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Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

DEMAG posted:

Subject C:
C wanted to buy a new truck. Cool, his finances are pretty straight he's living comfortably and doing alright. So he got himself a purty new truck. :c00lbutt:

When he brought it in I asked him "So how did you finance it? July usually has 0%, it's a great month to buy a new car." He looked at me puzzled and said he financed it through his bank. He then asked me "What do you mean financing at 0%, you can do that?" He financed it for 5%. He thought that financing through the manufacturer was just a big scam and that is why they have the incentives, to lure you in (I never got an explination as to why exactly it's a scam).
I've never bought a car that wasn't 0%, gently caress the man. :smug:

I just can't believe you would buy a car without any research or even just looking at the dealers ads. I bet the salesmen were high fiving each other after he walked out.
I'm confused--why would anyone offer 0% financing if they weren't going to make money off of you some other way? Why would they assume risk (that you will stop making payments) without any possible reward? If the reward isn't from interest, then it's from something else...

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Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Okay, so in these cases the dealership is giving the loan, and not an outside financial service? I once bought a car with a big down payment, but financed the rest through Toyota Financial Services. I was trying to think about it as though TFS were giving someone a 0% rate, which wouldn't make any sense. If it's the dealership, then I guess it does.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Chupe Raho Aurat posted:

Don't be stupid. Did I suggest at any point it was causing unbearable hardships?

Lets just stop the standard issue goon "I so clever" train right now huh? 'cause every thread goes the same way.
So you are so well off financially that you can afford to throw $3000 (that you had felt the need to hide) down what is apparently a bottomless pit? I find it hard to believe that anyone with a family who is not already very wealthy can throw $3000 away and not have it hurt down the line. $3000 becomes a lot of money after decades of passive investments, and that's money you will never have now. Not for your retirement, not for your children's college, not for anything.

You might say that you weren't "throwing away" the money, but yeah, you kind of did. Something is up with your mother's spending and it's affecting your entire family. You should do whatever you can to find out what is going on.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

soap. posted:

My sister and her boyfriend are both terrible with money.

She is the more typical-American live-with-debt type: 100k in student loans, a revolving credit card balance (that she has withdrawn money from her 401k to pay off at least twice), a mortgage where she only put 10% down so is paying PMI monthly, and a car loan.

He is a 30-something single father who was living with his mother when I met him. He now has a three-bedroom apartment that he is renting with a friend. The third bedroom isn't for his kid, mind you. It's their "living room" so that the actual living room can hold a pool table. When he moved in and bought said pool table, he was defaulting on his car loan (for a brand-new GMC truck--talk about a depreciating asset!). He can't have a credit card because he has so much debt he's defaulted on. He also cashed out his 401k (all 9k of it) and spent it on NOTHING. Did he pay down his car loan? Not a dime! Did he use it for the deposit on his new apartment? Nope, that was borrowed from his father. He spent all of it on booze and Warhammer figurines.

His truck was eventually repossessed. Was this a wake-up call? Did he scrimp and save to buy a beater with which to get to work? Nope, my sister took out a second car loan to get him a $16k truck. She's also paid the first three months of the loan, and gave him $1000 for rent. I recently went out to lunch with her and both her credit and debit cards were declined, so it isn't exactly like she can afford it. And we're going house-boating next week and my sister just called to tell me she's spending $1000 to rent a skidoo for the trip!
I'm curious, how do they rationalize what they are doing? Does your sister know how bad she is with money? Does she know that she's going to default on the second car loan because her boyfriend will never pay it?

Does she care?

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Rexfumado posted:

Reading this thread makes me think I might be bad with money as well. I'm 28 and single, and even though I have a good income of around 100k, I have almost nothing to show for it. I have less than 15k in the bank and this is maybe enough to qualify as an emergency fund, but not much else. I don't really try to save much money; instead I opt for a very high standard of living. I pay over $2500/month in rent to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago, I have a nice car, and I spend quite a bit on entertainment, restaurants, vacations, etc. I have excellent credit and no debts, so all of this spending is not necessarily out of my means, but it still feels kind of irresponsible.

I've justified this behavior the past few years by telling myself that I don't really feel any urgency to save up to buy a house, as this is the only thing I'd need to save up a considerable sum for, right? I am saving for retirement through my 401k and pension, so that's covered, but otherwise I spend most of my income and save very little. If I downgraded my lifestyle significantly I could theoretically bank over $2500/month as opposed to the <$1000/month I save now, but I am kind of a spoiled baby and enjoy my current living standard too much.

Am I being retarded? I feel like if I really wanted to buy a house, I could focus on saving for a year or two to build up a down payment. But literally every homeowner I know around my age is unhappy they bought and wishes they hadn't, and reading the horror stories in the Home Buying Megathread over the years has dissuaded me big time.
Do you really need to live in a really fancy apartment in the nicest neighborhood in Chicago? I make as much as you do and spend less on my apartment in NYC, where my wife and I live (wife is full-time student so we only have one income). I don't live in a fancy apartment, but it's a big 1 BR in a nice building in Queens and I have a reasonable commute. I guess I'd be a little happier in a nicer apartment closer to my job, but I wouldn't be $750/mo happier (the difference in my rent vs your rent).

It seems like it would be really, really easy to get a cheaper apartment that would still be pretty nice and would be in a good neighborhood. I know Chicago is expensive, but it's got to be cheaper than NYC.

And saving for a down payment is going to take time. Can you get a good house in a good neighborhood in Chicago for $250,000? Because I don't see how you can save up for a 20% down payment for anything more expensive than that in only 2 years. Well, actually I can see how--you'd have to move into a cheaper apartment.

I don't think you're necessarily being bad with your money, but maybe you aren't being as good with it as you could be. If I were in your position (being single instead of married and supporting a spouse who is a full-time student in the most expensive city in the US) then I would downgrade my apartment and save a lot more for an eventual down payment. I would also make sure I'm maxing my Roth IRA and 401k.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Aug 29, 2013

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Leroy Diplowski posted:

Maybe I need to get back on piracetam.
That would be bad with money. ;)

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Barry posted:

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize that he is pretty bad with money. I think I was originally a bit clouded due to his general lucidity and a healthy income, but if you have that kind of income and basically nothing but debt to show for it, that's just plain bad with money.
I'm in my 20s, have half his income, have worked less than two years, live in the most expensive US city, and I'm paying my wife's way through college. My retirement savings are more than double his and my net worth, while still negative (drat student loans), is still significantly better than his.

He's really bad with money.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jun 17, 2014

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

LorneReams posted:

Nah, even to this day, I cycle between suit shirts, and have them cleaned after about three times...if you don't spill anything on them and wear an undershirt, no one can tell. Just make sure to hang it up immediately when you get home after work.
Same. It's me, I'm the goon.

But seriously, gently caress wearing a shirt only once before taking it to the dry cleaner.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

FrozenVent posted:

What kind of building doesn't have a laundry room?
There are lots of them in NYC.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

My wife picked out a relatively cheap ring ($1800) and we decided it really wasn't worth insuring against loss, so we just bought a policy that would cover inspections, cleanings, and basic repairs forever. It was a cheap (something like 5-10% of the cost of the ring) one-time thing so it seemed like a good deal.

She said if she ever loses it, she'll get a cheap, fake diamond or another gemstone and maybe we'll think about replacing it with a real diamond later on.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

ranbo das posted:

Hooray the forums are back up! That means time for some people who are bad with money. Well, kinda.

There is a guy on reddit who appears to have developed stockholm syndrome towards his employer. He started off by stating he works, on average, 84 hours a week as an engineer and takes home $1200 every other week. After people start telling him that he is being taken advantage of, he leaps to his employer's defense. Some choice quotes.


It's your choice to get ripped off you mean.


Asking for fair compensation is greed apparently.


Oh, so you only have to work 80+ hours a week for 9 months a year? Totally fine then.


This just sounds like straight bullshit


HE then goes on to say he won't work for the government because being paid by the government is unethical and all sorts of :psyduck: stuff.

e: forgot the link http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/28ylwa/i_work_50_hours_a_week_as_an_intern/cifoyxf
So he makes around $30-40k a year and that's more than the classmates he graduated with? Something isn't adding up.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

RommelMcDonald posted:

I'm guessing this is the guy's first job. He has no idea what federal taxes are and the fact that he had nothing taken out of his pay check didn't tip him off either. Even if your previous work experience is a part time job in high school, you'd probably be familiar with the idea of federal taxes.

He probably has no idea what his classmates are up to, since he seems to have nothing to reference his current job against. Making between ~$15 to $19.25, which covers the $30K-$40K range, should not be doing better than everyone he knows.
Engineer starting salaries are higher than that.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Zo posted:

Yeah but english majors are no better. Every week, without fail, an english major makes an e/n thread crying about being a jobless loser and has awful spelling/grammar.

So yeah, useless.
That's a case of the student being useless, not the degree.

Some students are just bad students. They get through a degree program, naively thinking that will be enough to land a job, but they don't actually develop the skills to become successful in their chosen field. I graduated from a professional program that is completely direct in its career path. You get the degree in "x" and your job title is "x". The job market is not particularly saturated, and yet there are still a small number of students each year who barely manage to graduate and don't get jobs because they lack qualities that make a good "x". They bomb out of interviews because employers can smell their lack of skill, motivation, and professionalism.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jul 5, 2014

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

xie posted:

The biggest mistake that I know someone personally made was a guy I worked with who owned a lot of bitcoins. He wasn't a bitcoin freak, he had thought they were neat, mined about 2k of them when he was paying split electricity during college and forgot about them.

Back when they hit $180-200 for the first time I mentioned it to him casually (not knowing he owned any) and he almost started hyperventilating. At that time, 24 hours earlier they had been worth ~350,000 or so, and had gone down, but were still worth a lot. He started making arrangements to sell them, and sold (I think) all 2000 of them at $65/ea.

They were worth $1k/ea less than a few months later and still are at $600/ea. That's financial independence, lost to finding out they were worth anything and selling at the bottom of a crash.
Your friend took over $100,000 from stupid people, so I'd say he's a lot better with money than they are.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Tigntink posted:

Hmming and hawing about stock just isn't worth it.

You can't tell the future and most of the time there's better things to do with the money. Nothing wrong with cashing out to buy a house. The stock market, in my opinion, is literally just an online casino. The company my husband is employed at pays partly in stock. It's infuriating at times because despite beating earnings expectations regularly, their stock will always go down after a report. He's only got a few 2 week windows to sell every year and they're always after those earning reports. We cash out every single round because you shouldn't be investing in the same place where you make your regular income because if they go tits up, you go fully tits up. However we can sometimes feel a bit of regret over the stock being $24 in 2005 and $400 as recently as last year.
Buy put options next time. :getin:

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

HelloIAmYourHeart posted:

My favorite quote from the wife is "I am the financial grue of the family."
Oh, she's just Asian. :downs:

Did they say where they live? I hope it's 1000+ miles from Orlando.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

HelloIAmYourHeart posted:

Disney husband lives in a guesthome on his family farm and does chores for rent.

Edit: staying at a Disney resort for every vacation sounds super boring. Aren't they all really manufactured and same-y because Disney has such a specific brand image? Family friendly, squeaky clean, etc. Disney has always struck me as not a "real place" (if you know what I mean) and it just seems really unappealing. Maybe ok for a one day visit.
Disney is good for more than a one day visit. It's fun and it's so big that you cannot possibly do everything in one day. With that said, I probably won't go there more than one more time in my life. I've been twice on family trips, once when I was a little kid, and once when my nephews and niece were little kids. I might take my kids whenever my wife and I get around to making them. But I dunno, I would rather steer them toward something a little more real.

Some of the rides are really boring and obviously for small children, but some are very fun and worth riding more than once.

I absolutely do not see the appeal in going more than once a decade, and especially not every year. There are so much other great things to see and do on this planet, and while roller coasters are fun, actually seeing the real world is a lot more fun.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jul 12, 2014

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Oh god.... noooooo, don't do it Bill!

Bill is my coworker. He is pretty young--about 25. He does a good job at work. He's professional, clean-cut, well-mannered. He's a volunteer firefighter on top of working full-time. He's also enrolled in college classes and has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, and is planning to acquire more. He reports that he has bad credit.

He just walked into a room where I was sitting with four other coworkers on a break. He said he just found out he can lease the car that he's in love with for just $660 a month. Cue absolute terror from all of us... we immediately tell him there is no scenario in which he should ever lease a car for that much. We are emphatic. We tell him it's insane, that he can't afford it, and that he's going to spend way more than $660 a month on the car when he accounts for insurance and gas. One coworker explains that Bill already owns a car that he bought just three years ago, so why does he need a new one?

"I hate that car," replies Bill.

We explain to Bill that he doesn't even drive to work, he takes the commuter rail, which costs him hundreds of dollars a month for an unlimited pass.

"But I drive to a station that's closer to the city," replies Bill, "and I really love this car."

We insist that the answer is NO. One coworker aptly and bluntly adds that Bill has "sucker" written all over him and that the guys at the dealership see him coming from a mile away.

He leaves, and we all hope that's the end of it.

I just overheard him on the phone talking to the dealership, and he was insisting that he can't pay more than $500 a month.

Did I mention that Bill is an executive assistant? He's not pulling in fat paychecks.

:negative:

edit: I don't know what car he's trying to lease

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Uranium 235 posted:

Oh god.... noooooo, don't do it Bill!

Bill is my coworker. He is pretty young--about 25. He does a good job at work. He's professional, clean-cut, well-mannered. He's a volunteer firefighter on top of working full-time. He's also enrolled in college classes and has tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, and is planning to acquire more. He reports that he has bad credit.

He just walked into a room where I was sitting with four other coworkers on a break. He said he just found out he can lease the car that he's in love with for just $660 a month. Cue absolute terror from all of us... we immediately tell him there is no scenario in which he should ever lease a car for that much. We are emphatic. We tell him it's insane, that he can't afford it, and that he's going to spend way more than $660 a month on the car when he accounts for insurance and gas. One coworker explains that Bill already owns a car that he bought just three years ago, so why does he need a new one?

"I hate that car," replies Bill.

We explain to Bill that he doesn't even drive to work, he takes the commuter rail, which costs him hundreds of dollars a month for an unlimited pass.

"But I drive to a station that's closer to the city," replies Bill, "and I really love this car."

We insist that the answer is NO. One coworker aptly and bluntly adds that Bill has "sucker" written all over him and that the guys at the dealership see him coming from a mile away.

He leaves, and we all hope that's the end of it.

I just overheard him on the phone talking to the dealership, and he was insisting that he can't pay more than $500 a month.

Did I mention that Bill is an executive assistant? He's not pulling in fat paychecks.

:negative:

edit: I don't know what car he's trying to lease
Okay, I figured it out. He wanted to get a $40,000 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. After our 'intervention' he called the dealership again, and now he's going to look at a 2012 Grand Cherokee that has sun roof, heated leather seats, navigation, reverse camera, etc. It's only $24,000 so it's more "affordable".

:(

When I talked to him again he was going on about how they're going to buy him out of his current car and how he can just trade-in when this new lease is up... I really hope he doesn't do it.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Apr 13, 2015

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Renegret posted:

Where does Bill live? In the city proper or out in the burbs?

There's a few reasons I bought strictly cheap(ish) used cars when I lived in the city. One look at the damage on my car will tell you why, there's more scratches than paint on the bumpers, dents all over the body from countless instances of people making contact with my (usually) parked car. The peace of mind of not having to worry about the way my car looks should I, say, hit a snowbank and damage the fender (I blame the short yellows of red light camers) is worth more to me than the money I saved buying used.
He lives in Nassau County but drives to the LIRR and then takes a train into Manhattan.

edit: in his defense, he's driving to a station near a hospital where his mom has been hospitalized for months, so it's actually reasonable that he'd do that. That station is on a different LIRR line than the one he lives on. Can't really call him bad with money for that part, I think that's being a good son.

I think he's a good person so I really hope he doesn't get the car. The one he has is perfectly fine, he just doesn't like it. It's a Honda CRV. :zaurg:

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Apr 14, 2015

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Series DD Funding posted:

But what is the opportunity cost of a post.
friends

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Krispy Kareem posted:

That just goes along with my healthcare comparison that these costs are increasingly being passed on to the end user. Every year the Board of Regents gets together and increases tuition because more money is needed. But the question is why more money is needed.

My state's largest university is now paying it's football team's Defensive Coordinator 1.3 million dollars a year. That school probably makes a profit off it's sports team, but other similar schools' defensive coordinators are going to look at that and think, "I should get a raise." Now magnify that by every big expense a college has, like new student centers or obscure academic chairs. So costs go up across the board and next year the Board of Regents is announcing another 3% increase because as long as student loans are cheap they can pass along the costs regardless of state budget cuts. Until they can't, at which point an increase in costs results in a decrease in demand like every properly functioning market.
Yes they make a big profit on football. There are a few teams with DCs that are paid that much (Alabama, LSU, Clemson, Virginia Tech) and all are profitable. Alabama and LSU are vastly more profitable than VT and Clemson, but the latter still make millions in profit.

I know that many schools do not run profitable programs, but the ones that are paying coaches millions of dollars almost always have profitable football teams. The TV deals alone are worth eight figures per school, at least for those in the big conferences.

For the programs that are in the black, paying coaches millions of dollars is apparently very good with money.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Haifisch posted:

The gist of it is:
-Your account is effectively loaning you the money, and the loaned funds aren't making normal gains while you have the debt.
-You pay interest to yourself, but it's with post-tax money(401ks are normally paid into with pre-tax dollars), and the interest is nowhere near what you'd get with normal gains.
-If you lose your job, you have to pay back the loan ASAP.
Yeah you have 90 days without a payment before the money you still owe yourself is considered a 401k distribution, which means you pay a penalty for early withdrawal (I think 10%) AND you have to pay income tax on the amount of the distribution. So basically you lose ~40% to taxes/penalties.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

I inherit a $30,000 trust when I turn 35. I don't want to sound like a complainypants because I did 0 to deserve anything, but it always struck me as weird that I need to wait that long. $30,000 is a life changing event when you're in your early 20s. I could have made a down payment on a house, had business startup costs, done 2 chicks at the same time, etc.

$30,000 will be awesome at 35 too no doubt, but it's more of a "yay" and less of a "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING".
No doubt it would have been better in your 20s, but that $30k will still turn into $130k in today's dollars, assuming an inflation-adjusted 5% annual return for 30 years, which is feasible. Just think of the truck equity that will buy you.

Of course, if you'd gotten it when you were 20 and had invested it all, it would reach 270k and would be good for about $10k fixed annual income, which is more than a lot of retirees will have. :smith:

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Apr 24, 2015

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Thesaurus posted:

I know these are official figures, but this doesn't sound plausible.

A "middle income couple" earns about $50,000 per year. An average earning household with two kids would be spending 50% of GROSS income, i.e. ten years of gross earnings, to get them to age 18.

Did they assume that adding a kid proportionally increases housing and health care costs, etc?

My kid hasn't cost me nearly that much. We'd still live in the same two bedroom housr, and we'd be paying the same health care premiums either way. If you go the public school route, that's not a major factor, either. Kids eat, but not large amounts. Day care is the main expense that most kids entail. Gotta buy clothes, diapers, and misc expenses etc, but nothing more than a few grand a year.
Is your health insurance subsidized through your employer? I don't understand why your health insurance premium would be the same as if you didn't have a child.

$250,000 for 18 years is a little under $14,000 per year. It sounds plausible to me, but I don't have a kid.

Food, clothes, doctors, prescriptions, dentistry, childcare, extra bedroom in your house, etc. It adds up. Some of those costs are covered by subsidized insurance, but it's still part of the cost, even if you're not the one paying for it. It's still part of your total compensation with your employer. So even if a middle income couple earns $50,000, their total compensation is higher than that. Not to mention tax breaks and credits for having children in your household.

Uranium 235 fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 20, 2016

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

zaurg is probably unknown to non-BFC posters, but to me, he's as classic SA as bigpeeler and p-p-p-powerbook.

Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Krispy Kareem posted:

Paid off assets, little debt, pays almost nothing in taxes, no kids, young wife.

I've seen a lot worse.
It's a pretty bad deal for the woman.

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Uranium 235
Oct 12, 2004

Just found out that my aunt has been committing power of attorney fraud/elder abuse by spending many thousands of dollars (I'm not exactly sure how much, but the absolute floor is $7k and I'm guessing it's much higher) a year on personal purchases: tickets to athletics events and concerts, retail stores, some kind of Christmas savings service (you pay in and they send you a check in November?), etc. My dad has known for a while (he also has POA) and he finally told me about it tonight because he wanted my advice. He is at a loss as to how to handle this.

My opinion is that he should say nothing to my aunt, document everything, and consult an attorney who deals with family/elder/estate law. If my dad is right about the fraud/embezzlement, then her POA needs to be revoked as soon as possible.

Notable things about my aunt: she went through a bad divorce over 10 years ago. Has two kids; 17 and 14. Has a high interest rate mortgage that she can't refinance because she's tied to a bankruptcy with her ex-husband; her mortgage is $1800 a month and she lives in a very low cost of living area (small town in a flyover state). She has a pool, is redoing her porch, deck, and floors. Her kids want for nothing, and while I'm glad they're living the good life because they've been through a lot of poo poo and are really great kids who I love dearly, my aunt has clearly mishandled her own finances, probably in an effort to spoil them and make up for what they've gone through, and now she's mishandling my grandparents' finances.

I've been watching her lifestyle for years, knowing that there was no way she could afford it, and certain that she was in terrible financial shape. I didn't expect her to be abusing her POA though.

But according to this thread, this poo poo happens all the time.

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