I only played it briefly, I'm more of a fan of TF2C, I chose my Venator handle by translating the huntsman to Latin in Google translate when it first came out 😅
God no. I got in so much debt with ADHD and no budget. Finding YNAB saved my ass and allowed me to buy a house right before it became impossible to do so. Now I won't pay YNABs insane prices but I still use the same methods.
But obviously I have ADHD so I've had to restart that budget many many times. I've forgotten about it multiple times over the last 13 years. But I'm finally consistent with it. I check it when I'm going to make a big purchase, I know my general what I need weekly, and I fully review it every pay day (or you know, 2 days later shhh).
every two years I try to do spending analysis and load up ynab again (the original desktop version)
it lasts shorter every time I do it, and I just revert back to "okay I make about this much, these are my bills and savings that automatically transfer/pay, so I should be able to spend around x amount" and then just keeping an eye on minimum balances. I just can't do all the work categorizing spending like I just don't really care where I'm spending money, as long as it's within reason
Basically what I do with Actual Budget lol. God I loved YNAB but I made the mistake of upgrading to NYNAB when they rolled that out. It was good for a bit but it's so very expensive now and they added this nasty social media aspect to it and it's just bloated, laggy, and expensive. I think I started with them in 2012 and I left last year.
My wife got us on YNAB, and we were able to pay off her student loans within a few years. We are only able to eat and afford clothes because of her immense efforts with YNAB.
Although, the insane prices are indeed becoming unbearable. I'm also getting more concerned about privacy and their priorities as a company. I'd love to switch to Actual Budget, but there are just a few features on which my wife completely relies which don't exist in AB.
A good budget won't tell you how not to spend your money, it should tell you how you can spend your money.
People hear the word budget and think it means tightening the belt and cutting back but that doesn't have to be the case. Your income doesn't change when you go on a budget so all you're gaining is clarity as to where your money is going.
there's no point to a budget if you minimize all costs anyways, and it means i get a surprise amount left over at the end of every month which i can do whatever i want with.
Which is usually just letting it pile up because i don't know if my welfare will be denied at some point and having that buffer means i can afford to replace things every now and then.
yes, through the magic of eliminating every expense i can.
My expenses are: Rent, electricity, internet, phone service, home insurance, bus ticket (in the winter), and food (of which i've been steadily finding cheaper and cheaper things to cook, most recently discovering that you can just fry the shit out of mixed frozen vegetables and it tastes amazing).
It's slightly terrifying to see what other people spend money on, like paying 5€ for a SINGLE CUP OF COFFEE.. Or, like, owning a car at all. Buddy maybe you could afford to heat your luxurious mansion if you weren't blowing half your fucking income on a living room with 4 wheels?
An incredible amount of people, probably most people, just seem to be fundamentally incapable of recognizing expenses as being expenses. Their brain just classes that cup of coffee as something required to live and thus the cost doesn't exist. They'll buy it every single day, even as it doubles in cost, and i'm not sure if the act of paying even consciously registers.
This is exactly why I went for an e-scooter instead of a car. It has enough range to get me anywhere around town and back, it's fast enough to safely ride on the roads, and above all else it doesn't require costly refueling, insurance, or a license. I just plug it in and it's ready to go by the next time I need to use it. It has turn signals, suspension, and a bright enough headlight/taillight to be perfectly suited for nighttime use too.
I just want to check though: Do you wear motorbike safety gear? Because you REALLY REALLY should, e-scooters are great but the one thing they are not is safe (if you go faster than a moderate run).
I wear proper safety equipment, including a helmet with a face shield as well as knee and armpads. My scooter is electronically limited in speed so I can't go any faster than a bike can. No need to worry!
I don't think I even check my account enough. My coworkers look at me in horror when I tell them that I just sort of eyeball the bank account every now and then to see that the approximate amount was put in.
...and, honestly? Fuck their thinking anyway. I know they aren't breaking out calculator, pen&paper, or even chatfuckpt to ensure the pennies are exactly matching. Knowing that I can spend $5 once a month on a game, or pay for a prescription, isn't exactly hard. I just always keep way under what any budget would tell me anyway. I don't need a budget to tell me how much to put away for retirement, that shit is going the way of the dodo here soon.
My budget has been "don't spend too much" for the last 10 years and it's worked out wonderfully. You don't need a clever laid out plan, you just need to ask yourself "how can I spend even less ?"
Cancel every subscription immediately unless you actually need it. Pirate everything. Get everything on sale or thrift it. Either buy the cheapest thing you can, or spend enough to buy the indestructible version you'll keep for 15-20 years. Fix problems immediately for cheap before they get expensive.
As a result I'm still managing to save up money while my income is under 10K a year.
I'm in the Savage camp. Get the cheapest tool first, use it until it's insufficient. By that time, you should have figured out which features you actually need, which you don't, and what a good tool looks like.
I'm not always certain which tools will get significant usage (some, yes, but not all). If I bought the "good" tool every time, I'd have thousands of dollars sunk into tools I rarely use.
If you have a determined field, yeah sure, spend the money up front. But if you're a dabbler, you spend less overall cheaping out on entry models.
I use a spreadsheet. Mainly so I can see where my money is going/how much I need to get paid to continue not being homeless.
To be very fair though this isn't a skill I learned so much as one that was forced on me by the military before they'd let me "adult". By adult I mean live on my own.
By not providing BAH/BAS (Housing allowance/Food allowance) to unmarried members of the military who wanted to move out of the barracks without proof they had had financial counseling.
You can even predict more or less how much you're going to spend by your expenses history, but configuring the formula for that on a spreadsheet, or at least figuring it out, is a major pain. But once done, helps a lot. =D
In control enough of your finances enough to know about how much you spend on food, fun, and other living expenses, as well as awareness of how much you have (or dont have) available for spur of the moment things like bar trips or whatever on a paycheckly basis.
Bonus points for saving for plans for this year, to include that concert you wanted to see. Bonus bonus points for having some sort of plan for retirement beyond social security and walmart greeter.
I have an excel sheet with basic things like my income, rent, other monthly items, and rough estimates for things like groceries or regular hobbies. Then I look at what's left over and use that as a reference point. I definitely don't keep a very strict budget, and you vould argue it doesn't fit the bill for an "official budget", but it's worked well enough for me so far
Also my banking app has some basic budgetary info, so I can look at my monthly spending and such
A pre-plan for spending, generally involving an upper limit by category, including not only existing scheduled payments, but also ad-hoc spending.
Like most plans, a budget can be as loose or a tight as you want, and you may or may not follow it, but just building it can result in a more successful approach.
I think most people use a spreadsheet, so they can include some things that are auto-calculated, but that's not a essential property.
I feel like there's a certain minimum income level/social safety net you need to have to be able to live like this. Like at some point the desire to keep having food/shelter becomes enough of a motivating factor that you have to work out what you need to do.
I'm frugal by nature. For most of my life I've always had enough savings to buy almost anything I want. Whenever I get a "bonus" from somewhere, I'm not even tempted to go on a spending spree - it doesn't enable me to buy anything I couldn't have already bought anyway. I'm way more excited about seeing the value of my investments go up than I would be about a new iPhone or whatever.
I live in an old house, wear old clothes, drive an old truck, never travel, never eat out, etc. I guess I just value different things than some other people. I'd rather be financially secure and look poor than the other way around.
I squeeze pennies so hard they need therapy and always have. I remember loaning money to my older siblings to buy game systems and fund dates.
Ever since I saw a documentary on the great depression and spoke to my grandmother about what it was like to live through it I started noticing that we as a country we're not doing so great. I've been working and saving most of my money since I was in first grade, but by middle school I just decided to abstain from almost every kind of expense I could.
I've never struggled financially but that's because I learned that you don't need to buy much stuff if you make your own, can live on less, and have a pervasive crippling anxiety about the collapse of western civilization.
So yeah I've been running on the vibe "The Great depression is coming again and there's no way I can save enough to be prepared"
This has earned me a meager modest lifestyle, but my family eats very well, has a clean home, and has plenty of modern luxuries and toys even if some of them might be a bit worn, rough around the edges, or unfashionable.
I didn't have to learn to live on lentils but I did have to give up on things my parents found very accessible like restaurants, travel, new things, packaged food, college, free time, bars, weekends, my own room, cars, movie theaters, most museums and non-critical medical care.
So yeah, I guess compared to my peers I'm crushing it because in all of my frugality I managed to avoid racking up six figures of college debt! I'll never own a house though.
that's deeply sad :( you've denied yourself so much, and you still can't even afford your own house. at that point why care? why not enjoy things like eating out, travel, or non-critical medical care?
if another great depression comes everyone will be fucked no matter their wealth. but most people will at least get to keep memories of little luxuries, whilst you already live like the world collapsed
im like him and im ok with it. Ill take a walk in nature or a little time with my wife or playing with the dog almost over anything more. A few more months of simple living is greater than a lifetime of frivolities to me.
i mean yeah of course, simple life is the best. but that guy sounds like he's watching every coin go out of his pocket with fear, and so denies himself any and all luxury. even though when a great depression vol 2 hits all his savings will be rendered worthless, so it'd be better to use them now instead of watching them turn into kindling
Yeah I have thresholds. If I have enough coming in we ease the belt a bit but we are ususally looking for things we are trying to do and that helps. We had hoped to do some renovation by now and were saving for it and that is why we are surviving right now.
I'm not keeping it all in the bank, and I wouldn't suggest you do either.
Instead I would suggest to invest in things that will become more expensive later. I know that sounds obvious but tools, equipment, canned and pantry good are not exactly flashy investments like stocks and bonds but there are ways to prepare.
...and if you rotate your back stock you'll always have something to donate to somebody who needs it more than you. If you can maintain a reserve then there's probably someone who needs it more than you do.
You don't have to spend a lot to live richly. By making all of my own food I eat a wonderful variety of a healthy things everyday. All the food is fresh prepared by me, canned by me, or bespoke junk.
Besides, within walking distance of where I live now there are acres of wild grapes and raspberries and you can eat the fish from the water. The wild turkeys out here are comically inept, I bet I could harvest more than my family would ever need with a couple of rocks a day. They are such funny little creatures and none too bright but I did see one out run/hover a mountain lion.
Yeah I'm at 5x what I started out with and I'm broke as shit, maybe I'm lying a little bit, I have savings now but for the last 2 years it hasn't grown at all. Although I now have more responsibilities that accounts for some of the increase in spending, I'm fully aware that as I made more, I normalized spending more.
Eh, I use a budget but I wouldn't call it rigid at all. I raid categories all the time when my priorities change, the difference is that I actually know what I'm giving up when I decide to splurge on something.
My budget is rigid where the expenses are rigid (mortgage, daycare, utility bills) and fluid where the expenses are fluid (eating out, date nights, video games)
Long time ago I had the benefit of spending a couple years in banking. Bankers have a very different attitude about money than most people since for a bank, money is the "product."
The most valuable thing I learned from that experience was that in order to be in control of my finances, I had to have a clear understanding of what my money is "doing." Just being able to get that insight has been enough to keep me relatively on top of my book keeping.
I used to keep my checking account balance in my head and would only see the balance on ATM receipts. Only bounced 1 check in about 6 years in my teens/early 20's. Needless to say, my wife was horrified and is the family banker.
I'm 45 and I've spent more time on my diet (in the form of sodium and calorie budget(s)) than any sort of financial budget.
That said, my vices are relatively inexpensive, my jobs have generally paid very well, and I do check my various accounts without being prompted.
I think personal budgets (including my dieting) are best thought of as attempts to solve specific problems, not some sort of mandatory / expected behavior.
If you are getting dinged with overdraft fees or CC interest etc., a budget might get you to a better place than you are on "just vibes".
Dunno official budget, but miserable school system + potential ADHD or autism + some a bit more expensive hobbies forced me to learn by myself a sufficient amount of budget contingency/management.
I only really started not living paycheck around 1 year ago, and started investing last year at 33.
I think generally being in a bad mood about the state of the world makes you not wanna care about that stuff.
But now I do, and I am doing my stuff, but I don't really have a budget, but have a spending pot for spending on whatever and I only buy necessities that are useful my life as I don't care for physical things.
I've never made a set amount of money, so I've never really budgeted. I know how much I need to survive month to month, I keep a buffer in a checking account, a large bugger in a HYSA, and then I kinda just do. I've been 1099 my entire adult life and so I've had months where I'm flush and months where I'm scraping by. I'm a little older now so it's less of her scraping by fortunately.
I frequently check my bank account and use vibes to largely take care of my finances. It isn't completely optimized or strict, but it works since my bills are predictable.
Putting longer term savings into CDs is something I've found to be helpful. I can get to the money if an emergency came up, but otherwise I treat that as my untouchable savings, so i get some artificial scarcity in the mix.
I’ve played enough video games to know that I need to take what I can when I can, and when I need to use it I most likely won’t until it’s necessary, and when all is said and done I should have enough to not need it all and there is something to give to the next person. My budget is basically an inventory of time I have already spent vs time that I want to save, so only things that are worth that conversion of time is what I will end up using my bag of coins on.
I've fallen back on putting the bills due for the next week on my calendar every payday. Just to remind myself to do that before I spend the remainder irresponsibly.
Budgets are useful tools, but they really should be temporary. If you have a major change in income or expenses, it can warrant monitoring for a while. But once you've reached a point of financial stability, you will know what you can afford already. Setting up auto pay on regular bills, putting balance alerts on your accounts, and just acting your wage makes it pretty easy.
But honestly, what you can afford is just a hard cap on what you should be spending. You should be living below your means already so you can build up investments to retire on. Then unexpected expenses are easily handled by scratching something off your emergency fund. And windfalls mean you can reach your financial independence goals that much faster. Until then, you don't have to live as if you're destitute, but just be frugal.
Seriously, the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck is horrifying. If you are one of them, you should be alarmed. Things aren't going to get cheaper, and wages are going to struggle to keep up. And at a certain point, you won't be able to work. So you have to remember that your future self is a dependent for your current self.
If you haven't planned much, here's a helpful priority pipeline for how to work towards financial security. I stole it from one of the finance subreddits. It assumes you're in the US for the tax-privileged efficiency stuff, but the gist is just keep putting your money in the most important/efficient buckets until they're full, then move on to the next.
A budget is an external framework that helps me manage my executive function. Could totally be getting the causality backwards here but all the most stable times of my life have been when I kept a budget. Without a budget I collapse and start spending money on extraneous consumer goods.
Basically my financial situation is:
Me work. Me get paid. Banana purchase. Repeat.
I too am an ape
The worst part is that I love math and numbers...just hate money and having to worry about it.
Who needs budgets when you have terrible anxiety about spending money
the only cure is buying shiny new thing™️
Better to buy second hand shiny thing to save money.
thank you Venator from the Deadlock
Is there a character called Venator in Deadlock?
I only played it briefly, I'm more of a fan of TF2C, I chose my Venator handle by translating the huntsman to Latin in Google translate when it first came out 😅
yeah he was added in the last batch of characters, fitting name for a monster hunter from the vatican
his ultimate is a holy crossbow and his '1' is a holy hand grenade
God no. I got in so much debt with ADHD and no budget. Finding YNAB saved my ass and allowed me to buy a house right before it became impossible to do so. Now I won't pay YNABs insane prices but I still use the same methods.
But obviously I have ADHD so I've had to restart that budget many many times. I've forgotten about it multiple times over the last 13 years. But I'm finally consistent with it. I check it when I'm going to make a big purchase, I know my general what I need weekly, and I fully review it every pay day (or you know, 2 days later shhh).
every two years I try to do spending analysis and load up ynab again (the original desktop version)
it lasts shorter every time I do it, and I just revert back to "okay I make about this much, these are my bills and savings that automatically transfer/pay, so I should be able to spend around x amount" and then just keeping an eye on minimum balances. I just can't do all the work categorizing spending like I just don't really care where I'm spending money, as long as it's within reason
Buckets has a similar vibe to ynab, but less demanding in that regard. You can do it if you want, but it can be a pretty basic envelope system too.
🙌 putting all my stuff into ynab4 since like 2012, i just do it once a week
Basically what I do with Actual Budget lol. God I loved YNAB but I made the mistake of upgrading to NYNAB when they rolled that out. It was good for a bit but it's so very expensive now and they added this nasty social media aspect to it and it's just bloated, laggy, and expensive. I think I started with them in 2012 and I left last year.
My wife got us on YNAB, and we were able to pay off her student loans within a few years. We are only able to eat and afford clothes because of her immense efforts with YNAB.
Although, the insane prices are indeed becoming unbearable. I'm also getting more concerned about privacy and their priorities as a company. I'd love to switch to Actual Budget, but there are just a few features on which my wife completely relies which don't exist in AB.
Ooohh which features?
I don't remember. You'll have to ask her yourself.
I have a math brain; I do not, however, have a brain that can make plans or follow them consistently
Theres loads of ways to manage your spending without a budget, more effective for most people too.
A good budget won't tell you how not to spend your money, it should tell you how you can spend your money.
People hear the word budget and think it means tightening the belt and cutting back but that doesn't have to be the case. Your income doesn't change when you go on a budget so all you're gaining is clarity as to where your money is going.
You don't need a budget, just a crippling sense of guilt about spending money on anything other than the absolute essentials...
there's no point to a budget if you minimize all costs anyways, and it means i get a surprise amount left over at the end of every month which i can do whatever i want with.
Which is usually just letting it pile up because i don't know if my welfare will be denied at some point and having that buffer means i can afford to replace things every now and then.
You have money left over at the end of the month?
yes, through the magic of eliminating every expense i can.
My expenses are: Rent, electricity, internet, phone service, home insurance, bus ticket (in the winter), and food (of which i've been steadily finding cheaper and cheaper things to cook, most recently discovering that you can just fry the shit out of mixed frozen vegetables and it tastes amazing).
It's slightly terrifying to see what other people spend money on, like paying 5€ for a SINGLE CUP OF COFFEE.. Or, like, owning a car at all. Buddy maybe you could afford to heat your luxurious mansion if you weren't blowing half your fucking income on a living room with 4 wheels?
An incredible amount of people, probably most people, just seem to be fundamentally incapable of recognizing expenses as being expenses. Their brain just classes that cup of coffee as something required to live and thus the cost doesn't exist. They'll buy it every single day, even as it doubles in cost, and i'm not sure if the act of paying even consciously registers.
This is exactly why I went for an e-scooter instead of a car. It has enough range to get me anywhere around town and back, it's fast enough to safely ride on the roads, and above all else it doesn't require costly refueling, insurance, or a license. I just plug it in and it's ready to go by the next time I need to use it. It has turn signals, suspension, and a bright enough headlight/taillight to be perfectly suited for nighttime use too.
💯
I just want to check though: Do you wear motorbike safety gear? Because you REALLY REALLY should, e-scooters are great but the one thing they are not is safe (if you go faster than a moderate run).
I wear proper safety equipment, including a helmet with a face shield as well as knee and armpads. My scooter is electronically limited in speed so I can't go any faster than a bike can. No need to worry!
I don't think I even check my account enough. My coworkers look at me in horror when I tell them that I just sort of eyeball the bank account every now and then to see that the approximate amount was put in.
...and, honestly? Fuck their thinking anyway. I know they aren't breaking out calculator, pen&paper, or even chatfuckpt to ensure the pennies are exactly matching. Knowing that I can spend $5 once a month on a game, or pay for a prescription, isn't exactly hard. I just always keep way under what any budget would tell me anyway. I don't need a budget to tell me how much to put away for retirement, that shit is going the way of the dodo here soon.
That's a good way of describing my system. I put the bills on auto pay and stop spending when it runs out.
My budget has been "don't spend too much" for the last 10 years and it's worked out wonderfully. You don't need a clever laid out plan, you just need to ask yourself "how can I spend even less ?"
Cancel every subscription immediately unless you actually need it. Pirate everything. Get everything on sale or thrift it. Either buy the cheapest thing you can, or spend enough to buy the indestructible version you'll keep for 15-20 years. Fix problems immediately for cheap before they get expensive.
As a result I'm still managing to save up money while my income is under 10K a year.
For tools you need it is so important to keep in mind that if:
you definitely need it only once - get the cheap one.
you will use it in the future - get the expensive one that laborers use.
Cheap tools are a money and a time sink
I'm in the Savage camp. Get the cheapest tool first, use it until it's insufficient. By that time, you should have figured out which features you actually need, which you don't, and what a good tool looks like.
I'm not always certain which tools will get significant usage (some, yes, but not all). If I bought the "good" tool every time, I'd have thousands of dollars sunk into tools I rarely use.
If you have a determined field, yeah sure, spend the money up front. But if you're a dabbler, you spend less overall cheaping out on entry models.
Same. My philosophy has always been to spend as little as possible and got my debts paid as soon as possible so they're not hanging over my head.
What does "official budget" mean? Serious question, what else are you supposed to do other than check your account every once in a while*?
* (and by that I mean get notifications from your bank if there's any movement)
Some people use apps or spreadsheets to have a very structured budget. I am not one of them. I have a concept of a budget.
I use a spreadsheet. Mainly so I can see where my money is going/how much I need to get paid to continue not being homeless.
To be very fair though this isn't a skill I learned so much as one that was forced on me by the military before they'd let me "adult". By adult I mean live on my own.
Very interesting, how’d they enforce that?
By not providing BAH/BAS (Housing allowance/Food allowance) to unmarried members of the military who wanted to move out of the barracks without proof they had had financial counseling.
You can even predict more or less how much you're going to spend by your expenses history, but configuring the formula for that on a spreadsheet, or at least figuring it out, is a major pain. But once done, helps a lot. =D
In control enough of your finances enough to know about how much you spend on food, fun, and other living expenses, as well as awareness of how much you have (or dont have) available for spur of the moment things like bar trips or whatever on a paycheckly basis.
Bonus points for saving for plans for this year, to include that concert you wanted to see. Bonus bonus points for having some sort of plan for retirement beyond social security and walmart greeter.
I have an excel sheet with basic things like my income, rent, other monthly items, and rough estimates for things like groceries or regular hobbies. Then I look at what's left over and use that as a reference point. I definitely don't keep a very strict budget, and you vould argue it doesn't fit the bill for an "official budget", but it's worked well enough for me so far
Also my banking app has some basic budgetary info, so I can look at my monthly spending and such
A pre-plan for spending, generally involving an upper limit by category, including not only existing scheduled payments, but also ad-hoc spending.
Like most plans, a budget can be as loose or a tight as you want, and you may or may not follow it, but just building it can result in a more successful approach.
I think most people use a spreadsheet, so they can include some things that are auto-calculated, but that's not a essential property.
I feel like there's a certain minimum income level/social safety net you need to have to be able to live like this. Like at some point the desire to keep having food/shelter becomes enough of a motivating factor that you have to work out what you need to do.
I'm frugal by nature. For most of my life I've always had enough savings to buy almost anything I want. Whenever I get a "bonus" from somewhere, I'm not even tempted to go on a spending spree - it doesn't enable me to buy anything I couldn't have already bought anyway. I'm way more excited about seeing the value of my investments go up than I would be about a new iPhone or whatever.
I live in an old house, wear old clothes, drive an old truck, never travel, never eat out, etc. I guess I just value different things than some other people. I'd rather be financially secure and look poor than the other way around.
I’m a mathematician. My math brain shuts off when the units are in currency.
Real mathematics barely deals with numbers anyway
I dont keep a budget. But my algorithm is basically dont buy anything except food.
Same. If I have to buy anything else, I check my account first. And I use cash a lot and always check my account before withdrawing.
I squeeze pennies so hard they need therapy and always have. I remember loaning money to my older siblings to buy game systems and fund dates.
Ever since I saw a documentary on the great depression and spoke to my grandmother about what it was like to live through it I started noticing that we as a country we're not doing so great. I've been working and saving most of my money since I was in first grade, but by middle school I just decided to abstain from almost every kind of expense I could.
I've never struggled financially but that's because I learned that you don't need to buy much stuff if you make your own, can live on less, and have a pervasive crippling anxiety about the collapse of western civilization.
So yeah I've been running on the vibe "The Great depression is coming again and there's no way I can save enough to be prepared"
This has earned me a meager modest lifestyle, but my family eats very well, has a clean home, and has plenty of modern luxuries and toys even if some of them might be a bit worn, rough around the edges, or unfashionable.
I didn't have to learn to live on lentils but I did have to give up on things my parents found very accessible like restaurants, travel, new things, packaged food, college, free time, bars, weekends, my own room, cars, movie theaters, most museums and non-critical medical care.
So yeah, I guess compared to my peers I'm crushing it because in all of my frugality I managed to avoid racking up six figures of college debt! I'll never own a house though.
that's deeply sad :( you've denied yourself so much, and you still can't even afford your own house. at that point why care? why not enjoy things like eating out, travel, or non-critical medical care?
if another great depression comes everyone will be fucked no matter their wealth. but most people will at least get to keep memories of little luxuries, whilst you already live like the world collapsed
im like him and im ok with it. Ill take a walk in nature or a little time with my wife or playing with the dog almost over anything more. A few more months of simple living is greater than a lifetime of frivolities to me.
i mean yeah of course, simple life is the best. but that guy sounds like he's watching every coin go out of his pocket with fear, and so denies himself any and all luxury. even though when a great depression vol 2 hits all his savings will be rendered worthless, so it'd be better to use them now instead of watching them turn into kindling
Yeah I have thresholds. If I have enough coming in we ease the belt a bit but we are ususally looking for things we are trying to do and that helps. We had hoped to do some renovation by now and were saving for it and that is why we are surviving right now.
I'm not keeping it all in the bank, and I wouldn't suggest you do either.
Instead I would suggest to invest in things that will become more expensive later. I know that sounds obvious but tools, equipment, canned and pantry good are not exactly flashy investments like stocks and bonds but there are ways to prepare.
...and if you rotate your back stock you'll always have something to donate to somebody who needs it more than you. If you can maintain a reserve then there's probably someone who needs it more than you do.
i appreciate the advice but i don't want to live like tomorrow's the apocalypse
if some form of collapse does happen i'll just raw dog it
You don't have to spend a lot to live richly. By making all of my own food I eat a wonderful variety of a healthy things everyday. All the food is fresh prepared by me, canned by me, or bespoke junk.
Besides, within walking distance of where I live now there are acres of wild grapes and raspberries and you can eat the fish from the water. The wild turkeys out here are comically inept, I bet I could harvest more than my family would ever need with a couple of rocks a day. They are such funny little creatures and none too bright but I did see one out run/hover a mountain lion.
making all my own food isn't really feasable for me with my level of executive dysfunction. even one self made meal a day is a win
im kinda like this but my retirement looks like its going to be the richest homeless man on the street.
There’s a psychological horror game I play. Occasional jumpscare, but mostly just slow building dread.
It’s called You Need a Budget 4.
(None of that modern YNAB shit, this one’s old school and out of support. I’m not paying a subscription to manage my cash.)
I never had an official budget. I knew how much I made and made sure I spent significantly less than that.
I spent late 20s and early 30s living on 25k a year. I now make 4x that, I still live like I make 25k. My budget plan is to live like I'm pore
soaking in lots of moisturising creams then i assume?
Yeah I'm at 5x what I started out with and I'm broke as shit, maybe I'm lying a little bit, I have savings now but for the last 2 years it hasn't grown at all. Although I now have more responsibilities that accounts for some of the increase in spending, I'm fully aware that as I made more, I normalized spending more.
My mother always said if you make a million dollars a day but spend a million and one you are still a pauper
I do have a math brain, which is why I can get by on vibes.
I can't imagine how people could be so precise & rigid with their own personal liquid finances. It's all about vibes for me. Always has been.
Eh, I use a budget but I wouldn't call it rigid at all. I raid categories all the time when my priorities change, the difference is that I actually know what I'm giving up when I decide to splurge on something.
My budget is rigid where the expenses are rigid (mortgage, daycare, utility bills) and fluid where the expenses are fluid (eating out, date nights, video games)
That's me. It's simple. You live a cheap life with a good career
Long time ago I had the benefit of spending a couple years in banking. Bankers have a very different attitude about money than most people since for a bank, money is the "product."
The most valuable thing I learned from that experience was that in order to be in control of my finances, I had to have a clear understanding of what my money is "doing." Just being able to get that insight has been enough to keep me relatively on top of my book keeping.
sounds like something people with leftover money do
the change is pretty stark, when you go from living paycheck to paycheck to suddenly getting a choice again.
I don't have any money but I still do it.
I pretented I just had less money than i actually had.
Studies and unemployment have coached me to use money minimally in daily life. As a result I can afford some pricy things with still modest means.
I used to keep my checking account balance in my head and would only see the balance on ATM receipts. Only bounced 1 check in about 6 years in my teens/early 20's. Needless to say, my wife was horrified and is the family banker.
Iol, is it supposed to be done in any other way than vibes?
I'm 45 and I've spent more time on my diet (in the form of sodium and calorie budget(s)) than any sort of financial budget.
That said, my vices are relatively inexpensive, my jobs have generally paid very well, and I do check my various accounts without being prompted.
I think personal budgets (including my dieting) are best thought of as attempts to solve specific problems, not some sort of mandatory / expected behavior.
If you are getting dinged with overdraft fees or CC interest etc., a budget might get you to a better place than you are on "just vibes".
Dunno official budget, but miserable school system + potential ADHD or autism + some a bit more expensive hobbies forced me to learn by myself a sufficient amount of budget contingency/management.
What do you mean "budget"?
It's like a parakeet, I think.
Ahh, makes sense. thanks.
I don't budget, would never be able.to follow it. Just good enough at being able to spend less than I make to the point I have a house.
I only really started not living paycheck around 1 year ago, and started investing last year at 33.
I think generally being in a bad mood about the state of the world makes you not wanna care about that stuff.
But now I do, and I am doing my stuff, but I don't really have a budget, but have a spending pot for spending on whatever and I only buy necessities that are useful my life as I don't care for physical things.
Better to buy experiences with money
At what age are we supposed to stop doing this?
I've never made a set amount of money, so I've never really budgeted. I know how much I need to survive month to month, I keep a buffer in a checking account, a large bugger in a HYSA, and then I kinda just do. I've been 1099 my entire adult life and so I've had months where I'm flush and months where I'm scraping by. I'm a little older now so it's less of her scraping by fortunately.
I frequently check my bank account and use vibes to largely take care of my finances. It isn't completely optimized or strict, but it works since my bills are predictable.
Putting longer term savings into CDs is something I've found to be helpful. I can get to the money if an emergency came up, but otherwise I treat that as my untouchable savings, so i get some artificial scarcity in the mix.
I’ve played enough video games to know that I need to take what I can when I can, and when I need to use it I most likely won’t until it’s necessary, and when all is said and done I should have enough to not need it all and there is something to give to the next person. My budget is basically an inventory of time I have already spent vs time that I want to save, so only things that are worth that conversion of time is what I will end up using my bag of coins on.
I have a budget. I regularly ignore it.
I've fallen back on putting the bills due for the next week on my calendar every payday. Just to remind myself to do that before I spend the remainder irresponsibly.
Budgets are useful tools, but they really should be temporary. If you have a major change in income or expenses, it can warrant monitoring for a while. But once you've reached a point of financial stability, you will know what you can afford already. Setting up auto pay on regular bills, putting balance alerts on your accounts, and just acting your wage makes it pretty easy.
But honestly, what you can afford is just a hard cap on what you should be spending. You should be living below your means already so you can build up investments to retire on. Then unexpected expenses are easily handled by scratching something off your emergency fund. And windfalls mean you can reach your financial independence goals that much faster. Until then, you don't have to live as if you're destitute, but just be frugal.
Seriously, the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck is horrifying. If you are one of them, you should be alarmed. Things aren't going to get cheaper, and wages are going to struggle to keep up. And at a certain point, you won't be able to work. So you have to remember that your future self is a dependent for your current self.
If you haven't planned much, here's a helpful priority pipeline for how to work towards financial security. I stole it from one of the finance subreddits. It assumes you're in the US for the tax-privileged efficiency stuff, but the gist is just keep putting your money in the most important/efficient buckets until they're full, then move on to the next.
Me when my wallet doesn't pass the vibe check
A budget is an external framework that helps me manage my executive function. Could totally be getting the causality backwards here but all the most stable times of my life have been when I kept a budget. Without a budget I collapse and start spending money on extraneous consumer goods.