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Okay! Sounds good, thanks for the advice. I'll just put the extra cash towards the debt in that case.
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Jul 3, 2018 00:22
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Advice posted:...Also as far as long-term financials go, let's just say I have a personal business to grow and financially I'm not worried at all about my future. These bills are peanuts compared to what I expect to be making in a decade or so...
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Jul 3, 2018 00:35
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Thanatosian posted:Are you involved with an MLM scheme? Because this sounds like an MLM scheme. God, I wish. No, I'm working on building my copywriting skill and hanging my shingle as a freelancer. I'm just confident that taking the time and effort to master this skill will prove financially beneficial.
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Jul 3, 2018 00:48
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Advice posted:God, I wish. No, I'm working on building my copywriting skill and hanging my shingle as a freelancer. I'm just confident that taking the time and effort to master this skill will prove financially beneficial. It might be financially beneficial, but unless you have a solid business plan and some unique specialization that makes you difficult to replace, don't count on it turning into a big paycheck. There's a reason it's easy to break into the business: there are a lot of people with education and decent writing skills who are willing to work for not much money. Personal relationships and being a known reliable worker can let you get ahead of the crowd, but if you start asking for too much, it's not hard for employers to build that relationship with someone else. Also, be careful about taxes. Remember that the $X/year numbers are subject to substantial (and non-progressive) self-employment taxes, so they're not comparable to W2 wages. Deducting business expenses isn't the gold mine that a lot of people want it to be, either. This is often a huge shock for people transitioning from beer-money freelance work to actual self-employment. I've known a few people who have tried to do full-time freelance copywriting. The only one who's made it work is living as an expat in Southeast Asia and pays less than $100/month in rent. But, even if I'm totally wrong and you're in extreme demand for $150,000/year in-house work doing marketing copy for some high-end, highly-specialized business - it's still a bad idea to spend now based on the idea that you might have good income later.
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Jul 3, 2018 06:43
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Advice posted:Hey guys, I've been slaving over this decision for a few months now, wondering if I could get some feedback: I just want to reality check you here - you have $13,040 in consumer debt at usurious rates, and the principle alone represents about 23 weeks of your income, and the idea that you are going to get fantastically rich as a copywrighter is a bit farfetched. I am also concerned that your job has a variable comp component at a very low rate of pay - is it in some sort of sales function? Your credit score doesn't matter unless you want to take on new debt, which you absolutely should not do at this point in time! Also a good way to raise your credit score would be to stop having an 80% utilization rate on your lines of credit.
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Jul 3, 2018 12:08
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Don't put your car up as collateral for a loan to pay off other loans. If you want to bring interest rates down, look at balance transfer cards: https://www.creditkarma.com/credit-cards/i/best-balance-transfer-cards/ The number one way to improve your credit score is to pay off your debt, ESPECIALLY credit cards. Everything else is secondary.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:40
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53 has been unable to get me a renewed debit card so I'm switching banks. What's the best for fee-less checking? I'm game for a credit union too. North East Ohio for that.
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Jul 7, 2018 12:41
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:53 has been unable to get me a renewed debit card so I'm switching banks. What's the best for fee-less checking? I'm game for a credit union too. North East Ohio for that. Alliant Credit Union is a good choice too, it reimburses up to $20 in ATM fees per month and has an excellent savings account too. Also has access to some cash deposit accepting ATMs. Ally Bank is a popular choice as well. I use online banks but keep an account open with a traditional brick and mortar as well. Since I'm using primarily online banks I just looked for the one with a free checking account with the lowest minimum balance that was nearby.
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Jul 7, 2018 13:13
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THF13 posted:Is an online only bank OK? Charles Schwab's checking account is really nice, reimburses fees for any ATM withdrawal so you can just use whatever ATM you want. Second on Schwab. I switched from Chase to Schwab and it's been really nice. The on thing missing is the ability to deposit cash at an ATM. Chase requires a monthly deposit of $250 it stave off fees so I just have my paycheck direct deposit split so I still have a chase checking and can use their atms for a cash deposit.
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Jul 7, 2018 17:24
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Jerk McJerkface posted:Second on Schwab. I switched from Chase to Schwab and it's been really nice. The on thing missing is the ability to deposit cash at an ATM. Get a local credit union for cash deposits. CO-OP ATM network has ATM's *everywhere*.
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Jul 7, 2018 21:48
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SiGmA_X posted:Get a local credit union for cash deposits. CO-OP ATM network has ATM's *everywhere*. I live in northern NJ and work in NYC, any suggestions ona CU?
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Jul 8, 2018 17:47
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Jerk McJerkface posted:I live in northern NJ and work in NYC, any suggestions ona CU? Use this to see if the co-op network would work for you - you'll see this is set to 07007, that was the first zip Google gave me. https://co-opcreditunions.org/locator/search-results/?loctype=AS&zip=07007&maxradius=20&country=&Submit=Search Online CU's: I've been using Consumers CU since Q1 this year due to rewards checking. Their site is old as gently caress but their customer support was A+ when I talked to them to setup POD. Alliant CU is one that everyone loves, I have friends that bank there - plus lots of goons talk about it. Many CU accounts require you to make 10-12 debit card transactions a month. I don't use a debit card for anything, but I can load my Amazon account with 12 x $0.50 transactions, and it processes the debit card as a debit card. I read that Amazon sometimes locks out accounts if they do all 12 at once, so I split up into 2 sessions of 6... Takes a couple min tops. Open the Reload Gift Card tab 6x, type in 0.50, copy/paste to all 6 tabs, click submit. Do it again. Typing that out took way longer than it takes to do, and clearly my spare time is basically free because I post on the interwebs anyway!
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Jul 9, 2018 01:13
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I'll give it a try. I typically do one $1 Amazon GC gap card purchase each day since gap gives you $2 in rewards each time you use your card outside of the Gap.
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Jul 9, 2018 02:55
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Jerk McJerkface posted:I'll give it a try. I typically do one $1 Amazon GC gap card purchase each day since gap gives you $2 in rewards each time you use your card outside of the Gap.
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Jul 9, 2018 03:12
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SiGmA_X posted:Hang on, what is this? Gap as in the store? Or something else?  It's $1 not $2. Mistyped. Still you can double your money.
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Jul 9, 2018 04:07
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THF13 posted:Is an online only bank OK? Charles Schwab's checking account is really nice, reimburses fees for any ATM withdrawal so you can just use whatever ATM you want. I do not use the physical bank location except to withdraw cash due to not being sent my debit card.
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Jul 9, 2018 16:36
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Schwab waives all fees and minimums if you open a checking and brokerage account. You don’t have to actually use the brokerage. Make sure you google the referral link before opening the accounts so you get the $100 bonus.
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Jul 9, 2018 16:39
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I think the Schwab brokerage is automatically opened for you when you open their checking account. When opened this way though the minimum balance for the brokerage is $0 so you can safely ignore it altogether. There are no special conditions for keeping the checking account fee free. My Ally Debit card is a Mastercard, but are there any stores out there that accept Mastercard and not Visa?
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Jul 9, 2018 17:02
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THF13 posted:but are there any stores out there that accept Mastercard and not Visa? nope
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Jul 9, 2018 18:02
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Wife's going to be getting a new job soon with a real nice pay raise (part time contractor to full time employee) so we want to start paying off stuff. I had a question on how we should go about it, more for confirmation I'm not forgetting\missing something that should be obvious. As we don't have official numbers yet (possible change to her benefits instead of my super expensive ones), I can give a vague outline but it should make sense I hope. Right now, plan is: X to Emergency Fund Pay CC 1 as much as possible Pay minimum on CC 2 Pay smaller 1 time debts (medical) Both Credit cards are relatively the same in APR (20%) so I went with the smaller one first. Once CC 1 is done, move to CC 2, continue making smaller payments on medical debts and increase in snowball-like fashion. Sound OK or am I missing? Side question, my work doesn't do 401K matching. If I'm OK taking the hit, should I start putting in 2% or so or would that be pointless right now until some of my debt gets freed up?
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Jul 9, 2018 19:17
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Irritated Goat posted:Right now, plan is: Since you have high interest debt, I would get a minimal emergency fund of ~$1000 and put everything else toward your credit card debt until it's paid off. Don't bother saving for retirement until then.
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Jul 9, 2018 19:32
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Inept posted:Since you have high interest debt, I would get a minimal emergency fund of ~$1000 and put everything else toward your credit card debt until it's paid off. Don't bother saving for retirement until then.
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Jul 9, 2018 19:49
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I understand basically nothing about finance, and could use some help. In the UK, in case the £ signs don't clue you in. This is probably an extra dumb question, but I'm a fairly recent graduate and right now I've been earning more than I'm spending for a little over a year, but I'm not really sure what to do with that excess. For some numbers, in money I'm not planning on touching in the near future I've got about £7000, and at my current pay I can afford to add £400-500 per month to that. I'd like to get it out of my current account soon-ish, both because it could probably be doing something more useful and because there's been a bunch of knife crime near my office lately and I'm pretty nervous about how much I stand to lose if the next person to have their card stolen is me. I've mostly looked at my current account bank (obviously for actual numbers I'd best shop around), it seems like the best interest rates come from a monthly saver account where I deposit a fixed amount by standing order in exchange for 2.5% aer, but the upper limit on that offered by my bank is £250 a month (or £400 if I want to join their account upgrade scheme), which wouldn't even cover my excess monthly earnings, let alone take a chunk out of my current stored amount. After that, it looks like the remainder would best go into an ISA of some kind? They offer one that seems to have the exact same minimum amount and withdrawal terms as their regular savings account, but with a higher interest rate - I understand ISAs have an upper limit on how much money I can have, is there any reason why someone would go for the regular account rather than ISA unless they've already hit that limit? Is the monthly deposit thing and then an ISA for the rest my best bet? Or, more generally, the OP is mostly aimed at Americans with a section for Canadians and Australians, does anyone have any recommendations for "personal finance for dummies: UK edition"?
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Jul 9, 2018 23:38
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THF13 posted:I think the Schwab brokerage is automatically opened for you when you open their checking account. When opened this way though the minimum balance for the brokerage is $0 so you can safely ignore it altogether. There are no special conditions for keeping the checking account fee free.
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Jul 9, 2018 23:46
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Thanatosian posted:Costco only takes Visa, but they are a special snowflake. Costco will also take a debit card regardless of network, but I’m in the “never use a debit card for anything but trusted ATMs” camp since debit fraud is a way bigger pain than credit card fraud.
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Jul 9, 2018 23:57
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Deformed Church posted:I understand basically nothing about finance, and could use some help. In the UK, in case the £ signs don't clue you in. This is probably an extra dumb question, but I'm a fairly recent graduate and right now I've been earning more than I'm spending for a little over a year, but I'm not really sure what to do with that excess. For some numbers, in money I'm not planning on touching in the near future I've got about £7000, and at my current pay I can afford to add £400-500 per month to that. The main advantage of a regular saver is the higher rates that are usually offered versus other short term savings accounts - with the disadvantage of the limits on how much can be paid in, and the best rates normally requiring you to have a linked current account with the same provider. It's usually worth maxing out on one, then at the end of the year transferring the balance into another account (eg an ISA), and opening a new regular saver for the new year. The limit on how much you can contribute to all ISA accounts in a given year is £20k, this resets annually at the start of the tax year. This total can be split between any of the flavours of ISAs (Cash ISA, Stocks & Shares ISA, Innovative Finance ISA, Lifetime ISA, and Help to Buy ISA). However you can only contribute to a maximum of one of each type in a year. So here, if you have a regular saver in an ISA wrapper with a max monthly contribution of £250 pcm, then this could use up £3,000 of your ISA allowance annually. However you would not be able to put anything above this into another Cash ISA - potentially wasting £17k of your allowance. You could of course still use this £17k for Stocks & Shares or Innovative Finance ISA (riskier); or Help to Buy or Lifetime ISA (only relevant if you are saving for a first time home purchase).
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Jul 10, 2018 01:47
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Deformed Church posted:Is the monthly deposit thing and then an ISA for the rest my best bet? Or, more generally, the OP is mostly aimed at Americans with a section for Canadians and Australians, does anyone have any recommendations for "personal finance for dummies: UK edition"? I think you may be putting the cart before the horse. You mention that you're not planning on touching your nest egg, which is great: but what's the money for? If you're saving up for a downpayment on a house, then that's one thing (how soon? are we talking London or Scunthorpe? etc); but if it's a general security blanket you're after, that's another (how secure is your job? do you have a partner, can they support you both?, etc). What you want to do with the money can help determine where to put it: for example, if you've got a few months' salary saved up, it's best to keep it where you can access it quickly, and without penalties. Likewise, if you're putting £X aside per month in order to result in £Y down for a house in Z years' time, you can safely lock it away until then, and so on.
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Jul 10, 2018 18:44
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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spincube posted:I think you may be putting the cart before the horse. You mention that you're not planning on touching your nest egg, which is great: but what's the money for? If you're saving up for a downpayment on a house, then that's one thing (how soon? are we talking London or Scunthorpe? etc); but if it's a general security blanket you're after, that's another (how secure is your job? do you have a partner, can they support you both?, etc). I don't know what the money's for, is the honest answer. My job is fairly secure, the role and company aren't likely to go anywhere so barring something catastrophic I don't imagine I'll be leaving until I'm able to fill out my CV a little more and find something better. It's enough that I'd be secure for a year or so if I did end up struggling badly, but that doesn't seem too likely and I'm lucky enough to be able to fall back on my parents before exhausting my finances. I'm in London and have good transport links to my family outside the city so I don't need a car any time soon. I'm single and I've got a relatively stable family so it's not likely to pick up any dependants any time soon. Ideally what I'd like to do is buy my own home. I've looked and decent 1 bedroom flats in my area start at about £325-350,000. It being London and all, at this point buying property here is somewhere between 10+ years away and a total dead end pipe dream, and by that time I could well need a larger property and prices will have skyrocketed even more. Even a fairly meagre deposit on that is probably going to end up closing in on six figures, and it's fairly unlikely I'll manage to triple my income any time soon and close that gap fast. I've got several thousand pounds over and above what I'd need to replace my belongings if there was a housefire, cover my expenses for a few months if my job did disappear (however unlikely that may be), or take a spontaneous weekend holiday to Prague. I figure there's got to be something more secure and less wasteful than leaving it in my current account to be stolen or diminished by inflation? I don't have a clear career path or anything, and without any concrete plans for where I'll be and what I'll be doing in five or ten years time, I'd probably just stash it away and then re-assess if/when I make a significant career move or find myself in a serious relationship. This is probably pretty dumb but I can't be the only idiot in his early 20s with no real life plans and no real financial knowhow, right?
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Jul 10, 2018 21:44
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We were hoping to buy our next car in cash, but unfortunately our current car was totaled in an accident. The remainder of that loan was paid off by insurance, and we also got the remaining amount of the appraised value to use for a down payment. In an u fortunate confluence of events our savings are lower than we'd like, since we just paid off a student loan in May and are working on rebuilding our savings. The car we are looking at is not super flashy or luxury, but it looks like we'll need a loan since our savings are a bit low right now. As far as other debt goes, it was only the car and a federal student loan that is on IBR and on track for PSLF. No credit card debt, balances paid in full every month. We'll be putting roughly 15% down, and the projected loan will represent about 6% of our take home pay. The previous car loan was 4.5% of our take home, so it's not a huge increase. About 50% of our take home was going to paying off a private student loan, which was finished in May, and now that will be going towards savings. I just want some thoughts on financing a car, since a lot of what I read around here is 'buy in cash', but that unfortunately isn't possible at the moment. After the down payment we will still have an emergency fund, so it's not like everything will be going toward the car. We are a 1 car household so we do need figure something out in the next few weeks.
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Jul 12, 2018 14:54
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New or CPO car loan rates are some of the lowest available. It’s not hard to score less than 3%. Related: take all the money you can at 3%. Loans / debt isn’t always bad. Depending on the rate you can get (0%??) you may want to finance MORE.
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Jul 12, 2018 14:58
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The Slack Lagoon posted:We were hoping to buy our next car in cash, but unfortunately our current car was totaled in an accident. The remainder of that loan was paid off by insurance, and we also got the remaining amount of the appraised value to use for a down payment. In an u fortunate confluence of events our savings are lower than we'd like, since we just paid off a student loan in May and are working on rebuilding our savings. I think is two different things. Getting a car loan at 10-20%, having a payment plan you haven’t budgeted for or can’t afford, or buying a $30-40k car, those are all not great ideas. Getting a car loan at 3% on an affordable car, good price, etc, isn’t a bad idea, and probably better than stretching yourself so thin that you’re screwed if an emergency came up. And if it bothers you, once you save up enough just pay it off early.
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Jul 12, 2018 15:04
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Thanks for the input - makes me feel better about it. Should be able to get a good rate, the day of the crash nerdwallet sent a notification saying my credit score had increased to 803. I've never actually bought a car before, as the one we had was my wife's from before we were married (although I went to the dealers with her and most of them tried to talk to me about it but it was not my decision to make. She ended up buying it from the only guy that talked directly to her). A bit overwhelmed with the whole process and trying to figure out the next steps, but this has been a good sanity check
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Jul 12, 2018 15:10
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Thanks for the input - makes me feel better about it. Should be able to get a good rate, the day of the crash nerdwallet sent a notification saying my credit score had increased to 803. There is also a car buying/recommendation thread that you might find useful: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3213538
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Jul 12, 2018 17:10
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incogneato posted:There is also a car buying/recommendation thread that you might find useful: Thanks, I'll take a look
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Jul 12, 2018 18:00
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Ally bank is still the go-to online savings bank? Want to save ~100k over the next three years for home down payment in joint account thing. Gets 4.5 star rating from nerdwallet... same as a bunch of credit card companies that also offer savings accounts with the same 1.75% APR. Not super keen to park my money with a credit card company, at least not directly.
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Jul 15, 2018 07:15
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I've had ally for like 3 years, no complaints
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Jul 15, 2018 12:47
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Hadlock posted:Ally bank is still the go-to online savings bank? Want to save ~100k over the next three years for home down payment in joint account thing. Why are you hesitant to work with a credit card company which offers an FDIC backed savings account?
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Jul 15, 2018 13:08
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Hadlock posted:Ally bank is still the go-to online savings bank? Want to save ~100k over the next three years for home down payment in joint account thing. Goldman Sachs always has a higher interest rate but if you're iffy on Ally, I'd have to assume they're a straight no go.
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Jul 15, 2018 21:37
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nwin posted:Why are you hesitant to work with a credit card company which offers an FDIC backed savings account?  Let's fast forward and skip straight to the nazi comparison. Bank A is run by Hitler himself, and uses your deposits to fund the extermination of the jews by building gas chambers. He offers 1.75% APR and is FDIC backed Bank B is run by fluffy unicorns, and uses your deposits to fund healthcare and university for underprivileged orphans. They offer 1.75% APR and are FDIC backed Ally and Citi sit somewhere along this axis between A and B, it doesn't really matter to the balance in my bank account where I pick, but since I have a choice, I'm going to feel moderately better about choosing the option closer to B, even if it is imperceptibly small. Thanks for the advice, will sign up with Ally
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Jul 16, 2018 02:25
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I got real bad news about Ally’s origins mate
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Jul 16, 2018 02:50
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