Keeping a zero balance doesn't affect you negatively, if you're using a card. If the card isn't used regularly, it gets dropped from your report.
Some people keep old cards active by using them for a small expense once every few months or using them for one specific subscription.
I'm not sure what your score is now, but you may also want to temper your expectations. For example, anything above 750 is excellent; and anything above 700 is very very good.
The Costco and Double Cash cards are both very well received by those who have them. Like others here, I also have a Amazon card that's my current main card.
I don’t mind saying; my score is 780 right now, and I’m hoping to crack 800.
I WISH I had a Costco nearby, and I would definitely grab that card if so. Alas, the closest one is over 90 minutes away.
There's almost no benefit for any of the numbers above like 720.
And stuff like having more active cards isn't going to affect it when it's at that level anyway.
It's mostly just good history and income levels at that point.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Keeping a zero balance doesn't affect you negatively, if you're using a card. If the card isn't used regularly, it gets dropped from your report.
Some people keep old cards active by using them for a small expense once every few months or using them for one specific subscription.
I'm not sure what your score is now, but you may also want to temper your expectations. For example, anything above 750 is excellent; and anything above 700 is very very good.
The Costco and Double Cash cards are both very well received by those who have them. Like others here, I also have a Amazon card that's my current main card.
I don’t mind saying; my score is 780 right now, and I’m hoping to crack 800.
I WISH I had a Costco nearby, and I would definitely grab that card if so. Alas, the closest one is over 90 minutes away.
There's almost no benefit for any of the numbers above like 720.
And stuff like having more active cards isn't going to affect it when it's at that level anyway.
It's mostly just good history and income levels at that point.
I just got a mortgage last year, and the mortgage officer told me that 760 was the magic cutoff for the best interest rates (average of the highest 2 of the 3 main reporting agencies). And it bears out. I was shopping other banks, and with one of them they couldn't immediately access my Equifax due to a freeze I had on it. So initially they took the average of the two they could access (which came out to like 757, ugh). Once I unfroze Equifax and came back above 760 with the average, I got the best rate they said they could offer.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is probably your best option for an actual rewards card, if your spending already hits the bonus threshold. 60,000 bonus points are worth about $900, but you have to spend $4000 within 3 months of opening the card. After the first year you would probably want to downgrade to the Freedom card and either use it or the doublecash, it depends on how much you spend on categories though.
I would not shift purchases around to make that card work, but if your credit card bill is $1500/month or whatever then it's not hard. Sapphire Reserve can be a better deal if you use the travel benefits and get the bonus points. I think the threshold for it being strictly better all the time is somewhere around 4k/year in travel and dining spend. $550 fee is steep but you get $300 credit for travel right off the bat which helps defray a lot of it.
The doublecash is an easy, straightforward rewards card but it doesn't have bonuses. I'd do that if you have to think about whether you hit bonus spend numbers. It used to have a cash bonus but now I think they are doing 0% APR promos which are valuable but easier to fuck up.
Tumin on
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
My wife is potentially transitioning to stay at home Mom, what should we do with her 401k?
My wife is potentially transitioning to stay at home Mom, what should we do with her 401k?
Move it to a rollover IRA.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Is it wise to pay qualifying expenses in cash to preserve tax advantaged hsa dollars? There's no question of needing the money soon at the amounts in question
Is it wise to pay qualifying expenses in cash to preserve tax advantaged hsa dollars? There's no question of needing the money soon at the amounts in question
Yes, you want the tax free growth if you can avoid touching it. You can always change your mind later if you save the receipts, a digital copy somewhere is fine.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is probably your best option for an actual rewards card, if your spending already hits the bonus threshold. 60,000 bonus points are worth about $900, but you have to spend $4000 within 3 months of opening the card. After the first year you would probably want to downgrade to the Freedom card and either use it or the doublecash, it depends on how much you spend on categories though.
I would not shift purchases around to make that card work, but if your credit card bill is $1500/month or whatever then it's not hard. Sapphire Reserve can be a better deal if you use the travel benefits and get the bonus points. I think the threshold for it being strictly better all the time is somewhere around 4k/year in travel and dining spend. $550 fee is steep but you get $300 credit for travel right off the bat which helps defray a lot of it.
The doublecash is an easy, straightforward rewards card but it doesn't have bonuses. I'd do that if you have to think about whether you hit bonus spend numbers. It used to have a cash bonus but now I think they are doing 0% APR promos which are valuable but easier to fuck up.
Agree with this. I also have freedom unlimited for things that don't have a bonus with either the freedom categories or where the reserve has higher rates. The freedom unlimited has a minimum 1.5% cash back on everything. Important to note with Chase, and I assume all other ecosystems, you can transfer points between cards. So I get 1.5% on chase unlimited than transfer the points to the reserve so I can redeem at a 1.5x rate. So I essentially get 2.25% cash back everywhere.
What this means for everyday usage is:
Reserve - restaurants and anything travel related
Freedom - bonus categories
Freedom unlimited - everything else, but mostly groceries.
Separately I have the chase amazon card which is 5% back at amazon and whole foods, but sadly these points can't be transferred to the rest of the chase ecosystem.
1 thing I keep meaning to do is churning through signup bonuses by switching cards between my wife and I. We basically share finances anyway and could get double the signup bonuses. It would also be easier to just always have 1 of each of the above cards. Important to note that Chase lets you transfer points between family members also.
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
This feels a little beyond standard market irrationality, Tesla's jump this week is bizarre. Six months ago Tesla stock price was ~$200 and now it's $900? Jesus.
This feels a little beyond standard market irrationality, Tesla's jump this week is bizarre. Six months ago Tesla stock price was ~$200 and now it's $900? Jesus.
Tesla appeals to the sort of idiots with too much spare cash who like Bitcoin.
Only speculation I can think is that there was an article this week that was indicating that battery advances would lead EVs would reach price-parity with ICE by 2023, earlier than predicted, and Tesla is best positioned to take advantage of that, but even with that it feels excessive.
Elon Musk has a reality distortion field. Actual State Governments are giving him money for a napkin sketch tunnel that he then incorporated and which makes all of it's revenue from selling hats and flamethrowers.
It will all end in tears, but I wouldn't bet any money on knowing when.
I haven't followed very closely and admittedly might be talking out of my ass, but I feel like Tesla's stock price is based on very rosy projections * a probability of them being true. Recent events (China factory opening, Panasonic saying the gigafactory is profitable) have increased that probability.
This feels a little beyond standard market irrationality, Tesla's jump this week is bizarre. Six months ago Tesla stock price was ~$200 and now it's $900? Jesus.
Shooting up or down for no tangible reason is the very definition of irrational. Maybe it'll stay there, maybe it'll shoot up more or plummet.
It's up now because people believe it's worth that much. No one can say when or what will make it drop.
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SixCaches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhexRegistered Userregular
There’s almost certainly a short squeeze going on with TSLA right now which is inflating its price beyond normal irrational exuberance and speculation.
can you feel the struggle within?
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Just paid off the margin balance on my stock portfolio. I know fully own 500 shares of Slack. 😎
Am I missing something or does the traditional advice on leasing vs buying cars (i.e., leasing is always a waste of money) not seem to make any sense these days?
Especially with newer cars being so expensive, like, by the time you've paid off the long-ass loan you have hardly any equity left, so it's not like you're really recovering much... It seems to me it makes more sense to think of cars in strictly $/month terms. Even a car you own outright is still gonna cost you X per month in maintenance costs.
I guess if you have a car you plan on keeping for 20 years and running it into the ground?
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
My wife is potentially transitioning to stay at home Mom, what should we do with her 401k?
Move it to a rollover IRA.
what?
why?
no!
I mean the main reasons to roll that into an IRA would be you don't like the company/investment options of 401k. I've done that myself just to get my retirement accounts in the same place.
Like there's otherwise no real benefit to a 401k from a job you no longer have, afaik you can't keep contributing to it or anything and there's no real tax issues moving it into an individual account you control.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
the 401k may have access to institutional pricing if you like the offerings! they might not necessarily be lower fees. you have to check the plans.
and like, what kind of IRA? Roth? Traditional? what kind of 401k was it?
Yeah, though I don't think I've ever seen a 401k than had better offerings than public Vanguard stuff.
(I've had some really shitty and expensive 401ks, too... I think a lot of the time whoever in the chain is picking the vendor isn't really equipped or motivated to get something good for the employees...)
If your rolling it over you have to keep it the same Roth/Trad.
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
the 401k may have access to institutional pricing if you like the offerings! they might not necessarily be lower fees. you have to check the plans.
Yeah, though I don't think I've ever seen a 401k than had better offerings than public Vanguard stuff.
(I've had some really shitty and expensive 401ks, too... I think a lot of the time whoever in the chain is picking the vendor isn't really equipped or motivated to get something good for the employees...)
i was lucky and worked at a firm that had no cost on the 401k and low fees
granted it was a trading firm, but still. the answer to "what to do with this 401k" is probably talk to someone you trust who does it for a living
Well boy am I wishing I had figured out options enough yesterday to short Tesla.
You don't short a stock using options, but you can buy puts which has a similar effect. A put gives you the right to sell a stock on a given day or any day earlier at a given price.
Well boy am I wishing I had figured out options enough yesterday to short Tesla.
You don't short a stock using options, but you can buy puts which has a similar effect. A put gives you the right to sell a stock on a given day or any day earlier at a given price.
Yeah that's what I meant, puts.
I actually don't know how to short a stock on any of the platforms I've used.
Well boy am I wishing I had figured out options enough yesterday to short Tesla.
You don't short a stock using options, but you can buy puts which has a similar effect. A put gives you the right to sell a stock on a given day or any day earlier at a given price.
Yeah that's what I meant, puts.
I actually don't know how to short a stock on any of the platforms I've used.
Never mind, it's just robinhood that doesn't allow shorts because your free trade is actually a 3 day process. It the one I've been using for the last couple years.
Heh. My boss actually thought about shorting us right before earnings because of the gains I'd talked about. Turns out that eTrade has to activate your account to allow shorts (we recently changed our ESPP from UBS to them), so he wasn't able to. Saved himself a bundle thanks to that.
He needs to be careful he doesn’t run afoul of insider trading laws too.
Yeah, we don't know enough to be really afoul, and I don't think he has enough money to be able to get on the radar, either. It's just become a running joke for us that we always rise right before earnings, and then tank immediately after, regardless of good news or bad news.
Why short? If you're getting into all these fancy options, then why not straddle or strangle the position so that you make money whether it goes up or down?
Yeah it doesn't matter if you know anything or not, there's usually a trading window and an insider trading policy and no trades are allowed outside that window at all, unless preauthorized
There's also a bunch of other restrictions. At my company, I can't
- buy or sell outside the trading window
- short sell or own options or derivatives
- any speculation or short term trading
- hold the stock in a margin account
Posts
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/30/800563459/fico-is-about-to-change-credit-scores-should-you-worry
There's almost no benefit for any of the numbers above like 720.
And stuff like having more active cards isn't going to affect it when it's at that level anyway.
It's mostly just good history and income levels at that point.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I just got a mortgage last year, and the mortgage officer told me that 760 was the magic cutoff for the best interest rates (average of the highest 2 of the 3 main reporting agencies). And it bears out. I was shopping other banks, and with one of them they couldn't immediately access my Equifax due to a freeze I had on it. So initially they took the average of the two they could access (which came out to like 757, ugh). Once I unfroze Equifax and came back above 760 with the average, I got the best rate they said they could offer.
I would not shift purchases around to make that card work, but if your credit card bill is $1500/month or whatever then it's not hard. Sapphire Reserve can be a better deal if you use the travel benefits and get the bonus points. I think the threshold for it being strictly better all the time is somewhere around 4k/year in travel and dining spend. $550 fee is steep but you get $300 credit for travel right off the bat which helps defray a lot of it.
The doublecash is an easy, straightforward rewards card but it doesn't have bonuses. I'd do that if you have to think about whether you hit bonus spend numbers. It used to have a cash bonus but now I think they are doing 0% APR promos which are valuable but easier to fuck up.
Indefinitely or on some timeline of returning to work?
Move it to a rollover IRA.
Yes, you want the tax free growth if you can avoid touching it. You can always change your mind later if you save the receipts, a digital copy somewhere is fine.
Need some money to cover new tires? Submit the receipts for the chest cold you had 12 years ago.
Agree with this. I also have freedom unlimited for things that don't have a bonus with either the freedom categories or where the reserve has higher rates. The freedom unlimited has a minimum 1.5% cash back on everything. Important to note with Chase, and I assume all other ecosystems, you can transfer points between cards. So I get 1.5% on chase unlimited than transfer the points to the reserve so I can redeem at a 1.5x rate. So I essentially get 2.25% cash back everywhere.
What this means for everyday usage is:
Reserve - restaurants and anything travel related
Freedom - bonus categories
Freedom unlimited - everything else, but mostly groceries.
Separately I have the chase amazon card which is 5% back at amazon and whole foods, but sadly these points can't be transferred to the rest of the chase ecosystem.
1 thing I keep meaning to do is churning through signup bonuses by switching cards between my wife and I. We basically share finances anyway and could get double the signup bonuses. It would also be easier to just always have 1 of each of the above cards. Important to note that Chase lets you transfer points between family members also.
Probably going to be at least five/six years before returning to work.
Markets are irrational, roll the dice if you'd like.
Tesla appeals to the sort of idiots with too much spare cash who like Bitcoin.
It will all end in tears, but I wouldn't bet any money on knowing when.
Shooting up or down for no tangible reason is the very definition of irrational. Maybe it'll stay there, maybe it'll shoot up more or plummet.
It's up now because people believe it's worth that much. No one can say when or what will make it drop.
Especially with newer cars being so expensive, like, by the time you've paid off the long-ass loan you have hardly any equity left, so it's not like you're really recovering much... It seems to me it makes more sense to think of cars in strictly $/month terms. Even a car you own outright is still gonna cost you X per month in maintenance costs.
I guess if you have a car you plan on keeping for 20 years and running it into the ground?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
what?
why?
no!
I mean the main reasons to roll that into an IRA would be you don't like the company/investment options of 401k. I've done that myself just to get my retirement accounts in the same place.
Like there's otherwise no real benefit to a 401k from a job you no longer have, afaik you can't keep contributing to it or anything and there's no real tax issues moving it into an individual account you control.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
and like, what kind of IRA? Roth? Traditional? what kind of 401k was it?
Yeah, though I don't think I've ever seen a 401k than had better offerings than public Vanguard stuff.
(I've had some really shitty and expensive 401ks, too... I think a lot of the time whoever in the chain is picking the vendor isn't really equipped or motivated to get something good for the employees...)
If your rolling it over you have to keep it the same Roth/Trad.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
i was lucky and worked at a firm that had no cost on the 401k and low fees
granted it was a trading firm, but still. the answer to "what to do with this 401k" is probably talk to someone you trust who does it for a living
it's more like a "slow down!!"
You don't short a stock using options, but you can buy puts which has a similar effect. A put gives you the right to sell a stock on a given day or any day earlier at a given price.
Yeah that's what I meant, puts.
I actually don't know how to short a stock on any of the platforms I've used.
First you have to buy some Crisco...
Yeah, we don't know enough to be really afoul, and I don't think he has enough money to be able to get on the radar, either. It's just become a running joke for us that we always rise right before earnings, and then tank immediately after, regardless of good news or bad news.
This quarter was weird.
There's also a bunch of other restrictions. At my company, I can't
- buy or sell outside the trading window
- short sell or own options or derivatives
- any speculation or short term trading
- hold the stock in a margin account