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Hello, BFC. At some point, pissing in zaurg's well started to feel hypocritical because i spend too much of my own money on daily fantasy sports, which are nearly as degenerate and stupid as shitcoins. So i decided to make my own thread and get yelled at by Goons because it really is hard as poo poo to make even the most obvious changes. So, that said, here's my budget. Income: ~$2900/mo (roughly, I get paid hourly and sometimes work OT so it fluctuates but that's on the conservative side) CC Debt: $6000 at the moment, but I haven't made my payment yet this month. Checking: $2800. My goal is to have my credit card debt completely wiped out by the end of the year. Here's the goals montly CC Payoff: $500 Transfer to Emergency Fund: $200 And the Expenses Rent/Utilities: $950 Other Monthly Charges currently in place: Cable (hulu live): $44 Gym: $10 Spotify Subscription: $10 Netflix: $8 Wrestling: $30 (jeez) Patreon: $10 World of Warcraft: $15 So that's $1777 out the door before I even start to consciously make choices about spending, and my bad decisions don't stop there: Last month's expenses: Gaming: 447.77 Fantasy Sports: 182.21 Fast food: 172.93 Credit Card Interest: 94.89 Escape Room: 70 Groceries: 240.67 Trivia: 73.72 Transportation (mostly Uber, I work from home and don't drive much): 58.74 Restaurants: 237.86 Gifts/Charity: 55 Automatic Savings: 30 So my total spent last month was 3440.79. I want to bring that down to ideally 2800, so I have a little bit of breathing room on my 2900 salary. Last month I made enough money playing stupid trivia apps to balance everything, but literally 0 of that is guaranteed and I'd rather use most of any excess to pay down the cc. Here's my plan to cut $650 out of my spending for next month: Gaming -- Down to $100. I feel confident I can make this cut because a huge portion of last month's was spent on magic cards which I now have and can play with instead of buying more. Fantasy Sports-- This is my big weakness. It's easier this month because there's no football or baseball but I definitely have an unhealthy need to make a roster and watch the dice roll. I have a $100 monthly limit in place on Draftkings but this leads to me just depositing on other sites. I'll figure out specific guidelines to adhere to, but I think I can bring this down to $100. Fast Food- I successfully brought myself down to 3x a week in February, going for no more than 10 times total in March. Setting the limit here at $150. CC Interest-- This should be down to $70 or less after I make my February payment. Escape Room-- No change here. The SO and I do one of these every month together and it's a blast. Groceries-- I don't anticipate being able to make a change here until I've tightened the belt everywhere else. Trivia-- Lots of this is yearly subscriptions i paid for in February (LearnedLeague dues, Busuu subscription to work on my other languages, The Economist subscription). I'll earmark $30 here to go out to a trivia night at a bar or two. Transporation-- I had to buy gas this month, and I certainly won't need to next month. Putting this at $40 to pay for a couple ubers and ideally roll it forward to April/May when I do have to buy gas. Restaurants-- I love Restaurants, man. I'll move this down to $200 and I know that's still outrageous but I need to be realistic about my stupid wants. Gifts/Charity: Taking this down to $25 for the month. no birthdays in March! Automatic Savings -- This is in the budget because $30 goes from BofA Checking to Savings each month, I'll see if I can get it changed without incurring a fee. Leaving it in for now. Wrestling Streams-- I'm currently paying for WWE, NJPW, and Highspots. I probably need one of those at most. I'll figure out before next month which one it is and cancel the others. World of Warcraft-- My next billing date is 3/25. If I'm going to spend enough time playing to make it worth $15 a month, I can farm enough gold to pay for the subscription. Cancelled. So..
Transfer to Emergency Fund: $200 Rent/Utilities: $950 Cable (hulu live): $44 Gym: $10 Spotify Subscription: $10 Netflix: $8 Wrestling: $10 Patreon: $10 Gaming: $100 Fantasy Sports: $100 Fast Food: $150 CC Interest: $70 Escape Room: $70 Groceries: $240 Trivia: $30 Transportation: $40 Restaurants: $200 Gifts/Charity: $25 Auto Savings: $30 Input? Thoughts? Am I being totally unrealistic? Are you a better person than me because I can't budget?* Let me know! *Yes, but it's unrelated
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Feb 27, 2018 07:19
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DFS is so loving stupid and you're stupid for playing unless you're using algorithms.
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Feb 27, 2018 13:47
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I think you can sign up for gamboling anonymous and the gambol site will block your access. It is state by state because the USA is a loving mess. Your state probably has a site you can put your name in and you will be blocked from the gambol. Do this. $500 a month can get you a much healthier hobby. You are addicted no limit will work. You have to just stop doing it and find something else to replace it. Exercise is a common replacement. Edit: If the list is not available do a credit card chargeback on the gambol site and they will ban your rear end for life. Elephanthead fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 14:16
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Am I allowed to post here? Not pissing. I just rarely get the chance to look at someone else's situation and offer feedback. Maybe it would help me too. Do you think you have a gambling addiction? If so are you considering professional therapy? Why not just play free Yahoo fantasy leagues? One of the most fun fantasy football leagues I'm in is free, just bragging rights, with a couple friends and couple randos on Yahoo league, usually a 10 man league. Join us next year! I put in a total of $150/year into fantasy football (4 leagues; $70, $60, $20, free) and that is so time consuming it more than satisfies my interest in FF. By the end of the season I'm done and need a nice long break. You're budgeting $767/month or ~26% of your monthly income for entertainment/restaurants/bullshit. Looks like that would be a great improvement from past months. If you can actually hit that for March, maybe try lowering it more?
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Feb 27, 2018 14:45
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zaurg posted:Am I allowed to post here? Not pissing. I just rarely get the chance to look at someone else's situation and offer feedback. Maybe it would help me too. Bottom line is definitely KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:DFS is so loving stupid and you're stupid for playing unless you're using algorithms.
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Feb 27, 2018 15:43
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Spokes, Thanks to this thread I remembered I played around with FanDuel a few years ago. I logged in this moring and checked transaction history. I deposited $25 in 2015 and played around with a few dumb DFS entries. I have a $9.54 account balance remaining. I just withdrew it to my Paypal. "Success! We've deducted funds from your FanDuel account and you should receive payment via Paypal within the next 48 hours. A confirmation email is already on its way. To make any changes please contact customer support."
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Feb 27, 2018 16:20
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Spokes posted:Hello, BFC. DFS is much worse than shitcoins unless you are a professional. The edge of the people doing this for a living over you is insanely large. Since their edge is the same for every additional individual game, they have every reason to enter as many contests as possible; putting one unresearched entry into a multi-entry pool in DFS might well be the lowest ROI publicly available in gambling. Single entry pools are marginally better but you're still dead money in the long run. Stick to free leagues or just do an office draft with friends, because DFS was the pre-crypto frontier of the newly jobless US poker pro back in 2011 and frankly they've now had seven years to learn how to murder you. obvious beyond words disclaimer: this is not an endorsement for zaurg to buy more shitcoins
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Feb 27, 2018 19:41
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Adar posted:DFS is much worse than shitcoins unless you are a professional. The edge of the people doing this for a living over you is insanely large. Since their edge is the same for every additional individual game, they have every reason to enter as many contests as possible; putting one unresearched entry into a multi-entry pool in DFS might well be the lowest ROI publicly available in gambling. Single entry pools are marginally better but you're still dead money in the long run. Stick to free leagues or just do an office draft with friends, because DFS was the pre-crypto frontier of the newly jobless US poker pro back in 2011 and frankly they've now had seven years to learn how to murder you. Also don't forget the guys running the DFS database use it to build entries.
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Feb 27, 2018 19:47
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Sorry for being dumb, but don't see it spelled out anywhere in the OP. What is DFS?
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Feb 27, 2018 20:18
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Daily Fantasy Sports, ie betting.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:24
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It's not even gambling with a house/algo edge like that.
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Feb 28, 2018 16:07
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Combine your Gaming/Fantasy Sports/Trivia categories and budget $200 a month for them. Every time you want to put money into FanDuel or whatever is money you can't use on Steam games. If you did this last month you would have had another $500/mo to pay down your $6000 credit cards to $5500 and be done with them sooner. Same with Restaurants/Fast Food - if you love restaurants so much go out on date night or whatever but know that every time you stuff your face full of Maccy D's that's money you can't spend going somewhere nice. Same with entertainment - Subscriptions all look cheap when they're $8/$10 throws but they add up So Rent/Utilities: $950 CC Payoff: $680 Groceries: $240 Transfer to Emergency Fund: $200 Restaurants/Fast Food: $200 Gaming/Fantasy Sports/Trivia $200 Subscriptions (hulu/spotify/netflix/wrestling/patreon): $82 [For now, I do note you've binned a lot of other subs this month] CC Interest: $70 [as this goes down CC payoff should go up] Escape Room: $70 Transportation: $40 Gifts/Charity: $25 Auto Savings: $30 Gym: $10 [I purposely didn't include this with subscriptions because gym is better for you than all of the other poo poo combined and this is a good price] Total: $2797 If you can sacrifice enough to dump $1000 of credit card debt every month you'll be free by September and be in a good position [~$700 a month] with good habits to start saving seriously
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Mar 1, 2018 16:30
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Doccykins posted:Combine your Gaming/Fantasy Sports/Trivia categories and budget $200 a month for them. Every time you want to put money into FanDuel or whatever is money you can't use on Steam games. If you did this last month you would have had another $500/mo to pay down your $6000 credit cards to $5500 and be done with them sooner. Same with Restaurants/Fast Food - if you love restaurants so much go out on date night or whatever but know that every time you stuff your face full of Maccy D's that's money you can't spend going somewhere nice. Same with entertainment - Subscriptions all look cheap when they're $8/$10 throws but they add up Definitely do this OP. Also, if Steam purchases are a constant drain for you, go into Steam settings, uncheck "Notify me about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases" and set your favorite window to "Library". That way when you start up Steam you won't be bombarded with ads for games you don't need and will instead be faced with your (likely overflowing) library of games you already own.
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Mar 1, 2018 16:48
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Can't you wait two months and buy new games for 20% of the original cost? I guess online games though that doesn't work cause you will be so far behind.
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Mar 1, 2018 16:56
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Pretty sure the Gaming category is for collectibles/TCGs, not video games. He mentioned cutting down buying Magic cards in the OP.
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Mar 1, 2018 19:45
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Doccykins posted:Combine your Gaming/Fantasy Sports/Trivia categories and budget $200 a month for them. Every time you want to put money into FanDuel or whatever is money you can't use on Steam games. If you did this last month you would have had another $500/mo to pay down your $6000 credit cards to $5500 and be done with them sooner. Same with Restaurants/Fast Food - if you love restaurants so much go out on date night or whatever but know that every time you stuff your face full of Maccy D's that's money you can't spend going somewhere nice. Same with entertainment - Subscriptions all look cheap when they're $8/$10 throws but they add up Alright, the gaming stuff is all combined now at 200-- I was concerned about not being specific enough and ending up with a huge "general/uncategorized" amount that led to extra spending but I think those are related enough that I can throw them together. I've combined restaurants and fast food at 275, which is 75 less than my original plan. I don't know if $200 for all out-of-house food purchase is attainable at this point, and I don't want to go over and feel like it's useless and I should just quit. Once i've done a month at 275 I'll see about lowering it some more. I'm not sure if this is being realistic or just digging my heels in and refusing to change as much as I need to, so I'm open to input. Let me load everything into ynab and I'll see what we're looking at for the remaining 30 and a half days in march.
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Mar 1, 2018 20:59
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Gaming, fast food, and DFS are the obvious areas to slim down. Fast food 3 times a week is a lot. Hell, 10 times a month is a lot, especially for someone who works from home. I don't know what to say about gaming and DFS except don't spend so much. Do you have any kind of retirement accounts? You make more than I do, and while I'm not near where I want to be, I could lose my job and probably be fine for at least 6 months without adding any debt. You can do this bro.
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Mar 2, 2018 13:33
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BAE OF PIGS posted:Do you have any kind of retirement accounts? I do, I've always maxed out employer contributions (currently 50% up to 6% so I'm doing that, in my early 20s I was better about it and did 15% just to get the ball rolling). I've got around $45k in 401k currently (age 30). I know at some point I should look into an IRA but I've never been close to maxing 401k yearly so I haven't really looked into it. quote:You make more than I do, and while I'm not near where I want to be, I could lose my job and probably be fine for at least 6 months without adding any debt. Yeah, this is the dream. What we really want to do is take a month off and go to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics but we're nowhere near that financially. The number I'm looking at is 10k in the emergency fund and then if we have enough money saved on top of that to make the trip it's a go but otherwise we'll just have to wait for 2024. we'll see!
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Mar 2, 2018 17:10
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Your retirement account is looking pretty good at least, so nice work! You've got a nice bit more than I do. I got started a little late on that front.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:15
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Spokes posted:Fast Food- I successfully brought myself down to 3x a week in February, going for no more than 10 times total in March. Setting the limit here at $150. You're spending $600 a month on food for (I'm assuming) one person. That's a lot of money. What kind of fast food costs $15 a trip? Try to learn to enjoy cooking with your SO and do that instead of going to restaurants occasionally.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:39
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Inept posted:You're spending $600 a month on food for (I'm assuming) one person. That's a lot of money. What kind of fast food costs $15 a trip? That's a good point. If I'm actually going only 10 times there's no way i'd be spending that much. and no matter how i slice it, $20 a day on food is insane. Maybe $200 for all non-grocery food is doable after all, which would still be $440 which is quite high. Okay, I'll move another 75 out of splurge food and see where that puts me.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:55
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For what it's worth, $240/mo would be okay(on the high end, but not insane if that involves lots of healthy stuff and not garbage) for groceries alone, but it's a lot when you're also eating out all the time(it may not feel like 'all the time' to you, but people tend to surround themselves with people with similar spending habits, which makes it easier for them to justify bad habits). Is a lot of your 'food' money actually going to drinks? Booze is a quick way to make a meal out way more expensive than it has to be. Non-alcoholic drinks are cheaper, but they're still not free. You don't have to go teetotaler or only ever order water, but be aware of how much money you're spending on drinks. Do you eat your leftovers? The average restaurant meal is 2-3 times as much food as one person needs, so if you're not taking part of it home with you & you eat out a ton, you're either wasting a lot of food(and money by extension) or slowly going  . And leftovers are part of what makes cooking at home so economical - you put in the labor to make a big batch of something, and then you have leftovers you can just pop in the microwave over the next couple days or freeze and take out when you're too lazy to cook.
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Mar 2, 2018 23:18
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Today's updates: Spent an hour fighting with mlb.tv about a subscription i cancelled last month but it looks like that should be completely cancelled and refunded, i'll revisit that in a week if I don't see the money come back in. Broke the seal on convenience food for the month because of Chipotle's BOGO offer, which provided dinner yesterday and today's lunch for $8.62. @Haifish I'm not much of an alcohol drinker but i do love diet soda ("it's bad for you!" i know.). got a box of instant crystal light from costco and am going to try at least partially replacing soda with flavored water. Found out that my work reimburses $25 in gym membership if i go at least 12 times during the month, so i've got a realistic goal to shoot for there. nothing else interesting happening, just trying to stumble and bumble my way through the weekend without spending money
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Mar 4, 2018 01:52
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Alright, I've got a mountain to climb here -- Two trips coming up this year, as well as some yearly expenses I need to start looking at now. One of the trips is non-negotiable (wedding) and the other... well... i really want to go and am willing to sacrifice for June - big Magic tournament in Las Vegas - $100 in gas, $400 in hotel (possibly, might be able to crash on someone's floor for half that), another $500 on tournament entry, cards, and general degenerate vegas activity is about an even $1000 -- I can probably make a good deal back afterward reselling cards but don't want to bank on that. August- Wedding - flights and hotel (and tux rental, if that's a thing, and food) will probably end up totalling about $1200. Also in june my yearly dashlane and YNAB subscriptions renew for a total of $80 and my car insurance is due for the next 3 months, $200ish. I should be able to get the price of car insurance way down before then since I drive ~2000 miles a year now. Might need to find a new insurer, we'll see. Bottom line is that I don't want to compromise my cc payoff or my emergency fund for these, and I don't have the money in my budget to create a new savings goal. So at this point I'm going to work a lot harder to earn (and track) my extra sources of income (freelance writing, trivia apps) if they don't total more than $1280 by June 1, I won't be going to vegas. through June and July I should be able to earn another $1200 for the August trip. Is this fair? Like, is it alright for me to go on a fun vacation while i have credit card debt? it doesn't interfere with the original payoff plan, so it seems okay, but I don't know if i'm violating some financial rule (besides the common sense "yes you should pay off your credit card dumbass")
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Mar 5, 2018 21:39
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 how many shitcoins did zaurg give you to put us up to this
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Mar 5, 2018 22:57
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It looks like your biggest problem is justifying the "just this once!" expenses. You say your big MtG purchase was reasonable because you won't have to spend anymore for a while, but you're also going to spend $1,000 on a MtG vacation. And I know how that game works - when the next set rotates in you're going to be dropping another couple hundred bucks, no doubt. "Willing to sacrifice" is meaningless and worthless. You need to actually make the sacrifice if you want your expenses to be lower than your income. Your budget doesn't even remotely match your actual expenses because your budget doesn't include the Just This Once expenses that seem to be perpetual. You are in Debt. You owe more money than you have, and it's getting worse and not better. Your debt is an emergency - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/18/news-flash-your-debt-is-an-emergency/ You also likely have some addiction problems with the fantasy gambling (and MtG probably preys on that a bit too... who doesn't like the thrill of peeling a pack open and seeing that Jace the Mind Sculptor!!!) but I am not qualified to comment on that. You might consider seeking help if your debt is a result of (and will keep worsening due to) your gambling habits you can't quit.
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Mar 5, 2018 23:33
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What sports do you play? Like physically.
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Mar 5, 2018 23:51
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:It looks like your biggest problem is justifying the "just this once!" expenses. You say your big MtG purchase was reasonable because you won't have to spend anymore for a while, but you're also going to spend $1,000 on a MtG vacation. If the answer is "no, goddamnit, you DO need to earn extra money AND put it straight toward your debt or you are literally going to loving die" then that's one thing, and that may be the case. there's a reason i'm asking for help, after all, i'm at least ostensibly open to input. I am a week into actual hardcore budgeting and this is all new to me. Veskit posted:What sports do you play? Like physically. I jog occasionally, that's it. Doccykins posted:
probably 90% of the reason i made this topic is because zaurg's felt like looking in a 10-year mirror, so we are more similar than i'd like
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Mar 6, 2018 00:08
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Look you're never going to quit these money sinking facets of competition without getting out that competitive energy so why don't you channel that energy into something that isn't a loving fortune and also will make you healthier. What area of the country do you live in?
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Mar 6, 2018 00:19
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Veskit posted:Look you're never going to quit these money sinking facets of competition without getting out that competitive energy so why don't you channel that energy into something that isn't a loving fortune and also will make you healthier. Southern California
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Mar 6, 2018 00:21
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Spokes posted:Southern California You can play, WHHHHHHHHATEEEEEVERRRRRRRRRR sport you want all year round you lucky son of a bitch why aren't you playing one?
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Mar 6, 2018 00:23
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Your monthly budget of $2,800 doesn't account for the two upcoming vacations and your annual auto insurance, which (all combined and annualized) increase your monthly expenses by $250. Your expenses are $3,050 and your income is $2,900, so Spokes posted:"if i can stick to my budget it looks like you can't! Spokes posted:I am a week into actual hardcore budgeting and this is all new to me. Doing hardcore budgeting is the same as sitting on a stationary bike and programming in an intense workout. Don't think you've accomplished anything until you're actually pedaling. I know your plan is to work extra to make up for it, but that's not really how budgets work, and any unexpected money really should going toward your Debt Emergency.
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Mar 6, 2018 00:25
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Veskit posted:You can play, what sports do overweight 30-year olds even play? i guess i can figure this out on my own, alright GoGoGadgetChris posted:I know your plan is to work extra to make up for it, but that's not really how budgets work, and any unexpected money really should going toward your Debt Emergency. Alright, this is not what I wanted to hear, but you're right. okay. if I can wipe out *all* my debt by June 1, I'll go, if I can't, I'll stay home. I think I can make enough extra money to do it, and I know that sounds ludicrously overconfident and stupid, but is that reasonable enough to shoot for?
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Mar 6, 2018 00:48
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What sport would you want to play just say the sports you want to play
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Mar 6, 2018 00:49
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Spokes posted:
Dude, it's an awesome and good goal to shoot for! "Make enough money to wipe out debt, pay for a vacation, and book that vacation" is a good goal. My only concern is that you'd pay off the debt and reward yourself with new debt from the vacation. You don't have to play a sport if you don't want to. That guy is being weird.
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Mar 6, 2018 00:54
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Basketball, i guess? I did rock climbing for a while and enjoyed it but I'm not sure how to get back into it without paying way too much money to a gym every month
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Mar 6, 2018 00:54
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Spokes posted:Basketball, i guess? Why not find a local rec league for basketball or see if your local y has pick ups set up so you can do something you can get better at
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Mar 6, 2018 01:21
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Spokes posted:I jog occasionally, that's it.  Look at that, you can be just like me. Take up jogging consistently, then buy some shitcoins, and in 10 years only have 20k saved for retirement and only about 1/3 of your expected net worth.
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Mar 6, 2018 04:13
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zaurg posted:
  NO GODDAMN SHITCOINS!! GoGoGadgetChris posted:Dude, it's an awesome and good goal to shoot for! "Make enough money to wipe out debt, pay for a vacation, and book that vacation" is a good goal. GoGoGadgetChris posted:You don't have to play a sport if you don't want to. That guy is being weird.
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Mar 6, 2018 05:59
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zaurg posted:
I bought about 0.01 btc once but deposited it on a poker site and now it’s gone! like sands through the hourglass. On the magic front, I’ve determined that I need to earn $4000 extra while sticking to my budget between now and June 1, which is $45 a day. That’ll pay off all my debt and give me enough for the trip. It’s a lot of extra work, but I think it’s doable. There’s no shortage of freelance writing work available, and I can get a decent amount of overtime at my day job. Trivia app profits are volatile, but should average $5-10 a day. I know, I know. “Hey dumbass why weren’t you this motivated before”. Because, honestly, I didn’t feel like my debt was an emergency and now I do. We’ll see, I guess
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Mar 6, 2018 06:05
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