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KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006
Your debt is actually $56,702 if you add up all your numbers that you posted.

You should definitely sell the stuff that you don't use. You don't seem to have any real concept of money. You say "That's depressing for me and I don't know how much it really helps my situation." but if you got $3,000 - $4,000, you would be able to pay off your highest interest credit card in full and you'd be free of things you don't use much.

What is wrong with your current laptop where you need a new one before you're even done paying off the first one? Do you pay interest on it? If not, when does the 0% interest rate end? You have all this debt and no savings, how would you pay for a new laptop? Start backing up your computer regularly and just use it until it dies. I can't imagine you're going to get a ton of money by selling a 3 year old laptop that you don't even own in full and that you apparently need to replace soon.

$240/month in spending money is actually quite a lot. When we see threads like this, most people have around $50 - $150 in spending money for the month so that is definitely one area where you can cut down. You don't need to be spending $8/day on fun stuff.

You cell phone is another area that can easily be cut down to almost nothing. You definitely don't need an iphone to survive. Again, get rid of the bank fees. What are these fees from? If your bank is charging you fees, switch banks - there are plenty of banks that don't charge you anything for their services, unless you're overdrawing, in which case, you shouldn't be doing that anymore since you're on a budget nwo.

Have you shopped around with your car insurance? It seems like you should be able to do better than $202 as well, although a current speeding ticket is a bad sign. That should definitely come out of your spending money.

Edit: On the laptop: You're paying 21% interest on the laptop currently? Can you just put all your extra money towards the laptop and pay it off already, its a low balance and you'll have one debt paid off in full which will feel good.

KarmaCandy fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Jul 28, 2011

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KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006
Well that's a lot of excuses as to why you can't change anything about your life.

tuyop posted:

The iPhone is on a contract. If I back out I'll have to pay 600 in fees.

How much longer do you have on your contract? Why are your termination fees so much more than the usual iphone fees?

tuyop posted:

The 240 is not just fun money. Its also misc money used to cover unexpected expenses. (watch breaks, hydration pack breaks)

I would break these two things out. Entertainment and then Work Expenses. Cut back on your entertainment category as much as possible and limit your work expenses to only what you absolutely need, thinking realistically as to what gear you need, how often it wears out, and how much replacements cost - I would treat it like maintenance on a car probably, personally. Putting a small set amount aside in an account each month and letting it build up gradually since you won't need to replace things every month, I would assume. You certainly shouldn't be spending $100+/month on work items that need to be replaced.

tuyop posted:

Groceries are higher than they need to be because of my diet. I buy fresh vegetables and meat and a few supplements. I'm not willing or able to live on beans and rice like you guys recommend, because I have to work out intensely 5-8 times a week. This is very important to me regarding my health and career so it's not going to change.

You can cut back without necessarily cutting back in nutrition. Bulk frozen chicken breasts and frozen vegetables are still good for you but are often cheaper and last longer than fresh vegetables and smaller packets of chicken breasts, etc. When vegetables are in season - go for fresh, when they're not - go for frozen.

tuyop posted:

Should I pay off the balance with the buffer from August? Does that push making more than minimum payments on my debt back another month or just eat my chequing balance?

It doesn't push it back. Your laptop is part of your debt. So you would be paying off one of your debts in full. A lot of people find that eliminating a lower balance quickly and in full gives them a lot of satisfaction as they see immediate results. You could either attack the checking account or the laptop - both have pretty high interest rates, and you wouldn't immediately have $37 extra dollars a month to put towards your cards the next month. Its more about motivation.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

puyot posted:

That's the thing, none of these people are broke. They don't think I'm broke. They have 5-30k in debt, make 25-75k a year, they make their payments and pay down stuff slowly.

They are broke. They may not think they are but that doesn't mean that they are not and in fact, they're worse than broke - they are in the negative. Unless they have a large amount of debt and an even larger amount in their savings account and are just bad with money and enjoy paying more for things than they have to, they are broke. And isn't it a little scary to think that you estimate your friends as having $5 - 30k worth of debt and you are about $56,000 in debt. Even by your own estimations of friends living normally, you have almost double the amount of debt that you think your more spend happy friends have.

Those people who can just make the minimum payments will essentially never catch up. In the US, the credit card companies are now required to show you how long you would have to pay if you only paid the minimum on your credit card because it's really scary what a slave to your minimum payments you become. People who are just paying the minimums on their debt will be paying for esentially ever, even over very small balances. To give your own example, if you paid the minimum on your 30% card, it would take you 380 months to be rid of your debt and you would pay $9,728.34 in interest on a $2300 balance. Really think about that. You would have paid off one card in 31 years, without buying anything else on the card during that time. Was whatever you spent $2300 worth the $12,000 you spent on it? This is why debt grows rather than shrinks unless you make a conscious decision to get out of debt - there's no way you're not going to want to buy other things over the course of those 31 years that will add to your debt.

The car is not so bad, but again, it will take you 74 months to pay off if you never made more than the minimum payments and you'll have paid an extra $1600 on your car. Since it's your dream car, you may still be excited about the car six years from now - most people aren't. Whether it's because other people are now getting newer and nicer cars and they want to keep pace, whether its because they have a new dream car or think they deserve better, whether the car is "falling apart" and needs expensive repairs or whether there are real situational changes - they now need two cars and with it comes another car payment, they have a kid and their dream car is impractical, etc. Things change, as you've seen with the laptop - you still have another year and a half worth of payments to make on your computer and you already want a new one.


I dont think you need to sell all your belongings and live like a monk. I wouldn't advise you to sell the car and I would advise you to evaluate your camera equipment, not just get rid of it all - do you use all your cameras equally or is there one you could rely on and get rid of the others? But things that you don't use that are just things taking up space - that stuff you should get rid of and those should serve as reminders of things you spent a lot of money on that you didn't even really need or use. If you can reign in your spending and work on paying off your debts at a rate you are comfortable with without having to give up much then that's what you should do, but you have to realize that you've accumulated over $50,000 in debt and you're only 23. If you keep living the way you are currently living, you are only going to get into more trouble, not less. Something hasn't been working so SOMETHING has to change, and $50,000 is a lot of money so small little cuts here and there are not going to make a big dent - we're just throwing out suggestions.

I would think that you should have seen how unfair life and how emergencies crop up just by looking at your parents. They're not deadbeats - they're people living life and lovely things happen in life. It should scare you how quickly they went through all of their savings and how much debt they have now. I don't know what the support network is like for older people in Canada but in America, seeing your parents out of money in their 40's and 50's would be a big scary warning sign that you will likely be supporting your parents once they can no longer work for the rest of their lives.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Yeah, in 2010 I had five months paid vacation. In 09 it was something like 2. I spent nearly all of it abroad, hiking and backpacking. Fun's over I guess. :(

How much paid vacation do you have this year? That sounds like an amazing opportunity to pick up another full time job for a short amount of time and make a lot of extra money, on top of your normal pay, in order to pay off your debts faster.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

I'm probably going to keep one or both of my credit cards even after getting out of this mess. It's comforting for me to have 15000 available if I immediately have to leave the country and never come back or something.

I haven't gone fleeing the country too often, so I don't know too much about it... but given the choice, if I WERE fleeing the country, I would much rather do it with cash instead of credit. Credit seems a bit more traceable.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

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.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

I'm on track to spend $20 on gas this week to chip in for the carpooling on Friday. I spent my $40 bucks cash already on a haircut ($13), replacing a multitool that was stolen last week ($25), and I've got a toonie in my car. Should haircuts come out of my cash? I know they're 13 bucks every two weeks.

The girlfriend found a job at a warehouse making 300 a week. It's brutal, the hours suck and she barely has enough money to pay the bills. She wants me to come camping with her family this weekend. She's paying the gas, and I would pay for another site which is 28 dollars. I'm saying I can't afford it, but she really wants me to go.

Yes, haircuts should come out of cash but I can't at all fathom why you need one every two weeks. Are you doing $40/wk of spending money? If the girlfriend wants you to go and it's important to her and you want to go, you can always use next week's spending money on this weekend and then only have $12 for next week. Personally, I do my spending money by month rather than week because there will be weeks with lots of things I want to do and weeks with nothing, using a weekly amount as a guide but the monthly amount as a firm line, but that may be dangerous for you if you feel you'll spend it all in the first week.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Having long hair won't kill me, but my company sergeant-major will.

Hair just doesn't grow very much in two weeks and if you're buzzing it, that's something that you or your girlfriend could easily do yourselves. If you're not buzzing it, maybe you should start since its DIY and your short hair will stay short longer.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Guys, it's 26 dollars a month. I'm an officer in the military, I can't look like a lovely scruff 1/4 of the time even if I could figure out a way to not break the rules. .

Well it's $26 dollars a month but as you're figuring out, when you only have $40/wk to spend, those two weeks that you get a haircut will be a little bit tighter in your fun/miscellaneous category since haircuts aren't super fun but make up 17% of your monthly fun budget. If you feel that an extra week would suddenly make you look scruffy then so be it, but an extra week could also give you some extra money to do other things like go camping with your girlfriend. It's about balancing things. For most of us, a cut every two weeks is excessive and would be an easy way to squeeze in some extra discretionary money by just going one week longer without, but if that's where you want your spending money to go then that's where it should go.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

They are a necessity for keeping mosquitoes away and staying awake.

You need to learn what a necessity is. Mosquito repellent will be far cheaper than cigarettes and if you are around other people who smoke, their smoke can keep the mosquitos away. Try caffeine as an alternative if you can't stay awake.

tuyop posted:

And yeah, it's only like 5-10 cigarettes a day.

10 cigarettes is a half a pack a day. That is not light smoking and will certainly add up and needs to be budgeted for. I can see stamps but seriously, how did you forget about a $77 expense? You smoke everyday, how did you just forget they cost money? Between haircuts and cigarettes, your generous $160 in miscellaneous spending money is down to $60 for the month.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006
I would just like to see a break down of where you are now. It's a little confusing hearing that you're over budget here but under budget there... I'd like to see how it all panned for you, either now or at the end of the month and where you were overbudget/underbudget and by how much. I'm not a military person so the difference b/t on the field and on the course and what that means in terms of your budget is confusing. Are these supposed to be the cheaper months (grocery wise, etc.) or are your next few months supposed to be the cheaper months?

I don't care that you smoke, I worry that your budget just isn't sustainable. If you reguarly spend $77 on cigs and $23 on haircuts and you have a girlfriend and miscellaneous items to replace for work, I wonder if the $40/wk is really doable or if you're going to just keep failing. If the cigs go up when the groceries go down or something, then it might be doable - if you keep your general "This is how much total I'm going to spend and this is how much I'll save" in line then the subcategories really don't mean that much. It's just hard to get an idea of where you are right now, in the overall grand scheme of things and how that will change as you change roles in your job.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Also, grocery store had a HUGE meat sale, so I bought tons of tenderloin and salmon fillets with grocery points. Pretty sweet.

I thought being underbudget in grocery was how you explained away the cigarettes? $165 + $77 for cigarettes = $242 out of your $250 grocery budget. So now wouldn't buying a ton of tenderloin and salmon put you over on groceries for the month?

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006
This thread is impossible because you just justify everything with bullshit and ignore really reasonable suggestions. Listen to how small these suggestions are:

Canned or frozen vegetables? Nevermind that the nutritional world has decided they're essentially equivalent nutritionally to fresh vegetables, you somehow just know that to not be true somehow and cannot replace any of your fresh vegetables with canned or frozen.

Stop smoking? No can do - it's the only way you know of to get rid of mosquitos and keep you up at night, plus you only smoke half a pack a day and spend $77/month on the habit - that's not so bad. At least you don't smoke AND drink, right???

Get a haircut every two weeks instead of three? Totally impossible. Work will not allow it. Nevermind that you admit that you keep your hair on the longside which is why you have to get it cut that frequently, you can not go even a little shorter so a once a month haircut wont put you in the "getting yelled at" category.

Cheap underwear and socks? No, you have tried every brand and only this one brand works and chafing is such a huge problem. Also... just as a girl who is curious, do you really only own 3 pairs of underwear and 1 pair of socks or are these just your special pairs or something? I'm sorry but that is disgusting, and doesn't it require you to wash them (at least the socks) everyday? Im guessing you dont pay for laundry but God, what a pain.

As for Montreal, first you have to figure out how much each trip will cost you and what dates you need to have the money by. How will you get there? Where will you stay? You look and do research to see what the cheapest options are. Then you have to save. You have your savings/debt payment goal so you have to save money while still hitting that goal. You can do that by making more money (selling stuff, giving your friends payday loans which is risky, working a side job (e.g. writing for those various pay per article websites) or spending less (we've identified numerous reasonable ways for you to save -- see above -- 1 haircut per month + no cigs = automatic +$100) or since you are going to see your girlfriend and this will benefit you both, asking her to budget as well and help with the payment if she wants to see you that often.

KarmaCandy fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Sep 1, 2011

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

2. I would like to see the evidence that frozen/canned/dried vegetables are as good as fresh, local, organic vegetables in areas other than cost. Because even cooking most vegetables dramatically reduces their nutritional value.

Cooking is not the same as freezing. I don't know what Canada has decided, but the FDA says no big nutritional difference between the two and there's support that frozen vegetables (which are frozen at the peak of their freshness) may be healthier than out of season, imported vegetables. You don't want to store them in your freezer for months at a time but it sounds like you would go through a package quickly. While it may not make as much sense in the summertime when produce is fresh and cheaper, come winter time when fresh vegetables are expensive, frozen vegetables are not a bad option. The canning process breaks down more nutrients plus you have to worry more about sauces, etc, but even then some vegetables' nutrient profile hold up well (tomatoes for one - if you consider them a vegetable).

I find it hard to believe that to you, smoking isn't much of a health hazard despite tons of scientific evidence to the contrary even in the short term, but yet you believe frozen vegetables are just terrible for you.

tuyop posted:

And it does in fact repel mosquitoes. Try it sometime.

Wonderful, but so do other cheaper things. For example, most people in the US put on bug spray/mosquito repellant to ward off mosquitos. There are also clip on mosquito repellent things and tons of other new technologies out there that all have to do with getting rid of mosquitos but wont cost $77/month.

You can spend your money however you want, but if you want to fit in some luxuries like seeing your girlfriend and maybe some other things here and there, these little, minor changes can help you do that without any major sacrifices.

KarmaCandy fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Sep 1, 2011

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Is a good place for that 2k my TFSA? The newbie thread says to put your efund in a money market account, I can move the 2k from my TFSA to a money market fund once it's there right? Are there withdrawal penalties? I'm so confused!

Money market funds don't have particularly great interest rates right now, the TFSA is probably not a bad choice at all.

Personally, I categorize things like razors as groceries but that's because that's where I buy them. There's a part of me that thinks you're going to continue to be overbudget in your "Fun" cash spending category just because you have so much stuff in that category - it's for fun, it's for work purchases, its for haircuts, its for personal care items, its for cigs - it's very all encompassing. I don't know if it would be helpful for you to break it out into something like a personal care category or work category so you can better see things that can be easily cut vs. the things you need for work/hygeine.

Here's a question for you - you mention you get $1500 for incidentals? What does this include? How often is it paid out? I feel like you shell out a decent portion of your fun money on things that are required and necessary for work. Do they ever compensate you in any way for these things?

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Edit: I went into the stock trading thread just for something to read. I am now completely confused and feel poor. :(

You are poor. That's what we've been trying to hit home to you. And you shouldn't be going into general stock trading threads because you don't have that kind of money. You have negative money. It shouldn't confuse you at all - you don't have money to invest for fun. The end. So unconfusing.

If you want an investment thread, you want the long term investment retirement thread to show you what to do with your retirement savings.

But yes, it's true. There are people around your age who are fiscally responsible and have money to play with for fun in the market. That person is not you.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

I guess that's what happens when I get double charged for food and rent and have a significant car repair in the same month with no emergency fund. I know what I have to do to keep it from happening again and I'll do that.

I didn't see you mention this in your previous posts. What happened here? Just the military took out too much or what? How will you make sure it doesn't happen again? Will you be reimbursed or not have to pay for rent next month?

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Being offered these jobs was not "an employer keeping me on after an injury", it was spitting in the face of what I've done and accomplished. Being offered jobs available to grade ten high school students after this, after traveling to seven different countries and adapting in environments with four different languages that I don't speak, after managing and improving the lives of 80 subordinates while being constantly berated for placing staples in the wrong place on memos by a man who dropped out of university. I just can't swallow it.

I don't know the details on how Canada is right now, but you do realize that your situation isn't unique at all in this economy, right? A good percentage of workers, especially younger people, are currently unemployed. An even greater number are underemployed. People who have gone through high school just like you, college, gone on to masters degrees/mbas/law degrees - who were top of their class at top schools, who did well at these occupations, who had years of experience - have suddenly found themselves out of a job and taking on other jobs outside of their field, some of which are as simple as "Starbucks employee" and "retail clerk" - jobs you certainly don't need college degrees for much less a business or law school degree. And once you've been unemployed for awhile, even with the improvement in the economy, nobody wants to touch you and give you back your old position.

And you want to know what? They all swallow it. Because a job is better than no job when you have bills to pay and you do what you have to do in the interim and work in your off time towards getting back on your feet and geting back into the position of your choosing. Not everything is a straight shot. You're lucky that you have a back up job to go to, especially one that makes you more money and will land with good skills so that if your teaching career doesn't pan out in the future, you have back up skills to fall back on.

There is nothing unique or special about you. Tons of people with greater struggles, better grades, higher degrees, and more experience are experiencing exactly what you are right now.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

And I haven't had a vacation since 2010. Unless you count a couple of weeks in other Canadian cities to see my girlfriend.

Why do you think that these are not vacations? You're traveling away from home for pleasure. That seems like a vacation to me - there's no requirement that a vacation be out of the country or involve a plane ride or a hotel room or be a month long or include excessive drinking or anything. Your vacations have gotten less exciting and exotic, but they're still vacations. People in the US take vacations within the US all the time. gently caress, just driving 20 minutes away to the beach or mountains or something for a day is a real vacation for a lot of people.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

Harry posted:

Does going to the gym that's 10 minutes away count as a vacation to you as well?

No? But I know plenty of people who, for example, live in northern New Jersey or Philadelphia and vacation, sometimes just for the weekend, on the Jersey Shore or people on long island who vacation in the Hamptons for weekends during the summer. I certainly don't think something is NOT a vacation simply because you're staying in your own country and just going to a different city. People vacation within their own country all the time. It's like a US person claiming they haven't gone on vacation simply because they were visiting friends and family in California/Hawaii/Florida/etc. and that's just a different city, state in the US.

He's going away from his house for an extended period of time for pleasure. I don't see how that's not a vacation for him.

KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

Fine, the vacations I have taken are more like 200 dollars from a savings account generated for that purpose to drive to Montreal, sleep in my car, and see my girlfriend for four days once every two or three months rather than 2100 dollars from a credit card to fly to Istanbul, stay in hostels, and sightsee.

I'm not saying go live like a monk. You are doing the exact right thing - you're saving money and spending it on vacations that you can actually afford and that are in line with your salary and you're currently prioritizing vacationing to see your girlfriend over vacationing somewhere else - which is awesome. I would expect that if you were going to go to Istanbul, you would now do the exact same - save up in an account generated for that purpose and spend what you could afford. I'm not saying you aren't making progress.

What I worry about is that you like to go on vacation. And rather that being of the mindset of "I'm now going to take affordable vacations to cities in Canada when I want to go away," you seem to think that you've been sacrificing and depriving yourself of vacations since 2010. I worry that mentality could at some point lead to you thinking you "deserve" a vacation since you haven't had one in so long - when in fact, of course, you have, they're just on a smaller scale and probably will be for awhile. I think it's better to realize that these trips are your vacations for the time being and enjoy them as much as possible so resentment and that feeling of "I deserve it! I've gone so long without!" doesn't build up.

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KarmaCandy
Jan 14, 2006

tuyop posted:

well the minimum wage job is for parttime work while I'm waiting to be released so that I can save money. I'm pretty sure I can get at least a 35k a year job, all my friends from Uni make about that much.

Just because your friends make that much, doesn't mean you will - you're applying at a different time, they may have a stronger major/degree, more internships/experience, stronger networking skills or family connections, they may not have started at that salary and may have had to work up to it, etc. The economy isn't easy right now - it's extremely competitive with a lot of people with degrees and experience competing for jobs that they're overqualified for (I, for example, have friends who have graduated from law school who work at Starbucks or are still doing volunteer work) and if you're starting from scratch and not planning on going into a job you have any relevant experience in, it may take you a long time to land your first job, even if that first job does end up paying $30k.

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