|
Maybe we should rotate in a new thread title for a while. "Yes 0.1% is the best you can do, dammit." It's all about time and risk. If it was my $14k and I was planning to buy something expensive in the next "few" years meaning 2-4, I would just keep it in a savings account. In fact I did that once for a car and once for a house. Stocks and bonds (you can get either in a mutual fund) are risky for such a short term. Maybe start considering that once your time horizon is 5 years or more.
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 02:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 12:17 |
|
|
The Sock posted:I would need to keep a little more than most people in my emergency fund because I have a company car and would have to buy a car if I were to get fired/laid off/quit/etc, I feel I would be safe with $10k. Would it make sense to put the extra $14K and additional money into a mix between bonds and mutual funds? The next big purchases I can foresee would be getting married and a house in the next few years. Normal corp or total market bonds don't belong in a taxable account held for retirement. If you're just looking for a place to keep the money for a few years for the house purchase, bonds start to look a little better in a taxable account, but it's not a great environment to start investing into bond funds and the yields are pretty pitiful. For me personally, if I were looking to stick $14k into investments and add to them for a withdrawal point less than 3 years out, I'd probably split out $5k for peer to peer lending because I think with proper diversification they're much lower risk than most around here, maybe $3k into short term muni bonds, and the rest into high yield savings.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 02:42
|
|
|
slap me silly posted:Maybe we should rotate in a new thread title for a while. "Yes 0.1% is the best you can do, dammit." Hey, you can get 0.75-0.9% without jumping through any crazy hoops in high yield savings.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 02:43
|
|
|
The Sock posted:I'm 25 and I have $24k sitting in a regular checking account right now, with no debt at all. I've been putting 12% away towards a ROTH and getting a 6% match and occasional bonuses, with about $24K in there as well. Ally consistently has one of the best savings account interest rates around. Sometimes someone else may be beating them by a few hundredths of a percent at any given time, but it doesn't last. Then I'd look for a local credit union to move my checking to, they generally are fee-free and require only a $5 minimum deposit (but read the fine print for yourself). When you say your next big expenses would be getting married and a house "in the next few years," are these actual plans, or just generic American Dream stuff? Until you have actual reasons for getting a house, you don't need a house, and shouldn't plan for getting a house. You say you're getting a match on your Roth, is it a Roth 401k then? Assuming so: if you haven't made any IRA contributions this year, go ahead and open one and put $5,500 in it now and $5,500 again in January. If you want to put more away than that, set your 401k contributions to the maximum allowed by your employer and "pay" yourself out of your savings instead, until you have your desired level of liquid savings. Don't buy any taxable investments until both of these are maxed out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 02:49
|
|
|
Kilty Monroe posted:Ally consistently has one of the best savings account interest rates around. Sometimes someone else may be beating them by a few hundredths of a percent at any given time, but it doesn't last. Then I'd look for a local credit union to move my checking to, they generally are fee-free and require only a $5 minimum deposit (but read the fine print for yourself). I will check these out, thank you. My girlfriend lives with me and we have been dating for 3 years now, so, yes it is in my plans. The house part, no, I don't need a house, however, I would like to own one in the future when I am ready for one. I would like to put at least 20% down and still have my emergency fund. It is a Roth 401k. I'm contributing 12% of my salary, or $6,180/year. So, I have plenty of room to increase my 401k contributions to the $17,500 limit. I also get a 6% match from the company, and a profit sharing bonus. Last year, we got 10% of our salary, however, if I understand it correctly, the match and the bonus do not count towards the $17,500 limit?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 03:16
|
|
|
The Sock posted:I will check these out, thank you. Correct. There is another limit on combined employer and employee contributions, but pretty much nobody can actually hit it (it's like 3x as much). And regarding the IRA, it can actually be better for you to just stick with the Roth 401k until it's maxed out if you happen to have particularly good fund choices. I would also read the OP of the house-buying thread before committing to the idea of home ownership.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 03:51
|
|
|
slap me silly posted:Maybe we should rotate in a new thread title for a while. "Yes 0.1% is the best you can do, dammit." Change it to "Open a SmartyPig for your short-term savings needs." 1% APY with no crazy hoops to jump through. I've got one open with a $50k goal for a down payment on our next home. Whether or not we actually use it for that doesn't matter, it's forcing us to save money and we're getting 1% on it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 16:33
|
|
|
Nocheez posted:Change it to "Open a SmartyPig for your short-term savings needs." 1% APY with no crazy hoops to jump through. SmartyPig has the best rate, but they do like to try to lock up your money a bit more than say, ally or capital one 360. Nothing that you can't get around, it's just a little bit of a hassle to deal with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 18:07
|
|
|
baquerd posted:SmartyPig has the best rate, but they do like to try to lock up your money a bit more than say, ally or capital one 360. Nothing that you can't get around, it's just a little bit of a hassle to deal with. What types of hoops do they have? Just curious if it's worth using them or not. I'm getting 0.75% through Cap 1 360. I've had the account forever and never had a problem.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 19:42
|
|
|
baquerd posted:SmartyPig has the best rate, but they do like to try to lock up your money a bit more than say, ally or capital one 360. Nothing that you can't get around, it's just a little bit of a hassle to deal with. I can always put a true emergency on a credit card for the 2-3 days it may take to get Smartypig to transfer the money back to my savings account. I don't let it worry me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 19:46
|
|
|
Zeta Taskforce posted:What types of hoops do they have? Just curious if it's worth using them or not. I'm getting 0.75% through Cap 1 360. I've had the account forever and never had a problem. SmartyPig has you organize your savings into "goals" which are like sub-accounts, and then you withdraw an entire goal at a time. They then push you to accept gift cards instead of a bank transfer, which is annoying, but at least you can decline it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 19:57
|
|
|
Kilty Monroe posted:SmartyPig has you organize your savings into "goals" which are like sub-accounts, and then you withdraw an entire goal at a time. They then push you to accept gift cards instead of a bank transfer, which is annoying, but at least you can decline it. I found that their transfer times are a bit long as well. I think they lock deposited funds for several days which can be annoying if you complete a goal and wany to move it right away.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 20:45
|
|
|
SmuglyDismissed posted:I found that their transfer times are a bit long as well. I think they lock deposited funds for several days which can be annoying if you complete a goal and wany to move it right away. As an Ally user, I would mention that deposits take longer than normal accounts. Transfers are instant though (but limited to 6 a month). My first 2-3 check deposits that I happened to need done took a week. I've noticed now that my account is opened more than a month or so, it's more like 3-5 days.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 23:01
|
|
|
SmuglyDismissed posted:I found that their transfer times are a bit long as well. I think they lock deposited funds for several days which can be annoying if you complete a goal and wany to move it right away. That said, I use Ally for my regular savings account, and Smartypig if I'm saving for something specific where I won't need the money the very instant I've met my goal. I still like being able to keep track of specific goals instead of "here's a lump of money, where X is mentally earmarked for Y."
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2013 23:55
|
|
|
General question about refinancing a car. Back in February, my wife's car died and we went to get a new one. As we were doing the application, the dealership informed us that something had happened to tank my wife's credit. We looked into it and long story short her parents had made exactly zero payments on any of her student loans (which they had previously told us they were covering), leaving her with a score of right around 500. We ended up taking the hit on interest rate. A few months later we've managed to convince the student loan holder that things were screwed and they wiped the credit hits off, bumping her back over 700. Currently we've got an 8.99% rate on the car, so there's a pretty big incentive to refinance. Are there any restrictions or penalties we could be looking at (on our credit scores, cash payments, etc) to refinance so soon after the initial purchase? We're currently with Capital One. I've got another account with USAA we could look at moving to. Thanks for any advice!
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 02:09
|
|
|
Fifteen of Many posted:General question about refinancing a car. Most car loans do not come with prepayment penalties, but you would need to check with your current lender just to be sure. As far as the credit goes, to answer your question, it will be a short term, minor hit. Best guess is like 15 points for a few months, but that is not a reason to not do it. The only thing that could stop you is if you didn't put any money down on the purchase and it was a new car, the value might have dropped faster than your loan balance, in which case USAA is unlikely to want to do the loan. The other thing to keep in mind is you want to keep in mind is to keep the term of the USAA loan the same or less than the amount of time remaining with Capital One. If you do that, you will have the largest savings on interest, but to warn you, your payment will go down less than you might think. The only way you can get your payment to drop considerably is to refinance into a longer term loan, and that could drop your payment a lot, but do that and you are in debt longer and you might not actually be saving money in the long term.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 03:28
|
|
|
Zeta Taskforce posted:If you do that, you will have the largest savings on interest, but to warn you, your payment will go down less than you might think. The only way you can get your payment to drop considerably is to refinance into a longer term loan, and that could drop your payment a lot, but do that and you are in debt longer and you might not actually be saving money in the long term. Thanks for the tips. To clarify, I'm less interested in reducing the payments themselves as the overall amount of interest I'm going to be eating over the course of the loan. Not only did we have to pick up the car, but close to 30k in student loans that had gone unpaid, so I'm trying to minimize the hole I'm pouring money into on interest. Thanks again!
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 03:33
|
|
|
Fifteen of Many posted:Thanks for the tips. To clarify, I'm less interested in reducing the payments themselves as the overall amount of interest I'm going to be eating over the course of the loan. Not only did we have to pick up the car, but close to 30k in student loans that had gone unpaid, so I'm trying to minimize the hole I'm pouring money into on interest. Thanks again! You're welcome. Best thing you can do is to play with the numbers in any loan calculator and try different rates and terms to get a payment that you can manage that also gets the job done in a reasonable time. http://www.dinkytown.net/java/SimpleLoan.html Just curious, how expensive was the car? No one likes paying interest, but a common trap that people fall into is to think the interest is the one thing that is killing them and preventing them from getting ahead.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 03:41
|
|
|
Fifteen of Many posted:General question about refinancing a car. Honestly, that should have been reason to immediately back out of the car sale and put it on hold until you got your credit situation sorted. What's done is done, though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 04:45
|
|
|
Maybe this is better suited to the student loan thread, but I'm going to try here first. I'm 27. I just graduated and got a good job. I want help on prioritizing what I'm paying off. The Good: I have $1500-$2000 extra a month to put towards debt payoff/savings, after 401k, health ins, and living costs. I worked for a while before going to school, so I have ~$30k in retirement funds. I have fairly low living expenses, and good job stability/potential for advancement (tuyop proves no job is perfectly stable of course, but I'm in a small midsized company who is hiring in my area, and our revenue is growing 20%/year, selling a product to huge companies/government, and I have good initial performance reviews). The Bad: I have ~$35k in (government) student loans at 6.8%, and an additional ~$7k on credit cards at 9.99% and 11.49% (long story, but because I worked before going to school, I was eligible for less aid than expected, so ran through my savings more quickly. The $7k is mostly not stupid crap, but that doesn't make me feel any better about having credit card debt). The Question: I have about $2k of uncapitalized interest on the student loans, which capitalizes in February, when the payments start coming due. Would it be worth knocking out that $2k next month, despite it's lower interest rate, to stop it from capitalizing, or should I keep paying on the credit cards? More speculatively, people mentioning that the government 401(k) limit is so much higher for matching than for employee compensation has got me thinking, has anyone ever negotiated a raise all or mostly as increased 401(k) matching? I'm pretty interested in FI, and I make enough to easily cover my expenses. Doesn't the company get to contribute pre-tax money as well? Seems like a win-win.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 15:34
|
|
|
Somebody asked about HSA Administrators for a rollover earlier and this just happened, so I thought I'd contribute: I rolled over my HSA from my old job where I was paying a $3/mo fee. HSA administrators looked good from the start: Minimal fuss, Vanguard funds. The mutual fund part of the website is extremely ghetto. First year college student bad. The banking portion of the site, HSA Bank, looks much nicer, like it might not lose all my money in a random HostGator downtime, so I moved all my HSA Administrators (investment) money to HSA Bank (debit card). They then sent me a bill in the mail for $45 as a yearly maintenance fee. This fee doesn't show up under my account. Neither does the $25 transfer fee they snatched. I'm going to pay it, but only after verbally abusing their phone rep for a while. tl;dr: HSA Administrators is the first hit on Google but you should shop around when rolling over an HSA, and ask about fees. MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Dec 15, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 17:18
|
|
|
I use HSA bank with the TD Ameritrade option. They updated their interface a little while ago and the money in TD Ameritrade shows up in mint as an investment now. I think it's $60 a year in fees for this option, which is something I can live with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 18:34
|
|
|
Grumpwagon posted:The Question: I have about $2k of uncapitalized interest on the student loans, which capitalizes in February, when the payments start coming due. Would it be worth knocking out that $2k next month, despite it's lower interest rate, to stop it from capitalizing, or should I keep paying on the credit cards? Grumpwagon posted:More speculatively, people mentioning that the government 401(k) limit is so much higher for matching than for employee compensation has got me thinking, has anyone ever negotiated a raise all or mostly as increased 401(k) matching? I'm pretty interested in FI, and I make enough to easily cover my expenses. Doesn't the company get to contribute pre-tax money as well? Seems like a win-win.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 18:56
|
|
|
moved
Philthy fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Dec 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 20:36
|
|
|
Dik Hz posted:Why does it matter if your interest gets capitalized? That's a good question. I guess I read somewhere that it's a good idea to pay it, but I can't say I could tell you why. Dik Hz posted:If your company uses an untested 401(k) match structure, they cannot modify it for anyone. I don't know what this means. I tried googling "untested 401(k) match structure" and that didn't help. Would you mind explaining?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 21:53
|
|
|
Grumpwagon posted:I don't know what this means. I tried googling "untested 401(k) match structure" and that didn't help. Would you mind explaining?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2013 22:53
|
|
|
Bisty Q. posted:Google "Safe Harbor 401(k)" and you'll get the details; basically most companies that match don't match out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because that way they can offer benefits to everyone without having to deal with the consequences that would arise in a non-safe-harbor plan if the people at the top got more benefit than the people at the bottom. Thanks! That was very informative.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 16:19
|
|
|
Edit: snip, not leaving this here to no effect
metasynthetic fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 17:15
|
|
|
Is Ally really as good as it looks on paper for a checking account? No ATM fees, interest paid, free transfers, etc...am I missing some horrible catch? My main checking account bank, BMO Harris, decided to start charging fees for out of network ATM use without telling me, which doubly sucks because of how utterly terrible their ATM network is. I already have an ING/Capital One savings account that I'm not looking to move - I want to use Ally strictly as a checking account for now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 23:00
|
|
|
crazyfish posted:Is Ally really as good as it looks on paper for a checking account? No ATM fees, interest paid, free transfers, etc...am I missing some horrible catch? My main checking account bank, BMO Harris, decided to start charging fees for out of network ATM use without telling me, which doubly sucks because of how utterly terrible their ATM network is. I already have an ING/Capital One savings account that I'm not looking to move - I want to use Ally strictly as a checking account for now. If there is one, I haven't encountered it yet. The only issue might be if you ever need to deposit cash.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 23:18
|
|
|
crazyfish posted:Is Ally really as good as it looks on paper for a checking account? No ATM fees, interest paid, free transfers, etc...am I missing some horrible catch? My main checking account bank, BMO Harris, decided to start charging fees for out of network ATM use without telling me, which doubly sucks because of how utterly terrible their ATM network is. I already have an ING/Capital One savings account that I'm not looking to move - I want to use Ally strictly as a checking account for now. They've always charged for out of network. However, if you have more than (I think) 2,000 in either checking or savings, they reimburse you for the first 4 or 5 per month. If you're me, you use an ATM maybe once a week. You get all the money back. This is good when you're in vegas and you see dumb poo poo like $10 fees to get money. They reimburse it all. But if you keep a lower balance, go somewhere else.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 23:39
|
|
|
Philthy posted:They've always charged for out of network. However, if you have more than (I think) 2,000 in either checking or savings, they reimburse you for the first 4 or 5 per month. If you're me, you use an ATM maybe once a week. You get all the money back. They don't list a minimum deposit for this, but it's probably somewhere in the fine print. I have zero issue keeping a buffer that will allow me to get reimbursed all around if that's the case. My joint account with my wife already has a physical location so worst case, I can deposit cash in the joint account, write myself a check from it, and cash it with the app.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2013 23:43
|
|
|
Grumpwagon posted:That's a good question. I guess I read somewhere that it's a good idea to pay it, but I can't say I could tell you why. If you pay capitalized interest, make sure you claim it. It will not appear on your 1098-e, buy you can still claim it as interest paid if it meets the other criteria.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 00:07
|
|
|
Philthy posted:They've always charged for out of network. However, if you have more than (I think) 2,000 in either checking or savings, they reimburse you for the first 4 or 5 per month. If you're me, you use an ATM maybe once a week. You get all the money back. I swear they are on some credit union network because I was able to make a withdrawal fee free at some atm in nyc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 00:36
|
|
|
Philthy posted:They've always charged for out of network. However, if you have more than (I think) 2,000 in either checking or savings, they reimburse you for the first 4 or 5 per month. If you're me, you use an ATM maybe once a week. You get all the money back. Ally specifically advertises that they reimburse all ATM fees.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2013 12:01
|
|
|
I have a unique credit score situation that I'd like some advice on. My brother is completing his fellowship to be a cardiologist in the next few years. My parents really hosed up paying off his loans and because they missed like four months of payments (without even knowing about it) my brother's credit score is absolute poo poo. Obviously, my parents' credit score is poo poo anyways. It's weird because my brother has never missed a payment on any of his own credit cards, and he will be making more than 250k a year pretty soon. My parents just kind of dropped the ball on completing some loan payments. My brother is now worried that he won't be able to buy a house or anything like that for seven years. I can provide more information if needed, but goons, is there anything that can be done? Should he get a lawyer to explain the situation, ie, that it really wasnt his fault the payments were missed? Or does he really have to wait several years for his credit score to fix itself? I would truly appreciate any advice, because I care deeply about him and want to help. Splendiferous fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Dec 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 00:52
|
|
|
Splendiferous posted:I have a unique credit score situation that I'd like some advice on. I'd say he should start by explaining the situation to the loan provider, assure them of his good faith intent to repay the loan, and asking what they would like him to do to demonstrate that in exchange for reversing the negative reporting. Can't honestly say what his chances of success are, but Fifteen of Many's post further up this page says he successfully got a similar situation worked out with his wife's student loans. If they're completely uncooperative, I doubt a lawyer can help. They're legally in the right in reporting accurately, regardless of the circumstances behind it. Kilty Monroe fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Dec 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 01:49
|
|
|
Splendiferous posted:I have a unique credit score situation that I'd like some advice on. File this under: not a problem. Recency matters a ton, so he won't have to wait 7 years. By the time he saves for a down payment (even with a $250k salary), the loans will be old enough that it won't be a problem.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 01:49
|
|
|
Honestly if your brother came out of medical training with anything resembling the average debt he should spend the remainder of those seven years paying down his debt and saving/investing the rest. He should continue living like a poor resident/fellow rather than leveraging his new income into debt on a house.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 03:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 12:17 |
|
|
Some significant money is coming my way. About a years salary of money ( via inheritance  )My house needs a new roof. It currently is working (not leaking) but the shingles are old, etc. My questions is, should I go ahead and get a new roof? Should I keep the money in a savings account and make trivial interest and hope I win the homeowners insurance hail damage lottery? Right now I'm leaning towards "put it off as long as possible".
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2013 07:19
|
|
