
What did you do to improve your finances today?
This was one of my favourite threads on the old forum, and since there doesn't seem to be one here yet, I thought I'd create one :-)
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I reluctantly updated my YNAB after a weekend of spending more than I had anticipated and was ready to feel all that guilt and shame. But miraculously, when I updated I realized I had already budgeted for spending money out with friends and to do some small house updates. I was covered! I'm a 6-month YNAB user and I'm still getting used to not feeling ashamed every single time I spend something, but it's a really great feeling.
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I just recently refinanced my student loan. I'm not sure why it took me so long to do but it was worth it. I went from a 12% loan to a sub 4% fixed rate. It should save a good amount of money over the rest of my payoff. I went through Earnest which makes it really easy. After your approval they give you the tools to set your own terms. You can do variable rate or fixed rate and choose how long you want it to take to pay the rest of your loan off. They also have a referral program where if someone you refer refinances you get $200 and so does the person you referred. If anyone has been on the fence on refinancing their student loans check Earnest out, I wish I did earlier. I wish I was kidding when I say I've paid over $15,000 in interest on an $8,500 loan, and still have over $9,000 left.... definitely look into if you're in a similar boat.
https://www.earnest.com/invite/miguel432 - This is my referral link, get us both some money! lol. -
After 2 months of looking around, just arranged to buy a second hand chest of drawers. And the car and trailer we need to pink it up next week. For half the price I had reserved for it!
Now it’s all arranged I’m actually looking forward to the ride with my husband, where beforehand it all seemed so complicated I nearly bought something new.
Extra plus for the waiting: after this long it will feel like a big luxury to not have to use boxes! 😂
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Here's one that happened to me recently. I got a credit card with a signup bonus, and then when I went to click the "redeem the bonus to erase a travel purchase" button, instead I hit the one that said, "Redeem these points for cash back at 50% on the dollar." Boom, half of that bonus evaporated.
After much cursing, I was like, wait, I should call and ask. Which I did, and within a couple of days they'd reversed the cash back and credit the points back to my account. Somehow I have to relearn "It can't hurt to ask" once a month or so. 😄
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Successfully gave every dollar a job, got a $95 late fee waived, and budgeted ahead into December to cover all of the expenses coming up until we next get paid. This is my first budget in my adult life (ugh, hurts to say that 😔) as well as the first budget of my marriage and we are feeling a bit overwhelmed and nervous but also beginning hints of relief and pride!
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Our fiber internet contract expired, and the rate for doubled. We called, and while they no longer do contracts for sticking with them (Google Fiber came to our area), they've given us an additional $30/month off. So we're paying significantly less than we have for the previous 2 years!
This inspired me to add a recurring note to my calendar, to check-in on the current deals more regularly. 😉 -
Budgeted our first paychecks today, which was fun. (Yet we'll be eating take out today that wasn't planned, but hey, you can't have it all)
Applied to switch our energy provider, which would be a €30/month difference. This goes in on Jan 1st. Canceled our tv and landline subscription and upgraded our internet contract, which will give us another €30/month advantage. That's €720/year to spend on more important things!
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Got through my Black Friday online sales shopping and thanks to sales and Amazon account funds I only spent $18.20 above what I had in my related categories (and I had plenty of funds in TBB from client payment the other day).
December is fully budgeted, I was able to knock several things off my Amazon lists as well as get a few other things I needed and wanted, and had a nice chunk left over to dump into longer term Wish Farm items.
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I gave up on the idea that my car insurance company cared about me at all. I also learned that the insurance company I had was worse than I realized!
I've had the same car insurance since 2002. While the longevity of my account did get me to the front of the line if I had to call them, I realized that I was paying quite a bit of money in insurance.My partner and I have recently moved to Las Vegas from New York together, and have combined many things (including a joint account that I manage - hence me searching for a budgeting app - enter YNAB stage right!). I decided it was worth looking into combining car insurance.
We went to his insurance company yesterday and discovered quite a few things of note...
1. My car insurance went down by $20 for the 6-month premium. Okay, not a huge amount but I'll take it.
2. We were both paying for renters insurance, even though he had added me to his policy (didn't realize that). My renters insurance was $230 for a year for only myself, while his was significantly cheaper. Got rid of that payment entirely!
3. Our car insurance policy will cover any car rental we get, as long as it is under one of our names. When we go visit his family next month, we won't have to pay the additional insurance costs that rental agencies try to hit you up for. Bonus! (If anyone is reading this far, most credit card companies will cover any rental you get anyway, so very rarely do you actually need car rental insurance)
4. I've had AAA for years now, but only had it because I was single and absolutely HATE anything to do with cars. I own a reliable car for my sanity. However, the AAA membership also helped me believe that I would be okay if something were to happen. When we were looking at our car insurance policy, we realized that he was paying $5 for emergency services through his insurance. Since I had just received the bill from AAA (and it was going up $30 this year), I asked what it covered. The insurance company actually had a better deal than AAA going! There's another $90 a year saved!
This all happened on Black Friday, which I find humorous. Instead of spending $$$, we saved!
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I'm an over-thinker and probably spend waaaay too much time gruelling over every nuance of my finances. I feel like part of that has involved the unknown monthly pay (February has always been the worst for hourly) & a desire to knock out some debt.
However, I recently had an exciting move up to salary, which also means I now know exactly when & how much (within a few $) I'll be making each month. It's given me the confidence to make the following changes in order to (ideally) stop micromanaging my budget and spend more time doing fun stuff. Let go a bit, ya know?
- Moved any automatic payments I could to the first week of the month. This should save time when balancing recurring transactions.
- I've setup a recurring income with split categories to auto-budget most of my categories. The remainder goes to the To Be Budgeted category.
- Only Debts are setup w/ pay-up-to $ a-month goals. This way, I can click the Underfunded quick budget to get those covered.
- Then check my account for the actual pay amount, edit the current income transaction, and budget out the extra.
- After all that (which took a bit to set up, but now should only take a few minutes to execute) I can probably step away for 2-3 weeks, unless an unexpected expense comes up.
Here's to removing stress-induced control missions and on to chill "i got this" 2020. -
Clicked “underfunded” for the entire month. Done...
It was so simple it was boring and a bit exciting at the same time. Therefor I did it twice 😂.
As I just received one small stream of income from the previous 8(!) months all at once, there was even quite some left after that. I filled up “Berlin with M (husband)” 😊 and put the rest in the income replacement category.
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I'm reining in Christmas spending this year big time with a set budget I'm watching closely. I'm making a lot of my gifts which is saving money.
I returned my Fitbit to Best Buy since the screen broke after this Fitbit was a already a replacement. I only got it in June, and paid $50 for their 3 year extended warranty. This was before YNAB in July & reading this summer about not paying for extended warranties - instead save the money yourself in a category & replace it when needed. So I told them I wanted a refund since it was under a year, including the $50, and they said they could only do a Gift Card. That was fine with me. It was processing and I signed the screen as the manager said they can't refund the $50. But since the transaction went through he said it was fine but their policy is to not refund warranties. So I walked away with a $270 Gift Card. Whohoo. Don't miss my Fitbit. I've had 3 & they all have broken.
On Black Friday, I used my GC to buy my boys speakers for Xmas. $200 income to my budget and they have both said about wanting their own speakers since they keep taking over mine. Win Win!! :)
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Today I placed a Target pick-up order with only things I need: poster board for daughter's science project, hand soap, mouthwash, sandwich bags. This is a BORING order, but there was no temptation this way to peruse the aisles and get other things. I had a $10 gift card from a Target sale, so this cost me $6. woo.
I'm also going to push going to the grocery store until we are OUT of dinner options. I probably have a week's worth of groceries but tend to shop weekly regardless.
Potential savings: roughly $150 (what I had leftover for this week in the grocery category + half of next week - needing to buy bread and butter now, lol)
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I'd signed up for Paribus; it checks receipts and orders and tracks if prices change or shipping promises are late and alerts you. It alerted me that an Amazon order I had placed was late and gave me the script to say to Amazon through chat...I just did it and Amazon gave a $5 promotional credit to my account!