Buying a crappy house. It’s structurally sound, but not a good neighborhood, crappy schools, and I don’t want to have people visit, but it cost half the county median and the difference in mortgage goes into index funds. My peers have nicer homes, but its their only asset: if they want to retire, they have to sell the house and move somewhere cheap.
I bought an electric car.
Now when I drive by the gas station I couldn’t care less how much gas costs!
I’ve never tasted such freedom.
Same here. i pay less on the downpayment, and power consumption in a month. Then what I used monthly in fuel only on the old thirsty petrol car.
Scratching the surface compared to an ebike. Virtually 0 fuel/maintenance cost. No insurance/registration AND parking.
I’ve owned one for 3 years now. My only maintenance costs were a $10 tire rotation and filling up wiper fluid. Even better, the park by my house where I walk my dog has free solar charging!
Do you have any range issues? Forget to charge it?
I have to be very proactive about where super chargers are.
I live in Georgia USA and there’s a bunch of dead zones without chargers still. But there hasn’t been any single time where I was unable to charge and I drive A LOT!
I haven’t forgotten to charge, at least not yet!
What I have had an issue with is installing a home charger. Electricians have given me estimates estimates ranging from 2500 to 10,000. Like wtf!
When I still had a car, it was never an issue except on long road trips. You plug the car in every evening, and wake up with a “full tank”.
On long road trips, I charged during bathroom and lunch breaks, and did a little preplanning on the route. Still not a major issue.
Ironically, I almost ran out of gas the next time I rented an ICE car, because I totally forgot that refueling was a thing you had to do.
Nice. How do you like charging at home / at stations? Are charging stations sometimes a pain? I haven’t seen many but I’m also not actively looking out for them but from what I’ve heard it’s all expanding nicely.
I’m looking to trade in aTacoma for a Ford F150 lightning or some other electric pickup since 99.9% of the time it’s just used to drive around town.
I’ve been having some issues getting the plug installed. I’ve gotten estimates across the board from 1600 bucks to 8k! But I’ll get it taken care of eventually.
I live in Georgia USA and there are plenty of dead areas for chargers unlike California where you can’t spit without getting it on a fast charger.
If you get a level 2 charger installed in your house it is completely possible to charge only at your house.
Chevy is releasing the Silverado and Suburban fully electric along with the Equinox. It’s worth a consideration.
Selling my car and getting an ebike. First few months were rough because I was used to having a car all the time for twenty years. The gas, insurance, registration and maintenance savings add up quick. My wife and I share a car, but I rarely drive it as I’ve gotten so used to the ebike now. We live in the suburbs, but are close to the light rail train line and bike paths so it made it relatively easy. Over the course of a year we’d typically spend $4000-$5000 on the second car so not having that is a lot of extra money
I’d like to be able to do that, but I’m not certain how feasible it is for me. What’s the weather like in your area, throughout the year? In mine it goes from about about 60 to 90 where I can’t imagine wanting to ride my bike at about 90, and arrive not drenched in sweat. How much do you think a person would spend to purchase an Ebike? How many miles do you expect to ride per 10 minutes, if you’re trying to get somewhere? Near some places I frequent, there’s not good public transit, so if I took it, it would take like 3 times longer than by car. A bike may be nice, but then I’ld probably arrive sweaty and maybe still about 2 times longer than by car (i’m not familiar with expected speed of traveling on a bike).
I would say that 90 F won’t be a problem on an ebike, since you can rely a lot on the motor, and you have air flowing all around you. I mostly use a regular bike but then I just bring a spare t-shirt.
I would rather say that I don’t like biking when it’s below 35 F. Still doable, but not having to deal with that it should be really nice for you :)
Max allowed speed for ebikes on bikelanes varies but should be about 20 mph if you’re using only the motor.
I bought a little town house 12 years ago. I didn’t really want to. My wife talked me into it. I was worried that I’d never pay it off. With the cost of housing now I couldn’t possibly afford to buy. I have a house, and a nice nest egg for retirement one day. Thanks wife!
I was counseled about finances three times in my life and two times I lost money in the low thousands because they sold me ok things way too expensive.
One time the financial counseling was sound, but the house was crap and I lost thousands for that.
Luckily I was always budgeting, so these things never ruined me.
The best advice I have, don’t trust your financial advisors, particularly those who emphasize the importance of trust.
Take the time to understand what you are investing in and the cost structure. This can take months and don’t let yourself get pressured. Do not trust the advisor! Be skeptical and ask all the questions. If they get impatient they have nothing good to sell and rely on the customers inexperience. Very similar things are sold for vastly different prices, and you need to understand that. Particularly for security the cost can easily ruin an otherwise good product.
I’d say investing in my 401k.
I’d recommend to anybody looking for sound financial advice to look into Dave Ramsey. You can watch his YouTube videos and gain all the knowledge you need free. I never went through any of his courses and do not have any association with him. I was already doing most things he recommends and it works.
Dave os okay for debt addicts to break that cycle but he’s generally bad on basically everything else.
He’s generally non-optimal on other things, but I certainly wouldn’t call his advice straight up bad on anything. Overall most people are signficantly better off following his advice than doing average-person personal finance things - the average person is pretty terrible with money and Dave’s plan is a huge step up from that.
It’s kinda like calling one diet bad because it’s not as optimized as some other diet, but really both diets are amazing when you compare them to eating McDonalds 3 meals a day.
What do you think is bad? Maybe I didn’t see what you’re saying. He tells people to invest in 401k and spread it out over multiple different segments. He recommends do not buy new vehicles. Buy used. Pay off all debt.
The general problems I’ve seen are the excessive aversion to debt and promotion of high cost actively managed funds. Now the first one is probably good advice for some, the second is just paying more for generally reduced diversification. That said, I’d have to dig back into his current advice to be up to date on it since I’ve generally been absorbing Boglehead propoganda.
Paying off all our credit cards and cancelling them and living off cheque / savings accounts rather than credit.
We did this about 5 years ago before COVID uncertainty and the current cost of living crisis and I’m just so relieved we don’t have to worry about paying anything off.
If you’re good about treating it like cash, credit cards aren’t a bad thing. The cashback/rewards are nice as they are not taxable. (At least in the US)
That said, for some the temptation of credit is too much.
The gamification of credit card points can be a problem, too (overspending on stuff you don’t really need or want to get those rewards). I use a credit card for this, too, but it can be murky waters if you don’t have really good planning and impulse control (which I will admit I don’t always have myself).
The cashback ones are better than the points collectors. Though they both have some positives.
With the cash back ones you just get money back for spending money that you would have already spent. If you spend enough to get more cash back than the fees for the year then you are ahead. With the points ones if you use them up once a year to get something that you would then not have to spend money on including the yearly fees then you are also ahead.
I get enough enough points to get a gift card for my favorite steakhouse. So we don’t pay each year for our two yearly visits to the steakhouse because of points.
It’s a tie between getting rid of my car and learning to stop “trading”. Cars are just the worst in terms of finances, and you can save bank if you’re able to move somewhere walkable. Only buy stocks you’re happy to hold for five years or more. A good test is “if the price crashes, would I be excited to buy more?”
I think, at least for non-savvy people, that buying individual stocks is not a great idea anyway. If you’re investing to have long term capital gains something like the MSCI World ETF would probably be the better choice. If you invested in that specific index fund in 2016 you’d have doubled your money by now, even during this economic downturn. Sure, you can make more money in a shorter time day trading but that shit is damn near a full time job and more risky unless you heavily diversify your portfolio (which you should do anyway).
Another poster mentioned stocks of the company he works for. My company for example distributes a good amount of their yearly profits to their employees. Meaning that once a year you can choose between a couple hundred bucks one-time payout or get a bunch of company stocks for a heavily discounted price, but they’re trade-locked for two years. At the beginning of 2020 I chose the stock option and the shares got bought right at the beginning of the covid dip. When 2022 rolled around I had essentially quintupled my initial investment in the discounted stocks. So that’s another great tip, provided you company offers similar plans.
Counterpoint to company stock is, if the company has trouble, your stock is likely to plummet at the same time as you lose your job. Definitely go for discounted shares/options, but consider dumping them (ie, diversifying) as soon as you can.
I joined a hotel company a couple of years ago where they offered stock options, which is good and I appreciated it. But there were a lot of people that had worked there for decades just because they felt invested in the company. Meanwhile, working conditions were absolutely awful and the culture was the worst I’ve ever experienced. And I kept thinking how crazy it must have been during COVID as the stock tanked and everyone was staring down the barrel of layoffs. Like, if your employer is your entire retirement plan then you could be in huge trouble all at once.
Coincidentally, having cars as a hobby has been the worst financial decision of my life lol.
Hobbies aren’t supposed to be about whether they’re a good financial consideration, they’re about passion, self fulfillment and looking after yourself.
This is of course true, but sometimes what you’re getting out of a hobby is not worth the resources you put in.
Then it’s a shit hobby, or the wrong time in your life for that particular hobby. Hobbies aren’t meant to be financially sound investments, and the best hobbies aren’t cheap.
I went through the CFA certification process and it helped me advance in wealth management where I can afford a family and a decent life.
I don’t make a killing like some but family is happy.
Work isn’t that fulfilling so figuring that out but it was a great financial decision. Cost like less than 5k and work paid for most.
I read that as “a family and a decent wife”…
I diversified my savings account. Some is put into precious metals,a CD, and some in stocks.
Offset mortgage
Rolled over a 401k into a cash IRA the week before Lehman died
ETA: the timing was pure luck. I had no clue what was about to go down.
Starting a business
What’s your business?
TLDR: Computers
I got super lucky being in the right place/right time. I started a company when COVID hit with the intention of just selling computers. The market sort of pushed me into selling computers for AI/ML which i knew nothing about but had a good background in Linux, so I could offer a lot of added services in terms of DevOps/MLOps, setting things up for customers as added value which my (much larger and more established) competition didn’t. This led to some enterprise connections, started selling servers, more things happened and 3 years later I have a full engineering team and we’re morphing into an OEM. There’s a lot I’m leaving out but if there’s one takeaway I can give, it’s that:
- Never underestimate what you’re capable of learning by just putting in the time and work
- Don’t de-value random things you’ve put time and effort into learning. Even something you were obsessed with as a teenager and seemed like a complete waste of time may eventually become critically important in your adult life.
Become self-employed with a practice. Reliable income that depends on how much work I’m willing to put in and no one can fire me.
The only caveat being… if I get seriously ill, there’s nobody to cover me unless I’m willing to pay someone a small fortune.
One of the worst financial decisions I ever made was going into business for myself with no cash on hand.
I had no ability to turn down clients, took clients I had bad gut feeling out because I needed to pay rent, and had over a decade of constant scrambling and dealing with shitty clients on small potatoes contracts.
Next time (if ever) I go out on my own it’s gonna be with a big enough buffer to be able to maneuver.
Ahh, that’s why you get a partner that can cover your business and only occasionally frustrates you with incompetence or laziness…
I wish. I’m not there yet money-wise, but that’s the plan. ATM there are only expensive emergency backups.
Buying some bitcoin when it was around 300 euros. A couple of years ago I needed surgery that wasn’t available in my country so the national insurance only covered it around 50% in another country and that bitcoin basically saved my life.
Great for you man!
