Magic Underwear posted:

All the kids were forced to go to the same college?

JohnGalt posted:

Buying a house in college isnt the worst thing if youre going to be living in it + renting rooms. Dorms charge like 8-12 thousand a year to live in a glorified prison cell.

cowofwar posted:

Location of an undergrad degree doesn't matter.

Magic Underwear posted:

This is such a bizarre response. For one, it does matter, at least at the high end. Yale looks a lot better than Eastern Missouri Polytechnic. Secondly, even if it didn't matter for employment, that's an argument for more freedom to choose a college that you like for its location, atmosphere, student body etc. Unless you mean to claim that every college is exactly identical, so might as well pick one and buy a house there and force all your children to go there no matter what. Which makes no sense.

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

Well, let's take it back to the original context. I think we can all agree that you shouldn't buy a house if you can only afford $100/month in food.

Haifisch posted:

He lives in the UK, apparently. I'm not sure what home prices are like there, but I'd be shocked if he could afford one.

quote:

Lottery millionaire jailed for trafficking crack cocaine

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. - At the age of 24, Daniel Carley became a millionaire by winning $5 million on a lottery scratch ticket.

Now 35, Carley is broke and on Wednesday he was sent to jail for two and a half years after being convicted of trafficking in crack cocaine.

Defence lawyer Ron Charlebois said winning the lottery was the worst thing that could of happened to his client because he got into drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and he became an addict.

"He has lost everything primarily from people taking advantage of him. He sold drugs to support his habit," Charlebois told Judge Richard Lococo at a sentencing hearing on Wednesday in the Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

On Nov. 6, 2013, Carley was one of more than two dozen people who were arrested after a nine-month investigation into biker gang activity in the Niagara area.

That investigation — dubbed Project Resurgence — involved more than 220 police officers from a number of different police services that began investigating the activities of the Outlaws and Black Pistons motorcycle gangs.

Police uncovered evidence of narcotics trafficking, including heroin, cocaine and marijuana, along with evidence of weapons trafficking, break and enter, assault, extortion and participating in a criminal organization.

Some of the items seized included $70,000 in cash, $150,000 worth of vehicles, marijuana with a potential street value of $18 million, $30,000 in heroin and a variety of weapons.

A number of individuals who were arrested in connection with Project Resurgence have already had their cases dealt with by the courts, a few are still before the courts.

Federal prosecutor Niall Gilks said the two and a half year jail sentence being proposed was a joint submission that fell within an acceptable range for this type of an offence.

During the investigation, Carley was heard on wiretaps conducting a number of drug transactions with individuals calling him to purchase drugs.

The Crown said Carley, who had no previous criminal record, was dealing at the lower end involving an ounce or less of crack cocaine. He noted a considerable amount of court time was saved because Carley had entered a guilty plea.

Court heard Carley is separated, but helps to support a seven-year-old child. He has completed his high school education and since his arrest has tried to rehabilitate himself.

The Crown withdrew some other charges that were still before the courts.

One issue that still needs to be resolved involves the property at 80 Page St., in St. Catharines, which served as the club house for the Black Pistons. That property, which is owned by Carley through a numbered company, had been secured with metal bars on the windows and doors and was also equipped with closed circuit video television.

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

You are probably gonna get a bunch of vitamin deficiencies but raw calories are pretty abundant in cheap form, like garbage ramen noodles cost 18 cents per pack if you buy them in bulk, assuming you eat three meals of them a day () that's only ~$16 a month, leaving enough left over to buy some vitamin supplements and/or pay for treatment of your crippling rickets and scurvy

e: Also heart disease, if you're a girl:

quote:

The consumption of instant noodles was associated with increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome in women, independent of major dietary patterns.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Ahahahaha!

Also UK house prices are predicted to tank due to Brexit bursting the property bubble, so now is the best time to buy!

quote:

I resist eating instant noodles because they are so bad for you and I don't want to get diabetis but god drat it's my favorite food. If I could eat ramen all day every day I'd be happier than a tornado in a trailer park.

My homeowner friends in London all have interest-only mortgages. Real estate only goes up Up UP!

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

Well, let's take it back to the original context. I think we can all agree that you shouldn't buy a house if you can only afford $100/month in food.

"My mom needs serious help (losing ~$1200/mo) posted:

Hey personal finance,
My mom (separated) is having serious trouble staying afloat right now, and is going into debt. I've been listening to how she spends money, and I can't find any way to reduce spending.
I know there may be threads that may have addressed some of this, but she and I are panicking.
After taxes, she takes home $3700 a month.
Expenses: $2300 credit card -$350 on groceries -$150 dining out -$125 on gas -$250 on clothes (for me) -$35 on electricity -various medications $1080 on rent $500 on very, very basic health insurance (it is very important to her that she kept her doctor) $525 on my tuition (I go to boarding school) $300 into savings every year $115 on phone $150 on cable $102 on car insurance $125 on gas
Please help us trim down her budget, she is losing money. But at the same time, she is also living very minimally. It's basically little stuff that adds up to the massive credit card bills.
Thanks~
EDIT: Thank you all for the responses.
I forgot one very important piece of information: She has $35,000 in savings as of now, but she has to cut into it $1200 every month.
I did make a few mistakes I want to clarify. 1. The clothes were a one time thing, not a monthly cost. 2. She does not dine out at all during the year.
She also mentioned that her health plan is one of the cheapest she could get, and as for her credit card, apparently "things just rack up". It could very well be she needs to get a second job.
If you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks for the help so far.

quote:

Sorry, I'm not good at all this. She is charging $2300 on the credit card each month and paying it in full. Everything miscellaneous that she buys and I buy goes on the card. Neither of us tend to be big spenders, but I guess it adds up. In the post you can see a few charges that are on the card, such as gas, prescriptions, and whatnot

Switchback posted:

Breetai posted:

Stop buying candles.

Switchback posted:

pig slut lisa posted:

If only the law allowed cable plans to be cancelled. Alas, there is no simply way to relieve this $1,800/year burden for the rest of their lives.

cowofwar posted:

Location of an undergrad degree doesn't matter.

Switchback posted:

quote:

My work is having a one-day event where they are offering a $36k grant for home purchase. Never owned a house before. Which questions should I be asking?

Some background from me: I'm a 27-year-old male who has never owned or rented a home. I've recently been given a full-time research position, and in brilliantly coincidental timing, my work is having a one-day-only event in September where they are offering grants up to $36k towards purchasing homes in the vicinity of the hospital.

Here's a link to some info on the event: http://hopkinsworklife.org/housing_relocation/lnyw/

I won't lie, I'm wary, but it sounds like an enticing opportunity to make a property investment in what I feel will be a developing area. But having never owned or rented before, I don't quite know where to start.
Which questions should I be asking to point myself in the right direction? I have a full-time job and a part-time one, and few expenses of my own. How should I gauge what I can and cannot afford? How do grants like these factor into taxes? Is there any particular party that I should contact about mortgages who will give me unbiased information?
Hope you guys can point me in the right direction to start asking informed questions!

quote:

I won't lie, I'm wary, but it sounds like an enticing opportunity to make a property investment in what I feel will be a developing area.

OMGVBFLOL posted:

so you're telling me, that the more I buy... the more I save??

quote:

From 18-22 I net-profited $30,000 online while going to school, just playing small stakes part time. I basically lived off of this with the help of my parents while going to school yet still graduated with $70,000 of student loan debt. Online poker became obsolete in the US (this is an entire different subject) so I started playing in casinos and card rooms while working an entry level management job.

I lasted 1 year with my $55,000 salary and quit. I turned to poker full time at 24.

This is where the mistakes began.

Barry posted:

There's no way that playing poker 30-40 hours a week is enjoyable, especially when your livelihood relies upon it.

I wonder if he's paying his taxes.

cowofwar posted:

Location of an undergrad degree doesn't matter.

Residency Evil posted:

Yeah this is definitely not true.

Switchback posted:

students who attended more selective colleges earned about the same as students of seemingly comparable ability who attended less selective schools,

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Guy just started his first job and has been living with his parents. His work is providing a "one day only" special grant of "up to" 36k if you buy a house and live in it for at least 5 years.

In the comments he says he is in the process of closing on a 230k house in Baltimore and hasn't checked to see how much of the "up to" 36k he qualifies for.

He makes 35k a year and if he is fired from his job in the next 5 years he has to pay whatever he got from the grant back.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4vnsoo/my_work_is_having_a_oneday_event_where_they_are/

WampaLord posted:

He's making $15k a month working 40 hours a week playing a game and wants to stop because he's miserable.

How fun does he think actual work is?

E: VVV Again, though, compare it to actual work. And to make $15k/month, he'd probably have to work a job that required massive amounts of overtime.

OMGVBFLOL posted:

People whose stories I read who left pro poker behind usually chalk it up to something somewhere between "feeling useless to the world" and "feeling like an actual bad person".

After the 10th month in a row you see some old dude sit down with his social security check, and it's your job to take all of it from him, and that's all you're doing all day every day, that's what you're spending your life and all your mental energy doing, just taking money people really should be spending on other things, without contributing anything useful or productive to the world, that'll wear out anyone with a conscience sooner or later.

Throw in the wild swings of chance you have to ride out as just being part of the life, being up or down tens of thousands of dollars within the same year, and I've got no problem seeing why people burn out on it and move on.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Guy just started his first job and has been living with his parents. His work is providing a "one day only" special grant of "up to" 36k if you buy a house and live in it for at least 5 years.

In the comments he says he is in the process of closing on a 230k house in Baltimore and hasn't checked to see how much of the "up to" 36k he qualifies for.

He makes 35k a year and if he is fired from his job in the next 5 years he has to pay whatever he got from the grant back.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4vnsoo/my_work_is_having_a_oneday_event_where_they_are/