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So, a while back I made a thread about being bad with budgetting. Since then we used YNAB but fell out of using it due to (probably) sheer laziness. Our debt load has decreased a bit, but still stayed close the same. We have done OK, but should be doing better. We also find ourselves basically "out of money" every month, and having problems making any sort of "rainy day fund". Obviously the first thing I will hear is "GO BACK TO YNAB YOU IDIOT". We're working on that. So what are our goals: 1) More Savings. Our rainy day fund is basically all the stuff I have listed in the "monthly savings" section. If we somehow lose one of our jobs(especially mine), we're well and royally hosed. 2) We'd like to rent our house out in ~a year and move to a nicer house. We currently have 13% equity, so getting that up to 25% would be nice. We aren't in the most amazing neighborhood right now, but figure that if we were to move right now, we'd have a 500$ a month profit on the mortgage vs rental fee(would be 600 if we didn't have PMI). This boils down to us getting the house to ~25% equity, which I think also will allow us to get rid of PMI... 3) We'd like to save more towards retirement. My wife will be eligible to contribute to 401k next May, and at that point we'll put 15% of her pretax paycheck away as well Here's our current data: Monthly Payments/Bills:  Monthly Savings:  Monthly Cash Inflows  Unmentioned things that come out pretax  Obviously I need to identify where money is hemorraghing to...I think I am obviously missing something. I probably need to add that we spend ~200$ a month on eating out and probably a similar amount on groceries. Edit 11.30.14: For those who missed it, here are my current loans/minimum payments: 
DogsCantBudget fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 18:31
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DogsCantBudget posted:2) We'd like to rent our house out in ~a year and move to a nicer house. We currently have 13% equity, so getting that up to 25% would be nice. We aren't in the most amazing neighborhood right now, but figure that if we were to move right now, we'd have a 500$ a month profit on the mortgage vs rental fee(would be 600 if we didn't have PMI) Also, were you the guy with the expensive mystery hobby? Is that the Cabelas (hunting?)? edit: oh and the HOA payment too Cicero fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 19:10
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DogsCantBudget posted:I probably need to add that we spend ~200$ a month on eating out and probably a similar amount on groceries.
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Nov 4, 2014 19:41
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Based on your monthly income I feel you'll be fine. Just focus on getting those debts paid down and focus on changing habits to save money. I really recommend reading The Millionaire Next Door if you haven't already. edit: $300 seems kinda high (you said the overage was 0) for an electric bill but a lot of people have told me that rates are much lower where I am compared to the rest of the USA. Still, do you think there are ways you could lower that? Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 19:51
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I remember your last thread. You need to analyze your spending. You have your base bill load listed, and some basic spending listed. Look at where your money is going. You're seriously taking home 19,000 dollars a month and 'run out of money every month'. One of you has a nasty drug habit or something else you're not telling us. Your basic bill load is 4500 dollars a month (ballpark) from what you posted. Your monthly expenses (savings outflows is not the right term for pedicures and clothing) run about 2600. Where is the other 12 thousand a month going? I'm still in shock you have 2500 dollars in credit card debt at 30% APR. I'm drat sure we all told you to cancel that loving card and get a better one. The HIGHEST APR I have on any of my credit cards is 14.99%.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:36
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Hah yes I had the mystery hobby...the recent medical expense has propelled me out of that hobby(and yes, something firearms related). Also, we're not taking home 19k a month...I hosed that part up...the numbers are actually total for the month(so 9500 a month). We actually have been wiping that 2500 out on the Cabelas card just about every month...its just sitting there racking up points. Our food expenses are relatively low when we don't go out because I typically get breakfast/lunch(and sometimes dinner) at work. Edit: I've updated the post to properly reflect what we take home...Yearly pre-tax salary is 185k. Yes I'm a huge fuckup with a spending problem obviously... DogsCantBudget fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 20:43
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skipdogg posted:Your monthly expenses (savings outflows is not the right term for pedicures and clothing) run about 2600.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:46
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I dunno if that counts as 'savings' but aside from terminology that's a good way to budget for it. If you don't have kids, do you really need life insurance? Yeah, you just gotta go through the last few months and figure out where your money has actually gone. The numbers you've posted are just ballpark estimates, if you want more detailed advice then you need to provide more details.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:52
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Well first of all that spreadsheet is a hot mess. You're making basically $10,000 A MONTH. Holy poo poo hell. The answer is pretty loving obvious. You need to seriously, seriously, seriously take a look at your expenditures. My guess is eating out + throwing away a poo poo load of groceries every month. IE going to the grocery store, loading up your house, then eating out all month, groceries go bad, throw them out, rinse/repeat. Jesus Christ dude.
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Nov 4, 2014 21:13
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Wait, weren't you the guy who started using mint or something and was SHOCKED that you had spent $2500 eating out? Does anyone have a link to the old thread?
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Nov 4, 2014 23:20
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April posted:Wait, weren't you the guy who started using mint or something and was SHOCKED that you had spent $2500 eating out? Does anyone have a link to the old thread? edit: DogsCantBudget posted:Well, I think you all nailed it. Spent some time in Mint..and guess what? Cicero fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 23:59
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Cicero posted:Found it via gamehelpzone (???): http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3558644 BFC NEVER FORGIVES AND NEVER FORGETS! However, we still recommend that you NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER SURRENDER. edit: Maybe he's including pounds of BASIL as part of his grocery expenses.
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Nov 5, 2014 00:09
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New BFC Mascot:
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Nov 5, 2014 00:10
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DogsCantBudget posted:Our debt load has decreased a bit, but still stayed close the same. Yeah, about that... your debt load hasn't decreased. And I'm not counting the house you bought. Your $7k in credit card debt has become $9.3k. You've paid down $14k on your loans, which you have almost completely offset with $5k of unpaid bills and a fresh $8k or so in a fresh, new, more expensive lease.
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Nov 5, 2014 01:06
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I just resetup my Mint Here's the info from the last 3 months. I also can't seem to get how this does not add up to ~27k over the last 3 months. Note, I'm unsure why this does not include any of my house payments in here, but over the last 3 months I've paid ~4500 in house payments, by far the largest value. Also, ~half of travel is reimbursable/reimbursed. My wife travelled to help her dad with something and he paid her back for her travel expenses. Yes it cost a lot to do this. I really don't know what some of the "uncategorized" items are so I can't categorize them. Yes medical was a large portion recently due to the previously mentioned medical bills. Perhaps Mint needs to catch back up or something, I'm unsure what's up.  Zhentar posted:Yeah, about that... your debt load hasn't decreased. And I'm not counting the house you bought. Your $7k in credit card debt has become $9.3k. You've paid down $14k on your loans, which you have almost completely offset with $5k of unpaid bills and a fresh $8k or so in a fresh, new, more expensive lease. The car is a net zero. We were spending ~300 a month on gas due to lots of driving between myself and the wife. The car lease on her old car was ~150 a month + ~150-200 a month on gas. The new car is 235 a month, but have a net savings of ~200 a month on gas. Which makes this car cost us ~35+15(electricity to juice up the battery). So it's definitely cheaper. Before you ask, no we can not work without having 2 vehicles. Especially given that I am currently handicapped and couldn't ride a bike to/from work if I wanted to. Cicero posted:Found it via gamehelpzone (???): I have no idea wtf gamehelpzone is... Also, we shop primarily at costco and have tons of stuff frozen like chicken and such(in fact it's whats for dinner tonight!). We rarely throw away groceries. DogsCantBudget fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 01:47
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DogsCantBudget posted:I really don't know what some of the "uncategorized" items are so I can't categorize them. This definitely shouldn't alarm you in any way. Over the last 3 months you've spent $1,125 on "stuff you don't really know what it is". You really seem like you have it all together. I'd just keep trucking away.
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Nov 5, 2014 01:55
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quote:Here's the info from the last 3 months. I also can't seem to get how this does not add up to ~27k over the last 3 months. Bugamol posted:This definitely shouldn't alarm you in any way. Over the last 3 months you've spent $1,125 on "stuff you don't really know what it is". You really seem like you have it all together. I'd just keep trucking away.
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Nov 5, 2014 02:06
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Cicero posted:Does that include property tax, and expected maintenance and repairs? Yes this includes PITI. No it does not include HOA payment(see the 129$ payment in the spreadsheet above) or maintenance, but making a 500$ a month, and given that it's a brand new house, will hedge most bets against maintenance concerns...My thought on renting it is to save ~12(over 2 years) to help pay for any repairs the house before taking any money from the rent money...
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Nov 5, 2014 02:07
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Bugamol posted:This definitely shouldn't alarm you in any way. Over the last 3 months you've spent $1,125 on "stuff you don't really know what it is". You really seem like you have it all together. I'd just keep trucking away. Cicero posted:This also made me laugh. "A thousand dollars to something or other I guess." This is definitely a 3 month view. After more careful review, ~400 of this was Doctor's bills(related to the surgery, and now recategorized). The other money was "transfers" between the "savings" accounts and the other accounts. Would in theory wash out between a similar transaction in the main bank account.
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Nov 5, 2014 02:10
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There are a few things that just don't make sense to me: 1. Why are you saving so much money for retirement when you could repay debt for an effective return 30% on $2500, and then 7% on $30,000? Your inflation adjusted return on retirement savings is probably not going to beat what you save from paying off debt faster. 2. It's already been asked, but why do you have life insurance? Moreover, why do you spend $200 a month on life insurance? This seems like a crazy amount. if you don't have kids you are definitely getting ripped off, and maybe even if you do. 3. What is the line item in your budget for housekeeping? If it's stuff you need to buy to maintain your home, that's good to have budgeted. If it's actually to hire someone to come in and clean your house - that's something you can really just do yourself.
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Nov 5, 2014 05:13
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If your going to offer advice in this thread, stop looking at the micro issues in their spending and budget. Their issues are on a macro level. This isn't a couple trying to make it on shoestring budget. Their issues aren't 80 dollars on a housekeeper or 200 for life insurance. Saving 30 dollars a month on their cellphone plan won't make a difference. They take home 10K a month. They can afford someone to come in once or twice a month and clean the house. Life insurance is important for everyone to have. He's the high earner in the relationship. I would expect someone in his position to carry a 1M dollar policy in case something happens. Honestly until he properly analyzes his spending, I'm sticking with the same opinion I had last thread. They're pissing away a large cumulative sum of money every month on poo poo they don't even realize. Eating out, booze, entertainment, shopping, whatever. Just lunch out every day for 2 people could be over 600 a month when you add it all up. I personally would love to see a detailed list of every dollar spent for the last 90 days. Not a summary, the individual line items.
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Nov 5, 2014 07:07
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The only reason people have talked about the micro issues is that Dogs hasn't yet posted an accurate detailed breakdown of their spending, and there's already been plenty of calls for him to do exactly that.
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Nov 5, 2014 07:29
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Well he's accounted for over $7000 a month without counting food or entertainment, so it seems like everyone can pretty much guess what they are wasting their money on. Also, you make too much to contribute to a Roth.
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Nov 5, 2014 07:40
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Droo posted:Well he's accounted for over $7000 a month without counting food or entertainment, so it seems like everyone can pretty much guess what they are wasting their money on. I will be moving out of the roth soon, as of next year, that fact is true, I just recently recieved a raise that put me "outside Roth territory".. Cicero posted:The only reason people have talked about the micro issues is that Dogs hasn't yet posted an accurate detailed breakdown of their spending, and there's already been plenty of calls for him to do exactly that. Short of letting one of you into my bank account(s) I don't understand how to do this seeing as how mint is being retarded...They did update some more, and I think Droo is right on... In the prior graph it showed ~1500 in food/entertainment. I just re-reviewed Mint and it seemms that leaving some ATM expenses uncategorized(sorry this is about 400$ and was probably also spent on food/entertainment stuff, but am not 100% sure how to split it accurately) Here's a more updated graph for the month of October:  This graph does go to show that we are still overspending on dining and amusement As for those of you who say "200 a month on insurance is too much", I carry 1 million on myself and 500k on my wife. This 2400 saved over the year covers well more then what that costs us, in fact the total Life insurance cost for us on a 30 year term is somewhere between 900 and 1000 a year(sorry I don't have the exact bill in front of me). The other 1400 is covering some other kinds of umbrella insurance policies we have to carry due to what we do... The travel budget is actually not reimbursable this time. It's mostly a "final payment" of 1500 dollars towards a vacation to MX that my wife and I are taking in 3 weeks. DogsCantBudget fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 14:21
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Droo posted:Well he's accounted for over $7000 a month without counting food or entertainment, so it seems like everyone can pretty much guess what they are wasting their money on. Ding ding ding! $1500 on food in a month is ludicrous, absolutely insane. That's $50/day! That's as if both you and your wife were hitting up Chipotle 3 times a day, every day. Start cooking/drinking at home, you'll be able to EASILY save $1k a month while still being able to go out for food plenty. What is it you're spending $1,100 a month on for entertainment? Is that your normal level of expense, or did something special happen in October? I'm gonna guess it's nothing unusual, since you're already springing for that vacation next month...
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Nov 5, 2014 15:26
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Your discretionary spending is larger than what your income can support. You have thousands of dollars going out for dining, shopping, "uncategorized", travel, and entertainment. Figure out what all that poo poo entails, and then set a hard limit for spending. Once it's gone, you stop spending. You make a lot of money, this should be easy stuff. Stop blowing it on junk you don't need and convenience.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:27
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skipdogg posted:If your going to offer advice in this thread, stop looking at the micro issues in their spending and budget. Their issues are on a macro level. This isn't a couple trying to make it on shoestring budget. Their issues aren't 80 dollars on a housekeeper or 200 for life insurance. Saving 30 dollars a month on their cellphone plan won't make a difference. I guess I have a different perspective. They have about 55k of relatively high interest debt and virtually no cash savings. Any emergency (another surgery, owing back taxes) is going to result in additional debt. In that situation I would cut back on any unnecessary expenses until I at least had an emergency fund. You're right that cutting $30 a month isn't going to make a difference by itself, but that kind of critical analysis and willingness to make sacrifices (at least in the short term) is what's missing here. Clearly they should start by applying that critical eye to their food an entertainment budget, but I don't think they should stop there. If they just keep saying "we earn $185k, we can afford this", they're not going to be financially secure. Yes, they can keep their heads above water, but as the OP said, "If we somehow lose one of our jobs(especially mine), we're well and royally hosed." Once they have that emergency fund and once they've paid off some of that high interest debt, sure, hire the housekeeper back. They have a good amount of income, but until they're in a more secure situation I think it makes sense to cut back.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:34
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Not a Children posted:Ding ding ding! Yes it was an unusual event. I don't typically spend that much on Entertainment. In fact looking at the last 12 months: I've spent 4600 on Travel(~2500 of that was reimbursable)(1500 of that is the upcoming trip)(600 was another trip where we had somewhere to stay/eat/etc) I've spent 4k on Entertainment, so as you can see a large portion of that was this 1100 recently....
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Nov 5, 2014 15:46
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But what is that entertainment? Date night? Concerts? Strippers? Drugs? $400/month average is still a pretty large amount, especially if it's separate from your food and travel budget. If you can save a hundo or two, you should redirect that toward your pile of debt.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:55
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DogsCantBudget posted:We actually have been wiping that 2500 out on the Cabelas card just about every month...its just sitting there racking up points. What the heck does that mean?
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Nov 5, 2014 16:05
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Not a Children posted:But what is that entertainment? Date night? Concerts? Strippers? Drugs? $400/month average is still a pretty large amount, especially if it's separate from your food and travel budget. If you can save a hundo or two, you should redirect that toward your pile of debt. Wife and I chatted last night. We're cutting things down pretty tight. Going to avoid eating out as much as possible this month(Ideally max of once a week). We have cooked all week actually and most of last week. Our big expenses were over the weekend where we had a huge race in town(Austin TX F1 race). We have no big expenses planned between now and the end of December(holiday gifts will come out of that 83$ a month that goes towards gifts). Looking at it, we can pay down the Cabelas debt by the end of this month and the rest of it by end of December(not counting school/car/house loans, but I mean the "consumer debt"). Then we'll tackle the car and house next. Entertainment for us is definitely not drugs or strippers. Sometimes concerts, sometimes a movie night, sometimes a date night, but that usually is just "dining out". BTW, I want to make a point to some of you reading this. If you don't have life insurance, and are relatively young/healthy, get it. Because I picked up my policy when I was 25 it's relatively cheap given how much I carry...do it now.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:11
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Dr Cox MD posted:What the heck does that mean? So, we don't carry a month to month balance. We then use the "points/cashback" to buy things at Cabelas....
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Nov 5, 2014 16:11
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What exactly do you do that requires thousands of dollars a month spent at Cabelas along with special insurance? I'll guess that you saw "surviving the game" and decided to start your own business.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:41
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Droo posted:What exactly do you do that requires thousands of dollars a month spent at Cabelas along with special insurance? We don't spend 1000s at cabelas a month...we use that as our primary card for all sorts of things... Special insurance is things like an umbrella liability policy...
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Nov 5, 2014 16:42
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Alright well I'll chime in with some of what you're doing wrong. 1. Everyone else will cover the eating out and shopping ad nauseam, but yeah that's a problem. Learn about happy hour deals and use them or something. 2. You make to much for a roth IRA, you seem a high risk of draining your retirement in the future, and your student loans aren't very low interest rate wise. I would stop all contributions to retirement plans (except enough 401k to get all employer match possible) and pay off the student loans instead. I would do them equitably in case you and your wife break up (for some reason you seem to be paying hers off much faster right now). 3. Do you have kids? Why do you have life insurance? You specifically mentioned that you have $1m and your wife has $0.5m I think. Yet you haven't mentioned kids. Even if you insist on having life insurance, that premium seems ridiculous. What kind of insurance do you have? Are you a 500 pound smoker who works on skyscrapers or what? I would cancel the policy, or at least replace it with a single 500k term policy on just you and nothing on your wife. 4. Your auto insurance is ridiculous. Do you have an insurance broker? Someone who works for an independent agency and quotes multiple providers, NOT a State Farm agent or whatever. 5. Your electric bill is too high. I get that you overestimated, but you can probably make some energy efficiency changes that will significantly lower it (programmable thermostats, efficient bulbs, etc). You might even be able to get a cheaper rate per KW/hour through a site like powertochoose.org. Also, your electric company might have plans that work better for you overall, where they charge you a higher rate during peak but lower all other times. Depending on your lifestyle that could make a big difference. What city/state do you live in? 6. The 0% Chase card is probably not going to be 0% for 38 months. Why are you only paying $100 on it? Do you plan to balloon pay it at the end? 7. You have too many stupid store credit cards. Stop using them. Close them. 8. Your cabela's rewards card is stupid. Replace it with a card that gives you actual cash back (e.g. Fidelity 2% cash back AmEx). You probably justify buying stupid poo poo at Cabela's because you have "free points!". 9. What interest rate is your car loan at? 10. Once you clean up some of your mess you could consider refinancing to a 15 year mortgage. Your payments would go up but you would net save about $2000 a year in interest based on current rates. 11. Why do you have a housekeeper? Didn't you imply that you are a young person? Don't you think you'd be better off in life cleaning now and saving the housekeeper expenses for when you are 60 and actually need one? 12. What hobby are you devoting $275 a month too? 13. Where is your natural gas bill? Water? Garbage collection? Really you have quite a mess. I'm never really sure what people are looking for in these threads - are you actually confused about where your money has been going or what?
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Nov 5, 2014 17:29
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Droo posted:Alright well I'll chime in with some of what you're doing wrong.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:39
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DogsCantBudget posted:As other posters have said, 80$ isn't whats breaking the bank here... What's "breaking your bank" is a combination of poor life and financial decisions stemming from some combination of laziness, incompetence, lack of planning and lack of discipline. Some of these bad decisions are big and some are small but they all add up. You are basically identical to Slow Motion. What did you think about him as you read through his thread?
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Nov 5, 2014 20:10
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Droo posted:What's "breaking your bank" is a combination of poor life and financial decisions stemming from some combination of laziness, incompetence, lack of planning and lack of discipline. Some of these bad decisions are big and some are small but they all add up. I think he wasn't willing to share all the information that people needed to give him good advice. I guess my biggest reason for coming here is to self examine while embarassing myself a bit so that I kick myself in the rear end enough to fix this poo poo...
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Nov 5, 2014 20:30
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Also, I just recieved my car insurance bill. Due 12/09/14. 986 for 6 months. This covers both my and my wifes car. It increased from 749 for 6 months because I had an accident (my fault). With 1048 currently available(1300 once the latest "deposit" to insurance fund clears) that makes it so I don't have to go into "debt" to pay for my insurance...budgeting to prepare for a bill was one of the biggest things I took away from YNAB...
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Nov 5, 2014 20:38
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All I got to say dude is you should have paid off way more debt this year. You have roughly $70K of lovely-ish debt that you could have been pounding out.
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Nov 6, 2014 02:52
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