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You know, if your wife is on prenatal vitamins and drinking that juice, she could be killing her or the baby's liver. Prenatal vitamins are already pretty potent. If she's not on them, she probably should be. Set up your bank account to automatically transfer 10% of your income to a savings account that you don't have immediate access to every payday. That money is there if you need it, but it takes a couple of days. Then put a $1000 buffer in your regular account and pretend it isn't there. That's ONLY for immediate dire disasters. Then put all your extra into your debt. Between the baby and the student loans, you're about to experience a real eye-opener. Stop fiddling around with how much you ARE spending every month. It's obviously not doing any good. Start working on how much you should be spending, and stick to it. Then get a full-time job. I'm assuming you're still a student since you haven't had to start paying the loans back? How much longer do you have to go? I don't think I could spend $850 a month on food. Living poor, you should be able to get by quite fine on $200 for two, so you really ought to be able to get the bill down to at least $350. The guy who said eating out is entertainment is right. It's something you do once in a while. If you're only working part time, there's no reason you can't be the one to learn to cook. Go check out the slow cooker thread. That stuff is an easy place to start. Make a deal with the wife: quit the MLM stuff and eating out all the time, and you can get a new used car after you've saved up a decent down payment. Don't go over 8 or 9 thousand. That's plenty. You really can't afford that much, but with a new baby, it might not be that bad an idea if you go for something safe. A 93 Saturn is pretty old. Don't replace the Civic, if that's what she's got in mind. Don't buy zero down, and don't lease. Don't carry credit cards, and if you're still having spending problems in a couple of months, don't carry a debit card, either.
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Jul 24, 2009 20:32
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Why not look into whether her classes would transfer into a cheaper local college? Not only would you save money, but if you plan to stay in the area, a local college would probably occasion less comment than DeVry, although to be honest, I have no idea how DeVry is seen by HR departments; I suppose it varies. Wow, I just looked up our local state university, and they only charge $340 a credit hour, and I know they just raised tuition.
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Jul 28, 2009 07:15
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You're going about this wrong. Don't look for things to cancel to pay for other things, make a budget, buy your tickets out of the entertainment fund, and when the rest is gone, it's gone. You need to do the heavy lifting here and sit down with a pencil and paper and make the numbers fit. Start with vital categories like savings, medical, food, and get realistic numbers in there, then add in entertainment and whatever when you're sure you have the necessities covered. You're going to be what is essentially a stay-at-home dad. Guess what? The jobs of cleaning, cooking, and budgeting are mainly going to fall to you. Get to work and stop fooling around with line items at this point. Netflix isn't the problem. It's the solution to the "I can't help buying DVDs I'll never watch once and certainly won't watch twice" problem. PS. You could sell 600 of those DVDs that are taking up space in your house online for $2 apiece and pay for your season tickets for years to come.
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Jul 28, 2009 19:05
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zaurg posted:I get what you're saying, dreesemonkey. The wife is into fantasy football too so we're ok there. But I get what guaranteed is saying, I'm going about this backwards, I need to make the budget first, then decide what can fit into the budget, not buy a bunch of poo poo then make a budget based on what I buy. I will have that ready by August 1st. Well, here's your problem: You're going to have to make that budget based on baby expenses you know nothing about, or you're wasting your time. Maybe people here can give you some ideas. I'd say you should go to the store and find the price of diapers and formula, guess what you'll need, and then multiply by 1.5 because you're probably wrong, but I don't have kids and can't help you much more than that. I'm assuming that your insistence on DVDs over Netflix is due to an irregular acquisition, so just drop Netflix, if that's what works for you. You'll probably still be able to afford your season tickets, so don't panic, but you really do need to rethink the whole "what is a necessity?" question. What if your wife gets laid off or both cars die in the same month? Make sure saving 10% of your income is a higher priority than football, OK?
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Jul 28, 2009 21:01
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zaurg posted:Getting rid of Internet? Phones? Come on man. We could rent the condo out and go live with our parents too, but no thanks. Have to keep a few things. Ahhahahahaha. Let the CornHolio-style denial appear. First of all, the method n8r described isn't a gimmick at all. It's very effective. Second of all, even if it IS a gimmick, you need all the help you can get. Let's try to remember that you described yourself as being retarded with money, shall we? You asked for advice, and now you're just rejecting it out of hand. N8r's system is pretty much what my husband and I use, and although we live very comfortably within our means, it keeps us on an even keel with respect to hobby spending. It's hard to really accept a budget when it's just a spreadsheet on a computer, but when you go into your own account with your allowance and see there's exactly enough to buy what you want, you think twice about whether you want to make yourself broke again. "Hiding" your savings only makes sense anyway, since the only place you can find any kind of interest rate at all is online these days, anyway. We keep ours in Ing. I can see it any time I want, but it takes a couple days to transfer to our regular bank. So, how's the budget coming? Looked up the price of diapers yet? You shouldn't be having trouble getting your grocery budget down. Try not buying anything frozen. That's usually a big culprit.
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Jul 29, 2009 19:54
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Personally, I don't care for Progressive. You'd probably do much better to go find an independent insurance agent and let him do the legwork.
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Jul 29, 2009 20:06
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il serpente cosmico posted:For what it's worth, your policy seems pretty high. At age 23 I pay under $800 a year for a similar Honda with much better coverage (including $500K per person per accident medical). I use USAA though, which I understand is generally pretty cheap. Insurance companies are always jerks to the other guy. I love USAA, but some old guy insured with them ran into the front of my dad's bookstore once and pushed the whole wall in and broke the window, and the little USAA guy who came up to assess it was a total jerk about it. The strip mall owner almost took their offer of about half what it really cost, too, until my dad yelled at them. You just have to push back and make even more ridiculous threats than they do.
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Jul 30, 2009 21:45
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Well, how much was the Altima worth at the time? If it was only worth $10,500, then you made out just fine. If it was worth $15,000, then you should have pulled out a lawyer or set your own insurance company on them.
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Jul 31, 2009 06:29
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Oh, dear. Here's how insurance works. The car gets wrecked, the insurance company pays you what they say the car was worth, usually based on mileage and age. So apparently they said the Altima was worth 10,500. OP had a loan for $10,000, so he had to spend most of his settlement on paying off the loan. That means he only had $500 left, so had to get a new loan for a new car, but he's not out anything because he was already making a loan payment anyway. Right? Now USAA or whatever company is having to pay out wants to pay out as little as possible. If the Altima was worth $15,000, and they offered $10,500, THEN they screwed you over by assuming you didn't know the value of your own car, and they were right. But they won't pay you a dime over what they think they can prove your car was worth (and maybe pain and suffering if it was that bad an accident) in court. This is (one reason) why you should make an effort to never be upside-down on your car, and if you are, purchase gap insurance until you can fix that problem. If your car is worth $10,000, and you owe $15,000 on it, you're in deep doodoo when someone T-bones you and you find yourself owing $5,000 AND having to get a new car. Another note: Make sure you understand your home insurance. Are you insured for replacement value? Right now, with markets down, you're probably OK, but make sure you know how your insurance company values your home and how much the payout would be. Lots of people are woefully underinsured in their homes and find themselves having to buy much less house after their first one burns down or whatever. OP, I really, really, recommend you go to an independent insurance agent and tell him you need to have your policies explained to you and have him search to see how much money you can save and still be properly insured. They explain this stuff over and over to people who don't even make an effort to understand. I'm sure they wouldn't mind talking to someone who listened for once.
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Jul 31, 2009 20:05
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Knowing insurance companies, they probably sued themselves over it and "recovered" the deductible.
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Aug 1, 2009 01:44
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CornHolio posted:I don't think anybody has said anything about them buying people cars. I'd be pissed if they bought me a car to replace one I had totalled. Well, zaurg did: zaurg posted:Irrelevant. Before crash, I had a car. After crash, I had no car. At least that's the way I see it now. I'd rather have had a similar car given to me and leave my loan intact. See what I mean? And I used the car for work. I used my dad's truck for a while to get by. But his idea of how insurance works is what got us off on this tangent in the first place. He never did say why he didn't just get a new loan and buy a new car while he had the rental.
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Aug 2, 2009 05:44
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Would you please see an insurance professional who could actually help you? Do it for your kid's sake. What's the matter with you? You admit you have no understanding of your current policies -- you don't even know what you're covered for -- but you're talking about randomly switching to other policies which you also don't understand. Why would you do this? If you can get out to see a game, you can get out to get affordable insurance that fits your needs. If "affordable" is even possible for you. Cut both personal accounts and entertainment right in half and put that money into paying cc debt instead. I'm a big believer in having your own money to spend guilt-free, but you can't afford that much, and you have student loans coming up, a baby you don't know how to budget for, and aging cars. The minute your cell contract is up, go back to the cheapest landline available and get $10/month pay-as-you-go cell phones for quick calls and emergencies. Even if that only saves you 20 bucks a month, that's 20 bucks you sorely need. If you're not going to get a full-time job, you're going to have to squeeze every dime out of your budget you possibly can. Including getting that electricity bill down. Unplug things you're not using, turn the AC off once in a while, and see what kind of a difference you can make. Seriously, dude, it's time to grow up. You're going to have to make sacrifices for your family, and so is your wife.
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Aug 2, 2009 19:46
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No, an independent agent works with many different companies, not just one. He'll read your policies, explain anything you don't understand (hint: everything), talk with you about your needs and options, and then go out and see if he can find you any good deals. Do you have even the slightest idea what position you'd be in if your condo burned to the ground tonight? Are you overinsured? Underinsured? How much of the contents are covered? If a guest trips and falls, what are you responsible for? Do you have any special riders for items which wouldn't otherwise be covered? I can't believe you cut out your savings completely in favor of keeping your personal allowances and entertainment intact. Do you know how fast that ten grand is going to run through your fingers if this is the best you can do? Did you see CornHolio's previous avatar? Are your football tickets more important to you than your child's future? What happens if your wife gets ready to go back to work and they've decided to lay her off? What happens if another hurricane or two pays a visit? Do not stop funding your savings unless you've already stopped funding everything else but shelter and transportation and you're eating veggies and rice every night. And get a drat job. I know you think you're patiently ignoring me when I tell you to grow up, but I'm just going to keep saying it until I think you're actually going to do it. It's pitiful that you're as old as you are and you don't know any of this stuff yet. We all make mistakes, but really, it's time to get on the ball. You have two weeks before your life changes forever; you might as well try to be prepared for it.
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Aug 3, 2009 08:34
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zaurg posted:I know this is in the wife's head and I think this sometimes. "How could our situation be dire when"... How's this for dire? Your cc debt equals your savings that you're about to depend on for your wife's maternity leave. You're broke. Does that sink in for you at all? Do you understand that it's quite common at low-paid jobs for bosses to kiss their pregnant workers goodbye, replace them for six weeks, and then find that the pregnant worker was either unnecessary or more expensive than they really needed? I know all the what-ifs are hard for you to handle; they're hard for CornHolio too. But the point is, if I can come up with a bunch of entirely possible what-ifs for someone I don't know at 3:30 in the morning, you ought to be able to come up with them yourself and see that it's time to get your act together. poo poo happens and happens and happens. You can't depend on no hurricanes coming because you bought shutters, for God's sake. That's just pure superstition to cover up the fact that you think you have savings even though you're going to run through them before the end of the year and you won't have any more. I'm betting McDonalds is hiring. If that's all there is, you might only be offsetting your daycare expenses for a while, but their turnover is so bad that if you do a good job you'll be making more in a year and can almost certainly make your way into management. I heard somewhere that Burger King management actually gets really good benefits including health care, though I'm not sure if it's still true. Go get a job in fast food and try to stop this downward slide. I don't care if you get a better job next week and quit fast food for it, and neither do they. They're fast food, it happens to them all the time. Get out of your drat chair. For the next six weeks, you don't need day care anyway. Grow up. You said yourself you guys never changed your spending habits when you lost your job. You've known for nine months that the little one was on the way and you didn't get a job. You're about to meet someone who depends completely on you for everything. You're the "man" of the house, the head of your family. Sexist and old-fashioned or not, you're the guy everyone will always look to to save the day. How embarrassed are you going to be when you can't provide and can't explain why you never saw it coming?
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Aug 3, 2009 19:55
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Listen, you moron, you're broke. You're worse than broke, you're six figures in debt with a baby on the way, you apparently deliver pizzas with an aging car you can't afford to replace (better tell your car insurance guy about that while you're at it), your wife refuses to stop buying into scams, and you're in your 30s. Don't laugh at me, you got yourself into this, genius. And you came to the internet asking how to get out. Why do I feel like we're more concerned about your wreck of a life than you are? What's the current value of your condo? Can you sell it and move into an apartment that costs less than $1000 a month? Or are you upside down? Do you even know? You keep saying you're paying your bills, things aren't that bad, blah, blah. If we can't convince you that the baby will cost more than you think, why don't you elaborate on how you plan to pay off the student loans when they come around? If you weren't retarded, you could start at McDonald's right now, and if nothing better came along, you could be a manager by the time the student loans came through, and you'd get cheaper medical insurance. And you wouldn't be putting a million of the worst possible miles on your aging car. THAT'S how in the hell it would help you get out of debt. Plus over the next eight weeks you'd get to keep the cash you made instead of handing it over to day care. And that would also be true if you worked weekends.
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Aug 4, 2009 01:54
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His debt-to-income is so bad now that I don't think he could get a loan to replace a car anyhow. Unless maybe the car dealerships are THAT desperate. Chrysler might go for it, but I hope no bank would.
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Aug 4, 2009 02:28
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zaurg posted:Yeah, I should make the big upgrade and switch to Mcdonalds. You know, you're painting a pretty ugly picture of yourself. Your wife is supporting you almost completely AND going to school while pregnant. You think you're doing great because you're surrounded by a nice lifestyle, almost none of which is actually paid for. You post a thread asking for help with money, and then you get sarcastic and refuse to understand just how deeply in trouble you are. You won't get a second job you consider to be lower in prestige than pizza boy, of all things. You don't sit around playing WOW all day, do you? Is it just torrenting movies and fantasy football? No wonder you need a hundred bucks a month allowance.
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Aug 4, 2009 04:17
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They can't use the savings, that's all they've got to live on till the wife goes back to work. He can't divorce her, either. Who'd pay for his season tickets?
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Aug 4, 2009 06:04
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You know, I was going to ask how on earth you could possibly be on the phone 47 minutes a day every day, not counting nights, weekends, and m2m, and then I remembered some chick in the fabric store yesterday, talking to her friend about what the friend should make for dinner, what was the best Hamburger Helper (cheesy shells, apparently), what kinds of yarn the store had, which ones she liked the best, what she was going to use the yarn for, on and on and on. My own thoughts in my head weren't that boring, I don't know why she had to spend good money to discuss them with her friend and everyone in the store. Why don't you get Vonage for 30-some bucks a month and restrict the cells even further than 700 minutes? Or at least give the lion's share of the 700 to your wife since you'll be at home on Vonage? Isn't she at work when most of those minutes are being used anyway?
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Aug 7, 2009 19:47
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zaurg posted:Bottom line is we need to earn more money because we aren't able to live on a budget and having a child is more expensive than I thought (give me the I told you so's, please). So how many jobs have you applied for this month?
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Oct 7, 2009 22:05
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So you haven't applied for any jobs, and you not only haven't cut down on your spending, but it looks like your spending on dumb things has increased because TOO HARD. What do YOU think you can do to solve this problem?
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Oct 8, 2009 01:06
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Blame the wife's stupid purchases all you want, but don't forget the OP is a 30-something part-time pizza delivery boy with a new baby, season tickets, and fantasy football needs, who has known for months that this isn't going to work but couldn't be bothered to get (or apply for) another job. He's not exactly an innocent being taken advantage of by his shrew wife. She's mad, and I don't blame her. She kept her job AND went back to (the wrong) school while pregnant, and he can't be bothered to do any of those things. Or even make a budget and stick to it. You don't deserve any personal allowance at all until you're fully contributing to your family, Zaurg. You're doing the bare minimum to get by. You don't have to match incomes, but you could at least put some effort into something, you lazy brat. Act like a man, for God's sake.
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Oct 9, 2009 05:43
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What effort have you made to solve this problem in the last month? What do you plan to do in the next week?
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Oct 10, 2009 09:49
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Zaurg, you seriously need to look down the road if you can get your blinders off for a minute. What do you see happening if all this continues much longer? You've had at least three months since you realized you were in trouble, and in that time you have done nothing to save yourself or your family from impending doom. Nothing. You haven't applied for jobs, you haven't worked on updating your IT certificates, you haven't cut your spending, nothing. You just sat and waited for someone else to save you, and you don't seem to have learned yet that that isn't going to happen. So where will you be in two years? Don't just assume you'll have a better job or your wife will. Really think about what your inaction is likely to bring you. We're out here on the internet and we don't have all the details, but I'm willing to bet that within the next two years if you haven't done anything you'll be divorced, still slinging pizzas, and dodging the state because you can't make your child support payments AND pay for your season tickets. There'll be a warrant out for your arrest for non-payment if you're stopped for speeding or anything else, you'll be bitter and angry about how much your ex-wife makes and the life she leads yet you still have to send her checks, and you'll see your kid on weekends, which gives your ex-wife time to go out on dates, but not you. Not that anyone will particularly want to go out with a 35-year-old pizza boy anyway. What do you suppose your kid will think of you then? All of this, if it happens, will be entirely your own fault because you could grow up and fix this now and you refuse. You're acting like a moron, but I don't think you're actually all that stupid, you're just an immature, spoiled, selfish, boy who doesn't understand the meaning of manhood. You never learned the lesson most of us are told as children: Life is not fair. Get over it. Everyone thinks when they're young that adults are boring and dumb and don't know what's fun, and we all grow up thinking WE know better, WE'RE not going to be like that. And then most of us realize that the adults gave up a lot of the fun stuff to better provide for their family, and we smile and do the same. Get with the program, or you're doomed. Life isn't over if you don't play fantasy football.
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Oct 10, 2009 20:35
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Zaurg, I thought the whole reason you piled up all that money in the bank was to help float you when the baby came. Why did you put everything on interest-bearing credit cards? Take the money out of the bank, pay off the amount you spend over the last two months, and lose the cards. Even if you can't get your wife on board, one of the best things you can do is go to all cash. You may not see the difference, but you'll feel it. Better still if your wife will try it for three months. It's nothing to put it on a card, you'll just pay it off later, right? But if you know you have $10000 in the bank as an emergency fund and that's all you have to work with, it hurts a lot more to throw $500 on that must-have baby ATV or whatever. There is a very profound psychological difference between cash and credit. Challenge your wife to three months of cash-only and see if you can get her to do it. I'm betting you can't, as she clearly wears the pants in the family and Christmas is coming. Of course, there is another option: You could try getting a real job. But that sounds like a lot of work.
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Oct 15, 2009 04:06
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Eris posted:I wonder if the wife feels like she "deserves" this stuff because she makes what she considers decent money, went to school and had a baby and her husband is a part-time pizza delivery person. It may be hard to take financial advice and budget restrictions seriously from a part-time delivery boy. I am sure this is the case. How could her respect for him NOT be eroded by his complete unwillingness to even attempt to get a job, though he spends as much or more than she does? Marriage is supposed to be a 50/50 partnership, share and share alike, but spending what he does on fun when he's completely unwilling to man up and do his share is inexcusable, and if I were her, I wouldn't feel like listening to what he had to say either. If he wants her to believe him about the seriousness of the situation, he's going to have to believe himself and get serious first, and I just don't see that happening. He'll still be a part-time pizza boy after she's divorced him, only then he'll say it's because otherwise she'll "get too much out of him" for child support. It's much too late to save the day by cutting phone bills and eating in. The only possible way to salvage this now is to do EVERY cost-cutting thing that was suggested in this thread, get at least one full-time job, and it will probably still result in bankruptcy for all but the student loans within the year anyway. The wife's spending is laughable, but this mess is more than 50% zaurg's fault for lazing around wasting his life as a pizza boy.
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Oct 15, 2009 20:49
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The right way to do fun money is to have allowances, whether they're five dollars a month or five hundred. Then you can use your money for anything you want without guilt, and if you don't have enough then you have to save it. But it doesn't matter. They can't afford to buy anything. Their allowances need to go to zero. No football, no vitamins, and no entertainment fund. If they can't restrain themselves only to absolute necessities, they might as well just forget it and go on the way they are now until the lawsuits and garnishments start up. Then they can both quit their jobs, go on welfare and play fantasy football and "be good parents" by staying home with baby all day.
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Oct 15, 2009 21:12
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zaurg posted:I better mention this now. I have a ticket to this week's football game and was considering renting a car and going with a friend. We'd come back home after the game instead of getting a hotel. Cost for car, gas, and food would run in the $60-80 range. The problem is I'm already at $59 for October in my "Personal" budget.      I don't know what to say anymore. Zaurg, I think you may genuinely have some sort of mental disorder. Look again at the amounts you will owe on student loans in a couple of months. You don't get a personal fund anymore. Your wife doesn't get a personal fund anymore. There isn't any money. You just panicked about the student loans, and sounded like you were coming around, and then you turned around and told us how you want to go further in debt over a football game. And a rental car. What happened to the car you deliver pizza in? Are you even still employed at all? Lots of people do profoundly stupid things with their money without actually being stupid people at all (see CornHolio), but I'm no longer sure you actually fit into that category. Maybe a pizza driver is the best you can be. It's pretty obvious that you're not looking for work, but can you at least tell us why?
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Oct 15, 2009 22:50
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And another thing: Do you understand that if you take the option of paying off those loans over 25 years, your daughter will already be three years out of college ( well, you know what I mean) when you're done paying this? Also, you will have paid a total of approximately $104,000 for a two-year degree that would have cost less than five figures from any community college?GET A JOB.
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Oct 15, 2009 23:24
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It's too much of a trainwreck. I can't look away. I need to know what happens. I need to see him actually, REALLY realize how bad this is. Zaurg, do you actually have a job? What happened to your car?
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Oct 16, 2009 16:17
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Since you depend on that car to keep your job, don't you think you should get the car looked at?
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Oct 16, 2009 16:24
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He's a 30-something pizza boy because that gives him time to go to games and play fantasy football and otherwise spend money they don't have because they're not bankrupt YET and he fully expects something magical to happen to bail them out of their $70,000 debt before disaster strikes.
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Oct 16, 2009 17:00
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zaurg posted:I still really don't have a good grasp on the budgeting for things like car maintenance. I mean I just put $25/month at first because it sounded like a good number. Obviously a visit to the mechanic is going to be more than $25 so... of course it will be more than 25.  You put the $25 (which isn't enough, by the way) AWAY every month, so that when you have a $300 bill, you have the cash right there earmarked for car repairs and you don't have to put them on a credit card. No wonder you can't understand how desperately broke you are.
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Oct 16, 2009 17:16
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zaurg posted:Ok that makes sense. Now what do you use to manage that if you don't actually have cash in hand? If the majority of money is in the checking account I mean Write a check? I'm not sure what you're asking here. You don't have to literally have dozens of envelopes each stuffed with cash for your separate budgets, although I suspect that might be best for you. You can also just write it down and know that if your car account is at $300, that's $300 in your account you can't use for anything else. Or you can open multiple bank accounts, whatever works for you. Given the way your wife spends, I'd suggest opening a separate joint savings account for budgeted future items like car maintenance and put household spending money in the checking account. It's harder to go overboard and buy yourself just one little thing when there's only a little more than the amount of your bills in there instead of your entire emergency savings fund. We are in fine financial health, so our budget can be more flexible than yours, but I'll tell you how ours works: 1) My husband's pay is direct deposited into the main household account. 2) On the same day, our emergency savings account at ING transfers roughly 10% of gross pay for the period out of the household account before we ever even see it. That money just piles up half-forgotten until we need it for something, which isn't often. It's our house down payment/oops the car died/vacation fund, basically. 3) Also on the same day, fun money allowances are transferred into our own separate checking accounts. Please note that despite the fact that marriage is 50/50 share and share alike, I don't work and hence take a smaller allowance, because I just don't think it would be fair. That's the basics of it. We pay all household bills from the house account, personal spending from our individual accounts, and anything left over at the next payday gets transferred to ING, so we're always working within a single paycheck. If we have many thousands of dollars in the household account, we will find a way to spend it all, but if it's in ING, where it takes a couple days to transfer it, we almost never succumb to impulse temptation. On the same note, leave credit cards at home. Your credit line is not an addition to your income. It's a subtraction, unless you're able to pay the balance in full before interest accrues. Credit cards are mostly for online purchases and are paid in full from the appropriate account every month. You're working with a much tighter budget, so you're going to have to be stricter than we are, but you could do it if you tried.
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Oct 16, 2009 17:57
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Well, it's certainly nice to hear that you spent twenty minutes trying to save your family from imminent disaster this week. I think that might be an all-time record for you. Maybe after you get back from spending a days' wages on a football game, you can try and spend 40 minutes, or even a whole hour, next week. If you don't want the thread to end, you're going to have to keep responding. If you feel like you're taking too much abuse for your wounded little psyche to handle, all you have to do is DO SOMETHING, anything, to show you genuinely want to fix this. The anger and snarkiness is in direct proportion to your refusal to take advice. If we think you've given up completely, we'll just move on to someone who actually does want change, and you're on your own. We almost certainly want to see progress from you more than you do, but if you can't even bother to let us know you're reading the thread, much less taking any advice, then we've got other things we can be doing. I know the only reason I didn't give up long ago is because your replies are so completely clueless that I keep thinking maybe there's some way to get through to you.
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Oct 17, 2009 16:36
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Well, he applied for a job. Of course, it doesn't sound like he has a resume or anything prepared for if he actually gets a call for an interview, but it's kind of a step in the right direction. Sort of.
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Oct 17, 2009 19:10
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Breetai posted:I dunno, man, that sounds like it would require effort, planning, and personal sacrifice. No, because that money would be earned by his personal money, making it MORE personal money. Also, all change saved from non-personal money is personal money. The man deserves to enjoy himself after a long hard afternoon of delivering pizzas. You can't take that away from him.
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Oct 18, 2009 05:26
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You're not going to be ready to "shut yourselves off" when the student loans start rolling in, either, but those student loan guys don't screw around. What are you going to sacrifice in order to pay them when the threats start getting real? How can you even enjoy yourselves in social activities when you know how bad things are? Nobody feels sorry for you anymore, in any way, shape or form. Man up, you loser, and take care of your family. Get a job and give up all your excess spending, whether your wife will or not. She's not going to sacrifice while you're sitting around the house doing nothing and spending more than you make on stuff you don't need and preaching about how you guys need to save money. Why the hell can't you work Saturday AND Friday and Sunday? How can you possibly have detailed spreadsheets on how Saturdays are bad earning days for pizza boys, but you let your spending spiral completely out of control and have no idea how bad things are? Why don't you have a detailed spreadsheet of how much it would help to work Saturdays and sell your tickets?
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Oct 21, 2009 17:53
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Giraffe posted:Don't be an idiot, everyone knows you can't give pizza away on college football Saturdays. If zaurg were foolish enough to sign up for that shift, he'd just be sitting at work, waiting for the phone to ring. I totally get your tone and everything, but pizza drivers get paid a small amount even if they aren't driving, right? So that plus the money he isn't spending at the game would be pretty substantial compared to the way things are now. And no wear and tear on the car. Also, zaurg, if you tell people $40/hour and then charge them a quarter of that, that's on you. Give them a ballpark figure when you've looked at it. "I believe this will be four hours' work and around $160, but it might go as high as $200, is that all right with you? If they say no, they can come get their computer, and you can go back to looking for a real job.
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Oct 21, 2009 18:42
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 07:18 |
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Zaurg, for God's sake, tell your wife you're too dumb to figure out a budget and get her to go over it with you. Maybe then she'll notice you're stone cold broke.
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Oct 21, 2009 20:17
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