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lwoodio posted:Can anyone give some advice? How important is liquidity to you? I have about $10,000 as well I am probably going to be using in a year or two when buying a house, so I dont want to be too risky with it. I put it in VFIIX vanguard bond fund. I think the minimum time to hold without a penalty is 60 days. I am currently at about 4.5% APY mostly due to the dividends it has returned.
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Apr 11, 2010 17:35
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Grumpwagon posted:I have it and enjoy it. 3 points per dollar at Amazon, 2 points per dollar at restaurants. The majority of my purchases are either at restaurants or Amazon and I would recommend the Citi Forward card over the Amazon card. You get 5 points per dollar for restaurants or bookstores (yes Amazon counts). While can't redeem points 1:1 for cash, it is better than than 3%. You can also pick gift cards at 1:1 for major companies (e.g. Sony, Dell, etc.) making it truly 5% cashback. I just picked up a PS3 for 'free' using this card.
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Jun 21, 2010 03:17
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1) Only experience I had apartment shopping was I saw a couple places which said your gross monthly income must be at least 3.5x rent. Not sure how common this is/if you'll run into issues. I'm guessing your gross is like 50-55k/year so you're looking at about a $1100-1200 max. Obviously this takes up about the entire rest of your budget so I'd look cheaper than that. Because your mom's payment isn't debt your landlord don't know you plan on sending $1000 away, but in a pinch at least you'll have that money available. Bottom line you'll likely be able to spend more than you will want to. 2) As for your expenses... What is the story on the car loan, that is a huge payment. How long did you finance it for and is the car used or new? (I hope used with that interest rate). Do you ever go out to eat? Hang out with friends? Go to a bar/movie/etc? The only real entertainment expenses I see are Gamefly, WoW, game, and netflix... that looks pretty goonish... Also do you cook a lot or what are you doing to live on less than $200/month?
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Jul 15, 2010 01:26
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Good news is you make a decent enough amount, and aside from that rather poor vehicle decision live a fairly frugal life. If you have any savings, I'd spend all aside from a six month emergency fund to knock out as much of that 6.8% loan as I could. When it comes to finding an apartment what region do you live in and how big does it have to be? Can you make do with a studio or is a 1br a must? You don't sound too goonish, just having all of those expenses listed in that way conjured a different image. Since you don't really seem to know what you are spending on things go sign up on mint and start tracking/recording expenditures, it will help give you a clearer picture of your finances. Personally if I were you I'd find a cheap apartment that isn't in a dangerous part of town and is still reasonable commute to your office. Try and work on weening mom off your welfare (is dad around?). If you can manage a cheap apartment and stopping payments to your mother, you'll be in really good shape to eliminate debt, max out an IRA, increase 401k contributions, and build cash savings.
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Jul 15, 2010 03:11
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Ledneh posted:Thanks for the thoughts. No, dad's worse than useless (being a drunk ex-con Avoid pulling out of retirement funds. The penalties will probably make it more expensive than just paying 6.8%, and even if not if you somehow lose your job you will be totally screwed.
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Jul 16, 2010 20:53
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) so no support from that direction. I'm in Las Vegas, looking for a place preferably in the central-south part of town, in line with the airport. I thought about a studio, then toured one and realized I'd go up the loving wall if I had to live in one--1br1bath at least.
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FISHMANPET posted:Bunch of irresponsibility with Dell "I figured the bill would show up eventually or something I guess." Really? When it didn't show up you didn't think it would be worth investigating? Did you ever check your paper, or online account "Ideally I'd like this debt [sic] cancelled. Right now my balance is still $700. I'd be quite content to just call it even, but getting the hundreds of dollars I've given them after the initial $1500 would be nice also." When you signed up for the financing usually it says 0% for 12 months and some percent afterward (which usually is applied retroactively to the unpaid balance). When you didn't pay it off in time you started paying interest on this purchase. Because you've dragged this out so long you now owe far more than the original amount. So what is your interest rate on this loan? Do you have any cash to pay it off?
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Jul 27, 2010 02:54
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Purely my percentage it is hard. I would say the only reason that could be remotely considered is if you make dirt, and don't want to live in a crack-house. I've heard how terribly expensive DC rents are, so if you have some low paying internship it might be tenable. If however you make a decent salary and you just want a nicer place by yourself, I'd have to say you just don't have the income for it.
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Sep 2, 2010 02:30
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Ok, 2400 in income and 800 in expenses... What about the other 1600? You should be able to knock this off easily in under a year.
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Sep 17, 2010 01:38
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Because there are a lot of other cards out there that are better. With your score you should be able to qualify for Chase Freedom, Citi Forward, maybe Amex Blue. All of which have cash back and no fee. Call Capital One and say you want to cancel, when they ask why say the annual fee. I bet you they'll offer to refund/eliminate the fee if you keep the card.
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Sep 21, 2010 15:21
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As was mentioned the back-end that mint uses is Yodlee which is already used by banks themselves. Also I would make the argument getting updates on any unusual spending within a day of the charge makes you less susceptible to fraud as you could quickly identify any errant purchases and it will send you notifications on anything unusual.
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Sep 23, 2010 18:38
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Are you allowed to sell your stock right after the purchase? In general stock matches are great because they are a guaranteed rate of return. However as you mentioned having a large percentage of your portfolio in a single stock exposes you to more risk. When that one stock is also the company that employees you its even more risky (your employment outlook and company stock price are correlated). That said I too have a stock purchase plan (15% discount) and max it out at 10% of my salary. I believe my company has a strong value as a short-medium term purchase due to growth and plan on selling a bunch of it when I need a down-payment or other large expense.
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Sep 28, 2010 17:17
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Do exactly as you suggested, roll into into an IRA and be thankful you did in 30 years.
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Oct 4, 2010 20:35
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How long do you plan on living in your current place? With a refi you basically have a higher upfront cost for lower payments (or if you're getting a shorter term, less paid in interest). If you refi today but are moving out in a couple years probably best not to, however if you plan on being there a while it is probably the best bet (assuming you qualify).
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Oct 5, 2010 03:37
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Qaz Kwaz posted:Geez, $35k on a car... I think that's way too much for your situation. Emptying quoting is prohibited so: Geez, $35k on a car... I think that's way too much for your situation.
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Oct 10, 2010 21:28
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pauld posted:Really? At age 28 with $25k down, zero debt, $25k safety net, 401k and Roths maxed the last 4 years, and about $2000 to burn a month? I didn't think I was in that bad shape. Care to explain? It's not like I buy a BMW every 2 years. I bought a Subaru that I'll drive for 10 years, just like my last one. Just so we are on the same page, when you say 401k maxed you do mean to the federal limit right, not just the employer match? If so you should have just shy of $100k in the those accounts. If that is the case I'd reconsider my original assessment.
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Oct 12, 2010 00:33
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pauld, you never did answer my question and I still don't understand your full financial picture. In one post you said you were eliminating half your savings with a $25k down payment so roughly $50,000 in savings. But then you said you maxed out your Roth IRA and 401k for four years which if correct would be at least around $80,000 in those accounts (more or less depending on investment and market fluctuations). I'm guessing either you aren't counting your retirements in the savings number (which is probably a good way to look at things) or when you say 'maxed' you meant only to employer match. If you have saved that much in four years I'd say that's indicative of something with good sense for their money and go for the Subaru. If you have only saved up to the employer match you're still doing better the average person and would just caution against spending 35k on a new car. Also Zeta, this is a little smug: Zeta Taskforce posted:However, personally if I ever found myself in a very lucrative career (I do OK, but wouldn’t call what I do lucrative) there are tons of charities and causes that I would love to be able to support on a larger scale than I do now. My boyfriend’s best friend co-founded a school in rural Haiti and I would feel guilty spending an extra $15,000 a super-doper truck when I could still drive a pretty good truck and afford to buy breakfast for every single student for an entire year.
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Oct 20, 2010 01:36
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pauld posted:Sorry. That was hypocritical of me to complain about not being asked to elaborate on my situation when you already had. I guess that I didn't want to give up more information than necessary, as I didn't really plan to discuss all our finances here. So four years of fully funded 401k and IRA, and 50k on top of that with surplus income of 2000 a month after typical expenses? I retract my earlier statement and say you can absolutely afford the car. In addition to just having the assets, it just demonstrates your ability to save and budget. I understand your reservations with losing liquidity and think taking out a 10k loan that you pay off quickly with some of your monthly surplus if the rate is higher than a couple percent.
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Oct 20, 2010 05:04
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Pillowpants posted:I have 200+ goons information all averaged out in a spreadsheet from the budgets I make if you want to know how much the average is to spend on groceries or eating out or entertainment. I would be interested, bonus if you could break it down by income as that would be more meaningful (average spend for those earning 10-20k, 20-30k, etc).
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Oct 22, 2010 01:52
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Have you complained to HR about that? It totally blows me away the match is all in employer stock and even though you can move it, it can't be done automatically. Shame on your employer for that.
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Oct 24, 2010 15:39
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It's really hard to beat a 50% match, I'd do it even in those unfavorable terms. Do you know if you can move it around to different funds or anything once you receive it in cash?
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Oct 24, 2010 17:14
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I don't understand why anyone making a comfortable income doesn't just keep a small amount liquid in a checking account to handle any issues such as this? That said I travel extensively for business and Chase seems to be quite prevalent. They haven't done anything monumentally stupid with me yet that wasn't resolved by a phone call.
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Nov 2, 2010 03:05
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mindphlux posted:My question is, are there any tax beneficial savings/investing vessles for self-employed/sole prop people? Check out SEP IRAs.
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Nov 17, 2010 05:33
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You have $10. Three scenarios: Scenario A - $10 becomes $15, ($15-$10)/$10, $5/$10, 50% rate of return Scenario B - $10 becomes $10, ($10-$10)/$10, $0/$10, 0% rate of return Scenario C - $10 becomes $5, (15-$10)/$10, $-5/$10, -50% rate of return
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Nov 24, 2010 00:28
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In the most basic terms I can manage. Each asset has some level of risk, this ranges from US government treasure notes (nearly zero risk) to the extreme third world equities (stocks) and entrepreneurship investing. Risk is bad, return is good. If an investor can get the same return from two assets but one is riskier than another, the logical investor will choose the less risky. Because some assets are riskier than others, they provide greater return on average, in theory. Stocks are riskier than bonds because there is no promise to pay back a stock like there is a bond. There for in order to get investors to buy stock, the return needs to be greater than a bond. If a company is suddenly worth 1000 times more today than yesterday, the stock holders prosper tremendously while the bond holders don't get paid any more than they were yesterday. I hope I haven't lost you so far, but the key point is the greater the risk, the greater the return and vica-verca. So assuming you have a high tolerance for risk and won't panic and unload your stocks during a dip, why keep your portfolio entirely in stocks until you retire to get the greatest possible return? Because of the increase risk there is a much higher chance a large portion of your portfolio is wiped out towards the end like what happened over the past couple year in the market. However if you had 30 years to go before retirement, like you do starting out, you DO have time to wait for a rebound so it makes sense to be heavily invested in stocks as opposed to bonds. Why not do a lot of bonds when you are saving early for retirement? Due to the power of compounding interest you want the best possible return you can in the early years since the effect is compounded. See the example between 6% and 12% in Zeta's post. If you get bonds early on you are shooting yourself in the foot by taking too little risk and thus lowering your return. Hope that helps.
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Nov 24, 2010 04:22
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Exactly, you'll have a 'negative' balance. As in you owe us negative dollars. Believe you can get a check at some cost, or if you use it regularly they will apply to your next balance.
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Dec 17, 2010 21:04
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80k posted:Choosing between index funds and ETF's is about the least important decision you need to make. However, ETF's have several advantages over index funds: So if I am "buy and hold for 30 years type investor" does it make sense to convert my mutual fund to ETFs? I have enough for most of my funds to be admiral shares, but ETFs even beat admiral shares on expense ratio.
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Jan 25, 2011 22:24
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KarmaCandy posted:I am really bummed that Mint has stopped working for me as far as connecting to my Schwab accounts. That's my checking account, my regular investment account, and my Roth. Still good for recording what I'm spending on junk but it no longer sees my paycheck or my rent check. FYI - I've had intermittent issues with Mint over the past month as well, but most have worked themselves out. Those that didn't I just re-entered my information and all works now.
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Mar 6, 2011 20:16
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:This might be the wrong thread for this question, but do credit card companies actually verify how much you say you're making when you do applications for a card? Considering I have applied and basically been approved instantly it doesn't seem that way. Is this just an honor system thing? Yes, there is no way for them to verify this short of you sending them the documentation. Also as a side note, I have gotten three cards through Citi and each one has been 1/10 of the income I put on the application rounded to the nearest $500.
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Mar 18, 2011 22:30
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Chin Strap posted:Not quite sure where else to ask this: Has anyone else had trouble linking Citibank credit cards with Mint for the past month plus? I can't seem to get it to work. Two separate citibank cards, no issues here. Try going into Mint and re-entering your login info. This fixed an issue I had with a non Citibank account.
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Jun 1, 2011 17:51
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Koppite posted:I have about 200k in student loans. I also have own a condo, flat out, worth about 400-500k, which was given to me. The student loans are all over the palce with different lenders, etc. Is there any way to use the value of the condo in order to knock out the student loans, then just pay back the condo loan? Edit: Durrr reading comprehension, been reading too much about Bitcoin and it has rubbed off on me. Koppite - Look into a HELOC and see if the rate is better. If so take it out and pay down the student loans, if not then you don't really have a better option. alreadybeen fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jun 21, 2011 |
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Jun 21, 2011 23:08
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Ashcans posted:There are a lot of landlords who will say something like 'oh well the carpet was wrecked I'm keeping the deposit' but when they realize that you are serious about it will fork over rather than go to court and lose because they didn't follow the law. Last landlord was like  no deposit.Sent him the multiple sections of the RLTO he had violated, mentioned that legally he was due me money and damages actually - that ended the issue right there. It takes time and research to figure out your position, but it is worth it. If they really want more money up front (as a landlord its good to know your client is liquid) offer to pay security deposit and last months rent. Then you know you can at least record the second piece by not paying rent for your final month.
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Jun 29, 2011 20:59
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HornyBoy123 posted:I'm going to need money to move into an apartment very soon for a job offer I got and I'm wondering if there's a place I can get a short term loan within the next week that won't kill me with interest if I pay it off within the next 2 months...can anyone help me out here? Did you just graduate? How much money do you need and how much do you have? No friends or family can help out?
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Jul 6, 2011 16:43
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Bonus are withheld at a higher rate, so you will receive less money in your paycheck today. However at the end of the year when you are filing, it is still taxed just like all other compensation. No need for you to do anything different.
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Jul 15, 2011 01:35
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I've been on the fence about a car purchase. I never thought I'd buy new and it runs counter intuitive to every frugal bone in my body but now I am thinking about it. We need a second car so I can commute to work which is about 55 miles round trip. At first my gut feeling was to go with used 2005ish econobox with good MPG. Looking around cars that are around this year with 100k miles are going for about $9,000. If they include luxuries such as power windows/key remote usually a bit closer to $10k. After a day of disheartening used car searching we were at a Hyundai dealer and I got in a new Accent. MSRP is about $17,500 for the SE trim which has all of the decent options. The car costs about $8,000 more, but with the warranty it basically means I will only be paying for routine maintenance for the next five years (I figure this is worth $1000-$2000). Additionally it has slightly better gas mileage I guess due to improved technology. Obviously the higher cost is depreciation but with how little 2-3 years old Hyundais are selling for even this doesn't seem terrible. For something I'll be in ~250 miles a week, it would be nice to be much more comfortable. After taking into account reduced amount spent on maintenance and the fact that even if I bought a used car it would depreciate some, it looks like I'd be paying an extra ~$4000 for a vastly better experience. Am I crazy for thinking this might be the best option?
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Jun 4, 2012 06:31
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Thanks for all of the advice Remy. To clarify, I've been searching online for a while to get a feel for prices/what is out there and just recently started pounding the pavement. I totally agree another important function is time. If you can watch craigslist like a hawk, know what something is worth, and are ready to write a check that day, it can work out for you. However I work long days during the week and only want to devote so many weekends to shopping around so that will make the used purchase that much harder. Fraternite - First of all there are very few used 1-2 year old Hyundais. I checked and across five dealerships in a major metro area the total was 3 (I guess people love these cars?). One was at the dealership I stopped at. It was an Accent with 8k miles that was a service loaner but as LorneReams mentioned the discount was only about 7% from new. I think people have slowly figured out the 'like new' trick and realize just because a car has a few thousand miles doesn't make it worth a bunch less. Thanks for all of the advice. I realized today as I was on the way to work I don't want to regret buying some older, dirtier, less reliable car with no options because I was to cheap to spend the extra cash to get a car I will really enjoy over the next decade (hopefully!). Now I need to brush up on the new car buying process to make sure I get a decent deal. I've been looking at Edmunds and Truecar to get a feel for what I should be paying and get some minimal hassle quotes. To contribute to the other question - I've used CreditKarma for just over a year and it is a legitimate website.
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Jun 5, 2012 05:24
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