Dave Ramsey has advice for all stages of life, but he made his hay by creating a system that gets people out of debt. In general, I agree with Ramsey’s approach. He emphasizes reducing risk, extreme focus, and having a plan.
When you dive into the details, I don’t think that any of Ramsey’s maxims are indefensible, but you’re often leaving money on the table in order to increase focus, reduce risk, or otherwise follow the plan. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of Dave’s guidance for getting out of debt that we modified or rejected.
There is a whole spectrum of “Dave-ish” ways people run their finances. At one end of the spectrum are people who are basically doing Dave’s plan with one or two exceptions. At the other end are people who want to hold themselves out as Dave followers, but don’t really want to do his plan. We were and are more towards the former than the latter. We deviate from Dave’s plan only where we explain the “why” for the change.
1. You need to be Gazelle Intense (run from debt like a gazelle running from a lion) when paying off debt
This one speaks to my personality. I’m an all-or-nothing person to the extreme, and when it comes to finances, I’m even more that way. Money is my ticket to doing things in life that I actually enjoy rather than being a desk jockey. My wife is not the same way. She is driven, but doesn’t have the all-or-nothing mentality that I do. Especially in finances, something she doesn’t enjoy thinking about, she thinks in terms of compromise.
The result was us having to split the difference. I’d have rather been dead to the world for 2 years and clean all the debt up. She’d have rather chipped away at it slowly over the term of the loans. We settled on aggressive, but sustainable. A far cry from gazelle intense. To go any faster would’ve come with significant risk of us falling off the bandwagon.
2. “Beans and rice, rice and beans”
Tied in with the gazelle intensity was the complete deprivation of luxuries during the debt repayment. Debt is a life or death issue to Dave, and that may be accurate for many people, but it wasn’t that way for us. We were cut tight, but we went out to a restaurant on occasion, and we did fun things at times, and even paid for it.
3. Cut up your credit cards and throw them away
We half implemented this. For the initial period of debt payoff, we got rid of the credit cards, but didn’t close the accounts. We still (to this day) charged utilities and other baseline expenses to the credit card. When new cards were sent to us, I carried mine, and we destroyed my wife’s. She works better with cash. I work better with a card. Dave harps on the twinge of pain you feel when you pay with cash. My wife knows that feeling well. I don’t get it. I have a twinge of pain every time I swipe the card, trying to do the math to figure out how much is left in the budget. At this point, our emergency fund could pay the credit limit of the card twice over, so the fear of spiraling out of control is mostly gone. It’s more likely that we overdraw the checking account by accident than carry a balance.
4. Kill all investing (including matched 401k) to pay more on your debt
I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of passing on a guaranteed 100% return on your money to pay down a 10% or 29% loan, let alone a 4% student loan. I did the math, and investing the match made tens of thousands of dollars of difference. I don’t think that investing without the match makes as much sense when you’re trying to kill debt, but it’s a no brainer to invest the match unless you can’t make ends meet.
5. Invest in 4 types of mutual funds: Growth, Growth and Income, Aggressive Growth, and International
I don’t think it’s terrible investment advice, but I’m more of a Boglehead when it comes to investing. One of the fundamentals from the Bogleheads is that returns aren’t guaranteed, but fees are. Also, over long periods of time, fund managers tend to be outperformed by the market. Therefore, while I diversify a bit outside of just buying a total market index fund, I’m almost 100% in zero/nearly-zero fee index funds. Since I’m not interested in monitoring the markets on a daily basis or regularly trading, this is the easiest way to get to our retirement number.
6. The $1000 baby emergency fund
I’m of two minds on the $1000 emergency fund. Part of me thinks that it should be tied to expenses and not a flat number. 1 month of expenses, or something like that. The other part of me recognizes how a $1000 emergency fund sparks motivation to drive hard on the debt goal. We did a year of $1000 emergency fund, and then started adding $150/month to the fund. We had to use small amounts of the fund here or there, but our “snowball” (the extra money dedicated to paying extra on the debt) acted as a first layer emergency fund. We also had the credit card (which we had paid off after a few months) in case something went really bad. Under those conditions, $1000 was uncomfortable but workable.
7. 3-6 month emergency fund in cash (sitting in a savings account, not invested)
Once you pay off your debt, the next step in Dave’s plan is saving a 3-6 month emergency fund in cash. Personally, I think 3 months is way low unless you’re a single person. We have a little over 6 months of an emergency fund in our savings account. We also treat the Roth IRA as a supplemental emergency fund for dire circumstances and the credit card as another supplemental emergency fund in the worst case. I think that 6-12 months of expenses is a more appropriate size for an emergency fund, with at least half in cash. I wouldn’t keep more than 6 months of expenses in cash, even if I had a bigger ( multi-year) emergency fund.
Why no less than half in cash? See 2020. Seriously, in March the market dropped substantially and a bunch of people were laid off. Eventually the market recovered, but if you were out of work in March, your 6-month emergency fund in your IRA was more like a 4-month emergency fund. If the market had stayed down like it really should have, you could have been dealing with a protracted job loss and a downturn that ate up half of your emergency fund.
8. Snowball (smallest balance first) payoff instead of highest interest first
This is the easiest one for me to defend, despite not being mathematically ideal. You’re trading dollars for a decreased risk of falling off the bandwagon.
9. Pay off the low interest loans, too
I’m in the middle on this one. It depends on the loan. I’ll never finance a car again, so leveraging myself with a 1% car loan to invest isn’t interesting to me. Slow hoofing the 3.5% mortgage and tossing the excess into the market? Sure. I think a lot of the high leverage, arbitrage happy folks are trying to rationalize their inability to save for their purchases. Oh, but my 1% loan is great! Yeah sure… my total car payments are $0, and all that money is working on the market.
10. 15% into retirement funds
Once you pay your debt and bolster your emergency fund, one of the steady state baby steps (#4) is to consistently contribute 15% to retirement. Dave treats that like an exact number. 15%, no more, no less. I’m more sympathetic to the FI/RE movement’s view on retirement contributions. 15% is a bare minimum, and 30% is better. 50% is even better. Obviously, at some point you feel the pinch. Keep going until you can’t stand it. Given the lifestyle I have (wife works less than 10 hours per week, stays at home with our daughter, daughter #2 weeks away), there’s no way that I’m getting to 50%, but 20, 25, maybe even 30% may be doable now and in the future. I don’t want to be forced to continue working a high stress, high paying job into my 60s to make ends meet. I want my retirement (the day I don’t need a paycheck ever again) to happen in my early 50s. That doesn’t happen at 15% contribution rate.
10A. Match first, then Roth, then traditional IRA/401k
The common wisdom (also espoused by Dave) is that you should get any 401k match with your first investment dollars because that’s free money, and then put the next set of investment dollars into a Roth account. Quick reminder… Roth IRA/401k means you pay taxes on the money when you put it into the account, but you don’t pay taxes when you withdraw that money (and its compound interest). Traditional IRA/401k means that the money you contribute isn’t taxed, but you are taxed when you withdraw the money.
The principle behind investing in Roth first is “the gains aren’t taxed”, and thus you come out ahead. In reality, this is sometimes true and sometimes not. The great equalizer is what kind of tax you’re paying. For the Roth, you’re paying your current marginal tax rate. For the Traditional, you’re paying your future net tax rate. Let’s say you have $10,000 pre-tax dollars to invest. If you invest in a Roth, you pay your marginal tax rate on that money (let’s say 22%), and invest the rest ($7800). In the Traditional, you invest all $10,000. They both grow at the same rate for the same amount of time. Obviously, the Roth account never catches up to the Traditional, but the break even is when it is X% less than the Traditional. X% being the net tax rate when you withdraw the money.
There’s a lot more nuance to the issue than I can flesh out in a paragraph, but don’t just assume that Roth is better, no matter what.
I could go on and on, but the quibbles get less consequential and less interesting. I think it’s important to know the reason for the deviations from the plan. Dave’s plan is primarily for debtaholics, but it works for all. It may not be optimal in all situations, but it’s the lowest risk way to get from point A to point B. When going Dave-ish, you’re almost always trading risk for a higher payoff. That’s fine to do, but you need to calibrate your risk profile to your financial situation and you need to go in eyes wide open. For as many people as I hear who think they’re smarter than Dave Ramsey, you’d think that there wouldn’t be any broke people in the world any more.
Next time, I’ll get back to how our actual debt payoff went and how we ended up paying it off early.
I did the math, I am two years from being debt free.
Two Years!
I also strongly disagree on the smaller loans first. But I’m a numbers person, the higher savings from crushing the higher interest debts quickly made me take the interest-focused approach.
From my previous statement about my debt timeline, you can tell I stayed on the bandwagon. Mind you my front-loaded debt was the common student loans taken out before I’d had a job making more than $5.15/hr
The solution for both: refi the larger interest debt into a lower interest debt so you that the smaller debts are also the larger interest. Win-win.
Dave’s point is that it is about psychology, not math. And the psychology of little gains to teach habits is important. If you are already on board with no chance of backsliding, then yes, do it highest interest first.
When I had the most small debts, no one would loan me anything. At all.
I suppose I could have dredged up some loan at an extortionate rate, but it would have been worse than those already around.
Debt is an area where I have a hard time getting into the minds of people who see it differently, even when I’ve been in similar financial situations.
When I was paying debt off, I was able to roll a bunch into a 0% (limited time) credit card. It cost 3% up front and was 0% for 18 months, so roughly equivalent to 2% interest rate. That became the low debt that got paid off last (just before the 18 months ended).
I remember those offers, the limits always turned out to be miniscule for me, since I was making so little, the economy had just crashed, and I had so much debt load. Juggling them always looked like more effort than it was worth, as I’d have more little debts that I would have to pay close attention to or else they’d balloon into 28% interest bombs.
We only did it out of emergency and where in a situation where our personal income was looking up.
Basically, after my business crashed and burned but had a good job working for the man again. I wouldn’t recommend it normally, because there is some juggling involved and we ended up paying it off early because of the stress.
I actually strongly agree with him on the soonest-first and then roll-it-up thing, but think he doesn’t explain it well enough.
It’s not just psychological, and the longer-term net $$$ spent isn’t even the main point – the main thing is acceleration of risk reduction.
Closing the first one you can the fastest that you can gets you some breathing room for emergency purposes. You should still do the roll-up, but now you don’t HAVE TO make all of the payments you were.
Yes! This is so true. We avoided dipping into the emergency fund 4 or 5 times because we could just simply divert some of that no-longer-spoken-for money away from the debt snowball and into the crisis du jour.
On the Roth versus Non-Roth, my reaction is “I don’t trust the government not to change the rules and tax the Roth at both ends before I cash out.
^^^THIS^^^
Not only that, but I expect my retirement tax rate to be lower than my current tax rate, so I want the tax break UP FRONT.
I’m young, with young kids, so my Tax rate is probably as low as its gonna get so i eat the taxes on the front end, mostly (i hedge my bets a bit) so that when i retire, i can keep a low tax burden
Of course that is trusting the government not to screw you on both ends, which seems a much more likely prospect now than a few years ago.
In your situation, Roth makes a lot more sense, see my comment below.
If you are lucky they will not just confiscate them to pay for the free extravaganza they promise the people that vote for a living…
Dave only recommends step #4 if it is less than 1 year. Otherwise, take the match.
Or, it could be like my current company, where they give you 3% period to the 401k, regardless of how much you put in. So you wouldn’t have to worry about it, you get the 3% no matter what.
The Roth vs Regular IRA math is simple. Let me give an example.
Tax rate today is x%. Tax rate in retirement is y%. Amount invested is A. growth rate is z%. Number of years is N.
Regular IRA:
Put in A. It grows to A*(1+z)^N. After tax would be A*(1+z)^N*(1-y).
Roth:
Put in A. After tax is A*(1-x). It grows to A*(1-x)*(1+z)^N.
Reordering and putting in equation format A*(1+z)^N*(1-y) A*(1+z)^N*(1-x)
Getting rid of common stuff and the entire question comes down to which is greater y or x? If your current tax rate is lower than you expect in retirement, go with Roth. If it is higher, go with Regular. When young and relatively poor, Roth makes a lot of sense. If you are doing well and in a high tax bracket, Regular makes more sense. If high enough, you wont be able to use a regular or a roth, so it might not matter.
wordpress ate my equation indicator, thats what I get for trying to indicate less than, equal to, and greater than in one bit. It thought it was a tag.
Re: that last comment, there is a point where you can make Roth contributions but not make Regular.
For 2020, married filing jointly, with 401k plan, you can contribute to regular if MAGI is less than 104k. Between 104k and 124k you get partial deduction. Above that none. However, you can still make a full Roth contribution up to 196k, then it declines until 206k.
So there is a point where it might make sense to make the Roth instead, because you don’t get a tax deduction for the regular ira. Or, at that point, just bump up your 401k at work to get the tax benefit up front.
The Roth vs Regular IRA math is simple.
Ive tried a few times, and found that the effective tax rate at retirement varies wildly depending on your assumptions. Assumptions like:
1) how much, if any, SS are you getting in retirement
2) what is your annual income in retirement
3) are you doing any conversion ladders?
4) how much are the tax bands going to change in the ensuing decades?
Im in the 22% marginal tax bracket, so traditional is better. I have my 401k set up as traditional and my IRA as a Roth. That gives me about 60/40 in traditional. Why so much in Roth? Because of the contribution limits. They don’t adjust the limit even though the Roth contribution is post-tax, so I can put more pre-tax equivalent dollars in by using the Roth.
Other than retirement discipline, I don’t see the point of a Roth versus a regular investment account. I contribute as much as my trad 401k allows, the rest goes into my investment account (which I use for specific investments). Am I missing something about capital gains taxes?
you don’t pay them for a Roth.
The math is simple, the predicting future tax rates part is hard (impossible?).
But all those Roth people are gonna feel silly if we have a libertarian revolution and the income tax is eliminated!
So you’re saying i should put it all in Roth?
You’re more likely to see a requirement to pay both income and capital gains on withdrawls from Roth IRAs – income on the full amount and gains on the difference from contributions.
I could see them creating some hybrid Roth/HSA thing where the growth is taxed when not used for “essentials”
I could see capital gains withdrawals from Roth as income subject to tax, but the full amount?
I don’t expect future tax regimes to be fair or to make sense.
Taxing the full amount would be a call to water the tree of liberty.
5) what state are you living in?
If you’re living in a high tax state and plan on moving to a low tax state for retirement, that should easily give traditional IRA the win.
The Roth vs Regular IRA math is simple.
Followed by a series of formulae.
I chuckled.
Yeah, I noticed that, but I stand behind the math involved being simple.
I mean, compared to like the Neutron Transport Equation or something.
In civilized Romania I pay 25% of income to the government which will ehm guarantee me a pension at old age so none of that messy 401k stuff
Hey, i get to pay 12% of my income to the government so they can vacillate about actually paying out my Social Security.
That was my first thought. Plus for those not self employed there is the employer contribution.
That number sounds low. I thought you were in the EU. What taxes are you omitting?
that is the only retirement tax. there is also 10% for healthcare 10% income some minor other ones and 20% VAT
So, you only get about 44% of your base lei in terms of goods and services after just those listed taxes?
well if you don’t count all the wonderful government services I get…
I don’t.
I doubt the Romanian government is a special unicorn that can manage to do well where the rest are utter failures.
oh you don’t know the half of it. I don’t know if it’s the actual worst in the EU but in the running.
Especially in finances, something she doesn’t enjoy thinking about – enjoy got nothing to do with it
I’ve always been debt adverse. Paid off my only mortgage, first monthly, then inflation in the 70s/80s allowed me to step up the payments, finally when I had enough cash saved, use that and pay off the balance. Then wonderful things happened, I could use that extra cash to invest. I got my son through college with no debt (he also worked a lot) and gave him his college fund in cash.
I’ve bought a couple new trucks with the same plan, pay on a while, then pay off the balance. Now I use my credit cards the way god intended, use them during the month, pay them off monthly, let the banks carry me interest free.
I often say “Your home must be paid for when you retire, unless you have a substantial income.” Houses deteriorate, I just replaced the shingles on my house, after about 30 years, with a steel roof and a 50 year guarantee. Optimistically, I hope I have to replace it. Realistically the next owner will get the benefits.
*Pictures Sevenscore complaining about his deteriorating roof*
*Pictures Sevenscore complaining…
What about you standing on his lawn?
Your home must be paid for when you retire,
I had that plan, and I think its excellent, but with rates as low as they are I am refinancing (2.25% 15 year loan, no cash out) and will be carrying a mortgage for 5 years after I retire. I will pay it off the day I can access my deferred comp account.
Otherwise, I would be working at least three more years when its not necessary to fund the retirement we have specced out.
I refinanced at 2.5% for 10 years. So I’ll be 73 when it pays off.
I expect inflation to explode in the near future, so I don’t plan to pay it off early. I’d prefer to pay with weakened dollars in the future.
Similar – refi-ing to 2.x% right now, another 30 (I’m only a couple years into my last 30 year refi) but could flat-out pay off the mortgage right now.
I made significantly more than 2.x% investing the money over the last few years, so I’ll keep doing that, until it ceases to make sense.
Great article Trsh. My Roth strategy is very simple.. fill up your 12% bracket space with Roth IRA/401K and then switch to Traditional for any income that would go over into 22%+. Most people should never need to pay more than 12% federal income tax by leveraging a combination of both plus the standard deduction.
Also, if you are married, you can lock in MFJ tax rate of 12% with Roth that would likely jump to 22% when a spouse dies if you do traditional. Again, filling your Roth at 12% and then shifting to Traditional at higher brackets should give you flexibility to avoid the higher tax bracket that comes from changing MFJ to single filer.
I’ve always been debt adverse. Paid off my only mortgage, first monthly, then inflation in the 70s/80s allowed me to step up the payments, finally when I had enough cash saved, use that and pay off the balance. Then wonderful things happened, I could use that extra cash to invest. I got my son through college with no debt (he also worked a lot) and gave him his college fund in cash.
I’ve bought a couple new trucks with the same plan, pay on a while, then pay off the balance. Now I use my credit cards the way god intended, use them during the month, pay them off monthly, let the banks carry me interest free.
I often say “Your home must be paid for when you retire, unless you have a substantial income.” Houses deteriorate, I just replaced the shingles on my house, after about 30 years, with a steel roof and a 50 year guarantee. Optimistically, I hope I have to replace it. Realistically the next owner will get the benefits.
My grand daughters have been the beneficiaries of my frugality and now entered the real world with no college loan debt. They had a merry Christmas last year.
Living on beans and rice, rice and beans for a few years in my youth taught me about money. I distinctly remember the moment of the epiphany….I had to live on 4K over 5 months and keep my grades up. I did the math and stuck to my budget religiously….I stretched it out over 7 months instead and never went hungry.
Today Mrs. Suthenboy and I have almost zero debt, never lose a minute of sleep worrying and eat well. It is about making wise decisions about what you need, what you want and knowing the difference. It is about impulse control.
I remember my school years after I had gotten married. We ate very frugally. Almost all the meat we ate back then was either game, fish or from the “Reduced for Quick Sale” shelf at the local super market.
One of the things we ate a ton of was a soup/stew full of vegetables and rice cakes. We’d throw one dumpling in for just a bit of fat. I called it “poor soup”. My wife still makes it a lot but now it is crammed with dumplings. My kids and wife love it, but I still pass because it reminds me of those days when we were that poor.
I went through a period of about 15 months where I was stuck at a low paying job and couldn’t afford coffee, so I had to make do with a 1-pound bag of genmaicha that had been sitting around. I still don’t like genmaicha to this day.
I could nitpick on some of these but on the whole its good advice.
#10 is especially important. It certainly depends on how many dependents you have, but if you can get a mortgage paid off before age 55 you really can think of retiring before 65. I had my house paid off at 52 and 75% of that monthly payment went into savings/investments and now the only reason I’m working is health insurance/property taxes. If I move I can pay for a house in cash and the property tax bite will be cut severely to the point where I should be able to cover health insurance with my savings and the job won’t matter anymore.
The biggest drain from dependents is college tuition, but if you can convince the kids to go to junior college to start you will save a minimum of 40k per kid. And they’re likely to look for a part-time job, too.
And I don’t understand how people with kids can spend money on expensive vacations. I know people that spend 10% of their income each year on vacations. Once every 5 years I could see but annually just seems crazy to me.
I never fail to be shocked at what people spend on. I know couples with kids, a garage full of toys (as in, four wheelers, maybe a boat, etc.) who take expensive vacations every year. These aren’t investment bankers, either; I would guess that they are making in the low $100K as a family, certainly no more than $200K a year (and probably not even close). I don’t even know how they make it paycheck to paycheck.
Yes! I see coworkers taking 4 vacations a year and buying fancy cars, and I’m struggling to put sufficient money into all of the investments and save for a down payment on a house without getting too draconian with the cuts.
The answer is obvious, and they’ll tell you if you listen to them long enough. Everything is on credit, everything is framed in the mindset of the monthly payment. Saving for the future? What is this, the Depression? Pshaw!
They’re usually flabbergasted when they find out that total car payment is $0. “You can do that?”
I have had that conversation with my SIL more than once. Every time she is shocked.
Pope Francis Declares That The Catholic Church Will No Longer Accept Donations Earned Via Capitalism
Progressive California Leads Nation By Becoming First State To Mandate Full-Body Masks
I can’t believe their offices haven’t been firebombed.
On the election front.
Last election I reported that there were almost no Clinton signs anywhere in my heavily Democrat county. And there were quite a few Trump signs.
Through this summer I’ve been reporting that there are a lot of Trump signs in a metric buttload of Trump flags, particularly on boats.
I just drove through a semi-residential street that I don’t go down very often while I was talking on the phone about this very topic. So I counted. Two Biden yards. Two very well decked out trump yards, plus a Trump flag.
Wait for it
and one Joe Jorgensen yard, well decked out with three signs!
There are definitely way more Biden signs this time than there were Clinton signs in 2016. But there are probably at least twice as many Trump signs as there were last go around too.
I have no idea what this means. But these are the facts.
This is Broward county. An extremely Democrat area. an area that will unquestionably go for Biden by many tens of thousands of votes. A county that routinely reports their results many hours or even days after the rest of the state does. This, despite having an automated ballot system. It is enough to make one suspect that they wait to find out how many votes they need to create.
Nah, That is me being cynical, right?
The Unity Ticket!
On my note, i’m in Rural-ish Utah and my local neighborhood has 3 Biden houses and 2 Trump Houses.
Here in the Capital Swamp of the People’s Democratic Republic of New York, I have seen… Zero signs. I have seen tump flags on trucks and trump bumper stickers. No yard signs. No Biden stickers.
Putting a Trump sign out here would just invite vandalism.
I saw a Warren/Kamala bumper sticker yesterday. Good for a hearty chuckle.
2020 go away.
Another hurricane….a category 4, possibly soon a 5, headed here?
*heavy sigh*
Well, I am all stocked up and battened down. I could use the rain but I can do without the 100 mph winds. We still have trees falling down from the last storm. Broken roots and weakened trunks….another wind like that comes through and we won’t have any trees left.
What about your tree farm? Has that taken much damage and is it tax deductible?
Fortunately the timber is a bit east of where the hardest hit areas were. The pine (deep tap roots) is fine…we lost a few hardwoods but the damage isn’t that bad. In a few years it will be healed over. A second hit might be a different story. If the predictions are correct this storm might hit more easterly and our timber might take a harder hit with winds from the south.
Rapides Parish and south was a different story. Kisatchie Natn. forest suffered badly from Laura. Some of it looks like a nuke hit the place….just flattened with every tree laying over in the same direction. Louisiana lost more than 1.5 billion dollars worth of timber. I suspect the number is much higher.
International Paper….Red Mountain….or whatever they are calling themselves today…were getting ready to pull up stakes before this happened. I am guessing Laura was a knock out punch. I hate to see that. I hope their employees are well taken care of.
If they leave this could be an excellent opportunity to pick up some land at good prices.
When I read about it I did a quick sigh of relief as it wasn’t headed up the east coast. However, the last one that hit you came through here and took a piece of trim off the side of my house.
Stay safe!
Double plus from me, Suthen, don’t need any more of that.
My secret to financial success has been my wife. She is good with money and was able to get me to stop my spending ways. I realized that anything I spent money on had to be justified and that was a tough sell, so maybe just don’t buy things.
Left to my own devices, I am a feast or famine guy. I work my ass off to get money to do/buy something. As soon as I have that, I quit working and had fun until money ran out. I was a financial wreck when I got married. The wife straightened all that out and now I am pretty much able to do what I want with financial ease.
A lot of my friends tell me how lucky I am to be married to a woman who is tight with money.
Like reading about myself. Wife was my saving grace in terms of finances. Hell we wouldn’t have been able to own a home if she didn’t crack the whip on my financially insolvent proclivities
Its a great thing. The wife and I have evolved to spend less on stupid things and more on quality things.
She would buy tons of cheap purses and shoes, use them seldomly, but now she buys one or two expensive ones and uses them for a longer time. Buying cheap cloths because they are on sale just gives you an excuse to by more and more often. Paying for quality or even brand name and quality will allow you to justify your purchase longer (both physically and physiologically).
The same goes for furniture and usually appliances (here complexity and quality don’t usually go hand).
I do the same now with tools. I used to buy cheap “harbor freight” tools for the quantity over quality. Now I focus on quality and functionality as I’ll keep the tools forever. One craftsman or Klein tool wrench over a 3 pack of no names.
As with everything there are exceptions. I’ll cheap out on disposable items like zip ties or sneakers, but not fasteners or boots.
It was this that made me drop certain retailers in their entirety. Cheaply made products do a worse job and fail faster, so you never approach the same value proposition as something that was properly put together. “You get what you pay for” is still very true.
My husband would rather buy a bunch of $10 cheap tennis shoes for the kids at WM than buy a decent pair once a year. I have no idea why.
Anyway, I’m partial/loyal to Nike and thus far, it has not been misplaced.
Me, I’ve had the same 3 pairs of Birkenstocks for 5 years.
Depends on the kids ages. It is stupid to buy quality stuff they’re going to outgrow in six months.
A couple years back, Doc Martens had a line called the For Life series. The boots cost ~$20 more, but were better quality, and guaranteed for life. If you wear them out, you pay $20 ship them back to Doc Martens, and they replace them.
They’ve killed that line of shoes.
All shoes will eventually wear out, even the well-made ones. They probably assumed people would still replace them with a newer fashion at a higher rate than people attracted to a lifetime guarantee would.
I had a nice pair of Cole Haans that lasted me almost 30 years, but I lost them to whatever the fuck that leather-eating mold you’ve got up here is.
Oh, that would be Benny.
Especially Docs that have an issue with the tread wearing off in a couple of years of use. And the replacing with a newer fashion would mean they made a terrible decision by going with the 1460 (the iconic model of Doc Marten).
I think I’m up to two or three replacements on my pair so far, and they’re about due for another replacement.
I wait for discounts (woot.com) and buy $150 running shoes for $50. They last much longer than the Walmart specials, and I now have 3 or 4 pairs in wait.
My Corcoran 2 jump boots were purchased new in 1989. I’ve had to resole them 3 times, but they are still in excellent condition and shine up like glass.
So they wore out three times, you were just able to replace the worn part.
Yes. A feature that is sorely lacking in a great deal of modern footwear. The $200 leather part is still going strong after 3 decades of VERY hard use, while the $30 consumable part is easily replaced by my neighborhood cobbler.
Sandals of Theseus.
I’ve been buying Darn tough socks with a lifetime warranty. Merino wool that are comfy as hell and very well made.
This was my main influence when I was young and struggling:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45511.Die_Broke
Quit Today
No, don’t tell your boss to shove it…at least not out loud. But in your head accept that from this day on you’re a free agent whose number one workplace priority is your personal bottom line.
Pay Cash
You should be as conscious of spending as you are of saving. Credit should be a rarely used tool for those few times (buying homes and cars) when paying cash is impossible.
Don’t Retire
Your work life should be a journey up and down hills, rather than a climb up a sheer cliff that ends with a jump into the abyss.
Die Broke
It sounds terrifying, the one intolerable outcome to your financial life. And yet, in truth, dying broke might be your best option for a life without fear: fear of failure and privation now, fear of impoverishment in the long run.
Die Broke – I think leave a billion behind with a weird last will and testament is better
+1 It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
While a much worse movie, this is more accurate: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079858/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
To complete the trifecta – https://youtu.be/rKsidHYO-zY
Sounds like a formula for misery.
Nope.
Quit Today. Whether you are self-employed or work wages/salary — you work for yourself.
Pay Cash. Basically what everyone else says. Avoid debt.
Don’t Retire. It is foolish to think about slaving away until you’re 62 and then living on savings. For as long as you are able-bodied and of sound mind, go make home (work for yourself). By all means, fill out the paper and collection social security and your pension. But keep making money. My father is 84 and still runs his business part time.
Die Broke. Fuck estate taxes. If you want to give wealth to your kids, do it when you are alive.
go make
homemoney (work for yourself).” in truth, dying broke might be your best option for a life”
Check to the funeral home should bounce
That quote is in the book.
Don’t Retire
Eh, to me its about being financially independent. What I do when I am financially independent will be what I want to do, not what I need to do to put food on my family.
Die Broke
Terrible advice. I have seen way, way too many elderly people who are struggling to get by without any savings, just SocSec. It is a miserable existence, and Allah help you if/when you need assisted living or similar.
Fuck estate taxes. If you want to give wealth to your kids, do it when you are alive.
Well, yeah, give away enough to be under the estate tax. Which currently means you can die with $10mm in the bank and not pay a penny.
Give it to your kids, sure, if you trust them to support you when you need it. I can’t tell you how many horrble, sad, stories I have seen of elderly people who gave money to their kids their entire life, and then lived in abject poverty their last years.
So…we have/had our struggled. There is one thing, though, that flummoxes me: Why people pay for their kids’ college. My parents didn’t pay for mine and I had a grand total of $5,500 in student debt I knocked out immediately.
What I DID do was go local (after a failed attempt at BYU, almost all of which I ALSO paid for), got piecemeal scholarships because I was in a tiny pond and I was a big fish, got Pell grants (I qualified because I was older so my parents’ income was not part of the equation) and lived at home while I went to school and worked. That wasn’t fun, and I didn’t graduate in 4 years (had about 50 extraneous credits that didn’t contribute to my degree), but my last two semesters, I needed help with books, so there I was in the student loan office. And when I wasn’t in class, I was working 50 hours/week graves at a gas station doing my homework all night.
Even if my kids wanted to go to college (they don’t), I wouldn’t pay for it. They can go local, live at home, eat my food, and work. Pay for their own cars, gas, and insurance or drive our beater truck. MAYBE they should get a loan for books if things get tight.
So no, I’m not paying to put my kids through college when what they need to do is get a trade.
On topic: XX is still enjoying working at Walmart, and once upon a time, my dad would’ve sneered at Walmart as a career, but me? Hell no.
Also on topic.
Mostly because colleges have realized they can squeeze more money out of the parents if they convince them it’s for their little angel’s future. Academia is very good at making people accept unacceptable price tags for their services.
Why people pay for their kids’ college – if you can afford it why not and it is a worthwhile college why not? Don’t start life in debt and get an education. Then again we have way different outlooks in Romania to the US on this. Less independence for both the young and the elderly.
If either of my kids had the gumption or wherewithal to go backpacking in Europe for a year, I’d be ecstatic. THAT is something I wish I had thought to do. But my path was set before I was born and I stuck to it till I was 20 and then … splat.
go backpacking in Europe for a year – with covid?
lol shit like this was nowhere on the radar in romania. not that I could have afforded it.
I would risk it regardless of propaganda induced panic. Europe is a dangerous place.
*wouldn’t.
damn typos reversing the meaning of my sentences
What do Europeans really think about Americans trying to backpack their way around the continent?
Europeans are very different. I have no idea what others think.
I get that, but I just kind of assumed they all laughed at the idea of it.
Is there a road-trip around the states equivalent?
No. We don’t life see it as a bit waste of a year and nice if you afford it. If Europeans mostly westerners wanna do that probably Asia is the choice not the US>
It’s my 529* for their benefit. They get nothing if they decide to be stupid.
*Also my make sure they don’t move back home plan.
My wife and I paid our own way through college (cash, grants, scholarships, and loans).
We told our kids when they were teens that we were still paying our own student loans, and they were on their own.
One completed an associates degree. The other did not attend college.
Fortunately I went to college on the GI Bill, after I paid my books and tuition I was still netting about $200 a month, that was my job. I paid my wife’s bills at the same school earlier, the school was fairly reasonable at the time, although it was a strain on finances. Then after doing my student teaching and credentialed I didn’t teach, went to the real world.
My father did the GI Bill too. He got married and had kids while he was in school.
I did better. I had two kids before I went to school.
That sounds like our deal with our kids. We will help, and allow them to live here rent free, if they go to a local school. We’ll help pay for classes as long as they get good grades. If they go away to school they’re on their own. If they get a job instead of go to school, they owe us rent.
The eldest (23) went for 2 semesters, decided it was more fun to visit dating sites than pay attention to class, and failed out. The second (20) is taking one class at a time. She is also struggling, mostly because she stinks at online classes. The third (15) is going to be a different story. She gets straight A’s and was thinking of law school but now isn’t sure.
I went to a local college and got scholarships, so I graduated with 0 debt. There was a big difference between the kids in day classes who were bored and just pissing their parents’ money away, and the working adults who went to night classes and were paying their own way.
If they get a job instead of go to school, they owe us rent. – see this would be unheard of in Romania.
Yep, we’ve told them that, too.
That’s mostly to discourage dropping out of school and having no job, or a part time job, and expecting mom and dad to pay for them to sit on the couch all day.
Since health insurance can go till they’re 26, we’ll probably do that, but I will be urging XX to get her own healthcare plan asap.
Yep, I got that speech from my dad when I was 12. Back in the day when you could have a twice-a-week paper route. I started working at a drug store when I was 15. 50% of the money was put away for college. After three years of school I got a full time job and had to drag out the final two semesters over four semesters but the full-time money more than paid tuition.
She gets straight A’s and was thinking of law school but now isn’t sure.
Tell her to go work a job for a few years after undergrad and then make the decision whether to go to law school. The single biggest leg up you can have as a baby lawyer is some real life experience.
I’ve told the anecdote before, but one of the few classes I took during the day at law school was a Bankruptcy Law class. The number of people in that class that didn’t know how basic billing, payment, default, and repossession worked was stunning. Some of them were out in a law firm 6 months later billing hundreds of dollars per hour, advising clients on these issues, having never paid a bill on their own before.
I’ve been in the workforce for ~5 years and am considering going back to get a masters degree. Every once in a while the idea of getting a law degree pops up, but i have no desire to practice law. I tend towards getting an MBA (probably not) or a Masters in Information Systems (Business degree that plays on my existing skill set).
There is one thing, though, that flummoxes me: Why people pay for their kids’ college.
….
And when I wasn’t in class, I was working 50 hours/week graves at a gas station doing my homework all night.
If you want a serious response, you answered your own question. My parents paid for my undergrad because I was premed while taking things like calculus, Ochem+lab, anatomy+lab, another science course, and then some cakewalk lib arts to satisfy my gen ed requirements each semester . Plus studying for the MCAT. There’s no way possible I could have worked 50 hours a week while making a 4.0 in those courses and remaining competitive for med school/grad school. I was at the anatomy lab at 6am many mornings for elective studying.
My parents provided me the opportunity to excel in a rigorous undergrad program. Their generosity combined with my hard work opened doors to me that would have remained closed or extremely difficult to achieve (much more easily done when school was cheaper… my uncle paid his way through med school 50 years ago debt free by picking up a shift a week at a clinic… good luck doing that now). I paid my own way through my MS and am doing so for my PhD. That starting leg up though was invaluable, and we’ll do everything we can to help our own kids when the time comes… assuming they are looking college as a bridge to a sustainable career and not for a bullshit degree while partying.
My parents could not have and would not have done that. I entered BYU with an accounting major because it was the best my dad thought I could do. Couldn’t (didn’t want to), but there is no way they or I could’ve afforded to pay for school without working.
My mom paid for my youngest brother’s French literature degrees (yes, 2) because my dad had just died and she got a hefty life insurance payout. So he got breaks I didn’t, but I also don’t resent. I’m proud that I worked my way through college and that I paid for most of it. It is one of two major accomplishments I have in my life. I made it through and I paid for it.
I completely understand that this not possible for some parents. I was providing an answer for your question: “Why people pay for their kid’s college?”
Shorter answer: Because it can open opportunity doors that otherwise remain shut.
The ROI also makes much more sense. I’m working full time while taking my PhD because the tradeoff of having a higher income makes it worthwhile since I make multiple times higher income now than I did as an 18 year old. By my parents paying my undergrad and by my paying for my kids, I’m essentially deferring taking the cost of college out of 18 year old SSD’s minuscule earning power to instead as an older SSD with career job that could much more easily afford it.
Building inter-generational wealth takes time and this is one way that helps promote it.
Well-said, SSD.
As one of my friends said – “I’m from New Jersey – if you can, you do”
The ROI also makes much more sense.
It can, depending on:
(1) How capable they are
(2) Where they go
(3) What they study
Exiting an expensive private school with an unmarketable degree you borrowed $300K for – that ROI will never not be red.
Assuming like for like. I was referring to the deferral of paying tuition from an established professional’s salary rather than an 18 year old’s paycheck. One hour of my time now buys a great deal more tuition than one hour of my time as an 18 year old.
Certainly college itself can have a horrible ROI in many cases, especially the one you listed.
I was at the anatomy lab at 6am many mornings for elective studying.
Enough with the euphemisms. 🙂
Why people pay for their kids’ college
I’m trying very hard to avoid that mentality. I have a 529 for my daughter (and will start one for #2), but the goal of that account is twofold. First, to keep them out of public schools for primary and secondary. Second to give them a leg up on life. It’s not a college fund, it’s a kickstart life fund. If they want to use it for college, great. If they want to use it to start a business, fine. If they want to use it on a wedding, I guess that’s fine, too. It’s not “no strings attached”, but as long as it’s used for the betterment of their lives, I don’t care how they spend it.
what about a trip to mars? could be too touristy by then though
If a trip to Mars is cheap enough by then, sure.
Why people pay for their kids’ college.
Bro Dean’s deal was he would pay for half, and his daughters would come up with the other half. Pretty much the deal we got from Pater Dean. It changes your thinking about where to go and what to study, that’s for sure.
I got a full academic scholarship, and Pater Dean made money on me in college by taking out student loans and arbitraging the spread. Bro Dean went in-state.
Grad school, the deal changed – Pater Dean paid a full ride for both of us. In my case, because I think he was shocked I was in grad school instead of jail. I guess he figured it was only fair to give Bro Dean the same deal.
I thought about doing that. Wish I had.
This was back in the early ’80s. Student loans charged less interested than CDs (remember those?). I recall that’s what Pater Dean arbitraged. Nothing so lunatic as borrowing to invest in stocks.
Yes, his beliefs and actions are in direct conflict with your school and district. And it’s not the racial views.
https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2020/10/madison-high-principal-starts-renaming-process-se-portland-students-push-for-a-ginsburg-middle-school.html
So whats the over under on years till ginsburg is person non-grata and the school is renamed.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
SUPERCUT!
Media lose their shit over Trump’s optimistic Covid tweet
Broke: Nothing to fear but fear itself
Woke: Nothing to not fear. Be very afraid.
Twitter is losing its shit over this one
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1313449844413992961
Won’t allow it to be copied directly inside of Twitter.
Sounds about right.
How is any of that misleading?
It’s Wrongthink!
You must panic and remain under the boot!
Enthusiasm.
CNNLOL
A CNN national poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the president by 16 points among likely voters.
The poll shows 57 percent of likely voters say they back Biden and 41 percent back President Donald Trump.
Interesting. Continuing the discussion from last thread, i find 538s predictions interesting. They give (currently) Biden better odds than they gave Hillary last time. Now maybe all the polls are just big circle jerks, but i find them better than the anecdotal “trump signs in town” data.
Hence why i think Biden will win.
I wouldn’t trust 538.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-has-made-some-modest-gains-after-the-debate/
I don’t know about the other polls in the average, but I know that WSJ/NBC poll is complete fabricated bullshit. And that Nate considers it close to their own polling average speaks very poorly of 538.
The WSJ/NBC used registered voters, not likely voters, and oversampled Dems +9. They deliberately did not readjust based on party identification but did adjust based on characteristics, particularly race. Why adjust on race but not party identification? It was designed from inception to produce +14 to Biden.
All the polls are shit. There is no point in looking at them at all.
The only question is whether or not Trump takes the rust belt again. This is a function of blue collar workers.
So the question is whether these voters got better or worse during the Trump years.
After the 2016 election, the democratic leadership looked at the blue collar workers who hopped on the Trump wagon and said “Fuck these people, we don’t need them.”
As I have said before, I don’t think Trump will lose a fair election.
The Dems seem to understand this. Hence, the Dems are going all out on mail-in ballots that are highly unsecure and very susceptible to fraud.
Sounds like a poll designed to push the polling averages towards Biden.
Cut up your credit cards and throw them away
I get this for a lot of people – a simple rule that removes a big risk.
I pay for everything but small cash transactions on my credit card for two reasons.
(1) I get a small kickback from my credit card company (USAA) on, I believe, everything. Every few months, I’ve got a few hundred bucks “Free” money I use to pay down my credit card.
(2) USAA lets me categorize my spending. Its probably a half hour a month to categorize line items on my credit card, and transfer the category totals to a spreadsheet, just to keep an eye on things and have a big picture view of what our spending is.
Of course, I zero out my credit card as soon as my paycheck shows up every other Wednesday.
I’m in the same boat as you. I see the benefit of a general pronouncement, but just like other risky things, you can get ahead if you do it right. It takes self-awareness to know if you’re the kind of person who can handle a credit card or not, and I think most people are in the “not” category. My wife certainly is a “not”, and she’d be the first to say so.
I try to zero out the balance on my credit card every week or so.
I can’t right now because my insurance and a $700 unexpected expense dropped on the same day. I decided that $1-200 carried over to the next pay period wasn’t enough to dip into savings over.
I’m about the same way, go through and zero out the credit cards once a week. I’ve known some people who couldn’t be trusted with CC’s though, and eventually went to such extremes as freezing one emergency card in a glass of water in the freezer. So in the case of emergency, they could wait for it to thaw out, but wouldn’t be able to use it for impulse purchases.
That reminds me, Dave Ramsey is wrong about using a debit card:
Why You Should Never Use a Debit Card to Pay for Anything
The whole security model of debit/credit cards is flawed. I don’t use a debit card for mostly this reason, but the concept is good, if the technology was good.
Are there “single use” debit cards like the single use credit cards, where you get a new number with a limit of the exact amount of the purchase you are going to make for each purchase?
No matter what security there is in place, the legal protections are fundamentally different. There will always be a better criminal.
Use debit cards only in a bank ATM that minimizes the risk.
CC everywhere else.
The United miles Card is not going gangbusters for me this year. I haven’t flown since February.
Speaking of which, I wonder if there will be a bunch of corporate folks with expiring frequent flier premiere perks this year.
Going to have to fly coach this year Mr. VP of sales.
No. All of the programs have extended status for a year. Next year will be the killer if slashed travel budgets and travel restrictions continue.
Good to know. I haven’t looked at my account for 6 months.
I know at least Southwest is rolling over drink tickets and rewards for another year.
Thank you all the people who cut up their credit cards and pay cash or with a debit card. I wouldn’t have been able to constantly travel around the world in first or business class in the last six years without you.
I would say that a Credit Card is also a reputation card. Many people pay off their cards completely every month and have done so since they were issued. The only time I ran a balance was to finance $30,000 of a vehicle on 0% for 9 month, with a $100 fee cap.. that was .3% APR… I had the savings on hand but it put my reserve $$ too low for my comfort. Can’t get that deal these days.. They are all 2-3% fees, not capped.
You need a card to be able to rent a car, buy $10K of equipment right now. The merchant doesn’t have to evaluate your risk and credit worthiness.. the CC company has already done that and takes the risk with card limits etc. I feel that this is the main reason CC’s are so widespread.
Yes, you can use cash or prepaid/debit to do such things, but the full use of a CC is an asset.
If you know you abuse cards.. then yes, limit it to one, and only for airplane tickets, rental cars etc.. Otherwise treat them as cash, but with better security.
Unciv, you should pay the balance off (at the end of the month) if you have the cash, or you must not use the card again until it is zero.. As all new charges start accruing interest from day1.. not from the next billing date. You imply that you keep it lower than that.
And the statement about Debit vs Credit is valid.. Never use your Debit card outside of your bank.
As all new charges start accruing interest from day 1
I had to check. USAA only charges interest on cash advances or amounts carried over from one billing period to the next.
I just read BOA’s wording.. it is weasel worded..
Paying Interest
Your due date is at least 25 days after the close of each billing cycle. We will not charge you any interest on
purchases if you pay your entire balance by the due date each month. We will begin charging interest on cash
advances and balance transfers on the transaction date.
This may depend on your contract … That writing leaves wiggle room and I’m pretty sure I saw it once when I missed a payment by a day. So, watch out for it…
Here is the USAA wording.. just as weaselly
Your due date is at least 25 days after the close of each billing cycle. We will not charge you interest on purchases if you pay your entire balance by the due date each month.(sup)2
and the footnote:
2 We charge interest (unless the grace period applies) from the date of the transaction until the date you pay us back. There is no grace period for Cash Advances or Balance Transfers.
That seems to imply wiggle room… is the second month in a (grace period) if you didn’t pay the previous one in full… I’m not sure.
All I know is, the only interest I have paid is on a cash withdrawalI accidentally put on my credit card.
The wording is very puzzling to me. If you have 50 transactions in a month, pay off half your card by the due date, how do they know which “date of the transaction” to use to calculate interest on the half you didn’t pay off?
Whatever, since I pay it off every other week.
They have wording stating order of operations – newest transactions paid first, except cash advances, which are always last is what I expect.
I know CapitalOne says cash advances are always last paid off.
They amortize daily if you keep a balance.. so each day every transaction still open gets its .001%. added to the interest column. Not sure if it compounds.
Just letting people know it is there and to watch it… we who pay off every bill won’t normally see exactly how it is calculated.
I have a 365/360 mortgage on my airplane… just subtly different from a 12month to make your monthly P/I interesting.
If you pay the statement balance in full by the due date every month, you should never pay a penny in interest. There’s no reason for normal people to pay a credit card more than once a month.
^^ This
I don’t get needing to pay it more than once a month.
I suppose every pay period if it’s part of your routine, but it seems like excess effort. Of course I only get paid once a month, so every pay period matches how often the credit cards are due. 🙂
That’s me. The effort is a few clicks on my phone when my paycheck is autodeposited, since USAA is my bank as well.
Right,
But if for some reason you do miss that payment.. perhaps by a day (I screwed up). I will immediately pay the current statement and interest (as listed on the website) and not use the card at all until the grace period of zero balances is again in effect. That minimizes my mistake and does not allow the card to exacerbate my mistake.
I had that happen once about10 years ago. I called the card issuer and they waived the late fee and interest.
I am well aware of how the interest on my card works. It’s not enough money for the hassle required to replenish the savings loss. The savings are in a different bank, and the nearest deposit location is in Rochester.* So unless we’re talking amounts greater than the cost of going to Rochester, skating less than a dollar of interest for two weeks of a balance is preferrable.
*Webster actually, I set up the account when I worked at Xerox’s helpdesk.
I have made exactly one purchase on a credit card — a hotel room in college, 30 years ago. Got rid of the card right after and never got another one. I rent cars all the time with a debit card. I’ve thought of picking up an airline credit card just to get a few perks here and there while traveling, but I’ve never executed.
Not just rental cars, but also many or most hotels. Cutting up your credit cards is great as long as your job requires no travel. Unfortunately, most do.
Every biweekly payday, I pay half the previous month’s credit card balance (or a third during twice-a-year three-pay months.) I could also be paying my car loan down more quickly, but honestly, I don’t think about it, as it’s an automatic payment. Of course, I work for my only creditor, so we compromise – I pay no interest on the CC, but I do on the car.
I just pay it off monthly. No interest paid. Do whatever works for you, but I find it odd so many people make multiple payments every month. But, I keep a running total in my head and am never off by more than about $25.
I don’t like debt. I like being able to open the statement and see either zero or a small balance that can be quashed quickly. Besides, it makes it harder to miss a month if I’m paying more often 😀
I still don’t get it. What difference does it make to debt if you make four payments versus one? But you do you. If it makes you feel better to get a small statement and you think it’s worth the hassle, then fine.
3-6 month emergency fund in cash
We don’t keep that much, because of our elaborate custom retirement scheme (known as The Machine – tax deductible going in no matter how much, not taxable coming out), which involves more or less mandatory funding blah blah at a level that nearly sweeps the savings account every quarter. But, we can borrow money from the Machine at 1% interest, so I’m not worried about emergency cash.
You give Bert Kreischer you retirement money?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paG1-lPtIXA
I favor 24 months. One year, and one year padding for that day you tell your boss to get fucked and you want some more time to look for another job.
The Bro don’t need no financial advice. The Bro knows you just hire one of (((them))) to manage your money. Just not one of the shyster ones.
We have one, $1000 limit. If we use it, we pay it off the same week, it’s only for occasional use. Never run up debt on a credit card. It should be one of the very first things a person learns about finance. If you cannot follow that rule, pay your card off, cut it up, and throw it away and don’t get another one.
My financial advice…buy antipsychotics and antidepressants stocks
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/harvard-cnn-analyst-claims-russian-agents-were-inside-walter-reed-hospital-trump
Unless they work for the cdc.
I won’t speculate on what kind of signal intel the Russians have, but that only gives them info that is transmitted. No telling what some idiot with actual knowledge might have blabbed on their cell. of course, but that’s going to be a very limited amount of info.
I wonder if they have actually penetrated the IT security at Walter Reed for direct access to his chart. I expect that would be extraordinarily difficult, but they are good at it.
Human sources, here’s the thing – a competent healthcare IT operation constantly monitors who is accessing a patient’s chart, and knows who has the required need to know. I have to believe there was somebody camped out on Trump’s chart, looking for anybody not on a very short list. So human intel would have to be somebody on that short list. I’ve seen what our EMR has for VIP security, and its impressive.
Or she’s just making shit up because she hates Trump and desperately wants him to be a Russian asset, because otherwise her life has no meaning.
It’s not just that they want him to be a russian Asset. They really seem to _need_ him to be very sick.
Trump just told Republicans to stop negotiating on the stimulus bill until after the election. YES!
*falls out of chair*
It’s only because he wants everyone to die!
CNBC is having a fit “why would a President who wants to be reelected NOT just do this…what about the jobs!” – “Powell says we need more stimulus!”
Great move for the Republicans, if they went through with this and Dems win the election then R’s are blamed for all the corporate bailouts and debt. Plus, Biden gets credit for reducing unemployment when the supplemental UI stops.
Translated: Why would a Republican running for re-election not give the Democrats everything they want?
Its a puzzler. Must be more of that 5D Trump chess.
I only see the word Hedge appear once on this page and it’s not even part of the article.
We therefore know this article is false and all the other Glibs here are running cover for Trashy because all Glibs are monocle wearing, orphan owning, .0001percenters who wash their hair with
the most expensive champagne and throw wads of $1000 bills out of their private plane, just because.
FAKE NEWS.
At least you know I’m a true glib.
LH’s finance plan – spend like a drunken sailor, then quit his job, and spend the rest of my time watching Red Letter Media.
Things – knock on wood – have a way of working out.
So you got out of the guzzoline business?
It’s just a hobby now.
He just….walked away.
Father of mine?
So that OnlyFans site is already working out?
The hockey mask is no extra charge.
A clip has leaked
Eddie Van Halen is dead.
You beat me to it.
RIP Eddie Van Halen
We still have Keith Richards.
Who is triple EVH’s age and apparently some sort of medical experiment.
Who is triple EVH’s age
Nah, he only looks like it.
Who is triple EVH’s age
Nah, he only looks like it.
Nikki Sixx is 61 and has already died twice.
Heroin is clearly a preservative.
THE LINKS ARE LATE
Probably updating for EVH.
I blame Brett.
WE WERE PROMISED A NEW ERA
Have we discussed the death of Eddie Van Halen yet?
We briefly discussed it on TOS. Remember Van’s and those checkerboard french foriegn legion van hats? My opininion, and you’re welcome to
be wrongdisagree, is that 80s were the very most bestest decade to grow up in.