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Zeta Taskforce posted:I've always been on the record as saying all of us who can afford to give to charities should make that a regular and ongoing part of our lives. It is my belief that someone who doesn't have a housing payment and a decent income has a moral obligation to think of others in a financial sense. There is more to money than buying stuff. You should't give everything away, nor should you wait until you have 6 months of expenses saved and 10 times your income in retirement before you give your first dollar. We should be citizens of the world and the minority of us who life in high income developed societies have an obligation to think of the most desperate among us. Every time I say this I somehow upset delicate snowflakes who think I'm preaching. Not upset at all. You didn't say anything upsetting, and I have no reason to feel bad. Just: "this, uh, got weirdly personal"
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Jul 6, 2017 22:19
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potatoducks posted:
Isn't that the unofficial motto of these forums?
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Jul 6, 2017 22:49
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This is a personal question Zeta, but do you tithe? Not necessarily to a religious organization or charity, but is that the level of commitment you're making as far as your charitable donations? Right now we have a few organizations we support but because we have such high student loan balances it feels hard to give much more than a very small fraction of our income. Was this a decision your family made together, or just something you've always done?
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Jul 7, 2017 12:51
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Just give to charity and stop bragging, because it makes you sound like you give to charity to serve yourself. That's why those "snowflakes" get upset. Not because you're preaching, but because when you brag about it and lord it over others it stops being charity and becomes more of a billboard of how awesome you are. Like, imagine you're a student who gets help on a math problem from a tutor. And every time that tutor helps you, he/she announces to the room "I do all of my homework because that's what I think a good student should do." Yeah, they're right, but eventually they're just a holier than thou douche. boop the snoot fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Jul 7, 2017 |
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Jul 7, 2017 13:27
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I'm explicitly not donating to charities because I intend to eventually found a charitable nonprofit to funnel appreciated stocks through to avoid capital gains taxes and giving more of my money to people who need it and less to the government.
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Jul 7, 2017 14:11
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If we only give to charity when we can afford it without making the slightest sacrifice, then no-one would ever give to charity except the rich, and rich guys are more likely to fund an opera house than donate to local underprivileged kids (for example.)
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Jul 7, 2017 15:39
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BarbarianElephant posted:and rich guys are more likely to fund an opera house than donate to local underprivileged kids (for example.) ...for the tax write off
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Jul 7, 2017 15:47
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Sorry for the quick derail but I just wanted to add this to the discussion on charity. I want to preface this thought by saying there are a lot of valid charities that do great work around the world. However, it's sad to me the need for so many domestic charities that pretty much serve as a basic social safety net. I've always been of the mindset that paying just a bit more in taxes (and a decent amount more for wealthy folks) is well worth it to have a comprehensive, fully functional safety net to keep people out of destitute poverty and crippling debt due to things like preventable medical expenses. There will always be a need for niche charities across the country but Republicans (and some centrist Dems) have done a lot to make folks rely on the inadequate charity system. It sucks because it doesn't have to be that way.
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Jul 7, 2017 16:58
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Fireside Nut posted:Sorry for the quick derail but I just wanted to add this to the discussion on charity. Right. Charity is a tax on the good. It's not fair or sensible that a sweet little old lady goes without new clothes so she can give more to the poor, while Donald Trump gives hardly anything out of his great wealth because he doesn't really have an ability to empathize with other people. However, it is still a good thing to do, and if you can do it, don't feel you are being profligate.
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Jul 7, 2017 17:03
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BarbarianElephant posted:However, it is still a good thing to do, and if you can do it, don't feel you are being profligate. Yes, I agree. It's sort of a 'you have to work to change things from within the system you are operating' type of situation. Donating to charity is nice and generally good, in concert with voting for people who prioritize social programs to help the poor, disabled, etc.
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Jul 7, 2017 17:08
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:This is a personal question Zeta, but do you tithe? Not necessarily to a religious organization or charity, but is that the level of commitment you're making as far as your charitable donations? Right now we have a few organizations we support but because we have such high student loan balances it feels hard to give much more than a very small fraction of our income. I don't tithe. Right now I have gone through some career changes and I am cash flowing a MBA. I probably have about 18 months before I finish, going part time. That's why if you look at my posting history I pretty much stop posting for months at a time. Because of this I've had to reduce what I give to charity and pause any contributions to retirement. For that matter I haven't been on a legit vacation since I started school either. So when I graduate I plan on dramatically increasing spending on myself, investing and giving. I'm with Fireside Nut. I admire that lots of evangelical Christians tithe, but they get all preachy about how much good work they do and how much better they are than the welfare office and if only they didn't have to pay taxes they could all be doing so much more amazing stuff. I find it revolting when they take the next logical step and shame folks who need some form of the social safety net and tell them that they should just join a good church instead. I am absolutely disgusted when much of that charitable giving actually gets spent trying to disenfranchise marginalized groups like gays and transgender men and women. Just one example is how the Mormons funded the prop 8 efforts. You know that they got that money from tithes. I was the guy who suggested we fund the school in Haiti a couple years ago and still support them. I'm not rich by any means but my tiny sums of money does so much more to promote social justice there than anything I could donate to here. I don't want to come across as preachy, just get people to pause and think, and if that happens then I accomplished what I wanted.
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Jul 7, 2017 17:28
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I don't tithe. Right now I have gone through some career changes and I am cash flowing a MBA. I probably have about 18 months before I finish, going part time. That's why if you look at my posting history I pretty much stop posting for months at a time. Because of this I've had to reduce what I give to charity and pause any contributions to retirement. For that matter I haven't been on a legit vacation since I started school either. So when I graduate I plan on dramatically increasing spending on myself, investing and giving. It did. The main charities we fund are MSF and Madre, which I highly recommend, but I always feel bad not doing more when we have so much. Thanks for your perspective.
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Jul 7, 2017 17:58
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I donate a bunch of junk to the Salvation Army whenever I move so we all good fam.
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Jul 7, 2017 18:36
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Got rejected for an Amazon Visa due to age of credit. CreditWise and CreditKarma both rate my score at around 700-710, and my one and only credit card is about 10 months old. Any of rule of thumb on how long I should before applying again? I don't want to trigger unnecesary hard pulls. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jul 7, 2017 |
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Jul 7, 2017 21:47
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Got rejected for an Amazon Visa due to age of credit. A year to two years generally.
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Jul 8, 2017 03:33
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8-bit Miniboss posted:A year to two years generally. Sorry, just realized that I forgot to add "wait" to "Any of rule of thumb on how long I should before applying again?". Do you mean that I should wait till my credit age is 1-2 years old, or that I should wait 1-2 years before applying again? (I'm guessing it's the former, but credit score rules are insane enough that the question seems appropiate).
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Jul 8, 2017 03:49
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Sorry, just realized that I forgot to add "wait" to "Any of rule of thumb on how long I should before applying again?". The former.
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Jul 8, 2017 03:53
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legsarerequired posted:My thinking is that the roth IRA has $12k, and is already starting to earn interest. If I start putting money in the roth 401k, I have to start over from 0. I get that the roth 401k has a higher contribution limit than the roth IRA, but since I make $47k annually, I don't really see myself maxing my IRA contribution limit at this point and I'm wondering if it would be wiser to just pick between investing in my possible roth 401k or my roth IRA [so I could make more money off interest[. I finally figured out what I misunderstood about 401ks and interest. I'm going to explain this here in case other newbies have a similar misunderstanding. When you read online about 401ks earning interest, this probably does not refer to the 401k account as a whole. It very likely refers to the individual funds within the 401k which might earn interest (especially bond funds). You may have read in articles about retirement planning that people in their 50s need to have lots of money in their retirement accounts so they can make money off interest. This is not referring to the interest generated by the 401k account/roth IRA account as a whole, which is why you won't find an interest rate for your entire IRA or 401k. This is referring to the interest accrued by individual funds within those accounts, specifically conservative funds like bonds that tend to grow from accruing interest. The reason some articles emphasize older people making money off interest is because people near retirement age are more likely to have shifted most of their investments into conservative funds. Bonds make money off of earning interest and can't increase with the market the way stocks can, so it's important you have a lot invested so you can at least make money off the interest. Someone who has $400k invested in their 401k at age 50 will have an easier time growing a conservative investment than someone who only has $50k invested in the same conservative funds. Not everyone will be healthy enough to work until they're over 65, so it's important to make sure you take advantage of growth wherever you can rather than hoping you'll be able to save more later. (Let me know if I got this wrong)
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Jul 8, 2017 04:19
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legsarerequired posted:I finally figured out what I misunderstood about 401ks and interest. I'm going to explain this here in case other newbies have a similar misunderstanding.
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Jul 8, 2017 04:28
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I was the guy who suggested we fund the school in Haiti a couple years ago and still support them. I'm not rich by any means but my tiny sums of money does so much more to promote social justice there than anything I could donate to here. I don't want to come across as preachy, just get people to pause and think, and if that happens then I accomplished what I wanted.
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Jul 8, 2017 19:01
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CannonFodder posted:Matenwa Learning Center? I also continue to donate to them. Thanks for bringing the forums to them. Yup. That was me. I was just at a thank you brunch and they mentioned that a lot of goons were still monthly. Back then they were bringing the model from the one school to 12 schools. They are now up to 30 schools including some on mainland Haiti. They did testing comparing their students literacy and math skills vs a model school funded by the World Bank. Matenwa destroyed them. Thank you for all you've done. They get grants too, but the grants are super specific on how the money gets spent, like it needs to be used only on educational materials. Donations plug in the gaps. Your money might have gone to buy a shovel to tend the garden or patch things up when they had a direct hit from Hurricane Matthew last fall. Thats the one that Drudge said that the 140 mph winds were a hoax by climate scientists. The winds and rain were very much real. Or pay the salary for the woman who runs the thing. She barely pays herself a salary but that is her full time job and she cant volunteer to work for free. Youre awesome!!!
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Jul 8, 2017 19:48
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Hoodwinker posted:No, this is correct. Also, it's not specifically interest. Interest is generated from bond funds. Dividends are paid out from stock funds. But the idea is the same. I'll look into this. THank you! legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 00:48
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legsarerequired posted:Thank you for helping me understand! Keep in mind though, 401ks generally let you invest in a limited group of funds that each have their own unique expense ratio. I'd look into what the (I'm assuming) robo-advisor suggests. I know in my case at least I was curious what the advisor suggested and it was telling me to put money into much higher expense funds than the ones I was already in.
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Jul 9, 2017 01:39
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Primetime posted:Keep in mind though, 401ks generally let you invest in a limited group of funds that each have their own unique expense ratio. I'd look into what the (I'm assuming) robo-advisor suggests. I know in my case at least I was curious what the advisor suggested and it was telling me to put money into much higher expense funds than the ones I was already in. Yeah I looked more closely at the paperwork and it wants me to transfer my funds from Vanguard to their own brokerage which I don't like so I won't use them. Right now all of my retirement savings are in target date funds. I know target date funds have higher expense ratios, but I've used them because I think they help compensate for these two problems in my personality: a) When I get nervous, I get very impulsive and make very defensive/self-preservational choices. I don't think this is a good personality trait in combination with my retirement savings currently being mostly high-risk investments (I'm 29), so I let the target date fund manage my investments for now rather than risking that I would make overly conservative choices. b) Usually I can overcome my impulsiveness if I really understand why I shouldn't follow my impulse. Although I understand how to look up the types of funds I should have, I still feel really shaky picking out individual funds for myself. So I've relied on the target date fund. Apparently don't have as much exposure to international markets as the robo-advisor suggests.  I'm not sure why the robo advisor is saying I don't have exposure to international markets, because my entire 401k is invested in this target date fund (for the reasons above). It is very heavy on domestic stocks but it does seem to have international exposure:  My entire roth is in a Vanguard target date fund that I'm pretty sure has a similar balance. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 02:02
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legsarerequired posted:Yeah I looked more closely at the paperwork and it wants me to transfer my funds from Vanguard to their own brokerage which I don't like so I won't use them. I see nothing wrong with your investment, and I think the RoboAdvisor is just not interpreting parts of your Target Retirement Fund correctly. Robo says you have no investment in REITs. Your fund has Blackrock Real Estate Index Fund, which is a fund that has many REITs within it, including Simon Property Group, which Wikipedia calls the largest REIT. You're fine, but if you want more assurance send your post to the Long Term thread.
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Jul 9, 2017 03:49
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I think it bears repeating in this thread every so often: Low cost target date funds are never the wrong choice.
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Jul 9, 2017 04:10
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It's nice to hear reassurance about my target date funds. The few friends I talk to about retirement planning think it's stupid that I'm not making time to finally nail down how to pick funds and rebalance things myself. I'm getting better at understanding these things, just really slowly though.CannonFodder posted:Your questions are probably better placed in the Long Term Investment and Retirement Savings thread, because you have graduated from "Fix your budget" to "Plan for retirement" and you seem to be doing things right. Will do! Apologies, I just wasn't sure if my newbie retirement questions were too basic compared to some of the folks asking questions about specific funds over in that thread. I know they have links and reading in that thread, but I still kind of feel overwhelmed reading through them. I think it might click in a few more years as I get more used to it, but for right now I wish there was a way to explain it to me like I was five years old. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 9, 2017 |
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Jul 9, 2017 05:25
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The way to explain it is... Low cost target date index funds. 
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Jul 9, 2017 05:39
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Got rejected for an Amazon Visa due to age of credit. Just want to add that how you use card matters. If you have a $1000 limit and have a balance of $1000 and you're paying the minimum, lenders won't be interested for a long time. If you use the card for but pay your balance in full you will start getting more credit card offers in mail than you know what to do with.
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Jul 12, 2017 01:58
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tesilential posted:Just want to add that how you use card matters. If you have a $1000 limit and have a balance of $1000 and you're paying the minimum, lenders won't be interested for a long time. If you use the card for but pay your balance in full you will start getting more credit card offers in mail than you know what to do with. I'm definitely keeping up with all the good usage factors. I think my utilization score has not broken 30% more than once. My score was 720 per the same letter that rejected me so I'm fairly sure their answer that it's due to credit age is legit. Honestly I'm not that worried about it, I'd just like to move on to something that rewards my spending ASAP. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Jul 12, 2017 |
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Jul 12, 2017 13:17
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If you haven't called their consideration line you could try talking to someone.
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Jul 12, 2017 13:43
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The Slack Lagoon posted:If you haven't called their consideration line you could try talking to someone. Just called and they basically said the same thing. Thanks for the tip, though! Guess I'll just have to wait.
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Jul 12, 2017 15:24
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tesilential posted:Just want to add that how you use card matters. If you have a $1000 limit and have a balance of $1000 and you're paying the minimum, lenders won't be interested for a long time. If you use the card for but pay your balance in full you will start getting more credit card offers in mail than you know what to do with. Its my understanding that your balance gets reported only once a month on the card cycle date and therefore it doesn't matter whether you max the card out at $1000 and make minimum payments vs max it out and pay it off in full the following month. What is key is the balance when the statement goes out, so if that is a concern you might want to send some payments before the current cycle closes. That said, the only thing that will help here is the passage of time. FICO uses an algorithm, Amazon credit uses one too. They have decided that someone who seems to be aggressively seeking new credit lines is a poor credit risk. There is an old saying that banks only want to lend money to people who don't need it. A human who looked at it and bothered to verify income and think about it with 3 brain cells could figure out that someone with a job living in a modern economy might have a need for more than $1000 in credit and this isn't an automatic sign that they are drowning in unpaid bills. But no human looked at your application and eventually your other account will be old enough that you will meet whatever arbitrary criteria they are using.
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Jul 12, 2017 17:35
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Xenoborg posted:Also while there is a discuss on credit reports going on, I thought of another question I had: Dredged this up from long ago. I was getting pre approved for a home loan yesterday and the loan officer had a good chuckle at these. I had a 837 score and he thought it had to be due in part to the absurd credit length.
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Jul 12, 2017 17:42
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Xenoborg posted:Dredged this up from long ago. I was getting pre approved for a home loan yesterday and the loan officer had a good chuckle at these. I had a 837 score and he thought it had to be due in part to the absurd credit length.
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Jul 12, 2017 19:06
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If my sister signs me up for an extension of her credit card would that increase my age of credit? She's had a US card much longer than me.
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Jul 13, 2017 00:13
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:If my sister signs me up for an extension of her credit card would that increase my age of credit? She's had a US card much longer than me. Depends on the issue. My wife added me as an authorized user on a 9 year old card of hers and it bumped my average age of accounts significantly
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Jul 13, 2017 00:19
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Depending on the issuer they may report authorized users credit history to the bureaus as the date they were added, the date the main cardholder opened the main account, or not at all. Not sure unfortunately which companies still report authorized users based on the original account holder's opening date.
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Jul 13, 2017 04:24
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:If my sister signs me up for an extension of her credit card would that increase my age of credit? She's had a US card much longer than me. It might, from a purely mechanical perspective the other posters are right, but I still would not. Its one thing for a parent to add a dependent child as an authorized user or spouses who are joint on everything anyway. But there is only modest upside with significant downside too. The upside is if your credit is otherwise clean and just really young and the other account is much older you will see a bump. That bump will decrease over time as your other credit matures. The downside for you is if for whatever reason your sister is ever late on the card or defaults. The bad info will be reported on your credit too. The downside for her is that you have full rights to use the entire credit limit without any legal responsibility of paying it back. Each of you may think that the odds of either event are negligible, and they are until something happens. We have an entire subforum devoted to the ranges of the human experience. The upside is small and fleeting. The downside is unlikely includes profound relationship altering consequences with your sister. I would not.
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Jul 13, 2017 17:29
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THF13 posted:Depending on the issuer they may report authorized users credit history to the bureaus as the date they were added, the date the main cardholder opened the main account, or not at all. Not sure unfortunately which companies still report authorized users based on the original account holder's opening date. If I had to guess most of them have, or will stop this practice soon. It's contributing to a significant portion of losses/fraud.
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Jul 13, 2017 17:40
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