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Miss Fats posted:Income: I'm not a huge techie, so would you be kind enough to enlighten me why you need a $2800 laptop to do a $2500/mo job?
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May 8, 2010 17:14
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Brain Curry posted:So I just opened a new account at a credit union and found out my credit score is 803. We have a 1997 Nissan Altima that is going to die soon, and it may be in our best interest to replace it immediately. Does anyone have an idea of what kind of APR I'd be looking at for a car loan? My credit union's lowest was 3.5 and judging by how the woman at the CU talked to me about my score I'd be closer to that than the higher rates, but I know some dealerships run crazy low APRs to get people in the door. 3.5% is an amazing rate, and 803 is an amazing score. I’m a loan officer and I wish more of our borrowers had scores that high. The only question I have would be: Because 3.5% is such an amazing rate, are there things that you have to do in addition to get that rate, like have a checking account or direct deposit set up with them, or have your mortgage through them? The other thing, and this seems weird on the face of it, is don’t obsess about the rate (too much). People are sometimes surprised how little the rate affects the payment. For instance $15000 over 3 years at 3.5% is $439.53. The same loan at 4% is $442.86. That is 75 cents a week. That means if you don’t have the exact services with your credit union to qualify for their exact lowest rate, but you are getting something close to it, don’t think you have to rearrange your entire financial life to get it. Likewise, if you see some incentive financing through the dealer for lower, keep in mind that auto manufacturers can tell their financing arms to take a loss on the loan so the parent company can move more metal from their lots. Even if they gave you zero percent, it wouldn’t cut your payment that much. Because you are getting such a great rate, you will probably do better to negotiate a good price, see if they will give cash back in lieu of the incentive financing, and go through your credit union. A lot of BFC gets wet dreams over PennFed, but I believe there is something to be said with just dealing with your local credit union, keeping your money in the community, and knowing where and who to call if you have questions or have to modify something in the future.
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May 12, 2010 16:14
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Brain Curry posted:Thanks for the quick reply and advice. We owe more than twice what our house is worth, and our mortgage holders won't talk to us about modification until we're behind on our payments. Even though my name isn't on the loans, it is on the title so I'm bracing myself for a credit hit. I'd like to get ten years out of the car we buy, so I'm thinking this may be the time to do it. I have mixed thoughts about loan modifications. I’m all for them when a borrower has lost a job or had some other unforeseen change to their life status, and they need a modification to stay in their house. I’m for them when a borrower did something dumb and bit off way more than they could chew when housing was booming, and is now sinking. The situations that I’m against are when people got a loan with reasonable terms, they can afford the payment, they have no plans to move, and they just happened to buy at the wrong time, and owe more than what its worth. You know your situation more than anyone, no one can stop you if you are OK with it, you certainly don’t need my approval, but you should research any impacts to your credit, your tax situation, and anything else I’m not thinking of off the top of my head.
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May 12, 2010 18:57
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Brain Curry posted:Yeah we bought in 2006 with a no-income verification loan. We financed 80/20 with the 20% being a 15 year balloon. It was stupid, but we didn't lie about our income, and our income to debt ratio was just enough to barely squeak by. We weren't trying to flip our house or anything. We were hoping to be able to refinance to better terms when the house went up in value. We've managed to pay every month this far, but we had a renter and my wife was working two jobs, neither of which we have now. The house also needs a lot of work, and we don't have the money to do it even if we wanted to pour more money in to it. We've been struggling with not paying, but the house is now worth about 40% of what we owe in principal alone. The house across the street is renting for 1000$ less a month than what we pay, not including maintenance or repairs. We've sacrificed a lot to pay our debts, including thousands in back tuition that my wife got stuck with in her parents' divorce. My wife cashed in her 401K to buy this house, and we have no retirement savings. I just can't find the upside to continuing this situation when moving across the street would save us so much. We're not sure if we'll wind up being able to modify our loan or if we'll wind up with a short sale, but I can't see maintaining the status quo. Yeah, it sounds like you are really struggling. You probably couldn’t afford the house at the time, but like so many people bought into the idea that it might be a reach, but if you didn’t jump when you did, it would be an even bigger jump next year, in 2 years. Then they told you you could refinance, that things would get easier over time since your payment would be fixed but you and your wife would get raises, progress in your career, etc. Now you are stuck in the house, but you can’t sell, can’t refinance, you still can’t afford it, and you are looking at years of this. Most of the loan modifications out there reduce rates, I have not seen a lot of principal reduction modifications. That’s what you really need since you just owe too much money. You might be better off pursuing a short sale. You won't qualify for another mortgage so you will renting a cheap place for a while you rebuild your savings and credit. A warning though, you may be taxed as regular income on any debt that is forgiven.
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May 12, 2010 19:59
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Parsnip posted:I have a small credit card question... I hate Bank of America. If your credit is otherwise excellent and you will still have access to enough credit, then even though you will take a short, modest hit on your score, you will more than OK. You don’t need to be one of those people who keeps accounts around that they hate because of some fear about your credit score like accumulating FICO points is a hobby.
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May 12, 2010 20:04
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Nighthand posted:Small question, and I don't know if this is the right place to put it or not, but I'd rather not start a thread for a minor issue and haven't seen a better megathread to put it in. Stuff like that happens so often, unfortunately. A doctors office bills the insurance company, which doesn’t cover it for some unknown reason, doctors office doesn’t call you, insurance company doesn’t call you, they just sell it to a collection company, which does call you. First, verify the best you can if this is yours, and since it is fairly small, just pay it when you can, even if it’s 6 months from now. It does have an affect on your credit, and you may pay more for credit than you otherwise would, but we see so many of these at the credit union I work at that if everything else is solid, and there are not too many of these medical bills on there, we practically ignore them.
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May 17, 2010 16:31
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Piano posted:Is there a difference between a loan being "withdrawn" and denied? They likely did pull your credit when you applied. When ever your credit is pulled, one of two things must happen. The first is that it can result in a loan. If it doesn’t end up with you getting a loan for any reason, then the lender must inform you in writing as to why it did not. If it was declined, they must tell you why and what credit bureau they used to make that decision. You are then entitled to a free credit report from that bureau(s). If it was approved but you decided not to act on that preapproval, it can only remain active for 30 days, at which point they may withdraw the application. No where on your credit does it specify if a particular inquiry resulted in an application that was declined, withdrawn, or is still pending. If there is an inquiry and a new tradeline appears, then other lenders can put two and two together. If they do not see a new tradeline, there is no way they can tell exactly what happened. It’s not a big deal either way.
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May 28, 2010 19:29
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spatula posted:Does it help my credit score to get the credit limit on my cards increased, even if I'm not going to get close to maxing it out anyway? Maybe, probably. It depends. There are a number of reasons why your credit may be lower than it otherwise could. If you have lates and chargeoffs, then that is the limiting factor. Increasing your limits will have little effect. Likewise if your credit is brand new, in that case just waiting will help. Time is the limiting factor. But if you are using a good chunk of your available credit and everything else is solid, then credit utilization is the limiting factor and by increasing your limits (or paying your debt) you would see your credit pop up.
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May 29, 2010 18:17
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Manawski posted:I'm in the Navy and we had a brief the other day which pretty much scared me shitless. You see, there apparently exists a rule in which if you have a >30% DTI you can't be deployed overseas. This gave me cause to go home and check my poo poo. First you should research and clarify this regulation. First, is the DTI calculated on your gross or net. You seem to be calculating it on your net. Typically lenders will use your gross. Its not that they are trying to beef up your income when the approve you for stuff, (not anymore anyway) but because gross is just so much more consistent. With net, people have different amounts taken form their taxes, some want a big refund, some don't mind paying, some contribute to 401K's some do not. If you do have to cut, I'd pay the car, even though its not the smallest. It would free up $265 in your budget, whereas the smallest would free up only $95. Don't spread debt across a lot of credit cards as all the little minimum payments of $20, $35, $25 will add up. I don't recommend this, but worst case and you have about one month to bring it down, see if you can get a credit card with a low balance transfer offer and put the car loan on it. A $12K balance on a credit card is awful, but it would have a lower minimum payment. As I said, do that only in a worst case if you had to bring down the DTI immediately because you would be playing with fire.
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May 30, 2010 22:19
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but it will be paid off in two months.
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antwizzle posted:What calculations do they do and what am I getting wrong? Your credit card likely has a complicated way of figuring out finance charge, but the answer to your question is simple. As the balance (slowly) goes down, your minimum payment will go down too, which means you are paying it down even slower as time goes on if you only pay that amount.
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May 31, 2010 17:21
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CobiWann posted:Actually, this ties into another question I had... No apologies needed. You know yourself better than anyone else does, and you are smart to recognize the temptation that the Citicard represents. I would close it, even though it is a big limit, even if it is your oldest account. Your credit will take a modest, short term hit, but you already have the house, and you should have enough for a genuine emergency with the USAA card. Also, your available credit as it relates to your score is expressed as a percentage, not an amount, so keep the USAA low and you will still be in good shape. Max it out against your better judgment, and you are better off with a $5K weight around your neck than a $17K one. I would close Citicard, even if you talk them down on the rate. There is so much more to getting a card than comparing the specs and going for the best rates and best rewards. You know USAA won’t jerk you around, raise your rate to the stratosphere again, delay processing your payment in order to charge you a late fee, or any of the other crap that the major issuers do. Citibank is anyone’s guess.
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Jun 9, 2010 16:14
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ne plus ultra posted:I will have a fellowship of somewhat more than $30,000 in Massachusetts. This will all be taxable income, and it appears nothing will be withheld. I'm having a difficult time figuring out roughly how much I should be budgeting for taxes annually. I was thinking 15% should be sufficient, but I have no idea how to confirm this... I know nothing about taxes, I just plug the numbers into a tax app and let it do its thing. Massachusetts has a flat tax of 5.3% of income. You are able to deduct from your income the first $4400 for you personal exemption and half of the first $6000 you spend on rent. If you end up working too along with school, you can deduct the first $2000 you pay for social security/medicare. If you are paying back student loans, you can deduct the interest. You can also deduct moving costs into Massachusetts. There are some misc things that tend to come and go. One year you could deduct part of your heating cost, sometimes they let you deduct your T passes, but those things are not big enough to change your estimates. That means roughly out of $30,000 you will be paying taxes on about $22,000 in income, you will owe about $1200 in state taxes. If you pay an estimated $300 per quarter you will come out pretty close.
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Jun 11, 2010 15:22
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Engineer Lenk posted:Does Massachusetts require you to pay quarterly or have some sort of state withholding? If not, I'd just budget it in and pay when it comes due. We do have an underpayment penalty if you under pay by $400. There is an exemption for first year filers, which I suppose n.p.u. would be. That said, considering that you are lucky to get 1% in a money market right now, we are talking about perhaps an extra $5, $10 at the most of forgone interest if you wait to pay the entire balance due at the end.
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Jun 11, 2010 16:12
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dopaMEAN posted:Two questions: Assuming you take your own exemption ($3650) and take the standard deduction ($5700), your taxable income will be $11,310. This also assumes you don’t have any other income (no interest, dividends, no other jobs) and no credits or deductions apply. If that is the case, the tax table states that you will owe $1281 in federal taxes. I am not familiar with Illinois taxes. It’s always a good idea to check your credit every year to make sure that there are no glaring errors because if there are, its nice to fix them at your leisure instead of when a loan is on the line. But I wouldn’t assume something horrible just because Comcast would have made him put down a small deposit. Utility bills are not reported on credit reports (unless they go to collections) http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf
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Jun 17, 2010 20:21
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tour de horse posted:Is it worth it to consolidate my loans? Student loan consolidation makes the most sense when some of your loans are variable, and the consolidation process will fix them at todays low interest rate. You don’t get a lower rate by consolidating; they determine everything by figuring out the blended rate. Without doing the math, it would probably come in somewhere around 6.5% or 6.6% i.e. your largest loan would dominate the final interest rate. It makes less sense if they are already fixed. You can research different plans. You can get discounts for direct debit from an account, or by making ontime payments for 3 years, but if they are already fixed, you lose the ability to hammer the small one at 8% hard, and then the 6.8% if you want to do it that way, or I guess the 5% one if you are doing the Dave Ramsey snowball thing. Personally I saved quite a bit of money, but mine were variable and I was able to lock mine in at 4% back in 2004 and the discounts eventually brought me down to 3%, but that option doesn’t seem to be available to you.
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Jun 21, 2010 17:07
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the posted:Let's say I have a credit card that has $1000 of debt with a 25% APR. This will all be explained in your card holder agreement  If this was pre-credit card act, you would likely be 100% correct. Now they can't do that. Usually payments get applied in the following order. - fees - past due amounts - prior balances, they have to apply money to the highest rate first of equal ages - current balances If you were to actually do the equations long hand, it would probably take reams of paper, but you should still refer to your card issuer to check on the actual order of how payments are applied.
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Jun 23, 2010 02:24
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CobiWann posted:Posting this here because I'm sure this is the type of question a newbie would ask. At best, these companies are not doing anything you couldn’t do on your own, at worst they are incompetent and expensive. They don’t have any special kind of magic words that can erase your debt. What they will do is try to negotiate settlements on bad debt, or work out payment plans, or see if the cards will accept less than the minimum if you can’t afford to make even that. You typically pay them a percentage of the amount of debt they supposedly save you, and for accounts that are on a payment plan, you pay them monthly and they divvy up the payments as needed to all your cards, while keeping a percentage of the money for their own administration. What always ends up happening is when everything is on autopilot and no one is watching is any number of snafus that snowball against you. One of the cards will raise the minimum payment, and they will accept the payment every month but you will fall further and further behind, like you are on a treadmill, but not running quite fast enough, and by the time you realize it you have been reported 60 days late for a better part of a year. Or they send the payments to the customer service address, not the payment mailing address. Or they pay right around the due date so some months two payments hit, but then the next month nothing does. Or they just forget to pay one of them. Or…. Long story short, there is no easy way to get out of debt and these companies are selling the idea that they can make it easy.
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Jun 28, 2010 16:43
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cowofwar posted:Credit counseling and debt management include some good nonprofit agencies and a lot of terrible predatory organizations. And guess which category advertises on TV.
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Jun 29, 2010 05:33
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cr0y posted:I'm sure someone here will be able to answer this for me... If you do that, the credit card will usually insert some clause along with the rest of the account info like “Account under a partial payment agreement” or something to that effect. I honestly don’t know how bad this affects your score, probably way less bad than being late, but that is something that a lender would very much notice if they pulled your credit. Frankly it doesn’t look good, but is not an automatic disqualifier. It depends on the financial institution, what you are trying to do, and the rates you are willing to accept. However I think you are asking the wrong question. If you can’t even make the minimum payments, which as you know will take decades to pay the card off, you are in trouble. You should be asking what you can do to get out of trouble, not if I do such and such, how many FICO points get shaved off. If one of the payments is really bad I don’t have a problem if you want to set up one of those arrangements, it won’t destroy your credit, but view it as a temporary step to keep your head above water while you look for a more permanent solution. Also, listen to Dave Ramsey. I don’t agree with everything he says, especially his politics, but his advice is perfect for people in your situation.
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Jun 29, 2010 18:38
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Topsy Kretts posted:Aside from the fact that it isn't good for your credit. Is their any legitimacy to "debt forgiveness" in terms of credit cards? I tried google but I honestly can sift through what is and what is not actual useful information. I'm not blaming my credit card debt on anyone but myself but honestly I have little sympathy for credit card companies in a time when the american people are struggling and big business is reaping billions in profit. If i can screw them for my own benefit I won't lose any sleep over it. It’s legitimate when due to whatever reason, either a life changing event or perhaps your own stupidity, you are so buried up to your head in debt that there is no practical way that you can pay the entire thing off, and you can barely pay them at all after you take care of things like food, shelter, transportation, utilities, etc. If they decide to start charging you 30% interest and won’t work with you, then they can force you into that situation. Get out of your head that you are taking vengeance in some small way against the credit card companies that are screwing the American people. I hate Bank of America and Capital One too, but don’t worry, their CEO is not going to start eating tuna fish sandwiches in his corner office after they settle your debt. They can and will reprice their entire portfolio in order to earn their way out of their loan losses. That means everyone else will be paying more fees and higher rates because of you and the millions of people like you. Keep in mind that they usually won’t settle anything unless you are late/in default (which will ruin your credit) and you have the entire chunk of cash ready to go.
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Jul 2, 2010 20:38
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Endor posted:I've got a general credit card/credit score question: To answer your question, it depends if you are joint or just an authorized user. If you are joint, her oldest is your oldest. But I also don't like where you are going on this. First thing I don't like is you have a balance of $2500 at 21%, and while that is a horrible rate, you are blaming the rate on your inability to pay it off and not yourself on your inability to pay it off. Using your numbers, it costs $525 per year to have that balance on that card. That is $43 per month of finance charge. If you had a strategy to pay it off, you would be throwing hundreds of dollars a month at it. Most of your payments would go towards principal. The fact you have not paid it off yet means that you are either paying hardly anything to it, or you are paying quite a bit on it, but you keep using it. If you have a house that is paid off in full, it will be easy to get a mortgage on it, but if you were trying to maximize your cash flow, the obvious answer is to not have a mortgage. What is the rush to renovate everything at once? I think you guys have plenty of credit, and you have had most of them for a long time. I'm not going to say the only way is to close them and never use them again (although I wouldn't discourage it either) If you were to most of them it would have a minimal effect on both of your credit scores.
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Jul 4, 2010 18:52
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Topsy Kretts posted:Rates on the cards are between 12-15% (gently caress me). I am scheduled to graduate Spring 2011, and college is currently being paid for via parents+loans. I'm not factoring in college debt at the moment because my parents are helping me out with it until I graduate. If you are making $1000 per month, there is no way you would be able to make headway on anything. Your expenses are already cut to the bone, and even then some. What is the secured debt at the credit union? Unless your parents can step in and bail you out, you can’t pay them. Its not a moral issue, it’s a math issue. They lent 8 grand to a broke college student and it didn’t work out for them. I haven’t contributed to the bankruptcy thread, or even read it that much, but as overwhelming as the cards feel right now, it doesn’t seem like you have enough debt to make it worth it. Compared with bankruptcy, your credit will come back a lot faster if you just stop paying, let them go to collections, and then in a couple years when you are in a better spot you settle with them. Say that you eventually make 40 or 50K a year, coming up with $4K to settle this bad debt won’t be hard to do. Keep your student loans in good standing, your credit will be more than fine in a couple years.
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Jul 12, 2010 17:20
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Topsy Kretts posted:It's really bizarre to think that "just don't pay your credit cards" is a reasonable way to go about this. Is this basically what the point is? My financial situation seems completely insurmountable at the moment. If you can manage to pay them and always keep all of them current, that’s better of course. Even if you just tread water until you graduate, that’s OK. If you have 1 big one and 4 small ones, and need to choose, keep up on the small ones since it will be one ding, not 4. But compared to paying for food, keeping your phone on, your rent, books, gas, car insurance, any medical costs that come up, your secured loan, I would say that your credit cards come last.
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Jul 12, 2010 19:06
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froglet posted:This may or may not be the right place to ask but, here I go. I've recently been reading about managed funds. While I don't want to start investing immediately, I'm wondering what other goons think about managed funds and if it would be a good medium term investing vehicle. Has anybody had any experience with similar funds? Or should I just forget about it, wait until I have 20,000 just lying around then invest it in something else altogether? What are called Managed Funds in Australia are called Mutual Funds in the US. They can be an excellent investment product, but they are only as good as the underlying investments that they contain. I’m sure there are lots of funds available to you that would be good for a medium term time frame. While this is the long term investment thread and much of the info is specific to the US, they will inevitably touch on a lot of the concepts like risk tolerance, diversification, and fees and costs that you would be paying. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2892928
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Jul 16, 2010 15:52
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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? I would strive to pay it off entirely if you could by then. (or at least mostly off; they often don't count it against you if you have a term loan that you owe fewer than 6 to 10 payments on) One thing lenders look at is your debt to income ratio. They care less about the total amount you owe and more about your monthly cash flow. By not having a payment of $220/mo will help you. Like Grump said, that is a fairly high rate. I've seen worse, but 8.9% on a car loan would indicate either minimal credit when you got it (which is OK, because you have more now) or rough credit, not horrible, but somewhat marginal. Or being way upside down when you got the car. Were any of these factors in play when you got the loan?
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Jul 29, 2010 04:31
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Themagicmoogle posted:it's kind of a long story. As soon as I turned 18, my abusive mom told jobless me I had to get a couple credit cards and start putting utility bills in my name or she'd kick me out of the house. Sorry to hear all that, and looks like you are digging out of the mess and bad luck. You can’t control your crazy mother did and when you are 18, technically you are an adult with equal standing before the law, but your mother still has power over you. Probably the only thing that you could have done better was if the best rate you could get was 17%, you shouldn’t have gotten a $13,000 car. One that was $5,000 would have gotten you from point A to B just as well. That said, you were young and the money handling skills you got from your mother were probably worse than zero, and people with far more stable backgrounds have done far stupider things, so I’m going to whip you with a wet noodle.
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Jul 29, 2010 17:00
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Man_of_Teflon posted:Car question: From a strictly financial position, owning a car that you don't need is stupid. It is a rapidly depreciating asset, they cost a lot to insure, there are more fees all the time to inspect and register them, and gas isn't getting any cheaper. It is a sunk cost, meaning the money you already spent is not coming back, and you should base your decision only on future costs, not what you have already put into it. All that said, its nice having a car and since you can afford it, you have to look at the future anticipated costs and how it affects your quality of life, and if you decide that you want to keep it so you can go get groceries without it being a big production and have a way to get out of the city without the hassle of renting one, or you have friends that you like to hang out with that its cumbersome getting there via public transit, then you should keep it, and keep it without guilt. However I'm wondering about the motorcycle. To me, it seems like a car is way more versatile than a motorcycle, and if you had to pull equity out to buy the motorcycle, then you couldn't afford it.
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Aug 9, 2010 04:55
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Sophia posted:Moana and Strict 9, thanks for the replies. I'll take my question over to the long term investment thread once I figure out more precisely what my time horizons are. But you guys kind of confirmed what I thought, that there really aren't any great 3-7 year term investments out there outside of short-term bonds or T-bills or something. 780 is excellent. It is beyond excellent. A responsible lender will look at more than a credit score, but based on your savings, and your minimal debt, you will have no problem qualifying for anything reasonable. When your score is that high, its not necessary to do anything special to increase it, and nothing much you can really do anyway, other than allow the accounts to get older and as they do, it will slowly drift up into the low 800’s. Adding another account if anything will drop it some. Not much, but some. Not to say you should not open it if you need it, just continue to do what is financially responsible and don’t do stuff because how it might look on your credit.
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Aug 9, 2010 17:00
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polyfractal posted:Practical advice needed. I'm currently throwing $200 a month in savings and $200 into a "Roth IRA" savings account. Since Vanguard requires a $3000 minimum before opening an IRA, it will take me 15 months to save enough to open one. Would it be better to divert some of the "Savings" fund into the "IRA" fund so that I can hit that minimum quicker? I have 4k in "Emergency" so theoretically I don't need the savings for anything short-term. I don't see any harm in that. Keep in mind that if there is a genuine emergency or a legitimate need for that money, you are allowed to withdrawal your contributions any time for any reason without penalty or taxes (you already paid the taxes). You do pay taxes and a penalty if you take out the earnings, but when you take money out, all your contributions are taken out before the earnings are even touched.
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Aug 11, 2010 03:39
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Same Great Paste posted:I'm new to the US (been here a year), and trying to establish a solid credit history. This entire time I've been using a secured credit card, but finally got approved for an actual credit credit card. Like Dead Pressed said, in your case since your credit file is so thin, you should keep it open, as long as it isn't charging you too many fees. They do look at the average age of your accounts along with how much of them you are using. It will matter less once you have had your actual credit card for a couple years, but if you close it now, you are going from an average age of 1 year back down to 1 month.
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Aug 14, 2010 16:52
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giundy posted:I'm going to preface this post with I like my toys, and I'm sure I could save more but that is irrelevant. Unlike Same Great Paste, you have tons of credit and if you are trying to buy a house, actually having money in the bank will go a lot further than any stupid extra tradeline you get from financing a toy you don't need, even if it does bump up your score a bit, which it might. It sounds like you make good money, so congratulations on that. But if that's the case, why are your finances so intertwined with theirs? Let me guess, you can't close down that credit card or take your mom off because it will hurt your credit? You put their house at risk for a bit extra tax deduction, and there is another personal loan out there but that's not important to you so lets not talk about that. Why is having another toy more important than standing on your own feet? I like how you justify buying it like your are doing the responsible thing in "building your credit"
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Aug 14, 2010 17:05
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Grenyarnia posted:Guys I need investment advice. Here are my details: Because you are making good money for a 21 year old, you are living at home, and they are not charging you anything to live there, the temptation is to find stuff to blow your money on. It might be a good idea to have money directly deposited at a mutual fund company and/or an online savings account like INGdirect. You want to have both liquid savings that can be accessed quickly, and longer term investments that have more upside potential. For the savings, you can not afford to lose anything on it, which means it will be very conservative and you will get 1% if you are lucky. For the long term, you should think about opening up a Roth IRA and check out the long term investment thread to learn more how they work and what to put in it. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2892928 also $200/mo on  ? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3277879
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Aug 18, 2010 20:36
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Grenyarnia posted:Thanks for the advice, I've been reading up on the long-term investment thread and feel like I have good knowledge on what I should do now to prepare for retirement. I know I’ll be corrected if I am wrong, (and I hope I am wrong) but for a goal 3 or 4 years away, I’m not aware of anything that pays out close to any reasonable yield. In normal times you could get a 3 or 4 yield CD if there was a clear goal at a defined time and get a bit more, but these are not normal times and 4 year CD’s yield barely anything with the disadvantage of tying up your money. Anything that could be called an investment, whether it be a stock with a decent dividend, a bond, a diversified mutual fund, anything that you could add to juice up the return can go down. I think there was a thread about high yield checking accounts at one point and I think I saw yields of 3% or 4%, and those are legit place, but there some hoops to jump thru. You have to agree to have direct deposit of everything going there, there probably will not be any physical branch nearby, and there may be some limits on ATM access. It is your call.
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Aug 19, 2010 17:45
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spatula posted:Yes, I just checked all of them and there's nothing negative. I plan to keep doing what I'm doing, but when can I expect my credit score to go up? I'm making plans to move in a year, and it sounds like my score is going to be really important to secure housing. Most landlords won't check your credit and the ones who do check just want to make sure you are not leaving a trail of financial destruction behind. If you are in the high 600's you will be fine. If you are trying to increase your score, staying current, not opening up too many more accounts, keeping your debts low, and just the passage of time all help.
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Aug 22, 2010 04:14
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Qaz Kwaz posted:You don't need a credit card as long as you can pay for things with cash, which you can. I do hear what you are saying. I see people every day who get in trouble with debt, and I see people doing stupid stuff all in the name of building their credit all day. I’ve been the first one to call people out on that in this forum when goons try pulling that argument. That said, I don’t think what you are saying is realistic for most people. There is something to be said for getting a credit card and demonstrating you can repay stuff. Most people have major purchases, or unexpected events in their lives that are difficult or impossible to save for, and even having one credit card and having a credit score makes that possible, or at the very least, easier. To give some examples, JiUC is fortunate to live in Canada where they actually make it somewhat affordable for students and it doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars to go even to a state school, and it’s cool that he can cash flow it. For Americans, if their parents didn’t save enough, should they only go to community colleges because they can never borrow money? In lots of place in the country, even starter condos are $250,000 or more. If you tell someone that they can never borrow money, assuming they can save $12,000 a year on top of their bills, their rent, and their retirement, you are telling them they have to wait 20 years to buy that starter condo, and how much will it cost then? It’s probably going to go up faster than the 1% you will get in a money market. To some of our Haitian members who belong to my credit union, if they need money to help rebuild their relatives homes and don’t have emergency savings, do you tell them their families need to keep living on the street until they manage to save enough money from getting a second job?
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Aug 23, 2010 15:39
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Large Hardon Collider posted:I'm a college sophomore and I want to start building credit. What credit card should I get? (yes I'll pay it off on time) I’m biased toward credit unions, but is there one that serves the student community? I think it is always better to deal locally with a credit union or a community bank. Personally I would avoid the big issuers like Capital One, Chase, Bank of America. You could get a Visa credit card from the littlest credit union and it will be accepted just as many places as a Visa card issued by the biggest bank, and will get reported the same exact way to the credit bureaus too.
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Aug 23, 2010 15:43
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Large Hardon Collider posted:I'll look into student-focused credit unions, thanks. Potentially nothing, potentially a lot, but if you really want your account to be screwed up, talk to Bank of America. Every bank can make a mistake, but when Bank of America does, they are known for the right hand not talking to the left hand, you will make call after call, and get a different answer each time depending on who you talk to, and then when you think its fixed, they will surprise you again. They have creative ways to apply transactions to maximize their fee income. With their credit cards, they will make sure you get a variable rate, and the moment you forget to pay it for a month, (and it can happen to the best of us, in spite of your good intentions now) jack your rate up to 20% or 30% or worse. Long story made short, they are a huge, undercapitalized bank who made terrible acquisitions and bets on the economy, and they are trying to earn their way out of their mess, and they will do what they can to do it on your back.
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Aug 23, 2010 16:19
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JiUC posted:It went to collections a long time ago, and at the time I had no income. To be honest, I wouldn't even know how to go about paying it now? Have you ever looked at your credit report? I am assuming the procedure in Canada is the same, I know that the major credit bureaus in the states all have Canadian divisions and score them similarly. The credit report will have who the original creditor sold the account to, and there will be a mailing address, account number, and usually phone number associated with the account. I would call them and ask where to send certified funds. DO NOT give them electronic access to their account, as collectors are scum and you don’t want them to forget that you already paid it and sell it to another collection agency who decides to pull the money again. Ask for a letter that says it has been paid and closed, and save that letter forever. Laminate it if you have to. These things have a way of popping back on your credit report at the worst times.
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Aug 23, 2010 21:01
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FISHMANPET posted:I have two credit cards. One of them as a 12.99 APR, and a balance of 13,461.83. The other has an APR of 20.99% and after I make a payment in a few days will have a balance of 0 (and a credit limit of $6100). Now the 20.99 APR card has a balance transfer offer for 0% APR for 11 months. I want to transfer $6000 from the high card to the empty card. You do know that 0% is a gimmick, right? No bank makes money by lending at 0%, so how come they don’t go out of business? First, there is going to be a transfer fee. Then they will put you on a very short leash and if you stray by just a bit, or even if they mishandle one of your payments, you know the types of rates that card is capable of. Don’t think 21% is a cap. 21% is just one of many possibilities. 0% becomes a game. And you might very well win the game. I don’t know. And if you are intellectually honest, you don’t know either. Is there a smart way to do it? Just pay it off? I see people get in trouble because instead of paying off their debt, they look for cleaver ways to manage their debt. Here is a link to a loan calculator, but it isn’t fancy. http://www.dinkytown.com/java/SimpleLoan.html Zeta Taskforce fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Aug 26, 2010 |
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Aug 26, 2010 20:19
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FISHMANPET posted:If I had the $14k in cash I'd pay it all off and be forever gone of my youthful habits. Sounds like you made up your mind, so I’m not sure why you asked. Some points to keep in mind are you are not saving $75/month in interest charges since based on your numbers you are transferring $6000, not $14,000. My math shows that you are saving something like $36 in interest/month, presumably less over time since you will be paying it down. And you might get away with it. Kudos if you do. But if you are really going to pay $1000 per month, will get you out of debt about 7 to 10 days sooner. That’s assuming everything goes perfect. Of course what usually happens is that people decide to pay their 0% cards the slowest since they view it as free money, they don’t pay back the other ones as fast as they hoped, their car needs repairs, they have to fly somewhere to a friends wedding, or they drop their phone in a puddle and decide to upgrade to something cool, and they never pay back as much as they hope, and they come to the end owing almost as much as they started. Unless something messes up the 0% before, and then all bets are off.
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Aug 26, 2010 23:05
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