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Yea didn't do that. Granted I graduated right during the beginning of our financial meltdown in 2009 so I was scared to put my money anywhere. I'm not even sure how it got divided up really, I think I spent about half of it having fun after college. We had Richard Kiyosaki come to our school and someone asked him what he would do with such a loan, he said he wouldn't even take it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on ya'lls reasoning here: By waiting longer, due to inflation, the original loan of 32,500 will be in closer to 35,500 by the time its due to be paid off in 2014 (I used annual average inflation rates). The actual amount that I will have to pay back though based on 0.5% interest is only about 33,500 though. That means I would have gained ~2000 in five years. Or about $30/month. Is this math right? Shouldn't what I'm paying back be affected by inflation as well? I'm confused.
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Apr 10, 2013 08:06
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That's correct if you save/invest instead of blowing it on fun. Being in the military, you can count on regular pay increases so that's another argument in favor of delaying payoff. However, everyone has already forgotten that you've paid it down to $8200 and that you only have 15 months left. The loan could accumulate $50 in interest during that time, and only if you didn't make payments. If you had $8200 in some bond/stock/CD fund and got a 5% return, you'd make $500 in 15 months. The excitement of making a whole $450 by allowing an unsecured loan to hang over one's head may appeal to some, but it doesn't to me. I would stress about loss of income, accidental missed payments, et cetera. Some view unsecured debt as a permanent portion of their budget to be managed. These people keep throwing out scenarios where they can somehow come out ahead by investing the borrowed money instead of blowing it on furniture or pokemon cards. I have never met a person who actually did this. edit: VVVV That's what I meant to say. MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Apr 10, 2013 |
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Apr 10, 2013 13:46
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Fish Shalami posted:Yea didn't do that. Granted I graduated right during the beginning of our financial meltdown in 2009 so I was scared to put my money anywhere. I'm not even sure how it got divided up really, I think I spent about half of it having fun after college. We had Richard Kiyosaki come to our school and someone asked him what he would do with such a loan, he said he wouldn't even take it. It's also okay to pay it off so it's paid off and you don't have to think about it anymore.
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Apr 10, 2013 13:50
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Yeah, I wasn't trying to suggest that he made a mistake by paying it off instead of investing it, I was just blown away buy a .5% loan.
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Apr 10, 2013 14:01
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^^^^ Agreed (about paying it off). I forgot USAA did those, that's pretty awesome. When I asked about the fund, I meant why are you putting money in it? That fund is appropriate for a long term investment, and the best place for long term investments is inside your 401k or IRA unless (1) you're out of space there or (2) you won't need the money for 20 years or so but you will need it before the age when you can access the retirement accounts. Or (3) something else I haven't thought of yet? If you are saving for house purchase or something in the next 5-10 years, that fund is a bad place to do it (in my opinion of course, but it's a high risk thing to do).
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Apr 10, 2013 14:03
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He has a $27,000 emergency fund. He doesn't need to worry about it and almost anything would be a better move than paying it off.
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Apr 10, 2013 14:44
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Harry posted:He has a $27,000 emergency fund. He doesn't need to worry about it and almost anything would be a better move than paying it off. This is the Newbie Personal Finance thread, not the Let's Play Inflation-gaming thread. I know it's not super duper risky or anything, but this is definitely not the place for "almost anything would be a better move than paying off [huge debt]." I get the argument, but seriously. Step back.
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Apr 10, 2013 15:53
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This might be slightly off topic for this thread but I'm hoping that someone can give me some advice. So this morning I received a call from a hospital bill debt collector and he said that I had an outstanding bill of $600 from getting blood work done in October of last year. I never receive these types of calls since I am very good about my finances so I was surprised. I remember going to my family doctor last year in October, paying a $30 co-pay, and getting blood work done and getting a prescription for some medication. What the hell is this stupid $600 lab fee that I'm not responsible for? How the hell do I take care of this? Is this an insurance issue or my doctor issue? Who do I go talk to? Thanks!
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Apr 12, 2013 01:31
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So the first thing you should do is get in touch with the hospital (or wait until they get back in touch with you) and tell them that you never received any invoice or itemized bill for this, and that you would like them to mail that to you immediately so that you can verify the charges. They shouldn't have any issues doing that. The next thing you should do is get in touch with whoever your insurance was at that time, and see if you can pull a summary of your policy activity for October - you can often do this online, and it's basically a big list of stuff that was submitted to them, what they paid, what they denied, and what you are responsible for. You can use this to confirm whether they even got your bloodwork stuff, and work out why it wasn't paid. There are a couple of options here. The first is that the hospital screwed up submitting it to your insurance, and when they didn't pay it they just passed it over to you. That's a hospital issue. The second is that they did submit it, and your insurance decided it wasn't covered. That's an insurance issue. It is also possible that its a joint fuckup - I am currently stuck in a situation where the hospital billed my insurance, my insurance paid a bunch of stuff and said x was from my deductible. Then the hospital turns around and bills me 2x. So I am in the situation of trying to get them to agree what it is that I actually owe, and I am drat sure not paying till they have that screwed down.
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Apr 12, 2013 01:51
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Ashcans posted:So the first thing you should do is get in touch with the hospital (or wait until they get back in touch with you) and tell them that you never received any invoice or itemized bill for this, and that you would like them to mail that to you immediately so that you can verify the charges. They shouldn't have any issues doing that. Thanks for the prompt response. This is unusual because I have been seeing my family doctor for 20 years now and I have NEVER received a bill from his office. It's the usual pay the $20 - $30 copay and that's it. The bill collector I talked to on the phone said that insurance covered some of it but now I am responsible for the rest. I will get in touch with my doctors office once I receive the $600 bill (Apparently they were sending it to a wrong address so I gave them the correct one). Thank you.
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Apr 12, 2013 01:54
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Busy Bee posted:I have been seeing my family doctor for 20 years now and I have NEVER received a bill from his office ... Apparently they were sending it to a wrong address so I gave them the correct one Welp, I hope you enjoy getting 20 years of medical bills all at once. 
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Apr 12, 2013 03:44
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You managed to go to the same doctor for over twenty years without paying the bill? You would think the staff would click your name into the computer and would instantly be alerted that you hadn't paid the bill.
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Apr 12, 2013 13:42
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He's saying that he has been going to the doctor for 20 years and never had anything but his copay, and that this is the first bill he's every gotten for stuff there. Not that it's been sitting unpaid for that long. Which doesn't mean anything anyway, because whether or not you get a bill is almost certainly due to your insurance and the procedure rather than the doctor. Have you had bloodwork done before? My experience that the billing and treatment sides of medical stuff are almost always completely separated - the reception staff I check in with and the nurses I see don't have any clue about my bills and payments - I don't even know that they can access this if they want to. I don't even think my doctor has a clear idea of what is going on, because they are generally part of some health conglomerate that centralizes billing and collections. If you are seeing a doctor who is legit on their own I guess maybe they would know, but it would still surprise me if the receptionist knew your bill status.
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Apr 12, 2013 14:33
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Here's a question about my credit report: Back in 2010 I got a call out of the blue about an old phone account that I had in 2003. I thought it was closed, but something went awry and I was being billed for 6 months after I moved out of the place. The collections agency that called went on about how horrible of a person I was for not paying my bills and that they would alert the credit bureaus if I didn't pay. I told them to mail me a notice and hung up. I talked with the phone company and since they had sold the debt already, there was nothing they could do for me. Nothing came in the mail, so I decided the best course of action was to just hope they would just leave me alone, which they did. Anyway, there is no report of collections activity/creditors on my account currently, but there was a credit inquiry placed by the collection agency dating back to 2010. Would have this been a collections notice on my credit report which has since expired since the debt was then 7 years old?
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Apr 13, 2013 01:37
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I have ISOs now! What does that mean? I work for a small tech startup that's been scaling up rapidly. After we moved to a bigger office and hired more people and got generally more professional, everybody got 2500 shares worth of stock options. Now my boss's boss went ahead and gave me 2500 more of incentive options. I know that's good and I thanked him and everything, but what's the "incentive" part mean? Some quick research seemed to say I can't exercise them unless I'm at the company for 3 years or more, so does it mean "incentive to not quit"? Stock options kind of confuse me because my last boss threw them around like candy because everyone knew the company was going down and would never have an IPO, so I'm not sure what the actual, I guess "message" is meant to be. We just had a few developers leave, but only one was actually disgruntled.
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Apr 14, 2013 03:49
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fuzzy_logic posted:Stock options kind of confuse me nelson fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 08:26
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Okay; this is probably the wrong place to ask this, but I'm currently in the process of refinancing my (US) home. I can currently use my free 'float down' to shave off an eighth of a percent, or I can wait until Wednesday and hope rates don't go up. Anyone feel like looking into the future here? I'm leaning towards taking the float down now; it'll be lower than what I already thought was a good rate, and only an eighth higher than the lowest rate they've ever offered... unless this current market is enough to force something big to happen.
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Apr 16, 2013 08:01
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fuzzy_logic posted:I have ISOs now! What does that mean? Yeah this is pretty much it, Also with you now being a shareholder it is supposed to make you want to work harder so your shares are worth more on the market, same logic they use when giving them as a massive chunk of CEO's total remuneration, less likely to burn the company into the ground for a good Q1 bonus if you will suffer when the stock drops in Q2.
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Apr 16, 2013 10:11
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Tricky Ed posted:Anyone feel like looking into the future here?
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Apr 16, 2013 14:57
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If I have a corporate credit card, does it have an impact on my credit score? Don't really care about my score, just curious.
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Apr 17, 2013 04:05
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I have worked for the same manufacturing/retail company for seven years and plan to be here for a while. I have yet to set up a 401K because none of my previous jobs ever mentioned it. So. That said, the company I work for says they will match 100%, up to 5% of my pay. I have never signed up for a 401K before. If I take home about $700 every two weeks, what would a good amount be to have taken out? The site asks for my gross payment, but I'm an hourly employee, so the amount of pay sometimes differs by $20-$50, depending on overtime. Does that difference matter? If I lose my job, what happens to that money?
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Apr 17, 2013 04:48
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Contribute 5% of your gross pay or you are leaving money on the table. You should just be able to specify "5%" rather than a dollar amount. Ask your HR about vesting, but most likely you are fully vested by now and can just roll it into an IRA when you leave the job. You also need to pay attention to what funds the 401k money ends up in - check out the retirement thread.
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Apr 17, 2013 04:57
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FrozenVent posted:If I have a corporate credit card, does it have an impact on my credit score? Extremely unlikely, and if it does, someone probably screwed up.
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Apr 17, 2013 14:28
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FrozenVent posted:If I have a corporate credit card, does it have an impact on my credit score? It would be prudent to check your credit and see if it's on there. If it is a true corporate card, it shouldn't show up. But with some corporate cards, i.e. AMEX, you have to put your personal guarantee on the debt, meaning if the company doesn't pay, they can come after you. I'm not sure if those report, but if you see it on your credit, it's a bad sign.
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Apr 18, 2013 00:28
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I have a corporate amex in my own name that I pay after being reimbursed and it does not show up in any way on my credit report.
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Apr 18, 2013 01:10
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Son of a. I had two 401K plans, one from a previous employer and one from my current job. Both with Fidelity. I stupidly rolled the one from my previous employer into my current plan and just realized I "forfeited" almost 5K out of 15K total when I did this. I even asked the Fidelity person what would happen and she said everything would stay the same. Am I totally hosed here? EDIT - And I'm trying to buy a house. Could losing 1/3 of my 401K impact this?
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Apr 18, 2013 06:18
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Mandals posted:Son of a. I had two 401K plans, one from a previous employer and one from my current job. Both with Fidelity. I stupidly rolled the one from my previous employer into my current plan and just realized I "forfeited" almost 5K out of 15K total when I did this. I even asked the Fidelity person what would happen and she said everything would stay the same. What does Fidelity say? Were you fully vested in the other company? Money that you put in is always yours. However money that they put in to match you might have been subject to a vesting schedule and if you left before being vested, then it isn't your money. The other time that your balances could go down like that is if they took money out for taxes. If it went from a regular 401k to a Roth 401k, then taxes would be due. If they did it as a rollover instead of a direct transfer I'm pretty sure they withhold taxes and if you don't put the whole thing in the new account then the withholding counts as a withdrawal. And yes it can affect your ability to buy a house. Even if you don't use the money for a down payment mortgage companies care very much about "reserves". They want you to still have some money to your name even after you pay closing costs and come up with a down payment. Plus $5000 will be worth a lot in 20 or 30 years. Call them right away and tell us what they say.
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Apr 18, 2013 14:26
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Why does my company offer 50% of 401k matching for the first 6%, instead of just doing 100% of the first 3%? Is there some math I'm missing? Are they just trying to get people to save more for retirement?
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Apr 18, 2013 17:02
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guggs posted:Why does my company offer 50% of 401k matching for the first 6%, instead of just doing 100% of the first 3%? Is there some math I'm missing? Are they just trying to get people to save more for retirement? Combination of saving more and saving money themselves.
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Apr 18, 2013 17:14
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Zeta Taskforce posted:What does Fidelity say? Were you fully vested in the other company? Money that you put in is always yours. However money that they put in to match you might have been subject to a vesting schedule and if you left before being vested, then it isn't your money. So, turns out I wasn't fully vested. I literally had no idea that companies will leave non-vested funds in accounts after you leave, which is my own ignorance. I already clued in my mortgage broker, and we're still good. Going to chalk this one up to an expensive lesson learned.
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Apr 18, 2013 17:50
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Mandals posted:So, turns out I wasn't fully vested. I literally had no idea that companies will leave non-vested funds in accounts after you leave, which is my own ignorance. I already clued in my mortgage broker, and we're still good. Going to chalk this one up to an expensive lesson learned. I have never heard of vesting where it matters if/when you roll over your 401k. Vesting is almost always tied to your tenure with the company. I think it is very likely your rollover made no difference.
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Apr 18, 2013 18:27
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kansas posted:I have never heard of vesting where it matters if/when you roll over your 401k. Vesting is almost always tied to your tenure with the company. I think it is very likely your rollover made no difference. I worded that badly. What I meant is that the rollover made no difference, but it must have triggered whatever process they have in place to say "oh hey we might as well pull our money out that we've left sitting in his 401K after he left our company." Apparently some companies will leave un-vested money in for years and then withdraw it whenever they want.
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Apr 18, 2013 18:34
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Mandals posted:I worded that badly. What I meant is that the rollover made no difference, but it must have triggered whatever process they have in place to say "oh hey we might as well pull our money out that we've left sitting in his 401K after he left our company." Apparently some companies will leave un-vested money in for years and then withdraw it whenever they want. If you came back to that company, perhaps it would have continued to vest?
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Apr 18, 2013 19:23
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baquerd posted:If you came back to that company, perhaps it would have continued to vest?
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Apr 18, 2013 20:10
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Mandals posted:So, turns out I wasn't fully vested. I literally had no idea that companies will leave non-vested funds in accounts after you leave, which is my own ignorance. I already clued in my mortgage broker, and we're still good. Going to chalk this one up to an expensive lesson learned. It's always unnerving when your account is $5000 less than you thought it was, but its not like you made a mistake. Presumably your current job is better, pays more, better for your career, better commute, etc. The only way to get to keep it was to stay with the old company longer, perhaps several years longer. Congrats on the new job and the house. 
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Apr 18, 2013 22:16
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I have got two credit cards:pre:Discover 19.99% $1113 $38 / month Chase 12.00% $1698 $56 / month If it matters: after one of the cards is paid off I intend to apply that card's budgeted payment to the other card.
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Apr 19, 2013 13:20
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Woodsy Owl posted:I have got two credit cards: I'd do the Discover since it has a higher interest rate and a lower balance, those are usually the two biggest criteria that people use and you have one card that meets both
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Apr 19, 2013 13:30
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ntd posted:I'd do the Discover since it has a higher interest rate and a lower balance, those are usually the two biggest criteria that people use and you have one card that meets both Yeah really, in this case there's no question. Lower balance, higher interest rate, kill that one first then put both all the money you were using on that card monthly toward the other one. Basically, next month should be: quote:Discover 19.99% $1113 $78 / month And eventually: quote:
No change in your lifestyle, and you're out of debt faster. It's how I'd do it anyway.
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Apr 19, 2013 15:30
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FrozenVent posted:Yeah really, in this case there's no question. Lower balance, higher interest rate, kill that one first then put both all the money you were using on that card monthly toward the other one. Basically, next month should be: I wouldn't close it unless you had an annual fee but that's just me.
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Apr 19, 2013 22:51
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At 19.9%, when he's got another card with a much better rate available, I wouldn't keep it.
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Apr 19, 2013 23:10
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