I just want to put more money away...

[bjl584]

I agree with your line of thinking that you need to save and invest more outside of your 401K. I caution people against tying all of their savings and investments in accounts that they can't access for 30 years.

[wrk4lvg]

You've gotten some great advice so far. I wanted to jump in and comment on this. If your monthly pay varies, be sure to budget based on the lowest number, not on the highest. If you budget on $2,100 or more and you only bring home $1,900, you've got a problem. If, however, you budget based on $1,900 and bring home $2,300, you're in great shape. Live as far below your means as reasonably possible. Planning everything based on a $1,900 income will go a long way toward accomplishing that.

I'd also agree that $350/month for one person for food is way too much. Plenty of people here will tell you that they feed their family of 3 for that much. I'd look to get that down to $200 or less. That would help a lot.

Rent is a big problem, too, but that is a bit harder to fix.

Somehow missed your post yesterday. I manage my budget based of 2,000. I should not have used the +/-. It does vary up, it does not vary down. Thankfully.

I will keep working on my food budget. Even if it's small increments downward, I will get it done.

Also looks like I will be picking up p/t work in under two weeks. Should net me an additional $6-800/mo. It will put me on a 7 day/wk schedule plus school, but there are people working far longer schedules than that.

[scfr]

Since others have already addressed the 401K loan, the cc debt, and the food budget ...

Cell: Could you switch to a less expensive plan?

Gas: Prices are going up. Look at ways to conserve (drive less if you can). Is public transit or carpooling an option?

Textbooks: Where are you buying them? Have you looked at buying used on half.com or Amazon or similar for less?

Coffee: Is the $30 per month your number or the other posters? That's a lot of money for coffee! Why so high for brew at home?

[wrk4lvg]

Since others have already addressed the 401K loan, the cc debt, and the food budget ...

Cell: Could you switch to a less expensive plan?

That cost is w/ my %50 off discount. I work for a large Cellular company.

Gas: Prices are going up. Look at ways to conserve (drive less if you can). Is public transit or carpooling an option?

I'm going to cut out driving home for lunch. This should actually save me at least $50/mo. When I wasn't going home for lunch and school, I was only paying $50/mo for gas.

Textbooks: Where are you buying them? Have you looked at buying used on half.com or Amazon or similar for less?

I use half.com

Coffee: Is the $30 per month your number or the other posters? That's a lot of money for coffee! Why so high for brew at home?

Well, the last time I bought coffee was on Black Friday and spent about $50. I have about another 40 cups to go before I order more.

[jpg7n16]

Coffee: Is the $30 per month your number or the other posters? That's a lot of money for coffee! Why so high for brew at home?

Let me expand on this "Coffee" expenditure. I used to drink coffee OUT everyday. Not at Starbucks, but D&D and local gas stations. So I've picked up a single serve coffee machine thinking it would save me every bit of 50% back in September. It hasn't, until recently. Now I'm looking at around 35-50 cents per cup made in house vs $1.35+ I was paying outside.

Clothing Budget is set exactly at $50/mo and coffee at $30/mo.

I figure if you're gonna have a splurge item that keeps you sane through life, $1/day for coffee is an okay splurge to have.

Before than $6/day for Starbucks. Or $50/week for shoes.


I personally don't drink coffee at all. I drink Dr Pepper though. So good!

[Slug]

Well, downloaded it. Set up allllll of my accounts. Downloaded allllll of my files and then uploaded them.

Was going through and approving transaction when the program froze. I had to shut the program down through my pc's task manager.

Fired the program back up and everything was gone. It was as if I had just installed the program.

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Encoding error on this site, having to start over on YNAB.

From the looks of it, Mint accomplishes the same thing and uses direct connect. My only problem is that it does not support direct connect for my Visa and my credit union. Never checked to see if Mint allows for upload of file. Need to check that out.

Try Yodlee.com. I prefer it to Mint anyway.

[wrk4lvg]

I figure if you're gonna have a splurge item that keeps you sane through life, $1/day for coffee is an okay splurge to have.

Before than $6/day for Starbucks. Or $50/week for shoes.


I personally don't drink coffee at all. I drink Dr Pepper though. So good!

My clothing budget has had any entries since September. I finally bought two pairs of Jeans last weekend for $44.55. I've lost 30lbs and have gone from a 38W to a 34W.

As for Soda...I had a VERY bad addiction to Coke and/or Pepsi. SEVERAL a day for years and years and years. I miss it badly, but have stayed the course. Has been roughly 1.5 years since my last. Never thought in a million years I'd be ordering water w/ lemon anytime I'm out.

For the coffee. I have an account credit with the company that I bought the machine from . 6 boxes of coffee, each containing 18 packs (1 pack = 1 8oz cup) They haven't responded, so may have to do a charge back through paypal. But I'd rather take the coffee. It's a $60+ value.

[scfr]

wrk4lvg: Great plan to cut the gas by $50 per month! That will give you $600/year for the house down payment fund (or wherever you decide to stash it).

Re the coffee, I spent $13 yesterday on a 3-lb can of coffee at Costco that will last 2 adults for several months. So, there may be a way to cut that expense back quite a bit and still enjoy your java.

(Lest anyone think I'm picking on coffee consumption or any other type of splurge that people can afford while meeting their other financial goals, I'm not. I'm just focusing on the title of the post "I just want to put more money away." To have more money to put away, there needs to be some combination of increasing income and/or cutting expenses.)

[wrk4lvg]

wrk4lvg: Great plan to cut the gas by $50 per month! That will give you $600/year for the house down payment fund (or wherever you decide to stash it).

Re the coffee, I spent $13 yesterday on a 3-lb can of coffee at Costco that will last 2 adults for several months. So, there may be a way to cut that expense back quite a bit and still enjoy your java.

(Lest anyone think I'm picking on coffee consumption or any other type of splurge that people can afford while meeting their other financial goals, I'm not. I'm just focusing on the title of the post "I just want to put more money away." To have more money to put away, there needs to be some combination of increasing income and/or cutting expenses.)

I'll cut $30-50/mo from something else before I cut the coffee out!

Picked up OT yesterday and today (may even pick up an additional 8 hours Friday). Start my PT job on Sunday.

[snafu]

What can we do to help you make up a meal plan which gives you a healthy version of the foods you like to eat and keep it all easy to buy and easy to make. Are you currently buying lunch? Would you consider taking lunch from home? The point is to reduce both your food spending and the unpronounceable chemicals you are absorbing.

[jpg7n16]

My clothing budget has had any entries since September. I finally bought two pairs of Jeans last weekend for $44.55. I've lost 30lbs and have gone from a 38W to a 34W.

Congrats!!!

I'm not sure if I'm happier about you getting your budget in line, or your diet in line.

Meh - I'm happy for you on both accounts

[wrk4lvg]

Congrats!!!

I'm not sure if I'm happier about you getting your budget in line, or your diet in line.

Meh - I'm happy for you on both accounts

Thank you! I have about another 5-10lbs I'd like to lose for my cruise in May

[wrk4lvg]

What can we do to help you make up a meal plan which gives you a healthy version of the foods you like to eat and keep it all easy to buy and easy to make. Are you currently buying lunch? Would you consider taking lunch from home? The point is to reduce both your food spending and the unpronounceable chemicals you are absorbing.

I'm pretty much open to anything. I went through a phase last year where I was making all my lunch and dinners on Sunday, for the week ahead. However, I found it to be more expensive than what I'm about to copy paste below from the "food vs retirement" thread. I think some of my problem was portion size. It was costing more because I wasn't spreading it out over a long enough period of time.

But here is my current run down of what I'm been eating M-F for the last year.

Food rivals my rent. I've struggled in this category for many years. Yes, I've been able to come down from the $600/mo I once spent. Some at work say I'm starving myself (my two supervisors really think I am...) and I feel that there is more fat (literally and metaphorically) to be trimmed.

I'm right around $340/mo for eating in and out. My M-F cost are fixed. It does not vary. I don't eat out of the snack machines.

I make my breakfast each morning at home (eggs, cereal, OJ, coffee) I get the eggs/cereal from costco in bulk. Milk comes from Kroger or walmart and coffee is made from a single serve coffee machine (about .35-.55/cup/day) We'll call it $2/day for breakfast (mostly because of the coffee)

I have a 1 gal. jug filled at publix each week @ .30/gal. I drink that during the day at work to help keep me full.

I then eat a Lean Cuisine steamer (bagged kind) that run me between 2.10-3.49/bag. When they go down to $2, I buy as many as they have of my two flavors. This is a "pre-lunch"

For lunch and dinner I pick up a 12" flatbread sub from Subway and more times than not only pay $2.73 for the entire sub and split that over two meals.

It's everything I've got to not eat even more than this. Sometimes I'll even scarf down an apple once I get home w/ peanut butter. But an attempt to cut my budget and caloric intake, I've not picked up either item recently.

So this puts me at roughly $8.5 (not exact math) per day. I honestly can't see how I can cut that down further giving the amount of times I eat each day.

That means, I'm spending most of the money these days on eating out. So I know how to better control that expense.

However, coming down from $600/mo to around my current $340 has been some feat. Taking my cardio regiment each morning, can somebody see alternative options? I've tried cooking lunch/dinner, but I couldn't eat for less than the cost of 1 bag steamer, and two 1/2 subs @ $1.37/half.

[wrk4lvg]

update: Paid the Visa off in full. Dept. Store card will be paid off this coming Sunday.

This will leave me with an outstanding debt of under $1200 which will be paid-in-full next month.

Now, won't this effectively leave me with a 0% DTI?

[wrk4lvg]

update two. I've re-opened my USAA checking/savings account. I do not and have not been assessed any fees until I switched over to my skymiles debit card. So this will effectively save me $30/yr switching to USAA debit card program of cash back as it is $0/yr.

I was hoping they would be able to best my State Farm auto/renters policy, but they were not. They were able to match it.

However, if I made some realistic changes to my policies by adjusting coverage down on a few things, raise my deduct from 0$ to $250 on another, I stand to save some money.

I can effectively cut my current rates in 1/2 by dropping comp/coll. as my car is paid off and isn't worth much to an ins company anyway. My problem with that, is, the car is worth more to me as it has proven to be invaluable in inclement weather and would like to at least get the 2k (current book value) @ $0 deduct, but at the cost of my yr policy being twice as much without the coverage all together (essentially having to come out of pocket 100% if it were totaled, etc..)

So I'm hoping to get some input from you guys here as to the right choice to make. I

It would be nice to have all things under one umbrella though.