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EDIT: Whoops, posted it without choosing a thread tag. Since not thinking things through has led us to living with no money, poo poo POST is an applicable tag. Okay, I'm mostly just posting this as a journal, but if anyone reads it and has advice, that would be great. If there's a better place to post a log like this, just tell me and move it over. I didn't see one at first though. Some backstory I'm 21, she's turning 20 soon. (EDIT: I guess I should have posted that we're not planning on having kids until we're 25+ and our finances are in order.) My wife and I are currently both in college, working part time jobs. She's in the first semester of her CNA course, so she should be making around $10-11 an hour by next summer, whereas I'm in my junior year of my Social Working degree, so I should be making good money approximately never. We're not in a ton of debt right now, because I had a lot of money saved up when we first started college, but I had to take out my first student loan this semester, and she's not working for about 3 weeks because her new job only does training at specific times. We currently live in Alabama and we plan on moving to Colorado as soon as it's financially possible, mostly to get out of this state, but also because it has been where my father and I have wanted to move for years and she's in for it too. Our current debt is only $5,500 for my federally subsidized student loan for this year. My dad pays for our car insurance since it was way less to put it on his account than if we had gotten it on our own, as well as our cell phone. I helped him out with a lot of things when he had expenses before, so he just considers it paying me back. We only have 1 car so there's no way I can get another job, this one is a mile away but I don't have time to walk 2+ miles to another job. I got into budgeting when I realized I would need a student loan this semester, and it just wasn't working for us until I found YNAB a few days ago. My income is around $600-700 a month, hers is unknown until her new job gets the schedule together, and we get $70 a month from food stamps. In January we'll get $1300 total from my loan and pell grant, and around $700 from her pell grant. We've been spending all of that in between times but now we're going to be trying to budget without that in the plan. Budget   Current Goals 1. Saving up at least $5,000 for an emergency fund if our car breaks down or one of us loses our job. 2. Save enough to move. 3. Pay off Student Debts. 4. Put back money for retirement I'm pretty sure I'm way way underestimating the food amount, but I'll bump everything up after our paychecks come in and I put them into the budget. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 26, 2014 23:07
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You're way underestimating your spending on literally everything else. $3???? Do you plan to literally never do any entertainment, eat out, buy new clothes, get a cell phone, need to buy xmas/bday gifts, etc. etc. etc.? Your budget is woefully underequipped for life - the goal is that there aren't 'surprises' if you budget for places where you know you'll need to spend money. You should also put in a 'move to colorado' savings line - you can't just up and move for free. Also, I think you're wildly overbudgeting for electricity in the South, unless you have your house on 75 in the winter or something stupid like that.
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Oct 27, 2014 03:00
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Bisty Q. posted:You're way underestimating your spending on literally everything else. $3???? The crafts is just a leftover that is paying for stuff we bought last month, and that's the last we're budgeting into that until next month when we see how this budget is working out. I know we don't have budgets for any of the stuff we need to save money for, but I don't want to add any of the stuff that isn't pressing concerns for exactly what we need to have to live, right now. I'll add those in when we get both of our paychecks later this month, and see how it goes from there. Anyways, no, we don't plan on eating out or doing anything entertainment wise at least until later in the month. What we need to do first is find out how much it will cost us to survive, then we can start budgeting for entertainment and savings. We don't even have a good idea of how much it costs us month to month, which is what November's budget is going to be all about. Oh, and our electricity bill really is that high. This apartment is really inefficient or something --- I'm going to call my landlord tomorrow and ask if there's some kind of problem with it. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 03:38
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If you come to Colorado, anywhere in the Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins area, prepare for sticker shock. A very mediocre 1 bedroom is at least 800 a month plus utilities anywhere between Fort Collins and the Springs. Add another 500 a month for Boulder. Be prepared for that.
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Oct 28, 2014 00:54
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blackmet posted:If you come to Colorado, anywhere in the Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins area, prepare for sticker shock. Yeah, I was looking at padmapper and some other places. Our plans may be delayed a year by the need to save more. It looks like we'll both be getting paid more there than we would here, but still having less left over after rent and other necessities. We're not 100% dead-set on Denver though. We could move somewhere else, we were mostly just wanting to get out of Alabama + me wanting to live in a bigger city again. If anyone knows a better place to move, we're all ears. We'd definitely prefer to move out west though, our three-ish options were Oregon, California, and Colorado, because I have friends in all 3.
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Oct 28, 2014 01:06
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GreyPowerVan posted:Oh, and our electricity bill really is that high. This apartment is really inefficient or something --- I'm going to call my landlord tomorrow and ask if there's some kind of problem with it. What appliances do you have, and does that include heat and/or AC? I have a 1 bedroom apartment with my wife, and our summer electric bills with two window units usually runs about $100. Non-cooling season it's usually like $35-40 for a fridge, computers, TV, and lights. This is in Pennsylvania. If you are heating or cooling your apartment on electric, then that's not terribly out of the ordinary. If it IS odd, and you have access to the circuit breaker box, take a look to see who's apartment is on what. My downstairs neighbor was always complaining about the power bill during the winter. Turns out the furnace's blower (the one that's always running because it's an inefficient and improperly installed POS) is on his breaker box, and the landlord is supposed to cover heat. Instead this guy is partially paying to heat the whole house. Not to mention a number of lights, as well as the coin-op washer and dryer. So yeah, always figure out your electric when you move in. As for the overall budget, you make $8k a year. You really can't do much with that. The recommendation that you "need more income" is often wrong, but in your case that's really the problem. Your pre-utilities rent is around 50% of your income. That's unsustainable and trying to save any substantial amount on that given your fixed expenses is kind of a pipe dream. EDIT: Even after your wife starts working again it's stupid tight. As others have said the current budget is way underdone. I know YNAB says "start from scratch and don't look at your previous expenses", but you really should in this case just to get a ballpark of what you need. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 01:19
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LogisticEarth posted:What appliances do you have, and does that include heat and/or AC? I have a 1 bedroom apartment with my wife, and our summer electric bills with two window units usually runs about $100. Non-cooling season it's usually like $35-40 for a fridge, computers, TV, and lights. This is in Pennsylvania. I'm going to look at the power bill because it does seem absurd after you say that. I know that I need more income, but I don't have any opportunities to. The only place close enough to walk to is always overstaffed, and the main problem is last year I had 32 hours a week and sometimes 35, but this year they cut everyone down to 15. I'm getting around 21-24 a week now by begging shifts off of co-workers, but it's just not enough. Minimum wage being 7.25 is a bitch. That power bill includes heat and AC, and it's generally highest during the summer, but it's never been low.
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Oct 28, 2014 01:40
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GreyPowerVan posted:I'm going to look at the power bill because it does seem absurd after you say that. I know that I need more income, but I don't have any opportunities to. The only place close enough to walk to is always overstaffed, and the main problem is last year I had 32 hours a week and sometimes 35, but this year they cut everyone down to 15. I'm getting around 21-24 a week now by begging shifts off of co-workers, but it's just not enough. Minimum wage being 7.25 is a bitch.
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Oct 28, 2014 06:58
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GreyPowerVan posted:We'd definitely prefer to move out west though, our three-ish options were Oregon, California, and Colorado, because I have friends in all 3. If $800-1300 gives you sticker shock, don't come to California... our rent (2br in middle income neighborhood) is more than three times your entire budget.
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Oct 28, 2014 07:29
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kansas posted:If $800-1300 gives you sticker shock, don't come to California... our rent (2br in middle income neighborhood) is more than three times your entire budget. I know absolutely squat about Denver so someone else will have to chime in. 
ladyweapon fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 08:29
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SiGmA_X posted:Who required you to work a minimum wage job? I hope you're joking ladyweapon posted:This is entirely dependent on where they decide to live. If they live in Sacramento, there are 2br for $745. If they want to live in the bay area (pretty much any part of the bay), they are definitely going to be shocked at the rental rates. California is expensive in general though and probably not the wisest option. Oregon, particularly Portland (where I currently live), isn't too heinous yet as far as rent goes. I pay $670/mo for a 1bd/1ba in an apartment that isn't the best, but isn't the worst either. I'm in a safe neighborhood, fairly close to downtown (~15 min bus ride), & can walk several blocks in any direction for pretty much anything I need. You can spend much, much more on rent and probably not too much less without living on the far outskirts of Portland. There is no AC in the apartments here unless you want to pay $1000+ in rent, but summer (80-95*F) also lasts 1.5 months on average. The rest of the year it's overcast & cold. 9 months of the year, my electric bill (apt is all electric) is ~$50/mo because I don't need or want to turn on my heat. The other three months per year it maxes out at ~$95/mo. I also keep my apartment at a sweltering ~65*F and just wear a sweater and fleece pants when I'm home. I really, really love the cold. We kind of wanted to live in Colorado, but like I said, we're open to options. How is Portland? Oh, and it's not really sticker shock. I've looked at prices of rent and other stuff already, and I'll be finishing my last 2 years of school while my wife is working as a CNA, which should be at least a little better than both of us working minimum wage like we currently are. Our cost of living isn't too high, so when her job picks back up we can start saving for real.
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Oct 28, 2014 08:51
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GreyPowerVan posted:We only have 1 car so there's no way I can get another job, this one is a mile away but I don't have time to walk 2+ miles to another job. GreyPowerVan posted:I'm getting around 21-24 a week now by begging shifts off of co-workers, but it's just not enough. Minimum wage being 7.25 is a bitch. Where do you live? You can't try and hustle yourself into a slightly better job, or get a bike and quadruple (or more) the range where you're looking? You were previously working 35 hours+ a week, so you have the time. quote:That power bill includes heat and AC, and it's generally highest during the summer, but it's never been low. Actually, like I said, ~$100 is not out of the ordinary if you are running AC and/or heat.
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Oct 28, 2014 10:27
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Op, I'm glad you've done a bit of research on Denver and Colorado. I'm on another message board that's full of people who are like "I want a an apartment that's within walking distance of downtown and the mountains, preferably lakefront, brand new and with every amenity imaginable, including a concierge desk and a gym, and the best school district, and my budget is $400 a month." I exaggerate, but not much. Oh, and rents increase by 10% a year on average right now. Flat out, though, you both need to increase your income. Your budget is basically unsustainable. The utilities are high, but low rent places generally don't have great energy efficiency, so I kind of get it. Eventually you will need to buy shoes, or get a cavity filled, or will want to treat yourself to McDonald's, and you want be able to do it. Building savings is nearly impossible. You're below the poverty line for 2 people at this point. Another thing to consider as well: a friend of mine graduated with a nursing degree. She couldn't find a job in her field here...nobody wanted someone without experience. She ended up moving to Knoxville, Tennessee for a year to gain experience, then coming back. It might be best for your wife to gain experience in a smaller town before transitioning to a bigger city, wherever that may be.
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Oct 28, 2014 12:48
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blackmet posted:Op, I'm glad you've done a bit of research on Denver and Colorado. I'm on another message board that's full of people who are like "I want a an apartment that's within walking distance of downtown and the mountains, preferably lakefront, brand new and with every amenity imaginable, including a concierge desk and a gym, and the best school district, and my budget is $400 a month." I exaggerate, but not much. Oh, and rents increase by 10% a year on average right now. She's actually just going to be a Nursing Assistant after this semester, then she'll be taking her associates or bachelors afterwards. She was wanting to do bachelors since a lot of places aren't hiring associate RN's anymore, but I don't know if we can afford it. LogisticEarth posted:Where do you live? You can't try and hustle yourself into a slightly better job, or get a bike and quadruple (or more) the range where you're looking? You were previously working 35 hours+ a week, so you have the time. There are no slightly better jobs within walking distance. I've considered a bike. I don't know how to go about looking for a job that far away. If I'm not guaranteed to get it, I don't want to spend the money on a bike. If I do get one, I'd have to go out and find a bike that is cheap and learn how to ride. I don't know, it's an option that I'm looking into. I'm also currently losing weight and I'm at the higher end for what department store bikes are supposed to support, so it'll be easier in a month or two. Honestly, I should just get a ton of credit cards and go 100k in debt like some of the people I've seen posted here 
SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 16:07
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GreyPowerVan posted:She's actually just going to be a Nursing Assistant after this semester, then she'll be taking her associates or bachelors afterwards. She was wanting to do bachelors since a lot of places aren't hiring associate RN's anymore, but I don't know if we can afford it. If you need help figuring out if you can afford college let us know and we can crunch the numbers and explain why it's worth the investment. She can afford getting her bachelors. I might take some debt along the way, but having a BA in nursing is worth it.
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Oct 28, 2014 18:06
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Veskit posted:If you need help figuring out if you can afford college let us know and we can crunch the numbers and explain why it's worth the investment. She can afford getting her bachelors. I might take some debt along the way, but having a BA in nursing is worth it. This is the truth. My wife is working on her Masters for Nursing and she's poised to make a big jump in compensation when she takes her new role. Her work is providing some money, and she's received some scholarships too.
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Oct 28, 2014 18:46
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Veskit posted:If you need help figuring out if you can afford college let us know and we can crunch the numbers and explain why it's worth the investment. She can afford getting her bachelors. I might take some debt along the way, but having a BA in nursing is worth it. We're not planning on actually dropping out of college or not going. Student loan debts are not so much for us since we're both on full pell grants and both working, and we can pay those back pretty quickly after we start work. Kids are being delayed until 1. 25+, 2. we can afford them. I know it's WAY worth getting your Bachelors, and both of us want to go back for our Masters after a year or two. The current plan is getting her CNA and contacting hospitals either around where we live or where we are moving and see if they do the partial/full funding for people who are going for their RN. I know it's 100% worth it for her, but it looks like my money will be poo poo either way. (But being a social worker is actually important to me, so  )Nocheez posted:This is the truth. My wife is working on her Masters for Nursing and she's poised to make a big jump in compensation when she takes her new role. Her work is providing some money, and she's received some scholarships too. How often do employers pay for a higher degree? Is she working for a hospital or private practice or ____? Just curious. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 23:23
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GreyPowerVan posted:I really, really love the cold. We kind of wanted to live in Colorado, but like I said, we're open to options. How is Portland?  My "in case of disaster" budget where fun only just exists to keep you from going mad & new clothes are never bought tops out at about $1255/month. Minimum wage here is $9.10/hr (bay area is $10/hr, I believe) so even if you both end up flipping burgers you'd still be able to survive provided you work 25 hours per week each. There are fair few subsidized (not section 8) apartments here where the only requirements are work/school based and income must be below certain thresholds. A quick google gives me the max income schedule based on 60% of the Portland Area Median Income, 2 people in a household can't make more than $33,360/year to qualify. 30%/60%/80% of MAI are the most used percentages for that kind of thing. If you attend the local colleges, they often have deals on bus passes while they have them in stock. I know the community colleges nearby have a 3 month unlimited bus pass for $150 (50% off). The bus system is pretty good here & driving isn't really necessary unless you live in the sticks or work way outside of Portland proper. Theres also a school-only bus system that goes campus to campus only and it is much faster than the regular bus. I think it's free & you just need your school ID to get on. I work in the suburbs just outside portland and my morning commute is about 50 minutes one way on the bus. It'd be a 20 minute drive every morning, but I'd pay a lot more for the convenience of a car. Internet is Century Link or Comcast, there is nothing else. Centurylink has 7-12mbps for $30/mo. Comcast will give you 6 months at $30/mo and much faster speed, but then it goes to ~$65/mo. I have to actually cancel my Comcast service because they said there is no cheaper package for my account, even with the slowest internet they offer.  Wow I wrote a lot of words 
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Oct 29, 2014 00:16
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Eeyore chat: I think you can surely make more than minimum wage unless you want to make minimum wage. PDX chat: 12mo@30/mo for Comcast ATM, and you can switch to your partners name after 12mo and continue to get promos. And I'm not sure about $150/3mo bus passes anymore. I thought that ended a few years ago - it did at PSU, it's now well over $200. I love it here in PDX, but it's drat wet. And it's pretty expensive, but cheap compared to Seattle/CA/NYC.
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Oct 29, 2014 01:36
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SiGmA_X posted:Eeyore chat: I think you can surely make more than minimum wage unless you want to make minimum wage. SiGmA_X posted:And I'm not sure about $150/3mo bus passes anymore. I thought that ended a few years ago - it did at PSU, it's now well over $200. 
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Oct 29, 2014 02:28
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ladyweapon posted:
Hahaha your internet is four times as fast as mine for cheaper (the Centurylink one). About the rest of it, it seems like a decent place, it's just getting the money together to up and move is the hard part. I'm sure by the time we have enough saved we'll have decided on a place. SiGmA_X posted:Eeyore chat: I think you can surely make more than minimum wage unless you want to make minimum wage. I've been applying at all of the places that are within distance for me to work at, and all are either worse hours than my current job or not hiring. I did get accepted at another place on campus --- but then they told me we're only allowed to work one on-campus job at a time because of ~rules~.
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Oct 29, 2014 03:08
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Why are you married at 21 and 19, is seriously nobody else weirded out by this? You're at university why are you so stuck on getting a place to yourselves? It would be enormously cheaper to live with flatmates especially if you shared a room.
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Oct 29, 2014 12:04
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Saros posted:Why are you married at 21 and 19, is seriously nobody else weirded out by this? It's not that unusual, especially down south. The weird part is that they're married and were born in 1993 and 1995
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Oct 29, 2014 14:10
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One of my coworkers got married at 21, and I know several people from high school were married in their very early 20s, so it's not freakishly unusual and certainly not something to be wierded out by. As to whether it's a good idea...that's a whole other topic, but not one for this thread. If it's working for the OP, good for them. Sharing living costs is good BFC juju so in that regard it's a good idea. As for the job situation OP, have you looked into online work/income? A lot if it is very low pay, but if you're begging minimum wage hours off your coworkers, it's probably worth your time. You should check out the Online Moneymaking megathread.
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Oct 29, 2014 15:36
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Not a Children posted:It's not that unusual, especially down south. Us getting married this early didn't have anything to do with the southern culture, we actually originally planned on waiting until we were both graduated from college, but circumstances change. Saros posted:Why are you married at 21 and 19, is seriously nobody else weirded out by this? This is a tiny college town where 90% of the people live either on campus or in the housing programs which is like a 4 br 2 bath apartment for 500$ a person. This is actually the cheapest place we could live and still be within walking distance of the campus, since I have to walk there. LogisticEarth posted:As for the job situation OP, have you looked into online work/income? A lot if it is very low pay, but if you're begging minimum wage hours off your coworkers, it's probably worth your time. You should check out the Online Moneymaking megathread. I'll look at it and see, thanks. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 18:24
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GreyPowerVan posted:Us getting married this early didn't have anything to do with the southern culture, we actually originally planned on waiting until we were both graduated from college, but circumstances change. What, specifically, changed?
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Oct 29, 2014 18:29
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Inverse Icarus posted:What, specifically, changed? It was a huge situation involving DHR and abusive parents on her side. EDIT: Okay, it's looking like she's going to be getting between 25-30 hours a week at 7.65, so now our income monthly is 1200~ if we count both of us getting super low hours. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Oct 29, 2014 |
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Oct 29, 2014 18:41
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You could always move here to Central PA, we get the cold in the winter and nice summers. I work for a CY agency and our county has very low turnover for caseworkers and some of the best compensation in the state. Cost of living is low too, especially compared to the west coast. Also two hospitals in town, plenty of nursing jobs.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:15
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dreesemonkey posted:You could always move here to Central PA, we get the cold in the winter and nice summers. I work for a CY agency and our county has very low turnover for caseworkers and some of the best compensation in the state. Cost of living is low too, especially compared to the west coast. We're moving with my dad originally to keep him company, and he wants to move somewhere weed is legal I think it's just a thing for him to want to walk into a store and buy it after using it for like 50 years while it's illegal.
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Nov 1, 2014 10:08
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GreyPowerVan posted:We're moving with my dad originally to keep him company, and he wants to move somewhere weed is legal You're basing your future (and that of your wife) on whether your dad can buy weed. I have about 50 retorts to that, most of which are sarcastic, mean, disbelieving, and depressing, so I'm just going to point it out, and leave it up to you to think through. You are basing your future and that of your wife on whether your dad can buy weed.
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Nov 1, 2014 12:40
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The marriage is a sunk cost thus I don't see any reason it should be a part of this thread. On the topic of masters, I'm assuming that nursing is one of those fields where having your masters will be a solid pay increase, so unless you are burnt out by your bachelors degree, there isn't really a good reason to stop going to school. There's specific industries in which you should take a break from your BA to your masters, (business comes to mind) but I wouldn't say nursing is one of them. If she wants to continue her education get it over with before real life really settles in. She'll be out of school by 25 and ready to start a solid career.
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Nov 1, 2014 22:59
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April posted:You're basing your future (and that of your wife) on whether your dad can buy weed. I have about 50 retorts to that, most of which are sarcastic, mean, disbelieving, and depressing, so I'm just going to point it out, and leave it up to you to think through. Go ahead I actually brought up moving there, because I have a few friends living in Lakewood and when I visited in 2011 it seemed like a pretty awesome place. We're moving over there for a bit, and if we ever decide to leave we'll look at it later. The whole "somewhere weed is legal" was mostly a joke... It's been our plan for a bit longer. Veskit posted:The marriage is a sunk cost thus I don't see any reason it should be a part of this thread. I guess she could continue to her masters, but since she didn't get into the RN program this year, it would be 4-5 years starting in 2015 to get her masters. We really wanted to move in 2016-17, so waiting until 2020 at the earliest would really not be something we were wanting to do. EDIT: I mean in worst case, sure we could stick around, but we really, really hate Alabama. EDIT2: I'll post updated budget later, not at home right now. We have all of our expenses, plus 15 spending money each, 10 for clothes, some other stuff, and it looks like we'll still be able to save a bit. SSJ_naruto_2003 fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 08:36
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GreyPowerVan posted:The whole "somewhere weed is legal" was mostly a joke... Depending on where you can settle into PA, the Philly metro area has a really low cost of living, decent job market, and both NJ and DE both have medical marijuana legal now and will likely pass full legalization soon. Living right over the border in NJ or DE is something a lot of people that work in Philly do. As much as I hate Philadelphia (but I hate cities in general), it's a pretty good cheap city that's not as much of a poo poo hole as it is perceived to be.
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Nov 3, 2014 12:22
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