I always found it easier to basically automate the process as much as possible. “spend” every recurring expenditure and also set aside the most aggressive savings/investments possible using separate bill pay and savings accounts or buckets. Everything is taken out of the main account as soon as your paycheck hits, so it means everything you see on your spending account is a free dollar that you can use for fun or food.
Some people might operate better with a set amount for groceries too, but I personally found that too restrictive.
A good budget is one that you stick to, helps you achieve your goals, and crucially, allows you to enjoy your life to at least some extent. Whatever method works for you, it’s important to give yourself permission to spend some money on fun. However small.
Yes, I definitely rely on all automatic payments. When I first moved out on my own thought I had a grip on things but too many bills ended up paid a couple days late, even though I had the money.
We also have recurring transfers to savings and to individual accounts for “fluff” spending.
Ultimately, the best approach is the one that works best psychologically for you.
As long as you’re quantatively tracking the in/out of your dollars, yoiu’re doing it right.
From there, if your goal is to save money, its about rewiring your brain to gain pleasure from things other than consumption. In my life experience I’ve found the most sustainable way to feel good without spending money is through personal improvement and achievement. Skills, athletics, creativity, doesn’t matter. If you’re regularly getting better at making or doing stuff you’re proud of, you’ll feel good for free or cheap.
I haven’t been following any specific method, just a budgeting spreadsheet that has evolved over time - though my own method works out similar to the “Pay yourself first” method mentioned in that link. Basically a spreadsheet with columns for each month & the rows document required expenses/bills, then savings goals, then slightly less-required expenses & discretionary spending. Some people do similar using “buckets” of spending goals & that works too.
Been doing it for a while so at this point already know my expected monthly/yearly costs & even have a year out projection of where the savings goals will land at the end of 2024. Of course keep in mind life happens, no amount of budgeting will get you out of surprises. It’s always best to have emergency savings.
For what it’s worth spending flowchart from the Personal Finance communities helps out a ton when planning things out e.g. lemmy.ml/post/1161162 from !personalfinance
Cross modality is what is missing. We have models that can produce text, hear things, and see things really really well. Facilitating communication between these individual models, and probably creating some executive model to utilize them, is what’s missing. We’re probably still a few years from beginning to touch general intelligence
It probably won’t happen until we move to new hardware architectures.
I do think LLMs are a great springboard for AGI, but I don’t think the current hardware allows for models to cross the hump to AGI.
There’s not enough recursive self-interaction in the network to encode nonlinear representations. So we saw this past year a number of impressive papers exhibiting linear representations of world models extrapolated from training data, but there hasn’t yet been any nonlinear representations discovered and I don’t think there will be.
But when we switch to either optoelectronics or colocating processing with memory at a node basis, that next generation of algorithms taking advantage of the hardware may allow for the final missing piece of modern LLMs in extrapolating data from the training set, pulling nonlinear representations of world models from the data (things like saying “I don’t know” will be more prominent in that next generation of models).
From there, we’ll quickly get to AGI, but until then I’m skeptical that classical/traditional hardware will get us there.
I take my time putting up Christmas (as others mentioned the season traditionally lasts until Epiphany (Jan 6), and some traditions don’t even celebrate it until that day.) usually somewhere between the first nutcracker and last ornament I transition from missing Christmas to looking forward to being done with it.
Then I transition that into “spring cleaning”. I clean out the attic before moving the Christmas boxes back into storage, and tackle other areas that accumulated junk and boxes over the past year.
Like a lot of people, I also like to try something new or different. It can be as simple as a new tv show or streaming service, new author, new video game, or a new recipe, new hobby, etc. maybe go to the movies a few times or eat out somewhere special.
I’m really lazy, so I use the jar method (they article calls it cash stuffing or the envelope method). But I use multiple accounts and automated transfers.
Basically: I have one account for personal spending, one for bills, one for insurance, one for groceries, one for vacation money, etc. I get paid regularly, so I have automated transfers move money into the appropriate accounts.
When it comes time to make an expense in the given category (e.g. insurance), I pay it out of the appropriate account.
The benefits
I don’t need to think about it after it’s set.
If I overspend in a category, it doesn’t reduce cash available in other categories.
It’s easy to tell if my budget is wrong: ie, if an account is building up cash, or doesn’t have enough money, it’s time to revisit the budget.
The first item is the most important to me. I’m not consistent enough to manage a spreadsheet.
If you buy milk alternatives regularly it might be worth getting a high powered blender and a nut milk bag and making your own nut milk. Any high powered (2200W) blender will work, you don’t need a $500 Vitamix, there are some brands for around $100 on Amazon- CasaCosa is a good one. But a regular or compact blender will not work.
There are shockingly few nuts in a half gallon of almond milk and it takes like 5 minutes including clean up. It only lasts about 4 days in the fridge, so it’s twice a week kind of thing, but it’s really not difficult. If you use cashews you don’t even have to strain it, since they have very little fiber.
If you do use a high fiber nut, like almonds or walnuts, you can save the pulp and use it instead of (or in addition to) regular flour to make quick breads (pumpkin, banana, zucchini, etc.) and pancakes.
How about a system which fully harvests nutrients, then compresses waste into smooth, solid, compact, sterile pellets which leave no residue and don’t smell bad?
Get a rice cooker with a steam tray. Make a cup of rice, with frozen veggies in the tray. Spice the rice if you want (a little cumin with pepper slices makes excellent fajitas).
When I was in college I put rice in everything because it disgusted my flatmates. I could cook a meal and repel mooches at the same time.
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