Personal Finance Gems

winb83

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(This is an advanced personal finance gem, and not suited for people that don't have the basics down)

Saving means giving money to your future self. Borrowing means taking money from your future self.

If you are confident that your financial path has a high probability of making your future self wealthy, then it makes sense to borrow now as opposed to struggling in the present to invest in your future self who will already be wealthy
Student loan debt is this. It's a crisis.
 

winb83

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Why do you have two 2% cash back cards?
I got a bonus on that Fidelity. Spend so much in the first 3 months and get $250 back. That Citi Double Cash is a product change from a Diamond Preferred I had back when my credit was worse. It's an old card so I don't cancel it. I just use it for bills.
 

dtownreppin214

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I got a bonus on that Fidelity. Spend so much in the first 3 months and get $250 back. That Citi Double Cash is a product change from a Diamond Preferred I had back when my credit was worse. It's an old card so I don't cancel it. I just use it for bills.
Do you do churning?
 

jadillac

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One credit card, one debit. That's it.
This isn't good advice for everyone tho.

My gf has one cc she uses for everything... It was all good, but lately she's gotten popped twice in a few months bc someone used her card fraudulently to buy food from Uber Eats.

So then her card has to be canceled until they can send her a new one. If you don't have a backup cc then you're screwed
 

winb83

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As someone who works in the banking industry, I see ppl more frequently than you would think who make 20K a month and get turned down for stuff.

Making more money is not always the answer
Making more money isn't going to teach you how to manage money and live below your means. The reality for many people is they live at the edge of what they can afford they use debt to get there. They finance either the most expensive car they can afford or a car more expensive then they can afford. They live in a home and neighborhood they can't really afford.

You give these people more money and they'll just adjust their lives up. People need to figure out what's the minimum lifestyle they need to be comfortable and freeze their live at that point. Start making more and they divert that to saving and investing.

I've come around on stuff like car debt. I used to say never finance a care but now I say if you finance a car you better have the money in the bank to pay off the part you financed if need be. My car payment is $168 a month @ 2.89 APR it was financed for 5 years and I'm 2.3 into it. I took my car payment and doubled it putting the part over in a bank account. I won't lie I've dipped into that bank account to buy some stocks occasionally but just that double up account has 61% of the remaining loan balance in it. When that car is paid off I'll take both the payment and overage and continue to put it into that account.
 
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