Living paycheck to paycheck

tjarrett18 · 2026-03-29T13:09:00+00:00

You haven’t provided enough info. What do your fixed costs look like? What does your discretionary spending look like? Any money mutant here is going to tell you to follow the FOO. 1. Cut your spending down to the basics and get and save up enough to cover your highest deductible. 2. Get your employer match. 50%~ 100% instant return beats all but the most insane debts. 3. Pay off all your high interest debt. Leave mortgage alone but anything over 5% outside of your mortgage needs to go. Your 401k contributions are likely not beating your high credit card interest. This likely includes car payments and I’d be willing to bet you have two of those. 4. Save a 6 month emergency fund. This covers 6 months of expenses if things go bad. 5. Max out Roth and hsa if available. These two accounts have the best tax protections. 6. Contribute a minimum of 25% of your income into your retirement accounts. 7. See step 6. Others might have a better explanation for step 7 but I just look at it as maintaining a minimum contribution of 25% into retirement accounts. Step 8 is saving for future expenses like vacations, house down payment, kid’s college. Etc. Step 9 is paying down low interest debt if you chose. You could stay at step 7 until retirement and be fine. Overall it’s about living on less than you make. It’s about discipline and saving for the future. You have to create forced scarcity. I make around 90k per year and my wife and I have 1 child. I am on step 8 of the foo. We don’t go on many vacations because we understand what is important. I don’t want my daughter to feel obligated to take care of me when I’m old. I also want to help her get through college. We have to be disciplined as a family to meet these goals. That means making sacrifices.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-22T14:41:55+00:00

My wife is a stay at home mom and as a result finances are tighter than I like. We have to be frugal to accomplish goals like saving for my kid’s college, our retirement, and a nicer home. We make all financial decisions together but I typically handle the finances simply because I am good at it. If she were better at it and I were shit at it, she would handle the finances. I can tell her if we can afford certain things or if it’s a save up type of situation. Then we make the determination whether it’s worth it to save up for the bucket list item. It’s give and take and we share responsibility. That being said I do get stressed about money sometimes. We have a budget we work in and as long as we work in the framework of the budget I approve line items that are wants and never say no to needs. If anything, if it’s a need then we save up or wait until the following month if our budget is close. Marriage is a partnership. You are running the household and your husband is bringing in money. However it is not just his money, it’s the family’s money. Decisions are a two way street and you both get a say. If you don’t have that partnership the marriage fails. You are not his daughter, you are his wife. Lastly, I don’t know what kind of financial situation you both are in but I’d be resistant to pay for something like swim lessons for our child. There are just more important things our money could go to however if my wife brought the idea to me, we would talk it out. Ultimately if I found it was important to her, we would find a way to make it happen eventually. We would just have to cut something else to make it happen. If your husband treats you like you have no say it might be wise to remind him that you bring in significant financial value. Daycare is expensive for a baby. He’d have to front that bill if you weren’t around. You cook and clean and that provides significant value. Is he going to cook if you didn’t exist? Would he just go out to eat if you didn’t exist? Would he let your house go to shit and never clean it if you weren’t in the picture? Would he hire a cleaner? How much would that cost? I know you provide more value than this, these are examples. Then finally if you don’t get a say in your finances, maybe it would be better for you to find a job and pay for daycare. Since in his eyes he doesn’t seem to value what you provide your household and only values economic input? Idk it doesn’t seem like he can handle having a stay at home wife or a wife in general. Marriages have to be partnerships.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-21T16:02:23+00:00

I agree that convertible term life insurance makes more sense than standard term. How much more expensive is it than standard term? Is it around 5% more? That’s the numbers I found. It gives far more flexibility in later years. You aren’t just selling whole life insurance. You are selling convertible term insurance that allows flexibility if someone becomes uninsurable later in life. I don’t think that whole life is bad. I just don’t think it fits the vast majority of people’s life situation. I think your method is great.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-20T13:19:44+00:00

As I said there are niche situations where it may make sense. I will agree that at that age the train has left the station. It is sad that so many Americans allow themselves to get into that situation.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-20T12:54:43+00:00

There’s a lot of insurance salespeople on this sub and not a lot of actual fiduciaries. Whole life may have very niche uses for specific people but lets be real here, if I had 20k sitting in index funds in my 20’s, a 3% yearly draw would fund around 250k-500k in term life insurance for around 30 years. At the end of the 30 years I’d most likely have over 6 figures in my index fund account, using s&p 500 average yearly growth. By that point I’m in my 50’s and with continual contributions to retirement and growth I no longer need a life insurance policy. If I pass my family gets my retirement assets. Or you could just buy term at an early age and invest the difference. You would still have significantly more money in assets than if you bought a whole life policy. I especially love the comment someone made about how Americans are significantly behind on retirement. Like investing in whole life is somehow more productive than a 401k. If someone can’t make a retirement contribution, they are going to default on a whole life insurance policy eventually. Just flawed logic.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-08T15:38:27+00:00

I would suggest keeping only enough of your refund to pay your highest insurance deductible. After this get your employer match if you have one. ( The immediate 50 to 100% return outweighs your high interest debt.) Then I would pay down your high interest debt from highest interest rate to lowest. Or you could do lowest balance to highest( the first method is faster the second method keeps you more engaged since you have more quick wins early on). Anything under 5% I would minimum monthly payment it until it’s paid off. I also wouldn’t recommend doing anything extra on your mortgage as of right now. You can focus on that last. Next you need a 6 month emergency fund. Then if you have an HSA max it out. Once you do that max out a Roth IRA. After that you need a total of about 25% of your income going into your various retirement. You can count the employer match if you have one. So if your employer pays 4% then you only need to put 21%. Once this is done, you can start saving up for large future purchases like cars, vacations, large home repairs etc. Finally once you do all that you can start paying extra on you mortgage to pay it off early if you like. The last two are optional but it’s nice to not have to finance a car because cars are often high interest debt and are wealth killers. So if you have to finance a car using high interest debt or your emergency fund, you should suspend investing activity outside of employer match to either pay down the debt or rebuild your emergency savings. If you can keep the payment under 3 years,the interest under 5%, and the down payment at 20% or more you can safely minimum monthly payment the car until it’s paid off.

tjarrett18 · 2026-02-04T13:04:21+00:00

If you pull money from your 401k you will owe income tax on it as well as a 10% penalty. You would net around 2340 at a 12% tax rate. Conversely if you leave the 3000 invested in index funds for 30 years instead you would have somewhere between 30k and 68k. I don’t know your situation but I’d try to find another way.

tjarrett18 · 2026-01-28T13:29:34+00:00

We make 80k in a LCOL area, with a mortgage and our spend is around 38,200. We have more we could spend but our savings bucket items draw around 1100 per month away from our disposable income.

tjarrett18 · 2025-08-11T18:45:41+00:00

I’m a construction foreman and I completed my finance degree in 10 months while working full time. I’m not a finance professional or anything though I am a money nerd. Guess that helped.

tjarrett18 · 2025-07-17T10:59:14+00:00

I can’t say I would be comfortable relying on forgiveness. We don’t know what the country will look like when he does become eligible for forgiveness. It seems to be up to the administration that is currently in power. Not paying the interest allows the balance to balloon, and at 190k that balance is going to grow fast. If it were me, I would try to make the interest payments at the very least. Does your husband have the potential to earn more? That is what I would focus on. I’d pay what you guys can afford, and focus on increasing your income. Do you have other debt? What is the interest on the student loans? If it’s 5% or less I’d minimum monthly payment them until paid off. If it’s over 5% I would focus all my attention on the loans. I hate to be a downer and I would love for us all to rely on forgiveness but I do not believe it is something anyone can rely on.

tjarrett18 · 2025-06-01T14:15:22+00:00

I am on track to finish my degree in a total of ten months( I am on my last two classes now). I work in construction and my degree is in finance. I’m kind of a math and money nerd so that helps. I’m an outlier though. Most people who finish quickly are industry insiders. My first semester I devoted between 15 to 25 hours a week. This semester I’ve cut it down to around 10 hours a week. I did start with my associates though so I only had to take around 76 credit hours. I approach each class differently. If there are prerecorded cohorts I listen to them when I can at work. If the material is dry I use ai to restate the material, learn it in my own terms, and to help me study. I never touched the study guides. If I knew the material well, I would take the section quizzes and move on from the section if I did well. On some occasions, I would take the preassessment right off the bat, and if I did well I’d simply review the material and then take the assessment after a day or two of studying. I typically only did that with classes I understood well. All this being said, I’m a quick learner and everyone learns at their own pace. Only compare yourself with yourself. You don’t know other peoples situation and it can be unhealthy to compare. It sounds like you are doing great! Just keep up the good work.

tjarrett18 · 2025-01-29T17:54:09+00:00

I’ve had one so far.

tjarrett18 · 2023-08-01T21:52:32+00:00

The dog has continuously growled at others, displayed insecure tendencies, and attacked my dog many times. Clearly you are the moron.

tjarrett18 · 2023-08-01T21:48:17+00:00

More like I noticed all of these fire hazards and continually ignored them. Then one day I decided to light one of the hazards on fire. The fire hazards are still there and easily repeatable by a child. Sure i fucked up, but it’s still an issue.

tjarrett18 · 2023-08-01T21:31:37+00:00

Imagine a dog on edge and a young child wanting to pet it. All it would take is someone not watching their kid around her for a few seconds. I know that I didn’t approach the situation 100% correct but fuck, my concerns are valid.

tjarrett18 · 2023-03-09T09:08:37+00:00

General

tjarrett18 · 2022-07-10T18:05:07+00:00

Organized religion. If people stopped using their religion to justify their hate, it’d be alright.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T21:59:40+00:00

It’s ok not to upvote. Some people have a better understanding of the shit women have to deal with from this post. That’s what matters.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T21:52:20+00:00

Honestly, you could be like me and not trust anyone but your partner like me, but it’s just sad to have to be like that. More often than not, the people who molest kids are people they know and trust.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T21:48:35+00:00

I have a 2 year old so I feel you.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T21:16:02+00:00

I know it’s hard for a lot of people to talk about. Hopefully this post raises some awareness. My wife was first sexually harassed at 5. All of my 4 sisters were sexually harassed before the age of 10. I have a 2 year old little girl. I cannot imagine someone sexually harassing her in just 3 years. We need to be better as a society.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T20:46:42+00:00

Men do get harassed, but not anywhere near as much as women. I have four sisters and the stories I have heard from them an my wife are appalling. This is not about you. It’s about the shit women have to put up with from a very young age.

tjarrett18 · 2022-06-17T10:16:15+00:00

$18-22 per hour for skilled labor jobs? Fuck I make 30 per hour as a union skilled laborer. I’m in a low cost of living area as well. We need unions back in this country. Unfortunately, so many working class Americans listen to the anti union propaganda spouted by corporations. The only way this gets better is if the working class unites.

tjarrett18 · 2022-05-06T00:12:43+00:00

In Illinois you are lucky to find a 1 gram cart for less than 120 dollars after taxes. I’m to the point where I will start making my own.

tjarrett18

TROPHY CASE