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They’re bad investments just looking at raw price charts (they keep up with inflation, not much else) and that’s not considering the terrible liquidity / exchange problem they have. Good luck getting market rate pricing if/when you liquidate the metal. You get screwed on the buying, holding, and selling of precious metals. Their only saving grace is as a sort of meta-currency store of persistent value (imagine you are fleeing a country which just had its entire banking infrastructure blown up), but that’s absolutely not the risk that precious-metal holders are seriously hedging against. Also, in that situation, the lack of liquidity / exchange problem is especially worrisome. edit: if you really want to hedge against currency failure, consider holding multiple currencies and a variety of productive assets both physical (land or capital equipment) and non-physical (bonds, stocks or partnerships). DNK fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 18:20
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That jives with what I thought. Not a doomsday prepper btw, just got a lucky score on sterling silver teaspoons that I was "totally going to make into jewelry" along with the usual unwanted jewelry bric a brac. I've gotten given all sort of weird poo poo over the years because I made jewelry as well.
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Sep 19, 2022 18:34
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Turbinosamente posted:That jives with what I thought. Not a doomsday prepper btw, just got a lucky score on sterling silver teaspoons that I was "totally going to make into jewelry" along with the usual unwanted jewelry bric a brac. I've gotten given all sort of weird poo poo over the years because I made jewelry as well. Are the teaspoons worth more than spot as-is? You could check out like replacements.com or whatever to see if you're sitting on something worth just unloading that way. For the misc costume jewelry (I realize it's sterling but...) maybe melting it into a lump would be easier? Or just weigh it and see if you can get spot for it less some discount?
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Sep 19, 2022 19:14
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H110Hawk posted:Are the teaspoons worth more than spot as-is? You could check out like replacements.com or whatever to see if you're sitting on something worth just unloading that way. For the misc costume jewelry (I realize it's sterling but...) maybe melting it into a lump would be easier? Or just weigh it and see if you can get spot for it less some discount? I'll look but I doubt it, most people aren't doing formal dinner parties anymore so there is less of a need for silver flatware and china sets. That was true from at least 10 years ago when I was in art school and needed some sterling in a pinch to cast with and went to a pawn shop and asked to buy some scrap. I got the 1.4ozt I needed in the form of a knife handle freshly stripped from a flatware set as according to the pawnbroker nobody was buying them to use. And it wouldn't be worth my time to cut out the solder joints and strip the jewelry to melt it down. I've also got a wide range of metal purities as well. I'm fine with spot minus whatever from the extra weight of stones and poo poo. This stuff is taking up too much room in the safe and it's bugging me. Been kinda greedy as well, waiting for the per ounce price to get to $20 again.
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Sep 19, 2022 19:39
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Turbinosamente posted:I'll look but I doubt it, most people aren't doing formal dinner parties anymore so there is less of a need for silver flatware and china sets. That was true from at least 10 years ago when I was in art school and needed some sterling in a pinch to cast with and went to a pawn shop and asked to buy some scrap. I got the 1.4ozt I needed in the form of a knife handle freshly stripped from a flatware set as according to the pawnbroker nobody was buying them to use. Which pattern are they?  I sort of assume pawn shops get unpopular patterns, a lot of stolen stuff, and stuff where kids don't know what they're sitting on from grandma. I should check out some local ones and see if I can add to our set. And yeah actually undoing the gems out would be a lot of work for $20 in silver. If you truly don't care about recovering value just sell them as a lot to the next sucker for whatever cash they will hand you.
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Sep 19, 2022 19:45
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H110Hawk posted:Which pattern are they? Haven't a clue on the pattern, some standard floral design iirc. I can post a pic after work sometime, was thinking of digging it out as is and weighing it up for the hell of it. There are spot price calculators online. I bought the 6 teaspoons for like $4 because they got missed in the sorting in the thrift store; there's no way I don't make bank on them.
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Sep 19, 2022 19:53
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My brother in law passed away a couple weeks ago at 49. It was expected (Cancer) but still a fairly short time from when it was diagnosed to death (Diagnosed last December). Got me thinking I really should put together a will. I have a fairly simple setup - single, no kids, forever alone - but I would like to make sure that things are set up for my family if something were to happen. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to start?
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Sep 25, 2022 21:38
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Medullah posted:My brother in law passed away a couple weeks ago at 49. It was expected (Cancer) but still a fairly short time from when it was diagnosed to death (Diagnosed last December). Got me thinking I really should put together a will. For as simple as yours is either see if your work offers a legal assistance program or call a local estate planning attorney. Couple grand gets it done. $5k is too much.
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Sep 25, 2022 22:21
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H110Hawk posted:For as simple as yours is either see if your work offers a legal assistance program or call a local estate planning attorney. Couple grand gets it done. $5k is too much. Good call, I forgot I pay like $3 a month for basic legal services at work. Thanks.
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Sep 25, 2022 22:51
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Medullah posted:Good call, I forgot I pay like $3 a month for basic legal services at work. Thanks. Note that you need to look up what the whole suite of docs are in your state. In California it's like a will, trust, advanced medical directive, and a poa if you have someone you would trust with that. Then you put the bank accounts, house, that sort of thing in the trust. See what you get from legalzoomshield and go from there.
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Sep 25, 2022 23:22
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I've changed jobs recently, and am waiting for the 401k to start. This has me thinking about the way these plans work, and how to get the most out of 2022. If I say "put 100% of my paycheck into my 401k", that would have no negative effects, right? Assuming that I stop before the yearly limit. The % match doesn't matter when the contributions are made, right? X percent of one pay period X 26 is the same as X percent of the salary. Just trying to make sure I'm not missing something here. People talk about the time value of money and 'dollar cost averaging' but it seems like you can basically 'lump sum invest' at the start of the year to get your match and contributions out of the way, assuming you possess enough cushion to weather the storm. But I haven't been able to find references to it, and I don't know if I'm using the wrong search terms or if there is a reason not to do this.
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Sep 26, 2022 16:50
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Magnetic North posted:I've changed jobs recently, and am waiting for the 401k to start. This has me thinking about the way these plans work, and how to get the most out of 2022. One thing to consider, because I’ve gone through it several times, is if you’ve made any contributions to another 401k already this year. The new one won’t stop you when you hit the limit and will allow you to over contribute for the year, so you might need to figure out how much you have left and work out what percentage to set for that.
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Sep 26, 2022 17:42
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Magnetic North posted:I've changed jobs recently, and am waiting for the 401k to start. This has me thinking about the way these plans work, and how to get the most out of 2022. the answer here is that it depends on your 401(k) plan's policies. My company's plan does not true up, so your monthly match amount is capped based on your income. If you don't spread your contributions out each month, you do not get the maximum amount of the match. The optimal way to hit your maximum match amount in my companies plan would be - total 401(k) contribution space remaining / paychecks in year / salary per paycheck and then to enter that number as a percentage.
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Sep 26, 2022 17:56
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Hrm sounds like it's more complicated than I hoped. Guess I should have figured, since this is a way to keep employees around. Well, I'll read the forms when they come in to try and grok them.
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Sep 27, 2022 00:46
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Mine doesn't true up either, so I have to split it evenly across paychecks throughout the year. Luckily though, the plan provider (Charles Schwab) does let us do dollar amounts of withholding rather than just percentages, so I don't have to do fancy math or adjust my percentage down if I get a raise midyear, or anything like that. Just divide by 24 (but next year it'll be 26 cuz they're changing how we get paid)
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Sep 27, 2022 04:47
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The percentage thing is super annoying. Our new provider does that, too. Makes it hard to hit the match on the nose.
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Sep 27, 2022 11:46
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Got a letter from my mortgage servicer that my mortgage is being transferred, effective with the October 1 payment. Only a few days from October and I've not received anything from the new servicer (Freedom Mortgage). I have very low expectations for this company.
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Sep 29, 2022 05:28
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Got a letter from my mortgage servicer that my mortgage is being transferred, effective with the October 1 payment. Only a few days from October and I've not received anything from the new servicer (Freedom Mortgage). I have very low expectations for this company. If it makes you feel better, I believe they have 30 days where you can continue to send payments to your original servicer. They are required to forward payment and it cannot be considered late.
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Sep 29, 2022 11:22
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Fezziwig posted:If it makes you feel better, I believe they have 30 days where you can continue to send payments to your original servicer. They are required to forward payment and it cannot be considered late. It's more like 90 IIRC.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:02
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Got a letter from my mortgage servicer that my mortgage is being transferred, effective with the October 1 payment. Only a few days from October and I've not received anything from the new servicer (Freedom Mortgage). I have very low expectations for this company. Pay your old company. If you never get anything inside of October call around.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:10
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I was thinking of tossing a couple extra hundred a month at my mortgage. It's a 15 year (13 left) at 2.5%. Is that silly? I'm already maxed out on 401k and Roth along with HSA.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:18
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Medullah posted:I was thinking of tossing a couple extra hundred a month at my mortgage. It's a 15 year (13 left) at 2.5%. Is that silly? I'm already maxed out on 401k and Roth along with HSA. It's silly with inflation at lol %.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:28
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H110Hawk posted:It's silly with inflation at lol %. Especially with a 2.5% interest rate. Savings accounts are approaching that rate. If you buy an I bond right now, it'll be at nearly 4x that rate for the first six months.
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Sep 29, 2022 15:37
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i mean poo poo, a quick look suggests that us 10-year treasury notes have a coupon of 2.75% and a yield of 3.79%. assuming that it's a fixed rate mortgage, right now you could be investing the extra amount in plain treasury bonds and coming out ahead at the end of the day it's about what makes you happy, but from a numbers perspective anyone who managed to snag a mortgage/ refinanced with the rock bottom interest rates over the past two years should definitely go with taxable investments before making extra payments
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Sep 30, 2022 06:05
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Hey dudes, got a question I think maybe you guys can answer. My girlfriend's grandfather recently sent us a letter in which was contained the details of what I think is a whole life insurance policy taken out on her behalf when she was very young. When we looked into the cash value of it , we found that it had a loan on it of $2,975 on it. Basically, it had 3k in cash value built up, and then her grandfather took all the fukken money of it and then sent us a letter asking her if she wanted to continue paying for a life insurance policy that was now 2.95k in the whole. My question then, is there any value in taking on the payments of that life insurance policy? It seems to me that it would probably be a better move to let the insurance policy lapse and for her to take out her own life insurance policy, rather than take a policy that is already 2.95k in the hole? My understanding of how it all works is that she doesn't have to pay a dime of that loan, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm understanding it correctly.
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Sep 30, 2022 06:18
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Unless she plans on dying really soon now... Grandpa can keep his whole life policy.
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Sep 30, 2022 06:24
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And don't get her life insurance unless there is someone dependent on her for money. If you do need it, get a SPIA from someplace like schwab. Whole life is almost always a racket.
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Sep 30, 2022 08:56
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I've gotten life insurance from my employer and opted into the supplemental coverage. It's not much, like 50k or 100k, but it's literally like $2 a pay period, and who knows, I could get hit by an asteroid. I'm sure the actuaries have figured out that this is just profit for them.
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Sep 30, 2022 10:30
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I’ve posted a few times here , but even with good intentions whole life is a loving scam. My grandfather took out a $5,000 whole life when I was like, 1. I find out about it when I was around 25. In 23-25ish years, the balance in the whole life was $6,500ish. Because they charged yearly fees of around $400 (i don’t know if that was the whole time or if it went up as I got older, but doesn’t really matter). If it was just in a S&P type account, it would have been $35,000. All for a person age 1-25 to have life insurance (not likely to be used). Not mad at my grandfather , good intentions, etc, but goddamn is that a scam.
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Sep 30, 2022 13:09
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poo poo, I should look into what the terms of my life insurance policies are. They're in my possession now, but my parents opened one on me with the idea that *I* could be the one to have a loan against it if need be.
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Sep 30, 2022 15:22
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I live in the Chicago suburbs. Not a lot of options for credit unions, so which big bank is the least reprehensible? My wife's priority is ATM access mainly.
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Sep 30, 2022 18:45
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How many ATM transactions per month? A good favorite has been Ally, who reimburses up to $10 in ATM fees/mo.
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Sep 30, 2022 18:56
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DTaeKim posted:I live in the Chicago suburbs. Not a lot of options for credit unions, so which big bank is the least reprehensible? My wife's priority is ATM access mainly. I would take stock of the ATM's you see in the stores you shop in - many of them are probably "in network" somewhere. Allpoint is the big one. If you literally just need ATM's to withdraw money then Ally bank is fine. Around me basically all Target's, Wal-Greens, and CVS have a free ATM with Ally and then they reimburse some $ amount of fees per month at other non-free ATMs. If you need "full service" banking just swallow your pride and go with whomever isn't Wells Fargo that has a branch near you. Otherwise, many brokerages have pretty decent banking programs with fee refunding and stuff. Charles Schwab is pretty popular. Fidelity keeps trying to tempt me in as well but I don't feel like switching. You can always use a combo of Big National Bank for local branch services and Ally or something for savings.
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Sep 30, 2022 18:57
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Schwab is good unless you need physical branch services. Zero ATM fees and other banks fees are covered. Also good for foreign transactions. I’m a huge fan.
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Sep 30, 2022 19:28
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Schwab is good unless you need physical branch services. Zero ATM fees and other banks fees are covered. Also good for foreign transactions. I’m a huge fan. I'll second this. Added bonus their phone support seems to be totally without script and very helpful. They once overnighted me checks no charge no fuss.
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Sep 30, 2022 19:33
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For ATM access I am echoing others recommendations of the Schwab checking account. But if you need to be able to deposit cash at the ATM that becomes more complicated. I keep an account open at TD Bank despite using pretty much exclusively online banks. I know they aren't common outside the east coast, not sure if they are available at all in Chicago. Their checking account needs just a $100 balance to avoid a monthly fee and their branches are open Sundays at most locations. If it isn't available just try to find an account at a bank with a convenient location with a similarly low requirement for maintaining a balance. Bank of America worth mentioning for their preferred rewards program. Can avoid banking fees/minimums by keeping your Roth IRA with them, which you can just load up with Vanguard ETFs.
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Sep 30, 2022 22:08
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I solve this problem by just drawing down cash by spending it but I’m never hitting more than a couple hundred at a time. If you have real cash deposit needs I agree that Schwab is a bad choice.
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Sep 30, 2022 22:32
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Fidelity also does the no atm fee thing. I will say as a fellow Chicago suburb dweller check out Credit Union 1, if only for their $500 new account bonus.
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Sep 30, 2022 23:26
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ranbo das posted:Fidelity also does the no atm fee thing. I will say as a fellow Chicago suburb dweller check out Credit Union 1, if only for their $500 new account bonus. Yeah, no cash deposits would be difficult (my extended family often pays me back in cash and checks only). Credit Union 1 is intriguing but drat, that offer expired today.
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Oct 1, 2022 00:05
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DTaeKim posted:Yeah, no cash deposits would be difficult (my extended family often pays me back in cash and checks only). Depending on how much cash just spend it. All of these include mobile check deposit. Also just call them and ask if you can have the deal to sign up.
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Oct 1, 2022 00:25
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