Madison MoneySports - Personal Finance Thread

[V1GiLaNtE]

Can one of you more experienced folks take a look at my budget spreadsheet and let me know how it looks?

I can look at it, but I'd be interested in knowing more about what sort of feedback you're looking for.

This. I'm happy to look at it, but I would caveat that it's hard to set a budget when you don't know what you're spending your money on. I would suggest you start by tracking your spending for the month of May, then in June assess your spending and identify areas you can cut which will ultimately become a budget.

[.RJ]

I was pretty sold on a used stretched Q70L because they're absurdly cheap for what they are on the used market 

:vomit: The Q50/Q70 has been absolutely hated by anyone that reviewed them. Not good at being a sports car, not even close to being good as a luxury car. Hard pass.

Thats disappointing because the Q50 looks pretty sharp on the road.

[Senor_Taylor]

Can one of you more experienced folks take a look at my budget spreadsheet and let me know how it looks?

I can look at it, but I'd be interested in knowing more about what sort of feedback you're looking for.

This. I'm happy to look at it, but I would caveat that it's hard to set a budget when you don't know what you're spending your money on. I would suggest you start by tracking your spending for the month of May, then in June assess your spending and identify areas you can cut which will ultimately become a budget.

My budget has been curated fairly regularly to reflect what I'm actually spending, but I need to buckle down on it. Gets so easy to lose track due to the abstraction of the credit cards.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[Apoc]

posting link so I can do the math later - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/composition-of-wealth/

[Apoc]

So the fed cute the rate today.

[D_Eclipse9916]

So the fed cute the rate today.

It’s been expected forever at this point and was even priced into a lot of the market. Interested to see if they drop 50 during the fall. With rates already so low (compared to history); I just don’t see these minuscule changes actually making an impact.

[HAULN-SS]

Refinancing with Navy Federal: Week 8. Closing nowhere in sight. This has to be the most incompetent bank I've ever dealt with. Pursue at your own risk and patience. Wife and I have peak credit scores, 200k equity in the house, and ready to give them our business because they had the best rate going. It has been the most painful house loan shit I have ever done. End rant.

[.RJ]

Wow thats crazy. Both of my NFCU mortgages have been pretty easy.

[HAULN-SS]

Just going to reiterate how fucking shitty NFCU is. I have done several mortgage and refinances and this is by far the worst. RJ did you ever work with someone in an actual branch around here, or is it always just some dumb fuck calling from far away somewhere? After many weeks of them dragging ass, they finally FedEx'd me a package, and it has all kinds of stuff fucked up in the Loan Estimate, Title Service provider authorization, etc.

[.RJ]

The people I worked with were all in Vienna.

My first mortgage, I had a loan officer that I felt like didnt really have a handle on things - so I found out who his boss was, called them up, and told them to get me to a different loan officer. Things were fine after that.

[WRXtranceformed]

Hope you all got on that AMZN train. Choo choo!

[BLINGMW]

Nope, I got off the last time they were at this stop.

Wishing I bought some TSLA when I thought about it around 200 though!

[HAULN-SS]

Any of you NOVA fellers have a CPA Tax Prep you can recommend? This fucking guy I've been using dropped me as a client because I did mine last year; "he has said he prefers not to pick up a client who has left, filed his own taxes and then wants to return. We stopped taking on new clients last year and he said he just can’t add you back to our client listings." I thought I was doing him a favor last year by not dumping it on him last minute since I was in the middle of remodeling a kitchen and prepping for a baby and was late getting my shit together.

So fuck that guy very much, he saved me the trouble of paper filing since he only gives you the print outs and you still have to mail them in. I don't know if that's how they all worked, but he was a lawyer and a CPA so I generally dealt with his bullshit.

[.RJ]

I just use turbotax, but my stuff is not complicated at all.

[Apoc]

2019 summary for our old Citi Prestige card. Note this is based on miles, so things like restaurants and air travel earned 5x. I'll be curious to see a similar breakdown with the new Chase Sapphire.

[Kaan]

Any of you NOVA fellers have a CPA Tax Prep you can recommend? This fucking guy I've been using dropped me as a client because I did mine last year; "he has said he prefers not to pick up a client who has left, filed his own taxes and then wants to return.  We stopped taking on new clients last year and he said he just can’t add you back to our client listings." I thought I was doing him a favor last year by not dumping it on him last minute since I was in the middle of remodeling a kitchen and prepping for a baby and was late getting my shit together.

So fuck that guy very much, he saved me the trouble of paper filing since he only gives you the print outs and you still have to mail them in. I don't know if that's how they all worked, but he was a lawyer and a CPA so I generally dealt with his bullshit.

we use noble and noble out of Front Royal. i dont know if thats close enough for you... i keep them around because I've received letters from the IRS before and i just send it to them and they handle it. 

we upload the stuff digitally, they work the taxes, we schedule a sit down and go over everything and sign... then cut the check to the IRS (at least last year)

[Tyler.M]

Here's to being student loan and CC debt free in 2020 boys. I use Mint software to help out. It's gonna be hard looking my bonus in the eye though and sending it off to the government though. Can't wait for the day I can actually spend it on something cool.

I do want do start some charitable giving though, anyone have experience with this? Do I get the 503 from the organization or do I need to keep track of it for next year?

[Sijray21]

Usually organizations will distribute an end of year contributions, but it's really up to you to keep track of that. Unless you're itemizing at the end of the year you'll likely not benefit from logging the charity, but I wouldn't let that prevent you from giving to causes you believe in. Despite going with the standard deduction for the past two years after the SALT stuff went through in 2018 I still log all of our stuff in turbo tax.

BTW, great on you for getting rid of your student loans and credit cards loans!

I use mint as well. Love that app.

[Apoc]

Receipts aren't required for donations under $250.

Nearly all my donations are done online. I just tag the receipt email with the label "Charity" and look them up when doing my taxes.

As jray said, you likely will not benefit from a tax perspective. You'd need over $12,000 in total deductions to itemize. Without a mortgage, that's pretty hard to achieve. Shouldn't stop you from doing so, though.

[JPolen01]

Congrats on being debt free. Hell yeah brother