Let's talk money. Budgets. Life.

[CHWine]

When I was younger my 'savings' went to investments. I started buying stocks in the early 90's. I hit some winners and also bought some turkeys. For the most part US stocks are good. I was not a day trader in any way. Usually made 2-3 trades a year. If you are on the young side buy stocks in solid companies and leave them alone.

I'm 65 now and I have used a financial advisor for about 2 years. We left CA about 18 months ago and obviously our money goes farther here in northern AZ. We watch our monthly expenses, cook at home 90% of the time and my days of buying toys are long over. My hunting rifles are probably 30+ years old as are my optics. I've never been the guy who needed the newest stuff.

Inflation is killing most Americans. The price of food, fuel, utilities and most necessary items are ridiculous. I have no idea how young families can make it nowadays. Since retirement, I've become a coupon cutter. I've always been a careful shopper and I'm even more so now. We don't cut back on the quality of our food.

US credit card debt just passed one trillion dollars. People are in trouble.

 

[Rob5589]

All I can add is get a grip on your financial situation NOW. 30's is late to the game, I know all too well. Good luck!

 

[sasquatch]

Watch the money, invest for the future first, eat at home and pack lunches, don’t smoke/dip or drink much, slowing down from 80 to 70mph can increase fuel mileage a lot, and just plain get off the internets easy push button to buy system. If your about to buy something you really don’t need, because your bored surfing the net, log off for the day, tomo your likely to not even remember it.

I can also, tell you better than show you but I am fortunate with my job/salary to have a lot of expendable income. However I still get mad at myself on how I could’ve saved more. When I go on hunting trips I sleep in the truck or in a quick setup tent etc etc. no hotel rooms and stuff.

We on average today buy soooo much crap we don’t need because of the in your face constant marketing and easy access. Work on avoiding that and it’ll go a long ways


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Ozzy841]

I use the Rocket Money app to track all of my spending. It allows me to categorize every purchase and gives me a breakdown by month, quarter and yearly. Very helpful to find and cut out the little unnecessary spends that add up over time.

 

[sasquatch]

Not read any other responses:

You cant budget what you dont have. Saving $x$ a week does not equal making more $ per week. The best $50k budget can not equal the savings potential from $100k. Do you need a better job?

Otherwise max out 401k & Roth IRA and colkege fund as able.

You can take the money you might spend on vacations and save it, then go camping. Buy a reasonable house and or car when the time comes. Dont incur unnecessary debt. Only go out to eat on special occaisions kind of stuff.

We keep a loose budget and my wife went back to work once we realized how much just the medical ins was. So we saved that and are getting her income to help go towards retirement.

This bout of inflation hasnt helped many folks. No one is complaining and that bothers me.

They not complaining because they don’t even realize it. You’d be surprised how much people don’t even understand the situation they are in debt wise

Money is easily accessible. You can be virtually broke and still spend an easy 30min a credit card because it’s easy to access

Everything is faked out with monthly cost vs total cost. Vehicles now 7-8 year loans, you can buy anything on the internet with 3 monthly payments etc etc. We are very close to normalizing 40 yr mortgages also to keep kicking this can down the road where people don’t realize their situation. All they care about is can I afford it’s monthly cost.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[S.Clancy]

I'm a pretty frugal person and enjoy budgeting as much as the next guy, but the single biggest thing you are going to do for your budget and savings potential is to get better skills to make more $$$.

 

[Mike Islander]

No debt except house, which has 5X the equity of our mortgage. No cable TV, gym/club memberships, few subscriptions. Almost no eating out (we both make far better food than most restaurants).

That's worked for us without really needing much effort or concentration.

 

[Fowl Play]

I've always lived pretty frugally even when I didn't need to. I put my fun money towards investments and experiences and lived pretty frugally everywhere else. (ie drove a 15 year old car even when my job was high 6 figures, etc.) The investments paid off big time, and now I'm in a position where I can do "stupid stuff" but still don't.

Keep your living expenses low and work on your career. If you can increase the money coming in, without letting your cost of living increase with it (new house, new cars, fancy vacations, etc.) you can set yourself up well for the future. I still put everything I spend money on through a filter -- how is this going to improve my life or my families life.

As a hunter, I go through these things constantly: does a new bow really increase my experiences? No... new strings and limbs does the same thing. New rifle? Nope, old reliable is still killin' it. Do I really need to mount that elk? Nope, a picture on the wall is all the memory I need -- rather spend the money on another hunt.

I'm not saying not to do anything fun... just think long and hard about how that expense actually translates into quality of life.

 

[displacedtexan]

Figure out what works for y'all.

We have a plan, and savings/investments that aren't flexible.

But for example we spend more on food than most will say you should, but less on housing.

 

[DuckDogDr]

It is embarrassing how much I spend on going out to eat. As soon as I get finished with this block of shifts … me and the future Ms. About to sit down and plan out some meal preps to save some money.

Also took a part time job and all of that money is going into retirement funds.
I dream and drool about retiring at 55 … in 12 years

 

[Highvoltage1]

If you want to save money stop multiplying lol. Just kidding!! Kids are extremely expensive. I have 2 boys who play 3 sports each, hunt and fish. Always need new shoes, cleates, clothes, hunting gear, fishing gear. We run like crazy to practices and games. Honestly, if we didn’t grab fast food a few times a week, it would be challenging for sure. Right now we live in some crazy times. The price of everything has skyrocketed and there’s no relief in sight. If I had to give advice on finances, live within your means, don’t eat out and pay any cars off quick and stay away from car payments. Finally, make sure you invest into some type of a retirement plan. Best wishes.

 

[kkp005]

I’m right there with you bud. I make really great money and live a pretty simple life. Wife and I both have newer reliable vehicles, I’ve also got a work commuter. We live in a nice but fairly small home. Two little girls and a wife. We were making it just fine but the cost of everything is really starting to put a squeeze on us. House insurance and car insurance are way up, the cost of food and just about everything has jumped, have the littlest one in daycare also. To top it all off, every year the appraisal district puts a big ol spike in what my home is worth. 125-150k a year for an income now isn’t what it used to be.

 

[CoffeeGoat]

One thing I haven't seen mention yet is the impact of inflation on practical budgeting. My wife and I cook most of our food, and have been buying mostly the same grocery list for years. What I've noticed recently is the huge increase in the cost of the same goods. Most of my costco purchases are up 50-70%, so even though I'm buying the same food stuff I was buying 5 years ago I'm spending substantially more. For a family of five that adds up fast. So to maintain "a budget" I'm having to change our menu to actually stay on target.

 

[grossklw]

If you safely use ccs the easiest way to budget in my opinion is use something like an app like mint. If automatically breaks what you’re spending into categories so you’ll have a better idea as to what you can get rid of and what you really need. There are a few different ones but we use mint and I like it.

I don’t use it so much as a strict budget, more so I like knowing where my money is going and how my spending changes from year to year.

 

[def90]

I've never sat down and put together a budget per say.. I do take note of what I spend money on that are probably wants vs needs and cut out the wants when needed. For instance, I have a habit of stopping at the gas station every morning and buying 2 bottled waters, a muscle milk drink and some sort of snack which usually ends up costing me somewhere around $10-15. That comes out to $3900 a year. Stupid stuff that I can just get a thermos/water bottle and bring water from home and skip the muscle milk and snacks. Used to buy magazines all the time that I never completely read either. Just look around at what you buy and see if you really need it or if there is a cheaper substitute. Food is a big one. A jar of pasta sauce can run up to $8 when a can of crushed tomatoes, some garlic and basil is all you need to cook your own authentic Italian weekday sauce and will only set you back a little over $1. Making your own food from scratch will save you money over premade foods.

 

[Marble]

That's what worked for us. The ROI for me is a little better quality of sleep knowing that if I have an income issue, I've got basically s 30- day headstart/buffer between now and the need for a solution.

It also gives breathing room for my wife to contend with immediate issues if something catastrophic happened to me.

If one were looking solely at the mathematics of that equation, it may not add up. I've learned, for us, finances involve habits, stress, and life play which additional parts to finances, in addition to the math.

That's a good way to put it. Sometimes financial decisions do not make sense mathematically.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

 

[Marble]

I spent 25 years as a State Trooper.

Same here.

But it isn't the career that makes you successful. It was all of your choices during it.. I know you have seen other guys making the same money you did that were absolute train wrecks.

Well done my friend..

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

 

[HoneyDew]

This may run against the grain of what you’ll hear most say here. But budgets don’t work. They may work for some but as a whole they don’t work. Budgets are reactionary/limiting and not proactive. Dave Ramsey is thrown around a lot but honestly his approach is better for correcting bad habits rather than building good ones.

Automate your finances. Humans are not disciplined, take the manual part out and automate it so you don’t have to spend energy sticking to your own rules. Electronic banking is good enough where you can automate transfers to different accounts or sub accounts.

• 50-60% Fixed costs (rent, utilities, mortgage, groceries, insurance, debt payments, clothes, vehicle gas/maintenance, truly REQUIRED items)
• 15% Investments (get 401k employer match, then max out ROTH/traditional IRA, then back to 401k)
• 5-10% Savings (short/long term goals, wedding, house, home repair/improvements, vacation, kids camp, emergency fund)
• 20-35% Everything else (eating out, fun clothes, hunting, hobbies, luxury groceries, movies, luxury vehicles, kids fun, travel, whatever else you want)

Your housing should not cost more than 28% of your gross income. Couple this with a 6-12 month emergency cash fund equal to your fixed costs for that length. If you follow these guidelines you can both live your life and weather the tough times when needed. I was out of work for nearly a year. Had 12 month emergency fund so didn’t sweat it one bit. We did trim the everything else category so we could have gone 18 without really starting to hurt.

General motto. Spend aggressively on the things you love but cut mercilessly on the things that you don’t. Context I’m 34, married, rent my house, debt free, graduated with $150K student debt, my portfolio will be $1mill+ by the time I’m 45.

Happy to discuss with anyone that wants to. Rant over.

 

[Fullfan]

Same here.

But it isn't the career that makes you successful. It was all of your choices during it.. I know you have seen other guys making the same money you did that were absolute train wrecks.

Well done my friend..

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

Brother, very accurate statement . Guys I worked w have nothing to show for 25 years.

I also have to give credit to my wife. She worked her rear end off to get to where she is. National level gymnastic judge, and owns her own Gymnastics gym. 500 students a month bouncing around from 25.00 to 300.00 each a month helps.

 

[Fullfan]

Nice, sounds like you did it right, currently 5 years deep as a fireman post military… definitely not banking on a pension but it’s a good pension and I enjoy my career even with weird hours

If you do something you enjoy, you will never work a day in your life.

Our pension is outstanding. 75% or your highest paid year. Year prior to my retirement, I worked every additional shift, every minute of OT. And it paid off with a 6 figure pension for the rest of my life.

Stay safe