Millennials and their "money saving tips"

[TbTeRRoR]

why would she have her own "place" if she's basically living with her parents..........just live with your parents and split the bills in her situation....

[Doc Holiday]

I always joke with my wife that we live like millionaires in San Francisco

[Floppin]

2 hours ago, TbTeRRoR said:

why would she have her own "place" if she's basically living with her parents..........just live with your parents and split the bills in her situation....

I'm guessing so that she's not actually living at her parents and all the things that that entails for a social/sex life. 

[Raskle]

30 minutes ago, Floppin said:

I'm guessing so that she's not actually living at her parents and all the things that that entails for a social/sex life. 

After looking at that room, I'm highly doubting she even has a social/sex life... well, I guess there's kinks of all types, but I digress...

[Floppin]

15 minutes ago, Raskle said:

After looking at that room, I'm highly doubting she even has a social/sex life... well, I guess there's kinks of all types, but I digress...

It all looks the same in the dark. 

[TbTeRRoR]

19 hours ago, Floppin said:

I'm guessing so that she's not actually living at her parents and all the things that that entails for a social/sex life. 

A thousand bucks is a lot to pay for a front!

[d-dave]

The best advice you can give is to:

1. Learn to set a budget and stick to it.

2. Save as much as you can, finance as little as possible.

3. When paying off debts, go from the smallest amount to the largest and roll the payments into the next highest debt.

Those are all really hard to do.  That's why people end up in crippling debt.  The biggest challenge is for people to learn to do things that are really hard to do.  Like saying no to impulse spending.  Taking amazon off your phone.  Living on cash.

Those are skills that take a while to learn.  My wife and I have been working really hard to get debt paid off, and despite the challenges of life, we're making progress. 

I check out those kinds of articles from time to time, but they all come down to the same basic thing: live within your means.

[Happy Panther]

1 hour ago, d-dave said:

3. When paying off debts, go from the smallest amount to the largest and roll the payments into the next highest debt.

Good advice but I would add - take into account interest rates and tax issues. I would pay off highest interest rates first and keep tax deductible debts if feasible.

[thefuzz]

I'm a little older than most here I would imagine by the lingo most use...and general way of thinking...that said.

I see this with my generation, the previous, the following and on both sides of those.

There are people who are good with money, bad with money, and outstanding with money.  If you grow up in a household that doesn't talk about money, you will likely be bad at it...even if the reason you didn't talk about it was that it was always plentiful.  In my house, money was always real real tight, sometimes not there at all, and they never really knew why.

Work hard, try to not spend too much, and you would be OK.  That was what they went by.  Didn't understand compound interest, didn't know when it was right to re-fi that house, didn't know how to be on a budget.  They made it, but it was harder than it needed to be.

End of the day, most of the broke folks I know make plenty, they just spend plenty more....a $50 brunch is more important than paying off the credit card.  More important to go out with the girls for drinks than plan out that week's meals so they didn't have to eat out.

People will go buy a new car so "the warranty isn't out"....I hear that one a lot.  Like a $3,000.00 transmission would break you....but your $800 per month in car payments is just dandy for years on end.

I personally just think that people would simply rather not think about money.  The school system certainly doesn't want you to think about it.

[thefuzz]

Buddy (who is great with $$) and I were looking into trying to do a money and labor help out somehow here in Wilmington for kids...

He would teach them how finance and business works, and I would teach them about how to do day to day things to lower their outgoing cash.  He teaches about compound interest, I teach them how to hang a ceiling fan....etc...

May be hard to get it off the ground, but we are wanting to do it.  A more financially free world is a much happier world.

[PanthersATL]

21 hours ago, d-dave said:

3. When paying off debts, go from the smallest amount to the largest and roll the payments into the next highest debt.

 

20 hours ago, Happy Panther said:

Good advice but I would add - take into account interest rates and tax issues. I would pay off highest interest rates first and keep tax deductible debts if feasible.

Pros and cons for both.

@d-dave is saying that there's emotional benefit from having "one less debt to pay off", so closing out the smallest debts first can make someone feel like they're achieving.

@Happy Panther is the more practical approach, in terms of biggest financial benefit of eliminating higher interest as quickly as possible

I'd suggest -- if it's possible -- one extra step of trying to consolidate debts into a single lender (or as few lenders as one can). Best example is to try to merge multiple credit cards into a single as-low-as-you-can-get-interest-wise credit card... only if you can do it with a no-charge transfer.    Making a single debt payment vs multiple ones can make payoffs faster.

[PanthersATL]

19 hours ago, thefuzz said:

Buddy (who is great with $$) and I were looking into trying to do a money and labor help out somehow here in Wilmington for kids...

He would teach them how finance and business works, and I would teach them about how to do day to day things to lower their outgoing cash.  He teaches about compound interest, I teach them how to hang a ceiling fan....etc...

May be hard to get it off the ground, but we are wanting to do it.  A more financially free world is a much happier world.

Check with a local school district; they may be looking for interesting after-school programs and volunteers to lead 'em.  You may need to come up with a semester-long project plan. 

Stuff like The Stock Market Game and similar may help with some of that after-school concept and coursework.

[Khyber53]

Dave Ramsey's course and radio show saved my wife and I. We were at the point of losing everything and it pulled us back and out of it. It took a year and a half but we paid off $60k in debt and got our freedom. We learned so much about personal responsibility, budgeting, finances, priorities and how to make a marriage stronger.

It's good stuff, I highly recommend it.

[d-dave]

3 hours ago, PanthersATL said:

 

Pros and cons for both.

@d-dave is saying that there's emotional benefit from having "one less debt to pay off", so closing out the smallest debts first can make someone feel like they're achieving.

@Happy Panther is the more practical approach, in terms of biggest financial benefit of eliminating higher interest as quickly as possible

I'd suggest -- if it's possible -- one extra step of trying to consolidate debts into a single lender (or as few lenders as one can). Best example is to try to merge multiple credit cards into a single as-low-as-you-can-get-interest-wise credit card... only if you can do it with a no-charge transfer.    Making a single debt payment vs multiple ones can make payoffs faster.

Oh yeah, it's way smarter to do the more costly loans first, then hit the lower interest, cheaper loans.  That's generally what my wife and I have done.

I have a co-worker who is really big into the Dave Ramsey stuff, and he gave me a book.  I skimmed it.  I'm not a huge fan of self help stuff, but I get that it's very valuable to a lot of people.  The financial principals were pretty easy and basic things I googled years ago.

We JUST got to a financial point where our income finally exceeded our expenses by enough to actually pay things off.  We know a few things about stagnant wages!  We just got our worst high interest debts knocked out.  Then we've taken that payment, rolled it against our smallest debts to free up the monthly cash flow.

So far, we're making really good progress.  You just have to make a decision, and make smart payments.  Good god, we've been able to establish a savings account for the first time in 15 years!  It's so freeing to know if something comes up, we can cover it instead of having to use credit.