I could have been responsible, but alas I could not deny the appeal of wine, women and song. My only real advice is that credit card debt is evil. Only buy what you can pay cash for excluding real estate and cars.
Somehow I think that the root of the evil in your case was not the credit card, but rather wine, women and song. ;-)
Well I'll finally make an entrance in to this thread. I think this can be one of AI's seminal threads. I'll dive in to my life:
I am engaged. We are getting married, that is not a question. 3 years down the road most likely. She will be in Pharmacy school at URI for another 3 years. She worked throughout highschool like a dog, enough to make me feel incredibly lazy, and made 30,000 just during high school, and has about that amount in a savings account. I have about 2,000 to my name, most in a Citizens account which does not accrue interest. So we're living in an apartment for the next two years, sharing it with a roommate and of course we are splitting a room ourselves, so it's economical. So what I am thinking is that if I get a job, at least 30-40k a year, potentially more if I snag a state (RI) job, and work for a few years, in 3 years we'll buy a house. gdconway makes a good point, that my fiancee always makes, that real estate is a good investment. Yes we'll take on a roommate. Actually my fiancee's sister's boyfriend, they live together, he has bought *3* houses and he is only 25, selling them and buying another, always for profit, and they also have a roommate. So she convinced me. That's what we'll save up for. Hopefully I'll get a job within the next month or two, and if not, then an internship that will lead to a job after a few months of the all-important "experience."
gdconway I'm also thinking about going to law school in 3 or 4 years. I'm 22 now. I majored in Environmental Science and I may do a JD and perhaps joint M.S. in environmental science or public policy, then practice environmental law at an agency like DoJ, Corps of Engineers, or an environmental agency, for 5-10 years, and then go in to a high-level policy position at an environmental agency. Then, after another 5-10 I plan to get in to politics, perhaps state or even US Rep. Or some sort of political position, part or full-time.
Finances now, are low-ish. My fiancee doesn't want to combine our money so we can have a Citizen's checking account with interest. Currently, she doesn't have a checking with interest either because her 30k is spread out between multiple banks. Yeah, she likes to "diversify" too. That was a good point. I really have to research money management. Even if I make 30,000 a year it's more than I know what to do with, let alone 50 or more if I get a state job. Yeah, state jobs pay more! You just have to get in somehow...and be in a union...that's another matter though. And gdconway if you can shed any light on entering law, perhaps in that ShawnJ law school thread in AppleOutsider that'd be great.
So, as for cars. We both have Toyota corollas, of course, a few years old. So, don't buy new? I think perhaps her mom made a good point, if you can afford it, just keep getting new toyota corollas, because time is money, and you don't have to worry about them. Just buy them new, and run them in to the ground at 150,000 or even 200,000 miles. As far as I've seen nothing beats Toyotas. So that was my plan, run these in to the ground and then get new Corollas.
So: specific advice:
FICO:
-I have 2,5000 line of credit on my credit card. Is there any reason NOT to up it to 3,500? I can if I want to. Wouldn't that help my FICO score? Does anyone have any other advice on how to help my FICO?
Houses/real estate:
-any advice on buying houses? Is my plan a good one? I don't know if my fiancee will do another two years of school after she graduates in three years, maybe, maybe not. (She's already done 6 by then!) But if not, or let's say after that next two years, shouldn't we immediately buy a house, as soon as we have enough for a downpayment? And rent out a room? Any house buying advice in general? I'm sure a good FICO score helps with that mortgage payment, right?
Cars:
-IS buying new good? Bad? Toyota? I'll be in the Northeast, it needs to be rugged.
Retirement:
-if I work somewhere for a few years, then do law school or whatever, what happens to my 401k/IRA or whatever the heck those are? Can I cash out or transfer it? Yeesh I really need to research that stuff, if anyone has a good book or site to recommend that'd be great.
Investing/money:
-from what I've seen, CDs are a great way to save some cash long term. Perhaps I'll diversify, and have some CDs, some in a conservative mutual fund or two, and put maybe a bit in AAPL, only a few thou, as a gamble, and then a bit more in a traditional savings, or if we have enough capital, keep it in a checking acct. with interest. And hopefully she'll finally give in and we'll have a joint account.
Sorry for the autobiography folks! Post yours, I'll try to respond if I can help. This thread will be great. Let's keep it up. Any accountants in the house??
And if you made it through that, I thought I'd share some sagely advice from my dad:
"Getting a job is a full-time job."
And from yours truly, I realized last week "There is no such thing as an entry-level job." I haven't been able to get an entry-level job yet. I didn't think it would be this hard. I thought I'd have a job by graduation. Now I think if I land one by the end of the summer then I'll be happy.
Obviously, parental homilies such as "dont live beyond your means" are OK, but l think folks want more facts than lectures. My dad said that the single best thing that I could do was the following.
"Starting with your 1st paycheck, and for each paycheck until you retire, pull out 10% and put it into some type of savings or mutual fund account." This was the best financial advice I have ever gotten. The key to having something to 'manage' is to get something to manage. Start saving, no matter what excuse you may have for not starting.
Dad's advice rules!
You see lots of advice on here about what to manage or how to manage it or which asset class is best. The reality though is that you don't gain the experience of managing any asset class unless you have "something to manage."
This article is a great introduction to what most people do with their money. The clear majority of people, especially Americans have gone off the deep end and believe that debt management is financial management. I've argued it with people on here and many more people in real life. Debt management does not equal financial management. The article also mentioned the opportunity costs of taking on debt. This cannot be overstated. Most of the good opportunities I've run across in my life were easily within reach of any regular person. The main difference is the timidity of the regular person because of their debt position and also the lack of experience in taking calculated risks when free of those debt positions.
Can you afford to take a loss on a bad stock pick? Sure you can if you are driving around a beater that you own free and clear. How much harder does it become when you are servicing a $350-$500 note each month? How more quickly do you pull the trigger and eat the loss instead of being able to hold out for the gain, or even just gain the experience that allows you to try and pick the winner in the future?
That opportunity cost is as the commercial goes, priceless. It cannot be taught and it cannot be bought.
My main means of investing has been real estate and it will be again in about three years. when everybody, once again will be looking at me like I am a nut job to be buying. In the meantime I have been looking into and learning about stocks. First I built a play portfolio and I watched it go up and down, but at least for me, it isn't the same. So I had to jump in with my own real money. I'm up 2% right now for the year but I can tell you that early on the thumps and lumps of learning had me down over $3000. Several books and bruises later, I'm starting to understand the market and the people behind it.
How could I afford to lose $3000k (and understand it isn't a loss because I've made that back up and I'm now up 2% from my starting position) though if I were servicing a bunch of debt? My friends marveled at my real estate purchases and complained that they could never do it. I make less than almost all of them. I'm a school teacher for goodness sakes with a stay-at-home wife. I simply pointed out that each time they bought a new car, I bought a house.
Hey I didn't know you were a teacher. What is your subject and class?
Anyway, that's a good point/concept: opportunity cost. That's why I want to invest in real estate maybe stocks (big maybe, I won't jump in with more than a thous or two any time soon) because I feel like every year that I don't own a house or stocks, which both grow a lot of money, if done right, I'm losing out on opportunity.
Anyhow also good to note about debt management. I did manage to consolidate all my student loans right before interest went up, locked around 3%. I own my car. But like I said, as of now my capital is zilch, 2k in the bank. I won't do anything of course until I find out what is happening with my career: until I get an apprenticeship or job. Oh and I upped my credit to 3,500. Not like at this point I'd need it, but I figured, why not? It must improve my score, as long as I keep paying things on time, which I do.
Thanks for the advice and let's keep this thread rolling.
edit: I have 17,000 in student loans. The exact figures will come in soon. It's locked in at 3.5%. It's through the Feds.
Hey I didn't know you were a teacher. What is your subject and class?
The subject is multiple and the class is fourth.
Quote:
Anyway, that's a good point/concept: opportunity cost. That's why I want to invest in real estate maybe stocks (big maybe, I won't jump in with more than a thous or two any time soon) because I feel like every year that I don't own a house or stocks, which both grow a lot of money, if done right, I'm losing out on opportunity.
Right but do yourself a favor and don't just jump into anything though, try to wait for the right one. How does one know which is the "right one?" That is the oh so wonderful concept I mentioned above that in my view cannot be bought or taught. Anytime you try to stick a criteria on it, it just hits some snag, exception or goodness knows what. Around half the time you have to be contrarian to make money anyway. (<--that right there is an example of how trying to make rules to define the opportunities just sucks.)
I'll have to resort to an analogy and just apologize to Midwinter later.8)
Hitting a pitched baseball relates well to finding a good opportunity. I mentioned earlier about how most people seldom will risk money on an opportunity because they are so invested in debt service. Think of the pitch as the opportunity and the swing as the cost of attempting to get a hit or financial return.
The pitching machine will give you as many pitches as you want thrown. So life gives opportunities as well. They really aren't obscure, hard to find or once in a lifetime. Most of them are sitting right in front of your face and whizzing right past your nose.
The issue isn't the pitches, the issue is the swings and the hits. It costs to swing. Many people who fixate on the now (take now, pay later), or who pretend to hate money while constantly complaining about it and working for it, or who simply do not have the right mindset (I can't succeed) do not get to swing or if they do, it is so seldom that they are unlikely to get a hit.
Think about folks with this mentality, they get to swing at maybe one or two pitches in their whole lives. They expect a hit, possibly a homerun. When it doesn't occur then they conclude they simply weren't lucky, didn't hit life's lotto, or sadder still that the entire system is set up and rigged to screw the little guy.
Those who aren't servicing debt, who save to invest regularly, they get to swing more often and after a while they realize a couple things. First hitting a baseball really isn't that hard. Second they don't have to swing at every pitch, they can wait for the best or the most right pitch for their hitting style. What is the best for your "hitting style?" You don't really know until you've had a few swings. Realize though that most people only take a couple swings in their entire lifetime. They treat hitting the ball like scratching a lotto ticket. You have to get more than a couple swings in before can even make adjustments to your hitting style. It can't be a one shot deal, but something ongoing.
Waiting for the right pitch requires yet another level of patience on top of the original deferred gratification that allowed up to save and get up to swing. However once you learn to do it, your batting average can even start to go up to well above average.(Thank goodness life is only a pitching machine and not a major league pitcher)
Once you get patient enough though you not only hit regularly you get excited about the game. Your whole perception about hitting has changed. You can't wait to have pitches come past you, find the right one, and hit it out of sight. They aren't all homers, but there are plenty of singles, doubles to keep life comfortable and the occasional triple, homerun or goodness knows what to spin wonderful stories about. They sound like once in a lifetime hits but they really aren't. You just got to swing well and swing often.
Great random link. So what you're saying is I should start buying lotto tickets regularly?
Nah, that's something I try to stay away from: gambling literally. I'll bide my time for some capital and hopefully make money, with money, via real estate and conservative investing like mutual funds and CDs. Of course as the old adage goes, it takes money to make money. That's why I'll be frequenting here a bit less as time goes on, hopefully. I really have to stop hanging out here and work even harder on getting a job! I keep telling myself that at least.
I've made a little money in real estate. Not a fortune by any means. But a friend of mine is making a killing. We graduated law school together and started out making $50k in a fairly small town. He started buying cheap rental property after he found out I was making a little money on one piece of property. He'd put maybe 5% down. Rent each property for at least 20% more than the morgage payment. Hustle, hustle, hustle, and squeeze out every last dime out of each property. After 5 years he owns about a dozen properties other than his home, most of them duplexes. Its not easy money, and its probably not possible in every market, but its very doable in a small town, particularly a college town. The key is to making real money is "leverage". Basically, if you can get a 7% return on money borrowd at 6%, you need to borrow/invest as much as possible. That's an oversimplification that doesn't factor in your own work and opportunity cost, but you get the picture.
As for law school, I had a pretty good experience. I made decent grades and had a decent LSAT, so I had no trouble getting into the only school to which I applied, the state school. So I don't really have any advice about getting into law school. I originally applied for several reasons. Like most law students, I didn't know what else to do with a liberal arts degree. But I was also genuinely interested in civl liberties-related issues. That motivation got lost somewhere along the line and I ended up working a job that I hated. I eventually opened my own office and am now much happier.
If you're interested in specifics, feel free to email me at [email protected].
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
Yes, that's a good article. I firmly believe that "keeping up with the Joneses" and their McMansions and new SUVs is the single biggest reason for poor financial situations. All the advice about which stock to pick, Roth vs. regular IRA, etc. doesn't amount to much in comparison to the basic fact of our hyper-consumeristic culture.
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
First, pretty much does not equal always.
Second, if you read the article, it was making your exact point.
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
That's if you're businessman... but what if you're not?
Nick that link How to Live Rich was great. It inspired me to get off my ass and go check the oil in my car. Damnit I've been meaning to do that for like two weeks, but I just never did. Thanks!
Here's another one like it. What I like about especially is that it focuses on how trying to stop one's consumerism is not just good for one's finances, but one's life in general. (Now if only I could learn that lesson.)
Comments
Originally posted by trick fall
I could have been responsible, but alas I could not deny the appeal of wine, women and song. My only real advice is that credit card debt is evil. Only buy what you can pay cash for excluding real estate and cars.
Somehow I think that the root of the evil in your case was not the credit card, but rather wine, women and song. ;-)
I am engaged. We are getting married, that is not a question. 3 years down the road most likely. She will be in Pharmacy school at URI for another 3 years. She worked throughout highschool like a dog, enough to make me feel incredibly lazy, and made 30,000 just during high school, and has about that amount in a savings account. I have about 2,000 to my name, most in a Citizens account which does not accrue interest. So we're living in an apartment for the next two years, sharing it with a roommate and of course we are splitting a room ourselves, so it's economical. So what I am thinking is that if I get a job, at least 30-40k a year, potentially more if I snag a state (RI) job, and work for a few years, in 3 years we'll buy a house. gdconway makes a good point, that my fiancee always makes, that real estate is a good investment. Yes we'll take on a roommate. Actually my fiancee's sister's boyfriend, they live together, he has bought *3* houses and he is only 25, selling them and buying another, always for profit, and they also have a roommate. So she convinced me. That's what we'll save up for. Hopefully I'll get a job within the next month or two, and if not, then an internship that will lead to a job after a few months of the all-important "experience."
gdconway I'm also thinking about going to law school in 3 or 4 years. I'm 22 now. I majored in Environmental Science and I may do a JD and perhaps joint M.S. in environmental science or public policy, then practice environmental law at an agency like DoJ, Corps of Engineers, or an environmental agency, for 5-10 years, and then go in to a high-level policy position at an environmental agency. Then, after another 5-10 I plan to get in to politics, perhaps state or even US Rep. Or some sort of political position, part or full-time.
Finances now, are low-ish. My fiancee doesn't want to combine our money so we can have a Citizen's checking account with interest. Currently, she doesn't have a checking with interest either because her 30k is spread out between multiple banks. Yeah, she likes to "diversify" too. That was a good point. I really have to research money management. Even if I make 30,000 a year it's more than I know what to do with, let alone 50 or more if I get a state job. Yeah, state jobs pay more! You just have to get in somehow...and be in a union...that's another matter though. And gdconway if you can shed any light on entering law, perhaps in that ShawnJ law school thread in AppleOutsider that'd be great.
So, as for cars. We both have Toyota corollas, of course, a few years old. So, don't buy new? I think perhaps her mom made a good point, if you can afford it, just keep getting new toyota corollas, because time is money, and you don't have to worry about them. Just buy them new, and run them in to the ground at 150,000 or even 200,000 miles. As far as I've seen nothing beats Toyotas. So that was my plan, run these in to the ground and then get new Corollas.
So: specific advice:
FICO:
-I have 2,5000 line of credit on my credit card. Is there any reason NOT to up it to 3,500? I can if I want to. Wouldn't that help my FICO score? Does anyone have any other advice on how to help my FICO?
Houses/real estate:
-any advice on buying houses? Is my plan a good one? I don't know if my fiancee will do another two years of school after she graduates in three years, maybe, maybe not. (She's already done 6 by then!) But if not, or let's say after that next two years, shouldn't we immediately buy a house, as soon as we have enough for a downpayment? And rent out a room? Any house buying advice in general? I'm sure a good FICO score helps with that mortgage payment, right?
Cars:
-IS buying new good? Bad? Toyota? I'll be in the Northeast, it needs to be rugged.
Retirement:
-if I work somewhere for a few years, then do law school or whatever, what happens to my 401k/IRA or whatever the heck those are? Can I cash out or transfer it? Yeesh I really need to research that stuff, if anyone has a good book or site to recommend that'd be great.
Investing/money:
-from what I've seen, CDs are a great way to save some cash long term. Perhaps I'll diversify, and have some CDs, some in a conservative mutual fund or two, and put maybe a bit in AAPL, only a few thou, as a gamble, and then a bit more in a traditional savings, or if we have enough capital, keep it in a checking acct. with interest. And hopefully she'll finally give in and we'll have a joint account.
Sorry for the autobiography folks! Post yours, I'll try to respond if I can help. This thread will be great. Let's keep it up. Any accountants in the house??
"Getting a job is a full-time job."
And from yours truly, I realized last week "There is no such thing as an entry-level job." I haven't been able to get an entry-level job yet. I didn't think it would be this hard. I thought I'd have a job by graduation. Now I think if I land one by the end of the summer then I'll be happy.
Originally posted by rufusswan
I think this could be a great thread. Plenty of opportunity for all to learn, whether just starting out or, as in my case, just retiring.
#1 Start Saving NOW!
Obviously, parental homilies such as "dont live beyond your means" are OK, but l think folks want more facts than lectures. My dad said that the single best thing that I could do was the following.
"Starting with your 1st paycheck, and for each paycheck until you retire, pull out 10% and put it into some type of savings or mutual fund account." This was the best financial advice I have ever gotten. The key to having something to 'manage' is to get something to manage. Start saving, no matter what excuse you may have for not starting.
Dad's advice rules!
You see lots of advice on here about what to manage or how to manage it or which asset class is best. The reality though is that you don't gain the experience of managing any asset class unless you have "something to manage."
Monthly mentality
This article is a great introduction to what most people do with their money. The clear majority of people, especially Americans have gone off the deep end and believe that debt management is financial management. I've argued it with people on here and many more people in real life. Debt management does not equal financial management. The article also mentioned the opportunity costs of taking on debt. This cannot be overstated. Most of the good opportunities I've run across in my life were easily within reach of any regular person. The main difference is the timidity of the regular person because of their debt position and also the lack of experience in taking calculated risks when free of those debt positions.
Can you afford to take a loss on a bad stock pick? Sure you can if you are driving around a beater that you own free and clear. How much harder does it become when you are servicing a $350-$500 note each month? How more quickly do you pull the trigger and eat the loss instead of being able to hold out for the gain, or even just gain the experience that allows you to try and pick the winner in the future?
That opportunity cost is as the commercial goes, priceless. It cannot be taught and it cannot be bought.
My main means of investing has been real estate and it will be again in about three years. when everybody, once again will be looking at me like I am a nut job to be buying. In the meantime I have been looking into and learning about stocks. First I built a play portfolio and I watched it go up and down, but at least for me, it isn't the same. So I had to jump in with my own real money. I'm up 2% right now for the year but I can tell you that early on the thumps and lumps of learning had me down over $3000. Several books and bruises later, I'm starting to understand the market and the people behind it.
How could I afford to lose $3000k (and understand it isn't a loss because I've made that back up and I'm now up 2% from my starting position) though if I were servicing a bunch of debt? My friends marveled at my real estate purchases and complained that they could never do it. I make less than almost all of them. I'm a school teacher for goodness sakes with a stay-at-home wife. I simply pointed out that each time they bought a new car, I bought a house.
Nick
Anyway, that's a good point/concept: opportunity cost. That's why I want to invest in real estate maybe stocks (big maybe, I won't jump in with more than a thous or two any time soon) because I feel like every year that I don't own a house or stocks, which both grow a lot of money, if done right, I'm losing out on opportunity.
Anyhow also good to note about debt management. I did manage to consolidate all my student loans right before interest went up, locked around 3%. I own my car. But like I said, as of now my capital is zilch, 2k in the bank. I won't do anything of course until I find out what is happening with my career: until I get an apprenticeship or job. Oh and I upped my credit to 3,500. Not like at this point I'd need it, but I figured, why not? It must improve my score, as long as I keep paying things on time, which I do.
Thanks for the advice and let's keep this thread rolling.
edit: I have 17,000 in student loans. The exact figures will come in soon. It's locked in at 3.5%. It's through the Feds.
Originally posted by Aquatic
Hey I didn't know you were a teacher. What is your subject and class?
The subject is multiple and the class is fourth.
Anyway, that's a good point/concept: opportunity cost. That's why I want to invest in real estate maybe stocks (big maybe, I won't jump in with more than a thous or two any time soon) because I feel like every year that I don't own a house or stocks, which both grow a lot of money, if done right, I'm losing out on opportunity.
Right but do yourself a favor and don't just jump into anything though, try to wait for the right one. How does one know which is the "right one?" That is the oh so wonderful concept I mentioned above that in my view cannot be bought or taught. Anytime you try to stick a criteria on it, it just hits some snag, exception or goodness knows what. Around half the time you have to be contrarian to make money anyway. (<--that right there is an example of how trying to make rules to define the opportunities just sucks.)
I'll have to resort to an analogy and just apologize to Midwinter later.8)
Hitting a pitched baseball relates well to finding a good opportunity. I mentioned earlier about how most people seldom will risk money on an opportunity because they are so invested in debt service. Think of the pitch as the opportunity and the swing as the cost of attempting to get a hit or financial return.
The pitching machine will give you as many pitches as you want thrown. So life gives opportunities as well. They really aren't obscure, hard to find or once in a lifetime. Most of them are sitting right in front of your face and whizzing right past your nose.
The issue isn't the pitches, the issue is the swings and the hits. It costs to swing. Many people who fixate on the now (take now, pay later), or who pretend to hate money while constantly complaining about it and working for it, or who simply do not have the right mindset (I can't succeed) do not get to swing or if they do, it is so seldom that they are unlikely to get a hit.
Think about folks with this mentality, they get to swing at maybe one or two pitches in their whole lives. They expect a hit, possibly a homerun. When it doesn't occur then they conclude they simply weren't lucky, didn't hit life's lotto, or sadder still that the entire system is set up and rigged to screw the little guy.
Those who aren't servicing debt, who save to invest regularly, they get to swing more often and after a while they realize a couple things. First hitting a baseball really isn't that hard. Second they don't have to swing at every pitch, they can wait for the best or the most right pitch for their hitting style. What is the best for your "hitting style?" You don't really know until you've had a few swings. Realize though that most people only take a couple swings in their entire lifetime. They treat hitting the ball like scratching a lotto ticket. You have to get more than a couple swings in before can even make adjustments to your hitting style. It can't be a one shot deal, but something ongoing.
Waiting for the right pitch requires yet another level of patience on top of the original deferred gratification that allowed up to save and get up to swing. However once you learn to do it, your batting average can even start to go up to well above average.(Thank goodness life is only a pitching machine and not a major league pitcher)
Once you get patient enough though you not only hit regularly you get excited about the game. Your whole perception about hitting has changed. You can't wait to have pitches come past you, find the right one, and hit it out of sight. They aren't all homers, but there are plenty of singles, doubles to keep life comfortable and the occasional triple, homerun or goodness knows what to spin wonderful stories about. They sound like once in a lifetime hits but they really aren't. You just got to swing well and swing often.
Nick
Nah, that's something I try to stay away from: gambling literally. I'll bide my time for some capital and hopefully make money, with money, via real estate and conservative investing like mutual funds and CDs. Of course as the old adage goes, it takes money to make money. That's why I'll be frequenting here a bit less as time goes on, hopefully. I really have to stop hanging out here and work even harder on getting a job! I keep telling myself that at least.
I've made a little money in real estate. Not a fortune by any means. But a friend of mine is making a killing. We graduated law school together and started out making $50k in a fairly small town. He started buying cheap rental property after he found out I was making a little money on one piece of property. He'd put maybe 5% down. Rent each property for at least 20% more than the morgage payment. Hustle, hustle, hustle, and squeeze out every last dime out of each property. After 5 years he owns about a dozen properties other than his home, most of them duplexes. Its not easy money, and its probably not possible in every market, but its very doable in a small town, particularly a college town. The key is to making real money is "leverage". Basically, if you can get a 7% return on money borrowd at 6%, you need to borrow/invest as much as possible. That's an oversimplification that doesn't factor in your own work and opportunity cost, but you get the picture.
As for law school, I had a pretty good experience. I made decent grades and had a decent LSAT, so I had no trouble getting into the only school to which I applied, the state school. So I don't really have any advice about getting into law school. I originally applied for several reasons. Like most law students, I didn't know what else to do with a liberal arts degree. But I was also genuinely interested in civl liberties-related issues. That motivation got lost somewhere along the line and I ended up working a job that I hated. I eventually opened my own office and am now much happier.
If you're interested in specifics, feel free to email me at [email protected].
Debt = bad pretty much always.
Nick
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
Originally posted by trumptman
Another great article with some sound advice.
Debt = bad pretty much always.
Nick
Yes, that's a good article. I firmly believe that "keeping up with the Joneses" and their McMansions and new SUVs is the single biggest reason for poor financial situations. All the advice about which stock to pick, Roth vs. regular IRA, etc. doesn't amount to much in comparison to the basic fact of our hyper-consumeristic culture.
Originally posted by gdconway
Debt is not always bad. That's ridiculous.
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
First, pretty much does not equal always.
Second, if you read the article, it was making your exact point.
Nick
Nick
Originally posted by gdconway
Debt is not always bad. That's ridiculous.
Consumer debt is almost always bad. But almost every successful business on earth has been financed with debt. I'm pretty sure Bill Gates borrowed money from friends/family when he started Microsoft. That turned out to be a pretty good move.
Using debt to finance cars, booze, plasma tvs, and skit trips doesn't usuall pay off so well.
That's if you're businessman... but what if you're not?
Another great article with some sound advice.
Debt = bad pretty much always.
Nick
Here's another one like it. What I like about especially is that it focuses on how trying to stop one's consumerism is not just good for one's finances, but one's life in general. (Now if only I could learn that lesson.)