jesus christ, this is pathetic

[psocoptera]

A confession: I have NO FUCKING CLUE what my budget is. Have sat here all morning trying to run numbers in hopes of answering the question how much lower do I need my rent to be next year. The problem is that I can dutifully calculate year-to-date and monthly average costs for rent, utilities, cash, credit card, etc, according to which I should *right now* be earning a non-trivial bit more than I'm spending, which according to my bank statements is simply not true. So it does me no good at all to say okay, I'll be taking a $4800/year pay cut, cutting $120 off my rent/month would solve 30% of that, since I can't make any sense of the numbers now. Which is so insanely frustrating... I mean, I think of myself as competent at this kind of thing, why can I not figure out where all that money is going?

And of course, what am I going to do but give up and go spend more money on an expensive hardbound book and dinner at a fancy restaurant. But... but... I swear, it looks like I should be able to do that... ::bangs head on keyboard::

Comments

[chainsawgutfuck.livejournal.com]

The good news is that your after tax pay cut is probably only $2880 a year.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Er, no... that was the after-tax cut, or my estimate thereof; the actual gross drop is from $28K/yr to 22. Hrm, how'd you arrive at $2880, anyways?

And, if I might ask, why do you have such a distasteful username?

[chainsawgutfuck.livejournal.com]

Marginal tax rate on stated wages is approx 40% in California at the average household income. You are significantly below that so your tax is less. Had your wage gone from $39k to $38k you would only see a drop of $600. Of course the real marginal tax rate (the difference between how much your employer pays and how much you get) at that point exceeds 60%.

I like the visual of someone attempting to derive sexual pleasure from repeatedly penetrating someone else's abdomen with a running chainsaw. Seems to be the height of misanthropy.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

the only way i've ever been able to figure out where all my money is going is to look at every entry in my bank statements and figure out what i was doing with each one. and come to think of it, it would probably also help to write down all the cash purchases i make, too. which, of course, would be incredibly annoying, which is why i don't do it, which is why i don't budget very well. but, if you have to keep track of your budget (and i should really try to start, soon), i think it's the only way.