Datasheet: Financial Habits for Single Guys

[Snag87]

Are you including taxes and higher insurance premiums? In fairness one thing newer vehicles have in their favor is they're generally more fuel efficient.

But still.. Get a 2004 Chevy Cavalier. Can't beat that!

 

[Cattle Rustler]

Another one I see is clothing:

More expensive is NOT better. If you're in any kind of professional occupation you should have at least one custom fitted suit, shirt, and pants combo with a nice set of hoes and tie to go with. That does NOT mean you go out and buy the $2,000 suit because the custom-cut $300 IndoChino suit will usually look better. There's also no reason to buy a $200 Hermes tie (I know of multiple boutiques who will sell you a better and more stylish one for $80 with lifetime fixups provided) or the $5,000 Rolex (an Apple Watch looks more "hip" and costs 1/20th of the cost).

You'll have one or two outfits like that will spend most of their lives in the closet and ONLY come out when events or people who can change your life are involved (like you set up a coffee chat with a vice president at company you want to work for). The rest can be bought at discount retailers or often even thrift/consignment shops.

Nah, you go on ebay or another resale site and buy the 5K suit for 1K that looks better than IndoChino or SuitSupply. Bought one from SS for 800 and that shit didn't even last two wears. Bought a Zegna Couture suit that was worn once for a charity even in Russia, shit looks like a million bucks!

Plus, every other middle management salesman will wear IndoChino too; and the homies are couture shops will know you're a pauper.

Also, what ETFs would Jesus Christ invest men? Y'all need some Jesus!

 

[N°6]

careful brothers, many on this forum believe it’s not God’s will for you to prosper financially.

For those unsure whether financial planning is an act of rebellion against the Almighty or an element of the blood covenant, just get out a concordance and look up each biblical verse where the word prosperity appears.

Money isn’t the root of all evil, the love of it is because loving mammon breaks the first commandment.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Money isn’t the root of all evil, the love of it is because loving mammon breaks the first commandment.

Exactly. We have to work (2 Thess ‪3:10‬) to earn money (1 Tim ‪5:18‬), so that we can give alms (Matt ‪5:42‬) and pay our workers (Deut 24:14-15), so that we can avoid worry (Matt ‪6:34‬), and most importantly so that we make good use of what God has given us (Matt 25:14-30).
But if we make money our god (Matt ‪6:24‬), then we've done it all wrong. It's like eating properly and exercising; we take good care of our bodies and our finances because they belong to God (1 Cor ‪6:19-20‬), and we have to take good care of what's his.

 

[Cattle Rustler]

Hey man. I’m just engaging in my god given right, so all the money I take is because god wanted me to have it.

Alms = taxation. We’re American so let’s remember what we did to the brits when they decided to tax us.

 

[Going strong]

I might offer a different advice here on this thread, though:

Don't do anything of the above.

Instead, take all your savings, and try something big. One big shot at success ! Invest all your money in something (shares, gold, bitcoin, take your pick), or start a small business (selling hotdogs down the road or opening a trendy -gay unfriendly, mind you- coffee shop), or go to China or Vietnam to try to make a fortune in emerging markets.

Take a risk. Even if it is just once in your life. If you win you'll have money and the trophy wife and universal respect (sadly we live in a material world). If you lose, well, in your heart you'll be proud to have genuinely and manly tried something at least.

Don't resign yourself to surviving as a semi-poor dude. Try your luck, and remember, Fortune loves you already!

 

[doc holliday]

Another one I see is clothing:

More expensive is NOT better. If you're in any kind of professional occupation you should have at least one custom fitted suit, shirt, and pants combo with a nice set of hoes and tie to go with. That does NOT mean you go out and buy the $2,000 suit because the custom-cut $300 IndoChino suit will usually look better. There's also no reason to buy a $200 Hermes tie (I know of multiple boutiques who will sell you a better and more stylish one for $80 with lifetime fixups provided) or the $5,000 Rolex (an Apple Watch looks more "hip" and costs 1/20th of the cost).

You'll have one or two outfits like that will spend most of their lives in the closet and ONLY come out when events or people who can change your life are involved (like you set up a coffee chat with a vice president at company you want to work for). The rest can be bought at discount retailers or often even thrift/consignment shops.

One hoe is usually very expensive let alone a whole set of hoes.

(Sorry man, couldn't resist)

 

[BlueMark]

I came across this article that puts wealth into perspective using spending amounts/decisions as a percentage of your net worth:
https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/

For example, imagine you are in a restaurant where you are deciding between a burger for $15 and salmon for $25. If your net worth > $100,000 then the $10 difference is trivial (<0.01% of net worth). If you continue to scale this logic upward you will see that the marginal impact of a single decision within each level of wealth could be as follows:

Level 1. Paycheck-to-paycheck: $0-$0.99 per decision
Level 2. Grocery freedom: $1-$9 per decision
Level 3. Restaurant freedom: $10-$99 per decision
Level 4. Travel freedom: $100-$999 per decision
Level 5. House freedom: $1,000-$9,999 per decision
Level 6. Philanthropic freedom: $10,000+ per decision.

When you view wealth in this way, it looks more like steps than a smooth, ever-increasing line. This is because most people in the same level of wealth consume in much the same way. If you are in level 3, you don’t fly private and you only fly first class if you are lucky enough to get upgraded. If you are in level 1, you rarely fly.

More importantly though, the best way to climb the wealth ladder is to spend money according to your level. If you are in level 1 and you book a vacation without caring about the costs (level 4), then you won’t progress further up the ladder. Until you have the money to spend frivolously within a level, you have to be strict about your spending in that level. Get this right and you have a far better chance of progressing up the ladder.

 

[whitewashedblackguy]

This might be relevant: avoid big cities, but don't go too small. 'Prospect Cities' might be the Goldilocks for the young and single among us.

 

[gework]

Another note on this is just how fast I have seen people's lives change in the window of about 29-34 years old.

People who put all their eggs in the cool weed guy, trying to bang what they can, worldly hippy guy with a man-bun ... baskets.

I've seen guys who have gone from quite confidently strutting about one year to staggering about, looking crusty with yellow teeth the next.

Around the age of 29 it seems a lot of people go through a deep introspective crisis, querying the child-like nature of themselves and trying to figure out a path in life. This period hits some very bad, with mental breakdowns and severe anxiety. A hurdle for them to overcome to become a proper adult.

Others put such thoughts out of their mind and you can see it burning in their minds at 33-34. By this time people think it's a bit too late to do anything in their life. In that period they have seen some people go from floating about to battened down with a wife, mortgage, normal life. The jealously of such things they would have thought irrelevant a few years ago is obvious.

Has anyone else seen such patterns?

 

[stream26]

Most of my spending is fixed. I made goals for savings, emergency fund contributions and fun money. Then I made goals for my non-fixed expenses that might affect these goals.
To track my non fixed spending eating out ($100 goal), grocery ($200 goal) and miscellaneous ($100 goal) I made a expense tracker and write in the date, cost and store/item right after I whip out my credit card. It takes 5 seconds to do, which is why I do it this way.
Easy to check in mid month to see how you're doing and adjust spending according.

 

[lunchmoney]

Agree with most of the OP except the housing/mortgage thought. Borrow for a modest home with a 20 percent down payment and a loan payment that is no more than 25 percent of your monthly take home pay.

 

[whitewashedblackguy]

Another note on this is just how fast I have seen people's lives change in the window of about 29-34 years old.

People who put all their eggs in the cool weed guy, trying to bang what they can, worldly hippy guy with a man-bun ... baskets.

I've seen guys who have gone from quite confidently strutting about one year to staggering about, looking crusty with yellow teeth the next.

Around the age of 29 it seems a lot of people go through a deep introspective crisis, querying the child-like nature of themselves and trying to figure out a path in life. This period hits some very bad, with mental breakdowns and severe anxiety. A hurdle for them to overcome to become a proper adult.

Others put such thoughts out of their mind and you can see it burning in their minds at 33-34. By this time people think it's a bit too late to do anything in their life. In that period they have seen some people go from floating about to battened down with a wife, mortgage, normal life. The jealously of such things they would have thought irrelevant a few years ago is obvious.

Has anyone else seen such patterns?

I just went through this part, age 25. Some call this the quarter life crisis. Fun stuff.

 

[Leads]

Keep in mind the intense focus on this whole 'saving a dollar, skipping the latte, etc. can lead to a sense of scarcity and weakness. Much fewer seem to focus on brute-force-multiplying of income with relentless tenacity. Here's some great youtubes:

Dan Lok's 'wealth triangle' - This one really woke me up. It also gave me hope as I have 2 of his 3 points nailed (high earning skills / own a biz that scales). The third is the investing bit, which I am basically ignorant of

Ben Mallah - old-school real estate wisdom dropped from this hillarious new yorker turned floridian. His appetite for the 'next deal' is matched only by his hunger for actual food

Grant Cardone - another beakon of positive income generating attitudes. Breaks it down real simple like. Can be jarring but the message is clear

 

[Dilated]

^^Good point on intense focus on saving. Can easily get out of control with it. In my experience women hate this tightness with $$ more than anything.

 

[lunchmoney]

Shared this with a friend this weekend, he has over 70K in personal debt besides his home. He makes (in his mind) a pretty good income, but has no direction financially, and no idea where his money goes. Because he works in a commission environment, he has always focused on out earning his poor choices.

 

[forestdweller]

I think it's a balance. Making your own coffee in a thermos for work is fine. No sense in supporting liberal coffee shops anyways. You're really paying some dickhead to do fuck drumpf slam poetry on the weekends.

Treat yourself now and again to a meal out, infrequency keeps it special. Stressing out over which bulk bag of rice saves you 2 cents per LB is over the line.

Always be working on ways to multiply your income, this clearly outweighs the time it takes to clip coupons.

 

[John Michael Kane]

Take a look in my signature for a datasheet I wrote on all things related to personal credit. It should be useful to a lot of guys out there building or repairing credit.

 

[iOneIndividual]

I'd like to suggest expanding step 3:
Drop any money hole habits.
Any addictive substances, like cigarettes, beers, pot, or starbucks.
Pay to play gaming
Even netflix / hulu (could you be doing something more constructive than streaming 1hr a day and just download whatever titles you simply can't live without watching on torrent site like rarbg?)

Another thing to save on:
You have no idea how much you save buying a coffee grinder for 20 bucks, a presser for another 20, and picking up bags of 1kg beans for 20 1, 2 times per month instead of a trip to starbucks every morning. I drink a lot of coffee, usually 3 presses per day (about 6 cups total, 2 per brew) and going to the extra effort to grind fresh beans every time makes it higher quality, better tasting, and saves a ton over a week / month.

Props to the buying lemons for cheap suggestion. A lemon that's roadworthy could get me back on my feet, I lost my delivery job in mid March and it was their vehicle; been struggling to get back on my feet since.