Posts by George Phillips

Nah, just that $46.90 for the notebook. I think you've got maybe 10 days—business days? I guess—to get the title transferred to the new owner.

You should be good to go. Just draft up a transfer agreement, get your signature notarized, and then either drop it off in person or mail it over to unknown.

And if you're talking about a domestic transfer... I guess foreign currency ones have to go straight into your own account.

I guess the rate hike is looking more like $42.

Maybe this gives you a little hope: a few years back—before I even used online banking, I did everything at the teller window—I went to withdraw a big, messy amount from Wells Fargo. When they paid me out, they gave me the exact thousands, but the hundreds were left behind. I realized it once I got home, so I called the bank (I actually remembered the teller's last name, by some miracle) and they told me they have to balance the drawer with all the deposits and withdrawals at the end of the shift anyway, so any surplus would show up. I'm assuming it was just a random mistake rather than someone trying to pull a fast one on me, but yeah, I got my money back without any drama.

I don't know what the market looks like where your place is, but I guess my first move would be selling it—maybe renting it out for a bit first so you aren't forced into a fire sale.
I mean, looking at those numbers (4500+1000 income vs. 920 + 3800 expenses), you're basically left with $273 for everything. Since utilities for a 750 sq ft place alone cost more than that, you aren't just failing to save, you're actually going into the red just to survive.
It’s sweet that you want to leave something for your little girl, but I'm not sure how that works out... like, is it an inheritance or are you giving it to her when she grows up? If it's an inheritance, she'll be waiting a long time (hopefully!), and while having property is great, I think sacrificing everything for 30 years is just too much. And if you're giving it to her later, you'll probably need a place of your own in 20 years, and you won't even be using this one since it'll be rented out (not to mention it'll need a total renovation after all those years of tenants). Plus, who knows about starting a new family down the road? That's a lot of years.
If selling the place (plus whatever extra you get) covers your debt to the bank, you could actually have a fresh start, especially if moving to the Midwest helps keep your costs way down. If you manage to set aside $833/month—which seems doable if you aren't paying rent and just covering food and utilities—you'd have $129333 after 10 years at 5% interest, or $222667 after 15 years. No one can say for sure what that'll be worth in dollars or how much space it'll buy you, but maybe a decent studio or small one-bedroom is realistic. Honestly, I think your daughter would be way happier if she had a smaller place right when she actually needs it, like when she's first starting out on her own.

Lawrence Wright7 said:So, I just sat down with my banker, and they laid out two options on the table.

1) Stretching the loan term out to 35 years. This would drop my monthly payment by about $67.
Going from $1267 down to $3,600, which—let’s be honest—is still freaking massive.
2) A principal increase loan... I think that's the technical term they used...
Basically: a 6-month payment holiday where the monthly amount is $0.00.
But there's a 3.5% bump to the principal because the bank doesn't get their cut during that time.
Since my current principal is $549,000, Chase says that would mean a principal hike of roughly $6333.
The folks over at Chase told me this.
Naturally, because the principal goes up, my monthly payment will jump by maybe $100-$50 after the
payment holiday ends.

I actually pushed them to approve a 12-month deferment instead. They’re "reviewing" it, but they kept insisting that a 6-month pause is standard practice.

Honestly? Neither of these looks great.
I'm leaning toward option 2.
A lot can happen in 12 months... who knows, maybe interest rates will actually drop for once...

What do you all think?
Thanks.

Just keep in mind that if you extend from 30 to 35 years, you're looking at an extra $57 in total interest (on paper, obviously, since inflation over those 30 years will eat up a chunk of the actual value).
If the principal jumps by 3.5% on a 30-year term, the monthly payment climbs by $43, and total interest goes up by about $15333. If you pay off that higher principal over 35 years, the monthly payment stays right around the same (3800), but you end up paying about $67 more in total interest.
I ignored those first two years of payments—it's not like we've paid off more than $3333 of the principal anyway, barely even 2%😢.

Maybe just watch those calculation periods: you mentioned an annual gross income of about $50 which was the basis for that rough math using $41 yearly revenue, but when talking salary (usually) we mean monthly—so there's no way $1667 is actually an annual salary.
My math would look something like this (not an expert, just what I've picked up):
$122,000 minus 22% sales tax = $100,000 minus 12x minimum gross salary (maybe $3,000?) minus business expenses (phones, travel, per diems, car use, equipment depreciation, rent... let's say 12x$2,000) = $13333 (profit)
I guess you pay 20% on profit ($8,000), leaving you with $32,000, plus you pay 15% for healthcare on your salary and set aside 20% for Social Security. You'd probably walk away with about $2,100 net, and since the tax-free portion is $1,800 (if you don't have dependents), you'd pay 15% tax on the $300 difference. So, from $3,000, you're left with maybe $2,050, or roughly $24,500 for the year. That means you've got $24,500 in salary and $32,000 in post-tax profit, totaling $56,500 out of the $122,000 total collected 😢. Man, I really hope I'm wrong, so please correct me if I am... I guess it only gets better if you can bump up business expenses, like buying stuff through the company that you'd normally pay for out of pocket (like a new truck or something?)

They gave you the right info. You don't inherit anything, so you aren't on the hook for his debts either (unless you were his co-signer or something, I guess 😲)

I guess a payment assistant might be your best bet to start with: you get checking, foreign currency, and online banking for $6.75/mo (so $80/yr). Of course, if you need every single service offered in a premium bundle, picking one of those makes more sense, but $20/mo ($240/yr) compared to $80/yr leaves you plenty of room to cover your Mastercard annual fee and a bunch of online orders (just 1 or $0.67/transaction, no matter the amount) — so maybe try listing out which services you actually want and how much you think you'll dip into overdraft (just to see how big the interest gap is between that and a full bundle).
If you just need a Mastercard for PayPal, it’s probably cheaper to open a foreign currency account at Bank of America (around $6-7/yr, and you get a Visa debit card), whereas a Mastercard at Chase is $50/yr.

Maybe I'm being way too nitpicky here, since we're talking about a difference of a few hundred bucks a year, but I just hate paying for stuff I don't need.

Forget those basic online calculators—just use Excel instead, you can really mess around with the numbers there.
If you use the FV (future value) function with compound interest (meaning we aren't just doing simple math—that’s why I threw in that POWER function... you end up with $206,284.33

=FV(POWER((1+annual_rate%/100);1/12)-1;months_of_payments;-monthly_payment)

I guess if you just go with simple interest (like monthly = annual/12), which is what Excel does by default, you get something like $226k.

That’s not quite right, I think. True, you can't just move money from your foreign currency account directly to someone else's foreign account here in the States, but you could set up a wire transfer from your USD account to an overseas one. If it’s under $3,000, you can basically just call it a gift or help, so no paperwork needed... though for anything bigger, you'd probably need some kind of contract or invoice, but I don't really know for sure. Fees for stuff like that are usually around $150-$67 (Bank of America or JPMorgan Chase)—I guess it's a percentage of the total, but there's usually a minimum fee too.

Nah, I guess the number of recipients is just the current total, while the number of payers is the actual count of checking accounts.

Then it’s even easier, I guess. Just put the same person down for both the sender and the receiver (yourself 🙂), use your checking account for the debit side, and your savings for the recipient. I just use Zelle and leave the memo field totally blank—kind of like how you do when sending money to anyone's personal account—and it always goes through fine without any issues.

neonstag5 said:Well, anyone starting a small business isn't automatically pulled into the VAT system... you have to clear $28 in annual revenue first, if I recall correctly. That’s when the tax man finally comes knocking...

The way it works (roughly):
...anyone opening a sole proprietorship doesn't have to, though they can opt into sales tax right away, because it's really only when your yearly revenue tops $28 that the law basically forces you into the system.

Sorry, I'm totally lost on what you mean there. It’s such a simple question though: with a securities-backed loan, does the borrower just owe the collateral itself? Or, you know, like a regular bank loan, are they actually on the hook to pay back the principal plus all the interest?

Even though it seemed totally impossible back when the loan was first pulled, here we are.
So, looking at fund shares that were worth 100 when the loan went out—they approved a 70 credit against them, but now those shares have tanked to 60. What does the borrower actually owe? I mean, obviously the borrowed money has to be paid back, but I'm also thinking about how things work at a pawn shop (isn't a collateral loan basically just that?). If you go to a pawn shop, the owner just hands over the item to the lender, right? And in this case, the lender is the one taking the hit because they totally misjudged the risk and approved a loan where the collateral was only, like, 43% higher than what they gave out.

With online banking, you can just print out the confirmation after you finish a transfer—you know, so you have the hard copy showing who sent what, where it went, the amount, the ID, and the exact timestamp. I mean, it doesn't have an official stamp or anything, but you can always pull up a proof of payment from your transaction history if there's ever a dispute. You could totally ask JPMorgan Chase for an official certificate, but they’ll charge you for that, so I don't think it's really worth the hassle. Honestly, in the five or six years I've been using mobile apps and online banking, I've never run into any issues.
When I was sending money over to my brokerage firm, just emailing them a quick screenshot of the completed transfer worked fine for me.

Me? I don't get it... what's the issue if the business plan is actually realistic enough?

Maria Nelson12 said:That sounds great on paper, but honestly, it's almost impossible to pull off. There’s always something popping up that drags you back into the negative. A pipe bursts in the bathroom, the car breaks down, you get hit with two wedding invites you can't refuse... For instance, I had to go into the red the other day because I needed a laptop for work and my company wouldn't or couldn't buy one for me. And boom, $1333 in the hole. And I even grabbed one of the cheapest models. Why didn't I just finance it or use a credit line? Well, because I'm already paying $2,500 on my mortgage, plus I'm still paying off the last car service, insurance, and registration, not to mention the credit I used for a TV after my old one died. So, yeah. I know plenty of people making minimum $1667, and I also know folks pulling in over $10,000 who are still overdrawn by $4667. Then they get a tax refund or some little bonus at work and finally clear the balance. But then they fall right back into it, maybe take out another loan to cover the gap, then an unexpected expense hits, so they borrow from a friend or put it on a credit card to pay someone back, then gas prices spike or whatever... It’s just a constant cycle. If things were as simple as you're making them sound, most Americans wouldn't be perpetually broke. I don't really believe everyone is just greedy or incapable of handling money.

I'm not blaming anyone for being greedy—honestly, maybe "reckless" is a better word—but I still think a huge chunk of people just don't know how to handle money. You say if you restructured your debt and got out of the hole, something new will definitely pop up; but what if you didn't restructure (or cover it with extra income, an inheritance, or some other one-time windfall) that existing (maxed out) debt? How are you even gonna find the cash for any of those things?
When I hear people who are totally broke talking about how they "have" to pay for weddings, baptisms, or business stuff... 🙄. Are we gonna turn into Indians who take out loans for decades just to throw a wedding? I mean, okay, everyone can make their own choices, but feeling forced to drop hundreds of dollars on a gift or a party when you can't afford it, and then burying yourself in debt because of it—that's just not smart money management to me. And honestly, I wouldn't really care what the people who judge me for giving small gifts think, especially if they're struggling too.
If the TV breaks, do you really need to drop thousands on a high-end plasma? I know, I'm just a total cheapskate, but in that situation (and usually 😉), I'd probably just grab a Square 55 for like 600-$233.
I'm leaving out really crazy emergencies that you can't ignore (like a burst pipe or, God forbid, medical bills and stuff), obviously those happen, but most of the time it's just these "urgent" needs that aren't actually that urgent since there's usually a simple way to pay for them (credit cards or overdrafts).