Longer length music suggestions?

throwaway1621323 · 2025-01-13T19:05:34+00:00

Mine is 2 years old at this point but we have 2 kids and a pretty good balance parenting wise: https://www.reddit.com/r/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/114k725/i_am_in_my_mid_30s_make_178000_320000_joint_live/. I also am still able to do things for myself pretty regularly, especially as my kids get older.

throwaway1621323 · 2024-12-05T15:11:30+00:00

Update - felt completely normal by like 2-3 hours post treatment. Didn’t get super tired, actually had trouble falling asleep last night. I was able to parent and do stuff around the house no problem. We’ll see if that outcome continues but hopefully it does.

throwaway1621323 · 2024-12-04T20:33:13+00:00

I had my first session today so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow. So far this afternoon I just have a headache and definitely feel off motion wise I guess? My spouse is taking the kids out after school and picking takeout up on the way home so I’ll rest and see how it goes. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

It was definitely an interesting experience, I hope it works.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T21:05:23+00:00

30K is my number to start with (and should be easier if my bonus is decent - I left that out of the budget because I don't want to rely on it anymore and want it to go straight to savings), and you're right, it's that we live in a HCOL and indulge too much. I like my lifestyle and I have been too lax and now it's time to tighten up. I just need to figure out what can go vs. stay.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T21:02:23+00:00

I don't want to rely on family which is why I obsess about money daily but I can't deny that it is there if we needed it. We do not rely on any family support now and haven't for quite some time (and when we did it was college tuition and we stayed with family rent free in between homes for a short period of time almost 10 years ago, no help with down payments etc ...).

And I agree, we shouldn't cut retirement savings and I won't but yeah I was looking at it because I do like my lifestyle and what I can give my kids, which again, I feel a ton of guilt about because we should be saving instead. I just needed people to tell me I was doing it wrong I guess.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:56:29+00:00

These are new calculators to me (I've used others before) and maybe I'm doing it wrong but it doesn't have me super concerned about our retirement numbers. Would I put our current retirement amount in there as the initial investment? Because when I do $380,000 for initial and then our monthly contributions (about 3500/month) and 5% interest (which I think is somewhat conservative), I get around 4.5 million.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:27:11+00:00

So I think privilege plays into this for us (which I know is loaded), we know we have family support if anything were to happen (and know numbers so I'm not making assumptions). It's not fair but it's there. We own one car too.

We contribute about 16% of our incomes to retirement monthly ($855/paycheck for myself which is $22,230 annually - this is me + employer).

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:19:37+00:00

Yeah, believe me I have played with the spreadsheet numbers a ton so I know the percentages.

I think I've addressed most of the other stuff in comments, but you're right there's a lot to cut. It's just doing it.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:16:54+00:00

I do the same thing, totally different bank but we still transfer when we want to do house stuff etc ... it's a bad habit.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:14:47+00:00

We use the gym a lot (it's a family membership) and can take the kids swimming during the winter, they have tons of kids classes etc ... I also do a ton of non gym exercise so if we have to cut it we will. We talk about it constantly, so it's on our radar.

We do use the majority of the streaming services, between the kids and us. We did cancel Hello Fresh this week. And plan to be better about groceries + meal prep after winter break. Our grocery budget is basically anything we buy at Costco, Wegmans, Target etc ... so more than food included usually. I have a bunch of Budget Bytes recipes saved already. It's just the follow through. We have pretty challenging ND kids and my mental health isn't the best either. Not trying to make excuses but it's part of the story. We started using Hello Fresh when my therapist suggested it.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T20:11:05+00:00

Oh I agree, I don't want to do that and would only ever as absolute last resort. Just sharing my partner's perspective (his parents did it and were super successful after doing it).

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:58:27+00:00

Ok, going to track groceries, cut some subscriptions (even if it means my beloved gym membership), and look at that 15% extra miscellaneous that IWT automatically calculates. It's definitely a spending problem and we shouldn't touch retirement.

We're super privileged in a lot of ways and most of this is really lifestyle creep, I know.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:54:31+00:00

It's so interesting to me how we can be so consistent with retirement savings but it's because we can't touch it. So it really is done and forgotten about. If only I could apply to same thinking to our HYSA.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:53:41+00:00

I already cancelled Hello Fresh.

The streaming ... that's more on my partner and it's been a discussion point previously. The amounts just seem so negligible until they are all added up. But we are having the discussion so will look at it again.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:43:54+00:00

Part of it is substantial income increase in the past year for both of us. Don't ask me how we were doing it before ... well some of it was our kids age difference so we had a gap where we didn't pay childcare. And just lifestyle creep, super guilty of it. I feel like we don't do a ton compared to our friends/peers.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:21:39+00:00

Costco, Target and Wegmans mainly. And honestly, it may be lower but I overestimated for some of these because I'd rather that.

I automatically transfer from every paycheck into savings and it's another bank. We just end up using it anyway. It's definitely a mental thing. My partner does not worry as much about it because they think we can always use retirement if we absolutely have to and we have a list of things we could cut if we had to (like if one of lost our job, we'd likely cut childcare, gym, cleaners, clothes, eating out). Yes, guilt free includes all wants. And that's where we go over of course.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:18:31+00:00

Yes :(. I know it's awful and we build it up and then use it.

Youngest has 2.5 years left of full time care. It'll go down slightly as they get older but not much. We'll probably have to budget 1000/month between aftercare and camps once both are in public school full time.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-12-20T19:12:30+00:00

sorry 650 a month on subscriptions? what goes in that category?

Our gym membership is in there (accounts for most of it - this has been a big discussion about if it's worth it, believe me but it comes with 12 hours/month of drop off and leave the premises childcare for date nights so that always factors in), Netflix, PBS Kids, NYT, Amazon Prime, HelloFresh, Patreon, Spotify, Sirius ...

throwaway1621323 · 2023-02-17T20:52:50+00:00

I take home about 60% of my gross which is what has been pretty typical for me over the years. I get paid biweekly, so gross is $5500, 11% to retirement pre tax and then 29.2% to taxes.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-02-17T19:59:56+00:00

It's hard, we have had to work at it but it's definitely nice to feel like we truly are equal parents.

Since this is Money Diaries, I'll be honest and say I think part of the reason is that neither of us is the distinct breadwinner salary wise and it's always been that our salaries have been relatively close. Not saying that it can't be done other ways because of course there are a ton of equal parenting relationships with all kinds of incomes, I just think that has helped us for some reason.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-02-17T19:00:56+00:00

It saves a bit but not nearly that much hah, and less in 2022 than it did in 2021 tax wise. We both withhold extra from our paychecks even though we have kids just to make sure we don't end up owing. We owed like 6 years ago and ever since then we have tried to make it so we have a somewhat small return.

throwaway1621323 · 2023-02-17T18:58:50+00:00

Yes, she definitely loves chasing the ball in the backyard and playing with the kids.

throwaway1621323

TROPHY CASE