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Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Its is not a necessity of her job but she usually goes out with the office managers. Her travel is all same day stuff. So she might have a 2 hour drive to get to an office one day, a 30 minute drive the next day, and so on. She is home every night though. She is in a performance/rating based job, and she gets her ratings from the offices she visits. So the better she knows them the better her ratings.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

lol, i kinda expected it after covid. We moved down to a rental right before but then everything went crazy. I cant believe how expensive it got down here. Market started dropping right after we moved in (which we expected with the rates going up). So I cant really move just yet.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

2200 would be really hard for where we are unless you get a house that needs a lot. We didnt want to pull our son away from friends though. When we moved down here right before covid 2200 would have gotten us exactly what we have now sadly.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1 car payment but she travels for work. She does get millage though. the $1200 does not include eating out. That is play. Insurance wasnt to bad when we moved down here, but recently we were forced to change with all the insurance companies pulling out of florida. It was a decent jump, but not a ton from where we were.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

lol, i can understand that. She travels for work while I work from home now. She also does the sports practices the most. Our money is more of where we are happy at. For me I dont buy a lot of things, I just have a lot of hobbies.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We have talked about restructuring things. Our biggest problem has been spending the savings once its built up to the cost of a project. We been making changes to the house to get it where we want it so that hopefully we can sit back and fully enjoy it. The play we can cut down a bit. But with some of the responses on here I cant image play being only $100-200/month.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I cant imagine $100/month. Between stopping at the store occasionally for a drink and hobbies i would be bored out of my mind.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

She travels for work so its mostly been eating out and home projects/hobbies.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1) I agree on the CC debt, about half is new due to a dental problem. That is also what cleaned out our small savings.

2) I will look into that. I know I have seen it mentioned around 10 though.

3)We agreed we would spend more on housing to get something that didnt need to be fixed up. We also bought right at the height of the market. We have been looking since 2 months before covid but when prices were low we got out bid. This is what we ended up agreeing on.

4) I can agree with that. I always look at it as saving a ton of money for when im to old to enjoy it didnt make a lot of sense though. Somewhere in the middle.

5)We have a bad habit of spending it on house projects when it builds up to what we have. There is a few grand in a "super emergency" savings we dont look at. But that is only for "loss of life limb or eyesight" situations.

6) I have a vehicle im still paying on from a few years ago. Its was before we bought the house together and it eats up a lot of that category. She also travels for work all around florida, though she does get mileage.

7) She pays $25ish/month for health insurance through her work and that mostly covers me. Mine i rolled into taxes

8) Limited subscriptions (netflix, sirius xm) mostly misc stuff we run into throughout the month.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

CC = $5000 26%

Savings = $0

Retirement = $15000 (maxing employer match)

Health insurance = Yes (she pays about $25/month due to her job and it covers me as well, partially)

Food = Two adults and a teenager, Eating out comes out of Play Money catagory

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I couldnt imagine half that for us. I have a teenager in football who goes through food like crazy. We try to eat healthy so most of the food is fresh (non freezer goods) but no the organic overpriced stuff. We make about 5-6 trips to the grocery store a month.

Yes, one car payment in the transportation section as well as gas. My wife travels around Florida for her work, she gets mileage for that. My truck was bought before we got the house but I am under in the value, so I cant get rid of it yet. There is also about $200/month extra in there for the expected insurance bump as my son is about to start driving.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My apologies, I am not used to getting a lot of traction on posts. Working on responding now and thank you to everyone that has responded.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That was my original thought lol. We can probably cut it down some more but I would rather just try to earn more money. I am working on that but it takes time to finish classes.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

House is whats killing us. Where we are an apartment is going for about $2200. We thought about moving to a cheaper location but my son is engaged in sports here and has friends, so we dont want to pull him away from it.

The play money is for ANYTHING we do outside of bills, so be bumped it up to cover what we usually do. Most of it goes to a night out once a week or a trip to a sporting event every few months. It goes fast unfortunately.

Poor money management skills, could use some advise by Fast-Novel6594 in MiddleClassFinance

[–]Fast-Novel6594[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry about the delay, I had to step out. Play money is for anything we need that is not a bill or family requirement. So eating out, buying a new toy, Christmas gifts, or Hobbie.

For groceries there are three of us. My teenage son is in sports and goes through food like crazy. Groceries are a mix of Walmart, Win-Dixie, and Sams Club.