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Ghostnuke posted:That's good info, thanks. I don't think the problem is candles so much as that day care for the 2 kids costs more than my mortgage every month and it's going to be a loooong time until I can cut that out. I do think we'd be absolutely fine if we could get out from under the debt, we'd have quite a bit of extra money each month. As long as the person who would otherwise provide childcare is earning more than the cost of childcare it's fine enough - it's a necessary cost with a fixed end date. But the fact that you say "I don't think" vs "I have analyzed and know" is worrying. How is your budget?
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Sep 23, 2021 18:25
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H110Hawk posted:As long as the person who would otherwise provide childcare is earning more than the cost of childcare it's fine enough - it's a necessary cost with a fixed end date. you are right, I have not sat down and run the numbers exactly. I should probably get one of those apps that divides it all up for you. I DO know that we would have extra money each month, just not how much exactly.
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Sep 23, 2021 18:42
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Just to state this fully out in the open, the reason people are scrutinizing you so hard on this is, one of the most common stories you hear are people who transfer their debt from their cards to another instrument (house, personal loan, etc), then slowly the debt creeps back up, and they have the loan + maxed credit cards. Obviously no one intends to do this, but it is easy to do (an unexpected emergency, job loss, or paying it off for a year and slowly stop paying attention to it, etc etc). The only real way around it is to make sure that you can support your living expenses + the debt service + some cushion for unexpected things. Hence the questions about budgets and such. Once you've truly analyzed it as much as possible, have a budget that works for you, have some contingencies for unexpected things (within reason, of course, no one can plan for everything), then you'll save money and get out of debt sooner by doing the refi. People just want to warn you of what we've seen before, and if you don't think you can realistically have that cushion, it's probably better not to wrap your house up in it. That way, the worst case scenario is bankruptcy or default on the cards (annoying, but not life changing) rather than losing your house. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Sep 23, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 18:54
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that's all totally understandable. I'll come back once i have some solid numbers
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Sep 23, 2021 19:46
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What is the best way for someone to put away a small windfall for retirement purposes? As hands off as possible. It’s approx. 100k in proceeds from the sale of a house. My thoughts are: - max out a ROTHIRA - $7k with catch-up contributions. - drop the rest in a Taxable account and use that to max the ROTH every year. - both accounts at Vanguard and invest in Target Date funds. Am I missing anything?
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Sep 29, 2021 03:33
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I Love Topanga posted:What is the best way for someone to put away a small windfall for retirement purposes? As hands off as possible. Are you maxing your 401k contribution? If not, you could crank up your contributions for this year and then drop it back down (so you don't hit your max in May or something)
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Sep 29, 2021 03:50
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Kinda same question, I got a new job without a 401(k) and I already have been maxing out my IRA, so I need some place to put $10k+ away every year. Is there another type of long term retirement savings account that I can open?
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Sep 29, 2021 05:50
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totalnewbie posted:Are you maxing your 401k contribution? If not, you could crank up your contributions for this year and then drop it back down (so you don't hit your max in May or something) Great thanks for the reminder. This is actually for a family member, so I'm trying to get everything in one place and help out in one fell swoop.
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Sep 29, 2021 17:17
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So it turns out my dad opened up a life insurance policy for me when I was born and I'm wondering if I should continue it and the payments for it. It's within my budget, but I'm not 100% on the value of life insurance as someone that's single and without dependents
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Oct 1, 2021 17:31
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Came here to scream into the ether about finding a CPA. I thought I had one via my aunt, but he hasn't called me back. The other one has been unresponsive. I'm about to just go to an H&R block and work with them. fffffff this is so frustrating.
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Oct 1, 2021 17:42
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Xelkelvos posted:So it turns out my dad opened up a life insurance policy for me when I was born and I'm wondering if I should continue it and the payments for it. It's within my budget, but I'm not 100% on the value of life insurance as someone that's single and without dependents What kind of life insurance is it?
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Oct 1, 2021 17:48
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Xelkelvos posted:So it turns out my dad opened up a life insurance policy for me when I was born and I'm wondering if I should continue it and the payments for it. It's within my budget, but I'm not 100% on the value of life insurance as someone that's single and without dependents Also, what is the payout if you cash it out ?
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Oct 2, 2021 15:45
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Xelkelvos posted:So it turns out my dad opened up a life insurance policy for me when I was born and I'm wondering if I should continue it and the payments for it. It's within my budget, but I'm not 100% on the value of life insurance as someone that's single and without dependents It's hard to give a definite answer without knowing the answers to 'what's the payout if you cash it out' and 'what kind of life insurance is it', but I'd be surprised if it was worth sinking more money into it.
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Oct 2, 2021 23:30
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Insurance might not make pure numbers sense but there really is “peace of mind” in knowing that your children won’t become homeless if you get hit by a drunk driver or get cancer. E: especially if it’s through your work and comes out to like $14/month for a half million policy, and/or disability
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Oct 3, 2021 00:49
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The vast majority of young people are best off cashing out life insurance policies and investing the money in an IRA, maxing out 401k for the year, or taxable investment accounts. Many of the investments in life insurance have load fees, high expense rations, high fees, or they are based on annuities that offer low returns. If you have a dependent having term life insurance makes sense until you no longer have dependents. You should probably also get short term disability insurance through your employer. If you are healthy and under 30 you can get $250k of term life for ~$300 a year. $250k of life insurance coverage in a whole life typically would cost 15x to 20x as much as a 30 year term life policy. Life insurance within a universal policy is also expensive There are some exceptions where continuing to contribute, or keeping the policy without contributing further make more sense, but mostly this is only a factor if you plan on having so much money when you die that the estate tax and gift tax is a serious issue. Currently the limit is 11.7 million. And even then, the life insurance you have is probably not the right one and you should talk to a fiduciary financial advisor.
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Oct 3, 2021 23:19
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This was my first year I've started budgeting. So far it's looking like I'm going to spend about $18k this year + $7k for college room and board + $5k in savings. Does that sound right? I'm in my late 20s and don't have a car. I feel like I haven't been budgeting that properly and I've been doing things like frequently eating out and spending on my hobbies, yet I'm surprised my expenses are so low. This year I will have lived 7 months in a high COL area, 4 months at college, and 1 month at home. Does it seem like I'm missing something when it comes to my expenses?
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Oct 4, 2021 03:41
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Nirvikalpa posted:This was my first year I've started budgeting. So far it's looking like I'm going to spend about $18k this year + $7k for college room and board + $5k in savings. Does that sound right? I'm in my late 20s and don't have a car. I feel like I haven't been budgeting that properly and I've been doing things like frequently eating out and spending on my hobbies, yet I'm surprised my expenses are so low. This year I will have lived 7 months in a high COL area, 4 months at college, and 1 month at home. As long as you're sure you've recorded everything you've spent, those numbers seem frugal but possible. Having no dependents, no house and no car really does wonders for the ability to live cheaply, even with some hobby + dining spending.
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Oct 4, 2021 13:41
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Just posting the big $ number and asking if it “sounds good” isn’t helpful at all. What you need to do is go through the categories of expenses that you’ve considered. Off the top of my head, my largest (historical) expenses are… Debt servicing - mortgage, student loans Insurance - healthcare, auto Home improvement and maintenance - plumbing, electrical, roofing Food - groceries, restaurants Entertainment - games, streaming services Shopping - clothing, electronics, appliances After all that, there’s some large upcoming expenses that I have planned: Potential car purchase, certain bits of home improvement, and planned healthcare issues Have you covered all of the above? Is there anything that you covered that I didn’t? (I would hope so! My budget isn’t yours!) If you go through it like this, we can help identify areas that you may not have thought about.
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Oct 4, 2021 14:04
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If I get a second credit card, what happens if I don't use it? As in, make no purchases with it for a month or so. I'm trying to google this and can't figure out how to phrase it so I get an answer instead of minimum payment stuff.
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Oct 4, 2021 15:37
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Over a long enough period of inactivity they'll just close the account for you. On cards I've had for decades now (jesus christ what is time) that period has been a year+ and they give me a heads up and I go make some piddly purchases to keep that credit age high. I don't know how soon they'll start giving a no-activity new account the hairy eyeball but I really doubt it'll be within the first month.
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Oct 4, 2021 16:09
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StrixNebulosa posted:If I get a second credit card, what happens if I don't use it? As in, make no purchases with it for a month or so. I'm trying to google this and can't figure out how to phrase it so I get an answer instead of minimum payment stuff. I haven't used my oldest credit card since 2008. I keep it around as a backup and to boost my credit age. Every few years the bank reaches out to me to see if I still want it otherwise they'll close it. I say that I want it and then they keep it open.
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Oct 5, 2021 12:51
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jjack229 posted:I haven't used my oldest credit card since 2008. I keep it around as a backup and to boost my credit age. Every few years the bank reaches out to me to see if I still want it otherwise they'll close it. I say that I want it and then they keep it open. Mine has Netflix on it or something similar. Every month autopay handles it no problem.
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Oct 5, 2021 16:36
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Howdy all, I have a question about cashing a check written to two people. Don’t know if it matters but we live in California and bank with a credit union. I recently got married, and my parents wrote a check to us as a wedding gift. The check is written out to “Mr. and Mrs. Highbrow Slick.” My wife hasn’t changed her name yet (wedding was just over a week ago), so she isn’t technically Mrs. Slick yet. We want to use the money from the check to pay down some of the principal on our mortgage. I endorsed the check, my wife did not. I then used mobile deposit to deposit the check into my personal (not joint) account on 9/27. The funds were made available soon after, although I know that doesn’t necessarily mean the check has cleared yet. I then transferred the amount to the mortgage as a one-time principal only payment. But then somewhere along the way someone mentioned it should have been endorsed by both of us, or deposited into our joint account. I used my own account because it is already linked to the mortgage through the same credit union and I am lazy. Soooo my concern is eventually the credit union will bounce the check back because it is written out to two people but only endorsed by me, and even if my wife had endorsed it, her legal name isn’t yet changed to reflect the “Mrs. Slick” written on the check. I was able to transfer money from my savings account to my checking so that I will not overdraft if the check is rejected (it was a very generous amount but not life-changing). I suppose this is more of an academic question but I hate having the possibility of screwing this up hanging over my head. Any thoughts? Thank you
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Oct 5, 2021 17:23
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As with most questions like this that are asked here: pick up the telephone and call your bank and ask them this question.
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Oct 5, 2021 17:27
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That's how I pretty much always write checks for weddings and it hasn't been a problem yet. Heck, for what it's worth I rarely even endorse checks at all when I deposit them via mobile. It really should only be an issue if your parents file a complaint
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Oct 5, 2021 17:29
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Thank you both, I will call the bank to confirm. e: I called them and at first they said yeah it probably needs both signatures, but they checked with their support and said the check has already been cleared and the funds are posted so it should be ok. Yay Highbrow Slick fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 17:36
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IOwnCalculus, jjack229, and H110Hawk: thanks! I have gone ahead and applied for and got approved for a credit card, so now I'm up to two of 'em!  My credit score is slowly going from "you do not exist" to "ah, you pay your balance on time good, good" and it's still kinda average because I only got a credit card this year. Feels good to finally join the world of financially responsible adults!
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Oct 5, 2021 17:58
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Highbrow Slick posted:Thank you both, I will call the bank to confirm. Protip: scrawl illegibly and see what happens. If you do electronic deposit then they will likely reject it before its going to bounce. The other bank is extremely unlikely to ever bounce a check for anything but nsf.
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Oct 5, 2021 18:04
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My wife didn’t change her name when we got married. My grandmother just assumed that she had, and because we’d never hear the end of it we didn’t correct that assumption. My wife regularly cashes birthday checks made out to Wifesname Mylastname with no issue.
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Oct 5, 2021 19:31
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My mother never took my dad's last name, and yet for decades would get mail addressed to her with his last name because everyone just assumed "the wife of Mr. X is Mrs. X". I expect that institutions are routinely accustomed to this kind of thing.
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Oct 5, 2021 19:34
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Haifisch posted:Assuming you're not among the megarich who use it for estate planning, the value of life insurance is replacing your income for people who depend on it. This is why general advice is that it doesn't make sense for 99% of people to have anything but a term life policy, and also why it generally doesn't make sense to pay for life insurance if you have no dependents(or a spouse/SO who'd be up poo poo creek without your income). Got the letter from my mother about the Life Insurance that was taken out for me. The Net Death Benefit is 64k. The total paid-up additional Insurance is 26k. The Guaranteed cash value is 5k with the net value as 11k and the current Dividend is 139.88 which is applied as part of the annual payment on the insurance. I'll have to contact the company as to what specific type of Life Insurance it is.
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Oct 6, 2021 00:05
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Xelkelvos posted:Got the letter from my mother about the Life Insurance that was taken out for me. The Net Death Benefit is 64k. The total paid-up additional Insurance is 26k. The Guaranteed cash value is 5k with the net value as 11k and the current Dividend is 139.88 which is applied as part of the annual payment on the insurance. I'll have to contact the company as to what specific type of Life Insurance it is. It's whole life and it's poo poo. Surrender the policy and put the money in an index fund.
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Oct 6, 2021 00:22
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That's whole life (which honestly was the only type that anyone was going to take out for you at birth). Have fun...
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Oct 6, 2021 00:25
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Motronic posted:It's whole life and it's poo poo. Surrender the policy and put the money in an index fund. Could I get a better explanation as to why it's poo poo? Amara posted:That's whole life (which honestly was the only type that anyone was going to take out for you at birth). Have fun... Explain further
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Oct 6, 2021 01:04
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Xelkelvos posted:Could I get a better explanation as to why it's poo poo? Whole life insurance is a "high drag" lovely investment vehicle that is only useful if you are so goddamn rich that you are at risk of exceeding the estate tax exemption, which is currently $11.7M for a single person and $23.4M for a married couple. This is the amount you have to give away* before you hit the estate tax. They are invested in very low yield and safe investments and then also have a huge cost structure that nearly wipes out any gains. You do not need this. I know because if you're asking here you have no worries about hitting the estate tax thing because if you did your "family office" would already have a full time tax accountant who would have told you this. Let's do some math..........how much does this cost per month/year? What year did it start? Let's compare that to a very conservative index fund....let's just pick VTSAX, the Vanguard total market index fund. I'm going to make a guess that that value of that policy today is less than 1/4 of what the exact same investment at the exact same times would have ben worth investing in that super safe fund.
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Oct 6, 2021 01:15
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Motronic posted:Let's do some math..........how much does this cost per month/year? What year did it start? Let's compare that to a very conservative index fund....let's just pick VTSAX, the Vanguard total market index fund. I'm going to make a guess that that value of that policy today is less than 1/4 of what the exact same investment at the exact same times would have ben worth investing in that super safe fund. It's annual cost of 284.38 that supposedly started in 1991
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Oct 6, 2021 01:31
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Re: name stuff My dad is "Jan", which is the Polish version of "John". He constantly gets mail for Ms. Jan Lastname. He had a nurse call today and didn't believe he was he. I bet he's had checks written out to John, but don't know for sure. My mom inherited a parcel of land that was made out to a nickname that she used as a child in Poland. She had to get it changed to her legal name, which I don't remember really being an issue. But, like, the person who made out the will that way was no help cause they were dead! I used to cash checks for "Tony" all the time. No one has ever said anything about it not being my full legal name. I think basically, no one really gives a gently caress.
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Oct 6, 2021 01:41
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Xelkelvos posted:It's annual cost of 284.38 that supposedly started in 1991 Geez that's painful. ETFs were rare in 1990s but spy is an old one that tracks s&p 500. If your parents started making annual 284.38 contributions in 1993 (when the fund was created) it would be worth.... 47k now...
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Oct 6, 2021 01:45
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Amara posted:Geez that's painful. ETFs were rare in 1990s but spy is an old one that tracks s&p 500. If your parents started making annual 284.38 contributions in 1993 (when the fund was created) it would be worth.... 47k now... Now worth $5k. Yeah......thanks for looking that up. I was already pretty sure.
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Oct 6, 2021 03:40
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For the poster asking about whole life, I can tell you from experience why it sucks. My grandfather (in good intentions) took out something like either 4,000 or $5,000 in a whole life policy in my name with Prudential for a whole life insurance in the mid 1980s. Didn’t add to it (fine by time), so basically it coasted on fees. In 2014ish , I find out that I have this policy in my name. I check it out , and it’s at about $6,800. I did a general calculator , and if he has just put it in a general S&P500 fund, it would have been at least $36,000 without any extra contributions. Instead of $6,800. The fund was charging $500ish a year in fees, so all profits and dividends was just paying the fund. Such a drat waste.
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Oct 6, 2021 04:35
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