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tuyop posted:I think that you're correct. And I'm sorry. I didn't expect the transition to be this emotionally charged for me. Quoting the whole thing in case you edit it, but.. tuyop posted:Being offered these jobs was not "an employer keeping me on after an injury", it was spitting in the face of what I've done and accomplished. Being offered jobs available to grade ten high school students after this, after traveling to seven different countries and adapting in environments with four different languages that I don't speak, after managing and improving the lives of 80 subordinates while being constantly berated for placing staples in the wrong place on memos by a man who dropped out of university. I just can't swallow it. This is seriously the most repulsively self-important piece of twaddle you've posted so far. You're a grown loving man who's whining about how hard High School was. High School. And then, despite being one of the lucky few people in the world who can afford to go to college, you bitch about that. AND THEN you take a big steaming poo poo all over the people who weren't lucky enough to be as privileged as you. Well before you take a warm poo poo into the gaping mouth of the man who dropped out of university, or who chose a trade after year ten, maybe you should consider that you're in this position despite all of your loving advantages, and precisely because you've spent your life acting like a spoiled brat with no impulse control or notion of delayed gratification. This is yet another instance of you whining about how IT'S SO HAR-UHD to manage your life right, in the face of overwhelming evidence and advice as to what you should be doing. At some point or another even the gentle caress of your $100 underoos won't be able to distract you from the fact that where you are now was entirely avoidable, and that cacking your pants and moving back in with your parents in order to avoid well-paid work because you think it's beneath you puts you a little lower than your average porno-booth jizmopper in terms of the respect you deserve from others. Pull your head out and swallow your pride. You'll regret spitting the dummy and quitting for years.
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Feb 3, 2012 06:40
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tuyop posted:I think that you're correct. And I'm sorry. I didn't expect the transition to be this emotionally charged for me. Fate has hosed you over and there's nothing you can do about it. Feeling anger, pain, injustice makes perfect sense. I understand. However, there are two points I want to make. One is that you shouldn't let your feelings turn into bitterness and bile. Your feeling of superiority over the "lesser people" (including your own girlfriend!) is repulsive. Hey buddy: you aren't going to become what you've been training to be. Get it through your head. You are one of the lesser people now [even though you are still insanely privileged to even have the choices that you do have]. You had your chance, you failed through no fault of your own, now suck it up and make the best of it. Being stubborn and bitter will get you nowhere. Secondly, look at this pragmatically: I promise that swallowing your pride and doing your stint as a computer janitor (for a sweet wage, no less) will be much more comfortable than having no job, no prospects, and an additional 50k in debt. For god's sake man, option 1 is a raise! How can you turn that down when the alternatives are so positively apocalyptic? Do you know how many people would tear out your entrails for a guaranteed job that pays $5,000/month? A lot. I think the other two people who responded have been too harsh. You need some time to assimilate how your life has changed, get out your anger. But then you're going to realize that life doesn't always break the way you planned, and that you're lucky that you even have such a generous contingency plan to fall back on. A lot of people get sick, get fired, and loving die because they can't pay for health care (in the US). You got injured and are getting a 25% raise. It could have been a lot worse.
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Feb 3, 2012 08:07
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Here is what I, an impartial internet person from the far side of the world, would consider in your situation. Executive summary: What do you really want? Do you want to be free of debt? Turn to Option 1. Do you want to be free of the army? Turn to Option 2. Do you want the pride of doing a job you believe in, after having fought for it when they said you couldn't? Turn to Option 3 In more depth: - Option 1 AKA Worthington's Law requires working a job you aren't interested in, with a lower perceived "status" but higher pay. You end up with employable skills once you're out, on the off chance that you eventually decide you don't want to be a teacher or can't find a teaching job. tuyop posted:If all goes well with option 1 I can expect to be out in March 2016 with sizable savings, no debt, and qualifications that make me highly competitive in the civilian market for companies abroad with a 6-figure income, easily. - Option 2 AKA Pulling the pin is not really an option from my point of view. tuyop posted:The end-state on plan 2 is, in 6-8 months I have an additional 20 to 50k in debt, no employment, no income, and no job prospects. I'll have to take on an additional 20 000 in debt to get a teaching degree, and may have trouble finding a teaching job for an indeterminable amount of time. I would be living with my parents, unemployed, unemployable, dead broke, and stuck. - Option 3 AKA Captain Ahab is uncertain. If you're the type to fight the system then maybe you should get out there and fight. I wouldn't, but I'm not the type to fight the system. Best-case scenario, you're really just spinning your wheels, but you get the satisfaction of achieving the goal you have set for yourself and you obviously take pride in. But it's a delay from doing the job you really want. Worst case scenario, this is just refusing to give up on something because you have already suffered so much for it. You waste a year, piss some people off and end up back where you started. You'll be stuck in the army for longer. How well would you cope with a whole year of stress? What are the odds of this strategy succeeding? If you were unsuccessful after a year of fighting, how would you feel then? I imagine it'd be even worse than now. I feel a bit hypocritical urging you to take a job you don't enjoy; I've made questionable career decisions in the hopes of getting a job I will like in a few years. I also have no idea how restrictive the military is. But if you are really that set on being a teacher in a few years, I'd say do your time in purgatory and get out. tuyop posted:I think that you're correct. And I'm sorry. I didn't expect the transition to be this emotionally charged for me. If you took anything other than Option 3, you wouldn't be the first person to work incredibly hard for something they didn't ultimately achieve. Some things just aren't meant to be. You're incredibly lucky that this job isn't even your dream - as Breetai said, you've been injured and you are at risk of getting a raise and secure employment for several years. All that suffering and perseverence is not wasted just because you are no longer an officer. It still shapes who you are and how you approach any task, inside or outside of work at this job or another. Life's giving you lemons but it's also giving the means to make some pretty decent lemonade. Ask yourself, what do you really want? Which of these options will get you there? Don't just think of the end goal, think of everything you'll need to get through to get there, and the probability of success.
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Feb 3, 2012 11:34
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So is the injury the reason why they won't let you continue in officer's training? How has rehab been going? Is there a chance that you will be healthy soon and would that impact option #3?
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Feb 3, 2012 15:12
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Sounds like someone's got a case of the You're a hard worker, so you're a good person, so you deserve the job you wanted. You've had bad things happen to you, you're not a bad person, so you don't deserve your injuries and getting a lower-class job. IT? NEVER! It seems like everybody has a touch of this, but try to wrap your mind around this simple fact - the universe does not operate on merit. poo poo happens to good people, and bad people flourish. That's just the way things work. Hey, you worked hard but it didn't work out? Pick yourself up and try something else. Maybe it'll be for the best! Also, get some perspective - a person's worth is not determined by their job. Stop defining yourself by your paycheck. Edited to add some points: Let me be clear - you have every right to be upset and disappointed that things haven't worked out for you. It sucks, and I'm sorry. But to let that balloon into some overwhelming outrage at the sheer injustice of it all, so much so that you're going to screw yourself out of taking the best option you have financially in some vain effort to get what you "deserve"? Please please PLEASE don't gently caress yourself up just because you're unhappy right now. Neophyte fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 3, 2012 |
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Feb 3, 2012 15:29
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tuyop posted:Being offered these jobs was not "an employer keeping me on after an injury", it was spitting in the face of what I've done and accomplished. Being offered jobs available to grade ten high school students after this, after traveling to seven different countries and adapting in environments with four different languages that I don't speak, after managing and improving the lives of 80 subordinates while being constantly berated for placing staples in the wrong place on memos by a man who dropped out of university. I just can't swallow it. I don't know the details on how Canada is right now, but you do realize that your situation isn't unique at all in this economy, right? A good percentage of workers, especially younger people, are currently unemployed. An even greater number are underemployed. People who have gone through high school just like you, college, gone on to masters degrees/mbas/law degrees - who were top of their class at top schools, who did well at these occupations, who had years of experience - have suddenly found themselves out of a job and taking on other jobs outside of their field, some of which are as simple as "Starbucks employee" and "retail clerk" - jobs you certainly don't need college degrees for much less a business or law school degree. And once you've been unemployed for awhile, even with the improvement in the economy, nobody wants to touch you and give you back your old position. And you want to know what? They all swallow it. Because a job is better than no job when you have bills to pay and you do what you have to do in the interim and work in your off time towards getting back on your feet and geting back into the position of your choosing. Not everything is a straight shot. You're lucky that you have a back up job to go to, especially one that makes you more money and will land with good skills so that if your teaching career doesn't pan out in the future, you have back up skills to fall back on. There is nothing unique or special about you. Tons of people with greater struggles, better grades, higher degrees, and more experience are experiencing exactly what you are right now.
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Feb 3, 2012 19:16
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I feel like this thread isn't really BFC so much as it is E/N. I stay out of that subforum because I can't resist yelling at people and I don't like myself when I do that, regardless of whether it's deserved or not. So I'm just gonna say that Option 1 is blindingly obviously the best choice from a purely financial perspective, because it offers you the ability to pay off your debts faster, not owe money to the army for your (really surprisingly expensive) college they paid for, and of course not be unemployed and broke. Beyond that I'm gonna stop commenting. Maybe unbookmark the thread. Because I get too involved in other people's attitudes and how I think they need adjustment.
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Feb 3, 2012 19:33
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Tuyop diverges from the just world fallacy in that it's usually used as "I work hard thus I deserve good things". In Tuyop's case he already got the good things.
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Feb 4, 2012 04:15
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There are a lot of things to respond to here.Leperflesh posted:I feel like this thread isn't really BFC so much as it is E/N. I stay out of that subforum because I can't resist yelling at people and I don't like myself when I do that, regardless of whether it's deserved or not. Well it didn't stop you before. But thanks for the tough love and advice. Dusseldorf posted:Tuyop diverges from the just world fallacy in that it's usually used as "I work hard thus I deserve good things". In Tuyop's case he already got the good things. No, I bought the good things even though I couldn't pay for them. I'm doing what I can now to pay that back. KarmaCandy posted:I don't know the details on how Canada is right now, but you do realize that your situation isn't unique at all in this economy, right? A good percentage of workers, especially younger people, are currently unemployed. An even greater number are underemployed. People who have gone through high school just like you, college, gone on to masters degrees/mbas/law degrees - who were top of their class at top schools, who did well at these occupations, who had years of experience - have suddenly found themselves out of a job and taking on other jobs outside of their field, some of which are as simple as "Starbucks employee" and "retail clerk" - jobs you certainly don't need college degrees for much less a business or law school degree. And once you've been unemployed for awhile, even with the improvement in the economy, nobody wants to touch you and give you back your old position. "Swallowing it" doesn't really entail not being outraged. It just means that they made a decision to go that way. I think some protestors in New York were saying something about how they weren't swallowing it in terms of accepting their fate. They were just surviving and finding the whole thing unacceptable. I find this unacceptable, but I have to accept it one way or the other and I will. Just because the pay is good doesn't mean that I should do it. Neophyte posted:Sounds like someone's got a case of the Yes, I've almost explicitly believed in that fallacy in the past. I guess this is part of growing up, but it still loving sucks. Thanks for this, it helped a lot actually. T-1000 posted:Here is what I, an impartial internet person from the far side of the world, would consider in your situation. Executive summary: This post gave me a lot to think about and I really like it. Thank you very much. Option 3 is invalid when broken down that way because I no longer want to do any of this poo poo, so there's no point in fighting at all. I want to be free of the army because I feel wronged and trapped, but I'm not confident enough to roll the dice on a job civy-side that will almost certainly pay <30k. That'll just give me enough for bills really, one situation away from ruin. Also, it's a definite problem with status but more with identifying as an infantry officer. When you tell people in the CF that you're infantry, there is an instant respect and consideration given to you. The infantry is like the USMC of the CF. This is status in a way, I suppose. It's just not all about class. My only problem with option 1 is that I'm worried that I'll lose my passion. I feel like I have a fairly rare - in my experience - love of teaching. Four years at a job that I really don't want might have some kind of effect on me that I can't foresee, and I don't know where my life will go in those years. It's scary. However, the alternative is so crushing that I have to choose this. My girlfriend agrees, we'll be close enough together to make the drive to meet on weekends easy and we can't really do the alternatives. SpclKen posted:So is the injury the reason why they won't let you continue in officer's training? How has rehab been going? Is there a chance that you will be healthy soon and would that impact option #3? No, the reason is policy and budget cuts. There are simply no officer trades in the entire military that are open right now. The only two that are open are Infantry and Engineer. I don't have the degree for Engineer and, well, I've done the infantry thing at this point. I'm not a candidate for rehabilitation. I have an appointment on Monday to discuss surgery and other options. I regularly lay myself up for 48 hours by breathing. My lifting attempts are embarrassing. It's bad. The only silver lining on the injury is that I'm still going to hear about a payout for it at some point, and that could mitigate enough of my private and military debt to be a factor leaning toward Option 2. It's not reliable enough to count on though. Magic Underwear posted:Fate has hosed you over and there's nothing you can do about it. Feeling anger, pain, injustice makes perfect sense. I understand. I thought I clarified it enough. It's not about being disgusted because I think "those people" are less than me. It's that I've done a lot of work to develop a separate set of skills that I'm proud of and isn't utilized by those jobs. I love my girlfriend and she doesn't feel like my feelings about my suitability for her trade spill over into me talking down to her or anything. It turns out that her dad got out of the infantry in the 80s and does the same job I'll be going into. It feels almost like going through a family death. This is a very strange experience. Breetai posted:Quoting the whole thing in case you edit it, but.. Yeah nice personal attacks. I'm not whining about poo poo. I went through hardships and piled on more to do what I thought was right. I don't come from some rich family in Southern California. I and my parents couldn't afford university at all, so I joined the army to pay for it. I'm very sympathetic and feel a lot of guilt about the people I've left behind in my home town. There are a lot of people who made terrible mistakes while I made sacrifices, and now many of them are dead or in jail. There is very little separating me from them. I think that's an Australian expression, but I haven't decided anything at this point. I have a meeting next Wednesday to sign and put in motion the course of action that I think is best. I'm disgusted and disturbed by my reaction as well, I'm just being honest because I thought it might help people who want to give advice. This isn't a situation that involves no emotion regardless of how lucky I may or may not be, or how despicable and low you think I am for whatever reason. Does anyone have any experience with waiting in a job that they hate so that they can do the job that they dream about? How many years did it take to get there? Did your passion for the job you wanted wane at all in those years? How did you mitigate that bitterness? I'm asking because I'm going to take option 1. It works with my relationship and puts less strain on my family and has the highest odds of success. The only negatives are a drop in status and power for several years, and the possibility of something happening that will keep me from getting out and going to a job that I've wanted this whole time. Right now I think that's very unlikely and schools like officer and NCO experience when they consider applicants. I'll be an NCO after maybe 24 months in that trade because of qualifications I already have. I'm going to sign up for ATIS and go to Kingston. Training will take 48 weeks. I should be out in March 2016. tuyop fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Feb 4, 2012 |
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Feb 4, 2012 06:14
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To put it simply - I can say pretty confidently that almost everyone here has, at least once, suffered through a job they hated for some period of time, with the expectation that better times lay ahead. How long it takes, whether your passion wanes, or whether your time carries any bitterness with you are intensely personal experiences. I'm not going to weigh in on my own experience, for personal reasons, but I just wanted to assure you that you are in no way alone feeling this way.
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Feb 4, 2012 08:12
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tuyop posted:The only negatives are a drop in status and power for several years How much status and power do you think teachers have? You're likely never to reach the same level of status and power you had as an infantry officer for the rest of your life.
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Feb 4, 2012 17:13
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Is this the same speeding ticket you mention in the OP, or a new one?
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Feb 4, 2012 17:43
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RheaConfused posted:Is this the same speeding ticket you mention in the OP, or a new one? Same one. And I think teachers have a huge amount of status, personally. I know they're not really that appreciated in society but I would love it enough to not care. The Waiting For Superman quote about a good teacher being like a good composer or writer or anything is pretty apt in my opinion. It's an art, and someone who's good at that art is beautiful to see. I don't care if people in general disagree.
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Feb 4, 2012 17:50
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tuyop posted:And I think teachers have a huge amount of status, personally. I know they're not really that appreciated in society but I would love it enough to not care. You seem to have this idealistic notion that you're going to love teaching and that'll make everything better and worth it. Well, I love teaching. I've known my entire life that I wanted to be a teacher. It was my loving dream; I would line up my stuffed animals when I was five years old and teach them how to add numbers. And I only lasted a year teaching public school before I quit. The worst teachers are the ones who can't quit because they need the paycheck. If you want to be a teacher, wait until you're stable (financially, emotionally) and then try it. Don't go into it blazing into more debt with no way out.
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Feb 4, 2012 19:04
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moana posted:I would line up my stuffed animals when I was five years old and teach them how to add numbers.  D'awwww this is the sweetest thing. But I agree about teaching, it's a rough gig. I know loads of teachers and their first several years are a nightmare until they get into the swing of things. I don't understand why you wouldn't go for the job that gives wealth and security rather than diving deep into debt. Leadership skills and teaching ability are valuable assets when working with people no matter what field you are in. If you couple that with computer training you're a natural for management positions after a short term paying your tech dues. You aren't stuck on helpdesk support forever.
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Feb 4, 2012 19:32
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CuddleChunks posted:
Well I will. I only consider not doing option one because I'm just tired of being miserable to get to something good. Yeah I'm young and stuff but I've hated my life and job for as long as I can remember. From my perspective it seems like I'm just extending this shittiness forever, and every few months the wait gets longer. None of the options will really make me much happier much faster, so the only thing to do is to put the least amount of stress on the people around me and do the right thing by paying back my debts. And I think most jobs are like that. You start off very crappy. I've been a bad officer longer than I've been a good one, for instance. Oh well I guess.
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Feb 4, 2012 20:16
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tuyop posted:My only problem with option 1 is that I'm worried that I'll lose my passion. I feel like I have a fairly rare - in my experience - love of teaching. Four years at a job that I really don't want might have some kind of effect on me that I can't foresee, and I don't know where my life will go in those years. It's scary. However, the alternative is so crushing that I have to choose this. My girlfriend agrees, we'll be close enough together to make the drive to meet on weekends easy and we can't really do the alternatives. tuyop posted:I'm not a candidate for rehabilitation. I have an appointment on Monday to discuss surgery and other options. I regularly lay myself up for 48 hours by breathing. My lifting attempts are embarrassing. It's bad. tuyop posted:It feels almost like going through a family death. This is a very strange experience.  tuyop posted:Does anyone have any experience with waiting in a job that they hate so that they can do the job that they dream about? How many years did it take to get there? Did your passion for the job you wanted wane at all in those years? How did you mitigate that bitterness? If it's any consolation, recently there have been a couple of studies on a personality trait called grit, "a positive, non-cognitive trait, based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or endstate coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective." One of the papers on it is here. At least some component of success can be attributed to willingness to do a hard slog in pursuit of long-term goals. You seem to have done a lot of long-term planning and hard work to get here; the research suggests that keeping your eyes on the prize can sustain you through a lot of crappy work. At least, that is what I tell myself between bottles of whiskey.
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Feb 4, 2012 22:55
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tuyop posted:Well I will. I only consider not doing option one because I'm just tired of being miserable to get to something good. Yeah I'm young and stuff but I've hated my life and job for as long as I can remember. From my perspective it seems like I'm just extending this shittiness forever, and every few months the wait gets longer. Grin and bear it, take option 1, then go to school once you're out of the military and DEBT-FREE instead of going to school that may or may not work out for you and leave you destitute for the rest of your life with no skills. If you lose your passion for teaching over 4 measly years in the military - you didn't have that passion in the first place! At least, not the passion to do it for your entire life. Maybe you should stop to consider that before choosing your path as well. The other options aren't.
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Feb 4, 2012 23:22
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Yeah, you're pissed off and to be honest, that is not unreasonable. However, you have 2 choices: remain rightly pissed-off for the rest of your life or suck it up and make lemonade. This attitude: tuyop posted:Well I will. I only consider not doing option one because I'm just tired of being miserable to get to something good. Yeah I'm young and stuff but I've hated my life and job for as long as I can remember. From my perspective it seems like I'm just extending this shittiness forever, and every few months the wait gets longer. is the one to take. You may not be very happy with what life has thrown at you, job wise, but at least you have a job and at least you have a clear path to being able to becoming debt-free. Having been in all this situations, I can promise to you that while being unhappy at a job is pretty miserable, it is much better than being unhappy without a job. And both of these are a thousand times better than being without a job and in debt.
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Feb 6, 2012 11:41
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spog posted:Yeah, you're pissed off and to be honest, that is not unreasonable. Yeah I just had to yell and talk to people. I feel pretty resigned to it now. End of E/N talk I guess. At least now I get to have a sweet leaving the army party.
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Feb 6, 2012 15:45
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tuyop posted:At least now I get to have a sweet leaving the army party. Are you choosing option 2?
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Feb 6, 2012 15:57
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tuyop posted:Well I will. I only consider not doing option one because I'm just tired of being miserable to get to something good. Yeah I'm young and stuff but I've hated my life and job for as long as I can remember. From my perspective it seems like I'm just extending this shittiness forever, and every few months the wait gets longer. You are still drowning in debt and are reaping what you have sown. And I say this as a friend who is seeing another friend hurting. You owe thousands of dollars more on your car than what it is worth because you drove it into the ground. When life gets tough, you have a tendency to go on vacation. What do you have to show for all this? Payments. Lots of payments. Every single payment you have to make limits your options, it constrains you, it weighs you down. BFC can get spergy at times, and life is not about accumulating as much net worth as possible, but I hope you realize that your debt means you don’t get to do what you want. If your passion conflicts with your income earning ability, well that is too bad. You can make lemonade out of your lemons, but that is as good as it gets. The choice you have now is do you pay the price now big time over the next couple years and earn your freedom, or do you putter along for the rest of your life and always have payments like most people?
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Feb 6, 2012 15:58
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CanadianSuperKing posted:Are you choosing option 2? I don't think so: he's planning his leaving party for 2016 - which shows some unusual forethought. tuyop posted:I'm asking because I'm going to take option 1. It works with my relationship and puts less strain on my family and has the highest odds of success. The only negatives are a drop in status and power for several years, and the possibility of something happening that will keep me from getting out and going to a job that I've wanted this whole time. Right now I think that's very unlikely and schools like officer and NCO experience when they consider applicants. I'll be an NCO after maybe 24 months in that trade because of qualifications I already have. tuyop posted:Yeah I just had to yell and talk to people. I feel pretty resigned to it now. End of E/N talk I guess. Nowt wrong with a good bit of pissing and moaning. Life has given you a swift kick in the balls. However, Life has also given you an icepack and the option to sit and watch sports on TV for the next few hours while you recover. It could be a hell of a lot worse.
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Feb 6, 2012 16:26
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CanadianSuperKing posted:Are you choosing option 2? No, I'll just be going Navy or Air Force. I guess I'll be hanging up the green hats, which were always so important.
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Feb 6, 2012 19:00
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Well that was an expensive trip. The girlfriend gave me her travel allowance thing so that deferred most of the cost though. The main expenses came from a tow truck bill (I got stuck on a bike path that was marked as a map on the base map. Tank Road IS NOT A ROAD) 100 dollars. And a "passing on the right" ticket from a cop in Quebec who tailgated me through a suburb until I was speeding, and then gave me a ticket for passing him on the right in a construction zone because my line was shorter than his. 266 dollars. I could probably get out of paying it by simply never registering a car in Quebec, but still, what the gently caress?! Dell is paid off and I'm making a payment on that old, old speeding ticket next week. Expect a depressing and disappointing February summary.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:23
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tuyop posted:Well that was an expensive trip. The girlfriend gave me her travel allowance thing so that deferred most of the cost though. How do you get a speeding ticket in Quebec? The way people drive up there, I didn’t know they pulled people over. My cousins drive like maniac speed daemons and they laugh at how Americans are so afraid of always being pulled over. Only idiots who try to drive on bike paths in the middle of winter because it looked like the shortest path on a map would….oh, I get it 
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Feb 17, 2012 20:59
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tuyop posted:a cop in Quebec who tailgated me through a suburb until I was speeding Does not compute. Were you oblivious to the tailgating cop? Was he in an unmarked car? Why did you exceed the speed limit with a cop on your rear end?
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Feb 17, 2012 21:22
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Leperflesh posted:Does not compute. Were you oblivious to the tailgating cop? Was he in an unmarked car? Why did you exceed the speed limit with a cop on your rear end? Unmarked car. I just thought it was a French dude who really wanted to pass so I sped up to find a gap in traffic on the right. The worst part is I wasn't even speeding at first, just trying to be courteous. I'm at the bank right now to switch over that TFSA to a mutual fund thing so I'll post about that in a bit too. I'm also wondering about an RRSP, but I'll probably do that once my visa is paid off.
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Feb 17, 2012 22:37
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Alright, I put my 610 dollars from my TFSA into a Canadian Index mutual fund with TD. It has an 80/20 equity and principal split. Over the past year it's had a 10% return. I went high risk on the whole thing because I've been treating that TFSA as a last ditch emergency fund and haven't touched it at all this whole time, but it's really part of my emergency fund. In the future I'll be putting 100 into it twice a month, 172.50 into my primary savings, and 272.50 into my visa until I have my 3000 emergency fund, then I'll redistribute into my Visa.
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Feb 18, 2012 03:33
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So why are you putting an emergency fund into a non-liquid, high-risk product? It makes no sense at all, dude.
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Feb 18, 2012 07:48
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Fraternite posted:So why are you putting an emergency fund into a non-liquid, high-risk product? Yeah, your emergency fund should be something you can liquidate within 24 hours - a money market account or something.
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Feb 18, 2012 10:25
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Shooting Blanks posted:Yeah, your emergency fund should be something you can liquidate within 24 hours - a money market account or something. Maybe I used the wrong financial prowords or something, but this can be liquidated within 24 hours. As soon as the market day closes, I can transfer all of my money immediately. Including on weekends. It's identical to the TFSA I had except now it's generating a higher possible rate of return (and higher possible rate of loss). But I'm mitigating a lot of the ups and downs of the market by contributing to it biweekly and probably sticking fairly long term. At this point one of the most likely uses I'd have for 610 dollars is my car insurance deductible. This won't keep me from being able to pay that. The plan for the savings account is: 275 to Visa 175 to simple savings account 100 to Mutual fund TFSA All transfers are twice a month. I want 3000 in the emergency fund, based on my experience with less pay this fall. I currently have 1091. Barring no use of the fund, I should be able to have that 3k by June. Then I'll stop paying into the primary fund except for routine savings like car stuff, keep the 100 biweekly into the mutual fund (savings are good to constantly build right?) and move onto aggressive debt repayment again. I feel like my situation is a bit different now, since all my debts are lower than 13% interest. And I finally own my laptop, which is still trucking along somehow. On Monday once the update shows in my online banking I'll post the specific mutual fund that I've bought, and the other options. It's a Canadian equity fund, lots of finance, telecommunications, utilities and extractive industries. I'd like some input on other funds in case I've made a horrible mistake, and I can move the money around whenever I want apparently.
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Feb 18, 2012 16:06
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I like high risk funds but I only do it to some of my investments, not emergency funds, for the long run because I'm more likely to come out ahead in 10 years (minimum). My emergency funds is in a low risk account. Yes, it does have a small gains but it also accounts for even smaller and infrequent losses but that's still my emergency funds and I need to make sure when I call on it, there's actually money in there to begin with. I don't agree with your decision because the market can get really volatile at times and the emergency funds should be protected instead of hedged against the edge of the cliff; however, you choose those decisions so I'm hoping you will see to reason to switch things around a little bit more to your favour or the market is kind to you for a while.
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Feb 18, 2012 16:56
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tuyop posted:Maybe I used the wrong financial prowords or something, but this can be liquidated within 24 hours. The market can lose 20% in 24 hours and stay that way for weeks or months at a time. If you're comfortable with your emergency fund being worth less than you put into it some point, then by all means keep it there. My opinion is that you should build your emergency fund through contributions alone, and not view it as a source of growth/return, which is what mutual funds are designed for. quote:Savings are good to constantly build right? Yes, for two reasons. The first is that by making your savings regular you'll learn to see it as a fact of life rather than a luxury, and plan the rest of your finances accordingly. The second reason has to do with the long term success of your investment strategy. If you invest $100 every two weeks, sometimes you'll be buying shares of your chosen mutual fund when they are expensive, and sometimes you'll be buying shares of your chosen mutual fund when they are cheap. This way you don't have to worry about timing the market at all, which is the right strategy for a hands-off investor. quote:I can move the money around whenever I want apparently. Sounds like you can move the money around at the end of the business day. So even if you have a disaster in the morning that requires money that very instant, you have to wait for your TFSA provider to sell your shares and then transfer the money to an account from which you can write a check. Either that or put it on a credit card and then end up exactly where you started months ago. Not to mention that you may have chosen to invest a mutual fund that charges you a fee when you sell it. But we won't know til you tell us which one that is. bam thwok fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Feb 19, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 19:14
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tuyop posted:Maybe I used the wrong financial prowords or something, but this can be liquidated within 24 hours. As soon as the market day closes, I can transfer all of my money immediately. Including on weekends. It's identical to the TFSA I had except now it's generating a higher possible rate of return (and higher possible rate of loss). But I'm mitigating a lot of the ups and downs of the market by contributing to it biweekly and probably sticking fairly long term. At this point one of the most likely uses I'd have for 610 dollars is my car insurance deductible. This won't keep me from being able to pay that. If you have to liquidate short-term and have the money in a TFSA, you will not only take a loss without capital losses but you will permanently reduce the amount in your TFSA when you make your withdrawal. A TFSA is just a government classification of an account -- you can do anything and everything (well, almost everything. You can't do margin in a TFSA) either inside or outside a TFSA, so if this thing is the exact same thing to your old TFSA, it is probably your new TFSA with just a different product inside of it. Don't put speculative equity poo poo in your TFSA if there's at all a chance that you might have to take it out at a nasty time. For all the rah-rah talk about TFSAs and RRSPs these days, nothing sucks more than to take a loss and/or withdraw from a registered account. But if you can deal with not having access to the money for a while, then I guess go wild with the TFSA. But again, that's precisely the opposite thing from an emergency fund. Fraternite fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 21:15
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I thought you can never permanently reduce your TFSA amount. Any amount you withdraw in year x is gone for that year, but then gets added to your allowed amount the following year, in ADDITION to another $5000.
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Feb 19, 2012 03:10
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Zo posted:I thought you can never permanently reduce your TFSA amount. Any amount you withdraw in year x is gone for that year, but then gets added to your allowed amount the following year, in ADDITION to another $5000. The way I understand it is that, if you have 20000 to put into a TFSA, and then you put 1000 in it, you then have 19000 left. Then if you take that 1000 out then put it back in you have 18000 left. So your TFSA allowance goes down with every dollar that you put it in, whether you take it out or not. Fraternite posted:If you have to liquidate short-term and have the money in a TFSA, you will not only take a loss without capital losses but you will permanently reduce the amount in your TFSA when you make your withdrawal. A TFSA is just a government classification of an account -- you can do anything and everything (well, almost everything. You can't do margin in a TFSA) either inside or outside a TFSA, so if this thing is the exact same thing to your old TFSA, it is probably your new TFSA with just a different product inside of it. Hm. I guess it depends on how risky this fund that I've bought into is. But I see what you mean. I'll post the options once I get them.
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Feb 19, 2012 04:20
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tuyop posted:The way I understand it is that, if you have 20000 to put into a TFSA, and then you put 1000 in it, you then have 19000 left. Then if you take that 1000 out then put it back in you have 18000 left. So your TFSA allowance goes down with every dollar that you put it in, whether you take it out or not. According to https://www.tfsa.gc.ca You can withdraw funds available in your TFSA at any time for any purpose — and the full amount of withdrawals can be put back into your TFSA in future years. Re-contributing in the same year may result in an over-contribution amount which would be subject to a penalty tax.
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Feb 19, 2012 05:58
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Zo posted:I thought you can never permanently reduce your TFSA amount. Any amount you withdraw in year x is gone for that year, but then gets added to your allowed amount the following year, in ADDITION to another $5000. If you put $5000 into your TFSA and buy $5000 of product X -- which then happens to lose value -- and you sell it at $4000 and withdraw the $4000, you can only contribute $4000 back into the TFSA the next year. Not only did you lose your $1000, you also lost $1000 of space. Fraternite fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Feb 19, 2012 |
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Feb 19, 2012 09:41
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Fraternite posted:If you put $5000 into your TFSA and buy $5000 of product X -- which then happens to lose value -- and you sell it at $4000 and withdraw the $4000, you can only contribute $4000 back into the TFSA the next year. Oh ok that's what you meant. Makes sense.
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Feb 19, 2012 10:48
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