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Orange_Lazarus posted:I really wish there was a thread on this forum for people interested in life hacks/frugal living. I keep suspecting that there has to be some way I can save more money but the truth is I'm probably just scraping underneath the couch for loose change by now. I would also be interested in a thread like this I paid off a credit card and have <$2k on the other one (charged my tuition + books this semester because I'm not getting anymore financial aid, otherwise the balance wouldn't be so high).
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Feb 4, 2013 05:25
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There kinda is with this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3529425
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Feb 4, 2013 08:09
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Just got approved for my first credit card without requiring any sort of a cosigner (well, second if you want to count my company issued corporate credit card). Got a decent credit limit ($10k) and not terrible APR, not that I ever really carry a balance on it. Once it comes in the mail and I close my old card, operation "kick the parents off of all my financial information and be a financially independent adult" will be complete.
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Feb 7, 2013 04:12
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Just got approved for my first credit card without requiring any sort of a cosigner (well, second if you want to count my company issued corporate credit card). Got a decent credit limit ($10k) and not terrible APR, not that I ever really carry a balance on it. I don't know if you necessarily want to close your old card. Just stop using it?
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Feb 7, 2013 18:00
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devmd01 posted:Yeahhhh. This has turned into a nightmare and probably will have to end up paying 3 grand out of pocket and then suing in small claims court to recoup. Ouch, what happened?
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Feb 8, 2013 14:25
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Edit: Sorry, I'm an idiot and totally didn't see the newbie finance thread.  Moving my question there.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:08
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Shadowhand00 posted:I don't know if you necessarily want to close your old card. Just stop using it? If he's got his parents on it he should close it. It'll still show up on his history as a longstanding account, but without the potential for something loving it up in the future. It's not going to ruin his credit if he closes an old account and if he doesn't want to use it anymore, welp.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:18
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I've got a corporate card and this card I just got approved for, I don't really need three active credit cards in my name. I may take out a store card or two in the future for big purchases (I need to buy a washer and dryer, so I may get a Lowe's card to finance it if they're offering a good deal, etc) And not that I buy anything questionable or my parents are the type who'd steal my identity/meddle with my finances, but having absolute financial freedom from my parents is appealing. I had a coworker bitch at me for bragging when everyone was bitching about their debt (coworker in question racked up $10k in credit card debt last month alone on stupid poo poo and didn't budget and was asking people to lend her money) and I stated that I'd worked my rear end for for the past 8 months and was totally 100% debt free apart from the $10 rush fee sitting on my corporate card that I just got the bill for.
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Feb 8, 2013 22:46
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I've got a corporate card and this card I just got approved for, I don't really need three active credit cards in my name. I may take out a store card or two in the future for big purchases (I need to buy a washer and dryer, so I may get a Lowe's card to finance it if they're offering a good deal, etc) And not that I buy anything questionable or my parents are the type who'd steal my identity/meddle with my finances, but having absolute financial freedom from my parents is appealing. How would you feel if you weren't feeling particularly good looking today and Emma Stone bursts into the office and is bragging to you about how gorgeous she is and how hard it is to be that beautiful? It's fantastic you're the Emma Stone of your finances, but debt can cause extreme anxiety, stress, or depression in people, so please don't openly brag about it. You're just making them feel like complete poo poo to make yourself feel better. I don't want to jump down your throat, but I have experienced someone commit suicide because of debt so I'm a little sensitive to it. That's great your debt free, I hope you stay that way (minus mortgage), and you have every right to be proud of it, but please think.
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Feb 8, 2013 23:16
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Eggplant Wizard posted:If he's got his parents on it he should close it. It'll still show up on his history as a longstanding account, but without the potential for something loving it up in the future. It's not going to ruin his credit if he closes an old account and if he doesn't want to use it anymore, welp. Ah my mistake. Carry on then!
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Feb 8, 2013 23:26
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reflex posted:How would you feel if you weren't feeling particularly good looking today and Emma Stone bursts into the office and is bragging to you about how gorgeous she is and how hard it is to be that beautiful? I wasn't bragging, the "bragging" was her words, I should've written that clearer. I simply said that I didn't have any debt and left it at that, it was one of those conversations where they kept trying to get me to join in bitching about money and I honestly had nothing to add for once. Edit because I'm really bad at writing today (brain is fried from a long stressful week): Here's how it went down: Coworkers: [money bitching] Debt sucks, right AG? Me: Well I actually just paid off my car and my credit card, so I don't have any right now and I'm trying to stay that way because yes it does suck. Coworker who is horrendously bad with money: UGH STOP BRAGGING! I usually avoid bringing up finances because of this exact situation happening 
Problem! fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 23:33
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That was a terrible, terrible response and is borderline bragging.
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Feb 9, 2013 17:37
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I try to keep in mind that the only reason I'm better off than other people is simply because I'm more fortunate than they are. I lucked out when I was younger and met an older person who had gone through bankruptcy. He told me how much debt (especially credit cards) had hosed his life over and I saw how debt and bankruptcy affected his life on a daily basis. Later, I met another person who directed me to The Millionaire Next Door when I asked him for advice on money. Finally someone on another forum unrelated to finance told me about SA which is where I found BFC. Had I not met any of those people I'd probably be loaded down with debt and living above my means just like everyone else. I kinda understand some of the frustration over co-workers though because I'm aware that our employer would probably pay us better if she wasn't aware that most of her employees were debt slaves. Once I have a house paid down I could tell her "Give me a raise or I'll quit" without fear because I could work part time at Walmart and pay my bills (while looking for another job) if she fired me. The rest of my co-workers (except for one trust fund baby, bragging about debt is bad, bragging about collecting from a trust fund every year is worse.) will work for peanuts because it's the best paying job they can get and they're still barely able to make ends meet each month. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 18:04
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I've been slightly dumb with my money and haven't been contributing to an IRA in the last ~5 years that I should have been. Fixed that this week!
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Feb 10, 2013 05:57
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Here's how it went down: Your response could have been more along the lines of "Yeah man, sure does" On the flipside, congrats on paying your stuff off!
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Feb 10, 2013 07:25
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Alternatively, gently caress stupid people who make bad decisions and get a shirt that said "Debt Free" to wear around her. Congrats. You did a good thing. You basically did something in the US as rare and difficult as maintaining a decent bodyfat %. If someone's going to drag you into a personal conversation that's completely unrelated to work, then whatever. If someone at work was complaining about their STDs, their kids, their recent car accident, etc. and nudged you to agree and you responded with "I'm clean/no kids/No accidents recently" it's not so much bragging as "No I live a healthy lifestyle." Yeah, I'd probably have joined in complaining about how horrible debt used to be; but maybe that's worse bragging, rather than commiseration.
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Feb 11, 2013 09:10
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Here's how it went down: I think it says more about your coworker than it does about you. I get the same thing, and I quietly sit out “Scratch Ticket Friday”
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Feb 11, 2013 14:43
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Jesus, aren't you a loan officer...
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Feb 11, 2013 18:39
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They spent 5 months trying to convince me to get a car loan. One of them told me that you should always have a car loan because if you ever manage to pay off your car your life style will expand and you will spend the money anyway, and then when you need another new car you won't have any room in your budget for another one.  It blew their minds that I came in one day and announced I paid $4100 cash for one.
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Feb 11, 2013 18:53
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Wow, that logic is amazing and impressive.
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Feb 11, 2013 19:42
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slap me silly posted:Wow, that logic is amazing and impressive. If you tell it to your customers all the time sooner or later you're going to start believing it. I don't think we should be surprised that there would be a bunch of true loan believers on the front line of retail banks.
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Feb 11, 2013 19:44
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Zeta Taskforce posted:One of them told me that you should always have a car loan because if you ever manage to pay off your car your life style will expand and you will spend the money anyway, and then when you need another new car you won't have any room in your budget for another one. What the hell... 
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Feb 11, 2013 19:48
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I'm sure that happens to a lot of people. Of course, the easy way around that is to have the slightest bit of control over your life.
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Feb 11, 2013 19:53
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MJBuddy posted:Alternatively, gently caress stupid people who make bad decisions and get a shirt that said "Debt Free" to wear around her. With an attitude like that I'm surprised you didn't refer to kids as "crotch spawn!" Also, car accidents are just that, accidents. Has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle. Regardless, my two cents worth is that money is an emotional thing for most people and the best way to go about criticizing someone's actions is to not say anything. What you should be thinking before speaking to coworkers about the three things you don't talk about in polite conversation -- money, sex, politics -- is posing the question to yourself of what benefit do I get from what I'm about to say. Establishing this thought experiment before speaking is my own form of incremental improvement. It has helped out my career greatly to not be that person who is annoyingly "better than you." It's a work environment, be a better worker and don't make the wrong kind of waves and you'll do much better in the long run. How would it have possibly benefited you with your coworkers to say that you just paid off your debt and were free while others were complaining and trying to get you to join in complaining? These people aren't your friends, they are your coworkers. You don't have to like them, just have to work with them. Reading what you've shared about this situation saying nothing or simply agreeing would have been a better option. Zeta Taskforce posted:They spent 5 months trying to convince me to get a car loan. One of them told me that you should always have a car loan because if you ever manage to pay off your car your life style will expand and you will spend the money anyway, and then when you need another new car you won't have any room in your budget for another one. People bad with money exist in every profession. I remember when I was interested in becoming a CFP and one lady I ran into who was doing it was suggesting that I take out every store credit card I could to help out my credit score. No exaggeration, she told me she "had about 30 cards" and her score was "impeccable." At the time I was getting close to breaking 800 so I obviously threw her advice in the trash. What I did when she said this was I politely listened to her reasoning (heaps of bullshit) and thanked her for the advice. I did this because it would have absolutely not benefited me in anyway to argue with her over something so silly. There's some incremental improvement that worked for me, and I hope it works for you if you implement it.
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Feb 12, 2013 03:46
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How old are these people? Most of my co-workers are in their late fourties to mid fifties and seem to have the same mentality. I've realized a person's income (with the help of facebook and co-workers) really has nothing to do with how smart they are, especially with money.
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Feb 12, 2013 04:01
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Orange_Lazarus posted:How old are these people? Most of my co-workers are in their late fourties to mid fifties and seem to have the same mentality. If you're asking me, I estimated this lady's age to have been very late 30s to mid 40s. At the time I was low to mid 20s and I knew more than her about maintaining good credit. Your second point hits very close to home. As someone who grew up poor I have trouble reconciling that fact to this day.
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Feb 12, 2013 04:18
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Earth posted:Regardless, my two cents worth is that money is an emotional thing for most people and the best way to go about criticizing someone's actions is to not say anything. What you should be thinking before speaking to coworkers about the three things you don't talk about in polite conversation -- money, sex, politics -- is posing the question to yourself of what benefit do I get from what I'm about to say. Establishing this thought experiment before speaking is my own form of incremental improvement. It has helped out my career greatly to not be that person who is annoyingly "better than you." It's a work environment, be a better worker and don't make the wrong kind of waves and you'll do much better in the long run. How about the benefit of personal integrity? Why should someone have to lie or hide their pride at an accomplishment because other people are unreasonably oversensitive? It sounds absolutely exhausting to always be afraid and censor yourself because someone that dragged you into a conversation may get angry that your response forces them to recognize their own bad decisions. If they're so offended, they don't need to complain about debt around you again. Who knows, maybe when the defensive gut reaction passed, someone in that group would approach the debt free person and ask for some advice. It's a slim chance, but it's a better chance than if everyone mindlessly agreed and maintained the attitude of "debt is normal, everyone has it, and it's just something we all live with."
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Feb 12, 2013 07:20
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Earth posted:With an attitude like that I'm surprised you didn't refer to kids as "crotch spawn!" Also, car accidents are just that, accidents. Has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle. Why would I? And no, tons of people in accidents are in them because they don't pay attention to the road, are texting, or suck at driving in general. The term car accident is just a phrase we use to make idiots feel less bad about riding up someone's rear end like a jackass on the road. More importantly: I don't care. As you said, they're co-workers, not friends. You don't have to be ashamed about being in a good place in your life. If he was going around shoving it in people's faces who didn't care (and yeah there are people who feel this way about other people's kids), it would be different. The second someone begins a conversation with "Hey, let's talk about the intimacies of my personal life!" bets are off.
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Feb 12, 2013 23:27
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Semi-bragging but compared to last December I had 10k car debt and like 10k credit card debt. I'm now at 0 CC debt, and 9k in car debt. I plan on selling the car when I return from this deployment (which is worth more than I owe), and buying a small used 4 door. I've approached this topic with my wife, but she's said it's my turn to pick the car I want. I also will have 15 grand saved up by August so I can go back to school full time. All it took was my wife practicing self control and a nice raise from a deployment. We've actually got our spending down to: 260 jeep payment 220 total bills (cell, storage, car insurance) 525 Dave Ramsey envelopes (animals, groceries, gas, food, spending money) 90 dollar Afghanistan Internet, which is basically gently caress troops rate 100 bucks a month for my spending here. Could we cut back a little bit more? Yes, but the extra 50 bucks is for peace of mind especially when I'm only spending 1/3 of what I'm earning.
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Feb 13, 2013 02:47
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I think you had your own thread a year or so ago, it seems like you've come a long way since then, good job.MJBuddy posted:Why would I? I agree a person shouldn't feel ashamed about being debt free when others are not (I try to be empathetic though) but work is one of those environments where being cautious is a usually the best way to go. I mean I recently caused a ruckus at work because one of my co-workers said, "Slavery only existed in the United States for less than 80 years." and instead of walking away I had to be correct them, "Try over 200 years". Turns out it was a bad idea because I forgot where I was and another co-worker told me that was the dumbest thing she ever heard because the United States was only a little over 200 years old. So my choices are unnecessary drama with co-workers that angers me so much that I have to create an E/N thread to deal with it or I could just avoid it and spend more time in my office daydreaming or doing something more productive. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Feb 13, 2013 |
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Feb 13, 2013 03:51
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reflex posted:What the hell... I am with you on that one. I get the passive expansion of expenditure to match income if you have no discipline. I have a car loan, so I can use the interest to offset income tax. Not just because I got a raise.
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Feb 14, 2013 12:54
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Over the course of 8 years with low income, high cost of living and bad spending habits I accrued over $8000 in consumer debt. I wrote a big boring wall of text that boils down to: -2012 was my first year in a decade where my credit card balance went down, thanks to me being forced to kill said card (locking in the old APR before a huge increase), vowing never to carry a balance on the new one, putting all of my spending under the looking glass and as a result changing how I actually spent money. -For the first time in many years, I actually saved up money for something before spending it. I drew up a budget last spring for our next vacation in advance; I made it frugal, hunted deals, set our goal, and for six months my partner and I lived even poorer than usual to set aside money for the trip. It made the whole vacation guilt-free without deepening our debt. God drat that felt good. -I then inherited a complete (and unearned) bailout on my remaining debt. Thanks to the clarity I'd gained regarding my finances, I knew exactly how hard to come by that sum would be for me, and chose to treat what was left over as windfall that cannot fundamentally change my ability to spend. It's still set aside for emergencies like it should be. -I got my periodic bills whittled down as far as they can go and quit smoking a couple years ago, which to date has saved me $5200 I couldn't really have afforded to spend. -Went back to school, and am on track to get a technical certification this summer. Now that I am living within my means and aware of just how poor my income & cost of living makes me, soon I will have to tackle the next hurdle: facing interview anxiety, potentially greater job volatility, and applying for jobs in the hopes of something more interesting that pays me enough to do more than break even. Remy Marathe fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 23:01
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Just sat on hold for close to an hour to close my BOA credit card. I opened it a few years ago to transfer a few thousand dollars to it at 0%. Then after a year it went up to 29.99%, and I usually only made minimum payments on it. Finally paid off the remaining ~ $900 about 2 months ago, was feeling good, and then got hit with a $99 annual fee. Called them up, told them I wanted to close the card because of the fee. They closed the card and removed the fee. It's a card I never used, and it wasn't my oldest account either. Glad to finally be rid of it.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:14
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Zeta Taskforce linked me here. I'm 27 years old and became debt free last Friday. The backstory (won't be too e/n I promise  ) - Grew up in a family that tended to rack up a bunch of debt. They'd get loans to pay off loans and all of that (which never turned out like they hoped) and the mentality continued with me quite nicely. I was in debt since 17 (I had to borrow against my parents who borrowed against the bank) for $2000 to pay for a new engine to a POS car I never wanted. When I was 18, I got a CapitalOne card with a $300 limit, which I proceeded to max out in the first week. When I heard it was declined, I thought it was strange because how could I max out the card so fast!? For college, I lived off of student loans; I did work jobs but that was my "fun" money which meant drinking, drugs, video games, eating out, etc.I always continually maxed out my credit cards but poo poo got a little too real when I maxed out all of my cards, which had a collective limit of $4000. Except I had about $100 in the bank. I had to make minimum payments of about $150 by the end of the next week. I would get a paycheck but most of that was spoken for with rent and utilities. Student loan aid wasn't going to come in until the next month. So I scrambled onto eBay and pawned off almost everything I bought with those cards, including a giant Sega Saturn collection, an unopened 60 GB iPod Video, about 50 DVDs, and an expensive sound system. I was lucky to get about 30 cents on the dollar (and a huge scammer headache with the iPod Video). I was glad to make enough money to make the card payments but this was rock bottom. No, I didn't skip a payment but that would be suicide since I borrowed so heavily for school that a late credit card payment could have sunk me since I borrowed so much private student loans. I worked my rear end off in the next several months to get the balance paid off. I still kept borrowing student loans like it was nothing and graduated with a $87,000 student loan tab. Minimum payments were about $800 a month and this was in December 2008, when poo poo was getting real, economically. Fortunately I had a good paying job out of school. Before that offer, I was so worried that I'd never find a job and would have no way to pay off all of the debt I accumulated. So when I graduated, I vowed to myself to pay off the debts and be forever debt free. Four years and two months later, I paid off over $100,000 worth of debt ($95,000 for student loans including interest, $6000 in credit card debt, and another $6000 in car payments). How I did it: 1) I lived well below my means. I lived in a tiny efficiency apartment. When I got a job transfer, I moved in with my parents and paid $200/month in rent vs. $700+ for my own place. When I transferred again for my current job, I still live in an efficiency apartment. I minimized entertainment expenses. I held onto my 2001 Saturn until it was destroyed by hail. Then I got another mid size used car. 2) I worked my rear end off. Every overtime opportunity, I took it. I worked a second job while on an internship. Any chance there was to make money, I was on it. 3) I saved my rear end off. You never know if there is an emergency and sure enough, there was a couple of emergencies. Rather than charge it, I got out my checkbook and paid it off. Felt good. Once I felt comfortable with the amount of savings, I paid down debts while maintaining the level of savings I was used to. 4) I carefully weighed out expenses. I deliberately thought out buying expensive items before doing so. It took me a month before deciding I needed to replace my busted laptop. I didn't just go to work and then to home and then to work. However I had to think things through before going ahead and doing them. 5) Kept track of expenses through Excel. I was shocked to see how much useless poo poo I bought. Once I set up my expenses through Excel, my expenses dropped off once I was aware of what I was doing. For now I'm going to keep saving. I'm going to research investing options. I'm going to always have some money ready to pull out from the bank in case of an emergency, even if it does lose its worth year over year. I'm going to set it up to where I'll never have to be debt free again. It's going to take time but I'm excited!
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Feb 16, 2013 00:04
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Don't want to reveal too much. Long story short: very pleased that salary negotiation at new job worked very well for me. Read the Salary negotiation thread and absorb. Be cool and confident, and ask for what you think you can get.
Hufflepuff or bust! fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Feb 25, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 07:44
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I moved to a different city with about no money after graduating college with some huge loan debt; this was in May 2012. From that point I spent 3 months unemployed and from there I was hired as a temp, hired on full-time, promoted with a 20% bump in salary, and just paid off 70% of a loan I took out for moving expenses. I have a 3% 401k with employer matching half of that, health care for the first time ever, a flex-account, and a grand in savings. My net worth is still -$20k but hey..getting there 
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Feb 23, 2013 06:15
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Im a 40 year old guy who had over the last 20 years massed up a pretty big debt on various credit cards and loans to pay off the cards that while I would pay off the card I would not close them so just ran up even more debts. Almost 6 years ago I consolidated everything into one big loan for £18000. The interest rate was not all that bad but I had spread it over 6 years to make the payments manageable so the total to pay back would be quite large (about 30k+ in total). I got married and I had made my wife clear before hand about my situation with money and that I had learned the hard way (getting a loan to pay off a loan is dumb, hur) and she supported me and I took the time to learn a little about how money really works. I got a new job and we were working to be totally debt free by May this year, all stupid little debts were gone months ago and I wad almost paid for my big loan. Of course over the years when I had taken out loan I had also foolishly been getting payment protection, 3 loans and one credit card in total. Og course the banks here in the UK had been naughty and had been miss selling it to dumb-asses like me. They got in trouble and then had their asses handed to them and were told to pay it all back plus interest. I chanced my arm and made one phone call to my bank. They had insisted that I have the protection or they would not help me. So here I sit having learned the hard way to manage money and the bank phoned me last Friday to say that all 4 complaints had been upheld and they were now offering me £17560 as compensation for misselling me the insurance. (About $26,521 my American friends) Life is funny sometimes, just as I get my head above water for the first time in my life they come along and give me a life changing amount as a hand out. And when it happens it feels loving magic!
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Feb 24, 2013 20:29
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So, a while back I posted something about getting fired from T-mobile for having a Verizon phone and starting my own marketing business as a vendor for custom home builders throughout the northern virginia area. I had been delivering fliers to apartments usually in low volumes, say 2k or 5k per job paying 75 cents a unit. I just got a job from a new home builder to get 30k units out in one week at 75 cents per unit. I don't even know what the gently caress 
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Feb 27, 2013 19:06
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On Terra Firma posted:So, a while back I posted something about getting fired from T-mobile for having a Verizon phone and starting my own marketing business as a vendor for custom home builders throughout the northern virginia area. I had been delivering fliers to apartments usually in low volumes, say 2k or 5k per job paying 75 cents a unit. You need work? Hiring? :P
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Feb 27, 2013 23:28
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One of my wisdom teeth started cracking the gumline yesterday, so I'm on deck to get all four extracted on Wednesday. I have all the money for the procedure in my savings account designated for dental/optical/medical expenses and my biggest worry is how many days I need to take off work/the gym.
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Feb 28, 2013 18:01
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