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Hi, I'm Overachiever, and I don't know how to use money. I'm currently making $3200 a month, give or take a few hundred for overtime and mileage. Here's a lovely pie chart that's roughly correct about the past 5 weeks. Why 5 weeks? Because that's what I exported from my bank and didn't realize until I'd already sorted everything and made the pie chart. Also the categories aren't 100% correct. Food/Ent/Going Out probably wound up mashed together in some places, so those numbers aren't solid.  The phone column is high because I was 2 months late on a phone bill, and then had to buy a new phone since my other one died. So, as far my real, actual expenses: Rent:$425 Phone:$85 Insurance$90 Gas$240 Food??? Gas is a ballpark since I drive for work. I do get reimbursed at $0.51/mile for every mile over 50 per day though. Car gets 32MPG on average, so if I do a ton of driving I wind up making money. So that leaves us with a total of $840/mo not including food. I don't know what my true food cost is since I'm a massive goon and never cook. Ever. My diet consists mainly of Taco Bell. According to the spreadsheet I just made, food is $334 a month, but I'm positive that it's higher than that since stuff got put in other categories. Lets say $500 a month and bring the total to $1340/month to live. I also owe about $1200 in loans to family that I haven't gotten around to paying yet. I'd like to point out that even though it's inaccurate, I didn't realize how much money I was blowing on partying. Holy poo poo, entertainment + going out is $750 a month. So, this is all good and well. I can obviously start saving by reigning in spending on ridiculous things, and will start keeping a budget to keep an eye on things. My Credit Score ...is lovely.  I'm not totally sure what this means but it looks bad.  And the fun part:  I was under the impression that after paying the college $12k for two semesters that I was done paying. Apparently I was way way way wrong. "Well stop spending money on stupid stuff and pay off that debt!" Yes, that's the gameplan. I'm kind of at a loss on where to start, and which ones I should pay off first. I'm also curious as to if I actually owe some of that, and would like to find out how to get them to verify that I really truly do owe them money before I start throwing cash at it.  Gameplan/Toxx clause: Debt free in 6 months. If you feel like that's too long of a time frame, let me know and I'll change it.I'd also love advice on how to fix my credit score besides just paying everything off. My medium-term goal is to own a house or condo within the next 2 years. TL;DR, I'm a lovely person who runs away from debt instead of paying it, help me fix myself.
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Jun 2, 2014 01:35
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:31 |
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quote:Rent:$425 Why do you post this when your pie chart says $800
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Jun 2, 2014 01:53
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Jun 2, 2014 01:56
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It'd be helpful if you added up and listed all your debts and the interest rates, but it looks like you owe about 11k total and you have almost 2k a month in discretionary income. However, you can easily free up another 250 by halving your food costs, and you can still go to Taco Bell once a week on that if you must (  ). There's no reason you can't be debt-free in six months.
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Jun 2, 2014 13:26
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EugeneJ posted:Why do you post this when your pie chart says $800 He probably had two rent payments in there because of the chart being 5 weeks worth of income/expenses. Though, yeah, the chart does say, 797 instead of 850, which is odd. Also, holy poo poo, op.
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Jun 2, 2014 13:59
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You have no business worrying about your credit score right now. You need to focus on understanding what your debts actually are, their interest rates, and putting together a budget for paying them down. The credit score will improve over time.
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Jun 4, 2014 15:21
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ZentraediElite posted:You have no business worrying about your credit score right now. You need to focus on understanding what your debts actually are, their interest rates, and putting together a budget for paying them down. The credit score will improve over time. This is key. People who worry about their credit score are usually trying to play a game to avoid looking at the real issue: they are bad with money. If you do the right things with your spending (especially in regards to paying off debt) then the rest takes care of itself.
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Jun 4, 2014 15:29
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I think your goal of being debt free is attainable, but you have to do the work. Here's a good general starting point: 1. Track all your purchases as you're making them. Mint.com or YNAB or quicken or something. You need to be proactive with what you're spending to know where you're hemmorhaging money and to know if you're on track for the month. I equate this all the time to dieting. How do you know what you're consuming (eating/spending) until you keep track? Head in the sand approach does not work if you want results. 2. Come up with a realistic budget and stick to it. You're a grown man, you want to eat out and go to bars, etc? That's fine, just try and cut back (a lot) and stay within your budget. I'd probably just have a decent sized "discretionary" cash budget that covers all your eating out, bars, and whatever else spending (gadgets, whatever). Once the money is gone, you're done until the next payday. 3. Pay you/your bills first. Everytime I get paid I immediately pay all my bills that I know are going to have to come out of that paycheck, regardless of when they're due. That way you're going to have a better idea of "what's left" after you met your obligations. You should extend this principal to saving as well (not sure about your saving situation). 4. Planning. One thing my wife and I started two years ago was gathering up all our non-regularly occurring bills (Car insurance, life insurance, heating oil, wood pellets, etc) and determined how much we needed to save each paycheck. So then when those bills come every six months/year/whatever, the money is already there. I would highly recommend something like this so while you're working on paying down debt, you don't have any "surprises" come along that you forgot about and cause you to lose momentum emotionally. Similarly, whenever we receive mileage reimbursement, we save it specifically for future car maintenance / repairs and "eat" the extra gas costs in our budget. More specifically, you need a lot of work. Between your eating and tobacco habbits, you're not painting a positive picture here. But we can get there. - First and foremost, you need to cook some food and cut down your eating out by orders of magnitude. It's not healthy and it's ridiculously expensive. Soda + fast food all the time is not doing you and favors, wallet or waistline. Pack your lunches, get some lunchmeat you like and make some sandwiches (one of my favorits is roast beef, horseradish, mayo, pickles, cheddar cheese), a small baggy of chips, yogurt/an apple, and some water. Inexpensive and much healthier. Look into crockpot stuff for dinner, chili, etc. Easy, filling, delicious, and freezes/leftovers well. - Come up with a number for your discretionary spending. Eating out/bars/gadgets/whatever. I'd give yourself maybe $100/paycheck to start to see how that goes since it sounds like you're hitting it pretty hard right now. Adjust up or down as you see fit, but the goal is to obviously cut back. The most important things you can do right now is track every penny you spend, and don't eat out so much. They can be hard habbits to break, but once you do it's just second nature.
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Jun 6, 2014 15:12
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:31 |
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Will you fix your expenditure chart, please. Filter it to only include may1-31, and filter to remove deposits. If you want to remove personal info, if any is in your banking download, and send me a link to the file in Dropbox I'd be happy to do it for you. You could go back 3 full months if you want a better avg picture of what you spend and make. Or use Mint if you're too lazy/unable to do a spreadsheet.
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Jun 6, 2014 23:41
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