Well, only because A.) didn't know OTPHJ would be a thing until I already had a lease/no way out and B.) I was barely ever home throughout all of that. It was a place to store my things, in the 27 months of "living" there I probably spent about 60 nights at that shit hole. But you're not wrong, I was certainly , overly so in that case. It was a good time to save and really get myself in to a better position than I ever was in the first half of my 20s though.dubshow wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:58 amfor frame of reference, you also were down with the OTPHJ to save a buck.D Griff wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:17 am
is pretty much my way. I did get Mint going again recently to see what I'm spending on but I just can't get into it.
I don't really understand the impulse buying on Amazon thing, but different strokes. I browse sometimes but generally take a lot of time to pull the trigger on even a $20 purchase. Restaurants/bars/travel are a much larger YOLO problem for me. When someone invites me to something fun, I get a chance to have a cool weekend with the gf, stuff like that, it's really hard to say no. It's not all that bad though, because I'll still generally go for $2.50 PBRs at bars and such. GF doesn't have expensive tastes in restaurants, so we probably average $40 for a dinner out. In general I'm just frugal automatically.
So despite pretty much doing whatever the hell I want and not really making all that much, I still do 10% into the 401k plus the company's 5%, than about $500/month into savings. I still usually end up with extra money that I've thrown at the student loans always, but those are pretty much paid off so I'll probably start saving more I guess.
I suppose my one piece of advice goes back to the $2.50 PBR thing. Say you go out with friends and get four drinks. Four PBRs plus tip is $12. Four hipster pinshit artisan drinks is like $60. If you REALLY LOVE the drinks that much, get one or two, but they're pretty heavy into the side of things, IMO. Same goes for food. If you're going out with friends, suggest a cool, cheaper place. My GF and I really like a local Vietnamese place, super good food but nothing fancy. If you end up at a place, just get a $12 burger instead of a $25 whatever. Look for highly rated single $ restaurants on Yelp. There are tons of good ones in pretty much every city but Boston. Even NYC and SF have awesome, cheap food.
I can't imagine not taking advantage of the hundreds per year in CC bonuses, but I guess if you don't have self control, ditch them. I got into a bit of CC debt once when I got engaged to a Max spec chick and made like $35k, but I was really stupid back then... never since.
4 lyfe. And nothing wrong with that.
Now I live in a nice place and still get to do a lot of travelling, vacationing, and other fun stuff. Doing my time paid off.