I need a little help here...

[RandomThug]

...

Currently I am in a situation that has gone awry. My family life has gone to **** within a couple days and it has become to me that If I were to comfront my father it would end violently. Therefor I have decided to move out.

I 20 years old and have a good steady job paying just enough for places kinda near my work. So I considered and agreed with two friends to look for a good three bedroom place instead of a single. Which is really cool cause it will save a buck, I am not wary of roomates especially these guys. (I had to pick and choose between friends trust me).


So here is my question. I am going to be really really stretching it thin with funds. I am curios if anyone in all the wise wisdom of SYM could enlighten me with secrets/tricks or whatnot that you know on how to make money on the side of a full time tiring job.

Currently I plan to sell my surfboards and or whatever I dont use anymore (Basically keep some PS2 games and my PC but ditch pretty much everything else). I dont know If I should ebay these things or just sell them for whatever I can get given my situation.

BTW If you haven't got it yet I gota get out QUICK. Before I will be living in my car, which wont be the first time but I digress.

So within all your wisdom I ask kindly for any information regarding tips/tricks to surviving on your own when you know your going to be cutting it close.

I have already decided that I will no longer drink Bass TALLS of coors light will have to do for now. I have agreed no more steak, and hot dogs instead etc.

I also have current bills that will require my attention monthly (Car accident / School loans) but those are handled. So once more I beg, pled and cry out for help.

Help an idiot find a better way then going from paycheck to paycheck.

Thanks.

[Ned Flanders]

It's certainly good to trust the roommates you choose. I've seen several friendships fast dissipate when people think they'll be great roommates, but things turn out poorly.

Make sure your roomies share on the cost of household type stuffs. You don't think it adds up until you're supplying three people.

Eat groceries vs. eating out. choose a diet and stick to it. go to the grocery store and pick up food for the week for work. Don't go out to lunch every day. You'll eat healthier and save money.

Have parties: Potentially a great source for secondary income. Of course, you're only 20 years old so it's virtually impossible for you to get your hand on a keg or two.

Avoid bars.

Make sure your roommates can afford to live there. Nothing sucks worse than having to front a delinquant roommate cash every month for this and that. Not only does it suck having to keep track of what they borrowed and what they've paid back, but the repetition does little for maintaining the happy fabric of an abode with friends.

Get a dart board. Beats paying a buck a game at bars and your friends will bring beer to you.

Open a separate account and tuck some cash from each paycheck into it. A little nest egg for you to fall back on when potential good times requiring a little cash arise. Concerts, etc. Example: Good band coming to town. You want to go but you don't have cash for a ticket. Charge four tickets on your credit card and have friends pay you for the other three. Watch RT foolishly spend the money his friends gave him as payback for the concert tickets. Now you've bought four concert tickets with interest. Don't be that guy. Let another friend charge four tickets and you buy one.

I'm sure I can think of several more examples. Allow me to reflect on my 20's for a little while longer.

[Nippy]

I'm sure you won't consider this much help, but in my limited experience of fund management, the most important thing is to project your expenses and plan for eventualities.

Look at your regular payments (car, flat etc) and then look at how much you are payed. The balance you have then, you need to divide into leisure time money (concerts, occasional beer etc) and monies for food, and any other cost (i.e. gas, electric...)

I recommend what Ned says, put away some money every paycheck and make sure you don't touch it. Try a high-interest account to get back as much as possible, but only touch it if is absolutely necessary.

I hope this might help Thug...

[RandomThug]

Thanks for both replies! Ned I am very pleased with your dartboard idea hehe. And btw both roomies are over 21, so keg all the way.

Anyhow I gotta get back to work, I have decided I will keep you all updated on my quest!

[Minerva]

Apart from rent, a big part of money will go to utility bills. Look for better options, and make sure you don't waste electricity and water. Small effort does reduce payment, believe me.

Always talk to your mates with your concern/problems regarding the sharing house, such as too loud music, smoking habit, bringing in friends/girlfriend etc. Even if you (or your friend) think it's a small problem, it could get to you after 6 months or so. It is good idea to sit and decide basic rules among you as soon as possible. Also, you should decide share of housework, such as washing and cleaning.

[Ned Flanders]

Definitely lay down the laws regarding the frequency of girlfriend visits. That is key to a happy home although there are no finance benefits unless she is footing the bill for the nightly chinese/thai take out. Of course, I'm presuming your two other roommates will be male.

Not sure what the layout is like in CA, but here in MN, you can frequently find places where you only pay for electricity, telephone/Internet, and cable/satellite service. Let the landlord worry about trash, water, and gas utilities.


My opinion on housework and stuff is to go with the flow. If you live with slobs or are a slob, you can't change that. No chore schedule is ever going to work and it is a waste of time to implement one. It only pisses people off. From my experience, and I am a neat freak, if I wanted it done, I did it myself. That's it, I never hassled roommates with my desired preference of home cleanliness. If people are using your nice cookware and leaving stuff to rot, mold, or crust up in it, that's a different story.

Figure out who's going to do the math on splitting up the utility costs you do have. Always pay them on time, late fees add up when your payments are late 12 months in a row. Get a grip on long distance charges as well. If you have a cell phone, obviously, never make a long distance phone call on your local home line. Paying for other people's long distance phone call habits suck.

Don't plan on keeping beers/liquor around the house. Alcohol stashes never work in a 20's something all male household. Buy what you and the other in the group plan on consuming for the night. A nice bottle of whisky you plan on keeping around for having 'one after work' will never last long, and of course, nobody else drank it.

Stay away from pay per view boxing and wrestling events. Find a friend who's getting it and go to their place.

Don't let your roommates eat your grub. Sharing groceries always becomes an unncessary argument and it can get bitter. That's just personal experience. Two of roommates from college whom I later lived with after college were heavy milk drinkers. So I am. We used to use food coloring in our milk so as not to confuse gallons. Tight budgets call for drastic measures. Besides, you get used to red milk after a while. Note: If you use this procedure, make sure nobody chooses the yellow foodcoloring. Advice: Choose all four colors. It makes the milk look rancid (greyish) except it still tastes great.

Laundry: When you come home every night, throw your quarters in a jar. That way you're not breaking singles to wash your clothes. It's almost like washing your clothes for free.

Plants: If the house decides to have plants, have one person take care of them. That way, your plants will never go over or underwatered. If you kill lots of plants and keep replacing them, it will get expensive.

This is kind of fun. I'll keep posting as little tidbits come to mind.

DO NOT buy big bags of chips. they will disappear, same with soda. if you want these vices, go to the store each time you have a craving. this will also cut down on how much of this junk you eat. Health conscious and cost effective.

[RandomThug]

Seriusly I am so grateful ned for all your input and greatly in need of any more you can dispense upon me.

All you others as well! I expect a full page of stuff from fable given he has lived at least five life times.

[Minerva]

In addition to Ned's very last advice: Do learn basic cooking, if you don't know how to now. Eating out will eat up your money easily. And, if you don't know basic, you have no idea what's written in your newly "Cooking for One" or "Teach Yourself Cooking" books you might buy. It will also help to impress your friends, especially girls.

[dragon wench]

On the subject of cooking... learn to like bean and rice based dishes

this can be a great source of nourishment, and it is also very economical.

I am no health food fanatic, but I have many memories of living month to month..and eating stuff like that helped me to make it through

[HighLordDave]

DO:

. . . Learn to like Totino's frozen pizza; they are a meal in an of themselves.

. . . Cut back on all of the things you take for granted while living at your parent's house. Drop HBO and the extra digital cable packages. Forego cable entirely if you can't afford it. Don't get call waiting or caller ID on the phone. As our friend Minerva says, next to your rent and car payment (if you have one), utilities will chew up the greatest portion of your monthly budget. Figure out which things are absolutely essential and which things are superflous. Ditch anything you don't need.

. . . Decide early how bills will be split. If any of the bills are in your name, insist that you be paid on time. If your roommates become delinquent, do not be afraid or timid about collecting. Conversely, if you owe your roommates for bills in their names, pay promptly. Real friends don't stiff their buddies over money.

. . . Recycle clothes. Not boxers or socks, but shirts and jeans can be worth two or even three times before you need to wash them. You may already do this, but stretching your laundry out from once every two weeks to once every three weeks will save you lots of money.

. . . Pick up after yourself. Sure, it may be your place, but your roommates also live there and there's nothing worse than living with a slob who doesn't take out the trash or wash their own dishes.

. . . Find a buddy who is a member at Sam's Club or Costco. Sure it may cost a lot when you leave the store, but you won't be buying soap or toilet paper for months.

. . . Quit smoking (that is, if you smoke; if you don't smoke, don't start). Aside from the health benefits, cigarettes cost money. Do the math: Here in West Virginia, a pack of Marlboro's cost something like $4. If you smoke a pack a day, that's $28 per week and about $120 a month. When I was in college, $120 would pay the electric bill, the phone bill, water & sewage and basic cable; that's in their entirety, not split between my roommate and I. If you do smoke and you cannot quit, at least cut back. Other things $120 will buy: 2 tires and an oil change for a 1999 Saturn SC1, a brand new 40x40x48x CD-RW and a 16X DVD-ROM drive, or around 30 super-sized Big Mac Extra Value Meals.

DO NOT:

. . . Get a credit card, not even for "emergencies". It is far too easy to rack up mounds and mounds of debt charging stuff and saying to yourself, "I can make the mimimum payment this month." The $40 worth of groceries you charge this week may end up costing you $80 by the time you pay if off.

. . . Get a pager or cell phone unless you don't also have a land line. Not only will you save yourself $40+ per month, but you'll find that you can actually enjoy a meal without answering the damn thing.

. . . Share your food with your roommates. As Flanders says, there is nothing worse than a roommate eating your food, especially if you're on a tight budget. I roomed with three guys in college and we each had a shelf in the fridge, a part of the freezer and a cabinet in the pantry that was for our food only. If you have to, mark all of your food with a Sharpie and encourage your roommates to do the same. If your roommate aren't in to washing dishes, don't let them use yours.

. . . Let your roommate's friends sponge off of you or them. If they have a waste of space hanger-on over all the time, encourage them to find some place else to hang out. I don't mean on Friday nights or when a bunch of you get together, but during the week when there's nothing else going on. Insist that if your roommate leaves, their friends must as well.

. . . Buy drinks while you're out. Why pay $4 for a beer at a club when you can buy a six pack for $6 at Kroger's or Publix. If you're going to drink, do it at home, and it's probably a good idea to cut back from your current consumption.

[fable]

Security. Be sure you have a place for your valuables (including your cash and credit cards) where your roommates can't go. Even the best of roommates can do irresponsible things. Don't put temptation in their way.

Set up some rules with your roommates about cooking, appropriate hours to have friends in, etc. This may sound anal retentive, but it's not. Creating effective rules is one of the things I learned when I got married, since my parents were too dysfunctional to consider an idea where they couldn't arbitrarily do whatever they wanted. When are quiet hours? WHo cleans up, and when? Simple things, but it's good to get it all out in the open from the start.

Learn to cook simple, inexpensive but well-balanced meals.

Keep in touch with your friends. Don't let yourself become too isolated. Moving out is cause for a lot of tension, even if you're also removing some tension by leaving the nest (such as it is). You need support.

[Gwalchmai]

Make sure your roommate's names are on the lease. This way they can't just leave and stop paying their fair share and you don't get stuck with 10 months left on a year's lease.

[RandomThug]

these are awsome, although HLD telling me to cut back on my consumption of beer is... sacreligous.

Now lets concentrate on a different level!

How to make more money rather than save! Do you know tricks to earn a quick buck or two?

[HighLordDave]

Originally posted by RandomThug
these are awsome, although HLD telling me to cut back on my consumption of beer is... sacreligous.

I didn't say quit drinking beer; just don't drink as much. Besides, I guarantee that you'd rather have a roof over your head than a beer in your hand.

How to make more money rather than save! Do you know tricks to earn a quick buck or two?

The short, flippant answer is this: get a job. If you already have a job, get a second.

A lot of this depends on your personal economic situation. How much are your monthly expenses going to run? What kind of cash flow do you have? What skills do you have?

Making a "quick buck" is often not a viable long-term strategy, and can lead to legal trouble if you get mixed up in activites that aren't on the up and up (two examples: I was assigned a roommate in college who used to sell drugs to make money and he ended up doing 5-10 in a medium security prison in Florida, so for him crime did not pay; I had another roommate who thought it would be a good idea burning CDs of anime and selling them over the internet, but a visit from the FBI put an end to that; in both cases, legal expenses cost them more than they made and now each guy is a convicted felon).

I found that pizza delivery paid pretty well if your store is in a good neighbourhood. However, what I didn't consider is that it's real easy to burn tips on stuff, food and beer and that delivering pizza is a quick way to go through tires, brakes and transmissions.

The bottom line is this: when you get an apartment/condo/house, you need to have a steady cash flow. Once you sign a lease, it's not going to change. Many of your bills will also remain constant or within a fairly narrow range. Figure out how much this apartment is going to cost you. Then get a job that will allow you to pay your bills and have a little left over for yourself and for savings. Some jobs like waiting tables and delivering pizza have a sporadic cash flow that may vary from night to night and week to week. While the money may be good at times, when things get slow or the restaurant starts letting servers go, you won't have a constant source of income to meet your expenses.

When I was in college, I worked at least one job and sometimes two in order to have the amount of money I needed to pay the bills and live at a reasonable level of comfort. I also found that in the times when I was working two jobs, not only was I getting more money from more paychecks, but I was spending less because I had less free time. While this cut into my social life a little, it was really nice having an extra $80-100 per week from a second job.

Do you have any skills that you can parlay into cash flow? For instance, if you have any computer hardware skills, many shops are always looking for good techs. If you have a background in retail, many stores will be hiring because it's the holiday season.

It is also my opinion that short-term money-making strategies are a bad idea because while they may get you some money up front, you will often find yourself in the same position next month. A guy in my apartment complex used to spend a lot of money on alchohol and drugs and he used to pawn off his stuff in order to pay his bills; he was also unemployed because smoking all of the pot that he did left him utterly unmotivated and too lethargic to work. After a couple of months, he was out of stuff to pawn and got evicted. Living on your own requires consistency, budgeting and self-discipline.

My ultimate advice is to make sure that your monthly cash flow exceeds your expenses. While this sounds pretty simple, it's not. I did not follow the advice I am giving out and graduated with about $5,000 in student loans and about $1,700 in credit card debt. It took me about three years to pay off my credit cards and I will be paying on my student loans for about three and a half more years (they were in deferrment while I was in graduate school, but I think I will have made payments for five years before paying them off). And I was one of the lucky kids; I know folks who had over $30,000 in student loans and over $10,000 in credit card debt because they were never taught how to manage their finances.

So here's what it boils down to: Figure out how much your bills are going to cost you each month. Get a job. Work as much as you need to in order to cover your expenses and have a reasonable amout of money left over for you and for savings. If you're going to be short one month, work more and make extra money. Do not allow your bills to back up and do not charge things on your credit cards that you cannot pay off that month.

[RandomThug]

Alright so you guys can go with more info.

I have a steady 8-5 40 hours a week Junior Network/Systems Admin. Aka Computer Administrator. I make alright money for my job, but enough to cover the bills. My main need for this post is the already given tips about how to save, and perhaps some (legal) tips and hints on how to make the most money out of say

"Selling previusly owned games"

"Weekened jobs that dont take too much out of you"

So now you know I have a full job, another job is doable but I would have to find a decent one because of my job already is consuming of lots of energy.