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Fraternite posted:You pay down loans with after-tax money -- keep that in mind.
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Mar 9, 2013 19:39
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Huskalator posted:My student loan interest is 2.5% and the ammount is apx 20,000. Depends. If my job was secure I would take the route you suggested, if not I would pay down the debt. In any case I would at least contribute to my 401k up to my employers match and then I would choose between paying off the loan or funding a Roth Ira.
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Mar 9, 2013 21:03
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Huskalator posted:My student loan interest is 2.5% and the ammount is apx 20,000. 7% returns is an estimate based on previous performance of growth on the average over a long, long time. It is not a guarantee and it is not money that is here now for you to use. Pay your student loan. Don't mess around with trying to hedge against inflation; that's advanced personal finance video gaming and not a good reason to hold significant debt, especially if you're just starting out.
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Mar 9, 2013 21:29
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Depends. If my job was secure I would take the route you suggested, if not I would pay down the debt. In any case I would at least contribute to my 401k up to my employers match and then I would choose between paying off the loan or funding a Roth Ira. Student loans have hardship deferrals and income based repayment. I don't see much reason to rush a long-term student loan repayment plan (particularly at 2.5%) when the alternative is retirement contribution. The benefits of a 401k vs Roth IRA depend completely on weighing your marginal tax bracket now against what you think your marginal tax bracket will be during retirement. Eggplant Wizard posted:7% returns is an estimate based on previous performance of growth on the average over a long, long time. It is not a guarantee and it is not money that is here now for you to use. Pay your student loan. Don't mess around with trying to hedge against inflation; that's advanced personal finance video gaming and not a good reason to hold significant debt, especially if you're just starting out. While there are no guarantees (and 7% is optimistic), choosing to pay into retirement above accelerating student loan repayment is hardly personal finance video gaming. Early and regular contribution to retirement is a form of dollar cost averaging that'll mitigate risk compared to larger later contributions.
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Mar 10, 2013 03:49
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Engineer Lenk posted:Student loans have hardship deferrals and income based repayment. I don't see much reason to rush a long-term student loan repayment plan (particularly at 2.5%) when the alternative is retirement contribution. Fair points. I was mostly reacting to the idea that a 7% return on investments is anywhere near the same level of certainty/reality as an interest rate on a debt. That was the bit that got me  and I lost sight of the actual situation. It is important to do both.
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Mar 10, 2013 05:58
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canyoneer posted:Second, your retirement situation with the State is fantastic. 8% match to retirement is practically unheard of. If you ever stop working for the state, you'll likely never see that kind of match again. My employer (local civil service) does 7%, not a match. Just 7% free money regardless of whether or not I contribute anything.
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Mar 10, 2013 15:04
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Apologies if this question has already been answered - this thread is pretty massive. I recently changed jobs and I'm looking to get my retirement fund situation in order. At my last gig I had: - A Roth 401k that I contributed to directly. - According to the folks that managed the company retirement fund, the company match is contributed to a separate vanilla 401k. At my new job I have a Vanguard 401k where I'm contributing to max out the company match. I know I can get the Roth 401k rolled into a Vanguard Roth IRA, which I think is what I want to do, but I'm wondering if I can (or should) get that separate 401k at my last job rolled into my new 401k.
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Mar 10, 2013 22:28
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ChadSexington posted:Apologies if this question has already been answered - this thread is pretty massive. Ask here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2892928
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Mar 10, 2013 22:50
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ChadSexington posted:Apologies if this question has already been answered - this thread is pretty massive. You should compare the options that you have in your new 401k to the options you would have in at Vanguard in a personal account. If the expense ratios and funds in the new employer 401k are better than Vanguard then rollover into that, otherwise roll it over into a personal account. Also someone else might have more information, but I believe you can rollover the 401k into a Roth IRA if you wish, though that does require that you pay taxes on it.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:47
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asur posted:
Close. You can roll the traditional 401K into a Rollover IRA, and then convert that into a Roth IRA, but the Rollover IRA needs to be the intermediate step. You are right that it will trigger taxes. I would convert it only if you have the cash to pay the taxes, I would not have the taxes withheld from the investments if that is the only way to pay the tax.
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Mar 11, 2013 01:59
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How much matching % is typically offered by employers? My wife gets 6 and I'm wondering if that's par or better?Zeta Taskforce posted:Close. You can roll the traditional 401K into a Rollover IRA, and then convert that into a Roth IRA, but the Rollover IRA needs to be the intermediate step. You are right that it will trigger taxes. I would convert it only if you have the cash to pay the taxes, I would not have the taxes withheld from the investments if that is the only way to pay the tax. I'm assuming rolling a 401k to a traditional IRA does not trigger taxes? V - Thanks. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 13:26
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6% fully vested when contributed is in the pretty good range.
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Mar 11, 2013 13:32
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Cost of living comparison thread I think many of you might enjoy contributing to/commenting on. Avoid getting into full advice sperg mode please and just continually refer people here if they're fuckups  (x-posting to budget thread)
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Mar 11, 2013 15:17
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Orange_Lazarus posted:How much matching % is typically offered by employers? My wife gets 6 and I'm wondering if that's par or better? 49% of workers with a 401k are matched on less than 6% 41% are matched on 6% 10% are matched on more than 6% 14% of workers receive less than a 50% matching contribution by their employers 39% receive a 50% matching contribution 36% receive a 100% matching contribution Source: http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20100520ar01p1.htm I'm not sure how these groups intersect to create meaningful comparisons. For example, a 100% match on 4% contributions is better than a 50% match on 6% contributions. And, a 100% match on 2% should probably be considered worse than a 30% match on 8%.
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Mar 11, 2013 22:52
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I hav gotten in debt ever since i started college and i would love some advice on how to get out of it. Credit card $2109,67. 15% rent , 59$ minimum payment each month. Tuition $266. I am so close in paying this off. it started at $1080 in oktober. i am now paying 133$ a month My monthly expenses: Fitness $29.99. stuck with this still august/june Pathe Cinema card $26. This is as a steal. I can go to any movie i want, how many times i want for just 26$ Internet 30mb $40. stuck with this till august Health care $116,75. Phone $66,1. stuck with this till august this summer Debit card -$735. I did not want to take a student loan, but I was forced this month, because my boss told me that I should stop coming to work because I only work 1 day and that I should come back in the summer. I have worked there for 2 years. Before I started college I have worked there full time and I gave them a very early notice (a whole year) that I was going to go to college. My student loan $561,64 Healhtcare allowence $88 This is the 1st month I will be getting a student loan. If i pay all my bills except the credit card i will have -$498 on my debit card. I need some advice on how to handle this situation. if i pay the full 266 of school money instead of $133, i will have more money next month. I also just now got a $200 dental bill that I need to pay so my debit card will stay around -$735. I am now working as an intern for a company that has said they will hire me. my internship ends 12 april. it would solve alot of my problems if i got hired. but i can't be sure until a contract is signed.
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Mar 12, 2013 13:31
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Sefal posted:I hav gotten in debt ever since i started college and i would love some advice on how to get out of it. You aren't entirely clear on your situation and thus it's hard to give advice. It looks like you are living at home and not responsible for basic living expenses (e.g., food, housing), as your expenses seem to mostly be luxury items other than the health insurance. Assuming your basic needs are being covered by your parents, you need to focus on getting some kind of income. There's not a whole lot you can do to improve your situation when you don't have an income. Do you actually have negative $735 in your bank account right now? Being overdrawn on your checking account is a huge problem, and it sounds like you don't have any hope of getting back to positive territory in the immediate future. Is this internship paid or unpaid? If it's unpaid, you need to find a supplemental job ASAP to get some income. Providing you're overdrawn by over 700 bucks, your situation is disastrous and you either need a job yesterday, or, if possible, a bailout from your family. If you actually have a few hundred dollars saved up, then you're in a bit better shape, but still need to be increasing your income as soon as possible. What does "stuck with this until August" mean on your gym membership, phone, and internet? Have you signed contracts on these services? Regarding the $26/month movie card, if you are really in the hole by $735 with your bank, then you cannot afford this, as you have NEGATIVE MONEY. Not just very little money - you are actually dead flat broke. Based on the info you have provided, it looks like you are over $3k in debt, have monthly expenses of about $300, and have absolutely no income. Your immediate situation is bad, but if you can get any kind of a job, even a minimum wage position, you can dig yourself out of the hole without much trouble. Unless the internship is paid and you just left out the income, getting another job has to be your top priority. NJ Deac fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 19:35
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Thank you NJ. Yes i know my situation is bad. The internship isn't paid but i am getting a bonus when my internship ends. it is unclear how much it will be, But probably around $500 for the whole internship . I am getting $1600 of tax refunds in may/june so i have some leeway there. i can go upto -1000 on my debit card but my goal is to get that in the + as soon as possible. Yes i have signed contracts on all those stuff. they all end this year. I still live at home so I don't have much food expenses. And as soon as the government that provides student loans get my mother's income tax paper. i will get arround 1100$ from them because they should have given that money from january. but this is all money that i can't count on I am possitive that if I am not hired at my internship that i can knock this debt out in the summer working at the job that just told me "we don't need you now. But when we are really busy, please come back". I am feeling like it all hinges on if i get a contract. It went completely fine until my boss send me on an unpaid vacation. I had school 5 days a week and work 1 day. Made enough money to cover all my expenses.
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Mar 12, 2013 21:14
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Uh, no. I really think you can't go up to -1000. I think you need to take extreme action to be 100% sure this doesn't spiral out of control. You still live with your parents for now so you won't die, so that's a big plus. If I was you I would immediately cut all even tiniest luxuries until I was positive. The good news is that this can be reversed relatively quickly. You aren't boned for 10 years or anything crazy like that. Health care is something you really can't cut from, but I think that cinema card really should go until you are solvent again. I don't know exactly what kind of penalties you're going to get for overdrawing that much, but think about it: Any movies you watch now while going further into debt and overdrawing will be less movies in the future. I don't really know what else you could cut since your contracts are set. I'll just echo that you need an income source now. If I were you I'd go for any legitimate job, there isn't really room to be too picky here.
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Mar 12, 2013 22:03
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I'm guessing, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Sefal is in a country besides the US. I know in France, and I believe some other European countries, overdrawing your account isn't as bad a situation as it is here, where we often get hefty fees. Obviously it's still not a good thing, but it can be common for students to have a negative balance at certain periods while waiting on financial aid, etc. The -$1000 is probably the limit that is allowed on his account. So, and again it's all a guess, but if that's the situation I can understand the disconnect in the sense of urgency.
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Mar 12, 2013 22:11
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Ninja Bob, you got it right. it's not good to be negative on your bank account. But it's not that terrible. Guess the movie card will go then. and getting a part time job is the only option i really have left. Thank you for your advice guys.
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Mar 13, 2013 09:19
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Well alright then, I didn't know exactly how bad it was to be negative where you live in.  I guess it could be likened to more debt then. You can get that movie card back when you're positive.Good luck job hunting! EDIT: After your gym contract expires, I'd try to look for a cheaper gym. 30 bucks isn't the most outrageously expensive gym out there so it'll do, but I think it's possible you could find a cheaper one. At least here in Finland I switched to the city owned gym, costs 40 euros for 6 months. My old gym was 270 euros for 6 months. That's 230 euros saved by switching from a really shiny environment into a grey bunker. Good deal. Keisari fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Mar 13, 2013 |
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Mar 13, 2013 09:51
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The $40 for internet jumps out at me since you are living at home. Are you paying for the family internet? Or do you have a separate account? If its separate then maybe your family should cancel theirs and use yours? And $66 for a cell phone seems expensive. I dont know if they offer family plans or anything where you are, but that would be something to look into. Also, shop around for health insurance if possible. I don't know what yours covers, but maybe you could downgrade to something that would cover emergencies but would require you to pay for other stuff out of pocket?
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Mar 13, 2013 14:37
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I'm paying the internet for the entire family. i signed the contract 1 and half years ago. and it seemed fair that i would pay for it. my health insurance covers only the basic needs + upto $750 of dental. I cannot wait till i can drop the phone because it really is too much. All my contracts expire in august. i can elliminate all of them then.
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Mar 13, 2013 18:00
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I was going to post in the "Post your budgets" thread but it seems Eggplant Wizard is looking for someone to start a new version of that thread. I just want to share my budget, which I've been thinking about far too much in the past week, as I prepare to leave the family home and live in an apartment in the city with two strangers. I take home £1377.97 a month after taxes, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan repayments. Up til recently, I haven't had to pay rent, pay for groceries, or utility bills other than my mobile phone, LOVEFiLM (like Netflix) and Spotify. Rent is going to be £420 a month, council taxes £33, transport £117, electricity I estimate at £39, groceries £175, gym £26, mobile phone £16, Spotify £10, home broadband £9, Lovefilm £5, TV Licence £4. That leaves me with £525 a month. I've been contributing £460 a month into an Individual Savings Account (a special savings account in which any interest paid on your savings is not taxed). No particular savings goal. Obviously if I keep paying that much into savings, I'll have to live like a hermit and avoid going to bars, pubs, clubs, restaurants and other cool social activities with my friends (on a typical night out I spend £40 on food and drink). It pains me to have to cut back the amount I put into savings, which I know is silly, but I'm considering cutting it to £260 a month. I also want to put aside £85 a month for new clothes and holidays. That'd leave me enough for one night out per week, which should be enough, right? jet_dee fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Mar 14, 2013 |
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Mar 14, 2013 13:25
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jet_dee posted:I was going to post in the "Post your budgets" thread but it seems Eggplant Wizard is looking for someone to start a new version of that thread. You can still post in there until I do. But thanks for this because I forgot I said that 
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Mar 14, 2013 14:52
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jet_dee posted:It pains me to have to cut back the amount I put into savings, which I know is silly, but I'm considering cutting it to £260 a month. I also want to put aside £85 a month for new clothes and holidays. That'd leave me enough for one night out per week, which should be enough, right? Only you're going to know what's going to end up working for you. What I'd do if I were you is put those things you want to do in your budget as well, so $XX each pay period gets set aside for clothes or holidays or booze. Then you can spend them as you please and not feel guiltly. The hard part is setting limits for yourself, so if you have $0 left in your pub money how are you going to handle that? Wait? Take it from clothes money? Whatever you do is fine, so long as you're prioritizing. I'd do the same too with the money you want to save. Put it away first so you won't be tempted to spend it. Try it out for a month or two and see how it works, you can always adjust as you go.
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Mar 14, 2013 19:31
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What's the deal with Ally's CDs? Regular savings: 0.84% Less than 0.84% for any CD less than 1-year. Why would you accept less money to not have access to it? 0.85% for a 11-month "no penalty" CD, meaning you can withdraw all of your cash if you need to. O...kay... why not a 0.84% savings? Blinky2099 fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Mar 14, 2013 |
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Mar 14, 2013 23:50
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The interest rate on a savings account isn't guaranteed, but the interest on a CD is. Even if the interest on a CD is lower, you might consider it a good investment if you expect the interest rate on your savings account to fall lower than the CD rate.
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Mar 15, 2013 00:52
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Wells Fargo is doing a thing where they'll give you a free copy of your credit report and credit score, and I did that on Saturday, and it was 613. At that same time I applied for a loan, and that ended up getting approved on Monday. When I went in on Wednesday to sign the paperwork, it had my credit score has 647. So in the span of a couple of days it went up 34 points? Does that make any sense?
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Mar 15, 2013 17:52
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FISHMANPET posted:Wells Fargo is doing a thing where they'll give you a free copy of your credit report and credit score, and I did that on Saturday, and it was 613. At that same time I applied for a loan, and that ended up getting approved on Monday. When I went in on Wednesday to sign the paperwork, it had my credit score has 647. So in the span of a couple of days it went up 34 points? Does that make any sense? I'd be surprised if they were both the exact same flavor of score. If I were to guess, your loan credit score was a legit FICO based score, and the freebie one was something else. The three big credit reporting bureaus have their own flavor of a "credit score", and these can't really be accurately compared to each other (different criteria, different min-max on the scales, etc). A better answer would be "yes and no". It makes sense in context of credit scores, but the system itself doesn't make a lot of sense to begin with.
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Mar 15, 2013 19:22
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Hi all - I posted in this thread previously with a $1k on my credit card debt, but I have now paid that off and cut up my credit card into little itty pieces. I'm sure that I'm still terrible at finances though, so I'm letting you pros decide whether I can afford a new laptop or not. Precursor, maths has never been understandable to me, so I may have a lot of errors in my budget. I'm a university student still living at home. I currently work two jobs, one that is a cafe at uni so I don't have to spend that much money on food at all. My monthly expenses roughly come around to $500 (internet/phone/car insurance bill, petrol, food, entertainment altogether). This is with me limiting my spending ALOT - I haven't bought anything new for myself in over two months and I haven't been tempted to. My monthly income is around $2130, but this is a lowball as I've been getting more hours at my cafe work. This means that I should be saving around $1630 each month. I currently have $1000 in the bank, but my goal is to make another $4000 by July 10th, a week before my overseas trip. If my maths is right, I should have around $2000 more than needed at July. I really want to buy a new laptop for my university. My current laptop is three years old, is pretty bashed up and ugly but it is still functional albeit slow. This is pretty much my go-to laptop for everything because I only use my desktop for gaming. However, whenever my friends borrow my laptop, or when I borrow someone else's laptop, I notice/am told how incredibly slow it is even though I usually don't notice because I'm used to it. So the question is - Do I have money to spare to buy a new laptop for $900? Am I being too stingy with my money just because of my upcoming trip?
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Mar 15, 2013 22:04
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The way you phrased your post makes it sound like you're just embarrassed with your laptop because your friends complain about it being slow even though you're able to accomplish everything you need with it. How does it perform after a reformat? edit: Good job saving, being frugal and paying down those debts. edit2: If you decide to get the laptop I would go to the Serious Hardware/Software forum and see what they recommend for your needs. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 15, 2013 |
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Mar 15, 2013 22:48
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Actually you had $2k on your credit card, according to what you posted before... My advice is to wait until you get back from your trip and see if you still have $1000 lying around to spend on a laptop at that point.
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Mar 15, 2013 22:58
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Also figure out what exactly's holding things up on your laptop, people waste a lot of money blindly replacing old computers on the assumption that newer is faster. What's the actual bottleneck? Is it the processor? Bunch of bloatware and unnecessary poo poo you've unwittingly allowed to run in the background? The wireless standard it's using? Slow hard drive? Shortage of RAM? Speeds on laptops and PCs aren't improving with the same leaps and bounds as they used to and a 3 year old laptop might be perfectly upgradeable or serviceable. Or like Orange Lazarus mentioned, budget laptops aren't necessarily poo poo- I recently took a $400 Samsung, put another $240 into a solid state drive and enough RAM to bring it up to 8GB. It's zippy as hell and more than enough computer for anything but gaming.
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Mar 15, 2013 23:23
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Oh my bad, it was $2000. I'm terrible with remembering numbers, but I can confirm that I am completely debt free at this point. I have reformatted and done my best to fix up my laptop by googling maintenance tricks, but it's mainly really choppy video and audio when streaming online. I'm not dumb and have twenty tabs up, but even when I just restart and open up a video, the video lags and the audio stutters. Other than this problem, the laptop functions fine. I was leaning towards waiting until after my trip as well, but my sister urged me to just get one now since sales are on right now. Edit: I don't mean to turn this into a computer chat! Just if smart finance goons think that I have enough money to spare, but I think the consensus so far is don't do it. Buff Baby fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Mar 16, 2013 |
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Mar 16, 2013 00:01
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Don't let that rush you, sales will always come and go. If your computer has a wired ethernet port, try setting up a wired internet connection and see if that resolves your streaming issues. You might be considering a $900 solution to something that you could resolve with a $20 802.11n USB NIC. Smart finance includes self-educating on everything you find yourself a consumer of  edit; vvv Okay I'll leave off, but if "everything" doesn't include taking it apart and blowing out the dust I'd consider that another possible suspect. No laptop made in the past decade should have any issues playing 2D audio/video (barring software & driver problems), and 3 years is about where you see people start running into heat issues. Remy Marathe fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Mar 16, 2013 |
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Mar 16, 2013 00:12
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I've already made sure that it's not a problem with my internet, because it has problems playing video even when I download the video first. I really have tried to fix my laptop with everything short of taking it to a professional, but all my techie friends just tell me it's busted and tells me which new laptop to buy.  That's true about sales though, so hopefully after my trip, I'll be able to grab a good bargain!
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Mar 16, 2013 00:25
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Yeah, it looks like you know what you're doing so the only advice I have is to just try to find the most cost effective computer for your needs. I would just recommend going to the serious hardware forum since they're usually up to date with what models/parts are the most cost effective and are aware of current deals on Newegg.
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Mar 16, 2013 00:55
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Go to the software hardware forum and search the laptop thread. They should be able to recommend you to an amazing package, now or later. I would not get sold just because there are sales now. There is literally always something going on.
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Mar 16, 2013 02:03
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If you wait until Haswell (Intel's next generation of CPU) laptops come out in the summer you could probably get a really good deal on an Ivy Bridge one (current generation). Also you don't need to spend $900, here's a bunch of Ivy Bridge low-end "Ultrabooks": http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ICE&PageSize=20
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Mar 16, 2013 07:06
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