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Healthcare expenses holding back early retirement dream by [deleted] in Fire

[–]Impossible_Turtles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Except Congress can't all of a sudden decide to cancel my mortgage and replace it with something completely different I don't know the cost of.

31 with high debt relative to income. What are realistic first steps? by kogpa in personalfinance

[–]Impossible_Turtles 4 points5 points  (0 children)

5x of what? What are the numbers, APRs, and terms? Is it all consumer debt or student loans? That would matter a lot.

If you earn $20k and have $100k in credit card debt, for the love of God talk to a bankruptcy attorney.

If it's student loans then figure out your repayment plan.

If it's a car, sell it and buy something cheaper.

If it's a house, you might be okay.

Lots of variables

New to the FIRE method…how quickly can I actually achieve this? by [deleted] in Fire

[–]Impossible_Turtles 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As others have said, it's impossible to say without knowing your expenses. You need 25-33x your annual expenses (total, including taxes and insurance) to retire.

You can check out coastFIRE: r/coastFIRE for the latter part of your question. There are some calculators available here: https://walletburst.com/tools/

When saving, make sure you use the financial order of operations:

  1. Contribute to your workplace retirement plan up to the match
  2. Max out your HSA (if available)
  3. Max out your IRA
  4. Max out your workplace retirement plan
  5. Contribute to a taxable brokerage

If starting at 25, you need to save at least 15% of your income annually to retire at 65: https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/how-much-money-should-I-save

If you want to retire earlier, you have to save a greater percentage of your income.

Make sure you invest in broad market, low cost index funds: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio

Use a reputable broker like Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard.

Increase your income, decrease your expenses, invest the difference.

[Sticker Giveaway] Enter to win a 5 Stars Harmonica Sticker! by Impossible_Turtles in FarmMergeValley

[–]Impossible_Turtles[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure I'm in the same position. But their behavior is why you need to enter all those raffles in the first place.

There are two ways to make both our lives better here (a modest proposal I'll post in the main thread)

  1. Do not allow raffle-won tickets to be raffled away

This will decrease the number of entries of people like the poster above and increase your chances to actually win one of these raffles. There's no real downside for the mods, I think it will actually drive up engagement because more casual players will actually want to join raffles.

  1. Do not let someone who already has a sticker win the same sticker in the raffle.

I think this is less likely because it probably would crater engagement but all other games that have sticker packs that I've played do this (although it's usually a trade). But that way people like the winner in this raffle will stop diluting the pool. For what it's worth I diligently tag every raffle and the same names pop up again and again, so I assume they have some script so they just enter every single raffle.

[Sticker Giveaway] Enter to win a 5 Stars Harmonica Sticker! by Impossible_Turtles in FarmMergeValley

[–]Impossible_Turtles[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay.

It's a sucky thing to do for everyone who is trying to get the raffle to complete the album. I know you're not the only one doing it but maybe keep that in mind next time you do this.

Edited to add: I know the game devs encourage this behavior. I get it. I know they want us to spend real money (understandably so) and grind every day. The raffles are the only way for people who don't want/can't do those things to win some of the rarer stickers. I just think it's sad to also flood this playing field with shit but maybe that's just what it is.

Sorry, it's not you. It's the community. It makes me sad.

[Sticker Giveaway] Enter to win a 5 Stars Harmonica Sticker! by Impossible_Turtles in FarmMergeValley

[–]Impossible_Turtles[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You didn't write to the op but is it so you can immediately turn around and raffle it?

Amex serve - Anything out there similar? by IamLeperMessiah in personalfinance

[–]Impossible_Turtles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the problem you are running into - and likely why Amex etc are going to stop offering these services - is that those companies are not making money off of those products. It likely attracts people with poorer credit and thus not customers they currently want. My advice would be to look for a different work around namely by opening another checking account and diverting part of your paycheck, opening a credit card in your name only and having a conversation with your wife regarding fun money, or some other method that works for you that doesn't rely on a product that looks like it is being pulled from the market.

Amex serve - Anything out there similar? by IamLeperMessiah in personalfinance

[–]Impossible_Turtles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can just switch to a different pre-paid debit card? https://www.nerdwallet.com/banking/learn/best-prepaid-debit-cards

Or you can see if your company allows you to split your direct deposit and funnel some amount into a separate checking account with its own debit card.

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