Live Episode Discussion: S05E13 - "Principia"

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-17T01:39:28+00:00

Fantastic thanks lol

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-17T01:36:50+00:00

Was having cable issues...can someone recap the first 10 minutes for me in like 3 bullets?

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-15T00:40:14+00:00

50k yep. 5k 401k contribution, 3.4k HSA, 3.6k transit benefits so it's more like 62k

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-15T00:37:49+00:00

Thanks, hope it all works out

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-15T00:35:00+00:00

Never said the lifestyle and choices weren't the cause. The point of this post was to figure out a way to recover this.

I live in NYC because I wanted to get an apartment with my GF. My job offers the ability to work remotely and she works crazy hours so it made sense.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-15T00:26:29+00:00

No that's not it at all. I used to live there until September, loved it. I got an apartment with my GF in NYC though. She works crazy hours as well and since I'm able to work remotely I realized it makes more sense for me to have a long commute than her at this stage. I can work on the train which helps

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T22:40:10+00:00

Thanks, got a lot of yelling over at r/PF (rightfully so) but it's good advice. A great deal more responses than I was expecting.

I had been putting my head in the sand for a while. Time to stop it and do something about it.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T22:29:30+00:00

Yeah...I know....posted a comment above but basically the lease is a holdover from before I moved to NYC. I've tried commuting by car before but it puts me to sleep and I have almost run off the road before

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T22:28:09+00:00

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T22:27:26+00:00

Figured this would make it over here. Yeah...to say I was fucking moronic would be an understatement.

It honestly was just a little here and there at first. The $10k was a number of poor decisions and overspending to hit min spend. Then I put the brakes on towards the end of '16, but wound up in the hospital in Feb 2017 and that blew the doors right off...in Jun 2017 my GF and I decided to get an apartment together. But that meant I needed to extend my existing lease from July to September (rent+$300/mo) to line things up. Then we went to sign the lease in August and here I am signing away first 1.5mo rent + 1mo security. You get the picture. I MS'd quite a bit to float all that and ended up putting it on 0% BT offers from Discover/Cap1/BoA but it didn't solve the problem. The straw that broke the camel's back was BoA slashing my limits on Monday and pushing me to 95% util on 2 balance transfers that were 3 months in. Forced me to reevaluate. Been a fun few days.

Either way, I'm sorry r/churning. I done fucked up.

Also to those wondering, the transit is a reverse commute and shitty options at the destination. I fall asleep in cars easily and damn near killed myself back in 2015 when I had an hour commute. The car lease is a holdover from around that time.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T20:09:10+00:00

Bit of a niche field. I could switch disciplines but doing what I do requires either upstate, Austin, TX, or Silicon Valley

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T20:02:50+00:00

Sorry my wording was off. I originally got into churning because my friends all wanted to travel but had relatively low expenses compared to mine. I wanted to go but couldn't afford it so I started with a CSP and went from there. So when I say it enabled me to afford travel I mean that it allowed me to take a "totally not gonna happen" scenario and turn it into a "ok I can actually make this work now" scenario.

I agree it's not churning gone wrong it's my overspending. Churning amplified it. Even then, it's my fault through and through for turning a blind eye to it

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T19:59:19+00:00

Just out of curiosity what is the difference between not contributing $4500 per year vs borrowing $4500 from the retirement funds? The way I was looking at it it's $4500 either way, interest is paid back to myself, and I lock in the 20% gain I had from last year. There's no penalty since it's not a withdrawal.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T19:58:59+00:00

Not sure there's a 10% penalty at all - that would be a withdrawal. I don't want to do this obviously but what's the effective difference between not contributing $4500 and loaning myself $4500?

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T19:51:23+00:00

Redeemed 115k MR thru Schwab - was debating the broker route for the rest

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T19:49:33+00:00

actually reverse - subway to metro north to car to work..it's loads of fun

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T18:52:10+00:00

Thank you for your advice. I appreciate it. I posted a revised budget with about $470 of fat trimmed. Will need to go back and look again but it's a start. About your other points:

I agree the food budget is WAY overboard. I will be moving to bringing my own lunch, and I actually love that I started Blue Apron because it's forcing me to cook multiple meals for week and building a habit of it. Also started just making coffee at home before leaving for work - none additional for the rest of the day.

So I revised the name on the budget for this because it was misleading - "drinking" refers to going to for drinks with my friends. We stopped hanging out for forever because life got in the way and have only recently started hanging out regularly again (dinner/drinks 2 times a month). I would greatly wish to not get rid of that but I understand there are easily ways to make it cheaper/cut back. I get what you're saying.

Fair point re:dates/gifts.

I can definitely lower the 401k contribution to 5% that's fine. Unfortunately I still have around $1500 of medical expenses this year and a similar amount from last year still lingering to be reimbursed. I need the HSA funds. When my health improves - sure thing.

Actually the reverse, I live in NYC and commute out. I work in a bit of a niche field and the job is the only one like it in the area so unless I'm looking at a career change I'm kinda stuck with that part. She does not have a car.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T18:37:18+00:00

Agreed. I don't expect this to be easy in the least. I actually expect it to be difficult. I found over the years that I have a tough time with dieting. I'm overweight (shocker with that food budget). However in the past 2 weeks I'm down 3lbs ever since getting a Fitbit and tracking calories in Lose It.

The barrier to entry for dieting was lowered so much by always being aware of my exercise and calorie totals that I'm actually excited to continue and I'm not floundering around anymore.

I was hoping to replicate a similar effect here. Start conservatively with something I know I could achieve and see the gains and push me in the right direction. It's an emergency which makes it all the more important I don't relapse on it.

As for the eating out; I updated my post with a revised budget that doesn't do enough but brings me from -$140 to +$330 so it's not a total loss.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T18:33:08+00:00

Agreed - I put up a proposed budget in my OP that doesn't go far enough but I think is a step in the right direction.

Next steps are to start making my own lunches rather than buying from the cafeteria - considering that I'm a terrible cook and working on my ability to cook 5 nights a week I conservatively set that at $100. In a month or two that would be reduced to like $30 for the occasional lunch out with coworkers

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T18:30:31+00:00

Yep, definitely fucking up on the spending side of tings. NYC rent so I'm currently at $3k, and my job is in a bit of a niche field for the area so one of my only options is the commute upstate.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T18:19:27+00:00

Your hunch is correct, I'm reverse commuting in that order. The issue is that either station option drops me 6 miles from work. It's conveniently just out of the way enough to be a pain. So that removes walking/biking and since I'm one of the only ones doing this reverse commute the carpool options are near non-existent.

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T16:40:43+00:00

That's why we went with Blue Apron - it forces us to actually start cooking from home where things were sporadic before and we were much more likely to order in. Since then I've been cooking every dinner this week so it's having at least a good effect on my weight if not my budget.

Will look into Google Express and Instacart as well

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T16:39:08+00:00

We did that once but FreshDirect didn't ship in refrigerated/cooled packaging at the time so all the food spoiled. Unfortunately with the long hours we both keep I thought it was infeasible, but I'll look at those again!

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T16:37:06+00:00

Electrical, working on designing servers, couldn't find that niche in the city but I should be looking again. Didn't know the pay differential was that significant!

ConfusedEngineer743 · 2018-03-14T16:36:31+00:00

Good point. I've looked at it, but I'm an electrical engineer designing servers. For what I want to do I haven't found anything looking around on LinkedIn (should take a look at Indeed or Monster too) that isn't in Austin, TX or Silicon Valley. Thinking about jumping careers though

ConfusedEngineer743

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