Comments | yosnowden: Rah for me!

yosnowden

Rah for me!

Aug 12, 2009 22:01

Occasionally my brain decides that it's time for A Project and will hijack my life to work on said project. Generally the project is something ridiculously large in scope but irrelevant to real life. Things such as NaNoWriMo or inviting 25 people over for Easter dinner when you have lousy cooking skills and a smallish kitchen. The results have ( Read more... )

Comments 4

musicpsych August 13 2009, 05:36:23 UTC

Nice job! I'm impressed. I'm trying to come up with a budget, but I don't know that I have anything that I'll use on a regular basis. Your post has me wondering if I should start tracking my cash flow, though. I'd probably be shocked at the amount that I do spend on eating out, mostly because I usually don't give myself enough time in the morning before work to make my lunch and end up having to buy it.

yosnowden August 14 2009, 04:47:43 UTC

Recording where I spend my money has made me much more aware of what I'm doing, which is nice. I haven't yet been able to come up with a realistic budget, so if you find any tricks that work in that area let me know. The best I've been able to do is try to curb the excess (like in the area of dinning out: I now try to only dine when I'm with friends, not when I'm by myself and just to lazy to put something together myself. Because I don't really like dinning out that much, so it seems silly to spend extra money on it). Not sure if it's working, but hopefully it will get me pointed in the right direction.
One of your goals was investment related, yes? Learned anything interesting there?

musicpsych August 14 2009, 23:43:49 UTC

Do you have a form to use, or are you more likely having trouble coming up with amounts for each budget item? I recently came across a form we used in my high school consumer ed class, and it seemed to be pretty good. I'd suggest that you look at the data you've gathered and put together a monthly average for each budget item. Then, make a goal for where you'd like that to be in 6 months. Figure out how much you need to change each month to reach your goal. That way it's gradual but still doable.

I haven't learned as much as I would have liked, but I still have time. :) I guess the biggest thing is just getting your money in the market at the right time. For us, since we're young, we have time on our side, so the market will probably grow more throughout our lifetimes (but don't put it all in). At this point, I really just need more personal experience in investing and the like.

ssmegss August 15 2009, 21:29:35 UTC

Rah Rah!

I tracked my spending nearly obsessively for 2008 and part of 2007. I half heartedly worked on part of 2009, and now it's August and oops I haven't for a long time. I am very impressed!

I'm curious about these expense leaks you mention... What are they? how do you find them? I applaud you for calling companies and actually getting them to do something! Amazing!

I totally agree with last comment of music psych - the important thing is to get the money in and start thinking about it. By the time we're in our 30s and 40s is the time to start worrying that we're not doing the right thing, but hopefully we'll learn it before then :)

ah dining out. It is amazingly expensive! and extremely hard to cull. The hardest part for me is the need for planning ahead when planning not to eat out. Definitely have not mastered the grocery buying for an extended period trick ( ... )