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What would be the best thread to post my budget and 'current life situation' info in? Would like to bounce my overall picture off some other goons and see where I might have holes because God drat am I not doing this on reddit.
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Apr 8, 2016 00:01
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Make a new thread and link it here
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Apr 8, 2016 00:03
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Moneyball posted:Part of the balance is from an old 401k I rolled over and converted to a Roth IRA- that counted as contributions for this scenario? I think this is one of the scenarios where taking out contributions from a Roth IRA is penalized. I think it has to be 5 years after the date of the conversion before you can take out the money that originated from the 401k without penalty.
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Apr 8, 2016 00:15
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Ancillary Character posted:I think this is one of the scenarios where taking out contributions from a Roth IRA is penalized. I think it has to be 5 years after the date of the conversion before you can take out the money that originated from the 401k without penalty. drat. I could still take out $5,500 I guess. That gets about a quarter of my debt taken care of, and the sooner that's gone, the sooner I start contributing again.
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Apr 8, 2016 01:03
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Topsy Kretts posted:What would be the best thread to post my budget and 'current life situation' info in? Would like to bounce my overall picture off some other goons and see where I might have holes because God drat am I not doing this on reddit. It depends a little bit. If you think you are in a good position and just want to sanity check your numbers, there is a dedicated budget thread that is good for general discussion and that sort of check in. However, if your situation involves a ton of debt or you don't really feel like you know what you are doing (or can't work out a budget that actually seems to help) then you can always create your own thread. A personal thread is good if you feel like you need a lot of input and help working through things, particularly over time and not just for a once-off check.
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Apr 8, 2016 01:24
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Irritated Goat posted:I have a couple of questions for future I heard this advice from Dave Ramsey when his callers ask this question, and it's a good strategy. A 1099 contractor means your wife is a business and will file schedule C. Have your wife open a separate account, just a regular checking account anywhere is fine. All the business income will always be deposited into that account. All the business expenses come out of that account, and only out of that account. Anything she withdraws is by definition profit. You can go crazy on calculations and the IRS worksheets are a joke. Unless your tax situation is really out of whack, 25% withholding should get her pretty close. The point is to get close, you will never hit it exact. So say she deposits a $5000 into the account, has business expenses of $750, the business profit is $4250. Your household needs that money in the home, joint account. But you can't move it all over. $1,062.50 has to be set aside for income and self employment tax. You can park that in an online savings account or something. Another great thing by having a separate account is come tax time all you have to do is go down your bank statement to know how much you made, how much you spent, and on what
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Apr 8, 2016 15:51
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I heard this advice from Dave Ramsey when his callers ask this question, and it's a good strategy. A 1099 contractor means your wife is a business and will file schedule C. Have your wife open a separate account, just a regular checking account anywhere is fine. All the business income will always be deposited into that account. All the business expenses come out of that account, and only out of that account. Anything she withdraws is by definition profit. You can go crazy on calculations and the IRS worksheets are a joke. Unless your tax situation is really out of whack, 25% withholding should get her pretty close. The point is to get close, you will never hit it exact. I may have misspoke on which form she uses. She's just a reporter for the local paper so no expenses or anything really. Only mileage is to\from work which isn't counted as far as I know.  I'll go with the 25% though. It hurts but it's better than paying again.
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Apr 8, 2016 15:57
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Irritated Goat posted:I may have misspoke on which form she uses. She's just a reporter for the local paper so no expenses or anything really. Only mileage is to\from work which isn't counted as far as I know. If she is a 1099 she can deduct a poo poo ton more stuff. Just depends how aggressive you wanted to get. spwrozek fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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Apr 8, 2016 16:15
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Irritated Goat posted:I may have misspoke on which form she uses. She's just a reporter for the local paper so no expenses or anything really. Only mileage is to\from work which isn't counted as far as I know. I know journalism and all, but it seems pretty crappy that they 1099'ed her. There are certain tests that the IRS has where they determine if someone is an employee or not. I think one is if they control her schedule or if she does, is she required to attend meetings, can she work for other news organizations? Until then, she is technically not their employee, but rather an independent contractor, thus she is still a business and still files on Schedule C. It's been years since I did taxes professionally so I'm rusty, but you should ask the tax thread too. But I would still get creative within reason. Does she take work calls on her personal cell phone? Does she ever have to drive anywhere to cover a story or interview someone? Keep track of that mileage. If the drycleaner is on the way and she drops something off, well that doesn't matter since she was going by there anyway for work. Did she buy a computer, scanner, toner, paper? That counts too. Any software purchases, internet so she can work from home? Is there a room in your house or apartment that she uses as an office and that room isn't used for anything else? Well be careful with that one and get some professional advice because home office expenses are tricky, but be thinking of all this now, not next year, and don't assume that she has zero expenses.
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Apr 8, 2016 16:21
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I know journalism and all, but it seems pretty crappy that they 1099'ed her. There are certain tests that the IRS has where they determine if someone is an employee or not. I think one is if they control her schedule or if she does, is she required to attend meetings, can she work for other news organizations? Until then, she is technically not their employee, but rather an independent contractor, thus she is still a business and still files on Schedule C. We could probably work out some deductions for next year. She works at her own pace and is only part time. Reporter is more of a title than anything because she just does the local sections for events and such. I think it's crappy too but the main thing is how much to put aside for taxes so we don't end up owing each year. I guess, in return for the situation, she gets some "perks" like working from home whenever so we don't have to put our son in daycare. Either way though, I do appreciate the info. It'll go a long way into helping us prepare for next year since we didn't save any receipts for deductions this year.
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Apr 8, 2016 16:30
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The odds of an audit are pretty low. You could still deduct a bit is stuff. Every dollar counts man.
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Apr 8, 2016 16:32
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spwrozek posted:The odds of an audit are pretty low. You could still deduct a bit is stuff. Every dollar counts man. Yeah, the odds that they will audit a part time newspaper reporter are very low. Be reasonable though, it should still reflect reality. The IRS assigns each type of business activity a special 6 digit code. One thing they do is look at the data per code on a meta scale, and identify outliers, these are more likely to get audited. Which means that if you are deducting something unusual for the line of work you are in but it's legit, you still should, but you better be able to back it up.
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Apr 8, 2016 17:08
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25% sounds a little low to me. Don't you have to withhold an extra 15.3% for her as self employment tax? For what it's worth, I was trying to figure this out when my wife was looking at a 1099 position. I figured that the easiest way to calculate it was to first just look at where we'd be with just my income, subtract all our deductions and exemptions, and see what tax bracket that put us in (15% for us). Then we'd just withhold that 15% plus another 15.3% for self employment. I like the idea of setting up a separate checking account for that job too. It would make it easy to see exactly how much you earned when you do your taxes just by looking at the deposits on your statement.
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Apr 10, 2016 14:51
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Is there a megathread about credit unions? I remember one a looong time ago but I can't seem to find it now. I'd like to move my main checking (and possibly savings) accounts to a credit union, preferably a local-ish one (I'm in Tampa, FL). I did some research and people seemed happy with Suncoast so I made an account there and moved a bit of money over to check them out. I guess they're highly rated because their customer service is fine (not that I've needed it much) but everything else about them is pretty bad. The debit/charge card I got is physically flimsy and doesn't have a chip, and swiping it fails 3/4ths of the time. To log in to their online banking, you have to use a password that has a max length of 8 and is only numbers, which makes me (as someone who more or less does online security stuff for a living) super uncomfortable. Transfers between suncoast and other banks are painful too, they seem to have outsourced it entirely so you have to go to a completely different website and use special account numbers (that aren't your normal account numbers, you have to prepend a magic code to them and a bunch of zeroes for some ungodly reason). Is there a review site that reviews the online aspects of credit unions? Everywhere I look it's either reviews of how friendly the in-person staff are (who I will probably never interact with) or what great interest they offer (I have an Ally account for that, thanks).
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Apr 13, 2016 16:25
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Is there a megathread about credit unions? I remember one a looong time ago but I can't seem to find it now. I'm also in the Tampa area, and I'm with Grow Financial. Their website is fantastic, and there are branches everywhere. Plus, you can use the atm at any Publix for free. I highly recommend them.
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Apr 13, 2016 16:44
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Dale Sveum posted:I'm also in the Tampa area, and I'm with Grow Financial. Their website is fantastic, and there are branches everywhere. Plus, you can use the atm at any Publix for free. I looked into them at one point but decided against them for reasons I can no longer remember, so I guess I'll give them another chance 
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Apr 13, 2016 17:06
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I am at a loss as to how credit scores work, which I don't think anyone will be surprised at. I currently have a 774, and my handy dandy bank told me that the top two reasons are: 1 length of time accounts have been established- Ok I can understand this one. I'm 25 and my oldest credit card is only 3 years old. All I can do for this one is wait. 2 Too many accounts with balances- This one is the confusing one. Currently I have 2 credit cards, a student loan, a car loan, and I technically owe a vet a chunk of change for my dog, and it's on a payment plan. I pay off my balances for my main card (BoA travel rewards) either immediately, or within a few days, and my other card (the older one) I never even use. I have a great payment record on the car, student loan, credit card and amputation bill from the vet. I'm hoping to buy a house in the next couple years and would LOVE it if I could get above 800 for that. If you need numbers of the debt, student loan has approx 4,000 remaining, no interest. Car has approx 11,300 remaining @5.55 % interest, amputation from the vet has 800 remaining @ approx 3% interest. Balance on my card can go up to about 800 a month, since I put almost everything on it, and then immediately pay it off for the points. My dog has been going through chemo, so those can run around 600 just by themselves. I'm not sure what if what I have going is good, bad, or indifferent, but some advice would be nice.
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Apr 13, 2016 19:13
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774 is a good score. What are you concerned about exactly? Do you anticipate needing a large amount of credit in the near future, like for a home mortgage or new car? If no, don't worry about it and just pay your bills on time.
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Apr 13, 2016 19:23
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ghostgirl118 posted:I'm not sure what if what I have going is good, bad, or indifferent, but some advice would be nice. What's the limit on the BoA card that you use (the one with a balance that's usually around $800 at statement date)? Paying that card off more frequently or increasing the limit so as to lower your utilization ratio could provide an instant boost to your score. edit: Actually what are the limits on both cards, since that'll tell us your overall utilization ratio each month? Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 19:23
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ghostgirl118 posted:I am at a loss as to how credit scores work, which I don't think anyone will be surprised at. Credit reports always give the top 4 reasons that are preventing the score from being higher. There are a crazy number of data points that go into the algorithm, probably something like 70 or 80 different measurements. The thing is once you get above 750 everything is great and the reasons why you are not higher still start to get nitpicky. If you paid off one of the accounts with a balance, your score might go up 3 points. You should still pay it off, not to make your score go up 3 points, but so you can get out of debt and have fewer bills. But your credit is fine
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Apr 13, 2016 20:31
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The most common reason people can't seem to budge over 800 in my experience is they keep using too much of their available credit. Never get above 10% balance of your maximum credit limit on any card, even if it's just for a day before you pay it off. If you need to buy a $2000 item on a $10000 credit limit card it can be a problem, yes I know that sounds stupid and it is but short of kicking off the revolution tonight there's not much you can do about it. The % threshold for triggering a drop in FICO used to be 33%, but it's definitely lower than that now and seems to change multiple times a year, so just stay as low as you can.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:18
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Sigh... Some doofus at the school district (HR or Payroll) fell for a scam e-mail yesterday and sent a PDF with every single employee's name, address, salary and social security number to some lucky criminal. What shall I expect from here? What should I do? I put a 90 day fraud alert on my credit at all three agencies.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:34
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Pryor on Fire posted:The most common reason people can't seem to budge over 800 in my experience is they keep using too much of their available credit. Never get above 10% balance of your maximum credit limit on any card, even if it's just for a day before you pay it off. If you need to buy a $2000 item on a $10000 credit limit card it can be a problem, yes I know that sounds stupid and it is but short of kicking off the revolution tonight there's not much you can do about it. Do you have some sources for the things I bolded? The first part especially is at odds with pretty much everything I've seen online (cf Doctor of Credit, for example).
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Apr 14, 2016 02:45
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Just pay it off and wait a month for it to go back up to 800 again?
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Apr 14, 2016 02:52
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pig slut lisa posted:Do you have some sources for the things I bolded? The first part especially is at odds with pretty much everything I've seen online (cf Doctor of Credit, for example). Keeping your utilization low does affect your score a lot, but there's no history associated with you can just ignore it 99% of the time. When you need credit for a mortgage or a car loan or whatever just worry about it the month before. As your credit score and history go up you should get approved for higher and higher credit limits and the problem will solve itself. Waiting for the credit card statement to come in and then paying the statement balance in full before the due date is all you need to do to build excellent credit and avoid paying any interest.
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Apr 14, 2016 03:49
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THF13 posted:Keeping your utilization low does affect your score a lot, but there's no history associated with you can just ignore it 99% of the time. When you need credit for a mortgage or a car loan or whatever just worry about it the month before. As your credit score and history go up you should get approved for higher and higher credit limits and the problem will solve itself. I agree with all that, but that's sort of orthogonal to the claim that Pryor on Fire is making about credit cards reporting utilization on a daily basis.
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Apr 14, 2016 04:34
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spinst posted:Sigh... I've kept a permanent freeze on my credit at all three agencies and do temporary lifts when I know I'm going to have a credit pull done (eg refinancing our mortgage) It costs $10 each time at each agency but I don't have to do it very frequently and it's worth the peace of mind
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Apr 14, 2016 06:22
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pig slut lisa posted:I agree with all that, but that's sort of orthogonal to the claim that Pryor on Fire is making about credit cards reporting utilization on a daily basis. I have never seen a credit card report utilization on a daily basis, ever. It's usually once a month, but the exact time per month varies by card (some are the day the billing period ends, some are some arbitrary day before or after that). The strategy that THF13 described is really the best: don't worry about utilization until a couple of months before you plan to apply for a loan, and then be careful with how much you spend or start paying it frequently throughout the month so when the card reports it to the bureaus it will always be low/zero.
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Apr 14, 2016 13:51
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Are you really going to see any significant difference in your credit offerings between something like 775 and 800 rating? All my experience has been that the cutoffs are further down, and once you're over something like 750 you don't see much in terms of better rates/products.
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Apr 14, 2016 14:13
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They should change the thread title to "Your credit score is not a video game"
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Apr 14, 2016 14:47
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I recently checked my wife's credit report with Experian (because they mailed her a strange letter that turned out to be nothing) and her score was 847. I keep a freeze on all accounts, we use two different rewards credit cards and pay them off monthly (have not paid interest in a decade), and she hasn't had a car loan since like 2009 - just the credit cards, a mortgage, and the fact that we are getting old I guess. I have never once worried or cared about credit scores for either one of us (except to make sure her name is on stuff even though all our finances are merged, so if I die or she leaves me it's not a weird pain in the rear end for her to get credit). We have also blown off medical bills occasionally if the doctor was useless and ignored the subsequent collection agency letters. So in summary, don't worry about your credit score at all, just try to make good financial decisions and it will be fine.
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Apr 14, 2016 15:13
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Ashcans posted:Are you really going to see any significant difference in your credit offerings between something like 775 and 800 rating? All my experience has been that the cutoffs are further down, and once you're over something like 750 you don't see much in terms of better rates/products. Correct. If you are in the 800 range you really don't need to worry about the few points your utilization will affect your score for the best rates. However, if you are in the 740 range a 10 point dip could. Utilization is the easiest part of your credit score to manipulate, because of the fact that it has no memory and is only reported on the day that the inquiry is made. That's why we are saying to not worry about it until you are ready to apply for a loan, then just be aware of it and act accordingly.
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Apr 14, 2016 15:13
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Moneyball posted:They should change the thread title to "Your credit score is not a video game"  This is a novel one, we've never had this one before!
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Apr 14, 2016 18:13
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Achievement unlocked: Credit Score 800
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Apr 14, 2016 18:21
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Achievement unlocked: Buy horse with saved up rewards points For content, it's me. I'm BWM. A coworker reminded me I just passed my 3 year work anniversary (well, a little while ago) and after those three years, I have about broken even as far as personal net worth. Where did it all go? Interest, restaurants, booze, additional student and car debt, but at least I don't have a horse.
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Apr 14, 2016 18:28
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Speaking of credit scores when it doesn't actually matter... My jetblue american express was forcefully switched over to a jetblue mastercard. My credit report now shows that the american express card is "closed", and thus dropped my score 50-60 points. I haven't activated the new card yet. Is this normal? Credit card companies forcing card closure which then negatively affects your score, despite it just being transferred to a different company?
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Apr 14, 2016 18:32
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Blinky2099 posted:Speaking of credit scores when it doesn't actually matter... Yeah, that happened to me a while back. Not sure if it's common, but it definitely happens.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:18
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:So I just did my annual online credit pull. Two of the bureaus worked fine, but for experian I got the amazingly unhelpful (paraphrased, i moved on but should have copypasted) error message, "A condition exists the prevents us from retrieving your report, <link to snail mail credit request form>." Grumpwagon posted:I've had this exact error since February with Experian. Not sure what's going on. I guess I won't worry about it.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:28
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:
the BoA card has a total credit line of 1,200. How much the balance is on the card fluctuates throughout the month as I use it and pay it off. I have been fighting with the wells fargo gofarrewards website for the last hour trying to find my current limit on that card. I believe it's somewhere around 1000, but I simply cannot find that in writing. I also have not used this card more than a handful of times, most of the time only when I forgot my debit card somewhere and didn't have any other way to pay for something. sorry
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Apr 15, 2016 05:01
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So yeah, if your balance is around $800 when it reports to the credit bureaus then that's a smidge high (not outrageous, but enough that it'll probably affect your score) for a combined limit of ~$2000. Like others said, it's a memoryless metric so just zero it out more frequently right before you apply for a loan, otherwise consider requesting credit limit increases.
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Apr 15, 2016 06:29
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