Since it's nosy day: FWP "where does the $$ go?" budgeting

[niq]

poof

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:14:12 GMT -5 @this said:

Sept 25, 2015 14:10:23 GMT -5 niq said:

AMA?

What kind of third-row SUV should I get to drive my only child and two small dogs around suburbia? Thx

msniq is going to have to pry from my performance sedan from my cold, dead hands

Though when mom totaled her car, we used the insurance check to buy a used Volvo, so I am not above "mom cars".

[Deleted]

Sept 25, 2015 14:14:12 GMT -5 @this said:

Sept 25, 2015 14:10:23 GMT -5 niq said:

AMA?

What kind of third-row SUV should I get to drive my only child and two small dogs around suburbia? Thx

Will you just buy the minivan and stop being difficult. Geez!

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:16:24 GMT -5 JRo said:

Are you asking for advice or are you just showing us? Lol.

I dunno, I'd take advice if anyone has it? Anyway there was at least some interest in this sort of thing in the UO thread.

[sjh722]

Sept 25, 2015 14:15:19 GMT -5 niq said:

Sept 25, 2015 14:14:12 GMT -5 @this said:

What kind of third-row SUV should I get to drive my only child and two small dogs around suburbia? Thx

msniq is going to have to pry from my Honda Odyssey from my cold, dead hands

I didn't peg you as a minivan guy.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:20:39 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Oops, I thought people were going to list their ridiculous yuppie sob stories here.

Yeah I am self-aware enough to know that The Struggle Isn't Real, sorry.

[Deleted]

"Where does the $$ go?" is sort of along the same lines as "What is the meaning of life?" or "What is up with Donald Trump's hair?"

Basically, I got nothin', even with the numbers you posted.

Maybe V is siphoning some extra snack money when you aren't looking?

Okay, in all honesty, I have this problem and when I sit down and actually add up the stuff we've spent money on that doesn't really have a budget category it is always MUCH higher than I anticipate.

[mrssandro]

Sept 25, 2015 14:25:29 GMT -5 gamecockgirl74 said:

Guys, I have been living under a rock. I didn't realize Niq was a man!!!! Not that it matters, but DUH! Jesus, I need to pay more attention.

This is  well known that he is the only man on the MM moms board.  

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:24:29 GMT -5 @forcuatro said:

Okay, in all honest, I have this problem and when I sit down and actually add up the stuff we've spent money on that doesn't really have a budget category it is always MUCH higher than I anticipate.

spunbutterfly calls this budget category "fuckit".

Toddler is obsessed with his lovey, and had a meltdown because you couldn't find it? fuckit, buy three more.
It's friday night and no one wants to cook dinner? fuckit, takeout.
etc.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:26:07 GMT -5 mrssandro said:

Sept 25, 2015 14:25:29 GMT -5 gamecockgirl74 said:

Guys, I have been living under a rock. I didn't realize Niq was a man!!!! Not that it matters, but DUH! Jesus, I need to pay more attention.

This is the well known that he is the only man on the MM moms board.  

I dunno, maybe chris is still lurking?

[Deleted]

My money goes to Chipotle and Banana Republic. And daycare.

niq what languages do you work in?

[badtzmaru22]

Yes, you can afford your $169 refurbished Neato from woot!

Cheers,
Suze Orman

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:28:32 GMT -5 @sessalee said:

My money goes to ... Banana Republic. 

niq what languages do you work in?

Yeah I think the "clothes" number in the spreadsheet is way low.

In my current job I work mostly in C++ and python. I've spent a lot of time working with Java and Perl in the past. I think C++ programming is becoming more of a (lucrative) niche these days -- lots of schools teach in Java now for good reasons.

[pinotgrig]

Sept 25, 2015 14:18:57 GMT -5 sjh722 said:

Sept 25, 2015 14:15:19 GMT -5 niq said:

msniq is going to have to pry from my Honda Odyssey from my cold, dead hands

I didn't peg you as a minivan guy.

Yeah, I didn't picture James Bond* as driving a minivan.

* Your recent tux pics

[pinotgrig]

Sept 25, 2015 14:25:29 GMT -5 gamecockgirl74 said:

Guys, I have been living under a rock. I didn't realize Niq was a man!!!! Not that it matters, but DUH! Jesus, I need to pay more attention.

<3

[8675309]

Ok I'll play.

Total in approx $8K
Total out $8.5K

We must be doing something wrong.

[pinotgrig]

Ok, I do have some questions:

Can you explain rsu's to me? I get the general concept, I think, so just a brief high level explanation would be great.

How much are you saving every month?

Why don't you have an fsa?

[sent]

The UO thread spawned the nosy threads? I AM SO BEHIND.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:33:10 GMT -5 @choco said:

MAX your retirement vehicles!!!!! But you know that. Also, the only thing that seems to not be mentioned is house maintenance stuff. Do you budget for that or just pay and not think about it? For example, lawncare, pest control (but we live in your hometown, and that is essential here but maybe not where you are), etc. We have shelled out over $10K year to date on the house and I don't even have a fancy anything to show for it. Well maybe the new A/C? But it's getting cooler here so that isn't even going to be useful again until next year. Oh and the washer and dryer are fun. We had to get some trees chopped down too.

There's an item for "home maintenance" in the "annual expenses" spreadsheet but I have no idea what number to put there. We've only been homeowners for 3 years, and it's a new house, so it hasn't had a lot of problems yet.

Right, we should use the RSU $$ for backdoor Roths, thanks for that reminder!

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 14:35:37 GMT -5 pinotgrig said:

Ok, I do have some questions:

Can you explain rsu's to me? I get the general concept, I think, so just a brief high level explanation would be great.

How much are you saving every month?

Why don't you have an fsa?

* RSUs: on your start date, the company gives you X shares of stock. Usually they vest over 4 years. So after you've been there a year* you get 25% of the stock, then a year later you get another 25%, etc. At some companies (like mine), once you hit the 1 year "cliff" the vesting shifts to quarterly, so instead of once a year you get 25%, once a quarter you get 6.25%.

At performance review time, the top employees get some more stock. What counts as "top" varies a lot -- some places it's only the top 5-10% of performers and they get a ton of it, some places it's everyone who gets "meets expectations" and the amounts are smaller, etc. The vesting schedule for review stock is the same as start date stock

The stock grant is taxed as W2 income. The day it vests, the broker "sells-to-cover" a percentage of the grant and that gets withheld for taxes. Then at tax time you file Schedule D showing you didn't make any money on the sell-to-cover transaction.

* How much are we saving: in terms of monthly income, I think since mom moved in we've averaged $1000-1500/month outside college & retirement, but lately it hasn't been much at all or we've been in the negative b/c of the kitchen reno.
* FSA: I do have an FSA, it's in "paycheck deductions".

*technically, the vest cycle starts at the first board meeting after your start date. I have no idea why this is.

[chickens987]

My budget includes line items for Amazon and target. And sushi.

[boiler717]

I see we have similar take homes. How did you decide how much to save for college? Do you do contribute monthly (I didn't see in the budget)?
How old are you? I am jealous of your RSUs! We are 33/31 and have $300k in retirement.

[thebreakfastclub]

RSUs were a little less generous at my old job. We got $5000 annually, up to $7500 at your supervisor's discretion. Some got $0 or $2500 based on performance.

It takes 3 years to get any of it, and you must still be employed. It's nice for sure, but the waiting period is kind of long.

[sugarbear]

Niq, are you enrolled in the GET program?

If so, did you recently get the letter about pulling your funds? What's your plan?

[Deleted]

All I have to say is that I miss Fred Meyer soooooo much.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 15:31:35 GMT -5 sugarbear said:

Niq, are you enrolled in the GET program?

If so, did you recently get the letter about pulling your funds? What's your plan?

We're enrolling in November. Dad opened a 529 when V was born and put some money in there, the savings have been going there so far.

Is this the whole thing where GETs have been a bad investment for the last 2-3 years because college tuition has been frozen, and so they're giving people a chance to pull the money out and put it somewhere else? If I had funds ... I dunno, I don't think I'd pull them with little kids, I'm sure the tuition hikes will come back before 2021.

If I had a teenager I would try to roll them over into another state's 529 that had a good low-fee bond fund (not sure which states have the good 529 programs these days, I think Utah was tops when I looked a few years ago.

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 15:16:46 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

I see we have similar take homes. How did you decide how much to save for college? Do you do contribute monthly (I didn't see in the budget)?

The college savings come out of the stock grant at vest time.

I used the savingforcollege.com calculator, put in Total Cost of Attendance for Harvard (you can plug in basically any top 25 private school, they all charge about the same), and put in more pessimistic investment growth & tuition growth assumptions. In theory I could game the system by going to work for a startup when the kids are teenagers to get better financial aid, but (1) that seems totally unfair, and (2) I'm not sure I'll want to do that.

I'm 36 and msniq is 35. We have about $225K in retirement. msniq went to law school 2007-2010 and my cash income then was half what it is now, the stock grants were smaller then and mostly went into the DP.

[rxbeth]

Sept 25, 2015 14:25:29 GMT -5 gamecockgirl74 said:

Guys, I have been living under a rock. I didn't realize Niq was a man!!!! Not that it matters, but DUH! Jesus, I need to pay more attention.

Lol. I assumed they were a same sex couple.

[monsterz]

Do you sell your RSUs as soon as they vest or hold onto them? Do you have an ESPP program as well?

[niq]

Sept 25, 2015 16:12:08 GMT -5 monsterz said:

Do you sell your RSUs as soon as they vest or hold onto them? Do you have an ESPP program as well?

I sell them, do the spending we need to do, and anything left goes into a Vanguard fund.

There's no ESPP here yet.