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asmallrabbit posted:I think you should keep in mind that its not very likely that your net worth is going to match your total income or usually be very close. When you consider a good portion of peoples spending is consumable items like food, clothes, hygenic products etc that are necessary but can't be tracked as assets. Of course, and all those numbers for income were gross as well, so you can take like 20% off just for taxes. But still. I didn't eat food or use shampoo or pay rent to the tune of $187 500 over 14 years (really, over six years since the first eight were paltry). And if I had, that would be pretty hosed up. I think the point, for me, is to realize two things: that I have quite a bit of power to bring money into my life (and I could increase this power fairly easily), and that spending all that money has done very little to contribute to my satisfaction with my life. I could add a zero to that number and there would be very little difference in my quality of life or net satisfaction at this point. So I have to try something else, because obviously spending didn't help, and I already have made and make more than enough money for all of my actual needs.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:20
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In calculating your net worth, it would be fair to include your military pension in your assets. It IS a contribution to your retirement savings that has a decent dollar value tied to it.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:50
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Calculating your net worth as a percentage of your total lifetime income is a terrible, meaningless metric. Seriously - I know the feeling of looking at your tax return and thinking "Where the gently caress did this cash go?", but looking back that way isn't going to help you. Concentrate on what's coming in and what's going out, and your present net worth. Lifetime earning is pretty mch a meaningless number in practice.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:00
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CanadianSuperKing posted:In calculating your net worth, it would be fair to include your military pension in your assets. It IS a contribution to your retirement savings that has a decent dollar value tied to it. Good point. I actually contacted the federal government pension people to inquire about it. The pension is a huge mysterious black box for CF members. Nobody knows their balance or controls what goes in or comes out or where it's invested or anything. It's crazy. And it takes weeks to even get an account balance! I'll let you guys know when I get my info, and there are several planning considerations that we can go into at that point.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:07
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FrozenVent posted:Calculating your net worth as a percentage of your total lifetime income is a terrible, meaningless metric. Seriously - I know the feeling of looking at your tax return and thinking "Where the gently caress did this cash go?", but looking back that way isn't going to help you. Agreeing with this completely. Looking back at money you spent on a candybar when you were 8 isn't going to give you any deep financial insight. Concentrate on changing the situation you're in now rather than overanalyzing your lifetime financial history. Otherwise, it'll only serve to overwhelm and depress you.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:32
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Nether Postlude posted:Agreeing with this completely. Looking back at money you spent on a candybar when you were 8 isn't going to give you any deep financial insight. Concentrate on changing the situation you're in now rather than overanalyzing your lifetime financial history. Otherwise, it'll only serve to overwhelm and depress you. Disagree. Debt is a function of past choices, and any time that Tuyop spends reflecting (not bemoaning)to find patterns that can help him make better choices in the future will be time well spent.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:47
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bam thwok posted:Disagree. Debt is a function of past choices, and any time that Tuyop spends reflecting (not bemoaning)to find patterns that can help him make better choices in the future will be time well spent. A pattern over a year can be meaningful, a pattern over a life time isn't - too much variation in income and life situation. I took about six months off work to work on my degree; while I didn't go in debt at any point, this would undoubtedly skew the results negatively. My degree isn't a financial asset, after all. (Neither is rent, this is what leads to the "throwing money away every month!!!!!" myth.) At the same time, buying a boat increased my resilient asset value by about 10k, but holy poo poo was it the worst financial decision ever in the long term. Year end's review is a good practice, review of asset vs total income to date is a completely meaningless practice.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:58
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Hey we got our late-filed tax return back. Toeshoes got around $900 and I got $61.25. I'm never filing on time again! Also, this pays for our ridiculously lavish sushi outing last weekend AND will probably be turned into a countertop aquaponic garden, gently caress the haters.
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Nov 8, 2012 16:41
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That's not how you're supposed to be thinking of sudden "windfalls". You might not have been expecting it, but that doesn't mean you should spend it all frivolously when you get it.
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Nov 8, 2012 18:04
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tuyop posted:Hey we got our late-filed tax return back. Toeshoes got around $900 and I got $61.25. I'm never filing on time again! God bless us, everyone. 
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Nov 8, 2012 18:04
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What happened to the tax return you didn't file and owe the CRA around $500 on? It was 2011, not this one, wasn't it?
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Nov 8, 2012 18:11
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bam thwok posted:Disagree. Debt is a function of past choices, and any time that Tuyop spends reflecting (not bemoaning)to find patterns that can help him make better choices in the future will be time well spent. I agree with you. Personal finance isn’t just math, money in vs. money out. The parallels with being in shape are uncanny. If someone has an eating disorder, you don’t tell them to stop and cure yourself. If they want to get healthy, they need to evaluate their relationship with food. Likewise we need to evaluate our relationship with money, and that is not the same thing as saying spend less of it. Sure, you can bring it to absurd levels of the 8 year old buying a candy bar, but looking back over your adult life is an exercise worth doing. People have noted that tuyop goes through manic levels of overspending on questionable things followed by guilt about it leading into self deprivation of actual needs looping back through splurging when the suffering is too much. It sort of makes sense that if you felt deprived for 20 years, the moment you got into money you went on the mother of all benders, and you are still living with the echo’s of it today. Please tell me that you are not spending $900 on an indoor aquaponic setup.
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Nov 8, 2012 18:51
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tuyop posted:Hey we got our late-filed tax return back. Toeshoes got around $900 and I got $61.25. I'm never filing on time again! Will you be able to transport it when you move out? poo poo, will you even have enough time to grow something by then?
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Nov 8, 2012 18:56
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This was the -500 dollar tax return. Fortunately a nice public servant at CRA reviewed my numbers and found out that I'm an idiot.  I should have indicated that I was joking in there somewhere, regarding the splurging on anything. We'll probably actually just put the money on a credit card or in the bank for the e fund. I mean, absolutely nothing has changed from this "windfall". It doesn't even get us a full month closer to debt free.
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Nov 8, 2012 19:11
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That's a good plan, IIRC Toeshoes should be able to get rid of almost 1/3 of her debt if that's what she uses her refund for. Good news for you not having to pay $500, too.
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Nov 8, 2012 19:16
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tuyop posted:I should have indicated that I was joking in there somewhere, regarding the splurging on anything. It's kind of hard to tell when you're joking considering you buy a lot of stupid poo poo. Like $300 bike shoes.
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Nov 8, 2012 19:55
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zeta taskforce posted:People have noted that tuyop goes through manic levels of overspending on questionable things followed by guilt about it leading into self deprivation of actual needs looping back through splurging when the suffering is too much As a certified crazy person, he sounds incredibly bipolar, and should probably go see a doctor about it. I did similar things for years until I got on drugs and gained an understanding the reason I wanted something, bought it, then freaked out about it and over-corrected was that I had a brain problem, not that I just did that, because hey, everyone does. It's taken an enormous amount of time to cope with my crazy, but it's now at the point where I can take a rational view of something I'm thinking or wanting to go buy/do and can generally do a pretty good job telling the difference between something nutty (BASIL) and reasonable (small herb growing pot on a counter). And if I can't, the wife generally can slap me upside the head when I start talking about living in a yurt in Montana with goats, or whatever.
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Nov 8, 2012 20:04
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Well I've seen a lot of professionals at this point and nobody has mentioned bipolar disorder on the list of problems I've got. I think what happens, now that I've spent a lot of time being introspective, is I spend the week feeling incredibly negative and upset and guilty because my job is poo poo and therefore I must be poo poo and so on, then the weekend comes and I experience this flood of joy from being able to run more, being around toeshoes, and we make exciting plans and operate like cool, can-do people. The influx of joy from all that time spent not hating my job makes me lose sight of how brutal our finances are sometimes and I buy 300 dollar bike shoes because I forget that my debt is a total emergency and ongoing crisis. I bet I could correlate nearly all of my consumer spending with long weekends. The good news is that, in less than 12 months, I get to be in a situation to incorporate that joy into more of every day! And in the meantime I can spend literally all of my time learning stoic philosophy and personal finance. Who else has 10 hours a day to learn how to care for their body and spouse and finances while making 38k net?
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Nov 8, 2012 21:05
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tuyop posted:Well I've seen a lot of professionals at this point and nobody has mentioned bipolar disorder on the list of problems I've got. Right, and my point is you don't have 'normal' highs and 'normal' lows. You cycle between $300 bike shoes and BASIL and then you cycle into wanting to live out of your car. Your average person doesn't have a bad day and decide living in a car is a reasonable solution, and on the other hand, they don't have a good day and decide building a grow-farm or $300 bike shoes is reasonable either.
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Nov 8, 2012 21:24
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I found a random $542 deposit from CRA in my account. I didn't think that I qualified for the GST credit. Any Canadian tax ninjas know what it could be? I put it on a credit card.
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Nov 10, 2012 00:58
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tuyop posted:I found a random $542 deposit from CRA in my account. I didn't think that I qualified for the GST credit. Any Canadian tax ninjas know what it could be?  I guess you didn't think to call the CRA and ask them before you took it out of your account? You do realize if you're not entitled to that money you have to pay it back, it's not like CRA is going to let you keep free money because they screwed up? ALWAYS check to make sure "free money" is actually yours BEFORE you spend it.
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Nov 10, 2012 01:34
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HookShot posted:
I called them, got run through a bunch of menus for 25 minutes, gave up and put it on debt. It's not like the money is gone. If it gets clawed back in three months, well that's three months of interest on that 542 bucks that I essentially didn't have to pay. In the past, like when I once got overpaid by 3600 bucks in 2008, I spent a lot of it before asking what had happened and just thought it was a random entitlement. I learned my lesson to the tune of 115 bucks a pay for a few months. The next year when I got overpaid TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS, I asked before I touched that poo poo because OBVIOUSLY something was wrong. Turns out a corporal put an extra zero on a form by accident.
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Nov 10, 2012 01:42
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tuyop posted:I found a random $542 deposit from CRA in my account. I didn't think that I qualified for the GST credit. Any Canadian tax ninjas know what it could be? http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/myaccount/
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Nov 10, 2012 01:57
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tuyop posted:I called them, got run through a bunch of menus for 25 minutes, gave up and put it on debt. It's not like the money is gone. If it gets clawed back in three months, well that's three months of interest on that 542 bucks that I essentially didn't have to pay. This is fair enough, but what if when that $542 gets clawed back you don't have that kind of money in your account? You'll get charged $35 for overdrafting, as well as interest until you get your account back in the black, and that absolutely will eat whatever interest you earned and then some. It's not hard to find the right phone number you want at CRA, call them, and find out why you've got that money. Hell, just call ANY number and just make sure you get put through to SOMEONE and that person will put you through where you want to be.
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Nov 10, 2012 02:43
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HookShot posted:This is fair enough, but what if when that $542 gets clawed back you don't have that kind of money in your account? You'll get charged $35 for overdrafting, as well as interest until you get your account back in the black, and that absolutely will eat whatever interest you earned and then some. That's not how the CRA works; they don't hit your account unless they get a garnish order from a court and they have to demonstrate a repeated refusal to pay to a judge before they can get that. If he was paid in error or gets reassessed they'll just issue him a new assessment and divert all future refunds and/or payments to that amount owed until they're even.
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Nov 10, 2012 03:25
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Yeah this is  . He'll get a letter from CRA saying that they regret to inform that there has been an error, please send us a check as soon as convenient (IE now, before we are regretfully forced to hit you with fees) and we once again apologize for the error.P.S. send us the cash now
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Nov 10, 2012 04:00
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Welp, this is what I get for never having any weird problems with the CRA, I thought they just re-withdrew the payment through the bank.
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Nov 10, 2012 05:17
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Oh man, don't get me started on dealing with loving My Account. Between changing addresses six times in the past six years (so many postal codes!), some kind of problem with one of my tax forms from some point in my life, and my general unluckiness with any bureaucratic process, I have NEVER gotten My Account to work properly. I've done the whole emergency reset thing like four times: 1. Try to login. Fail. Use recover password even though I only use one loving password so I know I haven't forgotten it. 2. Recover password fails, call CRA. 3. CRA tries to recreate an account for me, but they can't because one already exists for my SIN/Postal Code/whatever. 4. CRA then sends me a letter with some special code that will fix everything. They send it to, inevitably, the wrong address. The code expires either before I get it or I just never get it. The last code thing I tried eight weeks ago now. I'm patient.
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Nov 10, 2012 15:09
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tuyop posted:Between changing addresses six times in the past six years (so many postal codes!), some kind of problem with one of my tax forms from some point in my life, and my general unluckiness with any bureaucratic process, I have NEVER gotten My Account to work properly. Your propensity for whining is really quite amazing. I don't mean to imply "bootstraps" or anything like that, but life is full of administrative hoops to jump through. It's on you to figure that poo poo out, and from listening to your horror stories, I get the sense that it's YOUR tendency to give no fucks that is paying dividends now. For instance, there was a time in my life when I moved just as frequently as you have, but I was always sure to put in change of address forms, and notify the entities I do business with. It's not that I enjoy logging in to a hundred poorly-designed servicing websites, but rather that I know it's going to come back and gently caress me later if I don't. Similarly, taxes. You're hardly unique in your hatred for them, but guess what! You have do your loving taxes. Either leave money on the table to get through it quickly, or pay someone to understand it all for you, but you can't just ignore it. Basically, I get that your life sucks and I'm sorry about/entertained by your ongoing saga of clusterfuckery, but some of that's on you. You need to understand the machinations of the bureaucracies around you, or they will continue to gently caress you in new and exciting ways. This is part of what's called "being an adult." Shrugging your shoulders and muttering under your breath isn't going to help you.
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Nov 11, 2012 20:33
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Kobayashi posted:This is part of what's called "being an adult." Shrugging your shoulders and muttering under your breath isn't going to help you. Congratulations, you are the best adult. Tuyop is clearly trying, you're giving him poo poo over something small, it was hardly worth spending the time reading your post.
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Nov 12, 2012 04:12
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ToeShoes posted:Congratulations, you are the best adult. Lots of people have issues with payments and misplaced funds. The actual responsible people who want an easier life work towards sorting that poo poo out. The Tuyops of the world give it a half assed effort to do the right thing and go ahead and do the dumb thing anyway. If he didn't want to deal with the taxman or the taxman's switchboard he should have erred on the side of caution and not have hosed around with the funds.
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Nov 12, 2012 15:01
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In Tuyop's situation he did the right thing though. They aren't going to auto-draft the money from his account, and he reduced his interest payment on his card until they eventually A) figure out they overpaid him and ask for the money back, which he can pay and just put an equivalent amount on his card that month and come out ahead, or B) do nothing since the money was his anyway. It'd be good for him to figure it out just from a financial planning perspective but doing what he did seems to have 0 downside. Remember, they won't autodraft the money, they'll ask him for it and he can pay in the way that best makes sense.
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Nov 12, 2012 18:39
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Canada is a magical place. The IRS would over draft your account and then throw you in jail until they repoed and sold your Basil inventory.
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Nov 13, 2012 12:42
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So what do you guys think of tiny houses?  poo poo costs like 40k in materials to build. Obviously this is not something that we're going to do this week, more like a plan for the next two years or so, once we get out of debt and start saving some real money. But we realized that we already have more than enough space with this 510 square foot apartment, and we only use about 350 square feet of it on a daily basis, so one of these houses would be absolutely perfect for us. We'd probably build it on a piece of land in Nova Scotia somewhere outside of Bridgewater. So, other than the lack of basil room (  ), what do you think?
tuyop fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Nov 20, 2012 |
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Nov 20, 2012 00:56
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If you think you can cook in a 7x7 kitchen every day without wanting to commit suicide, you're wrong.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:04
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The Proc posted:If you think you can cook in a 7x7 kitchen every day without wanting to commit suicide, you're wrong. Not to mention with all the BASIL around he'll have all sorts of cravings to cook.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:10
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Dusseldorf posted:Not to mention with all the BASIL around he'll have all sorts of cravings to cook. It's the same size as our current kitchen and I'm happy to cook there. It's much better than the last one which was 4x6, with one wall taken up entirely by a sink.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:13
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tuyop posted:So what do you guys think of tiny houses? 1. Do you have the time/skills/equipment to build that yourselves? 2. How much would the land cost to place it? 3. Do you ever think you'll have kids? Even if you don't, and just grow tired of such a small place yourselves, I imagine re-sale could be difficult.
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Nov 20, 2012 01:48
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Does Toeshoes plan on staying in the army? Because you do realize "army kids" exist for a reason, right? Hell, my dad was only in the air force for the first seven or so years of my life and we moved three times. Also your current kitchen is open concept, whereas this one is enclosed, and that would make a HUGE difference to how nice it is to cook in. Also this is a terrible idea in general. You have AFAIK absolutely no construction skills whatsoever.
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Nov 20, 2012 02:00
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Just wait to see what the thread thinks when we hear that the house slipped into a creek.
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Nov 20, 2012 02:55
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