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Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.


Financial literacy in this country is a joke. Something like how credit cards work is so basic, and something I learned back in high school.

Reminds of my college freshman roommate in the dorms. We got U-bills every month, this was for phone charges, and any fees from the university. Very first month he looks at it and goes, "Oh, I only have to pay $10 minimum". I had to explain to him that he gets charged interest for whatever he doesn't pay each month. He had the money, but had no clue it was going to cost him like 10% a month or something for not paying it off. I guess this is why colleges are littered with people giving away free poo poo to sign up for CC's (or at least they were in my day).

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Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

brugroffil posted:

And it sounds like he's going to be completely bailed out?

I'm trying to come up with a too big to fail joke here.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Power of Pecota posted:

I feel like a moron even asking this, but is there any way the friends who cashed checks would ever be found legally in the wrong?

That's such an extremely dumb move on the guy's part that I honestly have no idea how it would play out.

If they forged his signature on the check it would be a big deal. Unless this kid was so stupid to hand over blank, but signed, checks.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Lysandus posted:

My BWM parents finally paid off their house. They were really excited to no longer have a mortgage payment and were going to finish paying off other bills

Instead, my stepdad bought a giant new Silverado with an 8 year loan. (An 8 year loan is better because the payments are smaller that way, you see. No amount of arguing or math can change this fact.) My mom was ok with it because he NEEDED a new truck because his old one had bad gas milage.

Was there a down payment involved? Trying to figure out if he'll be upside down for all 8 years of that loan, or maybe just 7 of it.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

totalnewbie posted:

Yeah, that was my thought.

Where in NW Indiana are people from Chicago making 1M+ going to move to?

Plus, look where they live now.. don't think it's quite "just across the border": https://datausa.io/profile/geo/chicago-il/#income_geo

Some of us were having this argument during thing election with one dude, who is apparently sort of rich, and who is claiming he will move to IN. You are right that there is no equivalent NW Indiana suburbs to some of the nice burbs surrounding Chicago. Republicans in Illinois really like to equate our steady population decline with high taxes, when it's really all about jobs. The LA Times article pointed to it exactly, if people want to live someplace, and they can get a good job, the taxes aren't going to sway them that much.

A lot of Illinois' problems all stem from a pension funding issue, that both parties have some hand in, although I will concede that I'd say it's probably 75% Democrats' fault. The state's poor finances make some companies reluctant to come here. It's hurting funding to other state funded items, like schools/universities, and road construction. All those things, plus not great weather, and no desirable natural features, means we're not a hot place to move to.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Nephzinho posted:

I have "unlimited vacation", I just never have time to take any of it. in the last 8 years I've taken one vacation where I wasn't working.

Unlimited vacation is a trap. People tend to take less time when given unlimited vacation. And you always have time to take a vacation, unless you’re running your own small business or something. People who think they can’t take a vacation are fooling themselves. Things can wait or someone else can do it for the week you’re gone.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Krispy Wafer posted:

For my last car purchase I focused exclusively on total financed while they kept trying to focus on monthly payments. But before you think I’m humble bragging I did purchase a Chrysler product.

The dealership finance guy was talking about needing everyone on a title to sign off on the trade-in. In the past he’s had divorced people where he’s got to call and convince the other party that yes, you really want to sign this title because now you’re off the hook for $10k in negative equity.

Shouldn't things like car titles be taken care of during divorce proceedings? Unfortunately, I am speaking from experience here where I had to take my name off of the title to my ex's car.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Is this where we post about how Lyft's stock price has already dropped below it's IPO price? Maybe they should try making a profit next time. BWM for any initial investors that didn't sell out on the first day.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Barry posted:

The exact same thing has been happening in Chicago via TIF districts for decades. It's so lovely and gets me all worked up even thinking about it.

There’s lot of other tax breaks for developers too. I just worked on a hotel in the west loop where the city made it sales tax exempt for the project. This being in one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city. This area doesn’t need tax breaks to spur development, yet the city gave them 10% off on all materials for the job.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

canyoneer posted:



Context is that those are "magic bands", from Disneyworld


So, that person has booked many on-property Disneyworld vacations.

I'm going to laugh when Disney decides to totally change things up in 5 years and they don't do these wrist bands anymore, leaving this thing half finished.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Changing topics a bit, we got Hulu about a month ago for free with Spotify, but it's the one with ads. This means I see a lot of the same ads over and over again, most of them being pharmaceuticals, but Earnin also advertises a bunch. I had to look it up because it seemed shady. It's essentially a pay day loan where you can borrow $100 as soon as you're done working, and Earnin takes the money back once you get paid. The twist is there are no fees, or interest, you pay a "tip", so it's whatever you feel like.

So I start googling:

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/a-payday-lender-in-disguise-new-york-investigates-the-earnin-app

quote:

Though Earnin looks and sounds like an early wage access provider, however, its business model is different. And most of the other early wage access providers don't do the things Earnin is accused of doing. (Neither the company nor the New York DFS wanted to comment for this story.)

“Earnin is not in the same category as PayActiv, DailyPay and FlexWage,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. “True early wage access providers are companies that have agreements with the employer and are integrated with payroll and are not making loans and seeking repayment from the customer. Earnin seems to be trying to look like they’re giving you your pay, but they have no relationship with the employer and in my mind it’s a payday loan.”

The situation raises questions, however, about whether consumers can tell the difference — and what kinds of regulations govern apps such as this.

According to Earnin’s app, it charges neither fees nor interest.

“No one should ever have to get a payday advance, payday loan, cash loan, cash advance, or a paycheck advance to access money that already belongs to them,” the firm behind the app says on its website. “Earnin is creating a new way to get your paycheck with no fees, no interest, and no hidden costs. So, how do we keep things running? Our users support the community by tipping what they think is fair and paying it forward to other people.”

But users who don’t leave a tip appear to have their credit restricted. And some of the the suggested tips equate to a 730% APR — nearly 30 times higher than New York’s 25% cap.

Bolding mine. It got me thinking that if someone borrows $100, and two weeks later pays it back with a $5 "tip", they just subjected themselves to a 130% APR, if I'm doing my math right. The ads also talk about how "we're in this together", and "supported by the community". It's all talk to make it sound like you're borrowing from your neighbor, and then paying them back, but you're really just borrowing it from Earnin. The suggested tips are like $15 on $100 borrowed.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Overdrift posted:

A $5 fee on a $100 loan is much much cheaper than what payday loan companies tend to charge. It might be BWM for someone that can access cheap credit, but it seems less-BWM to use this service than something like a payday loan which charged $20 per $100 back when I worked for them a decade ago.

Probably true, but it still surpasses a lot of state laws on pay day lending, so they’re getting investigated. Mostly I just hate the marketing that makes it seem like you’re supporting your community with the “tipping”.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

therobit posted:

The negative equity auto discussion kind of reminds me of when I was slinging 125% LTV HELOCs with no income or asset verification in the mid 2000s. Yeah, I facilitated the transaction, but we weren't putting a gun to anybody's head. You didn't really even have to try to sell them because people were beating down your door to get the money.

Thanks for the Great Recession!

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

House guy doesn't see too bad, it's slightly too much house, but his real problem is going in with not nearly enough savings. It's telling why he bought it with zero down. Some of those things he should be able to go back to the inspection company for, but usually all you get is your inspection fee back, still better than nothing. I also wonder exactly how bad all of these appliances were. I mean completely not working would have been obvious at inspection time. If you don't have the money, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and accept that you're going to have to work with a not perfect appliance for a while. A dishwasher is not a mandatory household appliance, and a stove that only has two working burners is doable, especially if you live at home alone.

He also was going to spend $2k on a TV and furniture no matter what, so he was really buying this house with $8k in savings from the get go.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Motronic posted:

Okay......I think this reddit post gave me brain damage.

[LONG] My wife and I are "kinda" jobless, and we can't make rent in two weeks. (self.personalfinance)

submitted 39 minutes ago by apsalartargaryen

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/cdivw0/long_my_wife_and_i_are_kinda_jobless_and_we_cant/

I did not read this whole thing because after seeing unfinished English degree, telling my wife not to work because I make enough money for both of us while being only partially employed, and then finally crypto, I just had to stop.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

The recent ability to constantly get an updated score is what's driving this. Seems like just in the last few years you could easily, and freely, get your credit score, you used to have to pay for it. Now it's become another game of make number go up, even if a good credit score is low on the priority list for some people. I mean it's nice to know your score without having to pay for it, but I think some are taking it the wrong way.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.


This looks expensive.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

I’ll take a chance and self post and cop to buying a financed engagement ring. I was young and thought I needed to spend a few grand on a ring. I did pay it off quickly and got it paid before the 0% special rate ended. So in the long run it didn’t cost me extra.

Then I got divorced, so BWM and BWL for about 5 years.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Landing a spot in one of the major city symphonies is pretty GWM, but it's like trying to get into professional sports. There's probably 100 musicians for every one of those spots, so you better be extremely good at what you do. I recommend that guy find a ska band to play in, now that's where the money is at.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

SpartanIvy posted:

Both an rear end in a top hat and an idiot. Bravo.

He posted a follow up where he essentially begged for his old job back with the original company. So he managed to salvage things a little bit. What an absolute idiot though trusting a recruiter and a friend with a union. Even if the company couldn't legally enforce the clause, you're burning that bridge with what seems a decent company. Never a good idea.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Motronic posted:

Every time rentback comes up in the home buying thread I poo poo on it for reasons exactly like this. Don't become an accidental landlord. Ever.

Sounds like this dude was played like a fiddle. Sale over, now all the liability is going after them as tenants. Good luck.

His real estate attorney should have added clauses to the sale to cover him. You can go after old owners for fraud when selling the home, and I assume appliances and cabinet doors were mentioned as staying. It will suck because he’s going to end up paying more attorney fees to recover his stuff.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Ebola Roulette posted:

How is this even legal. This is why capitalism and medicine don't mix. You can't "shop around" if estimates are lies and the actual costs are hidden and can be much higher.

Yes, it's infuriating to hear politicians talk about shopping around for healthcare for multiple reasons. First being the one from the article where the estimate has very little value. Second, you are constrained to hospitals your insurance covers. Third, this only applies to non-emergency procedures. Health insurance that only covers 70% or 80% of the procedure is a sham. 20% of a $100,000 procedure is a lot of loving money for most people.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

enraged_camel posted:

here's a good BWM story regarding a friend

this friend bought a 2015 FJ Cruiser (limited edition! fully loaded!) with 60k miles on it

i think he paid over $30k for it (maybe close to $40k? i forget, i was busy trying to collect my jaw off the floor)

his reasoning?

"dude, only 2500 of these were manufactured, so after I put another 100k miles on this thing, i can sell it close to what it cost me because everyone fuckin wants them!"

:psyduck:

over the next year or so, he wants to:

- change the front differential (for better off-roading)
- get a bigger roof rack
- change the front bumper (he doesn't like the current one)
- install a side ladder so the roof is easier to climb for loading/unloading
- change the doors so the rear seats are easier to access
- buy a small cargo trailer for longer camping trips

and of course, as these things always go, this guy barely makes enough money to afford rent

but he does have a rich dad so i guess there's that!

With all that work, he's not going to make out ahead, but those cars do seem to be worth a lot. A quick googling gave me a handful of 2015's for sale and they were like $37k-$41k. He's banking on people still really wanting that car in 6 years or so though.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

DaveSauce posted:

Nah. "GWM balls" is taking a loan to start a business venture in an area that you have a high level of expertise in and have identified a potential market gap.

"BWM balls" is taking out a poo poo ton of risky lines of credit to play make-believe Real Estate Investor because, "that's what rich people do."

Every day I see multiple billboards for House Flipping conferences and it drives me mad knowing that nearly everyone who goes to those things is just going to be burning cash.

I'm not really sure if this has been BWM because I don't know the finances, but a coworker has a son who is trying to flip a house by himself (well, with the help of his mom too). He's been renovating this house for like a year on the side. Still not sure if he finally sold it. This is in the Chicago suburbs, the housing market isn't super duper hot either where he could expect to make money just on rising house prices either. Just can't imagine this guy is actually making much money, especially if he factored in his actual labor spent on the thing.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Griefor posted:

What I don't understand about crypto believers is this:
I don't believe cryptocurrency is the future, but I can't fully refute it. So let's do a hypothetical. Let's say crypto is the future. In the future the only currency is cryptocurrency. My country, the Netherlands, thinks Brexit is a pretty cool idea and follows suit. We can no longer use euros as currency and paper currency is old news anyway, so as the first country in the world, the Netherlands adopts cryptocurrency as the country's official currency. It exchanges every citizen's euros for a cryptocurrency. Every crypto investor's wet dream as the first step of the whole world officially adopting cryptocurrency.

They're not going to use dogecoin, are they? Most likely the government will create a new cryptocurrency, the NLCoin or whatever, mine the gently caress out of it in a closed setting, and then distribute that to people at some exchange rate for euros. They're not going to select a random existing cryptocurrency and pay a megapremium to the early adopters of that to get their currency.

I guess a lot of crypto folk are anti government, so they're hoping the world will adopt a cryptocurrency not backed by a government. Okay. But that's maybe Bitcoin because it's the first and biggest, or some other currency that fixes some of the problems that Bitcoin has. Not one of the many exact clones of the Bitcoin source code.

I suppose gamblers are gonna gamble so I understand bigger-idiot style investors, but there's also so many true believers who have so much faith that crypto is the future but they don't seem to have put much thought into how such a future will work and how it will make them rich off their randomly selected altcoins.

Any Dutch crypto would clearly be called TulipCoin, c'mon man.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.


I don't think he says what his loan length is. If he is financing the entire thing over 6 years at 4%, that would be about $1,000/month. But buying a $64k truck is definitely BWM though, but I guess diesel is more efficient than regular unleaded.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

First, I secretly hope that the wife is just torturing the husband and is not really that into Disney. I hope. Otherwise, this guy just needs to get divorced because his wife is a lunatic.

canyoneer posted:



Another reason everyone should learn how to cook

Even if this guy works every day, that's $73,000 (our pounds, whatever) a year in revenue only. What is he profiting? I guess it's probably good money for just microwaving a meal for a few minutes and a weekly trip to the grocery store to stock up.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

BMan posted:

The guy claims a 2/3 profit margin

Well poo poo, can't complain about that then. I'm pretty impressed.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Walking away from his mortgage and letting the bank foreclose. It would be a massive credit hit for 7 years that apparently he thinks he can wait out living in a van down by the river.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

enraged_camel posted:

Courtesy of the Austin thread: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/austin-tx-entrepreneur-tarot-reader-money-diary

Lots of insane poo poo in there, I don't want to spoil things.

I will not read this whole thing, but all this doesn't even cover her list of monthly expense at the top right? $835 in weekly discretionary spending, while getting a bunch of poo poo for free or on discount. Woof.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Volmarias posted:

You know those "Work from home! Make gobs of money with no experience!" flyers you'll see sometimes? It involves opening a bank account, getting money sent to your account, and then sending it to a different account, minus a small fee for your time and effort. There's lots of ways it gets dressed up but basically you have money mules doing this.

The sad part is that the mules are the ones most likely to get punished since the real perpetrators are overseas, and the mules have easily traceable transfers.

Bird in a Blender fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Nov 25, 2019

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Did you read that article? It clearly says that what happened was definitely not legal, and that authorities would have stopped it had they known what was going on.

quote:

As authorities searched for Quita, they discovered information that could have precluded the Easons from taking custody of the teenager, if the proper officials had been involved, adoption experts say.

Illinois authorities determined that the Easons had fabricated a document they provided to the Puchallas called a "home study." It purported to be from a social worker who had visited their home and done background checks of the couple. Actually, Nicole had found a sample document on the Internet and filled it out herself. Some of the information was true; the rest was fiction.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

OctaMurk posted:

Yeah you can get financing on anything from motorcycle jackets to scuba wetsuit these days

Do retailers still have layaway? I know KMart had that when I worked there back in the 90s.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Residency Evil posted:

If you don't I will.

Edit: gently caress appliance repair people.

It's kinda sad in some sense that once an appliance goes bad, it's almost always more cost efficient to just replace it. If you're going to get charged $100/hr for the service, plus parts, then for a lot of basic stuff, it just isn't worth it.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

DaveSauce posted:

Slightly BWM, extremely BWL:

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/e9b4yv/i_havent_paid_income_tax_in_almost_20_years_how/


A warning? Like I dunno, maybe the whole W-4 form that explicitly tells you when you are eligible to put EXEMPT on there...?

Later on, he says that he has only made like $15-$30k per year, and has had 45 jobs! over his roughly 19 years of working. He might not even owe that much in taxes if he was paying that little, although fines/fees are going to hit him hard. It's also why he probably flew under the radar with the IRS for so long because most years he probably didn't really owe much in the way of taxes.

Edit: Good With Marriage is that he didn't actually get married, but has been helping to pay his SO's mortgage. So at least she can't be put on the hook for anything.

Bird in a Blender fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Dec 13, 2019

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Yea, $180K doesn't even sound like enough money to even operate the place.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

canyoneer posted:

A friend of ours is a lawyer, does mostly family law (divorce, custody, etc.)

His billable rate is something like $750/hr. He has sat before in meetings, on the clock, while his client argues with their soon-to-be-divorced spouse about how they're splitting up their collections of junk. He once saw a couple negotiate for almost 2 hours on how they were dividing the DVDs and CDs.
He even told his client "you are paying me more to exist here right now than all of this stuff is worth. Take the L and rebuy all that stuff, it will be cheaper."

The client did not take his advice.

This advice is so true for so many things in life. Not really on the funny side, but the amount of money large corporations, and especially the government during the purchasing process, is absurd. I have definitely heard stories of service techs wasting hours so someone from corporate can verify their $50 parts purchase to fix something for a client; the service tech bills at $130/hour. Even if they paid double what it was worth, it still would have been cheaper than having them sit there waiting for corporate approval.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

If her dad wasn't the cosigner, I would probably say just stop making payments, and take the credit hit. The finance company doesn't exactly have anything to repo. I guess this all depends on what sort of other money she has though.

My guess on the insurance thing is that her price spiked because she went from driving an old beater to a brand new car, and surprise, that costs more to insure. Obviously, she did not think through the process of waiting until she had new insurance in hand to cancel. I've had some pretty expensive lessons in life, but that ones a doozy.

Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

tater_salad posted:

Not really, here's the issue with financed cars and repos.

You owe 23k on a vehicle and you decide to not pay for whatever reason, you may even be able to call teh bank and say "Take it away"The car is reposessed and now your 23k has repo charges.. lets call it 2k.. (no clue if that's what they are) so now you owe 25k

Repo company holds it for x days depending on state requirement to let you get back up on payment.(you get to pay storage fees for 45-100 a day)

Now you owe 27-30k for the vehicle.

You haven't paid so the car goes to the auction, in this case it's worth jack poo poo so it goes for 1000 maybe..

You're still on the hook for 29k and the bank will come after you for it.

As someone who has never had this issue. What realistically happens if she just never ever pays it off? Ok the bank comes after her, if she just continues to ignore letters and calls from the bank, what happens next? Do they send it off to a collections agency, who she then continues to ignore forever? I understand her credit would practically be a negative number, but if she doesn't care about that, would it ever go away?

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Bird in a Blender
Nov 17, 2005

It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Oodles posted:

Children are the ultimate BWM decision, you’re not allowed to send them down the mines or up chimneys any more.

Children are BWM and BWEnvironment. Except sometimes your kids are really great at something and make a ton of money, then they're GWM, eventually.

Definitely Bad With Health too as you suffer sleep loss for years, and nearly any free time you had to exercise goes out the window for quite a while.

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