|
cstine posted:Yeah, you've got the right idea there: personally I don't think $18,000 is enough to ignore the fact you'll feel like poo poo afterwards. Yeah I just don't think it's me. Now, a word on wedding presents because I'm doing some budgeting this morning. We got a ton of stuff considering that we only had about 40 guests, including a nice windfall of cash. The big thing is that my parents paid off the land and cottage that they own a few years ago. It's a 2.5-acre lake-front lot about 90 minutes West of Halifax. It's carved up into three 3/4 acre plots and one is just some woods with a section of beach and road. They gave us this land. They already have poop bucket toilets in the bunkhouse, our yurt-in-a-food-forest dream is totally doable at this point!
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 14:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 22:49 |
|
|
Sweet! Now you only have to move a couple thousand miles East and you can live out your poop-in-the-woods dreams! What's the tax like on that land?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 14:56
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:Sweet! Now you only have to move a couple thousand miles East and you can live out your poop-in-the-woods dreams! No idea, how do I find that out?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 14:59
|
|
|
tuyop posted:No idea, how do I find that out? Best way might be to ask your parents, but the notary who handled the transfer should be able to help.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 15:01
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:Best way might be to ask your parents, but the notary who handled the transfer should be able to help. In the US, it's a public record. Some counties have a searchable database online, you can look up property taxes for any piece of property. If it's not online, a call to the assessor's office will tell you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 15:20
|
|
|
tuyop posted:...including a nice windfall of cash. You're going to blow this on something dumb, I can already tell. Please just use it to pay off more debt instead of a vacation.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 15:44
|
|
|
WampaLord posted:You're going to blow this on something dumb, I can already tell. Please just use it to pay off more debt instead of a vacation. Well, what should I do? Is the best option just to put it in the bank and tell my car loan guys to take out that much extra next month? I was thinking we should put it in the TFSA or a normal savings account and continue to wait for all my pension stuff to come in before paying off the car loan based on an accountant's recommendations that will hopefully help to minimize our tax bill, interest paid and lost investment income. Or buy a TV and go camping and kayaking in Banff, I don't know. Edit: Or use it for the security deposit when we move in a couple of months.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 15:50
|
|
|
If you want to move, save it for a security deposit, since you usually can't do that on credit or with a loan. Make sure you have the cash set aside without having to dip into savings. Congratulations on the wedding and on your yurtish fantasies becoming a step closer to reality.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 15:56
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Or buy a TV and go camping and kayaking in Banff, I don't know.  Why aren't you using past security deposits to pay for future ones? Are you ruining these places in the 1-2 months that you live there so much that you're losing the deposit? Or when you get the security deposit back from a place after you leave do you go "Yay, windfall of money! Time to spend!"?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 16:54
|
|
|
WampaLord posted:
I don't know where you live, but anytime I move, I get the security deposit after I move out but have to pay the new place's security deposit BEFORE I move in. It's a situation that many people face that often results in borrowing money* *hello savings/emergency fund
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 17:06
|
|
|
YeahDavidLeeRoth posted:I don't know where you live, but anytime I move, I get the security deposit after I move out but have to pay the new place's security deposit BEFORE I move in. It's a situation that many people face that often results in borrowing money* This is the case here. And in the past I've had landlords pretty much just steal my security deposit (oh no we had to have the cleaners in, and the painting fee, and the administration fee, and to have your security deposit back is a 15% surcharge because you're now out of province so actually you owe us $45 (note: I didn't pay any extra but didn't get my deposit back and my place WAS NOT damaged)), or my subletters when I moved early because of the army destroyed the place and my deposit was used to pay for that. The last place didn't have a security deposit, didn't have any damage, but just had first + last month's rent in advance. I think here it's something like first+last+security deposit to move in.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 19:29
|
|
|
Over a period of about 15 years, with five different landlords, all but one of them hosed me out of my deposit one way or another. By the end I simply assumed it was lost money from the get-go. The one time I got a check I was kind of shocked. One decided he'd been paying my garbage bill - complete with photocopied receipts - even though I'd been paying my own garbage bill. So he deducted like four years of garbage bills from my deposit which conveniently added up to exactly the deposit amount. I think the garbage company may very well have been double-dipping, but still, why the gently caress save all that up instead of ask me to pay monthly? One decided that the place needed $800 worth of cleaning, even though I spent a day cleaning the place before I left - the real issue was that the lovely carpet was worn out, the place had cracks in the paint, and it had a mold problem. Not my loving fault, but "right when you're moving" tends to be a time when you don't have the time or patience to get into a fight with someone over the money they should be paying you. Also who pays someone like $40 an hour for cleaning? She charged me for cleaning the oven, too, even though it had a self-cleaning setting and we almost never used the oven anyway. In most cases the landlord was clearly breaking the law. In my area, a security deposit can only be used to recover unpaid rent; it's explicitly not allowed to be used as a "cleaning deposit". Moreover, the landlord is supposed to hold the deposit in an account and pay you the accrued interest - I've never been paid interest and never spoken to anyone who has, but that's the rule. I have no idea what the rules are in Socialist Canuckistan but I'd assume they're favorable for the renter, and that also landlords routinely and casually ignore them knowing that most renters don't have the resources or knowledge to fight it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Aug 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 19:53
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Over a period of about 15 years, with five different landlords, all but one of them hosed me out of my deposit one way or another. By the end I simply assumed it was lost money from the get-go. The one time I got a check I was kind of shocked. That's more or less my experience. If it's not a large corporate entity that owns a bunch of properties/apartments, you get fairly screwed. The thing is, the landlord knows you won't bother to take him to court over your $500, because nobody takes landlords to court over the $500, and so they just gently caress everyone. The corporate-owned apartments I was in, though, sent itemized invoices if there were any deductions and checks within 2 weeks of me moving out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 20:05
|
|
|
Congratulations on the wedding! And on reaching page 100 of this thread!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 20:19
|
|
|
cstine posted:The corporate-owned apartments I was in, though, sent itemized invoices if there were any deductions and checks within 2 weeks of me moving out. My corporate-owned apartment was the worst for any sort of repairs or maintenance to the point where I had to send them a registered letter to get my ceiling fixed after the shower above me fell through the ceiling of my bathroom while I was away in Vermont. This one is great, though. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 20:33
|
|
|
That's nuts. I've gotten my full security deposit back 5 out of 5 times. I've rented from big rental companies and private homeowners. The only time I had anything taken out of my security deposit was for was 1/4 of the cost of a carpet cleaning which ended up being like 60 bucks.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 20:33
|
|
|
tuyop posted:Oh, and I don't mean to be snarky, but read on. I have, and nothing has really changed. I also got a couple of big windfalls at your age. I paid down some huge chunks of debt and celebrated by pissing the rest away and getting more in debt. Think about what that means: your (and my) debt was created from buying fun things. It's not some burden that we all must shoulder. You just haven't paid for your toys yet. So to celebrate paying it down by treating yourself, you're basically rewarding yourself for spending money by spending more money. Pretend like you weren't paying off a credit card but were instead directly financing a trip to Costa Rica. "Ooh, look, I just spent a bunch on a vacation. Time to celebrate by getting a MacBook!" Anyway, I'm pulling for you, because you know more than I did at that age, but you're also making all the same rationalization I made. And it led to me being broke at 40. You can do better!
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 21:09
|
|
|
It's not some kind of reward, I just want a Macbook Air. I'm aware that buying it means that I can't have some other things, a bit of compound interest among them, and I think that's maybe alright. Haven't bought it yet and I'm not sure if I will, so don't explode. I just want it to be clear that I understand that I'm not rich and that buying something now represents a financial sacrifice.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 00:17
|
|
|
Why do you want an MBA?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 00:20
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:Why do you want an MBA? Read the last handful of pages. I'm sorry I ever brought it up in my last post, please don't let this derail into that again. Tuyop, congrats on the wedding! Now just go ahead and throw the windfall cash into savings and wait for the pension stuff then pay down some debt. This is the smartest of all the things you mentioned.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 00:34
|
|
|
Tuyop, how long have your past laptops lasted? Serious question. MBA's have exceptionally high build quality, and lovely laptops last 4+ years, so I imagine you can get quite a lot of use from a MBA... I wonder if perhaps your savings and debt repayment goals are too aggressive for you. I definitely agree that you need to allocate money ahead of time for the MBA type purchases, and you do not want to touch monthly savings to do that. Perhaps you should be allocating $2700 vs $3100 a month to savings, and then the remainder into a buffer, once the buffer is X big, dump the overage into savings, or title the buffer "savings for spendy poo poo we must have" and do that. I think the principle of saving XX a month PERIOD is important. Its something I have never been good at and am working on; I often tried to save more than I really could due to my lifestyle, and I would steal from myself. Not so great! razz posted:That's nuts. I've gotten my full security deposit back 5 out of 5 times. I've rented from big rental companies and private homeowners.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 00:45
|
|
|
Yeah I think we're in a weird place right now – and for the past couple of months – where we're not sure what our "lifestyle" really looks like. I think it's best to play it safe and try to minimize expenses until our day-to-day normalizes and we can start looking at things critically.SiGmA_X posted:Tuyop, how long have your past laptops lasted? Serious question. MBA's have exceptionally high build quality, and lovely laptops last 4+ years, so I imagine you can get quite a lot of use from a MBA... I just checked and I bought my Dell XPS M1330 in November 2008 for $1160. It died (looks like the thermal paste dried out or something, there was some wicked burn marks on the motherboard) on October 18, 2012. I had a few harddrive failures and the battery needed to be replaced in that time. But until it died I didn't really have any problems with its performance and I wasn't gentle with it at all. The one before that was a Toshiba Satellite A-100 from 2006 that was just way too huge and when the screen stopped working it became my parents' HTPC. My dad fixed the screen and they gave it to some Cubans last year.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 01:13
|
|
|
SiGmA_X posted:Your posts often confuse me! "Full security deposit back 5 out of 5 times" and then "only time I had anything taken out of my security deposit was"... That was basically in the same paragraph! Haha yeah, I meant except for that one time. I knew I was getting the 60 bucks taken out because the carpets DID get stained and me and my roommates agreed ahead of time to pay so... ya know. I mean I haven't had a landlord not give me back the amount that I was owed. Basically no landlord has ever tried to scam me out of my deposit and it seems like it happens to a lot of people. I guess I've just been lucky.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 01:37
|
|
|
tuyop posted:and I wasn't gentle with it at all. Even more reasons to buy the cheapest laptop you can.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 02:09
|
|
|
tuyop posted:It's not some kind of reward, I just want a Macbook Air. I'm aware that buying it means that I can't have some other things, a bit of compound interest among them, and I think that's maybe alright. Yeah, and I want a new iMac. But I'm not getting one. And I don't have all that debt looming over me. My point is that you're sacrificing savings for an immediate want. You don't need a laptop. You just want a luxury item. Don't sacrifice savings goals for wants.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 03:39
|
|
|
tuyop posted:It's not some kind of reward, I just want a Macbook Air. I'm aware that buying it means that I can't have some other things, a bit of compound interest among them, and I think that's maybe alright. Tuyop, with the revelation a few posts ago that you're actually diagnosed bipolar, your shifts from "I want this shiny bauble" to "I want to live in a yurt and compost my own poo poo P.S. BASIL" are so obviously a symptom of your underlying mental condition. You need to set structured rules and guidelines for spending money and adhere to them almost fanatically, because you're not guaranteed to be genuinely capable of assessing the acceptability of spending money from one day to the next. Suggested rule #1: you have X amount of dollars to spend on personal discretionary spending. Work it into your budget. If you want a computer, take the unused portion of this from each week, put it in a box under your bed, and then buy a computer when the amount in the box equals the purchase price.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 12:20
|
|
|
I think that that's probably the best practice for getting larger items, yes, but your post doesn't really have an accurate representation of how bipolar 2 works (for most). Personally, I'm not convinced that it exists as a "mental illness" above and beyond a normal pattern of moodiness in the spectrum of human personalities, but I'm not a psychologist. It's really like long swings of mood, in me they last like 2 weeks to a couple of months. The swings are VERY easy to identify because weird objective biological things follow them. Like my manic... periods have everything from decreased need for sleep to the feeling that stimulants relax me. Sex drive goes down, I work out to the point of injury, I write some really good poo poo, stuff like that. It's way more like broken brain = weird shifts in behaviour rather than three-week periods of wacky composting toilet BASIL dreams. In July I was feeling pretty manic, and I think I've gotten away from spending as an expression of that because I was doing the whole car+tent living thing, but I worked out too much for what my diet and sleep quality permitted and herniated a disc in my neck and caused an SI sprain, on top of the normal wicked rib dislocation back spasm thing. But this is not a mental health thread, I just wanted to try to clarify a bit about this condition. Also I'm pretty sure I mentioned it before.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 12:54
|
|
|
Something that's worked very well for me is dedicating a percentage of my income to savings. For me, it's 25%. Some months it's more, but it is NEVER less. After three months, I used the savings to get truly one month ahead on budget. Now that I'm there, the feeling of using last month's money to plan this month's spending is incredible. (It was three months and not four because I only lived on 75% of income.) And I only got smart and achieved it this year. Before that, I behaved similarly as you. But the 25% savings continues. Now instead of starting the buffer, it's for retirement. Since I don't have debt, I'm putting additional savings into building a 4-month cushion. I also have other savings goals. And yes, I also budget for trips and toys. But if I want something, I don't just decide "oh well, less savings." I put additional money away for it. Sometimes it takes a few months to save enough. Because I never ever compromise my long-term savings goals. And since I'm budgeting a month ahead, it's easier to adjust for a slow month. For example, September is likely going to be light on paychecks, but I'm using August's money to live in September. I can cut my September spending a little bit to give myself more padding in October. I already HAVE my September money, so it's really easy to make intelligent choices. I don't have to estimate and then scramble at the end of the month because I didn't get paid as much as I thought. I already got paid for the entire month. September is already finished. Don't compromise savings. Don't compromise debt reduction. You've done so well so far. Keep it up at the same pace or even faster. A MBA should take many months of saving specifically for it, and the money should come from OTHER "fun money". NOT from savings or debt reduction. Never compromise on those. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Aug 28, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 13:09
|
|
|
I think one thing to keep in mind for the BFCers reading this thread is that the Macbook Air is the recommended "ultrabook" in the laptop megathread. It's priced surprisingly well considering what you need to spend on competitors to get the same overall package. The recommendations are basically "Get a Thinkpad T430 or if you want something smaller/more portable get a MBA". Both these recommendations are taking all areas into consideration: performance, reliability, cost, durability, support. Can you get something cheaper? Yes. Is it going to last you just as long? Possibly. I see nothing wrong with buying quality vs. buying bargain-basement consumer level stuff if you plan on using it a lot. Arguing about laptops in here is like SHSC telling everyone to just invest in mutual funds and don't worry about the fees. Let the experts do their thing. Tuyop I think one of the problems is that you vomit all these different ideas out in passing in your thread and everyone panics thinking you're a spending machine. You guys have been extremely frugal with your spending it's just your "I'm thinking about buying a laptop/going to cuba/going home for xmas" thinking out loud that gets everyone in a tizzy. I'm the exact same way IRL, "man I'd like to get one of those" or "I've been thinking about XYZ".
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 13:23
|
|
|
Not everyone is saying don't get the MBA at all. He seems determined to buy this particular laptop, coming up with excuse after excuse for why it's a good idea. So he's going to do whatever he wants. HOWEVER, if he's going to do it, then SAVE for the purchase rather than compromise debt payments or your regular contribution to savings. I think it's just hard for people to accept these types of big ticket purchases because you look at this big pile of debt he's accumulated and think, "That's money that could go toward him getting out of debt faster, and instead he's buying this expensive item that he just 'wants', not needs." The next time he comes to you with stories of his financial woes, you just want to tell him, "gently caress you" and walk away.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 16:01
|
|
|
foxatee posted:Not everyone is saying don't get the MBA at all. He seems determined to buy this particular laptop, coming up with excuse after excuse for why it's a good idea. So he's going to do whatever he wants. HOWEVER, if he's going to do it, then SAVE for the purchase rather than compromise debt payments or your regular contribution to savings. To be fair, the "pile of debt" at this point is a 16.8k car loan at 1.9% interest with a >100k/year gross salary. It's a big problem because I'm upside-down on the car by probably about 10k, but it's not what most normal, middle-class people would consider a crippling debt burden. I don't want their finances either and want to aggressively continue to get debt-free, but the situation isn't as dire as "pile of debt" implies.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 16:20
|
|
|
tuyop posted:To be fair, the "pile of debt" at this point is a 16.8k car loan at 1.9% interest with a >100k/year gross salary. It's a big problem because I'm upside-down on the car by probably about 10k, but it's not what most normal, middle-class people would consider a crippling debt burden. I think the most dangerous situation you're now finding yourself in is that you are really focused on how much money you're making and then living up to that to an extent. Buying a mac book air (gently caress the MBA abbreviation y'all) is fine because of that >100k/year gross salary. The problem is that after several of those "not a problem because I make >100K" you find yourself living dangerously close to spending all your income. Let's face it tuyop, it doesn't really sound like you've ever been bad off. I don't recall any points where you were earning peanuts. You didn't end up in debt because of a lack of income, it was due to an excess of spending. That's the danger with you and why people are voicing concern about the mac book air.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 16:32
|
|
|
tuyop posted:To be fair, the "pile of debt" at this point is a 16.8k car loan at 1.9% interest with a >100k/year gross salary. It's a big problem because I'm upside-down on the car by probably about 10k, but it's not what most normal, middle-class people would consider a crippling debt burden. Wait - you're down to JUST your car loan? I was under the impression it was car loan AND student loans - that's great news.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 18:13
|
|
|
cstine posted:Wait - you're down to JUST your car loan? I was under the impression it was car loan AND student loans - that's great news.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 18:36
|
|
|
tuyop posted:No, the savings went into paying off the student loan. We currently have about 3000 in cash for intermittent bills and the final wedding expenses, and 1000 I used to start an RRSP with. That'll take you to that post in case you missed it. It's kind of a hollow victory because we pretty much just had that amount in savings and followed-through with the plan to drop the pile of cash on my loan when my disability payment came through successfully.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 18:40
|
|
|
Nthing the notion that you need a category in your budget for personal discretionary spending, and a separate line item for savings which you treat like a bill. You should never ever be late on those bill payments and if you are, you better pay it back with interest. Just stop looking at savings as something to dip into for stuff you want, instead of as a vehicle for ensuring your future financial solvency, which you get by not ever skipping payments or dipping in to it. Start saving up that discretionary money instead and you can buy any laptop you please.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
SiGmA_X posted:He used a chunk of pension/severance to pay off everything else off. A monthly graph would make this so much easier to follow! No I haven't done that yet because I haven't gotten my pension/severance stuff from the military. We just minimized debt repayment for like the past six months and saved the balance, including most of an inheritance. When the pension/severance stuff comes in, I think it'll kind of work like this: Severance = 6300 to RRSP. RRSP contribution balance = 15500 Pension value transfer = 21500. 15500 to RRSP, 6000 in cash (-30% withholding tax = 4200) Put 4200 on car loan. Car loan balance = 12.6k Pull out 10k from RRSP using Lifelong Learning Plan, put on car loan. This avoids the tax burden of that 10k. Car loan balance = 2600 Save only 500 that month, put 2600 on car loan. Begin saving for vacation to Bangkok.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 19:17
|
|
|
Don't you have to pay back the LLP?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 19:24
|
|
|
FrozenVent posted:Don't you have to pay back the LLP? Yes, over ten years. But that'll be the best place to put our long-term savings for the first year. If we maintain the same savings rate, or drop it to, say, 2500 per month, we'll pay off the LLP withdrawal in four months. It might make more sense to put the savings into toeshoes' empty RRSP, though, for tax purposes. I'm not sure. tuyop fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Aug 28, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 22:49 |
|
|
tuyop posted:To be fair, the "pile of debt" at this point is a 16.8k car loan at 1.9% interest with a >100k/year gross salary. It's a big problem because I'm upside-down on the car by probably about 10k, but it's not what most normal, middle-class people would consider a crippling debt burden. Any debt that isn't a mortgage or student loans is a burden. And you're offsetting it against assumed earnings when you KNOW from your own experience that poo poo often hits the fan.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 22:49
|
|
