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How can I detect potential fraud in a company before investing in them? | Given that such activities are criminal and the people committing them have to hide them from the law, it's very unlikely that an investor could detect them, let alone one from a different country. The only things that can realistically help is to keep in mind the adage "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is", and to stick to relatively large companies, since they have more auditing requirements and fraud is much harder to hide at scale (but not impossible, see Enron). Edit: and, of course, diversify. This kind of thing is rare, and not systematic, so diversification is a very good protection. |
Why does it look like my 401k loan default was not paid by my 401k account balance? | When you leave an employer, 401(k) loans are immediately due (or within 30 days or 60 days). So maybe they are waiting to see if you will pay off your loan. If you wanted to transfer the loan as well, you need to talk to your new 401(k) plan administrator to find out if this even possible. If they say No and you don't pay off the loan, it will count as a premature distribution from your old 401(k) plan and possibly be subject to excise tax in addition to income tax. |
Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage? | NO Even worse, most BTL(buy to let) lenders will not lend if you are going to be living in the property. There are very few lenders that will touch something like this. It is likely you will also need to use bridging for the time the building work takes at something like 1.5% per month! Try posting the question to http://www.propertytribes.com/ as there are a few UK mortgage experts on that site. |
How to buy out one person's share of a jointly owned vehicle with the lowest taxes and fees | You should be able to refinance the vehicle and have the financing in just your name (assuming you can secure the financing). Since you are already on the vehicle registration, this would not constitute a sale, and thus would not incur additional sales tax. To remove the other person from the vehicle registration, leaving you as the sole registered owner, in the state of New York, you only need to file an MV-82. It will cost you $3. https://dmv.ny.gov/registration/register-vehicle-more-one-owner-or-registrant |
Do I live in a state for tax purposes if my permanent home is in another state? | You're most likely required to file in both for 2013 - since you've lived in both. From 2014 and on you're definitely a NY resident (since you're renting a place there and live there), and you may very well continue being NJ resident (since you're essentially continue being domiciled there). I suggest talking to a EA/CPA licensed in NY and NJ to try and see what you can do to avoid being resident in both the states, or see if it is at all an issue other than filing everything double. |
Where to Park Proceeds from House Sale for 2-5 Years? | Your objectives are contradictory and/or not possible. Eliminating the non-taxable objective: You could divide the $100K in 5 increments, making a "CD ladder" $25K in 3mo CD (or savings a/c) $25K in 6 mo CD $25K in 9mo CD $25K in 1 yr CD or similar structure (6mo also works well) Every maturing CD you are able to access cash and/or invest in another longest maturity CD, and earn a higher rate of interest. This plan also works well to plan for future interest rates hikes. If you are forced to access (sell CD's) ALL the $$$ at any time, you will only lose accrued interest, none of the principal. All FDIC guaranteed. If non-taxable is the highest priority, "invest" in a tax-free money market fund....see Vanguard Funds. You will not have FDIC guarantee. |
How to help a financially self destructive person? | I learned this from a business book on managing people, but I think it applies equally well here. You can't put in what God left out of people. I know several people with this mentality about money and you simply have to make your sculpture out of the clay you have. In this case, however, it seems that ship has sailed, considering it is your ex and you aren't on speaking terms. That would make it even harder, and it is debatable about whether it is your prerogative to even try. Just focus on the kids and make it clear to your wife that she needs to be providing the basics (food, shelter, heat, etc.) and don't escalate that unless it becomes a danger to the kids. In a non-judgmental way (towards your wife) I'd use it as an opportunity to teach your kids about financial responsibility and the dangers of overspending and get-rich quick schemes. It sounds like they have an example in their lives of the consequences of two very different ways of managing one's finances. |
What are my tax-advantaged investment options at a university job? | Yes. Two years after your first contribution to the SIMPLE IRA, you can roll it to a traditional IRA. You can still contribute "pre-tax", but the mechanism will be slightly different, since with an employer plan the contribution was automatically deducted from your paycheck. With an individual plan, you make the contributions yourself and then get a tax deduction when you file. Since contributions to traditional and Roth IRAs combined are capped at $5,500 if you're under 50, some sort of employer-sponsored plan might be better from a contribution standpoint. If your institution offers some sort of plan other than a 401(k), you might still want to roll to a traditional IRA, since you will have much more flexibility in the investments you choose. On the flip side, if that thought is overwhelming, having a smaller set of options might be better for your peace of mind. |
What exactly is a “bad,” “standard,” or “good” annual raise? If I am told a hard percentage and don't get it, should I look elsewhere? | Keep in mind that unless you have a contract that says you get a certain amount of raise every year, the employer is not required to give you any raise. The quality of a raise is too subjective for anyone to tell you how to judge it. You either get a raise you can live with, it makes you content/happy, and you continue working there, or you get a raise that does not satisfy you, and you jump ship to get more money. Some (most?) employers know that raises can be the tipping point for employees deciding to leave. If you consistently receive raises greater than inflation rate, the message is that the employer values you. If the opposite, they value you enough to continue your employment, but are willing to replace you if you decide to leave. Key thing here is there are three ways of getting increased pay with your current employer. Cost of living or annual raise is the one that we are discussing. Merit based raises are a second way. If you think you deserve a raise, due to loyal consistent contribution, or contributing above your duty, or for whatever reason, then ask for a raise. The third way is to be promoted or transferred to a higher paying position. Often times, you should also make your case to your supervisor why you should have the new position, similar to asking for a merit raise. |
Can a credit card company raise my rates for making a large payment? | No. That's pretty unlikely. Card issuers typically base your rate on your credit score. Paying down debt reduces your percent of available credit used, and improves your score until you are in the 1-20% range. That's optimum. To this issuer, you are one of a million customers, there's no emotion in this, just numbers to them. For what it's worth, if a card issuer raises your rate, you are permitted to "not accept" the rate, stop using the card for new charges, and pay at the current rate. Of course this doesn't apply to zero interest deals, only to increases to your regular rate. |
How do I find an ideal single fund to invest all my money in? | While it is certainly easy to manage single fund, I am not sure it's the right strategy. It's been proven again and again that portfolio diversification is key to long term gains in wealth. I think your best option is to invest in low cost index funds and ETFs. While rebalancing your portfolio is hard, it is vastly simpler if your portfolio only has ETFs. |
Bond ETFs vs actual bonds | ETFs are just like any other mutual fund; they hold a mix of assets described by their prospectus. If that mix fits your needs for diversification and the costs of buying/selling/holding are low, it's as worth considering as a traditional fund with the same mix. A bond fund will hold a mixture of bonds. Whether that mix is sufficiently diversified for you, or whether you want a different fund or a mix of funds, is a judgement call. I want my money to take care of itself for the most part, so most of the bond portion is in a low-fee Total Bond Market Index fund (which tries to match the performance of bonds in general). That could as easily be an ETF, but happens not to be. |
Can I get a dumbed down explanation of risk measures used for evaluating stocks? | Standard deviation from Wikipedia : In statistics and probability theory, the standard deviation (represented by the Greek letter sigma, σ) shows how much variation or dispersion from the average exists.1 A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean (also called expected value); a high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values. In the case of stock returns, a lower value would indicate less volatility while a higher value would mean more volatility, which could be interpreted as high much change does the stock's price go through over time. Mean would be interpreted as if all the figures had to be the same, what would they be? So if a stock returns 10% each year for 3 years in a row, then 10% would be the mean or average return. Now, it is worth noting that there are more than a few calculations that may be done to derive a mean. First, there is the straight forward sum and division by the number of elements idea. For example, if the returns by year were 0%, 10%, and 20% then one may take the sum of 30% and divide by 3 to get a simple mean of 10%. However, some people would rather look at a Compound Annual Growth Rate which in this case would mean multiplying the returns together so 1*(1+.1)*(1+.2)=1.1*1.2=1.32 or 32% since there is some compounding here. Now, instead of dividing a cubic root is taken to get approximately 9.7% average annual return that is a bit lower yet if you compound it over 3 years it will get up to 32% as 10% compounded over 3 years would be 33.1% as (1.1)^3=1.331. Sharpe Ratio from Investopedia: A ratio developed by Nobel laureate William F. Sharpe to measure risk-adjusted performance. The Sharpe ratio is calculated by subtracting the risk-free rate - such as that of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond - from the rate of return for a portfolio and dividing the result by the standard deviation of the portfolio returns. Thus, this is a way to think about given the volatility how much better did the portfolio do than the 10 year bond. R-squared, Alpha and Beta: These are all around the idea of "linear regression" modelling. The idea is to take some standard like say the "S & P 500" in the case of US stocks and see how well does the portfolio follow this and what if one were to use a linear model are the multipliers and addition components to it. R-squared can be thought of it as a measure as to how good is the fit on a scale of 0 to 1. An S & P 500 index fund may well have an R-squared of 1.00 or 0.99 to the index as it will track it extremely closely while other investments may not follow that well at all. Part of modern portfolio theory would be to have asset classes that move independently of each other and thus would have a lower R-squared so that the movement of the index doesn't indicate how an investment will do. Now, as for alpha and beta, do you remember the formula for a line in slope-intercept form, where y is the portfolio's return and x is the index's return: y=mx+b In this situation m is beta which is the multiple of the return, and b is the alpha or how much additional return one gets without the multiple. Going back to an index fund example, m will be near 1 and b will be near 0 and there isn't anything being done and so the portfolio's return computed based on the index's return is simply y=x. Other mutual funds may try to have a high alpha as this is seen as the risk-free return as there isn't the ups and downs of the market here. Other mutual funds may go for a high beta so that there is volatility for investors to handle. |
Can you recommend some good websites/brokers for buying/selling stocks in India? | Indiabulls. Low brokerage (If you bargain) I'm user of it and I'm getting 25paisa for delivery and 5 paisa for intraday. All transactions can be done online. Also they provide an stand alone application PowerIndiabulls, which is too good and appraised by many users as best in the industry. Not sure about it, but I think Powerindiabulls application is the answer for this. Please have a look at their website for more details. |
Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details? | Phone conversations are useless if the company is uncooperative, you must take it into the written word so it can be documented. Sent them certified letters and keep copies of everything you send and any written responses from the company. This is how you will get actual action. |
Is it worth investing in Index Fund, Bond Index Fund and Gold at the same time? | I'd say neither. Index Funds mimic whatever index. Some stocks that are in the index are good investment opportunities, others not so much. I'm guessing the Bond Index Funds do the same. As for Gold... did you notice how much gold has risen lately? Do you think it will keep on rising like that? For which period? (Hint: if your timespan is less than 10 years, you really shouldn't invest). Investing is about buying low, and selling high. Gold is high, don't touch it. If you want to invest in funds, look at 4 or 5 star Morningstar rated funds. My advisors suggest Threadneedle (Lux) US Equities DU - LU0096364046 with a 4 star rating as the best American fund at this time. However, they are not favoring American stocks at this moment... so maybe you should stay away from the US for now. Have you looked at the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries? |
To pay off a student loan, should I save up a lump sum payoff payment or pay extra each month? | Simply, you should put your money into whatever has the higher interest rate, savings or repayment of debt. Let's say at the beginning of month A you put $1000 into each account. In the case of the savings, at the end of month A you will have $1001.6 ($1000 + 1000 x 2% annual interest / 12) In the case of a loan, at the end of month A you will have $1005.7. ($17000 plus 6.8 interest for one month is 17096.3. On $16000, the new value is 16090.6. The difference between these is $1005.7. 5.7 / 1.6 = 3.56 Therefore, using your money to repay your loan nets you a return about 3.5 times greater. |
Some U.S. Tax Questions (CPA Concerns) | He has included this on Schedule D line 1a, but I don't see any details on the actual transaction. It is reported on form 8949. However, if it is fully reported in 1099-B (with cost basis), then you don't have to actually detail every position. Turbotax asked me to fill in individual stock sales with proceeds and cost basis information. ... Again, it seems to be documented on Schedule D in boxes 1a and 8a. See above. I received a 1099-Q for a 529 distribution for a family member. It was used for qualified expenses, so should not be taxable. Then there's nothing to report. I believe I paid the correct amounts based on my (possibly flawed) understanding of estimated taxes. His initial draft had me paying a penalty. I explained my situation for the year, and his next draft had the penalties removed, with no documentation or explanation. IRS assesses the penalty. If you volunteer to pay the penalty, you can calculate it yourself and pay with the taxes due. Otherwise - leave it to the IRS to calculate and assess the penalty they deem right and send you a bill. You can then argue with the IRS about that assessment. Many times they don't even bother, if the amounts are small, so I'd suggest going with what the CPA did. |
Does high frequency trading provide economic value? | This is a very important question and you will find arguments from both sides, in part because it is still understudied. Ben Golub, Economics Ph.D., from Stanford answers "Is high-frequency trading good for the economy?" on Quoram quite well. This is an important but understudied question. There are few published academic studies on it, though several groups are working on the subject. You may be interested in the following papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1569067 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1361184 These document some of the phenomena that arise in high frequency trading, from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. However, a full equilibrium analysis of the unique features of high frequency trading is still missing, and until it is done, all our answers will be kind of tentative. Nevertheless, there are some obvious things one can say. Currently, high frequency traders are competing to locate physically closer and closer to exchanges, because milliseconds matter. Thus, large amounts of money are being spent to beat other market makers by tiny fractions of a second. Once many firms make these investments, the market looks like it did before in terms of competition and prices, but is a tiny bit faster. This investment is unlikely to be socially efficient: that is, the users of the market don't actually benefit from the fact that their trades are executed half a millisecond faster -- certainly not enough to cover all the investment that went into making that happen. Some people who study the issue believe that high frequency trading (HFT) actually exacerbates market volatility; some plots to this effect are found in the second paper linked above. There is certainly no widely accepted theory that says faster trading technology necessarily increases efficiency, and it is easy to think of algorithms that can make money (at least in the short run) but hurt most other investors, as well as the informational value of the market. One caution is that some of the complaining about HFT comes from those who lose when HFT gets better -- old-style market makers. They certainly have an incentive to make HFT out to be very bad. So some complaints about the predatory nature of HFT should be taken with a grain of salt. There is no strong economic consensus about the value of this activity. For what it's worth, my personal impression is that this is more bad than good. I'll post an update here as more definitive research comes out. You can also find a debate on High-frequency trading from the Economist which gives both sides of the argument. In conclusion: Regardless of how you feel about HFT it seems like it's here to stay and won't be leaving in the foreseeable future. So the debate will rage on... Additional resource you may finding interesting: Europe Begins Push To Ban HFT High Frequency Trading Discussion On CNBC Should High Frequency Trading (HFT) be banned ? |
If there's no volume discount, does buying in bulk still make sense? | To Rich Seller's point, we live 1/2 gallon of gas and 30 minute round trip from the supermarket. For the items that are non-perishable, such as bathroom or facial tissue, paper towels, shampoo,soap, toothpaste, etc, there's value in never running out of it. (@JohnFx - your point is well taken. When my daughter was a toddler, I found her covered in band-aids. One tiny scratch, 9 band-aids. My wife asked why I was concerned, we had hundreds in the pantry. I can see how some items might just encourage over-use) |
Wisest option to pay for second career education | Tl;dr by anecdata I paid for my master's degree from investments/savings with a HELOC backstop It appears you don't have the 62k cash needed for tuition and living expenses so your decision is between financing a degree by selling your investments or a loan. Ultimately this comes down to the yes/no sell decision on the investments. Some things to consider: |
What's the process to buy an old house to tear it down and create a new one? | By process, I assume you mean the financial process. Financially, this doesn't look any different to me than buying an empty lot to build a rental unit, with the added expense (potentially significant) of doing the tear-down. Given your lack of experience and capital, I would be very hesitant to jump in like this. You are going to have to spend a lot of time managing the build process, or pay someone else to do it for you. And expect everything to take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect. If you really want to get into the landlord business, I would suggest starting with a structurally sound building that needs some renovation work and start there. One you have that up and running, you can use the cash flow and equity to finance something more aggressive. If you still think you want to do this, the first thing to do is figure out if the financials make sense. How much will it cost to do the tear-down and rebuild, plus the typical rental expenses:ongoing maintenance, taxes, insurance, vacancy rates and compare that to the expected rental rates in the area to see how long it will take to 1) achieve a positive cash flow, and 2) break even. There are a lot of good questions on this site related to rentals that go into much more detail about how to approach this. |
How to gift money anonymously to an individual after collection thru a donation site? | You mention that "A great friend and couple's family" which makes me think this is a couple. For gift tax concerns, you can give a couple 2 x the gift tax exemption ($28,000 in 2015). Your example of $22k would fit in this amount. To give this money anonymously, I know that people have reached out to a pastor in the area who will deliver an envelope with the gift and not disclose the source. Talking to a pastor who has done this, he said the call came out of the blue and he was happy to be able to help. |
Adding a 180 day expiration to checks | While you can print that on the check, it isn't considered legally binding. If you are concerned about a check not being deposited in a timely manner, consider purchasing a cashier's check instead. This doesn't solve the problem per se, but it transfers responsibility of tracking that check from you to the bank. |
When to hire an investment professional? | I don't know what you mean by 'major'. Do you mean the fund company is a Fidelity or Vanguard, or that the fund is broad, as in an s&P fund? The problem starts with a question of what your goals are. If you already know the recommended mix for your age/risk, as you stated, you should consider minimizing the expenses, and staying DIY. I am further along, and with 12 year's income saved, a 1% hit would be 12% of a year's pay, I'd be working 1-1/2 months to pay the planner? In effect, you are betting that a planner will beat whatever metric you consider valid by at least that 1% fee, else you can just do it yourself and be that far ahead of the game. I've accepted the fact that I won't beat the average (as measured by the S&P) over time, but I'll beat the average investor. By staying in low cost funds (my 401(k) S&P fund charges .05% annual expense) I'll be ahead of the investors paying planner fees, and mutual fund fees on top of that. You don't need to be a CFP to manage your money, but it would help you understand the absurdity of the system. |
What is meant by one being in a “tax bracket”? | As ApplePie discusses, "tax bracket" without any modifiers refers to a single jurisdiction's marginal tax rate. In your case, this is either your California's "tax bracket" or your Federal "tax bracket" (not including marginal Social Security and Medicare taxes). But if someone says "combined state and federal tax bracket", they probably mean the combination of your state and federal income tax brackets (again, lot including sales taxes, business and occupational taxes, social security taxes, and medicare taxes). The math to combine the state and federal marginal tax rates is a bit tricky, because most people can deduct either their state and local income taxes, or their state and local general sales taxes when computing their income for federal income tax purposes. (The federal "alternative minimum tax" restricts this deduction for some people.) For a single person earning $ 100,000 of salaries and wages in California, whose state income taxes are close to their standard deduction, the calculations for the combined marginal income tax rate look something like this: As mentioned above, this understates the tax bite on marginal "earned income". To find the true marginal rate, we need to add in Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, sales taxes, and business & occupation taxes. The Social Security and Medicare taxes are sometimes called "self employment taxes". This math omits unemployment insurance and workers' compensation insurance, because those taxes are typically capped well below $ 100,000 per year of income. This math also omits B & O taxes, because this question is California specific. If an employer wishes to increase an employee's pay by $ 1,076.50, the first $ 76.50 will go to the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. The remaining $ 1,000.00 will be subject to the combined marginal income tax rate discussed above, plus will have $ 76.50 go to the employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. The employee might buy some extra things with some of their extra money, and pay sales tax on them. In 2016, a 9 % sales tax rate was common in California's largest cities. The IRS estimated that (for a single person with no dependents making $ 100,000 per year who did not buy a boat, RV, motor vehicle, or major home construction), about 9 % of their marginal gross income was subject to sales tax. |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Don't buy the first model year of a new model unless the fuel economy is much better in the latest model. Buying a car in later years just before the changeover will result in a slightly higher quality vehicle or in some cases dramatically higher quality. Find the best forum for your make/model/year of car. Join the forum, check the FAQ, sticky threads and post questions when you have trouble. Do NOT rely passively on the dealer or even private mechanics as they do not drive the car every day. You are in the best position to identify problems but only if you have some help. Preventive maintenance is the best if you intend to keep the car for a really long time. Forums are a really good place to find the typical problems of a particular model and potentially head them off. |
why would someone buy or sell just a few shares in stocks | I buy or sell a few shares whenever I have a small amount of money to transfer into out of my mutual funds. Since I'm not paying transaction fees, there is no reason not to, when that is what makes sense. If you are paying a fee for each transaction, of course it makes sense to try to wait until you have a larger amount to move so the overhead per share is lower. |
Employee stock option plan with undefined vesting? | An option without the vesting period and the price at which one can exercise the option is of not much value. If vesting is determined by board, then at any given point in time they can change the vesting period to say 3, 5, 10 years any number. The other aspect is at what price you are allowed to exercise the option, ie if the stock is of value 10, you may be given an option to buy this at 10, 20 or 100. This has to be stated upfront for you to know the real value. On listing if the value is say 80, then if you have the option to exercise at 10, or 20 you would make money, else at 100 you loose money and hence choose not to exercise the option. However your having stuck around the company for "x" years in anticipation of making money would go waste. Without a vesting period or the price to exercise the option, they are pretty much meaningless and would depend on the goodwill of the founders |
Money Structuring | Structuring, as noted in another answer, involves breaking up cash transactions to avoid the required reporting limits. There are a couple of important things to note. And, the biggest caveat - there have been many cases of perfectly legitimate transactions that have fallen foul of the reporting requirements. One case springs to mind of a small business that routinely deposited the previous day's receipts as cash, and due to the size of the business, those deposits typically fell in the $9,000-$9,500 range. This business ended up going through a lot of headaches and barely survived. Some don't. A single batch of transactions, if it is only 2 or 3 parts and they are separated by reasonable intervals, is not likely in and of itself to be suspicious. However, any set of such transactions does run the risk of being flagged. In your case, you also run afoul of the Know Your Customer rules, because it's not even you depositing the cash - it's your friend. (Why can your friend not simply write you a check? What is your friend doing with $5k of cash at a time? How do you know he's not generating illegal income and using you to launder it for him?) Were I your bank, you can be very certain I'd be reporting these transactions. Just from this description, this seems questionable to me. IRS seizes millions from law-abiding businesses |
Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund | Excellent answers so far, so I will just add one additional consideration: liquidity. Money invested in a mutual fund (exclusive of retirement accounts with early withdrawal penalties) has a relatively high liquidity. Whereas excess equity in your home from paying down early has very low liquidity. To put it simply: If you get in a desperate situation (long term unemployment) it is better to have to cash in a mutual fund than try to sell your house on the quick and move in with your mother. Liquidity becomes less of an issue if you also manage to fund a decent sized rainy-day fund (6-9 months of living expenses). |
Why does it look like my 401k loan default was not paid by my 401k account balance? | There are multiple reasons why this may have happened: 1.) I couldn't tell in your question whether or not you had already paid off the loan before requesting the rollover. But if the loan was defaulted - then the $9k left in your account is not distributable, but is there to pay back the remaining balance on your loan. The $9k will be treated as income, and will be taxed - you will receive a 1099-R detailing the taxes you'll owe. I don't know why this wasn't done when they did your rollover distribution. Typically it all happens at the same time - but it can vary depending on the administrator. 2.) Do you get some type of safe harbor discretionary match, or profit sharing contribution? If so - perhaps this contribution was made after your account was liquidated. So now there is residual money in your account and it is treated as a new distribution, which incurs a new $60 distribution fee. 3.) Stock - if some of your investments were in stock - these take a few extra days to liquidate. Typically a TPA/Recordkeeper would wait until ALL of the funds are liquidated before issuing the rollover. But some companies may be shady and do it separately - incurring an additional $60 distribution fee. If this was the case - I would go to your former employer's HR and tell them whats happening and to start looking for a new 401(k) administrator! I hope this helps :-) Good luck! |
Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary? | In the UK, recent changes to pension taxation mean that from April 2011, people earning between £150,000 and £180,000 total and making large pension contributions (>£50,000 or so) will pay a marginal tax rate on additional salary of >100%. This is because pension contributions normally attract tax relief at the highest marginal rate - i.e. 40% if the gross salary is above about £40,000, and 50% for salaries above £150,000. But after April 2011, the rate of relief will be tapered down for gross salaries above £150,000, reaching 20% for a gross salary of £180,000. So for example if you earn £175,000 and make a contribution of £50,000, then an additional £1,000 in salary will incur £500 of direct tax, and also lead to a 1% reduction in tax relief (from 25% to 24%), costing another £500. Once you factor in National Insurance of another 1% or so, the net effect of the pay rise is negative. |
What is a checking account and how does it work? | A savings account and a checking account (or a "demand" account, or a "transactional" account) have different regulations. For example, fractional reserve requirements are 10% against checking accounts, but 0% against savings accounts. The theory is that savings accounts are sticky, while checking accounts are hot money. So the Fed wants to stop banks from creating accounts that are regulated as savings accounts but have the features of checking accounts. In the past, this was done by forbidding banks to pay interest on checking accounts. They eliminated that rule back in the inflation years, and instead imposed the rule that to qualify as a savings accounts for regulatory purposes, banks must discourage you from using them as transactional accounts. For example, by limiting the number of withdrawals per month that can be made from a savings account. If the Fed gave up on trying to enforce a distinction, I suspect there would soon no longer be a distinction. |
Is the stock market too risky for long term retirement funds? Why should a 20- or 30-something person invest in stocks? | I would start with long term data. It would show how 40 years worth of stock investing puts the investor so far ahead of the "safe" investor that they can afford to lose half and still be ahead. But - then I would explain about asset allocation, and how the soon to be retired person had better be properly allocated if they weren't all along so that the impact of down years is mitigated. The retiree is still a long term investor as life spans of 90 are common. Look at the long term charts for the major indexes. So long as you average in, reinvest earnings (dividends) and stay diversified, you will be ahead. The market is still not where it was at the end of 2001, but in the decade, our worth has risen from 5X our income to 12.5X. This was not genius, just a combination of high savings and not panicking. |
Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income? | This is a really bad idea. You are asking to be forced to pay for something at a time when you most likely NOT want to buy it. Why? There is no stability (much less any degree of predictability) to give up the right to control when and for how much you would be willing to own the S&P500. Just don't do it....."generate stable income" and "selling puts" is an oxymoron. ===retired investment advisor |
Can we cash a check under business name? | All banks in the US that I have ever worked with will allow you to deposit checks if: In your case, you have 3 options: |
E*Trade commission | The commission is per trade, there is likely a different commission based on the type of security you're trading, stock, options, bonds, over the internet, on the phone, etc. It's not likely that they charge an account maintenance fee, but without knowing what kind of account you have it's hard to say. What you may be referring to is a fund expense ratio. Most (all...) mutual funds and exchange traded funds will charge some sort of expense costs to you, this is usually expressed as a percent of your holdings. An index fund like Vanguard's S&P 500 index, ticker VOO, has a small 0.05% expense ratio. Most brokers will have a set of funds that you can trade with no commission, though there will still be an expense fee charged by the fund. Read over the E*Trade fee schedule carefully. |
Do I purchase stocks or not? | You didn't give enough information. What is your goal? What is your financial situation? A discount to buy company stock can seem very tempting. I was tempted by it myself, gee, almost 20 years ago. I still own some of the stock. But I held mutual funds first. There are two disadvantages that have disuaded me from partaking in the ESPP of my subsequent employers (one of which was a spin-out company of the stock-issuing company, the other having bought the spin-out). First, putting a bunch of money in a single stock is rather risky. single stocks will drop dramatically due to market conditions. Generally market conditions don't act so dramatically on all stock. Second, is it wise to put not only your salary but also your saved wealth all in one basket? It worked out reasonably well for me. The stock doubled right before my division was spun out -- I sold half of my position. And the resulting stock has continued to provide opportunities to diversify. However, it could have just as easily dropped in half instead of doubled. What is your timeline for holding the stock -- for realizing any gain? Can you afford patience if the stock value should drop in half? I have co-workers who continue to invest through our new company's ESPP. At least one co-worker has the stated goal to sell after every purchase -- he holds the stock long enough to make a long-term gain instead of short term, but he sells after every purchase. And it seems to him that the stock always drops right when he wants to sell. |
Buying Fixed Deposit in India from Europe | A few weeks ago, I was thinking about this exact thing (except swap Euros for Canadian Dollars). The good news is that there are options. Option 1: yes, buy Indian fixed deposits Interest rates are high right now- you can get up to 9% p.a. It boils down to your sentiment about the Indian rupee going forward. For instance, let's say you purchase a deposit for amount x at 9% p.a., you can have it double to almost 2x in 10 years. Three things can happen in 10 years: Are you optimistic about Indian governance and economy going forward? If you are, go for it! I certainly am. Option 2: heard of FCNR? Look in to FCNR deposits. I don't know about Europe, but in Canada, the best rate for a 1 year deposit is approximately 1.5%. However, through Foreign Currency Non-Resident (FCNR) deposits, you can get up to 4% or 5%. The other benefit is that you don't have to convert currency to INR which results in conversion savings. However, only major currencies can be used to open such accounts. |
Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece? | No it is not safe to take out a new mortgage - loan or anything credit related or any investment - in greece. Growing political risk, bonds have junk credit rating. You will be underwater on your mortgage the day you apply for it. And you better believe that the buyers will be dry once you realize that it doesn't make sense to keep paying the mortgage. If you want to have some assets, there are more liquid things you can own, in your case: paper gold. Just rent. |
Where can I find the nominal price of a stock prior a split into multiple companies? | When Hewlett Packard split they changed their name to HP Inc. and spun off Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a new corporation. This means HP Inc. has the same stock history and ticker (HPQ) as Hewlett Packard did so that's the one you want to search for. As you noticed this also means it's impossible to search for old Hewlett Packard's stock performance alone. One free service that seems to show the unadjusted historical stock price of HPQ is Google finance: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AHPQ |
How often does a stock price change and where is this defined? | Stocks prices are determined whenever a buyer and seller agree to trade at a given price. The company (you use AAPL as an example) doesn't set its own stock price. Rather, the investors set the price every time it trades. There's no "official" price -- just the last trade. Likewise, you can offer to trade a stock at whatever price you want: that's the definition of a limit order. You might not find a willing buyer or seller at that price, but you can certainly open an order. Stock quotes that you get from your broker or a finance web site reflect the price as last traded. These quotes are updated throughout the trading day and the frequency and delay varies amongst quote providers. Like Knuckle-Dragger suggests in the comments, there are ways to get real-time quotes. It's often more helpful to think in terms of bid/ask instead of "official price". See this question for details. |
Should one invest in smaller valued shares in higher amounts, or higher valued shares in smaller amounts? | Short answer: No, it only matters if you want to use covered calls strategies. The price of a share is not important. Some companies make stock splits from time to time so that the price of their shares is more affordable to small investors. It is a decision of the company's board to keep the price high or low. More important is the capitalization for these shares. If you have lots of money to invest, the best is to divide and invest a fixed pourcentage of your portfolio in each company you choose. The only difference is if you eventually decide to use covered call strategies. To have a buy write on Google will cost you a lot of money and you will only be able to sell 1 option for every 100 shares. Bottom line: the price is not important, capitalization and estimated earnings are. Hope this answers your question. |
What caused this drop? | I do not fully understand the transactions involved, but it appears that there was a reverse stock split (20:1) and some legal status change as well on June 29th. This seems to be the cause for the change in valuation of the stock as the dates match the drop. https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/RMSLD/filings |
23 and on my own, what should I be doing? | Okay, since you work hourly there are two substantial changes you can make: 1) Move out of Astoria and closer to Jersey City, such as, to Jersey City. Move out of NYC into Jersey!? Heresy! But that ship sailed when you started working there. 2) Work more hours now that you aren't spending 2 hours and 30 minutes of your life commuting. You can make an extra $125 per day, in theory. Since this is $625 more a week, and $2500 a month, it is a substantial change you can make. Presupposing that your current contract has more hours to work. |
Buying my first car: why financing is cheaper than paying cash here and now? | The advice given at this site is to get approved for a loan from your bank or credit union before visiting the dealer. That way you have one data point in hand. You know that your bank will loan w dollars at x rate for y months with a monthly payment of Z. You know what level you have to negotiate to in order to get a better deal from the dealer. The dealership you have visited has said Excludes tax, tag, registration and dealer fees. Must finance through Southeast Toyota Finance with approved credit. The first part is true. Most ads you will see exclude tax, tag, registration. Those amounts are set by the state or local government, and will be added by all dealers after the final price has been negotiated. They will be exactly the same if you make a deal with the dealer across the street. The phrase Must finance through company x is done because they want to make sure the interest and fees for the deal stay in the family. My fear is that the loan will also not be a great deal. They may have a higher rate, or longer term, or hit you with many fee and penalties if you want to pay it off early. Many dealers want to nudge you into financing with them, but the unwillingness to negotiate on price may mean that there is a short term pressure on the dealership to do more deals through Toyota finance. Of course the risk for them is that potential buyers just take their business a few miles down the road to somebody else. If they won't budge from the cash price, you probably want to pick another dealer. If the spread between the two was smaller, it is possible that the loan from your bank at the cash price might still save more money compared to the dealer loan at their quoted price. We can't tell exactly because we don't know the interest rates of the two offers. A couple of notes regarding other dealers. If you are willing to drive a little farther when buying the vehicle, you can still go to the closer dealer for warranty work. If you don't need a new car, you can sometimes find a deal on a car that is only a year or two old at a dealership that sells other types of cars. They got the used car as a trade-in. |
Bonds vs equities: crash theory | Cash would be the better alternative assuming both stocks take a major hit in ALL categories AND the Fed raise rates at the same time for some reason. Money market funds that may have relatively low yields at the moment would likely be one of the few securities not to be repriced downward as interest rates rising would decrease bond values which could be another crash as I could somewhat question how broad of a crash are you talking here. There are more than a few different market segments so that while some parts may get hit really hard in a crash, would you really want to claim everything goes down? Blackrock's graphic shows in 2008 how bonds did the best and only it and cash had positive returns in that year but there is something to be said for how big is a crash: 20%, 50%, 90%? |
How To Assign Payments Received Properly In GnuCash? | When I receive a check from a customer whom I previously sent an invoice, I go to the customer report for that customer, click on the link "Invoice" for that invoice, then click on the Pay Invoice button (very far right side). I then do a customer report and see that there is no balance (meaning all the invoices have been paid). I don't process invoices using the same method you do. Instead I go to Business -> Customer -> Process Payment. From there I can select the applicable customer, and a list of unpaid invoices will come up. I've never experienced the issue you've described. On a related topic: are you posting your invoices? From experience that has caused issues for me; when you post the invoice it should show up in your Accounts Receivable (or whichever account you've designated), and after you process the payment the A/R should go down accordingly. When posting your invoice, you specify which account it gets posted to: So that account should show a balance once you have posted it: Then, when a client pays you, your cash will go up, and A/R will go down. |
Any tips for asset allocation across multiple retirement accounts? | I have a similar situation -- five different accounts between me and my wife. Just as you and @Alex B describe, I maintain my asset allocation across the combination of all accounts. I also maintain a spreadsheet to track the targets, deviations from the targets, amounts required to get back in balance, and overall performance. I (mostly) don't use mutual funds. I have selected, for each category, 1 or 2 ETFs. Choosing index ETFs with low expense ratios and a brokerage with cheap or free trades keeps expenses low. (My broker offers free ETF trades if you buy off their list as long as you aren't short-term trading; this is great for rebalancing for free 2 or 3 times a year.) Using ETFs also solves the minimum balance problem -- but watch out for commissions. If you pay $10 to buy $500 worth of an ETF, that's an immediate 2% loss; trade a couple of times a year and that ETF has to gain 5% just to break even. One issue that comes up is managing cash and avoiding transaction fees. Say your IRA has all the growth stock funds and your Roth has the bonds. Stocks do well and bonds do poorly, so you sell off some stocks, which creates a bunch of cash in your IRA. Now you want to buy some bonds but you don't have enough cash in your Roth, so you buy the bonds in your IRA. Not a problem at first but if you don't manage it you can end up with small amounts of various funds spread across all of your accounts. If you're not careful you can end up paying two commissions (in two different accounts) to sell off / purchase enough of a category to get back to your targets. Another problem I had is that only one account (401k) is receiving deposits on a regular basis, and that's all going into an S&P 500 index fund. This makes it so that my allocation is off by a fair amount every quarter or so -- too much in large cap equities, not enough of everything else. My solution to this going forward is to "over-rebalance" a couple of times a year: sell enough SPY from my other accounts so that I'm under-allocated in large caps by the amount I expect to add to my 401k over the next 3 months. (So that in six months at my next rebalancing I'm only 3 months over-allocated to large caps -- plus or minus whatever gains/losses there are.) |
Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person? | For most situations the "no need" answers are 100% correct. The corner case to think about depends on your health and your family history. Not to be morose, but if folks in your family who died young from heart issues, clusters of cancer or other terminal illnesses, you may want to consider getting medically qualified for a modest amount of insurance when you are young. Then, when you have children, you usually have the option of incrementally upgrading your coverage over time. |
What is the proper way to report additional income for taxes (specifically, Android development)? | You would report it as business income on Schedule C. You may be able to take deductions against that income as well (home office, your computer, an android device, any advertising or promotional expenses, etc.) but you'll want to consult an accountant about that. Generally you can only take those kinds of deductions if you use the space or equipment exclusively for business use (not likely if it's just a hobby). The IRS is pretty picky about that stuff. |
Should I make more conservative investments in my company 401(K) if I'm going to leave the job in a couple of years? | It doesn't make a difference if you will be keeping it in the 401K or transferring it to an IRA, it is still retirement money that you plan on investing for decades. Pre-Enron many employees invested significant amounts of their retirement funds with the employer. One of the risks was that if a single stock was down at the wrong time, you were hurt if you needed to sell. If you are going from an S&P 500 in the 401K to an S&P 500 in the IRA, it doesn't matter if the the market is up or down, the two funds will be pretty much in synch. |
Is Cash Value Life Insurance (“whole life” insurance) a good idea for my future? | I am of the strong opinion that life insurance should be purchased as a term product and nothing more. The internal expense is usually high, the returns, poor and the product disclosure is often incomprehensible. The only purpose Cash Value Life Insurance serves, in my opinion, is to fund the retirement and college educations of those selling it. |
New company doesn't allow 401k deposits for 6 months, what to do with money I used to deposit? | I would open a taxable account with the same custodian that manages your Roth IRA (e.g., Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.). Then within the taxable account I would invest the extra money in low cost, broad market index funds that are tax efficient. Unlike in your 401(k) and Roth IRA, you will now have tax implications if your funds produce dividends or realize a capital gain. That is why tax-efficient funds are important to minimize this as much as possible. The 3-fund portfolio is a popular choice for taxable accounts because of simplicity and the tax efficiency of broad market index funds that are part of the three fund portfolio. The 3-fund portfolio normally consists of Depending on your tax bracket you may want to consider municipal bonds in your taxable instead of taxable bonds if your tax bracket is 25% or higher. Another option is to forgo bonds altogether in the taxable account and just hold bonds in retirement accounts while keeping tax efficient domestic and international tock funds in your taxable account. Then adjust the bond portion upward in your retirement accounts to account for the additional stocks in your taxable accounts. This will maintain the asset allocation that you've already chosen that is appropriate for your age and goals. |
How to calculate a mutual fund's yield | If the expense ratio of the fund is 0.00% then yes. However, if the fund has expenses of 1% then if the NAV of the fund is $10/share the expenses would cause you to see only $.002 a share and thus you'd have $.10 in total as the expenses first cut down the yield. |
How can rebuilding a city/large area be considered an economic boost? | Wikipedia's article on the Parable of the broken window mentions that Keynesians would argue that broken windows can be useful in depressed economies. I think Japan's economy was somewhat depressed, so if it applies anywhere, it'd apply in this scenario. |
Efficient markets hypothesis and performance of IPO shares after lock-up period | There are rules that prevent two of the reactive measures you suggest from occurring. First, on the date of and shortly following an IPO, there is no stock available to borrow for shorting. Second, there are no put options available for purchase. At least, none that are listed, of the sort you probably have in mind. In fact, within a day or two of the LinkedIn IPO, most (all?) of the active equity traders I know were bemoaning the fact that they couldn't yet do exactly what you described i.e. buying puts, or finding shares to sell short. There was a great deal of conviction that LinkedIn shares were overpriced, but scant means available to translate that market assessment into an influence of market value. This does not mean that the Efficient Markets Hypothesis is deficient. Equilibrium is reached quickly enough, once the market is able to clear as usual. |
Home Valuation in a Dodgy neighborhood | Over the last ten years you have reaped the benefits of a good financial decision. (Presumably your low mortgage has freed up money for other financial priorities.) There would be no harm in making a clean break by selling as is. On the other hand, the resale value would probably be rather low considering the condition and the neighborhood. I don't want to assume too much here, but if a potential buyer is interested in the house by virtue of not being able to afford a house in a better neighborhood or better condition, their finances and credit history may make it difficult for them to be approved for a mortgage. That would reduce the potential buyer pool and further reduce the sale price. If you can pull more in rent than the mortgage, you definitely have an opportunity to come ahead. Maybe window A/C units and a repaired chimney are enough if you're renting. Your rental income would pay for that in less than a year even while paying your mortgage for you. (Of course you don't want to become a sleazy slumlord either.) |
How can I determine if a debt consolidation offer is real or a scam? | I believe no-one who's in a legal line of business would tell you to default voluntarily on your obligations. Once you get an offer that's too good to be true, and for which you have to do something that is either illegal or very damaging to you - it is probably a scam. Also, if someone requires you to send any money without a prior written agreement - its probably a scam as well, especially in such a delicate matter as finances. Your friend now should also be worried about identity theft as he voluntary gave tons of personal information to these people. Bottom line - if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Your friend had all the warning signs other than a huge neon light saying "Scam" pointing at these people, and he still went through it. For real debt consolidation companies, research well: online reviews, BBB ratings and reviews, time in business, etc. If you can't find any - don't deal with them. Also, if you get promises for debtors to out of the blue give up on some of their money - its a sign of a scam. Why would debtors reduce the debt by 60%? He's paying, he can pay, he is not on the way to bankruptcy (or is he?)? Why did he do it to begin with? |
Sanity check on choosing the term for a mortgage refinance | If the best they can do is 1/8th of a percent for a 15 year term, you are best served by taking the 30 year term. Pay it down sooner if you can, but it's nice to have the flexibility if you have a month where things are tight. |
Where to park money while saving for a car | Nothing's generating a whole lot of interest right now. But more liquid and stable is better (cash or cash-like). But a related question: Why a new car? You can knock thousands of dollars off of the price of a comparable vehicle by buying one that's one or two years old. Your new vehicle loses thousands of dollars in value the moment it goes off the lot. |
How can I help others plan their finances, without being a “conventional” financial planner? | I think it's great that you want to contribute. Course Instructor You may want to take a look at becoming an instructor for a course like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. These are commonly offered through churches and other community venues for a fee. This may be a good fit if you want to focus on basic financial literacy, setting up and sticking to a budget, and getting their financial "house" in order. It may not be a good fit if you don't want to teach an existing curriculum, or if you find the tenets of the course too unpalatable. A significant number of the people in Dave's audience are close to or in the middle of a financial meltdown, and so his advice includes controversial ideas such as avoiding credit altogether, often because that's how they got into their current mess. Counselor If you want to run your own show, I know of several people who have built their own practice that is run along the lines of a counselor charging hourly rates, and they work with couples who are having money problems. Building a reputation and a network of referring counselors and professionals is key here, and definitely seems like it would require a full-time commitment. I would avoid "credit counseling" and the like. Most of these organizations are focused on restructuring credit card debt, not spending signficant time on behavioral change. You don't need a series 7, 63, 65 etc. or even a CFA. I've previously acquired a number of these and can confirm that they are investment credentials that are intended to help you get a job and/or get more business as a broker or conventional financial planner, i.e. salesperson of securities. The licensure process is necessary to protect consumers from advice that serves the investment sales force but is bad for the consumer, and because you must be licensed to provide investment advice. There is a class of fee-only financial planners, but they primarily deal with complex issues that allow them to make money, and often give away basic personal finance advice for free in the form of articles, podcasts, etc. Charity For part-time or free work, in my area there are also several charity organizations that help people do their taxes and provide basic budgeting and personal finance instruction, but this is very localized and may vary quite a bit depending on where you live. However, if there are none near you, you can always start one! Journalism If you have an interest in writing, there are also people who work as journalists and write columns, books, or newsletters, and it is much easier now to publish and build a network online, either on your own, through a blog or contributing to a website. Speaker at Community events There are also many opportunities to speak to a specific community such as a church or social organization. For example, where I live there are local organizations for Spanish speaking, Polish speaking, elderly, young professional, young mother and retiree groups for example, all of who might be interested in your advice on issues that specifically address their needs. Good luck! |
What does Capital Surplus mean? | Capital surplus is used to account for that amount which a firm raises in excess of the par value (nominal value) of the shares (common stock).. Investopedia has a much simpler answer. Somebody has tried to be smart on wikipedia and have done the calculations without much explanation. The portion of the surplus of a business arising from sources other than earnings : all surplus other than earned surplus usually including amounts received from sale or exchange of capital stock in excess of par or stated value, profits on resale of treasury stock, donations to capital by stockholders or others, or increment arising from revaluation of fixed or other assets The number of shares a company wants to issue is decided and agreed with the regulators. They decide the par value and then decide how much premium will be charged, extra money above the par value. Take out any RHP of an issue and you find all these details. Par Value = 1 Issue price(Price at which investors buy) = 10 Premium = 9 For a single share the capital surplus is 9, multiply it by the number of shares issued and you have the total capital surplus. |
How can my dad (grandpa) transfer shares to my 2 year old son? | A UTMA may or may not fit your situation. The main drawbacks to a UTMA account is that it will count against your child for financial aid (it counts as the child's asset). The second thing to consider is that taxes aren't deferred like in a 529 plan. The last problem of course is that when he turns 18 he gets control of the account and can spend the money on random junk (which may or may not be important to you). A 529 plan has a few advantages over a UTMA account. The grandparents can open the account with your son as the beneficiary and the money doesn't show up on financial aid for college (under current law which could change of course). Earnings grow tax free which will net you more total growth. You can also contribute substantially more without triggering the gift tax ~$60k. Also many states provide a state tax break for contributing to the state sponsored 529 plan. The account owner would be the grandparents so junior can't spend the money on teenage junk. The big downside to the 529 is the 10% penalty if the money isn't used for higher education. The flip side is that if the money is left for 20 years you will also have additional growth from the 20 years of tax free growth which may be a wash depending on your tax bracket and the tax rates in effect over those 20 years. |
Is there any circumstance in which it is necessary to mark extra payments on a loan as going to “principal and not interest”? | It could be a couple of things besides extra principal: I seem to remember hearing that some (shady?) lenders would just pocket extra payments if you didn't specify where they were headed, but I've also been told that this just isn't true. |
Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork? | Generally, the paperwork realtors use is pre-written and pre-approved by the relevant State and real-estate organizations. The offers, contracts, etc etc a pretty straightforward and standard. You can ask a realtor for a small fee to arrange the documents for you (smaller than the usual 5% sellers' fee they charge, I would say 0.5% or a couple of hundreds of dollars flat fee would be enough for the work). You can try and get these forms yourself, sometimes you can buy them in the neighborhood Staples, or from various law firms and legal plans that sell standard docs. You can get a lawyer to go over it with you for almost nothing: I used the LegalZoom plan for documentation review, and it cost me $30 (business plan, individual is cheaper) to go over several purchase contracts ($30 is a monthly subscription, but you don't have to pay it for more than one month). But these are standard, so you do it once and you know how to read them all. If you have a legal plan from work, this may cover document review and preparation. Preparing a contract that is not a standard template can otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars. Title company will not do any paperwork for you except for the deed itself. They can arrange the deed and the recording, escrow and title insurance, but they will not write a contract for the parties to use. You have to come with the contract already in place, and with escrow instructions already agreed upon. Some jurisdictions require using a lawyer in a real-estate transaction. If you're in a jurisdiction (usually on a county level) that requires the transaction to go through a lawyer - then the costs will be higher. |
How it actually works? Selling a call on a stock I hold, but has done poor, might the market thinks may rise | What you are proposing is called a "covered call" strategy. It is a perfectly reasonable speculative play on how far the stock will move within a certain amount of time. If your belief that the stock's volatility is such that it is unlikely to reach the strike price before the maturity is greater than the markets (which it seems it is), then go ahead and sell the call. |
What is the most effective saving money method? | In a word: budgeting. In order to have money left over at the end of the month, you need to be intentional about how you spend it. That is all a budget is: a plan for spending your money. Few people have the discipline and abundance of income necessary to just wing it and not overspend. By making a plan at home ahead of time, you can decide how much you will spend on food, entertainment, etc, and ensure you have enough money left over for things like rent/mortgage and utility bills, and still have enough for longer-term savings goals like a car purchase or retirement. If you don't have a plan, it's simply not reasonable to expect yourself to know if you have enough money for a Venti cup as you drive past the Starbucks. A good plan will allow you to spend on things that are important to you while ensuring that you have enough to meet your obligations and long-term goals. Another thing a budget will do for you is highlight where your problem is. If your problem is that you are spending too much money on luxuries, the budget will show you that. It might also reveal to you that your rent is too high, or your energy consumption is too great. On the other hand, you might realize after budgeting that your spending is reasonable, but your income is too low. In that case, you should focus on spending more of your time working or looking for a better paying job. |
I might use a credit card convenience check. What should I consider? | I tried this a few months ago when I got one from Chase for 0%. Thought it might be fun to play with, maybe make some money with the interest elsewhere over the 6 months. Read the term and called Chase for more information on these and didn't see any issues at first. The big thing that got me was that the rest of my account (not the money from the convenience check) was converted so that interests accrued on a daily basis even if you paid it all off at the end of the month. So even though I was making the required payments that would normally not incur any interest, just by having the convince check balance on my account I was being charged the interest for my normal credit card charges over the month. The amount of charges came out to only be around $10-$20, so wasn't much of a loss really. But something to keep in mind when using these, (I tried it with 0% APR and still couldn't get away from the interest). If I had needed the money this would still be an excellent way to go. But if your trying to beat Chase with this game, it doesn't work... Although if you don't use the card for anything other than the convenience check it's free money (or cheap @ 3.99% in your case) Everything in my account went back to normal after it was paid off, so no harm really, but some things to keep in mind at least. |
Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions? | Similar to what Adam F says above, except instead of just transfering the amount you spend on the credit card into the high interest account, why not keep the majority of your funds (apart from a small amount, say a couple of hundred for emergencies) in the high interest account until the credit card needs to be paid off. Even better, if you have a mortgage with an 100% offset account keep all your funds in this, and pay off your credit card in full from it on or before the due date. Being a 100% offset to your mortgage interest rate you will be saving at a higher rate than a high interest rate savings account, and you will be able to do all your normal banking from it unlike a high interest account which you usually have to link to an additional account to deposit and withdrawl money to and from. If you are to use a credit card keep these simple rules in mind: Hope this has helped, Regards Victor |
Identifying “Dividend Stocks” | If you don't have a good knowledge of finance, maybe you should not put too much money in individual stocks. But if you really want to invest, you can just compare the rate of return of the most known stocks available to you (like the one from the S&P for the US). The rate of return is very simple to compute, it's 100*dividend/share price. For example a company with a current share price of 50.12 USD that delivered a dividend of 1.26 USD last year would have a rate of return of 100 * 1.26/50.12= 2.51% Now if you only invest in the most known stocks, since they are already covered by nearly all financial institutions and analysts: If you are looking for lower risk dividend companies, take a sample of companies and invest those with the lowest rates of return (but avoid extreme values). Of course since the stock prices are changing all the time, you have to compare them with a price taken at the same time (like the closing price of a specific day) and for the dividend, they can be on several basis (yearly, quartely, etc..) so you have to be sure to take the same basis. You can also find the P/E ratio which is the opposite indicator (= share price/dividend) so an higher P/E ratio means a lower risk. Most of the time you can find the P/E ratio or the rate of return already computed on specialized website or brokers. |
Can I default on my private student loans if I was an international student? | You signed a contract to pay the loan. You owe the money. Stories of people being arrested over defaulted student loans are usually based in contempt of court warrants when the person failed to appear in court when the collection agency filed suit against them. Explore student loan forgiveness program. Research collections and bankruptcy and how to deal with collection agencies. There are pitfalls in communicating with them which restart the clock on bad debt aging off the credit report, and which can be used to say that you agreed to pay a debt. For instance, if you make any sort of payment on any debt, a case can be made that you have assumed the debt. Once you are aware of the pitfalls, contact the collection agency (in writing) and dispute the debt. Force them to prove that it is your debt. Force them to prove that they have the right to collect it. Force them to prove the amount. Dispute the fairness of the amount. Doubling your principal in 6 years is a bit flagrant. So, work with the collectors, establish that the debt is valid and negotiate a settlement. Or let it stay in default. Your credit report in the US is shot. It will be a long time before the default ages off your report. This is important if you try to open a bank account, rent an apartment, or get a job in the US. These activities do not always require a credit report, but they often do. You will not be able to borrow money or establish a credit card in the US. Here's a decent informational site regarding what they can do to collect the loan. Pay special attention to Administrative Wage Garnishment. They can likely hit you with that one. You might be unreachable for a court summons, but AWG only requires that the collectors be able to confirm that you work for a company that is subject to US laws. Update: I am informed that federally funded student loans are not available to international students. AWG is only possible for debts to the federal government. Private companies must go through the courts to force settlement of debt. OP is safe from AWG. |
Is the amount taxable if my grandfather sells agricultural land | As your is a very specific case, please get an advice of CA. It should not cost you much and make it easier. The sale of agriculture land is taxable in certain conditions and exempt from tax in other cases. Sale of agricultural land is subject to capital gains tax. But there are certain exemptions under Section 54B, subject to conditions, which are as follows: If deemed taxable, you can avail indexation, ie the price at which you grandfather got [the date when he inherited it as per indexation] and pay 10% on the difference. If the price is not known, you can take the govt prescribed rate. As there is a large deposit in your fathers account, there can be tax queries and need to be answered. Technically there is no tax liable even if your grandfather gifts the money to your father. More details at http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130401/jsp/business/story_16733007.jsp and http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/publications/4_compute_your_capital_gains/chapter2.asp |
Financing Education through Credit Card or Student Loans | I would use student loans and avoid credit card debt if debt is your only option. Here are the advantages I see: Disadvantages: |
What to do with an expensive, upside-down car loan? | If you can't sell it, refinance the bugger. Even if you can knock the interest rate down to 8% and take out a 3-year loan, you'll save about $100 per month. Or really kill the payment (but pay more interest) by taking out another 6-year. A 6-year at 9% on $12k is only $215/month. My credit union routinely advertises specials on car loans. It shouldn't be difficult to get out of the usurious loan you have now. As for others' advice about getting another job, having been a PhD student I hesiate to suggest that you get another one, because your job is probably your life right now. But can your wife (or even you) start a blog on a subject that interests you? A few posts a week add up over time, and pretty soon you have a real asset that can be another basket to put your eggs in. |
Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance? | If you have been putting savings away for the longer term and have some extra funds which you would like to take some extra risk on - then I say work yourself out a strategy/plan, get yourself educated and go for it. If it is individual shares you are interested then work out if you prefer to use fundamental analysis, technical analysis or some of both. You can use fundamental analysis to help determine which shares to buy, and then use technical analysis to help determine when to get into and out of a position. You say you are prepared to lose $10,000 in order to try to get higher returns. I don't know what percentage this $10,000 is of the capital you intend to use in this kind of investments/trading, but lets assume it is 10% - so your total starting capital would be $100,000. The idea now would be to learn about money management, position sizing and risk management. There are plenty of good books on these subjects. If you set a maximum loss for each position you open of 1% of your capital - i.e $1,000, then you would have to get 10 straight losses in a row to get to your 10% total loss. You do this by setting stop losses on your positions. I'll use an example to explain: Say you are looking at a stock priced at $20 and you get a signal to buy it at that price. You now need to determine a stop price which if the stock goes down to, you can say well I may have been wrong on this occasion, the stock price has gone against me so I need to get out now (I put automatic stop loss conditional orders with my broker). You may determine the stop price based on previous support levels, using a percentage of your buy price or another indicator or method. I tend to use the percentage of buy price - lets say you use 10% - so your stop price would be at $18 (10% below your buy price of $20). So now you can work out your position size (the number of shares to buy). Your maximum loss on the position is $2 per share or 10% of your position in this stock, but it should also be only 1% of your total capital - being 1% of $100,000 = $1,000. You simply divide $1,000 by $2 to get 500 shares to buy. You then do this with the rest of your positions - with a $100,000 starting capital using a 1% maximum loss per position and a stop loss of 10% you will end up with a maximum of 10 positions. If you use a larger maximum loss per position your position sizes would increase and you would have less positions to open (I would not go higher than 2% maximum loss per position). If you use a larger stop loss percentage then your position sizes would decrease and you would have more positions to open. The larger the stop loss the longer you will potentially be in a position and the smaller the stop loss generally the less time you will be in a position. Also as your total capital increases so will your 1% of total capital, just as it would decrease if your total capital decreases. Using this method you can aim for higher risk/ higher return investments and reduce and manage your risk to a desired level. One other thing to consider, don't let tax determine when you sell an investment. If you are keeping a stock just so you will pay less tax if kept for over 12 months - then you are in real danger of increasing your risk considerably. I would rather pay 50% tax on a 30% return than 25% tax on a 15% return. |
Explain the HSI - why do markets sometimes appear in sync and other times not? | Contributing factors to the diversion were that: A) China's currency does not float like other major countries' currencies B) China's real estate market didn't have the same lending criteria leading to the level of speculation seen in USA, at the time. |
Can I claim the standard deduction being an Indian citizen and non-resident in USA for tax purposes? | Prachi - While most non-resident aliens are not allowed to claim the standard deduction here are some exceptions: IRS Law under Article 21: ARTICLE 21 Payments Received by Students and Apprentices This falls under the U.S.A.-India Tax Treaty. Sources: I hope this helps. So, yes, I do believe you would be able to claim the standard deduction, although it's always good to check with a tax adviser. |
Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS | Generally, I consider it bad etiquette to inconvenience others. I would recommend cash for small purchases. Try to offer as close to the required amount as possible. Don't pay with several dollars worth of change if you can avoid it. You shouldn't need to carry a lot of cash. When you do don't make it obvious. |
When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired/sold? | I believe firmly that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Cash your gains out and be happy with your profit. |
What size “nest egg” should my husband and I have, and by what age? | One more thing to consider is that $1M today is not the same as $1M 30 years from now because of inflation. Consider that just 30 years ago (1980) the average house price in the US was only about $69K and a new car cost around $7K on average. When you retire, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that you could be paying $1.5M for a typical house, $100K for mid-grade car, by the time you retire in 30 years. Of course, over the rest of your working life your salary will likely increase due to inflation too, so that will help. In 1980 the average US income was around $19K/year. So even though that number seems huge, it is because it is denominated in currency that has been devalued significantly. |
How should I prepare for the next financial crisis? | A somewhat provocative (but not unserious) proposal: Rent, don't buy a house to live in. In 2007/8, the thing that got many people in deep trouble is their mortgage. It's not a productive investment but a speculative bet on what was in fact a bubble and a class of assets that is notoriously slow to recover after a slump. Before thinking about your savings or buying into silly ideas about gold, you should realise that as a middle class worker, the biggest risk after a crisis is losing your job. Renting your accommodation means being able to downgrade or move very quickly and not being forced to sell a house at the worse possible time. If you really do need to liquidate some of your investments at a bad time, having a more diversified portfolio means that you are not losing everything to meet some short-term obligations. Assuming you're in the US, this means forgoing some nice tax advantages that might be too tempting to resist (I'm not so I am basing this on what I read on this site) but, bubbles aside, there is nothing that makes real estate a particularly good investment as such, especially if you also live in the house you're buying. You might very well come out on top but you expose yourself to several risks and are less prepared to face a crisis. |
Accepting personal “donations” (not as a non-profit) | I see two ways you can handle this. Use the gifts for the purpose of creating more free software. This is fundraising, and your cause is writing free software. The language is a little tricky from the PayPal Donate button (emphasis mine): This button is intended for fundraising. If you are not raising money for a cause, please choose another option. Nonprofits must verify their status to withdraw donations they receive. Users that are not verified nonprofits must demonstrate how their donations will be used, once they raise more than $10,000 USD. You don't have to be a nonprofit; they are only requiring existing nonprofits to verify their status. You don't even have to account for the donations if they are below $10,000. Give out your PayPal email address and instruct the gift-givers to simply send you money through their PayPal interface. They can mark it as a gift when they send the money. I think option one is how the various bloggers and other personal users are justifiying their collection of donations, and I think its a valid use of the PayPal Donate button. |
15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15 | Besides the reason in @rhaskett's answer, it is important to consider that paying off a 30-year mortgage as if it was a 15-year is much more inconvenient than just paying the regular payments of a 15-year mortgage. When you pay extra on your mortgage, some lenders do not know what to do with the extra payment, and need to be told explicitly that the extra needs to be applied toward the principal. You might need to do this every month with every payment. In addition, some lenders won't allow you to set up an automatic payment for more than the mortgage payment, so you might need to explicitly submit your payment with instructions for the lender each month, and then follow up each month to make sure that your payment was credited properly. Some lenders are better about this type of thing than others, and you won't really know how much of a hassle it will be with your lender until you start making payments. If you intend to pay it off in 15 years, then just get the 15-year mortgage. |
How can I find out which ETFs has holdings in a particular stock? | This ETFchannel.com page shows which ETFs hold Wells Fargo and you can search other stocks the get the same information on that site. This the same information for Google This even tells you what percentage of an ETF is a particular stock. Be warned that this site is not entirely free. You will be limited to 6 pages in 6 hours unless you pay for a subscription. Additionally ETFdb.com offers a similar tool. |
First home buyer, financing questions | When you say "apartment" I take it you mean "condo", as you're talking about buying. Right or no? A condo is generally cheaper to buy than a house of equal size and coondition, but they you have to pay condo fees forever. So you're paying less up front but you have an ongoing expense. With a condo, the condo association normally does exterior maintenance, so it's not your problem. Find out exactly what's your responsibility and what's theirs, but you typically don't have to worry about maintaining the parking areas, you have less if any grass to mow, you don't have to deal with roof or outside walls, etc. Of course you're paying for all this through your condo fees. There are two advantages to getting a shorter term loan: Because you owe the money for less time, each percentage point of interest is less total cash. 1% time 15 years versus 1% times 30 years or whatever. Also, you can usually get a lower rate on a shorter term loan because there's less risk to the bank: they only have to worry about where interest rates might go for 15 years instead of 30 years. So even if you know that you will sell the house and pay off the loan in 10 years, you'll usually pay less with a 15 year loan than a 30 year loan because of the lower rate. The catch to a shorter-term loan is that the monthly payments are higher. If you can't afford the monthly payment, then any advantages are just hypothetical. Typically if you have less than a 20% down payment, you have to pay mortgage insurance. So if you can manage 20% down, do it, it saves you a bundle. Every extra dollar of down payment is that much less that you're paying in interest. You want to keep an emergency fund so I wouldn't put every spare dime I had into a down payment if I could avoid it, but you want the biggest down payment you can manage. (Well, one can debate whether its better to use spare cash to invest in the stock market or some other investment rather than paying down the mortgage. Whole different question.) "I dont think its a good idea to make any principal payments as I would probably loose them when I would want to sell the house and pay off the mortgage" I'm not sure what you're thinking there. Any extra principle payments that you make, you'll get back when you sell the house. I mean, suppose you buy a house for $100,000, over the time you own it you pay $30,000 in principle (between regular payments and any extra payments), and then you sell it for $120,000. So out of that $120,000 you'll have to pay off the $70,000 balance remaining on the loan, leaving $50,000 to pay other expenses and whatever is left goes in your pocket. Scenario 2, you buy the house for $100,000, pay $40,000 in principle, and sell for $120,000. So now you subtract $60,000 from the $120,000 leaving $60,000. You put in an extra $10,000, but you get it back when you sell. Whether you make or lose money on the house, whatever extra principle you put in, you'll get back at sale time in terms of less money that will have to go to pay the remaining principle on the mortgage. |
Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income? | Completely linear? We don't do that. Our daughter has a fixed allowance, and we expect a certain amount of help around the house as being part of the family. We don't make any explicit ties between the two, and we don't seem to have any problems. We bought an eBay lot of Polly Pockets and divided them up into $5 bags. (This is a better deal that what we could get in the store new.) Her allowance isn't enough that she can "buy" one every week. After sensing her frustration we gave her the opportunity to earn some more money by doing extra work. It happened to be cleaning up after our dogs in the back yard, a chore we had neglected for quite a while. She stuck with the job, and truly earned that money. (She'll be six in January.) What's more, it was a good deal for me. It needed to be done, and I didn't really want to do it. :) So, for now this seems like a fair balance. It prevents her from getting the idea that she won't work unless she gets paid, but she also knows that working harder does have its rewards. We still have time to teach her the idea of working smarter. (This isn't a formal study. It's just my experience.) |
Conservative ways to save for retirement? | A 401(k) is just a container. Like real-world containers (those that are usually made out of metal), you can put (almost) anything you want in it. Signing up for your employer's match is a great thing to do. Getting into the habit of saving a significant portion of your take-home pay early in your career is even better; doing so will put you lightyears ahead of lots of people by the time you approach retirement age. Even if you love your job, that will give you options you otherwise wouldn't have. There is no real reason why you can't start out by putting your retirement money in a short-term money-market fund within that 401(k). By doing so you will only earn a pittance, probably not even enough to keep up with inflation in today's economic environment, but at this point in your (savings and investment) career, that doesn't really matter much. What really matters is getting into the habit of setting that money aside every single time you get paid and not thinking much of it. And that's a lot easier if you start out early, especially at a time when you likely have received a significant net pay increase (salaried job vs college student). I know, everyone says to get the best return you can. But if you are just starting out, and feel the need to be conservative, then don't be afraid to at least start out that way. You can always rebalance into investment classes that have the potential for higher return -- and correspondingly higher volatility -- in a few years. In the meantime, you will have built a pretty nice capital that you can move into the stock market eventually. The exact rate of return you get in the first decade matters a lot less than how much money you set aside regularly and that you keep contributing. See for example Your Investment Plan Means Nothing If You Don’t Do This by Matt Becker (no affiliation), which illustrates how it takes 14 years for saving 5% at a consistent 10% return to beat saving 10% at a consistent 0% return. So look through what's being offered in terms of low-risk investments within that 401(k). Go ahead and pick a money-market fund or a bond fund if you want to start out easy. If it gets you into the habit of saving and sticking with it, then the overall return will beat the daylights out of the return you would get from a good stock market fund if you stop contributing after a year or two. Especially (but not only) if you do pick an interest-bearing investment, do make sure to pick one that has as low fees as you can possibly find for what you want, because otherwise the fees are going to eat a lot into your potential returns, benefiting the bank or investment house rather than yourself. Just keep an open mind, and very strongly consider shifting at least some of your investments into the stock market as you grow more comfortable over the next several years. You can always keep a portion of your money in various interest-bearing investments to act as a cushion in case the market slumps. |
Due Diligence - Dilution? | Publicly traded companies perform dilution via an FPO (Follow-up Public Offer). It is a process similar to IPO, with announcements, prospectus, etc. You will know ahead of time when that happen. Stocks traded OTC are not required to file a lot of regulatory documents that publicly traded stocks are required to file, and may not disclose dilutions or additional issues. By buying OTC you agree to these terms. You will probably get a notice and a chance to vote on that in your proxy statement, but that happens when you already own the stock. |
In the stock market, why is the “open” price value never the same as previous day's “close”? | Nobody has mentioned the futures market yet. Although the stock market closes at 4pm, the futures market continues trading 24 hours a day and 5.5 days a week. Amongst the products that trade in the future market are stock index futures. That includes the Dow Jones, the S&P 500. These are weighted averages of stocks and their sectors. You would think that the price of the underlying stock dictates the price of the average, but in this day and age, the derivative actually changes the value of the underlying stock due to a very complex combination of hedging practices. (this isn't meant to be vague and mysterious, it is "delta hedging") So normal market fluctuations coupled with macroeconomic events affect the futures market, which can ripple down to individual stocks. Very popular stocks with large market caps will most certainly be affected by futures market trading. But it is also worth mentioning that futures can function completely independently of a "spot" price. This is where things start to get complicated and long winded. The futures market factor is worth mentioning because it extends even outside of the aftermarket and pre-market hours of stock trading. |
How do I calculate the actual dividend amount for a monthly dividend payout mutual fund? | So if someone would invest 14000 credits on 1st April 2016, he'd get monthly dividend = ((14000 ÷ 14) × 0.0451) × (1 - 1.42 ÷ 100) = 44.459 credits, right? One would get ((14000 ÷ 14) × 0.0451) = 45.1 is what you would get. The expenses are not to be factored. Generally if a scheme has less expense ratio, the yield is more. i.e. this has already got factored in 0.0451. If the expense ratio was less, this would have been 0.05 if expense ration would have been more it would have been 0.040. Can I then consider the bank deposit earning a higher income per month than the mutual fund scheme? As the MIP as classified as Hybrid funds as they invest around 30% in equities, there is no tax on the income. More so if there is a lock-in of 3 years. In Bank FD, there would be tax applicable as per tax brackets. |
Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans? | Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative... Other people have pointed this out, but honestly, I'd be very reluctant to answer "yes" to this no matter how you completed that sentence. There's always an intangible risk to mixing money and relationships. There's a lot that can go wrong during the duration of the loan, and if it does, the consequences could be a lot greater than just a bad credit score. |
What does “Income generated in the U.S.” mean? | It means you must pay federal (and possibly state) tax on any income you produce in America -- including Internet and mail-order sales. Tax treaties may keep you from having to pay tax on it again in your own country, or may not. |
As a small business owner, should I pay my taxes from my personal or business checking account? | Payment of taxes for your personal return filed with the IRS always come from your personal account, regardless of how the money was earned. Sales tax would be paid from your business account, so would corporate taxes, if those apply; but if you're talking about your tax payments to the IRS for your personal income that should be paid from your personal account. Also, stating the obvious, if you're paying an accountant to handle things you can always ask them for clarification as well. They will have more precise answers. EDIT Adding on for your last part of the question I missed: In virtually all cases LLC's are what's called a pass through entity. For these entities, all income in the eyes of the federal government passes directly through the entity to the owners at the end of each year. They are then taxed personally on this net income at their individual tax rate, that's the very abridged version at least. The LLC pays no taxes directly to the federal government related to your income. Here's a resource if you'd like to learn more about LLC's: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/llc-basics-30163.html |
What determines deal price on stock exchange? [duplicate] | Price is decided by what shares are offered at what prices and who blinks first. The buyer and seller are both trying to find the best offer, for their definition of best, within the constraints then have set on their bid or ask. The seller will sell to the highest bid they can get that they consider acceptable. The buyer will buy from the lowest offer they can get that they consider acceptable. The price -- and whether a sale/purchase happens at all -- depends on what other trades are still available and how long you're willing to wait for one you're happy with, and may be different on one share than another "at the same time" if the purchase couldn't be completed with the single best offer and had to buy from multiple offers. This may have been easier to understand in the days of open outcry pit trading, when you could see just how chaotic the process is... but it all boils down to a high-speed version of seeking the best deal in an old-fashioned marketplace where no prices are fixed and every sale requires (or at least offers the opportunity for) negotiation. "Fred sells it five cents cheaper!" "Then why aren't you buying from him?" "He's out of stock." "Well, when I don't have any, my price is ten cents cheaper." "Maybe I won't buy today, or I'll buy elsewhere. "Maybe I won't sell today. Or maybe someone else will pay my price. Sam looks interested..." "Ok, ok. I can offer two cents more." "Three. Sam looks really interested." "Two and a half, and throw in an apple for Susie." "Done." And the next buyer or seller starts the whole process over again. Open outcry really is just a way of trying to shop around very, very, very fast, and electronic reconciliation speeds it up even more, but it's conceptually the same process -- either seller gets what they're asking, or they adjust and/or the buyer adjusts until they meet, or everyone agrees that there's no agreement and goes home. |
Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills? | While it is not common, it is also not "uncommon." A subtle distinction. If you are poor, you almost certainly get some kind of government assistance (not even talking about Obamacare or Trumpcare, but just general assistance.) If you are middle class or rich, that is where you get hit the most. They seem to realize you "can't get blood from a stone" and don't try to get payment out of poor people. But middle class and rich people, yes it just takes longer but they do hang in there with billing. My own experience is that years and years ago (way before Obamacare) I had a time in the hospital with a lot of tests, but I was poor and sleeping on a relatives floor at the time. I got all the tests I needed, and they took great care of me, and the hospital wrote it off as "charity care." |
Working out if I should be registered as self-employed in the UK | Being self employed just means you fill out some more forms in your annual self assessment for your "profit" from being self employed. Profit = all the money you receive, minus any tax deductible cost that you spent for making that money (and all the cost must be documented, which means you have a folder with all the receipts and keep it safe). You pay normal income tax on all the profit, which means it is just added to your taxable income. What you do with the profit is up to you; you don't pay yourself a salary, just take the money (make sure you leave enough to pay your taxes). |
Why would selling off some stores improve a company's value? | Maybe the location isn't yet, but will soon become a new loss. For example older soon out of warranty equipment, new tax laws in the locality soon to take affect or even just declining sales over the past periods of measurement. Perhaps labor disputes or other locality issues make running the store difficult. There is the possibility that the land the location occupies is worth more sold to the new big box retailer than it will be in the next 10 years of operation. In some cases, companies want to have a ton of cash on hand, or would sell assets to pay off debt. |
Should I worry too much about saving my 20% down before buying my first house? | The only problem that I see is that by not giving the 20% right away, you might need to pay PMI for a few months. In addition, in the case of conventional loans, I heard that banks will not remove the PMI after reaching 80% LTV without doing an appraisal. In order to be removed automatically, you need to reach 78% LTV. Finally, I think you can get a better interest by giving 20% down, and you can get a conventional loan instead of a FHA loan, which offers the option to avoid the PMI altogether (on FHA, you have two PMIs: one upfront and one monthly, and the monthly one is for the life of the loan if you give less than 10%). |
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