@WinchesterGirl@PerraSucia my thing with DR is that while his plan most likely works great for those who follow it 100%, I disagree that it is the only way. For example, we have student loans but they are very manageable, so we prefer to just make payments on them while also chucking a fair bit into retirement, since we're behind there. I think the most important thing is finding a plan you can stick to, and if that's TMM, great! If that's something else, also great. I'm with him, however, on the importance of a written budget.
He is an ass, though! I hate when he goes on political rants. Lots of gross generalizations about the political category I happen to fall into.
We've been working through the Dave Ramsey plan. We refinanced our house from a 30 to a 15 and that was one of the best decisions we've ever made. We originally bought in 2008 and refinanced in 2013. It basically amounted to us renting the house for that period of time because there was so little movement in the principal balance. Since we refinanced (and paid off our debt) we've made $30k of progress on the principal balance. About half of that has been from throwing year-end bonuses at it, but without having everything else paid off we wouldn't have been able to do that. We also saved up cash and replaced my car with something a little bigger that our family fit into better.
We're still working on getting up to putting 15% into retirement, so we are behind there, but we actually have a plan that we're working through to get it there.
His plan is definitely not the only one that works and he has said that before. We were making progress before we started on his plan and our debt (2 car loans) definitely fell into the manageable category, but when we started thinking about how much wiggle room we would have if we didn't owe on them and the peace of mind that we would get from that it was a no brainer for us. If you're happy with your financial plan and the progress you're making there's no reason to switch things up. We got to the point that we were not happy with our progress so we tried his plan.
On the budgets: I started with excel with my first job when I was 16 because it was the only way I could think of that I could make certain I would have enough to pay my car insurance, gas, etc. I always marveled at the people that could just track it in their heads. I kept up with the spreadsheets until we had DD then it was just too much. I tried Mint, but it felt more like a tracking tool rather than a budgeting tool to plan with.
Eventually I found YNAB (you need a budget) and it's worked really well for us especially since they've moved to a cloud based platform. As your cash comes in you allocate it into the different categories (gas, daycare, fun money, etc) and as you spend money you can enter transactions in the app and pick the category it should come out of so that you both have a real time ability to see how much you have left in any given category. I typically import the transactions from our bank daily instead of entering them as we go.
I tried DR's tool EveryDollar, but I didn't love it. The categories didn't seem to carry over from month to month very well especially if I had started September's budget and realized I needed to adjust August. The change I made to August wouldn't carry through if I had started September's budget. There were some other things I didn't really like about it, but I don't recall what they were. Overall YNAB just worked better for the way my mind works so we went back to it after trying EveryDollar.
Sadly, daycare takes up so much of our budget that we don't have extra funds to pay debts down faster or put much towards retirement. We will be working until
ugh you guys are so grown up. I have no sense of budgeting. I happened to have a good job, no debt, and no family for so long that all I had was myself to worry about. And I really thought it would be like that forever! I wish I had had a crystal ball. Now within the last 10 months I have a husband (who is no help with this), bought a house (AND gutting it), and a baby on the way. I'm in over my head. Any tips on an a good plan to start with?Small steps?
Guys, I have a great Hubs. really. but when I realized this morning (as I was running late for work) that he had put every single pair of pants that fits me in the washer last night and didn't switch them to the dryer, I considered murder.
@Eveinshock - I'm in the same position these days. We don't budget; we just kind of know we're living well within our means. When I was younger, the first step I took was just tracking everything for a couple months to see where everything went. Then, I had a good picture of where I could (and wanted to) cut.
I think the Mint website/app is helpful for bucketing everything. Plus, it's free and hooks up to most banks/credit card companies.
I might have to hit some of you up with some help with budgeting. There seems to be quite a few people on here who have a really good handle on managing finances.
The UO thread got me thinking about cars too. We have a 2000 Honda Accord. Anyone think we'll have a tough time fitting three across? DS is in a backless booster and DD is in a regular forward facing car seat, but should be able to switch to a booster by the time the baby is born. I think they might be squeezed in tight back there, but it will be doable. Not sure. My H (along with everyone else) keeps joking about how it's probably twins but the laughter quickly stops when I remind him that will mean having to buy a bigger vehicle.
H and I have very different concepts of what being financially sound means. I once read this article about why it's so common for people who grew up without money to be so shitty at money management. It was this idea that if you don't spend the money right now something will come up and take your money and you will never get to enjoy any if it. Like H always just assumes we will have money soon so it's okay to charge things instead of just waiting for the money to come. It makes me insane.
My H is like that too, @PerraSucia. He said he never imagined he'd be in a place to have a retirement account or savings, so it seemed like too big a task to bother with at first. He's working in on it, though.
I would love to call myself good at handling our finances, but I know there is still plenty of room for improvement. We have worked hard to pay off debts like car and student loans, but each month we sometimes look and wonder where all the money is actually going. Just last week we made a list of every monthly expense we have. Very simple step, but it really helped to see where the money was going (like little side spending that can really add up) and what changes we should be making as we prepare for the added costs of daycare & baby necessities. I am hoping we can set some specific goals and saving habits now so it is not overwhelming once baby is here.
Going off the financial talk, I know there's a few who have rental properties. Pros, cons?
The housing market were in is not good but we are hoping to move in the next year or two. I was trying to decide if we should try to rent it instead of sell.
DH is much more of a now person when it comes to money and I probably lean too far towards the future so while it makes for some frustrations it helps keep us balanced between the two extremes.
@Jab3 I highly recommend the FB group Carseats for the Little. There are several certified technicians in the group and a large group of members so it's a really good resource for finding what seats work well for your vehicle.
@Eveinshock I started by listing out everything I would need money for during the month, how much I needed, and when I needed it by. So it would be like Groceries $100 weekly, Electricity $180 monthly, etc. Then I looked at how much I usually brought home per pay period and figured out how much I needed from each paycheck to cover everything, so with the 2 items above assuming a bi-weekly paycheck, from each check I would need to set aside $200 for groceries and $90 for electricity.
Wow, there are a LOT of budget related responses, so in general I'll just say a couple things (if it's useful to you, great! Ignore whatever doesn't fit you - finance is personal!).
If you feel lost, my #1 piece of advice is actually not to just jump on any plan. Plans don't help if you don't have a reason for doing it. So first thing's first, as @lfrank12 said, getting all your financial numbers in one place is a great first step. Then you can figure out your "why" to improve your financial picture.
This can be simple: 1. What do I have to pay to keep my house and family running every month? (Monthly bills, debt minimums, food, etc) 2. What do I have to pay less often to keep my house and family running? (Tag renewals, accountant fees, whatever) 3. If I have debt; who do I owe, and how much in total? 4. If I have savings; how much do I have, and where is it?
If you can answer these questions, you'll have a great picture of where you are today. That is so important!
Now you can decide where you want to improve. Do you want to save some money to cover a maternity leave shortfall? Do you want to pay off a debt? Whatever is your goal, you can attack.
Now I will stop, because I could talk about personal finance until everyone in the room falls asleep in their chairs.
All I knows is I ain't ever leaving my kids with my ILs. I've seen how my MIL interacts with my SIL's kids and I am not having any of that. She's so backwards and talks so rudely to them. One time I told her that it's rude and that's why the kids don't like being around her. She got so mad at me and didn't talk to me for days....not that I minded at all.
I'm afraid my Mammaw is going to brainwash/indoctrinate my kid whenever I leave it alone with her. Her political views are RADICAL and insane and the complete opposite of how we feel, she says some pretty racist things sometimes, and is super religious. We are not religious at all. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to navigate those waters
@homemake If you just want to rent one house until you're able to sell it, that is pretty common these days and most get a real estate agent to be their property manager in those cases.
If you want to get into rentals as an investment class, there is some excellent reading on affordanything.com. She has numerous posts explaining how to evaluate a rental before purchase, ROI, Cap Rate, all the good rental math.
Pros: -You don't necessarily have to take a loss to get out of your property -You may be in a situation to earn a little extra income from the property -Owning properties gives you options if you buy well -Real Estate can be a great investment for someone who likes hands-on, home-related work and/or working directly with people.
Cons: -You may lose money month to month on a rental -Tenants WILL be a hassle at some point. It will cost money to pass that hassle along to a property manager, or it will cost time for you to deal with it. -There are a lot of legal requirements these days around rentals, and it varies state to state. You will need to do research to know how to correctly do things by the book for your area.
@scifichick09 and @AfKash This is a huge concern of mine. My folks left me with an aunt of mine who did some SERIOUS but very subtle damage, so I am leery about overnights away; my husband doesn't have that problem, so we are going to have to figure out something we're both comfortable with. The neurotic part of me would want to do some sort of intensive vetting and interview process to weed out people with messed up stuff they could pass on to children, and you just can't do that with relatives.
@poetryandoceans I totally understand what you mean. Without going into further detail, I already know I'm not leaving my kids anywhere overnight. And during the day, the only person I really trust is my eldest sister (and of course my husband).
Edit: But this is wishful thinking. I'm sure there will be times when I have no choice but to have somebody else take care of them. Like, when I'm in labor with subsequent babies. Can't control life.
@WinchesterGirl I post a lot on the Money Matters board on TN. You might really like it! It's not as active as here but it does move along, and there are lots of both DR fans and people taking other approaches.
@WinchesterGirl I got it on Etsy. The shop was awesome. And I love sassy bump shirts. I also want to get one talking about buddha bellies, but making it clear that unless their wish is to get smacked, rubbing my belly will not make it come true...
I just tried out a new YouTube prenatal workout... About 30 seconds in I realized the girl had a ball under her shirt and was not actually pregnant. It was really off putting to look at but I guess I understood her trying to relate to her audience.
About 10 min in I realized she was annoying as heck and had to turn it off.
Back to budgets. For those of you with access to USAA, their website allows your to link external bank accounts and they break down what you are spending your money on for the month. It's very helpful when trying to figure out the kinds of things that you can cut out/down on.
@silvercamaro77, that sounds exactly like what I need! Sadly, I'm not on FB though. Do you know of anything similar that's not on FB because I would love to check it out. Or maybe it's just time to make an FB account lol
I get really uncomfortable at any mention of a budget. I immediately think of it as a being put on a monetary restriction and it freaks me out. I grew up having to fm go without a lot of things that I saw my friends getting to have/ do and I know that impacted the way I view money now. This is why H handles the majority of the finances.
Re: Weekly Randoms (8/22)
@WinchesterGirl @PerraSucia my thing with DR is that while his plan most likely works great for those who follow it 100%, I disagree that it is the only way. For example, we have student loans but they are very manageable, so we prefer to just make payments on them while also chucking a fair bit into retirement, since we're behind there. I think the most important thing is finding a plan you can stick to, and if that's TMM, great! If that's something else, also great. I'm with him, however, on the importance of a written budget.
He is an ass, though! I hate when he goes on political rants. Lots of gross generalizations about the political category I happen to fall into.
We're still working on getting up to putting 15% into retirement, so we are behind there, but we actually have a plan that we're working through to get it there.
His plan is definitely not the only one that works and he has said that before. We were making progress before we started on his plan and our debt (2 car loans) definitely fell into the manageable category, but when we started thinking about how much wiggle room we would have if we didn't owe on them and the peace of mind that we would get from that it was a no brainer for us. If you're happy with your financial plan and the progress you're making there's no reason to switch things up. We got to the point that we were not happy with our progress so we tried his plan.
On the budgets: I started with excel with my first job when I was 16 because it was the only way I could think of that I could make certain I would have enough to pay my car insurance, gas, etc. I always marveled at the people that could just track it in their heads. I kept up with the spreadsheets until we had DD then it was just too much. I tried Mint, but it felt more like a tracking tool rather than a budgeting tool to plan with.
Eventually I found YNAB (you need a budget) and it's worked really well for us especially since they've moved to a cloud based platform. As your cash comes in you allocate it into the different categories (gas, daycare, fun money, etc) and as you spend money you can enter transactions in the app and pick the category it should come out of so that you both have a real time ability to see how much you have left in any given category. I typically import the transactions from our bank daily instead of entering them as we go.
I tried DR's tool EveryDollar, but I didn't love it. The categories didn't seem to carry over from month to month very well especially if I had started September's budget and realized I needed to adjust August. The change I made to August wouldn't carry through if I had started September's budget. There were some other things I didn't really like about it, but I don't recall what they were. Overall YNAB just worked better for the way my mind works so we went back to it after trying EveryDollar.
Big Bro 7/14/13
Little Bro 2/6/17
#mypantsaretight
I think the Mint website/app is helpful for bucketing everything. Plus, it's free and hooks up to most banks/credit card companies.
The UO thread got me thinking about cars too. We have a 2000 Honda Accord. Anyone think we'll have a tough time fitting three across? DS is in a backless booster and DD is in a regular forward facing car seat, but should be able to switch to a booster by the time the baby is born. I think they might be squeezed in tight back there, but it will be doable. Not sure. My H (along with everyone else) keeps joking about how it's probably twins but the laughter quickly stops when I remind him that will mean having to buy a bigger vehicle.
The housing market were in is not good but we are hoping to move in the next year or two. I was trying to decide if we should try to rent it instead of sell.
@Jab3 I highly recommend the FB group Carseats for the Little. There are several certified technicians in the group and a large group of members so it's a really good resource for finding what seats work well for your vehicle.
@Eveinshock I started by listing out everything I would need money for during the month, how much I needed, and when I needed it by. So it would be like Groceries $100 weekly, Electricity $180 monthly, etc. Then I looked at how much I usually brought home per pay period and figured out how much I needed from each paycheck to cover everything, so with the 2 items above assuming a bi-weekly paycheck, from each check I would need to set aside $200 for groceries and $90 for electricity.
If you feel lost, my #1 piece of advice is actually not to just jump on any plan. Plans don't help if you don't have a reason for doing it. So first thing's first, as @lfrank12 said, getting all your financial numbers in one place is a great first step. Then you can figure out your "why" to improve your financial picture.
This can be simple:
1. What do I have to pay to keep my house and family running every month? (Monthly bills, debt minimums, food, etc)
2. What do I have to pay less often to keep my house and family running? (Tag renewals, accountant fees, whatever)
3. If I have debt; who do I owe, and how much in total?
4. If I have savings; how much do I have, and where is it?
If you can answer these questions, you'll have a great picture of where you are today. That is so important!
Now you can decide where you want to improve. Do you want to save some money to cover a maternity leave shortfall? Do you want to pay off a debt? Whatever is your goal, you can attack.
Now I will stop, because I could talk about personal finance until everyone in the room falls asleep in their chairs.
If anyone wants to talk more, feel free to PM me!
ME: 25, DH: 27
TTC #1 since 09/2015
Miscarriage @ 10 wks 02/28/2016
BFP 05/28/2016!
If you want to get into rentals as an investment class, there is some excellent reading on affordanything.com. She has numerous posts explaining how to evaluate a rental before purchase, ROI, Cap Rate, all the good rental math.
Pros:
-You don't necessarily have to take a loss to get out of your property
-You may be in a situation to earn a little extra income from the property
-Owning properties gives you options if you buy well
-Real Estate can be a great investment for someone who likes hands-on, home-related work and/or working directly with people.
Cons:
-You may lose money month to month on a rental
-Tenants WILL be a hassle at some point. It will cost money to pass that hassle along to a property manager, or it will cost time for you to deal with it.
-There are a lot of legal requirements these days around rentals, and it varies state to state. You will need to do research to know how to correctly do things by the book for your area.
Edit: But this is wishful thinking. I'm sure there will be times when I have no choice but to have somebody else take care of them. Like, when I'm in labor with subsequent babies. Can't control life.
I am about to visit my in-laws for the weekend (aka the only people who have tried to touch the bump. The timing is excellent).
PS the angle does not show the bump very well, but I wanted the graphic to be really clear. I promise I am not making up the baby.
Finance nerds, Unite!
ETA: @poetryandoceans I love that shirt! I'm team no bump yet still, so no worries on that front.
About 10 min in I realized she was annoying as heck and had to turn it off.
I get really uncomfortable at any mention of a budget. I immediately think of it as a being put on a monetary restriction and it freaks me out.
I grew up having to fm go without a lot of things that I saw my friends getting to have/ do and I know that impacted the way I view money now.
This is why H handles the majority of the finances.