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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2631 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 23, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What is your budget breakdown, or in other words how much of your budget do you spend on hobbies or video games or fun things?

The main thing would be eating out, which is probably about 7% of my after-tax income. I don't spend much else on fun things. Probably gas is the next one, which is probably about 1% or my after-tax income. The next thing is probably fees for sports teams or lessons. That might be another percent. So in total maybe about 10%. These are very rough guesses. I don't have a budget.

My most expensive hobbies, going to the cottage, sailing, etc. are free for me because they're subsidized by my family.

I save almost all my income for the joy of watching it vanish to inflation. Just did an $800 shopping trip to get supplies for the next few months, from petrol to rice and tomato paste.

PC was <$400 five generations ago (with a hand-me-down gpu). The last game I bought was Factorio. I don't have any other hobbies that cost money: the ones that did turned into profitable second and third jobs.

Maybe I should keep track of my spending better to see where I'm being too miserly. What budget software does the motte recommend?

I spend a good amount on hobbies and travel:

Golf: $200-$300 a month. This is my real killer, but I absolutely love golf and it makes me happy so I’m ok with it.

Travel: Probably $3000-$4000 a year. I try to offset this by churning credit cards for airline and hotel points.

Therapy:$300 a month. This is another killer, but I do find good use out of it and it’s not exactly a hobby.

I’ve become less frugal as I’ve gotten older. I still manage to save about 30% of my pre tax income. I pay as little as I can for an apartment in my VHCOL area, drive a cheap paid-off car, don’t eat out much, don’t go to bars much, don’t go to concerts or sporting events much, don’t gamble much, don’t shop much.

Really, golf is my main guilty pleasure and travel eats up a bit too. I’m pretty happy with my savings rate and spending.

Below 1%. Single-income family, one small child, over a third of my income goes straight into rent.

Wife gets about 2% per month as pocket money. We try to spend less than 5% per week on groceries, but it's usually closer to 8%, and the difference is probably things we didn't need, so we try to cut down on whatever it is.

When I get myself something for fun (almost always either a book or a game, lately), I try to get it for free. I that's not an option then I try to get it at a steep discount. If that also isn't an option, then I usually skip it and give up. Can't really justify wasting substantial amounts of money on entertainment products when we're just about scraping by.

5% of your income is already a rate. "5% per week" doesn't make any sense.

Oh, pedantry! Income is monthly, grocery shopping is weekly.

So you're spending 5% of your monthly income per week? Doesn't that mean you're spending 22% of your income on food? That doesn't sound right. I must be misunderstanding.

No, that's about the size of it. I may have used incorrect terminology though, please forgive a non-anglophone. These purchases include food, diapers, soap, beverages and the like. Any articles that are rapidly used up and bought in a supermarket.

Well, this is the most highly upvotes response so that’s something.

I’m sorry to hear that man, I know from your other posts things have been tough for your family. I wish I was in a better position to offer support or advice.

Single-income family, one small child

My brother in arms! Now there are a whole two of us here!

5% per week on groceries huh? I leave the food to the wife, and I don't know how she's done it, but she's actually kept our grocery bill mostly level through the last 4 years of inflation. Lots of bean soups and "manager's special" meat. Although I also stopped splurging at bakeries and starting baking my own snacks.

It's not been good for my waistline. Now that I have the power to make as many scones as I want, the responsibility has been too great.

Ah jeez. Damned near nothing. About 25% mortgage, 10% food, 25% savings, another 15% for utilities, insurance, etc. I give the wife 10% to do whatever she wants with no questions asked. The rest seems to consistently vanish because of random medical bills (dental crowns are expensive), mechanical bills, or home improvement projects.

At the end of the month, I splurge on myself between $100 and $200, or roughly 1-2% of my monthly take home pay. It tends to go either towards a tool and/or rough lumber, a video game, whiskey or cigars.

When I get my Christmas bonus at the end of the year, I tend to splurge on one big ticket item for myself and save the rest. Last year I bought a Dewalt thickness planer. The year before that I bought an Ikea computer desk for my retro computers. This year I'm eyeballing either an 8" benchtop jointer or a 48KG Kettlebell.

25% on your mortgage seems really low. Is it?

I donno. It's the only mortage I've ever had.

I feel like once upon a time, having your mortgage be 25% of your take home pay was conventional wisdom. A quick googling shows I'm not totally hallucinating, as it appears here Lifestyle inflation has obviously changed that over the years. But I'm old school, so I made the necessary sacrifices to stick with it. So far it's working out well for my family. We stick to a budget, but it's not suffocating. There are things we'd like, and we can't do all of it. But there is nothing we truly hurt for. We're saving adequately for emergencies, repairs, retirement, school, etc.

Something like 30-35% was the official Canadian stress test number, at least until recently -- they may have backed off of this now that condos are high six figures in any major city, but I wouldn't be surprised if 25% was the traditional number from like the 80s or something.

Wow, this helps explain your lack of tools in your woodworking posts. Didn’t realize I had it so good with a DINK lifestyle, these responses are making me rethink how grateful I should be!

Yeah, going from DINK to SIWK has been an adjustment. Less so for me because that's how I grew up, and it's remarkable how you just grok that lifestyle when you grew up in it. My wife less so. Grew up with two working parents who made up for their lack of time with her by buying thing.

My hobbies that involve spending money are primarily:

  • Hunting for old golf clubs at thrift stores and flea markets. Less than $100 a month. (I couldn't even explain why I do this. I just get the urge.)

  • Driving around and taking pictures of stuff. Well less than $100 a month (just gas and snacks really).

  • Reading; buying books at the used bookstore up the street. $50 max a month.

  • Working out at the Y. About $45 a month in membership.

  • Occasionally drinking at bars, breweries, etc. Probably not more than $100 a month on average, but months with special occasions do pop up and drive this up.

  • Video games... I don't really play a ton, and usually when I do, it's one game for a long time. Like $25 a month tops.

That's pretty much it. I'd have to do something really unusual to even hit 10% of my budget. I guess the key is that I like to cook and prefer to cook, so I go out to eat only 1-2 times a month. Other hobbies I have just don't cost anything. I play guitar but I like the guitar I've got; I like to work on my garden but that's free. I take a lot of long walks, that's free; I write, that's free. My friends and I hang out at each other's houses a lot, or else we do stuff that's like, "Let's go and look at x. Hmmm, that's a cool x."

I’d like to hear more about your golf club hobby. Are you a golfer? Have you ever actually found any gems at a thrift store?

I am a golfer, although I'm a super casual and have not been doing it for very long; and equally important, I already have multiple full bags' worth of clubs I can play. I think for me the appeal is that it's so fun to see how all the different ones will hit - especially given that there are several thrift stores within 15 minutes of me that price them at $1.00 a club. "Hmmm, that's an interesting bounce on that sand wedge. I wonder if it'll help me play out of trouble? Let's just find out." It combines well with another hobby, which is: going to the driving range and practicing. Sometimes I'll just take an entire bag of "new" thrift clubs and test them all out. It makes for a really fascinating afternoon for less than $20 - if you're into that kind of thing.

In terms of gems, honestly, that's even more uncommon than I anticipated. If you consider the "big" manufacturers to be Callaway, Titleist, Ping, Cobra, and TaylorMade - I've seen clubs manufactured by those companies in the last 25 years, like... never. Genuinely just about never. In the age of the Internet I guess people know how much stuff is worth, so those don't end up in places like that. Once I saw a set of King Cobra II irons that was missing the 9, and an ancient TaylorMade Burner 5-wood with a tiny little head. (I did buy that one.) I've heard of people reselling thrift store clubs and making money; I guess those folks just get to them first.

As far as playable clubs go, though, I've found some really nice stuff. I have a Nickent Super Concorde 7-wood that plays beautifully. I even found an ancient Northwestern 1-iron so I could find out if they're really as hard to play as people say. (Answer: Yep. They certainly are. But it gives me something to aim for - when I can hit that 1-iron off the deck, I'll know I've truly accomplished something.)

Most of the thrift chains divert the good stuff to an internet auction site. For example goodwill uses shopgoodwill.com there are some deals to be found there especially if you're good at recognizing obscure things from a photograph. The descriptions are pretty hit and miss so the best deals come from a big pile of stuff listed with just one or two photos of all the stuff.

In lenses buyers were very good if even part of a famous lens was visible the lot would sell at pretty close to low grade used prices.

Pawn shops are more likely to have semi-recent high-end clubs IME -- they probably aren't a dollar each, but much less than retail.

Thanks for letting me know about that. I genuinely had no idea. The Goodwills near me, I don't bother going to - they sometimes have no golf clubs at all. St. Vincent de Paul outposts have many.

I consider eating good food to be a "fun thing", and I think if you added up the cost difference between optimal-cost food and what I eat that'd be significant. Restaurants, high-quality ingredients to eat, coffee, would all add up.

Shooting, camping, exercise/gym, & alcohol are I suppose what count as hobbies. I love gaming but even if I did it a ton more than I actually do the costs of software and the hardware spread out over a 3-5 year refresh cycle are pennies compared to my income.

Battletech is made absurdly affordable through 3d printing and AI. The expense is just the whiskey and beer we share around the table. I refuse to pay Wizards of the Coast for MTG anymore, I just print my own cards and play them.

I'd be surprised if it was more than 5% of my budget, even with variances for buying durable goods to support hobbies. It's tough to nail this down even under Mint budgets. I still spend on experiences occasionally.

Games/books/movies - almost zero now, except for Prime/Netflix sub (I am on the verge of cancelling the latter, but there's still a couple of shows that keep me hanging on). For books, libraries (especially the audio-book section) are awesome and free. About 10% - on travel related to my hobbies.

Which shows are keeping you hanging on?

There are several I watched lately: Black Mirror, The Witcher, Fauda, Lost in Space, Better Call Saul, Cobra Kai, Babylon Berlin, La Casa de Papel, Stranger Things, The Great British Baking Show.

I have been really disappointed with latest season of Black Mirror so far.

Didn't see the last season yet.

A lot less than 10%.

Probably 15% is mortgage, 15% daycare, 4% car payment, 5-10% utilities.

We spend almost all of our discretionary income (which is not very much at present) on somewhat short trips (gas, a rather nice tent, motel rooms, fast food, will probably need sleeping bags), though there are a few hundred dollars a year going to digital entertainment, art supplies, and children's toys. This is probably something like 5% of the budget, but I haven't been keeping track as much as would probably be wise.

What kinds of short trips? Camping or just to random places?

Rentals in various mountains, near impressive natural areas, places with cliffs and waterfalls and sand dunes and cactus forests. We'd like to go camping more, and have a nice tent, but the toddler isn't able to use blankets yet. There are extra warm sleep sacks, but those are too expensive for what they are. Then, when she can use blankets, she'll be potty training, which is also difficult for camping, so we'll see how things progress. So far we've been tent camping one night, and have plans for another night this summer.

The vast majority of my money goes to spending on takeout, and my recent weight gain happily attests to the same. Our full time cook can't, and after eating her cooking for 18 years of my life I can hardly stand it.

When it comes to my other hobbies, the costs were front loaded, my current PC is worth about $2k going by new part pricing, and was built up over the years.

I rarely buy games, even with regional pricing they're expensive af for Indians, so ongoing costs are minimal. I'm not immune to the allure of a Steam sale after all so there's a bunch just collecting dust in my inventory.

Of course, I'm not working at this very moment, but that's from sheer laziness as my GMC application is processing rather than because I can't. It still annoys the fuck out of me to work for like $3 an hour here even if thanks to PPP it's not as bad as it sounds.

But yes, having any particularly involved hobby is difficult on Third World salaries, but the end of that is nigh.

I believe in you! Keep fighting the good fight you’re clearly intelligent and driven enough to get to America where you can make more money and spend it all on bullshit like we do.

I usually pirate games myself just because I’m cheap, but I just got my hard drive nuked for the first time. Kind of sad, hoping it’s recoverable.

Backups are important. I recommend keeping two copies of your data at home and one in your car.

Oh RIP, I'm hoping nothing irreplaceable was lost!

And thanks for consistently cheering me on, I really appreciate it!

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