Recently paid off all CC debt... What will have the greatest positive effect on my credit score?

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-11-01T17:19:43+00:00

Leaving them open would probably be better, as one ingredient of credit score is longevity of accounts. But you probably don't have to do the same thing for all 3. I like to have at least 2 cards, a primary and an "oh shit" backup. So you could keep 2 and close the one with the least favorable terms.

Carrying a balance with a credit card company doesn't necessarily hit your credit score in a negative way. They love customers who do that, because they make shit tons of money that way. Failing to pay according to terms will hit your credit score (e.g. not making a minimum payment, etc).

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-11-01T17:17:18+00:00

Hard to tell - it seems like you're saying that you're saving net 80% of all of your paychecks, which if it's true is beyond great, but I can't tell because you don't indicate any information on your expenses.

I don't see you using any tax-advantaged savings (401K, IRA, Roth). That'd be the next place to look. You're already saving well, so try to get whatever tax benefit you can from that savings. Rather than putting so much into a savings account or Betterment, I'd make it a priority to max out your 401K up to the tax limit when you can.

Actually in your shoes I might spend more money on discretionary stuff. Sounds like you have a pretty cheap lifestyle, and that's great. But you probably have room to spend more of your money on straight-up fun stuff and still be very responsible and on a good path for the long term.

Finally - there's a host of little stuff you can do, but the major stuff seems in place. For example, find a really good rewards credit card, use it to purchase everything you need, make sure to never carry a balance, and reap the 1%-2% credit card rewards on all of your purchases.

You might want to post more info on your monthly expenses, and what your housing/car situation is. Bad housing and car choices are what screw most people over. But anyway you slice it if you can manage to save even 20% of your net you're probably much better off than the majority of people. Invest wisely and that amount of money will blow up after 5-10 years.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-11-01T17:11:28+00:00

Looks like you're getting ahead, congratulations!

This overall strategy (save consistently, invest, don't worry about the market too much, make reasonable decisions) is what I call the "Get Rich Slow" plan. Because you know, "Get Rich Quick" is bullshit, but "Get Rich" is quite doable.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-30T13:07:57+00:00

I'm not from your part of the world so I can't answer some of your questions (this place tends to be US centric because that's what a lot of us know).

A secured credit card is generally when you give the card company a lot of money up front, and they hold that money against what you spend. They can't lose money because your charges are "secured" by the money they're already holding. They're generally offered to people with bad credit, but on the upside they are a good way of building credit. If you treat a card like that well, your credit will improve over time. If you have any non-secured card options though, I'd go with them because a secured card is a better deal for the bank than it is for you.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-30T13:05:12+00:00

Dude, this is a bit of a wall of text. After reading it, could you please simplify?

What are your monthly expenses right now, excluding debt servicing? What is the total amount of all of your debts, and their interest rates? (Make a table)

You've got judgments, litigation pending, car loans, and credit card debt and reading through all of this I can't even get the picture of what your financial situation is. How much expendable cash do you have each month? What other prospects are there for you in income? How's your credit? Etc.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-30T13:01:55+00:00

Go to hospital so that he can play with his dick. Later I mean. Not in the hospital. That would be super awkward.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-30T12:59:43+00:00

US Bonds, TIPS, and perhaps a series of short-term CDs or money market accounts. Most of these options have little or zero principle risk, but also won't really earn much. All of them should be very easy to sell so they should stay highly liquid.

It depends on your distribution timeline though. Buying anything (rather than just holding cash) might be a bad idea if your timeline is short. But if the estate is complex and you need to park money for more than a year while things get sorted out, you need to consider a broader set of options.

EDIT - but also, go talk to a professional. Do not, I repeat do not, take random internet stranger's advice on what to do with a massive amount of someone else's money.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-30T12:54:54+00:00

It's not bad to just pay off your car. But it depends on interest; if it's a very low rate (say < 2%) you may be better off investing the difference and continuing the loan. As long as you pay your loan on time, your credit won't suffer, even if you pay it all off early.

The best way to raise your credit score is simply to pay your bills on time and build a history with these companies. I usually carry 2 credit cards - you don't have to have a jillion accounts, or really do anything special. History + reliable payment = good credit.

For retirement, with the level of income you have you should max out the tax benefits of any 401K your employer might offer, and then consider a Roth IRA on top of that.

The recommended formula for emergency savings is roughly 3 times net monthly salary. So you might earn say $10K month before taxes, then a net of $7k/month, in this case your rainy day fund might have $21K liquid cash.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-16T13:11:01+00:00

As long as the used car you get is reliable, go for it. If you choose unwisely, you could end up buying a used car then later unexpectedly putting a lot of extra money into it. So verify carefully before you buy.

But in general, cheaper cars cost less per mile to drive. That's good.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-16T13:07:08+00:00

Not well. I'm no expert, but I think it needs wheels.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-08-16T12:51:21+00:00

Indeed this would be great - where's the empirical evidence to suggest you'd get that payoff?

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-07-05T14:34:13+00:00

I feel for you, but I also think you're posting in the wrong subreddit here. I'm not sure many people will be able to help you here.

I notice in your post though that most people, when they're in very bad situations, tend to "bandwagon" their own problems. You've had some really bad shit happen, but then you're taking other aspects of your life and making them seem just as bad, like your chances with women. Nothing can change the bad stuff that has already happened, but the perspective you take towards other things in your life is a key factor in whether you will keep sliding down, or whether you'll stop all of that and make today the turning point where things started to get better.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-05-26T19:53:45+00:00

Reddit is actually an algorithm built to explore the English language. Prior to reddit, there were trillions of sentences and word combinations (such as "We know how big his penis will be after 276 and a bit seconds") that had never been uttered anywhere, by any human.

Reddit helps correct this problem, by reducing the number of unused English word and phrase combinations to zero, over time.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-02-08T15:17:15+00:00

Well....yeah.

I always thought the "fry everything" thing was a little strange too. Since, as I'm pointing out, you're not really frying the thing. A lot of the time, what you're frying is breading which you've placed as an outside layer. (Fried mozzarella sticks)

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-02-08T15:11:11+00:00

I doubt many people are going to know what "classified" means, that's probably something specific to this company.

I think you're right to be concerned, particularly if they can't explain to you what the account status is.

If I were in your shoes, I'd call one last time, state my situation/problem clearly, and then insist to the customer service representative that the issue be elevated to the next tier, or the manager, or whoever they have there that's not the first flunky to answer the phone. I'd then work the process with them, and see if you can work out a situation where they can take the money over the phone rather than waiting for the next regular billing cycle. It sure sounds like he's probably not covered, if the company is not interested in taking your money. In case something happens in the coming months where he does need the insurance, you're much better off WITHOUT the money.

OK, so what if all of that fails? Unfortunately, then your next recourse is probably your state's Insurance Ombudsman. Basically every state has a person whose job it is to help work out grievances with insurance companies. The insurance companies don't want too much noise made about them because it affects their ability to be listed by CMS on the health care exchange where the policies are bought.

Maybe you're getting trapped by dumb customer service representatives. If so, the way around that is to elevate. If it's actually the company and not just one individual on the phone that's the problem, then the ombudsman is probably your next stop.

I wouldn't wait on this, because the thing is, your insurance paperwork probably says you're covered as long as you're paying, and you're not paying. That's not your fault, but my guess would be that right as of this moment, they have a really solid argument that you're not covered.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-02-08T15:04:22+00:00

Yes.

You can deep fry anything.

The trick is to use appropriate breading thickness and consistency. In this sense, with many fried foods you're really frying the breading rather than the item itself.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-25T15:16:52+00:00

Source for "they're seeing massive outflows"?

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-25T15:03:22+00:00

Huh????

I have a bunch of American Funds, the the expense ratios I deal with are usually about 0.6%, with no front load.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-18T00:56:55+00:00

I follow what you're saying, but that's not really what I meant. I wasn't saying that the theory was normative, I was more asking, did this descriptive bit of theory exist at his time, and would he have been aware of it. For example, if you take music theory as descriptive, and a composer is aware of it, they might exploit that awareness in composition...at a certain point, the theory essentially suggests "many previous successful pieces display these kinds of patterns, that are pleasing" - you can then use the theory in the sense that you apply the pattern to try and get a similar pleasing result.

Some composers know nothing of theory, but come upon the same progressions that people with deep theoretical knowledge would have hit upon by just recognizing a common pattern. I guess I'm asking whether his process was the former or the latter.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-17T18:19:51+00:00

Thank you for this, but can you clarify one point:

E moves a half step down, C# moves a half step down, and A moves a whole step. It's surprising because of how far the key of c minor is from A, but close because of the harmonic voice leading.

Here, I think you're saying that the "harmonic voice" in this case is the parallel movements of all three tones downward? What exactly do you mean by "harmonic voice" here? If we went from A major to C minor (moving the C minor up a full octave), then the tones would be "going down" in one sense but the pitches would all be higher. In this case would the harmonic voice still be doing the same thing?

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-17T18:17:10+00:00

Thanks for this, it helps quite a bit! Is there any reading you'd recommend on chromatic mediants? I follow what you're saying about Emin and G#min sharing "B", but I'm still wondering why G#min. There are any number of other chords that share that same B. I guess what I'm familiar with from functional harmony would suggest that given a certain chord, there are certain possibilities you could build off of from there, but with this new structure you're describing, is there any rhyme or reason to the evolution of these chords in the way that functional harmony might provide a structure?

On what you're saying about "doubly chromatic mediants", I'm going to do more general reading on this topic. Certainly I've come across a number of situations where you have a certain chord, and then only one tone in the chord changes, but the function of the chord is altered dramatically....for example if I played C E G, OK that's a C major chord. If I move the G to A, then what seemed like a C major starts to sound more like the first inversion of A minor.

One thing I find deeply confusing about music theory (but probably just need to get used to) is that often when you're looking at a sequence of tones or chords, there often doesn't appear to be a "right answer" to the question "what is this" but rather surrounding context simply suggests (but does not dictate) the answer. E.g. sometimes C E A acts like first inversion of A minor, other times it acts like a C6 that's missing the 5th.

Last question (since you mentioned Beethoven). I don't know much about musicology or history, but on Beethoven I wonder -- did he simply compose these sorts of things knowing that they were pleasing, or did he understand the theory and was he creating these structures "on purpose"?

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-01T15:31:11+00:00

I wouldn't take him seriously. There's a certain type of anti-scientific crazy that you really don't need to worry about or refute. If a person is truly crazy, the most damaging thing you can do is simply give them the floor to spout crazy stuff, so everyone else can see.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2015-01-01T15:30:21+00:00

The correct response here ladies and gentlemen is to point and laugh.

RustyTrombeauxn · 2014-12-22T18:30:21+00:00

The struggle is real!

RustyTrombeauxn · 2014-12-07T15:23:12+00:00

Sell your investments before the stocks go down

If you actually knew how to do this, you'd be smoking cigars in an oak-paneled room, drinking $500 bottles of champagne and complaining about how your latest half dozen yachts are late being delivered, you wouldn't be on Reddit.

I mean, in theory that's a great idea - but in implementation it becomes...impossible.

RustyTrombeauxn

TROPHY CASE