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Just want to thank Zeta Taskforce (I think it was you!) for recommending All Your Worth. I'm about halfway through and I'm almost giddy because it's straightforward, logical advice that I think will really help for now and in to the future. Also I made my girlfriend get it too so we can work together to sort our financial poo poo out! 
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Feb 14, 2012 00:12
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Red_Fred posted:Just want to thank Zeta Taskforce (I think it was you!) for recommending All Your Worth. I'm about halfway through and I'm almost giddy because it's straightforward, logical advice that I think will really help for now and in to the future. I don't think I did, but I'm happy to take credit! 
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Feb 14, 2012 01:47
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I don't think I did, but I'm happy to take credit! Oh! It must have been Moana. 
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Feb 14, 2012 04:08
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It's ok, I forgive you.  Warren is a great author and one of the few I've seen that actually stands up for people in debt. The section on how to deal with creditors is the best, most straightforward and compassionate advice I've read on the topic.
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Feb 14, 2012 07:24
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moana posted:It's ok, I forgive you. Well I've been reading it as well and have found it pretty helpful too. So I'll thank you for it 
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Feb 14, 2012 15:03
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Have a debit card and just got a credit card with a $1K limit, almost no credit right now. What's a good way to split up my spending between the two? Also, what are some ways that I can screw myself over with a credit card and how do I not do them? This is my first one and it's scaryyyyyy 
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Feb 14, 2012 22:32
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Zotwoz posted:Have a debit card and just got a credit card with a $1K limit, almost no credit right now. What's a good way to split up my spending between the two? I'm not sure there's a "best way" - as long as you're responsible with it, there's only the way that works best for you. I never use my debit card, personally, but I know others who never really use their credit cards. The best general guidelines are: - Never, ever buy something that you could not pay for with cash if you had the contents of your bank account with you unless someone will physically die if you don't. - If you don't want to use your credit card frequently, put something small and recurring on it, like a Netflix account, so that it's used every month. - Pay your credit card balance in full every month when it is due. No matter what. - Don't max out your credit card each month. Switch to debit if you think you're nearing your limit for any reason (like you bought a plane ticket or something). - If you use your debit card, keep an eye on your balance especially if you have automatic withdrawals for bill-paying. Ideally you'll have enough of a cushion that it won't mean you can't buy a tank of gas even if your cable bill just got paid, but avoiding overdraft fees is always a good idea. Above all, just be responsible. Treat these cards as if they are cash, not credit, and you should have a perfectly happy life.
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Feb 14, 2012 22:58
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Zotwoz posted:Have a debit card and just got a credit card with a $1K limit, almost no credit right now. What's a good way to split up my spending between the two? If you want to build credit with the card, buy things you could pay for with your debit card, then immediately pay it off. The mistake most people fall into is thinking of the credit card as free money, when in reality it's more expensive money. Don't purchase anything on a credit card that you can't afford to pay off right away. I'm writing this as a man who is a few short months from getting out from under a credit card balance that has been tailing me for 6 years. e: beaten
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Feb 14, 2012 22:59
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Two questions: What's the go-to account for savings now? I was looking at ING and I have Chase for checking. This would be my primary savings account. I live in Portland if it makes a difference (say if there is a good local place that someone can recommend), but any place or online is fine with me, since I don't plan on needing to draw directly from it (I can transfer funds to Chase if I'm in a pinch). I have two credit cards. One is an Amazon Visa that I use for pretty much everything (because I buy a shitload from Amazon, enough to make 3% rewards worth it). My second card is a Barclay Visa that I got when I financed an iMac (and I paid it off early, before any interest if it matters). Now that the iMac is paid off, what should I do with the Barclay card? I don't plan on using it for anything whatsoever now that I paid off. Put a small recurring payment on it, let it sit, cancel? PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 10:13
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The ING USA sale to Capital One just went through. Don't know if it will just be merged with their current online savings offering, or kept separate. American Express and Ally are also both good for savings accounts. There's a thread for online banks: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3447172
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Feb 16, 2012 15:23
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The rates are all around a couple tenths of a percentage point from one another. I'd say any that is FDIC insured and you feel comfortable banking with. I personally use ING which is at 0.8%. I could probably switch and gain a little more but it's been easy to use so I haven't bothered. Incredible Bank has gotten good reviews and is the highest I've seen (I believe just over 1%).
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Feb 17, 2012 00:38
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Trying to straighten out my financial life. I've run the numbers, do I put it here or in the budget thread? It's not a sufficient trainwreck for its own thread.
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Feb 17, 2012 02:19
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Brennanite posted:Trying to straighten out my financial life. I've run the numbers, do I put it here or in the budget thread? It's not a sufficient trainwreck for its own thread. Either is fine, but lean towards this one if you have a more general question, or if you want to go over specific numbers that one. But either way we are here to help.
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Feb 17, 2012 02:25
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If I open ING Savings and it gets all shitted-up by CapOne, would it be much hassle to transfer my money out somewhere else? I wouldn't imagine so, but would the acquisition make a difference there?
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Feb 17, 2012 02:33
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Last month I payed off, after two or so years, a credit card for which I'd carried a fair amount of old debt. My last payment was for the full statement amount, and the payment was received on time per their website. The new statement came out with a $2 charge labeled "Minimum Charge" and the $2 balance. What exactly is that? Is this something I would see each month? It's not a card I need to keep, it was actually a 0% offer I had taken and well, uh, you know. It's from Barclay.
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Feb 17, 2012 03:34
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I bought a house and my credit score dropped by about 80 points. Is this normal? I don't care about my credit score as I don't use credit anymore, but I'm just assuming the large debt I now have is the reason for the drop, correct?
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Feb 17, 2012 03:41
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FCKGW posted:I bought a house and my credit score dropped by about 80 points. Is this normal? I don't care about my credit score as I don't use credit anymore, but I'm just assuming the large debt I now have is the reason for the drop, correct? I don't know about the having a big loan part, but depending on how much you shopped around for a mortgage, having a lot of companies pull your credit for checks can also have a negative effect. After a few months of no credit pulls, that part should go away.
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Feb 17, 2012 04:12
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PRADA SLUT posted:If I open ING Savings and it gets all shitted-up by CapOne, would it be much hassle to transfer my money out somewhere else? I wouldn't imagine so, but would the acquisition make a difference there? No, it's real easy. You'll setup an external account on ING (typically your checking account at another institution). That allows you to transfer money in and out easily. Usually takes 2-3 business days for money transferred out to show up in your linked account.
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Feb 17, 2012 04:26
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Budget question: I make around $50,000 a year. My monthly spending and expenses are around $1,200 (including extra spending like going out, excluding superfluous spending like PRADA SHOES and poo poo). I have no children/dependents, mortgage, car payments, CC debt, etc. How much emergency cash should I have available, and how much should I be investing? Would $5,000 off-hand cash be a good amount?
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Feb 17, 2012 05:11
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6-12 months in cash would be ideal. That should be easily attainable with such low expenses.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:14
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FCKGW posted:I bought a house and my credit score dropped by about 80 points. Is this normal? I don't care about my credit score as I don't use credit anymore, but I'm just assuming the large debt I now have is the reason for the drop, correct? Besides the credit pulls, keep in mind that this is also a brand new account, and depending on how long you have had credit, it may have drastically brought down the average age of your lines. Your score will come back though.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:38
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jfballin posted:Last month I payed off, after two or so years, a credit card for which I'd carried a fair amount of old debt. My last payment was for the full statement amount, and the payment was received on time per their website. The new statement came out with a $2 charge labeled "Minimum Charge" and the $2 balance. What exactly is that? Is this something I would see each month? It's not a card I need to keep, it was actually a 0% offer I had taken and well, uh, you know. It's from Barclay. This is normal. Two things happened. If you had a tiny balance and they should have charged you 37 cents if they calculated it out, they are saying the minimum finance charge is really $2.00. This is what you will see on your statement. When you do a cash advance (balance transfers are run through as cash), there is no grace period. With purchases, if you pay by the due date, you don't pay interest. With cash, it calculates from day one until they day you pay it off. In your case, because you didn't pay it exactly on the due date, there was some remaining interest from earlier in the month, but it wouldn't be calculated and post until the end of the month. When they did calculate it, it was less than $2.00 so they rounded it up. This will only hit you once. If you ask, they might remove it, but you do legitimately owe it.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:44
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Either is fine, but lean towards this one if you have a more general question, or if you want to go over specific numbers that one. But either way we are here to help. I'll post the basics here then. Income: $4050 Debt: CC#1--$1320 @ 13.24% CC#2--$0 @ 12% Car--$340 @ 4.74% Student loans--$2130 @ 6% Total debt: $3790 This should be paid off in no time, right? Well, it's a bit hard when your monthly expenses total $4075. Yes, we're running at -$25. Yet that somehow that monthly total includes $800 of debt payment a month. Something is very wrong here and I'm hoping you all can point it out.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:57
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I could be totally wrong, but didn't Obama sign something that restricted student loan payback to like 10-20% of your income?Ganon posted:6-12 months in cash would be ideal. That should be easily attainable with such low expenses. I was just worried I might have too much in cash, and should have invested more of it. PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 06:07
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Brennanite posted:I'll post the basics here then. What are you spending money on? You are not deeply in debt. How much is food, rent, utilities? Is your wife buying wonderhangers behind your back?
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Feb 17, 2012 06:07
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Zeta Taskforce posted:What are you spending money on? You are not deeply in debt. How much is food, rent, utilities? Is your wife buying wonderhangers behind your back? I am the wife. No one's buying any wonderhangers. I went over every transaction for the last 30 days and this was the result: Rent: $820 Cable+Internet: $100 Power: $70 Gas: $15 Charity: $400 Transportation: $175 Phone: $54 Car Loan: $100 Renters Ins.: $17 Food and Sundries: $450 Childcare: $240 Entertainment: $140 Fast Food/Take Out: $340 Baby: $50 Clothing: $50 Parking: $50 Gifts: $60 CC: $800 Newspaper: $22 Medical: $130 Total: $4075 I have no idea which numbers are high, except Fast Food/Take Out. Holy crap, Batman. I knew my husband was frequently get fast food for lunch (and dinner more often than I liked), but I had no idea he was spending so much on it.
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Feb 17, 2012 07:56
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I know charity is important to a lot of people but I'd cut the $400 a month down some- at least as long as you're running a deficit every month. And the fast food, too, as you mentioned.
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Feb 17, 2012 08:29
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It's a fake deficit, though -- she's budgeting $800 on credit cards as an expense, but that will disappear in 2 months and they'll be running an $800 surplus. The same goes for the car loan. (Not that a whole bunch of numbers there aren't really high as far as I'm concerned)
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Feb 17, 2012 08:31
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Everything looks reasonable except for fast food and charity. Maybe it's just a one month thing but $400 a month with what your bringing in seems excessive. I'd also just throw $100 in a jar for the husband and tell him that's what he gets to spend on takeout every month. After that, he's brown bagging it. I used to be big on takeout too (ordered out almost every night) and just putting a set amount aside really helped curb that. Once you get the CC paid off and maybe the food/charity down a bit, you'll probably want to start saving. Budget some for an emergency fund, retirement fund, and even college funds for the kids.
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Feb 17, 2012 10:03
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I just got my Financial Aid award information for 2011-2012 (I know, late) for ~$8000 and $42 in fees. (There was more unsubsidized that I turned down.) I'm not sure whether or not to turn down the subsidized loan because: a) It's free money! No, not as in the $8000. As in the interest I can earn off of it. I'm apart of a CU that gives 4.09% APY which would give me $327 per year. Additionally, I would feel less worried about stuffing all my savings into my Roth IRA. b) Is there a better place to put it in, like a CD? I'm tempted to just let my bf's father invest it in stocks for me (he's the chairman of a pretty successful investment corporation), but that might be too risky... c) It says I will have to pay it back 6 months after I graduate or drop to half time. My question is, what if I graduate and then go on to another degree? Are they still deferred or do I have to pay them back while in school for the other degree? d) For repayment, as a grad student the subsidized loan is about 6.8% interest. I'm wondering if ever the tax benefit of not paying it off immediately and using their payment plan would ever be better than paying it all off immediately. (ie. the reason why you never pay a mortgage off in full) I have no debt, have a research assistantship which subsidizes my health insurance, tuition, and gives a monthly stipend I've been able to live off of and save enough to cap out my Roth IRA. I have posted my budget in the budget thread.
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Feb 17, 2012 14:17
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Rurutia posted:I just got my Financial Aid award information for 2011-2012 (I know, late) for ~$8000 and $42 in fees. (There was more unsubsidized that I turned down.) I'm not sure whether or not to turn down the subsidized loan because: This is a subsidized Stafford loan if I am reading this right. If I’m wrong, let me know. Do what you want with it, but if you are asking my opinion, we don’t borrow money, even if we can do it under favorable terms, to invest with. We use actual money instead. I don’t really care if you can make a few bucks off the spread, and 4.09% is so above and beyond everything else, that it is entirely possible this is a short term promo to get deposits, or they might lower the rate in the midterm future. Actual investments in a Roth or trust can go down no matter how cleaver you are. You are debt free, going for an advanced degree, and your father manages a huge investment trust. You will do fine without making a couple hundred off the spread. Finally, as a US tax payer, I kind of resent people using government subsidized money to play the market or buy stuff, or do anything other than the intended purpose with the loan.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:29
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Finally, as a US tax payer, I kind of resent people using government subsidized money to play the market or buy stuff, or do anything other than the intended purpose with the loan. This is the main reason why I'm flip flopping about this. I know I can make the money (on average my CU's APY has been 3.5% and our 4.09% is guaranteed until July) but part of me just goes: Is it really worth it? Is making $1500 over 5 years going to really do anything for me? But then there's the fact that I'm really poor, and PhD students get treated and paid like dirt while sacrificing 5-7 working years to get the advanced degree so they can do what they love (and in my case, serve people in public health).
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Feb 17, 2012 16:37
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My wife is trying to rebuild her credit, she has a credit inform thing that sends her updates quarterly, in Aug her score was 626, in Nov it was 641, now today it's 560. She applied for (and was denied) a JC Penney Card in Nov. and since then a report has showed up on her credit report which is no less than 10 years old but listed as Opened on 07/11 and reported on 01/12. Is there something that can be done about this?
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Feb 17, 2012 18:38
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Cynode posted:My wife is trying to rebuild her credit, she has a credit inform thing that sends her updates quarterly, in Aug her score was 626, in Nov it was 641, now today it's 560. She applied for (and was denied) a JC Penney Card in Nov. and since then a report has showed up on her credit report which is no less than 10 years old but listed as Opened on 07/11 and reported on 01/12. Hail mary of disputing every negative. Ususally with a score that low, you are bound to have some improvment as not everyone responds. Also, if you are feeling saucy, dispute every inquery as well.
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Feb 17, 2012 18:46
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LorneReams posted:Hail mary of disputing every negative. Ususally with a score that low, you are bound to have some improvment as not everyone responds. It's the only thing on her credit report, other than the JCP inquiry. She has a secured capitol one credit card with a few hundred dollar limit shes been using to improve it.
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Feb 17, 2012 18:57
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Is there an optimal credit line that I should be aiming for? I noticed I can apply for an increase online and my first thought was "why the hell not?" I don't really know anything about the implications of it all. In my particular situation the actual limit has never mattered so far. I pay my bill every month and right now only use 15% (25% when I really go nuts) of that limit per month.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:47
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Niwrad posted:Everything looks reasonable except for fast food and charity. Maybe it's just a one month thing but $400 a month with what your bringing in seems excessive. I'd also just throw $100 in a jar for the husband and tell him that's what he gets to spend on takeout every month. After that, he's brown bagging it. I used to be big on takeout too (ordered out almost every night) and just putting a set amount aside really helped curb that. If it's not charity, it's Christmas, car insurance, school fees, etc. Consider it the big irregular expense category. We do have an emergency fund of 2k and 10k (I think) in a retirement fund, but I'd love to be stocking away more. Thanks everyone for the advice. I talked to the husband today and it turns out we each thought the other was tracking spending.  Moral of the story: go over your finances as a couple, if you're a couple.
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Feb 18, 2012 00:00
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Rurutia posted:Is making $1500 over 5 years going to really do anything for me? Not really, no. turbulents posted:Is there an optimal credit line that I should be aiming for? I noticed I can apply for an increase online and my first thought was "why the hell not?" I don't really know anything about the implications of it all. A higher limit will produce a more favorable debt to credit ratio for a given balance, and that's about it. It may improve your score slightly. If you're not in the market for a loan or something its (a higher credit score's) utility is negligible. Then again, more credit available in an emergency I suppose. illcendiary fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 02:06
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I was wondering if it would be a good idea to pay off my auto loan early. I owe $4750.00 at 3.75% with a monthly payment of $370.00. I don't have any other debt, but I do own a rental property and have about 30k in "oh poo poo" money separate from my retirement savings.
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Feb 21, 2012 17:08
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Linco posted:I was wondering if it would be a good idea to pay off my auto loan early. I owe $4750.00 at 3.75% with a monthly payment of $370.00. I don't have any other debt, but I do own a rental property and have about 30k in "oh poo poo" money separate from my retirement savings. If you owned your car free and clear, would you walk down to your local bank or credit union with title in hand and ask for a loan of $4,750? If the answer is yes, then don’t pay it off. If the answer is no, then pay it off today.
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Feb 21, 2012 17:30
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