Prime
Saeptum Agent
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Agent of Truth
Posts: 399
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Post by Prime on Feb 2, 2012 21:09:18 GMT -5
Hey guys, know its been a while since I've been on here. Life and all, been trying to forge a career and all that fun stuff. When I first moved out of my place, I got a bunch of advice thrown at me, and there are two pieces I did NOT receive that I'd like to share with you. They are, in fact, the cause of my current predicament. Last night, my roommates, without any prior notice, ejected me from the home. And this leads into both pieces of advice...
First, GET IT IN WRITING. This I did not do, I made the mistake of trusting my friends, and now I'm paying for it. I do have a job, so being homeless shouldn't really last, but sleeping in my car isn't exactly comfortable. If I had a written contract, they'd have to serve an eviction notice, and here the eviction notice is 30 days advance notice. If I'd even been given two days, I likely could've gotten another place and had a couple buddies help me move out.
As it is, I was essentially force to get a uHaul, and put all my things into storage. Only half as expensive as actually getting a new place, true, but my bed would be a great deal more appericiated. It'd be worth the extra 200 dollars or so. Along with power, and heat.
Second, Don't live with roommates. Everyone argues with each other, and huge fights can be an issue. Even if you have an eviction notice and some time, they can easily still make your life hell. So, in all honesty, just don't....
So I guess see you all on the other side, I'll be popping into the library every now and then to get internet access and try to find a new place. I'll check in here now and again if you feel like trying to give some advice.
Also, if you're wondering why the boot, they gave some crap reasons. I'm guessing its because I work nights, and they don't like me kickin around at night doin whatever entertains me when I'm not working. Its not like I crank the stereo but damn one of em was a light sleeper.
Cheers all.
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Prime
Saeptum Agent
1%
Agent of Truth
Posts: 399
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Post by Prime on Feb 3, 2012 20:44:57 GMT -5
Financial advisors recommend you have half your yearly income stowed away in case of hard times. Bit hard to do, yeah, but very worth it if you can achieve it. If you make 20,000 a year, having 10,000 stashed away is certainly going to help if you lose your job or the like. Not only that, it'll help you find a new one. And, even if you don't have an 'official' place to stay, 10,000 will sure as hell keep you up in a hotel for a while.
At the moment, my personal goal is a savings fund of 5000. Build it, don't touch it, and wait for everything to go pear shaped. Because it will, and it comes on so soft and feather light you don't even know it till it fills half your sight.
I'm sure you all know about budgeting. Even half ass parents try to teach their kids how to budget, or find some way to push it off on the schools we were all at. Well, I'd like to add something to budgeting.
We should all budget, expecting to be 500 to 1000 dollars in EXCESS of what we actually budget. Personally I'm referring to it as 'hidden cost budgeting', but we could also call it 'dodgin the rear rammer' or the 'reamer repellent', in any event I don't think it hurts to be over prepared. And even if it does, being hurt a little bit every month is a small price to pay to avoid gettin bend over the rail on a really bad one.
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Post by ch00beh on Feb 5, 2012 2:24:03 GMT -5
My savings strategy used to be 10% automatically goes in, and that account is not linked with my debit card. My current one is to never keep more than x amount of money in checking for every pay check, where x is the amount of money it takes to be comfortable for one month.
The safety net strategy I have is to always keep 6 month's worth of rent on hand.
In regards to budgeting, mint.com is an amazing service.
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Post by {WW}BetaBloodWolf7 on Feb 5, 2012 3:10:50 GMT -5
I used to put my money away and just not spend it, but recently I haven't been able to do that, what with school and larger expenses. Soooo I guess I'm burning through my safety net right now. But, life works that way at times.
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Post by Ninety on Feb 6, 2012 0:08:31 GMT -5
I put about fifty dollars per month into a few stocks. Every time I use my debit card for a purchase, one dollar is moved from my checking account into a savings account. I put twenty-five a month in a savings account.
I don't have any bills other than Netflix and a gym membership that I should cancel.
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Prime
Saeptum Agent
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Agent of Truth
Posts: 399
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Post by Prime on Feb 6, 2012 13:16:08 GMT -5
Ditto for the gym membership. I have a home again, at least for now. I'm not going to take that for granted anymore. I'm going to do my best to go back to school. Being a mechanic is fine, but it isn't a passion like art and 3d design were. Even if I can't get back in, I think I'll just get as many books as I can and strike out on my own anyways.
My short term goal is to save a 5000 dollar safety net, then I plan to adopt a plan similar to you choobeh. Everything not needed in order to live reasonably during a month goes into a savings account -that my debit card is not connected too-, that last bit is an especially good idea.
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Post by ch00beh on Feb 29, 2012 14:57:54 GMT -5
On more general financial stuff, I have a 401k that takes 10% of my paycheck while my company matches 6%, and I also have 5% of my paycheck automatically go into a pool for purchasing my company's stock at the end of a 6 month period at its lowest price point discounted by 15%.
I'll probably do more manual stock trading when I figure out how to money.
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Post by ch00beh on Feb 7, 2013 3:45:34 GMT -5
so I've started to figure out how to money with stocks. First tip is that you can pretty much get an average 2-7% monthly return with almost zero effort if you throw some money into a random index fund. If you toss in more money into the fund every now and then, the math magic makes your returns balloon ridiculously. "But stocks are so risky!" you say. To which I reply by pointing out how index funds work: they're not individual stocks in a company but rather it's you, along with a bunch of other people, giving some dude money, and that dude uses the sum total to buy/sell stocks in accordance with their official market cap. No one is using their gut to bet on an individual stock; instead you're betting on the entire economy, and if there's one thing we can safely assume, it's that the economy grows over a 10 year period of time. Yeah, 10 years is a long time, but this kind of investing is intended for retirement, so you'll be holding these funds for like 40. (the effort I mentioned comes from finding the index funds that have the fewest fees, and from having to click buttons to occasionally put more money into the funds) For further reading, I highly recommend this book as it's written for a beginner audience. I had zero financial knowledge before reading it, so I can vouch for the language. The second tip is in regards to trading stocks. So far my opinion is that while it's fun because it's socially acceptable constant gambling, it's not a particularly good way of actually making any money unless you know exactly what you're doing (and empirical evidence suggests that something like 95% of people who think they know what they're doing lose money) or unless you already have a lot and so those 1-3% gains end up meaning more due to volume. I will say this, though: you can always count on a stock plummeting if its quarterly revenue is less than estimates. You can also count on a stock plummeting if company revenue is equal to the estimates. If the revenue exceeds estimates, then the stock shoots up in price by an irrational amount. So beware of quarterly report days and do your homework when they get close. In other news, one more protip for people who think it's best to just put money away and not look at it until it's needed: inflation averages 3% a year, so you're actually a bit poorer if you put some money in a shoebox and a year later have the same dollar amount when you open it again. It is definitely good to have the emergency fund in liquid cash, though, since all the investing in the world won't pay the bills, but make sure you don't over-commit to it.
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