Financial Goals 2017: Budget Harder

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Financial Goals 2017: Budget Harder

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Got kind of lazy about posting in the 2016 thread but I still stuck with my goals and hit quite a few (but not all) of them. Definitely better off financially now than I was this time last year. New standing/goals-

--Pay off 3k of student loan (6k remaining; $250/mo payments)
--~~Pay off 5k of auto loan (13k remaining; $/mo payments)~~Stay up-to-date on car payments.
--Save up remaining $2500 owed to parents for wedding in 2015 (saved up first 2.5k as 2016 goal, parents only asked for 1.5k back for now so the other 1k from that in still in savings)
--Hit $750/mo minimum in side work. Put at least $500 OR half of each side check into savings, whichever is greater.
--Merge 401ks from previous job and current job. Stretch: do it before I get a new job :v:

--Start using some sort of actual budgeting program/software for my wife and I (recs welcome!)
--Maintain an "entertainment" budget of $100/month (video games, tabletop gaming stuff, movies, shows, etc. Kind of a nebulous idea, and that initial number may be too high)

Non-monetary goals:
--Continue lifting twice a week.
--Run another road race after not doing one in 2016.
--~~Read~~Finish one new book each month (because I started this with a book I was reading in 2016, but still had a few hundred pages to go)
--Get rid of something every day. Can be one of the many unnecessary papers from my desk, or some of the clothes I've been meaning to donate for months, or maybe I will finally sell off my old video game collection ( :lol:

). Basically, I gave away a huge chunk of my Magic: the Gathering collection towards the end of last year and want to keep the de-clutter train rolling.

A lot of this hinges on my wife's job status- she's a postdoc now but did a ton of interviews this fall and is supposed to hear back soon about positions starting late spring/summer. If she gets the job she wants I'll have divert some money into moving/settling in a new city, after which point she will be making double what she makes now. If that pans out like we're hoping it will I should be able to pick up a higher-paying job as well, at which point I can go hard at this debt. She claims she'll even help me with my student loans! We'll see.

E: Taking some advice from elsewhere in the forum and focusing on the smaller debt first. There's an outside chance I may sell my car this year and recoup the rest of the payment but those student loans will haunt me until they've actually been paid off.

C-Euro fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Jan 16, 2017

# ¿ Dec 19, 2016 06:23

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 02:58

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Rick Rickshaw posted:

Current Figures:
Age: 28
Retirement Funds: $114k
House Equity: $41k
Non-Mortgage Debt: $0
Net Worth: $155k

2017 Goals:
1. Increase net worth to 210k. (This seems insane, but this is just what my spreadsheet tells me should happen. Depends on 10% stock market gain).
2. Max RRSP & TFSA again
3. Start brewing beer again, allowing for cheap fun with friends
4. Maybe buy one more bike @ -$1000~ and sell two others (+$400). Ideally this will be my only non-regular purchase aside from gifts and some home reno supplies...nothing major, hopefully.
5. Gain 10 pounds.

How the gently caress are you and I the same age but you have 50x the retirement savings :negative:

Tell me your secrets

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 00:20

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Rick Rickshaw posted:

Haha. Well, I pretty much have no life by traditional standards. I spend money on cycling and my dog, and that's about it.

I have three roommates, which leaves me paying only about $100 for housing. Factoring in the principal payment and I'm a net positive on housing. Most people can't handle roommates, but my situation is actually pretty sweet. I've had 6 different roommates (one mainstay - childhood friend) over the past few years, and all have been very chill. I also have my own decently-sized room that is two floors away from the other three bedrooms, with en-suite bath.

Aside from killing it on housing, I sold my car two years ago in favour of biking and eBiking. And finally I meal-prep, so I never eat out except for social occasions. My upright freezer probably has about 25 meals in it right now ready to go.

Most people could in no way handle my lifestyle. But it's not that hard for me. Since you mentioned it, looking at that number is pretty shocking even to me. It seems like the number grew huge all of a sudden, but it's been about three years since I sunk all of my money into my house purchase and then started saving.

$100/mo for housing is nuts, do you live in the Yukon or something? I also haven't had a roommate since my sophomore year of college that isn't my wife because I'm an rear end in a top hat. I'd definitely meal prep if I could though, I love to make a big slow cooker's worth of stuff and pick away at it over a week but my wife hates eating the same thing too many days in a row. Maybe if she complains enough I will start asking her to pitch in more on our grocery bills each month :v:

# ¿ Jan 7, 2017 10:26

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

It's not quite February 1st but gently caress it, I'm not spending any more money in January.

--Pay off 3k of student loan (6k remaining; $250/mo payments) Hit this no problem.
--Stay up-to-date on car payments (13k remaining; $323/mo minimum payments). Same.
--Save up remaining $2500 owed to parents for wedding in 2015 On pace.
--Hit $750/mo minimum in side work. Put at least $500 OR half of each side check into savings, whichever is greater. $560 which is low, but I missed a week while I was in training at work. On the bright side, I can think I afford to just throw the entire check into savings without feeling anything.
--Merge 401ks from previous job and current job. Stretch: do it before I get a new job lol
--Start using some sort of actual budgeting program/software for my wife and I (recs welcome!) lol
--Maintain an "entertainment" budget of $100/month (video games, tabletop gaming stuff, movies, shows, etc. Kind of a nebulous idea, and that initial number may be too high) 76.36/100 or 91.36/100, depending on if you count e-books from Humble Bundle or not

Non-monetary goals:
--Continue lifting twice a week. Doing it.
--Run another road race after not doing one in 2016. Know what race I want to do, registration doesn't open for a couple months. Started meeting up with my running buddy and he knows another local who wants to join us!
--Finish one new book each month. James Clavell's Shogun which I technically started last year but still had like 300 pages to read in January. Really good book, there's a lot going on but it manages to stay exciting and fun to follow. Goes fast too, which is good because it's 1000+ pages. Only complaint is that there's too much to tie up at the end so the last 20% or so feels really rushed and kind of ends in media res, if that makes sense. Still, strong recommendation.
--Get rid of something every day. Been throwing a lot of paper away off my desk. Maybe not doing it every day but definitely tossing more than one thing a day on average.

C-Euro fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Feb 3, 2017

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 05:31

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

My student loans are currently split across two accounts- one at ~$1500 with a 5.6% interest rate (subsidized), and one at ~$4k with a 6.8% rate (not subsidized). I'm paying more than the minimum each month and have the option to allocate the excess payment into these accounts in any ratio I define. Would it be better to get rid of the smaller loan ASAP or should I whittle down the larger loan sooner due to the higher interest?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2017 04:47

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

Quick February update-

--Pay off 3k of student loan (6k remaining; $250/mo payments) On track.
--Stay up-to-date on car payments (13k remaining; $323/mo minimum payments). Same.
--Save up remaining $2500 owed to parents for wedding in 2015 Same.
--Hit $750/mo minimum in side work. Put at least $500 OR half of each side check into savings, whichever is greater. $830 off a pretty low number of actual assignments, which is an improvement (and I missed a week for on-site work training).
--Merge 401ks from previous job and current job. Stretch: do it before I get a new job lol
--Start using some sort of actual budgeting program/software for my wife and I (recs welcome!) lol
--Maintain an "entertainment" budget of $100/month (video games, tabletop gaming stuff, movies, shows, etc. Kind of a nebulous idea, and that initial number may be too high) 97.08/100. Thanks Humble Freedom Bundle for making me drop $30 on games, hopefully this means there's less I want to buy in Steam sales this year.

Non-monetary goals:
--Continue lifting twice a week. Doing it, and I even added a weekly yoga class.
--Run a road race. 10-mile race happening May 7th, training on track. Running buddy is moving away later this month
--Finish one new book each month. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I don't know if I actually liked it? Definitely want to re-visit it sometime in the future, this was my first Vonnegut so maybe I just don't "get" his style.
--Get rid of something every day. Fell off this a little bit this month, but scored a ton of empty cardboard boxes from a local shop so the Great Closet Purge of 2017 is hopefully going to happen soon.

In other financial news, my wife has a job offer to get out of the postdoc loop, with a much better offer (higher pay and no need to move out of the city) hopefully coming by this time next week from a different set of interviews. Taxes were filed before March for the second year in a row, with the return going towards cosmetic fixes for my car and travel costs for a conference/honeymoon in June :buddy:

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 05:23

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

TouchyMcFeely posted:

Noooooo don't! Don't do it don't do it don't do it!

Find new job then walk out. The last thing you want to do (unless you have an alternative plan) is to quit before you have something else arranged.

I'm in the same boat and it's really friggin' hard to not throw up the double middle fingers and holler, "later bitches!"

P much this. I have a side freelancing job that I'm using to pay off loans/build up savings that's really pissed me off lately, but I'm sticking with it (and even spending my Saturday night doing it right now!) because I want to pay the gently caress out of this debt. Don't give up!

# ¿ Mar 12, 2017 03:49

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 02:58

C-Euro: Mar 20, 2010; Soiled Meat

March update: Payments still on schedule, non-monetary goals still on track (read John Grisham's The Summons, it was alright but didn't hook me as quickly as I think it was supposed to). But more importantly my wife has accepted a new job beginning in June that pay approximately double what her current postdoc does :toot:

And we're moving to a new place in May and she's agreed to pay the difference in rent :toot:

And she wants to start saving up for a down payment on our own place in a couple years :shepface:

(we need a :sheptoot:)

# ¿ Mar 29, 2017 23:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Financial Goals 2017: Budget Harder