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This really depends a lot on what that misc is, since it's the second highest figure in your spending behind your mortgage. Sit down with your wife and hammer out a plan for controlling spending now that you have all that information on where your money's going. The Stafford repayment will be another >$400/month expense, if you're on a reasonable timeline for payoff. If you make the misc disappear, bring the food budget down to $400/month including both groceries and eating out (it is very doable, but it does take some self-control), drop the entertainment to $50/month (netflix and an occasional movie or night out), and cut gifts to the bare minimum you'll start to make some headway. But you'll never do it alone. Edit: oh poo poo, she's pregnant? That explains the medical expenses, and you'll have a fair bit more after she gives birth. A lot of your misc would be properly filed under groceries, household, home repair, clothing, etc. Some of this stuff you need to cut out because they are luxuries that, right now, you can't afford. That beauticontrol thing, for one. Spending on baby stuff can also very easily spiral out of control, so start planning ahead and thinking about what's important to buy new, and what you can get secondhand. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jul 23, 2009 |
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Jul 23, 2009 22:25
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Don Wrigley posted:You should think about paying down your credit cards with the savings, there's no way you're earning 10%+ interest on those savings, but you're paying 10%+ on the cards (pay down the one with highest interest first). Yeah, but he's about to have a kid. There's something to be said for having an intact emergency fund, since you can't pay rent on credit cards.
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Jul 24, 2009 02:13
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Backno posted:A few other things that you will want to think about budgeting for: This may not help the OP at present, but I set up our Roth contributions so they max out in 10 months. If you plan it right, the other two months can coincide with Christmas and whatever other big expense time you might have (anniversary? birthday?).
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Jul 25, 2009 05:57
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Zombie Dictator posted:As for the tax bracket, if you're $1000 over the previous tax bracket, contribute to it and you'll actually save money by having less pre-tax dollars. Highly unlikely this is the case, but it is worth investigating. This isn't true. We have a progressive taxation system, so that when you move into the next bracket only the money above the previous one is taxed at the higher rate. e.g. If you make $8351, you pay 10% of 8350+15% of $1 = $835.15 Roth versus traditional IRA/401K decisions are speculating about what the tax rates will be when you retire, and how much you will draw down when you retire. Roth is taxed now, 401/traditional are taxed when you pull it out. By that same logic, though, putting $1000 in a Roth IRA is equivalent to putting $1000*(1+marginal tax rate) in a 401K or traditional IRA. If the limits are the same, you can put more away for retirement in a Roth IRA. The only kernel of truth is that your withholding can be screwed up by a raise, so you end up giving an interest-free loan to the government.
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Jul 29, 2009 18:56
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Zombie Dictator posted:- You can drop your life insurance. You can't afford it. I don't agree with this. They have a kid on the way and both incomes are vital to staying afloat. Life insurance is a good option in this situation - you only really want to insure income-providers, so don't get sucked into some sort of stupid life insurance on your kids or keep it after you retire. As for health insurance, high-deductible plans are excellent for young healthy adults. They really aren't a good choice for new parents, because you have a hospitalization for the birth and a ton of doctor appointments in the first few years, virtually guaranteeing you'll burn through the entire deductible.
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Aug 2, 2009 18:18
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zaurg posted:Yes, I forgot a lot of stuff. This and the chart Daeus posted is helping me get a *little* bit better of a grasp. I'm still underbudgeting for baby though. Daeus's chart says we will have to pay $913 a month for our child which I don't understand. Why is Housing a category? And transportation at $115/month, $1390/year? Are we sending our child to and from the doctor's office/grandma's in a limo? The chart deals with averages. Generally, people will live in a larger house/apartment/condo when they have a kid. Extra utilities will come into play when you're doing twice the amount of laundry and keeping the temperature kid-friendly 24-7. Transportation would include the extra trips you're making everywhere - depreciation on vehicles, gas, repairs, all the things that are accelerated.
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Aug 3, 2009 08:15
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Zhentar posted:Yeah, he has $10,000 in savings, which at the face of things makes him better off. But his wife is about to take unpaid leave, which will eat $2,000 of it, she's about to give birth, he has no allowance in his budget for any health care despite the fact that he's currently on a crappy insurance plan that won't include the child and wants to switch to a high deductible plan. And on top of that he has no idea what a baby is going to cost him. They've also been operating in the red for the past year and have more credit card debt than savings. They fell into a trap of increasing spending as they made more, then not realizing when they stopped earning more that they needed to cut back. The OP needed this last year. He still needs this today: http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff
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Aug 3, 2009 19:31
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mcyahwe posted:Use all savings and get rid of credit card debt. Do you even realize what +10% interest means? Obviously not, but it's loving bad. What's the logic in having savings while you have debt with a 13% interest? If something unforseen comes up(it never does) then those credit card companies are more than willing to give you thousands more in credit since you managed the first time around. quote:Oh and vitamins have literally zero documented effect on people who eat something green at least every 2-3 months. So those multivitamins are basically piss colouring for the average westerner. It sounds like you realize this, but if you can't get your wife to realize it as well then, uh, may I suggest mexican abortion -> divorce?
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Aug 4, 2009 06:00
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mcyahwe posted:Yeah, you missed the part where he's paying 13% interest on his debt? Any savings he can get out of cash is loving irrelevant in 99% of all cases since it'll be negligible in comparison quote:loving bullshit. or the March of Dimes. Folic Acid preventing neural tube defects should be part of the common scientific lexicon now.
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Aug 4, 2009 06:34
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mcyahwe posted:What good is an emergency fund if it's all going to paying credit card interest. Personally I've never seen a case(I've seen a few) where it would make economic sense, can you give me a specific example? No, I just talk like that.
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Aug 4, 2009 07:30
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mcyahwe posted:If I'm reading it right then they'd have almost 5k left after having paid off their CC debt. If there was no pregnancy, I'd be more likely to encourage keeping only a 3-month cushion and sending the rest into debt repayment. But impending kid + unpaid leave eats up that 5k in the blink of an eye.
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Aug 4, 2009 08:59
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I'm more interested right now in how you've increased or plan to increase your income, because those student loans are coming out of forbearance pretty soon, and the minimum payments will make it so you can't scrape by even if you cut everything discretionary out of the budget. E: And if the original plan went through, the wife's not back at work yet, so those lunch expenses may come back again very shortly. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Oct 11, 2009 |
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Oct 11, 2009 05:07
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zaurg posted:Anyone have any suggestions about what to do if you have a ton of what appear to be separate student loans? All of them were originally issued from Wachovia but many of them have been scooped up by the Dept of Education. Seems crazy to have a dozen different payments every month so this will need to get consolidated if that is a good option. I don't know if it's the same for other companies; all the ones under Direct Loans look like this, but they only take one payment each month for the aggregate.
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Oct 14, 2009 22:57
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zaurg posted:I'll listen. The question is whether I'll follow through. If you look at the evolution of CH's thread, there were a couple of distinct stages in there. First, we had to sell him on the seriousness of his situation, and show him the sacrifices that we felt were necessary (and he thought were non-negotiable). Once that was accomplished, he had to then take that information and game plan and get his wife on the same page. This step took a long time, and I don't think it was very easy for either of them. Coming to terms with your debt can be thought of as a grieving process for the status quo (where you are living over your means) - there's denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Fortunately for a debtor, once you reach acceptance and successfully work your way out of debt you can gradually increase your standard of living to something that matches your means, rather than something clearly above your means as before.
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Oct 14, 2009 23:24
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clockworx posted:Once you reach the acceptance phase, you should totally throw a bitchin' (and catered) "Acceptance Phase" party. More like "Acceptance Phase Potluck".
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Oct 15, 2009 00:07
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I'm a little confused as to what hours Zaurg is working right now, if he has time to go to football games on the weekend. Pizza delivery generally involves working weekends, right?
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Oct 21, 2009 15:52
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zaurg posted:College football is Saturday. I don't work Saturday. Yeah, College football is Saturday. That's also one of the high volume days of the week, pizza delivery-wise. You've prioritized day-of football watching over one of the higher-paying shifts.
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Oct 21, 2009 17:16
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zaurg posted:amex1 7953.64 bal, 10400 limit, 13.24%, 150 annual fee, 76.5% usage Here are my suggestions Big Disclaimer: only do this if your wife is on board. If you put age of accounts and individual credit scores (estimated via creditkarma or something) I can try to tailor this more. First, don't do a BT onto your 'good' AmEx. The company is notorious for aggressively cutting credit lines, which won't do any good for you if you want to keep it eventually as your daily spender. As it stands, take that Visa with the horrible terms and tiny limit, sign up for autopay in full from your checking account (online option or a form they'll send for you to fill out if you call them). This is now the card you'll use when you absolutely can't pay cash. Keep in mind that it effectively pulls directly from your checking account. I am in favor of all-cash budgeting system while you adjust, eventually adding in using credit cards for fixed repeating transactions, then using it for necessary spending (like groceries and gas), and finally moving on to discretionary spending when you've managed to stay in budget for a year. Teach yourselves to use credit wisely this time, and you'll see some benefit from it. Most balance transfers will have an upfront fee of 3-5% or $30-50, whichever is greater. Also, different companies will charge different minimum payments, and many companies are increasing the minimum in anticipation of the new cc laws. If you have a balance transfer offer for the second discover card, I would move $4000 from Amex1. When the 0% offer runs out on your Visa, transfer it to the other 2k Visa (if this is some weird lifetime 0% deal, calculate what you're actually paying on it by averaging with the non-bt balance and the fees. When that tops 15%, move the balance). If you still have a strong credit score, shop around to find a no-fee card to replace at least one of the Capital One cards (preferably both), if they won't transfer your card to a no-fee version. If you both have good credit scores, get a new no-fee card in each of your names, then axe the fee cards with no balance, and if the combined total of those two new cards is greater than $6500, close the other fee Visa after your teaser 0% rate is up. The hit to your credit history from closing your oldest card shouldn't be much of an issue since you have so many cards that presumably have been open a few years. You want to maintain or decrease your utilization ratio, in case of adverse action or true emergencies. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Oct 24, 2009 |
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Oct 24, 2009 18:37
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zaurg posted:Florida Prepaid College Savings 62.85 Stop contributing to this. Your priorities are: 1) Make sure you are fiscally solvent. You're not through this step yet. 2) Provide for your own retirement. 3) Provide for your kid's college. You aren't going to get easy loans to help you stay afloat. You aren't going to get loans to see you through retirement. Your kid will be eligible for more financial aid if there isn't money in her name, and will have access to cheap loans. You can help her after you've helped yourselves. Most kids would prefer paying their own way through college to paying to take care of their elderly parents.
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Nov 4, 2009 16:23
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zaurg posted:It's a condo. Condo association has insurance on the building structure. This might come back to bite you in the rear end if you ever have any water damage issues, for one. And walls-in homeowner's insurance is pretty stupid cheap. I think with the multi-policy discount ours is less than $20 extra per month.
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Nov 4, 2009 23:13
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zaurg posted:I don't understand what you're saying here. Please clarify If you have something happen like a water line breaking in your walls, then it will cause a lot of damage that isn't covered by a structure-only policy. In that situation, having walls-in homeowner's insurance will protect you so you're only out the deductible. In my particular case, bundling a home policy with the existing auto policy invokes a multi-policy discount, so the insurance ended up being quite cheap, not much more money than the auto policy alone.
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Nov 5, 2009 00:13
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zaurg posted:I don't think he was saying shut off the A/C 100% of the time, I think he was saying raise the temperature and use fans. I'd be game for that but women are a lot less tolerable of that in my experience. When I rented a room out of my dad's house ~10 years ago all we had was a single window a/c unit in the living room and it was quite warm. Then it died and I wanted to ride it out for a while with just fans, but the 2 women in the house out-voted me on that one in 2 seconds. And you have an infant. Keeping the thermostat in the high 70s is about as far as you'll get away with.
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Nov 5, 2009 19:53
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zaurg posted:- ok Tivo has finally been transferred to mother-in-law. I had given them the unit months ago but hadn't got the account transferred until this month. Y'all need to go to a cash budget, because you habitually overspend. In terms of gifts, you aren't in any position to keep contributing to your niece's college savings, so stop for a while and don't open it for your kid - get your house in order before you start saving for college, there is need-based aid available. See if your wife's game for weekly lunch money, because in $8 she's out and will need to pack it in for the month or take it out of her entertainment quota. For the other gifts, what in the heck would you give a pastor that's worth $75? Reclassify church as charity if it's actually that, and otherwise what's up with gifts for church? What are your plans for Christmas spending? Have you specifically talked about that beforehand? You need to think about getting something very small for small children in the immediate family (think <$10, go to the dollar store and find some little crap that they'll play with for a few weeks and get trashed, since that's probably what happens with more expensive toys anyway). My mom handled giving small tokens of appreciation for people we don't exchange gifts with by making big batches of candied pecans, then parceling them out into small bags with a ribbon. Send out an e-mail Christmas newsletter with pictures to your extended circle in lieu of physical greeting cards. Plan ahead of time for your trip in December and limit yourself to cash in hand, predetermined beforehand. You can't spend what you don't have.
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Nov 20, 2009 07:33
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CornHolio posted:I think it'd be a terrible thing to be able to take away children because of debt. Maybe that's because I both have children and a large amount of debt, but not everybody that has debt, even large amounts of it, are terrible people or terrible parents. Separating a child from their Unless you believe adoptive parents should continually be held to a higher standard (they usually are already in the upfront adoption process), there's no need to single out biological ones.
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Nov 30, 2009 17:21
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Giraffe posted:I disagree with the people who are recommending using that $6k on the credit cards. I like you guys having an emergency fund, and when you do end up dipping into it, that may wake your wife up to the fact that you guys are sinking fast and she needs to take this poo poo seriously. Yes, but using it on the CC debt will make the wake-up call come that much faster. They're in the red now but the wife seems oblivious to that fact, possibly due to the 6k buffer in the bank.
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Dec 2, 2009 19:11
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At least everyone else's top school has some national name recognition. I lay 2-1 odds on people from my hometown thinking I went to a community college. Unless they're a secret physics geek.
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Dec 3, 2009 19:49
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moana posted:Didn't you go to Caltech? That's pretty darn recognizable. I decided on Harvey Mudd and the last year of high school was a series of "Where are you going to college? Huh-I thought you were GOOD at school." The name recognition is great on the West Coast, though you still get a lot of people confusing it for Cal Poly. It's not that strong in the Southeast. Combined with a lot of CCs abbreviating to County Tech, you get some mixups. As bad as DeVry and ITT tech are, they're still not the same level of diploma mill as Kennedy Western. I mean, it's arguably worse since you actually have to do some work, but the degree isn't going to constitute fraud. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Dec 3, 2009 |
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Dec 3, 2009 20:02
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Eris posted:Since starting the thread, has zaurg ever made a decision any one has been proud of? Actually getting the second job?
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Dec 4, 2009 18:50
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CornHolio posted:I don't think I've ever had an annual fee on a credit card in my life. I actually didn't think any credit cards had them outside of AmEx and Discover (of which I have neither). Is it all from those? Cap One won't move you up automatically, and a lot of their starter non-student cards for people with no credit or horrible credit have an annual fee.
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Dec 20, 2009 00:29
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CornHolio posted:I pretend I'm not getting anything, and when I get a surprise thousand dollar check, BAM either into debt or savings. 'cept that same sort of mentality worked out to BAM PS3 this past time...
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Jan 6, 2010 18:32
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zaurg posted:Yes there is a budget. We're going to stick to it by making it simplified and easy to access and by making frequent accesses to it. Told wife she has to get involved with it if it's going to work. Put a shortcut on her laptop desktop which she's on every night. she agreed that she will be entering her some of her expenses and we'll discuss both our expenses on a daily basis. The main worksheet in the spreadsheet is a nice layout showing budgeted amount and actual amount for each month of the year and this will be monitored religiously. This constant monitoring will fall by the wayside pretty rapidly. Are y'all on a cash-only budget right now? Because if so, you can mete out the day's cash one day at the time, and that will cut down a lot of impulse spending. As you (collectively) get used to it, go up to two or three days' cash, then a week's.
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Jan 7, 2010 01:29
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CornHolio posted:hah, I have over 25k 'thank you' points on my citibank card and I think those are all gonna go to waste, too. Of course, all I can buy with that is poo poo. So, not really to waste. You can redeem those for cash at a $50/8,000 rate, a prepaid visa card at $50/7,000, statement credit $50/7500, or better rates on mortgage/student loan payoffs. Or go for the better rates on some sort of entertainment or dining out gift card.
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Jan 14, 2010 22:23
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Kobayashi posted:Might as well close the thread then, because everyone knows you're going to blow your budget and spend like it's going out of style. Hello overdraft fees. CASH ONLY! NO CARDS PERIOD.
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Jan 17, 2010 00:43
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zaurg posted:As far as the wedding weekend extravaganza, we actually discussed the various options with driving back home and not staying at the hotel. We knew the options, we just said "gently caress it let's have fun". That's it, there's not much to analyze here. You've already busted the budget completely, so why does it matter conceptually where the funds came from? A speeding ticket is not, per se, an emergency. It was part and parcel of the wedding crap, so categorize it as such. E: since the speeding ticket was your fault, I think you should pay that amount back into the emergency fund out of the stuff allotted to zaurg-personal crap. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jan 22, 2010 |
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Jan 22, 2010 21:48
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If she's bitching about driving your car, make a lateral move. Get a 4-door Civic, Corolla or Prizm with about 100k miles on it. You should be able to find something under $5k pretty handily.
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Feb 8, 2010 18:50
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zaurg posted:I'm not asking her to give up anything. Oh, except a new car she doesn't need. And you are taking most of your blow budget and spending it solely on yourself. You really can't see what message that sends to your wife. I mean, you could just cut to the chase and say it out loud: "Hi zwife, you are not as important to me as my football games. I know you value giving to others pretty highly, and thought I also had a stake in that. But I care more about myself, leaving you to cover any perceived social obligations out of your own budget, virtually guaranteeing that you will go horribly off budget after growing more and more resentful."
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Feb 12, 2010 20:57
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zaurg posted:
How about this tack: Budget for your scheduled student loan repayment, don't worry about the snowball right now, just start setting it aside for the next five months before it actually comes on line. With the remainder of the money you were sending to your CC debt, put half towards the emergency fund and half towards a car. When the emergency fund hits $5k, drop that down to a quarter towards the emergency fund and 3/4 towards the car. With that schedule, how much would you have available for a used car purchase in the fall? Would it be sufficient for a reliable-brand 4-door with about 50k miles? Even if it's not, then you think about getting a used-car note and paying it down on the same schedule. Then when the car's paid off, readjust the amount to send to the student loans. The money you budgeted as practice for the student loans before they came due can be held in reserve to beef up the emergency fund or sent to pay down principal to your highest-interest debt once you're reasonably sure that you meet your budget. This is a compromise. It isn't the fastest way out of debt. But it is in the spirit of meeting your wife's needs halfway.
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Feb 17, 2010 20:48
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with the wife and then we start paying down the student loans in snowball fashion while building the emergency fund to a full 6 months of expenses and putting money aside in car replacement fund. That's my idea at least, wife still hasn't given up on getting a car in March.
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extraneousXTs posted:Not to be Debbie Downer but having two people in a relationship with such drastically different views of finances takes a miracle to resolve. I think there's an important distinction between people who have a lovely financial outlook because of their upbringing and people who are compulsive spenders. There's a fine line to walk when you want to educate without seeming pedantic or preachy, particularly when dealing with a peer (let alone your partner). Zaurg, that smallest loan would be gone in two months. zaurg posted:I offered a variety of the suggestions made here to save up for a good reliable used car to buy next year. How about the lateral move to a 4-door used car in five months? Because you have the capability to do that, and it's a much smaller time frame. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Feb 18, 2010 |
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Feb 18, 2010 19:33
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CornHolio posted:For the record, with your mortgage and student loans you guys have what, four times the debt we had? And people are suggesting going into further debt for a vehicle worth almost twice as much as my wife's Mini was? No one is suggesting that's the best financial advice, and they aren't in as full-on crisis mode as you were when everyone was telling you to sell the Mini - there is an emergency fund, they're both working and pulling in more than enough to repay their debt in a reasonable time frame. Their debt is at far lower interest rates than yours were before your deal with your father. They had an income problem when he was delivering pizza part-time - that got cleared up. They continue to struggle with a spending problem, and the 'baby steps' here (for the wife) are delaying gratification for a car for a little while to save up a reasonable chunk and buying a slightly older car that isn't in as steep a part of the depreciation curve. Their good credit and relatively large monthly surplus income will allow them to pay off the note pretty quickly with a good interest rate. You really only get one perspective of debt in many of these threads. Debt is a tool - it can be very useful when a dollar today has value of far more than that dollar plus interest sometime down the road, like with education loans, and sometimes in something as usurious as payday loans - it can be worth a $20 fee to save $120 in overdraft fees. Money often has a declining marginal value, but you need to be a rational agent to take advantage of debt, and it's not without risk. Thinking of debt in absolute terms has limited usefulness, because it's not in any way inflation adjusted, and it doesn't reflect the utility you got out of having whatever you went into debt for right then. Everyone has a different situation, and in this case the opportunity cost of compromising and picking up debt on the car is likely far less than the long-term financial repercussions of zwife giving up on the whole budget idea, or the marriage dissolving outright.
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Feb 18, 2010 22:47
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T0MSERV0 posted:My point is that's exactly what Chernori and wid were saying in the first place. Debt is good vs Debt is bad. They sound like exact opposites. However, Kobayashi posted:Debt's like a tool in the same way that a circular saw is a tool. You don't go expounding its virtues to a retarded manchild like zaurg, who can't even use a hammer without smashing his thumbs.
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Feb 21, 2010 02:20
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