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I'm semi-retarded I think. When I moved to the US originally I didn't intend to stay here more than a couple years, so I declined to contribute to my 401k, and didn't understand the need for short term / long term disability because I was young and invincible. Over the past 5 years that has changed and I'm here to stay. I met my wife and we're going to be starting a family and I won't be headed home for a few years at least if ever. I never went back and changed my 401k contributions until this year. It just never really occurred to me. I feel like I really hosed myself on the retirement savings front. My wife's job which was meant to offer her a 401k never did, but at least she was maxing out her IRA. Now we're improving that situation, but I still face-palm myself about it every so often. Edit - we're ~30 so not too bad I guess.
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Jun 22, 2013 16:36
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Several coworkers and I all started at roughly the same time a year ago with the same salary (~$60,000 annually before taxes). All of us are entry level straight out of college so it's not like any of us were sitting on piles of cash coming in: One bought a Porsche before she even bought furniture for her apartment, while she had a perfectly functional and nice car to start with. A year later her apartment is still only sparsely furnished with the cheapest poo poo imaginable. She's continually whining about dropping $300-$500 a month on maintenance for the drat car. Another somehow managed to buy a house, but decided she wanted to do all of her desired renovations IMMEDIATELY and has been begging for $10,000 loans from the rest of us to cover it since the bank won't give her any more money. All of her many credit cards are maxed out. She's been forced to take in roommates to cover the mortgage and constantly whines about it. You did this to yourself, bud. Another isn't saving for retirement because she's a workaholic and has decided she's just going to work forever  I have a relative who isn't saving for retirement because she's super religious and thinks that the apocalypse will occur before she retires. She's in her 60s without a single penny saved.
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Jun 22, 2013 18:12
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Oh yes I was hoping for this thread! Let me tell you about Braydon. He's an all-around winner. A former male stripper, coke addict, and perpetually-unemployed waiter. He came to live on my couch for "two weeks," because my roommate was a good friend to people who certainly didn't earn it. He stayed for 8 months before I finally lost my temper. He lived with less than $20 to his name all the time. Braydon would only take under-the-table jobs because his wages were garnished for child support. He obviously was not present in his kids lives. In his time on my couch, he was involved in a gang bang with this similarly classy girl we all worked with. She got pregnant, and 3 guys were possible fathers. When baby was born, she put Braydon's name on the birth certificate, locking him into (more) child support liability. However, Braydon and baby mama are both very white, and this baby is unquestionably half-black. But Braydon never disputed his responsibility to this child, so if he ever gets a legitimate job he will have to support this one too. I finally get this leech off my couch, he gets a car, he's doing better with his life. One day he gets a flat tire and puts on the spare (donut- you know, the kind meant for about 50miles). Three months later and he's visiting our apartment. We're looking at his car from the porch and you know what he says? "I think I need a new donut."
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Jun 22, 2013 21:30
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My mom divorced my dad ~10 years ago. It wasn't an angry fight-every-night kind of relationship before that. She just sort of fell out of love I guess, and I can respect that. Anyways, my mom obviously got some money in the divorce from him. I don't know how much, and it's isn't/wasn't really any of my business asking, but I do know that at one point she had ~$50,000 in some type of investments. I think mutual funds or something that they had split up. Anyways, she had some trouble with her taxes this past year and owes the IRS $5000. She doesn't have any of that invested money left because she had to spend it on home repairs to make the place look good, and has to scrimp and save to get groceries. She'll be 60 in two years, and makes a pretty meager living as a teachers aide for students with learning disabilities. It's sad watching her realize that she'll never get to retire. I'm glad she enjoys her work, but she's getting old and has to take care of my 30 year old brother who has autism and is pretty low functioning. It's just frustrating when something happens like her tv breaks, and she just has to get a new tv. Or the awning is broken, and she couldn't possibly have a broken awning, and will have to pay someone to come fix it. At least she doesn't ask me or my sister for loans for things. My dad is much better with money, but still not that smart with it. He lives in a cheap apartment, doesn't really have any debt, and doesn't splurge on big ticket items. That being said, he has done dumb things like lease his truck for three years before purchasing it from the dealer, and then he talks to my sister who wants a new car about how leasing could be an option. I don't say it in front of my dad, but I try to convince my sister that leasing is dumb, and she should wait until she can buy a newer used car with cash. She looks at me dumbfounded and asks, "Dad leased his truck, was that dumb?" Yeah it was dumb, he paid an extra several thousand dollars to rent a truck that he ended up buying anyways. That said, at least my dad will be able to retire in a few years.
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Jun 23, 2013 17:07
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I used to work with a girl who, no kidding, would come back from her lunch break once or twice a week with bundles of shopping bags. From clothing stores, Tiffany's, all kinds of crap. She told me at one point she was spending in excess of $400 or $500 a week on clothes. Now, this would be fine if she could afford it. But she was putting this all on credit cards. At one point she had a consumer debt of $4,000 all on clothes. The worst part? She had a salary of $75,000. I even sat down with her and created a budget with her - her expenses were much, much lower than her salary. She could have been saving about half of that. And she just blew all of that money on eating out, clothes, fancy dinners, all sorts of crap. She lived 10 minutes away from work by train but she would take the taxi nearly every day because she would sleep in. Now she lives in Paris.
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Jun 25, 2013 13:18
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ooo, is this where i get to talk about my brother in law? Hell yes. Note, this may come across as slightly biased cause i hate the bastard but: They sell their condo (which was given to them by his dad) in NJ to move to SD. Make a fair bit of profit off of it (since they got it for free), use ~60k as a downpayment for a 180k house, not a dumb financial decision. Then he went out and decided to refinish the basement. Entirely himself, and entirely not up to code. (it looks good, but I shudder to think what's behind those walls...he got busted before with like 10k in fines at their old old house for putting central air in a place that's on the historic register and not pulling a single permit). And then decided to buy not one, not two, but four 40+ inch flat screens. And an X box. and a Wii. and a boat...and a new truck for him. and a new car for my sister. And then they adopted a kid. A special needs kid at that. Nice and admirable. Except for the fact that they constantly complain about giving away government benefits while collecting their check every month for him. And they spoil him rotten. There's nothing against giving your kid toys. But kid does not need to walk out with $10 worth of stuff every time they go in to WalMart. It's one thing to bribe your kid into putting up with shopping with a .50 candy bar. He complains about how bad I am with money, when he's the one that has 6 figures in judgements against him. He ran up something like 180k in debt *not* counting the mortgage and HELOC they took out. They're currently using my mom's bank account for some of their automatic withdrawals for these judgements because Wells Fargo closed theirs out due to insufficient funds and their being a lien against it. He's stuck using one of those prepaid accounts from WalMart. He makes the minimum payments on everything, will never get out of the crushing pile of debt he put on, and relies on my elderly mother to pay his mortgage. But when I pointed out that if it wasn't for the 1200+ my mom pays them in rent they'd be on the street he threw me out and told me to never set foot on his property again, and pointed out I'm not good with money either. (admittedly...I'm not the best. Largely due to massive substance abuse problems. When I'm medicated and sober I have oodles of money.). The kicker? They can't even file bankruptcy because my sister needs to stay bonded for her job (she does finance for a hospital) and if she files bankruptcy she loses that. Considering that he's a retail jockey (at age 44...he had made it up to department sup at a home depot before he got demoted) they can't afford to lose her income.
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Jun 25, 2013 16:10
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AA is for Quitters posted:ooo, is this where i get to talk about my brother in law? Hell yes. Suggest to her to have as much of the debt converted so that it's only in his name. Divorce, have him declare bankruptcy, remarry? As for people bad with money, I have a friend we'll call Tom. He and his wife have a kid. They each have jobs that pay somewhere in the $35k/year range (totally guessing, but I suspect it's close enough to that). They each buy a new car every year or two, on loans. By new I mean used, but new to them. They've been doing this for as long as I've known them. They have never NOT had car payments. That'd be fine, I guess, if constantly trading cars is your thing. Except that, between the two of them, the own like 6 cars. The other thing is that they are stuck paying high rent in a condo because they can't get a mortgage, at least in part because they always have so many car payments. Their income isn't enough to get approved for anything due to the car loans. Essentially they are paying at least as much on rent as they would to own a place outright...because of these drat cars. Anytime I point out that they should maybe pay off a vehicle entirely and stop buying cars for a few years, is met with "yeah.... I know." and that's the end of discussion. I try to point out how my wife and I purchase cars, which makes enormous sense in comparison: We start by buying the best used car we can afford. Drive it a while, until it starts to become too problematic or we come into more money, sell that car and put extra cash toward another, newer, nicer used car and buy it in whole. Repeat as necessary. Rather than paying interest on car loans, you're saving money to be used for whatever, including buying another car. But he doesn't seem to comprehend why they would be better off that way and continues getting car loans every year or two. Theres that other thread here where a guy asks what to do with his thousand dollar gift he received. I suggested he put it toward his $500/month car payment. I finally thought of a concise way to put why he should do that: You're paying interest on something that is very very rapidly depreciating. Pay that poo poo off as fast as you can. johnny sack fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Jun 25, 2013 |
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Jun 25, 2013 16:24
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Oooh fun thread, I get to complain about my friend Doug. Doug is a good guy all around, though tragically goofy and awkward with people. He's in his early 30s, single, and will likely remain that way. Above all, he is pretty lovely with money/credit, though somehow he manages to keep afloat. He does make a good income, probably $65k or so (in a not real high cost of living area). I could go into detail of each any every bone headed move but here are some of the simplified highlights: - Bought a car for a friend of his, something like a 6 year loan on a used '03 hyundai or something. The friend wouldn't have money to pay the payment all the time so he'd have to pay for it, and he never kept records of how much she owed him. Somehow I think the loan got paid off without the car exploding. - Two december's ago he decided to buy a house. Somehow he got a mortgage on a place for $170k, which he could have found a better house for less very easily, but oh well. It was some sort of VA loan so he had very little down and I think most of the closing costs were financed. He was nervous as hell for needing to come up with a paltry ~$1700 or something for closing. Like, he didn't have any money other than that. So the closing went ok and he went batshit crazy buying stuff for the house on credit including: - All high-end stainless kitchen appliances (fridge/oven/microwave/dishwasher) ~ $5000 - Front load washer/dryer with those un-necessarily expensive stands, despite having a good working set at his last apartment ~$2500 - Couch/loveseat/chairs/ottomans/coffee table/dining room set ~ $3000 - Can't afford to go on "vacation", which is riding his motorycle across the country, yet he does. He went to a friend's in TN (from PA) and admitted he only had like $70 until the next payday. - His motorcycle, which was getting close to paid off, he decided to re-finance his loan to like 4 more years and pulled the equity out of it. His motorcycle that has like 50,000 miles on it after 3 years. - Along with his motorcycle refinancing he wanted to do some work to the house so he opened another line of credit for $11k somehow. The first thing he buys? A $1800 Marantz AV receiver and $600 matching blu-ray player, and a $400 robot to clean his gutters. His goal was to fix up the kitchen, which was doable with $11k and doing the work yourself, but nope that's a dumb idea so he instead bought about $3000 worth of tile for an enormous mudroom project that he'll likely never do, a 6000 watt generator he'll never use. The remainder of the money? He bought a central air/heat pump unit from a company online for $5400 and plans to install it himself "to save money". It's a fantastic idea because he only has electric baseboard heat and no AC in his house, but he's never ever ever going to be able to do that himself. There aren't even any ducts run in his house.
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Jun 25, 2013 17:04
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As far as I can tell from the information I've been able to pry out of them, my aunt wanted to sell her daughter their used car but the daughter didn't have enough money. It's a pretty common problem with an unusual solution. While my folks would probably float me the remainder (hey, I'm good for it! Or rather, they're willing to absorb the relatively low risk I'm not) my aunt was understandably unwilling. They decided to have her sell it to a dealership so that the daughter could get a loan to buy it from the dealership instead of a face-to-face transaction. I suspect the dealership was one of those "anyone can get a loan guaranteed" type places - she is well on her way to a second bankruptcy  I'm still not 100% sure this isn't a scam to get the car paid off during the 2nd bankruptcy.
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Jun 25, 2013 18:03
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Delta-Wye posted:As far as I can tell from the information I've been able to pry out of them, my aunt wanted to sell her daughter their used car but the daughter didn't have enough money. It's a pretty common problem with an unusual solution. While my folks would probably float me the remainder (hey, I'm good for it! Or rather, they're willing to absorb the relatively low risk I'm not) my aunt was understandably unwilling. They decided to have her sell it to a dealership so that the daughter could get a loan to buy it from the dealership instead of a face-to-face transaction. I suspect the dealership was one of those "anyone can get a loan guaranteed" type places - she is well on her way to a second bankruptcy What? That dealership is going to squeeze the hell out of the daughter. Can you find out the terms of the financing? I wonder how much of a break they gave the daughter since the sale was already worked out. Then again, if she had already declared bankruptcy once, probably not much of a deal.
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Jun 25, 2013 21:00
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particle409 posted:What? That dealership is going to squeeze the hell out of the daughter. Can you find out the terms of the financing? I wonder how much of a break they gave the daughter since the sale was already worked out. Then again, if she had already declared bankruptcy once, probably not much of a deal. We're not exactly close with that part family, but I'm pretty sure the terms of the situation were hilariously bad. Next time I talk to them (in years, most likely) I'll be sure to drop into Mk4 of this thread and share a new crazy story of puppy mills for fun and profit or a cautionary tale of why you shouldn't buy a mess of slummy houses unless you really want to be a slumlord.
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Jun 25, 2013 21:47
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I should make my own 'fix my finances' thread. I have $20,000 in credit card debt. Which is stupid because I paid off $15,000 of my at-the-time $25,000 in credit card debt in December. $1,000 went to a new stereo system in my car. $5,000 went to a new bed. The rest is eating out and alcohol. I just signed on a $2275/mo apartment (includes parking though!). And I made an amicable agreement with my soon to be ex-wife to pay the four months on the end of our old house's lease ($1,300/mo). In exchange she is going to take good care of it so that I can claim the two months rent which is the security deposit. I'm kicking myself for the generosity but at the same time she is being cooperative in the divorce in every way. So maybe it was just cheaper than a lawyer. I could probably pay for all this. I make $75/hr and I can take on all the hours I want. But I really can't be arsed to do so. I end up working 3 to 6 hours a day most of the time. I could get raises through exams and kick my hourly up to $100 within a year. But that would require studying outside of work. Which I also can't be arsed to do. I really need to get my poo poo together. Slow Motion fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jun 25, 2013 |
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Jun 25, 2013 23:12
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Slow Motion posted:$1,000 new stereo system  Also what job do you have where you make $75/hour and can choose whatever hours you want?
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Jun 25, 2013 23:56
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Slow Motion posted:I should make my own 'fix my finances' thread. Please do make a 'fix your finances' thread. Sorry to say, but I'd love to hear about your poor decisions (but I would contribute whatever I could to help fix said poor decisions!).
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Jun 26, 2013 02:42
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Cicero posted:Why??? It is always weird reading threads in here. Outside of the how much money do you make thread everybody makes well beyond the median income straight out of college and worse with money than a teenager with their first job.
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Jun 26, 2013 05:56
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Yaos posted:It is always weird reading threads in here. Outside of the how much money do you make thread everybody makes well beyond the median income straight out of college and worse with money than a teenager with their first job. I've thought about this too, I chalk it up to the forums really started up in the early 2000s and back then were much more closely tied to the actual somethingawful.com front page. Thus the natural community was a bunch of nerdy teenagers which made up a disproportionately large share of the membership. Ten years later technology pays and many of those same teenagers are now programmers, engineers, consultants, etc that all pay extremely well.
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Jun 26, 2013 06:04
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I can't really share many stories of budgets I've done for people, but I will share a few tidbits. ~$3600 in payments on debt a month (two mortgages, two cars, six student loans, and 8 credit cards) ~I did try to do a budget for Zuarg ~Some people spend more on alcohol than rent. I will say though; My best friend has a job that requires travel and makes 3k a week + expenses paid, but only works for 6/12 months. He also rents in NYC, has lovely credit and thinks its a good idea to save up a ton of money and pay his rent a year in advance...leaving him with nothing saved.
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Jun 28, 2013 02:48
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I helped a roommate with some finance issues a few years ago. Looking through his list of debts/etc. in excel I thought he had made an error when I found a 20-something percent monthly interest rate on a loan for several thousand dollars. He had to convince me that this was right, and that he had taken out a payday loan in order to pay for a vacation. On the other extreme: I worked with a highly competent consultant who quickly rose through the ranks, making on the order of 150k annually after bonus, etc. Keeping that in mind:
I'm pretty sure he managed to keep his expenses to <10% of his salary.
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Jun 28, 2013 07:40
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Tomfoolery posted:On the other extreme: I worked with a highly competent consultant who quickly rose through the ranks, making on the order of 150k annually after bonus, etc. Keeping that in mind:  Highly competent indeed! If he's relatively savvy with what he does with all the money he's saving, he could be in great shape for the rest of his life in just a few years. If he likes living that way, that would be a pretty good start on freeing yourself from having to work without killing yourself in the process.
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Jun 28, 2013 16:47
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Cicero posted:Why??? I spend on things I enjoy because life is short and youth is even shorter (I'm 27). Also each year I seem to be making between 20 and 50 percent more than the last. I figure I will save money once I plateau. Oh yeah and with my 6% 401k contribution my employer dumps another 13% of my base salary into retirement. So that's covered. I only really gently caress around with consumer debt and my checking account. I work in finance consulting  .
Slow Motion fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jun 28, 2013 |
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Jun 28, 2013 16:58
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Pillowpants posted:I can't really share many stories of budgets I've done for people, but I will share a few tidbits. Aahahahah tilting at windmills.
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Jun 28, 2013 17:55
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Had a coworker a few years that made such mind boggling decisions on money that its still hard to comprehend. When hired, he was living in a town about 80 miles north of here. Now, most people would look into a cheap apartment at first to figure out if the job would be a thing, and to look for better housing. This guy instead hauled down a small camper to live at an RV park. While strange, I guess saves on rent, but its not comfortable and is only liveable until late fall, when it gets too cold. His solution to this problem? Sold his truck as collateral for a larger camper that was better insulated. Now he had a better place to live! But no truck to do things like drive to work, or whatever. So instead he rode an 4-wheeler into work, which was liveable until late November. He would bum rides to work from other coworkers who lived out in that direction, but he never once chipped in for gas or seemed all that thankful, so that eventually stopped. He traded in the 4-wheeler for a car from a friend, so at least he was able to survive the winter. Spring arrives and he is ready to have his wife and son move down for the summer, as he didn't want to pull him from school after it had started. So they moved in, now they had 3 people living in a camper. Now, money was still a problem as his job likely paid pretty well, but he was retarded with spending and went out too often. The solution they came up was the pay a dog breeder to get their dog pregnant with some certified dog and then sell the puppies. He thought he could sell each puppy for 400-500 bucks for some reason. Turns out raising puppies in a camper is a bad idea, as a half dozen puppies will poo poo everywhere. Also he only got 250 each for the 4 he sold, 1 was given away as a gift and the other was payment to the breeder. They moved out of the camper sometime after this, and made their 1st reasonable move into a single-wide that had neat things like central heat and showers (communal showers at the RV park, imagine having to walk 100 yds to take a shower in December.) But after making a good decision, it was time to make some stupid ones. So he bought a boat. A used one that was in pretty shaky condition. Since he didn't have a truck or a trailer, it had to be delivered to a local lake, and he had to pay berthing on it. So he decided he needed a truck. Now, there are car lots full of reasonable trucks as people trade in constantly, so finding a good used truck should have been easy. So he ends up with a diesel F-250 that was lifted a good 4-5", you know, too high to fit a trailer to it. It was incredible how bad he was with money. I just remembered that before he moved down, they had won some settlement for something and got 25k. Was this money used to pay off credit cards? Pay off other debts? Save for the future? Nope, his wife got a nose-job, he bought a giant TV and they took a vacation somewhere. From what he said, that entire 25k was gone in a month or so, and they little to show for it beyond a shiny TV and a nose. Not sure if the nose was shiny. After he quit here, he left to move to the oilfields in ND/WY and that's the last we heard from him beyond the occasional creditor trying to track him down. Probably the saddest thing on this is he was in his 40's, yet acted like a teenager with money.
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Jun 28, 2013 21:25
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I have a bunch of financially inept co-workers. - Multiple people have purchased expensive luxury or sports cars shortly after starting work. The cars are usually more than their salary. Most of them still live at home. - We all had to take a pay cut due to the economy. One co-worker was complaining about how she couldn't pay her bills if she made any less, and was working on her resume to find a new job. Two weeks later she told us she was planning a trip to Europe for 2 weeks. - Co-worker was living paycheck to paycheck when she started and was constantly borrowing money from her parents and from her bank. She now makes double her initial salary and still lives paycheck to paycheck and has to borrow money from mom. - Another girl has a savings account at a bank which only has 1-2 physical locations. She doesn't have a debit card or check book, so the only way for her to get money is to make a withdrawal at the bank which isn't close to work or home. This isn't really a bad idea if you can't control your spending, but she must be terrible about money if you have to go to this extreme to stop yourself from impulsive spending.
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Jul 1, 2013 06:17
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I just had to bail out a co-worker who filled up his tank and then discovered that he has no money. Like, not even $25 in his account which is what I had to pay for the gas station not to call the cops on his rear end. Apparently he bought a steadicam off ebay and will now have to survive for 10 days until the next payday.
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Jul 1, 2013 12:54
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Pillowpants posted:~$3600 in payments on debt a month (two mortgages, two cars, six student loans, and 8 credit cards) I'm surprised that's the record. High incomes + banks willing to provide incredible amounts of leverage (until a few years ago) can make for some truly eye-popping debt service amounts.
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Jul 1, 2013 14:08
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I interned at the Securities and Exchange Commission. I can't tell you how many people I saw put on blinders to a Ponzi scheme they'd gotten involved in because they didn't ask basic questions and just kept putting good money in after bad. If you're listening to an investment pitch and it promises linear returns, no risk of loss, doesn't provide qualifying financial information (Investment Adviser registration,etc.), is related to derivatives, private placements, a hedge fund (unless you have over $1mm in assets), or comes to you from an unprompted phone call, don't loving invest in it! Watch a couple episodes of american greed and you'll notice how stunningly easy it is to pick up on the patterns used by fraudulent financial schemes. Just say no to African princes.
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Jul 1, 2013 18:24
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I have a friend that is so bad with money, I'm not sure how she even functions. We met at a job a few years ago where we were both making about 9 bucks an hour. I knew she had student loan payments (mine were deferred) so whenever she would complain about money I was pretty sympathetic because $9 an hour doesn't get you very far, especially when you have loans to pay. Anyway, I went on to grad school and got a decent monthly stipend out of the deal. Not enough to save much, but enough to live on and have some extra money for fun stuff. I ended up helping her get a job in my town, and this job paid her approximately $800 a month more than I was getting paid. I know this for a fact, because I was offered the same job before I got into grad school. So she came to live with me (totally free) for a month until she got her first paycheck and could put a down payment on a new apartment. That's a whole 'nother story that I won't get into here, but I ended up making her move out about 2 weeks after she got her first paycheck (I guess she wanted to get another 2 or 3 before she moved out, who knows). She then "met a lady at church" who rented her a room for $100 a month. My rent + household bills during this time was around $500 a month. She was paying $100 a month for TOTAL housing costs, still complaining about her student loans, how she had no money, how she couldn't afford her car, and all sorts of sob stories. It drove me completely insane. I was living a couple hundred bucks above the poverty line, totally keeping my poo poo together, and she was making $2500-ish a month in a VERY low cost-of-living area (not to mention paying ONLY ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH on rent) and somehow couldn't swing it. She also had a co-worker pick her up and take her to work every single day, so she didn't even have to pay for gas to drive to and from work. She'd regularly get $35 manicures, buy donuts for the entire crew at work, and buy coffee drinks like they were going out of style. She just hemorrhaged money. To this day, I have no idea where all her money went and all her co-workers said the same thing - Why the hell does she have no money? We all make the same salary and we're all pretty well off! Last time I talked to her was about 6 months ago. She lives with her mom (and doesn't pay any household bills or food really) and makes 60k a year at a job she's held for over 2 years now. She still complains about "not having money" and "but my student loans" and god knows what else. I later found out her student loans were less than half of mine. So around $8,000. Absolutely crippling for someone making 60k a year and living rent-free with Mom.
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Jul 1, 2013 19:13
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CitizenKain posted:But after making a good decision, it was time to make some stupid ones. So he bought a boat. A used one that was in pretty shaky condition. Since he didn't have a truck or a trailer, it had to be delivered to a local lake, and he had to pay berthing on it. Ahahahahah that is awesome. "Welp, just gettin' back on my feet. Time to buy me a boat!" You idiot! I'm loving these stories, please keep them coming. 
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Jul 1, 2013 20:13
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My sister is bad with money, but kind of insulated from her decisions thanks to indulgent parents: Has bitched forever about her rent payment (she lives in downtown LA, hey!). Recently decided to purchase a $675,000 condo in the same area. 1200 square feet. Because going from a $2200 rental payment to a $3500 (at the low end) mortgage payment is going to help! She literally just sold her car (granted, somewhat unnecessary) to help pay for their honeymoon. Which they deferred to this year because she couldn't find time off work. I am unsure how much my brother in law earns. He's a hotshot analyst at E&Y, and lives/works in a high cost-of-living area, but considering they've only been together for four years and married for 8 months, I cannot fathom their perspective on putting out near 3/4 million on a piece of property. I wish this was more of the "amusing" type of story but it's more like the "god damnit are you loving kidding me" kind.
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Jul 1, 2013 20:35
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During the big E3 gaming convention when Microsoft and Sony announced their new consoles my friend texted me and said he preordered 5 of the new Xbox consoles and 5 Playstation 4 consoles with the hope to "flip" them on release. Not even a week before this he quit his job and went back to work on his parent's farm where he is getting paid cash under the table each week, and, to top it all off, he and his wife are trying to close on a house. I don't know how preordering stuff works, but I hope to God he didn't have to pay upfront for all those consoles. Isn't that around $3,000?
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Jul 1, 2013 21:41
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Each Xbone is $500 and each PS4 is $400, so you're looking at $4500 before sales tax. However, I think usually you don't pay upfront, and it's pretty easy to cancel.
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Jul 1, 2013 21:59
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Stew Man Chew posted:He's a hotshot analyst at E&Y, and lives/works in a high cost-of-living area, but considering they've only been together for four years and married for 8 months, I cannot fathom their perspective on putting out near 3/4 million on a piece of property. This is a completely reasonable amount of money to spend on a house or living space in many parts of the country. Personally, I'd never spend that much for a condo (but would for a house) but people have different preferences and some people are willing to pay a premium to live in the city/near work/in a good nieghborhood/an area with good schools/etc. Also, they're married, so I'm not sure why it matters how long they've been together. They've decided they're going to commit to each other for the rest of their lives and I'm assuming they're still very much in that mindset 8 months in. I also think some people confuse complaining about how expensive something is with someone not being able to afford it. I used to complain about how expensive my rent was in NYC all the time but I could still afford it. I just didn't like paying it or feel like it was necessarily worth as much as I was spending. For Content: I can't figure out what my best friend does with her money. I know she doesn't make a ton but she graduated debt free (parents paid) from college and has been living with her parents ever since. Her parents dont charge her rent, she doesn't pay anything for groceries or utilities and her parents still like to surprise her with clothing and purses and things. But whenever I ask if she wants to do something like take a trip, she can never afford it and is "trying to save for a down payment to move out" and talks about slowly paying down her credit card bills all the time. She's 31, which means she's been living rent free, grocery bill free, utility free, etc for TEN years, how can she still have credit card debt and not be able to afford one month's rent to move out? I'm pretty sure the only thing she has to show for her money is her mini-cooper, but she has a car payment on that so I cant imagine that ate up a chunk of her savings. I blame the fact that she's always dating dead beats and ends up paying for everything in the relationship and lending them money. Her current boyfriend has a running tab and she won't tell me how much he owes her because she knows I"ll be angry.
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Jul 1, 2013 22:32
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I have a wonderful friend who was struggling to save anything, and when I went to visit him we went shopping. At Whole Foods. Where he bought $7 fancy pants deodorant. I told him he needed to cut that poo poo out and make a budget, and he seemed surprised but is doing much better now. I guess when you live around people who do that kind of stuff all the time you just think it's normal, for me it's like WHOA mister, let's find us a 2 for a dollar coupon to get regular deodorant at Walgreens.
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Jul 2, 2013 00:55
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I've seen so many bad money moves since grad school, it boggles the mind that these are supposed to be the smart people. Particularly in my cohort, there were four couples who just had to keep up with each other and now all of them are pretty screwed financially... When I was starting out (early-mid 20s) everybody was excited about their loans being deferred, especially those who had been out of undergrad for a year or two. So it was spend, spend, spend that $22K/year! Every night after work they'd meet at the bar, either eat meals out or shop at Whole Foods, and spare no expense for pricey outdoor gear ("biologist chic" Patagonia, Marmot, etc.), bicycles (the kind that are expensive even used), latest mac laptop, etc. Next came the dogs--everyone has to have at least one. That really narrowed down the available places to live for the three couples who HAD to get two dogs, so they ended up buying houses (~$150K). By that point we only had three years left, and none of us was from that area of the country. Then all of them had babies, even though the grad student was the breadwinner in each case. Admittedly, I understand this more than needing a pack of dogs so badly you have to buy a house. We've all left the area for over a year and only one of them has sold their house, which sucks because all their loans are back on. Now that I'm a postdoc, I can see it happening again. The young grad student in my lab is constantly getting money from her parents to tide her over, obsessively checking her back account to make sure the latest deposit is available, but then blows it all on LuluLemon workout clothes and going out to bars. Two other grad students I know just bought a boat together ($6K each before it broke and needed $10K more of maintenance) even though they both only have 1-2 years left here and they aren't romantically involved or anything, just friends. I went to a postdoc social when I first got here, and when the topic of finances came up, I asked what people thought of the retirement accounts we have available to us (Fidelity 403(b) and 457(b)). No one had set one up because they're all in debt, don't know, or don't care, and that is the case for every other postdoc I've met since (we're mostly all over 30).
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Jul 2, 2013 03:02
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Cicero posted:Each Xbone is $500 and each PS4 is $400, so you're looking at $4500 before sales tax. However, I think usually you don't pay upfront, and it's pretty easy to cancel. I guess that is good he could cancel them, but it just seems like a bad idea to me. It was this time last year that he bought a motorcycle off Craigslist that didn't run, bought all kinds of parts to try and fix it, and it still doesn't run. It is sitting in his backyard, and I don't think he has touched it since last summer. Dick Spacious CPA fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 03:25
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coreycoryecorey posted:I guess that is good he could cancel them, but it just seems like a bad idea to me. It is a massively bad idea. Its not 2001 and the PS2 anymore, stores are going to have a shitload of them, and anyone trying to flip them is going to be going up against thousands of other people trying to do the same.
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Jul 2, 2013 06:30
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CitizenKain posted:It is a massively bad idea. Its not 2001 and the PS2 anymore, stores are going to have a shitload of them, and anyone trying to flip them is going to be going up against thousands of other people trying to do the same.
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Jul 2, 2013 17:09
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coreycoryecorey posted:During the big E3 gaming convention when Microsoft and Sony announced their new consoles my friend texted me and said he preordered 5 of the new Xbox consoles and 5 Playstation 4 consoles with the hope to "flip" them on release. Not even a week before this he quit his job and went back to work on his parent's farm where he is getting paid cash under the table each week, and, to top it all off, he and his wife are trying to close on a house. When the Xbox 360/PS3 were out, people would buy them from Target or whatever and try to flip them on eBay. Anecdotally, the eBay market became saturated with these listings so quickly that people were only making $50 or so, and most people just ended up returning them to the store. This of course was after camping out for hours ahead of time. When I talked to some people in front of a Target, there were like 6 people waiting and only one person was actually going to keep theirs (but they were buying extras to try and flip).
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Jul 2, 2013 18:47
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Dave is a government employee in what's considered a position of national trust, which requires clearance at the Top Secret level (to include the accompanying periodic background checks and financial disclosures). He makes over $70,000 a year before overtime and taxes. Just as some background, he lives in a run-down shack but continually buys the flashiest redneck toys you can think of. He's always buying the biggest and best ATVs and snowmobiles every time their respective seasons come around. He has a bright yellow Ford F-250 super crew with all the options, which he promptly poured thousands more dollars into, giving it an eight-inch lift, chrome everything (including eight-inch exhaust stacks coming up out of the truck bed which, incidentally, makes the truck useless for carrying cargo; and don't forget the chrome Truck Nutz), and 37-inch swamp tires. He bought a couple of expensive "breedin' dogs" - AKA chocolate labs - and proceeded to let them run loose and breed with who knows what. He was on a travel assignment which gave him a government credit card. It's a card with an extremely high limit, but it has pretty strict stipulations about what you can use it for (only direct travel-related expenses such as gas, meals, and lodging). Everything is subject to constant review and audit, and the card has to be paid in full every month by the employee. So what does he do? He buys a brand new Harley with his government credit card. Obviously that set off some red flags, especially since he had absolutely no way of paying the entire card balance off at the end of the month. He was kicked out of his cushy travel assignment, partly for the credit card issue and partly because he refused to meet basic grooming standards. Now he's desperately trying to sell the Harley and the truck, but not desperately enough to go below blue book value (since I bet he's way upside down on both of them, especially given the litany of repairs the truck needs). I was surprised he wasn't fired immediately, but they're probably garnishing his paycheck until the card is paid off. Then they'll fire him. On a side note, he bundled his pregnant dog up for his travel assignment, and she gave birth on the road. He put up signs all over the place trying to sell the "not AKC certified but still totally almost pure bred chocolate labs" for two hundred dollars each. No takers, as far as I know.
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Jul 2, 2013 21:16
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Baja Mofufu posted:I've seen so many bad money moves since grad school, it boggles the mind that these are supposed to be the smart people. Particularly in my cohort, there were four couples who just had to keep up with each other and now all of them are pretty screwed financially... That is so pathetic. What is your field? My friends are always trying to get me to buy this, upgrade that, because "they would if they made my salary". Sorry, but I have retirement fund, mortgage payment, general savings, and the constant flow of expenses that never ends. I have a corolla with only 80k miles but had to drop $950 in it yesterday for a clipped mirror and steering wheel issue. Many people assume that they can get by with an empty bank account, and then get in credit card debt when something expensive happens. I think one thing that's changed in America is that many young people refuse to accept being poor. They get expensive, questionable degrees and take jobs that pay little, then blow everything they earn on expensive clothes, organic groceries from whole foods, restaurants, etc. if they can't have the best, then it's not worth living. I don't have any money issues but I still buy cheap, cook my own meals, budget, save, etc. because there is no reason to spend more. I'm going to drive my beat to hell corolla until it dies and never have a car payment, gently caress buying the BMW.
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Jul 3, 2013 02:22
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