I don't watch TV yet I split the cost of Netflix. Re: this It's more about making a planned purchase vs an unplanned purchase IMO. If my wife and I decide we want something, say a new mattress because our current one is 15+ years old, we don't just go and buy it right then. We shift some of our monthly savings away from other categories like efund, car, retirement etc. into a mattress fund for x months (1-3 maybe?) and buy it once we have that set aside.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:17
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gariig posted:I think what Veskit is getting at is Comcast isn't doing required data caps anymore. You can opt-in to a data cap for a savings on your internet. I have Comcast in Seattle and go way over the "soft data cap" of 250gb every month. You should call and ask. I pay ~$75/month for cable, HBO, and 100mbit cable per month. I'm trying to explain how decision making works because everything signal talks about seems to be a lack of understanding or tools. If you come in and go i haven't seen a cap in a long time, or I pay 30 dollars for 40mbit internet and it's 100% fine with what i'm doing, that's an good decision based off my needs. Sig on the otherhand goes I NEED IT, pounds his foot on the ground and that's that. Which is a big problem when you're trying to learn how to be better with money. Signal the answer is there's no way you're getting 140 dollar value out of your internet, and that's a budget issue. You can ignore it, whatever, but it's a problem.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:28
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Your constant bullshit attribution of emotional outrage to my financial decisions is doing little to help your case. It's really pretty annoying. If you're not willing to engage me as an adult with money problems instead of as a spoiled child then please shut the gently caress up.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:31
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signalnoise posted:Your constant bullshit attribution of emotional outrage to my financial decisions is doing little to help your case. It's really pretty annoying. If you're not willing to engage me as an adult with money problems instead of as a spoiled child then please shut the gently caress up. I'll say this as cold, and plain as I can put it. Spending 140 dollars a month on internet is atrocious and you should fix it. Good luck Signal.
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Aug 7, 2015 21:39
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Has he posted what general part of the country he's in? I know Comcast offers different plans/tiers in different parts of the country, but I have a hard time fathoming that $143 business internet is really worth it. According to this, the capped plans are not mandatory. Just get cheaper internet.
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Aug 8, 2015 00:43
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:Has he posted what general part of the country he's in? I know Comcast offers different plans/tiers in different parts of the country, but I have a hard time fathoming that $143 business internet is really worth it. According to this, the capped plans are not mandatory. Just get cheaper internet. Comcast posted:In all of our trial markets except Tucson, the data amount included with all XFINITY Internet tiers was increased from 250 GB to 300 GB per month. We offer additional gigabytes in increments/blocks of 50 GB for $10 each. The standard pricing for what we want in non-business is 70 bucks a month. We break 500-600gb regularly. If you want to include phone, it's 30 a month for that.
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Aug 8, 2015 00:52
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So you're really being good with money because you're saving on media and entertainment by downloading  instead?
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Aug 8, 2015 02:03
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So Cox isn't available at your house, I guess? They have a 99/mo plan with no caps, phone, cable etc. But you have to do the 2 year cancel/re-up dance to keep the good price. Based on this page I see the Comcast cap goes up with higher plans, but there seems to be no mention of the actual caps and prices.
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Aug 8, 2015 02:14
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SpelledBackwards posted:So you're really being good with money because you're saving on media and entertainment by downloading Oh, no, I'm not being good with money. This is an area of our budget we thought about and decided we wanted enough to spend on it.
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Aug 8, 2015 02:20
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Most people don't run up 500-600 gigs of internet usage a month. It sounds to me like you're utilizing the internet heavily as a luxury, which is something to keep in mind as you budget. If you could cut back $50 a month on your internet bill in exchange for using the internet less, and choose instead to continue paying what you're paying for very high-grade internet service, that $50 a month is going to come out of your fun money. So if you were otherwise going to spend $150 a month on entertainment-related stuff, that's now $100. YNAB will even let you split the categorizations on your Comcast bill payment to show it coming partly out of utilities and partly out of entertainment, if you want to go that far. On the subject of the budget you posted, the first thing I wanted to ask was: Am I seeing right that there's a $1000 balance on your Delta AMEX? I thought you had paid that one off on account of it being your highest-interest card. Either way, my method when budgeting is to figure out the absolute necessities of life first, which it looks like you've partly done by filling in your utility costs. A $145/month electric bill is lovely, but I don't know how much of that is attributable to personal habits (sleepmode your computers when asleep/away instead of letting cookie clicker run, you goon) and how much of it is due to genuine necessities and issues with the house you're in. I just moved out of an apartment that was insulated so poorly that I could feel heat radiating through the walls within minutes of the A/C clicking off, so that sort of thing is at the front of my mind. You don't have any place on your budget for auto or homeowner's insurance, so you might want to start budgeting for those sorts of expenses as well. If your semiannual auto insurance payment is due in three months, for instance, budget a third of the payment each month. I personally also like to put a bit of money aside each month for regular and semi-regular auto maintenance, such as oil changes and the little stuff that comes along with those. Once you've figured that out, and decided on the amounts for other life necessities like groceries and fuel, I'd say start thinking about how you want to pay down your debts. Get the minimums keyed in for your student loan payment and your credit card payments, then look at how much cash you have left to budget. Figure out which of your credit cards you want to attack first. The two schools of thought are as follows:
Make your choice and decide how much money you want to pay toward that debt this month, keeping in mind how many more of such monthly payments it'll take to rid yourself of that debt. Balance your desire to spend money on entertainment against the very real, very pressing need to pay off those drat credit cards. Yes, this is going to be some austerity poo poo. Remember, in reply to your thread title: Adulthood is not something you purchase. Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 06:08
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:On the subject of the budget you posted, the first thing I wanted to ask was: Am I seeing right that there's a $1000 balance on your Delta AMEX? I thought you had paid that one off on account of it being your highest-interest card. Good stuff otherwise, and as far as this snippet: Yes I cleared it out, however it got money put back on it because I front the cost for business trips and get reimbursed plus per diem. I have that money coming back to me in about a week. Unfortunately this will continue to happen, but fortunately I know better now than to put the reimbursement anywhere but that card. We do realize that the 50 dollar difference is an entertainment expense.
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Aug 8, 2015 06:18
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Redid my budget a bit I split the internet charge into Monthly: Internet (70), Monthly: Phone (20) and Entertainment: Internet (53). I also took all the "Spending" poo poo and put it into "Entertainment" so I could have a single place to put all the items that I could live without. I think it makes more sense and more impact this way. I also went ahead and jotted in my expected reimbursement, which somehow did not come out to the amount in my travel amex account. Gotta be more vigilant about that I guess, and I put in my expected paychecks for this month. All told it looks okayish though I did put myself in a tight spot for this month thanks to the contractors working on the house. Shouldn't be a problem for next month but who knows what expenses will pop up that I don't know about. I'll be interested to see at the end of this month how much money there is left to budget for September, so I can go ahead and allocate all of that for paying debts.
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Aug 8, 2015 06:57
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Man YNAB sure is a piece of junk software. I find it amazing how every person with these threads insists on using it, and comes up with some new method for making it totally incomprehensible. Why do you not have anything in the everyday expenses list?
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Aug 8, 2015 16:18
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n8r posted:Man YNAB sure is a piece of junk software. I find it amazing how every person with these threads insists on using it, and comes up with some new method for making it totally incomprehensible. Because I don't really know what that's going to be yet
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Aug 8, 2015 16:29
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That really seems less like a budget, and more like a record of spending. That's not a bad thing to have, but its not what you need. The whole point of a budget is picking what you think you can/should spend in each area so that it adds up to a reasonable total, and then sticking to it. Pick some numbers so when you go to buy something the internal dialog is less "Its only $40, that's not that bad" and more "I've already spent $60 of $100 in X category this month, if I spend $40 now I wont get to buy anything else this month". Another thing I like to do with my budget is at the end of the month, take the excess from my restaurant, grocery, and entertainment budgets (the main discretionary ones), and put half excess into my new computer fund. I save the other half so its not going to trick me into eating ramen every meal, but it still gives me a incentive to stick within the budget. Xenoborg fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 20:07
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That's fair, and that is what I'm planning to do with it, however I really have no idea what to estimate to right now on some of these categories. So what I'm doing right now is just trying to keep everything low, but after I have a set amount then I can estimate. Some day with enough data I might transfer over to excel and use moving averages.
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Aug 8, 2015 23:24
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Mint? Looking at your bank statements? Is it that hard to look back at your previous spending habits?
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Aug 9, 2015 08:08
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hey I know it's a dead topic, but I run an IT consulting business off comcast residential blast + (the $70 tier), and they don't cap at that level unless you're being ridiculous. Also the speeds are better than the business class $149 level. I was on the $59 tier for a long time and got notices about usage overages and poo poo, I torrent out my rear end (easily 500gb/mo) - so I upgraded to the blast+, and now I'm golden. encrypt all your torrent communications. (strict https only to the tracker and peers). haven't gotten a notice since. and that'd literally cut your comcast bill in half. not criticizing though, because worrying about it is stressful, and $50/mo isn't absurd for an entertainment expense. also this YNAB software looks like garbage. I read P&L statements / financials almost every day of the week for my job, and I can't figure out what's going on in your spending/budget after spending like 15 minutes staring at all those numbers. not your fault, I'm sure. why are "pre YNAB" debts listed as 'outflows'? why does your income nearly double between aug and sept? Also where are your income streams even being listed? where's the balance statement for liquid cash/savings/investments you could be budgeting towards paying down debt? also agree with someone who said it looks like this is less of a budget and more of a payment tracker at this point. which isn't a problem - I don't have a budget, I just look at expenses retroactively and if I spent way too much in a category, I pare it down next month. lots of approaches work... mindphlux fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 08:17
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n8r posted:Mint? Looking at your bank statements? Is it that hard to look back at your previous spending habits? Due to my living situation there are lots of things I haven't regularly paid for in years. mindphlux posted:also this YNAB software looks like garbage. I read P&L statements / financials almost every day of the week for my job, and I can't figure out what's going on in your spending/budget after spending like 15 minutes staring at all those numbers. not your fault, I'm sure. Because I created this budget in August so they're new "expenses" as of August. Note that the outflow is not in September, but the balance carries over. quote:why does your income nearly double between aug and sept? Also where are your income streams even being listed? Income doubles because the August income is the starting balance of my checking account as that is "new" to this installation of YNAB. That is reflected as a balance amount to be budgeted that carries over to the next month, but there are no paychecks listed in August. Every paycheck received in August is applied to the September budget, and paychecks received in September will be available in October. The goal is to be able to pay for next month in advance. Income streams are listed in the individual budget accounts off to the left in the UI which I did not put in that screenshot. quote:where's the balance statement for liquid cash/savings/investments you could be budgeting towards paying down debt? quote:also agree with someone who said it looks like this is less of a budget and more of a payment tracker at this point. which isn't a problem - I don't have a budget, I just look at expenses retroactively and if I spent way too much in a category, I pare it down next month. lots of approaches work... That's the thing. I'm looking at incurring lots of new expenses that I never had to account for before. Groceries, gas, a bunch of poo poo that had been provided to me before, so I really don't have any historical data to draw from. I really am just tracking spending and trying to keep it low at this point, because I don't have the information I need in order to budget for next month beyond shot in the dark estimates.
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Aug 9, 2015 08:52
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signalnoise posted:Due to my living situation there are lots of things I haven't regularly paid for in years. It's ok to do a shot in the dark. Gas: $150 Groceries: $300 Electric: $300 Etc. I would just high ball it and then if/when you are under you just lower it on your budget. Biggest reason why is to just make sure you aren't spending more than you are making. Edit: looked at your budget, as a tip you don't yet have any insurance cost on there. You def have to have home insurance, car insurance and health insurance (all should be fixed costs), so I would add those. If your health insurance is like mine and pooled out of your paycheck automatically, I would still factor it in just so you know. 2nd edit: cell phone bill? Duckman2008 fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 11:45
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Duckman2008 posted:Edit: looked at your budget, as a tip you don't yet have any insurance cost on there. You def have to have home insurance, car insurance and health insurance (all should be fixed costs), so I would add those. If your health insurance is like mine and pooled out of your paycheck automatically, I would still factor it in just so you know. Home insurance: Added, 135 a month. Health insurance: I am going to leave that out for now because I have no control over the cost anyway and I never see the money. Also I dont' know how I would account for it without affecting the budget. Car insurance: I will have to get that amount from my wife but yeah that needs to be on there. Cell phone bill: Nope edit: Turns out home and car insurance combined is 135. Thanks USAA thanks FIL for your service in 'nam saving me money signalnoise fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 02:27
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signalnoise posted:Home insurance: Added, 135 a month. Wow that's really good for both if that $135 includes both yourself and your wife.
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Aug 10, 2015 10:33
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Duckman2008 posted:Wow that's really good for both if that $135 includes both yourself and your wife. Yeah USAA rules
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Aug 10, 2015 11:41
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signalnoise posted:Yeah USAA rules I love USAA but two minor tickets later my insurance is through the roof with them  Not that it would be better with the other guys, I suppose. At least the customer service is good - I have my car loan through them too.
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Aug 10, 2015 17:32
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RE: Internet A deal has been made. Because we didn't want the phone service anyway, FIL will pay for the internet and phone in return for us continuing to be his on-call old man tech support. Yayyyyyyyyyy
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Aug 12, 2015 01:31
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