Investing questions

Cad

I'm With HER ♀
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I guess I was reading too literally, because for a second there I thought it was strange that you both had mentally retarded brothers. I'm sitting here like, "What are the odds?"
I can't speak for Picasso's brother but mine is definitely retarded in some fashion. :p
 

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Credit score is 648 or 652, can't remember which. 60k a year on salary currently, if I'm hired on full time and not forced to transfer to Hawaii or Cali I'll be close to 80k again. I do not wish to move to either due to emissions in Cali and cost of living in both, but it would be sweet otherwise. I would also negotiate the shit out of a cost of living increase if I was forced to go to either.

I know the majority goes to my car, but it's not like I blow it all at once. I'll pace that shit out and wait til I have enough saved to buy a part, it has too much sentimental value and I've now gone too far down the rabbit hole to stop or it'll be a giant paperweight. I've become very good at stopping compulsive buying, I haven't bought two PS3 games over the course of it's lifespan and I still have refrained from buying a PS4, tablet, new laptop, etc.

I have YNAB, and used it religiously when I went from 80k/year to 41.5k/year. I fell off when I started having to do ridiculous amounts of traveling before coming back to a well paying job, I had planned on restarting it at the new year. Also, starting 2 years ago I started putting my return towards my debt instead of buying me something, the amount of stress relief I got from it alwalys felt better than actually buying something trivial.

I'll drill down deeper and start keeping up with it again at the end of the month, until then I'm just going to have to live with it. I was just mainly making sure I was not missing out on something I should be doing to help my financial situation. I'd like to go out for drinks/dinners more but I end up sitting at home because I get stressed out if I have less than 700 bucks in checking. Most stuff mentioned so far is common sense to me but I do appreciate the help and will take any other tips you guys have to offer. Once I'm full time I'll look into a Roth IRA for sure, until I know for sure what the hell is going on job wise I'm just going to do what I can on cutting back.


EDIT: On the subject of roommates, I only know one person in the area I could move in with and he's in the middle of remodeling his house so there is no extra bedroom at the moment. I'm pretty particular about whom I live with and I won't just move in with a random stranger.
 

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Yeah, I looked into switching to another insurance company but State Farm, for some unknown reason, has placed me in the highest credit rating/lowest payments group. I cant even get close to cheaper anywhere else and I don't want to fuck that up, lol.
 

Palum

what Suineg set it to
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Seems like you're on the right path if you're disciplined honestly. I don't know what your term is on your car note but if it's really a 20k car you aren't going to do much better unless you are at like 19% interest. A 3K car is not panacea, shit breaks. A lot. It's not that simple especially if it's a decent rate and 2-3 yr term.

You didn't post food and discretionary though?
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Get an 10 year old toyota corolla with no options off Ethel and see how much shit breaks.
 

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Food varies depending on work call outs, etc. That's something I'll start tracking at the beginning of the year.

I already have a 84 Corolla, I'm on my 4th engine and about 14k deep in parts (Including cost of the car itself) and 10 years into the build. It's very close to being done and I want to drive it and park the ST and leave the miles off of it and sell it in a year or two for a profit and get the fuck away from payments.
 

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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Set up my budget for the start of the new year with YNAB. I added all my current transactions and my biggest expense behind bills was going out to eat (@156.00), that shit is getting dialed back hardcore.
 

Cad

I'm With HER ♀
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Set up my budget for the start of the new year with YNAB. I added all my current transactions and my biggest expense behind bills was going out to eat (@156.00), that shit is getting dialed back hardcore.
Dude I bring my lunch every day and eat at my desk, chicken and rice and broccoli or similar. Eating out is retarded. Especially eating out every day.
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
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I've always used mint for tracking all of my budget shit. Just because I use cards for everything during the month and don't have to manually track purchases (fuck that).

I'm with Cad. I bring lunch to work and eat at my desk 95% of the time. Other 5% is getting snacks when I end up working late. But I've always been super frugal and invest most of my cash on the regular outside of a $5k emergency fund I haven't had to touch in years. I'd been considering having a bigger emergency fund but honestly my expenses are so low that I don't think it would matter.

2016 I'll be making around $1k-$3k a month depending on season extra with my side job now that I'm finally started to break even in my hobby.
 

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
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I definitely need to cut back on it, I do pretty well on everything else. Gonna start packing those lunches.