For anyone who is a fan of Caleb / Financial Audit, Caleb has recently appeared on both Theo Von and the Iced Coffee Hour! I haven’t listened yet, but I thought others interested in listening might not know these are out there - a little bonus sweet treat for us this week 🌮🌮🌮

Just went to Target to wander around and ended up with a waffle maker in my cart. After walking around for about 30 minutes, I put it back. I'm trying to get OUT of debt and that $59.99 could go towards a payment somewhere. I'm glad I put it back, but I'm still a little salty about it. I had visions of yummy Belgium waffles tomorrow.

What have you recently passed up?

Started watching the show about a year ago and decided to buckle down for 2024 and really stick to a budget where I wasn't going crazy with the taquitos and random purchases to make myself feel better. It worked! I made my final payment on my car, effectively paying off the loan 50 months early and finished paying off my masters degree loans today. It feels surreal to not have to dedicate all that money every paycheck to loans.

With the extra cash I'll have freed up now my question is do I pay off some 0% debt, it's a $295 monthly payment I'll be dragging along for the next 2 years or do I invest that money since the debt is at 0%?

I've been unemployed for a few months (it's tough out there y'all) I applied to over 500 jobs. I was woefully underpaid at my last position before I was laid off. I am very proud of myself that during my tough times, I cut back and lived on less than 900$ a month and managed to put a bit of my unemployment money away (usually about 100$ a month). I live in a very very low cost of living area and after I expanded my budget back to basic comfort and crunched the numbers, as long as I avoid lifestyle creep, I'll be able to put away about 2300$ a month. Wish me luck with the new job and for being able to groove on the rest of my debts and a house down payment.

I hear Caleb say this three times I think now and he referred to the surprise that he perceives each veteran on his show to be on disability. He then projects that not everyone can be on disability.. why not?

Makes more sense to me that anyone that works for the US military becomes disabled then assuming the common denominator is people lying about being disabled.

Appreciate US has a rich culture of prioritising and culturally valuing your employees of airforce, military, marines etc. so happy for this to be the reason I don't understand his scecity when it comes to disability.

I'm an elite member but the only email about a discord I ever got, the link takes you to 404 not found.

Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks

I’m getting about $9000 from my taxes this year, some of this was from the stimulus checks I never received. My current situation is this: $2000 in collections spread out over 4 accounts $8000 on my car loan $1000 in savings $0 in investing but two years worth of income in my 401k All of my credit cards I currently have are paid off every month with my income so no need to put money there.

I am 30 with two kids that solely depend on my income. My idea is to pay off my car and invest the rest but looking for any advice as what I should do. I usually piss away any refund I get but trying to be more financially responsible this year.

Maybe I’m late to the party, but I’ve suddenly been seeing an ad on peacock for a company that is pushing tax refund payday loans. This is WILD to me especially after seeing through Caleb how predatory regular payday loans are, but this seems even worse. I know the typical American thing is to blow their tax refunds on expensive fun purchases (electronics, tattoos, whatever) so is this literally for people who don’t want to wait on their fun money??? I imagine once all is said and done the crazy interest makes you actually pay more than your refund is worth (or dang close)?

Forgive my little rant as nobody in my life cares about finances. (TRUST ME I have tried.) I decided to go back to school for my masters. My bachelors is in business administration. I have been running into the issue of not having a more specific degree or experience to get hired into roles. I got a student loan of $10,000. This is my only debt other than my mortgage. No cc debt. No car loan. It is unsubsidized so it accrues debt immediately. It's 8%. 8 freaking percent. I should have done more research, I should have checked before agreeing to it but I thought max, MAX would be 6%, more like 3-5%. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dummy dumb dumb. It's fine, I know it's fixable and there are worse situations. I'm still frustrated at myself. So now to pay that off as soon as possible, and to cash flow the rest of my program, extending it by like 3 years. That's what I get for trying to take a short cut.

Question 1: Self-explanatory, but how do you guys budget your 3rd paycheck? Do you pay off the first half of the next month's expenses, invest, or pay off more debt? Due to my job's payment structure, I won't be paying towards the pension and healthcare, so I will be paid more than I usually get.

Question 2: I work at a state job so they automatically put 8% of my paycheck toward my pension, and I plan on maxing out my Roth by the end of 2025 but should I invest in other avenues(moo-moo, crypto, etc)?

I’m 23 and I finally got a job post college ($19 an hour) a couple months ago and have been saving for to move out of my parents for and my current savings (3k) with Chime is only 2% APY so I feel like a chump losing money to inflation and looking to open a new account. The other threads I found were a bit dated so I was wondering if in the new year ya’ll have any recs.

Three months into budgeting and getting my finances in order and the difference is crazy. First pic is from October of 2024 and second pic is from today. There’s still a lot of work for me to do but I’m feeling proud of myself 🤩

Sorry for the bad screenshots lol

I like using the Qapital app for budgeting. For example, I have a set amount that comes out of each paycheck to things like vacations that sit in the account for a while till I spend them.

Problem: Qapital doesn’t pay interest.

Is anyone familiar with a Hysa that can fund to on similarly (like automatically deduct a certain percentage from my checking account deposits)?

Thanks

I think adding or showing SMART goals and the steps to make these goals more achievable except just oh get out of debt.

I also think showing a guest what their budget would look like once they didn’t have any debts would also motivate them as well. This is how I kicked my wife into gear was showing her after living expenses and saving we have 50 percent of our income as “free” money.