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My work has a FSA to go along with the insurance. I was looking and I have a health insurance plan with a pretty high deductible ($1400/year) because I am young and healthy and it was the cheapest one. Can I go to like, Vanguard and get a HSA? Is the only requirement having that high deductible? I'd like to put something every month away for medical expenses, but I'm always worried I'll not use what would go into a FSA and I'd lose it at the end of the year.
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Jun 5, 2014 21:05
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:My work has a FSA to go along with the insurance. I was looking and I have a health insurance plan with a pretty high deductible ($1400/year) because I am young and healthy and it was the cheapest one. Can I go to like, Vanguard and get a HSA? Is the only requirement having that high deductible? The $1,400 is high enough, but there are several other requirements on a health plan that need to be met for it to be HSA eligible. Does it pay for anything before you've met the deductible (besides preventive care), such as requiring that you pay a copay for prescription drugs instead of paying the entire cost? If so, it's not HSA eligible. There are other disqualifying criteria, but that's the usual one. You can have an HSA outside of your employer, so contact Vanguard or whoever to see if they have any guidance for you. Also, in general you can't have both an FSA and HSA at the same time (lots of additional rules regarding that), so if your plan is HSA eligible don't sign up for your FSA. esquilax fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 21:25
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:My work has a FSA to go along with the insurance. I was looking and I have a health insurance plan with a pretty high deductible ($1400/year) because I am young and healthy and it was the cheapest one. Can I go to like, Vanguard and get a HSA? Is the only requirement having that high deductible? You can roll over the balance of an FSA as long as it is under $500.
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Jun 5, 2014 23:18
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You should check with the insurer if it is HDHP compliant. The minimum deductible for a single person is $1250 this year.
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Jun 5, 2014 23:21
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spinst posted:You can roll over the balance of an FSA as long as it is under $500. Only if your plan allows it. You can't both rollover and have a grace period, and many existing plans seem to have kept their grace period.
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Jun 6, 2014 01:00
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Bisty Q. posted:Only if your plan allows it. You can't both rollover and have a grace period, and many existing plans seem to have kept their grace period. You are correct - I had no idea. Apparently they can also do neither of them!
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Jun 6, 2014 02:19
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spinst posted:You can roll over the balance of an FSA as long as it is under $500. This is a very recent change to the tax code to allow employers to do this so it won't be a common thing for a year or two probably.
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Jun 6, 2014 21:25
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I have about $15,000 sitting in a savings account. I want to invest some of it. I already have an IRA through work so I was thinking to stick it in some medium term investments that are reasonably safe? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to investing. What are some good options? I looked at the Stock Picking & Trading thread but I'm not sure if what I'm looking for constitutes "trading". I don't have any misplaced confidence in picking stocks to beat the market since I have zero experience. Obviously there is some trade off between liquidity, safety, and rate of return (can't max all 3); I want to have the money be reasonably liquid and safe while getting a better return on money than the 0.000001% my bank gives me.
FieryBalrog fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 23:21
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Open a savings account at a bank that doesn't suck. Alliant and Capital One 360 both are good for that.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:24
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FieryBalrog posted:I have about $15,000 sitting in a savings account. I want to invest some of it. I already have an IRA through work so I was thinking to stick it in some medium term investments that are reasonably safe? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to investing. What are some good options? I looked at the Stock Picking & Trading thread but I'm not sure if what I'm looking for constitutes "trading". I don't have any misplaced confidence in picking stocks to beat the market since I have zero experience. Obviously there is some trade off between liquidity, safety, and rate of return (can't max all 3); I want to have the money be reasonably liquid and safe while getting a better return on money than the 0.000001% my bank gives me. I was in the exact same position earlier this year. Then I read the Three Fund Portfolio, did some more reading elsewhere on similar topics, and built a basic portfolio using commission-free ETFs from my broker (Schwab).
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Jun 9, 2014 00:33
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FieryBalrog posted:I already have an IRA through work Do you mean 401(k)? IRAs by definition are separate from employmers.
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Jun 9, 2014 00:59
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I'm attempting to figure out where I'm spending money because a good bit of it I have no idea on. I have mint and it's categorized in mint, however that doesn't seem to actually help that much because I'll have a bunch of stuff like "Amazon" or "CVS" without a reasonable way way to be like "Ok this Amazon order was for a new skillet, but this one was for some stupid poo poo I shouldn't have spent any money on". On top of that, the views seem to be incredibly confusing because I have my wife's accounts and my accounts in mint, and all together we have 16 accounts under "Accounts" and 7 accounts under "Credit Card". Often times these will be the same thing but one for my wife and one for myself (e.g. two PayPal accounts) but looking at the mint transactions all I see is "PayPal" so I'm stuck looking over all the accounts to try and figure out which one of us spent that money so I can figure out what the hell it even is. So my question is, is there some software that sucks less in this situation? Does Quicken do a better job? I don't mind spending money to make this happen but I'm getting super frustrated at Mint right now.
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Jun 9, 2014 02:22
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Steampunk Hitler posted:I'm attempting to figure out where I'm spending money because a good bit of it I have no idea on. I have mint and it's categorized in mint, however that doesn't seem to actually help that much because I'll have a bunch of stuff like "Amazon" or "CVS" without a reasonable way way to be like "Ok this Amazon order was for a new skillet, but this one was for some stupid poo poo I shouldn't have spent any money on". On top of that, the views seem to be incredibly confusing because I have my wife's accounts and my accounts in mint, and all together we have 16 accounts under "Accounts" and 7 accounts under "Credit Card". Often times these will be the same thing but one for my wife and one for myself (e.g. two PayPal accounts) but looking at the mint transactions all I see is "PayPal" so I'm stuck looking over all the accounts to try and figure out which one of us spent that money so I can figure out what the hell it even is. This is always my quick and dirty budget calculator: http://www.youcandealwithit.com/borrowers/calculators-and-resources/calculators/budget-calculator.shtml
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Jun 9, 2014 02:33
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EugeneJ posted:This is always my quick and dirty budget calculator: To be clear, I'm not trying to make a budget (yet!) I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm spending money on (so I can make a budget!). As it is right now I basically just buy whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it as long as I have enough in my checking account, if a bill comes around I toss it on a CC and then pay that down to zero as soon as my next check comes. This "works" in that I'm not going into debt or anything, but I'm also not saving much and I have little ability to plan for large purchases. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm spending on and trying to figure out what the best tool for this is.
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Jun 9, 2014 02:38
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In Mint, you can just individually change the category on each entry if you want to. For instance, when I stop in a gas station and buy drinks or snacks or something, it always automatically categorizes it as "Gas" or whatever. I just manually change it to Fast Food (my category for "poo poo I don't need"). Same with Amazon. Buying car parts? Change it to automotive. Buying protein powder? Gym. You can also change the nicknames on each account. I have two Ally savings accounts, so to keep them separate, I named one of them "Emergency" and the other "Car or House" in Mint.
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Jun 9, 2014 02:45
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You can also split transactions in Mint. Say you make a $75 Amazon order but $25 is books and $50 is housewares. You can split the single $75 transaction into two transactions of $25 and $50 and categorize each of them as whatever you want.
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Jun 9, 2014 02:48
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Steampunk Hitler posted:I'm attempting to figure out where I'm spending money because a good bit of it I have no idea on. I have mint and it's categorized in mint, however that doesn't seem to actually help that much because I'll have a bunch of stuff like "Amazon" or "CVS" without a reasonable way way to be like "Ok this Amazon order was for a new skillet, but this one was for some stupid poo poo I shouldn't have spent any money on". On top of that, the views seem to be incredibly confusing because I have my wife's accounts and my accounts in mint, and all together we have 16 accounts under "Accounts" and 7 accounts under "Credit Card". Often times these will be the same thing but one for my wife and one for myself (e.g. two PayPal accounts) but looking at the mint transactions all I see is "PayPal" so I'm stuck looking over all the accounts to try and figure out which one of us spent that money so I can figure out what the hell it even is. You can name the accounts, ie My Paypal and Wife's paypal. For amazon I name the charge whatever I bought, ie "Amazon Skillet".
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Jun 9, 2014 03:05
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I think the issue is tracking things as they are bought. I haven't used mint for a while (I didn't like it very much), but if I remember how it works correctly, it pulls the information from you accounts. If things aren't posted to your account right away, you may forget what it is you spent money on. My suggestion is to be more proactive with tracking your spending. Save your receipts. Save your emails with your purchases from amazon. If you just bought something, write it down, and keep all this info handy when you go into mint to categorize everything. edit: Mint can tell you what accounts were used to spend money, and approximate the categories based on where money was spent. As far as I know, the only way to find out what exactly your money is being spent on is by tracking it yourself. GAYS FOR DAYS fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 03:35
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Or check your Amazon order history and view invoices until you find what matches (in case things get split up into different shipments and therefore split up into multiple CC charges) The worst is when you cash or write checks, and there's a long time between when you write it and when someone else cashed it. If you didn't keep a copy or your bank doesn't retain a digital photo of it as a record, good luck categorizing that one!
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Jun 9, 2014 05:13
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I have two mint accounts. One for joint stuff with the wife, and one for my personal savings/checking. All together it would just be unmanageable. I also manually categorize every purchase by item type and not merchant. Helps a lot if I'm brutally honest and don't shove stuff under misc when I'm over budget on a category.
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Jun 9, 2014 05:23
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SpelledBackwards posted:The worst is when you cash or write checks, and there's a long time between when you write it and when someone else cashed it. If you didn't keep a copy or your bank doesn't retain a digital photo of it as a record, good luck categorizing that one! Checks suck, but even my little credit union has on-line account access where I can see the image of the check. It happens about once a month that I have to look up what a check was for.
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Jun 9, 2014 13:53
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Nocheez posted:Checks suck, but even my little credit union has on-line account access where I can see the image of the check. It happens about once a month that I have to look up what a check was for. Likewise. I actually have a bigger problem with checks written to me that I cash, which is a much more rare event. Because I don't have any record of it after the fact except that I made a deposit... although now that I usually deposit via my credit union's phone app, I more often keep the checks around for a bit until I can confirm their categorization in Mint. It's funny how much I loathe spending straight cash these days because Mint doesn't easily handle it for me. I'm not about to whip out my phone, unlock it, enter a PIN in the Mint app, and go through its clunky process for recording the transaction as it's occurring. That's probably a $50 black hole in my spending each month unless I specifically tally up drinks bought at a concert the night before or something.
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Jun 9, 2014 14:33
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I keep an account called exactly "Cash Black Hole".
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Jun 9, 2014 16:43
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Similarly, I have a budget line item in Mint of $80/mo for uncategorized ATM cash withdrawals. I don't typically fill it up, but I keep it as a catch-all for the random ATM transaction that I'm too lazy or forgetful to categorize correctly. I rarely spend cash so it is a very small black hole, but a black hole nonetheless.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:11
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Guinness posted:Similarly, I have a budget line item in Mint of $80/mo for uncategorized ATM cash withdrawals. I don't typically fill it up, but I keep it as a catch-all for the random ATM transaction that I'm too lazy or forgetful to categorize correctly. I rarely spend cash so it is a very small black hole, but a black hole nonetheless. Yeah, I do the same. If I don't need the cash, there's usually some other unexpected expense that it helps cover.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:43
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Steampunk Hitler posted:I'm attempting to figure out where I'm spending money because a good bit of it I have no idea on. I have mint and it's categorized in mint, however that doesn't seem to actually help that much because I'll have a bunch of stuff like "Amazon" or "CVS" without a reasonable way way to be like "Ok this Amazon order was for a new skillet, but this one was for some stupid poo poo I shouldn't have spent any money on". On top of that, the views seem to be incredibly confusing because I have my wife's accounts and my accounts in mint, and all together we have 16 accounts under "Accounts" and 7 accounts under "Credit Card". Often times these will be the same thing but one for my wife and one for myself (e.g. two PayPal accounts) but looking at the mint transactions all I see is "PayPal" so I'm stuck looking over all the accounts to try and figure out which one of us spent that money so I can figure out what the hell it even is. That said, why can you not categorize transactions?! Mint FAQ and Google says you can... So maybe you should do it?
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Jun 10, 2014 01:36
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SiGmA_X posted:I haven't used mint since it's first few months if release. I've used quicken since 04 and felt that mint was a total piece of poo poo that didn't do what I expected. I figured it out, part of the problem was I just didn't realize I could rename the accounts, so the problem of figuring out which Wells Fargo account had a 54.30 Amazon charge so I can figure out whose Amazon account to look at to see what that purchase a month ago was is mostly solved now that I can see better exactly whose account it was.
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Jun 10, 2014 05:45
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Steampunk Hitler posted:I figured it out, part of the problem was I just didn't realize I could rename the accounts, so the problem of figuring out which Wells Fargo account had a 54.30 Amazon charge so I can figure out whose Amazon account to look at to see what that purchase a month ago was is mostly solved now that I can see better exactly whose account it was.
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Jun 10, 2014 15:59
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I've got a good situation going on, but I've got no clue of where to go with it. I'm pretty timid with money and could use a bit of help kicking my rear end into gear and actually making it all work for me. Assets: $8k in checking account $25.1k in CapitalOne 360 savings account $8.8k in old company's retirement account $2.3k in current company's 401k $10.2k in Vanguard Mutual Fund (2055 Target Retirement) $3.1k Vanguard ROTH IRA (also 2055 Target Retirement) Debts: $10.9k left on a 2012 Toyota Camry at 2.24% Discover Card - Used for everyday expenses, paid off every month, $10k limit. Income: $2500 biweekly gross $1,560 take-away after 401k contribution and taxes. Current fixed expenses: $100/mo for car insurance $30/mo for phone $300/mo for car loan $250 deposit into the Vanguard mutual fund after every paycheck. My plan is to transfer $5500 from the mutual fund into the Roth at the end of the year. The reason I have $25k in my savings account is because I was originally unsure of whether I was going to buy or rent. Sanity won out, and I'm going to rent -- what I do with this savings is another question on my mind. I figure I should set aside $15k as a 6-month emergency fund, leaving me with around $9-10k to either invest or to pay down that car loan. I'm a bit clueless when it comes to budgeting for food, entertainment and rent. In the past, I was pretty inattentive about it and just paid what I had to (thankfully I had lucked out with some cheap places, and I don't have particularly expensive taste). Now that I'm paying closer attention to the numbers, trying to determine exactly what I can afford is making my head spin, especially since I'm moving from a suburb into the city and expect to incur all sorts of new expenses (dating, gym membership, car insurance hikes, sports leagues, etc). What's the best way to go about estimating what I should expect to spend, and therefore what I can afford on rent? Miscellaneous info that may or may not help: I'm 24 years old, credit score is 770, plan on going back to school part time this fall for my masters (work will reimburse as long as my grades are good), and the city in question is Baltimore.
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Jun 11, 2014 18:57
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Not a Children posted:
I just hooked all my stuff up into Mint, so then I could historically see how much I was spending in various categories and make more comfortable predictions about the future. Also, just because you can afford X doesn't mean you should actually spend X. The more you can avoid spending on rent the more you can buy assets that will make YOU money every year.
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Jun 11, 2014 20:40
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I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'm moving to Sweden from the US in a few months for work (for at least a year). They are going to set up a bank account for me, and my paycheck will be deposited there in Swedish Krona. I still have some student loans, and when I emailed them about how to pay them from Sweden, they said I can't pay from a foreign bank. So I decided I'm going to keep my 2 checking accounts (credit union, and Schwab) and change the billing address to my Mom's place. If I wire money from my Swedish account to my US account so I can pay my student loans, what kind of fees are involved? I'm also going to try and keep my US credit cards open with a US billing address, and use it to buy stuff on Amazon or whatever for birthdays and xmas. I'm hoping they don't shut them down for not using them enough. Has anyone tried this? Is it a good idea?
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Jun 11, 2014 21:44
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You won't get a credit card shut down for not using it enough. They just sit unused. Just make sure the issuing bank is aware that you're in a foreign country, or they will flag the ever loving poo poo out of your account. You should also give Paypal a heads up, too.
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Jun 11, 2014 21:48
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FrozenVent posted:You won't get a credit card shut down for not using it enough. They just sit unused. Depends on the bank, but some will eventually. I had a BoA card that was closed out after I didn't use it but it took 2-3 years.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:14
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SlightlyMadman posted:Depends on the bank, but some will eventually. I had a BoA card that was closed out after I didn't use it but it took 2-3 years. I might stay out there the rest of my life, but I'll always head back a few times a year. I guess if I use those cards then it should be fine.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:22
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Not a Children posted:
The only thing that screams out at me is this, and it may be just me not understanding something. Is the retirement mutual fund in a retirement account of some sort, IE a ROTH IRA or a standard IRA or is it just a fund that is a retirement fund? You said you were going to transfer it to the ROTH IRA, but won't you have to pay taxes on the gains? To me if all these are true I'd immediately transfer that mutual fund into a ROTH IRA, and then instead of paying 250 per paycheck into that just go with your company's 401k or a standard IRA. '' Veskit fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 22:51
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Veskit posted:The only thing that screams out at me is this, and it may be just me not understanding something. Is the retirement mutual fund in a retirement account of some sort, IE a ROTH IRA or a standard IRA or is it just a fund that is a retirement fund? You said you were going to transfer it to the ROTH IRA, but won't you have to pay taxes on the gains?
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Jun 12, 2014 00:54
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Veskit posted:The only thing that screams out at me is this, and it may be just me not understanding something. Is the retirement mutual fund in a retirement account of some sort, IE a ROTH IRA or a standard IRA or is it just a fund that is a retirement fund? You said you were going to transfer it to the ROTH IRA, but won't you have to pay taxes on the gains? SiGmA_X posted:I agree with this, except I would leave $5500 in the fund to transfer into your Roth on 1/1/2015. I was doing the same thing last year, and kicked myself when I had to pay near 25% in tax on the gains when I sold it into my Roth. This is absolutely true, and just the kind of kick in the pants I needed. I was originally making those deposits into the mutual fund because I thought I would need the flexibility in case of house ownership; since that's not the case, it definitely makes more sense to shift the funds into a retirement account. Also, I had no idea that the taxes on gains were that high; I'll make those transfers this week if I can, and go from there. A thought: Would I be better off transferring that money from my savings account? That way I stay invested outside of retirement, and I'm making money off of funds that would otherwise just be sitting around doing nothing for me. I was planning on moving up to $10k out of savings at some point after I make my move, as $25k seems like an exorbitant safety buffer (I have already have health insurance and keep my checking account too high as is). Also, is the car debt worth killing off early? The interest isn't too brutal -- around $400 over the remaining term of the loan.
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Jun 12, 2014 13:52
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Not a Children posted:This is absolutely true, and just the kind of kick in the pants I needed. I was originally making those deposits into the mutual fund because I thought I would need the flexibility in case of house ownership; since that's not the case, it definitely makes more sense to shift the funds into a retirement account. Also, I had no idea that the taxes on gains were that high; I'll make those transfers this week if I can, and go from there. STCG (short term cap gains) are taxed at ordinary income. It would have been more for me except I was taxed on <20k of income last year + poor student tax credits. And I still saw 25% go up in smoke. It would have been more if I had an actual income like this year and no student credits. Actually, yes. I'd use savings money and let the mutual funds age. Over 1yr and they're treated as LTCG at a much better tax rate. Not a bad idea. If it were my money, I would pay off the loan today and max the Roth and then continue with building savings. Idea there is that debt sucks, and you easily have the ability to pay it off and have a solid reserve anyway. It has zero effect on your net worth and it doesn't sound like you need all the money sitting around anymore. Just some rough numbers, I like the idea of ~1mo full expenses in checking and 3-6mo in short term savings like an online saving account that earns about 1%. I'm way far from there, but working on it. It'll be nice once I hit that. Oh also, I'd roll your old employer 401k into a Vanguard IRA. If you want to pay taxes on it, you can roll it all into a Roth. Depending on your taxable income this year vs over the next few decades, that may be a good idea. Either way, now is probably a good time to roll to an IRA.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:33
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Not a Children posted:That way I stay invested outside of retirement As long as you're maxing your retirement, IE puting away $17,500 into your 401k account, and having your ROTH IRA maxed at 5500, it's hard to say what to do with your money besides pay off your car. Though you don't have a solid reason not to pay it off as long as your retirements are maxed AND you have a reasonable 6 month emergency buffer. How much cash would you need to have to have a 6 month buffer? If you can afford it pay off the car, like, now.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:44
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SiGmA_X posted:Oh also, I'd roll your old employer 401k into a Vanguard IRA. If you want to pay taxes on it, you can roll it all into a Roth. Depending on your taxable income this year vs over the next few decades, that may be a good idea. Either way, now is probably a good time to roll to an IRA. My options from what I can tell is keep the old employer's plan, roll it over to a Traditional IRA, roll it to a Roth IRA and pay more taxes than I can stomach, or wait until the new employer's plan is active and roll it into that one. I assume a Traditional IRA rollover is the easiest but is there any real benefit to moving it to Vanguard over FIdelity? Lower fees on the target funds maybe? This is what I'm currently paying. code:
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Jun 12, 2014 17:31
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