How do you afford shit adv. I swear i don't seem to have

>>18396625
how much money do you make per month?
what are your expenses? are you wasting money on addictions? if you smoke cigarettes a pack per day can add up to ~$200 per month.

make sure you don't spend unnecessary amounts on insurances you don't need. check the best deals and switch if you find something better. get good at filling out taxes and saving money there. make sure to streamline all your expenses, iow, only rent the apt you really need, tmnot the one with an extra room that will just fill up with unused stuff. sell what you haven't used in a year. get used stuff if possible, it's mostly as good as new.
track your expenses. make a DETAILED budget.
mostly, change your attitude. if you THINK there's never enough, there will never be.

maybe your income clashes with the living expenses where you are?

idk, read books about money management or something.

>>18396633

My expenses a month typically average 338
I do smoke which definitely does have an impact but it's alot less because i live close to an indian reservation. Here cartons average about 26$. I smoke a little less than a pack a day though, but for a good estimate lets leave it at a pack a day. so on average my montly expenses are 416ish$. That's before factoring in food, which would be another sizeable chunk of anywhere between 100~200 a month.

>>18396658
wtf... you spend 4x as much on smoking than food? nigger get a grip. i bet you also drink rather much alc. that stuff is expensive and extremely unnecessary. just cut it out.
my sister and her husband blth smoke a pack a day, too, and they are always short on money despite making almost the same as i and my husband have. it's just a huge expense that people can't really afford. atleast not if you want to have some spare money for saving or other stuff.

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>>18396625
>other people can afford [insert stupid thing here]
Yeah, and it just so happens that most people are shit with money and in debt. go figure.

>eating healthy
Can you afford about ~60 bucks a week in groceries? The answer is yes

>what changes did you do to become more economically stable?
Not spending my money on retarded shit like: concerts, alcohol, shiny things, expensive clothes, smoking

>>18396658
>wants financial advice

>spends his money on smoking
wow

>>18396687
Maybe i didn't word that right but heres what i'm looking at, at the moment:

Expenses:
Rent(Shared): 133$ a month
Gas/Electric(Shared): 26$ a month
Cigarettes: 76$ a month
Food: ~200$ a month)
Car Gas: ~60 a month
Car Insurance: 113 a month (Cheapest I could find
Phone (Recently placed on standby Due to affording issues) 75$ a month.

Income:
Part time job,
10.75 an hour.
hours can vary between 30 and 16 on a weekly basis
-15% tax from income.

I suppose i just need a better job, quit smoking, cancel my cell phone contract, and actually grocery shop instead of having 1~2 7~10$ eat outs a day.

Well shit, i know i fucked up in picking up smoking 9 years ago. I just haven't managed quitting yet. We all got poor life choices, smoking unfortunately was mine.

>>18396721
that's insane for a phone unless it's your primary source of internet. you should be able to get a plan with unlimited calling/texts and about 4gb of data at 4g speeds and afterwards it goes down to 3g for $30/month

>>18396740
Yeah, on the off chance anyones reading this and thinking about getting a phone avoid sprint like the plague.

I'm on unlimited calling/text and just 2gb of data and they're railing me for 75$ a month, unlimited was at 90$ a month. Still got 3 months of contract left with em and i'm bailing right out.

Most people buy things/do things they can't afford and subsequently go into debt. But that's how this current generation of kids just act; yolo, go big or go home mentality that demands instant gratification and no planning for the future

don't be like them

>>18396762

Aye, I hear you there, and I know in my initial posting it might've seemed like oh shit i just want to buy a bunch of shit and live the dream life with 0 effort, get drunk and just go ham on buying shit. But I really just want to be able to occasionally afford shit, get a decent hobby where i can meet people and mingle. Take care of myself appearance/health and otherwise, and just not feel like theres an overwhelming cloud of financial insecurity over my head at all times like if i'm out a job i'm heading straight to the streets because i couldn't afford saving up.

I guess it's mostly a case of having moved out on my own not too long ago and still adjusting to having to cover all my own expenses and having to make so many sacrifices to do so that it feels like i can't really enjoy life anymore. It's just, work distract, sleep and avoid spending on anything not absolutely vital to exist.

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>>18396625
>not for eating healthy
Pic related.

Also,
>>18396721
Don't fucking eat out if you want excess money. That should be obvious, it's a huge waste. Learn to cook or to enjoy simpler meals.

>>18396721
Your job is by far the biggest problem. The median income for a high school graduate is somewhere around $16 an hour and working full-time.

>>18396721
If you cut out cigarettes, it's an extra $912/year.
If you stop eating out and cook at home, you will save a considerable amount. I'm willing to say that you could save at least $1200/year this way.

Is your car vital? Does it take you places public transportation can't take you in a reasonable amount of time? If not, look into cutting this out too.

You don't need a $75/month phone bill at this stage, that's absurd. T-Mobile has an INCREDIBLE $30/month 5gb prepaid plan. Get on that. Use services like Facebook Messenger and Skype for your audio calls.

I don't know where you live, but $133 for rent seems really good.

What do you do for a living? Can you get more hours at work?

>>18396848
Where the fuck does image OP live where a pound of bananas is 47 cents

>>18396848

To be fair, eating a bunch of dried fruit isn't necessarily much healthier.

Sure, you get more nutrients than with twizzlers but dried fruit still = concentrated sugars.

>>18397056
Of course its at a cost, it's in a really shitty neighborhood. and thats the amount i pay after dividing the rent between 2 roommates and myself so it's really 400$ a month / 3

Phone's definitely gonna be switched.

Can't really say for certain i could swap car for public transportation yet, depending where my next job is. On the subject of jobs, right now i'm a part time retail job. It was a "Take the first thing i could find" Sort of situation as i'd quit a pretty bad job not too long ago. It was full time, but the pay+Commute was abysmal, they recorded everything you did, and there we're constant talks of people getting fired for no good reason not to mention their quality standards we're extremely unrealistic. I don't think my retail jobs going to pony up anymore hours, it really seems like they try to keep you just at the edge of part time to get you to work as much as they can without owing you any other benefits. So at most i'll work a 5:45 shift. I'm kind of against job hopping though which has lead to being a little pickier than i should with my next hop. I really don't know what i could potentially do, probably another call center or something.

>>18396912
Duly noted, yeah. Theirs talks of the minimum wage here going up to 15$ an hour come september. but even then right now i'm making about maybe a dollar over minimum wage. Yet most of the jobs i've found near me that are relatively easy to jump into pay around the same salary. between 9~11$/hr

>>18396848
Not sure where this magical land is, but my grocery stores pretty expensive. I might just not be savvy enough about doing my own groceries/following specials etc.

>>18397110
Also gotta point here.

In general i'm just not fond of veggies and fruits. and though i know how to cook some basic stuff i think my biggest issue is i'm pretty stupid when it comes to seasoning.

If theirs anything i can truly take away from this thread is things can change easily. just gotta take some more action, hunt down that job, practice that cooking, cut off them uneccesary phone and smoking expenses. Can't expect the financial situation to change if i'm not doing anything concrete about it.

>>18396740
>>18396756
I thought getting my ass fucked by verizon for $49 a month after fees was bad.

I have verizon because i live in the sticks and every other service sucks

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>>18397113
do you buy generic brand shit for groccery store stuff.

ck or /r/slowcooking could help you save money

>>18397147
Yeah when i do buy groceries, it's typically super market brand unless it's something i'm absolutely positive is gonna taste like shit otherwise.

I'll check out CK for the foods savings. Though i'm already down to just 50 bucks already Not sure if i could squeeze out 9 days worth of food out of that.,

>>18396721
>Rent(Shared): 133$ a month
what

>>18397113
What's the job market like around you? Is there, say, a startup scene that you could hustle your way into at the nearest big city?

>>18397161
some rice some breans and some veggies.

shit sucks but is how 50% of the earth eats. Feel free to add some lard if you want to go hardcore squatamalan

>>18397161

Yeah, $50 for nine days is totally doable. This is what I'd spend it on:

A decently sized bag of rice ($10)
A few pounds of chicken thighs ($8)
Two dozen eggs ($4)
A few bags of frozen mixed veggies ($4)

Congratulations, you have chicken fried rice for lunch and dinner for at least a week. And you still have about $24 leftover.

>>18397163
Said it already but i pay 133$ a month. My share of a 400$ a month rent divided between three people.

>>18397170
I just got here about 3 months ago so i can't really say too much on the job market. There seems to be considerable demand for employees because the area's population is pretty low. maybe about 50,000 people tops. But on the downside full time jobs or jobs that guarantee hours are low because people are usually just using you for tourist season and then taking hours away for the dead season. Never really heard about a startup scene before. Could you elaborate?

>>18397175
Probably gotta get oil and salt/seasoning too and some water too but ultimately that sounds doable. Gon' take a trip to the grocery store tomorrow then

>>18396625
if you cant afford things you do a thing called "saving up"

Living at home saves A LOT of money.

>>18397176
Yeah, basically a city with a startup scene has a bunch of companies that are considered startups. Mostly small tech companies funded by investors who are playing the startup lottery, looking for the next Google/Facebook/etc

If there's a city near you with one of these (basically San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Portland, Denver, St. Louis, etc.) then you should try and hustle your way into one. Whether it's sales, marketing, customer support, etc., there's much less barriers to entry -- usually not some shitty bureaucratic hiring process where your resume gets thrown into a void only for an underpaid store manager to give you a call six months later.

>>18396625
Apply for government jobs. Half the people there are overpaid retards.

>>18396625
Drop the cigarettes and you will be surprised how much more money you will have.

I used to be like you, living paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes I'd search my apartment for pennies so I could buy myself ramen. I really thought I'd never be able to get ahead and my roommate was exactly the same. I was planning to move in six months and I knew I was going to get fucked in bills by the complex because of some of the damage done to my apartment, so I saved everything I possibly could. I worked in a restaurant, so I ate there whenever possible and skipped meals often. Eventually, I saved a decent amount (like $1000) and when the apartment complex billed me for the damages, it wound up costing me $250. I now had a bunch of extra cash and since then, I have never fallen behind and always have at bare minimum, $1-2k in my savings plus whatever is in my checking.
Now it's just a matter of making the right choices. I go to the grocery store once a week and spend $50-70 and I make sure I get healthy and filling food. I only go out once, MAYBE twice a week, so that's $20 or so. Whatever I have leftover after my bills at the end of the month goes right into my savings account. My roommate on the other hand, is still exactly the same as before. Constantly living paycheck to paycheck with only $2 in his account and in constant debt to somebody who had to bail him out.

The point is, learn to finance and save wherever and whenever you can so that you *can* actually get ahead a bit and then don't piss it all away. Once you're ahead, it's easy to stay ahead.

P.s. I pay $60 for my phone bill with T-Mobile. The fuck? You guys are talking about $50 being ripped off. How do I get this drastically reduced? I was on contract with them for like a decade and then the contract shit ended with them some years back but my bill has never changed.

>>18396721
>working part time
>can't figure out why you can't afford shit
Why would you need anybody's input on this, isn't the problem obvious? You work 10-24 hrs less than most adults and at a low payrate, of course you're living paycheck to paycheck. You could be more frugal but it's not like your expenses are excessive.