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kaishek posted:First: Don't. You have to make 3% returns just to break even - also if you use the card that you transferred to for anything other than the balance transfer for ANYTHING ELSE - a single coffee - you will pay interest until the whole balance is paid off. So if this is a card you want to use for anything other than this, bad idea. Yeah I read far enough into the contract to understand that. The card has had zero balance on it for the last 6 months which is one of the reasons I was considering it. If I were to make money on it, it would only be like 350 dollars, so it's really not worth the risk.
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Feb 2, 2014 23:28
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slap me silly posted:Thanks for listing more examples of how gaming credit offers requires you to take on added risk. No point in having good credit unless you use it to your advantage. Edit: I wouldn't do a 3% transfer fee one though. Harry fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 2, 2014 |
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Feb 2, 2014 23:33
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If you are looking to play the credit card game I'm not sure why you would be looking at doing something so complicated and risky when you can make $250-$500 from signup bonuses with much less risk.
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Feb 3, 2014 03:29
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The basic premise of investing borrowed money is called investing on margin, and it has a rich history of making big winners and big losers out of people, but $5k on margin isn't enough to really impact much short term or long term. Margin is effectively used when leveraging large amounts of capital in low risk investments, meaning that you believe you can get a consistent return above your borrowing rate (this situation doesn't happen in equities). Margin is also valuable when you're betting big on substantial short-term returns, in which case congratulations on your amazing financial acumen/insider trading. Investing on margin in index funds is just straight up gambling.
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Feb 3, 2014 03:38
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This was better back in the day (which I never got to take advantage of) when you could get 0% fee Balance Transfers while simultaneously getting ~4+% interest on online savings accounts. Take the risk out of the equation, and you have actually a good deal.
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Feb 3, 2014 16:39
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kaishek posted:This was better back in the day (which I never got to take advantage of) when you could get 0% fee Balance Transfers while simultaneously getting ~4+% interest on online savings accounts. Take the risk out of the equation, and you have actually a good deal. Except even then you still had to pay Federal and State income taxes on your bank interest, so you 4% was more like 2.75%, so you would have been shuffling money around and pretending you were some financial genius who outsmarted the system through the magic of arbitrage. And it would screw up the utilization on your credit report. So yeah, good deal.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:34
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Except even then you still had to pay Federal and State income taxes on your bank interest, so you 4% was more like 2.75%, so you would have been shuffling money around and pretending you were some financial genius who outsmarted the system through the magic of arbitrage. And it would screw up the utilization on your credit report. So yeah, good deal. Yeah making 2 transfers for free money was really tough work. Definitely not worth someone's time for the extra hundred dollars a year.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:45
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Harry posted:Yeah making 2 transfers for free money was really tough work. Definitely not worth someone's time for the extra hundred dollars a year. When you put it that way it's kind of like you won the lottery. I'm happy that FICO has been such a good provider for you.
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Feb 3, 2014 18:01
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Ugh.. I'm really disappointed in my spending. I mean, I do crazy stuff to save money (no cable, $80 a year phone plan, etc) but I absolutely kill myself eating out every month. I still save a decent amount every month but I could save so much more if I could just kill that habit. I think I'm going to start bringing some Avocados to work and some other filling foods I can keep in my office. I really need to beat this habit more than anything else.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:12
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Ugh.. I'm really disappointed in my spending. I mean, I do crazy stuff to save money (no cable, $80 a year phone plan, etc) but I absolutely kill myself eating out every month. I still save a decent amount every month but I could save so much more if I could just kill that habit. You need an envelope or cash-only system. Make some easy-to-reheat meals on Sundays so you can take lunch to work. Your body and bank account will thank you.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:57
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How much of a pain in the rear end is amending a tax return? I already submitted my taxes for this year, and lo and behold I got a 1099 from Amazon in the mail yesterday. I wrote some crappy ebook that only sold a few copies, and I thought that payments weren't disbursed until over $20 in royalties were collected. That policy changed though, and I never noticed a $10.70 payment from Amazon back in October. Apparently the forms for amending a return haven't been prepared yet. Is this a huge pain or is it relatively simple to do? I'm pretty loving annoyed that I even made any money off the drat thing, and I can only amend with a paper form and mailing it in.
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Feb 4, 2014 16:35
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monsieur fatso posted:How much of a pain in the rear end is amending a tax return? I already submitted my taxes for this year, and lo and behold I got a 1099 from Amazon in the mail yesterday. I wrote some crappy ebook that only sold a few copies, and I thought that payments weren't disbursed until over $20 in royalties were collected. That policy changed though, and I never noticed a $10.70 payment from Amazon back in October. Is it wrong of me to say not to worry about this? And to see if the IRS sends a matching notice later in the year asking for their missing $1.61 (assuming 15% bracket)? It would almost cost you more to mail the thing than the extra amount you might owe.
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Feb 4, 2014 16:47
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How do credit cards affect credit score? I was an rear end in a top hat with cards my entire life, but now I'm using them properly. I'm in Canada if that makes a difference. My understanding is that the statement balance is what gets reported, so I shouldn't pay until the statement, correct? Does it matter what the credit limit is? If I use and pay $1500 on a $2k limit, does that report differently than $1500 on a $5k limit? Does it matter the source of the credit? Is $1500 used on a $5k limit on one card the same as the total figures spread over three cards? All paid in full every month, of course. At least I finally get that part.
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Feb 4, 2014 17:26
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Oh god, can we go back to that thread title "Quit trying to game your credit score" again. Yes those things can make a difference sometimes, why are you even worried about it. Just pay your bills on time and let it take care of itself.
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Feb 4, 2014 18:12
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I'm not worried about it, I just want to use them responsibly and gain the most long-term benefit. I'm sorry if this has been covered. Can you help out with a page number or something?
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Feb 4, 2014 18:45
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monsieur fatso posted:How much of a pain in the rear end is amending a tax return? I already submitted my taxes for this year, and lo and behold I got a 1099 from Amazon in the mail yesterday. I wrote some crappy ebook that only sold a few copies, and I thought that payments weren't disbursed until over $20 in royalties were collected. That policy changed though, and I never noticed a $10.70 payment from Amazon back in October. For such a small amount IMO don't worry about it, but I am not a tax attorney. If the IRS cares enough they will contact you about it asking for an amendment before any sort of penalty. I actually looked into this a little bit in the past when I forgot to include like $50-75 worth of qualified HSA distributions in my tax forms, though it wouldn't have changed my taxes due by even 1 cent so maybe it's a bit different. The advice I found even from the IRS directly was to just wait and see if they contact you about requesting an amendment. They never did. Read this: http://www.irs.gov/Help-&-Resources...ns-&-Form-1040X quote:Question: What should I do if I made a mistake on my federal return that I have already filed? Guinness fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 18:59
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Old Fart posted:I'm not worried about it, I just want to use them responsibly and gain the most long-term benefit. I'm sorry if this has been covered. Can you help out with a page number or something? From the OP: quote:How can I improve my credit score? Should I keep a balance? What should my utilization to credit ratio be? The only thing missing from this is some advice for people that are just starting out and don't have any credit. For me that basically boiled down to getting a student visa from BOA and paying it off every month. Then when I became eligible for 0% cards I just got one of those (even though I had the cash) and used it to slowly pay my wedding expenses off. Now I just use one monthly CC and a target discount card, pay them off every month and my credit is great.
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Feb 4, 2014 19:20
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I e-filed on January 25 and just checked Where's My Refund and it's supposed to be sent to my bank by Thursday. This poo poo is running a lot more smoothly than it used to.  However I got a 1099-G from the state for refunded state taxes on the loving 31st and I have to file a loving amendment now  I don't give a poo poo about the 30 bucks I'll have to send back but what a pain in the rear end. I won't get trigger happy with my return next year.
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Feb 4, 2014 20:10
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Nail Rat posted:I e-filed on January 25 and just checked Where's My Refund and it's supposed to be sent to my bank by Thursday. This poo poo is running a lot more smoothly than it used to. I never understood that. Why should you have to pay taxes on a tax refund? It was money that was taxed initially, but given back because it shouldn't have been, and then it gets taxed again as new income? How does that make sense?
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Feb 4, 2014 20:16
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Nocheez posted:You need an envelope or cash-only system. Make some easy-to-reheat meals on Sundays so you can take lunch to work. Cash only is a great system. It works very well for me. I still use a rewards card for most spending, but I physically move around the dollars at the end of the day in my little drawer, sort of like poker chips. If you're in the US, get a bunch of gold dollar coins from a bank for your cash piles and feel like a pirate  Orange_Lazarus posted:Ugh.. I'm really disappointed in my spending. I mean, I do crazy stuff to save money (no cable, $80 a year phone plan, etc) but I absolutely kill myself eating out every month. I still save a decent amount every month but I could save so much more if I could just kill that habit. If it's lunches that are doing it and you're good about cooking at home, just double your recipes and put some lunches in the fridge or freezer the night before. For most things, it is a negligible difference in prep time to double the recipe and you probably have some dollar savings from buying in bulk and avoiding spoilage on ingredients. You can put together a really rockin' lunch for $2-3/day if you plan for it.
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Feb 4, 2014 20:35
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monsieur fatso posted:I never understood that. Why should you have to pay taxes on a tax refund? It was money that was taxed initially, but given back because it shouldn't have been, and then it gets taxed again as new income? How does that make sense? poo poo, I meant to post that in the income tax thread, my bad. Anyway, you only have to give it back if you itemized your federal deductions. Say for example(not my real situation, just a hypothetical): 80k AGI for 2012 15k worth of itemized(not standard) deductions, including 5k state tax and 2k real estate taxes. You end up getting a federal refund based on paying 5k worth of (non-taxable) state taxes, and say a 100 dollar tax refund from the state due to real estate tax deductions. Well, in this case you should have only gotten a refund based on $4900 state taxes, not 5k - because in the end you didn't pay that $100 to the state(because they paid it back). If you take the standard federal deduction, of course, you wouldn't owe anything because that $100 didn't factor into your return at all the previous year. It's kind of nitpicky and hard to keep track of but it does make sense.
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Feb 4, 2014 20:45
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I'm sure this is a common question, but how should I set up my emergency fund? Is it OK to have something like 1 month of savings in an accessible account and then put the rest of the emergency fund in bonds or something else stable?
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Feb 4, 2014 22:54
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You, too, should read the OP... Bonds aren't "stable" as such and are not a good idea for an emergency fund. Definitely don't use a bond-based mutual fund. There are a couple of things you can get from the Treasury that could work but they won't earn any interest right now either.
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Feb 4, 2014 23:53
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USSMICHELLEBACHMAN posted:So one of my credit cards that I never use keeps mailing me these "0% APR for 1 year if you use us to balance transfer!!" checks. I always ignore it, but I just put a $5000 down payment for a car on my rewards card (mega points). Of course, I have the cash to pay this off now. USSMICHELLEBACHMAN posted:I'm sure this is a common question, but how should I set up my emergency fund? Is it OK to have something like 1 month of savings in an accessible account and then put the rest of the emergency fund in bonds or something else stable? You're hitting all the perennial controversial questions in the thread.  Regarding the emergency fund: it depends on you. The purpose of the fund is to reduce your risk exposure in case of large shocks to income (job loss, cut hours, disability) or expenses (medical emergency, car repairs, home repairs, out-of-town last-minute funeral.) I like to keep it in cash, and anything else that is not cash is not my emergency fund. If you had an emergency that ate up 3 months of living expenses, but had to wait two months to pull that money out of a CD, you'd have to put some of it on a higher interest form of debt like a credit card. My emergency fund doesn't exist to earn me interest, it exists to keep me from paying interest in case of emergency. There's an opportunity cost there, but due to my risk tolerance I'd rather forego 1-2% interest on a few thousand dollars in a "safe" investment like bonds or CDs to hold it as king cash. As far as how much, the rule of thumb on this forum and others is 6 months of living expenses. I like that, because it gives me enough time to make large structural changes if needed. For example, I could probably stretch 6 months of today's monthly expenses to at least 12 months by converting assets (selling a car, selling house and renting something smaller, dipping into investments) or changing expenses (hardship deferral on student loan, car insurance coverage, getting rid of phones). I hope that gives you enough information to make your decision.
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Feb 4, 2014 23:59
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USSMICHELLEBACHMAN posted:I'm sure this is a common question, but how should I set up my emergency fund? Is it OK to have something like 1 month of savings in an accessible account and then put the rest of the emergency fund in bonds or something else stable? The most you should be doing with your emergency fund is putting it in a online high-yield savings account like at Ally and maybe some in a CD.
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Feb 5, 2014 00:21
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On the other hand, if you're in a stable financial situation (two incomes and able to live off one of the incomes, able to cut back on expenses, ample cheap credit, able to fall back on family in a worst case scenario, etc.), you don't really need much of an emergency fund. One month's expenses (at a cyclical minimum) in cash is fine. This depends on your risk tolerance of course.
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Feb 5, 2014 01:33
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I'm having trouble wrapping my head around residual interest on a credit card, I've tried googling some explanations, but I'm still confused. Are there any particularly good explanations of this? As well, my credit card statements from Amex read like this:
Payments/Credits: -$1500 New Charges: +$1600 Interest Charged: +$25 New Balance: $1125 However, only $500 of that payment was made before the due date of the previous balance. The remaining $1000 was made after the due date. The "Payments/Credits" line makes it look like I've paid off my previous balance, and have a $500 credit to apply to new charges, but that's not accurate. Is this where the "Interest Charged" line comes in? I called Amex today about my February statement having an interest charge despite paying off my entire January statement balance ($1125) well before the due date. He started talking about residual interest and needing two months of consecutive statement payoffs, but then said it actually wasn't residual interest and just wiped the finance charge, which made me want to understand what was going on. Donald Kimball fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 20:00
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Credit card interest typically works like so: People who pay their balance off every month receive a grace period of interest free charges to the card, which typically lasts until the payment due date (~21 days). The moment you do not pay your balance in full by the due date, you lose this interest free grace period. This means that not only are you getting charged interest on your previous monthly balance that wasn't paid, but you are also being charged interest on every new charge to the card as well. So you'll find yourself in a situation where (if you haven't been paying the balance in full) you finally pay the previous months balance in full, but you still get charged interest on any purchases made on the card for the time period between when you received the bill and the start of the next billing cycle. After the next billing cycle starts, the interest-free grace period would kick back in.
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Feb 6, 2014 02:26
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That makes a lot of sense, thanks!
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Feb 6, 2014 04:01
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This was recently posted in SloMo's thread:PhantomOfTheCopier posted:AmEx Platinum prefers to make things confusing, so let's suppose you have a "Pay Over Time Feature" (since you were carrying a balance on your card previously, and this would be the only way if it was a Platinum card, which at a glance matches the Green and Gold): DarkJC - I have a question about your post. When you say "balance in full" do you mean "statement balance" or entire balance on account? I'm not about to learn on my Chase rewards card (holy hell 22.24% IIRC!!) and I pay it off in full multiple times a month, but I'm curious. I haven't read the fine print regarding interest, as I intended to pay it off multiple times a month when I signed up. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 07:44
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SiGmA_X posted:DarkJC - I have a question about your post. When you say "balance in full" do you mean "statement balance" or entire balance on account? I'm not about to learn on my Chase rewards card (holy hell 22.24% IIRC!!) and I pay it off in full multiple times a month, but I'm curious. I haven't read the fine print regarding interest, as I intended to pay it off multiple times a month when I signed up. Statement balance. Paying it off multiple times a month is overkill unless you spend a lot more than your credit limit.
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Feb 6, 2014 23:41
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Quick Question: I have three balances 1. $14000 on a credit card with like 12% interest (min payment of $250 mo) 2. $6000 on a auto loan with 3% interest (min payment of $130 mo) 3. $900 on a credit card with 4 months left of 0% interest (min payment of $35 mo) I've got $5,000 cash to apply. My original thought is to pay off #3 completely, and apply the remainder to #1. That would lower the minimum payment of #1, remove the minimum payment of #2. In the future I anticipate having $250/mo to apply toward debt. Am I thinking correct in how to proceed, or is there more advantage to working on removing these using the snowball method beyond psychological advantage?
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Feb 7, 2014 17:36
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3 is probably going to hurt when it goes off the promotional rate, so yes, pay that off and use the rest on 1. But keep paying at least what you're paying now toward it, and I'd also throw 3's minimum at 1 while you're at it. Makes it that much faster to pay off. The car loan at 3% isn't astronomical, so I'd kill off 1 first if you have the cashflow.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:45
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FrozenVent posted:3 is probably going to hurt when it goes off the promotional rate, so yes, pay that off and use the rest on 1. Thanks. Yeah, I would imagine after the promotional rate ends I'm screwed. That's kind of what happened with the $14000 card, it was originally on a 0% promotional rate. I'll go ahead and do that.
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Feb 7, 2014 18:21
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I've got a credit card I want to cancel. It's a crappy Capital One card with a $750 limit that I got and never used 5 or 6 years ago (other than $40 I put on it a few months ago and then paid). It's no annual fee, but if I look at the same card now it has an annual fee, so I'd rather just not worry about it and get rid of it. I have a couple of older cards so I'm not concerned with account age, also I'm not buying a house so I don't care about my credit score that much right now. So anyway, the actual nuts and bolts of cancelling. Do I just call Capital One and say I want to cancel? Anything else to it?
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Feb 8, 2014 00:32
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FISHMANPET posted:So anyway, the actual nuts and bolts of cancelling. Do I just call Capital One and say I want to cancel? Anything else to it? Yep, just call and cancel. They will try and convince you to keep it or get a new card, but just keep saying no. I also request it in writing, because I'm paranoid like that. If I don't see a letter within 2 weeks, I call again.
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Feb 8, 2014 01:02
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Last week I finally set up a roth IRA with Vanguard. I nearly had a panic attack when I put the money into a growth fund. Is this normal for new investors.?
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Feb 8, 2014 11:11
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I did not have that experience when I started, nor when the value of my entire retirement account fell by almost half in the 2008 crash. You might want to have a conversation with yourself about what your risk tolerance really is. If you want, you could use less risky investments, at the cost of lower expected returns in the long term. Or you could convince yourself that you're doing the right thing now and learn to ignore the dollar value of your retirement accounts. What you don't want to do is panic and start moving money around in the next bubble, destroying your portfolio allocation at the worst possible time.
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Feb 8, 2014 15:03
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SiGmA_X posted:DarkJC - I have a question about your post. When you say "balance in full" do you mean "statement balance" or entire balance on account? I'm not about to learn on my Chase rewards card (holy hell 22.24% IIRC!!) and I pay it off in full multiple times a month, but I'm curious. I haven't read the fine print regarding interest, as I intended to pay it off multiple times a month when I signed up. Yeah, a lot of people over-complicate this (not necessarily you, I understand there are other reasons to pay multiple times a month, whether that be to spend over the credit limit, or for budgetary reasons, or whatever). Basically, when you get your new statement, pay the statement due balance by the statement due date, and you will never have problems. (and just to get another frequently asked question out of the way..) The balance at the time of the statement will be reported to the credit bureau. As of the last few years, cards will also frequently report the last payment, so spending up to your limit and paying it off every month is much less of a concern than it used to be (YMMV, computers are stupid, etc). FizFashizzle posted:Last week I finally set up a roth IRA with Vanguard. I nearly had a panic attack when I put the money into a growth fund. I'd very seriously consider investing in the appropriate target retirement account, setting up an automatic transfer, then never looking at the vanguard website ever again (well, once a year for tax forms). Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 17:22
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FizFashizzle posted:Last week I finally set up a roth IRA with Vanguard. I nearly had a panic attack when I put the money into a growth fund. Don't invest over your risk tolerance, even if that means investing more conservatively than you're 'supposed to'. You'll do far more damage pulling all your money out at a market low than you ever will investing 60/40 instead of 80/20, or whatever. The best suggestion is to probably put it into a target retirement fund that makes you comfortable. Imagine the stock portion dropping 50%, if you start having sweaty palms about it, move to something more conservative, repeat util you sleep well at night.
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Feb 8, 2014 17:35
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