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Xenoborg posted:I just found out that my company puts more into my 401k than I thought. As part of what used to be a pension plan, they give an additional 3% to my 401k. This is on on top of an already really nice 6% match (9% total bonus money, wtf!). The line item on my 401k statement calls it an "Employer Contribution", the regular match is separate and called "Employer Match". I know the match doesn't count toward the yearly 401k limit, but is there any way to tell if this extra "contribution" does? I would think probably not, but for my HSA the "Employer Contribution" does seem to count toward the limit. Plus there is an HSA limit too. $3,350 in total, your contributions + employer all count to that limit.
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Jun 10, 2015 23:15
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Sorry I wasn't clear, I know what the limits are. I just wanted to make sure that the "employer contribution" doesn't count to my limit similar to the way "employer match" doesn't. I was unsure because that same term, "employer contribution" does count to the HSA limit.
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Jun 10, 2015 23:33
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I participate in the Thrifts Savings Plan (TSP - the federal government version of a 401k) and we get an automatic 1% "Agency Contribution" then they match up to a total of 5% in "Agency Matching". Neither of these count toward the limit of $18,000 I can make each year in Employee Contributions. So if the 401k works like the TSP then any money contributed by your company shouldn't count toward your personal employee contribution. HSA may treat this amount different, like you said.
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Jun 11, 2015 14:44
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slap me silly posted:Ugh, 8% is the kind of high interest rate I was warning you about and is when you should pick the 3 year loan so you will realize how much it's going to hurt. We're talking 4 figures in interest costs now. Keep on with the legwork until you can do better. How much cash do you have for a down payment? "Not enough yet" is the impression I'm getting. You need to be sure you're not going to be underwater on the loan at any point. I was able to get the interest rate to 4.49% on a 60 month loan through the dealer financing department. I also got free oil changes and state inspections for as long as I own the car, a 5 year/100,000 mile extended warranty, and a total of $1250 off the (already discounted) USAA car buying service price. So I shaved almost 4 percentage points off the interest, and got $3550 off the sticker price. I'm pretty happy with the results 
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Jun 11, 2015 19:17
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I have a friend that got a job with Modern Woodmen of America. What exactly is a "fraternal benefit society", and what sort of financial and insurance instruments do they sell? I'm looking to have a well informed and polite way to turn him down when he tries to sell me life insurance or whatever.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:27
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The Mandingo posted:I have a friend that got a job with Modern Woodmen of America. What exactly is a "fraternal benefit society", and what sort of financial and insurance instruments do they sell? I'm looking to have a well informed and polite way to turn him down when he tries to sell me life insurance or whatever. I had a friend who did sales for them. They sell life insurance and apparently he canceled his membership as soon as he lined up another job.
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Jun 11, 2015 22:44
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Jesus Christ. We had a dumb friend get suckered into that bullshit, telling them immediately we weren't interested in any sales pitches, how it was going to be a referral push. First week of employment we were sent a word file requesting information from us for better option alignment with additional referral requests. gently caress no. She had that "job" for months under the pretense they had customers lined up. Her role? Cold calling endlessly with no bites. She made zero dollars. Just tell him in advance that your happy with you insurance and investment providers. Dead Pressed fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 12, 2015 |
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Jun 12, 2015 05:50
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What's a good credit card for bad credit / building good credit? I guess I need a secured card without any rewards to just attempt to make monthly payments on time for the first time in my life. APR shouldn't be an issue because I won't be using it to make major purchases, and there is no interest if it is paid off each month, correct? I guess I'd prefer the yearly fee be low-to-zero, unless there is some benefit to using a card with a fee. Collateral deposit is not an issue, I can afford it and I don't need a huge line of credit. I just graduated and I've only ever used debit cards with the exception of a couple of store cards I foolishly opened and never paid, so I don't really have any huge debt unpaid, just accounts I haven't kept track of. Any advice on how to find out what I owe and to whom? If I check my credit at a bank can they look that up for me? Should I open up a card with a bank for that purpose? I found some helpful info here: http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/top-credit-cards/nerdwallets-best-credit-cards-for-bad-credit/ http://www.thesimpledollar.com/best-credit-cards-for-bad-credit/ I'm considering the Wells Fargo secured card to see if I can get some info on my credit report by walking in to a brick and mortar bank to sign up for the card, but maybe that's unnecessary/not an option? Clearly I have no idea what I'm doing.
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Jun 13, 2015 01:46
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I'm assuming you don't have any bad debts or defaults but just have been terrible at paying. Get a visa or mastercard just for wide acceptance and look for one with no fees. The web sites that you have linked are good and all but they are just wanting click-throughs on their site. Secured cards are good if you can't get an unsecured card. If you pay the credit card balance on the statement you pay no interest. That means the card balance won't be at $0 but the money on the card will not accumulate interest. From my limited understand of US credit scores an actively used card will help more than an inactive card. Paying the balance each month does not lower your score in any way. Low utilisation of the available credit is also good (about 25% utilisation or less will help the most). If your credit is really bad you might not be able to get a large limit. However if you keep paying off the card each month most companies will increase the limit automatically (some you need to apply for the increase), and the increased limit will reduce utilisation and further help your credit score. There are probably some other opinions and in the credit card thread some might be able to give you good card recommendations. e: I noticed that you said you have some cards you never paid. If you really want to fix your credit score you should settle those and get them removed or marked as paid on the credit report (sorry don't know the correct terminology for the US). If they remain unpaid they do a lot of damage.
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Jun 13, 2015 02:02
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Pulling your credit report from each of the three agencies for free from https://www.annualcreditreport.com should allow you to find out who you owe money to.
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Jun 13, 2015 08:36
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Devian666 posted:I'm assuming you don't have any bad debts or defaults but just have been terrible at paying. Get a visa or mastercard just for wide acceptance and look for one with no fees. The web sites that you have linked are good and all but they are just wanting click-throughs on their site. Secured cards are good if you can't get an unsecured card. Also, paid collections are just as bad as unpaid collections for your FICO score, which is the one that pretty much everyone uses. There's an excellent thread on Dealing with Debt Collectors that's very helpful. PopRocks, if you pull your credit and find collections on it, go to that thread for advice. I used the Wells Fargo secured card to rebuild my credit. The yearly fee was high, but pretty much all secured cards have high annual fees. They automatically upgraded it to a platinum card at the end of the first year, which was pretty nice. YMMV, though. Also, use the annualcreditreport.com site to pull credit. The only way banks can pull your credit is if you apply for a product from them, which will trigger a hard-pull. That will ding your credit by a very small amount. The website does a soft pull, which doesn't affect your credit. You can also try creditkarma.com, which will soft-pull your transunion and equifax credit scores. It's free, because they try to pitch credit cards and financial products at you. Their suggestions aren't necessarily in your best interests, so be careful.
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Jun 13, 2015 12:15
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asur posted:Pulling your credit report from each of the three agencies for free from https://www.annualcreditreport.com should allow you to find out who you owe money to.
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Jun 13, 2015 20:49
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Dik Hz posted:Your heart's in the right place, but some of your info isn't that accurate. Active vs inactive doesn't matter for credit score. All that matters is the credit limit and % utilization. The only reason people say to use the cards occasionally is because credit card companies will sometimes cancel cards that haven't been used in a long time. Yeah I didn't write that up too well. There is an edge case of people carrying balances on a card but not spending on it. That doesn't influence as strongly but it isn't a relevant case for this situation so it's a moot point.
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Jun 13, 2015 21:03
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I wish there was a thread where I could look at different people's budgets.
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Jun 15, 2015 07:18
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Post one, I'll post in it.
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Jun 15, 2015 20:43
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legsarerequired posted:I wish there was a thread where I could look at different people's budgets. There used to be. Not sure if it got archived.
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Jun 15, 2015 21:12
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Currently have a Bank of America checking / savings account with no monthly fee. Currently have around $10k combined in the accounts but I have slowly been transferring it to my investment / Roth account. Anyone know what the minimum I need to keep to not get charged a monthly fee is? I'm also considering it moving it to my credit union account since I get 1.90% interest.
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Jun 17, 2015 00:22
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I recently just closed my BOA checking account since they just added a minimum balance for no fee checking. I think its around $1500 now for checking?. Also, you should just move it all to the credit union, get that extra $100+ a year of interest.
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Jun 17, 2015 01:34
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Xenoborg posted:I recently just closed my BOA checking account since they just added a minimum balance for no fee checking. I think its around $1500 now for checking?. Also, you should just move it all to the credit union, get that extra $100+ a year of interest. gently caress BoA, Chase, Wells, etc. Local CU FTW.
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Jun 17, 2015 01:44
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SiGmA_X posted:This. This x 1,000. Unless you travel a lot and need access to banks all over the country. Then local banks suck. I've been with BoA for 7-8 years now and have been perfectly happy with them. Never been charged any bullshit fees, and they are always very helpful on the occasions where I do have to visit a branch.
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Jun 17, 2015 19:38
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My credit union that is based in SoCal has served me just fine in both South Carolina and Illinois now. They have a partnership with local credit unions all around the US, a website for locating local-to-you shared branches, and a sweet ATM look-up tool so I can find out where to go to get cash without messing around with fees. In South Carolina I just had to fill out a slip at the CU when depositing or withdrawing cash and they never batted an eye, have yet to do either of those two things here in Illinois but I'm sure it is the same. Check it out: https://co-opcreditunions.org/
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Jun 17, 2015 20:11
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DJCobol posted:Unless you travel a lot and need access to banks all over the country. Then local banks suck. Many local banks/CUs will reimburse you for any ATM fees (mine reimburses up to $15 per month which is more than enough for the ATM fees I need to pay each month). Even those that don't reimburse are usually part of a big ATM network.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:20
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DJCobol posted:Unless you travel a lot and need access to banks all over the country. Then local banks suck.
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Jun 18, 2015 07:20
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Echo 3 posted:Many local banks/CUs will reimburse you for any ATM fees (mine reimburses up to $15 per month which is more than enough for the ATM fees I need to pay each month). Even those that don't reimburse are usually part of a big ATM network. I wasn't talking about ATMs, although that is a bonus. I've had a few times where I've needed to go get something like a cashier's check and its nice to have a Bank of America pretty much everywhere.
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Jun 18, 2015 12:57
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DJCobol posted:I wasn't talking about ATMs, although that is a bonus. I've had a few times where I've needed to go get something like a cashier's check and its nice to have a Bank of America pretty much everywhere. I use PLS Check Cashing for free cashier's checks.
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Jun 18, 2015 14:22
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E: This can go in a better thread.
C-Euro fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 18, 2015 16:20
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I have a bit of a situation here, and I'm not sure if it belongs here or in another thread or in a thread of its own since it overlaps a few things, sorry. Anyway, I just got a new job that pays almost twice as much and has better (and free, entirely paid for) benefits, but it's on the other side of the state. I need to move there by the end of the month (when my current lease is up here) and I can't really commute that far even for a little while (it's 2-3 hours one way when there's no traffic, and there's always traffic). Normally this would be fantastic, however... Over the last year or so I've steadily drained my savings down to nothing helping a couple of desperately poor disabled friends not get evicted and not starve until they can find work. I know it was stupid of me to use my nest egg for this but they were pretty much out of options. I don't think I have enough money left to actually do the moving and get an apartment and everything else that comes with moving on such short notice. The only store of value I have (besides my car, I guess) is my old 401k. I'm considering taking out a loan or just surrendering it to pay for all this (though, does taking out a loan mean it needs to be repaid within 60 days even if you left your employer willingly, or only if you got fired?) I'm young (24 this year) and I feel I have enough time left to make up the difference before I retire. What should I do? Thanks in advance for listening to me whine and feel free to mock me in the bad with money thread, I would too 
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Jun 19, 2015 18:09
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Don't pass up the opportunity. Try to keep your 401k intact; there's no way to replace that tax-advantaged money. Ask parents, friends, whoever. Just don't get a payday loan. Maybe the company will even advance you moving costs from your first paycheck if it's within a reasonable timeframe.
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Jun 19, 2015 18:26
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Have you determined how much moving would cost? That's the first thing I would do. It seems like you just think you don't have enough money but you don't know that. Make sure you price out multiple ways of performing the move. Maybe you get a hotel for 1-2 paychecks and save as much as you can before getting a house to rent. Also, does your employer have re-location benefits or maybe a small sign-on bonus to help out?
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Jun 19, 2015 18:37
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I don't know if this would be any better than the 401k loan, but when I needed a float for a new job after leaving grad school,the peer-lending thing worked very well for me (Lending Club, which I know some BFC goons invest in). Took two weeks, and paying off the loan in its entirety has no penalty, so I did that with my second paycheck and paid very little interest besides the modest up front fee. Decent credit is a plus for this, of course. It's a nice alternative to a payday loan 
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Jun 19, 2015 18:58
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A personal loan from your credit union wouldn't be horrid either. I also think you need to do more work on pricing the move and keeping it cheap. For distance driving, go with Penske, IMO. Much better vehicles.
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Jun 19, 2015 19:34
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Have you looked into whether or not the new job offers any assistance with moving expenses?
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Jun 19, 2015 20:24
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Rather than a hotel, check out airbnb. My city has several reasonably priced options and most hosts will cut a deal for long term renters [eg anything more than a week]. I personally rent my furnished two bedroom, one bath upstairs with all utilities paid for $55 a night, but go down to $600 if someone commits to a month. Plenty of people are renting futons for much less, and you can put it on a credit card/make monthly payments on that hit later if you seriously have no cash. You could also try the couch surfing for a few weeks.
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Jun 19, 2015 20:39
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Okay looks like I jumped the gun on posting. I just got a call from their HR and they like me so much that before I could even ask about it they offered to pay all my moving costs for me because they want me to start ASAP  Thanks for all your replies though, I'll probably wind up needing the advice at some point in my life and I was sort of panic-attacking earlier and y'all helped a lot with that (Oh and I didn't know about this housing thing before now, my friend who also works there and got me the interview didn't get anything like it and didn't know they'd do that. I'll do more homework before I post next time I swear)
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Jun 19, 2015 22:40
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Anyone have recommendations for credit unions in Boston?
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Jun 20, 2015 01:26
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I use the City of Boston credit union, and I have had no complaints. It has very good service, although it's otherwise unremarkable. Metro Credit Union is supposed to be good, and it gives some more perks like cash back on its cards.
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Jun 20, 2015 02:07
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I started to switch over all my banking to Metro, but they ended up kicking back my direct deposit aftera couple checks for some reason. Then nailed me for a couple low balance fees. (I had no transportation to my local branch to deposit a check). I just let the account close and continued on with my current bank. Despite all that, they seem like an alright credit union.
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Jun 20, 2015 21:25
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Moneyball posted:I started to switch over all my banking to Metro, but they ended up kicking back my direct deposit aftera couple checks for some reason. Then nailed me for a couple low balance fees. (I had no transportation to my local branch to deposit a check). I just let the account close and continued on with my current bank.
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Jun 20, 2015 23:36
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Every time I'm forced to use a non-Wells Fargo ATM and pay a stupid WF fee on top of the ATM's fee, I want punch myself in the face. Any goons have recommended CUs in Los Angeles? I've googled a few times but honestly the review sites seem bad and the CUs sites are even worse. Looking for one that has a good website/mobile check deposit, no stupid fees, etc.
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Jun 22, 2015 23:06
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khysanth posted:Every time I'm forced to use a non-Wells Fargo ATM and pay a stupid WF fee on top of the ATM's fee, I want punch myself in the face. Any goons have recommended CUs in Los Angeles? I've googled a few times but honestly the review sites seem bad and the CUs sites are even worse. Looking for one that has a good website/mobile check deposit, no stupid fees, etc. Ally does all of that (except for being a credit union).
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Jun 22, 2015 23:08
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