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Harry posted:Just looking at what you said, it seems like the loan is a no brainer. It will consolidate everything (right?) and be far less interest over 3 years than just one year for only the credit card. I guess the only thing to think of is if you can pay off the credit card with the $3500 balance while under 0%, if so that would be a better bet but from what you said that doesn't sound likely. Right, the 0% card will probably only offer a maximum balance of £1200-1500 at best, and whilst I won't be paying interest on what's on it, I would still have minimum payments going to another source each month. Thanks for that, it seemed to make sense to me as a layman but this being finances I wanted to be sure it wasn't smoke and mirrors or me seeing what I wanted. I'll look into the loan.
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Jul 7, 2013 22:53
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El Kabong posted:Is there a method for figuring out if it is in my best interest to continue leasing the car I have or if I should I buy it out? I don't have much of a head for numbers, so I'm not sure how to do this. Need more info here. Are you currently leasing a vehicle and you're presented with a buyoff option or the option to continue leasing for some period?
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Jul 8, 2013 17:19
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Remember you can negotiate the buy price just like a new car. I don't have anything else useful to add though.
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Jul 8, 2013 18:40
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canyoneer posted:Need more info here. Are you currently leasing a vehicle and you're presented with a buyoff option or the option to continue leasing for some period? I'm currently leasing it for 134.01 a month for 18 more months and I have the option to buy it now for 13,241.59 or at the end of lease for 11,800. The money I use to buy it would be from selling stocks, which is where it gets confusing for me when I try to figure out if it's better to keep the money in stocks and then sell them buy the car at the end of the lease or to do it now. I'm not sure if I would have more leverage on the price now or at the end of the lease, or if it even makes a difference since I would be buying it directly from the manufacturer's finance division instead of the dealership.
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Jul 8, 2013 19:52
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I need some financial advice! I am a rising senior in college in need of some guidance. I so far have 30,000$ in government loans (subsidized + unsubsidized), and 8,000$ in private loans. I will probably have to take out 30,000$ in private loans to finish schooling since my federal aid has been exhausted. So I guess I am ballparking my student debt in the 80,000 and up area. I live with my family when I am not in school, and they have not asked me for rent or grocery money or anything like that so I am very fortunate and thankful. I hold down a part-time going on full-time job in the summers, and make only 2,000$ during the school year thanks to work study. But most of the money I make during the summer and school year is already pissed away on books, and random poo poo that ends up eating up all my savings. I have 1,000 grand saved, but I would like to say that I actually have no money since my book expenses and other school expenses have not surfaced yet. I would like to move out the summer after I graduate and relocate to a city with a theatre community so I can pursue a theatre career. I would also like to take a trip to Japan. Many of my other friends have decided to go abroad after college even if it is for a week, but I know most trips like that cost upwards to 5,000$. Considering I would probably need to save that money to move out, is taking a trip like that a bad idea. As I type this I'm starting to realize it might not meet up with the goal I have set to move out.  Has anyone here taken a trip when they were in student debt? Is this ill-advised?
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Jul 8, 2013 20:52
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You definitely can't afford that trip. Maybe if after you graduated you were moving into a guaranteed, high-salary position you could swing it, but "pursuing a theatre career" fits neither of those criteria. Save as much as you can, you're gonna need it.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:00
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Freeze posted:You definitely can't afford that trip. Maybe if after you graduated you were moving into a guaranteed, high-salary position you could swing it, but "pursuing a theatre career" fits neither of those criteria. Save as much as you can, you're gonna need it. Thank you for the honesty and advice. I really need to adjust my spending to start lining up with the shoe-string budget lifestyle I'll be living soon.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:05
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quote:random poo poo that ends up eating up all my savings. Do you have a budget?
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Jul 8, 2013 21:07
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It's possible to travel on a budget, but probably not so much in Japan. I've done several multi-week/month trips with a total budget in the $1000-2000 range, most of that being airfare. However, that is traveling in much cheaper developing countries like in SE Asia and Central America and doing the hostel/cheap hotel/friends/couchsurfing routine. But given that you're projecting to be nearly six figures in debt and only have $1000 to your name, even something like that might be a stretch.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:10
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Brannock posted:Do you have a budget? I don't have a budget since my food and utilities are folded into my tuition.  I can totally see how not having one is eating up my savings since I haven't had anything I had to pay for every month, like groceries or electricity, I never bothered to set one. Should I just set a budget of like  for now since I don't really "need" anything?
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Jul 8, 2013 21:16
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It costs $30,000 for a year of schooling for you even when your family covers rent and food? Are you going to Harvard?quote:But most of the money I make during the summer and school year is already pissed away on books, and random poo poo that ends up eating up all my savings.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:22
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Oh man. Part of me wants to tell you to take the trip, because you have so many other issues looming that at least that way you would have some good memories to warm you when you are sleeping in a shanty. What exactly is your plan here? You say that you earn $2,000 a year, of which you admit that spend almost all of. So where is the money going to come from for any of this? This isn't a situation where you have a plan to save $3000 and want to know what to spend it on - this is a situation where you have no plan and two things you want to do with money you don't have. Like if I told you 'No dude, take a trip!' how would you even pay for it? Here is what you should do: you say you have a 'part-time going on full-time job'. When you finish school, keep that job. Stay at home. Make a budget based on what it would be like for you to live on your own (ie, your rent, food, etc.) and try to stick to it using your income. See if you can hack it. If you can't, then you will just have failed an experiment and have to re-plan, rather than finding this out when you are alone in a new city with no money and debts piling up around you while you panic and drown. If you can hack it, great. After a year of that, you will have socked away some money to actually finance your move without it being a deathleap. Frankly, I think you should be seriously considering your final year of schooling and looking for a way to avoid taking on another $30,000 in private loans. Those are brutal, they will weigh you down every day for the next twenty years and there is no lifeline like IBR to stave them off. Do anything you can to avoid being under that yoke. Sidenote: I took a trip at the end of college because all my friends were doing it. It wasn't even that expensive a trip, and I didn't have any student loans. It was still a bad idea.
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Jul 8, 2013 21:25
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Cicero posted:It costs $30,000 for a year of schooling for you even when your family covers rent and food? Are you going to Harvard? I thought that number was off. I'm such an idiot. I was reading my aid package as a loan I have been freaking out this whole week because I thought I had to take out a 30000$ loan  So I have to take out 15000$ in private loans for this year. So 23,000$ in private loans and 31,000$ in federal loans Now that that stupidity is solved, the money I made in workstudy and summer work went towards lowering my principle so I didn't have to take out too many private loans, but eventually my deadlines didn't work with my minimum wage fabulousness and I had to start taking out private loans. I think this summer I will make maybe 3,500-4,000 grand. My books for the year haven't been posted but I'm thinking they will run me 300 for the whole year. I already managed to spend 1 grand of that money on a new bike (my mode of transportation to work), an ipod nano (I broke my itouch of four years), and a 3DS. I'm not planning on getting anything else since I essentially have everything I wanted for the summer, and I am also pretty disappointed in my savings account. I am not going to take the trip because I have already spent enough money on myself in the last three four years. 2,000 in tattoos and 1,000 this summer. I'm going to stay at my job next summer and save up and create a budget while paying of my student loans. I want to make sure I have enough money to pay rent and loans for 6 months when I move out. e: Should I put the money I make this summer in a vault or something where I can't access it? RebBrownies fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 21:53
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RebBrownies posted:I think this summer I will make maybe 3,500-4,000 grand. My books for the year haven't been posted but I'm thinking they will run me 300 for the whole year. You should give all your money to your parents and tell them not to let you spend it on stupid stuff. Did you really need an iPod nano, or could you have gotten a used iPod shuffle for 1/10 the price? A Nintendo 3DS on top of that is just not a good decision. You could have gotten a used regular DS for 1/4 the price. Alternatively, you could have bought neither of these. A decent bike when it's your primary mode of transportation is understandable though again you could have found a cheaper used option on craiglist. And $2k in tattoos is like buying designer clothes, it's just a luxury that serves no real purpose. I wholeheartedly recommend your lock money in a vault (high yield savings account) in general, and start thinking about how to stretch your money if you want to have any chance of paying off those loans and not defaulting while living on your own in the future.
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Jul 8, 2013 22:11
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El Kabong posted:I'm currently leasing it for 134.01 a month for 18 more months and I have the option to buy it now for 13,241.59 or at the end of lease for 11,800. The money I use to buy it would be from selling stocks, which is where it gets confusing for me when I try to figure out if it's better to keep the money in stocks and then sell them buy the car at the end of the lease or to do it now. I'm going to make the assumptions here that either now or later, you'll be buying this car. I'm also making the assumption that buying this car is The Right Thing To Do financially. This will ONLY be the case if the price you are paying for the buyoff is less than the amount the vehicle is worth. I'm also assuming that the buyoff prices are fixed at both periods, and no negotiation can change that. Now for the bad news: You're paying a total of $2,412 over the next 18 months to finance the difference between buying off this car today or 18 months later for a $1,442 discount. That's an APR far beyond what most credit cards can legally charge. The story here is that it's a better deal financially to take the buyoff right now if all the above assumptions are true. However, I seriously doubt that the amount you'll be paying for the car is going to be less than it's worth. If you could buy this same vehicle in 18 months for less than $11,800, it will be a dumb thing to buy this car ever. In that case, finish out your contractually obligated lease and consider it an expensive lesson learned. FYI, leasing vehicles is usually a bad idea financially. It's sometimes a good idea for businesses and commercial vehicles, but that is usually due to tax and accounting considerations regarding the treatment of capital vs. expense that an individual doesn't have. If someone else has more experience with negotiating end-of-lease buyoffs, I'd be interested to hear it. If your buyoff price was $11k or less at the end of 18 months it would be a better idea to wait on the buyoff. (this is still assuming that you couldn't get an identical vehicle for less than $11k at that time)
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Jul 8, 2013 22:47
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Ashcans posted:Oh man. Part of me wants to tell you to take the trip, because you have so many other issues looming that at least that way you would have some good memories to warm you when you are sleeping in a shanty. All of your advice is great for him/her to hear, I just want to input the poster seems to be a very typical situation of how youth are encouraged to spend a fortune on schooling and experiences without really giving guidance on what the consequences long term are and how it impacts said people long term. Reading things like spending money on body art and wanting to travel to Japan while getting $60K in debt sounds ludicrous, but it's unfortunately really easy and in my opinion encouraged for young people to do. Anyway, part of this is a random rant about how terrible our education system is cost wise now, but I don't know a lot of 21 year olds who know much better. Wrong advice, wrong expectations from family/society can go a long way towards putting kids in the shitter. I was "lucky" that about $25K in my student loans was fortified because my Dad signed them (and only he signed) and he passed away my senior year, so they got rid of the loans. I majored in music business (mistake) an after spending 5 years making no money in music I finally switched to sales and am starting to look at paying more than the minimum interest on my remaining $15K.
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Jul 9, 2013 00:04
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RebBrownies posted:I already managed to spend 1 grand of that money on a new bike (my mode of transportation to work), an ipod nano (I broke my itouch of four years), and a 3DS. I don't really want to come down hard on you because honestly I did mostly the same thing in college, spending more money than I should've. But the difference is that my college was very cheap and so my parents covered it, plus I was in a very employable major. The impression I've gotten is that theatre careers tend to usually be "theatre hobbies supported by waiting tables" for most people who pursue that, so you need to take a hard look at whether you need to change your financial mindset to accommodate your current career plans, or else you may end up in a world of financial hurt later on. I put in 54k in loans in the calculator here with the default interest rate and a 15 year term and got $479/month. That's a lot of money! More importantly, the longer you take to pay off loans, the more total money you're wasting on interest instead of saving for retirement or a house or whatever else you want. edit: Man just the idea that someone would take a fun vacation to Japan when they have no real career prospects and are currently worth negative fifty thousand dollars just blows my mind. edit2: Actually I'd like some clarification on this - quote:I thought that number was off. I'm such an idiot. Cicero fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 00:07
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I was rounding up. My bike was 329 since I got a deal on it since I work at a bike shop. The only reason I was considering it was because it seems everyone else was doing it . I guess I figured since my theatre career was going to be unstable I might as well go out an travel when I had the money in my hand, but I guess that is a bad idea considering I will be living in a shanty box. My estimated charges are in the ball park of 37,320. My aid for this year is 24295. I need a loan for 13,025 for my final year of college (around that).
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Jul 9, 2013 00:55
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Mint question: I use my credit card for daily spending and pay my utilites from my bank account. I'm planning on putting both into mint to get information, will it automatically notice the difference and know that the $400 discover payment went to my discover card? It fixed the Mortgage bit.
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Jul 9, 2013 00:57
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Gothmog1065 posted:Mint question: Yeah, it's smart enough to do that with my bank/cards at least.
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Jul 9, 2013 01:10
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Gothmog1065 posted:Mint question: Generally it's smart enough to automatically categorize transfers properly. If it's not, however, you can manually classify anything to something under the Transfer category and it will properly exclude it from your income/spending.
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Jul 9, 2013 14:37
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RebBrownies posted:The only reason I was considering it was because it seems everyone else was doing it I sympathize with wanting to travel. And it's tough because frankly, this is probably the best time in your life to do it because you don't have a lot of stuff to complicate it. By the time you have the resources for a trip to be a responsible decision, it's likely you'll have commitments that make it much harder to actually take one. (now that I have a wife, a job, and a kid, trying to get anywhere is a total nightmare). So, take some time to think about it. Taking a trip because other people are taking a trip is a bad idea anyway, so work out whether you really want to for your own reasons, and what you want to get out of it. If you do want to travel, there are options that will not kill you financially. You can travel domestically. It's much cheaper, and there are tons of things in the US you have probably never seen. This is particularly true if you want to travel for the sake of spectacle, but you can get plenty of cultural variation and experience as well. Think about it. If you are sent on going overseas, look into working holidays. There are a number of countries that offer this sort of thing specifically for people in your kind of situation, and it might make the whole thing more viable financially. Now, this means you will be washing dishes or something, but you will be doing it in an exotic location!
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Jul 9, 2013 14:53
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canyoneer posted:
Does the depreciation of the car over that time and the fact that the money I'd be using to pay for the car is currently growing in stocks change that calculation enough to make any impact? It's a 2012 Hyundai Elantra. El Kabong fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 19:08
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El Kabong posted:Does the depreciation of the car over that time and the fact that the money I'd be using to pay for the car is currently growing in stocks change that calculation enough to make any impact? Imagine your car was paid for, you were driving it around free and clear, no payments. Would you go to your local bank or credit union, title in hand, asking them to do a car loan for you so you could play stocks? If the answer to that question is yes, then you are doing a smart thing by paying off your car as slow as possible and when it comes time to buy it you should get a loan with a really long term. If you would not borrow against your unpaid car, every day you don't pay off your car is the same thing.
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Jul 10, 2013 04:07
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You might as well pay it off and get a margin account if you want to gamble interest rates.
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Jul 10, 2013 06:16
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Imagine your car was paid for, you were driving it around free and clear, no payments. Would you go to your local bank or credit union, title in hand, asking them to do a car loan for you so you could play stocks? If the answer to that question is yes, then you are doing a smart thing by paying off your car as slow as possible and when it comes time to buy it you should get a loan with a really long term. The caveat to this is that you need to have good financial education and know how to invest correctly if you say yes. It's not hard, but the standard rule that you need to spend a day or two reading up on investment. Similarly, investing smart is psychologically difficult for most people  .
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Jul 10, 2013 09:16
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My fiancee and I are looking to buy a home in about 2 years. The problem is that she is terrible with money, and has pretty much wrecked her credit, her score is around 535. She wants to go to a debt management company, but I've always heard that you shouldn't use them because it hurts you more than it helps. Most of her debt is student loans, which I don't think they can help her with, and some credit card debt. Would going to a debt management company be a bad idea for her, or should I just take away all of her credit cards and force her to become responsible?
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Jul 10, 2013 15:08
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Having debt doesn't hurt your score unless it's just a ton. Just have her get current on her accounts, and then work on paying everything down.
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Jul 10, 2013 15:15
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Harry posted:Having debt doesn't hurt your score unless it's just a ton. Just have her get current on her accounts, and then work on paying everything down. To add to this, is doesn't hurt as long as you meet minimum payments each month. It basically comes down to building slowly over the next year or two, but the best bet is to start a plan at paying off each one at $xx a month, and staying away from getting above 30% of credit card balances. I think its still in the OP, but creditkarma.com is a great basic guide on where to start with building credit. In the end, taking care of everything and being fiscally responsible with a plan is the way to go, and will take care of the credit score by itself.
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Jul 10, 2013 16:33
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Do some ATMs allow you to deposit cash to an Ally account?
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Jul 10, 2013 16:42
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PRADA SLUT posted:Do some ATMs allow you to deposit cash to an Ally account? I don't believe there is any way to deposit cash to Ally.
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Jul 10, 2013 17:03
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Imagine your car was paid for, you were driving it around free and clear, no payments. Would you go to your local bank or credit union, title in hand, asking them to do a car loan for you so you could play stocks? If the answer to that question is yes, then you are doing a smart thing by paying off your car as slow as possible and when it comes time to buy it you should get a loan with a really long term. I was under the impression that if the investment is outperforming the interest rates on a loan then it is better to keep the money in the investment and make regular payments. I have a small student loan that's at about 2.5% and my index fund (vti) outperforms that easily, is this also a bad idea?
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Jul 10, 2013 19:04
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El Kabong posted:I was under the impression that if the investment is outperforming the interest rates on a loan then it is better to keep the money in the investment and make regular payments. I have a small student loan that's at about 2.5% and my index fund (vti) outperforms that easily, is this also a bad idea? Are you taking taxes into account on that investment performance?
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Jul 10, 2013 19:10
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El Kabong posted:I was under the impression that if the investment is outperforming the interest rates on a loan then it is better to keep the money in the investment and make regular payments. I have a small student loan that's at about 2.5% and my index fund (vti) outperforms that easily, is this also a bad idea? You're spending ~$950 in financing charges (or in other words, interest) on this lease in the next 18 months. Is that $13k going to earn you over $1k net after taxes during that same period? The kind of high-return investments that would pull that off are going to be things that aren't a rational level of risk for anyone but gamblers on an 18 month investment horizon. If we were talking a home mortgage at 4% with 18 years left on the loan, this would be a different story and you'd probably want to leave the money in the investment. But you're getting soaked on that lease (as is the case with most leased cars)
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Jul 10, 2013 19:53
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El Kabong posted:I was under the impression that if the investment is outperforming the interest rates on a loan then it is better to keep the money in the investment and make regular payments. I have a small student loan that's at about 2.5% and my index fund (vti) outperforms that easily, is this also a bad idea? Beyond just taxes, you also need to be taking into account the risk of investing. IE, would you be fine if the value of your index funds suddenly tanked 30-40% in the next year? Would you not take money out of that investment? You also need to be aware of the fact that things can screw you over if you lose a job, etc. Hence, putting minimum into loans is probably only a good idea for somebody who has a lot of capital or has a good buffer against crises. Put it this way, I have a car loan that's in that range and I only pay minimum as I can afford the risk and make more money through investing in the long term. I wouldn't necessarily recommend other people do the same, though. ntan1 fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 20:40
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BobbyDrake posted:My fiancee and I are looking to buy a home in about 2 years. The problem is that she is terrible with money, and has pretty much wrecked her credit, her score is around 535. She wants to go to a debt management company, but I've always heard that you shouldn't use them because it hurts you more than it helps. Most of her debt is student loans, which I don't think they can help her with, and some credit card debt. Would going to a debt management company be a bad idea for her, or should I just take away all of her credit cards and force her to become responsible? Debt management companies have a high percentage of scam artists among them who will give you terrible advice. No company, no matter what they say, can "reduce what you owe" - unless they advise you to default on all your loans and then try to negotiate a payment plan. Her best bet will be to shape up, cut up most/all of her cards if she really cannot help herself, and pay everything back on time.
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Jul 10, 2013 20:45
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Don't most "debt management" companies just buy out your old debt so you're paying them instead of your original debtor? Or consolidate your debt with different payment plans?
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Jul 10, 2013 20:53
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canyoneer posted:You're spending ~$950 in financing charges (or in other words, interest) on this lease in the next 18 months. I did some research and some math and I'm actually paying closer to $1500 in finance charges over 18 months. I need to buy this car. Thank you for the help.
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Jul 10, 2013 21:38
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BobbyDrake posted:Would going to a debt management company be a bad idea for her, or should I just take away all of her credit cards and force her to become responsible? I would vote for neither! The mechanics of fixing her credit is the easy part, but it is a symptom of something that will ruin your marriage if both of you don't resolve it. With regard to the debt places, even the non scammy ones are not going to do anything you can't do yourself. My understanding is most of them work by withdrawing a set amount every month from your bank account and then dividing up all the money to all the creditors, less their fee. I'm not mad at them for charging a fee, since they have costs, employees, etc, but the worst part is a lot of times they don't even do that very well. I've heard of them forgetting to pay accounts or sending them the wrong amount, or they are not taking enough out to pay all the bills so one always gets shortchanged. People who use these services are not that good at tracking their statements which is why these services appealed to them in the first place. Finally, you are not really learning any life skills on how to manage money. I used to work at a credit union where I managed our credit cards. We cycled on the 22nd of every month and Money Management (which is a good one) sends out all their payments to everyone right around then. All the accounts they paid were always screwed up because sometimes we would get payed on the 23rd and then the 21st the following month, so one statement had 2 payments, then nothing would come in the next statement and then the system charged late fees. This is a credit union where we babysat these accounts, so imagine the care the Capital One would put into it. I know you are a little tongue and cheek, but don't be her daddy and take away her cards because she was really bad!!!!  This is something that you need to approach as a team and discuss what your priorities are. You are really good at handling money but you might be a tightwad who won't spend money to decorate your apartment so it's not like the learning goes in one direction. Going forward, you might be the one who pays the bills but both of you have a vote on how the money gets spent.
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Jul 11, 2013 03:54
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This is a very newbie question, but here goes: Does paying part of your credit card balance before it's due incur interest? I ask because I just pay my card balance off every month, so I'm not familiar with what conditions they use to start charging interest on the balance. I have money in different accounts that is cumbersome to transfer, so if I pay part of the bill from one account will they penalize me for not paying the full amount all at once? I feel like it shouldn't matter before the due date, but I want to make sure.
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Jul 11, 2013 12:45
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