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MAO TSE-TUNGACUNT posted:Cancelled a "bad credit" credit card with exorbitant fees that were absolutely killing me after ~2 years. Yes, the improvement to my credit was nice, but going in the red because of it sucked. That's kind of where I am! I just cancelled a stupid credit card that I got as a freshman that had a stupid $50 annual fee. I hadn't used the card in THREE YEARS and for some reason it kept getting bumped up every year until it had like a $10,000 limit. The guy on the phone still spent 10 minutes trying to convince me to keep the card. But now it's completely gone! I paid off my car not too long ago (only had a 2K loan but that's about 50% more than I make in a month) and have a little over 3K in emergency savings. Not too shabby for a poor grad student  And I also just found out that my state has a student loan forgiveness program for people moving to a county with a declining population. So if I move in with my fiance next year (by then he will be my husband), I'll be eligible for a $15K student loan forgiveness. That's only 3-4K less than I owe!
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Sep 19, 2012 23:47
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Cicero posted:That's awesome, but be careful: having more room tends to result in buying more (unneeded) stuff. And higher utility bills, so watch out for those as well! My parents have what I would consider an average sized home for someone in the US (so, way more space than 2 people could possibly need, 4br 2 bath, 2 living rooms etc) and their heating bills are regularly in the $300 range during the really cold months. Same for air conditioning in the summer, that will eat into your paycheck more than you'd think.
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Jul 3, 2013 00:11
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You're paying other people's cell phone bills?
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Jul 27, 2013 17:47
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No Wave posted:Not sure that should be the takeaway from this story. Yeah but it's true, really. I'd guess that the majority of full-time workers don't even have the option of working remotely due to the nature of the work they do, let alone a boss and/or company who is receptive to the idea.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:54
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We just got our cell phone bill dropped from $115 a month for two lines to about $75 a month. We went into the store to get my husband a new phone since he lost his and the guy told us we were paying too much. We don't have smart phones or use data and when we got the phones, the cheapest plan they told us about was $50 per line. We switched to a really similar plan for $35 per line, and dropped our $10/month insurance. The guy helping us actually told us to not buy the insurance because phones like ours sell for $20-30 on Ebay and the $10/month insurance wasn't worth it. Thinking back, we had already paid $70 in insurance costs plus a $50 insurance co-pay for the phone we got yesterday so a $30 phone actually ended up costing us $120. That's a far cry from what the sales rep told us when we sighed the 2-year contract earlier this year - she basically pressured us into buying insurance (it's only $10 per month for both phones and you will use it! Hey Dave, how many insurance claims have we had today? See, we've already had 5 insurance claims JUST TODAY!). She also told us that we couldn't buy a used phone online and have it covered by insurance. So basically she had us convinced that we HAD to have insurance and it made sense at the time I guess. So basically we got the first helpful Verizon store employee ever! He gave us his personal cell # and told us to call him if we ever needed help getting a new phone switched over (like if we lose one again, since we don't have insurance now) and he'd waive the fees for us. So there's a lesson - if you have a dumbphone and don't use a lot of data, you can get a plan for $35/month and don't waste your money on insurance. It's actually cheaper in the long run to NOT have insurance. Also my husband's grandmother gave us $5,000 and we're going to open a Roth IRA and hopefully we'll be able to throw more money in it on a regular basis. We don't have a lot of money to spare so the fact that we got this gift makes me pretty happy that we are at least starting to save for retirement. razz fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 17:10
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dreesemonkey posted:If you just have dumbphones (and don't use them a whole lot), you could probably do just a tracfone or something and get one of the phones that doubles your minutes that you buy. I think it's one of the cheapest ways to have a cellphone if they're just occasional use type things. Just FYI. Yeah we have looked into that. That's actually what my husband used to have before we got married and we got onto a plan together. The downside to the tracphone thing - if you lose/break it, you either have to 1.) pay full retail price for a new one (the price of dumbphones are actually increasing, the phone my husband has is like $250 retail and doesn't even have a keyboard) and keep your phone number or 2.) buy an old/used phone but you have to get a different phone number which is a HUGE inconvenience. At least that was our experience when my husband was on a tracfone. Big pain in the rear end. Plus we text A LOT so we need something with unlimited texting. I'm sure there are cheaper plans than $35/month but compared to the $55/month we were paying, I'm pretty happy. Plus we're only 7 months into a 2 year contract with Verizon. But seriously, have you ever gone into a cell phone store and had someone tell you your plan was too expensive? Blew my mind!
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Jan 2, 2014 17:40
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TVs are so cheap now, you can get absolutely enormous (well, by my standards anyway) flat screens for $600 or less. Maybe 4-5 years ago my parents bought two new huge gigantic flat-screen TVs for something like $3,000 each. You can get very similar ones now for about a grand. TVs are the one thing that always seem to be cheap if you're willing to wait a year or buy an off-brand. As for my incremental improvement... I finally have a job interview after applying for 50+ jobs! So in about a month I should find out if I'll be a full-time park ranger in New Mexico 
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Jan 23, 2014 19:48
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razz posted:As for my incremental improvement... I finally have a job interview after applying for 50+ jobs! So in about a month I should find out if I'll be a full-time park ranger in New Mexico Well to quote myself, I got offered a job! Not the park ranger position, but one that is much more fitting to my skills and interests. On top of that, I was able to negotiate my salary and increase my starting pay by $5,000! On the flip side, oh god I am almost 28 and this is my first real job. I've been in school forever. What's it like to be an adult? Is it magical? It better be magical.
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Feb 18, 2014 18:54
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Cicero posted:It's not magical, but having money is nice. Considering the most money I have ever made in my life was <20K a year and this job is more than double that, I certainly hope so. I'm going to find the most ballin' penthouse apartment and spend all my money on booze and drugs! Just kidding, I'm obsessively frugal. I'm actually pretty pumped about being a boring responsible adult and saving money for retirement and all that fun stuff. And paying back my student loans, blah.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:52
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BossRighteous posted:This is great news. I was legit gonna PM you to ask about it 2 days ago but thought it would be weird. Thank you friend! Hit me up any time, totally not weird If anyone is interested in biology/conservation/wildlife jobs or anything like that, you all can PM me any time, truly. I love to help people and this is a hard path to go down, many disappointments along the way but also the potential for a very rewarding career if it is truly your passion as it is mine. I love to chat about wildlife or conservation topics or just generic non-serious biology/wildlife stuff.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:38
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