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The "let's share our budgets" thread in the OP is archived, so I'm asking here: what all software do y'all use to track your budgets? 'Cause the spreadsheet I set up is getting kind of unwieldy and I don't know that it's making reasonable assumptions.
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Apr 6, 2019 05:38
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 12:18 |
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As a general rule, sell any stock you have in the company you work for, unless you like gambling. You're already heavily-invested in the welfare of the company, through dint of them employing you; no sense in stacking that risk even higher by also being literally invested in them.
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Apr 16, 2019 16:22
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There are stock options, which are the option to buy the stock at a particular price. These can be worthless if the stock value decreases. Then there's stock grants, where they just up and give you the stock directly. Either way, as an employee of the company you have very limited means (as described in the agreement your wife signed) to sell those stocks without falling afoul of insider trading regulations. You may be able to set up autosale, so that they automatically get exercised when they vest; otherwise, there may be a trading window during which you're allowed to exercise them. Read the agreement, and/or ask HR/Payroll.
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Apr 16, 2019 21:27
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How much of a difference does the backdoor Roth thing make, anyway? Is this "reduce your tax burden by the amount you backdoor"? I've yet to read an explanation of backdoor Roth that I understood, let alone see a sequence of steps to perform it that made sense to me.
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Apr 17, 2019 18:55
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Hoodwinker posted:It's the difference between having money an an IRA and not having money in an IRA - so whatever the tax differences are between a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account. Thanks for the explanation, both you and spwrozek. If I understand correctly, the difference is basically that a trad IRA can take As you may have guessed, I've only recently started dealing with IRAs. I have a healthy 401(k) account, but up until recently my money beyond that was going into expenses or sitting in an index fund.
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Apr 17, 2019 20:15
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My understanding is that if you have a specific plan that you're allocating money towards that you expect to withdraw in less than 10 years, then you should aim towards wealth preservation. That basically means investing in things whose value doesn't change rapidly, like government bonds (in a stable government). If it's more than ten years out, or you don't have a specific plan, then just invest in the market, via an index fund that has a low expense ratio.
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Jun 2, 2019 18:22
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Simpsons Reference posted:I'm currently living in the Boston area, renting a room for cheap, and expenses low enough to save about 70% of my take-home pay. I'm toying with the idea of buying a home or condo and renting out one (or more) of the rooms to help pay the mortgage. But now that the standard deduction is high enough that I wouldn't itemize, is there a point? I don't hate where I live or having roommates, it's mostly financial. Would it be smarter to just keep the lower expenses and invest, or take the plunge? I can always use that money to buy in the future. This is one of those areas where a lot of people have personal value systems that make giving advice tricky. Is this purely a financial decision, or do you want to own a home? There's a lot of work involved in home maintenance (and buying a "move-in-ready" home just means that it'll take a little longer before you realize what's wrong with the place; every home needs maintenance). Do you want to be a landlord? If you care solely about the financial aspects of things then I'd recommend sticking to an investment that doesn't demand as much personal time.
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Jun 10, 2019 16:34
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The rule of thumb I've heard is to take your salary and double it to get roughly the cost to your employer of employing you -- counting the fees they pay, the benefits they provide, etc. I'm sure that rule of thumb gets pretty inaccurate, but it hammers home the point that employers have to spend a lot of money on their employees beyond just what those employees get paid. At $140/hour, with four weeks' vacation per year, you'd have a yearly revenue of $270k, which the rule of thumb reduces to an equivalent salary of $135k. Now keep in mind that as a company of one employee you'll be responsible for handling all the paperwork yourself...fortunately it's easier and easier to contract that out these days, but it's still a cost to you. And you can't guarantee that you'll be fully employed for the entire year; job security is not a thing for contractors. You want some buffer to not be in feast-or-famine mode.
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Jul 9, 2019 04:46
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The California real estate market is hosed. With your current income levels I don't see you being able to afford anything anywhere near a major population center in the state, unfortunately. Not unless something happens to drive prices down, like a massive increase in housing stock, or some kind of statewide catastrophe. That said, a research scientist ought to be able to find reasonably well-paying industry positions, depending on your specialty. In particular there's lots of life sciences companies that need people with wetlab experience.
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Jul 13, 2019 04:45
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Medullah posted:My friend just had a kid, and wants to start saving money for him for life milestones. Right now he's putting it in a basic savings account. He wants to maintain control of the money, so he can withdraw money for things like a car and college. I expect he won't be touching it for 10 years, but will be depositing twice a month when he gets paid. What's the best option for him? I thought at least an online bank with higher yield interest rates. If he won't be touching it for ten or more years, then an index fund would be my choice.
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Jul 15, 2019 19:31
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I would pay off student loan #3, on the basis of its interest rate. Possibly #s 4 and 5 as well. Housing-wise I think the conventional wisdom is you should put 20% down to get a good rate, with any more than that not making much difference. But you can (and should) talk with a loan agent or two to see what your options are. What are your options for index funds? Can you get your money into Vanguard? Generally speaking if you have money that you have no immediate (next ~5 years) plans for, sticking it into an index fund with a low expense ratio is a good idea. The expense ratio is how much of your investment goes to paying the fund manager to manage the fund, and ideally it's something like .2% or lower.
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Sep 7, 2019 04:57
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I'm trying to work out some naive budget projections. If I have, say, $300k in index funds (assuming making 4% over inflation each year) and am making (fixed) mortgage payments of $2000/month for the next 10 years, would the correct math formula to determine where I'd stand after the mortgage is paid off be: 300000 * 1.04^8 - 2000 * 10 * 12 ? Assuming that's correct, then is there anything particularly wrong with thinking about things in those terms, beyond of course that the actual market returns on an index fund are not going to be that stable and might not be that high?
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Oct 1, 2019 04:22
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Droo posted:This would only be correct if you got to make all your mortgage payments at the very end (and I'm not sure why you have ^8 instead of ^10). You need to do something in Excel like Right, thank you. And the errant ^8 is because the actual remaining term is 8 years and I simplified the question and then failed to fully update the formula. 
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Oct 1, 2019 05:00
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As I understand it, owing big taxes to the IRS come tax day is only a problem a) if you already spent that money, and b) because they'll levy a fee if your tax owed is too much greater than your estimated taxes paid during the year. But the fee is generally not that big (IIRC it's roughly what you'd get if you stuck the money in a savings account). That said, you should I think be able to update your tax withholdings with either employer. All you need to do is bring your estimated taxes paid in line with your total income; it doesn't matter which employer the taxes come from. For simplicity's sake I'd have the extra withholdings on whichever employer you think you're more likely to stop working for first.
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Oct 1, 2019 17:35
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I am not a car expert, and you might consider asking in the AI general questions thread, but if the car isn't in danger of degrading (e.g. panels rusting out due to not being painted any more), then I don't see a big issue in putting off the repairs. You'll be out the costs of repairs regardless of when you sell the car. Plus, it's always possible that it'll get totaled before you get around to selling it anyway.
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Oct 1, 2019 21:46
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I'm considering cashing out some index funds to pay off my mortgage, basically as a way to reduce my risk if the market crashes (i.e. I'm expecting there to be a market crash between now and when my mortgage nominally pays off in ~9 years). As I understand it, in the worst case (no market crash until after the mortgage would be paid off anyway) I miss out on the difference between the interest rate on the mortgage and the rate of return the money would have generated in the market. In the best case (crash immediately after paying off the mortgage), I reduce my losses due to the market crash by not having to withdraw money to make mortgage payments while the market is in a slump. The realistic case is of course somewhere in the middle; I don't think it's reasonable to assume that we'll continue to be in a recovery for the full remaining duration of the mortgage. I'm well aware that this amounts to an attempt to time the market, and that the statistically best decision, all else being equal, is to keep the mortgage so long as its interest rate (3%) is less than the long-term average market rate of return. I'd feel personally more secure with the mortgage paid off, though. My question basically amounts to: my analysis above feels a bit simplistic, so what am I missing?
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Nov 12, 2019 05:18
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Motronic posted:I'm not really clear on what you're looking for here. I'm not expecting you to predict the market for me, just to mention factors I had neglected to consider, such as Sundae posted:Did you account for capital gains tax on your index funds? this. No I did not. That makes the mortgage payoff ~20% more expensive, which is enough that I doubt it's worth it. Thanks for the fact-check. EDIT: not 20% total, I'm an idiot. 20% of whatever the change in value of the investment is. That's still a nontrivial chunk of money, but not quite as dire as the me of yesterday thought. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 12, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 05:35
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So basically it's another mechanism for rich (and in this case, healthy) people to get richer.
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Nov 16, 2019 14:53
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I just got a letter today from Fidelity stating that they'd be taking over management of the Amazon 401(k) program from Vanguard. I haven't worked at Amazon for over a decade, so the account's just been sitting there. I'd rather keep the money at Vanguard for simplicity's sake; the letter (and the website) don't have any details AFAICT on what will happen to ex-employees' balances, but I'm confident that they'll be hoovering up everything they can so Fidelity can get those management fees for itself. I'll be trying to figure out exactly what will happen to the account if I take no action, but I don't suppose there's some way I can do an end run on the issue and just convert the entire account into a Vanguard target retirement balance or something? Without sacrificing the 401(k) tax benefits of course.
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Nov 18, 2019 23:51
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I'm currently un/self-employed. I'll look into the rollover though, thanks. And I'm not really worried about Fidelity as a bad option in itself. I just don't want to split my investments up willy-nilly across multiple different providers.
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Nov 19, 2019 00:44
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If they aren't FDIC insured then I see no problem with giving them the stinkeye and refusing to let them have access to your accounts. There's a lot of companies trying to make themselves sound like banks without having to put up with the regulations that banks have, because it's so much more profitable to operate that way, but it is substantially less safe for consumers.
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Apr 26, 2020 19:52
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I need to set up a business account for my new LLC. Neither my current credit union (Capital One) nor Ally, the one I normally see bandied about here, have business accounts. Any recommendations? The LLC is my one-man software development house, so I don't think I need a ton of functionality; as long as I can make transfers and payments I should be good to go.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:07
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Yeah, I know. I was happier with ING Direct but they got eaten and I haven't gotten around to changing yet. I'd prefer to be online if possible, especially during the plague times.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:22
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As long as you keep the balance paid off, the only real differences are the spending limit (which is going to be low for you since you have no credit) and the incentive reward plan. These are all gonna be pretty marginal (1-3% off specific purchases) but they may make a difference. E.g. if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon then their Visa card might make sense for you. Gasoline credit cards are uniformly lousy, from my observations; they give a pittance back and only on what you spend on gas at the associated frachise.
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Nov 5, 2020 15:46
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Spaced God posted:My job offers an opt-in 403(b), but my job is only guaranteed for a year due to budgeting and *gestures at everything.* I'm guessing I should jump on that even if there's a chance I won't be working with them after CY2021? At minimum, if the job offers matching on retirement contributions, you should maximize your match so long as it doesn't put you in other financial jeopardy (e.g. requiring you to take on credit card debt). It's free money.
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Dec 24, 2020 21:55
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Cryptocurrencies are stupidly volatile. Sure, sometimes they jump in value 500%. They also routinely fall in value by similar amounts. If you're putting money into a cryptocurrency, you should classify it as entertainment, not investment, because you're gambling.
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Jan 3, 2021 01:10
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Unrelated, but you're reminding me of how apparently the go-to way to link accounts between different banks is to use Plaid, which works as follows: 1. You tell Plaid your username and password for one of the banks 2. Plaid logs in on your behalf Seriously, what the gently caress. How did this become a standard?
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Jan 19, 2021 23:38
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Get index funds, invest in the market as a whole instead of one particular bit. You don't have the time and expertise needed to know when a given market segment is going to do well/poorly so your goal should be to just reap the average returns of the market. Take advantage of any tax-advantaged structures (401k, IRA) before buying into funds directly. Make sure whatever funds you do buy have low overhead (less than .3% at maximum). This is the money that goes to the people that maintain the fund, it's completely lost to you.
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Jan 28, 2021 20:00
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Any recommendations for a financial planner? I want to bounce my plans off of a professional, and they're in-depth and personal enough that I don't feel comfortable airing them here.
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Feb 9, 2021 19:16
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zharmad posted:https://www.letsmakeaplan.org/find-a-cfp-professional Thanks!
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Feb 9, 2021 19:55
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I'm pretty sure you can't double-dip on 401/3 plans like that. But you can combo the Roth, so you get 19500 pre-tax and 6000 post-tax per year.
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Feb 23, 2021 00:06
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Huh, I stand corrected. Sorry for not reading closely! And yeah, if you can afford it, there's very little reason not to put everything you can into those tax-advantaged funds.
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Feb 23, 2021 04:23
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Pay off the balance once a month. You don't start accruing interest until after that, so there's no extra cost, and it's less work on your part. Especially if you can set up automatic withdrawals from a bank account. I dimly recall that credit agencies want to see consistency, so they prefer on-time, predictable payments instead of a lot of small irregular ones.
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May 1, 2021 15:27
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I think one key thing that bears emphasizing there is that the billing cycle closes on the 19th of month A (e.g. April), and then your payment is due by the 16th of month A+1 (e.g. May). The person you chatted with didn't make that particularly clear, so it could be easy to read it as "I need to pay off the card 3 days before they tell me how much I owe". Honestly the best thing to do here is to set up automatic payments of whatever the statement balance is, pulling money from your bank account. This requires you to have a checking account that has enough in it to cover the credit card balance, but that's a good thing to have in general.
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May 1, 2021 19:53
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I've been living off of savings while working on my game. Generally this has involved me periodically selling off some of my index fund shares and transferring the money to my checking account, from which it is spent on food, healthcare, housing, etc. I don't have a savings account because rates have been so terrible for so long. Is this a reasonable approach, or am I missing some big source of risk or some optimization I could be doing?
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May 21, 2021 23:40
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H110Hawk posted:I would keep a considerable buffer of cash in excess of your usual selling to pay for necessities. This way if the market tanks you can skip selling for a quarter or two. Yeah, that makes sense, thanks!
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May 22, 2021 03:54
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DNK posted:Dying without consuming all of your HSA seems really unlikely, no matter how large / well-funded your HSA is. I guess it depends on how correctly insured you are throughout your life. It really depends on not just your circumstances, but also your attitude towards end-of-life. Do you want to be a "do every treatment possible" kind of person, where the doctors will shatter your sternum giving CPR after your fifth Code Blue of the night? Or you spend your last two years on chemotherapy drugs that make you feel terrible? Or even just so drugged out of your gourd that you aren't conscious enough to interact with those around you? Hopefully it doesn't come to anything like this, but there's an awful lot of really terrible ways to die. Think about how you want to die. Write it down (it's an "advance care directive"). Don't let other people make the decisions for you, because they'll probably choose something contrary to your wishes.
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Jul 1, 2021 21:10
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I need to pay a $3k invoice to a bank that's located in the UK. My bank in the USA doesn't do international transfers, and WeTransfer (which I've used before) has a limit of $2k per transaction. So first off, what other options do I have, and second, would there likely be any issues if I just made two separate payments to pay the invoice off? I tried to contact the organization that sent me the invoice, but they haven't answered.
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Aug 19, 2021 01:56
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H110Hawk posted:Only the organization can answer that. If you're commonly paying stuff like this, or will be in the future, I would try to find a bank which can accommodate you. It might be expensive though. This is paying for advertising for my game's launch, and it was of pretty debatable utility, so it's not something I expect to be happening frequently. Any suggestions for other ways I can do an international transfer that would allow paying for $3k in one shot?
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Aug 19, 2021 03:41
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 12:18 |
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My mother never took my dad's last name, and yet for decades would get mail addressed to her with his last name because everyone just assumed "the wife of Mr. X is Mrs. X". I expect that institutions are routinely accustomed to this kind of thing.
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Oct 5, 2021 19:34
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