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Is paying with a phone, like via Apple Pay/wallet, safer than using a physical debit card?
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Feb 25, 2021 19:01
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Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:Is paying with a phone, like via Apple Pay/wallet, safer than using a physical debit card? Yes. At least it can't be "skimmed" in the same way, and I believe even the "card number" transmitted is one time use (could be wrong about that one, it's been a while since I read up on it).
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Feb 25, 2021 19:03
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Motronic posted:Yes. At least it can't be "skimmed" in the same way, and I believe even the "card number" transmitted is one time use (could be wrong about that one, it's been a while since I read up on it). Yeah, Apple pay via the POS is a one-time card number so even if you were to somehow skim it you couldn't use it for other purchases.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:07
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Nitrousoxide posted:Yeah, Apple pay via the POS is a one-time card number so even if you were to somehow skim it you couldn't use it for other purchases. Ahh, thanks. Good. And I'm a lot less worried about that getting "skimmed" than I am about another POS breach like the previously mentioned Home Depot and Target ones. There were others, and the theme was not only a breach but them storing card numbers in plaintext.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:12
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One silver lining of this whole pandemic is that tap-to-pay and mobile NFC payments seem to have finally caught on in America, both of which are vastly superior and more secure than our jank rear end EMV system or god forbid magstripe. Dynamic one-time card numbers is a huge win.
Guinness fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 19:17
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Guinness posted:One silver lining of this whole pandemic is that tap-to-pay and mobile payments seem to have finally caught on in America, both of which are vastly superior and more secure than our jank rear end EMV system or god forbid magstripe. And places not giving you poo poo for using cards for low-dollar purchases. Yes, I know it's a $2.35 bolt, but I'm not exchanging money back and forth with you, nor am I walking around with a pocket full of coins and dollar bills so I can make exact change.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:20
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Motronic posted:And places not giving you poo poo for using cards for low-dollar purchases. Yes, I know it's a $2.35 bolt, but I'm not exchanging money back and forth with you, nor am I walking around with a pocket full of coins and dollar bills so I can make exact change. I look forward to the day when I don't even need to carry around my credit card(s) anymore. Long way to go there, yet, but it'll happen.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:22
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Pollyanna posted:
This is a little harsh but probably what I needed to hear. I'm going to start the process of moving things over. I'll give the uncle a chance to see what he can offer but I doubt it will be enough.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:31
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if you let your feelings about family affect your financial decisions.
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hobbez posted:This is a little harsh but probably what I needed to here. I'm going to start the process of moving things over. I'll give the uncle a chance to see what he can offer but I doubt it will be enough. I feel for you, it's a tough situation with the family aspect involved. Unfortunately it's an extremely common tactic for the financial advising industry to prey on those emotional connections. If your uncle actually has your best interests in mind, otherwise known as a fiduciary responsibility, he should have no issue with this move. But that he has continued to milk you for fat AUM fees instead of providing advice on how to lower fees does not bode well. Many/most "financial advisers" are salespeople that do not represent your best interests, nor do they have any deep financial education.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:34
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Guinness posted:I feel for you, it's a tough situation with the family aspect involved. Yeah thanks. Honestly if he doesn't react this way, then I can be even more confident I am making the right decision.
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Feb 25, 2021 19:50
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Motronic posted:And places not giving you poo poo for using cards for low-dollar purchases. Yes, I know it's a $2.35 bolt, but I'm not exchanging money back and forth with you, nor am I walking around with a pocket full of coins and dollar bills so I can make exact change. The problem with this are stores that have a $5 or $10 limit before you can buy. Yes this milk costs 4.99 but you still can't use a card unless you buy something else.  That and making the customer pay the 4% fee for credit card usage are two quick signs of a place I won't revisit again.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:03
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Silly Burrito posted:The problem with this are stores that have a $5 or $10 limit before you can buy. Yes this milk costs 4.99 but you still can't use a card unless you buy something else. Technically this is against the terms of service of the credit card payment networks, but I actually completely understand why small shops do this. Card processors charge outrageous fees, both a fixed cost per transaction plus a percentage of the total. Small shops are especially hard hit by fees because they don't have any negotiating leverage with the processors for bulk/high-volume rates. For a small dollar transaction the merchant is literally losing money. I've seen what the costs are for small businesses and as a result I ain't complaining or snitching on anyone just trying to not lose money on already small margin merchandise. It's a poo poo system that needs pressure to lower fees industry-wide. If it's some national chain store of course idgaf about their poor margins, but for my local corner store I don't hold it against them.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:06
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My new job has an employee stock purchase programs that somehow almost seems not worth the effort. Am I insane? The purchase price is a flat 5% off the market price on the last day of each six-month period. (It's not one of the good ones with a price lookback.) Then that'll be taxed as normal income because I'm going to sell literally the day of, so it should not incur any additional short-term capital gains (or losses oh god I want to sell at the exact price I bought at) That's not bad by any means but it's throwing all my money in a hole in return for slightly less than five percent (well okay, actually 100/95 so it evens out after fees)... right? Am I missing subtleties here? It still seems worht it for any money I don't need right away but it's incredibly underwhelming and I keep feeling I must be missing something. (The something might just be "gently caress it, it's 5%, lock it in and insta-sell", and if so, yes, please yell at me!) DACK FAYDEN fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 20:08
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DACK FAYDEN posted:My new job has an employee stock purchase programs that somehow almost seems not worth the effort. Am I insane? It's not great, but would you rather have $21,500 or $22,575, minus taxes on the extra $1000? You're right though - it's incredibly cheap of them.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:15
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H110Hawk posted:It's not great, but would you rather have $21,500 or $22,575, minus taxes on the extra $1000? You're right though - it's incredibly cheap of them. Looking back a few pages in the thread, totally unrelated question: Kylaer posted:If you've got enough total assets in Bank of America and Merrill Edge, >100K, you can get a card that gives 5.25% cash back on a chosen category (online shopping is an option), 3.5% on groceries and warehouse clubs (including my beloved Costco), and 1.75% on everything else. The caps for the higher tier rewards are...$3000 of spending a quarter, I think? Then it drops down to the 1.75%. So if you spend a ton of money, a straight 2% card may be superior, but if your spending is limited and you mostly buy stuff online, at a grocery store, or at Costco, then it's a good choice. And if you want to consistently spend more you can get both a Visa and a Mastercard, functioning exactly the same in terms of rewards but doubling your total potential.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:38
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I'm 35, single. I have about 1.5x my yearly salary in my 401k (full match for 2% and half match for the next 4%), started and maxed out my Roth for 20/21, and have about 6 months of savings split between regular bank accounts and a taxable brokerage account. My only significant debt is my mortgage, my car and education are paid off, although combined with property taxes and such it eats about 1/3rd of my monthly income - I live in a pretty expensive area near DC. I don't contribute extra to my HSA beyond the employer contrib. Is there any other significant things I should look into? I'd like to avoid locking up more money that I won't have access to until retirement, as I would like some funds available to do things in the next 5 years - might buy a new car, start a family, additional education, etc.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:48
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I would suggest having 6 months of savings in your bank accounts and treating the brokerage account as an investment account, not part of your emergency savings.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:57
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6 months of normal expenses as savings with no modification of behavior— that’s your emergency fund AKA: the trailing 6 month average.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:59
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Also a reminder that you can pull money out of retirement accounts before age 59.5 with some planning https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/ so don't be afraid to max out those retirement accounts.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:00
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DACK FAYDEN posted:My new job has an employee stock purchase programs that somehow almost seems not worth the effort. Am I insane? It's still free money, but there is a higher risk than other ESPPs because of the greater chance that your company could tank by 5% (as opposed to the more common 15% or whatever) in the window between the end of the buy period and when you can sell.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:35
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withak posted:It's still free money, but there is a higher risk than other ESPPs because of the greater chance that your company could tank by 5% (as opposed to the more common 15% or whatever) in the window between the end of the buy period and when you can sell. Can't believe I'm managing to talk myself out of five percent free money, but when that is actually zero to five percent with possible upside and possible even larger downside...
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Feb 25, 2021 21:44
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It's actually only like 3.something% after taxes.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:45
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ESPP was one of my favorite perks at Apple. It's been a couple of years, but the way it worked was they took the price at the beginning / end of the 6-month period and you got 15% off the lower of the two. You could allocate up to 10% of after-tax to it.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:54
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DACK FAYDEN posted:My new job has an employee stock purchase programs that somehow almost seems not worth the effort. Am I insane? gently caress it, it's actually EVEN BETTER than 10% annualized (5% for 6 months if you dropped in all your cash in at the start of the period, but you're averaging over the entire period), lock it in and insta-sell.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:05
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Burn Zone posted:ESPP was one of my favorite perks at Apple. It's been a couple of years, but the way it worked was they took the price at the beginning / end of the 6-month period and you got 15% off the lower of the two. This is the most typical ESPP scheme I've seen, at least among public tech companies. Mine works the same way. Only a 5% discount without a lookback is pretty crap tbh. As long as you can turn around and sell it immediately you're still likely to come out ahead, but only slightly. I wouldn't blame you for skipping it, though, especially since you have to defer the income for 6 months leading up to the purchase date earning nothing on it. The lack of lookback is the real killer. In this crazy bull market all my ESPP purchases have used the 6-month prior price and with the discount have ended up being 100%+ gains selling as quickly as I can. With your scheme there's just literally no way that can happen.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:33
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Guinness posted:Only a 5% discount without a lookback is pretty crap tbh. As long as you can turn around and sell it immediately you're still likely to come out ahead, but only slightly. I wouldn't blame you for skipping it, though, especially since you have to defer the income for 6 months leading up to the purchase date earning nothing on it.
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Feb 26, 2021 03:27
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Friend of mine rolled over about $40k account to a Vanguard traditional IRA last year but never bought any funds with it so it just sat in Vanguard's money market account. Horrible timing and ignorance about what they were doing with it. I walked them through a few things with Vanguard, how to buy mutual funds, the various target retirement funds available, how to the available funds, etc. But a question came up I didn't know answer to: They're going to open a Roth IRA and deposit 3k into it for 2020 contribution. Should they consider transferring 6k from the Traditional IRA to the Roth IRA for their 2021 IRA contribution? Is that what a backdoor is? They're not at any kind of income limit. I'm just curious what the tax implication would be if they did that.
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Feb 26, 2021 04:25
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EmmaDilemma posted:Friend of mine rolled over about $40k account to a Vanguard traditional IRA last year but never bought any funds with it so it just sat in Vanguard's money market account. Horrible timing and ignorance about what they were doing with it. I walked them through a few things with Vanguard, how to buy mutual funds, the various target retirement funds available, how to the available funds, etc. But a question came up I didn't know answer to: Rollovers don't count toward your limit. You can move the trad to Roth whenever you want, but will have to pay taxes as if you made that money that year. A backdoor is when you put in your yearly 6k into a trad then instantly convert to Roth because you're above the limit.
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Feb 26, 2021 04:59
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So I set up my Roth IRA through Schwab and invested my 2020 and 2021 contributions in their 2050 Target Index fund, SWYMX. I noticed there is a similar fund, SWNRX, that is performing roughly the same but has a higher fee of 0.7% versus SWYMX's 0.08%. What would be the benefit for someone to choose SWNRX in this situation? I can't see any reason to go with the higher fee fund, but I also don't know much about the different funds yet.
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Feb 26, 2021 05:35
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I’m back this time ESPP questions. My employer doesn’t do matching but I have been still doing 10% like a good drone slave. For the ESPP we can contribute up to 15% with a 15% discount and the typical look back. Is it generally a good idea to reduce my 401k contributions and divert some effort towards the ESPP plan? How much I guess is more of a tax question. Or is it looked at as a bonus on top of 401k contributions? Thanks everyone for fielding these 
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Feb 26, 2021 05:38
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Fake James posted:So I set up my Roth IRA through Schwab and invested my 2020 and 2021 contributions in their 2050 Target Index fund, SWYMX. I noticed there is a similar fund, SWNRX, that is performing roughly the same but has a higher fee of 0.7% versus SWYMX's 0.08%. What would be the benefit for someone to choose SWNRX in this situation? I can't see any reason to go with the higher fee fund, but I also don't know much about the different funds yet. The high-fee one is an actively-managed fund, whereas the low-fee one is a passive fund built entirely out of indexes. ("Index" in the name is the main clue there, but you can also look for the amount of fund turnover and marketing copy that refers to "active" strategies.) The marketing story is that an actively-managed fund will outperform a passive one; the people who try to tell this marketing story are desperately hoping that their audience doesn't do the extremely simple research that you did and realize that it's a ripoff. Fidelity pulls this stunt too.
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Feb 26, 2021 06:40
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cheese eats mouse posted:I’m back this time ESPP questions. My employer doesn’t do matching but I have been still doing 10% like a good drone slave.
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Feb 26, 2021 07:02
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Vanguard Question: Can I set-up a Roth IRA for my spouse under my existing Vanguard account? Or do they need to create a whole new account (username, password)?
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Feb 27, 2021 17:03
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The op could use a little updating, the motley fool and two vanguard links aren’t going to the right pages anymore. I’m finally going to start looking into what’s happening with my vanguard 401k now that I’m 50, like a big boy. I’ve just been neglecting it like an idiot but at least I’ve been contributing so there’s something in there to allocate. I’m a spacy artist type and this is all very painful to absorb but I’m going to try. 
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Feb 27, 2021 18:11
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Tortilla Maker posted:Vanguard Question: New username. Snowy posted:The op could use a little updating, the motley fool and two vanguard links aren’t going to the right pages anymore. Best day is today. Pick the target date retirement fund. It's literally there for folks like you. If you hope to retire at 70 then pick the 2045 plan. If you want to go deeper before drawing on your 401k pick something further out. Don't overthink it.
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Feb 27, 2021 18:36
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H110Hawk posted:Best day is today. Pick the target date retirement fund. It's literally there for folks like you. If you hope to retire at 70 then pick the 2045 plan. If you want to go deeper before drawing on your 401k pick something further out. Don't overthink it. I was just reading about that, and I have an embarrassingly basic question- is that fund something I would balance with other funds or is the idea that I’d go all in on that?
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Feb 27, 2021 18:50
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Snowy posted:I was just reading about that, and I have an embarrassingly basic question- is that fund something I would balance with other funds or is the idea that I’d go all in on that? Depends on what it's doing. Most target-date retirement funds are basically total market/index funds that re-allocate appropriately as it ages, which is generally THE good idea for retirement investment, so going all-in is better than most other options. There are finer points that they might be lacking in, that could potentially offer more optimal performance. Foreign market exposure, for example, is a big thing that it might not be loving with that people are on both sides about. Maybe it has a higher fee structure than its competitors or something. To that end, while fire-and-forget is an excellent strategy, there is still some due diligence expected. They'll tell you what their holdings are (by law), and their picks might not jive with you or your goals. If, for example, they're deep into TSLA or something and you're not okay with that, you might want to consider a different one. But with target-dates they're very not sexy and usually very reliable and you almost certainly won't find much of an issue there. jokes fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Feb 27, 2021 |
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Feb 27, 2021 18:55
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Snowy posted:I was just reading about that, and I have an embarrassingly basic question- is that fund something I would balance with other funds or is the idea that I’d go all in on that? They do it for you! Magic! If you click around and find a composition tab it will tell you exactly what you have.
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Feb 27, 2021 18:56
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Yeah. And this is a big company (F500, ~75k employees, you've maybe heard of it) so it's really kinda stingy. Bank of America Cash Rewards card. It's 1%/2%/3% at baseline but with Preferred Rewards due to having sufficient assets with them, you increase those by 75%. Kylaer fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Feb 27, 2021 |
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Feb 27, 2021 19:07
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The whole point of a target date find is that you can put your money there and then never have to to think about it until it’s time to start taking money back out. As others have noted, exceptions would be if you have unusual personal risk tolerances, or if you are the type who likes to constantly janitor things in pursuit of some legendary min-max situation.
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Feb 27, 2021 19:30
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