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Definitely get a balance transfer if you can.
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Apr 24, 2012 19:42
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IdeoPhanthus posted:I have a card that sits at a $3400 balance (limit is $3600), 17.9% APR, with a monthly minimum payment of $96. About 60% ($56) of that payment is interest. I feel like it's going to take ages to pay off. I used to pay it off every month (and it was never more than a few hundred), but we both lost our jobs at the same time a couple years back & used the card to float bills (and car repairs) here & there when we didn't have enough money. I've never been late with payments (for anything), and the account is 10-11yr old. 0% balance transfers aren't what they used to be. Many of them come with fees attached. Run the numbers (including all fees) and see how much the real difference would be.
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Apr 24, 2012 20:25
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IdeoPhanthus posted:I have a card that sits at a $3400 balance (limit is $3600), 17.9% APR, with a monthly minimum payment of $96. About 60% ($56) of that payment is interest. I feel like it's going to take ages to pay off. I used to pay it off every month (and it was never more than a few hundred), but we both lost our jobs at the same time a couple years back & used the card to float bills (and car repairs) here & there when we didn't have enough money. I've never been late with payments (for anything), and the account is 10-11yr old. I would rather you shop around for fixed rate loans at a credit union rather than transfer it to another credit card. I’ve talked before about the issues with 0% cards issued by the big banks. But whatever you do, you need a better plan than paying $96/mo. Your problem is not 17.9%. Your problem isn’t that you had job losses a couple years ago, nor is it your car repairs. Nor is it $56/mo in interest. Your problem is that you have decided to only pay them $96/month, and at that rate, it will take forever, and 0% for a few months doesn’t solve that. What will solve your problem is getting serious about actually paying it off, get on a tight written budget, stop using your credit cards for anything, and throw $500/mo at it, and then in 6 months it will be done.
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Apr 24, 2012 20:50
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Recently I've been able to get myself into a really simple living situation that I feel is giving me a good opportunity to invest. Here's an overview of me: 26 years old No debt Checking - $5000 Roth IRA - $5000 (2010 max contribution split between Vanguard STAR fund and VGTSX) Expendable income - $1000/mo I plan to peruse the thread from beginning to end eventually, but is there anything I should be doing right now, for my particular situation?
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Apr 25, 2012 00:37
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Hey look, you're me. Maybe build up a bigger safety net, start/plan your 2012 Roth IRA contribution, start/plan your 401k. Comedy option: Buy a Porsche!
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Apr 25, 2012 00:42
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Sleepy Robot posted:Recently I've been able to get myself into a really simple living situation that I feel is giving me a good opportunity to invest. Here's an overview of me: Personally, I would immediately max out a '12 roth and then work towards building 6-8 months of expenses worth of an emergency fund.
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Apr 25, 2012 00:56
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I just started a job that requires me to figure out the cash ratio, debt to worth, debt to tangible net worth, current ratio and quick ratio of a business. I have a very limited understanding of these concepts and then after reading the definitions, I was wondering whether there was any tangible net worth for a startup company because they don't have any assets at the moment or am I understanding things wrong?
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Apr 26, 2012 04:49
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TV Zombie posted:I just started a job that requires me to figure out the cash ratio, debt to worth, debt to tangible net worth, current ratio and quick ratio of a business. I have a very limited understanding of these concepts and then after reading the definitions, I was wondering whether there was any tangible net worth for a startup company because they don't have any assets at the moment or am I understanding things wrong? That's like the million dollar question.
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Apr 26, 2012 04:55
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TV Zombie posted:I just started a job that requires me to figure out the cash ratio, debt to worth, debt to tangible net worth, current ratio and quick ratio of a business. I have a very limited understanding of these concepts and then after reading the definitions, I was wondering whether there was any tangible net worth for a startup company because they don't have any assets at the moment or am I understanding things wrong? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=value+of+firm+multiplier Quick question - how did you get this job if you have no idea what these are? EDIT: http://www.khanacademy.org/#valuation-and-investing Rocks fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 13:24
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dnbrwn posted:Quick question - how did you get this job if you have no idea what these are? Probably the same way I got a job working in credit risk with no statistical background, and then before that I worked on foreclosure analysis with no knowledge of real estate, lending, or anything...it happens.
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Apr 26, 2012 14:11
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So, in retard-can-understand terms, what is the basic difference between having a company controlled 401K vs. investing on your own? What type of investments are allowed in a 401K?
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Apr 26, 2012 15:04
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Wicaeed posted:So, in retard-can-understand terms, what is the basic difference between having a company controlled 401K vs. investing on your own? Don’t think of a 401K or a Roth IRA as investments. Think of them as places to put investments. A Roth IRA is like a cup. You can put orange juice in it, or coffee, or soda, or water. Or if you wanted to be weird, olive oil. Or mix these fluids together in any combination you want. The orange juice and soda are investments, the cup is just a place to put your investment. A 401K is through your job and offers certain tax advantages, and many employers will match what you put in. But it is just another cup. You should still be able to decide what goes in there. Because your employer is managing it, they probably won’t offer you as many choices. You can still get the basics, no problem if you want milk, orange juice, coffee, but you are probably out of luck if you want peach/mango juice or fat free strawberry milk. When you invest on your own, the entire universe of investments is available to you and you can shop around for lower fees, more types of investments, etc. Getting back to money, the types of investments allowed in a 401K are determined by the choices your employer offers. Usually that means mutual funds. But like what I was saying earlier, a mutual fund comes in different flavors too. Some of them buy smaller, fast growing companies, some are more stable and buy into mature companies that pay dividends, some invest in bonds, not stock, some invest outside of the United States.
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Apr 26, 2012 15:37
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Wicaeed posted:So, in retard-can-understand terms, what is the basic difference between having a company controlled 401K vs. investing on your own? a) 401ks have big tax breaks b) 401ks usually limit your investment options c) You can get lower fees if investing on your own Note: (a) comes out way ahead of (c), but once you leave the company people often roll their 401k into a "Rollover IRA" which lets you get the upsides of both options. Ulf fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 17:54
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Ulf posted:Going to see if I can come up with a shorter, simpler answer: Thanks for the info. So if I have an existing Rollover IRA from a previous company (one which I am not currently even using) and am thinking of of adding the funds from that IRA to my existing 401k, is it a better move to combine my funds, or keep my Rollover IRA separate and start actually paying attention to what it's invested in? I know this probably isn't the best place to ask for financial advice (I've been thinking about hiring a financial planner), but some advice is better than none 
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Apr 26, 2012 17:57
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Wicaeed posted:Thanks for the info. First, make sure your IRA is a traditional IRA and not a Roth. If it's a Roth, you definitely don't want to roll it into your 401k, since you'd be putting after-tax money in an investment vehicle that you'll later have to pay tax on. You should look at the investment options available to you with the company that currently holds your IRA. If the fund choices are good (e.g., low expense ratios and a diverse mix of funds), then keep the money where it is and just start paying attention to how it's allocated. If your traditional IRA has poo poo fund options (e.g., expense ratios anywhere above 1%, assuming you are ok with investing in index funds), consider moving it to a company that has better fund choices, such as Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, etc.. If your IRA is with a good company, there's not really any benefit to moving that money into your 401k, since a 401k is like a traditional IRA, just with fewer choices (you're limited to what your employer lets you select). I suppose the logistics would be a bit easier if you had fewer accounts, but as long as you're not subject to any kind of low balance fees on your IRA, that's about it.
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Apr 26, 2012 21:39
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You should probably look at what your funds in the IRA are invested in, if only to be sure they're not in something you don't want (eg. maybe they're all in a money market fund, meaning they're practically guaranteed to never go up or down). The particulars that it's invested in doesn't really matter except for two things:
Asking for financial advice here is fine, especially the level you're asking at. Ulf fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 21:46
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Ulf posted:
Shouldn't this come with the caveat of something like "unless you get a discount in that stock as an employee, in which case it MAY be okay, though too much investment in an individual stock is still a very large risk" or something? Or have I been misunderstanding what is generally said about individual stocks?
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Apr 26, 2012 22:02
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dnbrwn posted:Quick question - how did you get this job if you have no idea what these are? Got a callback from a college job fair. Just gave my resume to various people, hoping to hear from anyone.
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Apr 27, 2012 04:38
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totalnewbie posted:Shouldn't this come with the caveat of something like "unless you get a discount in that stock as an employee, in which case it MAY be okay, though too much investment in an individual stock is still a very large risk" or something? Or have I been misunderstanding what is generally said about individual stocks? I'm in an ESPP myself with a 15% discount, but I still sell it after holding for one year.
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Apr 27, 2012 05:38
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Ulf posted:
Hmm, I'll have to look into this. My 401K and IRA are actually both with Fidelity, however I currently can't do anything with my IRA currently because it was rolled over from a previous employers 401K and I haven't filled out the required paperwork in order to actually control the money yet. I was planning on rolling them all in together, but I think I'm going to go ahead and start trying to individually invest the IRA money.
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Apr 27, 2012 07:42
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Just having a bit of a hypothetical thought and want to make sure I'm not absurd... So i mentioned a ways back my company doesn't do 401k matching and the funds suck rear end with 2%+ expense ratios. I'm not going to invest in it. But, if and when I decide to leave the company, would it not be a bad idea to change my contribution amount a few months before hand to (assuming I can afford to, which I can)almost 100% of my paycheck to get as much into it as possible and then after I leave the company roll it over into my IRA. I already max out my contribution, so there's no money being left on that table. This is not a dumb strategy to think about in the future if the opportunity arises, right?
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Apr 27, 2012 14:29
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SeaWolf posted:Just having a bit of a hypothetical thought and want to make sure I'm not absurd... Yea that is a good idea. Check to see what the max contribution rate is. It is prob less than 100% but do the best you can as soon as you know you are leaving.
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Apr 27, 2012 16:21
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SeaWolf posted:Just having a bit of a hypothetical thought and want to make sure I'm not absurd... Can you just put it directly into your IRA throughout the year and ignore the 401K?
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Apr 28, 2012 02:31
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modig posted:Can you just put it directly into your IRA throughout the year and ignore the 401K? I do, and I am. This is just speaking hypothetically a few months before I leave the company at some time in the future. If I know I'm going to leave it gives me another practical option for a retirement vehicle because it's going to spend very little time being eaten away at by those high expense ratios. I can get a lot of money in there very fast, I can afford it short term.
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Apr 28, 2012 02:56
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If you're contributing to other IRAs too you'll want to make sure you're watching all of your contributions so you don't exceed the maximums (either for the 401k or across all plans). Without matching you probably won't have to worry about it unless you make a lot of money, but it's something to keep in mind.
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Apr 28, 2012 03:09
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SeaWolf posted:Just having a bit of a hypothetical thought and want to make sure I'm not absurd... Figure out how much your max contribution can be per check. When you know you're leaving the company, calculate out how much pay you'll make until you leave and multiply it by the max percent you can contribute. We'll call this value "x". Then ask yourself, if the IRS came out today and announced that everyone can add x more to their IRA this year if they do it this week, would you jump at it? Do you have enough liquid funds to do it without draining your emergency fund? Is dumping x extra money into your IRA *this week* the best thing you can do with that money? Also consider that you're starting a new job, and there's a lot of uncertainty in such a move. Do you have a solid enough emergency fund such that if things go tits up you can survive for half a year? What about a whole year? How will your state's unemployment laws treat someone who just got a new job and then was laid off? If you're hesitant after reading all of that, you should consider why you're hesitant, and you should focus on improving your financial situation between now and when you leave your current job. If you're still really confident after reading all of that, then loading up your 401k and rolling it into your IRA is a good idea.
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Apr 28, 2012 15:22
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modig posted:Can you just put it directly into your IRA throughout the year and ignore the 401K? Then he'd be stuck at the $5,000/yr IRA limit. By putting it into his 401k, he can put $5,000 into his IRA, and throw as much as $16,500 into his 401k. When you rollover a 401k, it isn't subject to the $5,000/yr limit on IRAs - you can just roll it all in all at once, no matter how much money you've accumulated over all your years of working at a place.
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Apr 28, 2012 22:03
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I applied for a credit card increase and they denied me. How long should I wait till I apply for a new credit card?
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Apr 28, 2012 22:35
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poser posted:I applied for a credit card increase and they denied me. How long should I wait till I apply for a new credit card? How much of an increase did you request, percent-wise? Who is the issuer? What's your credit to income ratio with this issuer? Do you need more credit (i.e. are you near your limit as the reason you were requesting?). Lots of questions but all pertinent =P Slightly different answer - if they did a hard credit inquiry (which isn't actually too likely if you already have credit from this issuer, unless they warned you they would pull your credit), that will take 2 years to fall off your report. However, it doesn't affect your score too much (2-3 points). So there's really no "how long should I wait" in this scenario. I ask the above to see if you should exercise caution in actually getting more credit, because there is a chance that the answer is "don't get more credit, get your finances in order" Hufflepuff or bust! fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Apr 29, 2012 |
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Apr 29, 2012 00:06
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I'm currently using two banks, one is a regular bank with lots of branches and the other is branchless. I want to switch to the branchless one completely because the other one is ending free checking, but then what do I do with my jar of change? Will any bank give me larger bills for it for free? What about CoinStar, are those cheap?
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Apr 30, 2012 00:39
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kaishek posted:How much of an increase did you request, percent-wise? Who is the issuer? What's your credit to income ratio with this issuer? Do you need more credit (i.e. are you near your limit as the reason you were requesting?). Lots of questions but all pertinent =P I asked for 2k increase (100%) lol Citi I have about 12,400 available between two citi cards I did for a wedding but not anymore I requested it because its a low limit($2k) and I was using the card to pay for the rehearsal dinner and was worried about the card getting declined. I ended up just transferring available credit from one card to another. I want to apply for a new card so I can earn miles and pay for the honeymoon
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Apr 30, 2012 00:46
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poser posted:I asked for 2k increase (100%) lol OK, much better - that sounds across the board like you did everything right except for I'd have asked for the reallocation straight up. Were you talking to a human credit specialist, or did you submit the request online? If you weren't talking to a human, I'd say you'd be a fairly OK candidate to have the decision reconsidered. If you have a good reason (rehearsal dinner) to want more credit available at one time, that's a thing for sure they'll take into account. So the answer is, I don't think you necessarily need to wait. I'd branch out to a different issuer, though, as it sounds like you may be tapped with Citi. Where do you want to go for the honeymoon? There's a few decent offers out that could get you at least one flight for free. dustbin posted:I'm currently using two banks, one is a regular bank with lots of branches and the other is branchless. I want to switch to the branchless one completely because the other one is ending free checking, but then what do I do with my jar of change? Will any bank give me larger bills for it for free? What about CoinStar, are those cheap? Coinstar lets you get Amazon (and other) gift cards for free, which to me is as good as cash. Usually banks won't do change counting unless you're a customer, there may be a few exceptions to that. If routinely encountering giant jars of change is a factor in your banking...well...there are worse problems to have?
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Apr 30, 2012 00:59
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poser posted:I asked for 2k increase (100%) lol I hate to be an rear end in a top hat here, but you shouldn't get that card and you shouldn't go on a honeymoon until you can afford it (i.e. until you have the money to pay for it). Credit cards do not "pay" for things, and if you cannot afford to do these things you shouldn't do them. If you must go into debt, at least don't do it on a credit card. Jesus Christ.
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Apr 30, 2012 01:45
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Fraternite posted:I hate to be an rear end in a top hat here, but you shouldn't get that card and you shouldn't go on a honeymoon until you can afford it (i.e. until you have the money to pay for it). Actually they do "pay" for things like plane tickets, if your card gives you things like bonus miles. I believe that was his point - if he uses a card with a bonus miles system, he can use those miles to help pay for his vacation.
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Apr 30, 2012 02:34
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kaishek posted:
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Apr 30, 2012 02:46
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Fraternite posted:I hate to be an rear end in a top hat here, but you shouldn't get that card and you shouldn't go on a honeymoon until you can afford it (i.e. until you have the money to pay for it). I interpreted this as he wants to put it on a card to earn miles/points rather than just cutting a huge check. Maybe I am wrong?
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Apr 30, 2012 03:48
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I had opened up a $2,000 limit credit card last year in order to help pay for my surgery which wasn't covered by Medicare. Problem is, the balance has been sitting at $2,000 for the past year, and I've paid around $200 in interest for it so far.  I get a $1,000 grant from the government during mid-July, and I also have my tax return around there, which should be around another $1,000. Is it financially stupid to just not care about the credit card until July? I've been checking my accounts each day just to make sure that it hasn't gone over the limit, if it's actually a viable option to just forget about it, I'd rather take that choice.
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May 1, 2012 04:12
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Tiara posted:I had opened up a $2,000 limit credit card last year in order to help pay for my surgery which wasn't covered by Medicare. Problem is, the balance has been sitting at $2,000 for the past year, and I've paid around $200 in interest for it so far. Do you have any other credit(s), IE a credit card with a lower interest or a line of credit you can put the balance onto? That way the interest you pay will be lower.
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May 1, 2012 14:43
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Tiara posted:I had opened up a $2,000 limit credit card last year in order to help pay for my surgery which wasn't covered by Medicare. Problem is, the balance has been sitting at $2,000 for the past year, and I've paid around $200 in interest for it so far. If you literally can’t pay your card down, you are barely eating, you are barely paying the rent, then hanging on until July is the only strategy you have. I might be wrong, but I’m not hearing that. Instead I’m hearing someone who is certainly not rich, but also a bit stressed and a bit disorganized. If you are not on a written budget, then you need to be. When you know what is happening to your money, it will feel like you got a raise. When people are not on a budget and don’t think about how they are spending money, they go to the ATM on Friday, and by Tuesday their wallet is empty and they have a vague idea at best what happened. They bounce from crisis to whatever bill happens to be due, and they can never get ahead. Since you asked, I am not giving my stamp of approval for your waiting until July plan. But I’m a guy on the internet, and this is not a life or death matter so you can do what you want. I would rather see you get on a budget, pay this off as much as you can, and that way if one of these payments doesn’t come in like you think it will, or it is delayed, you will still have enough to pay it off. If things do come in like you think it will, you will actually have money left over.
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May 1, 2012 14:44
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Since you asked, I am not giving my stamp of approval for your waiting until July plan. But I’m a guy on the internet, and this is not a life or death matter so you can do what you want. I would rather see you get on a budget, pay this off as much as you can, and that way if one of these payments doesn’t come in like you think it will, or it is delayed, you will still have enough to pay it off. If things do come in like you think it will, you will actually have money left over. This advice is why you are a mod here. Well said!
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May 1, 2012 15:15
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