|
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
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2018 07:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:47 |
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2018 15:43
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 1, 2018 20:59
|
|
|
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!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2018 17:10
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 2, 2018 18:55
|
|
|
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
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2018 01:52
|
|
|
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")
|
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2018 21:39
|
|
|
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
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2018 00:08
|
|
how many shitcoins did zaurg give you to put us up to this
|
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
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2018 00:21
|
|
|
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?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2018 00:48
|
|
|
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
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2018 00:54
|
|
|
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
|
|
#
¿
Mar 6, 2018 06:05
|
|
|
Eating out Expenses for March so far: 3/2/18: Chipotle 8.62 3/4/18: Mexican Food 4.50 That's it! This isn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I know I'm just getting started. I still haven't abandoned my stupid plan to pay off all my debt in the next three months. I've set what I think are attainable writing goals that'll meet that and re-evaluate every weekend after the big Sunday trivia games and how much OT i've worked the previous week. There's certainly the chance that I'll burn out or won't be able to find writing work, but the challenge is a powerful motivator (and i want to go play caaaaaaaaaaaaaaards)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2018 05:29
|
|
|
EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Stop playing daily fantasy sports. Okay, so, quick question -- If the money i'm spending on DFS were being spent on, i don't know, League of Legends or whatever, would that be better? I love the whole process of researching lineups and looking at matchups and all that poo poo, and it's probably the hobby i have the most fun with. I know the perception (rightfully so) is that it's much more like putting lottery tickets in my budget, and even i know that sounds dumb as hell. I'm treating the money as gone as soon as I deposit it--I don't have any delusions that i can "beat the system" My budget for trivia/dfs/all other types of gaming is $200/mo. If i were to completely quit DFS and spend $200 on computer games and magic cards, would that be better? (and if so, why) I guess my question is, is playing DFS bad because it's inherently a stupid thing to do no matter the amount, or is it just that i should be focusing every dollar on my debt and this is just seems to be the most egregious expense? I appreciate everybody's patience in the thread so far and i know that i come across as a complete blockhead. thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2018 16:50
|
|
|
Doccykins posted:If you know you are not able to beat the system why are you playing with real money and not funbucks? I go hog wild on the SAS Eliminator site and have a bragging rights fantasy league during football season and it doesn't cost me a penny FOMO, mostly -- same reason zaurg won't sell his goddamn shitcoins EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Also, looking at your actual budget that you posted of last month's spending on the very first page of this thread, your sum total of goony entertainment expenditures (gaming, DFS, WoW, Netflix, is $879.93). this is exactly what i was looking for as an answer, thank you
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2018 17:17
|
|
|
A little over a third into the month, here's where I am (I took $40 out of gaming and put it toward the credit card because $200 is a stupid amount and $160 is at least slightly less stupid.) Takeaways: I could buy more groceries and going out to lovely restaurants isn't worth it. The good news (well, besides me sticking to a budget) is that the extra-money plan is going well and i'm working my rear end off. Work OT has been available and i've been very fortunate with trivia apps/freelance writing. I'm optimistic about being debt-free with enough money available for a vacation by June, but if I miss my target i'll stay home and pout while I think about how much better my situation is than it was in February Thank you, everyone who has come into this topic to call me a dumbass so far and for everyone who will continue to do so.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2018 06:13
|
|
|
Veskit posted:You spend a lot on TV and music. Is the patreon necessary? You can do the Spotify family plan and save a decent chunk of change. There's a thread in the goonmart. What is in the Hulu plan that needs 44 dollars a month spent? The Patreon is a friend's business he's trying to get off the ground, but $9 from me a month isn't going to break him. Reduced this to $1. Made a post in the goonmart thread about Spotify, I had no idea about the family plan thing. Definitely doing this. Hulu is the live subscription with no commercials, it's basically a complete cable/DVR replacement. Between me and the SO this gets probably 4 hours of use a day. I'm open to possibly replacing it but it's excellent.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2018 15:43
|
|
|
Veskit posted:What would you miss by just having the 10 dollar plan and a friend or family cable password? There's lots of stuff that isn't available on regular hulu that we want to DVR and it doesn't seem like there's a way to do that without having actual cable. Open to suggestions though
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2018 16:13
|
|
|
Veskit posted:How much is your internet? If you bundle it wouldn't it be cheaper at this point? Internet is $40ish with spectrum, going to look at bundle options tomorrow. Not optimistic but it’s worth a shot I’ve got that money mustache post from earlier in the thread about “your debt is an emergency!!1” saved as my home page and I re-read it every time I open chrome. I feel stupid knowing I should have panicked months ago and realize how lucky I am to be in a stable place now where I can rebuild before poo poo inevitably breaks. I’ve sold all my video game cosmetics and stuff (csgo skins mostly) and am looking at games/collectibles I have sitting around that I haven’t touched in years.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2018 08:03
|
|
|
EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:I don't presume to know what the APR on your credit card is, but if we guess 18% you're losing $1,080 a year on interest payments which means about $90 a month. I don't understand exactly what you mean by this. I'm reading it like it's a bad thing that i'm planning to "overpay" my debt based on my budget, but i doubt that's the intended meaning. is it just that erratically pouring money into fixing this isn't long-term sustainable, as opposed to having a structured amount in mind every month?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2018 14:52
|
|
|
DesolateRampage posted:First part of this is good advice, second portion I would disagree with and think advice like that is why this sub tends to lose people (or scare them off) frequently. Yeah, I largely took it to mean "hey, eat at home a lot". It's a trip going from the occasional snack at home to cooking at least every other day. I've started making excellent quesadillas, so that's exciting. In previous months when i tried to budget i'd get 2-3 days behind when entering things into ynab and then it wouldn't match my bank account and i'd get frustrated and give up, but this month it's taking a lot less maintenance so i'm still on top of it. really excited to compare my end of month totals to last month. Not-spending money is a lot less painful than I thought it would be. I've started dreaming about early retirement now that i know it's not impossible to save 30%+ of my take-home (or in this case, put it toward credit cards because i was a dipshit in my late 20s).
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2018 20:07
|
|
|
gently caress it, you folks are (still) right about DFS and it doesn't matter how much more i earn if i can't kick the habits that got me here.    i'm playing the free march madness bracket thing on fanduel so i didn't self-exclude there; i will as soon as ncaa is over I'm getting myself out of this hole even if it's miserable, and i'm sure it won't be nearly as bad as i think it will. I'll find a new hobby or just go to the gym more or something. thanks for all the effort so far, i'm still dreaming of being debt free with vacation money earned on top by June. i've been working like crazy!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2018 07:17
|
|
|
Higgy posted:This thread is boring if you’re just gonna take advice and make positive steps that better your financial situation Yeah, it would make me very happy to wrap this up in 4 pages and take my garbage posting to the investment threads. Thanks for the encouragement so far, everybody! edit because i don't feel like bumping this without something interesting, later fanduel. thanks texas south  also i earned 19 cents in interest on my emergency fund. Ally Savings is an okay place to keep that, right? the concept is new to me! Spokes fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Mar 18, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2018 17:56
|
|
|
 This is wild, y'all. I know the month isn't over and it's only the first month, but we are movin' on up!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2018 06:58
|
|
|
Alright, March is coming to a close. This is my first time making a Sankey diagram/chart/whatever, so it's not pretty but it's a good visualization Bad news first -- I did go over my eating out budget (by the price of half a dinner at a lovely sushi place we inexplicably decided to try). I have another 50 earmarked for a grocery trip to close out the month, won't be eating out again. Everything else stayed under budget successfully, and I saved in quite a few areas (gaming poo poo, mostly). I managed to go ~1200 less spending than regular income, which bodes well for future months when I can't expect to earn as much extra as I did this month. And then the good news -- Between overtime at work, freelance writing, and trivia ("working" one way or another ~14 hours a day), I managed to earn nearly an extra $1600. I can't rely on this every month, but I used ~$400 of it to take care of things for the August trip so I don't have to worry about it in 3 months and poured the additional $1150 into CC Payoff . I still have car insurance, building a reasonable emergency fund, and some yearly subscriptions to handle in June before I can think about just taking a vacation where I'm going to blow some money for fun (plus the rest of my CC debt, ofc). I miss DFS but I've been just playing free contests and it's not really much worse. I'll get my up to date account totals figured out in the morning/afternoon, I'm up way too late (was writing, not F5ing crypto spreadsheets, I promise) Re: Emergency Fund -- I'm still getting it off the ground but Ally Savings is a good place for that, right? Open to other suggestions. e: "escape room" does not need to be its own discrete category, i know. breaking it out for now but i'll roll it into gaming stuff in a future month Spokes fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Mar 25, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2018 12:39
|
|
|
Missed the final question on HQ trivia tonight, so this topic almost had a very abrupt end. Win some, lose some. Back to the grind. edit: for people who don’t spend their lives playing lovely trivia, the prize was $21k Spokes fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Mar 29, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2018 04:35
|
|
|
it's April Budget time!  This is what I'm looking to do. I spent a bit of extra money at the end of last month because I'm dumb and counted my chickens or whatever. Not going to convince myself I've stuck to my April budget until 12:01 on May 1. Anyhow, going into April with a credit card balance of $1694.05, which I'll be able to cut in half this month assuming no additional income, and a little luck will get me back to zero. I hopped on a Spotify family, so that's paid for the next year. Anything particularly egregious in there, any tips, whatever? Veskit posted:How often do you go out and do trivia anyway? Didn't go at all in March, used to go about twice a month. The rise of free mobile apps with prizes has been really good for both making extra money and not spending it to go out and scratch the trivia itch
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2018 20:34
|
|
|
IllegallySober posted:If Spotify is something you intend to keep long-term, maybe budget the renewal fee over the course of the next 12 months so you have the money ready to go when the bill is due? That's a good idea. Once i've got my credit card paid off i'm going to include the yearly stuff in the month-by-month. still need to tally everything up but i've been laser-focused on the debt right now.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2018 20:51
|
|
|
Alright, for the first time since... 2013, I think, I have more money in my Checking account than balance on my Credit Card. I don't necessarily think I'll get to zero this month but I'll at least be able to pay off my balance due at the end of the month and stop paying interest. Continuing to plug away!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2018 17:44
|
|
|
I miscalculated taxes from last year and thought I had enough withheld from my day job to cover trivia winnings, but I was about $1400 short, so that was a real kick in the pants (i've adjusted withholding for what I expect in 2018). Just filed that, so the chances of vegas have drastically gone down, especially since it seems like the trivia app bubble is bursting. More time for freelance writing, i suppose. We went to a baseball game with cheap tickets and didn't buy food inside, so it worked out to be much cheaper than expected. Budget is just fine for April so far. No news is good news! ("no, you had a $1400 expense you could have predicted if you weren't bad at math, that is not No News"). I know. I'm seeing where I can trim the budget this month and in subsequent ones. Not giving up on Vegas yet (Vegas means debt free with 2k in the emergency fund and $1k saved on top of that for the trip by June 1. I understand that that's not the 100% ideal path because my efund should be *much* higher but it's a goal i feel is attainable and if I get there i'll be briefly rewarding myself on my way to bulking the efund up to 9-12 months and then upping my 401k contribution). The most recent UFC card getting shuffled around ten times during fight week was a lot less stressful not having money on it!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2018 02:16
|
|
|
In 2016-2017 about 15,000 total, mostly from a now-defunct site called Riddleverse and a go90 show called “The Runner”. This year has been equally crazy with the meteoric rise of HQ and copycat apps (The Rock is giving away 300k tomorrow!). I have a real legitimate game show appearance upcoming as well, but I have to be super tight-lipped on that until it airs and I haven’t mentioned it because a one-time windfall (if I win anything) isn’t going to mean much if I can’t stick to a budget.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2018 18:19
|
|
|
Well, it looks like the smartphone trivia app bubble is bursting, meaning things not looking so good about Vegas. That's okay, there's always more OT at work or writing. I'll see what I can do but I'm open to not going if that's what it takes. I made 58 cents in interest on my nascent emergency fund this month, which is better than a sharp stick in the eye. Ritznit posted:Wow, you some trivia monster? Sorry if it's too rubbernecky but if you want I'd be curious about the gameshow experience once it has aired. Yeah, I'll post about it in here, if only in order to figure out how my budget changes if at all after winning a prize (or not). Should be in the next month or so I don't really have anything interesting to post today (or this week). Spent a little too much eating out early in the month but still well within grocery and impulse food budget so it'll be almost completely making food at home over the back half of april, which is just fine. Just checking in and letting everyone know I didn't relapse into putting my life savings on the rockets to win the championship or whatever (though... +165 is a hell of a price). Thanks for reading, everyone! See you May 1
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2018 10:31
|
|
|
Who has two thumbs and isn't paying any credit card interest this month? This guy! My issues aren't completely solved since the tax bill is going to make riding this streak into May a real tough ask, but I think I can do it if I stick to my budget and keep earning extra where I can. I'm up to $600 in the emergency fund, which I want to be at $2k before I start looking at Vegas. I realized I can cut a lot of costs with the trip, now that it's a real thing I might do without wanting to cripple my budget. There's a spot in an airb&b waiting for me if i make a decision by June 5 or so, which will drop the hotel bill to ~$150. I don't need to actually buy the deck I'm playing, I can rent it and enter the event for about $100. Still budgeting $100 for gas and $100 for food, I'm looking at $450 for the trip instead of $1000. I'll budget another $100 to throw at gambling because i'm realistic and know i'll want to play a little but I don't anticipate actually spending much time in the casino. I do have $300ish due in June as well (annual payments), so I need to be $2850 in the black by June 5 to feel comfortable about going. I think I'm more likely than not to stay home at this point, but if I get enough overtime at work and get lucky in trivia it's definitely a real possibility. Veskit posted:I mean, can you explain how you'd budget in your gambling winnings ahead of time? Like from a practical standpoint. Not sure exactly what you mean -- My goals right now (as in, where income will be going in the near future) are: Pay off credit card -- Almost there! Emergency fund/short-term savings to $20,000 -- I don't have high hopes about advancing much further in my current job and I'll probably be looking for a new one in the next 2-3 years. The last time I was actively job hunting was right out of college in 2009 so I have no idea what sort of time frame it'll take to get me a new one a decade later. I'd like to have that money to fall back on in the event that it takes longer than expected (though obviously i'd like to find a new one while i'm still employed). Increase 401k contribution -- I'm maxing out the employer match already but I'd like to keep pumping this up while I still have ~30 years for it to compound before retirement. ??? other things? -- having money is a mystery to me I'll have an April post-mortem on may 1 if i don't post again before then (spoilers: real good, so far! except the tax thing. So, actually, real bad!)
|
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2018 18:01
|
|
|
Raldikuk posted:You said you still have to pay down your balance but aren't paying interest. Does this mean you only have the statement balance outstanding? Do you plan to pay that off by the due date? Yeah, my statement ended on 4/5 (or so) with a due date of 5/2. I paid on 4/20 everything i owed when that statement closed, meaning my entire credit card balance as of 4/5. My purchases between april 5 and now, as well as the money i owe for taxes filed in that window, are on the statement that closes on 5/5, with a due date of 6/2. I am optimistic that I'll be able to pay my *entire*, current, balance on or before 6/2. It is entirely possible that i'm misunderstanding this because i haven't paid a balance completely off in years, but i'm pretty sure i'm avoiding interest this month. Please tell me if i'm doing something wrong because it is very, very possible.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2018 23:11
|
|
|
Raldikuk posted:You have to get back into the grace period for that to occur. So you probably will have some interest calculated for the next statement; assuming that you didn't pay the statement balance in full on 4/2; if you did then this should be the first interest free cycle. In either case that's great work! Ah, that makes sense. Thank you! I’ll leave an interest payment in my May budget then and if it turns out I use it elsewhere I will
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2018 07:34
|
|
|
Edgar Allan Pwned posted:Where/how do you do freelance writing? How much do you make from it? Also do you know other people who make money from trivia/trivia apps? For some reason I never thought people could make money from trivia apps. For freelance writing I've just been writing for BlogMutt recently. They pay $10 or so for 500 words if the client accepts it and i'm managing about a 70% acceptance rate, so it's a decent way to get paid without having to take up too much time. Re: trivia apps, for sure. HQTrivia has given away ~$1.3 million since October, and nobody's won more than $25k, so there's a looooot of people making a decent amount of extra cash from it. and it's free! Also there's lots of imitator apps that drive the total winnings available for "phone trivia" up as well. (Cash Show gives out ~$10k a day, Swagbucks has their own trivia game for a couple thousand a day, etc. There's probably 10-15 active apps with daily games total. some are focused specifically on things like sports). quote:Also you seem to have pretty decent self control so kudos for that *i think as i get older i'll realize that extremely early retirement in my case is probably a silly fantasy and i don't know what i'd do all day without work, but having financial flexibility will be nice.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2018 22:17
|
|
|
Fate conspires against me again to prevent a 100% successful budget month—but I mean, there’s always going to be something and I’m controlling my fun spending. This month it’s the dog needing oral surgery or some such poo poo. Out of pocket $400 but we’ll get $300 back from insurance and that’ll meet doggo’s deductible for the year. Aside from that and the taxes, everything has gone well for April. I’ll do a full breakdown on May 1 since doing it before month end in March led to me fudging a little bit before I started tracking April. Pets! BWM, but much easier than getting another human to love you!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2018 01:35
|
|
|
Well, gently caress. Here's my lovely graph, first.  I thought April was going well. I went over in a few categories but my discretionary was under 500 total and my total spending EVERYWHERE was under 2000. I make $2800 in take-home salary and ended up with $523 extra on top of that from overtime and trivia. Paying 2017's taxes (and the dog thing, but i should get $300 back on that next month) just wrecked me. I've adjusted my withholding at work to cover my trivia winnings so far this year, i'll bump it up further if i continue to run hot. I definitely don't want to repeat this experience next year. Credit Card Debt: ~$2300 Savings Accounts: ~$1000 Checking Account: ~$250 Net Worth: $-1058.23 Here's May's budget (c/p'd from ynab, sorry if it's a mess): May 2018 Credit Card $880.00 May 2018 Interest & Fees $40.00 May 2018 Emergency Fund Xfer $200.00 May 2018 Rent/Mortgage $950.00 May 2018 Groceries $200.00 May 2018 Transportation $40.00 May 2018 Auto-Transfer $30.00 May 2018 Crunch Fitness $9.95 May 2018 Wrestling $0.00 May 2018 Patreon $5.00 May 2018 Spotify $0.00 May 2018 Hulu $43.99 May 2018 Netflix $7.99 May 2018 gifts/charity $25.00 May 2018 Escape Room $70.00 May 2018 Impulse Food $200.00 May 2018 Gaming/DFS/Trivia $100.00 Overall, I can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was a question away from winning ~$6250 on HQ sunday night, so there's always the trivia deus ex machina out there to get me to vegas but I'm not counting on it. punch in, punch out, don't eat out, stay away from gambling, see everybody next month. If all goes as planned I'll spend $1080 less than i earn and be all of $22 in the black. So I just need to earn... $2828 extra between now ($2528 if the dog insurance comes through) and June 5 to go to vegas. Unlikely! Best to just focus on continuing good habits. Happy May Day, everybody.
|
|
#
¿
May 1, 2018 06:24
|
|
|
Duckman2008 posted:I would assume he’s paying for their version of Sling. Bingo -- we canceled cable and are just using Hulu now.
|
|
#
¿
May 1, 2018 21:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:47 |
|
|
Nam Taf posted:Have a go at identifying these things and then intelligently going through them and letting us know where you plan to categorise them. Good points. I’m so focused on getting my credit cards paid off that I’m not looking at the bigger pictures re: expenses. I had pet expenses (inc. insurance) in “groceries” because... I’m not sure. Because I buy dog food at the grocery store? Regardless, I’ll break that out. I was surprised by taxes but even if I had under-withheld, I could have checked in January instead of mid-April which would have pushed me into a panic earlier. If I hadn’t started working on this back in February, I’d probably be pushing the limit of my CC instead of being down to 2k, but I’ve definitely gotten lucky with circumstances I can’t expect to continue. I feel dumb because my necessary expenses are so low that I shouldn’t have gotten stuck here in the first place. I’ll draft up a new version of May’s budget tomorrow with irregular expenses factored in best I can and post it here for critique. I’m expecting it to be eye-opening. Thanks for the advice, all.
|
|
#
¿
May 2, 2018 06:46
|
|