Personal Finance

Prices of things are becoming absolutely insane. $800+ rent, $30,000 cars, $10 sub sandwiches, etc. It would be nice to do a 3/1 split and cut everything by 2/3. Then we would have $266 rent, $10,000 cars, and $3.33 sub sandwiches. Wages, debts, everything would drop to 1/3 what they are now. It would also make coins useful again since a vending machine soda would be 2 quarters again.

I’ve read that if you have the money up front, investing it as a lump sum on January 1st will produce higher returns more often that investing on a monthly/weekly basis. Is there more to consider in 2024 with our current high interest rates?

TL:DR author's positing that despite the public narrative we (gen x and millenials) are mostly better off (especially financially) than prior generations and at least partly due to actions from boomers.

Thought this was an interesting read. I don't agree with all of the author's points but figured it would generate good discussion here.

I moved countries a few years ago and am building up my credit score from scratch. I'm cognizant of good practices to build up my credit score like paying my credit card on time. My credit score dropped 10 points in the last month but I don't know why. I've increased my spending on my card because of Christmas and travelling but make the payments right away (typically same day) so that there is not a large balance on my card at the end of the month. The total spending for the month is less than 30% of my credit card limit.

I don't have any other form of credit like loans. Any suggestions why there was a drop?

Looking for a brokerage with functional, individual API access to, at least, account positions, balances, and equity/fund/bond prices. Used to be happy with TDA, but they got bought by Scwab, whose API has been "pending" for six months.

TL;DR: Credit union account rates low, I moved, and even though the app and co-op network are great, not sure if I should leave.

So, I've been with a certain credit union for years. But, to be honest, compared to some other credit unions out there (or even banks), it has pretty lackluster rates across the board.

I moved recently and that's given me cause to think about closing it, despite the great app and co-op network basically working regardless of where I am.

0.2% on checking, 0.45% on savings, and about 0.9% on a money market account with a $1000 minimum.

It's got great customer service. I'm on a first name basis with the people there, but I feel like, even with just checking and emergency savings, I'm leaving money on the table.

Is it worth leaving for some of those advertised 4 and 5% checking and savings accounts other places offer?

Here's an archived version of the page.

What follows is largely a reaction to analysts predicting a recession and giving advice on how to adjust your investing strategy. The TL;DR here is: don't, they get it wrong more than they get it right.

Among PF enthusiasts, there's a saying that goes something like this: analysts have predicted 20 of the last three recessions.

Here's a chart for the S and P 500 long term after inflation. As you'll notice, long downward trends are quite rare, and the general trend is upward. In general, you can expect 6.5-7% long term after taking out inflation (~10% before inflation) if you buy and hold a broad stock market index fund. It seems almost every year someone calls for a recession, and this year is no exception. People were calling for recessions staring in 2015 or so, and look how that turned out.

Finance pundits and blogs like saying outlandish things like "recession will happen this year, liquidate stocks and buy X, Y, and Z," and if you're lucky, they'll throw some fancy charts up to make you think they know what they're talking about. But just know that all of this is for attention, they make money through ads or airtime, and some will try to sell you a book or something. The worst ones do a pump and dump scheme where they'll invest in security X, hype it up, and then sell when there's a bump in prices and average investors are left holding the bag.

Everyone seems to think they have some system for beating the market, but few professional fund managers manage to beat the index they benchmark their fund with, and even fewer can do it consistently:

Across all domestic actively managed equity funds, 88.4% underperformed their respective benchmark over the last 15 years, according to an analysis of the S&P SPIVA report.

...

More than 80% of large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500 over the last five years. In 2019, 79.98% of large-cap funds underperformed compared to the S&P 500, which was just a hair better than the five-year average.

So if you buy a large cap index fund, you'll do better than 80% of professional fund managers over 5 years, and you'll outperform nearly 90% of them over 15 years. So don't listen to their nonsense about changing allocation during a recession (or even whether there will be a recession) because you're statistically better off ignoring it.

To really drive it home, let's look at the linked article about Betty, the world's most unlucky investor, who invested only at the worst possible times (just before every major recession) since the 1980s:

Even though she picked the worst six moments since the 1980s in which to invest, she made an average profit over the next five years of 20% and an average profit over 10 years of 100%. She doubled her money. Despite her disastrous, terrible timing, she was in the black after five years on four occasions out of six, and in the black after 10 years 10 times out of 10.

Today, even though her total cash costs from those six investments totaled just $3,500, her portfolio is worth $17,500. That’s more than five times her investment. And that’s even factoring in losses this year, which have seen the global stock market — and Betty’s portfolio — fall 22%.

Just think of how much better she could've done if she had invested consistently, which means she would've bought at the lows and middles instead of just the highs.

If you instead listen to the pundits, you're likely to buy high (you'll miss the bottom, I guarantee it) and sell low (you'll sell early or late). Do what has worked well historically and buy and hold a diversified portfolio.

I don't know if a recession is coming, but I do know it'll change nothing about my investing strategy, other than perhaps how much I can invest. If you're nervous about the economy, make sure your emergency fund is funded and stay the course with your investing strategy, whatever your desired asset allocation is.

The central banks of the world are guiding us to a perfect crash landing. Interest rates have remained elevated in an attempt to curb the inflation brought on by printing excessively during 2020 and 2021. This strategy has actually worked by reducing US inflation from over 9% at the beginning of the year to around 3.5% now, according to governmyth numbers anyway. However, that does not mean prices are going 'back down' as our president would wish. A reduction in inflation does not bring prices down, it makes prices increase slower. Reducing prices is called "deflation" and is quite different.

What does all this have to do with a recession? Well, rates determine how much interest to charge on borrowed money such as car loans, mortgages, business loans, etc. With the one, two punch of inflation hurting consumers and higher interest rates hurting businesses people are either being put out of work or not receiving raises and bonuses to make the budget balance.

Consumers must now prioritize what is important such as food, shelter, etc and reduce spending on unnecessary items such as Netflix, Spotify, etc. Remember that this is all caused by the excess money printing done in 2020 and 2021.

The only way to hold what wealth you do have is through a limited supply asset such as gold, silver, etc. These have a limited quantity and a well-known track record of retaining their value. These assets don't go up in value so much as they hold their value as the fiat currency they are compared to looses it's value. Put in simpler terms, an ounce of silver today is worth the exact same as an ounce of silver in 1913 at the inception of the fed. However, the dollar has lost 99% of its value over that same timeframe.

Inflation is a hidden tax against every single person who holds a fiat currency as it is guaranteed to be worth less tomorrow than it is today.

Most people take a simple view of cash: they have a checking account for spending and a savings account for savings, and if they get fancy, they'll have a CD for longer term savings goals. Power users will change to an online bank with better returns, and that's about as far as it goes. That certainly works, but we can do a lot better with few downsides and a lot of extra benefits.

I'd like to start with explaining how traditional banks work and then look at alternatives. Basically, banks make most of their money by lending it, either for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, etc. Federal regulations require they keep a certain percentage of their assets in "cash," so they pay interest on checking and savings accounts to attract deposits. The larger the bank, the less they need to work for deposits since they have brand recognition. That's why you'll see higher interest rates at online only banks (e.g. SoFi, Ally, etc) than at huge brick and mortar banks (Wells Fargo, Chase, etc), they need to pay more to attract customers since they don't have branches to do so. However, they'll never pay more than a certain percentage of loan rates, otherwise they'll lose money. Switching banks is time consuming, so customers rarely do that, which means banks only need to have periodic promos to encourage people to move their money to them.

Let's compare that to a brokerage. Brokerages offer a variety of features, and most of their money is made on commissions from trades (or for free brokerages, bid/ask spreads) or from fees on funds they run. The friction in changing funds is pretty low, so funds often compete for low fees to attract investors, and the more investors they have, the lower their fees can be (managing $1B isn't that different from managing $10B in terms of costs). They sometimes offer loans (e.g. margin loans), but that isn't the core of their business, and those loans are backed by the debtor's own assets, not the brokerage's funds, so risk is much lower and not related to deposits by other customers.

So now that the high level differences between banks and brokerages are out of the way, let's look at products brokerages have and how they line up with traditional banking products:

• Money Market Funds - basically savings/checking accounts, but run by a fund manager instead of a bank; you can select from any number of money market funds, from funds that look to reduce taxes (e.g. buy mostly Treasuries) to funds that seek to maximize returns; interest is generally accrued daily and paid monthly; banks sometimes offer money market accounts, which are similar, but they operate a bit differently, and you only get the one they offer
• brokered CDs - similar to regular bank CDs, but you're buying them on the open market instead of from your bank; these CDs cannot be broken early like bank CDs, but they can be sold on the market like any stock for the current fair market value; this means they can reduce in value if you sell before maturity, but since you're able to shop for the best price, you usually get a much better return if you hold to maturity
• t-bills/notes/bonds - similar to brokered CDs, but issued by the federal government in increments of $1000; these are not subject to state and local taxes, and some brokerages allow them to be auto-rolled (when they mature, the same denomination will be purchased); there's no early redemption, but they can be sold at any time for fair market value
• municipal bonds - buy bonds directly from cities and whatnot; these are usually not subject to state, local, or federal taxes, but also have higher risk due to cities generally being less credible debtors than state or federal governments; I don't bother with these, but maybe they're worthwhile in states with higher taxes (mine is <5%, so not that high)

Generally speaking, the brokerage options over a greater return than traditional banking products because it's trivial for investors to switch products without changing brokerages.

Here's what I do:

• checking/savings - invested at Fidelity in SPAXX, which currently yields ~5%, and I think it's ~30% state tax exempt; if my state had higher taxes, I'd probably opt for a Treasury-only fund; switching takes like 30s to enter a trade; Ally Bank savings is 4.25% and money market fund is 4.4%, and I use my brokerage as checking, so I'm getting 5% on all money held there (Ally checking is 0.10%)
• CD - I had a no penalty CD @ 4.75% @ Ally, which was a fantastic rate when I got it; Fidelity offers non-callable CDs @ >5% for periods from 3 months to 5 years, and Ally only offers those rates for 6-18 months (and they're still lower than Fidelity); I don't buy any because I buy...
• Treasuries - no equivalent at banks, but they're close enough to CDs; current rates are 5.2-5.4% depending on term (4 weeks to 52 weeks), and even notes (2-10 year terms) are 4.5-5%; my efund is invested in a t-bill ladder; I bought 13-week (3-month) t-bills every other week and set them to autofill, and my gains live in my money market fund (SPAXX @ 5%); this is half of my efund, with the other half in ibonds; if I need money, I either cancel the autoroll, or I sell the t-bill on the market

Here's my list of pros:

• significantly higher interest in checking (5% vs ~0.10%); no difference between "checking" and "savings," they're all just brokerage accounts
• more options for investment - I now feel comfortable keeping my efund, checking, and regular savings in the same place without having to sacrifice returns
• debit card rocks - Fidelity and Schwab both have worldwide ATM fee reimbursement and low/no foreign transaction fees (Fidelity is 1%, Schwab is 0%)
• can have cash savings and investments in the same place - Fidelity also has my HSA, and I may eventually move my IRA as well
• paycheck comes a day earlier - lots of banks offer this, but often only on their checking accounts

And some cons:

• SIPC instead of FDIC insurance - coverage is about the same, but FDIC is automatic, whereas SIPC requires me to make a claim; I doubt I'll ever need either
• a lot more options means the UI is a bit more complex; once familiar, it's not an issue
• some services don't play nice with brokerages - I keep an Ally account around just in case, and I honestly haven't noticed any real issues (sometimes I can only link accounts one way, but that's not an issue)

I switched from Ally to Fidelity last year for my primary bank and I'm loving it, and I highly recommend others give it a shot. If Fidelity isn't your speed, Schwab works well too. Vanguard doesn't offer a debit card, otherwise I'd recommend them as well (their money market funds are even better than Fidelity's). I used to shop around for better savings rates, and now I don't bother because Fidelity beats all of them on features and average returns (e.g. a better savings rate still loses if checking is near 0%).

Feel free to ask questions.

These US healthcare systems are effectively scams. Yes in theory they can save you money, however in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is.

As the title mentions, the company I work at is offering free shares when buying back some of the company's shares, as well as a discount, depending on the amount of shares purchased.

Could any of you advise me if it would be a good idea to start investing into this? If not, could anyone suggest any other investment avenues to a complete n00b like me?

Thanks in advance!

Home prices weakened month to month, according to Black Knight. While still gaining, which they usually do at this time of year, the gains fell below their 25-year average. This after significantly outdoing their historical averages from February through June. It’s a signal that a slowdown in prices may be underway again.

Behind the cooling off: mortgage rates. They rose sharply last summer and fall, causing prices to drop. They then came down for much of the winter and a bit of the spring, causing home prices to turn higher again. Now rates are back over 7% again, hitting 20-year-plus highs in August.

Add to that, new listings rose from July to August, atypical for that period of the year. Some sellers may be trying to cash in on these historically high prices. Active inventory, however, is about 48% below the levels seen from 2017 to 2019.

“While the uptick in new listings is good news for home shoppers, inventory remains persistently low, even with record-high mortgage rates putting a damper on demand,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com.

The jump in home prices since the start of the Covid pandemic, combined with much higher mortgage rates has crushed affordability.

It now takes roughly 38% of the median household income to make the monthly payment on the median-priced home purchase, according to Black Knight. That makes homeownership the least affordable it’s been since 1984.

Definitely a trend I see around me (Europe, 30 years old).

All of my friends able to buy got at least 30k - 50k from their parents.

Is it the same around you? How do you deal with this?

Also, some data from a few days back:

https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/2426785?scrollToComments=true

At the end of 2022, I discovered this software that I've been using all year. I'd like to hear your thoughts or experiences with GnuCash, or whatever system/program you use to track your personal finances!

For the ones unfamiliar, it's based on a double-entry accounting system; every transaction always has at least two accounts involved. Example: if I spend 200 SEK on a restaurant, it goes from Assets:Cash to Expenses:Food.

Starting by creating my own accounts, it helped me immensely to have an overview of my general financial situation.

Around March, I found enlightening to re-define what expenses needed their own category from what I was unconsciously lumping into 'others'. Having it all already logged, made it quite easy . The caveat is that all the entries are manual, but my finances are not as complex, so with 30-45 minutes a week I have it updated.

You can even create diagrams for your monthly expenses, or general balance, among other reports that come quite handy if you want to run a query.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

I know this might just reflect financial culture differences across countries, but let's give it a try

Edit: as a clarification, I meant credit card compared to debit, not to cash

A Vanguard video (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1nprZjV_6FM) refers to 4 budgeting methods

1. the envelope method
2. the pay yourself first method
3. 50/30/20 method
4. zero based budget method

Which one is your favourite?

Edit: non-text version with a 5th method: https://www.lendingtree.com/student/simple-budget/

Trying to get to know the community a bit more.

If you want to share figures (you don't have to) you might probably want to use a throwaway account, better safe than sorry.

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/167976

Do you think that the AI bubble will pop? Is entering the stock market dangerous right now?

Do you track your expenses monthly? Annually? Do you have an app or do you use an excel spreadsheet? Any suggested tools?

I use a spreadsheet and track monthly.

I have tried Mint, Personal Capital, GNUCash, and probably a few others, and I seem to have settled on Tiller. Basically, I like the convenience of automatically pulling in transactions and balances, but I like retaining control of the budgeting process.

I know there are a ton of others out there, so let's post our favorites and a short explanation of what makes them great.