|
E/N: 25, male, married. I grew up never having much money, so I never learned to budget it. I didn't get a job until my early 20s. It was a completely soul-crushing job, so I went out and got drunk nearly every night. I quit that job eventually, figured I would get a new one, so I kept acting like I had a job. Within 5 months I maxed out my $4000 credit card. I eventually did get a good job working in IT, but instead of paying off my debts, I went out to eat with my then-fiancee now-wife almost every night. A couple of jobs later, I was still doing the same thing, and my credit card debt had gone up to $5600 after a credit limit increase and a month off work due to an appendectomy. Whenever I would pay my credit card down by a few thousand, I would run it up within a couple months, even though I thought I was only using it for gas and groceries. Now I'm making really good money for me ($22/hr), but it's a 3 month contract lasting until late January, which means I have no job security. I also have to plan on paying my wife's car insurance, health insurance, and phone bill starting in March. I also have $5717.26 in collections. It's from a semester of college. My mother had always done the FAFSA, since it asks for way more information about the parents than the student. I guess this time she didn't do it. By the end of the semester, we weren't on speaking terms and I was in the middle of the worst long term depression spell of my entire life. I got some letters from the college, but I never opened them. It turns out that was them telling me I owed them money. I found this out at the end of 2014, but when I sent a validation letter the collections agency never provided validation. Then I got contacted again this year. I was in the middle of negotiations when I lost my previous job. I want to get that dealt with just so it isn't looming over my head, but I can't make any promises about paying until I have job security. My wife and I both have bad depression and anxiety, she has bad bipolar on top of that. We have a hard time not just saying "gently caress it" and ordering or going out whenever we have a bad day. And a lot of days are bad days. That's also why our medical expenses are so high. She's unable to work, the last job she held down was very part time, and it was for someone whose daughter's life was ruined due to her bipolar. Anyone else wouldn't have had the patience for how often she called in sick. She's applied for disability, but I'm not sure it will work. She hasn't worked consistently over the past ten years, but she's also had this problem for longer than she's not been working, which is supposed to be an exception. Current Bank Balance: $4073 Income: $3160 / 4 wks Expenses: Rent + utilities: $1020 Internet: $70 Groceries: $200 Car insurance $68 (paid for November) Gas: $130? Prescriptions: $65 Pet food: $75 Vet: $50 Doctors: $100 Car maintenace / repair: $100 Credit card: $140 Other Medical: $315 Netflix: $10 Household/hygiene supplies: $30 Haircuts: $15 Joint fun money / capital improvements: $200 E-liquid / coils: $50 Student Loan: $140 - $250 (depends on if I get graduated payments) Repay debt / build cushion: $345 - $445 depending on loan payments Debt: American Express at 20% APR: 5,675.42 Student loans: 7,038.14 at 6.8% 5,358.37 at 3.4% 4,500 at 4.66% 5,250 at 4.29% Loan from bank to cover hospital bill: 1,099.94 at ??%, $44.88 / month until 1/2019. I need to call to find out the actual interest rate, I'll edit it in then Personal debts: My mom: $680 Our ex-roommate's share of the deposit: $165 Doctor's bill: $199 Final bill from trash at last apartment: $25 Collections: $5,717.26 at gently caress My Credit Score% I also got a windfall from a source I cannot legally disclose smuggling cocaine in my rear end in a top hat. I've paid off a significant amount of debts with that already, and spent some on just surviving until my first paycheck. Currently it's at 4,073. I'm going to be paying back some of what I've set aside from my November paychecks, since I'm spending some of it in November. I'll put up an updated list of those tomorrow. I've hosed up my finances so often, I can't keep doing this. I'm only going to get more financial responsibilities in the coming year, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life living paycheck to paycheck. We have Mint, we have YNAB, we're going to see which we like better. Are there any details I forgot to mention? I have a tendency to try to simplify things for clarity. In situations like this, it usually means I leave something important out.
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2016 02:51
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 23:06 |
|
|
Yeah, as unhealthy as it is I have been really stressed out about money since June, so if I can just hold on to that until I'm used to being responsible, It should work this time. I've known for a long time that getting my finances under control will be the best thing I can do for my mental health. Really the biggest thing I'm worried about long term is the extra ~400 per month for her insurance and phone starting in March. If I can't get good benefits or a job with similar pay by then I don't know how I can make it work.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2016 04:08
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Are y'all in therapy for your mental issues? If not you should be. Not therapy right now, but heavily medicated. Therapy is on the to-do list. We try to at least go for walks with the dog regularly. I used to lift weights, but I was bad about going and gave up my gym membership because it was too expensive. I've been meaning to do some running and bodyweight exercises, but I rarely actually do anything despite knowing it will make me feel better afterwards. Her health insurance is $320 off the marketplace, car insurance is $30, and phone is $40. We were looking at the $30 100 minutes T-Mobile plan, but she still uses her phone for talking. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Nov 1, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2016 18:24
|
|
|
I think I am going to have to increase the doctor budget. She had a psychiatrist visit yesterday, that's already $100. I was hoping to spread out visits, but we need to go to therapists, I need to go to the dentist, and I also need to be seen for physical issues at a GP. Those are the least important, though. Those are just chronic annoyances, nothing major. I paid our ex-roommate yesterday, so that's one debt down. I know it's not an improvement in my financial situation, but it feels good to whittle away at the things I need to keep in mind and/or worry about. Because of that, I think I'm going to forget about what I had been planning to do with the windfall. Rather than throwing it all at the card and then paying back the rest of my personal debts and building a cushion, I'm going to do the latter first, and then throw all the extra I can at the card. It will mean more interest, but not having to keep track of a bunch of different debts will reduce my stress, which is a big thing at this point. I do have a week's paycheck and a small paycheck from a project coming in this week. I hadn't really budgeted October by itself, so while it's not "extra," it's money coming in that I hadn't allocated since it's not normal income. That's going to be enough by itself to cover a month's rent, so that's a big part of my cushion there. Or that's rent, and money in the windfall is the cushion. Or the money in the windfall is rent and the cushion, and this is debt reduction. I feel like how I categorize it doesn't matter, it's all money in the bank, and some of it is assigned in different places, but it doesn't matter where that money came from. Am I thinking about this wrong? Is it okay for me to blog post in here, as long as it's money related? That's what I'm inclined to do so far. Just make a post anytime something money related happens, or at least once a week for a budget update.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 18:49
|
|
|
That's pretty much it, aside from the therapy we need to go to. In the summer it's a lot easier to make ourselves go outside for a long walk or a rare hike. On the bright side, that "other medical" has nearly gotten rid of the SAD that has made winters so difficult for as long as I have known her. She still has less energy, but emotionally she has is miles ahead from where she used to be. I'm not sure what else you could mean aside from medication, Psychiatry, exercise, and medication.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 21:49
|
|
|
I'll think about a sport. It would be nice to have something like that to do together, but I'm not optimistic, at least for the winter. We're in Colorado, so winter sports are mostly skiing/snowboarding/snowshoeing. None of those are cheap. I'm also not sure whether she will even want to spend more time outside. She has terrible circulation, she has been needing to wear earmuffs and gloves at night, even though it hasn't gotten much below 50 yet. At least she actually feels better after exercise now. Before last year, maybe even before this year, she felt worse after exercising. I've never been able to quiet down my mind enough to meditate. I don't know if she can either.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2016 22:25
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Cross country skiing and snowshoeing are free. Skis and snowshoes are expensive, though. I don't know for sure if it's bad circulation or something else. But she gets cold extremely easily. She needs earmuffs in 40 degree weather. Yes, we've gone to the doctor, no we don't know what it is. We're going to try to walk with the dog as much as possible. There's a gym at work. Not much in the way of equipment, but I should be able to squeeze a workout in during my hour lunch. Assuming I don't just read the forums all lunch. I'm trying to explain to my wife why it's better to pay any surplus to the credit card rather than just stacking it up in the bank. I'm thinking of saying how if you have x dollars, pay y to the credit card, and have (for example) 40 dollars less interest per month in interest, you still have effectively x dollars, except you're also "making" an extra $40 per month. Is there anything I'm missing?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2016 03:49
|
|
|
Sorry for basically abandoning this. Quick updates: Tons of unexpected expenses (2 broken phones, hospital bill, car repairs, broken vacuum) have eaten into the settlement. Our budget would have covered it if we had time to save up for those expenses like planned, but we didn't. We're saving for a move to a part of the state with a better job market so I can escape this string of 3-6 month contracts. So far I'm looking at ~6-10k raises for similar to slightly better jobs. 16k on the high end, but it would be stupid to plan for that. I've had one interview in my first week of looking. I'm really hoping for one that would probably only be at most 6k, but it has travel reimbursement, free lunch so I don't keep spending $2.50 several times a week when I forget my lunch at home, and most importantly, the best health plan ever. 0 copay, 0 deductible, 0 premium. Looking at my medical expenses, you can see why that's huge. That's about $500/mo, even more once I age out of my dad's insurance in a few months. My wife volunteered to take care of finances to take that off my plate. So far she's been just keeping track of that stuff on her own, but she's going to start using Mint next month now that she knows some of what it can do. The biggest challenge for me is going to be not breathing down her neck and micromanaging her. I've got a bad habit of being overly controlling, and that's a terrible thing when I need to be trusting her to take care of things. We've talked about it and she's going to try working once the winter is over and her energy comes back. The treatments mean she's not getting suicidal, but her energy is still drained by the SAD. That will be great if it works out. She was already thinking about it. The way I framed it to her is that we can survive on my pay, but her working would let us save up money to afford things like the wedding trip.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 19:53
|
|
|
I am pretty sure I told her this, but I'm going to make sure she knows that I won't be pulling in as high a percentage of my gross pay next year. This year I have the education credit and seven months of unemployment, so I've filed exempt since June. Next year I will actually be paying income tax. Reply != Edit
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2016 22:01
|
|
|
Planet Fitness would kick me out in 15 minutes for setting off the lunk alarm, even if they had the equipment I needed. 24 hour fitness is an option, but the problem really is just me being lazy. I can work out a little bit at home, but I never do. I could go to the employee gym on lunch, but I don't. I really just need to stop being lazy. Short of a door mounted pullup bar, I have what I need. I'd heard that Uber really barely pays anything after all of the associated costs and having to handle your own taxes as a contractor. Is that not true? I'm not sure it would be a good idea anyway, just from a relationship perspective. I'll think about it. E: As in, actually thinking about it. Looking into what would be involved with it, pay, that sort of thing. If we broke our lease and got a roommate for the cheapest place we could find, we might be able to cut $200/mo off, more realistically $100. Our 1 bedroom is barely more expensive than 2/3 the cost of the cheaper two bedrooms around here. And it's the same size in terms of square feet. We are going to be moving soon, though. At least hopefully we will. Unfortunately, after estimating how much I'm going to be paying in taxes next year due to no longer being exempt, and how much paying for my wife's health insurance, car insurance, and phone will cost starting in March, we probably will have to be paying the same amount and getting a roommate if/when we move. But if we don't move somewhere that pays more and I get stuck with the same pay when March hits, we won't be able to make ends meet at all. It really sucks that in the US, you need to have been working consistently over the past 10 years to qualify for disability. Because if you've been disabled for a while, too bad, you don't qualify. We're hoping that if she can't work in the spring, we can get the exemption of her having had her disability (depression) since before she was expected to work. She's been dealing with it since junior high school, and her doctor should still have records of that. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Dec 3, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2016 18:42
|
|
|
Like finally getting off my rear end and selling all of those retro Infocom games, suits, dress shoes, guitar, and amp. Obviously that's not long term, but it's what I should have done months ago. I also need to go to the plasma clinic a few times. I was going to go when money was super tight earlier in the year, but two of my medications needed letters from my doctor to be accepted. I know it seems like a poor drug addict/college student (same thing, amirite  ) thing to do, but the first four visits add up to $270, and that's nothing to sneeze at. I probably won't after that.We probably aren't going to the wedding after all, which sucks but is also a huge load off my mind (and bank account). Hopefully she'll do some sort of celebration in the States for the probably 90% of American friends that won't/can't pay $3-4,000 to go to a different continent for a wedding. Maybe this way we can save up from our fun money to go visit another friend in Seattle around that same time. Round trip tickets are $100, and we can crash at the friend's place, so that will keep costs down. That will be something we budget for, though. We're not just going to say gently caress it and destroy 2 months of savings. I've got a second round job interview on Monday for a job making $27/hr. It won't end up netting much more once I take out income taxes and my wife's health insurance, but it would still be a lot better than what my current job would be after taxes and insurance. Contracts suck, job hunting sucks, but it occurred to me that they do have one distinct advantage. It gives me an excuse to hop rapidly between companies and positions. At the beginning of this year I was making $17. Now I'm making $22, and if I got this job it would be an increase of 66% in one year. Next year I really need to land a position with good insurance for the two of us, but for now I can keep jumping up the ladder on contracts. Not that I would refuse a full time direct hire position with actual benefits.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2016 20:38
|
|
|
Wickerman posted:I'm surprised nobody brought this up. We have posters in here discussing risk related to driving for Uber (personal insurance for commercial purposes) when the OP is smuggling coke in his rear end for cash.  gently caress you, you're not my real dad!I made a joke about it somewhere, I'm not sure if their reference was joking too. I got an offer for a new job. I'm in negotiations for that one now, and I might have an in for an interview somewhere that would pay better and be a permanent position. This could be huge. It's in the Boulder area, so it would have a higher cost of living, but our medical costs and debt would be the same so we could end up ahead still. I'll post an update when everything is finalized.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 25, 2016 20:09
|
|
|
Doubleposting because I can. The first week of January, I got laid off from a position making $17 an hour.  I'll start on either the 12th or 16th, depending on whether they want me starting on a Thursday. I haven't heard back on another job I applied for that I thought I would be a good fit for, but I'm probably not getting an interview because I heard that they were looking to decide really soon. I don't know what my post-tax take home is going to be, is there any calculator updated for 2017 based on the exemptions rather than the specific tax burden?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2016 16:33
|
|
|
Thanks. Looks like I should be a couple hundred up per month after tax. Depending on the health insurance they offer I might be able to cover that with that since it's pre-tax. Individual health insurance is post-tax, right? E: actually, factoring in everything else, that's going to end up with us behind where we are, but it would be even worse next year where I currently am.  I really hope she can work this spring. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Dec 29, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2016 20:05
|
|
|
I'm currently exempt from income tax due to finishing college this year, the credit is going to outweigh my tax burden. Next year I have to start paying tax again. I'm also eventually going to have to move, and this is in a more expensive area. The tax would put me in at least as bad of a position where I am now too. Hopefully in 6 months I'll have a permanent position at the place, their health insurance is fantastic. I currently don't need insurance, so I'm going to have to weigh getting it through the employer for both vs getting it through the marketplace for her.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2016 23:31
|
|
|
Last year I had no tax burden because of the education credit, this year I expect it to be the same. Especially since I spent half the year unemployed. I'm on my dad's insurance still. This new place has what seems like a pretty good plan for $160/mo for my wife and I.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2016 02:29
|
|
|
Thanks. I'm definitely going to land somewhere in the 60s if I get converted at this job. Maybe higher, I know how much they are paying the contracting company for me and they could be paying me $80k, another $30k for my benefits, and still come out even. They would even have the ability to have me doing overtime without paying out the rear end. I'm doing some research already on the prevailing wage for this sort of thing, and building my case when it comes to negotiations. There were some details about the job I didn't know about when I was submitted for the job at my current wage. I'll have a very uncommon skill set once this contract is done, so if I keep impressing them and learn this stuff inside and out I should be able to do well. In a few years I should be well over $75k. I'm not going to plan my current finances on how much I expect to be making then, though. I've read enough of the BWM thread to know better than that. I love my new job, and I've been getting a lot of praise from my manager, director, and the guy on my team who has been training me. Also, Veskit, they are starting doing mindfulness meditation sessions at the beginning of the day. I went to one, and hopefully will remember to go to more. This is the best I have felt about a job that I can remember, which has done amazing things for my general outlook day to day. It's even good enough that I don't mind driving over an hour each way. They also don't mind if I show up a bit late since they know how traffic is. I cannot overstate how not having to stress about being late impacts my mood. Less happy news, I have been avoiding this thread for a while because: A) E/N mixing with BFC, and despite the thread tag I'm not willing to really get into E/N. B) I'm extremely ashamed of having wasted all of that windfall. Some of it was on things we needed (car repairs, doctor bills, personal debts, new phones because both of ours were non-functional). But a lot of it was just not watching our spending, there's no excuse for that part. Back to more happy news, I'm now in control of monitoring finances. It's more stress, but honestly it probably won't be much more than I have been stressing hoping my wife is taking care of it. I've got a better head for numbers and figuring out how stuff like Mint works. We'll be going to a VITA tax prep place Saturday to get our taxes done. I should have a decent return this year. That windfall had over $800 in taxes withheld because I filled the tax form on it in a way that must have confused the accounts payable person. It's amazing how organized drug cartels are these days. I also had tax withheld from my unemployment at the beginning of the year. We'll use the return to help move down closer to my job. I know it would be great to use it to pay down debt, but I'm currently putting 600 miles per week on my car. That's a lot of gas and a lot of wear on the car. Once we're down there, hopefully my wife will be able to start working. She's already feeling better due to the longer and sunnier days. It just doesn't make sense for her to get a job before we're down there. What she's qualified for would largely get eaten up by gas and wear and tear, since it likely wouldn't be an 8-5.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2017 03:39
|
|
|
Doubleposting because it's my thread and I can do what I want with it. I finally got my taxes done, and I'm getting a $2300 tax return thanks to the American Opportunity Credit and some withholding from before I realized I wouldn't have any tax burden what with being unemployed for half the year. Now I just have to not loving waste it like I did with the windfall. Looking for apartments now. That should be enough to pay the deposit, moving expenses, and lease breaking fee, at least. I'm really not looking forward to moving our heavy-rear end bulky-rear end desks and dressers. But I am looking forward to not putting 120 miles a day on my car, and having at least another 45 minutes with my wife every evening. For the C portion of BFC, I'm going to reach out to a college friend working as a software engineer. He lives down in the Denver area, so I'm going to ask if he knows any meetup groups or something similar. Getting to know some people in the area is probably a good idea both for being social and networking.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2017 22:52
|
|
|
I'm currently doing ERP support and starting SQL reporting this month. As recently as September I was doing T1 helldesk, so it's a pretty huge step. I went to school for Computer Science, so I'm really excited to get into writing code. I'm always too exhausted when employed, but when I'm not working I code 3-4 hours per day for fun. I'm currently really happy at my job, but I'll look into that company once my contract is a couple months from ending, in case I don't get converted. The lease breaking fee is $375. I don't think our landlady is going to try to screw us, she's really nice aside from being a Trump supporter. When I lost my job she didn't charge us a late fee despite rent being about a week late and a pretty stiff fee being in the lease. I'll definitely get paperwork in order before we go, though.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2017 22:56
|
|
|
I just drafted a specific paycheck by paycheck plan for March. I have been behind a little bit since the end of the holidays thanks to BWM and no paid holidays. If I can stick to this budget, though, I can be back to paying the first half of the month's bills with the last paycheck of the previous month, which is important to me. I'll also have a pretty significant doctor's bill (~$500) paid off. This will be the first month where keeping track of finances is my responsibility. I think the key will be saying how much we have left in the budget whenever my wife wants to spend money on fun. When she sees how quickly everything adds up she'll hopefully finally get it. Also the same thing with groceries, but I'm generally the one doing the shopping since she has never learned to comparison shop. This will take discipline, but I'm no longer afraid to look at my bank or CC, and paying bills feels good now. I can do it. We've been eating a ton of rice, which should help with the grocery budget. I've also got a curry that lasts most of a week for almost all of my meals and a few for my wife that costs about $12. And there's a place near here that always has super cheap produce, so I don't get scurvy.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2017 20:12
|
|
|
My $2300 tax refund came in today. I'm putting together an upgrade list for my gaming PC, and I'm going to order a Palmetto State Armory AR-15 kit and an electronic locking safe tonight. I'm just loving with you, thread. That's a deposit, lease breaking fee, moving expenses, and maybe half a month's rent. We're not having much luck finding anywhere we like, but we don't urgently need to move. If it comes down to it, we could even wait until I've negotiated a new, higher conversion salary. I'd like to find somewhere we can afford at my current rate, though. That would let us put a few hundred more into savings per month.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2017 20:17
|
|
|
Nah, my wife is the artist, so she's going to do the wolf shirt themed art herself.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2017 21:42
|
|
|
I get about 27mpg on my commute. Every three work days I spend around $30. We've been using my wife's car on the weekends, since her car is a combination of low mileage, good fuel economy, and worth almost nothing so mileage based depreciation basically doesn't exist. The new commute could be anywhere from 15-30 minutes with where I've been looking. They would be 20 miles tops each way, too. We're definitely moving as soon as practical. The drive isn't awful, so we can be patient for something we like. I have accepted the lease breaking fee. If somehow by July we weren't moved yet I might be able to negotiate relocation too. Not counting on that, though.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2017 22:16
|
|
|
I might be counting my chickens before they hatch here, but I'm really excited. We've gone over budget on some things, particularly due to online orders coming in late and having to buy more expensive brick and mortar as a stopgap. We've also spent slightly over our $200 grocery budget with a week to go, but in past months we were hitting around $400. We've got maybe half a week of food left, too. And several weeks of one of my wife's favorite snacks, and a couple weeks worth of meat. This is also going to be the first month in a long time where we have put away money into savings. Roughly 200, 250 if we don'thave surprise crap in the next 3 weeks. And this is finally catching up on bills so we have it ahead of time rather than spending 2/3 of a paycheck on rent and being a few days late on some bills. My wife's art commission business also exploded this month. $120-200 a week for the first 3 weeks. Guess it's time to figure out self-employment taxes. Not that she'll be making that much every month. It's really been increasing a lot, though. She's doubled her prices within the past year and is getting more orders than ever. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Mar 24, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2017 17:07
|
|
|
So I kind of abandoned the thread out of shame. We've been bad again and are down to $600 in savings. Not nearly as bad as in the past, but still BWM. Good news: I got the permanent position for $65,000 per year. There's also a year end bonus every year and fantastic benefits. Health insurance with $1,000 deductible for $160/mo because I'm not obese or a smoker. FSA, meaning that some of my huge medical expenses can be pre-tax. 6% 401k match. Tuition reimbursement. Bad news: I need to get a new car soon because mine is going to need major work within a few months. Good news: They are going to reimburse a shitload of money as long as I get a green car. This works for used cars too. Estimate: I'll be making $3900 per month including FSA. Priorities: Move (2400mi/mo is expensive) Save up a month's cash expenses Pay off CC Split between saving and paying off debt. Not sure whether I'll try to snowball the small high interest student loans first or find the highest interest, snowballing might encourage me more. My wife is seeing a disability lawyer, but who knows how that will turn out. E: September is coming up. How do I take advantage of the extra paycheck for the month, given that I don't have a month's pay set aside to live off of yet? Should I split more off of each paycheck from September's third to October's last into savings? I'm sorry, this question is hard for me to articulate. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jul 6, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2017 22:56
|
|
|
Yeah, basically the pattern I just figured out today is that one bad night we give up and go over our fun budget by getting dinner, and then it just spirals out of control until the next paycheck. It turns out I have bipolar too, which explains but doesn't excuse some of my trouble with self control. E/N I've been drinking too much and that obviously impacts inhibitions. Now that my job situation is stable I have cut back to one beer / rye rocks I need to work out a new budget. It will be just for August, I'm going to have to start paying for medical insurance in September, but I'll also be able to start dumping money in an FSA. At this point medical costs have ballooned to about $500 per month. The FSA should really help there. If I can keep costs relatively similar we could be saving $5-600 a month even after higher doctor bills than expected originally. September I'll also have insurance that covers mental health care. The main place we go over aside from restaurants is groceries. I'm trying to decide whether or not to bump it up to $250 or $300 in the new budget. My wife does the whole gluten free thing. I thought it was dumb and just psychosomatic at first, but then there were some very scary symptoms as soon as she broke down and had a gluten binge. If that's psychosomatic I'm not going to fight it. I'm wondering if upping the budget would qualify as tracking spending rather than budgeting. I've been using recipes from Budget Bytes to try to save money on groceries. The biggest expenses are probably snacks at this point. I'll post an updated budget when I have it done. I'll try to put it together tonight. She wants me to keep track of all of the budgets and just tell her if there's money in the budget. I hate that, but I'll do it. I need to make it a mantra that if we keep overspending we'll never get out of this lovely depressing basement. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Jul 21, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
legendof posted:One of my roommates is gluten free (celiac). It is only expensive if you insist on eating the fancy gluten free versions of things she liked that contain gluten (especially snacks! Just pick ones that are already gluten free, don't go buying the gluten free oreos or whatever, they're really not worth it anyway). If you just accept that most of your meals will center around rice now it won't be so pricey. That's actually a good point about rice. We've been meaning to do more Asian food, I'll pick up a wok from the Asian grocery store by work and make a stirfry tonight. We've also been using a lot of potatoes, since they're another good carb that's gluten free. I'll try bumping it up to 275 next month, see how that goes.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2017 21:21
|
|
|
I'm not sure what you consider "medium", but my 12-14" frying pan doesn't allow for the stir part of stir frying. It's more like gingerly try to make sure everything ends up getting time at the bottom of the frying pan while minimizing stuff spilling over. And that's not even doing fried rice or a noodle based stir fry. I didn't get the budget done tonight, hopefully tomorrow. Tonight was a bad night. I didn't order food though, so that's a win. I'm trying to plan out how to prioritize what savings goes where. First, I need to save up to move. Then it's between saving up a cash reserve, donating to the 401k (6% match), saving for a car, and paying off my CC. You could argue that moving first rather than getting in on the 6% match is BWM, but it's GWL. An extra 1/2 - 1 hour with my wife a day, less days with terrible traffic. I'm thinking I should first get one month's cash expenses (rent, CC bill, student loans, collections, hospital loan) in reserve. After that put 6% in the 401k, then pay off the CC. I'm not sure how to compare the math, though. 6% into the 401k is pre-tax and a 100% return immediately, but the CC has a 20% APR and money put into paying it off is also going into an effective emergency (like actual emergency, not floating expenses) fund. That process will take a while, so I'm not going to bother trying to plan past that. A car will probably be involved after that since I expect that will take over a year. It also depends on how big the year end bonus is. The company is doing extremely well and my director loves me so much he hugged me when I passed my second drug test (first was diluted), so hopefully it's good. I know not to rely on that at all though. At least for the first time in two years I'm not wondering where I'll be in 6 months.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2017 05:56
|
|
|
That's a fair point. My largest pan is still bigger than my electric "burner", do frying pans come in a wok-like shape with a larger base to get full contact with the burners? I'll probably look at some stores tomorrow to see if I can find something that will give me the room to actually stir fry. My understanding was that woks are generally made fairly light so they can distribute their heat all around the pan. I was using this recipe exactly https://www.budgetbytes.com/2016/08/beef-cabbage-stir-fry/ My mother used to cook with a wok all the time with our electric stove, but I can see how the small contact point causes a problem when you don't have a gas range. She lived in the rural Philippines in the 80s, so I imagine all of the stuff she learned was with an open flame.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2017 07:01
|
|
|
Double posting with my budget for August. Like I think I said, September I'll be making more (missed two days last week which will mean less on August 4th), but I'll also be paying health/vision/dental premiums. I have to estimate income since this will be my first two paychecks after conversion and a ~$11,000 raise. Income (estimated): $3700 Bills: Rent: $530 CC Payment: $70 Netflix: $5 Student Loans: $150 Hospital Loan: $45 Collections Payment: $153 State Farm: $80 Comcast: $74 Essentials: Gas: $300 Groceries: $275 Pet Supplies: $75 E-Cig supplies: $75 Prescriptions: $20 Dr: $550 Other Non-Covered Medical: $150 Mechanic: $100 Flexible: Vet: $50 Fun: $200 Household Supplies: $25 Haircut: $20 Savings: $750 I'm planning on paying half of September's rent, AmEx, and Netflix with the paycheck on September 1st. Then half of October's on each of September's 2nd and 3rd paychecks. I'm trying to spread out the budgeted expenses over the last paycheck of August and all three of September so I can save a normal amount for a month plus the $1750-$1800 post-tax post-FSA post-insurance third paycheck. IF (big if considering my past behavior) I can stick with it through August and September that should be 2/3 to 3/4 of the cost of moving. Does that make sense as far as how to handle a month with three paychecks? I've never stuck to trying to budget long enough to figure out how to do this. I'm planning on putting about $200 a paycheck in my FSA come September, assuming the maximum for the year isn't prorated. I'm wondering if I should do $250, though. I'll easily be able to use up any extra by the cutoff next year, and will obviously be putting in less per paycheck next year when I have to spread it across 26 paychecks rather than 9. I'm going to have my car inspected when I take it in for an oil change to see if there's anything major that needs doing, which is why it's $100 rather than $50 or so. I also really still need to sell that random crap. Along with September's savings I could probably hit what I need to move. I just never get anything done on the weekends.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2017 19:32
|
|
|
I don't disagree with you in general, but I would argue that if I can fit cheap kitchen implements into the budget, it can be a great purchase. If I get stuff that makes cooking less of a pain in the rear end, I'm more likely to cook rather than saying gently caress it and ordering. A wok would make quick stir frys and fried rice easier and less messy. I spent something like (I don't have Mint in front of me) $500 on restaurants this month, that's just terrible and needs to stop. A single night where I cook instead of ordering / going out means spending maybe $30 less. Especially when rice is such a cheap staple. I feel like one of the keys to being better with money is finding my depression related habits and finding ways to counter them. I'll wait on buying it until next paycheck where I have money in the budget. I also really didn't want to get a new car, but before you made me step back and justify my purchase I thought I absolutely needed to do so within the next couple months. I even put that as a negative in my post announcing getting the permanent position. I think you post in Inspect Your Gadgets, so I just want to say that new phone is paid for by my company, I would just have to buy a case and screen protector. My phone's screen is shattered and is developing dead spots. It's cheaper to get a new phone than buying a replacement screen. I totally agree that I tend to go from "I need to save money" to "I'm going to buy a thing" within an hour pretty often. E: I'm still considering whether a wok actually is useful enough to be worth it, I'm just having to type during the five minute breaks I get today. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jul 24, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2017 17:30
|
|
|
Yeah, the issue is that the biggest pan I have still causes poo poo to spill all over. Not a complete deal breaker, but a pain in the rear end to clean. I can see if there is a bigger frying pan with higher sides too. It might have to do that the stir fry I did the most had cabbage, so it had to cook down a lot. I actually was considering the cost of ingredients, but not the cost of my time. It's not like I'm giving up work time in exchange for cooking. OrderUp gets expensive fast. That's a good set of questions before buying something, though. I'll do some comparison shopping at goodwill / the Asian grocery store / Ross / TJ Maxx to see if I can find one for a decent price. I must have been thinking of someone else in Inspect Your Gadgets.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2017 20:30
|
|
|
I'm getting really confused. My mother always made enough fried rice and Chicken Adobo for four in a wok without doing a bunch of batches. I'll try the pasta/soup pot idea Saturday, because gently caress cooking real meals on a weeknight. That definitely wouldn't have spilling. E: I can't find one that looks like hers. I'm wondering if it's maybe a regional style. That might make a difference. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jul 25, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2017 05:20
|
|
|
Yeah, I like Kyoon Griffey Junior's series of questions. I'm probably not buying a wok since I can just use my pasta pot (or whatever the real term is). We've decided that while we're going to move, it probably won't be as close as we were thinking. For E/N reasons moving an hour+ away wouldn't be a good idea, but we could move 20-30 minutes closer to work and that would be much better. Cheaper, too. I could cut an easy $100-300 off rent compared to Denver/Boulder, and cut about 40% off my gas and mileage compared to where I am now. Maybe more depending on what part of the city I'm in. Depending on how things work out, we might move again in a year or two, or we might not. I know moving half-rear end seems like a bad idea, but it would mean moving a month or so sooner, and even our psychiatrist says that living in a basement is probably terrible for both of us. There are much nicer places down there that only cost about $200 more than here, which means $100 more at most after deducting gas, and way ahead in terms of wear on the car. The car that at this rate I can probably drive for a few more years. I was literally going to cry when I had to get rid of it. There's a job open at my company and I'm trying to get someone to recommend for it. I'd get a $1000 bonus, which would be a month+ of savings.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2017 22:03
|
|
|
Ah, sorry. I was unclear. I live 60 miles from work. The area near work is more expensive. The area midway is cheaper than the area near work. Cheaper than this area in general too. We're in a cheap place for the town, but we found out why. This is ballparking since there are so many ads up and the area close to work has so many different price ranges. Currently: 800 sqft 1br 1ba basement, $1095/mo including utilities. Commute: 60mi 1h15m each way. Near work: 800-1,000 sqft 2br 1ba townhomes/duplexes, ~$1300 - $1600 including utilities (more likely closer to 1600, and choices are limited). Commute: ~15mi 15-30min each way. Midway: 900-1200 sqft 2br 1 or 2ba townhomes/duplexes/houses, $1300-1400 (a lot more options towards 1300) including utilities. Commute: ~35 miles, 30-40min each way. Before someone suggests an apartment: our dog is getting old and has to go out several times a night. A yard is really important. Obviously there are higher priced ones, but I'm picking the lower range. We need at least another room because as it is we can never get any space from each other. Again, BWM compared to a 600-800sqft 1br, GWMental health. 800 square feet would be fine, it's just that the layout here is terrible so it feels smaller.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2017 01:59
|
|
|
That one's a mix of BFC and E/N, explaining it would tip farther into the E/N than I'm willing to go. When you've got a couple with severe sadbrains the two overlap a lot. I know it sounds like a copout. The most I'll say is I'm not exaggerating when I say being able to get some space is a need. If it was a one bedroom that somehow made the living room separated from the bedroom that would be a different story, but I can't even imagine how that would be laid out unless the bedroom was off of the walled-off kitchen. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that even growing up in a neighborhood of weird early 20th century houses.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2017 05:04
|
|
|
Yeah, the problem is that we basically have two rooms. One bedroom, then one terribly shaped living room / kitchen that the bathroom comes off of. If the living room allowed privacy it would be a different story.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2017 23:18
|
|
|
That's fair. I've never seen a 1br that has a good layout like that, but I guess that's partially because I've always had to take what I could get at the bottom of the price range. I'll look for 1brs that seem like they might have a decent layout from the pictures. I'll still look at cheap 2brs too since there can be price overlap. E: please don't take this as me saying I now have license to spend all the money I want, but I realized that I am making almost exactly (-$40) twice what I was making this time last year, except now I have benefits and am not in a lovely work environment that I hated. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jul 28, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2017 00:24
|
|
|
Oh, absolutely. It's just something to remember whenever I feel like a failure that's never going to get anywhere, and guess how often that is ...  It also means I now have the ability to make a big swing quickly, it's all on me at this point. Making $33,000 per year I would have been able to put away $75-100 per month at most. Now if I do it right I can move, save a month's cash expenses, and pay off my CC within a year. We'll see.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2017 05:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 23:06 |
|
|
Hello, thread I keep abandoning! Good news! I've found some new medications that really help and have nearly completely eliminated my anxiety. Now looking at Mint excites me rather than making me nauseous. You can pretty much ignore the "terrified of the future" part of this thread title now. My wife still isn't working, but she has been busting her rear end doing and selling her art. We try not to think about the fact that she's probably making about $3-5 per hour, but overall she's making more money than she was at her last job, and it's something that she loves rather than something that makes her miserable. We actually need to think about self-employment tax now. Before October she hadn't made more than $400 this year. We've started looking into maybe some work from home set your own hours part time graphic design positions, but nothing has really happened on that front. Probably also related to being happy looking at Mint is that my wife and I have saved over $1,000 in the past month and a half. That's the most we've ever saved without a gift / tax return. Our savings is now sitting above $1,200. We've still definitely been overspending on food, but not nearly as bad as we have in the past. My wife is super-protective of the savings account now because she's been working so hard to build it up. It's been kind of excessive at points (she wanted to be late on rent rather than pull from savings to make up the gap when we had to dip into rent money last month), but it's really helped keep savings off limits. For the record we did pull from savings, and as soon as our paycheck hit we put it back with an extra $100 as "interest". Now that I'm actually looking at Mint on a daily basis, I will make a post with my updated budget and Mint summary for November by the 7th of December. And that's a  .It won't be perfect since I started mid-month. My main grocery store is also my pharmacy, gas station, and where I get my cat food and household supplies. It's all automatically categorized as groceries in Mint except for the stuff I manually recategorized. Next month I'll be trying to keep track of it better and try to remember to split off the cat food / dish detergent / whatever from the receipts if I don't throw them away like I have as a habit for years. I need to finalize the new budget since I didn't actually put a solid budget together since I got my raise. There's not nearly as much room for savings as I hoped because holy gently caress do we spend a lot on doctors, but there's some, and we put literally everything my wife makes into savings. I'll also be getting an extra $100 per paycheck starting in January even without a potential crappy inflation-matching raise since only $100 will be taken out for the FSA rather than $225 every paycheck. The FSA will also give us about 2.5-3 months of medical costs covered, so we'll really need to prove ourselves in January-March (since we completely failed to do so in September). What would you all like to see in the Mint summary post? the Trends pie graph? Individual budget lines? Over the year+ this thread has been open I haven't put an actual month summary out, so I'm not sure what all should be on there.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2017 18:19
|
|