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Josh Wow posted:student loan stuff I wouldn't pay them with savings. You can deduct student loan interest from your taxes, so even the 6.8% rate is decent. Credit card rates can change. If you had a very large savings stockpile, I'd maybe say differently, but IMO the risk isn't worth it. I think your current policy of throwing as much extra money as you have at the 6.8% loans is smart. After you finish with those, I'd beef your emergency fund up, and only then work on paying the low rates off. I mean, 2.48% is really cheap money (and as a student about to pick up some loans closer to your 6.8% ones, I'm jealous).
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Jan 27, 2010 14:38
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Bgwin posted:Looking for some general thoughts on my financial situation and help with choosing a new credit card. Look into PenFed. They have a very good cash rewards card (not their new travel rewards AmEx, just the normal Visa rewards. Also, with as much money as you make, and as little living expenses as you have (and with your savings), I'd really discourage you from taking a car loan. Save up and pay in cash. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Mar 2, 2010 |
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Mar 1, 2010 20:00
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illamint posted:My question is this: should I bother applying for a 0% APR card to balance transfer this debt, especially the Chase debt, to? You pay $22.50 on the Chase debt per month and $10.67 per month on the Schwab card. 5 months of interest is $165.85. Assuming you pay the cards off pretty quickly, lets round it off to $200. If you can find a 0% balance transfer deal, assuming a 3% fee (pretty standard), you'd pay ~$91 for the balance transfer. You'd save around $100 for doing a transfer. $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. What I'm trying to say here is, considering everything, I don't think it's worth it for you to open a new card, unless you get lucky and stumble on to a great card with a 0% offer, which doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to.
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Mar 2, 2010 21:29
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nbzl posted:I noticed that Vanguard has a $3000 minimum for most of its investments. Is this true for all brokerages? Vanguard STAR fund has a $1000 minimum.
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Jun 9, 2010 23:54
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Adahn the nameless posted:Is it worth getting the Amazon.com rewards card if I make a lot of purchases off there? I have no debt and pay my credit card off every month. I have it and enjoy it. 3 points per dollar at Amazon, 2 points per dollar at restaurants. 2500 points gets you a $25 gift card to Amazon. EDIT: 2500/3 is $833.33, meaning you have to spend $833 to get $25. My normal penfed card gets me 1%, or $8.33. So the card is effectively 3% cash back at Amazon (am I doing this math right?). If you think that's worth it, go for it. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jun 15, 2010 |
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Jun 15, 2010 18:33
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FISHMANPET posted:I'm well aware I've hosed this up, I'm just wondering if I have any recourse beyond just paying it off and never dealing with Dell Financial again. Recourse generally implies you were wronged.
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Jul 28, 2010 17:15
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Themagicmoogle posted:Quick question: I have a car that I currently owe about 9.7k on at 8.9% interest. The minimum payments are about 220 bucks a month, but I usually pay about 350. I have no other credit cards or anything else. I would like to buy a house in a couple years, and I was just wondering if I should save that extra money that I'm paying extra on the car, or should I sock it away for a bigger down payment? 9% interest is fairly high, I'd keep doing what you're doing.
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Jul 29, 2010 01:56
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Engineer Lenk posted:Yeah, Quicken can do all of this (calendar view, categories, present value), it will automatically download and categorize from bank and credit card info, and will remember categories if you change it on one purchase. It'll interface with TurboTax if you have your paycheck and other taxes set up correctly as well, I think. I like the budget comparison report, but there are a ton of other reports it can generate as well. I use and like Quicken, but no summary of it would be complete without at least mentioning that it's also the buggiest piece of software that I own.
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Aug 30, 2010 13:20
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Pillowpants posted:Since I'm not on my computer, I'll give you some info I can remember. You have to remember that you're not dealing with a proper sample of goons. Most people looking for a budget are unhappy with their financial situation in some way, so while I'm sure you have a decent amount of well-off customers, understand that you also will have more people with financial problems than the average. (Sorry about the tangent, I have been analyzing political polls for a class)
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Oct 23, 2010 21:54
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illamint posted:Parents are probably worse off than me, but between other family members I could probably come up with something. Certainly not for more than a month or twos worth of expenses, though, hence the concern. I think I'll do what Dead Pressed said and work towards having $1000 on hand, and then I'll go from there. I've got a 0% balance transfer offer from Citi that can let me consolidate my higher-interest cards into one, so I can take what I would've been paying on those and put it towards some savings. Make sure it doesn't have a balance transfer fee if you do choose to do that. Most do now.
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Aug 9, 2011 14:11
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Mexican Radio posted:salary: 90k/year Big banks are stupid. As stated before, you really have 2 options. If you like Chase, or need to stay with them, get a secured card. If you don't like Chase, join a credit union or smaller bank, and they'll be happy to give you a card.
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Sep 16, 2011 03:36
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Gustavington posted:I recently tried to open online savings and checking accounts at Ally bank, and was denied based on 'unfavorable credit history'. In response i looked for methods of increasing my credit score faster, and the most reasonable option seemed to be opening a credit card. However, despite applying for a secured credit card designed for rebuilding credit, I was denied once again. Are you sure it was a credit score problem? Usually with checking/savings accounts they don't pull a credit report, just chexsystems. Go to annualcreditreport.com and get a copy of your reports. See what's bad on there, and we'll be able to be more helpful.
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Sep 9, 2012 04:37
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Satellite, what if you stopped paying on your payday loans? I'm always in favor of people paying their debt if they can, but you can't. You will need to close down the account that you gave them access to, have your direct deposit go elsewhere and then they will threaten you with everything. They can't do anything immediately but you will need to save up the money to settle with them at some future date. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but didn't he say they were only $300ish each? That seems like something he'd be able to knock out in a couple of months, even with that crazy rent. If he decided to ride the bus for a while, that would save more money on gas, and it might be good motivation too.
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Jan 22, 2013 13:21
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FrozenVent posted:If I have a corporate credit card, does it have an impact on my credit score? Extremely unlikely, and if it does, someone probably screwed up.
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Apr 17, 2013 14:28
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Duckman2008 posted:I'm in the boat of looking for a better rate for savings/money market account. Any reason you wouldn't consider an online bank? I use ally (for all of my banking, actually), and it seems pretty decent. No one has good interest rates right now, but they're in the high .X%, rather than the low .0X% range.
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Jun 27, 2013 15:24
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Zeta Taskforce posted:But like I said, there is no law that says you don't owe the money, no law that says they can't collect on it, no law that says they can't sue you. I totally agree with the gist of your post, but I want to make one small correction to it, because I've heard you say this a couple of times. Once the 7 year statute expires, any lawsuits in progress or new lawsuits can and will be dismissed for being beyond the statute. All other collection activities can continue as usual though. Source: I was a credit card debt collector for 4 years.
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Oct 6, 2013 15:13
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Zeta Taskforce posted:Thanks! I learned something today. I didn't collect on super old accounts, so I don't really feel qualified to answer that. I think, in general, your advice has been good, I just wanted to correct that one small thing.
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Oct 8, 2013 01:51
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Popete posted:Is it cool to post my current financial plan in this thread for critique? Pretty sure, yeah. If it ends up being too complicated, we'll just ask you to make a thread. No harm starting here though.
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Nov 9, 2013 22:44
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Bisty Q. posted:Just use Schwab. I'd put ally right up there with it. No fees, they refund ATM fees, interest checking (slightly higher than Schwab, but still very low .4% apr) and savings. Good smartphone app, and a very decent customer service department. I've been very happy there.
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Nov 15, 2013 00:14
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Hughmoris posted:Is there anything wrong with opening multiple savings account with the same bank? I have navy federal with a checking and saving account. I want to open another savings account so I have one for emergency funds and one for misc such as trips and big purchases etc. Go right ahead. The only reason not to is if there is some sort of fee charged by the bank/credit union.
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Dec 3, 2013 13:54
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Dik Hz posted:The difference between the two plans' premiums is ~$2k/year. There is literally no way the non-HSA plan would ever come out ahead, even ignoring all the fabulous tax advantages of the HSA. The only way I could see it is if the PPO has a $1500 FAMILY deductible, and the HSA has a $2500 INDIVIDUAL deductible.
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Dec 8, 2013 15:43
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Maybe this is better suited to the student loan thread, but I'm going to try here first. I'm 27. I just graduated and got a good job. I want help on prioritizing what I'm paying off. The Good: I have $1500-$2000 extra a month to put towards debt payoff/savings, after 401k, health ins, and living costs. I worked for a while before going to school, so I have ~$30k in retirement funds. I have fairly low living expenses, and good job stability/potential for advancement (tuyop proves no job is perfectly stable of course, but I'm in a small midsized company who is hiring in my area, and our revenue is growing 20%/year, selling a product to huge companies/government, and I have good initial performance reviews). The Bad: I have ~$35k in (government) student loans at 6.8%, and an additional ~$7k on credit cards at 9.99% and 11.49% (long story, but because I worked before going to school, I was eligible for less aid than expected, so ran through my savings more quickly. The $7k is mostly not stupid crap, but that doesn't make me feel any better about having credit card debt). The Question: I have about $2k of uncapitalized interest on the student loans, which capitalizes in February, when the payments start coming due. Would it be worth knocking out that $2k next month, despite it's lower interest rate, to stop it from capitalizing, or should I keep paying on the credit cards? More speculatively, people mentioning that the government 401(k) limit is so much higher for matching than for employee compensation has got me thinking, has anyone ever negotiated a raise all or mostly as increased 401(k) matching? I'm pretty interested in FI, and I make enough to easily cover my expenses. Doesn't the company get to contribute pre-tax money as well? Seems like a win-win.
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Dec 15, 2013 15:34
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Dik Hz posted:Why does it matter if your interest gets capitalized? That's a good question. I guess I read somewhere that it's a good idea to pay it, but I can't say I could tell you why. Dik Hz posted:If your company uses an untested 401(k) match structure, they cannot modify it for anyone. I don't know what this means. I tried googling "untested 401(k) match structure" and that didn't help. Would you mind explaining?
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Dec 15, 2013 21:53
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Bisty Q. posted:Google "Safe Harbor 401(k)" and you'll get the details; basically most companies that match don't match out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because that way they can offer benefits to everyone without having to deal with the consequences that would arise in a non-safe-harbor plan if the people at the top got more benefit than the people at the bottom. Thanks! That was very informative.
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Dec 16, 2013 16:19
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Splendiferous posted:I have a unique credit score situation that I'd like some advice on. File this under: not a problem. Recency matters a ton, so he won't have to wait 7 years. By the time he saves for a down payment (even with a $250k salary), the loans will be old enough that it won't be a problem.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:49
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Mint questions: I switched main checking accounts a few months back. Is there a way in Mint to hide an old account without hiding the old transactions in the trends window? Also, the account has a phantom $100 in it. I can live with that, but I'd like to fix it if I can.
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Dec 31, 2013 16:55
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Harry posted:Under account options there's a closed option. Awesome, thanks! Not sure how I missed it.
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Jan 1, 2014 17:56
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SiGmA_X posted:DarkJC - I have a question about your post. When you say "balance in full" do you mean "statement balance" or entire balance on account? I'm not about to learn on my Chase rewards card (holy hell 22.24% IIRC!!) and I pay it off in full multiple times a month, but I'm curious. I haven't read the fine print regarding interest, as I intended to pay it off multiple times a month when I signed up. Yeah, a lot of people over-complicate this (not necessarily you, I understand there are other reasons to pay multiple times a month, whether that be to spend over the credit limit, or for budgetary reasons, or whatever). Basically, when you get your new statement, pay the statement due balance by the statement due date, and you will never have problems. (and just to get another frequently asked question out of the way..) The balance at the time of the statement will be reported to the credit bureau. As of the last few years, cards will also frequently report the last payment, so spending up to your limit and paying it off every month is much less of a concern than it used to be (YMMV, computers are stupid, etc). FizFashizzle posted:Last week I finally set up a roth IRA with Vanguard. I nearly had a panic attack when I put the money into a growth fund. I'd very seriously consider investing in the appropriate target retirement account, setting up an automatic transfer, then never looking at the vanguard website ever again (well, once a year for tax forms). Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 17:22
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I have a smallish amount of money (not sure of the exact balance, but more than $5.5k, less than $11k) in a regular, non-tax advantaged account that was a gift. I'd like to add that to my own IRA accounts at vanguard before April, so I can roll it all over at once, since it's definitely more than 1 year's contribution max. I have both a Roth IRA and a rollover IRA already established there. Since this money has already been taxed, I could roll it directly into a Roth, correct? Would I want to do that? If I understand correctly, rolling it in to a traditional IRA would allow me to deduct that income, correct? Lastly, as an option I just thought of now, I have scarily close to $40k in government student loans, mostly at 6.8%. I think I can pay them off in 3 years without this money, and it seems like a bad idea to pay off loans with retirement money, even if that money isn't actually in a retirement account. I suppose the decision is pretty highly dependent on my situation, so I'll summarize. I have been at my first decently paying job for ~6 months, with good prospects for future employment/raises (not included in my payoff calculations). My understanding of Roth vs traditional is that if I put it in a traditional account, I could deduct that income. However, my 2013 taxable income was already very low (~$7k), because of only working part of the year, combined with student expenses/tax credits, and other deductions/credits. I'm not crazy ballin', but my taxable income will be much higher in 2014, and likely higher again in 2015. I was not able to save/invest much while I was in school, but now I intend to save at least $20k a year, after taxes. MMM-style early retirement is very attractive to me, so I might need some way of accessing retirement funds in 15 years or so, when I will be well under 65. TL;DR: I guess typing this out has mostly worked out what to do, so I'm primarily asking to verify my assumptions (If I can invest this money, tax/penalty free in a Roth, or IRA would lower my taxable income). Unless someone has a reason this is a terrible idea, I'll probably put $5.5k in a Roth now for the 2013 contribution, then the remainder to either student loans, or Roth (or maybe a traditional to lower my 2014 taxes, but I have a 401k, so this seems redundant).
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Feb 10, 2014 13:57
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This might be better for the tax thread or the long term investment thread, but I'm not sure which, so I'll start here. I'd like to open an IRA for a family member (not a spouse/child), and provide the money to get to the minimum amount for the funds ($1500). I understand that I can gift someone that money without tax implications. But I'd like this to count as an IRA contribution for them, and not me. For simplicity, I'd like to not be on the account at all, but that isn't super important. If I call up Vanguard or whoever with the person's info/SSN, is this something that can be done, or am I going to have to get them more involved? Somewhat related: I've been told my job keeps track of my 401(k) contributions and will stop taking money if it will cause me to go over the yearly max. Are they just keeping track of my contributions directly, or is there somewhere I could look up my contributed amount for the year? How does that work in the (admittedly rare) situation where someone works 2 jobs with 401(k)s (or less rare, contributes to 2 IRAs with 2 different brokerages)? My guess is that you just keep track of it, but I'm curious if there's a way for your brokerage to know. Before anyone asks, I'm aware there are tax implications for over contributions, and I'm not planning on doing it, just curious.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:02
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baquerd posted:First, they need to have earned income, or their spouse does if the file jointly. I don't think you're going to have much luck putting the money in on their behalf - you'll want to give the money to them and have them invest it. It's certainly the most hassle-free way of doing this. Is there some reason you don't want to just do that? It's a gift, just hoping to keep it a surprise. Oh well, not a big deal. Thanks for the advice!
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Feb 13, 2014 01:13
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I posted about this last tax time, and never did anything with it for no good reason, so I'm back with one more question. Firstly, a quick recap.Grumpwagon posted:I have a smallish amount of money (not sure of the exact balance, but more than $5.5k, less than $11k) in a regular, non-tax advantaged account that was a gift. I'd like to add that to my own IRA accounts at vanguard before April, so I can roll it all over at once, since it's definitely more than 1 year's contribution max. I have both a Roth IRA and a rollover IRA already established there. Obviously, the ship has sailed on moving it all in one go, but I'd like to move at least a chunk of it. I don't know anything about investment taxes, so this is probably a stupid question. If I were to do this (sell $5.5k from this non-tax advantaged account, contribute it to my vanguard Roth), would I have to pay any capital gains taxes or anything like that? I vaguely recall there is a capital gains exemption to some amount of money far more than I have, but quick googling isn't turning that up. I'd like to move it to vanguard from where it is now (non-vanguard), but if it matters, the fund it is in now isn't too bad. I could probably just call the current place up and start an IRA with them if that would allow the funds to be moved without selling. Most of this money was contributed well over a year ago, but a small amount of it (~$1000?) was contributed this year. Thoughts? Am I overthinking this? Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Aug 24, 2014 |
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Aug 24, 2014 17:23
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Manic Mongoose posted:Hello there I need some advice to see how things are going and whether I should be changing it up. My main recurring expense is 16k left in student loans. up to 4 months ago I had it set as a minimum payment and then realized the interest just killed it. Now for the past months I've been contributing 1K a month towards paying it off and so far its been going well. I have 20k in savings and the loan payment never comes from my savings. I was wondering if I should use some of those savings to more aggressively pay off the loan. I'm fine as is just taking 1k from my pay every month but have just been anxious because it feels like my savings aren't even savings with this debt hanging over my head. Depends on the rate and your confidence in the stability of your job/appetite for risk, but I'd probably just leave it. Student loans are usually pretty low interest, and cash is worth having. If you wanted to pay a chunk off (~$10k?), you could do that, but I wouldn't want to nearly drain my savings to pay it completely off. Again, depends on the interest though.
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Aug 29, 2014 20:20
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Meta Ridley posted:After nearly 3 years of rebuilding my finances, tomorrow I will pay off my previously maxed out $8200 credit card, and for the first time in my life will have a positive net worth. I have repaired my credit from the low 500s to mid 660. If you truly have $1200 surplus income every month, why did it take 3 years to pay off $8200? Is that a new thing? If not, get a budget, track your expenses to figure out where that money is going. If it's a new thing, and sustainable, all of these problems will be easy to take care of. 1. Show up to your court date, you will probably get the case dismissed. If not, it's not the end of the world. There's a debt collection thread around somewhere, look there for some good advice. 2. Here's the car buying advice thread. Honda/Toyota make good cars in the 3-5k range, but everyone knows that, so you pay more for the name. Ask there for some alternate model suggestions (hint, look at DOHC Focuses). 3. Don't invest money from your credit card. Things can go wrong too easily. It sucks losing out on that credit, but you'll be able to invest more when you are actually investing your own money. If you absolutely must do this, it would be better to invest your surplus $1200/mo, and just pay a couple of minimum payments on your 0% card, then pay the card off later, but even that opens up a lot of possibilities for things to go wrong. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 12:23
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I should be able to pay it off within 12 months however before it goes to standard BT rates (like 21%).
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Cross posting from the budget thread: YNAB is on steam sale for $15 until 10pm PST today (1/31)
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Dec 31, 2014 14:24
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spinst posted:Does anyone use Ally for their checking account? I use Ally for checking and savings. They're great. Excellent customer service, (relatively) good interest savings, they refund all ATM fees. There's no way to deposit cash, so if that's a problem, you'll need a secondary bank, but they've been great for me. I used ING Direct before, and they were fine, but Ally has been better. Rick Rickshaw posted:Since lines of credit exist, I don't understand why emergency funds exist for people who have these magical lines of credit. I think some people hold too much cash for their emergency funds, but I don't think the right thing to do is to rely on credit completely for it. On top of the "the plumber doesn't take credit" type emergencies, I worked for a credit card processing company during the financial crisis. We lowered credit lines and closed cards en masse when poo poo started to go down. A high credit score was some insulation from that, but if we noticed people's balances jumping irregularly, we'd close regardless of score. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jan 12, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 00:49
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Devian666 posted:Cash is king applies when things get bad. An emergency fund which is actually a sum of money rather than credit is generally good for new comers to BFC. I look at the number of people who have no money to pay for their car breaking down or some other not that uncommon expense in the various threads, and you wouldn't want to get a cash advance off a credit card when you need money. Not sure why you're quoting me here, I agree with you, and that was the point I was making too. My only additional point was that I have seen people with $30k-$50k emergency funds, and that seems excessive to me.
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Jan 12, 2015 03:47
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Engineer Lenk posted:30k for 6 months of expenses isn't completely out of line for some areas and even $50k sounds a little low for a high-earning single-income family of 4+. Yeah. I'll grant you $30k. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong here, it's just hard to think about that as a pretty frugal renter with no kids in a fairly low to moderate cost of living area. Still, $50k seems like too much, without extenuating circumstances, but I guess it's pretty situational. I suppose it is a pretty personal choice. If that person with a $75k emergency fund feels better for having it, that's fine by me (and considering he/she is maxing tax advantaged accounts with money for a 75k emergency fund left over, they don't need my advice anyway). I just don't think we should advise people to have that much, unless they know they're high risk for job loss, or have a chronic illness, or whatever. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Jan 12, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 19:34
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james1844 posted:Ally is the old GMAC. They were pne of the companies that was on the verge of going under and needed to take TARP funds. I would be very, very careful about putting my money in that bank until you've reviewed their management structure and are satisfied that the people who caused the near-bankruptcy are no long there. This is of course a non-issue until you have $250k in assets in the bank, since deposits are insured. EDIT: I suppose you could make a moral case for not wanting to support a company that was ran into the ground, and I can support that.
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Jan 14, 2015 18:45
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Its not going to hurt to get your limit increased, but it definitely has large diminishing returns. I mean, if you have 1 card with a $1000 limit, getting that to $5000 will make a huge difference. If you have 5 cards with limits totaling $40000 and you end up with a $50000 limit, you're probably talking about a single digit score change, if at all. Even $20k to $25k is not that impactful.
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Jan 28, 2015 15:22
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