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Hey, dude, I know you don't know me, so you'll probably be flippant with me and disregard my advice... You're rationalizing and justifying. And hey, that's cool, I've done it plenty in my life, which is why I've been lurking in here. But that's what you're doing. It's comical how much you can't (or won't) see it. You remind me a lot of me, actually. If you're not willing to listen to people here and make difficult sacrifices in the short term so that you can create a better life for yourself... well, what's the point of this thread?
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Aug 20, 2013 22:20
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Tuyop, you're spending to your bank balance, not to your budget. You're already taking a hit on savings for this, and you repeatedly lowball what it will cost. Upgrades, taxes, Applecare... This will be close to $2k for something you don't need in the slightest. For me, at least, savings is non-negotiable. I put at least 25% of income into long-term savings every month, and that's final. I don't get to decide that I want something this month, so I save less. I either take it out of other discretionary spending, or I plan ahead and put money aside for a few months. "Oh well, less savings this month," is a HUGE red flag. I don't know why you're here if you're ignoring absolutely everybody on this. It's not about the laptop per se, so stop defending the laptop. It's about the horrible attitude behind this decision. If you don't change that, you'll never get out. E. jebus, you want to spend this while you're scrambling to find money to move? Really? Old Fart fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 22:27
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Just see if you can save for this without compromising other savings goals. You keep saying stuff like, "at least it's not a $10k solid gold toilet seat!" But that's the thing: IT IS. There's always something bigger you can point to and say "well, at least..." That's how rationalization works. Don't say "oh well, only $2100 in savings this month." Keep it at $3100, put OTHER money aside for the MBA. Let your new life settle for a few months before you make big purchases. And hey, I'm not judging. I've done plenty of stupid poo poo just like this and worse, some of it recently. But that doesn't change what it is.
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Aug 22, 2013 14:12
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tuyop posted:I have a computer and (sometimes) a camera in here. Neither of which would be replaced. What changed?
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Aug 23, 2013 03:51
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tuyop posted:I already spent that money years ago. The only thing to do now is to spend as little as possible until it's paid back. This will only last a few years or so, I'll survive. I'm in the process of catching up on this ridiculous thread. This is something I felt needed quoting again.
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Aug 24, 2013 02:40
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Okay, sorry for bringing up the past, I'm still on October '12. I'm confused, and I need some clarification. When you got transferred, you said you just needed to wait a few weeks and you'd get free room and board from the army, but that signing a lease would make you ineligible. You said it was too good a deal to pass up. Then suddenly you signed a lease. What happened? And why did nobody call you out on this? I feel like I missed something here. I know this is all old news, I'm just having difficulty wrapping my head around this. And I'm a guy who has spent his life being ridiculously bad with money. (And regarding all this talk about cold 16C winters... don't you own awesome wool socks? I agree that high quality wool socks are the tits. Wear 'em!) Old Fart fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Aug 24, 2013 |
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Aug 24, 2013 03:55
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I was still on the space heater discussion from last October. I agree that 16 is entirely livable, and that southern Ontario is a far cry from the arctic. I'm up to the roommate search, and I'm still confused why nobody called him out for passing on FREE RENT FOR NINE MONTHS.
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Aug 24, 2013 04:51
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Caught up to February of this year, when you were quitting the job in order to take out student loans. Tuyop, I've been a financial fuckup for over two decades. I'm not judging. I see a lot of me (and my enabling ex-wife) in you. I think it's great you've been making steady progress on paying it down. But as of February, at least, your attitude hasn't changed much. (Side note: what happened to Toeshoes' $500 debt when she first joined? How did that balloon to $2k while in the middle of aggressively paying down your debt?) BTW, I'm glad you're using YNAB, that's basically the envelope method in digital form. It helped me transform the way I think about budget, and I wish I had learned those lessons at your age. You're an idealist. I get it. I was, too. And I poo-poo'd boring old dudes like me who laughed at me and told me that one day I'd learn. But one of your problems is that your idealism often operates in stark contrast to reality and pragmatism. EVERYBODY's 20s suck. You've already borrowed from your future with your $50k of "fun" debt. Now you need to pay that back. Working a crap job for a year or two to pay down your debt is something YOU created for YOURSELF. Nobody foisted this upon you. Nobody held a gun to your head to make you buy that car. This is all on you. You don't get to celebrate taking a chunk out of it. You already celebrated. That's what got you here in the first place. You don't get to reward yourself for spending money by spending more money. (The ex and I were experts at rationalizing that one, hoo boy.) You know what's a gently caress-ton more awesome than your 20s? Your 30s. The raging hormones of your 20s will have subsided, and you'll have some perspective and wisdom to do smarter things. You'll be better looking. You know what can be even better than your 30s? Your 40s. You'll have spent the previous 15 years wisely investing (while ALSO having fun), and you'll get to truly experience freedom. A friend of mine took multiple cross-country bicycle trips around the USA in his 40th year, while running his own business, owning a home, and raising two beautiful children in one of the most expensive cities in the country. He was able to do that because he has discipline. Another friend of mine RETIRED AT AGE 40. He now volunteers on passion projects, has plenty of time for recreational activities, and takes trips to Peru and Japan and everywhere else. He has amazing discipline. You lack discipline. And hey, so do I. That's why I'm 40 and broke as gently caress. Don't be like me. Be like those guys. FWIW, here are some of the hair-brained "if only..." schemes my ex and I came up with in order to get out of our crippling debt (and we were pulling in almost $100k combined, yet couldn't afford... well, anything, really): Living in a motor home. Buying property in Humboldt and growing basil. Joining the peace corp. Moving to a remote location and building a tiny house. My wife was depressed, but if only THIS thing or THAT thing would happen, then it would all be better. Sound familiar? These are very similar to your schemes and excuses. You're not the first person to be down this exact road. It's not you vs the world. We would get very excited about these things for a week or two, then get very depressed when we couldn't figure out a way to make it happen. And why couldn't we just pick up and do what we wanted? Because we had CRIPPLING DEBT. You want to be free? Truly free? For the next 60 years of your life? Suck it up for a year or two and stop making huge life-altering impulse decisions. You hem and haw over iPhones and microwaves, but then you go and quit your "incredibly stable" job on a whim. The job that was your entire backup plan for income and retirement. You don't even discuss it on here first, you just come in and announce "well, it's done." Nobody is saying you can't have what you want. What people are doing is SCREAMING at you that your impulsiveness is PREVENTING you from doing what you want. And so the cycle of depression and manic episodes repeats over and over and over and over again. This attitude is reflected in your "bad luck" which has sadly been reinforced by people on here. You're not unlucky, you're unobservant and impulsive. How do I know this? Because I'm exactly the same way. I'm constantly bumping into things or breaking stuff because I move before I think. When I take a moment to be aware of my surroundings, suddenly my "accidents" stop happening. Your car drifting into a lake wasn't something that happened to you; it's something YOU CAUSED. Your bike wheels bending almost immediately wasn't just dumb luck; you drove it poorly. Your back window didn't shatter "somehow"... it was because you mis-packed your car and put a lot of force on a tiny pressure point. That's just physics. EVERYBODY has issue with cable and telecom companies, that's just how it is. When things got confused further because you mistyped your corrected address, that was on YOU. Your snowtire debacle? I don't even own a car and I know the difference between real and nominal measurements (and you're in for a big surprise if you try to build a house). You didn't get stuck with a weird mafia-connected slumlord; you impulsively signed a lease when free rent was a week away. You seemed legitimately surprised that your paychecks were screwed up despite having years of experience that should have prepared you. (edited out lovely bits) You don't think. You just act, and then when it all goes tits-up, you shrug it off to bad luck and say "Who knew?" LOTS OF PEOPLE. I don't blame you for not knowing everything in the world, but every day is a chance for you to be one of the lucky 10,000 that learns something for the first time. But you don't learn. Every time something comes up, you argue and get defensive and wave away the chance of a "worst case" scenario. You accuse others of being hyperbolic. Then when that exact thing happens, you shrug with, "oh well, you were right." But do you listen the next time? Nope. You argue and distort and insult. You try to get credit for saving $50 on a phone, but then make the same huge crippling life-altering decisions again and again and again. You feel like it's different because it's a different item or situation, but it's really the same thing over and over and over again. You want to be respected as an adult? Then stop acting like a child. Right now. You DON'T deserve nice things because you haven't EARNED them. You're not a beautiful snowflake. You borrowed against yourself. Once you pay the piper, then you can truly start to LIVE. e: Sorry if that seems a bit harsh. I think I and others get frustrated because you have so much advantage, intelligence, ability, and potential. That's a blessing and a curse. Please, right this course. The sad truth is that your upbringing and schooling failed you in this way. It's okay to recognize and forgive this. My mother actually apologized for not teaching me about money and enabling my early irresponsibility. Everybody here wants to see you soar. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Aug 24, 2013 |
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Aug 24, 2013 11:38
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cstine posted:I'm 33 this year, and in the last 5 years I've gone from posting a BFC 'gently caress I'm broke and in stupid amounts of debt and unemployed' thread to reasonably stable, and the wife and I making well over six figures, and the ability to fund a multi-year emergency fund (I'm self-employed and year-to-year is variable, so it makes sense to have a huge fund for this.), AND, for the first time this year, fully fund a retirement account and STILL have a pile of money leftover for stuff. That's awesome, congrats! We're quickly on that pace. We really only "go sober" this past year, and the results have been tremendous. So I'm yelling at myself here, too.  cstine posted:As for his injury... I don't know that it was "avoidable" exactly. He fell down in the woods carrying a ton of stuff, and hurt himself. It's not like he was running around doing hand flips or something. Yeah, it's a touchy subject, but I recall him saying he pushed on after an initial injury? I'll just say that I once broke my toe walking up stairs. I cracked open my skull walking down stairs. I smashed my face walking into a stop sign. That could just as easily been "hit by a car" because I simply wasn't paying attention to the right things. Regardless, sorry if it made me a poo poo. That's not my intent. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Aug 24, 2013 |
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Aug 24, 2013 14:39
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No, I was also being a dick about the injury. I edited it out after being called out on it. It was too much.
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Aug 24, 2013 22:22
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Congratulations!
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Aug 27, 2013 11:16
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tuyop posted:Oh, and I don't mean to be snarky, but read on. I have, and nothing has really changed. I also got a couple of big windfalls at your age. I paid down some huge chunks of debt and celebrated by pissing the rest away and getting more in debt. Think about what that means: your (and my) debt was created from buying fun things. It's not some burden that we all must shoulder. You just haven't paid for your toys yet. So to celebrate paying it down by treating yourself, you're basically rewarding yourself for spending money by spending more money. Pretend like you weren't paying off a credit card but were instead directly financing a trip to Costa Rica. "Ooh, look, I just spent a bunch on a vacation. Time to celebrate by getting a MacBook!" Anyway, I'm pulling for you, because you know more than I did at that age, but you're also making all the same rationalization I made. And it led to me being broke at 40. You can do better!
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Aug 27, 2013 21:09
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tuyop posted:It's not some kind of reward, I just want a Macbook Air. I'm aware that buying it means that I can't have some other things, a bit of compound interest among them, and I think that's maybe alright. Yeah, and I want a new iMac. But I'm not getting one. And I don't have all that debt looming over me. My point is that you're sacrificing savings for an immediate want. You don't need a laptop. You just want a luxury item. Don't sacrifice savings goals for wants.
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Aug 28, 2013 03:39
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Something that's worked very well for me is dedicating a percentage of my income to savings. For me, it's 25%. Some months it's more, but it is NEVER less. After three months, I used the savings to get truly one month ahead on budget. Now that I'm there, the feeling of using last month's money to plan this month's spending is incredible. (It was three months and not four because I only lived on 75% of income.) And I only got smart and achieved it this year. Before that, I behaved similarly as you. But the 25% savings continues. Now instead of starting the buffer, it's for retirement. Since I don't have debt, I'm putting additional savings into building a 4-month cushion. I also have other savings goals. And yes, I also budget for trips and toys. But if I want something, I don't just decide "oh well, less savings." I put additional money away for it. Sometimes it takes a few months to save enough. Because I never ever compromise my long-term savings goals. And since I'm budgeting a month ahead, it's easier to adjust for a slow month. For example, September is likely going to be light on paychecks, but I'm using August's money to live in September. I can cut my September spending a little bit to give myself more padding in October. I already HAVE my September money, so it's really easy to make intelligent choices. I don't have to estimate and then scramble at the end of the month because I didn't get paid as much as I thought. I already got paid for the entire month. September is already finished. Don't compromise savings. Don't compromise debt reduction. You've done so well so far. Keep it up at the same pace or even faster. A MBA should take many months of saving specifically for it, and the money should come from OTHER "fun money". NOT from savings or debt reduction. Never compromise on those. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 13:09
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I agree that the "thinking out loud" gets people (myself included) riled up. But history is on our side. It's really hard to tell what's a wish list, what's a troll, and what's something that's about to happen tomorrow. What worries me are these windfalls... and if I'm reading correctly, a loan against retirement accounts? I was the same way at that age. Piles of debt, and huge infusions of cash, with an incredibly turbulent life and uncertain future. After paying down student loans, I bought iMacs, PowerBooks, other electronics, and a bunch of crap. I had pie in the sky dreams, but no solid plans on how to make them happen. You've made great steady monthly progress, but I fear these windfalls will give you a false sense of security. You still owe more on your car than I've ever owed on a car in my life. Regardless, it's pretty cool you have that cottage. I just hope you don't take out a mortgage on it. Keep paying down your debt, put money away in savings, and plan ahead for what you want. It's easy to sacrifice savings for nice things. It's more responsible to sacrifice discretionary spending in order to save for nice things.
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Aug 28, 2013 23:05
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So have you figured out where your August surplus is going? How are September's projections looking?
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Aug 29, 2013 02:55
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Can you give us some hard numbers? Unless I'm reading the wrong thing, the budget said something like "$3000 overage that we need to figure out how to distribute." How was it distributed? Post some YNAB screen caps.
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Aug 29, 2013 12:37
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Groovy, thanks. And wow, that's confusing. So if I read it right, all of the inheritance and some of the buffer went to student loans? And it looks like there was a huge sports overage from a previous month? And what's this family entertainment? Or Misc Goods? I'm mostly curious what happened to the $3k that was supposed to go to savings this month. I worry that you're not being honest with yourself. You said that 45-65% of your income was going to savings, so... where is it? I'm not really sure paying for a wedding the month it happens counts for "savings". That's just spending. In my mind, savings is loooong-term. Like, retirement or children. You have your own goals and stuff, but a couple of weeks ago you said that $3100 was going to savings. Then it was going to be $2100 plus a $1k laptop. I don't even see a laptop line item, and I don't see even $2100 into savings. Not trying to bust your balls, just giving feedback as requested in the OP. E: FWIW, that's a really cheap wedding, so good for you on that. It's also awesome you're building up car maintenance savings. I'm just trying to keep you honest with yourself. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 14:30
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tuyop posted:Thanks, and it's complicated. It's 3100 to savings/debt which is captured by that 14131.49 pre-YNAB Debt budgeted amount + the car loan. If I'm reading it right, about 2500 went to this, on top of pulling out inheritance and buffer? I strongly recommend building up the buffer and living on last month's income. It's one of the YNAB goals. I recently achieved this goal and it's changed everything for me. tuyop posted:overage words Notice how there are a lot of overages? If you're frequently over budget, then maybe your budget is inaccurate? Adjust your budget to meet reality. That way you don't get it in your head that you have so much extra, and then have to scramble at the end of the month while feeling bad about failing goals. Ideally you should be over-estimating categories so that you don't spend that money on other stuff. tuyop posted:So yeah, I may spend some time soon fixing up the number of categories. It took me a while, but I finally found a category system that works well for me, especially when analyzing spending trends. Monthly Bills: stuff like rent, Netflix, gym, utilities. Things that go towards keeping me housed and that are under contract. Monthly Consumables: food, home utility, personal care. Things that go towards room and board, but that I choose when and where to spend. Quality of Life: allowance, restaurants, home improvement, etc. Things that make life fun on a daily basis. Travel & Activities: camping, music, sports, small trips, big trips. Savings & Big Items: retirement, baby savings, immigration, moving, buffer, toys, furniture. A new SSD/HDD fusion drive upgrade for my old iMac counts as "toys". Obviously line items are your own, but these master categories have helped me analyze my spending. Bills and Consumables are basic "cost of living" stuff, so I can see what percentage goes to just living a basic life. But what's been a real eye-opener for me has been Quality of Life and how small it is. Not that I've been depriving myself, but I can see how a little goes a long way. When I compare that to my "big trips" subcategory, I really think about the value of my dollars spent, and plan better for the future. Even "small trips" is relatively small. Reducing my big trips and reallocating some of the spending to these other categories plus savings goals has really affected how I feel about everything. Anyway, just an idea, as you work out what suits you best. I love the poo poo out of YNAB. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 21:01
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After paying bills and allocating modest yet not stringent amounts towards quality of life categories, I would power-save to build a month's buffer. Trying to plan for money not yet earned sucks. Budgeting money you already have is the tits. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 21:32
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Yes, exactly. Much of this forum is for people who don't have even one month's expenses in reserve.
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Aug 30, 2013 06:44
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It looks like you've gotten over the MBA obsession, which is good. If only there were some way you could remind yourself of this cycle the next time you insist and justify and rationalize. You'd save everybody a lot of time.  Regarding courseload: what's the recommendation by your major? Seven classes seems like a lot. I fear this is another example of Tuyop Extremism. Granted, it's been a while since I've been in school. I wrote my first papers on a manual typewriter, and I used a daily planner for schedules. FWIW, even to this day, I use a dry erase calendar to track my schedule and appointments. I can see it every time I enter the kitchen. I have tons of fancy Apple products and they all sync together, but I never use iCal. It's right there, all the time. It's impossible to forget or ignore.
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Sep 7, 2013 13:11
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It'd be cool if you could respond to something here without defence and rationalization being your first course of action. That would go a long way towards convincing people that you've changed. You said in the OP that you wanted to be called out on stuff, let's remember that. Tough love, baby. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Realize that many of your current problems are due to pushing yourself to extremes. Life isn't a personal challenge. Your debt is due to extreme vacationing. Your back injury is due to extreme load carrying. Your burnout of the military is possibly partially due to the other extreme things you mentioned a while back about doing way more than was necessary, trying to prove that you're the best, that you can take it. Is it remotely possible that your current lack of development regarding financial health and personal responsibility is due, at least in part, to having taken so many classes and working so many hours that there was no time left over for personal growth and maturity? Maybe so, maybe not. But let's not pretend that you don't have an established history of (a) taking on huge workloads that later bite you in the rear end; (b) defending and rationalizing absolutely everything as a gut reaction; and (c) eventually coming back and acknowledging that hey, maybe we have a point here. Let's at least try to remove (b) from the equation, maybe?
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Sep 9, 2013 01:05
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Well, good luck and have fun!
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Sep 10, 2013 01:54
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So the guy who's a superstud at taking on large complicated workloads and kicking rear end at college life can't even manage a dry run before the first day? Not like you have a job or anything. I get it, stuff is confusing and overwhelming. But it has nothing to do with lack of an iPod. A poor worker blames his tools. Paper maps and day planners work very very well.
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Sep 11, 2013 03:39
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I completely understand how it feels to be lost and overwhelmed. I can become a total stress ball. I get it. In this day and age, having a cheap device to check emails on campus is probably very helpful. I think the iPod for that purpose is a good idea. The real issue here is lack of foresight and planning. If you know that you suck at paper maps, why didn't you spend a day on campus walking from building to building, so you'd have a better idea of where to go? To step it back further, why did you schedule a courseload that would require you to run across campus five times a day? You said you had to get special permission to sign up for these classes. Was there any thought given to the logistics of your day? I'm just saying, this is the pattern. Taking on too much without thinking it through. I'm sure you are able to manage your workload, and I do think the iPod is a good idea. But you're not taking the necessary steps ahead of time. Instead, you find yourself again in a high-stress panic mode, and you make decisions in that mode. That's the issue here, at least from where I sit. You had all the tools and information available to you ahead of time, but you didn't use them. This is how cars end up in lakes. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 09:36
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Jeffrey posted:Besides electronics, how would y'all cope with 10 minute walks between classes, where classes can be moved on short notice and you are notified by email? I didn't schedule classes that required running across campus between each one in an 8-hour day. And I took 18-21 credit hours almost every semester, including intensive labs. I do agree that in today's world, access to email is handy, especially for lazy profs. An iPod is pretty reasonable. I also agree that this entire thing was avoidable, just like almost every other "universe is out to get me" story in here.
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Sep 11, 2013 16:50
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I'm in favour of the iPod. Things have changed dramatically in the past five years with the ubiquitousness of smartphones. I think part of the problem is the way you present things here. You give partial information, people react, and then you spend a lot of time with "but but but..." And don't beat yourself up for getting overwhelmed and stressed out the first day. This poo poo happens to everybody. So what happened in those classes that were moved? Were there signs taped to the doors? Was anybody else also late, or missed the class entirely? Is the move permanent? And what's with this reading assignment that was changed last minute? Fill in some gaps here, please. Also curious, why does funding run out in two years? I power-read through the entire thread, so some things blur together. I thought at one point you had full funding? Is this related to that time you up and quit the military? If you hadn't done that, would you have gotten a full ride? No judging. I've quit jobs on a whim, too. I've made plenty of impulse decisions that have created temporary shitstorms, or that have affected my entire life. I also move without thinking and break a lot of stuff. That's why I relate to you so much.
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Sep 11, 2013 22:55
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Okay, cool. Sorry for being kind of a dick.
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Sep 12, 2013 06:00
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An unfinished basement in Edmonton in the winter? Seriously? Doesn't your wife have a construction background? Ask her how easy it is to finish a space "around" someone. Where are you going to live when they're cutting the concrete to install plumbing? Or cutting lumber? Sheathing? Flooring? Painting? ProTip: Never move on a deadline. Anywhere I've lived, when my lease was up, I went month-to-month after that. Get your savings together and casually look. Don't move on a specific date because you have to or even because you want to. Move because the perfect place presented itself, and you had the means to do it.
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Sep 16, 2013 01:25
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I just want to say congrats on getting debts down. I think the iPod is fine. Regarding treating yourself to some toys... I recommend putting money aside and thinking about purchases for at least a month (if not longer) before buying anything. I think you should also set some long-term savings goals and contribute to those at the same time. Then with some savings in the bank, let life happen for a month or two, see what unexpected expenses pop up. Chew over your toy choices. If you still want those toys, weigh that against putting that money towards other larger life goals. Or maybe you'll have used that money on an emergency. Remember how solid you were on the MBA? Now you don't want it. Maybe just maybe other toys will turn out the same?
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Oct 3, 2013 00:56
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tuyop posted:I'm convinced that this dumbphone experiment is a pretty big failure. This month is another $150 bill, and most of it looks like 1-800 numbers so I don't really get that (I'll call them, don't worry). Since switching out the smartphones, we've averaged $85/month for phone use. Did you change your phone habits? If not, what did you expect to happen? To me this sounds like your old patterns of making assumptions and not thinking ahead. Re: US vs Canadian phones... I'm a US ex-pat, and I was paying $120/mo for my plan in the US. Was doing $45/mo in Canada (only 400MB, but there's wifi everywhere, so who cares). But I don't call or text anybody, and I don't need to be online every minute of every day, so now I'm on prepaid for $0/mo. It's awesome. I do more crosswords now, instead of browsing aggregate sites. tuyop posted:What would you say if we had bought a $500 food processor? Would this be better because that's what we'd explicitly saved the money for? Kind of, because that was the plan. Part of budgeting is sticking to plans. I think people are worried that your mindset is still that of instant gratification. And so now what happens to the food processor that you had saved for? Are you not getting one? What happened to that plan? Regardless, it came from a category that was put aside for that stuff, a little at a time. So I think that's good. It's a thing you wanted, and you had the money set aside for that kind of random thing. Old Fart fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 00:03
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We're still having he tablet vs laptop debate? One isn't a replacement for the other. If you can't think of good uses for a tablet, then you're not thinking hard enough. I really don't need a laptop ever again. Tablet and desktop for me. Then again, some people are still angry that the command line was phased out of common usage.
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Dec 6, 2013 05:54
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Wow, that was gold. That one dude seems to really be offended by it. And maybe it's thanks to this thread, but all the time I'm wondering why people are having such a strong reaction. What, they've never heard of such a thing?XyloJW posted:strip down naked, blast a duke, and let out a primal scream as nature washes away your sin
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Dec 10, 2013 04:58
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That's awesome dude. Congrats.
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Jan 6, 2014 19:41
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This isn't really on topic, but there's nowhere else to post it. I'm an American living and working in Canada, and I just finished my first full year. Looking now into RRSP and holy crap is it poo poo-tons better than the IRA system down south. In the US, you can invest $5k a year and that's that. In Canada, you get up to ~$20k a year, and if you don't max out one year, you can make up the difference later. Holy smokes! Haven't quite figured out how CPP compares to SSI, one step at a time. Also the whole thing about higher taxes is a myth for most people. For lower incomes the tax bracket jump kicks in later, and the upper cap is actually lower. Tho granted in the US there are more deductions and the like for mega rich, but most people don't fall in that category. And there are some differences between states and provinces. But up here we get that year of family leave and a little benefit called healthcare. (Sorry for the hijak, tuyop, but you've talked about this stuff here. )Oh, Canada!
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Jan 9, 2014 16:01
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Ah, gotcha, okay that makes a bit more sense. Well, still, if it weren't for threads like tuyop's and others, I wouldn't be in a position to dump a bunch of cash into an RRSP account in the first place. So, yay, back on topic. Kinda.
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Jan 9, 2014 18:05
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Congratulations! Man, this thread is so boring now.
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Jan 21, 2014 17:07
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That's awesome, tuyop, thanks for posting. Sorry for being kind of a dick to you here and there. You really seem a changed man. Your thread was a bit influence in my getting my own poo poo (mostly) together. I look forward to an update in a year, when instead of paying down debt, you've been building up retirement savings. Congratulations!
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Jan 23, 2014 21:21
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