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oval office AND PASTE posted:Over time, I've had a few bills I've stupidly/lazily missed. Everything is paid up now, but the damage is done. Secured credit card, convert to unsecured when they let you, and a fair amount of time using it properly (paying in full on time every month, keeping the statement amounts <50% of your credit limit).
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Feb 26, 2010 22:58
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Strict 9 posted:You'll get differing opinions on this, but my feeling is that your first goal should always be to be debt free from loans (credit card and education). I have a differing opinion on this one. First you see if you can actually live on 33k/year in Boston while paying rent, keeping your savings liquid as a 6-month emergency fund. If you can and you're still putting money aside, then you fund a Roth to the 5k/year limit. Your projected income will jump more than your debt in your first year out of school, if you're getting a PhD in something employable, so you just live like a grad student for another year and knock it all out then.
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Mar 8, 2010 20:55
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Soul Glo posted:So, $750 a month. What I want to do, naturally, is save it (after, of course, buying all the stuff I've wanted lately but couldn't afford-- 360, iPhone, new laptop). Having never had money, however, all I have is a checking/debit account that has more dust in it than dollars. Budget. I'd start putting $250-$300/month away into a Roth IRA. Charles Schwab will waive the minimums if you put it on auto-transfer; most other places will want $1k or $3k for startup. I'd budget about $100 per month for random crap. Any extra gets earmarked for random crap wants rather than needs, so the 360/iPhone/laptop will wait a while longer. $50 towards auto maintenance. You won't need $50 worth of car repairs, well, ever. But putting aside $50/month will make it so that that you don't have to scramble when your car needs new tires. The other $300 goes towards an emergency fund. You want to be able to support yourself for 6 months out of this eventually, so aim for something like $6000. If you put the e-fund somewhere like SmartyPig, it'll take some time to get funds out when you need them, but you'll earn a very competitive rate.
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Mar 12, 2010 03:41
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ne plus ultra posted:So yeah, let's say I have an extra $150/mo after expenses. Should I be saving that money for retirement or saving to pay off my loans? Should I dump a good portion of my savings into a Roth, then plan to use new savings towards my loans? (Again, I won't be gaining interest on 2/3 of the loans until after I graduate in ~6 years) And if I were to plan to use it on the loans, then what is the best way to invest it? I was in a somewhat-similar situation as a grad student. I don't have loans, but my partner does. We opted to fully fund Roth IRAs rather than pay down the loans - with the craziness of the market it's not currently better in dollar value, but since we can't catch up in the following years and had a really low tax bracket in school I think it'll even out in the long run.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:39
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mike fictitious posted:Been cruising along like this for a few years. Here's the twist: I was injured in a motorcycle accident and just received a $40,000 settlement. Are there going to be some increased medical costs that you'll see down the line? You may want to guesstimate your expenses and put aside some money in an FSA or HSA, depending on what's offered.
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Apr 7, 2010 01:06
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mike fictitious posted:Pretty sure the interest rate is 6.25%. My credit score wasn't great when I bought the house, but everything bad has since fallen off. The bank keeps calling and saying I can do a some kinda of refinance through Fannie Mae, but I haven't gotten off my rear end to take care of that. The truth is that I actually hate the mortgage bank (original loan got sold), and want to move it USAA rather than deal with them any more than I have to. You may want to make a refi with 80% LTV (or as close as you can get with 40k-closing costs) the first priority. If it eats the whole settlement, you'll miss out on 2009 contribution to your wife's IRA, but you'll end up with a lower monthly mortgage payment that should make upping retirement contributions going forward easier to do.
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Apr 7, 2010 01:22
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mike fictitious posted:Then I just bank the $500 each month. In 8 years, I'll save back the $46k. Put the $500 each month into the wife's IRA, with the 'extra' two months going into beefing up savings or something towards a vacation or Christmas expenses.
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Apr 7, 2010 03:37
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herakles posted:
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Apr 14, 2010 02:28
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herakles posted:I live in central California with a roommate, my food and restaurant budget does include paying for my girlfriend whenever we go out to eat together and buying groceries whenever we cook together (she's broke). Groceries are expensive here, but I also eat out too much. Central California should net you some good seasonal produce buys at local ethnic markets or farmers' markets. If you build meals around that, you can stretch your grocery budget a lot further.
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Apr 14, 2010 19:12
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katkillad2 posted:Sorry if this has been answered before. It can sometimes be lagged by a month or so, and it's based on your statement balance.
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Apr 23, 2010 04:37
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This is a situation that I think might benefit from having Quicken over just using Mint. If you can get your bank downloads from the past year, Quicken will show you where you've been spending your money without a ton of work on your part. This in turn will help you construct a workable budget going forwards.
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Apr 29, 2010 18:03
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Anne Whateley posted:Since calc taught me the wonders of compounding interest, I maxed out my '09 Roth IRA (with Fidelity). If I log onto the site, it says my balance is still $5000. How often does it go up? When will it say my balance is $5000.15 or whatever, just so I can have more elaborate Scrooge McDuck bankvault-diving dreams? An IRA is a type of account. It depends completely on what you're invested in. I'm in index funds with Vanguard, so everything is translated into shares, and the day-to-day value can vary a bit.
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May 3, 2010 05:04
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Anne Whateley posted:Yeah, I just didn't know if Fidelity only updated official balances once a month or something, if that might be why it wasn't changing. The 60% increases your position in bonds over the Freedom 2040 and has a higher fee, so it's less risky and costs more. If you want to go riskier, swap it out for a stock index fund after you get 10k in there to avoid low balance fees - it'll cut your expense ratios considerably. Rebalance when you hit 30 or so and have enough to create a reasonable portfolio without running afoul of the minimums. The Freedom is set up to get progressively less risky over the years. Right now, it's pretty stock-heavy. It's not a bad choice for a set-it-and-forget-it option.
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May 3, 2010 06:32
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Merou posted:How do I come up with this money without taking more student loans while also paying my debts down and not living in ramen? I know I should probably have a roth IRA or whatever the gently caress, but I need the money in a year, not when I'm 65. If you go back to school full-time and get other loans, you can put your loans in deferral until you're finished. This will likely be the fastest way to get to a new job, but it will probably involve some more student loans. At any rate, I'd get rid of the CC debt posthaste. You have enough to pay it off in savings and still have enough for an emergency, so just do it. Haphazardly overpaying something without a plan isn't very mathematically sound. If you want the feel-good of paying something off, debt snowball. If you want to pay the least amount of interest, pay the highest interest rate first.
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May 6, 2010 01:22
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antwizzle posted:I will have this debt paid off in the next two months by the way, since I know paying the minimum is stupid especially on such a small balance. I'm just curious as to how payoff is calculated and where the inconsistency is coming from as right now How does your CC company calculate the minimum? Were the calculators you used considering a sliding minimum, or a fixed amount of $16/month?
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May 31, 2010 01:47
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amethystbliss posted:I'm no financial expert, but using lower interest student loans to pay off the higher interest credit cards seems like a good idea so long as you still try to save some of that stipend to put toward debt throughout the year. Most of us would caution against using student loans to get rid of CC debt because it's not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Using subsidized to get rid of unsubsidized is fair game, though. Man_of_Teflon, I think your best bet is to split the money leftover each month between emergency savings and putting more into your retirement (Roth IRA after you max out your matching funds), since all your debt is manageable and at some very low interest rates. When you have a better emergency cushion (5 or 10k), you have two good strategies - paying off the car or paying off your student loans posthaste. I'd tend towards the car even though the interest rate is slightly better, because no one is going to repossess your degree if you get stuck in a jam and can't pay, and there are hardship forbearances for the student loans.
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Jun 5, 2010 22:52
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MaakHatt posted:I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this or not, but I am looking into getting a credit card and I'd like to know what the options are for somebody with only student loans as their credit so far. I'd also like something with rewards, but I guess I can't be too picky at this point in time. Student loans are usually a pretty good start. Get a free estimate of your credit score from Quizzle or CreditKarma and you'll have a better reference point of what sort of credit cards you'd be approved for.
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Jun 6, 2010 02:00
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Qaz Kwaz posted:
I've already weighed in on my thoughts on MoT's strategy, but I strongly disagree with most of this advice, and would prioritize retirement saving and maintaining a comfortable quality of life over paying off all debt as quickly as possible. It's more appropriate to talk about downsizing lifestyle when your income dries up or you've been consistently living above your means as with credit card debt. It's like crash dieting - good for the immediate goal, horrible for long-term financial habits. In particular, driving to become completely debt-free without learning what's important to you to spend money on will likely result in hoarding or splurging when the debt is gone, neither of which is particularly conducive to a good quality of life and remaining out of debt. You can't catch up on retirement contributions, which is why I'd recommend making that an early habit.
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Jun 6, 2010 17:57
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Qaz Kwaz posted:What's the problem? I'm assuming he's single with no children. There's absolutely no reason why he shouldn't be striving to be debt free. Manageable debt my rear end. Why carry ANY debt? A couple of years of buckling down can change this guys life DRASTICALLY forever. "Maintaining a comfortable life" is well and good, he's doing that, and I'm not telling him to NOT do that. He can do that and still pay his debts within a few years. When all of your debt is effectively 5% or less (keep in mind the student loan deduction), prioritizing debt payoff over retirement contributions is historically a suboptimal strategy. Selling the car and motorcycle at a loss would get to a debt-free date quicker, but so would selling all worldly possessions, and they all involve some sacrifice of quality of life.
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Jun 7, 2010 02:54
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Qaz Kwaz posted:If he was that smart he wouldn't have $60k in debt. I'm in the same boat. I have a ton of student loan debt. You can believe that I don't have a car loan, a motorcycle, and I'm not contributing to retirement. When you can pay it off so quickly it's totally worth it. You're right, it doesn't make mathematical sense to pay it off vs. retirement contributions, but it makes a shitload of sense mentally. I don't have an emotional attachment to or against debt. Debt is a tool, and it's an incredibly useful one when it comes to student loans for an education that increases earning potential or for buying a house. Auto loans are a gray area, since it's a rapidly decreasing asset and credit card debt is generally not worth loving with, though the hardcore have had some success with credit card arbitrage on teaser rates. Money has, to some extent, a decreasing marginal value - the more you have, the less each additional dollar is worth. When people appeal to overall dollar values paid or years in debt, it's usually an emotional appeal that's a little misleading, since those dollars have different value both in terms of inflation and percentage of income, and having too little for 3 years and excess for 9 years may not be as pleasant for some people as making consistent progress and having plenty over all 12 years. This particularly comes into my comments about retirement, because your contributions for each year are capped and early contributions are worth far more than later contributions.
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Jun 7, 2010 05:59
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There's a risk tolerance piece in there as well - the only guaranteed retirement returns are your company match.
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Jun 7, 2010 21:51
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CobiWann posted:I wanted to cancel the $17k card and apply for a $5k card from USAA that I can freeze and use for "OH HOLY BALLS" emergencies, but not at the expense of shooting my credit score in the foot by throwing away $17k in "available credit" Do it in the other order. Keep the high line for the best credit score until you have the $5k card in hand, then cancel it if you know it'll be too much of a temptation.
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Jun 9, 2010 16:31
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Zeta Taskforce posted: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. 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.
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Jun 11, 2010 15:43
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Knockknees posted:I know that a lot of people have asked the same sort of questions, but when I read this thread my eyes begin to glaze over and I have trouble sorting it all out. Any advice would be appreciated. I have two categories where I'd like advice. I'm a big fan of automating retirement contributions, and I like Vanguard. I do $500/month on a 10 month schedule to max out my yearly contribution for a Roth - usually Nov/Dec is free, because that works out well for holiday budgeting, and you can set that up through the site. If you wanted to do something like that, I'd put $4k in an account right now and start automating things for September/October (or put 3500 and do Sept/Oct/Nov) - their target retirement funds are very reasonable in terms of overall balance of stocks/bonds and low fees. Unless you have some sort of high-interest checking, I would recommend looking for a good savings account. Online savings accounts may be your best choice right now, just remember that it may take a few days to get your money back out when you need it. It's not really worth the risk and hassle of finding other accounts if you're going to spend the money within 5 years, and money markets aren't necessarily beating savings rates nowadays. Treat the first 6k in your savings account as an emergency fund, and the rest as savings for the future. You can split it out into specific purposes as you see the need.
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Aug 16, 2010 21:33
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Zeta Taskforce posted: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. By that logic, using credit cards like cash and paying them off every month is a bad idea. Ceteris paribus, taking the route that involves the least amount of interest will result in the most efficient debt payoff. With a fixed amount going towards the cards each month, it's worthwhile to play with different options of balance transfers. In this case, making the balance transfer and paying the minimum on 0% card and aggressively targeting the remaining 12.99% card, then transferring the balance back after the year is up (or paying 20.99%, depending on how many months it will take to pay it off completely and the BT fee, whichever is cheaper) will be less expensive than not taking the transfer. Exactly how much less expensive depends on the minimums on both cards. This is assuming that 0% does not disappear and retroactively charge interest (a common tactic in buy-now-pay-later setups, but not in teaser rates for credit cards except for very sketchy subprime stuff). If there is a human element involved, where that 1k towards the cards is not more or less guaranteed, then a more conservative approach would be useful. FISHMANPET posted:Thankfully I've got an incredibly stable job at a local University. Unless I poo poo on a dean's desk I'm fine. If you post the minimum payment calculation, balance transfer fees and amounts for each card, I'll put together a formula to compare different payoff strategies. It likely will save you a bit of money to pay the minimum on the 0% card and finish off the 12.99% card first, but I can't tell you exactly without knowing more. A year at 0% (3% BT fee) averaged with a year at 20.99% for a fixed amount of money averages out to two years at 11.995% - and you'll be paying off the 20.99% card aggressively over the second year, so it'll end up being less than that. I can say conclusively from that back of the envelope calculation that if you pay it all off in less than two years you should pay off the 12.99% card first - which with a total debt of 14k and a monthly payment of 1k will happen. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Aug 27, 2010 |
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Aug 27, 2010 00:23
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ZT - I agree that gaming the system with arbitrage is an easy way for people to shoot themselves in the foot, but a modest use of balance transfers as part of a fixed repayment strategy is occasionally worth the risk. Using rewards cards falls into the same gray area to me as taking advantage of balance transfer offers - the rewards are offset partially by the merchant fees, but mostly by higher APRs on those who carry a balance.FISHMANPET posted:I requested copies of my card member agreements to get the official word, but I found this googling: I ran three scenarios, assuming the 13307.83 as a starting balance and that the balance transfer would take effect before any interest charged on it this cycle (real dollar values may be a little off because of that assumption). This assumes a $90 balance transfer fee, and a fixed total monthly credit card payment of $1k. Under the status quo, no transfer, you pay off the credit card in November 2011 and pay a total of $14,281.16 ($973.33 in interest). If you transfer 6k to Citi, assuming 0% from Sep '10-Aug '11, and pay it off fastest, with minimums on the Chase, you pay off the Citi card in April '11 and the Chase card in November 2011, paying a total of $14,051.91 ($744.08 in interest). If you transfer 6k to Citi, assuming 0% from Sep '10-Aug '11, 20.99% afterwards, and pay down Chase the fastest, you pay off Chase in May '11 and the Citi card in October 2011, paying a total of $13,732.93 ($425.10 in interest). As you can see, you save about $550 (and one month) over leaving it on the 12.99% card if you transfer and snowball by interest rate. E: I have the spreadsheet with adjustable parameters if you want it, I just need an email address. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Aug 28, 2010 |
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Aug 28, 2010 02:19
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FISHMANPET posted:Holy crap, thanks a lot. Email is my username at gmail.com. I'd really appreciate a copy. Sent (it may end up in junk mail). If you tweak the first month to be present balance + interest, rather than just present balance, it changes the numbers a little - if you transfer the 6000 out at the beginning of the cycle you pay $514.98 in interest with the best method and $1140.83 with the worst (same ranking as above). Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Aug 28, 2010 |
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Aug 28, 2010 04:00
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Zeta Taskforce posted:To me that looks super confusing, but you should do what looks good for you and it only has to look good for you. Yeah, Quicken can do all of this (calendar view, categories, present value), it will automatically download and categorize from bank and credit card info, and will remember categories if you change it on one purchase. It'll interface with TurboTax if you have your paycheck and other taxes set up correctly as well, I think. I like the budget comparison report, but there are a ton of other reports it can generate as well.
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Aug 29, 2010 19:01
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Suicide Watch posted:I'm pretty sure this would be the right place to ask this. Not sure why this would be the right place to look, but check out the help function for countif. There's an example with countif()/rows() that's pretty much what you're looking for, as well as something more sophisticated if you have blank values. Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Sep 19, 2010 |
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Sep 19, 2010 08:08
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Cap One has tiers of cards, and they don't switch between the tiers. Having a fee on your card means that you're in one of the subprime tiers, in which case you should apply for a better card (even one with Cap One) and cancel the card with a fee as soon as your credit score gets over 700 or so. They get a lot of crap because they issue unsecured cards to subprime borrowers with all sorts of fees and high interest rates. The ethics of that are dubious at best, but it's not as usurious as payday loans and some other subprime access to credit. APRs don't matter if you never buy anything on your credit card you can't pay off immediately. All good rewards cards will have a crappy APR. It's how they pay for the rewards. It's easy enough to carry two cards if you think you absolutely need one with a low APR, and only buy stuff on the rewards card you can pay off immediately.
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Sep 22, 2010 14:43
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k3nn posted:Yeah but surely that's only an advantage if you're in a higher tax bracket in retirement than you are when you earn the money? Does that really apply to a lot of people? Your intuition is right - it doesn't really matter whether the tax is taken off at the end or the beginning, and Roth will only make sense if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement. In the US, we're at near-historic low tax rates right now, and there's an income eligibility cap.
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Mar 27, 2011 20:17
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KennyG posted:Roth IRA vs other retirement investments There are other quirks too - Roth IRAs don't have minimum distribution requirements (Roth 401ks do), you don't pay any penalty for withdrawing direct contributions (or rollovers after their seasoning period). You can effectively put aside more value by investing in a Roth than trad IRA, since the $ limits are equivalent but one's in post-tax dollars and the other is in pre-tax.
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Mar 31, 2011 03:34
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canyoneer posted:Good info here If you don't float the payment (wait for your statement to cut and use some of the grace period), you will appear to have zero utilization if your credit card is only reporting statement balances.
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Oct 9, 2012 23:56
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AndrewP posted:Just got married. What's the best option for combining our bank accounts? One big pot with both of our names on it? joint accounts? Maybe that's the same thing? Any advice would be appreciated! Here are your options: 1. Keep separate finances, split joint bills as you feel appropriate. 2. Everything joint, keep each other informed of purchases that would bring you under a given cash cushion. 3. Everything that comes in goes into a joint account, pay joint bills from joint account, allot fixed monthly outflow to individual accounts for discretionary spending. If y'all just want one account, some banks will let you add a person to an individual account, so you don't need to open anything new.
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Oct 25, 2012 22:46
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Orange_Lazarus posted:^We already max our Roths. I'm just trying to be crafty with all this money my wife and I have been loaning to the government for most of our working lives, it wasn't until about a year ago that I realized getting a big return isn't very good. If you want to spend the time/effort to get the exact number of dependents plus some fractional additional withholding to get you within 10%, you will see a little more money throughout the year. If you overshoot, you pay a penalty. However, the interest on that money you're overpaying is not likely to amount to that much in this climate, uniformly distributed over the course of a year. The amount of effort I think that's reasonable to put into it is using a calculator like this: http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/withholding/ and tweaking withholding at most once a year once you're in an established job.
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Nov 21, 2012 09:26
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Deus Rex Machina posted:I'm almost 27 and have never had credit or debt. I've been employed in a well-paying job for over a year and most of my income goes into savings. With zero credit history combined with not being in school you will only qualify for secured credit cards with an annual fee. You might be able to find a secured card without a fee or a very low-limit card if you have a long-term bank or go through a credit union. But 'no credit history' is a gigantic black mark that will get you rejected very quickly.
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Jan 12, 2013 20:55
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Blinky2099 posted:Great, thanks. Is credit based on how much you spend? I'll probably only put like $500-$1,000 on it in an entire year and am unsure of how long it's going to take to actually have a credit score. Credit does not generally increase with increased spending. Use the card, pay in full each month. You will build credit appropriately.
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Jan 14, 2013 20:57
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Satellite posted:My 13 year old car has worn out tires, random check engine lights, and bad brakes. Going by the grinding noises, it sounds like I'm going to need new rotors too. The costs to fix all of this is likely more than the car is worth. Can you figure out a cheaper living situation? Even a reduction to $800/month in rent would give you some breathing room - most places with super high rent are urban areas where car ownership isn't necessary.
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Jan 21, 2013 20:33
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Satellite posted:MrKatharsis and Engineer Lenk, thanks for your quick replies. To answer a question both of you posed, I'm living in a studio in a suburb outside of Los Angeles, and I'm locked into this lease until July of this year. I'm not sure how feasible it is to find a roommate in such a small space without being able to provide any privacy. Yeah, LA sucks for this sort of thing - high rent and patchy public transport, though at least now they've built up some light rail. Any part-time work you can get would be useful to get around the payday loan trap, and save up for a share of a new security deposit in the summer. Locating cheaper shared housing will go a good ways towards getting you back on track.
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Jan 22, 2013 00:11
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FrictionlessEmu posted:Could you (or someone else) elaborate on this? I'm a graduate student on a fellowship, my income isn't reported on a W-2 as far as I know, and I've been putting money in a Roth IRA recently. I haven't heard anything this to suggest that fellowship income isn't eligible for a Roth IRA - it's certainly taxable income (at the federal level at least). When I was on a fellowship I understood the fellowship money to be non-earned income so it wasn't eligible for a Roth (it's not subject to SSI either). I had a 10-hour RA as well and used that income to cover the Roth. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/your-money/getting-personal/fellowships-and-iras
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Jan 23, 2013 07:39
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