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Sometimes people reach a certain age or start making a certain amount of money and don't think they should have to do any of the above. I don't want to turn this thread into a "when I was your age, sonny" rant, but do want to point out that my husband and I together make plenty of money and we STILL do many of the things on this list. At our ages (40's-50's) we're concentrating on retirement and saving enough money to send our daughter to college debt free. Paying our house off and paying cash for major improvements was also a priority until we accomplished that.
So here were are, making plenty of money and we still limit eating out to once or twice a week and that can be using coupons at the fast-food drive through. Neither of us buy clothes very often and my husband gets most of his shirts at the thrift store. I have a $10/month gym membership but he does not. Lunch for me today is PB&J and a bag of chips. Our vacation this summer will be a 4-day driving trip to visit some college campuses. Woohoo!
OP, if you truly want to get on good financial footing, you will. If you don't, you won't. It's really as simple as that.
You could look at this as both a blessing and a curse, but I rarely eat fast food. With the exception of Burger King, I just don't like it. About as "fast foody" as I'll get is Subway aside from a fast food biscuit once a week or so. If I get a quick lunch, it's usually at a sandwich shop. I visited the Jersey Mike's at home so often that in the two years after I moved off, the owner still remembered how I liked a sandwich topped last week.
One of the big things I like about living in Indy is that we truly have excellent grocery stores. Prices are low, selection is high, and I can find a lot of fresh foods for cheap. The pork chops I bought for $3-$4/lb the other night were from behind the butcher county and had an excellent cayenne pepper dry rub. Corn on the cob in husk was a quarter an ear - fresh beans and brussels sprouts were under a buck a pound. Eating out in Indy is much higher than in rural Indiana or where I'm from in TN, while our grocery selection is not taxed, much cheaper than TN, and the quality is much better. I really need to eat at home, not only for budget reasons, but the restaurants here are generally not as good as in the South and food is cheaper
Well, you always have the option of using prepaid debit cards and only adding money on a weekly basis, this might help you treat it more like cash (when it's gone no more spending for the week!)
I've thought about creating a separate checking account for the fixed expenses plus a "buffer" of $50 or so to account for fluctuations in the power/water bills.
The "unclaimed" money gets placed into the main account to allocate to debt reduction as appropriate.
Don't the prepaid debit cards come with a fee to put money on it?
I've thought about creating a separate checking account for the fixed expenses plus a "buffer" of $50 or so to account for fluctuations in the power/water bills.
The "unclaimed" money gets placed into the main account to allocate to debt reduction as appropriate.
I have spent $1.59 eating out since I got back in town Monday night. Other than the dumb hot dog/Coke in the Sam's line, I've not eaten out all week. I spent about $25 at the grocery store which has fed me all week, $29 at Sam's, and $24 on gas. Tomorrow's lunch is made up. I don't have to go to the grocery store tomorrow either - I have plenty of frozen hamburgers from the farmer's market and frozen veggies. I could probably go at least a week just eating out of the freezer. The weekend is supposed to be rainy so I am going to catch up on some things. I need a hair cut and an oil change/tire rotation, and will probably go to the farmer's market. I also have a bunch of video games in a backlog I can play to not spend any more money.
I need to reduce the restaurants and other frivolous expenditures for a month or two to establish a new baseline of spending. Once I establish what my situation is on a more frugal footing, what my spending is, and if I'm going in the hole or making headway, then I can figure out what is an appropriate long term decision. As I've said before, there is no quick fix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
I sorted the Discover transactions into a CSV file. Needless to say, the vast majority of the transactions are restaurants.
The grocery/Walmart style spending is lower than I anticipated. I'm probably eating out more than I think. I had enough quarters in a cup at home to get some breakfast on the way in, and found a $10 bill in my jeans. I made lunch but may go out to the deli on the $10 bill for supper. It will be my first "treat" this week and I'll probably stay home most of the day tomorrow. I've walked more this week and lost four pounds since last week.
You're not going to make any headway until you have a written budget and stop thinking you're entitled to "treats." You're a grown man in debt way over your head, not a child who gets a trip to the ice cream parlor for a good report card.
Eating out tonight will not be your first "treat" in a week because you apparently ate out last weekend and today is just now Friday. For $10 you could buy a pound each of beans and rice and some in season fruit and eat dinner for 3 days.
I'm not going to further nitpick your daily decisions. You seem to understand how you got where you are, but you don't seem to understand what you need to do to get out of it, despite the efforts of several smart, good-hearted people who have tried to give you some direction.
I have a friend back home who is a CFP and works as a broker and financial planner. I'm going to see if he'll take a look at the situation - I've known him for many years and he's been in this business since the late 70s, so I think he'll assist and offer some useful advice. Obviously some of the advice (stop the restaurants) is going to be the same, but this is from someone who knows me personally, so the advice is naturally going to be better. He's getting the list of fixed expenses as well as a reasonable guess at my spending in other categories.
He's stringing you on, he doesn't find your advice worthy. The defensive nature of every one of his posts was a red flag, this is another.
And still no budget. He wants us to help without giving necessary information. "Hey guys, I have a math problem. I can't post the problem here, but what's the solution?"
You could look at this as both a blessing and a curse, but I rarely eat fast food. With the exception of Burger King, I just don't like it. About as "fast foody" as I'll get is Subway aside from a fast food biscuit once a week or so. If I get a quick lunch, it's usually at a sandwich shop. I visited the Jersey Mike's at home so often that in the two years after I moved off, the owner still remembered how I liked a sandwich topped last week.
One of the big things I like about living in Indy is that we truly have excellent grocery stores. Prices are low, selection is high, and I can find a lot of fresh foods for cheap. The pork chops I bought for $3-$4/lb the other night were from behind the butcher county and had an excellent cayenne pepper dry rub. Corn on the cob in husk was a quarter an ear - fresh beans and brussels sprouts were under a buck a pound. Eating out in Indy is much higher than in rural Indiana or where I'm from in TN, while our grocery selection is not taxed, much cheaper than TN, and the quality is much better. I really need to eat at home, not only for budget reasons, but the restaurants here are generally not as good as in the South and food is cheaper
You are only taking your food cost issue part way. You need to be slashing your food costs to the bone. $3-$4/lb is "luxury food". You need to adjust your diet so 90% of the protein in your diet is $2.00/pound sources that you cook yourself. $4.00/lb pork chops is a once per week treat.
I was unemployed for 14 1/2 months at the onset of the Great Recession. I had a very large pile of cash in my emergency fund but I chose to do my best to try living on a $425/week unemployment check rather than blow my savings. Other than a few larger bills like property taxes, I was able to live off $425/week at a pretty high quality of life.
Examples of $2.00/pound protein sources:
Boneless chicken thighs. I saw Costco mentioned somewhere. They for-sure have it for $2.00/pound. You should be able to buy/freeze when it goes on sale at the grocery store, too. Boneless chicken breasts can often be had for $2.00/pound, too as a sale price.
Whole pork loin is always $2.00/pound or cheaper. You can slice that yourself if you want pork chops.
Some friends of mine when I was unemployed had Italian sausage burger patties at a tailgating event. I looked at the grocery store and they were $4.00/pound. I own a meat grinder and made my own for $2.00/pound. I didn't buy beef because it was too expensive compared to pork. I was happier eating my own Italian sausage ground pork loin burgers than regular hamburgers.
I did a lot of canned tuna on salads. You have to eat that sparingly because of the mercury issue but once per week is no problem. In the winter, I found an inexpensive source for romaine heart 3-packs.
Eggs are a very inexpensive protein source. I price shopped and found the store that charged $1.39/dozen instead of $2.25/dozen.
I pretty much never bought anything baked or prepared. I learned how to do it myself. Some things are trivial. Soda bread, for example. Or biscuits.
When I went through my lean time, I made a game of it. I ate really well all the time but tried to do my best to minimize what I was spending.
I love how this thread is about the structural issue around his budget and debt yet we are talking about 2 vs 4 dollar a pound on meat sources. I have NEVER seen someone go broke or end up in a significant amount of debt due to a grocery bill or eating out. Housing, Autos, vacations, Large toys and shopping is what get people in trouble.
I love how this thread is about the structural issue around his budget and debt yet we are talking about 2 vs 4 dollar a pound on meat sources. I have NEVER seen someone go broke or end up in a significant amount of debt due to a grocery bill or eating out. Housing, Autos, vacations, Large toys and shopping is what get people in trouble.
Nope. It's the whole mindset. The OP is rationalizing everything instead of working out how little he can spend. He's stuck with the car. He's stuck with that monster consolidation loan. As I've written several times in this thread, the OP needs a roommate to cut the housing cost in half and to slash everything else to the bone for probably 3 years to dig out from the debt. The food part is just one area.
Endless people land in this situation. It's pretty straightforward to dig yourself out of it but you have to stop rationalizing spending money you don't have.
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