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At 6-7%, I would probably just pay down the loans. You're going to have the same question again in about a year, though - start saving for a house down payment if you want, maybe? Contribute more to your 401k if you have one? Otherwise start thinking about some place to invest outside of the tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
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Jun 27, 2010 15:37
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 14:47 |
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There's a 26-page thread about that stuff: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3258090 In short, Amway is just the least seedy of the seedy MLMs. Don't waste your time.
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Jun 30, 2010 04:22
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You can probably manage fine with high rent unless you lose your job, but it'll be at the cost of your ability to save up cash over time. Therefore my suggestion is still 1/3 unless you can keep it short term. Maybe a generous 1/3 considering the circs. How about roommates? It's a common solution to this problem. If the thought of new roommates in a new city really skeeves you out, plan to rent on your own for the first year while paying a poo poo load, then move in with someone you have met the next year.
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Jul 1, 2010 04:29
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Here is the best financial advice for you: pay off your wedding.
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Jul 4, 2010 16:35
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You owe $22500 at what rate, mostly 10%? That's quite expensive if so, and if you can't pay off the $2500 quick enough that the rate doesn't really matter you're not tackling the rest of it at a reasonable pace either. If you want to maximize your cash flow you should get rid of the debt instead of scratching your head about your credit score and taking on a mortgage payment. If you have 0% rates on that $20k for the rest of time, then never mind - but I doubt it.
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Jul 4, 2010 22:52
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Endor posted:But I love how asking a question about the smartest way to reduce our current debt gets replies like "hey, just reduce your debt". Nice try, but actually you asked how to maximize your credit score so you could take on more debt. Edit: plus real advice since this is the newbie thread. It sounds like your credit score is fine and dropping a card or two won't change it much. On the other hand, it sounds like you don't have enough sense not to spend money you don't have and are pretty deep in debt as a result. That's why taking on a mortgage before you pay off the cards seems like a bad idea to me - it will slow down your payback on the credit cards and reduce your cash flow. The house probably seems like a windfall, but it's not if you have to spend a bunch of money to make it livable. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jul 5, 2010 |
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Jul 5, 2010 18:42
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What are the rates on your cards, how are you paying for school, and when will you graduate? Here is the bankruptcy thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3169089
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Jul 12, 2010 16:16
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"Don't pay the credit cards," crazy, didn't even occur to me. If it's between bar hopping and paying the bills, pay the bills. Otherwise he's right. Dealing with the ding to your creditworthiness might be a hassle but it won't destroy your life. On the recurring topic of credit scores and "holy poo poo don't close your oldest card!" My score dropped perhaps 10 points when I closed my oldest card. Now, less than a year later, it is back up to ~800. I have two credit cards and a new mortgage (the mortgage has surely helped, of course). I have never made the slightest effort to tweak my score - I just maintained a credit card or two over the years and paid them off on time. Worrying about scores is over-rated unless you are near a threshold and about to take out a loan.
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Jul 12, 2010 19:53
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Pulling money out of those accounts is quite expensive in the short term (taxes and penalties) and the long term (lost growth). If you leave it alone, you will avoid the 10% penalty and you may well earn better than the 6.8% of the car loan. You don't need to do it to accomplish your goals as far as I can tell, so why even consider it? If your mother is seriously hunting employment, it's reasonable to think she might find some kind of work within a year, and that's a pretty short-term restriction on your income. I hope she has cut her expenses to the bone and is willing to sweep floors, and I hope you're not feeding her beanie baby habit or something.
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Jul 15, 2010 05:41
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Yeah, the retirement thread should be helpful. You can use 1-3 index funds with low expenses to create a very robust portfolio for any investment term. But considering your place in life I'm tempted to say your savings money should go into the superannuation or cash savings for now - you probably don't have cash accumulated beyond your short-term needs. Also make sure you are choosing something good for your superannuation, and put in enough to get the full co-contribution or whatever. Also note that I don't know much about Australia so I'm extrapolating here based on US stuff
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Jul 16, 2010 16:06
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My experience has been that stuff like cars and houses soaked up my cash before I needed to start worrying about a better place to park it than a savings account, so I haven't needed any medium or long term non-retirement investment vehicles yet. That kind of depends on individual circumstances though. Good luck!
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Jul 16, 2010 17:04
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It's easy enough to calculate it out and compare instead of trying to guess. There are online calculators galore. For such a small balance and short time, it probably won't make much difference. Edit: In case you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. This calculator is handy for this question: http://partners.leadfusion.com/tools/motleyfool/card03/tool.fcs   I entered $90 under "Introductory annual fee" to account for a 3% balance transfer fee. I assumed you could get a 10% interest rate. If you pay $500/mo it's not worth it. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jul 18, 2010 |
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Jul 18, 2010 20:39
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It's not going to grow in a year or so unless you take fantastic risks AND get really lucky. Shove it in a "high" interest online savings account and ignore it until you need it. ING Direct Orange Savings gets a lot of good press (haven't used it myself).
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Dec 21, 2010 05:56
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That's not practical when you're starting from scratch and adding $hundreds per month, and anyway the rates on 1-year CDs are pretty much par with the online savings accounts right now. It's a good thing to consider in general, just not real useful for this guy.
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Dec 22, 2010 01:27
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USAA is good, too, and reimburses up to $15/month in ATM fees. It's a bit feature-limited if you're not eligible for full membership (military or family), so you might not be able to use deposit-at-home and such.
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Dec 23, 2010 04:43
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Well what do you know - turns out my bank does those too. Rates seem to be just a little lower than the online savings accounts for a one-year term.
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Dec 24, 2010 02:56
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I would do it - did do something similar in fact, when I closed my oldest account last year. But I also don't believe in letting your credit score govern your life. I'm also pretty sure they look at your income when deciding on your credit limit. :)
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Jan 5, 2011 02:30
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"Twice a month" or "every two weeks"? The latter of course results in more money paid during the year because there are 12 months but 26 two-week periods in the calendar. The practical answer is that you should just pay once per month like normal, but pay extra ($500). The additional reduction in interest cost you'd get with a multi-payment scheme is tiny, and good luck getting the bank to go along with it anyway.
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Jan 5, 2011 16:13
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Well hey, if they'll play and you're on a two-week pay period then go for it, I can't see a downside.
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Jan 5, 2011 16:51
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Checking: at least enough for the mortgage payment Fast access savings: a bit more than one paycheck Online savings: 5 months' expenses More or less. I use my credit card for reimbursable business stuff so I usually have plenty of time to deal with it.
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Jan 7, 2011 02:22
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Safety Engineer posted:My worries with this dealership and my desire to walk away is due to them lying at every step of the way. Dealer is a slimeball and you should just walk away, unless you are 100% sure you're knowledgeable enough to cover all the angles. At the very minimum, get your loan directly from the bank, sell your old car to CarMax, and then only discuss the sales price with this dealer so he doesn't have 30 ways to gently caress with the numbers.
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Jan 8, 2011 18:00
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Assuming your loans are 6-7% like everybody else's, I too would suggest paying them off before you start a retirement account. However, because your employment future is up in the air, just hang on to that $6k in cash for now - unless you have a lot of other savings you're being coy about.
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Jan 17, 2011 01:56
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Yeah, what is the interest rate on that mortgage? Think carefully about what else you can do with the money before you use it to eliminate low interest tax-advantaged debt. For example, you should be thinking about a Roth IRA. The IRA contribution limit is $5k per year, and you can contribute for 2011 AND 2012 if you get on this before tax day. Uh, assuming you're in the US. I'm not sure what the options are elsewhere.
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Mar 28, 2012 14:59
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Yeah, Dave Ramsey speaks a lot of good common sense of the sort that isn't actually common. Don't pay any attention to his investment "advice" though. PUT YOU MONEYS IN A MUTUAL FUNDS THEY RETURN 15%. If you are starting some retirement savings (and you should be) go look at this other thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2892928 I like the Four Pillars book pretty well.
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Apr 4, 2012 14:20
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FISHMANPET posted:stop worrying about it and keep doing what I'm doing, and throw any extra cash (FSA payout, tax return) at the debt to make it quicker, and stop trying to juggle it around Good call if you ask me.
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Apr 4, 2012 15:28
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Zeta Taskforce posted:That’s one way to do it. The other way is to get a no annual fee card issued by your local credit union or community bank, and not turn every purchase into a strategic exercise to maximize whatever points they let you accumulate. This is what I do and I highly recommend it. I get some minor cash refunds automatically credited to my card at regular intervals, without counting points or paying fees or generally keeping track of bullshit. Regarding cash emergency funds - the other reason to have one is in case some poo poo hits the fan somewhere and your bank closes your line of credit. The size of it should be a balance between the size of your debt, your inescapable monthly expenses, and your life responsibilities. $1000 is just a number someone pulled out of the air - it probably works for a lot of typical situations, like it might cover a car repair or other random poo poo that could otherwise derail somebody pretty bad.
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Apr 10, 2012 15:50
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dnbrwn posted:a) I can't afford it without dipping into the LOC Then you can't afford to propose to this woman right now. Financially speaking (and disregarding a whole lot of other relevant stuff) a diamond ring is a pretty dumb thing to go into debt for. You could be using that money on family stuff: house, kid fund, whatever.
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Apr 10, 2012 15:52
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Now you're thinking. I guess I understand about the element of surprise but there's another side to it later on: "Surprise, honey, I spent all my money on a ring so now we can't buy a house!" You aren't going to have enough money (in my opinion) for a fancy ring until your debt is paid off and the money is saved up, which is gonna be more like three years than one. You brought it up here so we could give you a realistic picture of how it will affect your finances :)
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Apr 10, 2012 16:21
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AA is for Quitters posted:emergency fund $7k seems pretty reasonable to me. Also if that's what you're comfortable with that's what you should do. Seems like your biggest financial commitment is the $1100/mo rent which is a really big fraction of your income. How long is your lease term, and could you move somewhere cheap if poo poo hit the fan? Something to think about.
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Apr 11, 2012 00:54
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Yeah, you sound fine to me. $7k is fine. And your plan to start building the 401k later this year will round things out nicely. As far as eyes on the future, just be thinking vaguely about marriage/kids, house buying, etc. which would be greatly benefited by more cash savings beyond the 401k and $7k emergency account. I have a separate category for liquor :) E: the family/money thing is a little weird. Keep a clear line about what you are willing to do to help family and what you aren't, so that you don't get sucked into your family members' financial irresponsibility and debts. You're not making enough money to float anybody but yourself right now. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 03:33
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I move we rename the thread to "Stop freaking out about your credit score"
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Apr 17, 2012 06:07
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Yeah, all true, but really, just cancel it. You don't want it. I canceled my oldest card (big "no-no" in credit score land) just because I didn't like the bank, and I think my score went down 10 points for a few months. Whoo.
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Apr 19, 2012 06:35
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Fraternite posted:Either doing the work yourself or finding a manager who you can trust who can more actively manage your portfolio is worth the fee. Prove it.
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Oct 5, 2012 13:31
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Hey Brasky I think you're looking for TCC
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Oct 27, 2012 04:56
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Don't buy a house. You might save $9k in rent but you'll spend $9k in taxes and maintenance. Also, it's short-sighted to commit to a single location when you're still in college and planning to do career poo poo after. There are counterarguments to this of course, but I expect the majority of people in your situation would not do well to buy. Otherwise you need to get the money into a portfolio of your choice, for which check out the long-term investment thread. Cash, stocks, bonds in proportions that accomodate your taste for risk and how long you plan to leave the money alone. In your case you might want to think about the different tax implications of different types of investments as well.
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Nov 10, 2012 01:03
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Catsoup posted:I thought the appreciation value when the housing market went back up would balance things out. Hahaha, after the bubble that just happened people are still thinking this! (Nothing personal, it's not just you.) There are zero guarantees on this score, so you shouldn't count on it. It depends entirely on what happens with the housing market in your area, and what your own buying and selling timeframe turns out to be, and you can't predict either of those things with any reliability right now. Regarding financial advisers, I think there are still a lot out there who will sell you lovely funds just because they'll get a fat commission. Read up on index funds, fund fees, etc. and if somebody wants you to put your money in funds with a 5% load you should probably fire their rear end. slap me silly fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Nov 10, 2012 |
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Nov 10, 2012 04:48
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Catsoup posted:Unfortunately, this is a partial view of mine right now. I generally use the money to travel which amounts to $3-6k a year (going to Thailand, Malaysia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia this winter) and I figure that while I'm so young and not in a full-time position I should take advantage of the lack of responsibilities I have. Most other purchases though are based on a $9/hr job - I don't own a rolex, I don't care about fancy things, I shop at Walmart, etc. I'll probably throw the majority of this money - but not all - into a long term investment plan. Nothing unfortunate about it. This sounds like a really smart approach. Experiences are a great way to spend some of your money, especially when you are young; stuff, not so much.
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Nov 11, 2012 07:58
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Jello Bunny posted:my student loans totaling $35,000 make me feel faint every time I look at the statement. Pay them off and sleep like a baby.
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Nov 12, 2012 19:27
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If you're managing a portfolio of long term investments, you shouldn't be thinking about year-to-year performance of specific funds. You should only be planning the overall allocation of your dollars to types of assets. Pop over to the long term investment thread (read the thread title on your way in!) and check out the books recommended.
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Nov 13, 2012 18:02
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 14:47 |
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Sure. I figured he (like myself) wouldn't know a legitimate bond market indicator from a hair on his rear end, but that could be a completely unjustified assumption. On the other hand, this is the newbie thread and his post was full of emotional talk and devoid of valuations. Long term investment thread suggests some robust alternatives to moving money around in response to feelings.
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Nov 14, 2012 00:58
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