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SpelledBackwards posted:God, this threads and the Newbie Personal Finance one remind me that There are advantages to being single and saving a lot too though. I'm happy in my relationship, so this ultimately doesn't matter, but from a pure financial perspective, I think it's a wash, or slighly more expensive for me. My girlfriend doesn't make a lot of money, and I definitely spend more on trips/food out/entertainment with her than I would alone. You can always just get a roommate.
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Jan 25, 2014 04:46
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rocinante posted:It looks like the MMM site has been down for the last two days, anyone know what's going on? The forum seems like it's down too. There was a post about Twitter says it's just DNS issues.
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Apr 14, 2014 12:57
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I agree with the premise completely (and in fact do not own a car, and bike commute 5 days a week, year round in Wisconsin). That said, $200/year is a bit low as an average, at least in my experience. Licensing, locks, tires, tubes, cables, occasionally paying a mechanic to fix stuff you can't or don't want to fix. I think that's a good median year, but if you're truly only bike commuting, I'd expect to pay a bit more every few years in larger chunks. Consider salt damage, studded tires and a winter bike for those of us in climates who have to worry about that, or more generally tools, chains, cassettes, cranks, wheels, etc. Also, commuting things like bike panniers and fenders. A lot of those things are one time expenses, can be bought on craigslist, or done without completely. Many more of them can be greatly mitigated or avoided altogether by commuting 3 seasons. Costs can be driven down on maintenance by doing your own work. But if we're suggesting commuting by bike to non-bike-nerds (and again, I heartily do suggest it), we should consider those costs.
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May 9, 2014 17:46
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N.N. Ashe posted:I'm pretty gun shy about getting credit cards for rewards, then sacking them or what not. Are there some good primers on this anyone would recommend? Don't do it just because you think you should. If you have the inclination to do it, great. If not, just get a double cash card or something. Sure, you're not 100% optimizing your rewards, but it is 10% of the effort for like 70% of the payoff. If you enjoy min/maxing your spend (and many people do), go get that last 30% of benefit. If you don't, don't stress about it.
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Jun 16, 2015 18:09
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Doc Hawkins posted:Cool Stuff What about communication? Do you speak Vietnamese? I've wanted to go to Vietnam for a while (just for a vacation), but don't speak the language at all. I definitely intend to pick some up before I go, but what's the situation like there?
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Jan 10, 2017 17:25
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Careful Drums posted:Point taken. FWIW, though, it's not that my wife has to always own a new car. It just so happened that 18 months ago the car she had and owned 100% was breaking down to the point that she didn't feel safe driving the kids in it. We are planning on paying off her car (and mine) and driving both of them for a long time past paying off the loans, hopefully handing them down when our kids reach driving age (that is, if autonomous vehicles haven't taken over by then). Yeah, so, I think you and your wife both need to put some thought into, and then talk through your priorities with each other. If you're looking to retire well off, maybe even 5 years early, then being a high earner, and setting up a budget to pay off your debts, then save most of the freed up money will probably get you there. There will be some sacrifices. You're going to have to have a real budget and think about your purchases more than you have been. You're not in a terrible place currently, but you've racked up a good chunk of debt, so you'll have to buckle down until that is paid off. You probably won't be able to pay your kids ways through school, you probably won't be buying new cars, etc. That's a perfectly laudable goal -- you'd be doing better than the vast majority of people. This thread is more focused on the goal of being able to leave work entirely after 10-15 years of a career (though not necessarily doing so). I don't want to suggest that it is better or worse than the goal above, just different. It requires a lot more current sacrifices, especially with 3 kids. It would more or less require selling one or both of your cars for cheaper options, and it would require looking at all aspects of your current financial life, including the location of your house, what you think is important in life, etc. It kind of seems to me like this isn't what you want (which is fine!). In that case, your best option is probably to start a thread, lay out your budget there, and the result of your goals conversation with your wife.
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May 25, 2017 19:12
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This is probably in the long term investment thread already, but Fidelity just hugely lowered their expense ratios on a bunch of index funds (forgive the press release style source): https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180801005635/en/Fidelity-Rewrites-Rules-Investing-Deliver-Unparalleled-Simplicity
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Aug 3, 2018 16:01
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0 fees on 2 funds (US total market and international). Much lower on a bunch of others.
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Aug 3, 2018 18:55
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smackfu posted:It seems like early retirement might force you to follow a spending budget strictly to not blow past your plans, but a lot of people who can retire early never had to follow a budget during their working life. How does that tension work out? I guess it depends on what you mean by "had to follow a budget." I think most people who retire early do restrict their consumption in some way, to provide for the very high levels of savings required for early retirement. I personally follow a YNAB budget that tracks every dollar.
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Feb 25, 2019 14:01
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Anne Whateley posted:Tbh I don't know if I would be okay at retiring with $2m with a young family either. When you're far away it sounds like such a big number, but then you realize any kind of big health issue and it could be gone. I was going to say this, but in a different way. I think a family of 4 could retire with $2m, but I don't know if this particular family could. If he's been making $250k/yr for any significant length of time, I have to wonder how he only has 2 million plus house saved after 20 years. That's obviously a huge amount of money, and maybe I've been reading too many 50%+ savings rate stories lately, but I wonder what their expenses look like. It also seems inevitable this is heading for divorce, regardless of what they decide to do.
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Aug 5, 2021 18:40
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Diva Cupcake posted:I feel like expecting your spouse to continue working in order to not draw down your investment principal while you gently caress off and read the internet all day is a ticket to divorce. Read the sentence after that one again. He was just using her working still as an example, I don't think he actually expects her to do it.
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Aug 5, 2021 20:03
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