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totalnewbie
Nov 13, 2005

I was born and raised in China, lived in Japan, and now hold a US passport.

I am wrong in every way, all the damn time.

Ask me about my tattoos.

tzirean posted:

Last August, I applied for the AmEx Blue Cash Everyday and was denied, but applied for the Chase Freedom and was approved. My FICO according to the Chase approval was 632, which was a bit of a surprise, but made sense: no credit cards, and a credit report empty except for student loans. It also explained why I was rejected by AmEx.

Fast forward ten months. The student loans continue to be paid on time, I pay off the Chase in full every month. I reapply for the AmEx, expecting a denial and prepared to call them and ask for reconsideration, and I'm approved immediately. Just got the approval letter, and my FICO as of Monday is 739.

I am not complaining at all, but is it normal for one's score to move that quickly up (I can think of ways it could move that quickly down...), or should I suspect one of the two scores didn't properly account for something?
It was probably only "tentatively" low or something like that, since basically the only reason it's low is because UNCERTAINTY. And then they find out you're a decent bloke and heyyyy alright! I imagine if it were low because of unpaid debts, etc. then it wouldn't have gone up nearly as much.

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LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre
Without knowing your specific credit history, credit scores do wacky things when it has little data to work with. My guess is your utilization, history, and credit blend was making up most of your score and when that improved, so did your score.

Zeta Taskforce
Jun 27, 2002

SlightlyMadman posted:

If you have outstanding debt where the interest rate is greater than a reasonable long-term return on investment, it's generally a good idea to pay that down instead of saving.

Sort of. I agree 100% that you should always pay off the debt first. But if the rate on the loan is lower, you can still make a case that you pay the debt first. Paying off the loan is a guaranteed return vs an inherently riskier investment where nothing is guaranteed. Also, the danger is for things like student loans, the rates can be low enough and the payments stretched out enough, that if you are not careful you will turn 40 and still have them. Seeing how you probably started to get them when you were 18, those loans are now old enough to drink.

tzirean posted:

Last August, I applied for the AmEx Blue Cash Everyday and was denied, but applied for the Chase Freedom and was approved. My FICO according to the Chase approval was 632, which was a bit of a surprise, but made sense: no credit cards, and a credit report empty except for student loans. It also explained why I was rejected by AmEx.

Fast forward ten months. The student loans continue to be paid on time, I pay off the Chase in full every month. I reapply for the AmEx, expecting a denial and prepared to call them and ask for reconsideration, and I'm approved immediately. Just got the approval letter, and my FICO as of Monday is 739.

I am not complaining at all, but is it normal for one's score to move that quickly up (I can think of ways it could move that quickly down...), or should I suspect one of the two scores didn't properly account for something?

I look at credit scores all day and yes, it is uncommon for it to jump up that much in a short period of time, but with small balances on low credit lines, utilization can jump around a lot, and when you have very young credit, 10 months of additional credit history will have an impact on you in a way that someone with 15 years of credit history won’t experience.

But it’s not like that much really happened to you, good or bad in the last 10 months, and financially you are pretty much the same, so this is why I tell people that a credit score is not a measure of financial health. It tends to correlate, but it’s not the same thing.

disaster pastor
May 1, 2007


Thanks, everyone.

Zeta Taskforce posted:

But it’s not like that much really happened to you, good or bad in the last 10 months, and financially you are pretty much the same, so this is why I tell people that a credit score is not a measure of financial health. It tends to correlate, but it’s not the same thing.

Yeah, I agree completely, and I'm aware of what little a credit score means about someone in my situation. I was just really surprised to see it jump that far based on ten months with a $1000-limit card.

Daeus
Nov 17, 2001

Fancy_Lad posted:

We came to our current arrangement because, quite frankly, our spending and savings mentalities are vastly different and would be a major issue in our relationship if we had 100% joint "our money".

How does this work if you want to buy something for house such as furniture and someone wants really nice expensive furniture where as the other person agrees for the need of a couch but wants to go with the cheap functional option? What about if someone wants to add on a patio to the house and the other person doesn't care about adding it? Is this a joint or personal expense? When you then later sell the house would the person who paid for an imrpovement get some prorated amount back?

I can understand how in the short term, you can basically make any marriage work just as if you were roommates as you pretty much described (joint expenses are shared, everything else is each person's responsibility). But how does this work with the biggest events in life? What is there is a kid (planned or unplanned)? What if someone gets sick or in a car wreck and is in the hospital for a prolonged stay? What if someone loses their job for a period, or if someone wants to move to another city for a job and the other person will be out of work for a while. The biggest issue I see is if someone is a spender and someone is a saver, how do you think retirement will work? The spender will not be able to retire until much later or by taking a greater sacrifice in their lifestyle than the saver. What is the point of getting married if you aren't on the same page with these fundamentals?

Obviously everyone has their own guilty pleasures and if you can't or don't want to have a conversation about personal expenditures you could have a line in your joint budget for spending money for each person.

Nocheez
Sep 5, 2000

Can you spare a little cheddar?
Nap Ghost
The most important discussion I ever had with my wife was before we got married. We discussed what we wanted in the near future, in 5 years, in the long term. We also talked about if/when we wanted children, and what our core values were for raising them.
If you can't have that talk and be open to listening to your partner and wanting to find out if your goals are compatible, then you probably should not marry them. Eventually one of you will get very frustrated with the other, and I'm fairly certain this lack of communication and honesty is the cause of our pathetic divorce rate.

PretzelAssassin
Jul 23, 2006

jerman999 posted:

I'm a 22 year old federal employee maxing out my TSP and a Roth IRA. My agency just rolled out the Roth TSP option - preferable to the traditional TSP? Only problem I see is that the matching contributions have to go into the traditional rather than the Roth side, but seems like I'd still make out well in the end.

Roth is great, but keep in mind the Roth TSP will likely need a bit of tweaking. This is their first iteration of the rules, and there are some strange pieces, namely:
  • Your asset allocation (i.e. % into G, L, etc. funds is the same between the regular TSP and your Roth TSP)
  • When you make withdrawals, you can't withdraw just from the regular TSP account or from the Roth TSP account - your withdrawal will be proportionally taken from both, depending on the value of your regular and Roth accounts.

Aside from that, though, if you're 22 and already saving $17K+$5K in your retirement accounts, you should be doing fine when the rest of us are eating cat food.

Qaz Kwaz
Jul 24, 2003
What's your email? I've got some shitty posts that you NEED to read.
The idea of having separate "monies" when married is really odd to me. A previous poster put it best when he said it's all about effort. Some weeks I might be working more, but then my wife will do more household duties. When I work less this effort becomes more equal.

Here's our system:

4 bank accounts:
- Checking to pay bills
- My personal checking
- Her personal checking
- Joint savings

We do a zero-based budget at the start of the month, move all of the necessary bill payments into the bills checking account, take out cash for what we need for the month, give each one of us an equal "allowance", and move the leftover from our paychecks to savings. Our cash covers food, groceries, basic clothing, entertainment, etc. It's available to each of us equally. The allowance is just our personal blow money.

I almost always end up paying, but it doesn't matter, cause I'm just the one that grabbed the cash from the appropriate envelope. So far so good.

Fancy_Lad
May 15, 2003
Would you like to buy a monkey?

Daeus posted:

How does this work if you want to buy something for house such as furniture and someone wants really nice expensive furniture where as the other person agrees for the need of a couch but wants to go with the cheap functional option? What about if someone wants to add on a patio to the house and the other person doesn't care about adding it? Is this a joint or personal expense? When you then later sell the house would the person who paid for an imrpovement get some prorated amount back?

Real world examples:
I wanted a new TV when we moved into the new house, she didn't think it was necessary - it came out of my money. The new entertainment center we are looking for to accommodate the larger TV will be a joint purchase as we both agree it would look better .
We bought 2 new recliners in the place we used to live - she wanted some cheaper ones that looked nice, I found a couple name brand ones that were more expensive but looked sturdier. We decided jointly to go with the more expensive ones because I swayed her with my argument.
She wants to switch the 70s doors out to a more modern style, I don't care. We agree that it will add value to the house so it is a shared expense.
Could you please explain how in each of your examples above how the decisions would be any easier if we had 100 percent joint money? I can't figure out any advantage if that were the case and with individual pots of money we have the option to fund all or part of it yourself if we can't come to agreement instead of just arguing until one side gave in.


Daeus posted:

I can understand how in the short term, you can basically make any marriage work just as if you were roommates as you pretty much described (joint expenses are shared, everything else is each person's responsibility). But how does this work with the biggest events in life? What is there is a kid (planned or unplanned)? What if someone gets sick or in a car wreck and is in the hospital for a prolonged stay? What if someone loses their job for a period, or if someone wants to move to another city for a job and the other person will be out of work for a while.

In my post did specifically state these would be reasons our current system wouldn't work. If one of the above happened we would figure out how to deal with it by changing how we handle our finances - just like people with pooled money would as any of these scenarios would require at a minimum a major budget rework.

Daeus posted:

The biggest issue I see is if someone is a spender and someone is a saver, how do you think retirement will work? The spender will not be able to retire until much later or by taking a greater sacrifice in their lifestyle than the saver. What is the point of getting married if you aren't on the same page with these fundamentals?

This is the point of the financial reviews I mentioned- to make sure our long term goals are aligned. As an aside we have talked about including retirement savings as a joint expense but so far we haven't done so.

Daeus posted:

Obviously everyone has their own guilty pleasures and if you can't or don't want to have a conversation about personal expenditures you could have a line in your joint budget for spending money for each person.

Honestly this (any system where the couple has individual "funny money") is the same thing we do in practice, just our starting point is individual money that we pool instead of pooled monies that we split up. Other than that we have to make all the same talks about finances and our steering of them that a pooled couple would make. I wouldn't be surprised if our personal amounts are higher than most people, but we make good enough money that our joint expenses could be covered by either of us individually and we have no intent on having children.

Qaz Kwaz posted:

The idea of having separate "monies" when married is really odd to me. A previous poster put it best when he said it's all about effort. Some weeks I might be working more, but then my wife will do more household duties. When I work less this effort becomes more equal.

This I disagree with. If I made double what my wife made, I wouldn't expect her to do double the household chores by default. What if your partner has 3 jobs and still doesn't make as much money, would you expect them to also do more work at home?
edit: Rereading this are you meaning actual hours worked vs hours on housework as effort? If so I think I'd still disagree, but this is coming from a system where we personally gain benefit working more (more personal spending money) so that is where the balance is struck instead of an hour to hour type of "fairness" in the relationship. If we had the same amount of personal money then I could see where this idea comes from.

Fancy_Lad fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jul 1, 2012

Qaz Kwaz
Jul 24, 2003
What's your email? I've got some shitty posts that you NEED to read.
I'm not sure there's a way to quantify "household effort" like there is career work effort (dollars). If you worked and your wife didn't, would she expect you to contribute equally to the household work? Probably not. But you'd still be expected to do SOMETHING. I don't know a good way to handle that, but for us, it's just "don't be lazy".

I'm not really seeing the benefit in "your money" vs. "her money" because it seems like in the end you're spending the same amount of money overall, but you have more say in some decisions and she has more say in others. I guess that is the benefit. Rather than coming to an agreement for both people, whoever wants to use his/her fun money makes the decision.

Fancy_Lad
May 15, 2003
Would you like to buy a monkey?
I see what you are saying, and I understand it. We split household duties fairly evenly with her taking some things and I take others, it isn't really an hour to hour thing, just what we think is fair - she does laundry (takes more time), but I do dishes (a less pleasant job). Our personal money being ours allows me to make the decision to take on another job, or a side project, or heck invest my personal money above and beyond our retirement savings for additional income and get something personally out of it in addition to the benefits to us as a whole. This doesn't mean I get to slack on household chores, no matter if I'm working 100 hours a week or if I'm working 20 hours a week and a large portion of my income comes from my money working for me.

I suppose for us, since children are often a major driving force in bettering a family's financial position we like the incentive that making more money = more money to play with personally with the added benefit to the partner of them having to pay less dollar wise into the household income. I dunno... It works for us.

I just find it annoying when people make comments about how the only right way to do things is whatever their personal view on the right way is when the reality is that there are plenty of right answers - the only wrong answer is one that doesn't work for the couple (and the real point of my initial post: In order to figure that out, the couple needs to communicate frankly about their finances)

Fancy_Lad fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 1, 2012

Qaz Kwaz
Jul 24, 2003
What's your email? I've got some shitty posts that you NEED to read.

Fancy_Lad posted:

the only wrong answer is one that doesn't work for the couple (and the real point of my initial post: In order to figure that out, the couple needs to communicate frankly about their finances)

Exactly. It sounds like we both have systems that work for our families, but we only got there by communicating with each other.

Hufflepuff or bust!
Jan 28, 2005

I should have known better.
There's really no right or wrong way about this. If it works it works. The key thing to focus on is don't hold grudges, and communicate. These two things are linked: if you don't agree with spending/not spending, you need to talk about it rather than just stewing on it. Don't be lazy is a good addendum. Even if you don't think you should do dishes because you worked an extra shift at work or something, you should be focused on contributing to the household and making your spouse or partner happy. This is not to say that you should pour everything in and expect nothing back, but if both partners generally do this then everyone should be happy.

Daeus
Nov 17, 2001

Fancy_Lad posted:

Could you please explain how in each of your examples above how the decisions would be any easier if we had 100 percent joint money?
I don't see major purchasing decisions being any easier or harder (you talk to your spouse and decide). However when you are one family unit there is no need to constantly keep track of what is 'mine' vs. 'yours'.

Fancy_Lad posted:

Honestly this (any system where the couple has individual "funny money") is the same thing we do in practice, just our starting point is individual money that we pool instead of pooled monies that we split up.
Overall I agree with you on this, any blow-money type setup is essentially the same thing. I just can't imagine being in a lifelong relationship where I wasn't comfortable enough with the person and their spending habits that we would have to to separate finances.

Fancy_Lad posted:

This is the point of the financial reviews I mentioned- to make sure our long term goals are aligned. As an aside we have talked about including retirement savings as a joint expense but so far we haven't done so.
You said you have long-term reviews and I'm genuinely interested in what they consist of. The simple math is that if one person is a saver, and another in a spender, you will not be able to retire at the same time with the same standard of living. How do you reconcile that fact with your retirement goals? Do you have one joint retirement plan or do you each have your own? How do you calculate your target goals and if you are meeting them?

Fancy_Lad
May 15, 2003
Would you like to buy a monkey?

Daeus posted:

I don't see major purchasing decisions being any easier or harder (you talk to your spouse and decide). However when you are one family unit there is no need to constantly keep track of what is 'mine' vs. 'yours'.

I'm still curious on how if one person wants a reasonable sized purchase and the other thinks it isn't a good use of money, how is it a better scenario to either disappoint the one who wants it or the one who finds it wasteful to have to give in? Talking about it is step 1, but you can't tell me that every single expenditure has ended up with both either 100% for or 100% against it. It seems like this has the potential for long term damage to the relationship if it goes unchecked.

This conversation early in our relationship was the catalyst for us to come up with our current plan. We decided to play it the way we thought was safe and just avoid the potential outright.

Daeus posted:

Overall I agree with you on this, any blow-money type setup is essentially the same thing. I just can't imagine being in a lifelong relationship where I wasn't comfortable enough with the person and their spending habits that we would have to to separate finances.

If you are unable to comprehend on some level why the idea of each partner having the freedom to choose entirely how to spend some portion of money could be attractive, then I have no idea what to say other than I don't think you and I would be a good match financially :D


Daeus posted:

You said you have long-term reviews and I'm genuinely interested in what they consist of. The simple math is that if one person is a saver, and another in a spender, you will not be able to retire at the same time with the same standard of living. How do you reconcile that fact with your retirement goals? Do you have one joint retirement plan or do you each have your own? How do you calculate your target goals and if you are meeting them?

We each have separate retirement accounts through our jobs (neither has switched companies since starting them). We also have separate IRA accounts. I completely see this changing down the road since we are a long way out, but currently the plan is to treat retirement income like any other income - complete with the percentage going the household expenses account, etc.
When we have talked about making the retirement income a household expense, the idea was that we would treat it as joint income so it would go towards joint expenses and perhaps we would get a chunk of it for individual purchases? The problem is how exactly do you figure out a fair (in the context of how we handle money) way to do this. Admittedly it isn't all that fleshed out, but we figure the important part is that we are contributing large amounts (maxing Roth IRAs, at least 10% to 401 - likely more next year) and we can iron out the details later.

If you haven't noticed, it isn't like we have a spreadsheet to account down to the last penny for everything and call up the lawyers if we are a bit off. The concept of tax time alone would drive us insane if we tried it. Rounding numbers, a little float here and there, and not fixating on the small stuff is how we do it - We are married after all. ;)

Avellon
Feb 19, 2011
I am looking for some advice as to wether it would be a good idea to take out an aditional Federal Direct Unsubisidized loan for this upcoming college year to pay off some current student loans that are in repayment.

A little background: I am currently working full time and will be going back to school part time at a community college. The cost for the fall and spring will be about $1500 per semester. I filled out a FAFSA and accepted the Direct Subsidized loan for aprox. $1700 per semester which would cover all my college for the year.

I also have the option of accepting about 1700 per semester this year in unsibsidized loans. With Federal direct loans locked at 3.4% for the meantime, would it be wise to use them now to pay off some other student loans I have from a few years ago when I was attending college?

I have a few out right now in repayment

Loan 1: $1600 at 6.0%
Loan 2: $4800 at 6.0%
Loan 3: $7600 at 6.0%

I was thinking of using the aprox. $3400 to pay off completley loan 1 and some of loan 2 or 3. Is this a stupid idea or would it effectivley be like refinancing?

Daeus
Nov 17, 2001

Fancy_Lad posted:

If you are unable to comprehend on some level why the idea of each partner having the freedom to choose entirely how to spend some portion of money could be attractive, then I have no idea what to say other than I don't think you and I would be a good match financially :D

Agreed! Always interesting to see how other people do it. I'm still not convinced how well your system plays out in the long term, but to each their own :toot:

Hufflepuff or bust!
Jan 28, 2005

I should have known better.

Avellon posted:

I am looking for some advice as to wether it would be a good idea to take out an aditional Federal Direct Unsubisidized loan for this upcoming college year to pay off some current student loans that are in repayment.

A little background: I am currently working full time and will be going back to school part time at a community college. The cost for the fall and spring will be about $1500 per semester. I filled out a FAFSA and accepted the Direct Subsidized loan for aprox. $1700 per semester which would cover all my college for the year.

I also have the option of accepting about 1700 per semester this year in unsibsidized loans. With Federal direct loans locked at 3.4% for the meantime, would it be wise to use them now to pay off some other student loans I have from a few years ago when I was attending college?

I have a few out right now in repayment

Loan 1: $1600 at 6.0%
Loan 2: $4800 at 6.0%
Loan 3: $7600 at 6.0%

I was thinking of using the aprox. $3400 to pay off completley loan 1 and some of loan 2 or 3. Is this a stupid idea or would it effectivley be like refinancing?

This is, I believe, technically against the terms of the loans. But I'd still do it (as long as the rate on the direct loans is indeed fixed and not variable)

canyoneer
Sep 13, 2005


I only have canyoneyes for you

kaishek posted:

This is, I believe, technically against the terms of the loans.

This is a big deal. I know a guy who's on year two of a three year prison sentence for using the overage from student loans to start a business. However, per DOE:
"Federal student loans can be used to pay school expenses such as tuition and fees, room and board, books, supplies and transportation."

If you go to school in the US, you're probably spending more than $1500/semester for these things.

I believe the unsubsidized loans are at 6.8%, and you usually pay a 2% origination fee, so this doesn't really sound like a bargain to pay off loans at 6% each. Also, your 6.8% new loan will accrue/capitalize interest from day one (not just when you start repayment.) If you can make the minimum payments without selling organs, don't take out an unsub'd loan.

Avellon
Feb 19, 2011
Thanks for the advice guys. I thought as much. It's probably better I don't rely on more debt to pay debt anyway.

intrapenous
Jun 21, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Is there a megathread for ways to live without working? If not, does anyone have any ideas here? Like how to get on permanent disability, the most generous states, little-known government aid programs, etc.?

Dead Pressed
Nov 11, 2009

intrapenous posted:

Is there a megathread for ways to live without working? If not, does anyone have any ideas here? Like how to get on permanent disability, the most generous states, little-known government aid programs, etc.?

Everything you need to know: http://www.amazon.com/Free-Money-They-Dont-About/dp/0981989713

Also, :frogout:

FCKGW
May 21, 2006

intrapenous posted:

Is there a megathread for ways to live without working? If not, does anyone have any ideas here? Like how to get on permanent disability, the most generous states, little-known government aid programs, etc.?

Just contact this guy:



If you legitimately in need of financial assistance though, check out these sites:
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Benefits.shtml
http://publications.usa.gov/USAPubs.php

intrapenous
Jun 21, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post

FCKGW posted:

If you legitimately in need of financial assistance though, check out these sites:
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Benefits.shtml
http://publications.usa.gov/USAPubs.php

Thanks. And also thanks to whoever gave me my new title.

Anyway, has anyone here ever been on disability for a mental illness? Do you need to get a disability lawyer to help you through the process?

Eggplant Wizard
Jul 8, 2005


i loev catte

intrapenous posted:

Thanks. And also thanks to whoever gave me my new title.

Anyway, has anyone here ever been on disability for a mental illness? Do you need to get a disability lawyer to help you through the process?

Yes, you can actually be on disability for mental illness. You definitely need a formal diagnosis and a lot of paper work, I would think. I also doubt that e.g. depression would do it. You probably have to be schizophrenic or really really unable to work with others type disabled.

Sophia
Apr 16, 2003

The heart wants what the heart wants.
There are different laws for different states, but the increase in fraudulent disability claims in poor economic times, especially for things like mental illness or fibromyalgia, may either cause extra scrutiny or make it easier for an application to go unchallenged. Getting a lawyer is never a bad move, and it's an even better move when you are entering murky legal territory like you seem to want to do, though I imagine he or she will say you were pretty dumb for posting on a message board that you were essentially looking for easy ways to defraud the government.

Zeta Taskforce
Jun 27, 2002

intrapenous posted:

Thanks. And also thanks to whoever gave me my new title.

Anyway, has anyone here ever been on disability for a mental illness? Do you need to get a disability lawyer to help you through the process?

I might have missed something. So why are you entitled to my tax dollars again? Perhaps you are, I’m not saying that as a tea party jerk. I’m perfectly happy that some of my tax dollars go to heating assistance so old people don’t freeze in their houses and that single parents can give their kids nutritious food. Just curious why you are unable to provide for yourself though.

Edit: Looks like I need to wait 3 days for an answer.

zelah
Dec 1, 2004

Diabetes, you are not invited to my pizza party.
Mental illnesses are real disabilities and no less deserving of assistance. Hopefully they just have a real weird way of wording things and are just trying to make a very difficult process easier.

Remy Marathe
Mar 15, 2007

_________===D ~ ~ _\____/

You guys need to put on your fakepost glasses or something.

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so
Does anyone have a chart or something that details what percent of income is withheld with the different claimed allowances?

Remy Marathe
Mar 15, 2007

_________===D ~ ~ _\____/

PRADA SLUT posted:

Does anyone have a chart or something that details what percent of income is withheld with the different claimed allowances?
You'll probably find one in here (links to PDF):
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Remy Marathe posted:

You'll probably find one in here (links to PDF):
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf

I'll check it out. I'm trying to crunch numbers to determine if I should claim more. Ultimately I'd like to get $0 back as a tax return (even if I pay a little bit), because I can defer that money into an investment account in the mean time.

Effexxor
May 26, 2008

MrKatharsis posted:

It will definitely calm down once you're on a written budget. I found that rewriting my budget over and over in different ways(week/month/year/in/out) until I understood every aspect definitely eased a lot of anxiety. When I ran out of different ways to group expenses, I would write down a "better days" wish list. I'll never throw out that pad of graph paper. It's a dog-eared reminder of how horrible being in debt was.

I'm checking back just to say that I do feel 10x better actually having the budget, mostly just because I feel more supported about money. I made a mint.com account and it's incredibly helpful to see everything catagorized and to actually see where the money was going.

Also, I got back onto my ADHD meds and am seeing a psychiatrist, which helps even more than anything.

rndm
Aug 31, 2001

:dukedog:
Hello

I'm going to be starting a business of my own. I will be running a hookah lounge here in Las Vegas. I have money saved up in my 401k, can I use that money interest free to invest into my business and pay it back over time? Or is taking a loan out from the bank a better idea?

balancedbias
May 2, 2009
$$$$$$$$$

rndm posted:

Hello

I'm going to be starting a business of my own. I will be running a hookah lounge here in Las Vegas. I have money saved up in my 401k, can I use that money interest free to invest into my business and pay it back over time? Or is taking a loan out from the bank a better idea?

Somehow, I think using your retirement money for something that A) is not retirement and B) has a high probability of failure (not saying you're bad at it, that's just the statistical likelihood) is a bad idea. Get your business plan in order, get some backers, check out the startup thread, connect with at least an accountant and an attorney, and by Odin's beard create a separate account for this stuff!

berzerker
Aug 18, 2004
"If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."
Finally switching from Bank of America to USAA, which means both savings and checking account. I also have a Bank of America credit card I almost literally never use (no rewards, meanwhile I have a good Capital One rewards card). That whole 'never close a credit card' thing is mostly minor in terms of credit score, right? I'd prefer to just be done with them and not worry about them deciding I owe them fees for some invented reason down the line.

RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS
Dec 21, 2010

berzerker posted:

That whole 'never close a credit card' thing is mostly minor in terms of credit score, right?

It depends, but if it's your oldest one, no.

In any case, what fees would they charge you? It doesn't seem like a big risk -- the real money is in fees charged to ill-informed customers, not people paying attention. If you don't use a card at all sometimes they'll close it on you, though.

Zeta Taskforce
Jun 27, 2002

berzerker posted:

Finally switching from Bank of America to USAA, which means both savings and checking account. I also have a Bank of America credit card I almost literally never use (no rewards, meanwhile I have a good Capital One rewards card). That whole 'never close a credit card' thing is mostly minor in terms of credit score, right? I'd prefer to just be done with them and not worry about them deciding I owe them fees for some invented reason down the line.

Just close it, even if it is the oldest. If you never use it and its been a long time since you used it, it's an inactive account meaning it isn't counting too much one way or another. We can discuss how much it affects your score. Payment history is about 35%, utilization is 25%. Inquiries are 10%. Closing it won't affect your payment history, unless you have a big credit line and everything else is maxed out, it won't affect utilization much. It won't affect inquiries. Age of credit is about 15%, so it could affect that some. The rest of your score is some vague thing called credit mixture. Pretty much it looks better if you have loans AND credit cards and you don't have too few or too many of each. It's hard to say what effect closing it will have here, but it won't be huge either way. All together it might be a 10 to 15 point hit in the short term and it will quickly recover.

But the larger point is that if there is a company that you hate doing business with you shouldn't let some algorithm developed by a private company force you to keep doing business with them. Especially since this is an inactive account, you might not be monitoring it that close when they do decide to start charging a fee, or it got compromised, or they hosed it up in any number of ways, and suddenly there is a balance that you don't know about.

The only exception is if you are trying to do something like refinance a house or you are going for a job in banking or the finance sector where they will check your credit, AND your credit is sort of marginal right now, I would keep it open for now.

Gaff Tape
Dec 31, 2005
Black sticky absorbant bliss.
First summer out of college (age 22) and looking for a second opinion as to what to do with my finances:

I'm currently employed by a small business in NYC in which I earn $48,000/yr, paid once a month. I started in May, so within 90 days of the start date I will also have a 401k and my insurance ($250/mo) covered (September of this year).

Current expenses:
$1,000/mo rent
$125/mo utilities
$70/mo rock gym membership (this is a leisure item, not getting rid of it)
$250/mo automatically sent to my savings account

I work in the events industry so my food fluctuates based on how much time I have to cook - I'd guess I spend between $200-$400/mo on food (this feels way high)

Everything left over at that point (around $1100-1300 depending on food) gets shuffled into either more savings and student loans, plus the occasional splurge (just dropped $200 on some new clothes and climbing shoes)

Debts:
$23,750 in student loans, first payment due 12/16 of this year - already paid about $5,000 off from the original $29,000 through my own income and help from my family (which will continue at around $1,000/mo until the loans are paid)

Current assets:
$15,000 in a savings account (ING)
$500 in an ING sharebuilder account

I'm interested in finding a new place to live at potentially a $1,200/mo level - not sure if I should wait until I either get a raise or my loans are paid off for that, though.
Our company 401k is a "Safe Harbor" type - as my GM explained it gives 3% of our annual salary regardless of what we put into it - so do I match that 3% out of my own funds once it's up and running?

I feel like I'm running at like 4% efficiency with how I manage my paychecks - they get deposited, I immediately send money into savings, student loans, rent, and bills, and then find myself looking for stuff to splurge on with the remaning grand or so. I keep my checking account at around $1k-$2k, but am wondering if it would be better to leave it at less and keep excess money somewhere else?

Also wondering what to do come tax time, as I am definitely in a higher income bracket than last year (made $17k vs this year's $48k or more, as I was freelancing prior to this job and made approximately $23k before getting hired in May, which before taxes says I earned just over $50k). Is this where I start itemizing everything and keeping receipts for tools, work clothes, etc?

Thanks guys

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Harry
Jun 13, 2003

I do solemnly swear that in the year 2015 I will theorycraft my wallet as well as my WoW
You're probably not going to start itemizing. I can't really tell how much you made freelancing, is it 23k or 50k? You can go ahead and dump all your money into the student loans, but you might want to do a Roth and some 401k anyway if the interest rate is low enough.

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