|
Is your therapist also your financial planner? You agreed to take 2k in exchange for also taking tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt?
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 00:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 03:49 |
|
|
Upgrade posted:Is your therapist also your financial planner? Note that he also avoided alimony, and seeing as his ex is now living with her parents that was possibly a not-insignificant cost avoided.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 00:22
|
|
|
No, my therapist isn't my financial planner but people have said that my attachment to the car is something I should discuss with my therapist because it sounds like a mentally unhealthy thing. So yeah, I spoke with him, so now I'm hoping nobody else takes that tack because saying that you are more qualified to speak on my mental state than my therapist would be a bad look. My ex hasn't held down a job since the end of 2015, all the debt was in my name, and while everything but the student loans was marital debt and therefore could be split between the two of us, she had no ability to pay, the judge isn't going to sign off on someone with no ability to pay taking a bunch of debt in the divorce, and if the judge had determined alimony was appropriate it would have been somewhere around 6-700 per month for (IIRC) 4 years per the standard CO guidelines. I'd say taking an extra $12-13k debt (that there's no way the judge would have assigned to her anyway) in exchange for not paying almost $29k in alimony is a good deal. E: KitConstantine posted:Note that he also avoided alimony, and seeing as his ex is now living with her parents that was possibly a not-insignificant cost avoided. Beat me to it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 00:22
|
|
|
Upgrade posted:You agreed to take 2k in exchange for also taking tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt? and no alimony! Yeah obviously if you could go back you'd be more shrewd about the divorce but there's no reason to dwell on it, other than to double-check everything the next time you get a hunch somebody might be trying to screw you. Log any transactions yet? It's good that you're working on getting the storage unit off your books. Keep at it
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 00:24
|
|
|
No transactions to log since the start of this thread. My dog got a bag of rice cakes though, so in order to survive to the first without getting groceries I might have to eat her instead, but at least that cuts down on the pet category. I really hope I don't have to clarify I'm joking.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 00:28
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:No, my therapist isn't my financial planner but people have said that my attachment to the car is something I should discuss with my therapist because it sounds like a mentally unhealthy thing. So yeah, I spoke with him, so now I'm hoping nobody else takes that tack because saying that you are more qualified to speak on my mental state than my therapist would be a bad look. So you're on this poo poo again. Your therapist is not a financial planner, and since you don't even have one you certainly did not give them a full financial accounting and budget to make the decisions based on. Besides that, this is a person who is paid to do a specific thing, and it's not about your finances for them. And we don't know what you did or did not tell them about this. So stop being so loving fighety. You surely can't actually believe you are in the right here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 01:40
|
|
|
OP can do this while keeping the SVX it's just going to require proportional sacrifices in every other area of their life.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 02:25
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:No transactions to log since the start of this thread. No netflix/fite tv renewal, no anything? your accounts are at exactly the same numbers they were when you put them into financier at the start of the thread (which you did, right?) I just really want you to get started on the right foot so it doesn't all crumble once transactions start piling up
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 02:37
|
|
|
Haifisch posted:Echoing this again. Two common issues people have, which I also see in your posts, are impulsive behavior(see my comment about restaurant spending) and refusing to differentiate between wants and needs(I see shades of this with the insistence on living in the mountains, although living expenses are so low that it's managable, and with the car, which everyone here has made their stances abundantly clear on). Those absolutely make it harder to dig yourself out of a financial hole. Double echoing this. Earlier in the thread I tried to reorganize your budget to more clearly show wants and needs and it’s fine if you don’t want to use that format but I really think you should consider it. Dividing things into monthly bills and everyday expenses flattens things and gives you plenty of room to hide from confronting your priorities. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:OP can do this while keeping the SVX it's just going to require proportional sacrifices in every other area of their life. Yes. Exactly. You should make sure your budget is reflecting your priorities directly. When you overspend on a line item what are you taking money from? When you underspend do you hold that to next month or move the money to accelerate debt payments or do something else with it?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:08
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:OP can do this while keeping the SVX it's just going to require proportional sacrifices in every other area of their life. Yea as long as he accepts and understands that keeping the extra car and guns has an opportunity cost that extends out the time and cost of the debt. We are all here able to look at things more objectively because we don't have any attachment to the extra crap which is a good thing and part of the value of making a thread. Hope things work out and you get that job, OP, it would really make life easier with more cash flow to put on the debt.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:11
|
|
|
Motronic posted:So you're on this poo poo again. Motronic posted:You need to understand that financial behaviors are first and foremost emotional behaviors and patterns. The advice you are being given is financial. You're just that far behind that it needs to start this deep down. Nobody's gonna talk about therapy when you're asking about 401(k) asset allocations. But you are slipping off a cliff into destitution right now. It's quite clear the largest component isn't financial. The financial distress is a SYMPTOM. Motronic posted:I don't have any posts either but I 1000% guarantee you I have more formal weapons training than you do. And experience. And I agree with what Dik Hz said. qhat posted:I would investigate whether there are any non-profit financial counselling, or just general therapy, services near you. Much of your issues seem to be very psychological, like seriously, your attachment to that car is weird and illogical, you're picking it over avoiding potential homelessness. Even if you have to pay a bit (do not pay an exorbitant amount, obviously), this is probably one item of spending that could legitimately help you towards your goals in a sustainable manner. Do you need me to go back to the newbies thread where the topic of therapy also came up? Basically, I appreciate the concern, but if people keep harping on about how I need to bring stuff up in therapy when I'm already doing it, implying they know better than my therapist, I'm reporting those posts. I used to be an IK so I went to the mods that I used to work with and asked them to look at it for some objectivity, there's a line and some people are tiptoeing right up to it. You all aren't therapists or else you wouldn't be questioning my work with my therapist. I understand there's a psychological/emotional aspect to it and we have been discussing that as well as the root of my financial behavior problems. And that's all you need to know about that. I'm actually not sure if anything auto-withdrew, I can check. I guess I'll need to put it in for August, though, I had started everything on September 1st with the expected income from the August 31st paycheck as my starting balance. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Aug 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:14
|
|
right quick.
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Do you need me to go back to the newbies thread where the topic of therapy also came up? Please explain the point you are trying to make here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:17
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:She (well, her father) bought out my share in the car, or at least what I thought that share would be before I found out how inflated car prices are these days, and in exchange for taking the debt which she would not have been able to pay anyway, I'm not paying alimony. It sounds like you have all the advice you need, both from the forums and from your therapist. I'm not sure if there's much more people here can do for you with the current information, if I was in your position I would come back with an update in a month or so. Frankly I would still recommend getting rid of the car since there really is no logical reason to hold on to it when you are risking insolvency, but whatever if you think you've got it under control and you can stick with this budget until you're out of the hole then that's really all you need.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:27
|
|
|
Here's the part I edited in before I saw Motronic's reply: Basically, I appreciate the concern, but if people keep harping on about how I need to bring stuff up in therapy when I'm already doing it, implying they know better than my therapist, I'm reporting those posts. I used to be an IK so I went to the mods that I used to work with and asked them to look at it for some objectivity, there's a line and some people are tiptoeing right up to it. You all aren't therapists or else you wouldn't be questioning my work with my therapist. I understand there's a psychological/emotional aspect to it and we have been discussing that as well as the root of my financial behavior problems. I discussed my total debt, my current income, how much it seems like I can put to debt per month, and that's all you need to know about that. I will say we also discussed making a structured tension chart for the monthly goals which is a method of sticking to a plan I have found very helpful in the past, but I'm not comfortable talking about my deepest darkest secrets and trauma in here.doingitwrong posted:Double echoing this. Earlier in the thread I tried to reorganize your budget to more clearly show wants and needs and it’s fine if you don’t want to use that format but I really think you should consider it. Dividing things into monthly bills and everyday expenses flattens things and gives you plenty of room to hide from confronting your priorities. I'll look at the budget categorization you used again, I just used the default sorting that Financier has and added categories where it seemed like they fit, but if it will get me better results I should just do it. Overspending, I'd say by default I'd take it out of discretionary spending, at least when possible. My main overspending concern is gasoline since that can vary from less than a tank of gas per month to 2 tanks of gas in a single day trip. That and my pet fund I'm definitely rolling over the surplus when there is one due to that and the potential for more big vet bills but thankfully the cat is doing better now that her medicine dose has gone up. Groceries, spending money, and alcohol don't roll over, they will go to my e-fund or debt, whatever I'm working on at the time. I'm on the fence about household goods because if I need to replace a microwave or something it would be nice to have the surplus build up. Clothing rolls over because winter clothes can get real expensive. I'm going to get discounted stuff from Sierra Trading Post next month for the things I know I'll need this winter (long underwear mainly) but I don't want to cheap out on quality for winter clothes, just try to find good deals. I'm not sure if there's a way to denote rollovers in Financier, I'll ask in the relevant thread. qhat posted:It sounds like you have all the advice you need, both from the forums and from your therapist. I'm not sure if there's much more people here can do for you with the current information, if I was in your position I would come back with an update in a month or so. Frankly I would still recommend getting rid of the car since there really is no logical reason to hold on to it when you are risking insolvency, but whatever if you think you've got it under control and you can stick with this budget until you're out of the hole then that's really all you need. Yeah, I feel like at this point the thread is not going to be too much use until I have something to update with. Maybe a week into next month, maybe the 15th to line up with my next paycheck, I post an update on my budget to that point in the month.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 03:30
|
|
|
The point is that every poster here has told you to sell the car. You know you should sell the car. When your defense is "well my therapist told me it was ok to keep the car" that seems a little strange, because your therapist isn't a financial planner, and it seemed like you were saying "its ok to keep it because they're giving me permission, so there goons!" when the reality is that you probably know you should sell it, but don't want to because of [reason x, y, z, justified or not] and we can just leave it at that. Just be upfront about the consequence of that decision - best case extending your debt repayment by a month or two - and own it. And let's hope its not a pattern that repeats itself because you're going to get a harsh reaction here because this isn't E/N. Moving on from that, it seems you have a plan, and the next step is going to be see if you can stick by sharing your actual September spending. Also I have sold thousands of dollars worth of clothes online and I can give you pretty good estimates on what your stuff is worth if you want to PM me your details. Upgrade fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Aug 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 04:41
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Here's the part I edited in before I saw Motronic's reply: Basically, I appreciate the concern, but if people keep harping on about how I need to bring stuff up in therapy when I'm already doing it, implying they know better than my therapist, I'm reporting those posts. I used to be an IK so I went to the mods that I used to work with and asked them to look at it for some objectivity, there's a line and some people are tiptoeing right up to it. You all aren't therapists or else you wouldn't be questioning my work with my therapist. I understand there's a psychological/emotional aspect to it and we have been discussing that as well as the root of my financial behavior problems. I discussed my total debt, my current income, how much it seems like I can put to debt per month, and that's all you need to know about that. I will say we also discussed making a structured tension chart for the monthly goals which is a method of sticking to a plan I have found very helpful in the past, but I'm not comfortable talking about my deepest darkest secrets and trauma in here. No one's asking you to discuss your trauma. I know therapy probably a sensitive topic for non-thread reasons but I think you are going way overboard here. Nobody is saying they know better than your therapist about the things the therapist is qualified to help you with. People are just pointing out that your therapist saying that your attachment to the car is not unhealthy is not a justification for keeping the car from a financial perspective. Those posts are not implying that people know better than your therapist - well, they are implying that people might have better financial ideas than your therapist, which I think is fair. Is your therapist a universal authority on everything? "I USED TO BE AN IK" is frankly hilarious, as well. "I was formerly a 9th tier unpaid volunteer forums policeman" is like the weakest appeal to authority of all time, just transcendent stuff.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 12:39
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Here's the part I edited in before I saw Motronic's reply: Basically, I appreciate the concern, but if people keep harping on about how I need to bring stuff up in therapy when I'm already doing it, implying they know better than my therapist, I'm reporting those posts. I used to be an IK so I went to the mods that I used to work with and asked them to look at it for some objectivity, there's a line and some people are tiptoeing right up to it. You all aren't therapists or else you wouldn't be questioning my work with my therapist. I understand there's a psychological/emotional aspect to it and we have been discussing that as well as the root of my financial behavior problems. I discussed my total debt, my current income, how much it seems like I can put to debt per month, and that's all you need to know about that. I will say we also discussed making a structured tension chart for the monthly goals which is a method of sticking to a plan I have found very helpful in the past, but I'm not comfortable talking about my deepest darkest secrets and trauma in here. As an exercise, calculate how much interest you're paying on your loans at 20% APR on the money you have in the car. Then add in all the carrying expenses for the car. Report back. To flip it another way, imagine a loved one was $10,000s in usurious debt and had a working car. Would you tell them to buy a second car at 20% APR? Cuz the end result would be exactly the same as where you're at right now. Also, apparently those mods told you that none of the posts you reported are across the line. There seems to be a common theme of you hearing what you want to hear even when people are telling you the opposite. Lastly, poverty is a lot more -EV on health and expected lifespan than not owning firearms for personal protection. Why are you balls-to-the-walls committed to your guns and not to getting out of poverty? Dik Hz fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Aug 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 13:10
|
|
|
I don't think that it benefits anyone to try to convince the OP to sell all their guns regardless of what your personal stance on gun ownership is. The OP will not be convinced by any argument you make so you should try to work within the bounds of what can be changed. Owning guns has a political, emotional, security (at minimum, perception of), and psychological component that's well outside the scope of this thread. Regardless of any poster's feelings about gun ownership in general, I think we can all agree that it isn't reasonable to own a bunch of guns you don't shoot or use for personal or household defense when you are thousands of dollars in debt. A racegun is definitely something you should sell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 14:02
|
|
|
Dik Hz posted:
This one really helped me when I was getting my poo poo together. I had a bunch of crap that I didn't want to sell because "it's just not worth enough to bother". But then I started thinking about it that way, " Is it worth me paying $20 to keep that? No? To eBay it goes".
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 14:10
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I don't think that it benefits anyone to try to convince the OP to sell all their guns regardless of what your personal stance on gun ownership is. The OP will not be convinced by any argument you make so you should try to work within the bounds of what can be changed. Owning guns has a political, emotional, security (at minimum, perception of), and psychological component that's well outside the scope of this thread.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 15:45
|
|
|
Hey 22 Eargesplitten, first off congrats on at least starting a thread. Its a small step at the very least and can be hard to do, especially when you know your going to catch a ton of flak for having two cars. Which by the way you should sell one of them. Your broke as poo poo and can barely afford one, let alone two. I'm in SH/SC all the time and have seen you post about getting a better job now for a while. Hopefully you find something soon, but you should know and I think you do, getting a full time remote position even in DevOps is easier said then done. Not saying its impossible but I wouldnt absolutely count on it either. Tech jobs are clustered in big cities for better or worse. I once used to live in bumfuck nowhere and hit a ceiling in my IT career for the area that absolutely required me to move. Anyway a few tips that might be helpful for you. If you're exclusively looking for cloud content check out ACloudGuru instead of Pluralsight. They have slightly cheaper plans and you could save about $10 a month they also have a lot of stuff from LinuxAcademy from when they bought them out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:22
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:No one's asking you to discuss your trauma. I know therapy probably a sensitive topic for non-thread reasons but I think you are going way overboard here. Nobody is saying they know better than your therapist about the things the therapist is qualified to help you with. People are just pointing out that your therapist saying that your attachment to the car is not unhealthy is not a justification for keeping the car from a financial perspective. Those posts are not implying that people know better than your therapist - well, they are implying that people might have better financial ideas than your therapist, which I think is fair. Is your therapist a universal authority on everything? I used to be an IK isn't meant to be an appeal to authority, I was explaining why I had contact with a bunch of mods in order to get their opinion on what's okay and what's not okay because I don't like filing reports in general, and especially not when someone has good intentions but no tact, because I know you all are being assholes out of wanting the best for me. I thought that up to the point before I saw my therapist people saying "Hey this sounds unhealthy you should get therapy/counseling on this" was okay, but people continuing to give mental health related opinions past that is not okay, and that's pretty much what the mods agreed with aside from one IRL therapist who was like "Man what they're saying is kind of hosed up." Now it kind of feels like there's some goalpost moving where what my therapist said doesn't actually matter because he's not a financial planner, regardless of what the previous posts alluding to mental and emotional health said. Anyway, the reason I checked on the thread again is I've applied to one, will continue to apply for more, to and am shortly going to interview for a part time remote IT position. I got called about one this morning that would pay $52/hr working 16-24 hours per week on my off days. I'm not thrilled about spending even more time working but OTOH if I quit/get fired after only 2 weeks that's still $1,200-1,800 in the bank post-tax. And since I'm already working another job if this one goes badly I just exclude it from my resume. E: I looked at ACG but they've been deleting a lot of LinuxAcademy's old content from what I read, and I'm not necessarily looking at solely cloud stuff, I need to get better at bash and learn Python as well.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:23
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:I looked at ACG but they've been deleting a lot of LinuxAcademy's old content from what I read, and I'm not necessarily looking at solely cloud stuff, I need to get better at bash and learn Python as well. You read wrong maybe? Im taking a python course there right now that was originally from LinuxAcademy. Also I used them to do exactly what you're trying to do career wise. Got my AWS Solutions Architect Associate and Security Specialty certs using their training and leveraged those with years of experience to literally have doubled my income within 4 years. Just saying it sounds like a pretty painless tweak to save $10-15 a month when every little bit will help you right now.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:35
|
|
|
It’s a common cognitive bias in most people, crops up in everything including asset allocations. People have a stronger attachments to things they already own than things they do not, and the typical way to overcome it is to imagine liquidating the thing and then ask yourself whether you would repurchase it immediately for the same price you sold it for. I think the OP has a lot of these sorts of biases (the posts speak for themselves) but it remains to be seen whether he will after all that follow through on the goals, I think he is a bit overconfident in it but we shall see.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:38
|
|
|
BaseballPCHiker posted:You read wrong maybe? Im taking a python course there right now that was originally from LinuxAcademy. Thanks, I'll look into it. I think I've got another couple weeks on this month's subscription IIRC. I'll look through their catalogs in that case. I am on the premium Pluralsight subscription due to hands-on labs that only get offered at that tier, does the cheaper ACG option have that too? Still working on selling the competition gun, I'm working on finding people locally or on TFR before I throw it up on Gunbroker because if you have sold much stuff on eBay imagine buyers there except chuddier and less trusting of computers. There's an entire thread in TFR about bad experiences and bad postings that I'm pretty sure is hundreds of pages long at this point.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:45
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Thanks, I'll look into it. I think I've got another couple weeks on this month's subscription IIRC. I'll look through their catalogs in that case. I am on the premium Pluralsight subscription due to hands-on labs that only get offered at that tier, does the cheaper ACG option have that too? I believe their cheaper tier includes labs, but not their cloud sandboxes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2021 17:53
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Anyway, the reason I checked on the thread again is I've applied to one, will continue to apply for more, to and am shortly going to interview for a part time remote IT position. I got called about one this morning that would pay $52/hr working 16-24 hours per week on my off days. I'm not thrilled about spending even more time working but OTOH if I quit/get fired after only 2 weeks that's still $1,200-1,800 in the bank post-tax. And since I'm already working another job if this one goes badly I just exclude it from my resume. Great news! Remember, if it goes to your 20% APR debts, then it’s worth $1.20 per dollar.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2021 02:08
|
|
|
Thanks. I took that excitement and channeled to to applying to 30 remote sysadmin/cloud admin/SRE/DevOps jobs today and my brain melted a little bit but I'm optimistic I'll get some nibbles. I'm not generally inclined to bring up "I applied for jobs today" because in my case that's about as deserving of praise as "I didn't go out for steak and lobster tonight" but I think that's a record number of applications for me in a given day so I'm kind of proud. Used to be when I was unemployed I would apply for maybe 30 a week, although it helps that there's so much more stuff out there I qualify for now. I took a break this afternoon to take the dog on a hike and pick up my prescriptions so I'll probably try to knock out a few more this evening, these today were all quick apply ones on Linkedin where it just asks for a resume and a few standard questions. The others are going to take longer. I think the comparison of "1 year to get rid of high-interest debt and have 2-month e-fund" to 4-5 months for the same thing with these jobs I'm looking at has really lit a fire under my rear end. Going from $3400 per month to almost $6,000 per month post-tax would be absolutely life-changing and it seems like the best time to make a jump would be now since once I make that jump I'll have stuff on the resume that makes it easier to find jobs down the line when the market cools down a bit. My ex's mom said she could meet me at the storage unit on either Thursday or Friday next week to load up that stuff, so I'm just trying to figure out if there's anything else that I want to get done down there that would only work one of those two days, then I'll finalize the plan. And from almost 10 years of knowing my ex's mom, she's not going to flake. So that's the storage unit finished in September. I haven't forgotten about selling stuff either, I'm waiting to hear back from people on the guns and I'm going to take the cheap ones to the good gun shop in the town where the storage unit is. If they offer close enough to what I would sell the cheap ones for I might just sell those there and save the hassle. Seriously, private gun buyers are the worst, I never had someone on Craigslist ask me to commit a crime, but I have had multiple people try to get me to sell them a gun without a background check.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2021 03:23
|
|
|
Good work on job applications. Getting debt under control is either increasing money coming in and/or decreasing money going out, so finding a better paying job definitely is a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2021 05:51
|
|
|
Well, so much for holding off on buying anything until September, I've got some kind of stomach bug so off to the grocery store I go for ginger ale and applesauce and pepto bismol. Kind of an example of how being up here is making me be responsible though, normally I would order some soup from DoorDash and food/medicine from the grocery store. That's not an option now, so I'm spending $10 instead of $50-60.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Well, so much for holding off on buying anything until September, I've got some kind of stomach bug so off to the grocery store I go for ginger ale and applesauce and pepto bismol. Kind of an example of how being up here is making me be responsible though, normally I would order some soup from DoorDash and food/medicine from the grocery store. That's not an option now, so I'm spending $10 instead of $50-60. These are not the type of purchases you should be worried about, btw.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 20:08
|
|
|
Upgrade posted:These are not the type of purchases you should be worried about, btw. Yeah, this kind of hand wringing over inconsequential bullshit is a lot easier than focusing on the actual problems at hand.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
applying to jobs is hard work so that's good.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 20:15
|
|
|
I’m more annoyed with the fact that I can’t just cleanly start on the 1st like I was hoping to. The purchases I mentioned like delivery are 100% the kind of thing that ruined my finances for years though. Once in a while $20 for delivery isn’t bad, but when it’s daily or twice daily it adds up fast. I’ve never been the type to make huge high 3 / low 4 digit purchases that blow all my income. I nickel and dime myself with $20-50 purchases until I’ve wasted a thousand in a month. That’s the kind of behaviors I’m trying to recognize where I would do something like that or want to do something like that so I can recognize when I’m making a positive change.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 21:06
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:I’m more annoyed with the fact that I can’t just cleanly start on the 1st like I was hoping to. From everything you've posted you don't have a spending problem, you have a debt problem. What everyone is saying is that the best way to reduce your debt - and solve your problem - is looking for what assets you have that you can sell, both because it can raise money to address your debt, and you can pay it off now and avoid monthly APR eating away at your payment progress. Focusing on $10 in necessary purchases (and yes, medicine is necessary) is missing this point. From what I've seen so far you aren't not a Blue Story-type poster who is spending $25/day on useless band merchandise and $1000/mo on Star Wars. Also if you want help selling the dress clothes you don't need anymore, PM me. Upgrade fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Aug 29, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2021 21:19
|
|
|
I definitely have a spending problem, that's why I have the debt problem. Looking at my budget, I could live comfortably on this income while putting away $700 per month even with the current debt load, but I've been spending it as fast as it comes in. When I was living in a bigger town I would spend $700-800 on delivery food per month. Now after moving it I've been spending it on car parts, gun parts, too much alcohol, there's always something to buy if you're looking for the endorphin rush of spending money. Back at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, I was making about $1,000 per week and I was able to hold steady with around $3,000 in the bank even buying a bunch of gun stuff and ordering delivery 1-2 times per day (this was the house that should have been condemned rather than rented) but I was still just spending all my money rather than paying off debt and getting into a situation where I could afford to move to somewhere with an actual human-safe kitchen. I'm not actually upset about spending money on medicine and stomach-friendly food, I know that's the right kind of thing to be spending money on, it's just mildly annoying because I wanted to be able to start tracking all my spending after starting this thread on September first to make it nice and neat and easy to compare before I started trying to fix my finances and after just by looking at the month. Thank you for the reminder about the dress clothes, I will PM you once I find the stuff I'm looking to sell. I've still got a lot of stuff in boxes, I need to find my box full of dress shoes and my box full of gun accessories so I can find the expensive shoes I want to sell and take inventory of all of the extra bits and bobs that will come with the competition gun when I sell it. The previous owner who I bought it from kept all of the original parts and had some spare alternate parts for tuning it to the owner's preference, I want to make sure to list everything that I have and not list anything that I don't have. I think as far as clothes the main stuff I have worth money is dress shoes, I think all my expensive suits I either sold, gave away, or got ruined by the lovely dry cleaner I took them to.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2021 01:08
|
|
|
It’s never gonna be clean. Let August be a messy on-ramp as you get into the swing of budgeting and then tracking expenses. On a related note, your post in the YNAB thread had me poke around Financier long enough to work out that it’s meant to be an envelope system very similar to YNAB. So if you’re gonna keep using it, I’d take the time to enter in your ACTUAL bank balance and then your ACTUAL take home income every month along with your ACTUAL expenses as you spend them. It’ll make budgeting going forward much better if you are constantly aware of exactly how much money you have and how much is spoken for. It’s a mental shift from looking at your bank account to decide if you can afford an impulse purchase to looking at your budget. Which means your budget needs to be accurate.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2021 02:23
|
|
|
Yeah, I'll be adjusting the income to match actual income, the issue is that it's not consistent because it's bimonthly rather than every two weeks, so it can vary by a couple hundred per paycheck. I just needed to put expected income in there so it didn't say "You're over budget by several thousand dollars!" I'll also likely be adjusting the budget for upcoming months based on finding if something is higher than it needs to be or lower than it needs to be since a lot of these categories are at shared stores with other categories so looking at previous actuals I can't get a concrete number. I'll also try to remember to hold on to receipts again so I can keep track of whether a gas station expense was just gas, or gas and an energy drink, if a grocery store purchase was just groceries or groceries and dog food, or dish soap, or whatever. Last time I was making progress I liked taking out and paying cash but my bank doesn't have a branch here so that's less practical unless I make a second account at one of the local banks that doesn't have any branches outside of this part of the state. Handing over cash gave me a painful feeling of physically seeing the money go away rather than just swiping a card and receiving stuff. I've done this before, so I'm confident I can do it again, I just need to try to avoid having my life fall apart again. E: Forgot to mention, I asked my friend whose garage I use sometimes if he has done a timing belt before. He has, so I feel more confident about DIYing that since that way I have a second pair of hands and eyes. 22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Aug 30, 2021 |
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2021 03:42
|
|
|
First paycheck since starting this thread, already struggling with temptation to buy poo poo. Small poo poo like I want a new graphing notebook because I haven't been able to find my old one since I moved, but I don't strictly speaking need one so I should hold off on spending the $3 or whatever it would be, at least wait until the end of the month to confirm I'm coming in under budget. Going down to Denver on Friday so I'll probably be spending some money while I'm down there, but I'll make a shopping list ahead of time and sleep on it. The only thing I'm sure of that I'm buying at this point is a set of long underwear assuming they're in stock because it will save me on shipping buying from the same store, and I'd rather buy them now than wait a couple months when they might not be on clearance anymore. This is more of a blog update to keep track of my mental state with regards to money and spending as I go on than anything else. I expect the first month or so to be the most difficult in terms of establishing new habits.
|
|
#
?
Sep 1, 2021 01:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 03:49 |
|
|
Well, ups and downs the past couple days. Thursday I applied to almost 100 jobs, but because of that I didn't go to the grocery store when I was supposed to and had to order a pizza because I was so lightheaded and loopy from low blood sugar that I couldn't even function enough to get groceries. Yesterday I got the storage unit cleaned out but due to everything taking longer than expected and a massive traffic jam I didn't get to the pawn shop to see about selling the gun. The storage unit is still a big win though, that's almost $200 a month that will go to my savings starting next month.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2021 18:01
|
|