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Well, at least starting now I will be paying my debts. Come join me in this journey in which I crush my debts and conquer my desires to spend recklessly. I'm apparently a dumbass and didn't realize how much of a hell hole I am in with my debt. I'm going to have to work on this with my wife. Finances are important! Income $130,000/year (me: $65k / her: $65k) $6,400/month ($3,200/$3,200) Savings Cash: $12,000 401k: a whole bunch Roth IRA: $8,000 Debt (total: $82,250) AmEx: $20,000 ($25,000 limit / 16% APR) Citi: $6,250 ($10,000 limit / 8% APR) Chase: $7,000 ($10,000 limit / 12% APR) Car payment: $24,000 Student loans: $20,000 - 25,000 (I don't know, it's all wife's loans) Current Expenses (total: $5,830 monthly) Rent: $1,650 Cable: $0 zero! Internet: $60 Cell: $170 Gas: $10 Electricity: $75 Car gas: $250 Car payment: $325 Car insurance: $75 Toll road: $180 Entertainment: $300 (fun + eating out) Food: $500 (groceries only) Student loans: $325 Personal hygiene: $150 Gym: $80 Cats: $100 AmEx: $1,300 Citi: $130 minimum payment Chase: $150 minimum payment ------------------------------------------------- I recently paid $1k for my AmEx, so my next payment is on May 4. I'm going to dump $7k into my American Express, which would bring down my AmEx to $13,000 and my total CC debt to $26,250. Then I'll be dumping as much as I can into the AmEx each month while paying the minimum on the Citi and Chase. If I put in $1,300 each month to the AmEx debt, then theoretically, I can pay it off in like 11 months or something, right? Goal 1: Pay off AmEx by April 2015 Goal 2: Pay off Chase by November 2015 Goal 3: Pay off Citi by ??? Are these goals too aggressive or mathematically impossible? Cheers
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Apr 8, 2014 20:24
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There's two ways to deal with debt - either pay done the highest interest card first or pay off the lowest balance first (and move the high interest card into a 0% APR card). The first way will prevent you from having to pay any more interest on the highest amount. Its good but it takes a long time to pay off the highest interest (in your case) and you might fall back on bad spending habits in the mean time. Paying off your lowest balance will give you the psychological satisfaction of killing off debt one at a time. I went with the second approach personally wheN I was paying off my debt. Killing off smaller debt helped me psychologically more than anything else. I moved my highest balance/interest onto the Chase Slate in the meantime (0% transfer, 15-18 months 0% apr) so that I could whittle that down as soon as I killed the rest of my cards. In terms of keeping track of your expenses and a monthly budget, look into some different tools. I use YNAB and I really enjoy it - with the caveat that its not the greatest forecasting tool. They also have a great forum about budgeting with some people who sperg out over the features of the product. THey have some free classes you can take to really take control of both the software and your budget. That's my only thought from glancing over your plan at the moment.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:34
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Did you get your wife to buy in? This won't work if she isn't all in. You guys make too much money to be poor - and you guys are very poor. I don't mean that as an insult at all, it's just the reality of it. I would consider getting rid of her car, but I realize that may not be functional. It would get you out of debt a lot sooner and then you could buy a nicer car for cash. I would look up the student loan info in more detail. Maybe you can consolidate and reduce rates, or pay a few bucks less and more to the higher interest CC's, etc. What do you use to track and plan expenses? I use Quicken and YNAB. Kind of a pain to do both, but I absolutely hate YNAB reports (so limited), and I hate Quicken 'budgeting'. I wonder if it got better for 2014. Good luck. BFC will be a good sounding board for you. And make sure to get buyin from your wife.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:43
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Step one: wife on board is your wife on board? This is probably the single most important step you'll take into fixing this. Also good work on the thread title!
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Apr 8, 2014 21:04
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I know it is controversial, risky, and probably unpopular here, but have you considered a 401k loan to pay off that credit card debt... Also as the others say make sure it is a real team effort and those cards balances don't grow again once paid off. It would be a disaster to take a 401k loan to pay off the CCs and then re-max the CCs and have that loan money outstanding. If you have the discipline though, it is always a risky option.
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Apr 8, 2014 21:18
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J4Gently posted:401k loan to pay off that credit card debt Also, yeah, wife on board is step 0 for sure.
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Apr 8, 2014 21:33
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$800 a month on groceries and entertainment are most likely excessive for two people as in debt as you are. I am betting you could cut out some bad spending habits and lower this numbers pretty easily. Any idea on the type of spending that got you over 35k in credit card debt?
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Apr 8, 2014 22:16
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Have you analyzed your spending yet? I'm curious as to where that much credit card debt came from. You guys pull in great money, and your basic 'keep the lights on' living expenses is about half your monthly take home. You've got to be living one hell of a lifestyle with with 3K a month to spend, and racking up 33,000 dollars in credit card debt. I'm no BFC poster child, but  edit: I looked at your post history in the budget thread. You guys aren't at a nuclear stage, you have a surplus every month and people love to be dramatic in here. I think the biggest thing you need to do is sit down and budget every dollar you make. Give every dollar a job and you'll figure it out. 20K on an AMEX @ 16% though is no good. I'm not debt adverse, borrowing cheap money can be a smart move, but borrowing money at 16% is not a smart move. skipdogg fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 22:19
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SpclKen posted:$800 a month on groceries and entertainment are most likely excessive for two people as in debt as you are. Plus the $150 a month on personal hygiene. What exactly is that?
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Apr 8, 2014 22:25
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My wife is mostly on board, but only because I haven't fully fleshed out the strategy yet. She's traveling a lot for work at the moment, so I probably won't have a time sit her down and break down the budget piece by piece until next couple of weeks. However, she's told me to do whatever to get rid of our CC debt, so I have no worries as she already anticipates a change in our budget/habits.SpclKen posted:$800 a month on groceries and entertainment are most likely excessive for two people as in debt as you are. Yeah, $800 is probably pretty high. Many, many misdiagnoses for my cat's condition ($8k), wedding debt ($6k), tuition ($3k), and the rest are my wife's debt, into which I obviously married. I only had like $2k in debt. skipdogg posted:Have you analyzed your spending yet? I'm curious as to where that much credit card debt came from. You guys pull in great money, and your basic 'keep the lights on' living expenses is about half your monthly take home. You've got to be living one hell of a lifestyle with with 3K a month to spend, and racking up 33,000 dollars in credit card debt. My wife and I recently hit $65k each (February) where she got a 23% raise, and there's a good chance I'll be switching over to a higher paying position this year. I use mint.com and I'm pretty good with my own budget, but my wife doesn't really budget and that's one of the reasons why she got into so much debt before we married. It's hard "managing" someone else's finances especially when you're not married. I'm hoping to have a better sense of things now. Bubbacub posted:Plus the $150 a month on personal hygiene. What exactly is that? Personal hygiene is like facial care, make-up, skin care, hair products, contact solutions, toothbrush, floss, mouthwash, cologne, deodorant, razors, shaving cream, and all miscellaneous things we use to keep ourselves clean. My wife has eczema so if she doesn't use prescription medication (skin/facial care), then her skin turns to poo poo and she goes into misery scratching herself raw. Unfortunately, that's the only thing that works for her and the stuff is expensive, but she wouldn't last a week without it.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:27
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Bubbacub posted:Plus the $150 a month on personal hygiene. What exactly is that? It's Personal Hygiene. Haircuts, Salon Trips, stuff like that. 150 a month is not unreasonable for two young professionals. Not every goon has to get an 8 dollar haircut at GreatClips. A haircut for him, a trim and a couple trips to get her nails done for her, some makeup from somewhere not Target or WalMart and that number is easy to hit. My only concern is I don't see any clothing allowance there. I don't have to dress nice for work so I don't spend much in clothing every year, but my wife has to dress professionally and probably averages 2000 dollars a year in clothing and shoes. Cole Haan just had a big sale at their outlet store and she bought 5 pairs of pumps for 800 bucks.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:35
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Wifes on board. Mostly on board. Seems reasonable enough. Step 2 is figuring out how you're going to start budgeting. YOu're going to need a spreadsheet of some sort or some decent budgeting software. If you need recommendations throw it out there, otherwise can you make an expected out/actual out spreadsheet to make this easier for us to visualize and easier for you to use? I use and loving love YNAB. Others have different preferences. You can get a demo for 30 days for freee! Veskit fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 22:37
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Yeah you guys are in for a fun time! Getting married and working through a budget as a newlywed can be very difficult. My wife and I took a Dave Ramsey course while we were engaged and it was great. Helped us talk about shared goals and sacrifices we were willing to make. I would suggest it, but I believe the most productive part of the course is sitting down together to work out a budget. If your wife has a history of spending into debt and charges you to work out a budget, I guarantee sooner or later she will resent you for you telling her what she can or can't afford. It is a lot better to agree on a budget together so you both have a vested interest in your long term financial goals. In my personal experience, when my wife and I were both working we had all our combined income go into one account and treated it as "our" income and our debt. People have different ways of spending within a marriage, I guarantee talking about it (or taking a class) will save multiple fights in the long run. At the end of the day who cares if your fun money is $150 or $350 if it works into your overall financial plan that you both agree to. You shouldn't have to bear the full responsibility of setting a budget even if she wants no part of it.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:45
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Another thought is that while you've grouped everything together under "Entertainment," a lot of couples find it helpful to parse that out a bit and have a specific category of "his" and "her" fun money. So for example entertainment could be: Joint Entertainment: $200 His Money: $50 Her Money: $50 This gives you a way to save for things that you want that may not be fun and entertaining for your significant other. It can be a real bummer in a relationship to have $300 in entertainment money and then one of you goes and spends it on tickets to a game with guy friends or at a wine night with your girlfriends or something. This also gives you a way to save up for things that you might want for yourself like video games, fancy clothes, etc. and then neither person can play the blame or guilt game -- that was your money only and she has no say in what you spend it on and vice versa.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:59
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If you guys budget well, you definitely have the income to make this not drag out forever. Given your wife's skin condition, anyone who would poo poo $150 in personal hygiene costs on your income has no soul. You mention $24k in car loans, what is/are the interest rate(s) and duration(s) on the loan(s)? Can either you or your wife avoid driving to work based on where you live? Unless your car note has an egregious interest rate, I vote you should debt snowball. If you have a bunch of extra cash laying around, you should wipe out one of the smaller cards and roll the minimum payment into either your Amex or the other small card for that psychological boost at the beginning. It's not mathematically optimal, but that psychological boost will keep things rolling.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:44
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skipdogg posted:It's Personal Hygiene. Haircuts, Salon Trips, stuff like that. 150 a month is not unreasonable for two young professionals. Not every goon has to get an 8 dollar haircut at GreatClips. A haircut for him, a trim and a couple trips to get her nails done for her, some makeup from somewhere not Target or WalMart and that number is easy to hit. I put clothes money into Entertainment because I call that shopping and wife finds shopping to be fun. I'm wearing some Cole Haans right now and they're comfy as heck! Veskit posted:Wifes on board. Mostly on board. Seems reasonable enough. Step 2 is figuring out how you're going to start budgeting. YOu're going to need a spreadsheet of some sort or some decent budgeting software. If you need recommendations throw it out there, otherwise can you make an expected out/actual out spreadsheet to make this easier for us to visualize and easier for you to use? I'm going to use Mint. Maybe I'll check out YNAB but I don't want to pay for it. SpclKen posted:Yeah you guys are in for a fun time! Getting married and working through a budget as a newlywed can be very difficult. My wife and I took a Dave Ramsey course while we were engaged and it was great. Helped us talk about shared goals and sacrifices we were willing to make. I would suggest it, but I believe the most productive part of the course is sitting down together to work out a budget. We both agreed we'd keep our money separate and deposit X amount to pay for our monthly expenses. I hope it works out! HooKars posted:Another thought is that while you've grouped everything together under "Entertainment," a lot of couples find it helpful to parse that out a bit and have a specific category of "his" and "her" fun money. Nah, we don't go out much, but when we do, it's together. And, we wouldn't resent one another for spending the monthly fun budget either. That's definitely not something we'd do. crazyfish posted:If you guys budget well, you definitely have the income to make this not drag out forever. $325 for 72 months @ 1.9% There's no way we can avoid driving both cars. She and I work at the same company but in different offices which are in opposite directions. There's a chance we may be able to if I end up transferring my position to her location, but I don't know. The debt snowball sounds fun because I can knock out that Chase card this week (payment is due on 4/11). But mathematically, it makes sense to hit the AmEx with the $7k to minimize fees incurred from the interest. Man, I'm so conflicted. Please, help me, internet. Make decisions for me!!!
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Apr 9, 2014 00:14
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Hand of the King posted:I'm going to use Mint. Maybe I'll check out YNAB but I don't want to pay for it. YNAB has a pretty long 34 day trial. You should definitely check it out if you have the chance right now. The difference between Mint vs. a tool like YNAB (or some other budgeting tool) is that whereas Mint just provides a backwards glance at your spending, a true budgeting tool (whether its a spreadsheet or YNAB) tells you how much you actually have available to spend. I'd vote debt snowball. Getting one credit card entirely to zero quickly is so satisfying.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:43
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Hand of the King posted:The debt snowball sounds fun because I can knock out that Chase card this week (payment is due on 4/11). But mathematically, it makes sense to hit the AmEx with the $7k to minimize fees incurred from the interest. Man, I'm so conflicted. Please, help me, internet. Make decisions for me!!! There's a decent chance the snowball method will come out ahead mathematically if you end up getting a good balance transfer offer once Chase is completely paid off and you stop using it for a couple of months. If you can commit to not using credit cards for any of your spending, I would go this route. If you can't commit to a cash or debit-only existence (seriously consider if you can though, it would go much better for your spending habits), getting in the habit of paying in full may be worth more long-term as a behavioral habit than the money you'd save in interest. Se empty the Chase card, zero it out for a month, then cut up your other cards (or put them in the freezer) and only use the Chase card, set to pay in full.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:50
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Post or pretax ROTH? I think paying down the 16% interest is going to be better than any Return on investment you are going to make. Some opportunity costs and I would only think to look at it for penalty free money.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:12
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Good job, because you make over $100k annually. You shouldn't have any issues paying down your debt. That said I would probably use that Roth money to pay down your debt (penalty free withdraw of principal) since a good chunk of your debt has really high interest rates and you apparently have a well funded 401k. Get the high interest rate stuff paid down asap and then start funding your Roth again. Foma posted:Post or pretax ROTH? I think paying down the 16% interest is going to be better than any Return on investment you are going to make. Some opportunity costs and I would only think to look at it for penalty free money. A ROTH is always post tax I think, anyway, this is my sentiment exactly. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 01:15
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Hand of the King posted:I put clothes money into Entertainment because I call that shopping and wife finds shopping to be fun. I'm wearing some Cole Haans right now and they're comfy as heck! I would erase the idea of "shopping as fun" from your mind and your wifes. Shopping shouldn't be something you or your wife do just because you're bored or need something to do - window shopping, maybe, but not the actual act of buying something, not at this moment, anyway. That's something that you do when you need something in particular - clothing, household item, etc. and since it comes out of the joint entertainment budget, it's also going to have to be something that's discussed at least slightly in advance/right after the fact/you guys have to be honest about so you guys know where you are in the budget. It doesn't seem like your wife has followed a budget before so while this may seem obvious and easy to you, make sure she really realizes that when she buys a pair of shoes, it means you guys both are affected and are going out to one less dinner that month or whatever. As of right now, all of your shopping needs would seemingly come out of entertainment, so if your wife needs a new bra or you guys need a new pot/pan/whatever household item, things that don't sound FUN -- be aware that has to come from somewhere else in the budget. You can shuffle things around a bit, but try to pick from discretionary categories rather than simply just reducing the amount you put towards debt that month.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:18
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quote:Goal 1: Pay off AmEx by April 2015 Personally I think this should be your goal for all of your CC debt and then some. Honestly with the ROTH and your cash reserves you could pay down that Amex now. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 01:22
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I didn't even realize the cash, why the hell do you have so much cash? Sephiroth_IRA is right dump like 10k + what you can easily take out of your ROTH into the AMEX. Cut spending by $300 a month, maybe a little more. You make a lot of money no reason to have to really sacrifice on righting the ship. Then you are pretty much on smooth sailing to put all this behind you fairly quickly. At which point you should put money back into your ROTH.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:27
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Can you guys explain to me why it's a good idea to gently caress with your Roth IRAs to pay down this debt? Isn't that stealing from your future self and setting up a horrific precedent? These seem like great ideas if you're good with money, but however long term doesn't it not solve the problem at heart? Pulling tons of cash out of the Roth IRA feels like getting gastric bypass surgery without having tried dieting. Yeah it may take longer, but learning to diet and exercise will be better for your well being even though the numbers aren't as good. HOWEVER, gently caress your cash fund you have way too much cold cash to carry that much debt.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:55
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Subtracting out student loans, debt/car payment his spending isn't really that bad. The only thing that scares me is his rent (650 bucks more than my mortgage, literally a house and a condo here in the south) but I'm guessing he lives in one of those areas where that's considered normal or he just wants to live in a nice place. If he just wants to live in a nice high end apartment that's fine I guess, even if he wanted to downgrade his wife might not be on board with that. Yeah, overall I think you're fine. Just pay off that Amex asap (like this month) and then tackle the rest of your cc debt. The interest rate on your car is really low so I would ignore that one until after you've got an emergency fund and you've maxed a ROTH. My guess is the interest on the student loan is cheap? I hate to say this but you're kinda set. I wish this is one of those threads that I could see myself spending a lot of time in but you really have everything you need. Good bye.  
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Apr 9, 2014 02:01
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Veskit posted:Can you guys explain to me why it's a good idea to gently caress with your Roth IRAs to pay down this debt? Isn't that stealing from your future self and setting up a horrific precedent? These seem like great ideas if you're good with money, but however long term doesn't it not solve the problem at heart? Because your average stock market return is 7% and hand is paying 16% on AMEX. He can make a 9% better return on his cash paying down his AMEX then he would keeping it in his ROTH IRA. Being good with money is about efficiency. Also dude has saved up $12k for some unthinkable reason, he isn't doesn't seem like your typical BFC screwup case.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:16
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Foma posted:Because your average stock market return is 7% and hand is paying 16% on AMEX. He can make a 9% better return on his cash paying down his AMEX then he would keeping it in his ROTH IRA. Being good with money is about efficiency. Also dude has saved up $12k for some unthinkable reason, he isn't doesn't seem like your typical BFC screwup case. I have been warned, REPEATIVELY that even the best of the best people at financials do not ever recommend getting into the habit of raiding your retirement accounts for ANYTHING. Roth IRA money is money you can't put back in, so taking money out of it seems like a insanely risky and dumb idea to me. Hell you may as well just go and get a 401k loan instead at least with that you get an interest free loan. Here are some posts in regards to raiding your retirement accounts when I was asking about pulling money out of them for a home purchase and if there's a good time to ever do it. Echo 3 posted:OK, the thing to understand here is that you only get a limited amount that you can put in your Roth IRA per year. So say the amount is $5,000, and you're going to be putting money into it for another 30 years, that means you get $5,000 * 30 = $150,000 of contributions that you can ever put into your Roth IRA. If you contribute $10,000 in the first year, then take it out a few years later, you can never go back and put that $10,000 back in, it's just gone now. The new total amount that you'll be able to put in to your IRA has been reduced to $140,000. Even worse, the $10,000 you just pulled out is money you put in at the start of your Roth IRA's lifetime, which is worth more than the money you're going to put in when you're old. You've sacrificed all the tax-free gains that money would have made over the next 30-odd years. Eyes Only posted:Let's say you want to save $4000 in cash this year for a house. For the sake of simplicity we'll assume that you are also saving for a decent amount for retirement in the form of a 401k, but not a Roth IRA. slap me silly posted:You can always toss the money into an IRA at the end of the year if you don't buy a house. So the only time this is true is if you're talking a 2 year time frame where Option 1 would cost you a year of contributions. The main problem is that taking out $10k for a house costs you (roughly) two years of contributions, no matter what. You can't justify using IRA space for house savings unless you truly weren't using it for retirement in the first place. Your point about the psychology is dead on - be clear about what you are using your money for so you don't trip yourself up. From a psychalogical stand point you're telling this man that raiding your retirement is an acceptable practice and psychologically this seems like a horrific lesson to teach someone who is in this much debt. Especially when he originally said that he is ok with his spending, and this budget you're looking at is revised. All in all, I think touching your Roth IRA is a horrific idea. Numbers work out better, but bad bad bad idea.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:28
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Hi guys, I don't think I want to touch the Roth IRA. I'll just deal with the cash we have in our savings. The reason why I have saved all that cash is because I thought it was perfectly normal for people to have tens of thousands of dollars saved up. Well, maybe it's normal if you are not $80k in debt  Anyway, my Chase, which is actually has a $9,000 limit, allows me to do a 0% APR balance transfer until the billing cycle ending in 06/2015 and there's a 2% fee. Here's my plan, pay off the Chase completely, do a balance transfer of $8,500, and end up with $8,670 (2% fee) in my Chase with 0% APR for 14 months. I'll just keep paying the minimum on that Chase while I dump all the free cash I have into the AmEx, which should only have $11,500 at this point after the balance transfer. I'll keep focusing on the AmEx until it's zeroed out. Then, I'll start knocking out large monthly payments on the Chase or Citi until the balance on both are gone. How does this plan sound? As for my rent, it's actually one of the cheaper places for where I live.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:47
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It's a good plan. It's a great plan even! however..... Really really really need to sit down and make your budget. Unless you're great at spreadsheets I really recommend the 34 day free trial of YNAB. Also you are 100% correct in that that is a good amount to have saved up... when you aren't 80k in debt yeah that's about right.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:53
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Yeah, that's a good plan. Either way you'll be fine in the long term as long as you maintain your income level and take care of your debt in a timely manner. How secure do you consider your jobs?
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Apr 9, 2014 02:56
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Hand of the King posted:The reason why I have saved all that cash is because I thought it was perfectly normal for people to have tens of thousands of dollars saved up. Well, maybe it's normal if you are not $80k in debt It is a good and normal thing -- its an emergency fund, which is always recommended. Once you pay off the high interest credit card debt, rebuilding an adequate emergency fund should probably be your next step before you tackle your lower interest debts. Can I ask what age range you're in?
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Apr 9, 2014 03:06
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I have a lot of comments but I'm on my phone and don't want to type so much. 1) Your rent doesn't seem insane to me. Housing costs vary greatly by area. The south is a very poor comparative market for anyone who doesn't like on the south or a slum. 2) The Chase balance transfer is a fantastic idea. I would definitely do it. 3) Your idea to have cash reserves is super valid and smart. What isn't is the debt. I'm really glad you thought maybe you need a little help with planning to save and posted up. BFC is eye opening to say the least! 4) I wouldn't touch your Roth to get out of debt. I am of the opinion that it makes you feel more mentally okay with doing that again down the road. Maybe that is baseless and maybe you're not one of those people. How's that working out for SloMo? Time and time again. I forget what it is my friends boss buys with his 401k loans, but I think it's a new car every so often. The idiot would be better served using his savings account for that but he has no impulse control. Again, may not apply to you, but it's a slippery slope I wouldn't advise anyone start to go down. 5) I'm not sure how I feel about separate bank accounts. I mean I am sure - I'm against it - but it works for some people. I would suggest pulling credit every 4 months too, your wife seems to be the spender and maybe she will feel limited on $50/mo and open a line of credit. May not apply, but the ideal of separate bank accounts and entirely letting you manage things worries me, I've seen poor results with this before. Then again it could work awesome, it works great for my gf's folks. But they make a *lot* of money and her moms biweekly play money is *very* solid. To everyone who says this isn't much debt etc, including myself before the car and student loans became clear, think about how people react to SloMo. He makes a little more than this couple, and has half the debt, and everyone freaks out at him constantly.
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Apr 9, 2014 03:07
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Veskit posted:Really really really need to sit down and make your budget. Unless you're great at spreadsheets I really recommend the 34 day free trial of YNAB. I'll take a look at YNAB and see how it is. I'm actually an Excel wizard, though. Sephiroth_IRA posted:How secure do you consider your jobs? My wife's job is 100% secure. Mine is kind of iffy. If I don't figure out a job by end of July or August, I might be out of a job. They're probably closing down my office by end of 2014, so I'm trying to jump ship and on this weird work arrangement where I fly on the charter plane 2-3 times a week. However, I don't know how long it's going to last. It's really complicated. But I keep getting people telling me to go work for them (I know a lot of consultants), so I feel better about the situation than I normally would if I didn't have any connections/networks. HooKars posted:Can I ask what age range you're in? Wife and I are both 29. SiGmA_X posted:I have a lot of comments but I'm on my phone and don't want to type so much. SloMo's thread seems like a good read. Maybe I'll head on over there for a quick glance 
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Apr 9, 2014 03:18
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Not going to lie. Slow motion motivated me to get my poo poo together. Reading that thread made it ghastly apparent that I had to change, or things would be really bad. Really really bad.
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Apr 9, 2014 03:47
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I've never lived in or even been to an area where there are toll roads so I'm just wondering what the hell $150/month in toll roads get you. I mean are there no other roads you can take? Literally never driven on a toll road in my life. Is $150/month considered normal for that? I'm really curious about this one. Can I also ask what you spend $500/month in groceries on? I mean jesus seriously, I shop local/organic and pay extra for that but still I can't imagine spending $250/month (I'm single) on just groceries alone. e: I've also never owned an animal in my life so I'm not critiquing you on this one, but is $100/month normal for 2 (I'm assuming) cats? I mean I figured cat food would be like $20/month for a huge bag but like I said I don't own animals and never have. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 03:50
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Shadowhand00 posted:The difference between Mint vs. a tool like YNAB (or some other budgeting tool) is that whereas Mint just provides a backwards glance at your spending, a true budgeting tool (whether its a spreadsheet or YNAB) tells you how much you actually have available to spend. 
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Apr 9, 2014 04:05
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Boris Galerkin posted:I've never lived in or even been to an area where there are toll roads so I'm just wondering what the hell $150/month in toll roads get you. I mean are there no other roads you can take? Literally never driven on a toll road in my life. Is $150/month considered normal for that? I'm really curious about this one. It's $6.05 each way. My fiance takes the toll road once each day (going to work). 5 times a week for 4 weeks at $6.05 is $121. Then, I factor in the number of times that she or I may decide to take in addition to the 20 times a month. The 405 and 5 are absolute nightmares. She lives 16 minutes away from work with the toll road, but if she takes the hell freeways, then it can take at minimum an hour to get home or get to work. Time is money. quote:Can I also ask what you spend $500/month in groceries on? I mean jesus seriously, I shop local/organic and pay extra for that but still I can't imagine spending $250/month (I'm single) on just groceries alone. I guess things are just cheaper there? I don't know. It may just be a conservative estimate or I just really love my Chilean seabass at $30/lb.  quote:e: I've also never owned an animal in my life so I'm not critiquing you on this one, but is $100/month normal for 2 (I'm assuming) cats? I mean I figured cat food would be like $20/month for a huge bag but like I said I don't own animals and never have. Yes, we have 2 cats. We feed them Nature's Variety Instinct wet food at night and dry food in the morning. 12 pack of the canned food is $22-30. One can + dry food each day. Then there's pet toys, vet stuff, flea medication ($60 for 3 months), and etc. It adds up.
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Apr 9, 2014 04:37
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It's hard to argue with people about their pets and their pets health, but I'm going to try. I severely doubt that there would be a noticeable difference in your animals health or behavior if you switched to chicken soup for the cat lovers soul wet food. In fact it's fairly arguable that it'd be better for them because you wouldn't have to feed them dry food. There might, MIGHT be an adjustment period and they might throw up a couple times, but after that you're saving yourself easily 50 dollars a month in cat food. That's fairly big savings on something that is arguable zero benefit to your cats house. I think the toll road is a good idea. However it's disheartening that your job is so volatile. That would scare me shitless into getting the budget in order. Try this all out and we'll see at the end of the month how you do. I hope you're already starting to track this month!
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Apr 9, 2014 04:50
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Tolls - Grr I could go on about them... I only pay for em coming back from my gf's beach house, but I hate them so much. What a scam on the public. I get the purpose, tax those who use it, but roads are public assets (or mostly are, and should be) and toll roads are utter bullshit. /rant You said 5&405, do you live in Seattle? Your rent seems normal to me, and probably food costs too. We buy large dog Frontline at Costco ($70/6pk) and split it up using a graduated dropper and Excel. Makes 6 doses last 5 months for our pack of 3 dogs and a cat. You could do similar for the cats, just a suggestion. It is totally less easy, but it takes under 5 minutes once a month. I've gotten very use to it as I'm a big fan of flea drops and not a big fan of giving manufactures my money for no good reason Cat food - I don't see the benefit of wet over dry. I definitely see the benefit to raw over wet or dry, but wet is meh. Some cats are picky, but that's because of their owners more than anything. They'll figure out dry food right quick. Raw or dry, don't half rear end it! Veskit posted:Not going to lie. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 05:22
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I tried switching over to all dry food for 2 weeks and somehow ended up with both cats getting crystals in their bladder and hundreds of dollars in vet bills. Even worse, I feel lovely for putting my cats through that. I'm not 100% certain it's the wet vs dry, but I already went down that path and it was unpleasant. Cat stuff is non-negotiable. Gotta draw the line somewhere. v  vSeattle? There's a 405 and 5 freeway there?  I live in Laguna Hills (Orange County).
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Apr 9, 2014 05:30
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