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Thought I might pop by and say howdy. I don't know if anyone remembers but I used to maintain a debt thread here a few years ago. I had just separated from my ex-wife and was bleeding money at a prodigious rate. At the start of the thread I was about $35,000 in debt to a combination of credit cards and a 401k loan. Over the course of a year long thread I managed to change course and was making regular monthly progress towards a debt free life. This is an update. Hopefully a conclusion, really, to that crisis and time in my life. In December 2015 two things happened. I got my bonus, enough to paid off the last of my credit cards and leaving only $9,000 in 401k loan. And I got fired. It was one or the other. One of my projects was way over budget and I was told I would eat the overrun from my bonus. After some heated debate they paid me the whole bonus but decided to call it a severance. Rather than pay off the credit cards I hoarded the cash and set all payments to minimum. I went on unemployment, $650 a week, for the full six months. Having sold my car I used the unemployment to cover the $2,450 rent and my girlfriend covered food for us. Credit debt crept up slowly as I would use the cards in place of my cash hoard. I also had to spend through my HSA on a case of turf-toe and a secondary infection which kept me off my feet for a couple months. All in all I think it was a useful and sobering time which let me reflect and plan my next phase of life. That next phase began with my accepting a position in Southern California working for an old client from my previous consulting days. Pay was decent at $110k + bonus (more loaded toward base salary than consulting had been). They had offered relocation money but I never got it in writing and they balked when I wanted to revisit the subject after signing. Moving costs built up fast, and I added extra cost by making a nice two week road trip down the coast out of the experience. In May 2016 when I accepted the position I had about $15,000 in credit debt and $9,000 in cash. In June 2016 when I started the new job I paid off what I could, leaving $7,000 in credit debt and $1,300 in cash. The next two years in SoCal have been... Quiet. No grand vacations. No elective surgeries. Vastly less drinking. My girlfriend became my fiance. After a couple raises in my first year I take home $3,000 every two weeks. I've kept regular expenses under $4,500/mo consistently and I don't budget my bonus (a recurring recommendation from the last thread). There were some unexpected expenses here and there (mostly related to the junker car I bought when I arrived here). Finally, in April 2018, I paid the last of my debt and enjoyed a couple months of true zero debt for the first time since 2011. I've continued to hoard cash through it all (set a floor of $10,000 in checking after my first year at the new job) - a habit I attribute to the financial panic I felt when I lost my first "real" job. In June 2018 I took on an auto loan of $12,000 for a used Hyundai Genesis (after a 9k down payment). This remains my only debt, and I have $26,000 in checking that I'm considering using to fully pay off the car. My retirement accounts are at $100k with no loans against them. The plan is to maintain this lifestyle for another year and build up another $50k in savings as a down payment on a house. The fiance makes decent money as a chemist for a giant corporation (30k/yr) and is looking to double that by moving from a contract position to full time salaried. So there it is. Four years after I first admitted I had problem with debt I'm finally truly out of the woods. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me, yelled at me, or laughed with (at) me. If it weren't for the motivation of that thread I would have not been in a place to pull through unemployment. And I probably would have taken a construction job and lost my career focus. Seriously: Thank you guys. I hope this post provides some closure to the Slow Motion saga. I'll try to check back a few times to answer any questions y'all might have.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:47
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:still going to the opera? Nope. No more opera. Which also means no more $15 opera cocktails and no more opera suits. It's an expensive hobby that I won't pick up again till I have my other priorities locked down.
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Sep 19, 2018 15:01
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Hey everyone, thanks for the encouragement. The wife and I are doing well. Finances are strong: $25k Cash emergency fund $140k Retirement accounts ($0) Credit card debt ($8k) Car loan (KBB private party value $29k on this and the outright owned car) ($510k) Mortgage (home value $560k) Lifestyle creep has been largely kept in check. We currently save around $2k cash and $2k retirement each month. Those of you who have said this is just the beginning are so very correct. Next on finance goals are: - Prepare to have a kid (starting with vasectomy reversal) - Pay down the house and refinance into a monthly mortgage payment we could afford on more moderate income - Save for an MBA If there's any interest I'd love to get some of your input on my plan to achieve these. Some old-school budgeting and variance analysis would be fun.
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Jan 29, 2020 18:24
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I still do some actuarial work but mostly I'm finance analytics and strategy now. I expect an MBA would do three things for me: - Allow me to progress in my current path. I have room to grow my salary in this role but the next steps would involve reporting to the board and investors. Both groups like to see prestigious degrees and I'm afraid my bachelors won't cut it. - Allow me to switch industries if a good opportunity comes along. From my own observations this only seems to happen for the MBAs. - Be fun to complete and make friends along the way. I would only target an executive or part time program. My employer would allow me the hours flexibility to do so. I haven't talked financial support and I doubt there would be much. But that's all several years away. For the near future it's all about babies. I'm budgeting $5,000 for the reversal (high end) and $10,000 for delivery and first year needs. I *should* hit both of these with savings targets this year.
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Jan 29, 2020 22:57
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moana posted:Are you already maxing an HSA? Would be good even if it's just a tax free funnel to your medical bills. I switched to an HMO - my wife has some conditions that flare up from time to time. Running the numbers on the last couple years its a wash with the HDHP + company HSA contrib vs the HMO. So I trade some tax advantaged savings for not having any expense anxiety when she decides she needs to go in. Regarding child care for first year of life I expect significant help from grandparents, who are all retired and have offered.
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Jan 30, 2020 05:20
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Dang y'all have a lot of babies. So while I spec out cashflows for my goals what should I be thinking for the baby? My vague idea was to have the $10,000 to cover delivery and cushion any unexpected shocks in the first year. The regular costs would be covered by a combination of the $2,000/m currently going into non-retirement savings and the addition of $500/m from paying off the auto loan. At maximum day-care would be three days a week (wife works part time Wed-Sun). I assume the costs are unlikely to exceed $2,500/m. Am I missing anything here?
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Feb 6, 2020 19:08
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Find out your annual out of pocket maximum from your health insurance company and use that number (instead of the deductible, as you might pay several deductibles if things get choppy). As for how much the baby ends up actually costing you every month, that's between you, the Mrs. and the baby. MOOP is $3,000 on the current HMO, and would be $6,500 on the HDHP (which I'll consider moving to if the annual contribution limit get's pushed way up). I'm more concerned with all the peripherals: formula, car seats, baby furniture, clothes etc.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:25
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I took a look through the last year of Mint and made a little average budget. Slow Motion is M, wife is R. The budget is straight averages for expenses over the last year with some rounding for readability. The general philosophy of this budget is to assume the lowest normal income and the highest normal expense. Then let all the variances be positive surprises. My goals remain: 1. Reverse vasectomy and have baby 2. Make executive MBA financially possible 3. Pay down mortgage to a more manageable monthly level (Current APR 4.25%). A refinance this year might help a lot. A few things changed over the last year that have caused some (mostly positive) disruptions. I took a position at a new company. I missed my last bonus at the previous company but the new job pays better overall. I won't qualify for bonus at the new place till I hit some performance targets which will take until 2021 (if I do hit them). This position does come with a 6 month severance though, which is a very welcome safety blanket in these trying times. Edit - also paid off a car, wife switched to part time, and we got a full years worth of mortgage interest deduction on the taxes. Savings goals may be a blind spot for me. I dump $4,000 or so in the savings account each month, and I do monitor what I pull out for big purchases and travel to keep it at a reasonable level. The problem is that I haven't made any guess at future cashflows for my big goals above. The MBA in particular will likely require a combination of cash and debt to finance, which will conflict with my goal of making the house more secure by reducing the mortgage payment. Y'all have convinced me that babies are not catastrophically expensive until they too want to go to college. If anyone has advice on budgeting for these future expenses it would be appreciated. I may make some high/mid/low estimates and pin them to the most likely dates to see how the cash works out. Slow Motion fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Mar 25, 2020 |
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Mar 25, 2020 20:31
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SlyFrog posted:Why do you want an MBA? There's a clear path with the MBA: the next level up from where I am now makes 0.3M-2.5M depending on the company. And although I am on the "succession plan" , the only non-MBA I've worked for at that level is a JD CPA. The other factor is I want to be able to pivot to other industries should that become a better (or only) path.
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Mar 27, 2020 02:56
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For me, the only in-line promotions available are either VP in my current role (MBA wouldn't help), or CFO where I'd have to pass an executive search committee which would probably have a hard-on for prestigious degrees (MBA would be a help with a big name school). There's another possible road where I switch companies and get the MBA paid for as past of my contract. I don't want to do that because I was hired to build a department here which will take another two years at minimum. I may be able to get some funding for the MBA here, but I doubt I can get more than a token amount. A little reprieve will come from taking deductions: currently I gross over 200k one of the highest combined income tax areas of the country and itemize already so the deductions would be significant. Really it only makes sense if I can get a big enough name on the diploma. The returns *could* be huge. The only sure thing here is that I'm plateaued without it. Time to crack the books on that GMAT.
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Mar 27, 2020 21:09
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paperchaseguy posted:Are you paying PMI since you're over 75% LTV. Current 30 year rates (at aimloan.com with great credit and escrow) are 3.25% with 0 closing costs, or 2.875% with $8k costs. PMI is $150/m. Currently around $800/m goes to principal. I don't think I'd need a jumbo - this is a high cost county and my current loan is conventional. There might be a window in this crisis before prices drop that I could sneak some extra appreciation into the appraisal too. Slow Motion fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Mar 28, 2020 |
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Mar 28, 2020 19:45
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I'm considering breaking up my cash pile and investing most of it. Currently I like to keep my checking account above 35k as an emergency fund. When I get up past 40k I start thinking about vacations and major upgrades to my house. What I'm thinking of doing is breaking this up into separate accounts with two goals in mind: 1. Earn some interest on the cash pile 2. Encourage better savings/prevent lifestyle creep. My monthly baseline expenses are about 6k. That includes a bit of fluff but not the more egregious luxuries ($30 pizza night, but not $150 sushi deliveries). So I'm thinking three months of that (18k) in an HYSA for liquidity and no downside risk. That leaves 17k that I could invest a little more aggressively. Maybe just a simple VTSAX with a low cost brokerage. Then as a final step I'd like to direct deposit from my salary into the brokerage. I'm earning about 3k over regular and recurring expenses. Currently that builds up in checking and gets spent in chunks for house upgrades, paying off cars/mortgage, vacations, veterinary bills, and unexpected expenses. I think it would be pretty safe to carve out $1k/m for the brokerage account. I've never had a brokerage before, but I assume the money would be moderately liquid. This arrangement would be set up with the expectation that I don't need to touch that money for any short term needs, but if push came to shove I still could. In summary I would end up with three accounts: Checking - Starting from $0 initial balance with 10k min deposited monthly (with occasional windfalls) - the only account for paying expenses outside of emergencies and very occasional large purchase (house, boat, whatever) Emergency Fund HYSA - 18k and leave it there indefinitely Brokerage - 17k with a 1k monthly deposit - as general savings for large financial goals - education, bigger house at some point, FIRE etc. What do the goons think about it?
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May 27, 2020 18:10
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I went on a little bit of a different direction with it: We set up a shared household checking account so wife can be more integrated into the finances. I've stuck $30,000 (6 months of baseline expenses) in there and deposit 70% of my pay (min $8k/m). So that will grow and fund vacations and big home improvement expenses. My personal account now has just $12k in it and gets 30% of my pay. Once this gets over $15k I'll set up a brokerage account for all the excess. Wife is currently in a coding bootcamp but once she goes back to work she will do the same 70%/30% household/personal split on income deposits. And for some visual content! I was looking in Mint at my net income over time and noticed that the different periods in my life had pretty noticeable financial patterns. So I tagged them and though it would be fun to share here. A couple facts not easily put on the graphic: Although the most recent 2 years look like lifestyle creep for the most part they are not. Rather that's a binge of paying off cars, buying working appliances, sending wife to coding bootcamp to switch careers, and the mortgage being more expensive than rent (of course I've seen the home value go up by more than the entire mortgage expense...). Basically fixing all the "it's expensive to be poor" parts of my financial life. I know you guys wanted me to fix these earlier. But I still maintain my strategy of "fix income first" was the right one for me. 2009-2011 look better than they were. I wasn't using Mint frequently enough to pull all transactions in this period. So there are often missing expenses (but not missing income as the look-back for mint on checking accounts is much longer).
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Oct 10, 2020 20:35
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