So for me its the other way around. Which should I open first, the Chase account or the local account? And can I just use direct deposit to get my paycheck sent directly to my Chase account? I just want the easiest way to get a Chase account and a Chase check card without a hassle in order to withdrawal money from local ATM’s (I don’t really mind a small fee).
The Visa Extra isn’t all that good IMO. You need some insane number of points (1 point = $1) to get some good stuff. If you eat out, they do have some nice $5-$50 gift cards though. I think you need some 200k points for an ipod touch…to put that in perspective.
:rolleyes: Yo, let the man make his money. Aint anyone going to report you for doing sidejob shit. I do sidejobs all the time. I fix cars on the side and run a good street pharmacy. If I found out some mofo open his fat mouth…they dont want me finding out, all I gotta say.:mad:
Question about 401k contributions as a tax shield. Would it be beneficial for me to put contribute more to my 401k as a way to lower my taxes or is it counter productive below a certain income level? Like say if my tax bracket was 28%, and i am putting away 10% right now, if i increase it to 20% it would lower my taxes that the gov’t takes out but at the same time my savings are taking a hit, is the end result zero-sum? The way someone explained to me was that it’s tax deferred my 401k, so if i can take the extra contribution and for example put it into a money market account ~ 3-4% interest, i’d be making money by compounding the interest on interest over the new few decades til retirement.
Main point is holding all things equal, would 10% contribution vs 20% contribution be the same outcome?
i think youre thinking of it the wrong way.
for each dollar you dont put in the 401k, 72 cents actually enters your wallet. so if you put those dollars into the 401k, your putting whole dollars. those dollars become subject to the rules of the 401k, ie penalty for early withdrawal, ability to use for education w/o penalty, subject to market loss in your thrift plan.
with all these rules in place and how the market hasnt been doing too well lately, is it worth it to save away those 28 pennies for you? it might be for some.
question for others w/ a thrift plan. since you started working, whats your current rate of return? i started working a little over a year ago. negative 9.8% for the win. (i know a thrift plan should only be looked at with a long term horizon in mind, but im just curious. there are worser people, who cringe at daily or weekly fluctuations.)
Contributing more into the 401k would lower your taxable income so yes, the government taxes you less.
The long term, the extra 10% can end up having a better ROI if the market even on an index level outperforms a standard fluctuating money market account where your 401k overall is growing and benefitting from the market, depending of course where you allocate how your contributions are distributed.
What about this. I know nothing about taxes but can you finagle your withholdings to deduct zero or is it always going to deduct an amount?
Right now I have zero dependents so the maximum is taken out every paycheck, hence i get a refund back for overpayment of taxes.
If i were to Withhold all my taxes and pay back uncle sam at the end of the year, i’d make a bit of money from the interest rather than just let it sit with the IRS and let them issue me MY money back. Of course this results in an insane check i’m writing to the IRS come tax time. But with my HSBC online savings with an 3.5% interest rate, on an average of 20k balance, interest is roughly $59 dollars a month x 12~ $710 in interest x .20 (tax on interest) ~ $560 bucks that i’m pocketing. But then of course you don’t start out with 20k and start earning interest, it builds up but the general gist of it is that i can squeeze out about 3% extra out of my taxes. So essentially if i’m paying 33% taxes - in real terms I’m paying 31%. Am i totally off or close to something?
Going through all of that is risky because you may never know how the government may fuck you and you have no real guarantee of knowing how much you owe. You also have to make sure at the end of the year, you have enough accessable money so you can cut that big check. That becomes dangerous because you can’t predict what’ll happen throughout the year where an unforseen incident might happen where you have to spend a lot of money and you fuck yourself on the tax payment because you don’t have enough at the end of the year.
And whatever gains you could “potentially” make by hoarding all the taxes that would’ve been taken at each paycheck… it ends up sort of being a wash because whatever interest and gains you make from that extra money… ALSO GETS TAXED ANYWAY! :looney: Not really worth the trouble imo.
My calculations were wrong in that i overstated the 3% return on the interest. I took the 3% times Gross when it should be on the 33% of taxes. After running it through Excel, the net gain was about .5%
To put into perspective: .5% x 50,000 = 250 bucks. You’d have to make 50,000 to gain 250 bucks. Which isn’t really worth the hassle for a whole year.
just paid off the last installment of a 10k debt. didn’t think it’d feel this good.
http://www.blackcardsource.com/16-with-a-black-card-harrison-gevirtz/
Gah damn. CPA (cost-per-action) marketing. Sounds freakin’ ridiculous.
Wow all the big companies are either failed or are falling quick.
Lehman @ .19 cents
AIG took at 40% hit
Analysts say Goldman and Morgan to take a 20% hit.
Buyers market or be very afraid?
Big Risks = Big Rewards but right now everything seems very volatile.
Yeah I was stupid enough to buy Lehmans at 4.19. I thought they would be bailed out. Didnt really take that much of a hit though, thank God.
At this rate, we will have one bank for the whole US! Geez…how did things get this bad???
We’ve been authorized to not disclose information on the situation due to the nature of how this went down.
Thank you
A.Carr
Compliance Analyst
Finra
Just 2 years ago Wall street were boasting about record profits and bonuses. Everyone turned a blind eye to the impending Housing Bubble that probably bursted already but no one wanted to spoil the party. Fast forward to present day, the CEO’s and the record bonuses have fattened their pockets already and now we the common people have to deal with this shit. That’s what happens when companies get to play with OPM (Other People’s Money), they can set aside all their inhibitions and take massive risks that they won’t live to regret about. At the very worse they get let go and get a huge severance package for a terrible job well done.
Wamu’s hovering around 2something, I’m very tempted to buy it.
It has nothing to do with it being other peoples money.
I bet other peoples money all the time the same way I bet my own. +ev is +ev
Yes it does, you think the CEO’s are all retarded and didn’t see that bubble coming? They didn’t get to where they are just purely from luck. They just wanted a piece of that pie while everyone else was digging in, what mattered a few years ago was making their financial reports look good at year end. They get their bonuses for ‘record’ profits and new businesses, and hopefully walk away before the whole thing blows up.
So taking OPM and putting into very risky ventures and still walk away with a huge bonus, who the hell wouldn’t?
luckily, fannie and freddie’s CEOs are NOT getting paid their exit package
good for the feds!
So who’s getting ready to buy now?