Entries Tagged 'Personal Finance' ↓

So my dad wrote a comment on my earlier post saying that there is good and bad debt, and not having debt doesn’t mean you are good at managing your money.  That is definitely true, and I feel like I need to address what I think the nuances between good and bad debt are.

First of all, I am pretty sick of people telling me that a mortgage is good debt, because it is not that simple.  I think a mortgage can be good debt if the property you purchased  generates cash flow. In the case of a primary residence, this means that the cost of your monthly mortgage is less than the cost to rent a similar home. In the case of a rental or investment property, this means the rent you collect covers your mortgage and maintenance costs.  Additionally there is the possibility of asset appreciation, but that is an uncertain factor that should be measured conservatively.  A mortgage is definitely bad debt if you can’t afford it or if you have to  stretch your finances extremely thin to afford it.  If you are losing buckets of money by taking on a mortgage, then it is bad debt.

Another iffy type of debt is student loans.  A lot of people consider them to be good debt because they financed an education, but I think student loans can also be bad debt if the education was never put to use or if the interest rates are extraordinarily high.  Then again, it’s hard to gauge the future when you are young, idealistic, and have a passion for learning. However, it is possible to figure out the approximate salary you could potentially receive by finishing a certain degree.

Credit card debt is another thing that could be good or bad.  If your credit card debt has 0% interest, it is possible to leverage that money into safe investments and pay the credit card company back.  In fact a whole group of people have taken advantage of this in the past few years when bank interest rates were high.  However, most people who have credit card debt are in a situation where they are paying extremely high interest rates on purchases of useless items.  That is extremely bad debt.

So what’s the bottom line?  I think good debt is basically debt you could make a profit on and bad debt is the debt that make you have less than what you started with.  It is hard to figure out which is which in some situations, but when you realize you have bad debt you should work on eliminating it as soon as possible.

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Since the hubby and I do not have any debt, we do not know the stress of debt, but there is definitely stress in saving money. First, you have to be vigilant about deals and sales when you want something.  Then you make sure you use your coupons. You also do things like budgeting to make sure that you have money to save.  Then after you save your money you have to figure out how to allocate it and manage it so you don’t lose what you worked for to inflation and other larger forces. Sometimes I do find managing our growing portfolio to be a pain in the butt.  One time my hubby laughed at me when I groaned at the dropping interest rate on our accounts and he jokingly said that he used to manage his money by spending it and I should do the same and cut out all this stress.  I glared at him a bit and told him that the interest rate on his entertainment fund as prescribed by The Baglady Budget also dropped.  At that moment he screamed in a dramatic fashion, “Nooooooooooooooooo! SCREW YOU FEDERAL RESERVE! YOU STOLE my game money!”

Surprisingly after eight months of marriage, the hubby and I almost never fought about money issues even though he is more of a spender.  I think one reason that we do not fight about money is that we have no debt.  From what I have read in the news and heard from friends, the stress of debt is very draining and even debilitating. One woman wrote me saying that she feels like she is always behind on the bills and she hates that feeling because it is like she doesn’t have control over her own life.  Unfortunately sometimes it creates a vicious cycle because research showed that when we are sad we tend to spend more money than usual. When I watched the movie Maxed Out, I was shocked that people actually killed themselves over credit card debt. I can’t say I know how that feels,but I imagine it is extreme psychological torture for people to take such extreme measures.

I think will take the stress of saving money over the stress of debt any time of the day. I don’t mind that the hubby and others laugh at my Ferengi ways because I find it funny, too. I have also learned a lot about the world and the economy through my research into how to manage my money.  In the end, the work I put into saving money gives me a sense of security and well being. Every month I pay our bills and then add up the amounts in our various portfolios and give the hubby a short net worth report. It’s always good to know that we have a financial cushion to fall back on and we are  ahead of the bills, and I truly believe that it is good for our marriage.

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It’s been a while since I participated in blog carnivals, but here are the few from this week:

Carnival of Personal Finance - I submitted my article about dealing with inflation, and since I wrote that people have been finding The Baglady through searches for stockpiling food. If I had more pantry space I would stockpile more food, too. Yesterday I went to buy a bag of rice and it was twice the cost compared to just 9 months ago. Today Yahoo Finance just ran an article on “investing” in food, too.

Carnival of Money Stories - I submitted my story about living in China, Hawaii, and California. I also liked this story about motivation.

Kids and Money - This is a fairly new carnival and I submitted my article on childhood memories about money.

The Education Carnival - My article about not pushing your kids is included here.

Okay, I’m off to Vegas now for the hubby’s company trip. Today also marks exactly 8 months since we got married so the hubby made reservations at a pretty neat restaurant in Vegas for us. I will write about it once I come back. Have a great weekend everyone!

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One thing I have noticed about insurance and investment ads on TV is that the spokesperson is often a middle aged male. Usually the ads have a person deliver the product information and show the company logo. They are good and classy ads, but they don’t appeal to me very much. As a woman I feel like investing firms do not market to women very much. I think financial firms could gain a lot by effectively marketing to women, and here are some of my thoughts on the topic.

In a way, I think the traditional financial ads show the belief that middle age men control the most money in this world. For the most part that is true, but women are starting to earn more money than ever before and they need to manage it. Usually women love to research for extensive information before they plop down their hard earned money on some investment so pithy ads that says “My company is awesome” do not work as well. I think what appeals more to women are community portals or human representatives. However, in depth content like that costs more to build.

I hate to say this, but women can be more emotional than men and be irrational sometimes. So advertising could take advantage of women’s emotions. For example, I have read a lot of complaints by men who say that their wives forced them into buying a house in the recent years. I have to say that in nine out of ten couples I have met it’s the wife that wants to buy a house. So the entire housing industry sold the idea that “you are buying a home” and many people fell for it. Even now, the ads from the housing industry seem to be targeting women more than men, and they are very effective because they try to emotionally attach people to a few walls and a roof. If the investment industry could be as effective as the housing industry in marketing to women, I am sure they could make quite a bit of money because even though a man could be the breadwinner in the house, it’s the woman that’s in charge of distributing the money.

I think if financial firms took an effort to attract female investors they will not only get more customers, but better customers. A survey from a few years ago which studied 100000 portfolios showed that female investors outperformed men by a good margin. Women are more tolerant and studied investors and take less risk, and their portfolios grow bigger with patience. If an investment firm gets a female customer they are more likely to get a customer that holds a fund or portfolio for a while, and that means better returns for the company. Women also live longer than men on average, so investment firms should definitely learn to market to all those rich widows.

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A while ago I wrote an article on Wise Bread titled Five Ways to Squeeze Savings from Your Workplace. One of the commenters wrote that she actually collects cans and bottles at work and then turn them in at the recycling center for a little bit of money. I thought that was pretty funny, but I do drink quite a few bottled waters and soft drinks at work. I also bring home a few drinks that the hubby likes so we discard quite a few bottles and cans each week. Lately I have been feeling guilty about throwing those bottles and cans away. Finally, last week I sort of broke down and brought a plastic bag to work and collected the bottles and cans I used. On Friday I took the dozen or so cans and bottle I collected at work and today I sold them all at the recycling center along with a pile of other bottles and cans I collected outside on the patio. I got enough money to buy a rotisserie chicken, and I was pretty happy about it.

My hubby mocked me a bit and said, “Wow! Months of saving and all you got was a chicken!” I was still pretty proud of it because I got the chicken by recycling! If I were a bit more systematic about my recycling I could earn a few bucks a week and that could cover quite a few expenses. Here’s what I could possibly gain by turning in those bottles and cans.

Rotisserie chicken or burrito - $5 to $7 - Required recycling: 3 to 6 cans a day for a month (This is pretty easy to do between the two of us).

Laundry money - $10 to $15 a month - Required recycling: 6 to 10 cans a day (Sometimes I do drink 2 to 3 of the small bottled orange juices at work so this amount of recycling is definitely reachable).

Internet bill - $36 a month - Required recycling: 20 to 25 cans/bottles a day (This would require collecting other people’s bottles and cans but it is feasible.)

Gas money for my car - $100 a month - Required recycling: 60 to 100 cans a day (Okay this one probably requires me to be a full time dumpster diver so I probably won’t do it).

Now I have to admit that my mom is probably going to read this article and call me and say, “don’t be so damn cheap! You don’t need to be a real bag lady!” However, I think I will stick to turning in at least the bottles and cans my hubby and I produce everyday. A chicken or burrito every month for recycling waste is still a pretty good incentive to me!

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