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Are you 1099 or W2? If you're W2 then you are definitely "employed", but if you don't have any sort of employment contract it sounds like you are probably 1099. If you are 1099 you are considered an independent contractor (i.e. "self employed) and you should be keeping your own books and paying quarterly estimated taxes to the IRS anyway, so you should be able to provide those figures to the landlord. That would at least be a good place to start, and may be enough to satisfy him. If you're making substantive 1099 income and not keeping books and paying estimated taxes, you've got a bigger problem than an apartment application...
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Aug 29, 2016 23:26
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FCKGW posted:Who is withholding the taxes on your income, you or the business? Just go with that. I just started this gig last month, so I have all my hours worked/wages paid recorded, but haven't been withholding taxes on it or anything. Uhh.. how to do I do that? I've never made enough to have to file taxes before, so I don't know poo poo about poo poo when it comes to paying 'em. 
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Aug 29, 2016 23:53
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22 Eargesplitten posted:From a rough draft of the budget and what I know we changed: I think you could definitely make your own thread. It will be useful to provide updates and accountability when things are in flux. Post a link here if you do. You've got a lot of uncertainty in there (will you get a raise, medical issues, will she get a job?, taxes, etc) so it could all work out fine or it could get a lot worse. If you do a thread other people might be able to help with medical issues and getting into more detail in budgeting. Vyvanse is covered by most major insurance, can she change her plan? Is she on Medicaid or her parents plan? Most Medicaid plans cover Vyvanse and other extended release ADHD meds. Big picture stuff is: - Get your Wife healthy and employed ASAP. - Discipline your discretionary spending - Get the CC debt down ASAP and tackle the rest of the debt at minimum payments until you're more stable. - Try to get a raise or a promotion. If you stick to the status quo the debt is going to mount and a random emergency will compound it.
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Aug 29, 2016 23:54
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Okay, as a poor disabled person living on SSI, and I tend to run out of money halfway through the month, and wanted to do things that might cost more money than usual, so I thought I should get some financial consultation. Here is my budget for next month: What I get: 772.92 Need to spend no matter what: $200 rent (overpaid this month so it's a little cheaper than usual) $49.27 Phone bill $39.69 Internet Bill $5 Max Fun donations $19.99 Gym bill $60 Food not covered by food stamps $25 Lending money to friends in even worse financial situations $23 Train trip to Boston for live show Things I really want to spend money on: $50 on games $90 eating out $40 snacks $25 clothes $20 booze I usually end up spending more than what I budget on eating out and snacks. I want to actually try saving money, but end up having to spend it on food and emergency costs. I want to get a credit card and build good credit. I want to switch to a phone provider that lets me work out a payment plan for a phone that's better than the one I have, such as Sprint. Are any of those three things viable?
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Aug 30, 2016 16:09
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It's kind of small potatoes, but are podcast donations, lending money to other people, live music shows, and gym memberships really necessities? And have to be recurring monthly expenses? For the phone you can get a pay as you go phone if you do a limited amount of calls and texts a month or you can look into Google Fi. That can save you 20 or 30 dollars a month. You also are probably spending a lot of money on food. Roughly 200 dollars a month on food AFTER food stamps for a single guy on a budget of $772. How much do you get in food stamps? What does your food purchases look like?
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Aug 30, 2016 16:18
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's kind of small potatoes, but are podcast donations, lending money to other people, live music shows, and gym memberships really necessities? And have to be recurring monthly expenses? I was writing up something like this. Every dollar helps when all you're making is $772. I think the food not covered by food stamps might mean groceries that are still food, but not eligible to be bought be food stamps? I work at a store and see that sometimes. Either way, some sacrifices need to be made, even if it means seeing a friend struggle. You're struggling yourself.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:28
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I think you could definitely make your own thread. It will be useful to provide updates and accountability when things are in flux. Post a link here if you do. I'll start a thread once we've updated it with her income. we also only have to start paying fully for the Vyvanse this month, her parents had been covering it, but they stopped now without warning. My biggest problem is that thinking about money a lot gets me anxious to the point of nausea, it has for years. It's going to be hard to stick with the thread. She's on Kaiser, the shittiest formulary I have ever seen. It's not open enrollment, so I don't think she can get a new plan. That's why it's important to me to get somewhere full time, my current employer offers a 10,000 deductible plan for $700/mo. The only good plan is $1200/mo.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:46
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Moneyball posted:I was writing up something like this. Every dollar helps when all you're making is $772. Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's kind of small potatoes, but are podcast donations, lending money to other people, live music shows, and gym memberships really necessities? And have to be recurring monthly expenses? I could probably cancel the podcast donation, but I got the ticket to the live show months and months ago. I find affording those things more manageable if I get the tickets to the show one month and the train tickets the month of the event. (Taking the commuter rail, too.) AFAIK I can't cancel the contract I have with my gym. Unless that's a thing? I receive about $140 in food stamps. The extra is counting food I may need to buy after spending all my food stamps. I definitely spend way too much on restaurants, tho. I think I should try packing lunches if I need to eat something while I'm out. Also, I get my food from discount grocery stores and ethnic meat markets, which seem to have higher quality meat for equal or lesser value. E: Also the trip to Boston is just for September. I usually only go to these things 2 or 3 times a year.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:50
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22 Eargesplitten posted:I'll start a thread once we've updated it with her income. we also only have to start paying fully for the Vyvanse this month, her parents had been covering it, but they stopped now without warning. My biggest problem is that thinking about money a lot gets me anxious to the point of nausea, it has for years. It's going to be hard to stick with the thread. Where is her insurance from? Obamacare? Parents? If she is unemployed and unable to hold a job for medical reasons she should be eligible for Medicaid or disability, which will definitely cover Vyvanse. It depends on the state, but it will usually be free or $5 for a month's dosage.
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Aug 30, 2016 16:50
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Mikedawson posted:Okay, as a poor disabled person living on SSI, and I tend to run out of money halfway through the month, and wanted to do things that might cost more money than usual, so I thought I should get some financial consultation. First of all, that's not a good budget. Budgeting is fundamentally a predictive thing: if I spend this money, in these categories, with this income, then I'll have a certain amount left over. Making that prediction can lead you to change your behavior ("if I spend $75 on snacks, then I'll be in the hole - better cut my snack expenses!") but you shouldn't be coming up with a budget based only on what has happened in one month, especially when you know there are special circumstances like lower-than-normal rent. That's basically making a prediction that the special circumstances will keep going exactly as they have been. With that in mind, it'd probably be helpful to just sit down and figure out what your past spending looks like. What do your actual food and snack expenses add up to? What's your expected rent? What does a "normal emergency" look like? Once you've got that, you can start figuring out how to actually shape your spending. You'll probably want to set up a general "fun money" category for your expenses that aren't pre-defined liabilities, or absolute necessities, and set up some kind of dashboarding tool like Mint. If you force yourself to take money out of your game fund to buy a bag of chips, it'll be easier to decide whether something is actually going to be worth the money, or it's just an "I'm vaguely hungry and there are chips here now" impulse buy.
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Aug 30, 2016 17:04
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Where is her insurance from? Obamacare? Parents? If she is unemployed and unable to hold a job for medical reasons she should be eligible for Medicaid or disability, which will definitely cover Vyvanse. It depends on the state, but it will usually be free or $5 for a month's dosage. It's coming from the marketplace, paid for by her parents. My income counts for medicaid, which brings her above the limit. I'm still young enough to be on my dad's insurance. Unfortunately, it's really hard to get disability for mental health because of the stigma of it not being a "real" illness and there not being an obvious problem that can be seen physically. Last time she applied it took a year for her to be denied. I'll see if she's willing to try again, although god willing she will be better enough to work by that point. I'll also see if stuff like medical expenses can influence qualification for medicaid or anything like that.
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Aug 30, 2016 17:20
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Space Gopher posted:First of all, that's not a good budget. Budgeting is fundamentally a predictive thing: if I spend this money, in these categories, with this income, then I'll have a certain amount left over. Making that prediction can lead you to change your behavior ("if I spend $75 on snacks, then I'll be in the hole - better cut my snack expenses!") but you shouldn't be coming up with a budget based only on what has happened in one month, especially when you know there are special circumstances like lower-than-normal rent. That's basically making a prediction that the special circumstances will keep going exactly as they have been. I can't use Mint or other budgeting software because I don't have credit, which is needed for filling out information with them. I took you advice and calculated how much money I spent this month, which may better reflect how I need to spend my money. 223.20 - Rent 48.00 - Phone Bill 39.69 Internet Bill 69.95 - Gym Fees 5.00 - Max Fun Donation 69.28 - Games 128.62 - Restaurants 23.01 - Food 35.00 - Snacks 20.26 - Booze 18.00 - Haircut 26.00 - Lending to friends 22.94 - Misc. spending at thrift stores The reason my gym bill is so high is because of a yearly maintenance fee and I owed late fees for the bill. Also, the reason I spent so little on food is because I ran out of money halfway through the month and had to go to food drives and borrow food from my mom.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:06
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What is the gym? If it's at the judgement zone, you should be able to cancel at any time AFAIK.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:09
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Moneyball posted:What is the gym? If it's at the judgement zone, you should be able to cancel at any time AFAIK. Gold's Gym. I got a contract with them to lower the monthly price.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:22
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Mikedawson posted:I can't use Mint or other budgeting software because I don't have credit, which is needed for filling out information with them.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:24
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Mint asks for you to manually input your credit score when you create an account. Just type in whatever you want. 666 for giggles. It doesn't matter and is just used to modify the advertisements they hock at you.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:26
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Mikedawson posted:Okay, as a poor disabled person living on SSI, and I tend to run out of money halfway through the month, and wanted to do things that might cost more money than usual, so I thought I should get some financial consultation. I don't know how viable a suggestion this is for you, since I don't know the nature of your disability, but: Going out to eat always demolishes my budget completely. It's easy to make it a habit and overspend. I've found that if I just go to the store and get like a steak or some other "treat" food, and cook it at home, it's the same overally time/energy commitment as going out, and it saves me like 60% of the money it would have cost to go out/order food for me and my girlfriend. Basically, on months where I don't go out to eat, order food, or eat fast food, I find I have like $200 extra at the end of the month, even if I spent a little more on groceries to cover my various whims. I guess that probably says more about my horrendous eating habits than anything else, but it is a hole in your budget that can be plugged.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:29
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Do you use a bank or credit union account instead? Mint interfaces with all kinds of financial institutions. You don't need a credit card. GoGoGadgetChris posted:Mint asks for you to manually input your credit score when you create an account. Just type in whatever you want. 666 for giggles. It doesn't matter and is just used to modify the advertisements they hock at you. I didn't know this stuff. I'm going to go work on my mint account. deadly_pudding posted:I don't know how viable a suggestion this is for you, since I don't know the nature of your disability, but: The main reason I eat out so much is convenience. If I don't have any food in my apartment, or I'm out all day, I can just order something and not worry about going to the grocery store or being hungry until I get home. While my disabilities can sometimes make me not want to go to the effort of wanting to cook something, I usually resolve this by having a few instant things or cooking with the idea of having a lot of leftovers in mind.
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Aug 30, 2016 18:53
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Unless you're strict with eating, you can usually get away with low effort foods, as well as loading up on portable ones. I have been spending a ton of hours in the library in addition to working, so I've made use of that. On the go: Store brand nutrition bars, bananas, oranges, trail mix (make your own) among other things. At home, some boxes of pasta and sauce, boil some eggs, old fashioned oatmeal (add in things for flavor), yogurt, more trail mix. Not particularly expensive, reasonably healthy, and ready for the most part.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:07
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Cooking ahead is huge for me. Otherwise I just don't eat lunch. I have been making curry as well as potato soup. All of those ingredients should be available on food stamps except maybe the curry paste depending on whether the Asian market near you takes food stamps. There's a GWS thread for poor people cooking. Potatoes and rice are both super cheap so I cook with both frequently. If it's just you eating, a big batch of curry should last you most of a week for less than $20. Make big batches of steel cut oats if you can find them cheap near you. They are more filling than rolled oats, I can get them for $1/lb at a store here. If you say what region you're in, people might be able to recommend cheap grocery stores near you. There's one here that always has cheap produce and sometimes meat. You can also make cheap stuff with bulk dried beans, they last forever. My wife is allergic to beans, so we never eat them.
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Aug 30, 2016 19:07
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literally this big posted:I just started this gig last month, so I have all my hours worked/wages paid recorded, but haven't been withholding taxes on it or anything. Uhh.. how to do I do that? I've never made enough to have to file taxes before, so I don't know poo poo about poo poo when it comes to paying 'em. Following up on this from earlier: What do I need to do to file / pay my quarterly estimates? I gather from this IRS page that I need to fill out a form 1040-ES, but is there anything else I should be doing? I want to make sure I don't miss anything. Also, I've only had this job since mid-June, so no worries about having missed a quarterly filing already. Thanks!
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Aug 30, 2016 22:24
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literally this big posted:Following up on this from earlier: What do I need to do to file / pay my quarterly estimates? I gather from this IRS page that I need to fill out a form 1040-ES, but is there anything else I should be doing? I want to make sure I don't miss anything. Also, I've only had this job since mid-June, so no worries about having missed a quarterly filing already. Thanks! It's pretty easy. Here is form 1040-ES and you can pretty much ignore the instructions because they make it needlessly complicated. Just fill out the voucher and mail it with a check. Here is a simple way to know how much to withhold. Open up a separate checking account where you deposit all your business/contracting income. It need not be the business checking product offered by the bank. A regular checking account is fine. Run all your job related expenses out of it. Get a debit card and if you need to buy supplies or toner or whatever you use that account. This part is key. You will also be pulling money out of it for your personal living expenses. When you take money out, transfer 75% of it into your regular checking account that you run your personal life out of. The other 25% transfer into another account and put it in an online account or something like that. It sounds unweildly to do it this way, but the results are: 1. It is easy to keep track of your expenses come tax time. You won't be looking at your bank statement 9 months from now and have to guess what is a business expense and what isn't and have to run long additions of dozens of items that you are trying to match up to receipts. EVERYTHING withdrawn from your business account is an expense, NOTHING in your personal account is. It will be infinitely easier to do your taxes 2. You will be close to paying the right amount in quarterly taxes. Everything that you pull out for personal reasons is by definition profit as long as your balance stays reasonably stable. 3. You will always have enough money to pay your withholding. The big mistake that self employed people make is they spend everything they pull out and they don't have the money available at the end of the quarter. 25% will get you pretty close, but if you are making really good money or don't have a lot of deductions you can bump that up to 30%. Just add 15% to your effective tax rate.
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Aug 31, 2016 23:52
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FYI if you decide to do something like this then Ally is a super easy bank for creating multiple accounts and moving money around.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:56
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I'm still probably going to make a thread, but I'm waiting until we get our plan for September hammered out. We're behind on some bills, so we need to modify the budget we had made before. Is it a good idea to keep my credit card at home if it's an emergency fund and I have some buffer in checking? I don't know if it's going to make much of a difference in that case, but I think there might be a psychological effect to not having that to fall back on during the day to day. E/N meets BFC: We couldn't afford my wife's Vyvanse, so we got a new prescription for Adderall extended release instead. It seems to be working well two days in, and it's $0/mo rather than $290/mo since her insurance covers it. So that's almost $300 we don't have to spend, which is good because at the time we made our budget we thought we were only paying half. That brings our total prescription cost down under $100/mo. I'm not sure exactly, I need to find out how much her others are.
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Sep 3, 2016 00:06
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22 Eargesplitten posted:E/N meets BFC: We couldn't afford my wife's Vyvanse, so we got a new prescription for Adderall extended release instead. It seems to be working well two days in, and it's $0/mo rather than $290/mo since her insurance covers it. So that's almost $300 we don't have to spend, which is good because at the time we made our budget we thought we were only paying half. That brings our total prescription cost down under $100/mo. I'm not sure exactly, I need to find out how much her others are. The manufacturer of Vyvanse has a patient assistance program where you can get the drug for free/reduced cost if you're poor enough. I get my Crohn's drugs for free through the program: https://www.shire.com/patients/patient-services/shire-cares Of course the program wouldn't need to exist if the company would make generics and stop abusing patent laws, but I digress
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Sep 3, 2016 04:15
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22 Eargesplitten posted:E/N meets BFC: We couldn't afford my wife's Vyvanse, so we got a new prescription for Adderall extended release instead. It seems to be working well two days in, and it's $0/mo rather than $290/mo since her insurance covers it. So that's almost $300 we don't have to spend, which is good because at the time we made our budget we thought we were only paying half. That brings our total prescription cost down under $100/mo. I'm not sure exactly, I need to find out how much her others are. I was on Vyvanse, covered by my insurance because I tried and failed adderall, and then we switched insurances and the new insurance was all "lol gently caress you you didn't fail hard enough" and forced me back on adderall XR and it makes me anxious and doesn't do nearly as smooth a job as the vyvanse did. Just something to watch out for.
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Sep 3, 2016 04:19
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Today my mom told me I should purposely keep a balance on my credit card from month to month to build up my credit score instead of paying it all off, which is what I normally do. I'm in college and the only thing I use my credit card for is school books and gas. I researched online and every website I'm seeing says nothing about keeping a balance having a beneficial effect on one's credit score. Can any goons please confirm if this idea is wrong or not? E: OK the credit card thread says NEVER DO THIS. lol thanks FourLeaf fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 22:36
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It's a common myth that the credit card companies are not interested in dispelling as it results in interest being paid to them.
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Sep 5, 2016 22:40
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Yeah the indicators are account history (how long you've had the account on your record - note that if you CLOSE the account it's still on your record so you don't have to keep it open for this to work) and total credit line available to you (the sum of all your credit limits - this DOES require the accounts to be open, though)
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Sep 5, 2016 23:12
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FourLeaf posted:Today my mom told me I should purposely keep a balance on my credit card from month to month to build up my credit score instead of paying it all off, which is what I normally do. I'm in college and the only thing I use my credit card for is school books and gas. What gets reported to the bureau every month is your balance, your credit limit and it is current or not, and if not how late. Everything generally gets reported on the cycle date. What doesn't get reported is if you paid it off in full at any point. Say you paid off the full balance but then bought $500 more stuff, it would get reported identically to the guy who had a prior balance of $530 and paid it down to $500 but didn't buy anything.
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Sep 5, 2016 23:35
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I opened and put $5,500 into an IRA through Vanguard for a 2050 target retirement fund. They took the money out of my account, however, I cannot access my account. They said they could not verify my identity, so, I sent them a bunch of information and still no luck. They then said it as a technical problem on their side and they will contact me with it is fixed. I have called several times since then and still the same answer and it has been over 2 months. I have received mail on how the statement is doing, so, it appears that it is actually there. Has anyone had this issue before or have any other suggestions besides keep calling and bitching about it? Could I roll it over into another IRA for a different without any penalties, however, I'm not sure if there any other IRA's with expense ratios as low.
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Sep 7, 2016 00:28
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I'm not really sure what the correct place to ask this would be, but after a long sequence of events I very nearly made an E/N thread over I recently discovered that my cousin has a bank account he doesn't use anymore which is several thousands of dollars overdrawn. It seems to me like an old checking account is a horrible place to keep your debt, but I'm really wary of other possible places that would give a loan to a retail worker who rents an apartment and doesn't own a car because they're probably scams themselves. Is there an accepted best-practices way for young people to finance their debts? I want to tell him to put the debt somewhere else but I don't have a good answer ready for what a better idea would be.
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Sep 8, 2016 17:36
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He's easily paying 50-500% in fees if he's perpetually ovrdrawn, even the shittiest high interest cc with like a cash advance to close that would be better.
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Sep 9, 2016 20:56
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Sup loquacius. It seems like your cousin should contact the bank and try to work out if he can settle with them. He's not actually using this account anymore, right? Is he banking somewhere else where he has actual money and just letting this spiral, or is he just broke? I am assuming from the fact you wired him money that he is just broke and possibly hoards his cash in a pillow or something. At any rate, the bank might be willing to reduce or remove some of its fines and penalties if he is offering to make good on some value and close the account at a zero balance, but he'll never know that if he doesn't engage with them. If he doesn't resolve it, he may end up with negative history in Chexsystems and he'll be screwed on opening accounts in the future. If he can get a settlement number from the bank (whether that is the full value or less) he can work out what he can do about it - he may not be able to get something like a CC advance high enough to pay it off, for instance, and I am going to guess he is not a great candidate for a unsecured loan. But he's not even going to be able to answer that question without engaging with the bank. Depending on how long he's let this stew he might already be screwed, but waiting isn't going to make it better.
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Sep 9, 2016 21:28
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The Sock posted:I opened and put $5,500 into an IRA through Vanguard for a 2050 target retirement fund. They took the money out of my account, however, I cannot access my account. They said they could not verify my identity, so, I sent them a bunch of information and still no luck.
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Sep 11, 2016 00:22
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Ashcans posted:Sup loquacius. yo Yeah he has some money he's keeping in another account with another bank (Simple), but it's less than he would need to square this debt. He needed financial help from someone or other with basically every aspect of attending my wedding, from the plane ticket to the hotel room to getting a white dress shirt instead of the pink one he had (which would have caused my wife to murder him on the spot if he'd shown up to the wedding-party pictures in it) but he's still able to do stuff like go to indie metal concerts and buy legal Colorado weed. I had no idea this kind of negotiation was possible, but I guess it makes sense if the bank wants to ensure they get at least SOME of their money back. Still trying to figure out a good way to pass wisdom along to him in as non-humiliating and non-resentment-causing a way as possible, but having something to actually say is a start. Thanks.
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Sep 11, 2016 16:38
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I just moved out of Pennsylvania, and we had savings/checking accounts with BB&T (previously with Susquehanna, but BB&T bought them out) over there. We're trying to close the accounts now, from California, and we're being given a complete bitch of a time about it. They're refusing to do it without all account holders (my wife and me) coming to the origination branch in person. They require a notarized letter signed by both account holders, but even after that, they will only close the account if we come back to PA in person and sign forms at the bank. They will not mail any forms and will not allow remote closure Until we come in person to do the closure, they are going to continue to charge the $5.00 monthly maintenance fee they put in place after they bought out our old bank. Any suggestion on ways of closing this out without getting on a loving plane?
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Sep 12, 2016 04:40
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Get a lawyer and see if there's a legal remedy?
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Sep 12, 2016 04:43
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You could try Twitter or FB and try to get their attention that way. I imagine not being able to close your account while being charged a fee is going to look bad for them.
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Sep 12, 2016 05:02
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My old bank made a big deal about closing an account with a balance, but if you just transferred the balance out they had no problem with closing an empty account over the phone with minimal fuss. Customer service actually recommended that to me because otherwise we would have needed a letter and they would have mailed us a check for the balance, making it all a pain. So maybe see if that makes any difference?
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Sep 12, 2016 14:12
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