A lot of people are against credit cards which is understandable. But I use them almost exclusively and pay them in full every month.
As long as I don’t go over whatever I have in cash, these credit cards help me in building credit score as well as provide a layer of protection should some person or site try to over charge me later.
It’s not for everyone, but it worked for me.
While not always too significant, many credit cards also offer points or cash back. I do the same as you (use my credit card for practically everything and always pay it off), and can use whatever points I get to make small mortgage prepayments, buy gift cards, etc.
I solely use an Amazon Chase card. I buy a lot from Amazon and still get cash back to spend at Amazon when making purchases elsewhere. I buy the occasional game for myself at no cost and when Xmas rolls around I can buy a number of gifts with Amazon points.
This is what I do. I don’t use a debit card, but instead use a “credit condom” so that if someone steals my cc and uses it, I’m not liable. I also pay in full so I don’t have to carry cash and keep a healthy / active credit history.
My credit score is about as good as it can get, and I have no problems buying anything big ticket.
This is basically what I do. It made keeping track of my finances really simple. I just try to keep my checking account balance higher than my credit card balance. If there’s anything left when I pay off the card at the end of the month I move that over to savings. Easy peasy.
The thing I found about using my credit card like this is it actually ended up saving me a bunch of money because in times when money was tight it gave me the flexibility to stock up on things when they were on sale, or to get the extra jumbo value pack with better per-unit cost, because I could spread the cost over several paychecks instead of being limited to what I could afford out of just that week’s paycheck. If you do it right it does a lot to take the edge off of “Vimes’ boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
Just to add to this, being selective about which card(s) you use and maximizing bonus points can lead to some pretty significant travel benefits.
It’s a tie between getting rid of my car and learning to stop “trading”. Cars are just the worst in terms of finances, and you can save bank if you’re able to move somewhere walkable. Only buy stocks you’re happy to hold for five years or more. A good test is “if the price crashes, would I be excited to buy more?”
Coincidentally, having cars as a hobby has been the worst financial decision of my life lol.
Hobbies aren’t supposed to be about whether they’re a good financial consideration, they’re about passion, self fulfillment and looking after yourself.
This is of course true, but sometimes what you’re getting out of a hobby is not worth the resources you put in.
Then it’s a shit hobby, or the wrong time in your life for that particular hobby. Hobbies aren’t meant to be financially sound investments, and the best hobbies aren’t cheap.
I think, at least for non-savvy people, that buying individual stocks is not a great idea anyway. If you’re investing to have long term capital gains something like the MSCI World ETF would probably be the better choice. If you invested in that specific index fund in 2016 you’d have doubled your money by now, even during this economic downturn. Sure, you can make more money in a shorter time day trading but that shit is damn near a full time job and more risky unless you heavily diversify your portfolio (which you should do anyway).
Another poster mentioned stocks of the company he works for. My company for example distributes a good amount of their yearly profits to their employees. Meaning that once a year you can choose between a couple hundred bucks one-time payout or get a bunch of company stocks for a heavily discounted price, but they’re trade-locked for two years. At the beginning of 2020 I chose the stock option and the shares got bought right at the beginning of the covid dip. When 2022 rolled around I had essentially quintupled my initial investment in the discounted stocks. So that’s another great tip, provided you company offers similar plans.
Counterpoint to company stock is, if the company has trouble, your stock is likely to plummet at the same time as you lose your job. Definitely go for discounted shares/options, but consider dumping them (ie, diversifying) as soon as you can.
I joined a hotel company a couple of years ago where they offered stock options, which is good and I appreciated it. But there were a lot of people that had worked there for decades just because they felt invested in the company. Meanwhile, working conditions were absolutely awful and the culture was the worst I’ve ever experienced. And I kept thinking how crazy it must have been during COVID as the stock tanked and everyone was staring down the barrel of layoffs. Like, if your employer is your entire retirement plan then you could be in huge trouble all at once.
Media piracy.
If I wanted to watch a show, I’d have to pay 80€/month, because every streaming site only has one or two seasons.
I’m just done with corporate greed, fuck big companies, piracy is a service problem.
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What about the actors and other staff who don’t get paid for their work? Not everyone is a major Hollywood star.
They still don’t get paid when you pay for the service it turns out.
They aren’t getting paid anyways, clearly.
Although monopolies can suck balls, at this point, in the streaming industry, there’s just too much competition, to the point that you have to purchase a service for its catalog, and that’s 4-5 services to subscribe to at this point. It used to be more convenient to pirate stuff, then it got more convenient to just get netflix and hulu, now I’m back sailing the high seas.
Staff don’t see a dime off revenue. They were already paid for their time worked during production. You paying a ticket or subscription doesn’t give staff any more money.
They get paid by the producer. The producer get’s money by selling a license to netflix, scamazon prime, etc. Netflix get’s their money by scamming people, if no one wants to get scammed anymore and everyone’d stop subscribing to streaming services. The producer would have to actually sell it for a fair price directly to consumers or sell it to someone who sells it to consumers, like it used to be.
Always remember, that if they can’t pay their staff, they have to find another buisnes or distribution model. The actors aren’t the risk takers of the producers investment.
You should also never view pirates as a potential customer, if I wouldn’t pirate I still wouldn’t buy it.
I took a lower-paying job that I was more competent to do.
Due to lower stress levels, somehow I spend less money and my finances are way better. For the record we’re talking about making $110k then vs making $45k now.
My finances are in better shape. I have cognitive surplus at the end of the day, and I think maybe that’s translating to less escape-seeking.
Also, this year I made a new year’s resolution: I am going to have $5k in the bank, come hell or high water. I’ve lived my whole life without a buffer and life without a buffer sucks so hard.
Just having that goal — $5k in the bank — has changed my whole relationship to money. I haven’t even hit the $5k. I’m at $3k and even that feels amazing. It doesn’t matter if my paycheck is late. I can just pay my rent. Moving into a new apartment and the agent was like “are you prepared to pay a deposit and first month today?” and I was like “yup”.
In the past I’d always answer like “Well my next paycheck is on such and such date and can I maybe pay you half then, then the other half two weeks after that?” I was always relying on the flexibility and mercy of financial gatekeepers.
I’m amazed how such a small amount of money (compared to the total flow) being held onto has changed my perception of myself. I feel like a “legit” person now. I feel like a stakeholder in society. I feel like an adult, instead of a boy in a man’s body. I don’t even know when my paydays are any more.
And my income didn’t really increase between the time I had no buffer and the time I did. I just made the resolution, and then started putting money away.
I think your experience that your finances are better on $45k than $110k is quite mysterious and could do with some further elucidation
Like I said I have cognitive surplus. I don’t have to mainline takeout, drugs, and impulse purchases to feel safe.
Drugs like prescription and over the counter stuff to deal with burnout, or drugs like street variety, risk your life to forget your troubles drugs?
Yeah, these three categories explain the difference to me. Good for you, getting your life in order and starting to budget/manage money!
For me, mostly pot, but also prescription drugs to get to sleep, to try and focus, etc. I did adderall for a while, ritalin, modafinil, microdosed with LSD, I did neurofeedback training.
And I ate out like crazy.
I mean, I might be able to handle a dev job now. I had some health issues going on before that job, and my housing situation was unstable, so I never really had a moment when I was just waking up, going to work, coming home, and being alone.
Now Im doing a job that’s so relatively easy (and hourly meaning I can just turn it off when I come home) that even living with a roommate and rarely getting that alone time, Im okay.
I forgot I also would get a hotel room or airbnb occasionally just to have alone time, I did bodywork and float sessions. I spent a lot of money managing my brittle brain.
Actually my intention is to go back to something like that. But the goal was to first learn to manage money, before I got the big salary again. Because I learned that I can earn six figures and still be paycheck to paycheck, so it’s pointless for me to take on all that stress if at the end of two years I’m still gonna be broke due to bad financial habits.
However, more fundamental than financial habits was self care habits. When moment to moment consciousness is comfortable, you don’t need much to be happy.
So for that, the men’s group is a really big factor. AND doing a job so far within my sphere of competence that I have no question of being able to perform.
What a crazy life. I don’t think you have a fragile mind, I think you had a series of impossible goals and incredible pressure to achieve them all. Together with some questionable to bad coping mechanisms, you were on a dark path. I’m so glad you’re on a better path, with goals for the future and a better grasp of what is important in life.
Not sure how much income taxes are for you but the gross difference is $65k and I’ll assume you take home at least half of that. So $32k. Just curious like which specific categories of items were costing you tens of thousands of dollars that you were able to cut out? Is this the famous American medical expenses mainly? Just trying to be able to understand
I don’t know man. The bank account I had then is closed.
I was using a thing called Tiller to pull my finances and categorize but it stopped working with my bank and I never found a good alternative.
Not OP, but… I took a pay cut years ago not as dramatic of a cut about 104k to 72k. I no longer had to drive to work but took a bus so I saved 90 miles (145 km) a day in driving. So I had a big savings on gas, and car, and with the time savings I could switch my kid to a regular daycare because I no longer needed extended hours. I had more free time to cook all of our meals so I had a big savings on food versus take out all the time. I also had the time to do work on my house versus hiring out. I cut back on vacation budgets but we had time to get out of the house and play at the parks and trails nearby every day. All and all a cut in income but a big increase in enjoyment in life. For savings I was able to save about the same between the two jobs.
Easy to believe that you improved quality of life and achieved some savings, but the other poster specifically cited improvements in financial health after >50% cut which has me puzzled
I agree. I’d love it if I could take a less demanding job. Burnout sucks and I would love to have more time for my family and hobbies.
I just can’t see how that would work between paying my home loan and other living expenses.
I don’t know if that would work for me, but that’s super interesting, thank you for sharing!
Leaving my wife, She destroyed my credit and finances.In less then 2 years I have fixed both.
Congrats on turning that around so quickly!
Kept scores like it was a video game.
My country doesn’t really work with credit scores, so I don’t really understand it. How can you ruin and fix your score like that?
In the U.S. there’s a system that reports all of your financial information to 3 different credit bureaus. When you make an owed payment late ,don’t pay for something, apply for too much credit or just not even use credit your credit score shrinks. By paying bills on time ,having more available unused credit and just doing that overtime makes your score go up.This is a simplified explanation and I’m no expert ,but that’s the basics of it.
The less you spend the better? Goes a bit against economic progress. But I’m probably not really getting it. Thank you for your explanation.
Left my ex four years ago now and I’ve got a 700 credit score!
She didn’t fuck up my finances directly, but she undermined my sense of concrete reality and filled me with enormous amounts of stress and I couldn’t do anything but hang on by my fingertips in my career.
Four years of active healing and it’s finally starting to manifest in my external life.
Good for you getting your head in a better place.Sometimes what we want the most really is the worse thing for us.
It was love at first sight, literally. We didn’t even discuss going out. The first day we met, we were together as a couple. I cannot emphasize enough that we did not discuss being a couple even a single word, but we both knew.
I ain’t doing love at first sight again. Fuck that.
I have two:
- Maxing out employer matching retirement plans
- Investing in college savings accounts from the day my kids were born
I did both decades ago, now I am set to retire early without worrying about paying big college bills for the kids
The education fund is key. We put away money for our two kids, and the oldest has taken 1 year out of it. We have enough for 5 years of Canadian university between them (double that if they choose college instead)
We’ve always been fortunate to have decent jobs, but feel like the wealthy class when we can just fund their tuition like it’s nothing
We put away $200/mn into a couple of Scotia accounts. I wish now I ran it myself and just put it into S&P ETFs, but it still worked out well enough
Multigenerational living, on a farm. Most everything we eat or use comes from our property, our neighbors, or my husbands family’s property.
I’m very well cognizant this is not an option for a lot of people, and I know how lucky I am to not have to spend money on bills most people have… it’s a big reason why I try to pay it forward in many ways, as often as I can.
That said, I grew up in abject poverty… so I’m playing catch up, even now.
Such is reality.
Hope you got tomatoes then
It would be silly to not.
Here’s a tomato for you 🍅
Selling my car and getting an ebike. First few months were rough because I was used to having a car all the time for twenty years. The gas, insurance, registration and maintenance savings add up quick. My wife and I share a car, but I rarely drive it as I’ve gotten so used to the ebike now. We live in the suburbs, but are close to the light rail train line and bike paths so it made it relatively easy. Over the course of a year we’d typically spend $4000-$5000 on the second car so not having that is a lot of extra money
I’d like to be able to do that, but I’m not certain how feasible it is for me. What’s the weather like in your area, throughout the year? In mine it goes from about about 60 to 90 where I can’t imagine wanting to ride my bike at about 90, and arrive not drenched in sweat. How much do you think a person would spend to purchase an Ebike? How many miles do you expect to ride per 10 minutes, if you’re trying to get somewhere? Near some places I frequent, there’s not good public transit, so if I took it, it would take like 3 times longer than by car. A bike may be nice, but then I’ld probably arrive sweaty and maybe still about 2 times longer than by car (i’m not familiar with expected speed of traveling on a bike).
I would say that 90 F won’t be a problem on an ebike, since you can rely a lot on the motor, and you have air flowing all around you. I mostly use a regular bike but then I just bring a spare t-shirt.
I would rather say that I don’t like biking when it’s below 35 F. Still doable, but not having to deal with that it should be really nice for you :)
Max allowed speed for ebikes on bikelanes varies but should be about 20 mph if you’re using only the motor.
Consistently investing in mutual funds for last 7 years (Systematic Investment Plan)
Bonus: not caring about what others think of my clothes, car, jewellery or gadgets.
not caring about what others think of my clothes, car, jewellery or gadgets.
That really goes a long way.
Definitely. It’s only when I meet my friends and family that I realise I live way too frugally.
Buying some bitcoin when it was around 300 euros. A couple of years ago I needed surgery that wasn’t available in my country so the national insurance only covered it around 50% in another country and that bitcoin basically saved my life.
Great for you man!
Buying shares in a company I work at when it started up. I’ve had a 500% return in dividends over 7 years so far.
Putting all the money and labor into one horse is generally not a good financial advice. Glad it worked out for you.
I didn’t put all my money in. I bought a 1.5% share. It was funded from part of my redundancy settlement from the previous company I worked for. Was it a gamble? Yes. Was it high risk to me? No. Besides the question wasn’t asking for advice.
Bought a car for $500, drove it for a year, sold it for $500.
Free car… I love it!
My mom bought a car in my home country for 1.4 million local currency, sold it 2 years and an accident later for 1.6 million because Japanese imports stopped.
Not owning a car is probably the single most significant saving most people can make, a moped/e-bike will pay itself off within the year from gas costs alone, and public transport in europe at least is usually slightly less than that for a year ticket.
I wish it was possible not to own a car in the US. But our infrastructure is built so poorly that it is actually impossible.
I feel the same. Even in a state as populated as NJ the public transit system is mediocre unless you are going into NYC.
I only live about 6 miles from my job. If I rode my bike, I’d probably get killed on the road I’d have to take to get to work.
Yes awful public transportation…but “impossible”? Nahh. Still, could save alot of wear and tear getting and ebike for a portion of travel distance.
I was doing a 20 mile one way commute on an ebike in Austin before I moved and now work from home. Driving was still slightly faster but not being in traffic was worth it.
I feel bad for the younger generations. This whole car culture and at most places being mandatory is just bad.
I am fortunate to live in a city with decent public transit. I could have owned a car back in 2018 but I put that on standby indefinitely. The money I saved went into buying a house. And now, a bigger house.
I buy the best car I can afford for cash and maintain it. Repayments on a $30,000 car work out at around $7500 a year for me. Until a car starts costing me big in repairs or breaking down repeatedly and inconveniencing me I just pay the money and keep it well maintained.
A $10,000 volvo that Ive had for 3 years has cost me $3k in assorted repairs. So $13000 vs $22500.
Question about the public transport system, how long does it take to get to common destinations like work, grocery stores, doctors, and etc? Also, how easy is it to get to stations/stops?
For example, the closest grocery store by me is a 37 minute walk or 12 minutes by bike I just don’t think it would be practical to ride with a weeks worth of food for a family. There is no public transportation available.
When living in more walkable areas you don’t feel the need to stockpile food as much. Often times you’ll pass a grocer on your commute and can grab some fresh ingredients to use that night or the next few days. This can help save money too as you can take better advantage of short sales and have more opourtunity for “eat today” type discounts. Theres also the health benefits of active transportation. Unfortunately in most western society being able to walk to essential life giving food isn’t seen as a priority in neighbourhood design.
There are electric cargo bikes that you can strap large panniers or containers to
I personally don’t ride anymore except for exercise, partially because I’m soft, and partially because there are not many safe paths/bike lanes to shopping areas
For distances you can reach within 20-30min on bike, public transport is usually about equal. Here in sweden (where public transport is kinda eeeeh) gettign to the stops is easy so long as you’re not outside a town.
I think your problem is that you’re applying car logic to non-car modes of transport: when you can reach the store in 12 minutes by bike there’s little reason to buy a week’s worth of food at once.
I usually buy food for maybe 2-3 days at a time, and not seldom i will just buy the ingredients for a meal literally a couple hours before, since it takes no time at all to go shopping.
You can also get a cargo bike which will honestly fit about as much food as people bring in their cars anyways. Same goes with a bike trailer.
Very simply: consistent budgeting. We (my wife and I) go envelope-style and budget/plan or money every paycheck. I swear it’s magic that turns money into more money.
It’s also let us systematically pay off all our non-mortgage debt and save/invest a large amount over the last decade. Now we have enough that we don’t worry about money anymore.
The single most important thing I’ve ever done for my finances was learning to budget so I could have a plan and manage my money on purpose.
Heard of YNAB? You need a budget.
Great for envelope budgeting!
Yup! I’m a fan and a current customer (have been with them over a decade)… except that it’s kinda expensive now. For people new to it I’d recommend actualbudget instead and just do manual/semi-manual imports.
How is actual these days? Development was rocky in the early days of open source so I left for plaintextaccounting. Based on the discord seems to be waaay more vibrant now.
If we had good bank imports and more flexible/robust reporting, I may go back
I’m a big fan of budget with buckets, which allows you to import via simple fin bridge. One time $50 payment, also unlimited time trial. I used it for about 4 months before paying up.
YNAB is so fucking confusing
Yes - there are many aspects to it. Got anything you want to jam about? I’d like to give you some responses, if I can. Let’s find the ynab community?
No thanks. I find it easier to use structureless system where I enforce the rules rather than software to do it for me.
Like I track my expenditures, and I have a rough envelope system set up between my two banks. Each paycheck $1k goes into an account that handles all bills plus savings, with most of them on autopay, and any remainder goes to a different bank and I use that card for whatever I feel like.
All I remember from trying to use YNAB is it somehow concluded I had $50 when I actually had like $150 and there was no way to override it.
I was working as a freelancer at the time and there was no way to answer its “How much is your regular recurring paycheck?”
I don’t need something inflexible like that.
I saved up a small buffer and I swear it’s like magic too. Like somehow money is abundant. This is a tiny buffer, maybe 1.5 months of expenses. But even that, I have like zero worry about money and it seems like I always have tons of money.
It doesn’t seem to make mathematical sense. It seems like I have more money than I should. Not just the buffer but in my checking account.
I can’t really explain how it doesn’t make rational sense how much money I have right now. My income hasn’t changed but I’m like always having more than I need. I’m honestly a little freaked out.
Same here. When you’re struggling financially, it can feel easier to stick your head in the sand and not deal with your problems. Unfortunately that solves nothing.
At some point in my career, I spent a few years in banking. Banks treat money with a very cold and emotionless attitude. The goal is to extract the maximum value out of every dollar and you’re either getting the most value or you’re not. That experience shaped a lot of my views on money. I started budgeting and tracking all my expenses. It took a few years but today we’re in very good financial condition.
Banks don’t try to get the most value out of money. They try to get the most money out of money. Money doesn’t really have value until you trade it for something else.
A $2300 Toyota three years ago. It’s probably saved me about 15K in car payments. It’s old and ugly but I’m so much further ahead because of it.
I’d strongly recommend you continuing to make a “car payment” to yourself.
- you won’t get used to income you might not have in the future
- you will have a nest egg for repairs that are likely to be needed on a beater
- if you do this for long enough, you’ll start to get enough returns to pay for your next car in cash and can get a more modern one (if you have kids, at some point you’ll start to prioritize safety features)
Wow, that’s incredibly cheap for a car! My biggest worry worry used cars was always maintenance. Did you have a lot of problems to fix along the way?
Couple usual small things like suspension, struts, tires, brakes, etc. and some rust repair (salty Ontario roads), but nothing major.
The key thing is finding a vehicle with only one or two owners, wasn’t used for Uber/delivery, had all the required maintenance, and was generally well cared for. Most cars will easily hit 500K km barring any major design defects these days.
500 megameters
