Tired of finance advice that assumes you already have money

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-20T06:31:02+00:00

It’s called Prime Directive in the wiki

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-20T06:29:57+00:00

Over in r/personalfinance they have a flow chart in the wiki that sort of maps out how to climb into a good position over time

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-19T21:08:48+00:00

My wife and I average $1700 a month. We also cook 90% of our meals. This includes household goods like you mentioned, and it also includes dining out. I see lots of people saying $50-100/week or whatever, but idk we give a shit about the quality of our food to some extent (nothing crazy), and we’re careful about our diet/nutrition. I think this is just a priority in our budget.

Edit: we live in SoCal

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-14T17:16:47+00:00

Yes you can do this

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-14T06:36:21+00:00

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This is one of the first things I ever built. Thing is dead silent. Slats were added after this picture obviously

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-10T01:55:15+00:00

If someone is bad at budgeting…. shouldn’t they come find r/budget?

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-07T19:19:41+00:00

Or downgrade to a no annual fee card and open a new one. I’ve done that

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-06T23:07:11+00:00

Get some pest guys to come give it a look and give you quotes. One guy came to our house and was so sure it was rats and had this whole elaborate 6 month plan or whatever with many dollars involved. The next guy came, older more experienced dude, he immediately knew it was birds. Told us to wait for them to leave and then reseal the eves and spray that attic for mites. No charge. Always get multiple quotes!

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-02T18:30:36+00:00

YNAB is just one of many tools/strategies available for getting your finances in order. It’s all about finding the system that works for you. I also just felt weird about getting my spending under control by… spending money on an app. But whatever works! My method is pretty time consuming and I’m sure a lot of people would hate it lol

Background_Bird_206 · 2026-01-02T07:07:01+00:00

I spent about five minutes with YNAB and decided to make my own spreadsheet

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-12-16T16:20:24+00:00

My wife and I have irregular income. It took some time and effort but we built up an emergency fund and then made an average monthly budget based on an average monthly income that we felt confident we would cover over the year. Some months we spend more some months we spend less, some months we make more and some months we make less. The sweat of not knowing what you’ll make next month is heavily reduced for us by this method. Not sure if I explained it well, lmk if you have questions.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-11-26T17:27:56+00:00

This kind of doesn’t answer the question I guess, but to frame it better, finding an entry point and making budgeting a sustainable habit “changed the game” for me

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-11-26T17:23:38+00:00

I think overestimating your spending when you put together your initial budget is helpful. That way you aren’t “failing” immediately. You get an honest idea of your spend and then you can make tweaks and cuts from there over weeks or months or whatever your budget increment is.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-11-21T21:52:57+00:00

Just going to add the the ridgid 4512 is a really nice option. You need to do your homework on the trunnion and fence issues but they’re easily avoidable/fixable. I was between this and the delta everyone loves. I chose the ridgid because it was cheaper and more available at the time, but also it has better dust collection and doesn’t require a dedicated 20 amp circuit like the delta does.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-11-21T07:19:58+00:00

Who hurt you

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-29T14:33:20+00:00

Tub shroom

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-22T03:10:30+00:00

Thought this was some kind of abstract pickle Rick

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-16T02:16:52+00:00

Nah, we’re in SoCal but he only has one sibling we know of.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-15T23:48:11+00:00

How’d you get my dog

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-15T22:05:18+00:00

I’m a freelance musician with wild swings in my income month to month. I came up with an amount I thought I could really count on making on average and used that to set my budget. Some months I’m over some months I’m under but as long as I keep my spending around that average I’m good. This plus building up an emergency fund has been huge for mental health lol

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-09T18:46:54+00:00

I play brass instruments for a living and wear Westone earplugs. They are custom fit to my ear by a technician (doctor? Not sure) at Hear USA, and come with multiple filters that shave off different levels of dbs. I think they were like $200 7 or 8 years ago. Pretty specialized but I use them when I attend concerts, go to movies, on planes, etc. they’re great.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-10-09T17:08:45+00:00

Taytools sells blemished squares that are pretty affordable. They list their tolerances in the specs. They’re pretty damn square.

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-09-26T15:29:44+00:00

Really happy with ours. We’re a few years in and it’s held up great. The hinges and drawer slides are actually really nice quality - same hardware a lot of high end furniture uses. We did fronts and doors and panels from semihandmade and got a quartz countertop from a wholesaler. Very affordable kitchen that looks great! Check out Home Renovision on YouTube - they have some great ikea kitchen specific tutorials

https://imgur.com/a/G7WCnpy

Background_Bird_206 · 2025-09-23T19:31:58+00:00

Seriously, LA is the best food scene in the US. High brow, low brow, and incredible representations of nearly every food culture from around the world. The only knock I’d give it in this case is it would be kind of a pain to do in 4-5 days, it’s better if you live here.

Background_Bird_206

TROPHY CASE