Because this is a business & FINANCE board, can we talk budgets and financial goals?
Using excel, i've compiled exact values for bills and income and set a limit for myself with food and leisure. Honestly, $500 is nothing when I order delivery often. Even grocery shopping eats away at the budget quickly.
How do you limit your own budgets? Do you use a set percentage or blindly spend based on impulse like an animal? the net income is what i hope to have as disposable for the imminent housing collapse to help with a down payment.
>how budget Now this is a thread people could probably use a lot more than whining about shitcoins. I make a list of how much my fixed necessities cost (based on averaging the first few months of living on my own when i graduated) and then i give myself a buffer of spending money every month. Then I engineer my automatic saving and investing to leave me that much left over every month to pay the bills. basically i have all the saving and investing parts automated so that i just have to keep checking flat over time. i'm not a person with a lot of wants besides financial security, and i make enough that i don't have to track every $10 expense. i make a bit over 100k and i invest or save 67k a year based on how i have things set up right now. Personal recommendation, stop ordering uber eats or shitty delivery unless you make six figures. You can at least get easy stuff at the store or eat the food at the restaurant and cut half or more off that amount. The only way I would recommend otherwise is if it's done socially and adds value to your life by doing stuff with your friends.
Bentley Cooper
I spent as little as possible
Gavin Martinez
That chart is gay
Josiah Thomas
I'd love a budget general on this board. I have no budget, I spend $4-7,000 every month on the credit card, and rent is $2,000. I pay all my bills in full but at the end of the day my bank account is near empty. Pls halp.
Usually I'll go many months without spending much money other than necessities, then blow a ton of money on vacations/games/random crap. By that point I've saved up a lot of money due to software salary and a very frugal lifestyle.
Christopher Sullivan
What the fuck is wrong with her eyes
Leo Reed
Look at your CC statement and figure out where your largest expendiatures are and start cutting. I don't have my CCs on auto pay so I'm forced to log in and look at my cost breakdowns each month. I rarely spend a penny I don't need but the discipline is still very beneficial.
Ryan Morris
holy shit. well step 1 is to audit your spending and figure out where the hell it's going. look at the last 2 months of your card statements and attempt to categorize it?
Thomas Butler
I know where it all goes. It's all food and Amazon. My partner does all the shopping. She mostly orders house stuff and toiletries. Is $4-7,000 normal for 2 people? I put literally every songle thing on the credit card and pay it in full every couple days. Is thay bad?
Hudson Thompson
Well at least you generally know, alright. Sounds like you're getting screwed by ordering everything on amazon. It gets really damn expensive to order all your household supplies off the internet and have someone ship it to your door compared to shopping at a store. If you have nothing left over you need some sort of change in your life, you can't make it if you can't find a way to set some aside very month. Depending on your income and location it could be considered normal, but my opinion is that normal fucking sucks in today's world. Not attacking anyone, it's just how people are today since nobody learns this shit in school. Most people are broke, you don't want to be like them. My wife and I are about as thrifty as you can be without sacrificing anything we care about and I would say our baseline spending is about 3k a month all-in. But that's with rent of 1200 a month.
Tyler Morris
Unless that includes rent, every single bill, and groceries that is nuts. The range is also pretty crazy, what is causing it to fluctuate like that? I would suggest you look over those AMZN purchases to see what all is getting bought. Your lady friend there might be buying a buncha crap from Whole Foods. Also you better be using that AMZN CC that gives you 3% (5% if prime) back.
Asher Ross
>limit budget Unironically ngmi You gotta spend and try to get collateral to keep spending. Try to read THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY, you gotta do your part and prop the economy. Everyone is in the fight to save the economy, DO YOUR PART!!!!!!!
Dylan Johnson
>saving 67% of your gross income How? Unless you meant $100k net?
Cameron Green
Just added up this past month of spending and $1,500 is Amazon and $1,200 is food and drink (groceries and eating out).
Whoa. Okay, I will change my Amazon my password and just not use Amazon for a mo th and see of that helps.
No, rent is $2,000 and bills are around $300, but lol this heatwave and Bidenomics means my bills are closer $500 this month. The fluctuations come from big purchases, like furniture. Yeah, we only eat organic and buy meat directly from a local rancher. Everything goes on my AmEx. I build up points and then use them to buy literal gold.
I think I will do 1 month of no Amazon and limit eating out and only buy Alcohol from Costco or something to see if I can save more.
William Ross
To give a more specific example, I would say food and household shit runs us 500-750 a month. We mostly shop for food at target and aldi and we cook at home. Generally we'll go on a date or eat out once a week. If you live in a super HCOL area there's a chance that stuff truly is just that expensive, but if you don't that is a pretty crazy amount to me. If we were more 'normal' and tacked on a couple car payments and going to the bar weekly with uber eats afterwards I would say maybe we could reach 5k a month all-in, and you say you're at up to 7k plus 2k rent. To summarize, I think she's blowing a lot of this money, and it's probably not even intentional at all. A lot of really smart people work every day to get as much of your money as they can, and it works on most people. We would probably need more specifics than "4-7k on food and amazon for 2 people" to really help more than that, sorry user.
Eli Adams
alright i know it sounds a little ridiculous, I'll explain. i'm in my budget spreadsheet right now, according to my pay stubs 17% of my overall income goes to tax due to lots of pre-tax saving and a few thousand a year in side bullshit that isn't taxed (churning credit cards, abusing sign-up bonuses, that type of thing). so that's around 18k off the top in tax. I budget to spend 20k a year at present, that leaves me with 67k left over to save or invest, plus or minus. to be clear I don't necessarily recommend this to anyone, but my circumstances allow it without compromising on things that matter to me. i don't cheap out on important stuff, i have a safe and reliable car, a nice pc, my wife and i do things together we enjoy, so on and so forth. it also helps substantially that we have dual incomes in just one household to take care of, you save a lot of money sharing expenses if your wife is on board.
Owen Smith
I'm glad that you're wanting to take charge in your life but please don't blow up a relationship over this unless you two fundamentally have differences in philosophy that you can't overcome. I only say this because it sounds like you're gonna just suddenly lock her out of the account. Buying gold with the points is pretty based though, that's not a bad strategy.
Alexander Cruz
OP you should probably start watching Dave Ramsey videos on youtube. you sound like his target market.
Eli Torres
just ask yourself before spending for anything "is this retarded spending? can i work around this some how?"
Oliver Long
mostly agreed, i'd tend to agree with the majority of his advice regarding cutting back and getting out of consumer debt, but his advice regarding investments is mainly geared towards getting you to invest with them in high-fee junk. as long as you can separate the two parts in your mind, it couldn't hurt to try. he's good at giving you a wake-up call if you're struggling to live on less than you make.
Luis Howard
Consoomers make me sick. I refuse to even pay $1800/m for a 1 bedroom apartment. I can go a whole month with less than $150 in expenses
Kevin Watson
I feel you there, but for most people that isn't an option. I wouldn't want to spend more than a third my salary on renting but in order to accomplish that I'd have to live in the ghetto or several hours from where I work. No I won't live with randos and I won't live in ze pod.
