I already did the calcs and have us putting stuff away, doesn’t change its going to take too fuccin long and we don’t have enough money. I spend about 100 on myself/fun over the course of a month (at max), everything else is going towards savings/family matters. It hurts more so because she doesn’t get money during the summer - her part time job is minimum wage and she works like 8 hours a week, breakfast money haha. I just need more money to prevent us from living outside of our means - I’m not going to let us do the stupidity because we want it.
Talk to your employer about a raise or find another job that will pay you what you need/want. If you did the numbers and you want to get more, you need to make it happen. Was in a similar situation 2 months ago and had to make moves for the “good of the family”
Generally speaking, a couple should be able to save half of their income and the other half should be set on all bills.
I just got a raise - a substantial one a month and change ago. The only other option for a raise I’m not doing for my own sanity (driving to dulles and being an estimator - including working weekends). I’ve done the stupid shit at work already.
And Amber doesn’t make enough money to do half, its unrealistic for our area and her income. She would be better off if she paid off her debt but thats a different topic - I carry no debt short of my car - she carries a significant credit card debt. I can do half towards savings, but she barely makes ends meet…and that won’t change.
Umm…you do know you need damn near perfect credit for them to give you a loan now a days right? Having “significant CC debt” isn’t going to help the cause and since your married her credit would be ran as well as yours.
She owes alot but her credit is actually better than mine. and alot is also relative. To me anything more than a stack is alot. She actually has a perfect record, she just owes more money than I’m comfortable with her owing so I’m slowly trying to get her to focus on killing it, but I can’t get traction on that during the summer when she doesn’t have income.
Whats a Perfect Record? Cause buying a house they will see every red cent you own and put it in front of you with either a deny or approve stamp above it. Also, have you looked into 100% financing?
Can’t do 100% financing and be happy with our housing choices.
And I’m well aware of the level they dig - and for all purposes Amber has a perfect record - no closed accounts, nothing delinquent, no late payments, nothing - she just has too much available credit and too much owed in credit (in my opinion and I’m not puttin that kind of business out), but niether are resonsible marks. “I” don’t - I just inished cleaning up my mess from college earlier this year, but the improvement was obvious over the past five+ years. My only credit item at this point is that I don’t have a credit card - I hem and haw on it, but I havne’t gotten it yet.
I figured I’d scoop one when I saw a decent interest rate, but the shit they are giving out these days and calling a credit card? I’d be better off borrowing money from a drug dealer. I saw one once for friggn 33-45%. Thats just crazy that they even think thats anything short of a jacking.
Doesn’t mean she has good credit though, perfect record doesn’t equal good credit score. Even if she has a balance it “hurts” her score, too little or too much credit hurts, student loans ding it as well, having your credit ran hurts it…blah blah blah
We had our ran when we got our car…my wife beat me by 15 points…our salesmen did a double take and said that “yall could of financed 2 lambos with your scores”. (He used to work for Lamborghini) We were well over 800 (student loans brought mine down)
Unfortunately, Unreallystic, saving is just a grind. My advice is to just endure your current living situation. It sounds to me like the decision to move is more emotional than anything. [S]If you and your wife have debt, that’s another sign to me that you shouldn’t be buying a home. I mean, if you can’t pay off your current debt and live comfortably (hobby wise, but also financial wise with enough money behind for emergency, kids, savings, etc), it doesn’t make sense to take on a home loan.[/S] You do not want to end up house poor with the economy as it is.
I’m living frugal as hell, but I’m satisfied with my decision because I think the economy will get worse before it gets better. Housing prices are still falling in California, not sure how it is for you. I’m happy to have enough cash behind to be ready when there is blood in the streets.
This is something I talk to people a lot about. I’m sort of living off the grid, credit wise. I actually have no concern whatsoever about what my current credit score is because I don’t need one. I was, for what I would consider a very long time, addicted to both spending and credit. It was getting into the markets that made me realize I couldn’t keep doing that and have a real future. What I have learned since then is that it’s much better to wait and have cash available to pay for things than to get them right now. If for no other reason, you find that things just cost less when you wait to get them. I also spent some time working as a credit card counselor so I learned some effective ways to budget and get out of debt.
Ok, so your time horizon has probably changed on getting the house in this discussion. Maybe you really could start looking at putting some money into stocks. Not everything, maybe half of what you are saving towards the house. An S&P index fund is probably great, or PM me and I can forward you some things related to more immediate returns; in that I mean higher dividends yields. I’m starting to lean a lot more towards passive income investing over stock price growth as my primary income source.
If you choose to maintain your credit scores or keep a lifestyle that involves buying things you really feel you need, then go to the passive income route, you can simply increase your immediate cash flow and create a growing second income that will eventually overtake how much you spend. At that point you can sock away more into growth companies. There is evidence to show that long-term growth oriented companies like those in the S&P 500 will outperform higher yield investments, but it takes the right mindset and available free cash flow.
I know her credit score, I montior both her and I’s credit score monthly she’s like 780 or 790 - she’s fine credit score wise. Again I’m the one on the credit score side of thigns still on the up and up - now that I just about finished paying off the carpet/tile work friggin 4 stacks - I’m back over 700.
CD - well I crunched some numbers exclusively on ‘my’ end and I have another option. After bills and my part of the savings are allocated - with me not really spending much on anything I have a healthy portion of money I’m generating still not used to funds after my raise since I had so many other changes right after I got the raise. So what I’m thinking about doing is seeing how well that pools over the next couple of months of no spending and then I’m either going to start using that to setup some long term investments or I’ll use t to kill my car payments, but I’m going to let it marinate for a couple months to see what’s realisitic without me shoe stringing it. Right now I don’t use all my daily budget on food and the such, but my personal exenses while low, fluxuate from $20 bucks every two weeks for entertianment - to $100+ - so with everything thats gone on I stil ldon’t have a firm understanding how much money I really have for secondary savings. I’ve also thought about just dumping that money into the house savings to help things out a bit, but we’ll see - with her talking about a Nissan uest for a fmaily vehicle - which means she would drive it, but its out her price range so I’d have to help finance it…I’m on the fence about dumping excess money into the house savings…if that makes sense. But I’d definatly would like to start getting my hands dirty just dunno what I’m working with yet.
Well I’m a bit like you - I have no quarrels being frugal and pinching pennies. I can take $50 bux and realistically feed myself for the whole week. But its a partnership haha and that doesn’t fly with her so its a compromise which I havne’t been too upset with.
But no we are currently fine financially, just not where I want us to be. I’d rather her debt was at $0 so when she has to get a new car, she doesn’t look to me to pay for it, and when the summer rolls around and she’s n broke teacher status - its not entierly dependant upon me to finance us. I’m fine carrying a slightly larger burden since I make 1.5 what she makes - but there are limits to everything before the ‘pull your weight’ comments start flying.
That’s politics, not finance. Government budgets aren’t like household budgets. When you create a deficit, it’s not the intention to ever pay it down, you just raise taxes and inflate it away.
Dunno how much has been discussed in recent memory regarding where to put your money if you bounced out of a bank that would charge you money per month.
I signed up for USAA for my “pocket money” account this past month. I thumbed through the fine print and found out that if your parents are/were in the military, you’re eligible to get a checking and savings account. ALSO, YOU CAN GET A FREE CHECKING/SAVINGS ACCOUNT FROM THEM EVEN IF YOUR FAMILY HAS NO MILITARY BACKGROUND! Seriously. And they don’t have a monthly fee. Hell, they refund 15 ATM surcharges per month. So if you’re looking for another bank, might want to check them out.
So I decided to try out the ATM fee refund deal with my USAA account. I withdrew $20 from a Chase ATM last Saturday night and got hit with a $3 fee. It was noted in my receipt that $23 was pulled. I check my statement the following Tuesday and I got a $3 credit from that withdrawal.
My next test will have be during the week and see if the weekend had anything to do with the reimbursement time.
So yes, USAA reimburses you up to 15 ATM fees a month. Awesome. I might just carry cash more often.