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Pompous Rhombus posted:If you wanted to document it, maybe video equipment? For PoV filming, you might look into something like a GoPro with a chest or head mount, or Pivothead glasses. Great idea, I'll float it by him as we progress. I don't know if the fundamental knowledge lends itself well to actual videography; illustrations and/or 3D animation like they used to show on Fight Quest or Deadliest Warrior might be a better fit. Either way that would represent an expense since neither of us have body-mountable cameras or animation experience.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:31
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pig slut lisa posted:Talked with my wife about this yesterday and she's totally on board. I was planning on just tracking our spending via online credit card statements, but she suggested keeping a tally on the fridge which is of course a much better idea. May I ask what you usually drink and where you purchase it? I may be able to give you some tips on cheaper acquisitions 
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Dec 29, 2014 18:48
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pig slut lisa posted:Talked with my wife about this yesterday and she's totally on board. I was planning on just tracking our spending via online credit card statements, but she suggested keeping a tally on the fridge which is of course a much better idea. You can also try a website called Mint.com, it basically links all you investment, bank and credit accounts into a single place making it much easier to track your monthly spending/income flow.
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Dec 30, 2014 01:05
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By the end of 2015 I will have 10 properties I am receiving checks off of monthly, either via rental or owner financing (this is the goal). I currently have 1 rental property I cash flow insane off, and 1 property I bought cash and sold owner financed. These were practice runs. There is a decent chance I am going to pick up 6 new properties by the end of January and if that happens I will consider bumping this number up to 15. I have two others I am working on as well. I recently reconfigured my retirement and cash reserve situation so I am in a decent position to be able to buy 10 properties, and even more if I decide to convert my IRA to self directed, and I have investors lined up already if I need them if things really start rolling. I have spent an entire year working on my business plan and model in my spare time as well as testing the waters with one of each type of transaction, and I think I can pull this off. If I can meet my goal this year, and 5 subsequent years, I believe I can retire before 40, which is my goal (I am 32 now). I have put an incredible amount of work into this, sought advice from very successful people, and been humble and willing to learn at every step. Even if it does not work out I have learned enough already it was worth it. If in a few months I am having success I might post a thread detailing what I am doing.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:50
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Ribsauce posted:By the end of 2015 I will have 10 properties I am receiving checks off of monthly, either via rental or owner financing (this is the goal). I currently have 1 rental property I cash flow insane off, and 1 property I bought cash and sold owner financed. These were practice runs. Please do
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Dec 30, 2014 10:31
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:May I ask what you usually drink and where you purchase it? I may be able to give you some tips on cheaper acquisitions Ehhh, it's really just a question of quantity control. This will represent a drop to one six-pack a week vs one every 3-5 days. It'll be good for non-financial reasons as well. Thanks though. etalian posted:You can also try a website called Mint.com, it basically links all you investment, bank and credit accounts into a single place making it much easier to track your monthly spending/income flow. I'm hooked up to Mint, but I rarely look at it. Given that we already save approximately 50% of our income, I don't feel that it provides a lot of value to us. Since I'm targeting this one specific expense, I think the fridge tally will be most effective for us.
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Dec 30, 2014 16:42
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Save 75% of my post-tax income! Same as last year. Like 10% of this savings will be in a 401k so I can hit my employer match, the rest in a passively managed index fund (ie wealth front). As an addendum to this: find a consistent source of side income to make meeting this goal more easy, though at the moment it's actually not been super painful.
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Dec 30, 2014 18:22
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I lurk a lot in BFC so maybe my first goal should be to be involved more. It will probably help me save more money. 1) Cut down how much I spend on food. Somehow as a single guy living alone I spend $300-400 on food each month. I think I can easily limit that to $250 or with a little more self control $200. 2) Pay off at least $10,000 of my student loan debt. If everything comes together perfectly, pay off $20,000. 3) Get a promotion at current job. This is entirely possible if I clean up my work a bit and will net me an extra $20,000 this year. If not, apply for other jobs. Along the same lines, discuss long term future at the organization with my boss. 4) Budget better. I have started using Mint to track expenses but I don't have purchases planned out to the dollar yet. 5) Increase emergency fund from its current 2 months to 3 months through a combination of stricter spending and putting my more in it. 6) Don't blow the tax refund on something stupid. Use it all for student loan debt. 7) Be better about doing all my shopping during sales and using coupons.
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Dec 30, 2014 18:54
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pig slut lisa posted:I'm hooked up to Mint, but I rarely look at it. Given that we already save approximately 50% of our income, I don't feel that it provides a lot of value to us. Since I'm targeting this one specific expense, I think the fridge tally will be most effective for us. It's still a handy for tracking yearly spending and income patterns. On the downside it's stock account integration is pretty bad
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Dec 31, 2014 03:14
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Ribsauce posted:By the end of 2015 I will have 10 properties I am receiving checks off of monthly, either via rental or owner financing (this is the goal). I currently have 1 rental property I cash flow insane off, and 1 property I bought cash and sold owner financed. These were practice runs. I'm not sure if it's just the wording, but you can't manage the property if you use funds from your self directed IRA. You'd have to invest in someone else's property.
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Dec 31, 2014 18:01
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Current Figures: 21 years old No debt, no car. Only subscriptions/recurring costs are protein powder every couple weeks for the gym. $5300 in checking account. The past year I promised myself to always keep at least $5k in there no matter what. ~$500 in different checking account that I use as spending cash on whatever I want. Bring in $360 biweekly from weekend job. 2015 Goals: Bring up my minimum in the checking account to either $6k or $7k depending on the below. Keep $1000 in other checking account. Don't spend money in the casino/online poker. Don't buy stupid poo poo on Amazon - books I never read, etc. I expect to pay ~$150/semester on books tops, and if I don't get a summer internship then I will take 3 summer classes which will cost me ~$3.5k so I need to be prepared for that. Other goals include getting my "A" license in skydiving which is another ~$2-3k. A friend is getting one right now and I may get mine either before summer classes or after. Dangerous Mind fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Dec 31, 2014 |
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Dec 31, 2014 21:51
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It's 2015, has everyone achieved all their financial goals yet?
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Jan 1, 2015 14:45
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pig slut lisa posted:It's 2015, has everyone achieved all their financial goals yet? I spent under $50 for new years...
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Jan 1, 2015 16:45
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spwrozek posted:I spent under $50 for new years... I stayed home and spent $0 so I'm off to a frugal start.
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Jan 1, 2015 16:53
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pig slut lisa posted:It's 2015, has everyone achieved all their financial goals yet? I went and already put in an order to max out my Roth IRA contributions for the year. It will take a day or two to process but so far so good!
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Jan 1, 2015 17:27
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In addition to my original post, I noticed I ended the year with a net worth just shy of a negative $30,000. I get paid tomorrow, which will cut that to under $29k. I'm going to try to never pass that $30,000 mark. Right now I'm going to grad school, so I'll either pay out of pocket or take on loans (which, along with undergrad loans, are also accruing interest), so either one of those things will make it difficult, but if I can cut down on spending, I might be able to do it.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:39
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2014 was a good year and thankfully we ended it with no debts outside of our mortgages. Goals: 1) Stay free of CC debt 2) Our land loan is a 3 year jumbo and our goal is to have the cash to pay it off at the due date instead of refinancing which means we need $39k/year - realistically I'm hoping for between 75%-90% and a much smaller refinance. 3) Increase side-business income by $1500-2000/mo 4) Establish farm income by a number TBD, but at least enough to break even with input costs of chicken/cattle 5) Increase 401K contribution from 6% to 10% by mid-year / continue max HSA contribution
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Jan 1, 2015 19:51
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The Experiment posted:I went and already put in an order to max out my Roth IRA contributions for the year. It will take a day or two to process but so far so good! same 
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Jan 1, 2015 20:22
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quote:End of year goals: I did these, decided to prioritize the emergency fund over finishing out the 2014 IRA right away since my car is acting a little funny and I don't know what it may cost to have it worked on yet.
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Jan 1, 2015 20:59
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Those who were active in the 2014 thread see here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3599878&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=4#post439646372
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Jan 1, 2015 21:33
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Goals for 2015: Emergency fund up to 15K Maxed IRA (Stretch) Track cash spending in YNAB
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Jan 2, 2015 01:39
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Harry posted:I'm not sure if it's just the wording, but you can't manage the property if you use funds from your self directed IRA. You'd have to invest in someone else's property. I know, that part is annoying but if I find a property or two it makes sense to have someone else manage then no big deal
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Jan 2, 2015 18:09
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Financial 2015 Goals: - Max out IRAs (myself and wife) for 2014 and 2015 tax years and 401k for 2015 - Net worth to $160,000 (currently around 110,000 I think) - Get a decent number of points to travel around on via churning Non-financial 2015 Goals: - Win more games of Starcraft in the inter-corporate gaming league I play in than I did last season (3). - Set new personal records for bench 1rm and mile run on my 30th birthday in November (aiming for 125% of body weight and < 6:30 respectively)
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Jan 2, 2015 22:55
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Cicero posted:- Win more games of Starcraft in the inter-corporate gaming league I play in than I did last season (3). Good luck, UNLESS you're taking about AHGL and you work for a company competing against National Instruments. Then I can't support your endeavor.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:40
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SpelledBackwards posted:Good luck, UNLESS you're taking about AHGL and you work for a company competing against National Instruments. Then I can't support your endeavor. (the bag I got from the interviews was very useful for this year's Christmas vacation though)
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Jan 3, 2015 04:24
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Ok let me amend what I said. Good luck to you in matches which do not hinder NI. I wish I could say I was part of the team, but I suck at games in general, and I'm WAYYYY too nervous and prone to turtling to even play a game like SC2 online against other real live humans. But I do love to cheer the other NI guys on.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:32
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Financial Goals: -Max my Roth IRA -Get my investment accounts up to 50k (at 38k right now) -Pay down 25% of my student loans -Start saving towards my wedding -Use YNAB and get to step 4 -Get emergency fund up to 10k Non-financial goal -Run the LA marathon in 2016 -Get a new job
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Jan 3, 2015 04:32
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Ribsauce posted:By the end of 2015 I will have 10 properties I am receiving checks off of monthly, either via rental or owner financing (this is the goal). I currently have 1 rental property I cash flow insane off, and 1 property I bought cash and sold owner financed. These were practice runs. Please do let us know how you're able to work this out. My wife and I have three investment properties, but we keep getting denied by the banks - I think the concern is that we have too many mortgages. So if you're able to solve the problem of how to get more property without bank financing, It would be great to hear about it - so far I haven't seen a good model.
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Jan 3, 2015 06:53
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Currently: Made stupid money in 2013 contracting Went full time on my startup for 2014, currently poor Goals of 2015: By end of 2015, I'll be back to making 6 figures again. To do this... By mid-2015 I'll either have the startup making enough, or I'll go back to the ludicrous amounts of cash that contracting makes.
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Jan 3, 2015 18:16
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2015 goals: -Rebuild my savings from 1+ year of unemployment -Eliminate any existing CC and college debt -Find a side source of income outside of my main job
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Jan 5, 2015 07:27
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2015 goals: -get a better handle on investment (already underway) -get rid of my lovely investments -get better investments -top off RRSP contribution, more into TFSA -eat out less, cook more at home again -sleep better, exercise regularly -save more
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Jan 6, 2015 00:13
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2015 Goals: - Max out my Roth IRA - Max out my 401k for the first time ever - Help my mom get a handle on her retirement funds, which are currently scattered across multiple high ER IRAs and/or stocks (!) - Chill out on the seamless addiction Umister fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 02:47
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2015 GOALS Reduce dining out spending to $150 every paycheck (two weeks). Based on my Quicken categories for last year, this will reduce my dining out expenses by about $1300 for the year, depending on how much I travel for work.* Of course, my actual savings will be somewhat less than that since my grocery bills should rise. * Restaurant spending when I'm on work trips (and thus on per diem) won't count against this goal, so it should be pretty easy on pay periods where I'm travelling. In theory I should prorate the amount by the number of nights I'm home in a pay period, but I'll keep it simple this year. Finish paying off my student loan by the end of June. I owe about $5K (down from $89K!), and I've been throwing about $1000 per month at it (after maxing out my employer 5% 401(k) match and my Roth IRA) for the past few years, so this wouldn't be too challenging -- except that my old paid-off truck got to the point where I'd had it in the shop six times in two months, so I ended up buying a car last October, and I have a car payment again. Fortunately, literally doubling my fuel efficiency has offset the car payment somewhat, but it's brought down what I can contribute to the loan a little. At least both the student loan and car payment are under 3% interest, and I have no other debt. Save up enough for an overseas vacation by the end of the year. My sister just moved to Germany last month, and I'd like to take her up on her invitation to come stay with her for a couple weeks. Given the schedule of the project I'm on at work, I probably won't be able to actually take two weeks off until early 2016, but I'd like to have the money saved up by the end of this year. Back of the envelope calculations tell me I'll need to save about $3250 (no lodging expense, but a lot of margin for error built in for the other expenses). Hopefully I'll be able to cut that down by cashing in some frequent flier miles, but I'd rather save too much and be pleasantly surprised, so $3250 seems a reasonable goal. If I can get the student loan paid off by June, I figure I can immediately start throwing the amount I was putting toward it into a savings account; anything left over will likely go to extra payments on the car.
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Jan 6, 2015 04:43
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2015 Goals - - Keep my job, Outside my control as the industry (Coal mining) I'm in is really struggling and is predicted not to see any sort of improvement until 2016. - If the above happens then I'd really like to keep allocated $2k a month to house renovations which I'll do all myself to keep the costs at an acceptable level. Hiring tradesmen will blow out the costs x 4. - Maintain an emergency fund of $20k. - Start saving $1k a month for a new (used) car. My 2nd car a 2001 Hyundai Accent is starting to get a bit tired, I'll keeping saving until I've destroyed the Hyundai I'm hoping to see it last as long as the new tyres do >12 months? - Stick to the monthly category budgets I've set in YNAB. Pretty much everything hinges on staying in my job, if I don't well I'll get an okayish payout of $45k, but that won't last long so I'll have to look potentially very far afield to stay employed in the industry I'm in and keep earning the numbers I'd like.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:17
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spwrozek posted:4) Get a roommate to help defer costs (plenty of house for this person) I haven't had a roommate other than the wife for 8 years but I was able to get one for February through May which works out pretty good for me. Kind of like a test run which is nice and the dude should be pretty good. On the financial side he is paying 1/2 my water, garbage, electric, heat, and internet plus I am getting $750/mo in rent. Basically around $900 a month in my pocket. The rest of the poo poo is still a sticky wicket though.
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Jan 7, 2015 06:45
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In 2015, I would like: A car 6 months worth of savings to live on Start repairing my credit A good job. No more of this living at minimum wage or below (although it was depressing the zoo job paid less than my sister's gas station job...) A copy of YNAB
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Jan 8, 2015 00:04
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Aerofallosov posted:In 2015, I would like: Great goal! How are you planning on achieving it?
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Jan 8, 2015 01:33
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pig slut lisa posted:Great goal! How are you planning on achieving it? Lawyer up, clear out the identity fraud, get a new SSN. When I get work, I intend to have a no over draft debit card and a small (~200 dollar) credit card. I am likely going to have to declare bankruptcy, and it sucks. But that's where the lawyer comes in to talk to me and see what we can do (as well as what the best option is). And hey, thanks to Obamacare, I won't have to be uninsured and deal with the monster medical costs that entails. Currently, I am looking at lawyers I can afford, applying to jobs (building up my linkedin network, working on my resume, slinging resumes and cover letters at jobs, talking to people) and keeping on an even keel as best as I can. I also intend to use low cost health care until my insurance and such kicks in. It's going to be a very long term process, yes. But it'll get there. When student loans come up, I will talk to Great Lakes to see which payment plan option is best for me - or if I need more forbearance. They told me I was a bit early to start asking when I last contacted them. Once things are reasonably steady, or as soon as I can, I definitely want to pick up a copy of you need a budget to help make sure I stick to my budget and build savings. I also intend to make sure I get a job that, you know, actually pays me.
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Jan 8, 2015 02:17
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P.D.B. Fishsticks posted:Finish paying off my student loan by the end of June. I owe about $5K (down from $89K!), and I've been throwing about $1000 per month at it (after maxing out my employer 5% 401(k) match and my Roth IRA) for the past few years, so this wouldn't be too challenging -- except that my old paid-off truck got to the point where I'd had it in the shop six times in two months, so I ended up buying a car last October, and I have a car payment again. Fortunately, literally doubling my fuel efficiency has offset the car payment somewhat, but it's brought down what I can contribute to the loan a little. At least both the student loan and car payment are under 3% interest, and I have no other debt. This is some remarkable discipline, good job.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:43
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Thanks! The end is in sight.
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Jan 9, 2015 04:38
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