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(Almost) no credit unions in New York City, why? | There are 2 credit unions in the Metro NY area that are open to everyone: You might also want to check out aSmarterChoice.org to see if there are other credit union options based on where you live, work, worship & more. |
Can stock brokerage firms fail? | Brokerages are supposed to keep your money separate from theirs. So, even if they fail as a company, your money and investments are still there, and can be transferred to another brokerage. It doesn't matter if it's an IRA or taxable account. Of course, as is the case with MF Global, if illegally take their client's m... |
What is a 401(k) Loan Provision? | 401K accounts, both regular and Roth, generally have loans available. There are maximum amounts that are based on federal limits, and your balance in the program. These rules also determine the amount of time you have to repay the loan, and what happens if you quit or are fired while the loan is outstanding. In these l... |
How to avoid getting back into debt? | First, you've learned a very good lesson that quite a few people miss out on: notice how easy it is to get out of debt when you get a windfall of money? The trouble is that if a person doesn't have the behavior to maintain their position, they will end up in the same place. Many lottery winners end up being poor in t... |
Are market orders safe? | Market orders can be reasonably safe when dealing with stocks that are rather liquid and have quite low volatility. But it's important to note that you're trading a large degree of control over your buy / sell price for a small benefit in speed or complexity of entering an order. I always use limit orders as they help ... |
Borrowing 100k and paying it to someone then declaring bankruptcy | Note that in the UK at least this scam - not so dissimilar from what you propose - seems be perfectly legal behaviour: Evidence to date is that both of you can expect to walk away without much consequence. |
How will the after market affect the open of the market tomorrow? | In general a stock can open at absolutely any price with no regard for the closing price or after hours price the previous day. The opening price will be determined by the best bid and offer made by people who decide to trade the next day. Some of the those people may have put orders in on a prior day that are still o... |
Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental | The rental income is indeed taxable income, but you reduce the taxable portion of it by deducting expenses (including mortgage interest, maintenance, insurance, HOA, real estate tax, and of course depreciation). Due to the depreciation, you may end up breaking even, or having very little taxable income. Note that when ... |
Is Stock Trading legal for a student on F-1 Visa doing CPT in USA? | There are no legal reasons preventing you from trading as a F-1 visa holder, as noted in this Money.SE answer. Per this article, here are the things you need to set up an account: What do I need to have for doing Stock trading as F1 student ? Typically, most of the stock brokerage firms require Social Security Number... |
Am I considered in debt if I pay a mortgage? | Mortgage is a (secured) debt, a combination of a promissory note, and a security interest providing the mortage holder a secured interest in the property. Yes, you are "in debt". But that depends upon whether you define the term "in debt" as a debt appearing on the balance sheet, or the net of assets - liabilities is l... |
When does a low PE ratio not indicate a good stock? | Some companies have a steady, reliable, stream of earnings. In that case, a low P/E ratio is likely to indicate a good stock. Other companies have a "feast or famine" pattern, great earnings one year, no earnings or losses the following year. In that case, it is misleading to use a P/E ratio for a good year, when earni... |
Invest in low cost small cap index funds when saving towards retirement? | You can simply stick with some index funds that tracks the S&P 500 and Ex-US world market. That should provide some good diversification. And of course, you should always have a portion of your money in short/mid term bond fund, rebalancing your stock/bond ratio all the way as deemed necessary. If you want to follow th... |
What mix of credit lines and loans is optimal for my credit score? | I think you are interpreting their recommended numbers incorrectly. They are not suggesting that you get 13-21 credit cards, they are saying that your score could get 13-21 points higher based on having a large number of credit cards and loans. Unfortunately, the exact formula for calculating your credit score is not ... |
Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend? | You can think of the situation as a kind of Nash equilibrium. If "the market" values stock based on the value of the company, then from an individual point of view it makes sense to value stock the same way. As an illustration, imagine that stock prices were associated with the amount of precipitation at the company's... |
What's the general principle behind choosing saving vs. paying off debt? | It has to do with return. I don't know if Canada has a matching feature on retirement accounts, but in the US many companies will match the first X% you put in. So for me, my first $5000 or so is matched 100%. I'll take that match over paying down any debt. Beyond that, of course it's a simple matter of rate of return.... |
UK - reclaim VAT on purchases for freelance work | If you mostly do work for businesses/individuals who are VAT registered it's a no-brainer to become VAT registered yourself... Although you will have to charge your customers VAT (and pass this on to HMRC) because they are VAT-registered they will reclaim the amount so it won't actually 'cost' them anything. At the sam... |
Are multiple hard inquiries for a specific loan type okay? | tl;dr: Your best course of action is probably to do a soft pull (check your own credit) and provide that to the lender for an unofficial pre-approval to get the ball rolling. The long of it: The loan officer is mostly correct, and I have recent personal evidence that corroborates that. A few months ago I looked into re... |
Qualified Stock Options purtchased through my Roth IRA | No, you cannot. ISO are given to you in your capacity as an employee (that's why it is "qualified"), while your IRA is not an employee. You cannot transfer property to the IRA, so you cannot transfer them to the IRA once you paid for them as well. This is different from non-qualified stock options (discussed in this qu... |
Should I sell my stocks to put a down payment on a house before it becomes a long term investment? | In the United States Short-term capital gains are taxed at rates similar to regular income which is 25% if you make less than $91,000 and 28% if you make more than that but less than $190,000. If you make more than $190,000 then the rate is 33%. If you hold the stock for a year or more than the tax rate is 15%, unless ... |
What effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock? | No, the stock market is not there for speculation on corporate memorabilia. At its base, it is there for investing in a business, the point of the investment being, of course, to make money. A (successful) business earns money, and that makes it valuable to its owners since that money can be distributed to them. Sha... |
Are these scenarios considered as taxable income? | For case 1, there is no tax due as you sold the book for less than your cost basis. If you had sold for more than $100, then you would have had a profit. For case 2, that depends on the value of the gift card with respect to the value of your fare. Most likely that gift card is less than the cost of the fare. And in th... |
How can one get their FICO/credit scores for free? (really free) | Credit Sesame monitors your credit score for free. My understanding is that they make their money off of credit card referrals. |
Figuring out an ideal balance to carry on credit cards [duplicate] | The fact that you pay the bill reliably is going to count more for your credit rating than anything else, even if you are paying it off in full every month. Lenders seem to like to see at least one instance where you charged a large balance, held it a couple months, then paid it off in full... but I wouldn't go out of ... |
Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? | Would you buy this used car, in its current condition but with new tires, for the price of the tires? If so, buy the tires. |
Car finance, APR rates and per week in adverts; help understanding them | Taking the last case first, this works out exactly. (Note the Bank of England interest rate has nothing to do with the calculation.) The standard loan formula for an ordinary annuity can be used (as described by BobbyScon), but the periodic interest rate has to be calculated from an effective APR, not a nominal rate. ... |
What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988? | It's got to be a bad chunk of data on Google. Yahoo finance does not show that anomaly for 1988, nor does the chart from Home Depot's investor relations site: |
What are dividends, when are they paid, and how do they affect my position? | Dividends are declared by the board of directors of a corporation on date A, to stock holders of record on date B (a later date). These stockholders then receive the declared dividend on date C, the so-called payment date. All of these dates are announced on the first (declaration) date. If there is no announcement, no... |
I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment | I'm sorry you are going through this, but what you are dealing with is exactly is how cosigning works. It is among other reasons why you should never cosign a loan for someone unless you are 100% prepared to pay the loan on their behalf. Unfortunately, the main "benefit" to cosigning a loan is to the bank - they don't... |
If NYSE has market makers, what is the role of NYSE ARCA which is an ECN | Electronic trading is many orders of magnitude cheaper and more liquid than floor trading and is rapidly displacing it. Stil, electronic trading accounts for 79% of stock trading volume in the U.S. Polcari is losing the battle. Floor trading is still offered, but it's only used for bulk orders, so electronic trading is... |
Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? | MoneyStrands is a site very similar to Mint, but does not force you to link bank accounts. You can create manual accounts and use all features of the site without linking to banks. |
How can I remove the movement of the stock market as a whole from the movement in price of an individual share? | I use StockCharts for spread charting. To take your question as an example, here is the chart of Apple against Nasdaq. |
How to start buying shares with small amount of money? | Before anything else, read up on the basics of economics. After that, there a few things you need to ask yourself before you even think about investing in anything: If you have an answer to those questions: Once you answered those questions I could make a simple first suggestion: Confident in handling it yourself and l... |
Is socialtrend.com or/and feelthetrend.com legitimate? | It's called a "Pyramid scheme". Its illegal in almost every country of the Western world. You're not going to earn lifetime income, of course, and these things collapse pretty quickly. Most of the "common folks" don't return the investment, its the organizers who take the money. Sometimes they run, most times they end ... |
Can capital expenses for volunteer purposes be deducted from income? | I would suggest to buy your own printer, and calculate the cost for a page including the wear to the printer. Then either deduce these printing expenses, or ask the charity to reimburse you. This is not much different than when you would go to a copyshop, those easily charge 10-30c per page, with your own printer you c... |
At Vanguard, can I transfer shares from regular investment account to a Roth IRA? | No, IRA contributions can only be made in the form of cash (rollovers and conversions are different). You'd have to sell the investments in your taxable account, incurring capital gains or losses, then transfer the proceeds to your IRA in cash. Note that the amount you can transfer is subject to the limits on how much ... |
Is this investment opportunity problematic? | As an investment opportunity: NO. As a friendly assist with money you don't mind ever getting back, legal depending on amount. A few years back I was in the housing market myself and researching interest rates and mortgages. For one property I was very interested in, I would need about $4K extra in liquid cash to comp... |
Do retail traders get any advantage from learning methods of mathematical of finance? | If it could, it seems yet to be proven. Long Term Capital Management was founded by a bunch of math whizzes and they seem to have missed something. I'd never suggest that something has no value, but similar to the concept that "if time travel were possible, why hasn't anyone come back from the future to tell us" I'd ... |
Paying taxes on income earned in the US, but from a company based in Norway | If you are paid by foreigners then it is quite possible they don't file anything with the IRS. All of this income you are required to report as business income on schedule C. There are opportunities on schedule C to deduct expenses like your health insurance, travel, telephone calls, capital expenses like a new comput... |
Does it make sense to take out student loans to start an IRA? | I will split my answer in a few sections... Note: I will not address the legal aspect of the question. If you can or not use Federal money to invest. 1st - Investments with Student Loan 2nd - IRA as the Instrument I hope this helps! |
What options are available for a home loan with poor credit but a good rental history? | Why not just do an FHA loan? The minimum credit score is 580, and you can sometimes even go lower than that. Another alternative is to consider a rent-to-own agreement with his landlord, since it sounds like if he doesn't buy he'd continue renting there anyway. |
What industries soar when oil prices go up? | Generally speaking, you want to find goods and services that are inelastic and also require oil as a cost. Oil company stocks make record profits when oil is high, because direct demand for oil is relatively inelastic. Profit margins of oil competition should also go up, as this creates inflation in general, as people ... |
Looking for good investment vehicle for seasonal work and savings | In the short-term, a savings account with an online bank can net you ~1% interest, while many banks/credit unions with local branches are 0.05%. Most of the online savings accounts allow 6 withdrawals per month (they'll let you do more, but charge a fee), if you pair it with a checking account, you can transfer your ex... |
Tax me more: Can I pay extra to the government so I don't have to deal with all this paperwork? | In a word, no. If your income is high enough to have to file a return, you have to file a return. My accountant has a nice mindset for making it more palatable. I'll paraphrase: "Our tax system is ludicrously complicated. As a result, it is your duty as an American to seek out and take advantage of every deduction and ... |
Can you beat the market by investing in double long ETFs? [duplicate] | See http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/04/30/why-the-sec-should-look-at-levered-etfs/?dlvrit=60132, http://symmetricinfo.org/2011/04/are-investors-in-levered-short-treasury-etfs-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-pt1/, and the articles linked from it: The issue with holding a levered ETF past 1 day is that investors ... |
How does the market adjust for fees in ETPs? | The market doesn't really need to adjust for fees on ETF funds that are often less than 1/10th of a percent. The loss of the return is more than made up for by the diversification. How does the market adjust for trading fees? It doesn't have to, it's just a cost of doing business. If one broker or platform offers bette... |
Can I withdraw from my Roth IRA retirement account to fund a startup? | Yes, it is possible to withdraw money from your Roth IRA before retirement (but I wouldn't necessarily advise you to do so.) Here's the good news, and the bad news: The good news: Unlike a traditional IRA, money contributed to a Roth IRA is done so on an after-tax basis, meaning you don't benefit from a tax deduction ... |
As a young adult, what can I be doing with my excess income? | I also have approx. £6000 in debt Just a note: you're guaranteed to get a return on whatever debt you pay off quickly. Even if your debt is only 2%, you get a guaranteed return of 2% - which is higher than most of the savings here in the US (not sure about the UK). You mention saving for a house, which is also a good ... |
Wash sale rule question | Yes. On December 10, you have a wash sale. As long as you don't buy the stock back for 30 days after that, the wash is of no consequence. In other words, you don't have a wash issue if you don't own the stock for 30 days. |
How does a defined contribution plan work | It is comparing apples to oranges. From govt or institution point of view defined contribution is better than defined benefits as they don't have to carry obligations. Although defined benefit sounds good, one can't guarantee it will be enough when you retire compared to inflation. It often becomes political issue. Def... |
Why buy insurance? | People's value of money is not always linear. Consider an individual with $1000 in the bank. I'm going to look at amounts of debt by orders of magnitude: Now its pretty easy to see a order of magnitude increase in impact from $100 to $1000, and it becomes slightly worse for the $10,000 case due to debt. However, one... |
What does it mean to a life insurance policy holder to convert from a stock to mutual insurance company? | A stock insurance company is structured like a “normal” company. It has shareholders (that are the company's investors), who elect a board of directors, who select the senior executive(s), who manage the people who run the actual company. The directors (and thus the executives and employees) have a legal responsibility... |
When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option? | You should also consider what the cost of the Put is, especially if the strike price is set at the current price, vs the average price delta of the security during the period between when you buy the put, and the expiration date. Also note the prices for puts on stocks with a lot of price volatility. There are a good ... |
Can a company have a credit rating better than that of the country where it is located? | In one personal finance book I read that if a company is located in a country with credit rating X it can't have credit rating better (lower - i.e. further from AAA level) than X. This is simply wrong. Real world evidence proves it wrong. Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Exxon Mobile (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and... |
Is losing money in my 401K normal? | Depends on how the money is invested within the 401k... but in general, prices move both up and down with a long-tem bias toward up. Think of it this way: with fund shares priced lower now, you are getting shares cheaper than when you entered the plan. So this dip is actually working in your favor, as long as you are ... |
Why can't I withdraw the $57 in my account? | Given you mention a check clearing, in addition to debit card holds as JoeTaxpayer notes, you may also have funds that are on hold for that reason. While the bank may have stated it would be a one day hold, some banks may mean business days (Monday-Friday), and so it will become available on Monday. This is because ch... |
Taking out a loan to pay down a mortgage | You're not crazy, but the banks are. Here's the problem: You're taking 100% LTV on property A - you won't be able to get a second mortgage for more than 80% total (including the current mortgage) LTV. That's actually something I just recently learned from my own experience. If the market is bad, the banks might even lo... |
What does it mean to be “offset against taxable gains”? | Offset against taxable gains means that the amount - $25 million in this case - can be used to reduce another sum that the company would otherwise have to pay tax on. Suppose the company had made a profit of $100 million on some other investments. At some point, they are likely to have to pay corporation tax on that am... |
Feasibility of using long term pattern on short term investments | When structures recur at different scales, they're called "fractals", and there is something called the "fractal markets hypothesis" which attempts to analyse stock market movements as fractals and in terms of (related) chaos theory. Whether you can profit from it I have no idea. If it was easy, everyone would be doin... |
Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating? | It makes no difference for tax purposes. If you are 1099, you will pay the same amount of taxes as if you formed a corporation and then paid yourself (essentially you are doing this as a 1099 contractor, just not formally). Legally, I don't know the answer. I would assume you have some legal protections by forming an ... |
Should I give to charity by check or credit card? | The definite answer if you want to give a larger amount of money is: Ask the charity. Just drop them a mail with something like: Dear Sirs, I've decided to donate you $1,000,000 because I like what you do. Could you please tell me which option is more convenient and less costly for you? I can do either an online debit/... |
Does money made by a company on selling its shares show up in Balance sheet | First: the question is irrelevant for purchases on exchange, mostly. Majority of sales on stock exchanges is between shareholders. If however you buy directly from the company (in a IPO, or direct share purchase program of some kind, like ESPP), then it does end up showing in the company account ledgers one way or anot... |
The Benefits/Disadvantages of using a credit card | Everyone else seems to have focused (rightly so) on the negatives of credit cards (high interest rates) and why it is important to pay them off before interest starts accruing. Only Marin's answer briefly touched on rewards. To me, this is the real purpose of credit cards in today's age. Most good rewards cards can g... |
Clarification of Inflation according to Forbes | Inflation can be a misleading indicator. Partly because it is not measured as a function of the change in prices of everything in the economy, just the basket of goods deemed essential. The other problem is that several things operate on it, the supply of money, the total quantity of goods being exchanged, and the sup... |
Are companies in California obliged to provide invoices? | We run into this all the time with our EU clients. As far as I can tell, the only requirements when it comes to invoicing have to do with sales tax, which is determined at the state level, and only in the case that items are taxable. It seems that the service provided to you is not taxable and so there is no obligation... |
Historical Stock Prices of delisted company [duplicate] | You need a source of delisted historical data. Such data is typically only available from paid sources. According to my records, Lawson Software Inc listed on the NASDAQ on 7 Dec 2001 and delisted on 6 Jul 2011. Its final traded price was $11.23. It was taken over by Infor who bid $11.25 per share. Source: Symbol LWS... |
Following an investment guru a good idea? | I think following the professional money managers is a strategy worth considering. The buys from your favorite investors can be taken as strong signals. But you should never buy any stock blindly just because someone else bought it. Be sure do your due diligence before the purchase. The most important question is not w... |
What is a good way to save money on car expenses? | Ride a bicycle or walk for short trips (< 5mi–10mi, depending on your level of comfort). Nothing saves as much on car expenses as simply driving less. |
Can gold prices vary between two places or country at the same time? | I don't know about an actual example now, but in the past, India had restrictions on how much gold you could bring into the country from abroad, and there were heavy customs duties. Thus, gold smuggling was a huge business, because by avoiding the duties, people could stand to make a lot of money. At some point in 90s,... |
Understanding the symbols next to the Ticker | I don't understand what the D, to the right of APPLE INC, means. This means the graph below is for the "D". There is selection at top and you can change this to Minutes [5,20,60,etc], Day, Week [W], Month [M] I'm not understanding how it can say BATS when in actuality AAPL is listed on the NASDAQ. Do all exchanges have... |
If I have some old gold jewellery, is it worth it to sell it for its melt value? | I have a buddy that used to run one of those companies that buys gold like the ones you see on TV. Here's the deal... 1) If the jewelry isn't total junk, get it appraised. Making raw materials into jewelry obviously increases the value since you can't buy jewelry for the price of raw gold. In many cases it will be wort... |
Travel expenses for an out-of-state rental | While the question is very localized, I'll answer about the general principle. My main question is with how far away it is (over 1000 miles), how do I quantify the travel expenses? Generally, "necessary and ordinary" expenses are deductible. This is true for business and also true for rentals. But what is necessary a... |
Loan to son - how to get it back | He's paying the interest and you're paying the principal. If you're making minimum monthly payments, you'll still be doing the same thing 25-30 years from now. I think Parker's advice was very, very good, but I'd like to add to it a little of my own. Whatever dollar amount your son is sending to you as payment, encoura... |
Best way to day trade with under $25,000 | The T+3 "rule" relates only to accounting and not to trading. It does not prevent you from day trading. It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade. When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the informat... |
Can a custodian refuse prior-year IRA/HSA deposit postmarked April 15? | I had a situation like this also. A client deposited an IRA check to his local P.O. prior to collection p/up, thinking this meant it would be postmarked April 15. It may have been picked up, but wasn't postmarked until the next day, and my firm refused to consider it as timely. I do remember discussing it w/my Retireme... |
Does the USA have a Gold reserve? | The US does have a gold reserve. The main reserves are held at Fort Knox but there is even more gold, mostly owned by other countries, stored in the basement of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (Think Die Hard 3). The United States Bullion Depository, often known as Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building located adj... |
Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord? | With a healthy income its quite possible to contribute too much into 401Ks/IRAs. For example, if your retired today and had 3 million or so, how much more would you need? Would an extra million materially change your life? Would it make you happier if you invested that extra in some rental properties or perhaps a bu... |
How does spot-futures arbitrage work in the gold market? | You're missing the cost-of-carry aspect: The cost of carry or carrying charge is the cost of storing a physical commodity, such as grain or metals, over a period of time. The carrying charge includes insurance, storage and interest on the invested funds as well as other incidental costs. In interest rate futures market... |
How do I figure out if I will owe taxes | Do you have a regular job, where you work for somebody else and they pay you a salary? If so, they should be deducting estimated taxes from your paychecks and sending them in to the government. How much they deduct depends on your salary and what you put down on your W-4. Assuming you filled that out accurately, they w... |
What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage? | Note: I am making a USA-assumption here; keep in mind this answer doesn't necessarily apply to all countries (or even states in the USA). You asked two questions: I'm looking to buy a property. I do not want to take a risk on this property. Its sole purpose is to provide me with a place to live. How would I go abo... |
How does one value Facebook stock as a potential investment? | The amount of hype and uneducated investors/speculators driving its prices up. Just by that I would say its prices are inflated. Bear in mind that Facebook don't sell anything tangible. They can go down as fast as they went up. Most of their income is ad based and single-product oriented, and as such highly dependent o... |
Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him? | The 2 and 20 rule is a premium arrangement that hedge funds offer and venture capital funds offer, and they also offer different variations of it. The 2 is the management fee as percent of assets under management, the 20 is the profit cut, which they only get if they are profitable. There are 0/20, 1/15, and many varia... |
Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading? | Largely, because stock markets are efficient markets, at least mostly if not entirely; while the efficient market hypothesis is not necessarily 100% correct, for the majority of traders it's unlikely that you could (on the long term) find significant market inefficiencies with the tools available to an individual of no... |
What's the difference when asked for “debit or credit” by a store when using credit and debit cards? | Credit in debit way - the card simply functions like a debit card for that transaction - pulling cash from your checking account. No difference. You've simply discovered the fact that some banks are using the same piece of plastic for two functions, debit which draws funds directly from your checking, and credit which... |
What are 'business fundamentals'? | From http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Business+Fundamentals The facts that affect a company's underlying value. Examples of business fundamentals include debt, cash flow, supply of and demand for the company's products, and so forth. For instance, if a company does not have a sufficient sup... |
Why does financial investor bother to buy derivatives and then hedge the position? | There are a number reasons to hedge a position. Here are some of the more common: |
How long should I keep my tax documents, and why? | How long you need to keep tax records will depend on jurisdiction. In general, if you discard records in a period of time less than your tax authority recommends, it may create audit problems down the road. ie: if you make a deduction supported by business expense receipts, and you discard those receipts next year, the... |
How does the debt:GDP ratio affect the country's economy? | Is it not that bad? Depends how bad is bad. The problems causes by a government having large debt are similar to those caused by an individual having large debt. The big issue is: More and more of your income goes to paying interest on the debt, and is thus not available for spending on goods and services. If it gets b... |
How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want | Make a deal with yourself. You can buy the things that you want, but only after you've read three books on behavioral economics. You should probably start first with Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, which will help you understand why the discount makes you covet the products even more than you would without it. The... |
Student loan payments and opportunity costs | I bought a house when I was 22, I also had $10k in student load debt. After the down payment, I had $1,500 to my name and $82k worth of debt. All the advice pointed to "pay the minimum payment and invest the rest." I discarded the advice and scrimped and put everything extra to those bills. I paid it all off by the tim... |
Insurance, healthcare provider, apparent abuse, lack of transparency | I wouldn't classify your treatment as abuse. Medical billing has become more complex not less complex. You need to learn to ask even more questions regarding expenses, you probably need to see these price quotes in writing. You did several things correctly. Staying in-network generally is best because many plans have t... |
First time investing in real-estate, looks decent? | This might be a good idea, depending on your personality and inclinations. Key points: How close is the building to you? Do not buy any building that is more than 20 minutes travel from where you are. Do you have any real hard experience with doing construction, building maintenance and repair? Do you have tools? Examp... |
Should I pay off a 0% car loan? | The precise answer depends on the terms and conditions of the loan, and whether you can reasonably expect to meet them. For example, if you keep the loan, make no payments, there is a good chance that - eventually - you will trigger a clause in the contract, and suddenly be charged fees or a significant interest rate. ... |
If banks offer a fixed rate lower than the variable rate, is that an indication interest rates may head down? | Usually that is the case that when fixed rates are lower than the variable rates, it is an indication that the banks feel the next movement in rates could be down. You also need to look at the fixed rates for different periods, for example 1 year fixed compared to 3 year fixed and 5 year fixed rates. If you find the 3 ... |
What does it mean for a company to have its market cap larger than the market size? | It is ALWAYS possible for a company's valuation in the market to be larger than the market it serves, and in fact it is not uncommon. There's valid argument that Uber would be a good example of this, with a market cap of more than $60 billion. Market cap is the total value of all shares outstanding. Keep in mind tha... |
ACH processing time of day | Each bank is different, so your question needs to be more specific. For instance, I believe Paypal and Chase settles at 7pm EST on business days. Bank of America at 5PM. |
If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them? | Why would you even accept 75K in cash? If anything is going to trigger an audit, this will be it. 75K in cash deposited will look like money laundring, so you better have a paper trail ready to prove this is legal or this won't end well. |
Should I give to charity by check or credit card? | This kind of questions keeps repeating itself on this site and the answer is generally it doesn't matter. As you said yourself, there are costs either way, and these costs are comparable. Generally, merchant fees differ tremendously between the different kinds of merchants, and while gas stations and video rentals may ... |
Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate? | This is "incentive financing". Simply put, the car company isn't in the business of making money by buying government bonds. They're in the business of making money by selling cars. If you are "qualified" from a credit standpoint, and want to buy a $20k car on any given Sunday, you'll typically be offered a loan of bet... |
Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real? | 10k in taser stock at $1.00 per share made those who held into the hundreds per share made millions. But think about the likelihood of you owning a $1 stock and holding it past $10.00. They (taser millionaires) were both crazy and lucky. A direct answer, better off buying a lottery ticket. Stocks are for growing weal... |
How to represent “out of pocket” purchases in general ledger journal entry? | You're lending the money to your business by paying for it directly. The company accounts must reflect a credit (the amount you lend to it) and a debit (what it then puts that loan towards). It's fairly normal for a small(ish) owner-driven company to reflect a large loan-account for the owners. For example, if you ... |
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