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tuyop posted:Are the only legitimate ambitions about building up larger and larger piles of savings and investments until you die? gently caress that, too. Believe it or not, if you have savings and investments you can actually achieve some ambitions instead of just having them remain unfulfilled.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 17:29 |
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# ? Mar 19, 2024 09:08 |
Fraternite posted:Believe it or not, if you have savings and investments you can actually achieve some ambitions instead of just having them remain unfulfilled. Yes. I understand that money is a means to an end. I am not interested in making it an end in itself. Having an ever compounding number in my web browser is not fulfilling for me. I don't have contempt for people who find that very satisfying, it's just not for me.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 18:19 |
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tuyop posted:Yes. I understand that money is a means to an end. I am not interested in making it an end in itself. Having an ever compounding number in my web browser is not fulfilling for me. I don't have contempt for people who find that very satisfying, it's just not for me. Edit: Also, what the hell are you going to do with credit cards worth half your net income? Cuddlebottom fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jul 31, 2011 |
# ? Jul 31, 2011 18:21 |
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tuyop posted:I'm an untrained officer and I work in a training company as an admin officer. I do maybe an hour of work a week. Mostly photocopying. tuyop posted:Yeah I'm pretty proud. Part of the problem, I guess. But I have a lot to be proud of, other than finances obviously.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 18:27 |
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tuyop posted:Yes. I understand that money is a means to an end. I am not interested in making it an end in itself. Having an ever compounding number in my web browser is not fulfilling for me. I don't have contempt for people who find that very satisfying, it's just not for me. If only you found compounding your credit card balance as unfufilling.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 18:33 |
swenblack posted:This just doesn't add up. Really? Are the only things in your life that you're proud of your net worth and day job?
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 18:57 |
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tuyop posted:Having an ever compounding number in my web browser is not fulfilling for me. I don't have contempt for people who find that very satisfying, it's just not for me.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 20:00 |
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moana posted:People say this all the time, and it's the dumbest loving strawman. Who does this? Nobody does this. It's a false dichotomy you create so you can feel superior to people who don't make your dumb financial mistakes because your ambitions are somehow better or more important. People in BFC take vacations, buy nice cars, indulge in luxuries - we just don't go into debt to do it because we know that's a bad deal that costs much more than it should, especially if you ever run into bad luck along the way. People do do this. I grew up dirt poor and was so accustomed to saving everything I could so I wouldn't end up like that and feeling anxiety about spending any money that I stockpiled a bunch of money and lived way below my means in a radically different tax bracket than my parents. I would constantly check my checking account and savings accounts. I know other people like this too.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 22:45 |
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Vomik posted:People do do this. I grew up dirt poor and was so accustomed to saving everything I could so I wouldn't end up like that and feeling anxiety about spending any money that I stockpiled a bunch of money and lived way below my means in a radically different tax bracket than my parents. I would constantly check my checking account and savings accounts. I know other people like this too. This was super-common among the generation that grew up during the depression and led to a lot of grandparents having decently large estates when they passed away.
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# ? Jul 31, 2011 23:53 |
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Vomik posted:People do do this. I grew up dirt poor and was so accustomed to saving everything I could so I wouldn't end up like that and feeling anxiety about spending any money that I stockpiled a bunch of money and lived way below my means in a radically different tax bracket than my parents. I would constantly check my checking account and savings accounts. I know other people like this too. Can we agree that the ideal is (as usual) somewhere in between the two extremes? Being in serious credit card debt is undesireable, and avoidable. Planning for your future by saving wisely is important - so is enjoying your money. I take my retirement and my child's future education seriously and plan/save appropriately. I also own a brand new $60,000 sport sedan that makes no sense from a purist standpoint, but gently caress do I love it. The difference between me and a guy like the OP is that I can easily afford it, and if I sold it today I wouldnt be anywhere near upside down. Good financial planning is a ying and yang between the "I want it now" and the "I need security later". It's possible to do both, and ultimately I think that's what this forum should be about. This is the goal we should all strive for. You don't need to watch every penny you spend if you save appropriately. You also need to be sure you can afford what you do spend. There should be more reason on this board and less "all or nothing" penny pinching. Exercise does happen to be a good analogy here - if you want to get fit and cut everything you love in life out, you'll never get there. There is a place called "good enough". We're rational and emotional animals, and the best plans account for both sides of the equation. OP you are far too offside on the emotional side right now, and the majority of the respondants here are offisde on the rational side. Realize this is a reaction to how emotional your approach is. Look for the middle ground. Look for good enough. Being debt free is part of good enough. Do what it takes, take your lumps and you can get back on track. Saltin fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Aug 1, 2011 |
# ? Aug 1, 2011 00:00 |
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tuyop posted:Yes. I understand that money is a means to an end. I am not interested in making it an end in itself. Having an ever compounding number in my web browser is not fulfilling for me. I don't have contempt for people who find that very satisfying, it's just not for me. BFC falls into that trap a lot, but based on your annual income you passed the line where this is an excuse somewhere around $40K ago.
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 02:14 |
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tuyop posted:Yo Berkut, just an FYI. I'm ignoring you now because I can't stand the fact that someone with absolutely no life experience is giving me advice, not just about finances, but about my responsibilities to my country when you didn't even have the spine to get fit and try out yourself. gently caress you. What can I say, Fleet Support pays better and if a shithead lieutenant tells me to drive him somewhere, I can tell him to gently caress off. Not to mention I CAN leave the country and never come back; I'm looking into contracts in Germany and Afghanistan which pay even better than my current contract. PS: I'm getting fit not because my job requires it (it sure as gently caress doesn't), but because I have free time and money available to do it for shits and giggles. Also, is life experience worth going flat on your rear end broke? Tell me, I've yet to find out because I'm busy taking trips to Panama in my shiny red Camaro. Oh that's right, you can't read this. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 02:37 |
Saltin posted:Can we agree that the ideal is (as usual) somewhere in between the two extremes? Good post. I spent exactly nothing this weekend. Which was hard because a bunch of my old friends were going to our old bar. I think this is a good thing right now.
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 04:20 |
I made an Etsy shop. I'm going to be uploading poo poo all day because their upload process is the worst thing ever. There's like 7 shots up now, I'll edit when I'm done putting all 50 of the things I want up. Here's a coupon code in case you ballers want to decorate your http://www.etsy.com/shop/tuyop 30% off. Enter GOONYOP Sorry if this is not appropriate for this thread or forum. Let me know and I'll take down the link. tuyop fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Aug 1, 2011 |
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 18:18 |
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It's cool to post the link here, but if I were you I would start a thread in SA-Mart and link to that instead. More eyeballs that way.
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 18:33 |
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tuyop posted:
Link didn't work for me. "Uh oh! Sorry, the page you were looking for was not found."
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 18:45 |
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Orgasmo posted:Link didn't work for me. And it shows a three-armed sweater! I like it.
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 18:46 |
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Your linking abilities need work. http://www.etsy.com/shop/tuyop
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 19:05 |
/\/\/\ Thanks, I changed my post.Zeta Taskforce posted:It's cool to post the link here, but if I were you I would start a thread in SA-Mart and link to that instead. I'm scared that the Dorkroom folks will find it and ridicule me endlessly for posting technically terrible photos. Like that black and white Mexican girl one. I think someone might like it, but it sure is blurry. I would just DIE if I ended up in the "Post Terrible Photos From Other Photographers" thread. I've got 20 shots up now. I'm taking a loving break. loving Etsy upload wizard.
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 19:34 |
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tuyop posted:I'm scared that the Dorkroom folks will find it and ridicule me endlessly for posting technically terrible photos. You drove all the way from Canada to a Mexican resort, including at least 1500 kilometers of Mexican highway through areas where they are fighting a drug war and people get kidnapped every day. You had the time of your life blowing $60,000 dollars on trips and cars you can’t afford. You possibly had sexual relations with a transvestite? (Not that there’s anything with that, but I like my cock attached to a man ) I thought this tyuop dude was bold, fearless, lived life to the fullest, and screw what people think. But drat, who are these monsters in the dorkroom!?
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 20:12 |
Actually we stayed in some Mexican lady's house ($6 a night!) and some motels. And you're right. Do your worse, Dorkroom! I posted a thread in SAMart. I feel like such a sham. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3428626 And my TV just sold. 400 bucks! Edit: What's the most prudent thing to do with this 400 dollars right now? Should I save it or buy those boots ($165) so I can break them in this month or what? I could use a wireless card for my computer ($30). Or should I just dump it on the Mastercard this month? I was hoping to get the boots with my cash, gas and grocery overflow, if possible. tuyop fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Aug 2, 2011 |
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# ? Aug 1, 2011 22:16 |
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tuyop posted:And my TV just sold. 400 bucks! Put the money towards your debt. That was the point of selling the TV.
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# ? Aug 2, 2011 05:41 |
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tuyop posted:Edit: What's the most prudent thing to do with this 400 dollars right now? Should I save it or buy those boots ($165) so I can break them in this month or what? I could use a wireless card for my computer ($30). Or should I just dump it on the Mastercard this month? I was hoping to get the boots with my cash, gas and grocery overflow, if possible. I'm not sure how this is even a question, but debt obviously - the TV could pay off almost all of your laptop or a decent portion of your high interest credit card. The point of selling the tv is not to get more money to gently caress around with, you already have a ton of that - $240/month - which makes the boots easily affordable next month. I don't see how you have to go into the $400 to get a wireless card. It's August 2nd. You're already $97 out due to supplies in your cash fund, but you still have $143 left for the month for stupid poo poo. The wireless call can easily fit into that $143.
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# ? Aug 2, 2011 12:45 |
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tuyop posted:What's the most prudent thing to do with this 400 dollars right now? Should I save it or buy those boots ($165) so I can break them in this month or what? I could use a wireless card for my computer ($30). Or should I just dump it on the Mastercard this month? I was hoping to get the boots with my cash, gas and grocery overflow, if possible.
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# ? Aug 2, 2011 17:30 |
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You know I’m all in favor of saving to get rid of the car, but for this amount of money I would scrape together another $102.42 and send it with your $400 to Dell. Won’t it be nice to finally have them out of your life and use a laptop that you actually own? One fewer payment that you can put towards your other debts. For the car, if you keep making regular payments and stop driving it into the ground by not putting 1000 km on it ever other weekend, you will be right side up faster. And you won’t spend as much on gas.
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# ? Aug 2, 2011 19:43 |
I made the mathematically correct choice and put it on the mastercard, so that's down to 1950.
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# ? Aug 2, 2011 20:29 |
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tuyop posted:I made the mathematically correct choice and put it on the mastercard, so that's down to 1950. If I were you, I would reconsider what account you will pay off first, and get rid of Dell, especially if you have decided that you will not be selling the car any time soon. If I recall, the Dell was something like 23% and the Mastercard something like 29%? If that’s the case, you probably will save somewhere around $3 in finance charge by paying Mastercard first. If your goal is to muddle along, then it doesn’t matter. But if you are really interested in attacking your debt, that means cutting back your lifestyle, i.e. there will be parts of your life that will really suck. Pain now, reward later. Knowing in the background that you saved $10 in finance charge doesn’t really excite most people’s internal passions. Probably you especially, since you said that looking at numbers on a computer screen doesn’t do anything for you. You’re not a nerd like cornholio (and you know I mean that affectionately) and for that matter most of BFC. You don’t get boners looking at excel spreadsheets going in the right direction. That’s just how your mind works. You need to score some early victories, and that will see you through the drudgery. Without the victories, you will lose focus, and your behavior won’t change. Next time you get $400 you are likely to buy yourself something nice because that will excite your brain more than the knowledge you saved some finance charge. The other thing is all debt limits you. Your car is at 1.9%. But your excellent rate means nothing. You are just as trapped in the car. By knocking out the little accounts first, you will give yourself an immediate raise. You have been paying some of these for so long it just feels normal. But pay enough accounts off, you will have noticeably more money, and that is always good. I saw this and thought of you. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/1108/gallery.extreme_debt/index.html
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 17:06 |
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CornHolio posted:That's... kind of sad, really. Stop exaggerating, you're just a pushover and a terrible dad.
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 17:26 |
Well, this month has another small bonus. My field time got bumped up from 5 days to 11 days. So that's 250 in field pay alone. I sent a pair of boots in for warranty repair last month. ($22 shipping) and they just refunded my money ($245. Got screwed by exchange here, there was a rise in the USD when I bought them so they cost 275, but the USD is down now so I only got 245. ), so that's going towards new boots but the money has already been spent so I'm not considering it as income or expense. Hoping to find a deal and replace them with two new OTBs. Or a set of trail runners (just realized that running in slushy poo poo in my vibram fivefingers this fall is not going to be an option) and combat boots. What do you guys think? Effectively, this means that I'm living for free for the first two weeks of august. My friend also gave me a shitload of food because he's going away for a few months and can't eat it. That knocked out most of a week's worth of groceries. What this means is $0 spent on gas, groceries, and misc for more than 11 days. So 585 altogether. Again, instead of letting it sit in a buffer I'm going to dump it on the MasterCard. That brings it down to 1365 for when the interest hits and compounds on sept 2. E/N point. I feel bad for basically abandoning the girlfriend right when she moved in, but she found a job yesterday (working at some kind of sobeys distribution warehouse in the same town I work in) which forces me to carpool because of her hours. All good news! Looking at last month, I was way under on gas so I think it'll need to be reevaluated. I'm going to try for only 20 a week in spending this month, in preparation for September. Since I'm moving again, I probably won't get an accurate gas number until January or February when I get back from course/leave. Any moneysaving tips for my anticipated 50+ days off in December-January? I guess a ski trip to Maine is out of the question. Wish I could update my spreadsheets out here.
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 20:37 |
Zeta Taskforce posted:If I were you, I would reconsider what account you will pay off first, and get rid of Dell, especially if you have decided that you will not be selling the car any time soon. If I recall, the Dell was something like 23% and the Mastercard something like 29%? If that’s the case, you probably will save somewhere around $3 in finance charge by paying Mastercard first. If your goal is to muddle along, then it doesn’t matter. But if you are really interested in attacking your debt, that means cutting back your lifestyle, i.e. there will be parts of your life that will really suck. Pain now, reward later. Knowing in the background that you saved $10 in finance charge doesn’t really excite most people’s internal passions. Probably you especially, since you said that looking at numbers on a computer screen doesn’t do anything for you. You’re not a nerd like cornholio (and you know I mean that affectionately) and for that matter most of BFC. You don’t get boners looking at excel spreadsheets going in the right direction. That’s just how your mind works. You need to score some early victories, and that will see you through the drudgery. Without the victories, you will lose focus, and your behavior won’t change. Next time you get $400 you are likely to buy yourself something nice because that will excite your brain more than the knowledge you saved some finance charge. I just want to get rid of this debt as quickly as possible. It's just one giant amount in my head, and I really don't care about each account. I will feel no sense of satisfaction from having a card or a laptop or whatever balance sitting at 0, it just means that I check a different box in the pay bills section of my online banking. I don't think I'm the kind of person who needs small victories like that to keep me motivated. In my head, the only money that exists for me now is the cash I have in hand, which is a huge difference from thinking about money as basically an amorphous, digital thing that turns into stuff that I like. Maybe I'm not explaining it correctly, but at this rate the MasterCard will be gone next month along with the laptop, so who cares? If I'm doing the math properly, and I can stick to 20 or even 30 a week for spending in september, ill be spending 0-25 for groceries depending on weekends, and 0 for gas because the gf has the car for work. add to that the additional balance from being on course, and I'll be paying 580 + ~350 + ~1300 in debt reservicing next month and onward. So the mastercard will be gone and the laptop will be gone and I'll double the minimum for my visa. That's obviously not sustainable, but it'll drop the visa to < 6000 by December and total debt to ~46000. I've been reading a lot about finance since I've been in the field, and i'm actually excited by the amount of savings I could have at retirement if I start now. Given that my remaining debt after the visa is <5% APR, and that should happen by April or May at the latest, should I be refocusing at that point on maxing out my rrsp while building a 3-9 month emergency fund in my tfsa? Aren't I getting close to getting superior interest rates with mutual funds and RRSPs at that point?
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 21:00 |
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tuyop posted:Any moneysaving tips for my anticipated 50+ days off in December-January? I guess a ski trip to Maine is out of the question. If you have that many consecutive days off the obvious choice is to get a part-time/seasonal job and put that money toward debt. Put vacations out of your mind right now, it will only make the process harder.
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 21:04 |
Magic Underwear posted:If you have that many consecutive days off the obvious choice is to get a part-time/seasonal job and put that money toward debt. Put vacations out of your mind right now, it will only make the process harder. Ok cool, I'll send an email in October to my old boss to see if he has any positions in Fredericton. A lot of places hire more security around Christmas and Boxing Day. I'll update my resume when I get out of the field. I could probably bank 900-1500 depending on my hours during that leave. Sick.
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# ? Aug 4, 2011 21:22 |
Upcoming expense alert! I took my car to a bodyshop today for an estimate on some surface scratches and poo poo, and a cracked panel. I just wanted to know if I had to worry about rust from some of the deeper ones. Turns out that the deep scratches and rock chips are not that deep at all, so rust won't be an issue. But I have a cracked plastic panel below my door that will probably fall off this winter if I don't have it fixed before the snow starts. The dealership wanted 550, this shop wants 200. I'm going to shop around since I won't be doing it until October, but that just kind of sucks. I was freaking out a little bit because my bank balance was like 2k, which it never is because I always dump extra money on credit cards, but all my bills are coming out this week. And I can add two more items to the budget. My internet is $10 a month. I wanted to increase the speed but I can't because this place loving sucks, so I'm stuck with it. My power is about $20 a month and will probably go up as it gets colder. And my xbox live membership ran out today. $60 more this month.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:19 |
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If you can get ahold of some screwdrivers you can probably replace that plastic panel yourself. It's not like there's going to be any welding involved or whatever, it's just screws or possibly some retaining clips or something. Get a Haynes/Chiltons for your car, and start doing minor easy repair work like this yourself. In the long run you'll save hundreds. Also, get ready for everyone to tell you xbox live service isn't a necessity...
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:43 |
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tuyop posted:And my xbox live membership ran out today. $60 more this month.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 22:53 |
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tuyop posted:And I can add two more items to the budget. My internet is $10 a month. I wanted to increase the speed but I can't because this place loving sucks, so I'm stuck with it. My power is about $20 a month and will probably go up as it gets colder. And the xbox live membership had better be coming out the the entertainment budget you already have, because as moana said, you can't just go "oops forgot to save for this, guess I'll just add $60 to the budget this month." If you can't manage that just by cutting this month's entertainment expenses, then you can wait another month or three to have xbox live back.
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# ? Aug 15, 2011 23:10 |
Yeah of course. I'm already 120 dollars under from being in the field for two weeks, and I'm going with 40/wk instead of 60 from now on to see how it goes. You guys are right about the xbox though. I should have thought around it (could have just plugged the computer into the tv for now) instead of just noticing that my live membership was done and upgrading. Edit: and we've been over the DIY maintenance thing. And the part has to be cemented and all sorts of fancy painting and stuff that I really couldnt do myself. Also, no tools whatsoever outside of storage that I can't get to. Another elective payment is coming up too. I lost a car key somehow so that has to be replaced at some point. The Mazda key fob is ridiculously expensive apparently. I'll probably do that after course. Edit 2: the Internet is an issue because all three of us want it, so even the fancy fiberoptic version is only $25 a month. Seeing as how I was paying 45 before, and we don't have tv or any of the other home entertainment expenses, it just really sucks. good thing is that we're all stuck paying 10 bucks for the foreseeable future I guess. tuyop fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Aug 16, 2011 |
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# ? Aug 16, 2011 01:14 |
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tuyop posted:I made an Etsy shop. I'm going to be uploading poo poo all day because their upload process is the worst thing ever. It will be interesting to see if a single print sells within the next month.. or ever.
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# ? Aug 16, 2011 13:10 |
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tuyop posted:Edit: and we've been over the DIY maintenance thing. And the part has to be cemented and all sorts of fancy painting and stuff that I really couldnt do myself. Also, no tools whatsoever outside of storage that I can't get to. Another elective payment is coming up too. I lost a car key somehow so that has to be replaced at some point. The Mazda key fob is ridiculously expensive apparently. I'll probably do that after course. Are you sure it has to be cemented? Take a picture and post it in the AI "stupid questions" thread. You will need to get it properly painted at a body shop but those usually don't require anything but a bunch of clips and screws to put in, unless I'm imagining the part wrong or Mazdas are put together weird or something.
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# ? Aug 16, 2011 13:45 |
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# ? Mar 19, 2024 09:08 |
/\/\ I'll post some pictures for you when the weather improves, but I've done a bit of bodywork before and I know that this is beyond my skillset and tools available. The panel attaches from the back with some screw on clips which are fused to the panel. They've broken off and the whole panel has to be removed. Also, if I mess it up I'm going to have to pay for the whole 500 bucks.coolskillrex remix posted:It will be interesting to see if a single print sells within the next month.. or ever. I agree! I did a lot of reading on setting up etsy shops in the last couple of weeks and I have to put up a slightly different set of pictures to appeal to the market, but I am Le busy and etsy takes forever. tuyop fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Aug 16, 2011 |
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# ? Aug 16, 2011 16:57 |