Cash rules everything around me. Let's Play personal finance!

Hi friends! I’m sure there’s a good spread of ages in this new great forum but I have to imagine there are a lot of young professionals :ocelot: on here like me who haven’t been in the workforce for that long and are or have been struggling with various debts as they get situated.

My intent for this thread is to have a (mostly) judgement free space where those of us who kind of have our shit together can chat about money and offer advice and feedback to each other and to those of us who might be struggling. I personally believe that finances should not be as much of a taboo subject as it seems to be here in the states and the best way to personally get a handle on your own situation is to not be afraid of talking about it and to be open to new ideas.

Feel free to post real good content from like r/personalfinance too, there are some real dumb situations on there sometimes.

That said, be prepared to take some ragging if you post asking for advice and then absolutely refuse to even attempt to change your habits whatsoever.

I know this shit ain’t easy, but the first step in improving your own situation is admitting there’s a problem and a willingness to make an effort.

And if you’re doing good feel free to brag a little bit, but don’t be a dick about it.

A little background on my own personal situation:
I graduated from college in 2009 with a B.A. in English and spent several years bouncing between unemployment and awful low paying jobs, student loans (and depression) hanging over my head and often relying on my dad’s back child support payments and food stamps until I lucked into a steady helpdesk job in late 2012. I’ve been in the tech support industry up until present day.

Since then, through some amount of personal sacrifice and a good amount of luck I’ve paid off over twenty grand in student loans, have accumulated a pretty large emergency fund in case something bad happens, last year i took out a mortgage on my first house, and for the first time in my life I managed to scrape together enough money to max out my Roth IRA for a calendar year. This shit isn’t impossible if you want it!

I mean, check this shit out

That month where my net worth finally became positive I just about lost it.

I’m no expert but I’ve picked up a lot of information over the years of keeping tabs on my own finances, so I usually at least know where to start looking.

Personally, I do all my budgeting in Financier, which is a sort of spiritual successor to the old You Need a Budget 4 software that’s no longer updated. I am a huge huge huge proponent of the philosophy behind this budgeting method and I can talk at length about it later if anyone’s interested.

One last note: If you’re having some sort of money-related legal trouble please find a lawyer who is familiar with the laws of your state/country/dukedom/atlantic oil rig. If you don’t have a lot of money there are organizations all over the country that offer discounted or pro bono legal aid for people with low income.

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One other important thing, friends:

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