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Hello!! Backstory: I am a recent graduate from a state school in Alabama. I got a job in the bay area (north bay, sonoma county), and moved my husband and I out here about a month ago. My husband was thankfully able to transfer and so we're both gainfully employed. His family was pretty solidly middle-class; no big houses or keeping-up-with-the-jonses debt. My family was fairly poor, but in a weird way. My parents are hoarders and money that should've gone to things like, oh, the electric bill went to weird cluttery hoardery bullshit and paying bills for the down on their luck people my mom would befriend. Their dumb habits rubbed off on me a little, but now I know how to do things like keep a job and say no to people and pay bills and not hoard things (mostly). Both my husband and I are former high-school dropouts. We both have GEDs. I started college at 22 and now have a shiny new 4-year degree. He greatly supported me through school (including three years where I didn't work), and now wants to look into enrolling at the nearby JC once we get residency. To be honest, I've come a long way. I dropped out at 16. Did some dumb, harmful things in my late teens. I managed to escape a really lovely lifestyle, got a sweet job I worked at for several years before I went to school, got married (at the old age of 20), and went back to school. During that whole time, I've also dealt with working through the hoardery habits and inability to sometimes cope with life (thanks to therapy and awesome family members), as well as some nasty bouts with anxiety & depression. I have worked hard to get where I am, but I'm also very aware that there are habits I have that aren't conducive to being super financially secure. Why I'm doing this: We're not very good with money, as indicated by our credit card debt and my ridiculous student loan amounts. Also we suck at keeping grocery/fast food/restaurant costs under budget, but we don't go out really. We can be pretty frivolous with buying household goods sometimes, too. I want to be more accountable about these things! Income: I make $72,000/yr salary. He makes $23/hr. Total: $120,000/yr Approximate per month earnings, post-tax, health insurance, 401k, stock options etc: $6,600 Debt: Student loans: $49,750 (all stafford loans, interest varies from 3.6ish~6.8%) Amex: $7,975 (@13.24%) Chase: $3,466 (@13.24%) Loan from his mother to help with moving: $5,000, no interest, no pressure to pay it back quickly. We would've been fine without it, but she wanted to make sure we were good. It really has helped during the transition, but it's still hard for me to accept help from people and I would like to start paying that back quickly. She is awesome and the #1 mother-in-law in the world. Total: $66,191 Money: AL bank acc, his: $4,012 AL bank acc, mine: $1,399 AL bank acc, savings: $913 CA bank acc, mine: $4,793 CA bank acc, savings: $305 Total: $11,422 Investments: I have a 401k from my old job somewhere: $12,000 apprx. His 401k: $42,254 My new 401k doesn't have much in it yet and I won't have stock options showing for another couple pay periods. Current expected budgeted living costs: This is a little harder to work out, since our last month was just FILLED with spending a shitton of money due to moving/getting an apartment and stuff. Rent: $2019 (yes, this is high, even for this area. We didn't have a whole lot of time to find a place and this is a good place in a good area of town and was recommended by my coworkers). Electric/Utilities: uh, no idea yet, actually. But we're budgeting about $60 for electricity and $100-120 for water/gas/util (we don't have a clue what that will look like). Cellphones: $70 (through ting) Internet: $45 Netflix and other entertainment stuff: $40 Gas: $120 (I drive about 10min to work, he rides a motorcycle). Groceries: We kinda suck at budgeting cheaply on groceries and always have, even in Alabama, so $500 Fast food: same reason, but I'd like to get better about it $150 Restaurants: ditto $150 Fun things: $200 (this is both together, and done with coworkers as a way of ~making friends~ since we're in a new place and don't yet know many people). General shopping (home stuff, toiletries, etc): $300 Clothing: $250 ($125/ea) -- I budgeted this high because we purged a TON of stuff when we moved since we moved via shoving all our poo poo into a Kia Soul. Savings contributions: $750 to emergency fund $250 to vacation/buy-a-used-miata-fund. We don't need vacations or miatas, but I really want an mx-5 and they're fairly cheap and I would feel more comfortable having 2 cars + motorcycle, than just one car + motorcycle (especially since our working hours don't coincide well at all). Debt contributions: $750/mo to Amex until paid down $400/mo to Chase until paid down Total: $6074 budgeted out of $6600 monthly expected income My student loans don't go into repayment until November, but until then, I'd like to start paying at least $500/mo to the oldest/highest % ones. Maybe more depending on how our money looks. We could do graduated repayment on student loans, in which case the minimum payment would be like, $250ish/mo starting, or we could do regular repayment where we would pay about $550/mo. Should I start paying on student loans now, or should I wait until November so we can focus on just getting the Amex/Chase knocked out first, since those are at a way higher percentage? Should I get rid of the vacation/hypothetical-miata fund since it's frivolous, or is it ok to have that? Goals: Pay off Amex/Chase Pay back my awesome mother-in-law Start working on student loan debt Establish a good 3-6mo emergency fund (at least $18k) Enjoy living in this place; it's awesome and we really like it so far Plan to reach it: Pay attention over July to how we spend money here, what we're spending it on, and why I have $300 from each direct deposit automatically redirected to savings (originally hypothetical miata fund), but that can be changed to be only the buffer fund, and I'd like to set that to at least a $1k a month. Set down a concrete timeline of paying back his mother Cook more
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Jun 28, 2015 17:51
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First off, congrats on your degree and getting your life turned around. You should be very proud of yourselves. What are the chances of your husband making more money? If he transferred and kept the same position, he should be getting more money to reflect the higher cost of living in CA vs AL. Also, what's your credit score like? You could balance transfer those cards to something with a 0% introductory rate.
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Jun 28, 2015 19:40
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Thanks  We've definitely made some awesome strides. We live in an incredibly beautiful place with awesome people, and I have a job doing what I love at a really chill company.quote:What are the chances of your husband making more money? If he transferred and kept the same position, he should be getting more money to reflect the higher cost of living in CA vs AL. He wants to look into going to part-time in a year and start going to school at the local JC, since he was getting pretty unhappy at the store he worked at in Alabama. However, he's much much happier with the people/culture at the store here, so his dissatisfaction in what he does could change. quote:Also, what's your credit score like? You could balance transfer those cards to something with a 0% introductory rate. Kind of embarrassing question: I have a lease for an apartment back in Alabama that I have to pay through until August, and I paid the rent at the beginning of the month. I usually use a debit card for it, but I decided to try using an echeck instead. Unfortunately, that bank lists their account numbers wonky on the website, and I got the number wrong (I found this out because I tried doing the same thing on a different payment recently, and it came back as denied). That particular account is checkless checking, so I had no checks to go off of, and thought I was doing it right. The website has numbers listed as #AAAA-BB, where as the actual account number is like, 00#BB#AAAA (I later looked at my husband's checks for his account). I looked through my transaction history and the money for my rent still hasn't been taken out (obviously). However, I was sent a payment receipt and no one from the rental agency has contacted me about it. I want to pay this, since I really don't want a big "didn't pay rent" black mark. I wish I'd been a little more careful on ensuring they took the money out (since they didn't), but with moving and starting work, I just got careless. My plan is to call on Monday and ask why the money hasn't been taken out, but I know it's kind of my fault for it being unpaid atm. Is there a better way to handle this? I'm really hoping they didn't put a note in my mail or under my door, considering I turned in the keys and let them know I was moving out back in May.
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Jun 28, 2015 20:25
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Yeah, that rent is why you could not pay me enough to take a job in the Bay unless I could telecommute from Nevada or something. At a third of your take-home it's higher than I'd want in a place with a cost of living as high as Cali. Especially given that your estimates for your utility bills are likely way low, especially electricity given running AC.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:22
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Liquid Communism posted:Yeah, that rent is why you could not pay me enough to take a job in the Bay unless I could telecommute from Nevada or something. At a third of your take-home it's higher than I'd want in a place with a cost of living as high as Cali. Especially given that your estimates for your utility bills are likely way low, especially electricity given running AC. Yeah, when I was initially job hunting, I was avoiding more expensive places (CA, larger cities, etc), and targeting my applications in the midwest (mostly Madison and Milwaukee), but this turned out to be a really good opportunity. Most people in my field start out making 40-45k/yr. Plus, I'm focusing on the area within my field that I like most. I'm glad I chose this job, even with the high cost of living in the area. We really like the people here and it's so disgustingly beautiful. As for electricity, it should be (relatively) cheap, actually. We've run our single, window-unit AC for maybe 4-5 hours total since we moved in. In Alabama, that was just a constant thing especially because of the humidity. Seriously, we can actually open the windows here!! It's so nice! I have been checking our daily usage, and we should be paying (I think) about $50~60 for June. I could be very wrong, though! Our rent is pretty high, even for this area. If we'd had more time to find a place, we could've gotten a much cheaper place (1500~1700ish), but overall I'm ok with it. From what coworkers told me, if you have a second bedroom (we do) it's pretty easy to host an intern over the summer. That could be an option next summer. It costs more to live here, yeah, but we're both happier here than we were in Alabama. I know every place is what you make of it, but there's definitely more to work with here.
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Jun 29, 2015 06:15
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Go to your California bank, see if they'll offer you a card with 0% APR for 18 months on balance transfers. You may be able to find a fee-free option, too; check in the credit card offers thread in BFC. You want to pay down those credit card bills ASAP. Don't put anything into your Miata fund or your student loans (at least, beyond required minimum payments, nothing while they're not due) until they're gone. If you can ride it out with your current savings until the credit cards get totally paid down, you could have those paid off in five months, right around when your student loans come up for repayment ($1150 planned + $750 emergency fund + $250 Miata fund + $550 Student Loaned planned = $2700). If you roll it over to a 0% APR card, you can be more leisurely about repayment and put money towards emergency fund/vacation/etc (since paying it off sooner won't save you any money). In the next few weeks/months, the marijuana harvest is going to start coming in. You and/or your husband may be able to bring in some additional money by helping to trim, especially if you're good with your hands. Back when I lived there, I heard it was very remunerative. This is probably going to be easier to do in Northern Sonoma than Southern, though.
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Jun 29, 2015 20:31
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Were you the person moving to Santa Rosa? I grew up there and my mom still lives there. The JC is a very good one, both my parents teach there, and has A LOT of really great programs with good connections to jobs when you graduate. I would highly recommend you and your husband go chat with one of the counselors there and tour the campus. Fall enrollment begins soon so get that nailed down. That rent is really high for Sonoma County, drat. There are a few good staffing agencies for catering and event gigs (everyone loves a wine country wedding) and tasting rooms. If you're into wine or can pick it up easily, that may be a great choice for some weekend gigs. Trimming weed is also super lucrative and way better than retail. With his customer service background, perhaps working at a dispensary or the like. E: Actually, working on campus is a fuckin' sweet gig too. Really good pay with upwards mobility and they have to work around your schedule. Your husband could easily make as much or more than his retail job working on campus. MAKE NO BABBYS fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 01:27
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 I don't think my work would like me trimming pot plants part time. They're fairly chill, but I don't think they're THAT chill. I do know some people who work part-time work at wineries nearby. But, since we haven't really spent much time together in past few years, I don't think either of us want to add a part-time job to our schedule. Sure, we could get more money, but right now, I wanna spend some time with my husband and not working. Maybe after we've been here a little longer it could be an option, but not right now. Even if it means taking more time to get stuff paid off/paying more. And yeah, we just moved to Santa Rosa. A lot of my coworkers went to SRJC and went on to Calpoly or UC Davis afterwards, and they've highly recommended it too. We won't have residency for another year, so we have some time to get that set up for next year. As for the balance transfer, I'll check out what my bank says. I actually have a 1000 limit credit card through my bank already, but it's at like 13%? I used it to buy lunch at work once, but other than that I haven't used it and don't really want to. My husband is more likely to get a lower apr and it'd be nice to have a credit union here for him too (our AL credit union is only in AL).
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Jun 30, 2015 06:33
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Check out Chase Slate for a 0% balance transfer CC.
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Jun 30, 2015 17:25
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Gnossiennes posted:
I'm not saying you have to do it, but you're leaving a lot of easy money on the table if you don't, especially given that the season is only a few weeks long (it's not just a part-time job, but a part-time, temporary job).
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Jun 30, 2015 17:54
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Thanatosian posted:You're not in Alabama anymore. I guarantee you a ton of the money your business/government agency/NGO takes in is pot money, and many of your coworkers who don't grow (and many of them grow) probably trim. It's by far the biggest cash crop in the area, and one of the big reasons it's so expensive to live there. What the hell. Is this legal? What's it pay?
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Jun 30, 2015 18:01
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Knyteguy posted:What the hell. Is this legal? What's it pay? Last I heard, either $25/hr, or $200/lb (an average trimmer can trim a pound in eight hours). Prices for pot have gone down substantially since then, though. Generally speaking, even if you get busted (which is not likely), they'll only arrest people with out-of-state ID. Mendocino County's (the county just to the north of Sonoma) DA was a grower when I last lived there. The county has a population of around 85,000 people, and last I heard (which was, like, a decade ago), was doing about a billion dollars in pot business a year. That's over $10,000 per person. Including children.
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Jun 30, 2015 19:03
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Thanatosian posted:You're not in Alabama anymore. I guarantee you a ton of the money your business/government agency/NGO takes in is pot money, and many of your coworkers who don't grow (and many of them grow) probably trim. It's by far the biggest cash crop in the area, and one of the big reasons it's so expensive to live there. I don't think my company takes in a whole lot of pot money. It's a (relatively) conservative tech company which doesn't sell to consumers, so there's not a whole lot of money coming in from the nearby area. If there's one thing I don't want to do, it's gently caress up my job. Doing a quasi-legal part-time gig as a non-resident (with no CA ID yet, even!) seems like a pretty bad idea. SiGmA_X posted:Check out Chase Slate for a 0% balance transfer CC. Thanks! We'll check that out. Tomorrow starts a new month, so I'm excited to see how well we can stick to our budget! I'm considering pulling out our budgeted money in cash for non-essential goods (fast food, restaurants, clothing, fun) on a weekly basis -- it's $750 total for the month, so maybe $180/week? Then we each get $90 a week to put towards non-essentials (i.e. food/things we need for our home), to be spent however we want. Sorta like the envelope budgeting thing, but not as categorized? My husband will probably be a little wary about it, but tbqh we are crappy about sticking to proposed budgets without a clearcut stopping point. I wanna get better at that, and if having what's essentially an allowance does that, hooray!
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Jul 1, 2015 04:05
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Does your budget include any car payments and car insurance? I don't see them listed anywhere.
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Jul 1, 2015 04:14
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Gnossiennes posted:Doing a quasi-legal part-time gig as a non-resident (with no CA ID yet, even!) seems like a pretty bad idea. Agreed. Stop suggesting pot trimming.
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Jul 1, 2015 04:15
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pig slut lisa posted:Agreed. Stop suggesting pot trimming. Thank you. Droo posted:Does your budget include any car payments and car insurance? I don't see them listed anywhere. No car payments; we own the car I drive outright and he rides a motorcycle that we bought when we got here (via credit cards, which is part of why they're so high atm). Forgot to put car insurance on there! It's a $300 6mo premium for the car, so $50/mo (spread out). His motorcycle is $272 12mo premium, $22.66/mo (spread out). Part of why I wanted to start the miata fund is that I'm a little uncomfortable having just one car. But we're fine for now with just the car & motorcycle.
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Jul 1, 2015 04:26
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Hey, have you considered pot trimming for extra cash? In all seriousness though, a huge congratulations on turning your life around. Going from GED in Alabama to a well paying gig in a CA tech company is a huge accomplishment. 
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Jul 1, 2015 11:23
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Don't forget to include some money for routine maintenance on your vehicles!
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Jul 1, 2015 13:05
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You should look into growing basil.
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Jul 2, 2015 10:42
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I would legit like to grow some basil! We have a small garden plot built into our patio, and my work has a community garden (but it's a lottery system drawn every year), AND our apartment complex has a separate community garden. Also gardening is loving easy mode here, I swear. I've talked to a few people with garden plots at work, and a couple of them were never-gardened-ers and now have ridiculous amounts of summer squash and kale. I want to grow things! ryanbruce posted:
Thank you for the kind words! I sometimes feel like it all kinda fell in my lap, but then I remember that I went through long, long hours in studio to finish my degree and the grueling act of job-hunting (I even had a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the places I applied to). So, financial stuff for July: Bank accounts: $6508 Debt: $9840 I paid $918 to my former rental place (in Alabama) to finish paying out my lease. Also paid $2019 for rent here. We should be getting our first full-month PG&E bill here in a couple days, so that should give me a better idea on our energy costs. So far, we've run our a/c pretty sparingly. I am going to start the $90/wk allowances on Monday. Husband was alright with doing that and likes that it's whatever-you-want money. Also, I made a kind of superfluous purchase a day before I started this thread -- I bought a Fitbit Charge. But, man, I kinda love it. It's a nice positive feedback loop that makes me want to take walks and things, plus the food tracker on it is probably the easiest one I've ever used. I'm hoping it doesn't get relegated to the land of disused gadgets, but so far I really like it, and it's super unobtrusive. So far, good purchase.
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Jul 3, 2015 05:46
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So, my first paycheck (with relo allowance and stuff) had a higher percentage of withholding than my actual paychecks will, so our monthly income is closer to 7100 than 6600. Wooo! Good things: We've stuck to using our budgeted money for fun/food pretty well (including going to the beach Saturday and going bowling with coworkers yesterday), and I think both of us still have some money left over. Saturday is the re-up day, which is cool because we wanna go into the city then, maybe Our electric bill for June was like, $30 and we've run our AC for maybe 2 hours so far in July. Hooray! Bad things: Our grocery budgeting still kinda sucks, but will (hopefully) still stay under $500. Spent $190 on Sunday for groceries, but it included things like bulk frozen meat, which should last a couple weeks at least. We're registering our car in California tomorrow and getting CA licenses. Unfortunately, we're late on registering, so that may incur some extra fees. We still haven't received our water bill.  It's billed through the apartment complex, but should be mailed to us. Bank accounts: $8207 Credit cards: $9840 (nothing added!)
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Jul 10, 2015 06:21
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Lie about your move date for the car registration. Everybody does it. Also, get a Costco membership for cheap bulk groceries. The Rohnert Park one has historically been less crowded.
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Jul 10, 2015 17:48
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Stop eating fast food. You can bolster your restaurant budget a little bit too doing that. 150 dollars a month on fast food is entirely inexcusable. That's the easiest thing to slash entirely. Especially where you live no excuse!
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Jul 10, 2015 19:02
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Thanatosian posted:Lie about your move date for the car registration. Everybody does it. My husband works for costco, so we got that covered. And yeah, I hate to lie about poo poo, but that's what we'll probably do -- and we made an appointment (soonest was two weeks out), so it won't be done today anyhow. I'm going to use non-budgeted money to buy some goddamned athletic shoes. I have access to gym facilities for free and a nearby parks I'd like to run in, but I can't really do either of those because I only have ballet flats and keds atm. Veskit posted:Stop eating fast food. You can bolster your restaurant budget a little bit too doing that. 150 dollars a month on fast food is entirely inexcusable. That's the easiest thing to slash entirely. Especially where you live no excuse! Yeah, the only fast food we've really eaten since we've been here has been in-n-out. And I count food from my work's cafeteria as fast food, but I try to keep that to a minimum. For instance, this week, we've spent money on: eating at a cool cafe on the way to the beach & bread from wildflour, I got food at work once this week, a drink each while we were bowling with coworkers, and in-n-out once. Gnossiennes fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 19:53
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Costco has nice cheap athletic shoes. They don't last super long, and they're white, but they're cheap and comfortable.
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Jul 10, 2015 20:29
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You can also find older "models" of running shoes on Amazon for $40-$50 which is not bad considering they should last at least a year or two, depending on how often you run. There's also eBay if you don't mind slightly used shoes worn once or twice.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:07
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I bought a pair of Nike Free 5.0's for like $65 which seems like an alright price and they feel good. Little more expensive, but I'd be fine wearing them to work, too (they're pretty tame, color-wise). I look forward to running and stuff. But more bad news; husband's bike is leaking oil presumably from a worn gasket. Hopefully won't be more than $3-400 to fix, but it may take a few days. I have flex hours, so if we just have one car next week, it'll be ok. He likes his bike, but I kinda think we would've been better off getting a newer bike and financing it, rather than buying this older one via credit cards.
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Jul 11, 2015 03:33
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Cool, husband's bike is going to be like $750 to get fixed. We've pulled off the last week pretty well with just having one car, but I'll be glad to leave work when I want to again. Kinda gone over entertainment/food budget a little (just pulled out $200 for the next week + going to the city this weekend). I never did pull out money for last week's budget, but we did spend some money on eating out. We've definitely improved from how we were, including mostly cooking/eating at home. But we still ate out a few times this week (ayce sushi with coworkers, in-n-out for him, lunch at work once for me, chipotle once (so mediocre here, why does he like it?)). Whatever though. Electricity was like $55, water bill was like $50, internet $55. So far spent $250 on groceries this month. Still have lots of the more expensive purchases from last time left (mostly frozen meat). Yay. Bank accounts: $6960 (-$1247 from last update) $3601 in his accounts $3359 in mine. Debt: $7910 (-$1930 from last update). $729 on Chase card $7184 on Amex We both get paid next week. Should add a cool $3400~ to our bank accounts. I'll probably pay off the Chase card & pay another $1k on the Amex by the end of the month.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:05
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Gnossiennes posted:July 10 $9840 Awesome. Keep it the gently caress up!!
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Jul 18, 2015 04:15
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Looks like you're doing well at this whole budgeting thing. I would say that it sounds like you're not really sticking to the numbers you've come up with in your budget. This is an ongoing problem in many of these threads, where it is so easy to spend over the money you have allotted for a certain category. I would encourage you to consider going to a cash based envelope system for the areas in your budget that are variable every month, especially the ones where you have had trouble overspending. Once the envelope is out of cash, you're doing spending money on X that month.
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Jul 18, 2015 14:21
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Don't finance a biek.
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Jul 20, 2015 15:35
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n8r posted:Looks like you're doing well at this whole budgeting thing. I would say that it sounds like you're not really sticking to the numbers you've come up with in your budget. This is an ongoing problem in many of these threads, where it is so easy to spend over the money you have allotted for a certain category. Yeah, it's definitely something we need to work on. That's pretty much what we're trying to do with the spending money allowance, but we've been keeping groceries/household goods as debit card transactions (I also do this because my credit union account has a 1.53% dividend as long as I have twelve posted transactions & a direct deposit or transfer for the month). We definitely overshot our entertainment/going out budget for the month via getting public transport cards for going into the city  So, next month's goal: use ONLY cash for restaurant/food/going out purchases. My husband & I both need to work on that. August Goals in total: Pay down at least another 2k on Amex Put $1k into savings Again, food/going out are cash only Switch grocery fund of $500/mo to cash only Cash: $7328 total --$3762 in my accounts --$3566 in his accounts (just got paid, husband gets paid on Friday) Debt: $6505 total --$5779 on Amex --$729 on Chase He'll pay off the Chase when he gets paid on Friday. I just put $1500 towards the amex account. gently caress yeah, by this weekend, we'll have less than $6k to pay off. At the rate we're going, we'll have it paid off by like, what? October? Kinda awesome. And then we start on the wonderful world of paying off student loans 8) And maybe then I can start my Miata fund?!? So, financing a bike is bad, but what about financing a miata? If so, what's a good ratio of financing to down payment?
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Jul 21, 2015 04:32
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Gnossiennes posted:Yeah, it's definitely something we need to work on. That's pretty much what we're trying to do with the spending money allowance, but we've been keeping groceries/household goods as debit card transactions (I also do this because my credit union account has a 1.53% dividend as long as I have twelve posted transactions & a direct deposit or transfer for the month). NO FINANCING. You're broke, and have $55-56k in CC debt and student loan debt! Once you're debt free, then look into buying a toy car.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:22
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Gnossiennes posted:And maybe then I can start my Miata fund?!? So, financing a bike is bad, but what about financing a miata? If so, what's a good ratio of financing to down payment? Haha, no. Once your credit cards are paid off, you will still be broke and you will still owe fifty-five thousand dollars to people. No Miata loans! See, the money you spent on school and whatever other random poo poo in the past was borrowed from now, i.e. you already spent 2015-2016's Miata money on other stuff (that I hope was more useful and important).
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Jul 21, 2015 20:02
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You guys are right on the no financing/waiting for miata, as much as I wanna be a baby and be like "but but but I WANT A MIATA (in the next year or so)." In my defense, I want an older miata which would be around 10k, AND it would be my daily driver, not just a weekend thing. Re student loans. yes, that debt was worth it. Almost all of the debt we have atm is school/career advancement related. Student loans covered most, but not all of my tuition, and the rest was paid either cash or on a credit card. The rest was either cost of materials/supplies I had to buy for school (design is expensive yo), school-related/employment-related travel (visiting professionals, conferences, conventions), or cost of moving out here (which was mostly offset by the relo allowance). Frivolous stuff remains fast food/eating out, my husband's vaping habit, and my kindle unlimited account. So, in summary, no miata (someday~).
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Jul 22, 2015 04:33
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Don't finance anything right now. In the future you can finance a daily driver that you need to get to work, etc. but don't finance things that are toys. Especially do not finance a biek because used bieks are readily available for a lot less money.
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Jul 22, 2015 15:45
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$10/mo for Kindle is a minor expense, but if you feel bad about spending that (since you mentioned it as "frivolous"), see if your local library has an e-book service. You wouldn't get the new popular books right when they come out, but there'd be plenty others available. The ebooks usually auto-return so you don't have to worry about late fees.
toe knee hand fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jul 22, 2015 |
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Jul 22, 2015 18:12
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toe knee hand posted:$10/mo for Kindle is a minor expense, but if you feel bad about spending that (since you mentioned it as "frivolous"), see if your local library has an e-book service. You wouldn't get the new popular books right when they come out, but there'd be plenty others available. The ebooks usually auto-return so you don't have to worry about late fees. Not only that, but since ebooks are not actually real, they're refreshed on the library's stock when the checkout period passes but stay on your Kindle til it reconnects to the Internet. So check out a whole bunch of books, turn on Airplane Mode, and keep them til you get sick of them.
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Jul 22, 2015 20:34
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I'm on my second miata right now. A 2008 "NC" mx-5 grand touring, black on saddle tan with black roof. Take it from me: do not finance your toys. My first miata was awful as a DD because I was too fat. My second miata is awful as a DD because traffic sucks balls. You will resent any toy you end up financing. Just don't do it. I financed a ninja 650r as well, and I hated the payment. Loved the bike though. Don't finance toys.
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Jul 22, 2015 22:25
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Thanks, guys. I will not finance my future miata. And by future I mean after my student loans have been paid down heavily. however, things I have going for me that are pro-miata: i'm kinda short and not fat so i'd fit just fine, sonoma county is beautiful with great weather, cool hills and stuff, not much traffic in town I don't actually consider the kindle account all that frivolous; and both my husband and I use it; it's just I use it more than he does. I'll definitely look into the local library here, though. That would be a good choice 8) And it has more books than kindle unlimited does (since it's not every kindle book available). Thank you for airplane mode tip!! Gnossiennes fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 06:20
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