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Re: Today I have...

kmanmx said:
I wouldn't say it's easy to manage. It's very hard to predict how much money you are going to need for a given time. Bills can be higher than expected, your car insurance may go up or down, electricity/gas prices might hike up 15% etc.

For me it's more a case of, spend my money on stuff I need/want, then get a call from my friend saying they are going into town on Friday to celebrate a friends birthday.. well that can easily cost £50/60/70 - unless I want to become very unpopular and say no.

What about if your car breaks down, that could cost hundreds. Maybe you will get locked out of your house one day and have too call a locksmith, that is going to cost hundreds again (they charge a fortune).

Saying "Don't spend more than you earn" is a very obvious statement to make, but it is noway near that easy to live up too unless you earn a lot or have nothing else to think about. I do try to live by that saying myself, I set myself a weekly budget. I allow myself to go over it if I need an expensive item, but then I don't spend anything for the next few weeks to make up for it. But in normal cases I budget to a strict £52/week and thats that.
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I have done it since the time I moved out of my own house (4 years and counting) and even though I have been homeless, made my own home, all the way up to 5 bedroom house I still have had enough money to at least get by. Everything you have said basically just screams I don't want to grow up yet. Lock myself out? I can get into my house without a key. Car breaks down? I can fix it myself saving tons of labor money. If I can't afford to go out with friends, I don't. If they can't understand that you have important things to take care of then they aren't good friends are they? I have been poor the past 3 years and my friends understand that sometimes I can go out or other times we just chill here and still have fun. When I was younger I made the choice not to go to school which even though many opposed it turned out for the better. I don't have any debt from going to school to worry about. I can manage my money to where I can live by myself with a minimum wage job and still have enough to have fun. It's all in your priorities. My priority is to make all my bills as low as possible even if it means spending a bit of money to do so (drywall and insulate all windows to save on energy for example). Once those bills are done I think to myself, do we have enough for gas, storage, insurance, ect? Finally when that is done we take food in to account and then see what we have left over. I think we have pretty nice things considering and still have tons of fun with our friends. Oh, and we have a kid to think of too.
 
Re: Today I have...

Thats fair enough, but there is always something you can not account for man. I'm pretty sure at some point in your life you will think you are doing fine with money, and then something will hit you which will put you in debt. Whether that is $200 in debt or $10000.

I don't mean to pry, but I can't help but ask if you really are on minimum wage how the heck do you afford all your stuff ? You got yourself a nice phone, nice laptop, nice PC, undoubtedly other stuff.. thats pretty good going.
 
Re: Today I have...

PP, I admire you. I grew up in a poor as hell home, and the only way I got to go to school was a big scholarship to get me started. I'm still paying off the rest of it..
 
Re: Today I have...

kmanmx said:
Thats fair enough, but there is always something you can not account for man. I'm pretty sure at some point in your life you will think you are doing fine with money, and then something will hit you which will put you in debt. Whether that is $200 in debt or $10000.

I don't mean to pry, but I can't help but ask if you really are on minimum wage how the heck do you afford all your stuff ? You got yourself a nice phone, nice laptop, nice PC, undoubtedly other stuff.. thats pretty good going.
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I try to look forward all the time to try and make sure unexpected debt doesn't happen. But you are completely right, unexpected things happened which forced us to be homeless for a few months. Her family was so adamant about us getting an apartment and getting out of the box I built and so when she got a job to go with mine I decided sure, lets find one in the city close to both work places. The same day we were moving in her own family (her aunt owns a daycare she was working at) fired her and so from the get go we were screwed and couldn't afford it. We had already signed contracts so the lease was set for 6 months. Over 6 months later we were finally living in a house again.

I had a pretty awesome PC before we got together 3 years ago. I was working slightly above minimum wage over 40 hours a week and had a review position which scored extra hardware. While living in our box I took the opportunity to spend some extra cash to get better stuff which landed me the i5 rig I used for so long. When we got together I had tri-SLI 280s backed by a 955BE. My laptop I also got before we got together and moved in together. I gave 200 cash, 2 4850s, and an Asus 790FX board for it. My phone I paid 10 bucks for and I have the lowest minutes and data to minimize on the bill. This current PC (2500k setup) was paid for by tax return. I found it on Craigslist (everything I got) for 675 so couldn't pass it up. This was after we paid 3 months in advanced for bills. A large chunk went to getting all of our vehicles straight which is why my Mustang went from parked to driving regular in a matter of a few weeks. As for jobs, neither of us have one hence the not spending to much and paying bills in advance. The DirecTV job ate us in gas and I went over a month without pay and just couldn't do it anymore. We are both actively looking for job. Where we currently live, we could easily live on part time jobs as our bills monthly are less than a grand (that includes utilities).

tj_extreme said:
PP, I admire you. I grew up in a poor as hell home, and the only way I got to go to school was a big scholarship to get me started. I'm still paying off the rest of it..
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I was born in a ghetto 1 bedroom house, my parents lost that and my earliest memory is very young living in a tent in my god parents back yard. We then went from that to a cab-over camper, then to an RV, then to a 4 bedroom mobile home. I feel quite fortunate growing up my parents always kept me up to date in technology and didn't simply said "we can't afford it". Fortunately, I learned from their mistakes so I am all over our money constantly. Another thing with me is, I hate bills. If something isn't important like electric and it requires a bill, I wont do it. That's why all of our vehicles are paid for and I'd rather get something off Craigslist then go to a dealership. The next bill I'm willing to deal with is an actual house. We are wanting to move in to a brick house closer to the city so we can get better internet.
 
Re: Today I have...

Nice story. That sounds really sarcastic, but it's not.

About internet, I wan't to do the exact same thing. But alas, I live at home, and my parents are doing the opposite and moving further away from the city. Plan for the future is get a full time job, and move into a city flat with 100mb internet.
 
Re: Today I have...

First attempt at installing the new cable modem = fail. Could not get a signal through it.

I will be trying again after some much needed sleep...
 
Re: Today I have...

PP Mguire said:
Money is so easy to manage, I don't see how people get into obvious debt so easily (by obvious, I'm excluding student loans ect). Simple fact, don't spend more than you make.
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I manage to do quite well I make less then a grand/mo yet I'm able to eat out a lot and get new stuff a lot. helps that i dont have car payments. I paid it off.
 
Re: Today I have...

kmanmx said:
Odd. Would of thought its almost plug and play ?
Click to expand...

Me, too, but Charter has a way of making things more complex than they need to be.

EDIT: Got it. It was definitely lack of sleep getting in the way. Now to return the leased modem and get to stop paying an extra $7 a month.
 
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