MBB_Boy's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
candide
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by candide »

Still, and in all earnestness, happy father's day.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Thanks @candide

Update: Paternity leave is a go - they are modifying the paperwork.

With that out of the way, I'm feeling pretty good. I can frame this a few different ways, but the ultimate effect is that I'm getting paid until the end of the year. Any employment that begins ahead of that means I'm getting double paid.

Have some good leads already (with no work on my part), so feeling pretty good about prospects right now. Still going to be intentional and measured regarding finding a new job, but certainly no need to freak out or just take the first thing that comes along.

Even though its unnecessary, DW and I have decided to stress test ourselves and do a monthly budget that is 100% based on her income. For non-related reasons, we started a new monthly cash flow based budget + weekly budget discussion at the beginning of this month. So the process to really turn the screws on our spending was already set up. That's a "lucky coincidence".

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Getting pretty deep into an interview process with a role I like. Main concern at this point is that it's standing up another new team (which is how I got burned at my last company when they ran into trouble) and also some concerns that the role / title may be too junior. It's the same title I've been stuck at the past few years, and I suspect I would have been able to get this job 5 years ago. Have some other irons in the fire as well, including a return to the employer before my recent move that got me laid off.

Using the time to spend time with my son, read, and get some house projects moving. Most recently finished The Coddling of the American Mind, which I generally enjoyed. I appreciated that the authors were upfront about their political bias about halfway through the book, but it had become quite apparent by that point anyway. I get it though - you can't write a book like that without taking "both sides" to the woodshed...even if you really have to go out of your way to do so. Otherwise, the book would just be rejected by the side being attacked, instead of thoughtfully considered.

For house projects, worked with my buddy to install ceiling fans in our guest room and nursery (although to be fair, he did most of the work. I DID do our outside ceiling fan by myself though!). Paid him in pizza.

Same friend also helped us deal with a moisture issue in the master shower. Learned a lot about regrouting and caulking. Resealed the shower after that.

Current project is blacking out the windows in the nursery. We are using blackout film for some small windows,and then blackout curtains for the primary. My wife had to step in for the blackout film after my attempt at an expedient solution using double sided tape wasn't satisfactory. I get REALLY impatient with home projects, and we agreed that the proper method for application of the film would look better (and take less time) if she simply did it. Trimming the edges with a razor is just something I would mess up by rushing. My wife draws, so she has practice making small hand movements over long periods of time haha.

The blackout curtains had an unexpected snag - broke a drill bit trying to put a hole in the wall above the window. Apparently there is metal under the paint / drywall. Looks like it goes pretty far past the top of the window (drilled a few more small test holes). I have NO idea why this is, but assume it's for a good reason since I don't think builders do extra work for now reason. The nails that came with the curtain rod are too long to fit before I hit the metal, so I'll be heading out to get shorter ones. Also going to get some sort of tape to seal the edges of the blackout film, because a bit of light still leaks through after trimming with the razor.

theanimal
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by theanimal »

Metal face plates are put on the outside of studs in some areas to protect electrical wires (and prevent people getting electrocuted when trying to put screws/nails in etc)that run through that section of the stud. Using a shorter nail in the drywall won’t have much weight bearing capacity and won’t really be secure as the end of the nail will just be resting unanchored in the gypsum. Drywall screws would work but may be too big for what you’re trying to do. Otherwise you’d probably be better off trying to find a different spot in a stud that you can anchor in to.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Thanks @theanimal. I ended up using drywall screws - they aren't visible under the curtains and were able to screw in to the hooks that hold up the cheap, light curtain rod. I have a friend with the tools to drill through the metal, but I figured there was some reason that would backfire

Tried electrical tape to seal up the edges of the blackout film - worked and looked great! Until the summer heat hit it and it curled up like bacon, undoing much of our hard work. It blocks more light messed up than not applied, so we are going to leave it up for now. My original plan was to cut out pieces of cardboard, wrap them in a fun wrapping paper, and stick them in. DW was not convinced, so we've gone the UV film route. Now I think we're swinging back to an elevated version of my idea - my wife is going to create some art on posterboard or something and we'll put THAT over the windows (leaving the UV film to block most of the light and heat).

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Some important milestones to celebrate and think on.

1. Completed our first overnight at a friend's house with DS. Stayed with our friends for 4th of July (by FAR my favorite holiday) and things went pretty well. Managed to keep the new parent overpacking to a minimum, he slept just fine, and everyone was enamored with him. We were able to enjoy the holiday pretty fully, even with the heat outside. The only downside is that we did not introduce him to the pool - it was just too hot to take him out in the sun.

2. Frame for our barndominium was completed! Saw the pictures from the builder, really happy with how everything turned out. There's also some doubts when picking paint colors, but we love the look. Insulation is next, and think we are on track for completion in mid-September.

3. Went back out to the ranch and talked to the electric company again. Unfortunately, they are completely out of whatever transformer they need that would allow us to run our electric underground. There is no ETA on when more can come in, and they are 50 behind so looking at over a year with no promises.

Fortunately, our new neighbor do the south recently had electric put in, and she got one of the last underground transformers. This is a new development, and she fortunately put the pad and such relatively close to our share fenceline. The electric guy is going to talk to her about letting us run off of her infrastructure. It shouldn't affect her at all aside from letting work be done (plenty of power, separate meters, etc etc). There's really no good reason for her to say no outright - she may instead ask for some financial consideration.

Fun thing is, due to where she placed it and where we want it, we would be saving a ton of money. Logically, we should be willing to pay her up to what we would have paid if the transformers were in stock - anything less than that is a savings. She had to pay full price, so we could presumably split her bill 50/50 and both walk away happy campers. Obviously, I would be even happier if she didn't ask for anything......but even if she didn't ask for anything, I would give her SOMETHING just to be a good neighbor. I'll follow up with the electric guy later today to see if he's connected with her yet.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Mid-year update presentation completed and discussed with MBB_Girl. The upshot here is that we are 25% over budget at the midway point for the year. Despite this, we may still be able to achieve our savings goal due to unexpected income, with more potentially on the way. (Severance pay, signing bonus for new job, higher than anticipated bonuses earlier this year, side gig, etc). Our projected FIRE date is 2 years later than it was at the beginning of the year due to market performance.

This is not unexpected, and can be easily explained in aggregate by a few large overages. The entire overage amount actually squares up almost exactly with how much we’ve spent on the ranch house / barn-dominium. The original plan was to do a used RV – the decision to upgrade to a 12x32 building + loft was an expensive decision.

But explaining / reviewing in aggregate is how I’ve normally done things in the past. One of the purposes of doing this journal was to think about and approach financial matters differently, so I’m going to dig into categories specifically. There are areas where we are under budget, and others where we are over. If the goal is to minimize expenses, it’s not enough to aim for a “net zero” baseline budget. We have to actually cut from our baseline to make real progress.

The Good:
• We have already saved 64% of our goal for the year, so ahead of a 50% pace
• Grocery spend YoY was down by 10%
• Our general merchandise category is WELL under budget (60%). We’ve done a good job of scrutinizing “random” purchases
• A number of budgeted items are basically unused, so successful lifestyle change. This includes fast food (we made and froze a lot of food to remove this convenience temptation), travel (ended up missing our first two weddings EVER. We optimistically thought we’d be willing to travel with an infant…we weren’t), clothing, and bars.
• Restaurant spend is 26% under budget, and only 30% of last year. The YoY comparison is sloppy because we burned points against this category, but this is still a big win for us. I suppose MBB_Baby gets a lot of credit for this one too – even before he was born, we weren’t getting a bottle of wine at dinner for 9 months!

The Bad:
• Utilities are 25% over budget. We’ve made further adjustments to account for this – we initially assumed a 3% increase for pricing / inflation. Usage is also up – this summer is hotter than last which was below average. Obviously lots of factors here, not all of them in our control
• Despite being lower than last year, grocery spending was still 13% above budget
• Entertainment budget is a bit high, 59% over budget. This is only “bad” vs “ugly” because the nominal number for this category isn’t very high in the first place.

The Ugly:
• Ranch house decisions, as discussed above. And we aren’t done – buildout is ongoing, working on electrical still, need to hook up well (looking at doing this ourselves, DIY fun!)
• Costs associated with our new baby boy GREATLY exceeded the wedge for the entire year. And its obviously only halfway through. Our overage is already 75% above the ANNUAL budget.
• I badly underestimated our “other” sources of income last year, and we got hit with a large 4 figure tax bill. I really had no idea how much interest income our stablecoin stash and CDs were throwing off! Also, I do the tax health check halfway through the year, and changed jobs end of Q3 and didn’t properly account for the signing bonus and cash payout from unused PTO.

Known headwinds for the rest of the year:
• Daycare spending started this month, so that will weigh on the budget
• We have more charity spending to do – like most Americans, the bulk of our charitable donations occur November / December

Known tailwinds for the rest of the year:
• I’m going to receive a sizable severance payment from my current employer
• I expect a signing bonus from a new employer once my job search is over
• I expect a raise from a new employer once my job search is over

Road ahead
Rest of the year will be continued focus on the areas where we are making progress so we don’t lose the momentum, and we plan on sparing additional brainpower to utility spend. Will have to make decisions on what the next best use is for the windfall income we expect, and finalize our plan to start college savings (stay tuned for more on this in a future post). We are going to keep up the weekly budget meeting we started first week of June, but will revisit the cadence when 2023 begins (maybe sooner). Even if it hasn’t done anything with our spending habits, MBB_Girl is becoming much more familiar with our spending and finances – so it’s a win no matter what. She’s financially savvy in general, but now she’s increasing her financial IQ in regards to our household specifically.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

After much research and debate, we've decided to keep college savings simple and go with a 529. We'll use the NH plan from Fidelity - our state doesn't have an income tax, and this plan has really low expense ratios and minimal "extra" fees (e.g., mgmt fee, state plan fee, etc etc). I spent a bunch of time looking at the more commonly mentioned ones (Nevada, Utah), and the NH one was cheaper for my intended use (picking my own index funds).

The more "sophisticated" plan we were batting around was to use an UTMA brokerage / 529 combo. The concern with a 529 is that it is restricted for educational use, in return for growing tax free. Well, an UTMA brokerage can also be effectively tax free as long as you tax gain harvest each year; just sell off anything with a gain and immediately buy it back. You have up until the kiddie tax limits (~2600 a year) to work with, which is plenty for just dividends and LTCG. Do this until your kid is high school age, and THEN decide how much you actually want in a 529 vs spending on other things for them. At that point, you'll have a much better idea for your child's aptitude, cost of schools, financial aid landscape, etc etc.

Assets in an UTMA account can be transferred into an UTMA 529 - the only difference is that assets are in the kids name (and thus available at 18), vs the parents name (so can use for kid, or swap to another kid, grandkid, etc). From a FAFSA perspective, an UTMA 529 counts exactly the same a normal one (not that I'm anticipating the FAFSA being relevant for us anyway).

This SEEMED like a way to have your cake and eat it too - tax free growth, ability to use for college in an education use restricted account, or ability to use for anything else until kid is 18 (e.g., car fund, future house downpayment, summer activities, child care to name a few). The fly in the ointment is that the assets fully belong to the kid at 18, even in the UTMA 529. So if they decided to pull the money out and use for non-educational purposes, despite all the penalties.....they could.

Solicited some feedback on this plan, and received back a bunch of horror stories about the ways that giving a bunch of money to an 18 year old can go wrong, even if it's in a 529 and carries penalties for non-college use. Drug abuse / addiction causing poor decision making was a popular one.

Due to one of my veteran's benefits, we already have college (public only) paid for on behalf of one child (presumably our son). This is what put us on the path of considering alternatives to a 529 in the first place. But since we plan on having more kids, we can consider the 529 a "family education account" and spread it around as needed - even to grandkids if we end up accidentally overfunding it.

So we will superfund / front load the account and put it on a glide path for 4 years at our state flagship.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Accepted a new role today. Had two strong offers I was deciding between, but ultimately got enough clarity to make the decision easy. Will be a 13% raise, + signing bonus.

To recap: I was very unhappy with my job and had started interviewing at other places. Was going to try and leave after next vesting or bonus period, but was resigned to leaving a lot of RSUs on the table (sizeable amount even though their value was down 80% from when they were issued).

Instead, was blessed with a layoff. So instead of simply leaving for greener pastures, I was given 2.5 months of paid time + 4 months severance to leave for greener pastures. Moreover, I suspect that my job search and interviewing were more fruitful because I was didn't need to try and juggle a job at the same time. I've also been able to spend more time and energy on our son, and was able to join my wife for the last month of her maternity leave.

So quite the financial windfall in the past 12 months. 2 jobs, 2 raises, 2 signing bonuses, 4 months severance, and a 2.5 month paid vacation. We are going to use the extra money to superfund our son's 529 and retire some variable interest debt that is finally getting high enough to be worth paying off (2.5% last check, expect it to get to 4% in the next month or so. Up from 0.09% a year ago). We also are getting some heavy work done out on the ranch (solar / batteries, electric utility hookup, well hookup, delivery of ranch house) so the extra cash from signing bonus and severance will make that easier.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Life going great over here. MBB_Baby continues to grow and be amazed at the world, have gotten the chance to swing some golf clubs for the first time in a while, looks like MBB_Girl is going to get ANOTHER raise because management consulting is in a feeding frenzy for talent, helped host a successful baby shower for some close friends, and ranch house is coming along great. I even drove over to my hometown just to take my mom to lunch randomly.

Have read a few books recently. Read Ready Player Two, which I generally enjoyed. There was some social stuff that felt forced in that I could have done without, but still an enjoyable read that I would recommend to others. Will say, if you thought Ready Player One was a depressing and dystopian......you ain't seen nothing yet. Think this will translate really well into a movie.

Separate but related, watched Season 1 of Sword Art Online, which I LOVED. Not sure why I had been avoiding it, but heard that Ready Player Two had a lot of similarities to SAO, so gave it a shot. I'm going to put off watching the additional seasons for a while, because Season 1 ended on such a high note and I don't want to be mid-series when my new job starts. Have a friend visiting from OCONUS next week so going to be busy with that.

Also read Black Swan and am halfway through Anti-Fragile. Given how connected they are, going to write a post about them together. I keep a written journal while I'm reading through books to track thoughts and potential applications, so will synthesize all of that first.

Financially, plans have slightly changed with goals for the severance / signing bonus. An interesting PE investment opportunity came up yesterday, so we are going to put a chunk of money into buying that company instead of 529 / retiring as much debt. Will be our 5th "alternative asset" investment (have turned down a few other opportunities in the past). There's some serendipity / randomness of when these types of things become available, so generally put them at the top of the stack when they become available.

And given all the Taleb I've been reading, I'm extra motivated to give myself additional at bats to "postive Black Swans". It's not every day that the founder of a market leading global manufacturing company wants to retire and get the money into various instruments of estate planning for his heirs, while leaving the management team in place, at an attractive price and with several new products in the pipeline

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Apparently monitors are the world's least wanted electronic.

I have what is essentially a brand new, 34inch curved ultrawide monitor that was given to me by my previous employer. I hated it, immediately unhooked it and went back to my old dual monitor setup.

I have spent months trying to give this thing away to friends, but no one was interested. Tried FB marketplace (friends account, offered him a cut of the proceeds), no luck. No reseller sites want monitors, so I finally just listed it on Craigslist. One offer for barely more than half of what I was listing it for (and that was half of the retail value). I listed it for $50 more than what it's worth to me as a tax deduction for just dropping it off at my preferred donation place. Looks like that's where it will end up

I look on with jealousy when people on here are offloading old game controllers and neighbor's purses for big $$$, and I can't even get rid of a fancy monitor unused in box with all the original wrapping. I guess I'm lucky (questionable) that my tax bracket is so high that giving it away is worth to me than selling it?

recal
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by recal »

Just caught up on your journal, MBB. Very interesting read from someone who's so many tiers above my spending (and I considered my spending to be super high and luxurious).

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

Hey MBB_Boy,

I am not in the US, but from what I understand, sold goods aren't taxable as income if you are selling a used personal item for less than the original value.

This is probably true even if you get a 1099K and need to declare it.

Plus, occasional used item sales are probably exempt from sale taxes, with the specifics depending on your state of residence.

Sorry if I am off base here. It just sounds crazy that you would be better off donating it for tax reasons.

MBBboy
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Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2022 12:11 pm

Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

@OutOfTheBlue,

The monitor is new and VERY nice. When I look up the current sales price and multiply by my marginal rate (high), I end up with a number attractive enough to just drop it off and not fool with online selling. Its a couple of hundred bucks - getting another 50-100 potentially isn't worth the additional hassle to me.

Most items don't work like that, but this is an edge case I suppose.

ETA - I itemize my taxes

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

@recal, thanks. Feelings on spending really are relative - I just commented on M's journal where he talks about expenses that he feels are high, whereas I can't currently fathom having expenses that low. And there are probably people here who spend half of what he does

MBBboy
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Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2022 12:11 pm

Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

MBB_Baby is so awesome. Really enjoying being a father and watching his development day by day. We are blessed with great family and friends.

But baby clothes are weird. Maybe women deal with this as well, but sizing between brands is so variable. Most men's clothes have actual measurements for waist, chest, neck, etc etc. We just put him in a 6-9 month Hanes outfit, and he barely fit. But another recently purchased 6-9 month outfit was a little big (the expected outcome). We've just put all the Hanes stuff at the top of the stack so we he can actually wear some of it before it has to be retired.

Will be an interesting month financially. My checking account is overflowing after a period of double paychecks, the raise from my new job, and my signing bonus. I'm also still waiting on a giant severance check, which will hopefully hit this week. We ALSO have some DCFSA reimbursement in route.

We knew this month would be a gusher when we set out the budget a few weeks ago, but its still weird. We didn't allocate every $ to a plan like we usually do (I couldn't be bothered to calculate everything on the new paychecks with SS, medicare, some uncertainty on what the DCFSA contributions would be, what withholding rate I'd get hit with on severance, whether after-tax contributions would come out, etc etc), so this weeks discussion on what do with the excess should be fun.

One thing we DID do at the end of last month is start paying down some debt. For those who have followed, I started this journal with the POV that paying down low interest debt was financially sub-optimal and since we have plenty of cash flow, I wasn't interested in doing so. The first part of that statement is still true, but I did an exercise a few months ago where I actually put a dollar amount to see how much I was coming ahead. I got annoyed by a number of writers who were doing wrong or incomplete math to demonstrate the difference, and I wanted to get a sense for the cost of being financially sub-optimal. The results were actually not that impressive and I was surprised. It didn't change the plan at the time, but the realization has been stewing in my mind for a while.

Well, behavior has now partially changed and we paid off 2 loans. The first one was easier to justify - we took out a 4.99% loan to pay for our ranch house and associated development costs (e.g., electric). This was not a necessary loan - we have the money in investment accounts, but my expected return for my portfolio is higher than 4.99%, so we took the loan. The second loan we paid off was a car loan at 2.79%. Original MBB_Boy would have used the excess cash from the past few months to superfund MBB_Baby's 529 and knock out college savings in essentially one fell swoop. New MBB_Boy is more risk aware and doesn't think the finally calculated financial value of the riskier course of action is worth it. Given our net worth and income, its more valuable to simplify our lives, derisk, and open up some option value on our jobs sooner.

Part of the motivation is continued statements from my wife about dissatisfaction with work and observation of how happy she is with our son. I had a suspicion that she would be interested in being a SAHM someday than she thought and made a silent commitment to do what was needed to enable the option if she made such an epiphany. Getting us completely out of debt now (and slow-rolling college savings over a period of years instead) reduces our monthly cash flow needs and makes it easier to live just on my income. It DOES slow our overall wealth building, but the amount doesn't really move the needle on our FIRE date. We've saved so much already that it's not really about additional contributions at this point.

So the severance check is probably destined toward paying off the student loan (variable rate that has gone from 0.07% to about 2.5% over recent months). We will only put enough in the 529 account to be on track for the 18 year glidepath. Bonus season next year will finish off the last bit of debt (0% APR money I finagled out of a credit card purely for arbitrage purposes, loaded IBond gift box for future years) and help pad emergency saving. She should be cleared to quit work if she chooses at that time

Western Red Cedar
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

MBBboy wrote:
Wed Sep 21, 2022 9:07 am
Given our net worth and income, its more valuable to simplify our lives, derisk, and open up some option value on our jobs sooner.
This is an important insight. Sometimes it is necessary to put the math aside and take the path that leads to a richer life.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Exciting week - accepted delivery of our ranch house. Got the site prepped a few days ago, then the delivered the house on a big truck. Was pretty cool to see and I hung out to watch how they move it off the truck, level it, etc.

672 sqft of space (384 main floor + 288 loft) all ready to be furnished and lived in. There was an error with the generator inlet box that has to be fixed, but verified everything worked during our pre-delivery inspection. Once that is replaced, we will have power when needed. Utility hookup should come next year, hoping for spring.

Water is the next thing. Not a major rush because we have a composting toilet, but being unable to use a sink or shower will be a bit of a pain. Until then, we're framing staying out there as "glamping" to deal with the inconvenience.

So for now we are just furniture shopping, letting my wife exercise her inner interior designer. With such a small space, the amount of possible financial damage is really small. But it's been interesting to learn about items made for those in small spaces, like nesting end tables and those little bean bag chair things.

We talked to a company about a solar install, but they wanted an absurd amount of money. We may look to do a small ground array ourselves, but honestly the generator is a much more cost efficient solution.

MBBboy
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by MBBboy »

Budget fatigue has definitely set in. Prior to June this year, we didn't do a "budget". We did an annual bottoms-up exercise where we forecast / set a goal for spending by each category. I would then periodically track against it during the year. It was really more for informational purposes than anything else - there were times in the past where we observed something interesting, like restaurant spend was higher than grocery spend, which would open our eyes and cause an adjustment. But we never said "oh, we are at our budgeted spend for X and now we have to stop".

Starting in June, we started creating a zero based budget for each month, and doing a weekly check in. It hasn't changed our decision making at all - and since it doesn't, it begs the question of why we are bothering. We have an abundance of income, so any attempt to say "we are at our budget for restaurant spend, so we have to cut out our planned charity contribution or not go to lunch with my mom after church" falls flat. We just....do what we want anyway and go over budget. There are some months where we come in under, some where we come in over, so there's enough slack in the system where we never legitimately run out of money (we have a 50%+ savings rate anyway).

I don't know what to do. We know that spending and income have lumps through the year - it's the exact reason we used the old method of simply tracking against our year's spending goal. The sub-categories were nice, but we don't honestly care how spending breaks out, as long as the overall X is hit. But even then, there's no consequence for being over on X at the end of the year - it just means we "only" save 45% of our income instead of 55% or whatever.

The weekly sit down and discussion isn't fun, as my wife doesn't really enjoy talking finances. She's involved enough, but doesn't enjoy weekly navel gazing or discussion / argument that doesn't go anywhere. We both have started to view the weekly budget talk as an unpleasant chore. We are definitely going through the motions.

The old frequency of financial discussions was 2 sit down presentations per year, + large ad hoc decisions as they come up. We would actually get jazzed for those presentations, and I looked forward to making them. We for sure will drop the weekly talks in the new year.....maybe monthly will work better.

But still raises the question of what the point is. If we aren't making any decisions or changing behaviors, what are we doing? We have savings goals and we are on track / ahead of those (things like become FI, saving for college). The closest thing we have to a goal that would require stretching would be to cut expenses to live on one income, which would enable her to be a stay at home mom if she wants. But we are already there if we stopped saving and spend 100% of what I earned.

That sounds bad, but we've already saved a ton of money. Our current level of contributions barely moves the needle on our FI date, the growth of our portfolio does almost all the lifting anyway. If that's true for our current level of contributions, it's definitely true for any reduced amount of savings in a world where only I worked.

I'm just rambling now, I don't know where I'm going with this entry anymore. Guess that's a sign I should get off the internet and go play with MBB_Baby!

bostonimproper
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Re: MBB_Boy's journal

Post by bostonimproper »

Our household doesn’t budget. I tried the zero-based budget thing for a while and found it useless for much the same reasons you mentioned. I’ve found just regularly reviewing the spending and investment performance (I’ll do a light check-in monthly and deeper dives every year or so) and addressing recurrent areas of issue a better fit for us— coming up with new spending “policies”, identifying areas to cut, adjusting our investment vehicles, etc. For what it’s worth, my husband hates talking finance also, so the idea of sitting through a budget rundown weekly sounds like it’d be unenjoyable for all parties involved.

What were you hoping to achieve by going to weekly budgeting method in the first place? Any cons to going back to the previous method that seemed to be working?

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