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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:This might be the wrong thread for this question, but do credit card companies actually verify how much you say you're making when you do applications for a card? Considering I have applied and basically been approved instantly it doesn't seem that way. Is this just an honor system thing? Reading this and researching it, I realize that questions about applying for cards is probably one area that I know nothing about. My knee jerk reaction was "But the do have to verify you income now, that was a provision of the CARD Act of 2010". At my little credit union, our interpretation of the provision of the law is that all income must be verified for any type of credit card loan. Reading a bit more, it seems like the major card issuers were able to side step that regulation pretty easily. It seems that they verify income by looking at your credit score, which to them is an accurate enough proxy. To me, that just one more reason to avoid them. People think all the time that when we ask for paystubs and verify income it means we don't trust them. What it means is we safeguard our depositor's money too, and we want to keep our loses as low as possible, which means better rates and terms for everyone.
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Mar 20, 2011 20:29
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I see. Well, I got a credit card offer that was "PRE-APPROVED BASED ON YOUR CREDIT SCORE" that was actually contingent on my income (which would not be high enough to actually qualify for it I don't think) so I started wondering about it.
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Mar 20, 2011 21:34
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Just wanted to say thanks BFC! Took your advice and a year later my credit is great and I love you guys.
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Mar 21, 2011 00:23
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flyboi posted:Just wanted to say thanks BFC! Took your advice and a year later my credit is great and I love you guys.
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Mar 21, 2011 02:20
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moana posted:I print out all of these posts on a nice letterhead and put them up on my refrigerator to make me feel better when I'm eating my third bowl of cereal of the day. But how expensive is all that letterhead? 
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Mar 21, 2011 07:49
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FISHMANPET posted:But how expensive is all that letterhead? The letterhead is actually just discarded cereal boxes!
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Mar 21, 2011 11:56
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Edit: doublepost
maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2011 17:45
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This might be newbie finance but I didn't think it would make an interesting standalone thread either: We are looking at some larger plots of land to eventually build a house on and perhaps a plant nursery. Failing that, we'd have land just outside a growing area we could potentially just sell later. This leads us out of town into land zoned agricultural--if that. Some of the stuff has some leases for agricultural use like growing crops or having cattle nibble on the land. Since we wouldn't do anything with the land right away, these leases sounded interesting to me as a way to offset the payments. What I couldn't find out easily online is how much money these bring in. I can't imagine it being a super huge amount, but something is better than nothing. I also wondered if there are unanticipated consequences to putting the land up to lease. I assume one is finding people to lease to, so unless that is a really huge problem I was hoping to hear about other ones.
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Mar 22, 2011 16:57
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It sort of depends on where you are, but people in my family cash rent their land for crop growth (in Indiana). It's fairly volatile, how much money they make, but as far as I know it's usually ~$100/ acre. However, I think the land size has to be a decent size (theirs are greater than 100 acres), but maybe that's the size you're looking at. If it's a smaller size, I think the best bet would be to check out who owns the land bordering the land you're looking at - that would probably be the easiest way of renting it out to someone. And again, depending on where you are, it might be really easy regardless, or much more difficult. As far as any other consequences, if you're looking to build eventually you'll want to make sure your land's size and shape conforms to building requirements and stuff. Also the honesty of the people you're dealing with could be a concern, as well as what exactly they plan to do with the land. I can imagine that some things might make it more unsuitable for building than others, or more expensive to clean up.
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Mar 22, 2011 17:15
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Sophia posted:It sort of depends on where you are, but people in my family cash rent their land for crop growth (in Indiana). It's fairly volatile, how much money they make, but as far as I know it's usually ~$100/ acre. However, I think the land size has to be a decent size (theirs are greater than 100 acres), but maybe that's the size you're looking at. We're looking at stuff in around the 30 acre range. That isn't too much but some of the plots are advertised as having leases on them, so I guess it works. Any idea about livestock? I suppose that brings up an issue of having the land properly fenced off, but otherwise it's a bunch of cows chewing up the grass, drinking some water, and pooping everywhere. Which in my grand scheme of things isn't a big deal. I suppose I'd be more afraid of crops since I'd have to worry about what they're doing to the soil.
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Mar 22, 2011 19:27
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GregNorc posted:Reposting this, apologies: What is "somewhat liquid"? When do you plan to speed each 1/3 of it?
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Mar 23, 2011 17:18
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I just resigned from my job, that had offered a 401k match. My new job doesn't offer a match. From what I can tell, the best thing I should do is to open and start contributing the max towards a Roth IRA. I'll open one in a week or so (once I get settled in the new place.) I also know I have to roll over my 401k to an IRA - and then slowly convert to a ROTH? Does that affect how much I can contribute to my (new) Roth IRA? In other words, can I put the 10k or so I have in my 401k into an IRA, and contribute the max (5k?) into a Roth? And would converting the IRA to a Roth IRA affect how much I can contribute? Am I doing this right?
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Mar 23, 2011 19:07
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Generally how long is the lease? I assume it's not all year. I think that they probably just do a contract season-by-season, to let them and the farmer adjust their prices as economically necessary. I'm guessing after they're done harvesting, the farmers don't have a lot to do with the land until it's time for planting. The contracts might only run from planting to harvest, I'm not really sure. I don't know anything about livestock leasing, sorry; we've only rented out land for crop growth. All of our livestock was the type that lived in a building and didn't need to roam or graze. But I'd be much happier living on land that wasn't used for livestock, simply because if it is you probably live close to livestock and it does not smell very good.
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Mar 23, 2011 19:16
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Generally how long is the lease? I assume it's not all year. My parents are retired dairy farmers and they did rent land for grazing, so it is possible. They would put mostly heifers out there, maybe a year or 2 old. At that age they mostly take care of themselves and don’t need day to day attention. Beef cattle would also work. Unless your land bordered an existing farm, lactating cows would be out of the question. I honestly don’t know what they paid, and it is probably moot anyway since Vermont and Indiana are different, and it all depends on local supply and demand, condition of the land, etc. My guess is you will not be earning huge bucks, but you will be earning something. But there are a lot of things to consider. First, it is a big deal bringing the animals out there. We would bring them out in the spring and pick them up in the fall. We would go out there all the time and bring them grain and call to them and make sure they remained friendly and generally check up on them. They rented the same land from the same guy for probably 10 years in a row. That wasn’t the contract, but it would be a plus if you made it clear that you would be open to renewing it if everything worked out. You will have to provide well water or some regular water. It doesn’t count if you happen to have a pond or stream going through the property. Finally fencing is really important and you have to figure out who will take care of it. I would push that on the farmer if possible so if it breaks and they get out, then they can’t blame you. If you have a field instead of hilly pasture, you could rent out the land for someone interested in the hay. That saves all the hassle of building fence and hoping nothing gets out. Hay requires no chemicals and if they spread manure on it, the fertility will stay constant or increase. But I know that at least where my parents are, land like that rents out dirt cheap, like $10 or $20/acre. But that’s because we used to have a lot of farms but everyone but one guy sold out or retired, and there is tons of land for him to rent. His attitude is take it or leave it, and if you leave it, then trees will grow up on it, and have fun with that.
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Mar 23, 2011 19:48
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applied for a visa through my local credit union. Thank you goons for pointing me in the correct direction.
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Mar 23, 2011 20:53
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I make $2800 a month post tax. I save $1400 a month. (Very recent change, just got a brand new job. I am saving that amount easily though) I have $8000 in savings at the moment. And a $24000ish HEC debt which I pay like 100 dollars into a month from my tax. It's pegged to the inflation rate and I never intend to put more into it unless I am told to by the ATO. If I wanted to I think I get a 15% or so reduction for every dollar I repay. I'm trying to get a credit card and I'm stumped how to, I think the rules for lending have changed in Australia. It was only late last year I was getting in the mail pre-approved loans and credit cards with ridiculous limits. I went in last week thinking that my new job would guarantee me a $1000~2000 dollar credit card with a whatever interest rate. Got rejected by the teller without a blink. Can anyone tell me how it all works?
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Mar 25, 2011 11:39
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Lord Windy posted:I make $2800 a month post tax. How recent of a change was the job? Do you know what your credit is like? The bank won't really care about you income now compared to your history when applying for a credit card. Your best bet is probably starting with a secured card from someone and using that to build/repair your history. Also, why are you only putting $100 a month into your HEC debt with no intentions to ever add more? Thats 20 years of paying that off not counting any accruing interest. (I dont know what HEC or ATO is, looked like a student loan?)
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Mar 25, 2011 18:12
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Edit: doublepost
maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2011 22:00
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GregNorc posted:If I found out in March I was spending a summer in, say, San Francisco or DC, I'd need the money freed up by May. You have to decide if you need to save the money or if you can invest the money. To very roughly generalize, savings means something that is very safe, boring, and pays hardly anything. Think savings account. Investing means you are taking on more risk, but your money has the potential for significant growth. Think stock market. The problem with stocks is not that they are illiquid. You can sell them and get the money pretty quickly. They are liquid enough. The problem is that they are volatile. They can lose a lot of value very quickly. They can go up too. The reason why people don’t recommend them for short term goals is what happens if you find out you need it for your trip, you are ready to take it out, and woops! there is a big earthquake somewhere and the world markets all go down? I guess you will be eating at McDonalds a lot.
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Mar 25, 2011 22:17
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asmallrabbit posted:How recent of a change was the job? Do you know what your credit is like? The bank won't really care about you income now compared to your history when applying for a credit card. Your best bet is probably starting with a secured card from someone and using that to build/repair your history. I don't know if I have a credit rating. My mobile phone is the first thing I've put in my name and I've only gotten that in the past 3 weeks. Job is about a month now. What is a secured card btw? And HEC is an Australian government loan system for students. It has no interest rate but it is pegged to the interest rate. My compulsory payments are taken out of my tax on payday. I can pay it off with a decent discount, but it's costing me very little at the moment.
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Mar 26, 2011 11:51
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Any reason paying interest for a cash advance on my credit card would show on my credit reports? I have a debit card that was recently compromised, resulting in $400 of overdraft. My debit card was set up to charge the credit card for overdraft protection. Unfortunately, my credit card treats this as a cash advance, resulting in an interest charge of ~$2.50. This amount of money is not worth disputing to me, but if this could have any negative effect on my credit report, I would like to make sure it gets removed. I'm assuming as long as I pay it off on time, I won't have any problems.
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Mar 26, 2011 17:07
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Lord Windy posted:What is a secured card btw? A secured card is a credit card with some collateral backing it. Usually you open an account with a bank, keep at least $500 in there or something, and then they give you a credit card with a $500 limit. It is "secured" because if you spend $500 and then don't pay it back, they just keep your deposit (although this still counts as default on your credit report and will hurt it). It is a way to get a credit card if you have no credit. clayburn posted:I'm assuming as long as I pay it off on time, I won't have any problems. Sucks that happened, but you assumed correctly. As long as you aren't delinquent on your payments or using 90-100% of your credit limit at any given time, there will be no negative effect on your credit. If I can make a recommendation, pay the interest charge for now, but then dispute it with your credit company. Best case, they see it was a result of ID theft and refund it. Worst case, nothing happens.
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Mar 26, 2011 17:18
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clayburn posted:Any reason paying interest for a cash advance on my credit card would show on my credit reports? I have a debit card that was recently compromised, resulting in $400 of overdraft. My debit card was set up to charge the credit card for overdraft protection. Unfortunately, my credit card treats this as a cash advance, resulting in an interest charge of ~$2.50. This amount of money is not worth disputing to me, but if this could have any negative effect on my credit report, I would like to make sure it gets removed. I'm assuming as long as I pay it off on time, I won't have any problems. The credit report does not distinguish between purchases, cash advances, fees, or interest. It just reports your balance. It also reports if it is current, or if not, how late. It reports the minimum payment and payment history. Assuming you pay it off in time, you will be fine.
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Mar 26, 2011 19:48
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Edit: doublepost
maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2011 20:40
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Been wondering about this for a while, apologies if it's a stupid question. Why are Roth IRAs so highly recommended for retirement saving? My layman's interpretation is that they only pay off if you expect to earn more in retirement than when you're working - which seems pretty unlikely! I should add that I'm in the UK -- based on today's tax rates, I will be taxed 20% on my retirement income (20% on up to £37.4k) whereas currently I pay 31% on income and will in a couple of years be paying at least 52%; it seems an absolute no-brainer to contribute pre-tax money in my situtions, what is it about the US that makes post-tax contributions so attractive? Different marginal tax rates?
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Mar 26, 2011 22:49
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You pay no tax on any gains made on money in a Roth account. When you withdraw money from your 401k you pay taxes on it. Let's say you pull out 100k from a 401k, you're going to pay tax on that as if it were income, not so with a Roth.
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Mar 26, 2011 22:53
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Yeah but surely that's only an advantage if you're in a higher tax bracket in retirement than you are when you earn the money? Does that really apply to a lot of people?
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Mar 26, 2011 23:42
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No no... you're misunderstanding to some extent. Let's assume that US social security doesn't exist anymore and I need to survive entirely on my investments. When you remove money from the 401k it gets taxed as income. So I'm 65 and retired, I have zero income, but I have a million in my 401k and a million in my Roth IRA. When I pull out $100k from my 401k I get taxed as if I had earned $100k that year. It's taxable income, however much I pull out to live on gets taxed as if I earned it that year. Now assuming social security, non tax advantaged investments, cash, etc I may only need to pull $10k out a year and it will probaly have a minimal tax issue. But if all I had was my 401k and I need $70k a year to survive, I'm getting taxed in whatever bracket anyone else still working making $70k is taxed in. If I instead pull $70k out of my Roth IRA I pay zero taxes. None. I get to keep all of the $70k.
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Mar 27, 2011 17:16
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k3nn posted:Yeah but surely that's only an advantage if you're in a higher tax bracket in retirement than you are when you earn the money? Does that really apply to a lot of people? Your intuition is right - it doesn't really matter whether the tax is taken off at the end or the beginning, and Roth will only make sense if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement. In the US, we're at near-historic low tax rates right now, and there's an income eligibility cap.
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Mar 27, 2011 20:17
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It's a hedge that income taxes will be much higher when you retire. Makes sense when you realize that we've been lowering tax rates for half a century.
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Mar 27, 2011 21:51
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I'd like to go over how I do things, because I'm pretty sure I can do better, especially since I'm unemployed right now. I should also note I'm in England, so advice on specific products would be good. My largest debt is on an old credit card from since I was a student, probably 8 years or so now, 21.9%APR. I have a current account with them which I transfer money into to pay the minimum payment by direct debit, which I usually top up with extra available funds. The bank account hovers a bit above zero, and I use the credit card for most of my purchases. All told, I have slightly more going in than coming out, just, but I'm paying £60 a month in interest, and I'm still closer than I'd like to the £4000 limit. I have a current account with another bank, my "main" account that my wages used to get paid into, I keep it in the black and it's £3 a day to use any of the £1000 overdraft option it has, so I avoid that, though there is no other interest on the overdraft. About a year ago I got a credit card with them and transferred some of the balance from the older credit card to it. I've basically done nothing with it besides pay about £50 into it monthly, so I've used about £750 and the limit will be extended soon to £1800, so I was thinking of transferring more money over. The statements don't come to where I am right now and I don't seem to have any which I haven't since shredded, but I think it's 15.9%APR, and with the transfer offer from when I opened the account I don't think I'm paying much on that right now if anything. So what I was thinking was transfer as much as I can to the newer account, and I was thinking of getting an Egg card, I think I remember seeing recommendations for that, and then trying to pay off the older credit card. Perhaps use my bank account overdrafts rather than keep paying on the credit cards? It's the old credit card I need to deal with anyway, need to stop paying so much monthly. I think that's all the information I have to offer, anyone got any bright ideas?
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Mar 27, 2011 23:03
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Engineer Lenk posted:Your intuition is right - it doesn't really matter whether the tax is taken off at the end or the beginning, and Roth will only make sense if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement. Its not that simple, since the way it works is that with traditional IRAs, the deduction is off the top (i.e. x more dollars not being paid at the top marginal rate), and in retirement the tax payment fills up from the bottom (i.e. you pay the taxes on a lower marginal rate if you don't have much taxable income). So if you anticipate you have very little taxed income during retirement, a traditional IRA would be better than a Roth simply to fill up the really small tax brackets later.
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Mar 28, 2011 00:52
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BizarroAzrael posted:I'd like to go over how I do things, because I'm pretty sure I can do better, especially since I'm unemployed right now. I should also note I'm in England, so advice on specific products would be good. I'm trying to wrap my head around all this, but honestly it sounds like you are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What are your job prospects right now? Do you have any income? What are your expenses? Do you have written budget? Is the income so limited that there is no way you can possibly come close to expenses, or can you stretch things so they can balance?
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Mar 28, 2011 01:18
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Lord Windy posted:I'm trying to get a credit card and I'm stumped how to, I think the rules for lending have changed in Australia. It was only late last year I was getting in the mail pre-approved loans and credit cards with ridiculous limits. I went in last week thinking that my new job would guarantee me a $1000~2000 dollar credit card with a whatever interest rate. Got rejected by the teller without a blink. As was already mentioned the short employment history is a pretty big black mark against you. Keep saving, keep working, don't load up on debt and wait 6-12 months and you'll be fine. And yes, there have been some fairly significant regulatory changes that have come in since the start of the year that increase the standards lenders must meet when giving loans. For customers they won't make a huge difference in what you can get approved for, the main impact will be that you have to provide more documentation before you get that approval. I could go into more detail if there's interest but I'm reasonably sure people don't want to read about the minutiae of Australian lending regulations.
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Mar 28, 2011 02:09
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I'm trying to wrap my head around all this, but honestly it sounds like you are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What are your job prospects right now? Do you have any income? What are your expenses? Do you have written budget? Is the income so limited that there is no way you can possibly come close to expenses, or can you stretch things so they can balance? I can see why it would look that way. I've just paid the last month's rent on the place I'm staying before I move back with my parents until I get a job. With the money I get in benefit I expect to keep things much as they are if I change nothing, that is to say, lose £60 a month or so. I've not yet looked at how big a change it will be to be living with my parents and probably no longer get housing benefit. As for jobs, I'm not sure, I'm waiting to hear back on an assessment I did a week or so ago, but I've not had an interview yet from probably 20 applications. I was paid pretty badly in my last job after being strung along with the promise of a pay review before being made redundant. If I maxed out my overdraft on both bank accounts and transferred as much of the credit card balance from the old to the new card, I'd probably be most of the way to clearing the old card, but obviously would be paying £30 a month on the overdraft on one account and whatever it is on the other, though I should be getting my deposit on where I'm staying back. But what I thought I'd get of transferring to a new card would be time, I'd pay the one off transfer fee and not have to pay interest on it for a while, hopefully get to pay a bunch of it off. Or should I go all out to pay off the smaller debt on the new card, even though it costs me very little?
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Mar 28, 2011 02:30
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BizarroAzrael posted:I can see why it would look that way. I've just paid the last month's rent on the place I'm staying before I move back with my parents until I get a job. With the money I get in benefit I expect to keep things much as they are if I change nothing, that is to say, lose £60 a month or so. I've not yet looked at how big a change it will be to be living with my parents and probably no longer get housing benefit. I'm not sure how bankable you are as far as opening new accounts. I don't know how UK underwriting guidelines are, but you must acknowledge that an unemployed borrower with a bunch of maxed out accounts is a poor risk. If you can get one, and can transfer balances to it at a better rate, then obviously its better to pay less interest than more interest. But you might not have a lot of options right now other than barely keeping current unless that prevents you from eating.
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Mar 28, 2011 02:43
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I'm not sure how bankable you are as far as opening new accounts. I don't know how UK underwriting guidelines are, but you must acknowledge that an unemployed borrower with a bunch of maxed out accounts is a poor risk. If you can get one, and can transfer balances to it at a better rate, then obviously its better to pay less interest than more interest. But you might not have a lot of options right now other than barely keeping current unless that prevents you from eating. Yeah, I'll look around and see what I can get, will also try talking to my card provider and see if they will offer me anything if they think I'm considering leaving. The APR on the overdraft feature of the older bank account is 19.0% compared to 21.9 on the credit card, so maybe I should switch to that. And I'm going to start spending with the new card instead of the old one, and generally try to transfer away into better rates one way or another.
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Mar 28, 2011 14:15
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BizarroAzrael posted:Yeah, I'll look around and see what I can get, will also try talking to my card provider and see if they will offer me anything if they think I'm considering leaving. The APR on the overdraft feature of the older bank account is 19.0% compared to 21.9 on the credit card, so maybe I should switch to that. And I'm going to start spending with the new card instead of the old one, and generally try to transfer away into better rates one way or another. I’m not sure I like where you are going. I understand you are in a desperate place, but it seems like your primary objective is to find a way to keep spending. I’m not saying you are going to blow it on dumb stuff, or that you plan on going on a shopping spree, not saying that at all. I’m a loan officer and I’ve observed that desperate and stupid are joined at the hip, and I don’t want to see you do stupid. The way I read this, you have dug yourself into a big hole. That doesn’t mean you are a bad person, good people can dig themselves into holes too. But you are looking at ways to keep digging, and hoping that there is some interest rate alchemy that will limit the damage. The egg card will not solve your problem, going from 21% to 19%, or even 0% won’t solve your problem. Its good that you’re moving back home but you need to try to figure out a way to bring your life as close to zero as possible in the meantime. Once you get a job you can start digging out. It will already take a long time to dig out from this; you don’t need to make it worse.
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Mar 28, 2011 15:42
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I’m not sure I like where you are going. I understand you are in a desperate place, but it seems like your primary objective is to find a way to keep spending. I’m not saying you are going to blow it on dumb stuff, or that you plan on going on a shopping spree, not saying that at all. I’m a loan officer and I’ve observed that desperate and stupid are joined at the hip, and I don’t want to see you do stupid. Okay, but just to be clear, when I say "spending" I only mean that I use that card when I part with money, because using debit from my current account might put me into the overdraft which would be more costly. I still mean to spend as little as possible right now. I'm in a holding pattern with the old card, and have been gradually paying off the second. Thinking about it, my total debt has been going down, though slower than I'd like.
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Mar 28, 2011 16:33
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BizarroAzrael posted:Okay, but just to be clear, when I say "spending" I only mean that I use that card when I part with money, because using debit from my current account might put me into the overdraft which would be more costly. I still mean to spend as little as possible right now. I'm in a holding pattern with the old card, and have been gradually paying off the second. Thinking about it, my total debt has been going down, though slower than I'd like. Sounds to me like you need a cash-only budget. Stop spending money that isn't actual currency. Make an actual budget and stick to it.
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Mar 28, 2011 17:46
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