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Spermy Smurf posted:So I have a question. I'm going to be renovating a house and buying an assload of construction stuff. $12,000 in cabinets/countertops, sheetrock, paint, wood flooring, carpet, lights, insulation... Is getting a card with some kind of cash back a dumb idea for this basically one-time expense? We will be paying off the card with cash immediately, just trying to get some cash back or miles or something. It's not necessarily a terrible idea, as long as you rock-solid stick to your intention to pay it off with cash immediately. Just don't get too optimistic - at a pretty-good case scenario with $12,000 in spending at 2% cashback you're looking at $240. As someone else said, better to get a card with a great bonus but a high minimum spending requirement at sign up.
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Oct 17, 2014 16:37
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Spermy Smurf posted:So I have a question. I'm going to be renovating a house and buying an assload of construction stuff. $12,000 in cabinets/countertops, sheetrock, paint, wood flooring, carpet, lights, insulation... Is getting a card with some kind of cash back a dumb idea for this basically one-time expense? We will be paying off the card with cash immediately, just trying to get some cash back or miles or something. A no-fee card will probably get you 1% on that, so if you like having $120, you may as well do it. That said, you might be able to get a store credit card that gives you a long interest free payment period and drop that 12-thousand into a fixed rate deposit somewhere with a return higher than that. In Canada it looks like you could get a GIC for a year at 1.55% which gets you an extra 66 bucks. You could certainly find a better return but those would be riskier and I wouldn't want anything with risk associated with it just in case something bad happens and the whole amount isn't available to repay the full balance at the end. Some sketchy math leads me to believe that you could end up with more than three grand in interest to fork over if you didn't pay the balance if full within the year. On the upside, you'd have a shining example of a bad with money story to share with the thread if you went the route of a risky investment that ended with you owing thousands in interest.
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Oct 17, 2014 16:39
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asur posted:Find cards with sign up bonuses that require you to spend X. Even if you don't get rewards, you do on most of them, the sign up bonus will drastically exceed the money/miles you'd get from buying everything on a single card. I didn't know these existed. Time to go to the Credit Card thread, thanks!
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Oct 17, 2014 16:39
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Yes, most fee cards give the best rewards AND offer the first year free, so it's a simple matter of grabbing the bonsues and cancelling the card before the fee hits.
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Oct 17, 2014 16:44
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LorneReams posted:Yes, most fee cards give the best rewards AND offer the first year free, so it's a simple matter of grabbing the bonsues and cancelling the card before the fee hits. Do you need to worry about a ding to your credit score doing this?
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Oct 17, 2014 17:17
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.Z. posted:Do you need to worry about a ding to your credit score doing this? It's pretty minor and temporary, the people who do the credit card churning typically wait 3 months between applications. I did it earlier this year for an American Airlines/Citi card (netted 30k miles for spending a grand or so the first 3 months) and my credit score is doing just fine. Probably gonna do something similar for paying my international student tuition next year -- the better cards don't have foreign transaction fees, and my university-to-be rather gamely doesn't charge anything for payments made by credit card  Personally I'd recommend checking out the credit card thread here or even some of the specific forums/sites out there for it.
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Oct 17, 2014 17:37
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It'll take a couple points off for a few months. Don't do it immediately before buying a house, but otherwise, it's completely insignificant.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:03
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When I signed up for the Chase United Explorer card earlier this year, by the time the hard check had hit my credit score, the increased number of accounts and increased available credit had actually raised my score immediately.
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Oct 17, 2014 18:56
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Krispy Kareem posted:Expenses? Krispy Kareem posted:She has mooching children (myself included - although I at least pay her back). So that may impact her finances.  Keep looking down on other people while you take mommy's money.
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Oct 17, 2014 20:23
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:Most retirees own their homes and hopefully aren't buying new cars. Especially since she's poor, yeah it would be impressively dumb for her to drop $4200/mo on food, travel, standard bills (utilities/insurance/etc.), and shopping. I spent about $4200 month including food, travel and mortgage payments and I live in New Zealand which is rather expensive to live in these days. A large portion of her expenditure is probably on the moochers. One of the guys in my office still has his kids living with him and he's rapidly heading towards retirement. He'll probably be working well past retirement as he's got a lot of debt and not much in the way of investments. It concerns me to see those close to retirement or at retirement with their kids still living with them. I don't really understand wanting to live with your parents past about 19 or 20 anyway. You can't live life nearly as much as studying/working/partying and having no money at the same time.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:12
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Anne Whateley posted:Most retirees own their homes and hopefully aren't buying new cars. Especially since she's poor, yeah it would be impressively dumb for her to drop $4200/mo on food, travel, standard bills (utilities/insurance/etc.), and shopping.  My, aren't you arrogant. You seem to have no problem looking down on him when you know next to nothing about his situation besides one internet post.
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Oct 17, 2014 23:43
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Devian666 posted:I don't really understand wanting to live with your parents past about 19 or 20 anyway. You can't live life nearly as much as studying/working/partying and having no money at the same time.
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Oct 18, 2014 00:14
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:It's not about wanting, usually. Yep! I'd rather not move back in with my parents, but after watching my older roommates' money problems, I think the best choice would be to take six months to pay down debt and build up some savings.
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Oct 18, 2014 02:56
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Devian666 posted:I spent about $4200 month including food, travel and mortgage payments and I live in New Zealand which is rather expensive to live in these days. Dirk Diggler posted:
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Oct 18, 2014 03:47
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Anne Whateley posted:Here are all his posts in the thread, knock yourself out. I'm not going to brag, but I'm not exactly in a trailer and I'm definitely not jealous of his whole situation. Ehhh, all I saw there was that he has in-laws that are terrible with money and a wife who cripples their finances to try to help her family, misguided as that may be. If he borrowed money from his own mom and she was willing to do so, not put in financial distress from doing so, and getting paid back from him, I don't really see an issue with that. Puts him way ahead of his in-laws. So I guess congrats on not having crazy in-laws that make money disappear faster than throwing it into a fire? 
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Oct 18, 2014 05:23
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Anne Whateley posted:Well yeah, you're using a completely different currency. They're both called dollars, but what you're spending/getting isn't close to what you'd be spending/getting in the US. I did some quick math to put it in USD. I try to make things easy. You are correct though I could earn more in the US and pay significantly less in expenses.
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Oct 18, 2014 06:29
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I had tenants move out for non-payment of rent. The garage was full of rent-to-own furniture they couldn't fit into the 3 bedroom unit. Shoes! They had a ton of shoes they just left, so I assume they took quite a few as well. I started piling the shoe boxes onto a dresser, then got bored with it. Some of these are empty, but some are not. Brand name expensive sneakers ($100+), a couple of high end dress shoe brands, Steve Madden, etc. This is a common theme I find. I deal with a lot of low-income housing, and invariably, the people who can't pay rent always spend $1000+ a year on sneakers. 
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Oct 19, 2014 01:14
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Hey man, maybe their frivolous spending isn't the problem, it's the absurdly high rent you charge them. 
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Oct 19, 2014 04:28
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particle409 posted:
Apparently you can make a lot of money re-selling sneakers. This is probably not a good justification for spending $1,000/year on shoes when you can't afford rent, though.
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Oct 19, 2014 07:35
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lavaca posted:Apparently you can make a lot of money re-selling sneakers. This is probably not a good justification for spending $1,000/year on shoes when you can't afford rent, though. If tenants leave anything, will it be his to sell and recoup any losses?
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Oct 19, 2014 14:21
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lavaca posted:Apparently you can make a lot of money re-selling sneakers. This is probably not a good justification for spending $1,000/year on shoes when you can't afford rent, though. CNBC had a great look at Nike, including interviews of some sneakerheads.
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Oct 19, 2014 15:09
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particle409 posted:I had tenants move out for non-payment of rent. The garage was full of rent-to-own furniture they couldn't fit into the 3 bedroom unit. Shoes! They had a ton of shoes they just left, so I assume they took quite a few as well. I started piling the shoe boxes onto a dresser, then got bored with it. Some of these are empty, but some are not. Brand name expensive sneakers ($100+), a couple of high end dress shoe brands, Steve Madden, etc. I kicked out a housemate for the same reason and he also had about 20 pairs of shoes that he left behind, in addition to a bunch of other stuff (queen size bed, some nice shirts with price tags still on them that I now wear). I think you might be onto something.
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Oct 19, 2014 16:33
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Keetron posted:If tenants leave anything, will it be his to sell and recoup any losses? Probably not without some amount of legal process to determine abandonment. My friend's family rents out storage units, and they have to send all kinds of certified letters and notices of overdue payment for X amount of time, and only after they've gone unanswered and unresolved (i.e. no legal dispute opened over money owed) can they cut the locks and auction off the contents as a means of recovering what is owed. Otherwise the renter could come back and have them arrested or sued for theft of property, breaking and entering, selling stolen items, etc.
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Oct 19, 2014 16:56
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SKELETONS posted:I kicked out a housemate for the same reason and he also had about 20 pairs of shoes that he left behind, in addition to a bunch of other stuff (queen size bed, some nice shirts with price tags still on them that I now wear). I think you might be onto something. Did you give him a chance to get his stuff moved out? Otherwise you're a thief, even if he didn't pay rent.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:00
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HonorableTB posted:Did you give him a chance to get his stuff moved out? Otherwise you're a thief, even if he didn't pay rent. Oh yeah, actually he chose to move out after I got a call from our landlord and I confronted him about it, he'd been lying about paying for 5 months. He had plenty of opportunity to take it all, he was just too lazy/stupid to take his potentially valuable stuff, despite the fact that he owed rent and also money to other people about town, judging by the threatening phone calls I heard him receive.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:03
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SpelledBackwards posted:Probably not without some amount of legal process to determine abandonment. My friend's family rents out storage units, and they have to send all kinds of certified letters and notices of overdue payment for X amount of time, and only after they've gone unanswered and unresolved (i.e. no legal dispute opened over money owed) can they cut the locks and auction off the contents as a means of recovering what is owed. There's different statutes and law for tenants, since it's in a dwelling and all that. I assume the op is already familiar with those rules, but if not he'd be smart to consult a lawyer. In some places it can be as simple as waiting thirty days.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:05
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FrozenVent posted:There's different statutes and law for tenants, since it's in a dwelling and all that. I assume the op is already familiar with those rules, but if not he'd be smart to consult a lawyer. Absolutely there would be differences, you're right. My point was that a "finders keepers" attitude is definitely not the way to go about it, and something I've definitely seen people do to roommates' stuff who just up and left one day. Similarly, I always wonder how people sent to prison manage to keep things in order when they can't be around to look after everything. Having family you trust is the most valuable thing in the world, and certainly something a lot of comfortable people otherwise take for granted.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:05
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The people who skip rent and leave behind shoes probably don't have their poo poo together enough to open a case in small claims court. They are, after all, bad with money.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:29
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Probably not, but there's no point in getting into legal trouble for theft if you can avoid it.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:01
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quote:I just bought a house with my best friend. I will be placing him on the deed as half owner. However, I am the only one on the loan, being solely responsible for paying the debt back. How do I write a personal contract between my friend and I? link: http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2jo9h8/i_just_bought_a_house_with_my_best_friend_i_will/
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Oct 19, 2014 19:03
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:link: http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2jo9h8/i_just_bought_a_house_with_my_best_friend_i_will/ At least most of the comments are sensible in (politely) telling him that he's a complete dumbass.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:08
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You know, right now, it's me and my girlfriend that are bad with money. We're moving across the country (Atlanta to Seattle) in a week and I've completely shattered my restaurant budget. For me and my girlfriend, we've eaten out almost every day this week because we've eaten all the food we had in the house (or given away to friends what we couldn't make) and don't want to make a grocery run for five days worth of food. I feel awful for "falling off the bandwagon" since I've been very diligent about getting debt paid off (I've paid off almost $4,000 in debt in the past six months after buying You Need A Budget and doing it properly and I'm nearly debt free except for my car payment) and now I'm wasting money on restaurants and fast food instead of buying groceries. Does the impending 3000 mile move alleviate this somewhat since we're packing up all the cookware and everything else? I feel super guilty.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:24
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HonorableTB posted:You know, right now, it's me and my girlfriend that are bad with money. We're moving across the country (Atlanta to Seattle) in a week and I've completely shattered my restaurant budget. For me and my girlfriend, we've eaten out almost every day this week because we've eaten all the food we had in the house (or given away to friends what we couldn't make) and don't want to make a grocery run for five days worth of food. I feel awful for "falling off the bandwagon" since I've been very diligent about getting debt paid off (I've paid off almost $4,000 in debt in the past six months after buying You Need A Budget and doing it properly and I'm nearly debt free except for my car payment) and now I'm wasting money on restaurants and fast food instead of buying groceries. Does the impending 3000 mile move alleviate this somewhat since we're packing up all the cookware and everything else? I feel super guilty. Those aforementioned friends that you've given the food to - have you considered offering to cook them (and yourselves) dinner? That way you get to do something nice for your friends (and get to hang out with them one last time) without all the expense of eating out.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:48
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HonorableTB posted:You know, right now, it's me and my girlfriend that are bad with money. We're moving across the country (Atlanta to Seattle) in a week and I've completely shattered my restaurant budget. For me and my girlfriend, we've eaten out almost every day this week because we've eaten all the food we had in the house (or given away to friends what we couldn't make) and don't want to make a grocery run for five days worth of food. I feel awful for "falling off the bandwagon" since I've been very diligent about getting debt paid off (I've paid off almost $4,000 in debt in the past six months after buying You Need A Budget and doing it properly and I'm nearly debt free except for my car payment) and now I'm wasting money on restaurants and fast food instead of buying groceries. Does the impending 3000 mile move alleviate this somewhat since we're packing up all the cookware and everything else? I feel super guilty. Eating out all the time has done wonders for calibrating my taste buds. Consider it cheap lessons in cooking...
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Oct 19, 2014 19:52
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http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2joxlx/us_got_a_new_job_i_feel_i_am_overpaying_in_taxes/quote:Let's say I make 42.5K before taxes. My first paycheck was 1266, after paying 397 in taxes.... not cool. I feel like almost 24% of my paycheck going to taxes is insane (191 for federal by the way). I put 1 allowance on my W4 for federal and 0 for my state. Should I change that? Welcome to adulthood.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:54
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Renegret posted:http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2joxlx/us_got_a_new_job_i_feel_i_am_overpaying_in_taxes/ I like that most of the responses are telling him that's correct. It's as if he believed that all of the money from his pay would be his. Of course I'd like to only pay 24% tax. That'd be great.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:57
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Devian666 posted:I like that most of the responses are telling him that's correct. It's as if he believed that all of the money from his pay would be his. A nice thing would be listing off every service he gets for those taxes he pays and an estimate of how much they would cost to provide in a lack of that tax revenue being used.
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Oct 19, 2014 23:42
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Apparently New Zealand is a wealthy nation however it's all in home equity and most of the gains are due to a high exchange value relative to the American Peso. $50b NZD in investments and $775b in property. The traditional New Zealand retirement savings are in rental properties which heavily contributes to high house prices. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/10631780/NZ-wealthy-but-its-locked-up-in-housing Although I'm no better as the vast majority of my assets are home equity. Only a tiny portion is invested in P2P lending. What's worse is I'm just starting off my retirement funds. I'm bad with money but according to the Credit Suisse report on wealth distribution I am a part of the 8%. In addition I had a look at the market on the local P2P lending site and of the 9 loans listed they have grades from D to F. One for "unexpected bills" in the thousands, a holiday, wedding, unspecified reasons, one to buy a non-lovely car that doesn't break down all the time and four debt consolidations. So 5 loans seem sensible. The rest including the holiday you haven't saved for and the large wedding borrowing with a credit rating around E2 seem stupid. Devian666 fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 00:07
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Shipon posted:A nice thing would be listing off every service he gets for those taxes he pays and an estimate of how much they would cost to provide in a lack of that tax revenue being used. This is my favorite take on this topic: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/06/16/mr-frugal-toque-on-why-tax-freedom-day-is-bullshit/
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Oct 20, 2014 02:51
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fruition posted:Hey man, maybe their frivolous spending isn't the problem, it's the absurdly high rent you charge them. You joke, but he was getting a good bargain. $1400 a month for 3 bedrooms and a garage, which is an excellent rate in my area. I know where he moved, and he told me how much he's paying. $1500 for a 3 bedroom in a worse neighborhood, no garage parking. There was a shitload of auto care stuff in the garage, and he drove a nice Jeep, one of the new fancy ones. I hope he enjoys parking it on the street in a lovely neighborhood...
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Oct 20, 2014 05:27
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