Help an idiot goon spend less money on children's toys and gambling

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Help an idiot goon spend less money on children's toys and gambling

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

zaurg posted:

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.

NO GODDAMN SHITCOINS!! :zaurg:

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.

My only concern is that you'd pay off the debt and reward yourself with new debt from the vacation.

I agree with this.

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

You don't have to play a sport if you don't want to. That guy is being weird.

Yeah, gently caress sports - but running/biking/lifting weights is FTW. It's good for life.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 05:59

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 16:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

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

TraderStav posted:

Ok, this is REALLY cool. Think I'm going to have fun with this. Want to have it auto-generate based on my YNAB extract. Think I'll throw in pre-tax contributions/withholdings too. Will make my monthly finance meetings with my wife go much better!

For content: this is my budget for January, so allocating lumpy expenses also. Don't pick it apart too much please...

Bah, thanks for that, guys! I have seen Sankey's before, but I never thought to apply it to personal finance... A couple hours later, my budget & reconciliation macro has a section to output Sankey code. I tried using a Power BI Sankey visualization and it loving blows, but that site works pretty nicely. Why the gently caress does Power BI not have Sankey?!

Spokes posted:

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

Good progress man. April is right around the corner, you can do it again! I like how your extra income basically fully went to paying off extra debt - your trip planning basically fits in your normal budget. You're going to have a lot more money to invest, and spend, once you're done with the debt payoff, especially if you steer clear form buying horseboats.

*I* like tracking bigger recurring items (bills, discretionary, whatever), like your various game things. You may add another level of category for it, so you can see "Gaming Stuff" as a whole, and then the various items under it.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 18:58

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Higgy posted:

It does but it's not out of the box. You have to go find it in BI's little "visuals gallery" bullshit.

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/visual-awesomeness-unlocked-sankey-diagram/

I added this one on Monday and played around with it. I'm not very good with Power BI, but this visual is prettttty garbage... Is there a better one? It's the only one I could find.

https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/power-bi-visuals/WA104380777

# ¿ Mar 30, 2018 18:19

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Op, how'd March end up?

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

I do this with some pretty small dumb annual renewals - the smallest one I budget monthly is my financier.io fee - $12 budgeted over 12 months lol. I guess I was really exuberant when I got started with the budgeting.

The HOA and the annual garbage tags make sense, though.

I do this too - I don't have anything that's $12/yr, but I have a $35/yr. I just add all subscriptions (they're all annual, but that doesn't matter) together and divide by 12 and there you are. I have a table in my spreadsheet to handle these, they're all itemized out but have the same category so zooming in the pivot shows each item.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2018 20:57

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

You�re doing great. A tax bill just means you got an interest free loan from a Uncle Sam. Try not to beat yourself up and I hope you nail your savings goal.

This. Keep plugging along, you've been making amazing progress!

# ¿ Apr 10, 2018 03:00

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Skutter posted:

Maybe I missed it being listed somewhere, but do you have a budget line for your pet insurance and other monthly fees related to your dog?

I don't see it anywhere on the budget, either. Pet/dog isn't even mentioned in the first page of the thread.

I budget a flat amount for my (VERY inexpensive, thankfully!) lab, which came in handy when he had some teeth pulled last week. That little episode was roughly 3x the most expensive procedure he's had in the last 6yrs I've had him (including annual vet visits), but it was covered by what I put away for him.

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 03:03 on May 2, 2018

# ¿ May 2, 2018 02:58

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

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.

I am in support of you getting the gently caress out of debt - and you've made good progress in the last couple of months. But you definitely need to plan for infrequent expenses, and I'd say move some expenses out of groceries and into proper buckets. Household, pet, alcohol, etc. You don't have to go hog wild, but at least to some extent. I hope you aren't eating dog food

Speaking of dogs - what type of dog do you have? I hope s/he is doing well after surgery. My pup is back to eating everything placed in front of him (ok, that only took 0 hours, but he whined while eating because it hurt) and his breath smells like nothing vs horrid!

# ¿ May 2, 2018 06:56

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

OP:
1) great work on getting back to debt free and a little paid ahead, A+!
2) I'm surprised your landlord doesn't require renters insurance! Its really inexpensive, and while yes, all insurance is a waste of money (til you need it!!), its very affordable and it insures you from ~poo poo happening~ because as you know, poo poo happens.
3) You may want to bucket your annual misc expenses like you are for your monthly, so you can see required (car reg) vs elective. Just an idea. Its pretty obvious they fit into your budget as is though, so maybe that's overkill.

EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:

quote:
My posting has been a lot more effective in this thread than yours. Maybe try helping the OP instead of shitposting.
Get the gently caress out of here Zaurg you stupid loving clownbaby.

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 23:53 on May 22, 2018

# ¿ May 22, 2018 23:48

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

Do you mean like this? I posted it separately and it was when i was talking to zaurg so i understand if you skimmed past. If not, i'm definitely interested in hearing what you meant because i didn't understand it

Mostly just moving a few of the items around to line up by type with this budget item list you made:

Spokes posted:

There are MANY ways to skin the budget cat.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 07:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

Here�s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6E7D8DzaVM

just about enough to get my emergency fund finished

Thanks for the link, I shall watch later. It'll be the first time I've watched WWBM since the early 00s!

Congrats, and as we keep telling you, good work getting the ~paying attention to monies~ under control. Zaurg could learn buckets from you! (Instead, he gets buckets of goon supplied golden showers)

# ¿ May 31, 2018 03:45

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

turing_test posted:

Congrats!!! I can�t believe they make you stand the whole fine, jeez. I imagine it makes focusing pretty hard!

You don't stand for a few hours a day? What type of cave do you work at?! (I thought sit/stand stations were just the norm in Corporate America... poo poo, I also have one at home.)

I find it easier to stand unless I'm exhausted or bored as poo poo, and then I am more prone to sit or wander off to a conference room and not get anything done...

# ¿ May 31, 2018 06:46

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

SpelledBackwards posted:

The YouTube link had it if you can watch it, but he walked away at winning $30k. I'm curious about the withholding on that. I assume like bonuses, they automatically withhold at >25%.

~~I doubt it, its a business paying a contractor. 1099. But I'd assume he'll owe 22-24%+15.3%+state if any.~~

And you mean 22%, thanks deferring reality I mean TCJA.

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jun 3, 2018

# ¿ Jun 2, 2018 19:21

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Droo posted:

I don't think you pay FICA tax on lottery/game show type stuff.

You're right, my bad, it's just ordinary income. And they are subject for withholding - I think at the bonus tax level but I'm not digging around the IRC further.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2018 01:16

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

Game Show money should be here in the next couple weeks, but it's all going to emergency fund so my budgeting isn't really affected

You may consider dropping $5,500 into your Roth IRA immediately if you're not planning to max it out anyway. You can always pull contributions out if you need to, but otherwise you've got a bit more into retirement. That said, efund expansion ftw!

Spokes posted:

ALSO: edit for long-time readers, I did go to Vegas and I played magic -- the tournament crashed after round 2 and they offered free entry ($70) to a future tournament to everyone who was entered. I wasn't going to win anyway, so... GWM! I also spent about $250 total on food/entertainment. Uber and Gas cost more than anticipated but I kept costs low everywhere else. The numbers above are all post-Vegas spending.

Sounds reasonable.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2018 18:48

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

Thanks for the tip on Roth IRA. I opened one up with Vanguard today and put in $1000, I�ll top it off for the year once I get the Milli check. Need to sit down and figure out what a likely timeline for retirement is and then I�ll choose an appropriate target date fund.

Throw it in whatever the TD fund for when you're 65 would be, or round up (eg 65 in 2052, put it in 2055). It won't start to adjust until 25yrs till retirement anyway. I personally think you should have more equities in retirement anyway, but that is another discussion.

https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/investments/TargetDate

# ¿ Jun 21, 2018 06:36

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

potatoducks posted:

Can't buy fractional shares in VTI

This plus auto investment.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2018 20:20

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 16:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Spokes posted:

Surprise, it's me again.

$8000 for taxes,

Still doing a decent amount of overtime, freelancing, and trivia winnings -- that money will all go 100% to the Tax fund and in 2019 I'll start calculating what I owe as I earn it and save it through the year. 2018 was weird because I didn't know when my show would air or that Trivia Apps would be a thing for more than a month (bad excuses). This post seems like a lot of white noise but i know if my October budget has some stupid bullshit in it (or if it doesn't and I spend it anyway), no one will hesitate to call me out on it. here we go!

You may be paying penalties because you aren't paying taxes quarterly, you should look into that.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 05:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Help an idiot goon spend less money on children's toys and gambling