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HonorableTB posted:A good bit of that money was spent on games for other people in the Steam gifting thread; I didn't spend all of that on myself.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:34
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Yeah, frivolously spending more money on games you won't play from a Steam sale for yourself when you have $65k of debt hanging over your head is one thing, it's kind of extra-super-mega ridiculous when you're doing it to give away to people. You spent ~$750 on entertainment and restaurants. Not to be Captain Obvious, but that's a lot, and probably the easiest category to scrimp on. I know you said this is an open and shut case but man, that power bill is crazy. Try and get your GF to budge on that 74 degree requirement.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:40
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Barry posted:Yeah, frivolously spending more money on games you won't play from a Steam sale for yourself when you have $65k of debt hanging over your head is one thing, it's kind of extra-super-mega ridiculous when you're doing it to give away to people. I have tried. Believe me, I've tried. She absolutely will not budge on 74 degrees. And I said earlier in this thread when people originally asked me for June spending that a ton of it came from video games and restaurants, and my budgets for July and now August have reflected that. Yes, it was a ton of money to spend on video games and other people, I know that. My entertainment budget is ~$25 for the month and I don't buy anything game related except to pay for my WoW subscription.
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Aug 4, 2014 21:49
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HonorableTB posted:You're right, I don't have time to play all of those games. I bought the expansion and another boost on top of that so I could play with people from work on their server. I am not chasing some kind of entertainment high, I would just see something I thought was fun and buy it. A good bit of that money was spent on games for other people in the Steam gifting thread; I didn't spend all of that on myself. I'm confused. You needed two characters to play on your friends from work server? Also you could have leveled a character. It can be done relatively easily in a few weeks and it would probably prevent you from spending more money on games you won't play. Also don't tell me you're one of those "I only have fun at high level" people. EDIT: Since you're certain you won't spend above $25 going forward can we see your July spend to see how well you did? Bugamol fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 4, 2014 22:00
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HonorableTB posted:I have tried. Believe me, I've tried. She absolutely will not budge on 74 degrees. Set it to 75 and see what happens? If she finds out and gets mad at least you'll know she's serious about it. I dunno, don't pay attention to my bad advice. Sounds great. Like Bugamol said, do you have your July numbers to back up your claims?
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Aug 4, 2014 22:32
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When are you student loans coming due? Do you have any idea what the minimum payment is going to be? Are you on any sort of income based repayment plan? Not to be the bearer of bad news but you could be looking at a $400-$500+ a month student loan bill depending on what repayment option you're on. You should get your other poo poo in line while you have the extra cash flow. Also if your GF is going to demand the AC being cranked to 74 she should be paying 60-70% of the bill.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:13
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Bugamol posted:When are you student loans coming due? Do you have any idea what the minimum payment is going to be? Are you on any sort of income based repayment plan? Not to be the bearer of bad news but you could be looking at a $400-$500+ a month student loan bill depending on what repayment option you're on. You should get your other poo poo in line while you have the extra cash flow. I dunno, if I were his girlfriend I'd be pretty pissed if I knew he dropped hundreds of dollars on video games he isn't going to play every month and he suddenly started demanding that I live in discomfort to save $30 on the power bill.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:20
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Once you ask her to pay more than half on the electric bill it opens up a whole can of worms that's not worth it. "You took a 10 minute shower I think you should pay more of this coming water bill" etc, ect. Been there, done that, not worth the few bucks you could save.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:50
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il serpente cosmico posted:I dunno, if I were his girlfriend I'd be pretty pissed if I knew he dropped hundreds of dollars on video games he isn't going to play every month and he suddenly started demanding that I live in discomfort to save $30 on the power bill. I suggest turning it up to 75 and see how she reacts. I'm guessing you have it on 24/7? That's bad btw, I hope when you are both at work it's off. Also if it's so hot why does taking showers increase electricity bill? Cold showers in summer for the win! To give you an example, I live in Darwin which I think is 33C in the summer and about 80% humidity consistently for about 4 months and my electricity bill was $200 for 3 months. Electricity prices in darwin are 85.99% MORE than Atlanta. tl;dr Holy gently caress you use a lot of electricity what the hell man. Suspicious Lump fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 08:30
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Picking a fight with your girlfriend over something that might save $5-$10 (1 degree difference) a month seems stupid. How much more likely are you to decide to go out to dinner/a bar if you are sitting at home uncomfortable all the time? To lower energy costs, you can: * Replace all light bulbs with LED or CFL bulbs * Dimmable LEDs and LED dimmer switches actually save money when dimmed, unlike old incandescent dimmers * Replace some light switches with motion-activated vacancy or occupancy switches, where appropriate * Replace your AC thermostat with a smart thermostat and program it for time of day * Your AC thermostat is probably already programmable - make sure to use it even if you don't buy a new one * Make sure your furnace filters are clean. If you haven't replaced them in a few months, do it * Don't use furnace filters with a MUR rating higher than 10. * Make sure the AC compressor enclosure outside is relatively clean - if it looks dirty you can hose it down * Set any desktop computers to automatically go into sleep mode * Have your AC system professionally serviced if you haven't done that in more than 2 years * Lower your hot water heater temperature in the summer a bit (since the cold feed is much warmer, the hot doesn't need to be as hot in order to provide overall hot water for the same amount of time) * Look into adding some attic insulation. Companies can use a blower to spray a layer of insulating foam all over the top story of your house, which I have heard can dramatically improve the energy bills for a $200-$300 one time cost.
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Aug 6, 2014 16:28
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EDIT: /\/\/\/\/\/\ - He rents so a lot of those (aside from maybe changing the light bulbs aren't really practical aside from talking to his apartment complex) The easiest and most obvious answer here is just that your GF should be paying half the bill unless you guys have joint finances. I agree trying to have her pay more of the bill is probably a bad idea, but she should at least be paying her 50%. You're not really in a situation to be charitable.
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Aug 6, 2014 17:04
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Regarding power bill: Power usage has already dropped from June to July by almost $80 by putting curtains over the windows, keeping the AC off while we're at work, making sure all lights are off if we're not using them, combining laundry loads (as much as possible, obviously whites have to be washed separate from colors etc), turning my desktop computer off overnight (has an 800W power supply, it's a gaming rig), and we have bedside fans and overhead fans to keep the air circulating while we sleep. We already split all of the bills 50%. I only paid her bill that first month because she had literally just started her new job and wouldn't be getting paid until two weeks later, and the bill needed to be paid right then. We split water, rent, power, renter's insurance, food, household goods, cat supplies, etc. As far as the power bill goes, there's really nothing I can do to bring it lower. We live on the sixth floor, and heat of course rises. There's only so much we can do as renters. I'm not about to start a fight over wanting her to pay more than her half of the bill; that's not going to solve anything and it's going to make her feel like poo poo. Droo posted:Picking a fight with your girlfriend over something that might save $5-$10 (1 degree difference) a month seems stupid. How much more likely are you to decide to go out to dinner/a bar if you are sitting at home uncomfortable all the time? These are great ideas but we can't really implement any of them beyond switching to LED/CFL bulbs because of the apartment complex. I already turn my computer off every night, but you did remind me to change my air filters. That will improve air flow into the different rooms of the apartment and I just sent in a service ticket to have the maintenance guys come out and re-filter the place. I MAY be able to lower my hot water temperature, but that depends on whether or not I have access to the water heater. At my old apartment, all heat related utilities came from natural gas but here, everything is electric. I had full access to the water heater and stuff at my old apartment because I may have needed to relight the pilot flame, but here that's not an issue. Since we're both keeping to a budget, we only go out when we have planned in advance for it. We went out to eat at a semi-nice restaurant on Friday but we'd both planned for it in advance and had money set aside. We're both trying to keep spontaneous luxury spending to an absolute minimum. What I really like is that even though we're both holding to a budget, nothing says I have to show her every single category of my budget (and I don't - we are not married and in my opinion, my finances are none of her business outside of mutually paid for bills and utilities, just like her finances are none of my business outside of those as well) so I can still secretly set money aside for a "surprise date night" every so often as an "I love you and appreciate you" type of gift.
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Aug 6, 2014 17:16
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HonorableTB posted:Since we're both keeping to a budget, we only go out when we have planned in advance for it. We went out to eat at a semi-nice restaurant on Friday but we'd both planned for it in advance and had money set aside. Everything you said sounds pretty great except for this line. This is a trap that a lot of people get stuck in when they first start "budgeting". Just because you "planned" for it or "set money aside" doesn't mean it should be in your budget. This doesn't mean you should live like a hermit, but you should be careful playing mental gymnastics to justify your poor spending habits. Also when is your student loan coming due and how much are the payments going to be?
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Aug 6, 2014 19:11
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Bugamol posted:Everything you said sounds pretty great except for this line. This is a trap that a lot of people get stuck in when they first start "budgeting". Just because you "planned" for it or "set money aside" doesn't mean it should be in your budget. This doesn't mean you should live like a hermit, but you should be careful playing mental gymnastics to justify your poor spending habits. Totally agree. I've found ever since I've hit a savings rate so high that I couldn't possibly go over my budget - unless I made a big purchase - I've been thinking about my money in a more long-term sense because I don't really have any short-term financial worries. So, just because I've "budgeted" for it doesn't mean I have to spend it. Or, to use HonorableTB's words, just because I "planned" for it doesn't justify the expense from a financial perspective. However, planning for an expense is still good, because it gives you time to really rationalize the spending from an emotional perspective. Before you actually spend the money, you can consider whether you really need that thing or service. If you can resist one time and still be happy, you may continue to resist the spending urge until the urge is gone. Or maybe you'll decide that the expense is truly worth it and find other places to cutback. To completely justify it financially because you "put the money aside" is definitely mental gymnastics, and something you shouldn't be doing if you really want to get your fiscal house in order. Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 19:44
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Bugamol posted:Everything you said sounds pretty great except for this line. This is a trap that a lot of people get stuck in when they first start "budgeting". Just because you "planned" for it or "set money aside" doesn't mean it should be in your budget. This doesn't mean you should live like a hermit, but you should be careful playing mental gymnastics to justify your poor spending habits. My student loans will most likely start coming in after I submit taxes next April. I am on the income based repayment plan (all of my loans are Federal) and when I submitted taxes for this fiscal year, I only made $33,000/year and have been getting monthly statements from the Fed Government showing my payments to be $0.00. I don't know what my monthly payments will be or how to find out. Rick Rickshaw posted:Totally agree. Regarding the mental gymnastics, I don't quite understand. I get that I'm setting money aside that doesn't necessarily have to be spent. What I don't understand is why this is necessarily a negative. If I'm putting money aside for it, I'm still setting a set limit on that specific expense, even if it doesn't "need" to be spent. I could put that into my savings instead, but sometimes we just want to go out to a restaurant and make up for that added expense (which still came out of my Eating Out/Restaurants category for this two weeks, meaning I'm not allowed to go grab fast food or something later).
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Aug 6, 2014 19:56
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HonorableTB posted:Regarding the mental gymnastics, I don't quite understand. I get that I'm setting money aside that doesn't necessarily have to be spent. What I don't understand is why this is necessarily a negative. If I'm putting money aside for it, I'm still setting a set limit on that specific expense, even if it doesn't "need" to be spent. I could put that into my savings instead, but sometimes we just want to go out to a restaurant and make up for that added expense (which still came out of my Eating Out/Restaurants category for this two weeks, meaning I'm not allowed to go grab fast food or something later). I'm not exactly a shining example of implementation here and I'm still learning a lot of this stuff myself, but consider this: I can put aside $400.00 right now to buy a new Playstation 4 next week. There now I've planned for it, I can take take the hit and still make my bills, but does that mean I should? Would you advise me to pick up a PS4? How much interest would you save putting that towards one of your loans, or alternatively how much interest could you turn that money into if you saved it for 1 year? How about 10 years? An alternative to this would be making a nice meal (but frugally) together at home, or if you're feeling lazy pick up a frozen lasagna and a bottle of wine or something. Eating out is expensive (trust me I know).
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Aug 6, 2014 20:06
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Knyteguy posted:I'm not exactly a shining example of implementation here and I'm still learning a lot of this stuff myself, but consider this: I can put aside $400.00 right now to buy a new Playstation 4 next week. There now I've planned for it, I can take take the hit and still make my bills, but does that mean I should? Would you advise me to pick up a PS4? How much interest would you save putting that towards one of your loans, or alternatively how much interest could you turn that money into if you saved it for 1 year? How about 10 years? You hit it! What I was trying to say is, just because it's budgeted/planned doesn't entirely justify the expense. You need to justify it emotionally. Do you REALLY need that PS4? Do you really need to eat out? Planning does actually help you to justify it emotionally, because it gives you time to consider whether you need to spend the money on that specific thing, or if there are more frugal alternatives that would make you just as happy. But if you sit there and solely justify it by planning for it without giving it a second thought and think you're a financial genius for doing so, then you're really not challenging yourself to be better and the banks will still own your sorry rear end, at least for much longer than you need them to.
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Aug 6, 2014 20:15
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Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks Knyteguy
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Aug 6, 2014 20:21
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Also, keep in mind that going out once in a while or getting a PS4 isn't a big deal when your finances are sorted and you are happy with them. But when you have a thread in BFC with this title, it's not the greatest idea to budget "eating out". I try to think that the money I save and put to good use now, will enable me to afford all the things I can't really afford now. It's boring, but it helps to decide not to buy X that you want but shouldn't.
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Aug 6, 2014 21:17
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Keep in mind as you continue to defer your loans you will continue to accrue interest. I believe the income based repayment plan allows loan forgiveness (based on some circumstances), but do you really want to be making a student loan payment for the next 25 years? Assuming $45,000 in student loans over 3 years of deferment: Start - $45,000 Year 1 - $45,000 + $2,475 interest Year 2 - $47,475 + $2,611 interest Year 3 - $50,086 + $2,754 interest End - $52,840 It will cost you ~$7,840 to defer your loans over 3 years. It will be more than this because I did not use compounding interest. You should probably try and pay at least the interest each month ~$206.25.
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Aug 11, 2014 16:42
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Bugamol posted:Keep in mind as you continue to defer your loans you will continue to accrue interest. I believe the income based repayment plan allows loan forgiveness (based on some circumstances), but do you really want to be making a student loan payment for the next 25 years? Anyone on IBR is being converted to Pay as You Earn - it's only 20 years for repayment And who gives a poo poo about paying for 20 years if you make out in the end with forgiveness. That's what every single doctor and lawyer is doing.
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Aug 11, 2014 17:32
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EugeneJ posted:Anyone on IBR is being converted to Pay as You Earn - it's only 20 years for repayment Unethical and kind of a gamble yea? Laws can change in 20 years.
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Aug 11, 2014 17:38
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Knyteguy posted:Unethical and kind of a gamble yea? Laws can change in 20 years. They're capping the amount you can have forgiven starting in 2015 for new borrowers, but everyone else will be grandfathered in.
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Aug 11, 2014 17:45
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EugeneJ posted:Anyone on IBR is being converted to Pay as You Earn - it's only 20 years for repayment Ya I don't know all the rules. I'm not on IBR. I believe you have to have borrowed >$50,000 and there are other qualifications for the forgiveness. However as you make more money your payment is going to go up, but if you start only doing IBR and don't even pay the interest charges you could get yourself into a situation where 10-15 years from now you have a sizeable loan payment with no prospect of being able to pay it off. Also if you miss a payment I believe you lose out on IBR. There's more to it than pay your loan for 20 years and carries some risk. EDIT: I mean if you owed $150,000 + and it wasn't realistic that you could pay it off I could understand, but carrying $45,000 worth of debt for the next 20 years (which could equate to a $750-$1000 payment in 10-15 years) seems foolish to me. Bugamol fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 18:46
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Bugamol posted:You should probably try and pay at least the interest each month ~$206.25. This year, he's way better off paying 3.85% potentially tax deductible interest than the interest on any of his other loans. Next year, his minimum payment will probably be around $200-$250, from what I can tell about IBR payment calculation, making it a moot point.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:30
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EugeneJ posted:And who gives a poo poo about paying for 20 years if you make out in the end with forgiveness. That's what every single doctor and lawyer is doing. Care to post some actual data on this? I find this basically impossible to believe. Even at 200k in loans it is only a $2300 payment over the normal ten years. I guess lawyers are having trouble finding work so maybe, but doctors? A full fledged doctor can easily make that payment, unless they just care about their image.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:33
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spwrozek posted:Care to post some actual data on this? It's income based. Normally not to exceed 10%-15% take home. Eventually it's going to catch up to you if you just make the minimum payment. Probably at the 10-15 year mark where you will most likely have a $1,500+ student loan payment. Then you could get laid off, miss a payment, and disqualify yourself from the forgiveness. Plus as someone else said there's a lot of volatility with student loans. It's possible that in 5-10 years they'll just forgive everyone's student loan debt. Who knows. If I was in a situation where I could pretty easily be out of debt (without even making any real sacrifices) in just 3-5 years, and the alternative was to make payments on a loan for 20 years, I would just pay it off. Zhentar posted:This year, he's way better off paying 3.85% potentially tax deductible interest than the interest on any of his other loans. Next year, his minimum payment will probably be around $200-$250, from what I can tell about IBR payment calculation, making it a moot point. You have to pay the interest for it to be tax deductible. Which is why I recommended he at least make an interest payment each month.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:24
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That was my point, a doctor is going to just pay it off. It is financially intelligent for them. Plus the huge tax hit at the end would be brutal.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:34
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Ya I didn't mean to quote you. Not sure what happened and how I didn't notice. I agree. For 70% of the population who don't have $150,000+ in student loans to be a teacher in South Carolina IBR is going to result in you paying off the loan eventually. It really only benefits people who made really really stupid decisions in college.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:51
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