A manager I had when I worked at Wendy's was 26 years old had worked at Wendy's for 8 years. He also lived with his mom, he said that his most valuable asset was a 2010 Acura Tsx.
What are some personal finance stories that you've heard of or committed yourself?
Somebody mentioned to me that he had all of his retirement money in AAPL. Now, if he got into it at $20 a share and held it, that's smart, but you'd have to be clairvoyant...
Yeah, being all in on Apple has been an awful investment.
I don't get it. At this point in time, having all your chips in AAPL is probably the SMARTEST thing you could have done with your money.
But to have gotten in at the high prices we have today, you would have had to know with some very high probability that it would continue to rise. Now, if you had gotten in at $20/share 10 or 15 years ago, then it's not such a huge problem, cause Apple's worth something like $100 per share in cash alone.
or lucky. people leaving casinos with big smiles aren't any good at it.
I met a guy that took out a loan from his bank at 16% in order to pay off his 25k in cc debt.
His APR was only 12%... And that's why the financial adviser profession will be around for another 200 years.
I've heard of some guys who put their entire nest eggs in the hands of this MF Global business run by a genius ex-GS guy Corzine. It's probably doing pretty good, right?
My parents make me RAGE so fucking hard. They have/had no retirement planning and let their money rot in a savings account (they refuse to invest). They are always 100% cash, even after the the market bottom they sat on the fucking cash. What money they did have they used it to start building an internet cafe in a foreign country then ended up not having enough to complete it.
What's the purpose of this post? Seriously. OP, don't come here and belittle this individual. Grow a pair and scream it to his face next time.
I've done so MANY times. Secondly, I want to hear of other retarded shit people have heard of. Puts like yours make me want to post in things that piss me off.
Stupid e-policemen.
I had a friend a few years back brag to me that his parents bought their $3MM house outright in cash. To him I replied why not get a $2MM+ loan at 5% or less and earn 10% or more in the market with all that unused cash?
this is pretty dumb right here.
No Melvvvar, your pretty dumb. Some people don't like taking risks. End of story. Some people would find it stupid investing in the market when an investment on the roulette table can return 100% in the matter of seconds. It's all about the risk involved.
Why not get a loan at 5% and invest the unused cash in the market at 10%? Because the market return might be -10%, that's fucking why.
Dumb personal finance stories involve people dropping out of school, living at home till they're 30, working at McD's, spending money on weed, and living paycheck to paycheck.
Exactly.
I am one of those people who HATES any kind of debt, to the point of stressing hardcore. I would be more then happy to pay cash for the house then risk the rest of the money. Only way I would feel comfortable having the debt (if I already had the $$ to pay it off) would be putting it into a very safe investment vehicle, but that still wouldn't be more then the loan interest...soooooo go with a sure thing imho.
no, rpcas, you're the dumb one here. i was referring to the poster's own reasoning, not the subject of the poster's tale. and for you to confuse "your" with "you're" while calling someone dumb is just the most delicious irony.
Unless his parents are successful money managers and know how to build a diversified portfolio they would be taking a huge risk investing $2MM+ of their equity in the stock market. Not to mention most individual investors don't outperform the market, let alone at 10% and let's not forget capital gains tax. Sounds like a small chance of upside with a lot of possible downside. Unless your're extremely risk tolerant, or have the extra equity to back it up no one in their right find should do that...
I'm glad you didn't suggest they borrow on margin and invest $4MM+ and earn 20% in the stock market. I would probably have to find you and castrate you.
That's a good point. They should trade futures at a 20:1 leverage. Actually, forget that currencies 100:1. They will be able to pay back their house off profits alone.
From a raw numbers standpoint, getting married and having children.
I don't think the people who disagreed with UncleMilty's AAPL post read his entire second sentence for the context, even though both of them quoted it.
As a Lending Club investor, I've seen a lot of whacky shit on the debt consolidation front. Levering up the interest rate in order to have a single payment, etc...
One of my exes had insane debt. Not just "wow" type of stuff, I'm talking like eye-popping debt. The worst were 16k at 22% apr and 9k at 29% apr. total she had something like 50k at around an average of 27% apr. she would pay that shit each and every single month.
She called up the cc companies and asked for apr reduction - because Oprah said so :). She was shocked when the companies said no. I told her "of course they said no, you're a performing account, you are how they stay in business. Miss a few payments." she refused. She would pay that every month and then call up and go through the same thing every month and the cc companies always said no. Every time she would be shocked. I told her that she was crazy to expect help and i eventually left her.
I have a friend that will refuse to invest in ANYTHING but a savings account.
Did we go to the same high school?
This is probably too much of IlliniProgrammer rubbing off on me, but I'm putting all my savings (except for enough 401k contributions to get full matching) into a savings account until I have 5-6 months rent/expenses saved up, just in case (almost there after starting in July). Am I totally crazy?
To the OPs point, these are called 'Goal Collar Workers'. They take whatever money they make and pour it into a depreciating asset or assets. Profitable for the people that lend to them though.
The real question is how many white trash chubby girls he crushing weekly in that tsx?
I think it was all the money I spent on beanie babies and pokemon cards when I was younger.
Never got a Charizard card :/
Here is your chance to justify your poor financial decisions...
I am willing to let my Charizard go for $5,000.
But is it holographic?
Well I know about a million idiots take out loans each year to pay 40K to major in art history, anthropology, English, psychology, gender studies, ect. Good luck paying of 160K in debt with out a job or at best one that pays 30k a year!
Dude this is such a fucking ignorant opinion. Where the fuck would the world be today if everyone studied fucking econ, finance or energy?
Whether you know it or not, social science shapes social policy, which shapes the world. Those same 'idiots' you just mentioned are the same guys in washington ramming fucking regulations up our ass....
Plus I know a ton of guys in finance with social science degrees....
Best answer yet, studiofan (though those are interesting majors if you actually plan and have the ability to go into that field, I know I wish I could learn more about anthro). Also, not sure how psych fits in there. Probably not the best undergrad choice for a lot of things, bit still respectable.
ph.d.s don't go into debt. they are almost without exception covered by teaching or research fellowships. the only cost is the opportunity cost of a real job while they are making 20K a year grading papers or slaving for their adviser.
no, doctoral students live like paupers, but they almost never go into debt unless they choose to live above their station. departments take it as their obligation to pay at least a living salary in stipends.
Several kids from my graduating UG class decided that it would be a sound financial investment to take out around 160k-200k to attend fourth tier law schools on the cusp of losing accreditation. They are convinced big law will give them a shot.
I hope they enjoy paying off the debt with a $15 an hour document review gig.
The only fourth tier graduate schools worth attending are low-ranked medical schools.
First year analysts paying $2k/month on rent.
...in Little Rock, AR.
Regards
Stephens?
LMAO
A kid I know from my old neighborhood who makes about $40k a year and has been for the past 10 years and lives at home and leases a new Benz/BMW/ every couple of years, and another kid I used to work with in retail while I was in college who made $14 an hour and leased an Audi and Infiniti over a four year period. Idk, I just think it doesn't look right if you're driving an expensive car and you live in your moms basement or don't have the earnings to support it.
Worked at a sub-prime auto finance company verifying contracts in high school. Guy bought a X5 jaguar used for 36k. He made 26k a year. APR 25%.
I knew this black guy that took out a couple trillion dollars in loans to pay a losing war halfway across the world.
Lol, my grandfather went to school with the father of the same white guy who started that war! What a small world!
Worst financial decision? I dunno, mostly taking huge depreciation hits buying new cars and condos (lol.. go used, idiots), saving money in savings accounts that don't even match inflation, locking away rainy day funds in investments which penalize you if you don't reach the minimum term and then having to break the funds out for some emergency... buying homes when renting would be a better option... etc list goes on and on.
The number one killer though is just living beyond your means, massive debt with huge apr, etc.
Then there's me, not actually in debt but living paycheck to paycheck like a moron despite making more than a living wage, doing dumb stuff like not using gap insurance my work provides for medical expenses, lending hundreds of dollars I don't have to my ex before we broke up.
The worst part is that I give better advice to friends than I myself actually take. Hopefully I'll be able to save some money now that I'm single (or at least have more fun spending money on drinking and banging random girls rather than meals, trips, and gifts)
My ex girlfriend JUST called me asking me to come down the street to buy her some $69.99 headphones because she is short on cash and doesnt want to use her visa... beware the dangerous animals you create when you teach a financial moron a few tactics and then they turn around and use the buzz words on you...
anyways dumbest financial stories? I used to work in a collection agency and the manager of one of the teams had over $100K in Credit Card Debt and didnt give a flying fuck who knew because he knew all the tricks of the trade to get around it.... then my direct manager there who was making tops $40K a year quit and took a year off to smoke weed, live on his credit card, in his apartment ($1650 a month) and play World of Warcraft 18 hrs a day...
Excerpt from Bloomberg article "UAW Bonuses on GM Profit May Lift Economy"
"The rebound in carmaker profits is putting money into the pockets of U.S. workers after years of belt-tightening. GM yesterday reported a record $9.19 billion in net income for 2011, which will mean profit-sharing bonuses of as much as $7,000 for 47,500 eligible UAW members...... Union workers at the Corvette factory in Kentucky will probably use their profit sharing checks to put a down payment on the $49,600 sports cars they build, said Eldon Renaud, president of United Auto Workers Local 2164 at the Bowling Green, Kentucky factory that builds the cars."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/uaw-7-000-bonuses-on-record-gm…
there are some idiots who make the mistake of getting a terminal master's. if they had done even a little bit of asking they would know that a master's is awarded almost automatically on the way to the ph.d. in any US program these days. even if they want the masters, apply for a ph.d. slot, drop out after your master's, no debt. in a terminal master's, you are paying somewhere between 50K to 100K for the right to be someone's slave. that is fairly retarded.
i can't speak for bachelor's because it's been a while since i have been out of school. but at places like HYP everyone's automatically given aid anyways and you don't get into that much debt. if you go to a shitty no name school with no endowment, good luck to you, you're going to need it, especially with a useless major.
Well this is nothing catastrophically stupid but still amusing. In high school I paid for gas by selling a candy bar to the same kid in my English class every day for $4, the cost of this bar was $0.50 if you bought them in any reasonable quantity. He never once questioned why I charged him $4, nor did he care that you could buy the same bar in any grocery store for $5 for a box of 10.
High Finance only, rest is garbage, this is WSO attitute.
paying off dead family member's unsecured debts.... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702042246045770300438901217…
I also know an engineering prof who dropped 80k+ financing 3 movies in their native (small market) language for some of the local gross and exclusive US distribution rights. only two got produced, one actually broke even locally, but even that lost him money because he got excited and ordered a bunch of DVDs from his partner to sell in ethnic grocery stores. all the dvds are sitting in his attic now.
phds in hard sciences, engineering, and some social sciences are the best graduate studies investment for your average smart person. faster roi than med school (which you do to help people, not to make bank) and much higher chance of doing well than playing the biglaw lottery. there are other options for these guys than the tenured prof route (government jobs, private sector research). and they generally graduate with no debt. I would never do it myself, but I would tell a younger brother who liked chemistry for instance, to go directly for his doctorate and not mess around with entry level research jobs.
do any of you live in nyc? standard murray hill analyst pad with 1 roommate runs ~1500 for each. living with more people spreads the cost but creates its own issues with shower timing and potentially personalities
got married 1.5 years ago.
I wish I had a SB to give to you.
haha, thanks. Don't make the same kind of mistake I did. I am on the same boat as the poster above.
i gots school debt, mortgage and im married
Paying 20k for my 4 year non-target education while my colleagues will have paid 160k to get to the same place (given they have the grad school edge.) What's opportunity cost if you had invested that 35k difference in equities annually? Especially since I matriculated in '08; you could make a really bad financial decision with that much money.
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