Game vs Finances: Needed Some Opinions

nicksaiz65

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@nicksaiz65

you are thinking too short term. Making solid decisions involves thinking longer term. Sit down with a sheet of paper and write out where you want to be and what you want to be doing five years from now. Where do you want to be for your career? What do you want to have accomplished? How much money do you want to reasonably earn with your skill set and putting in hard work? Thinking long term like is the only way you can make good day to day and week to week to decisions.

I think you are spending too much time pursuing pleasure and pussie, not enough time pursuing purpose. Pursuing pussie is fun and it will always be there. But, purpose needs to be central. Pleasure should be peripheral.

best of luck brother
Well that got deeper than I thought haha.

As for purpose, I’m not sure tbh. In my headspace right now, I’m just trying to make money to eliminate debt and finance my lifestyle, and fvck b*tches lol.

I’m very passionate about music. I like lifting weights and doing cardio. And I play video games to unwind a bit.

Honestly, that’s all I can think of. I’m very passionate about music like I said earlier but these days I’ve been playing my instrument just like a hobby tbh. It’s been a very long time since I’ve played in a band, played in orchestra, written music, or anything like that. Or at least done it seriously like I used to.
 
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Millard Fillmore

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Well that got deeper than I thought haha.

As for purpose, I’m not sure tbh. In my headspace right now, I’m just trying to make money to eliminate debt and finance my lifestyle, and fvck b*tches lol.
Then that can be your purpose. And you can always change things up.

Some people pick one career and stick to it with a passion. Others just want to make money and the job is a means to an end. Others still just work a job to get by and find passion in hobbies.

I do think it's important to have goals (e.g. live debt free or have a career goal) but that's to keep myself from drifting or being a cog in some business machine and nothing more. For instance for me I don't give a fukk about career titles or being CEO or president or in any kind of management. I'm more of an autonomous/digital nomad type with a side hustle I'm passionate about (my "purpose"). However for many years I wasn't true to myself because I thought my goals were childish.

Anyway hope that helps...
 

nicksaiz65

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Then that can be your purpose. And you can always change things up.

Some people pick one career and stick to it with a passion. Others just want to make money and the job is a means to an end. Others still just work a job to get by and find passion in hobbies.

I do think it's important to have goals (e.g. live debt free or have a career goal) but that's to keep myself from drifting or being a cog in some business machine and nothing more. For instance for me I don't give a fukk about career titles or being CEO or president or in any kind of management. I'm more of an autonomous/digital nomad type with a side hustle I'm passionate about (my "purpose"). However for many years I wasn't true to myself because I thought my goals were childish.

Anyway hope that helps...
Yep, it sounds like we’re on the same page.

I’m cool with CS, and I’d say that I enjoy my job, but it’s more of a means to an end for me. I need a job that compensates me well, and out of all those I’d choose CS. It’s a bit arcane/cryptic for it to be my true *passion*, but that doesn’t mean I can’t study hard and get really good at it.

I’m pretty happy with this set of goals. The main ones are the ones I’ve outlined in this thread(debt free, move out so that I can ball, hold down two jobs, increase skills, increase Laycount.) I’m totally content doing that and playing my instrument as a hobby.

I probably play my instrument between 5-6 hours a week these days. I actually had to scale it back because it was interfering with my other goals (I.e. Playing in a band/group makes it very difficult to game, and devoting a ton of time to practice takes away study time that could be used on CS to get paid more.)

I’m content with this compromise that I’ve come up with so far.

I’ll say this is a good set of goals for now. Once I’m debt free I can take the travel stuff super super seriously. Until then, I’ll just travel casually while hitting these goals.
 
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RangerMIke

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Establish a budget and stick with it. Do this with backwards planning. Figure out what you need as fiscal backup and then figure out what your expenses will be based on that. If that means thinks like eating out, dating, entertainment takes a back seat... so be it. Measure what you actually spend... adjust your budget accordingly.

You should have at a minimum 3 months in a cash reserve (money market fund will give you the best return) to cover expenses.

Your PRIORITY should be to eliminate debt if you have any. Your budget should include provisions to eliminate that debt.

Get a cheap used car that can get you from point a to point b. Not saying you need to junk car, but buying a new car is incredibly stupid. The cost of maintenance on a used car is going to be A LOT cheaper than paying a new car note. It helps if you can do the maintence yourself. Continuing to rent cars is not a good fiscal move.

Get your finances in order first... women are a distant 5th of what you should be worrying about.
 

nicksaiz65

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Establish a budget and stick with it. Do this with backwards planning. Figure out what you need as fiscal backup and then figure out what your expenses will be based on that. If that means thinks like eating out, dating, entertainment takes a back seat... so be it. Measure what you actually spend... adjust your budget accordingly.

You should have at a minimum 3 months in a cash reserve (money market fund will give you the best return) to cover expenses.

Your PRIORITY should be to eliminate debt if you have any. Your budget should include provisions to eliminate that debt.

Get a cheap used car that can get you from point a to point b. Not saying you need to junk car, but buying a new car is incredibly stupid. The cost of maintenance on a used car is going to be A LOT cheaper than paying a new car note. It helps if you can do the maintence yourself. Continuing to rent cars is not a good fiscal move.

Get your finances in order first... women are a distant 5th of what you should be worrying about.
Yo, you basically described my entire financial plan, the only difference is that I feel more comfortable with a 6 month emergency fund. I’ll get as close to that as possible.

The idea behind renting cars every other weekend is so that I can put away $2K a month and get to my own car as fast as possible. (And to building a safety net as soon as possible.) As I continue to set myself up, I shouldn’t have to rent a car unless I’m on vacation or traveling. That way I’m not bleeding money, and I can redirect that money towards myself.

I can’t wait to be debt free. Once that happens, so many doors are opened. I can start the travel phase of my life then too.

I’ll be basically using this plan here for the car of my own:

 

jnMissouri

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Morning guys. I’ve had some thoughts swirling through my head that I wanted some opinions on.

I’ll need to give you some background on me first. I’m a software engineer, and I make around 80K a year total. Some of that money is coming from my side hustle as a session musician, which I do during the week after work and on Sundays. I live in a small town. I need to drive about an hour to Nashville to have the volume necessary to game.

The biggest issue that I have on my plate right now is that I don’t have a car of my own, due to a bad wreck I got in a few months ago. I’ve circumvented this a bit through rental cars. Originally I wanted to get a car loan, but the people at the bank think my credit is too new, so I got declined. I refuse to co-sign with my parents at this point. I also eventually decided that it was better to do this the Dave Ramsey way and work towards being completely debt free, he’s very against car notes.

That leads to my financial/game goals within one year of today:
1.) Have a car of my own paid for in cash with no car note
2.) After this purchase, retain a decent sized emergency fund to protect against life, potential layoffs and more importantly, the car breaking down so I’m never in this situation again.
3.) Have enough money put to the side so that I can make it through this upcoming wedding season completely unscathed
4.) Sleep with 10-12+ new women through a combination of Cold Approach and Online Dating

When you factor in my fitness goals and my current salary, just achieving those goals alone would put me ahead of the average American imo.

I’m thinking that to achieve these goals, I need to put away somewhere between 1.5-2K a month. However, if I’m renting a car every single weekend to go out, this quickly becomes nearly impossible.

I’m thinking of making an argument that for my current goals, I should rent a car and go out every other weekend instead of every single weekend like I’ve been doing. And no, this is not an excuse to avoid rejection lol. I’m also in a pickup group that has weekly challenges, but I’m still thinking it could be best to explain my situation and haggle to go out every other weekend. I think every other weekend is the sweet spot because sitting at the house saving money but being sexless is not an option.

This Would Have Several Advantages, with the First Being the Most Important:
1.) I can easily save the money needed to hit my goals for this year. I wouldn’t have to be so stressed about finances because my side hustle and game expenses would literally cancel each other out. I really need to achieve these goals, because if a year from today all I have to show is a few thousand dollars in my bank account, I’ll be quite upset.
2.) I usually crash at my Wing’s place every time I go to Nashville. By going every other week, I can make sure I’m not wearing out my welcome. I also buy him drinks and pay the Uber fares when I am there for letting me crash.
3.) Because I’m saving so aggressively, even if I want to go(or get invited) to a trip with friends or to a concert, it doesn’t totally derail my financial plan. It’s not even a worry.
4.) This is somewhat outside of the scope of this thread, but going out every other weekend makes it so much easier to keep getting in better shape. I can extended fast longer, there’s less drinking and less late night bar food. I could even work extra gigs on the weekends I’m not out gaming, to bring in more money and build my financial base. I’d also study my Computer Science and increase my skills so that I can eventually jump into a higher paying software job.
5.) Extra time to do whatever I need to do, since I’m always complaining about never having enough time. Again, somewhat outside of the scope of this thread

The only other option would be for me to take the bus every single Friday up to Nashville, and then game for a day then come back Saturday evening so I can make my gigs on Sunday. I’ve taken the bus to Nashville a handful of times. But at this point in my life, I’d almost just rather not: being on the bus that much would drive me crazy. I’d rather just go out every two weeks with a rental car and game hard on those days. It’s still an average of 4 days a month.

I would love to go out every single weekend if I could, but I think that if I don’t start building a financial base, I’m eventually going to hit a wall that makes it very difficult to game or eventually move to a bigger city because I didn’t plan enough for my financial future. I hate to disappoint my wings by not being out every single weekend, but this is starting to make a lot of sense.

I also think that this is sufficient action to achieve my pvssy goals for this year. There’s absolutely no reason that I can’t hit between 80-100 approaches a month doing this routine, I’d argue that’s way more than the average guy approaches. Combine that with eventually online, and I think that these goals regarding getting new pvssy are very realistic.

Hopefully this didn’t go on too long, but I just wanted to get all of my thoughts on the page and get some feedback from you all.

TL;DR:

Is it a good idea, as a game guy to go out every other weekend instead of every weekend so I can ensure that I hit my financial goals this year?
A critical detail you either left out or I missed: how old are you. I'm a now retired tech executive (but still do some consulting, just no longer a department head). 80K a year including side hustle, at what age?

Paying your car off, at what age?

What kind of car?

Do you own a house, live in an apartment, rent a house?

Paying your car off and saving 1K a month may put you above the bottom of the rung in society, which isn't much. Most don't have 1K saved, and the median income for a household (2.5 people) is something around 65K a year. So depending on your age, we can have a better idea how well you are doing.
 

nicksaiz65

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A critical detail you either left out or I missed: how old are you. I'm a now retired tech executive (but still do some consulting, just no longer a department head). 80K a year including side hustle, at what age?

Paying your car off, at what age?

What kind of car?

Do you own a house, live in an apartment, rent a house?

Paying your car off and saving 1K a month may put you above the bottom of the rung in society, which isn't much. Most don't have 1K saved, and the median income for a household (2.5 people) is something around 65K a year. So depending on your age, we can have a better idea how well you are doing.
Hey man, that’s a good point. I am 26 years old and graduated college two years ago(degree in Computer Science.)

I rent an apartment.

I’m not really picky on the type of car. It’ll likely be a Honda or Toyota.

It would probably better to save 2K a month, but I’m putting a range in there to compensate for my “balling out” habits:lol:

While I still make financial progress.
 

EyeBRollin

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Get a cheap used car that can get you from point a to point b. Not saying you need to junk car, but buying a new car is incredibly stupid. The cost of maintenance on a used car is going to be A LOT cheaper than paying a new car note. It helps if you can do the maintence yourself. Continuing to rent cars is not a good fiscal move.
This advice is old and generic. I bought my new plug-in hybrid car 6 years ago for $35K. Then got over $10K in government tax credits that year. Today it’s paid off still worth over $15K with 130K miles. It costs $25 / month to charge and maintenance is minimal. I actually just had my brake calipers changed under warranty- they rusted out from not being used (electric cars don’t use mechanical brakes at all under normal driving conditions).
 

BillyPilgrim

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This advice is old and generic. I bought my new plug-in hybrid car 6 years ago for $35K. Then got over $10K in government tax credits that year. Today it’s paid off still worth over $15K with 130K miles. It costs $25 / month to charge and maintenance is minimal. I actually just had my brake calipers changed under warranty- they rusted out from not being used (electric cars don’t use mechanical brakes at all under normal driving conditions).
I want some rusted breaks..
 

RangerMIke

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This advice is old and generic. I bought my new plug-in hybrid car 6 years ago for $35K. Then got over $10K in government tax credits that year. Today it’s paid off still worth over $15K with 130K miles. It costs $25 / month to charge and maintenance is minimal. I actually just had my brake calipers changed under warranty- they rusted out from not being used (electric cars don’t use mechanical brakes at all under normal driving conditions).
I will get an electric car when the infrastructure is better established for recharging. I think if you are using your car for commuting (to and from work and school) EVs and HEVs are a good option. Thanks for posting this is actually good advice, thank you for the reminder that advice is relative, and what works for you... might not be the best COA for another. EVs could be a solid option for a lot of men. I live in an oil state, so there are ZERO incentives to buy EV... in addition there is ZERO effort to expand the infrastructure to accommodate these vehicles.

I have a master's degree in engineering and made a career in designing manufacturing processes for mass produced electro-mechanical systems. The newest vehicles being produced by Hyundai are excellent. If you want something on the luxury end, Mercedes Benz has excellent products. If you compare Tesla's and MB high end EVs, you are going to pay about $20k more for the German car (about $85K v. $105K), but you will get better reliability, ride, comfort, and interior design with the Mercedes. I would not buy a Tesla... although they are not terrible and run well, but it's the little things that will aggravate the fvck out of you... et. al. It's like American cars in the early 80s... the engines and transmissions were fine (like they are on the Tesla), but the AC would cr@p out, the radios wouldn't work well, windows and tires that came with the original vehicle were cheap and would need to be replaced within a year. Tesla windows crack easy and getting replacements are hard. The paint wears off fast. The interior of a Tesla is honestly not that impressive. Tesla cars are way overpriced for what you get.
 

EyeBRollin

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Thanks for posting this is actually good advice, thank you for the reminder that advice is relative, and what works for you... might not be the best COA for another. EVs could be a solid option for a lot of men. I live in an oil state, so there are ZERO incentives to buy EV... in addition there is ZERO effort to expand the infrastructure to accommodate these vehicles.
I was just saying the advice don’t buy new ever is generic and there are alternatives. Shame some states are so corrupted by the oil industry they are still pushing obsolete tech.

From a financial standpoint, was just showing I basically paid $25K, and lost “only” $10K in depreciation for 130,000 miles. Operating costs virtually nil (electricity is cheap af in NJ) and living in a CARB state all propulsive components are warrantied for 150,000 miles per state law. Also, I don’t have a Tesla, I agree they are cheaply made. Still worth it over a gas car though for sure. Buddy of mine just got a brand new Model Y for reasonable. The tax incentives right now are too good to pass up.
 

nicksaiz65

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This advice is old and generic. I bought my new plug-in hybrid car 6 years ago for $35K. Then got over $10K in government tax credits that year. Today it’s paid off still worth over $15K with 130K miles. It costs $25 / month to charge and maintenance is minimal. I actually just had my brake calipers changed under warranty- they rusted out from not being used (electric cars don’t use mechanical brakes at all under normal driving conditions).
I’m actually driving an electric Chevy as my rental for this week to go and game.

I fvcks with it but it almost freaks me out how quiet the car is sometimes lol. I’m like, is this thing even running?
 

EyeBRollin

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I’m actually driving an electric Chevy as my rental for this week to go and game.

I fvcks with it but it almost freaks me out how quiet the car is sometimes lol. I’m like, is this thing even running?
Bolt?

It rides really nice. Looks like a toy vehicle. It’s like a VW Golf with more juice. My coworker just bought one he loves it. 330 miles of range in the summer.
 

RangerMIke

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I was just saying the advice don’t buy new ever is generic and there are alternatives. Shame some states are so corrupted by the oil industry they are still pushing obsolete tech.

From a financial standpoint, was just showing I basically paid $25K, and lost “only” $10K in depreciation for 130,000 miles. Operating costs virtually nil (electricity is cheap af in NJ) and living in a CARB state all propulsive components are warrantied for 150,000 miles per state law. Also, I don’t have a Tesla, I agree they are cheaply made. Still worth it over a gas car though for sure. Buddy of mine just got a brand new Model Y for reasonable. The tax incentives right now are too good to pass up.
I agree... some of the objection to EV and hybrid vehicles borders on the insane. There is room for improvement and the energy storage and battery design improves every year. Like it or not, this is the future.
 

nicksaiz65

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Bolt?

It rides really nice. Looks like a toy vehicle. It’s like a VW Golf with more juice. My coworker just bought one he loves it. 330 miles of range in the summer.
Yeah, that’s the one. Feels very odd riding in an electric car but I do enjoy it tbh
 

nicksaiz65

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Called my wing on the phone again last night. There really is no excuse for me to not be in a big city now lol. Assuming I had one roommate, my rent would be around $1300. That’s only a $550 increase from what I’m paying now.

Living alone is great, but I value living in a place with better logistics more. Gonna try and ride that wave for 2-3 years at least. As much as I work, I’ll bet I’d still have the money to travel while aggressively attacking my student debts.
 

SW15

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Called my wing on the phone again last night. There really is no excuse for me to not be in a big city now lol. Assuming I had one roommate, my rent would be around $1300. That’s only a $550 increase from what I’m paying now.

Living alone is great, but I value living in a place with better logistics more. Gonna try and ride that wave for 2-3 years at least. As much as I work, I’ll bet I’d still have the money to travel while aggressively attacking my student debts.
Move to Nashville
 

nicksaiz65

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Move to Nashville
Yep, I don’t want to break my lease but as soon as my lease expires I’m there.

Currently saving money so I can have a very nice cushion in the big city too.
 
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