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Money = :(
RainZ
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys,
I have recently come to realise i am just terrible with my money...And it's doing me no good at all being this way..
It seems that i am constantly overspending, or spending money when i know it will bite me in the ass later..
Part of this, my friends tell me, is i never want to let anyone down by NOT doing something, mainly my girlfriend I guess, but friends as well.
If someone has plans to go out on the weekend then I feel I have to make it... I almost feel like a failure if i can't do nice things with/for my gf... It's so bad that i end up putting off bills, rent and food even sometimes just to do things with people...I guess i need help..
I just don't know how to tell my gf or my friends that i just need to sort my money/self out for a few weeks and have some time off from partying/gigs or whatever... It is seriously hard for me when i have all these people expecting me to be out and whatever..
How the hell do i just...come back to reality for a few weeks or whatever and sort out my money and a budget, so that i have set "play" money each week...
I'm 24 btw..and well aware i should be more responsible with my money than i have been...
Any advice at all would be good...
I have recently come to realise i am just terrible with my money...And it's doing me no good at all being this way..
It seems that i am constantly overspending, or spending money when i know it will bite me in the ass later..
Part of this, my friends tell me, is i never want to let anyone down by NOT doing something, mainly my girlfriend I guess, but friends as well.
If someone has plans to go out on the weekend then I feel I have to make it... I almost feel like a failure if i can't do nice things with/for my gf... It's so bad that i end up putting off bills, rent and food even sometimes just to do things with people...I guess i need help..
I just don't know how to tell my gf or my friends that i just need to sort my money/self out for a few weeks and have some time off from partying/gigs or whatever... It is seriously hard for me when i have all these people expecting me to be out and whatever..
How the hell do i just...come back to reality for a few weeks or whatever and sort out my money and a budget, so that i have set "play" money each week...
I'm 24 btw..and well aware i should be more responsible with my money than i have been...
Any advice at all would be good...
RainZ on
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Posts
very quickly.
Wow. Bad advice and your title is obnoxious.
RainZ: I don't really know a surefire thing that will fix it.
Here's what worked for me:
-identify your required expenses, i.e. bills, food only REQUIRED items.
-Subtract this from your monthly salary
-place 3/4 of the remainder in a savings account the day you are paid.
-use the rest of the money for anything outside of the requirements
I had to physically seperate the money, and sometimes break off my access to it, before I got out of the habit of spending every penny.
Again, this worked for me. Best of luck.
Include "bills, girlfriend, play" etc. Make sure you're SAVING your money too-- yeah your girlfriend might be around now, but seriously, think about starting up that RothIRA.
I have a budget for while I'm at school and if it's concert tickets, spur of the moment things, I can only do one a month, once it's used--it's used.
Try not to let your girlfriend push you around to buy her stuff, seriously, you're spoiling her. You can also show you how much you appreciate/love her with little things (everyone loves origami cranes with cute notes in them? and one time I got a jar that was labelled "50 things I love about you" as an anniversary present...)
Also, if you're finding that you're having a really hard time saving your cash--stick it into a CD (cash on deposit) every tuesday new percentages are usually updated-- I was lucky and a little while ago got one for 5.25 percent return after three months.
What a CD essentially is is like a bank--they take your money for a set period of time (3,6,9 months, a year etc) and they give you your money back + Interest ...there's usually a minimum amount to put down (200 bucks I think). Anyways, you can't touch that money at all without being SEVERLY penalized, which basically means they take about 10 percent of your money. Anyways, if you leave it in the CD, then it'll be there, safe, where you can't spend it, and you're making some extra cash.
Here are my tips for saving money:
-Calculate exactly how much money you take in
-Itemize your bills (rent, overestimate for food, electricity, etc) and calculate the total. For good measure add on a buffer of 10%
-Take some percentage of what's left over and put it in some kind of savings
-Use the remainder as fun money
If you run out of fun money: that's it. Learn to say no to your friends/girlfriend. It's kind of lame, but remind people that you're broke if you've gone through your month's spending money. Saving money is all about discipline.
Edit: something I did for a school year that made me really anal about how I spent my money:
I made an expense sheet in excel where I would put the amount, category, and description of how much money I spent. Needless to say I soon discovered that the little things add up really quickly.
Secondly if you are worried about overspending, create another "Fun" account, this account is for you to go out and spend money on your missus or hangout with your mates, your job is to have fun with this money.
With your current account grab your card grab a two liter ice cream container and fill it with water throw your current card in there and stick it all in the freezer.
Divide money as everyone has suggested. Now when you need to access your real money you're going to have to think for a couple of hours whether or not you really want that money cause it takes that long to get at it it pretty much cancels all impulse purchases.
And yes, freezing a debit or credit card wont fuck it up (though I'm not sure about these new fangled ones with those strange chip thingies on them).
Satans..... hints.....
There's another less severe option similar to this. I have a savings account that will ONLY allow me to make a withdrawl ONCE PER MONTH. Whether I take out $5 or $500. I can only do it one time. It's through Bank of America, if that helps. The only discipline you'll need for this is making sure you are actually putting money into it. I have a trick for this that I try to do as often as possible: the day before your payday, check the balance of your checking account... and send it all to savings. You get paid the next day anyway, right? So just zero your account and send it all to savings. This only works easily if your account doesn't require a minimum balance, or if you don't have automatic drafts set up from it. It can still be done in those cases, you just have to be more careful that you don't screw something up. Additionally, Bank of America has this program called "keep the change" that I've found very helpful! It rounds up each of my debit card purchases to the next dollar and puts the difference into my saving account at the end of each bussiness day. You barely realize it's gone... plus you can only access it very infrequetly, and it earns interest sitting there in savings! I find this helpful because I NEVER carry cash (makes me feel unsafe and like I'm just asking to be jumped... a girl can never be too careful these days), so I use my debit card for EVERYTHING.
Hope those ideas help!
Do your friends ever suggest doing something that isn't expensive? If it never occurs to them to hang out and play videogames or something, maybe you could be the one to suggest it.
And if they do wanna go out, get drunk, and shoot pool or something, maybe you could offer to be the designated driver. Now you're not spending a bunch of money on drinks, and you don't look uncool.
You don't necessarily have to say, "hey, I can't spend any money right now." If they really do want to drag you somewhere that you know will be expensive, you could just say you've got some things to do. Maybe see if they wanna hang out afterwards, or later on.
Doing nice things, things that say "I love you," or "I'm thinking about you," doesn't necessarily cost a bunch of money. If you tried to impress her by spending a lot of money when this relationship first started, you may have set yourself up for an awkward moment. But if she's not asking you to spend money all the time, then that's probably not what got her interested in you, so slowing down the spending while stepping up the little, romantic gestures shouldn't be a problem.
On the subject of budgeting, a few things helped me. One is, I try to have a hobby or an interest that distracts me from running around spending money all the time. It's when I get bored that my wallet starts to get light. Second, I drew up a budget, as others have suggested, with all my "must-pay" expenses and liabilities on it, then factored in an entertainment/fun budget, and some savings taken from each paycheck.
My food budget and entertainment budget carry over if there's some unused, so if I skip eating out for a while, and there aren't any good movies playing for a few weeks, then I end up with a nice little wad of cash in no time.
A great and easy way to do this is to open up a savings and a checking account, you will now have two cards a debit and a atm, have the debit card linked to the saving account so you can deposit and withdraw using the debit card, cut up the ATM card. Now, when you go to a restaurant or anywhere really, use your debit card, now make sure that you only put 25% of your income in to the debit account and the rest in to the savings, you won't be able to access your savings account unless you go to an ATM or to the bank and this will automatically hinder you from spending any money in your savings account.
"CD" stands for "Certificate of Deposit." And when MF says 5.25% return after 3 months, she's talking about an annual return, not a 3-month return (and if she is talking about a 3-month return, I need to know the name of her bank now). Otherwise, she's right that it's a good way to save money.
You can also save money just by, like, staying in and drinking instead of going out and drinking (splitting a couple of handles of alcohol is way cheaper than a night at the bar).
I've found that having a debit card is one of the worst things for my spending habits. I never see the money, nor do keep very good track of how much I have left. Cash is nice because once you're out, you're out. And having to physically write out a check sometimes stops me from doing stuff I shouldn't with my money.
If you are going to invest, talk to a professional first, though. Make sure you're setting up the right kind of account, the right kind of portfolio. And if you're not a homeowner right now, then your investment goal right now isn't retirement, it's the purchase of your home. Once you're building equity in a house, you're on track.
But it's a bit soon to be talking about that. Get used to budgeting first.
LOL I can't believe I did COD rather than CD. (sorry, I'm dumb)
+I was really lucky and got it when interest rates were flopped (I got one for 3 months and one for a year that were nearly the same percentage)--I went through Charles Schwab, and it was some foreign bank that it was in.
Amethyst's idea is really good--especially that entire Bank of America "keep the change" policy but the other posters are right about the debit card, you're not going to really pay attention to what you're spending. My mother told me that you can have your bank put a cap on how much you spend etc monthly. But I'm not really sure how to do that. (I just put my money in CD's for 6-12 months and then as they release, that's my spending money for the semester)
If not what you should do is open excel and take the past six months of the following
Bills you usually pay the same amount for every month, including bills like car insurance that you may not pay every month. (regular Administrative expenses)
Credit Card Bills (revolving Credit Expenses)
Pay-stubs (income)
Start with your average monthly income, subtract your regular expenses, and your credit expense minimums+20%. that is your Operational Cash flow. Now in addition you should take 15% of that for savings purposes and what is remaining after that is your free cash flow (IE Play Money)
that is how much you have to spend on groceries, gas and fun stuff.
this simple method should take care of most of your monetary needs. the 15% for savings will allow you to absorb most shock expenses (OMFG some nutter just hit my car.)
http://consumerist.com/consumer/how-to/consumerists-9+step-beginners-budget-245303.php
Trust me, it works.
Electronic composer for hire.
What you do is figure out your monthly expenses. Direct deposit that into the first account. The figure out how much you want to save every week (or two weeks or month; however often you get paid). Direct deposit that into the second account. Now, direct deposit what's left over in an account that you can use for eating out, buying video games, going to movies, etc.. If you prefer to use a debit card, make sure that it's only linked to the fun account and keep track of how much you have in there.
Then, when bills are due, assuming all three of your accounts (at least the bills and the fun money) are with the same bank, you should be able to transfer between them for free. Transfer the amount of the bill and pay it as soon as the transfer clears (or right away if you have enough in your fun account to cover it).
Alternately, my wife and I have 2 accounts set up. A Wells Fargo checking (from which we pay our bills) and an ING savings. I direct deposit $150 every week into the ING without ever seeing it. In the past we've used money in this account for down payment on a home, down payment on a car, emergency veterinarian bills, last-minute plane tickets, and finishing our basement. Everything else out of my check and the entirety of my wife's check gets put in the bills-paying checking account. Every other week, I withdraw $160 from that account. $60 fun money for me. $60 fun money for my wife. And $40 fun money that we use together (movies, etc.).
It works well, but only if you can train yourself to spend cash on yourself instead of pulling out the credit card.
Also, your friends will understand if you say "Sorry guys, I don't have any money. If you want we can hang out at my place though!" If they don't, they're being dicks. Fun isn't dependent on having money.