BFC General/Daily discussion thread. Don't eat out today.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > BFC General/Daily discussion thread. Don't eat out today.

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Do you plan on having children? If so cut the life expectancy of your furniture by 75%.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2018 03:43

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 14:50

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

spwrozek posted:

I have zero cares about it being my oldest card honestly. I don't foresee needing credit for at least 2 more years. Current score over 800, own my car, have property already, etc.

I will check out Schwab.

Ally I believe is only $10 a month. I don't have a debit card/ATM for that account. Just looked it up and yeah $10, no fees at Allpoint ATM. 1% foreign transaction fee (which is not bad honestly). But could end up over the $10 quickly. I find it is easiest and cheapest to get foreign can via atm at the country you go to even with a small fee.

IIRC the catch with Schwab is that you also need to open a brokerage account with them, but you could just never fund it.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2019 23:08

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Nam Taf posted:

Unsure if it's been posted before but remember many of you can get a nice $125 windfall thanks to Equifax loving over your privacy. It's almost your moral obligation to make them hurt by claiming it.

Claimed the $125 for my wife and I and the credit monitoring for my two kids. They are both under 6, so who knows what could happen in the next 11 or 12 years before they have a legitimate hard credit pull.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2019 12:39

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

colachute posted:

Are all HYSA�s APY going down? AmEx just sent me an email telling me mine is down to 1.75%. I think I t was 2.4% when I signed up just a year or so ago and has been declining ever since.

They�ve all been declining since the Fed prime rate cuts started this year. Synchrony is still 1.9% for the time being.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2019 18:10

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Space Gopher posted:

Maxing your Roth at 6k/year 2020 dollars is not enough to put you in good shape for retirement by itself, unless you've got something else like a pension to help out, or your definition of "good shape" is exceptionally frugal. The rule of thumb for a comfortable retirement is saving 15-20% of your gross salary for retirement from your mid-late-20s until you're done working in your mid-60s. No, that's not realistic for a lot of people. Welcome to one of the many mechanisms for persistent wealth inequality.

I've always been curious if the 15-20% recommended figure includes company 401k match? For instance I have a HHI of ~$100,000. We max out both Roth IRA's each year. I have a 401k which I deposited a total of $7,150 in 2019 ($4,720 from my contributions, $2,430 employer match). My wife works part time and has no retirement available through her employer.

So my total retirement contributions in 2019 were $19,150 / 19.51% of my gross income. If I don't include my employer contributions, that goes down to $16,720 / 16.72%. I am happy with both numbers, but I was curious what the consensus was when it comes to employer contributions.

Should we also be counting HSA contributions towards this retirement figure?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2020 15:27

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

DNK posted:

It�s about total, all-inclusive savings. So yeah, it�d include employer contributions. Another way of framing the concept is �do you consider pension plans a form of retirement savings?�. Yes, obviously.

Should you count retirement savings as a form of health care savings? Almost certainly yes, so HSAs could be considered retirement savings. I wouldn�t be surprised if 50% of the average American�s retirement savings eventually finds its way into the healthcare system.

Now, the timing of when the money will be used is really the differentiator. If you only put enough into your HSA to cover current-year healthcare expenses, then it�s clearly not going to help you in retirement. If you vastly overfund (and invest) your HSA such that it�s growing much faster than current expenses are draining, sure.

Thanks for the feedback. My employer actually funds a huge percentage of our HSA each year ($4,860 in 2019), but we also have two young kids so money is always going in and out of this account; so I'm not going to count this as retirement for the time being.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2020 16:16

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

spwrozek posted:

Indeed. I actually bought more.

Me too, topped off the last bit of my 2019 IRA this morning. Feeling really good about it.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2020 19:00

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Sundae posted:

Apples and oranges, but three last three posts could be from a Bitcoin forum and nobody could tell the difference.

Right you are. In my defense I top off the previous year�s IRA every year after I get my tax refund, which happened to come in Tuesday.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 23:49

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Nocheez posted:

Just getting caught up after being ill for a while and these aged like milk.

I was going to max out my 2019 IRA after my tax refund came in anyway. I was just sticking to my plan.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2020 11:33

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Well I was officially furloughed today through at least April 22 earlier today. However, I would expect this to actually go much longer. Will definitely tap some emergency funds. Luckily my employer has committed to paying 100% of our health benefits (as opposed to 73%) while we are furloughed. I paused DCA on my and my wife's 2020 IRA's and deferred our one car payment until July. I've made a bunch of extra payments against the principal, so I could actually push this off until September if required.

Does anyone have a reliable calculator for estimating unemployment benefits? Google results are all over the place and not state specific. I'm pretty sure I will get the maximum allowed in Connecticut ($649/week).

I ran my balance / budgeting spreadsheet and I should be fine through August without tapping any taxable investments or "other" cash I have stashed away.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 00:52

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

SpelledBackwards posted:

Roth or Traditional? If it's Roth, then you can back out some out all of the contributions you've made this year for now and recover the cash instead since you need it short term. With the market behaving as it has, you probably don't have earnings on those contributions you'd need to worry about paying penalties for, and if you have better fortune the second half of the year, then you'll have until April of next year to re-contribute toward the IRA limit for this year.

I'm not sure how the above advice changes for a Traditional IRA.

It�s Roth but I�m just going to remain paused on investing for the time being. I ran the numbers and with my emergency fund and unemployment benefits I will be fine until at least August.

This is assuming my unemployment benefit is the current Connecticut max ($649/week), which it should be, but I won�t know for sure until I receive my first payment. This doesn�t account for the additional unemployment benefits or direct cash payments which will pass the Senate tomorrow.

Beyond August I may need to dip into my taxable investments, but I have reasons onto believe I�ll be back to work long before then. Just planning for the worst!

Sock The Great fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Mar 25, 2020

# ¿ Mar 25, 2020 08:37

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Well that was a short lived furlough...2 days (for which I am taking PTO). My immediate boss called me this afternoon and asked me to come back, which I accepted. Turns out having one person do the job of six was not going to work out. They've only guaranteed me that I will be un-furloughed for the remainder of this week and all of next, but I feel like I will still be kept beyond that based on the existing backlog for April.

I attribute this 100% to "skill stacking" in my department. We handle sales of injection molding machines in North America, our department is responsible for technical clarification, quote generation, order processing, and logistics of shipping the machines from Germany. The shipment from Germany is silo'd off to one person who doesn't handle the other technical stuff and last summer she broker her leg and I volunteered to take on her work load for a couple months. Besides the department manager (who was the one not furloughed before today) I am the only one who can handle every role in the department, which was the exact reason why I was asked to return early.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2020 23:10

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Not sure if this is the right place for this or not, but I don't know of a better place.
Is there good thread somewhere about time management and productivity? I work by myself and for myself and pretty much get what I need to get done, but I'd like to get a little better about tracking my time and getting more out of that time. I feel like I got more done when I had someone else around-just that little pressure of someone noticing what you're doing helped keep me focused. Part of it is probably that running my own business is more complicated and I'm pulled in more directions than I used to be when I just was focused on production. I'm never sure if at X moment I should be working on a job or doing the books or eating lunch or working on marketing or responding to emails etc etc. I think figuring out how to schedule all that, as well as get better at developing (and following!) schedules for jobs themselves, would help me, but I'm not really sure where to start.
Any recommended books/apps/advice aside from 'log off'?

I've read 'E-myth revisited' and from developing a business plan have a decent idea of what the financials should look like (and surprisingly, the reality doesn't look hugely different) I'd just like to figure out how to reach those goals more efficiently and not feel so scattered all the time.

I don't own my own business, but I am a sales engineer/project manager and know what it's like to get pulled in a ton of conflicting directions with limited resources (time and energy). This may get a little "self helpy", but I've certainly found it useful.

- Use a dynamic task manager like ToDoIst of Microsoft To Do (RIP Wunderlist). I started using ToDoIst last August and it's completely changed my workflow. Things that used to fall through the cracks (signed change order, progress payments) no longer do.

- Ask yourself "Who am I serving right now?". I find this helps me prioritize internal requests (from my boss) vs. external (from my clients) vs. things I am ultimately doing for myself.

- The task that you don't want to do right now is exactly what you should be doing.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2020 13:43

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Our monthly budget for groceries (myself, my wife and 2 kids ages 7 and 4) is $420 per month and we very rarely go over that. We shop pretty exclusively at Aldi and shop for sales on fresh meat / produce at other stores.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2021 00:32

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

nwin posted:

If you at all have the time, could you please post what is a normal weekly menu for you all? Kids/parents, breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks.

Of course. I neglected to mention that my wife keeps a pretty good vegetable garden, which is supplying us with a decent amount of kale, lettuce, tomatoes, yellow squash etc.

Most Sunday mornings I make a large batch of pancakes, which I refrigerate and the kids have paired with fruit for the remainder of the week. We always have standby cereal, oatmeal etc. In a pinch we always have frozen waffles / pancakes in the chest freezer. My wife and I usually only have coffee in the morning.

In the summertime lunches typically consist of leftovers from the night before for myself and my wife. Kids will usually have a mini-charcuterie board (cheese cubes, sliced salami, grapes, crackers etc) and we also have chicken nuggets, Mac n cheese, other garbage kid food on occasion.

For snacks we always buy whatever fruit is on sale at Aldi that week (my kids prefer strawberries, but we will get other berries if the price is better). We also keep the regular contingent of granola bars, crackers, nuts, etc. on hand at all times.

We live in Connecticut so hot lunch is free for all K-12 students in most towns (not income related); this is just how most districts have chosen to spend their COVID dollars from the feds.

Here are our menus from the last 2 weeks.

8/22:

�Cheat� chicken parm using frozen chicken patties with angel hair pasta.

8/23:

Grilled cheeseburgers, got the fresh ones from Aldi (usually we have frozen from Costco).

8/24:

Baked potatoes and chili dogs.

8/25:

Crispy chicken salad. Frozen chicken strips, most vegetables from the garden.

8/26:

BBQ Boneless country ribs on the grill and pasta side.

8/27:

BBQ chicken thighs and egg noodles.

8/28:

Spaghetti, meatballs, Texas toast.

8/29:

Frozen Pierogis and sausages

8/30:

Breakfast for dinner (eggs, waffles, pancakes from scratch)

8/31:

Grilled cheesebuergs

9/1:

Chicken parm (real, no cheating)

9/2:

White bean chili

9/3:

Pizza babka from scratch.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2021 01:53

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

Armauk posted:

Let me guess: Somewhere, Connecticut.

If he had said single family homes instead of apartments, I would definitely agree. The only place in CT where there would be apartments over $500k would be a Stamford, and even that's a stretch.

Source: lived in Connecticut my whole life.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2022 16:39

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 14:50

Sock The Great: Oct 1, 2006; It's Lonely At The Top. But It's Comforting To Look Down Upon Everyone At The Bottom; Grimey Drawer

So my father passed away recently and we are trying to figure out what to do with his vehicle. Ultimately we need an SUV with a third row so we can fit my mother, wife and our 2 kids in one vehicle. What would be the most legal/tax advantaged way to handle this?

Does she gift me the car, then I could trade it in/sell it? The car is worth more than $17,000; so there would be some tax issues there I believe.

Do I buy the car from her for $1?

Does she just come with me to trade in the car and the dealership apply the value to my purchase?

# ¿ Sep 28, 2023 23:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > BFC General/Daily discussion thread. Don't eat out today.