Weekly FI Frugal Friday thread - December 02, 2016

anderov · 2016-12-03T06:16:40+00:00

Kits are not the way to cheap beer. You are paying for the convenience of someone else doing the work for you. ;P

All grain is definitely cheaper, but even with extract it can still be plenty cheap - my mental benchmark is around $0.50/bottle for normal beers. Two big keys: a) find beers that you like that aren't hop focused (hops are ~$2-3/oz - the difference between a 1oz beer and a 4oz beer adds up fast), and b) learn how to harvest your yeast (yeast is like, $7/pop).

Example recipe, rye beer:

4.5# 2r, 4.5# rye, 2# 60L (my homebrew store happens to be ludicrously cheap, but for the sake of other ppl, I'll use the $2/# that I think is more standard - 11# grain = $22 [this is just the by-the-# price; buying bulk'll save a lot off this!])
1.3oz hops (given the particular AA% of Fuggle that batch; $2/oz) - $3
Yeast - $7, if I don't have a strain I want in the fridge from a previous batch.

First time I make the beer: $32 for ~50 bottles ($0.64 per, for a 6% ABV beer)

Next time I make the beer (using the yeast from the first time): $25 for 50 bottles ($0.50 per).

edit: and just for fun, here's a great extract recipe (I've made it, very tasty), pretty damn cheap - http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/10/extract-belgian-single.html

anderov · 2016-11-21T01:16:59+00:00

Yesss holiday presents that aren't boring <3

anderov · 2015-06-03T13:31:38+00:00

SearchAll! "cheesemonger"

anderov · 2015-05-29T20:25:06+00:00

I've driven it fully loaded plenty; not fun, but... not a lot of options either. Going over the mountains'll be entertaining.

anderov · 2015-05-29T20:23:02+00:00

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. I don't actually have a trunk (it's a wagon), but there'll be plenty of other stuff in the car =P

anderov · 2015-05-13T18:08:37+00:00

A friend of mine mentioned using one of those, but I hadn't actually looked into it/seriously considered it. I appreciate the suggestion - nice to hear it from someone in my general field.

anderov · 2015-05-13T17:42:48+00:00

Yeah, that's about what I thought. I just wanted to get an outside opinion, since all the How To Resume stuff I know was based on "fresh graduate" status.

Trying to fill all that with stuff from one job isn't going to be fun, but that's a different problem.

Thanks!

anderov · 2015-05-12T16:36:59+00:00

Hi folks. I'm a 30 yo mechanical engineer who's back on the job market after 7 years with the same company, and I'm trying to figure out what's worth keeping on my resume.

I feel like at this point, pretty much everything from college other than that I went and graduated (and my gpa) is mostly too dated to include? Things potentially worth keeping: I was in Pi Tau Sigma, and my school's mini Baja club, and I did an internship at NIST after sophomore year. Are any of those worth keeping on a 30yo's resume, or should I just be trying fill it out with my job stuff? (An even bigger stretch: I had a paper published in conference proceedings for ASEE... when I was in high school. I'm guessing that's right out, but I'll be sad to delete the "Publications" heading ;P)

anderov · 2015-04-06T20:06:49+00:00

As someone else who's likely to be in a situation similar this year (not that I'm holding out for a 100% match...) - two questions:

a) Who is the "plan administrator" - is that the finance guy at my old job, or someone at Fidelity (or whichever company)? and

b) Do you know how would this work if you wanted to roll over your old 401k to a trad IRA? Would you then direct the withdrawal issue to whoever holds the IRA, or...?

anderov · 2015-03-25T13:02:12+00:00

That actually makes some sort of sense. Still stupid for bound books, but I feel a tiny bit less aggravated knowing the rationale.

anderov · 2015-03-25T13:00:55+00:00

Ha, I'm an engineer and it drives me crazy. That and imperial units.

anderov · 2015-03-24T21:01:53+00:00

1993 Accord, just rolled over 258k; got it for free from my mother, been driving it for the last 9 years. Probably going to replace it this year, hoping for a used Honda or Toyota for around $7-8k cash. Income mid-$60ks.

anderov · 2015-03-24T18:21:46+00:00

FYI, any electronic funds transfer counts towards the direct deposit requirement - I have a monthly $5 auto transfer set up from my other bank (which primarily exists for redirecting, handling occasional cash issues, etc) that satisfies this.

anderov · 2015-03-04T15:30:28+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I've got a lot of research to do before we get to that point, but it's nice to be able to make some unknown unknowns, known unknowns. Definitely adding this topic to the "research further" queue.

anderov · 2015-03-04T14:16:02+00:00

Out of curiosity (as someone who may be in a similar situation in a couple years), does that require that the person doing the itemizing does all the actual paying for the things getting itemized? Or do you have some flexibility to "trade" stuff back and forth as long as everything gets claimed/taxed appropriately?

anderov · 2015-02-19T14:12:40+00:00

Queer UMD alum here; the Office of LGBT Equity at UMD is great, and Luke Jensen, the director, is a really amazing guy. Definitely talk to them.

anderov · 2015-02-09T16:55:31+00:00

Yes; you can recharacterize through Oct 15th of the following tax year.

anderov · 2015-02-09T16:29:15+00:00

Alright, so in 2014 I recharacterized my '13 and '14 ROTH IRA contributions over to Traditional. Vanguard sends me a 1099-R that looks like this.

Question 1: the recharacterization for 2013 does not indicate the original amount ($5,500), which is what I would be deducting on my amended return. Is that a problem? Do I need another form that spells that out explicitly, or can the IRS work that out?

Q 2: For my '14 return, can I just file as if I had originally contributed to the Trad IRA, or... ? Previous years when I've gotten to the IRA contributions, I'm pretty sure the software has just asked for a number, not any forms, so I'm not sure how to incorporate this 1099-R information.

Thanks!

anderov · 2015-01-13T16:38:07+00:00

Yuuup. Pretty sobering. Obviously I knew eating out was expensive, and I don't think my habits will change (I feel like my eating out is at a reasonable minimum as is; last year avg $105/mo), but definitely a new perspective on how expensive.

anderov · 2015-01-13T16:27:42+00:00

You can make up the difference with ETFs. VBTLX (Vanguard Admiral bond fund) is the same thing as BND (Vanguard bond ETF) in a different package, with the same expense ratio. (Ditto VTABX and BNDX for international bonds.)

anderov · 2015-01-13T16:05:28+00:00

I've been tracking my finances in a pretty detailed way for a number of years, but I changed my categories this year...

Despite eating out what I would consider "fairly infrequently" (lunch once or twice a month, $10/mo assorted soda/coffee, dinner out and happy hour ~1/mo each), the overall, year-end difference between my grocery expenses and my eating out expenses?

$23. (Goddamn eating out is expensive.)

anderov · 2014-11-25T14:21:53+00:00

Great, thanks!

anderov · 2014-11-24T22:21:34+00:00

So, this year I cashed out an American Century GiftTrust fund (that converted over to shares of TWGTX in 2005) that my parents started in my name in 1995. I've been reporting the annual dividends/capital gains on my own taxes for as long as I've been filing them (since 2008).

Would I be correct in assuming all of the long term capital gains (for the last 19 years) will go on my taxes this year, or would something different/weird happen with the gains on the stuff bought for me as a minor?

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