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I have Mint linked to Vanguard, Chase, and SmartyPig, and have had no troubles updating in Mint for the past few months.
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Jun 1, 2011 22:30
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Ugh alright, one more credit question. Got excited after seeing a 712+ credit score, tried to apply for a credit card to build credit, boink, got denied. Should I wait before applying for a secured card through a major bank(since it's clear I won't be getting approved for a normal card for a while), or since it's different, can I just apply right away?
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Jun 2, 2011 15:38
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I need to save as much money as possible in 7 months that will then be spent in a lump sum. What's the highest yield on a no-gimmick savings account I might find? I don't need to do any withdrawals from it except to close it out. Might there be a better option? I don't have the up-front capital for a CD for example.
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Jun 2, 2011 15:42
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sleepness, I don't think it will matter very much if you wait or not. The worst they can do is decline you and you'll have to wait anyway. baquerd, SmartyPig is at 1.35% right now and that was the highest I found when I was checking around last year. It's better than most CDs and you can deposit whenever.
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Jun 2, 2011 15:55
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sleepness posted:Ugh alright, one more credit question. On the surface, 712 is a fine credit score. But banks, if they are responsible, (and I know sometimes that can be a big IF) look at more. They should be looking at employment history, income, how long you have had credit, the credit limit you are requesting in relation to the accounts you have now. Credit scores are sometimes misleading. I have seen scores in the 700’s that are not that impressive, and have seen scores in the 500’s that I can work with. Both are exceptions, but they happen. They have to tell you why you were denied. Do you know the reason? How many cards do you have now? Who denied you?
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Jun 2, 2011 16:01
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Zeta Taskforce posted:On the surface, 712 is a fine credit score. But banks, if they are responsible, (and I know sometimes that can be a big IF) look at more. They should be looking at employment history, income, how long you have had credit, the credit limit you are requesting in relation to the accounts you have now. Credit scores are sometimes misleading. I have seen scores in the 700’s that are not that impressive, and have seen scores in the 500’s that I can work with. Both are exceptions, but they happen. I applied for a CapitalOne card that I was *Pre-qualified* for. I did have an account closed from them though (don't owe them any money, paid around a year ago).No cards *open* at the moment, they were all closed once I paid off all the balances, which is probably the reason I got denied :~( They said they would provide me with a written reason of why it was denied in 7-10 days. Just so tired of this. I'll be needing to purchasing a car soon, and from the way it's looking, I'll have to be giving my lungs for interest. sleepness fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Jun 2, 2011 |
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Jun 2, 2011 18:40
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sleepness posted:I applied for a CapitalOne card that I was *Pre-qualified* for. I did have an account closed from them though (don't owe them any money, paid around a year ago).No cards *open* at the moment, they were all closed once I paid off all the balances, which is probably the reason I got denied :~( They said they would provide me with a written reason of why it was denied in 7-10 days. I hate Capital One. If anything they did you a favor by denying you. You sound solid but probably didn’t fit into the mold of what their computer was looking for. I would bet that if you went to your local credit union or community bank, you will have better luck there since your application will be looked at by an actual pair of human eyes and then decided upon by a human brain. Edit: Ditto on the car loan.
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Jun 2, 2011 18:49
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sleepness posted:I applied for a CapitalOne card that I was *Pre-qualified* for. I did have an account closed from them though (don't owe them any money, paid around a year ago).No cards *open* at the moment, they were all closed once I paid off all the balances, which is probably the reason I got denied :~( They said they would provide me with a written reason of why it was denied in 7-10 days. Just so tired of this. I'll be needing to purchasing a car soon, and from the way it's looking, I'll have to be giving my lungs for interest. Just for future reference, if you know you're going to be applying for a loan in the next few months, it's a very bad idea to apply for other new lines of credit even if you are accepted.
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Jun 2, 2011 19:03
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Thanks for the advice Zeta. I will be venturing into my local credit union on Saturday 
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Jun 2, 2011 19:08
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SmartyPig just sent me a very sad email. 1.095% APY
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Jun 2, 2011 19:13
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sleepness posted:Thanks for the advice Zeta. You will be fine. If I’m looking at a car loan application, I barely notice one new account or an inquiry, but I don’t like to see 4 or 5 accounts that have been opened in the last year, even if they are small. With car loans, the ability to make a down payment will greatly increase your chances. I don’t know all your details or what type of car you wanted, but if someone with a 712 credit score, zero debt, no open accounts, and they had a couple thousand to put down came to me for a loan, and they were not looking for a ridiculous amount, that would be a no brainer.
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Jun 2, 2011 19:17
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Zeta Taskforce posted:You will be fine. Just for your opinion that I won't take as law... If someone came in wanting a $22,000 car thats in the situation you just described, how much of a down payment would you like? I was thinking of doing around $7,000
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Jun 2, 2011 19:38
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sleepness posted:Just for your opinion that I won't take as law... Well that’s good! I wasn’t about to offer you any money! Personally I think that amount of car might be a bit rich, but professionally, I would consider that a very substantial down payment that would be enough to cover for any other shortcomings the rest of the application would have. The only time I wouldn’t approve is if someone was working part time, or making like $10/hour and there just isn’t enough income coming in to cover the payment.
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Jun 2, 2011 19:52
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Rurutia posted:SmartyPig just sent me a very sad email. 
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Jun 2, 2011 20:09
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So, any better paying alternatives to SmartyPig, or are we stuck with what we have? I looked at ING, but they're at a flat 1.00% APR right now. I've been thinking about going to one of those high yield checking accounts that require a certain number of transactions each month, direct deposit, etc. but I'm honestly not sure if it's worth the hassle.
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Jun 2, 2011 21:12
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If you want to eke out percentages, you'd be better off going to fatwallet and trying to pull off whatever tricks they're still using. There's really not going to be any great options right now with the federal funds rate bottoming out. On the bright side, if you're planning to go into major debt, now's the time 
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Jun 2, 2011 21:22
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What is recommended for a first credit card? I'm 26 and have never had a credit card. I realize this wasn't the smartest path to take but I've just kept putting it off, for years and years now I guess. I saw a lot of friends go into massive debt and just avoided it and using a debit card always seemed fine. I personally have no debt, nor have I ever had any. I have a good budget, steady job and a healthy savings. I will be entering grad school this September is that affects anything. My current bank is Wells Fargo, who I'm not that thrilled with but then again most of the alternatives don't seem so much different. Should I just try to go through them? Should I expect to pay a yearly fee or any other fees? I plan on not ever carrying a balance, which apparently is not needed according to the thread title. Do I need 2 credit cards to build credit? I know these are basic questions, googling credit card advice/info is surprisingly difficult with all the spam.
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Jun 2, 2011 21:59
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hbf posted:What is recommended for a first credit card? Smarter path than your friends who got into massive credit card debt. But same advice as I just gave. Check out your local credit union or community bank. I can’t speak about Wells Fargo, good or bad, but if you have any questions or a problem arises, it will be so much easier to deal local people who are less likely to hate their jobs. You shouldn’t have to pay an annual fee. You will have a credit score with just one card after 6 months. Its hard to say what 2 cards will do instead of 1, but my best guess is 1 card will probably give you ¾ of the benefit of having 2. If you were to buy a house, you will have more options putting down a huge down payment compared to someone with little money but 27 positive tradelines.
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Jun 2, 2011 22:15
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I can’t speak about Wells Fargo, good or bad I can, and from someone who doesn't have the same hostility towards major banks as most of the forum. I spent a good amount of time working for BofA in a number of functions. I spent a lot of time resolving problems both within BofA and with other institutions and spending a lot of time talking outside of work about policy with employees of them. Everyone will have their own opinion from their own personal experiences, but having had repeated dealings with all of the major banks in the US, Wells is the worst. From checking accounts to loans to wealth management it was extremely difficult to find anyone competent at their position. It's a problem with all of them given their high turnover, but between policy and personnel I found that Wells was the only large bank that made me happy to be at BofA across the board. I just posted in another thread that I never have had trouble with my BofA accounts and I have never personally had any with my Wells accounts, but obviously bad situations happen and I trust Wells the least to find any sort of workable solution.
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Jun 3, 2011 03:39
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How do I find out what the best Credit Union is? I'm considering two credit unions, Publix Employees Federal (PEFCU) and UCF, which is now CFEFCU. How do I tell which is best? I read that Publix is ranked better, but I can't find a fee chart for CFEFCU to compare to Publix's. What can I use to rank these relatively?
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Jun 3, 2011 04:31
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Any bank with a website so lovely that I can't find a fee schedule is a bank I don't feel like working with, personally.
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Jun 3, 2011 11:02
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TheShineNSB posted:Any bank with a website so lovely that I can't find a fee schedule is a bank I don't feel like working with, personally. Well, I can find individual fees, I just can't find a single page with all of them like PEFCU has. Valid point, however. I'm leaning pretty heavily towards PEFCU at the moment.
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Jun 3, 2011 13:37
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Plastik posted:How do I find out what the best Credit Union is? For what its worth, I have no experience with Publix, but I've been a member of CFE since January and had no bad experiences. I'll be closing my account with them soon, because I moved out to California, but they were a great local place for when I was in Orlando. I never had any fees, other than when I needed a money order, it was $2.00 per money order. Of course, I never overdrafted or anything.
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Jun 3, 2011 16:11
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Plastik posted:How do I find out what the best Credit Union is? You probably won’t go wrong with either so it probably will come down to which one has locations that work for you, if one has a particular product you like, or which one feels more right. If one of them has a better website and better online banking options and the other one has a website that is kind of hokey pokey and hard to navigate, that is a valid reason. But there probably isn’t a “right” answer.
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Jun 3, 2011 16:31
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I have a lot of stock options in a certain soon-to-IPO social media gaming company. Like a lot. I no longer work there. I want to exercise them, but I don't have the money to cover the taxes next year before I can sell them later in the year. The taxes alone are like 3x my yearly salary (before taxes! hah) How do I figure this out? It's enough money that hiring a CPA or some kind of advisor isn't a problem. I am aware that I can take a bath on this and go bankrupt and forever live in poverty.
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Jun 3, 2011 18:07
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Edit: doublepost
maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2011 18:54
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Financial planners can be horrible so yes, you should watch out. You really don't need a financial planner for that amount: the fees will probably outweigh the gains you get unless it's a really really cheap financial planner. What ETFs were you planning on?
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Jun 3, 2011 21:29
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The punchline is when the financial planner tells you to put the money into vanguard ETFs and then takes an advisement fee.
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Jun 3, 2011 21:54
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Edit: doublepost
maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Jun 3, 2011 23:06
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I've started keeping tabs on my finances and I'm becoming a little spergy about it. 26 years old. I net $2900 a month in salary. I have $1900 in credit card debt at 12%. I have $12,500 in student loan debt at 4.5%. I have $14,000 in 401k, contributing $416 a month. I have a paltry $200 in a savings account. Clearly I need to pay off the credit card, which I should be done with in a few months. My question is on the student loans, 401k, and savings. Should I stop my 401k and savings contributions until I pay off the student loan? The rate of return on both is probably less than the interest on the student loans. My employer contributes a flat percentage of my salary to 401k regardless of whether I put anything in. It'd feel weird not to put anything away towards 401k or savings, but math seems to be telling me it'd be stupid not to put everything I can towards the student loan until it's gone.
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Jun 5, 2011 03:30
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GregNorc posted:Uh, I hadn't decided to be honest. I was thinking 50/40 in American and Foreign, and then maybe putting 10% in bonds? I don't really know much beyond what I read in "Random Walk Down Wall Street".
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Jun 5, 2011 05:54
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Apologies if I missed this but I tried looking through the first few pages of the thread and this forum and didn't see an answer. I'm looking to get rid of my Chase checking and savings account because of the low interest. I usually keep $1000 in my checking account and $2000 in my savings. In the next couple of months I'm going to be putting away a lot more money so at that point I plan on putting some money in CDs. Is my best bet to go with ING? 1.00% savings and .25% checking seems like the best value I can find so far. This may be a dumb question but once I remove all my funds from my Chase account do I need to officially close it or should I leave it open? I know with credit cards I was always told to leave them open so I don't know if banking works the same way.
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Jun 6, 2011 00:21
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I just got married. We're 27/28 and both work full time and make pretty decent money. We've both recently realised we've got to get our house in order financially if we want to achieve any real goals such as buying a house or not retiring into poverty. We don't have car payments, any credit card debt (paid in full end of each month) so I guess we are lucky in that regard. We're in the US. I have a 401k, my wife has a roth IRA that we contribute to (though I need to up my contribution). We have student loans though have been paying extra on that, its a fair while before they'll be paid off in full. We have thought about buying a house within about 2 years and starting a family, and we have so far about 30k saved up just sitting in savings/checking accounts. With the new budget we put together using mint.com we should be able to add to that significantly (3k+) each month. This would be our downpayment in 2 years and what else we can save would go into other investments, college funds for our kids and so on. We're not really sure where to put that money now. Currently my money is in a checking account, hers accross checking/savings (though essentially 0% savings). We've been thinking about putting it into vanguard ETFs just because they seem pretty simple from the end user perspective, and low fees. We're not really very familiar with finances beyond putting the card in the machine which gives you money. Their online recommendation was: 21% Total Stock Market Index ETF 9% Total International Stock Index ETF 70% Total Bond Market Index ETF Im not entirely risk averse but we need a downpayment in ~2 years. Once we save more money I would like to have a more diversified portfolio but I also want to start somewhere simple now. Is this a bad idea to do ourselves with little background? Should we be talking to a professional financial planner? I do plan on doing a fair bit more research around this before making any actual decisions with my wife but I'm wondering whether we should bite the bullet and get someone to actually look at this for us.
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Jun 6, 2011 01:19
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Christ Pseudoscientist posted:Apologies if I missed this but I tried looking through the first few pages of the thread and this forum and didn't see an answer. I'm looking to get rid of my Chase checking and savings account because of the low interest. I usually keep $1000 in my checking account and $2000 in my savings. In the next couple of months I'm going to be putting away a lot more money so at that point I plan on putting some money in CDs. Is my best bet to go with ING? 1.00% savings and .25% checking seems like the best value I can find so far. Sidestepping the question if you ALWAYS have to keep EVERY credit card open FOREVER, with bank accounts, it doesn't matter at all. If you don't plan on using this account again, or in the near future, you should close it, or close it in a couple months to make sure there are no outstanding items or automatic withdrawals that come out of it. Withdrawing all the funds will not automatically close the account, and by having a zero balance account out there, you may be subject to inactivity fees. If you close it and you want it back, they will be more than happy to reopen it for you. There isn't a great place for savings right now. I think Smarty Pig pays marginally more, but at best you will get a rate that hovers around 1%.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:28
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GanjamonII posted:I just got married. We're 27/28 and both work full time and make pretty decent money. We've both recently realised we've got to get our house in order financially if we want to achieve any real goals such as buying a house or not retiring into poverty. You are doing amazingly well with everything. But for the money you are going to use as a down payment, I would not do anything other than an incredibly boring savings account or money market.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:31
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I've just graduated and will be starting at an awesome job in a few weeks. I think I'm in a pretty ideal situation financially, but I wanted to run my plans by BFC before I have a chance to gently caress up anything dumb, what with having not done significant financial planning before. Background:
I know there's a separate budget thread, but I think it makes more sense to include it here since I'm more asking advice than showing it off. pre:Monthly Income (assuming 28% federal tax [WA has no state income tax]): $6,296 Expenses: $800 Rent $100 Utilities $65 Mobile Phone $5 Web Hosting/Domains $100 Lunch (cafeteria) $300 Groceries $400 Dog $100 Air Travel $100 Restaurants/Bars $200 Entertainment $200 Unplanned ------------------------ $2,370 Savings: Retirement (Roth IRA, 5k/yr): $834 Retirement (401(k), 16.5k/yr, employer matches 3%): $1,375 Emergency Fund (Savings Account, aiming for ~15k): $1,717 ------------------------ $3,926 I'll probably start putting that money towards a car at that point, though I'm not sure if I'll save for another 8 months and then buy one in cash or just finance one at the ~9 month mark - depends how much I feel I need one by then. I eventually plan to get married, buy a house, and have children, but I think those are all far enough off that they can wait those 18 months to start worrying about. What I'm most looking for here is a sanity check of my plans. I'm also interested to see if anyone has any specific recommendations for where I should be opening all these new bank accounts and such - right now I'm planning on going with the Boeing Employees' Credit Union (it has branches near me and seems to get strong reviews) for everything but savings, and using Discover's savings account for the emergency fund - 1.15% APR beats the lowered rates SmartyPig just started posting. That said, I'm all ears if people have better suggestions. brosmike fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 07:18
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A couple of minor points on the budget: You live in the suburbs and have no car, do you need to pay for transport to/from work and other places? Also if you're making more than you have previously you might find yourself wanting to spend a bit more on one-off things than you have in the past. Even so, as long as you're sensible those things will only put a small dent in the budget you have there and there's no reason why you won't be saving well over $3000 a month if you live like you expect to. Overall you're in a great position, FAR better than most people ever have. Be sure to make the most of it!
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Jun 6, 2011 09:50
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brosmike posted:
I'm assuming you're erring on the high side of federal income tax so it may not matter, but just in case - there are other payroll taxes to consider like Social Security and Medicare and other payroll deductions that you will probably be interested in like health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance and pre-tax commute/travel option. These shouldn't be a huge deal, just something to be generally aware of. Also, remember that your 401k is pretax so that will come out before you're taxed. I can't really speak for owning a house, but I would check with other homeowners to see how much utilities for a house typically run. If you guys are getting cable, that alone could be a good portion of your planned utility budget, add in heating an actual house vs. apartment, water, internet, and possibly things like trash and it may come to more than $300/month for the three of you depending on the house you choose. If you'll be eating in the cafeteria daily, I would also up that budget unless you're going to go for a sandwich, no drink most days. I know a sandwich + drink at my cafeteria is between $5 - $8, so I think $100 would be on the low end. Is the air travel of $100 a month a rollover budget? There are cheap flights but generally, flights are still not less than $100. Also, do you guys already have furniture to furnish this house? I was set back for about two months furnishing my one bedroom. I assume you guys don't really care about making it "nice" or anything, but the first couple months of moving + furnishing can really make a dent in the first two month's worth of income, which then pushes you back a little for everything else. KarmaCandy fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 12:31
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Thanks guys!Contra Duck posted:stuff I don't expect to need a car because we plan to be renting a house in biking distance of work (I have a bike) and our employer gives us all free public transport passes. One of the three of us has a car for stuff like getting the dog to an E-Vet. On the one-off stuff, part of the relocation package we were given is a flat $10,000 between the three of us - we expect that that will cover one-off things like deposits on and furniture for the house. KarmaCandy posted:I'm assuming you're erring on the high side of federal income tax so it may not matter, but just in case - there are other payroll taxes to consider like Social Security and Medicare and other payroll deductions that you will probably be interested in like health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance and pre-tax commute/travel option. These shouldn't be a huge deal, just something to be generally aware of. Also, remember that your 401k is pretax so that will come out before you're taxed. I pretty much just used TurboTax's estimator tool to guess the 28%, but I think I had the Roth and 401k backwards on figuring out the tax deduction and I sort of assumed its output included those other payroll taxes, which might be false. Is there a better tax estimation tool I can use? My needs aren't exactly complicated. I believe my company (Microsoft) provides complete health and dental without any payroll deduction, I wasn't planning on life insurance until I have dependents, and I don't think there's any sort of employer commute/travel option. KarmaCandy posted:I can't really speak for owning a house, but I would check with other homeowners to see how much utilities for a house typically run. If you guys are getting cable, that alone could be a good portion of your planned utility budget, add in heating an actual house vs. apartment, water, internet, and possibly things like trash and it may come to more than $300/month for the three of you depending on the house you choose. We're probably not going to be getting cable TV (just internet), but even so you might be right. I don't think it's worth worrying about until we have a better idea of what place we're looking at and can start contacting utility companies about it. Also, the rent budget is on the high side of the places we've been looking at, so it'll probably end up balancing out. KarmaCandy posted:If you'll be eating in the cafeteria daily, I would also up that budget unless you're going to go for a sandwich, no drink most days. I know a sandwich + drink at my cafeteria is between $5 - $8, so I think $100 would be on the low end. That number was based off what I spent last summer (internship at the same company), when I ate at the cafeteria most but not all days. I expect to have similar behavior in the future. KarmaCandy posted:Is the air travel of $100 a month a rollover budget? There are cheap flights but generally, flights are still not less than $100. Yes, planning on a flight every 3 months or so. The dog budget is also rollover, since it's mostly projected vet expenses. KarmaCandy posted:Also, do you guys already have furniture to furnish this house? I was set back for about two months furnishing my one bedroom. I assume you guys don't really care about making it "nice" or anything, but the first couple months of moving + furnishing can really make a dent in the first two month's worth of income, which then pushes you back a little for everything else. Like I mentioned above, we think our relocation package (which includes moving all of our stuff, my plane ticket, and temporary housing while we look for a place to rent in addition to the $10,000 for furniture and deposits) should be able to cover this stuff. e: Thought of another question. Am I right in thinking I should be waiting until after I actually start the job and am done putting in rental applications to start applying for another CC or two and/or a higher limit on the first one? (I'd like better than the 1% rewards Discover gives for most stuff) brosmike fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 14:59
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LifelongFan posted:26 years old.
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Jun 6, 2011 17:48
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