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Leperflesh posted:On the third hand, it's already resolved, he borrowed a laptop from his dad's company and isn't going to buy anything so there's little point continuing to harp about it. Don't forget, he's still planning to buy a brand-new laptop at full price sometime in the near future. The one he's borrowing now is a business laptop for an architecture company, so it's too clunky and uncool for his college needs. To be fair, tuyop does have back problems, but a 17" laptop isn't that heavy, and he seems to prioritize spartan living over back health in every other case.
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:01 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:55 |
Main Paineframe posted:Don't forget, he's still planning to buy a brand-new laptop at full price sometime in the near future. The one he's borrowing now is a business laptop for an architecture company, so it's too clunky and uncool for his college needs. To be fair, tuyop does have back problems, but a 17" laptop isn't that heavy, and he seems to prioritize spartan living over back health in every other case. I'm also receiving 24k in cash which can be used tax-free under the LLLP ("paid back" by a minimum of 10% of the principal/year after graduation), 76k in net income topups over the next 24 months, 25k in a locked-in account, and we have 14k in savings just in case. And 32k in debt. I think I'll be in a position where buying a laptop is alright.
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:25 |
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tuyop posted:I'm also receiving 24k in cash which can be used tax-free under the LLLP ("paid back" by a minimum of 10% of the principal/year after graduation), 76k in net income topups over the next 24 months, Nitpicking, but those amounts shouldn't be used in your budgeting. The locked-in account can't pay for laptop, and the emergency fund should be for "Oh poo poo how am I going to make rent?" level of emergency. (Is that what that 14k is? That's a big emergency fund.) It's also a bit misleading to talk about the income topups over 24 months; it's 38k a year, or 3100 a month gross. Nothing to sneeze at, but you have to remember to compare apples to apples. Plus the total is meaningless in a vacuum, it's a matter of whether there's enough money left after spending to buy a laptop. Also you're not *receiving* LLLP, that's money you are temporarily taking out of your retirement account. You're not going X + 24k = Y, you're going X = Y, your net worth stays the same. (Well, it'll go down until you repay yourself the principal and interest, but anyway.) I've heard someone describe it as "Borrowing from yourself", which I think is pretty apt. Don't forget that you have to pay that poo poo back, though, or the CRA is going to come knocking.
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:37 |
The 14k is not our emergency fund, it's just money we've saved for the inevitable administrative shitshow when everyone loses my file and never gives me anything because their computers have decided that I was never born or something. Once disability pay is received, we'll move the 14k in savings onto my student line of credit. This will bring the debt down to ~18k, or just my car loan at 1.9%. FrozenVent posted:Also you're not *receiving* LLLP, that's money you are temporarily taking out of your retirement account. You're not going X + 24k = Y, you're going X = Y, your net worth stays the same. (Well, it'll go down until you repay yourself the principal and interest, but anyway.) I've heard someone describe it as "Borrowing from yourself", which I think is pretty apt. Don't forget that you have to pay that poo poo back, though, or the CRA is going to come knocking. Yeah, that's why I said receiving 24k in cash. Receiving is still probably the wrong term because it's just a transfer of value from my pension which I've been paying for the past six years. The plan is to put it into an RRSP (necessary if I don't want a $9000 tax bill), then use the LLLP to withdraw enough to pay down the car loan. Then I'll just repay it as quickly as possible using the continued savings that used to go to debt repayment. Then I can finally set the car on fire. And buy a laptop. And we may go on a vacation.
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:45 |
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tuyop posted:Then I can finally set the car on fire. I'd be curious to see what the universe would do if you attempted to destroy a vehicle on purpose.
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:46 |
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It is extremely common for people who have been living under a very tight budget for a long time, and then suddenly have access to a pile of cash, to massively overspend. It's a huge relief and humans tend to naturally react to huge reliefs by celebrating. This is why poor people who win the lottery are often broke within a year. It's easy to dismiss them as being idiots, but that's not really it; it's a psychological mechanism, a normal human thing to do. Our stone-age ancestors would react to an end of famine with feasting, which is good, to pack on lost weight and store fat in case famine returns next year. In a variable biome, you consume as rapidly as possible when the eating is good. But this is only a good strategy when you don't have the technology to store food... once you can actually save resources for the future, it becomes a self-destructive strategy by comparison. Our mental processes have not yet evolved to catch up with our relatively recent invention of civilization. You must resist the temptation to overspend when you finally have some money, Tuyop. Seriously, you've learned a lot of lessons about wise financial behavior, but those lessons are worthless if you mentally apply them to an "only when I'm super poor" category. You will wind up poor again within a year or three if you don't maintain a reasonably strict attitude towards your money, even (or especially) when you've got some money extra. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jul 16, 2013 |
# ? Jul 16, 2013 17:49 |
Leperflesh posted:You will wind up poor again within a year or three if you don't maintain a reasonably strict attitude towards your money, even (or especially) when you've got some money extra. Yeah, I think we have some pretty good tools available in case we fall off the wagon and spend way too much once we're out of the woods. Like, we already have everything automated, so that won't change except that instead of to debt, it'll go to investment accounts. Even then, if we get carried away, we'll just go all-cash for a bit to get back to conscious spending. I think it really comes down to habits and obstacles. The hardest part will be the discipline to say, spend less on movies or gas for a few months to pay for a thing instead of just putting less towards our long-term goals to pay for that thing. That thing will probably be a garden of some sort, or tools or something. The kind of poo poo that we get really excited about and want to do immediately. Edit: Just doublechecked, the LLP has a 10k/year limit, so my current plan won't pay off the entire car. tuyop fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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# ? Jul 16, 2013 18:00 |
Speaking of paying off the car: The loan is 1.9%, I can make more than that on conservative investments if I just keep the 17.5k that the loan is worth. If I don't sell the car, doesn't it make sense to not pay off the loan? The same goes for consumer goods as well. If, for instance, we want to buy a washer and drier* for $1000 and they can be had for, say $0 down, 0% financing over 12 months, or $1000 cash, doesn't it make sense to save the cash, invest it, and make the payments? *Note: we're not buying a washer and drier. Oh and I got approved for the 24-month disability pay. I'll start receiving money 6-8 weeks after my last pay which is 11 August. The pay is monthly.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 15:52 |
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tuyop posted:Speaking of paying off the car: The loan is 1.9%, I can make more than that on conservative investments if I just keep the 17.5k that the loan is worth. If I don't sell the car, doesn't it make sense to not pay off the loan? With consumer goods, the "0% financing for months!" generally skyrockets to a ridiculous interest rate if you miss a payment, or don't pay the entire thing off in time, or mess something else up that's in the fine print. In many(most?) cases, the interest will be retroactive, putting you in even deeper poo poo than you'd have thought. Even if you swear from the bottom of your heart that you'll make the payments on time and pay the whole thing off with your investment before the 12 months are through, it's not worth the risk of absentmindedly doing something that gets you in deep poo poo. Companies don't offer these promotions out of the goodness of their hearts; they know a considerable number of people will gently caress up at some point & be on the hook for it. With the car loan, the problem is it's another payment hanging around your neck every month no matter what your income situation is. The sooner it gets paid off, the more flexibility you'll have in the future. Your life is changing constantly enough that I'd say the flexibility is worth more than a few extra dollars in your investments. I also don't remember if you're still underwater on the car loan; if you are, you at least want to make the loan worth less than the car so you don't run into problems selling it if you need to. I've also seen it phrased like this: Would you take out a $(value) loan at (whatever)% interest to invest? If you wouldn't, why would you do the same thing with a loan you took out for something else?
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 17:34 |
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Also, correct me if I've misunderstood this - but isn't your income going to drop somewhat/a lot? Less debt makes life with less income much easier - and gives you a lot more room for the next bike you ride over a tank road and break to not break your budget and require you to hit savings.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 17:41 |
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tuyop posted:Speaking of paying off the car: The loan is 1.9%, I can make more than that on conservative investments if I just keep the 17.5k that the loan is worth. Just a note to keep in mind: Unless you're using TFSA or RSRP, you'd need to be making something like 3.9% return on your investment for it to be more beneficial than the loan. poo poo's taxable, yo. Pay off the loan, for the reasons the others have explained. You'll feel so much more freer.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 18:21 |
FrozenVent posted:You'll feel so much more freer. Yeah that seems to be a very good reason in itself. I just don't want to feel dumb when I'm looking at a stock market crash next year or whatever and not being able to capitalize on it because I spent all my capital on a 1.9% car loan because I wanted good feelings. I'm not talking about timing the market, by the way, just flexibility to invest in stuff that will reasonably return more than 1.9% after taxes. cstine posted:Also, correct me if I've misunderstood this - but isn't your income going to drop somewhat/a lot? Well, I take home $200 less, toeshoes earns $877 more. So I think that's a net positive effect, right?
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 18:29 |
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tuyop posted:Yeah that seems to be a very good reason in itself. I just don't want to feel dumb when I'm looking at a stock market crash next year or whatever and not being able to capitalize on it because I spent all my capital on a 1.9% car loan because I wanted good feelings. I'm not talking about timing the market, by the way, just flexibility to invest in stuff that will reasonably return more than 1.9% after taxes. On the other hand, you could end up with that money gone (Remember Nortel?) and really bad feelings for not having paid off your debt. Sure the stock market could go up. On the other hand, your debt will be there. You could win the lottery, and then your debt would be paid off. But if you lose, welp, still gotta pay that car, and now the roof is leaking, the car needs a new transmission and oh my god why are you peeing on a stick? It's a choice; personally I'd favor the much safer one and pay off the debt. It's either that, or placing it at ROI - 1.9% - taxes. Plus like Moana said, would you take out a 1.9% interest loan to invest it?
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 18:36 |
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Over the very long term, it's reasonable to make the assumption that a conservative, well-diversified basket of investments in stock and bond mutual funds which broadly represent domestic and international markets, will appreciate by maybe 5% to 7% over its lifetime. However: A) "Very long term" is the key thing here. We're talking about multiple decades. And even then, it's by no means guaranteed. If you look at a 100+ year historical chart of (say) the stock market as a whole, you can find 40-year periods where the market was overall flat or down. The assumption is reasonably safe, because there are far more 40-year periods where it was up, and the long-term trend has been up, but the future is not guaranteed to be like the past, short medium or long term. While the 20th century was characterized by huge growth in US and (to a lesser extent, varying by country) international economic growth and prosperity, it's entirely possible that the 21st century will be characterized by decline, in Canada, or in the US, or both, or everywhere. Nobody knows for sure. B) The interest on a loan, however, is certain. The 1.9% on your car loan is a known quantity, and unless you default on your loan, it should stay at 1.9%. It's also a secured loan, against your asset (the car). That means that paying off this loan gets you a guaranteed, tax-free 1.9% return on your money; and, if you face a short-term financial disaster, the car can be repossessed, sold to pay off your loan, and any remainder of the loan assigned back to you, with mountains of penalties, fees, and a default interest rate piled on top. So, over the lifetime of your various debts, no, you can't be sure that you'll do better with investing, and in fact there's a very good chance that you'll do a lot worse. Moreover, you would be trading the low-risk prospects of the "return" you get by paying off debt early (and therefore not paying the remaining interest) with the higher-risk prospects of whatever investment vehicle you pick. You'll be hard pressed to find any sort of investment that does better than 1.9%, after taxes, over the next (two years? three years? Whatever's left of your loan) for lower risk than that loan. Pay off the car. When you're right-side up on the car, you can drop gap insurance from your auto insurance policy, which should save you some money, and when it's fully paid off, you'll be in a position where you can sell the car if you need or want to, and if it's totaled, even after the deductible, your insurance payout will be enough to buy another car without you having to dip into your savings. You'll also have better cashflow month-to-month, which is fantastically freeing.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 21:53 |
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For what it's worth, I would at least account for car payments as the "bond" portion of your investments, if you have any now. It is pretty "safe" and might justify a higher stock percentage.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 22:44 |
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Jeffrey posted:For what it's worth, I would at least account for car payments as the "bond" portion of your investments, if you have any now. It is pretty "safe" and might justify a higher stock percentage. You mean "negative bond" right? You are on the other side of the contract there. And justify a higher stock percentage? Are you insane? Someone with car payments has a more conservative portfolio than someone who doesn't?
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 22:48 |
Jeffrey posted:For what it's worth, I would at least account for car payments as the "bond" portion of your investments, if you have any now. It is pretty "safe" and might justify a higher stock percentage. I'm not really sure what you mean by this. I'm following The Complete Couch Potato portfolio from Canadian Couch Potato. I had to put 1000 into my RRSP with Questrade to open it, so that's all I've got for investments right now. I just started to open a LIRA with them and a TFSA, I have a LIRA with TD as well, just in case you guys think it might be the better way to go. I need the RRSP to defer the ridiculous tax on my $6600 severance (20%) and the tax on my non-locked in pension amount, which is currently estimated at like 18k. I figure the TFSA is a good place to save the excess since I only have 21k of contribution room left. I have the max contribution room available, 25k.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 22:54 |
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tuyop posted:I need the RRSP to defer the ridiculous tax on my $6600 severance (20%) and the tax on my non-locked in pension amount, which is currently estimated at like 18k. Just remember that 'defer' doesn't mean 'avoid' - you're going to pay that when you take it out, and possibly more, if tax rates go up to fight off an invasion of beavers or whatever.
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# ? Jul 18, 2013 23:43 |
So yeah, "homelessness" experiment concluded. Result: Oh baby. All saved. This is artificially inflated because they gave me my final August pay - $200 on July 25th. But I also had to pay for gas and food over three days driving across the country. The $200 comes "sometime in September". August will be a more lean month while we wait for my disability to come through. I have discovered that toeshoes has opted to live without lighting in the living room and instead buy pizza once a week. We bought a lamp for $34. Also some LED lightbulbs that were absurdly expensive. Big news now is that I got a cost move to Edmonton here. So the military is moving my furniture that has been in storage since May 2010. The bare minimum that I'll get for the move is: $0.50/km from Gagetown to Edmonton. $650 posting bonus. $50-100/day Hotel allowance. $75/day meals. And that's for 4400km over nine days. Or, about $4425. But there are other arcane bonuses as well. My appointment is 9 August so we'll know more then.
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# ? Jul 30, 2013 17:19 |
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tuyop posted:I have discovered that toeshoes has opted to live without lighting in the living room and instead buy pizza once a week. Just so you know, I quoted this to my boyfriend (who also follows this thread) and he just shook his head in disgust. You people are financially broken.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 14:49 |
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It's really not a problem though. Tuyop and toeshoes are making candles from their earwax, all it took was getting a $25 book on earwax candles. Now they have free light and are recycling body waste y'all
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 15:59 |
/\/\ That's an excellent idea. But it would probably be better to use like recycled cooking fat and stuff. Eden posted:You people are financially broken. Is there a dollar amount in terms of net worth or lack of debt or savings rate that indicates financial fitness for you? Not trying to be smug, but I was obviously joking. I think the lack of lighting was probably because she had no simple way to get a lamp from the store to the apartment, and because the place never really gets dark even without a light. The pizza/fun money thing is like, whatever. She's making new friends and relieving the stress of a new job and city, we nailed our savings goals this month and secured even more windfall money that is going directly to savings/debt repayment. The rest of our money outside those goals is for spending, right?
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 16:00 |
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The way you wrote it sounded like she was choosing to sit in the dark eating pizza on her own.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 16:09 |
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tuyop posted:Not trying to be smug, but I was obviously joking. You were not obviously joking. I certainly didn't think it was a joke. This should tell you something about how you have presented yourself in the past couple of years here. It is completely believable that you or toeshoes would think that by not spending money on a lamp, you would have the extra money to spare on weekly pizza; or that you'd feel too depressed from sitting in the dark to cook; or whatever the gently caress goes on in your heads.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 19:06 |
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Yeah you guys are loving nuts. I'm just glad you don't have any children.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 19:11 |
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I just read the last couple pages of this thread about the laptop stuff. I'm glad you didn't buy one, but that reminds me of my husband. You know how in the stickied budget thread I wrote about how my husband financed an iMac at 18% interest, so now the payments out of his check are $147? He told me the reason he bought the iMac was because his 13" MacBook Pro was busted. Well, we just got that fixed for $200 (no, not by the Genius Bar, but the dude who fixed it fixed my MacBook Pro a couple months ago and it works like brand new, so yeah). Anyway, my husband decided he'd rather shell out $3,208 plus interest for 27 months, than try to seek out someone who could fix the MacBook. I can't even get over the stupid. Even he admitted himself it wasn't the most sensible thing to do. I can't wait to get that one paid off. We don't really want to sell the iMac, because, well, we love it.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 20:59 |
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Haha you paid $3000 for a home computer in 2013. That is the real problem... EDIT: Like there's a version of that story where he still impulse bought a computer but at least did so reasonably. 3k+ sounds like someone looking at all the options and clicking the most expensive choice for each component without knowing what they do. (PS Take your husband's name off the savings account and give him an allowance.) Anyway, this is Tuyop's thread, I'll stop the derail. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jul 31, 2013 |
# ? Jul 31, 2013 21:08 |
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Jeffrey posted:Haha you paid $3000 for a home computer in 2013. That is the real problem... Well, I wouldn't have. But he didn't even know me yet, so there was no one to talk him out of it. It never would have happened if he wanted to do the same thing today.
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 21:13 |
I'm actually kind of pleased with the way the lamp purchase went. We live about 8k away from a Costco and Home Depot, and about 25k away from an Ikea. So we shopped around online and found a great lamp at Ikea for 70 bucks, we have some Ikea money from a refund last year, so we were willing to go the extra distance. But I thought about it, and since the car's running costs (maintenance, depreciation, fuel, etc.) are about $0.23/km, that trip would cost us about $12 even before we bought the lamp. So we stopped in at Home Depot just to look, even though we didn't like what was on their website. There we saw basically the same lamp that Ikea had for half the price, and we had to go to Costco anyway for poo poo that you ONLY buy from Costco. Net savings: $48!
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# ? Jul 31, 2013 21:22 |
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I bought a lamp from Ikea. It cost me 10:bux: It was on sale, and I didn't need anything fancy-- just, you know, light. I cannot imagine paying more than $25 for a lamp. But whatevs, man.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 06:09 |
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foxatee posted:I bought a lamp from Ikea. It cost me 10:bux: Do you have a 92 page, 3 year thread in a internet comedy forum dedicated to financial failures?
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 09:39 |
foxatee posted:I bought a lamp from Ikea. It cost me 10:bux: Did you get the Holmo, perhaps? Edit: So what about buying a house? We kind of really want to think about considering buying a house but I think it's a pretty bad idea right now even though the interest rates are insanely low. I mean, I no longer have a job for one. tuyop fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 14:42 |
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Not to mention since ToeShoes is still in the army you guys could get moved like wherever, whenever.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 15:33 |
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Baloogan posted:Do you have a 92 page, 3 year thread in a internet comedy forum dedicated to financial failures? To be fair, its not 93 pages of pure failure. We have 4 pages of underwear chat, 5 pages about camping, 3 pages of the crappy New Brunswick apartment, 5 pages of the Mafioso apartment, 4 pages of BASIL discussion, 10 pages of accidents and injuries, 10 pages of biking and exercising, 3 pages about gay web cams, 3 pages about little houses with grand rooms, 6 pages about vacations, 3 pages about snow tires, 6 pages of navigating the Canadian military bureaucracy and one page about lamps.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 15:36 |
dreesemonkey posted:Not to mention since ToeShoes is still in the army you guys could get moved like wherever, whenever. Yeah but there's a benefit package for that (note: benefits may not actually exist or apply to you at any time). People in the military do buy homes, you know. Most of them put like 5% down as well, and recommend that to their friends. I don't even know what you'd call our apartment now. It's a cheap basement apartment in Northwest Edmonton. 825 a month, one bedroom, ~700sq ft. Our stove doesn't work very well and everything is kind of on a 6 degree slant. Power is absurdly cheap (7.007c/kwh) though and we have unlimited fast internet and great water pressure!
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 15:42 |
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I was under the impression that the Canadian housing bubble never burst and was looking awfully precarious.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 15:46 |
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Engineer Lenk posted:I was under the impression that the Canadian housing bubble never burst and was looking awfully precarious. It didn't bubble nearly as much as the US real estate market, due to tighter mortgage laws. But yeah, the market is on a marked downward slant right now.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 15:57 |
FrozenVent posted:It didn't bubble nearly as much as the US real estate market, due to tighter mortgage laws. But yeah, the market is on a marked downward slant right now. It's a bit off topic, but I was reading that Edmonton was looking pretty good for housing. But I really think we should keep our goals in order. Debt free, emergency buffers, then save a down payment. We could even compromise and pay like 1250 in rent instead of 825 once things are all in order, though that makes it look like buying would make even more sense.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 16:06 |
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tuyop posted:I'm actually kind of pleased with the way the lamp purchase went. We live about 8k away from a Costco and Home Depot, and about 25k away from an Ikea. So we shopped around online and found a great lamp at Ikea for 70 bucks, we have some Ikea money from a refund last year, so we were willing to go the extra distance. But I thought about it, and since the car's running costs (maintenance, depreciation, fuel, etc.) are about $0.23/km, that trip would cost us about $12 even before we bought the lamp. I don't understand how you have your cars running costs calculated out per km, and yet you are looking at $70 dollar lamps at Ikea which are among the most expensive they sell. It's like on the one hand you want to pinch every penny, and then you turn around and spend all of that on overpriced stuff. Besides which, if you are in NW Edmonton, you can hop the Henday and get to Ikea in less then 20 mins, with no stop and go traffic or lights, so you'd prob get better or equal mileage then going somewhere else in the city anyways. I get that you didn't buy the lamp at Ikea, but jesus I dont think about how much it costs me per km when i go somewhere in my car. You didn't "save" $48 because you didn't have to spend that in the first place. That's like people that think they are saving money by buying 3 for 1 sales when they only needed 1 in the first place. You have such an rear end backwards way of looking at your finances. EDIT: And FFS you JUST moved here and you are already thinking about buying a house and saying you aren't happy with your apartment...... you do know that renting isn't throwing away money right? And that just because you might be paying the same in rent as you would on a mortgage it doesn't mean you should buy a house? asmallrabbit fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Aug 1, 2013 |
# ? Aug 1, 2013 16:18 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:55 |
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tuyop posted:It's a bit off topic, but I was reading that Edmonton was looking pretty good for housing. You are in better shape than you were 3 years ago, but you have some more work to do. You still have a car that you are upside down on, you still have lots of student loan debt, you don’t have enough saved for a down payment, you don’t have an adequate emergency fund, you don’t have good clarity on where you and TwoShoes will be living, or where her career in the Canadian Military will take her. People in the military do buy houses, and a lot of them end up becoming accidental long distance landlords with houses strung around the country. Renting for the next 50 years is not a good plan, but renting for 3 more years as you clean up your financial mess and get clarity on what city you will settle in probably is.
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# ? Aug 1, 2013 16:25 |