Madison MoneySports - Personal Finance Thread

[Kaan]

I know a lot of folks are doing okay for retirement in this thread...

Well, I'm playing catch up.... not having a kid yet makes it easier now, but, that will just force some other choices, hopefully ones involving not having this overpriced fucking house.

I also want to start diversifying into some rental property next year.

we arent looking to get into the rental property game. we talked about it... sometimes it comes back up (usually on beach vacations... talking about building an AirBNB empire) ... but overall its just not our game. One thing i am planning to do is "play catch up" when i turn 50... but thats just turning up the investments we are currently doing. Instead we are looking to try to pin down a region we are looking to retire in and possibly purchase property there. 

one reason i'm waiting until 62 to retire is for the government pension... the extra 25% of my high 3 pay will do a lot for us in retirement... the big bonus is my healthcare cost is locked in to whatever i use for my last year (the insurance coverage is locked in too)... most folks do the caddilac government plan, which is "primary" in retirement (paid for by my pension... with plenty of money to spare... BOAT time!)

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 how do you not have wayyyy too much money into retirement with DINK??!?!   

i'd ask you to define "wayyyy too much" .... part of my ramping up retirement over time had to do with student loans. if you dont WAY over pay they stick around a pretty long time. I was fortunate to pay mine off before i was 30, but after mine were done I did help my brother out with his (yay for mid life career changes). paying them off made life "easy" to turn it into retirement savings... and race car life.

[D_Eclipse9916]

FWIW, most people I've known in Seattle that didn't have family near and had a kid returned back home. They do it because they realized kids are fucking terrible without grandparent help, but that also means adult children are around to help parents when they age.

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 one of the main reasons is the "step up" basis for realty is an extremely easy way to avoid taxes and pass on wealth for my kids.

My dad's dad, who died in 1991, did this. He had both land and property in PA and VA that landed in his adult kids' lap. Honestly, it's the basis for most of the wealth my parents had when I was growing up.

Not to get political, but this is why ownership of property is a big deal in building generational wealth and why historical redlining policies remain harmful to this day.

Unfortunately Biden's tax plan wants to get rid of Step Up Basis.  I still voted for him but hoping it doesnt make it through to reality.

[.RJ]

i'd ask you to define "wayyyy too much" .... part of my ramping up retirement over time had to do with student loans. if you dont WAY over pay they stick around a pretty long time. I was fortunate to pay mine off before i was 30, but after mine were done I did help my brother out with his (yay for mid life career changes). paying them off made life "easy" to turn it into retirement savings... and race car life.

Ugh, we are going to be paying my wife's grad school loans for another 10 years

[Kaan]

Healthcare and college costs remain the huge wildcards in my retirement game.  Guess we'll see later.... its easy to make more money.

i handcuffed my annual earnings ceiling (by going fed) to know i could lock in health care/pension.... committing to zero children throws out that college cost worry. i think locking money into the state funds is a bad idea... i've heard my sister in law talk about it a lot with two young boys... but you never know what they are going to do with their lives. if they happen to go to college, okay great... if they go to trade school, okay great... there will be some "money" required either way.

[Apoc]

Tax today or tomorrow won't be tax in 15-20 years. At least that's the way I'm choosing to look at it for now. 

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i'd ask you to define "wayyyy too much" .... part of my ramping up retirement over time had to do with student loans. if you dont WAY over pay they stick around a pretty long time. I was fortunate to pay mine off before i was 30, but after mine were done I did help my brother out with his (yay for mid life career changes). paying them off made life "easy" to turn it into retirement savings... and race car life.

Ugh, we are going to be paying my wife's grad school loans for another 10 years

Why not roll it into the mortgage and get a tax deduction (assuming you surpass the new standard deduction)? Even if you don't get the deduction, mortgage rates are still lower than student loan interest rates. That's what we did for the wife's undergrad loans.

FWIW, we save absolutely zero specifically for kid college for a myriad of reasons I've explained a bunch of other places here.

[Kaan]

i'd ask you to define "wayyyy too much" .... part of my ramping up retirement over time had to do with student loans. if you dont WAY over pay they stick around a pretty long time. I was fortunate to pay mine off before i was 30, but after mine were done I did help my brother out with his (yay for mid life career changes). paying them off made life "easy" to turn it into retirement savings... and race car life.

Ugh, we are going to be paying my wife's grad school loans for another 10 years

so Sylvia was trying to get into the federal forgiveness program (almost all of her coworkers are counting on it)... and then we found out that there is a 1% chance to get them forgiven lol... not happening... but it would have been nice if her private school masters was forgiven!!! 

100% feel your pain on this. we looked really hard at our monthly budget... cut out about $300/month (cut the cable cord and changed up some grocery habits) of extra fat, and now throw that on her loans. we have 2 years left (at mortgage payment levels).... obviously if i quit racing (i actually have a budget for this though) and stuff it would be faster, but we are still trying to have fun and max save. 

we just killed PMI on the house from the OLD FHA program... that money will get turned right around on her loans too... once the student loans are gone we will aim at the house.

[Jake]

I'm a little late to the car ownership percentage discussion, but mine is about 8%. It was somewhere up near 12-13% with the red F-150 which was absurd. And I didn't drive it enough or care about it enough to justify that - were that truck a Porsche or F-Type or whatever, I'd try to justify it more.

As it is, it's hard justifying the Ram I have. But it's really good when I do need it so the money is worth spending, and I have an assload of positive equity in it. Per NADA and KBB, it's gone up by $1k in value from last August's purchase price. In that time, I've added 10k miles to it. Not bad math!

[Kaan]

I'm a little late to the car ownership percentage discussion, but mine is about 8%. It was somewhere up near 12-13% with the red F-150 which was absurd. And I didn't drive it enough or care about it enough to justify that - were that truck a Porsche or F-Type or whatever, I'd try to justify it more.

As it is, it's hard justifying the Ram I have. But it's really good when I do need it so the money is worth spending, and I have an assload of positive equity in it. Per NADA and KBB, it's gone up by $1k in value from last August's purchase price. In that time, I've added 10k miles to it. Not bad math!

most trucks are up in value right now as there is a "shortage" ... as big auto tries to recover from covid life, i think there are going to be some amazing deals and i wouldnt count on equity.

[Tyler.M]

Literally no one asked for this but this stuff is fascinating to me. Here's my current plan: 

My current retirement contribution is set at 6% and which my company matches 100% for the first 3% and then 50% for the second 3%. There's no additional matching after that. I've been maximizing company match since I entered the job market and rolling over my 401(k) into a traditional Roth each time I move companies (better fund choice). I'm still below what I figure I should be at (1x salary at least) so my plan next year is to prioritize my retirement by increasing contributions to my 401(k) to 10% and fully funding my Roth IRA by the end of the year (so, 500 a month to hit the yearly cap of 6k).  Each year thereafter I'll bump up my 401(k) 5% to get close to the 19,5k limit which means I'll hit my goal of 3x salary savings by the time I'm in my late 30's which will be closer to being on track for retirement for me, unless a rich uncle I didn't know about dies at which point I'm moving to Malta.

My first financial goal was to get out of consumer debt which I did last month, now it's 3 months of emergency savings and then my retirement/other debt focus begins.  It'll be a more "normal" allocation instead of sending all of my extra income to a single goal. That's what sort of got me on the thought process of figuring up my % breakdown of my budget because all of my allocations starting in December will be determined on % of total income instead of driving down a dollar debt figure. If I find a good balance of %'s that means things should naturally grow in proportion of my income (and I'm doing everything I can to work up that ladder).   

My job is kind of weird because I'm salary but make overtime on the weekend at 1.5x of what my salary is if it's broken down an hourly rate. I don't factor in my overtime though as it's largely optional and could disappear at any time, so I don't want to be dependent on it. So generally, I budget out of my base salary and then put overtime pay/bonuses into my main financial goal. 

My current breakdown is this: 

• Transportation (Car payment, gas, insurance): 16.7 %
  
• Motorcycle: (Payment, gas, insurance): 3.8%
  
• Living expenses (Mortgage, utilities inc internet): 26%
  
• Groceries: 7%
  
• Dining out: 3%
  
• Financial goals: 40%
  
• Misc: 3.5%
  

My biggest variables are always dining out and misc and if I overspend in other categories, it's usually being drawn from my financial goal bucket which is where the largest portion of my income goes too. If I have a big expense I plan for, I work a few weekends of OT to plan for it but I want to get out of that habit and have something a bit more predicative for next year (i.e a fun budget with a separate account to funnel money into each paycheck).  My living expenses are about as low as I can get them now for being a single person living in the house that I own without a renter. This used to be much lower since the rent covered the mortgage but I'm willing to live with the higher expense and have the luxury of not living with another person, especially in my tiny-ass house. 

Re: End of Life Healthcare, I have no idea how the hell to figure that out. Relying on children seems risky but nursing homes are a fucking joke as I'm quickly learning as my parents deal with that nonsense. It's 10k a month for just basic care and if you don't pay and you have sufficient means in your portfolio, they can start dissolving your assets to pay for care. Fortunately, my grandparents are wealthy and have a good lawyer but paying an organization 120k a year for care is highway robbery. Elder Care Law seems to protect nursing homes over the actual people who need care so, I'd want to avoid having to go to a nursing home, at all costs. I know that's like 50 years down the road and a lot can change but I'm a planner and it helps keep my retirement goals in perspective. 

TL: DR  I've been spending too much time at work reading personal finance forums.

[ViPER1313]

My bucket breakdown

Crack Cocaine: 100%


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[.RJ]

My bucket breakdown

Crack Cocaine: 100%


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So, the DSM is running again?

[Tyler.M]

My bucket breakdown

Crack Cocaine: 100%


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So, the DSM is running again?

Do DSM's ever actually run or are they just breaking down more conveniently than usual?

[Apoc]

Sick burn.

[Evan]

my car insurance and annual car tax are both retarded high.

so insurance+car tax + gas + maint ends up being about 4% of after-tax income, which feels WAY too high considering I have no car payments.

[Sijray21]

Anyone with a car registered in VA will be paying high taxes since it's 2nd only to Rhode Island for tax rates on vehicles.

[Kaan]

Anyone with a car registered in VA will be paying high taxes since it's 2nd only to Rhode Island for tax rates on vehicles.

Another reason the diesel is on the back burner... it doesn’t even get the “tax break” the rest of are supposed to get

[JPolen01]

Hey Kaan, are you buying a diesel anytime soon?


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[.RJ]

the man always gets his money, one form or another

[ScottyB]

FWIW, most people I've known in Seattle that didn't have family near and had a kid returned back home. They do it because they realized kids are fucking terrible without grandparent help, but that also means adult children are around to help parents when they age.

this hits close to home for us. we've basically been an "island" for the last 5 years, 7 hrs from both parents. its really tough sometimes to see your neighbors do cool shit all the time because they can just dump the kids off at mom n' dads any day of the week because they live 2 streets over. quality childcare is an all-in thing and man does it add up. the crap you do for a good job...

i do worry about my parents more now, though. i don't ever want to live 5 minutes away, but close enough i can get over to see them whenever it fits our schedule.

Kaan - your mom doing OK right now or still battling?

[Apoc]

FWIW, most people I've known in Seattle that didn't have family near and had a kid returned back home. They do it because they realized kids are fucking terrible without grandparent help, but that also means adult children are around to help parents when they age.

this hits close to home for us.  we've basically been an "island" for the last 5 years, 7 hrs from both parents.  its really tough sometimes to see your neighbors do cool shit all the time because they can just dump the kids off at mom n' dads any day of the week because they live 2 streets over.  quality childcare is an all-in thing and man does it add up.  the crap you do for a good job...

i do worry about my parents more now, though.  i don't ever want to live 5 minutes away, but close enough i can get over to see them whenever it fits our schedule.

Kaan - your mom doing OK right now or still battling?

Going rate for childcare is $20+/hour here. If we want to see a movie, back when there were such things, it was a $100 ordeal excluding any eats/drinks before the show. I can't imagine a scenario where we'd choose to live closer to family, but we're lucky in that we can afford an occasional date night... when there were such things.

All my mom's siblings lived closed to her mom and they rarely visited her in her old age. It seems to be hit or miss, depending on the family. They *were* able to drive her to appointments and such, so I guess there's always that.