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Nam Taf posted:You have nowhere near enough. Rent alone costs more than AUD$120 a week here in Brisbane, worse if you're in Sydney or Melbourne. You then have to pay for your own food, etc. When I graduate university, I am pretty much on my own unless I enrol in further study. The supermarket job is primarily so I can afford transport to and from university and for my textbooks, but I'd like to have some savings for when I graduate. My family will in all likelihoods not allow me to remain at home unless I remain a full time student, so I'm trying to prepare just in case (as being inadequately prepared is better than not being prepared at all). froglet fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Mar 7, 2010 |
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Mar 7, 2010 10:09
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Chernori posted:Visa cheques count as cash advances and almost always have a higher associated interest rate. Also, you don't get any rewards or cash back for using them. You're right -- don't know how I even missed this. I have this card already (and don't have another with a 1600$ balance), it was for someone else, but it seems largely useless to transfer balances then.
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Mar 7, 2010 23:48
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Hurricane Jesus posted:You're right -- don't know how I even missed this. I have this card already (and don't have another with a 1600$ balance), it was for someone else, but it seems largely useless to transfer balances then. I missed that the first time I read through the contract myself. As for your card, make sure the annual fee is less than the interest you'd otherwise be paying on the balance you're carrying. It would make sense to switch to the Rebate Rewards card if you don't carry balances month-to-month.
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Mar 8, 2010 05:37
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Hi all. I'm curious about what I should do in my situation. I'm 24, and soon to be entering a PhD program. My career plans are such that I likely won't have anything a stable job with a good retirement plan until my mid-30s, but I'll also be retiring later than most. For the next ~5-ish years, I'll be making $30,600 in Boston. I currently have ~$10,500 in savings/checking, mostly because I was saving up to buy a car. I won't be needing that car anymore, since I decided to move to Boston. I have no investments, and my only debt is in my student loans. The student loans total $15,655, but most of this is in subsidized loans, so they will not gather interest while I'm back in school. The rest is ~$6,000 at a variable rate of 2.23%, which will gain interest, but do not need to be paid. I'm going to wait until after the move to do anything, but I feel like that's a bit too much money to just have sitting in savings. I'm not certain what my expenses will be after moving, either, but I know I can definitely cover them with my stipend, and hopefully I'll still be able to save a bit. What does it make the most sense to do? Should I pay down my student loans? Or, since I'm not paying much interest, should I open something like a Roth IRA (even though I couldn't make the max contribution)? I have no particular goals in mind for what I should be saving for... I might be looking at a car in six years, a down-payment on a house in nine years, and of course, retirement. Reading a few posts here in similar situations, I'm thinking that I definitely want to let the subsidized loans sit there, and I should put whatever I can manage into some kind of investment (Roth?) I don't know what to do about the unsubsidized loans... should I ignore them, because of the low rate, or pay them down?
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Mar 8, 2010 07:09
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You'll get differing opinions on this, but my feeling is that your first goal should always be to be debt free from loans (credit card and education). I assume your rent is being paid for by your program, or that you're living in a dorm? Just because you said you'll easily cover them with your $30,600, but you also can't live in Boston making that amount of money if you're actually paying rent. Wanting to save for retirement early on, especially in such a low tax bracket as you will be in, is a great thing to try to do. And you'll almost certainly beat the 2.23% interest rate on your loan by investing in the market right now. But I still feel as though the prudent thing to do is pay down those loans, starting with of course the one accruing interest. I got a $5000 loan my first year of graduate school that was 1% interest that didn't need to be paid until I finished, but I returned it two weeks later when I realized I could get by without it. I mean say you graduate in 5 years, and you want to rent your own place in Boston or, god forbid, by a house in that area. It's going to be much more difficult to do that once you figure in the extra hundreds of dollars you are going to be paying on those loans, and the money you would have in that Roth wouldn't be doing much good in that respect.
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Mar 8, 2010 14:42
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Chernori posted:I missed that the first time I read through the contract myself. I don't normally carry balances but one reason I originally got the card was that I might at some point have to. I'm a student, work part-time and receive support from my parents. I have another card at around 19.5% interest which I still have but don't use much -- I haven't carried in a balance in months but I have had to in the past and 25$ seems like a small price to pay for that interest rate. Of course, the dichotomy comes up -- if I carry a balance, I should keep the Emerald. If I carry a balance, I necessarily spent more and would have gotten more out of the Rebate Rewards card. With my limited credit card use, I wouldn't get much cash back. In my situation, I think I'd prefer to pay that (relatively small annual fee) in case I need to carry a balance.
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Mar 8, 2010 15:00
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Strict 9 posted:You'll get differing opinions on this, but my feeling is that your first goal should always be to be debt free from loans (credit card and education). I have a differing opinion on this one. First you see if you can actually live on 33k/year in Boston while paying rent, keeping your savings liquid as a 6-month emergency fund. If you can and you're still putting money aside, then you fund a Roth to the 5k/year limit. Your projected income will jump more than your debt in your first year out of school, if you're getting a PhD in something employable, so you just live like a grad student for another year and knock it all out then.
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Mar 8, 2010 20:55
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Hurricane Jesus posted:I don't normally carry balances but one reason I originally got the card was that I might at some point have to. I'm a student, work part-time and receive support from my parents. I have another card at around 19.5% interest which I still have but don't use much -- I haven't carried in a balance in months but I have had to in the past and 25$ seems like a small price to pay for that interest rate. It might be worth opening a line of credit, possibly a student line of credit. I've got a regular unsecured line of credit with TD at 6.5%. A friend of mine has a student line of credit for 4.5%. You could keep that as your "emergency credit": if you need to carry a balance, you could carry it with the line of credit, instead of the credit card. Remember that you'll need to carry a $250 charge for an entire year (the difference between 8% and 18% that would equal $25) to justify paying that annual fee. In general, relying on credit cards for a hypothetical carried balance is a bad idea. Having an emergency fund is best, but having other kinds of unsecured credit available would be preferable. Credit card companies are more than happy to adjust your rate or limit when it's least convenient.
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Mar 9, 2010 07:39
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Chernori posted:It might be worth opening a line of credit, possibly a student line of credit. I've got a regular unsecured line of credit with TD at 6.5%. A friend of mine has a student line of credit for 4.5%. You could keep that as your "emergency credit": if you need to carry a balance, you could carry it with the line of credit, instead of the credit card. This makes a lot of sense, and I guess it was unnecessary to consider the credit card as necessary. I've had my other credit card since April 2008 and have carried balances on it only two or three times (I've paid maybe 50$ in interest total since I've had that card). I mainly use my credit card to cover my phone bill (online payments) and online purchases, then pay it off in full. However, I see the annual fee as a tiny price to pay for the comparatively very low interest rate. I know that with my history of making payments in full and rarely making large purchases, I could just keep my original credit card with no fees and the interest rate wouldn't be a worry. There are very few emergencies I can think of that would require me to use credit cards (my parents still give me pretty major support -- I would probably break even without them, but now I can save -- and would help me out with anything major.) I own nothing that is likely to break down and cost into the thousands of dollars (the biggest thing I can think of is appliances, which I would ask my parents for help with). In a sense I suppose I see the credit card as freedom to make a potential purchase without waiting for the cash (basically any non-essential purchase over 500-600 dollars I would consider using the card for -- it would allow me to pay off the charge in two installments with minor interest.) Then again, I suppose that even at 19.5% I wouldn't even exceed the annual fee. I'm not really worried about changes in my limit or rate either. I understand what you're saying and your advice is good, but I think it's really only a question of saving that single 25$ or 2.08$ a month at this point, which I'm not really concerned with.
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Mar 9, 2010 17:48
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I am posting this for a newbie goon. Debts: ~100k balance in a student loan at 8.9% (No Credit Card, House, Car, or Loans) Budget: Paying ~1100/mo for the student loan, 800/mo for rent, 300/mo for food, 200 for bills, and the left over ~400/mo go to entertainment expenses, car repairs, or misc expenses. Goals: Want to lower the % interest on the student loan and start investing in a home. The student loan seems like a house payment, would anyone know how to re-finance this loan at a lower rate?
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Mar 11, 2010 06:24
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There's a student loan thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2250971 If your friend wants comments on his financial situation generally, we'd need more info: income, savings, investments, etc. If he is also saying things like "I want to start investing in a home" he probably hasn't thought too carefully about the finances yet.
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Mar 11, 2010 16:26
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I just got an email about getting hired at a new job! Lurked this board for a while, so I thought I'd contribute in this thread. Backstory: Graduated last May (B.S. in Psychology), worked at FedEx for six weeks over the summer, quit to move back to the town I went to college in, and my friend got me a job working in her store in September. Retail part-time, $7.50 an hour. Needless to say, I've been depending on my mom for support, but that's about to change big time. At my new job, I will be working full-time for $13/hr. That works out to be $520 a week or $2,080 a month, pre-taxes. In Tennessee, where I live, I can expect about 15.25% will be taken out for taxes (federal, social and medicare) if my paychecks from my previous job are any indication. This should leave me around 1760 a month for my expenses, which are: Rent, utilities included: 400 a month Car Insurance: 125ish a month Benefit Insurance at work: 35 a month Total: 560 What's left is 1200, approx. These will probably be additional expenses that I can count each month: Cell Phone: 70 a month (once I sign a new contract with AT&T) Food: 200 a month (estimated from groceries/eating out) Leaving me just over 900 a month to do whatever I want. I'm going to go ahead and put 150 for gas. So, $750 a month. What I want to do, naturally, is save it (after, of course, buying all the stuff I've wanted lately but couldn't afford-- 360, iPhone, new laptop). Having never had money, however, all I have is a checking/debit account that has more dust in it than dollars. My friend works at a bank and has offered to set me up with a nice savings account once I have $1000 to put away (this amount avoids a season fee or something). Other than that, should I be doing more? I'm not going to be Daddy Warbucks or anything, but I will have money that's not burning a hole in my pocket, and I know nothing of CDs or any of that stuff. Other details: No debt, no student loans, won't have time off to travel within a year or anything like that. No car note, and I have a backup for mine if it bites the dust. Any suggestions on what to do with these checks when they start coming in? edit: Just realized my taxes will be different since I was a dependent this past year under my Mom. But that shouldn't change everything too much... right? 
Soul Glo fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Mar 12, 2010 |
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Mar 12, 2010 03:14
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Soul Glo posted:So, $750 a month. What I want to do, naturally, is save it (after, of course, buying all the stuff I've wanted lately but couldn't afford-- 360, iPhone, new laptop). Having never had money, however, all I have is a checking/debit account that has more dust in it than dollars. Budget. I'd start putting $250-$300/month away into a Roth IRA. Charles Schwab will waive the minimums if you put it on auto-transfer; most other places will want $1k or $3k for startup. I'd budget about $100 per month for random crap. Any extra gets earmarked for random crap wants rather than needs, so the 360/iPhone/laptop will wait a while longer. $50 towards auto maintenance. You won't need $50 worth of car repairs, well, ever. But putting aside $50/month will make it so that that you don't have to scramble when your car needs new tires. The other $300 goes towards an emergency fund. You want to be able to support yourself for 6 months out of this eventually, so aim for something like $6000. If you put the e-fund somewhere like SmartyPig, it'll take some time to get funds out when you need them, but you'll earn a very competitive rate.
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Mar 12, 2010 03:41
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Engineer Lenk posted:Budget. I'd start putting $250-$300/month away into a Roth IRA. Charles Schwab will waive the minimums if you put it on auto-transfer; most other places will want $1k or $3k for startup. Sweet, I will run some of these things by my bank friend (he actually has a degree in finance, he's not just a teller or something) and see what he thinks about IRAs versus what he can do at his place. Also, 360/iPhone/laptop weren't meant to be immediate, I realize they're just wants and aren't necessary. I am picking up the iPhone ASAP though since it's only $100 since I'm not an AT&T customer yet. As soon as possible because A) I'm currently on my Mom's Verizon plan and would like to be as independent from her as possible, she's earned it, and B) I'm gonna want the internet in my pocket at my new job. 3-1130 pm, alone, with some nights being extremely dragging. The good thing about having this extra money is that I've never had it before so I don't exactly know how to go about blowing it every week. Plus I have a huge savings headstart due to my lack of debt, so I'm pretty pumped to have some cash building interest somewhere.
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Mar 12, 2010 03:50
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Strict 9 posted:I assume your rent is being paid for by your program, or that you're living in a dorm? Just because you said you'll easily cover them with your $30,600, but you also can't live in Boston making that amount of money if you're actually paying rent. Sure I can, but I won't be living alone. I'll be getting a two- or three-bedroom place. I won't have a ton of spending money, but it's definitely livable. It's harder to estimate non-rent expenditures, so I'm not sure what will be left over, but I'll have beer money at the least. Strict 9 posted:Wanting to save for retirement early on, especially in such a low tax bracket as you will be in, is a great thing to try to do. And you'll almost certainly beat the 2.23% interest rate on your loan by investing in the market right now. This doesn't really make logical sense to me, though... if I pay down the loans completely, then I wouldn't have money for the down payment on a house regardless. I'd think that if it's likely I could beat the interest rate on the loans, then it wouldn't be prudent to put money into the loans. So the bigger question is whether I should be looking at something more liquid than a Roth, so I can plan to immediately pay down the $10,000 of loans that are stuck at 6.5% after I graduate and they start gathering interest again. OTOH, my salary will also be a bit more livable at that point, and my payments are perfectly manageable at even my current salary (better than that stipend in Boston, though) so I'm looking at this from a long-term perspective. Engineer Lenk posted:I have a differing opinion on this one. First you see if you can actually live on 33k/year in Boston while paying rent, keeping your savings liquid as a 6-month emergency fund. If you can and you're still putting money aside, then you fund a Roth to the 5k/year limit. Your projected income will jump more than your debt in your first year out of school, if you're getting a PhD in something employable, so you just live like a grad student for another year and knock it all out then. This makes sense to me, though I'm not sure if I can knock out my loans in one year if I'm funding a Roth to the maximum I can handle (which certainly won't be 5K after the first year). I plan to do a post-doctoral fellowship after graduating, so I'll still be rather underpaid for a few more years. So yeah, let's say I have an extra $150/mo after expenses. Should I be saving that money for retirement or saving to pay off my loans? Should I dump a good portion of my savings into a Roth, then plan to use new savings towards my loans? (Again, I won't be gaining interest on 2/3 of the loans until after I graduate in ~6 years) And if I were to plan to use it on the loans, then what is the best way to invest it?
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Mar 12, 2010 16:25
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ne plus ultra posted:So yeah, let's say I have an extra $150/mo after expenses. Should I be saving that money for retirement or saving to pay off my loans? Should I dump a good portion of my savings into a Roth, then plan to use new savings towards my loans? (Again, I won't be gaining interest on 2/3 of the loans until after I graduate in ~6 years) And if I were to plan to use it on the loans, then what is the best way to invest it? I was in a somewhat-similar situation as a grad student. I don't have loans, but my partner does. We opted to fully fund Roth IRAs rather than pay down the loans - with the craziness of the market it's not currently better in dollar value, but since we can't catch up in the following years and had a really low tax bracket in school I think it'll even out in the long run.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:39
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I stupidly posted my own thread, not realizing that this was a simple questions thread. I'm going to cross-post here: First here's a quick snapshot of my current financial situation: code:I'm looking for some way to either consolidate or refinance that loan (or all of the high interest ones) Of course searching for things like "refinance school loan" in Google is prime search material for every ripoff company under the sun from what I've seen. Could anyone point me in the direction of way to lower those payments?
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Mar 15, 2010 21:08
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Not sure if this fits here, but it's kind of a small/dumb question that doesn't really deserve its own thread. We've been getting daily phone calls from a junk debt collector. I'm quite frankly sick of it, so I'm ready to send a certified letter requesting validation of the debt. Thing is, it's genuinely not ours. The debtor shares my husband's name, but the debt cannot possibly belong to him. I've spoken to a rep at the debt collector (the infamous NCO), who told me: 1. The debt is owed to the State of Maryland, for tuition. 2. Someone at our phone number has been making payments on this debt. He has never been to Maryland, nor gone to college, and there's definitely no one here making payments on this bogus debt. Given that this is the case, should I handle this any differently than I would if the debt were legitimately ours? Most of the advice online is geared towards people who actually owe the money, so I'm not sure how to proceed exactly. I want to put something in the letter requesting that they verify the identity of the debtor as well, but I don't know how to word it.
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Mar 15, 2010 22:08
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TortillaFactory posted:Not sure if this fits here, but it's kind of a small/dumb question that doesn't really deserve its own thread. Apparently NCO does this a lot? I had a "debt" with them from a power company I hadn't been a customer of for years. NCO/FIN99 collecting on behalf of the company on my credit report. Opened a dispute with the bureaus and oddly, they couldn't prove it. Keep an eye on your credit report, they will hit you there too.
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Mar 15, 2010 22:20
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What's a good accounting book for beginners? I've always been scared of math, numbers and money and I think this would be a good way to get into it.
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Mar 17, 2010 22:02
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Help me teach my sister begin her journey to max out her cards and make minimum payments for the rest of her life. She's about to get her first card to build credit history and is asking everyone for advice. Here's a tip that I don't understand: it's better to pay off your balance in payments rather than in one lump sum. Just to make it clear, we're not talking about carrying over a balance month to month and racking on interest because "you have to show card activity." He/she is saying to charge $400 and pay it off by spreading out four payments of $100 rather than one lump sum of $400 on the due date. Zuh?
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Mar 25, 2010 01:55
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Complete nonsense. Pay it off completely once a month, and enjoy getting a great credit rating and never paying interest.
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Mar 25, 2010 02:00
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I tried to figure out a situation that would make that advice make sense and I couldn't come up with anything that wasn't ridiculously convoluted. I think they might have gotten the idea of credit utilization ratio mixed up, like you HAVE to have a low ratio at all times or your credit score will go down. But no, that's silly, have her set it up to autopay every month and she'll be fine. If she is having her credit run for something specific (like renting an apartment), it might make sense to make payments sooner than every month just to keep the balance/credit ratio low when they check the credit, but that's only if her available credit is really low compared to what she spends per month.
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Mar 25, 2010 02:08
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Grumpwagon posted:$100 isn't nothing, obviously, but I'd concentrate on reigning in your spending first. If you want to do the balance transfer, make sure to consider any annual fees, and make sure it's a decent card. No sense getting an inquiry and a new account (and lowering your average age of accounts) unless it's a good card you'll use afterwards.
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Mar 25, 2010 19:53
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I can't think of one. Make sure you get it paid off if the rate rises to something ridiculous after the 7 months.
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Mar 25, 2010 20:05
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illamint posted:OK, so, I did happen upon a new card with a $4,000 credit line at 0% for 7 months on purchases and balance transfers (with the perfunctory 3% BT fee). My total balances are about $3,200 now; should I transfer them all to the new card? Would it matter if my utilization of one card is about 75% but across all three cards is about 33%? It stands to save me about $150 over the course of that 7 months if I pay it all off. I mean, it seems logical to do it, but is there any reason I'm missing not to? Are you sure you calculated that right? I make it more like $50 saved after accounting for the transfer fees. Not that that's a bad thing, but the other side of the coin is whatever that 0% card is going to turn into after 7 months.
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Mar 25, 2010 21:07
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slap me silly posted:Are you sure you calculated that right? I make it more like $50 saved after accounting for the transfer fees. Not that that's a bad thing, but the other side of the coin is whatever that 0% card is going to turn into after 7 months. Edit: I think my math's an undershoot actually because I got the compounding wrong, so I might even save more?
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Mar 26, 2010 00:27
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I'm just looking for some general advice about how to approach our financial future. Things aren't looking too grim, but we don't have any real plans either. I'm 23 and my parter is 24. I'll try to keep this short. Credit Cards Chase: $2600 limit, $2480.67 balance, 18.24% (mine) Capitol One: 1250 limit, $0 balance, 12.50% (mine) BECU Visa: $500 limit, $0 balance, 12.90% (partner's) As of 02/18/10 the capitol one card had a balance of $1159 and the BECU one had a balance of $478 Other Debt $5000 owed to my parents Our budget looks something like this: Income:$2500 Rent:$865 Utilities:$155 Credit card:$55 Pets:$120 Auto Repairs/Gas:$100 Auto Insurance:$200 Phone:$100 Grocery:$350 Netflix/WOW:$41 Personal:$200 ($100 each) Weed:$300 Current Savings: $25.67 $2500 is an absolute lowball for how much we make in a month. This is the first month working off of this budget but the plan is to put every extra cent into our debt. I'm also up for a promotion which would raise my hourly rate from $13.00 to somewhere around $20. If this happens our plan is to stick to the same budget and pay off debts even faster. For the future we both want to go back to school sometime next year. I got my associates without having to take out a single loan and I'd like to do this with the rest of our schooling. Our biggest goal is to buy a house as soon as possible. There are a few purchases of around $600-$700 we'd like to make in the short term as well. Right now both of our credit scores are around 650. Looking at our credit reports there's nothing negative on them so I assume it's lack of credit history. We really want to get these to be around 750. We both have 401ks that we are not contributing to. Our employer will match our contributions up to 5% of our income if we start. To be honest though it's really hard to think about retirement when you're living paycheck to paycheck. Do you have any advice for reaching our goals as quickly as possible? I'd give more backstory but this is really long already.
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Mar 26, 2010 01:00
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Verism posted:Weed:$300
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Mar 26, 2010 01:19
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illamint posted:I've got about $1700 now on an 18.24% card, so that'd be 1700(1+.1824)^(7/12) at 7 months for about $172, right? Then 1500(1+.0824)^(7/12) for the other card for about $242 interest over 7 months versus $96 for the balance transfer. The new card's only 14% after 7 months anyways, so that's better than my Chase card anyways. You assumed you weren't paying down the principal... I usually use some online calculator for this, but if you want to do it the hard way just calculate the interest for each month, accounting for the previous month's payment. But if the new card doesn't turn evil after 7 months there really isn't any reason not to go for it. Verism - unless you have cancer, quit smoking up until you pay off your debt. Or weed comes out of the "Personal" category, but don't raise the amount.
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Mar 26, 2010 02:37
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moana posted:This is stupid. Now, I like smoking up as much as the next person, but if you can't secure your retirement because of it it has to go. This is a huge huge huge expense that is entirely a luxury, unless there's some sort of medical condition you didn't mention. Heh, yeah, when your "weed" category has a larger allotment than everything else except food and shelter...
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Mar 26, 2010 06:55
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I understand the weed is kind of ridiculous. Still, this is the first month we've even had a personal category. Before it was just weed and essentials. I've made cuts in other areas. We don't have cable or a phone plan. That $100 for phones is in the budget to see if we could afford to get some. Right now we pay $13. We haven't used heat or A/C in two years, I even have the breaker to the heaters flipped off. Honestly though, if I stopped smoking we could probably cut it down to $200. I'm just making excuses. The big problem is I'm entirely in charge of our finances and I don't really know what I'm doing. I mean can I keep that 401k if I leave my current employer? Can we buy a house on our current income or do we need better paying jobs first? Will paying off that last credit card help my credit score much or do I need to be doing a lot more? We have big things we want to do. I can get us out of debt just fine but I don't know what to do after that. Edit: There's no medical reason for the weed, by the way, we're just stoners.
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Mar 26, 2010 08:24
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Verism posted:Our biggest goal is to buy a house as soon as possible. You can't afford a house. When you're out of debt and have a 20% down payment saved up (ie ~$30,000+), then you can probably afford one. Your credit scores are fairly low as well: most banks are going to only offer you less-than-stellar interest rates. You'll want to get over the 750 line if possible to get the best rates. Your credit score will rise as you acquire history, but you also need to get your debt utilization ratio down. Two months ago, your debt utilization ratio was nearly 100%: you were using ~2500/2600 of your Chase card and 1159/1250 of your Cap One card, while your girlfriend was using 478/500. That's a big red flag for creditors. Your score has probably improved a bit since you've paid off two of those cards, but keep that in mind.
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Mar 26, 2010 11:07
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Verism posted:The big problem is I'm entirely in charge of our finances and I don't really know what I'm doing. I mean can I keep that 401k if I leave my current employer? Can we buy a house on our current income or do we need better paying jobs first? Will paying off that last credit card help my credit score much or do I need to be doing a lot more? You can usually roll the 401k over to your new job or to an individual retirement account, and that's free money you're leaving on the ground every time you don't get an employer match. It's like an instant 100% return on the first 5% you contribute. That's fantastic and you're wasting it right now. You won't be able to buy a house anytime in the near future if you can't even save 5% of your income for retirement. Your goal right now should be to get rid of that debt ASAP and start making contributions to your 401k (5% is not all that much). When that is done, save up an emergency fund and then get started on saving for the house downpayment. Don't worry about buying a house as soon as possible - the market will stay low for some time, and you shouldn't be tying yourself down to a place when you don't know whether you're going to stay with your current employer/go back to school in a different place/etc. And don't even think about your credit scores. If you focus on paying down that debt and then just keeping up responsible payments to everything, your score will go up automatically. Just don't close your first credit card. If you set a target for yourself, you'll find it much easier to get motivated to save. Like: - Pay off credit card debt - Put $100 each month into retirement fund - Save $4000 for emergencies - Save $20,000 for a down payment If you're really gung ho about it, you might even consider getting a second part time job. Not only will it help out with bills, it'll also give you less time to smoke.
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Mar 26, 2010 15:39
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Tell me if what I'm doing sounds reasonable: Income: $4,300 Bills: Rent: $640 Pick-up: $715.53 Cell Phone: $99.16 Cable: $161.86 Electricity: $100 (average for a month right now lower than this because I am working in the field and the heat, a/c and various power vampires are off/unplugged) Car Insurance: $125 Gas: $160 (one fill up per week at ~$40 per) Nelnet Loans: $186.53 Other Student Loan: $33.46 Jiujitsu Gym Membership: $85 Debts Nelnet A 1.48% (var) $2,273.42 Nelnet B 1.48% (var) $647.37 Nelnet C 1.48% (var) $1,445.69 Nelnet D 1.48% (var) $4,428.42 Nelnet E 1.48% (var) $4,293.56 AES 4.89% $4,500.31 Toyota 9.60% $14,449.46 (no credit card debt, have a visa with $2,500 limit but high interest because I hosed around on it in the past but now use it strictly for re-imbursible work expenses) Contributions to savings 401(k) $400 (maxes out 6% employer matching) Emergency Fund $800 ($400 per paycheck) Total outlay: $3,106.54 That leaves me with ~$1,195. I'm really working on getting my head around where all of that goes. I think I eat out too much (2-3 dinners per week, plus lunches at work). My dog eats up about $200 of that per month usually in food, grooming, doggie care and boarding when I'm out of town for a day or two.
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Mar 30, 2010 04:08
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mint.com is good to help you start tracking where that money is going to. How much do you have in your emergency fund already? It would be good to get going on paying down that car loan, that's a pretty high interest rate (not for car loans, but compared to your other stuff). I'm assuming "Pick-up" is your car payment? Paying more for a car than for rent sounds a bit crazy. Apart from that, yeah, figure out where you're spending $1k a month and see if you can push more of that over towards paying off your car loan.
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Mar 30, 2010 05:10
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moana posted:mint.com is good to help you start tracking where that money is going to. How much do you have in your emergency fund already? It would be good to get going on paying down that car loan, that's a pretty high interest rate (not for car loans, but compared to your other stuff). I'm assuming "Pick-up" is your car payment? Paying more for a car than for rent sounds a bit crazy. Apart from that, yeah, figure out where you're spending $1k a month and see if you can push more of that over towards paying off your car loan. The emergency fund was getting $600/month before I got a raise last month. It had crept up close to $7,000 when I hosed up my truck and it cost $5,000 to fix it (hey that's why we save!) so I'm back to replenishing the rainy day fund.  (At this point you may be asking, "but ch3cooh why didn't your insurance pick up the tab?" To which I would answer "when is comprehensive insurance not comprehensive? When it doesn't include collision!" In other news I'm on the hunt for a new insurance company!)
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Mar 30, 2010 06:42
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ch3cooh posted:Rent: $640 Holy poo poo. You pay way more for your car than for where you live.
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Mar 30, 2010 06:50
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What are your long-term goals? Unless you have a reason you absolutely need that truck (and I'm not a car person, so I wouldn't know), it seems silly to have because you're spending so much money to drive it that everything else is going to take a back seat for a long time. If that's what you want, then go right ahead. You make decent money (I'm assuming this is post-tax, if not, I figured out where the extra thousand a month is going!) but it's going to be hard to do anything else with such a financial monkey on your back. Glad you made it out safe, though. ch3cooh is my favorite carboxylic acid 
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Mar 30, 2010 16:57
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moana posted:What are your long-term goals? Unless you have a reason you absolutely need that truck (and I'm not a car person, so I wouldn't know), it seems silly to have because you're spending so much money to drive it that everything else is going to take a back seat for a long time. If that's what you want, then go right ahead. You make decent money (I'm assuming this is post-tax, if not, I figured out where the extra thousand a month is going!) but it's going to be hard to do anything else with such a financial monkey on your back. I'd like to save up for a house. Thankfully I live in Tulsa where $175k buys you a ton of house, so raising a down payment shouldn't take too long. This should become even easier when the truck comes off the books. I spend more on my truck than where I live because for the most part I spend more waking time in my pickup than I do in my apartment. Since Thanksgiving I have spent about 3 weeks total at home. Think of my apartment more as a climate controlled storage locker. The $4,300 is indeed ATAX. My company is pretty liberal with giving out RSU's as performance pay, my first one vests next summer and is enough for a down payment on a house (BTAX) but with the upcoming changes to capital gains and "unearned income" I need to be re-thinking those plans. Obviously short term I need to get the rainy day fund back together and then start thinking long term. e: Moana you're one of the first people to figure out what my user name is without me explaining it. It was a really scary ride. I was going westbound on the turnpike when this little bundle of joy:  decided he was no longer content sleeping in the passenger seat and wanted to sleep in my lap. In the ensuing confusion I drifted into the left shoulder and struck a rock about the size of a basketball knocking my left rear tire off the rim and damaging the axle. This sent me careening, I hopped the medium (caught some air) turned 180° went down into the ditch on the eastbound side and back up the other bank before coming to a halt. At which point my dog jumped on my lap and tried to lick my face. He's lucky he's god damned cute.  ch3cooh fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 30, 2010 |
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Mar 30, 2010 17:27
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