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I also have a question for the BFC daily chatters: I have a company provided cell phone that they cover 100%. I'm allowed to use it for both company and personal business. It's great, except when I'm on vacation and coworkers/customers who have that number are able to call and if I'm not paying attention I'll answer. So the question is: Do I get a cheap (read T-mobiles $30/month or $2/per day) plan specifically for personal use allowing myself to be unchained while I'm on vacation and off hours? My financial situation stands at all debts paid off (minus fiancée's student loans), currently have saved $3,800 of our $20,000 emergency fund and $4,200 of our $10,000 wedding fund. I've been mulling over the idea for a few years now but I'm warming up to the idea more and more now that we've lost one of our team members and the number of customers I'm servicing has increased significantly. BFC Daily Chatters, what say you?
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Mar 24, 2014 22:21
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 09:22 |
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I love you guys  In this case I have an old T-Mobile Galaxy S2 (old work phone) that I could use so no upfront cost there. I already have an office number that I give out that forwards to my cell but people are sneaky and frequently grab my cell number when I call them. And as for not having my phone with me at all times, planted squarely in my rear end...What the hell is wrong with you? Did you realize that without a cell phone you might miss a call, or get lost or not be able to update facebook or any number of other unspeakable things? People DIED before the invention of the cell phone. And worse, they had nothing to do when they pooped! But I'm with everyone here. I've thought about it off and on for a number of years and just couldn't justify it. Still can't and the internet agrees with me so there we are. Cell phone free it is. Thanks BFC. You're the best!
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Mar 24, 2014 23:43
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:There are multiple apps to divide your contacts into groups, set all personal people in one group and set the work group to go to voicemail automatically. DONE AND DONE, vacation!! Wait, that's a thing? This requires investigation! I did get a bit of enjoyment out of watching the thread derail into the merits of having a cell phone while on vacation though. I thought I was asking a pretty straight forward question but things get a little sideways pretty quickly and in a fantastic way.
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Mar 29, 2014 16:04
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For what it's worth I've been to Cabo twice on the company dime at all inclusive resorts and didn't find it to be worth the hassle. There wasn't anything we did there that couldn't have been done in the States without the pain in the rear end of bad water, rear end in a top hat immigration (on both sides) and constantly being reminded that I was in a shithole. If you haven't gone before it might be worth going just to say you've been. Otherwise I'd say skip it.
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Apr 5, 2014 02:37
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Unfortunately I don't think classes would do all that much. It took me 10 years after graduating college before I really pulled my head out of my rear end regarding finances. Luckily I was smart enough to max out my 401k immediately but I was up to my eye balls in debt and really didn't care. I tend to forgive people in their 20's a lot of things I would consider "not smart" because they're still young, enjoying the world and figuring out what direction they're going to take for the rest of their lives. To paraphrase Greg Proops, "if you don't [gently caress like a rabbit and spend like a drunk sailor] while you're young when the hell are you supposed to?" That said, there is little to no excuse for people past that point in their lives to not at least recognize that they still have a lifetime ahead of them to prepare for.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:17
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Gawd damnit. My fiancee's car is about to poo poo the bed. I've never had to buy a car before so I have no real idea about the process. We went out and looked at cars last weekend, test drove a few, and settled on a couple that she fit in (she's 6'2") and would work for our needs. Felt pretty good about the prices until I got home and actually ran some numbers. Holy poo poo! How does anyone afford a car above ~$20k? We make just about $100k a year between us and the cars we were looking at, in the $30k-$35k range, had 5 year payments in the $600-$700 range. gently caress that. I don't know if my perception is off because I've never bought a car before but paying more than $300 a month for a car is insane. I don't know how people do it and I am really not interested in finding out. edit: there used to be a car buying/financing thread around here somewhere that I can't track down. Anybody have a link handy? TouchyMcFeely fucked around with this message at 16:36 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 16:33
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I'm hoping she can fit comfortably in a Altima. I've had them as rental cars and would buy one in a heart beat if I needed to. I can find them around here with low mileage, all the bells and whistles (as was pointed out), for $15k. Still means we'll need to borrow to get it (which sucks) but at least the payment won't put is in the poor house and we can get it paid off pretty quick. Man it sucks when reality gets in the way of having fun. Those other cars were slick. edit: Thanks for the link. In our case we knew this was coming. She's driving a 2000 Cadillac with something like 160k miles on it. We were hoping it would go a few more years so we could get past the wedding (paid with cash) and have a fully funded emergency fund but it doesn't look like the beast will make it. I'd try to hold off but I really don't want to be in a situation where her car flat out dies and we're stuck in a jam. Worst time to make a large financial decision is when you're desperate. TouchyMcFeely fucked around with this message at 17:36 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 17:32
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True points all around. The intention was to purchase new and drive it into the ground. Unfortunately since we're having to do this earlier than we had hoped we're looking for something that will get us through the next 5 years or so. If we can keep on track we'll be able to walk in and drop enough cash to get the car we want. Hopefully just buy it outright. Thankfully the rates through our credit union are sitting at 2.99 for a 5 year loan on a used car so at least we have that going for us.
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May 22, 2014 18:05
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FrozenVent posted:Weddings are cheaper if you do it in bulk; there's an economy of scale. If you marry one woman for 20k, marrying like 5 at once is gonna be like 30k, tops. Especially if they're related to each others; you'll slim down the guest list that way. As someone living in Utah, currently saving for a wedding (~14k to add to the wedding chat), I will keep this in mind. In other news, have a car payment again. Ugh. We were hoping my fiancee's hoopty would last another couple of years but it got to the point where we had just dropped ~$2k into it and were looking at another ~$2k. Damned thing was a 2000 Cadillac with 180k miles that got absolutely terrible gas mileage. Ended up replacing it with a 2010 Ford Fusion with about 40k miles. Should have the loan completely paid off (while still saving for the wedding) in less than a year. At least the savings in gas expenditures should help offset the car payment somewhat. Halting the buildup of our emergency fund sucks but at least we were able to tap it for the down payment without wiping it out. Swear to hell this process is a matter of two steps forward, one step back. (and you're welcome for reigniting the car chat derail.)
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Jun 19, 2014 17:27
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I think part of the reason he's so CREDIT BAD! Is because most people don't know how to use it responsibly. The people who call into his show are generally in such bad shape because they used credit like a checking account. It's a lot easier to tell people (and for them to remember), "don't ever get a credit card or finance anything" than it is to try and explain the nuances of credit. Sure it's sound bite-ish but when you're dealing with people who aren't financially savvy I agree with him that it's better to tell them not to play with it than it is to hand them a loaded gun and tell them to figure it out on their own. edit: Plus it works and I think that's the most telling and important part.
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Sep 11, 2014 15:03
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C... posted:I'm not an expert, but I read 'advances to the next months' due date' as, if you overpay your monthly payment, the next payment will be due in more than a month from now - as in, the due date will advance. Which would be a weird way to set things up. Someone help explain this to me like I'm an idiot (anyone feel free, I'm just quoting C... to reference what I'm talking about). The way I thought it worked was if you send in money on a loan above and beyond the minimum payment it gets processed in one of two ways. The typical default way is that it applies towards you next month payment which is a combination of both principal and interest. Paying this way pushes back or reduces your next payment but you still end up paying the maximum amount of interest. The other way you can have the payment applied is directly to the principal only, which doesn't impact your next payment, but reduces the total amount of the loan which in turn reduces the amount of interest you pay over the life of the loan. My understanding is that the first way results in maximum interest payments where the second way reduces future interest payments over the life of the loan. Have I got that right or am I totally off base?
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Dec 6, 2014 14:42
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The thing is, (and again, correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think they're treated the same way. Let's take your first example. spwrozek posted:At great lakes I have say $1000 balance and a $50 payment. I make a $75 payment so my balance is $925 now and they say I owe $25 at my next payment. I make another $75 payment and now owe $850 and I am a month ahead and don't owe a payment. If I don't make a payment I pay 2 months of interest until my next payment. Basically keep making the payment. If you have a $1000 principal with a $50 payment and you make a $75 payment, in the first case the extra $25 doesn't go directly to the principal. Part of it goes towards the interest payment of the next month. Rather than seeing a reduction of the principal to $925, you'll see a reduction of less than that because part of that $50 went to interest for this month and part of the $25 goes towards next months interest. In the second scenario, where you tell the lender "apply the extra towards the principal" you will see an extra $25 reduction in the principal. Then when the next months payment is calculated you'll pay less in interest because the principal is reduced. I'm not a finance guy so maybe I'm missing something (or maybe not explaining it well) but in scenario one, you buy time, in the second one you save money.
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Dec 7, 2014 04:15
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Thanks for the posts everyone. I did a little bit of looking around and I think I figured it out. As should come as no surprise, pay ahead vs pay down principal has a lot to do with they type of loan you have. I'll quote a couple of articles I came across and let folks discuss from there. http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/prepay-auto-loan-apply-principal-1580.php posted:They told you your money would be applied to your next payment. If that's the case some will be going to the interest that will be due and only a portion goes to the amount borrowed. That's much different than if all of it went to reduce the amount borrowed. http://consumerist.com/2011/05/03/call-every-time-to-make-sure-extra-payments-go-to-paying-down-principal/ posted:People trying to get ahead on their car and house payments are sometimes shocked to discover the default way that banks handle their extra payments. Instead of paying down the existing principal, they apply it to the future interest. http://thelawdictionary.org/article/is-it-better-to-make-extra-principal-payments-or-extra-mortgage-payments/ posted:If you wish to pay down your principal ahead of schedule, your mortgage lender can't legally stop you from doing so. You'll need to alert your lender that you'll be sending a special payment for this explicit purpose. To ensure that your funds are used in the proper manner, you'll need to mark the check as a "principal-only" payment. To maximize the interest-fighting effects of your extra principal payments, you should make as many of them as possible during the first few years of your loan. This will lower the total value of the balance that remains subject to compounding during the mortgage's "out years." The only references I could find were discussing mortgages and car loans so maybe they're special snowflakes when compared to other types of loans. I couldn't find anyone who took the time to actually break out numbers but I think the key term is from the second article, "...They apply [the over payment] to future interest." When a bank is allowed to do that the consumer doesn't save money on the loan. They pay the same amount they would have anyway, only faster.
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Dec 7, 2014 15:05
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 09:22 |
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tuyop posted:24. Why? He's hoping to steal her in an attempt to increase his earnings portfolio. I believe it's called a hostile takeover.
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Dec 7, 2014 20:28
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