Rally Budgeting

I personally never wanted to know how much I spent and never tracked it. My idea was to solve the revenue side rather then control the expense side.

But I do live and breath budgets every day of my work life and learned a long time ago that one can cut a hell of a lot out of a budget if needed.

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In the long run reality always wins.

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derek
I personally never wanted to know how much I spent and never tracked it. My idea was to solve the revenue side rather then control the expense side.

This is what I was getting at. I don't know many people who can (successfully) justify a budget for rallying, I know it would just create stress towards something that is supposed to be fun (especially if there is a significant other involved). I've also found that racing is one of those things that at some point, you are going to have a big, sudden expense that makes the difference between justifying all the money you spent on getting to/competing at an event and essentially throwing all of that time/money/effort out the window. At some point, it becomes "might as well throw more wood on the fire" IMO.

Quote
derek
I personally never wanted to know how much I spent and never tracked it. My idea was to solve the revenue side rather then control the expense side.

But I do live and breath budgets every day of my work life and learned a long time ago that one can cut a hell of a lot out of a budget if needed.

Once again, agreed.

Top of Page:
I wanna rally

Therefore: I need:
A)

C)

I want:
A)

C)

It would be Soooooper coool if I could afford:

A)

C)

under need is things like:
strong car for newb fuck-ups like your first stage off
rudimentary mechanical skills
judgement on expenditures or a) money b) time, c) effort

Developing a critical, and honest assessment of "needs" is the hardest thing.


You need a criterion or a yardstick to measure EVERYTHING by...

I posit that yardstick is: What specific competitive advantage does ________
give me versus either ______________ or ___________ and the second black can very well be "not doing/buying it".

Time is money as they say, so is it smart to spend time driving 40 miles to save 10 bucks?

New tires vs part worn?

Recce notes and recce fee and time and gas before your first time on gravel?
Fancy pain?
Practice headsets?
Super end of th world rally computer suitable for CALC class at a TSD?

A new turbo diesel pick up and covered trailer?

Time stitch welding the econ-shit-box front end? (Didya pull off all the AC bullshit yet?)


Did you put PRACTICE----miles and miles of practice on the need sub-section?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Don't budget! The last thing you need to know is how much all of this is costing you, and if you know and have it written down then you'll need to lie to your wife vs honestly telling her you don't know!

Just do it... then pay credit card bill when it comes in, then repeat until you are broke :-)

In all seriousness, I don't write anything down, but of course I know roughly what it costs... as others have pointed out the real costs are comprised of a lot more than the event costs.

-Martin

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MRWmotorsports
In all seriousness, I don't write anything down, but of course I know roughly what it costs... as others have pointed out the real costs are comprised of a lot more than the event costs.

And those are the ones you really want to ignore!

I have a seperate bank account. I direct deposit $400 a month into it to cover shop rent, trash, and a little extra. I put all side work money into that account. I took a huge pay cut a little over a year ago and became a professional student. That has forced me to really curb my spending and evaluate what spending I am doing. It's also completely removed my rally budget aside from the above. I have responded by dedicating two days to working on projects. We're midway through our fourth cage this year and have another five on the horizon. I don't even have time to work on my own car lately... I might actually show a profit this year on my schedule C.

I personally am a tracker. With maybe 30 minutes of work I could tell you how much money I have spent on _____ related expenses since 2004. I did however stop updating the Merkur build spreadsheet somewhere around $23-25k.

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Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
I did however stop updating the Merkur build spreadsheet somewhere around $23-25k.

Is that because you were driving it an having too much fun to sit in front of a spreadsheet?

Quote
NoCoast
I personally am a tracker. With maybe 30 minutes of work I could tell you how much money I have spent on _____ related expenses since 2004. I did however stop updating the Merkur build spreadsheet somewhere around $23-25k.

Used to be to. But I just put away what I need to and spend some of the rest now... I know how much I should spend and how much I have available and know I can either spend a bit more or less and won't go broke but I don't keep track of every single expense I have like I did a few years ago.

It's funny you stopped updating your car spreadsheet at exactly the same amount I did with my old laser! I also found a huge pile of old receipt for that car and without even looking at them I threw them away! I really don't want to know how much I spent on that car in total...

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Francois

Quote
MRWmotorsports
Don't budget! The last thing you need to know is how much all of this is costing you, and if you know and have it written down then you'll need to lie to your wife vs honestly telling her you don't know!

Just do it... then pay credit card bill when it comes in, then repeat until you are broke :-)

In all seriousness, I don't write anything down, but of course I know roughly what it costs... as others have pointed out the real costs are comprised of a lot more than the event costs.

-Martin

Yep, that's the way I've been doing it for 12 years. My wife trusts me that I won't spend money we don't have. I've got lots of general ideas in my head of what I've spent. But if I was on a tighter leash I'd probably do a seperate account and throw any extra money in there frequently (well we only spent xxx dollars for groceries this week instead of xxx+ so I'll throw the + in the account).

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Don Kennedy

Eventually I think I would avoid tracking budget but for now I think it may help get a general idea of what to be expecting, being new at the sport and all.
For example this last rally so far the fix list is.
Replace door
pull huge dent
new water pump
real rally wheels (bent the steelies)
JVAB suspension
more protection under car

and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. lol

Quote
ChrisKobi
Eventually I think I would avoid tracking budget but for now I think it may help get a general idea of what to be expecting, being new at the sport and all.
For example this last rally so far the fix list is.
Replace door
pull huge dent
new water pump
real rally wheels (bent the steelies)
JVAB suspension
more protection under car
PRACTICE

and that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. lol

Like your priorities.


Before you blow the budget on some trick rally wheels find out if the plain 15" Fuckus things break out chunks or just bend...

If the chunk out fragments fawk 'em. If they bend occasionally.....
At $15 a pop that's almost 15-20 wheels for ONE real Soooper Bitchin rally wheel... Krylon is cheap to make the OEM allows look bitchin-er

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I think that a better question to ask is how much does a person need to earn to be able to do three or four events per year.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

That's actually a question I asked myself several years ago. Now I'm head deep in engineering school. But no family and a modest house I say in that 40-50k a year so you don't need to worry to much about paying the bills.

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"Rally racing makes a heroin addiction look like a vague craving for something salty"

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Rallymech
I think that a better question to ask is how much does a person need to earn to be able to "do" three or four events per year.

Naw that "do" is far to variable, far too vast a duifference between one person and the next in every single area you can think of...in the entire life, house, car, TV, all the fucking electroic toys that some little consumeroid boys have to have, HAVE TO GAWDDAMMIT!!, , down to the paint job on the car..

Too variable to discuss sensibly.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

There is a very important term in finance "free cash flow" that is the amount of money coming in that is not needed to do something like make a house payment. That is the only meaningful number when it comes to affording things like rally.

I work with several people who make more than $250k a year who can not afford a $1000 weekend at dirt fish as all their income is tied up in house payments, debt payments and other such things. I also know people who make less than $100k who have paid off their houses, have tons of savings and take a year or two off to go sail the south pacific every 10 years or so.

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In the long run reality always wins.

John,

I was trying to take a step back and look at the big picture of what people thought they needed.

Derek,

I did not know that there was a specific term for what I was talking about!

Everyone,

I would find it hard to do 3-4 events earning less than 50K. What I want Chris to see in this discusion is what different people, in different points in their lives, think the need to rally. He could then see where he fits in reletive to the rest of us. That would be an interesting and usefull piece of information.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.