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message 101:
by
Emily
(new)
Jan 04, 2014 07:52AM
My hubs and I are still digging out of the loans from both of us going to law school. Blah.
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Hubby is an accountant and he's crazy. We budget everything. Everything. We budget the dog. We budget EVERYTHING. He has no problem calling me at work and fussing about some unbudgeted charge I made. O_o
I budget everything too. But then when it gets down to it I'm going to do what I'm going to do. I suck that way.
Felina wrote: "Student loans are the worst. I pay $350 month in student loans but mine are paid off in 2017. Hurry up 2017!"Ick. I only pay $150 a month, but I'm not done 'til 2030. :-/ (I refinanced and took a longer loan once I was done college.)
I know I ultimately pay more, yadda yadda, but I had no job or anything at the time.
I do plan on starting to pay more than the monthly minimum once the cc:s and everything are paid off - but that never seems to happen...
Yep. My student loans and car are both paid on in January of 2017. $550 back in my pocket each month. It will be beautiful.
Colleen wrote: "I do plan on starting to pay more than the monthly minimum once the cc:s and everything are paid off - but that never seems to happen... "You should let hubby re-budget you. You'll stay at home, you'll not eat out. You'll not go shopping or things like that. But he'll find money to pay off debts, trust and believe.
And I also think about paying things off sooner and it never works out.
Felina wrote: "I budget everything too. But then when it gets down to it I'm going to do what I'm going to do. I suck that way."We go over the budget quite often. He does something or the other to see where our money goes and then we stop that.
Its really hard for me. Really hard. Especially since I love to online shop (since I never go anywhere) at Amazon. I ran the credit card up and he lost his shit. Lost. His. Shit. That can't happen again, it's not really worth it. I just have to face that fact that I'm broke. :(
MrsJoseph (taking back my data & giving GR the middle finger) wrote: "You should let hubby re-budget you. You'll stay at home, you'll not eat out. You'll not go shopping or things like that. But he'll find money to pay off debts, trust and believe. "Thanks, no. I'm good.
I'm all for saving and budgets, but being too strict is not living and is actually counterproductive.
Colleen wrote: "Thanks, no. I'm good."lol.
Jackie wrote: "I'm all for saving and budgets, but being too strict is not living and is actually counterproductive."I have an allowance which includes a generous book budget. We've paid off 85% or more of all our debt (not including the house). Because we are strict with the budget, we've been able to afford a vacation every year we've been married.
We just have to work at it and its hard. I don't get stuff that I want. My friends think its crazy but it works. I don't always like it and it's hard to be disciplined all the time (it doesn't always work). I like to say that I'm not in style but I'm on budget. lol
I have quite a strict budget at the moment (books are definitely included though). Trying to save up as much as I can right now as I know I'm going to (hopefully!) need to furnish a house when I manage to find one. Don't think it's going to get any easier once the mortgage payments kick in so I'm trying to be strict with myself now.Unfortunately no end in sight for me and student loans. Think I pay about £60 per month at the moment but that doesn't make much of a dent (very glad that I didn't take any extra loans when I went to law school or I think I'd be drowning in debt at the moment!)
We really haven't completely furnished it yet but we're picky (and we have champagne tastes with a beer budget!)
I think I'm going to cancel my TV package to pay down some debt. I watch more TV then I should and it would save me a lot of money. Right now my grocery budget for the week is $20. That makes it impossible to eat healthy. I'd like to lose the TV bill and bolster my food budget so I can get more veggies and fruit.
I almost never buy books anymore. I do, however, have an expensive clothes habit. Not fashionable clothes, mind you... just niche kinda things.But I have a system. All the money for bills goes into the joint account, and everything left over is fair play. I do put money away every pay for the vacay fund, though - but that's gonna be wiped out, and then some, by a big trip we're planning this year.
The only books I get now are traded from PBS. I haven't purchased a new book in a very long time. I do put away into a savings account every payday. I actually have $35 each pay day (paid weekly) into my moms savings account since I'm bad with money. She transfers if aything comes up (like getting the car registered). But I'm mostly saving up for Harry Potter land in September. I plan on buying a ton of shit there.
Yay for Harry Potter land!
I try to budget, but I'm not really good at it. I should read a book or something on it. When I buy books, they are usually used at the thrift store, which saves me a lot of money on the individual books... but usually means that I buy more of them and take chances on crappier books. Which of course means that I have more books to read than I should.
I have been toying with the idea of doing another book buying ban this year. So far I haven't purchased any (though I am still waiting on some Christmas purchases to arrive). But book buying bans are HARRRRRRRD. Maybe instead what I'll do is allow myself to purchase a book if I've read X number of books that I already own.
That would help whittle down the pile some.
I hope.
message 120:
by
colleen the convivial curmudgeon, Not a book hipster!
(last edited Jan 04, 2014 11:10AM)
(new)
Becky wrote: "So far I haven't purchased any (though I am still waiting on some Christmas purchases to arrive). "This cracked me up, since we've only had 4 days so far. ;)
I think the '1 book for x books' is probably better than a complete ban.
Colleen wrote: "Becky wrote: "So far I haven't purchased any (though I am still waiting on some Christmas purchases to arrive). "This cracked me up, since we've only had 4 days so far. ;)
I think the '1 book fo..."
Yeah. ONLY 4 days. But I have Christmas money and gift cards and time off. That's a dangerous combination.
I buy most of my books from library sales, book fairs and thrift stores. The rest I get from Amazon but used most of the time. I have Amazon Prime so hubby gets the movies/TV shows and I get free shipping on a lot of used books. We have cable + internet but no movie channels. Hubby watches the movies and stuff from Amazon. Plus his cousin gave him access to her HBO Go and Netflix.
Yup. That's our situation as well, MrsJ. We don't have cable, but we have Prime, Netflix and streaming internet.
Becky wrote: "When I buy books, they are usually used at the thrift store, which saves me a lot of money on the individual books... but usually means that I buy more of them and take chances on crappier books. Which of course means that I have more books to read than I should. "I do this. I have a books I might never get to. I'm trying to read more of the books I own and put a limit on how much I buy this year. *scared*
One of my friends says he tracks how much unread money he has lying around the house. It's his incentive to read more of the things he already owns. Nyssa did her calculations and...their numbers made me feel slightly ashamed. I don't even want to know how much unread I have since I seem to work on a FI,LO model.
I'm a library girl all the way. I buy some things on Kindle on Daily Deal exclusively (or if the library doesn't have a complete series *ahem* Dresden), but otherwise I'm a library addict.
We just canceled DirecTv (the beginning of Dec.) because we realized we only watched a few channels. While they were a few good channels, we couldn't justify the cost, especially when we also watch Netflix and Hulu Plus quite a bit. I'll miss tennis.
Becky wrote: "Yup. That's our situation as well, MrsJ. We don't have cable, but we have Prime, Netflix and streaming internet."Hubby is ODing on movies as we speak. O_O
How do y'all stream constantly without exceeding data limits? My internet is slow as shit and we don't watch jack because it bogs down and gets stuck in buffering. Yet we're dangerously close to exceeding limits every month. If we could watch netflix we'd go thru the roof.
Chris wrote: "How do y'all stream constantly without exceeding data limits? My internet is slow as shit and we don't watch jack because it bogs down and gets stuck in buffering. Yet we're dangerously close to ex..."I just did a search and I *think* we have 250G allowed per month for Comcast. They are looking to change plans but no clue what they are doing about that.
I don't think we get overages. We just changed our plan slightly because they wanted to raise our bill by $30 a month! He renegotiates our plan regularly.
Are there no unlimited connections available there Chris? I've never had a data limit on my connection, but I live in a large town -- my countrified friends have been switching from limited data packages to unlimited data ones with the rise of affordable fibre connections, though.
I've been eying the Roku.
Yes, we have a limit. It used to be unlimited, but since everyone limits, AT&T knew they could get away with adding them. Especially because they never announced this. They just slid it in quietly and then acted like it had been there all along.
Becky wrote: "Yeah. ONLY 4 days. But I have Christmas money and gift cards and time off. That's a dangerous combination. "Fair point. My bro-in-law sent us a $100 gift card for B&N. o_O
We might get the next Absolute Sandman out of it, though.
I have no data package on my internet and TV. I've actually never heard of that. But I pay for good internet cause I like to play WoW. I'm thinking of canceling the TV all together and using only Netflix, Hulu Plus and investing in an Apple TV. That would save me like $100 a month. I think I'd ask my parents or brother to get HBO and I'll use the HBO Go to watch my shows. Most f my favs are on HBO and that's like $10 a month. TV is just to expensive.
Ours is: 250GB per month Internet bandwidth limit (between 5pm and 1am). $1 per GB over 250GBSo far, we've never reached it. We only came close once, when Thomas was downloading everything in the universe overnights when he was trying to rebuild his music collection. (iTunes ate it. He was not happy.)
If my internet has a limit I am unaware if it and have never surpassed it.
Felina wrote: "I think I'd ask my parents or brother to get HBO and I'll use the HBO Go to watch my shows. Most f my favs are on HBO and that's like $10 a month. TV is just to expensive. "Thats what we did with his cousin.
Man, it's not infrequent for me to go through 250GB a week. I have 18TB total storage hooked up to my PC and am still thinking of picking up another drive, and that's just for the stuff I keep. 250GB a month would kill me.
I have now discovered something I love about my home town (finally): Good fibre!
I have now discovered something I love about my home town (finally): Good fibre!
I need to move to the UK.Do they speak English there?
Titania wrote: "Man, it's not infrequent for me to go through 250GB a week. I have 18TB total storage hooked up to my PC and am still thinking of picking up another drive, and that's just for the stuff I keep. 250..."Yeah, but it's only counted during peak hours... so, if you do most of your stuff at other times, it's all good. ;)
Edit to add: We have three computers (four if you count my work computer), a PS3, WiiU, Xbox 360 and several wireless devices that we use pretty much without a thought regarding the limit, and we've never gone over. You must do a TON of downloading, T! LOL
Chris wrote: "I need to move to the UK.Do they speak English there?"
LOL
Chris wrote: "I need to move to the UK.
Do they speak English there?"
LOL. Funny story: When I was a teenager, I had a friend come to visit me from the US. Her mother was scared to let her travel alone until she pointed out that her travel companion (a Dutch friend of ours) spoke eight languages.
...she was only visiting England...
Do they speak English there?"
LOL. Funny story: When I was a teenager, I had a friend come to visit me from the US. Her mother was scared to let her travel alone until she pointed out that her travel companion (a Dutch friend of ours) spoke eight languages.
...she was only visiting England...
Yes, I can see that she needed an interpreter. Heh..Though sometimes I have to put on subtitles if I watch a British DVD.
Titania wrote: "Chris wrote: "I need to move to the UK.Do they speak English there?"
LOL. Funny story: When I was a teenager, I had a friend come to visit me from the US. Her mother was scared to let her trave..."
lol
Chris wrote: "Though sometimes I have to put on subtitles if I watch a British DVD."
That's understandable. Some of our regional accents are very thick. Wait until you hear a Geordie speak.
That's understandable. Some of our regional accents are very thick. Wait until you hear a Geordie speak.
The first time I watched Doctor Who I had no idea what Rose was saying. Even though I grew up on hammer films. And sometimes when I watch a Scottish or Irish flick the subtitles need to come on. And don't even get me started on Welsh. I love the accents though. And my family is part Welsh. Lol.
5 days in and I already broke one of my resolutions. I skipped reading a short story last night. You see... I remembered there a good reason I don't read more short stories, I don't care for them. There are some gems but, for me, they are few and far between. But I added Discworld to my 2014 tbr list. I figure if I read 3-4 a month I can finish by the end of the year. Now just decide how to read them... By published date or character.
When I read Discworld I just read the descriptions and picked whichever book I liked the sound of at the time, not reading them in any order at all. It actually worked for me and I never felt like I was confused about anything even if I was reading, for example, one of the later Guards books before the earlier ones.I probably wouldn't do that if I was starting them today though. :)
Also probably wouldn't start with the very early ones. They are still funny but, for me, they are nowhere near as good as some of the later ones (I think I started with Mort).
I'm very OCD about reading series in the correct order (whether it be publication or chronological) so I ignored my husband who gave me the same advice about not reading the first two (publication order). While I did like them, I found them a little difficult to get into and have not read any of the others as yet. He likes the "Death" series and one or two others (that aren't coming to mind) the most.
He keeps telling me I should have listened to him..maybe he's right. :)
I like the Death series as well. But my two favourite series are the "Guards" and the "Witches". After the first couple of books, Discworld really finds it's feet and pretty much everything from the 4th book onwards is gold in my opinion. You really notice the difference from the first few.
Would definitely encourage you to read a few more, I promise they get better :)
Flights of Fantasy
Books mentioned in this topic
Mort (other topics)The Color of Magic (other topics)
Equal Rites (other topics)
Reaper Man (other topics)
Guards! Guards! (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ekaterina Sedia (other topics)Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (other topics)
Brandon Sanderson (other topics)
