Hey y’all! I have been thinking that this community could use a weekly discussion thread. Feel free to comment below with anything and everything money related that is better suited to a conversation or a quick question and answer than a full post. Some ideas include:

  • Journaling about an ongoing job search
  • Asking for ideas about how to manage an emergency fund
  • Logging recent stock trades
  • Talking about the impact of inflation on your budget
  • Your plans for maximizing the rewards on a credit card

Again, those are just suggestions, if there’s really anything you’d like to talk about related to finance in your life, feel free to put it here.

    • TheWoozy@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      I keep the credit card stuff simple. I mostly just use the fidelity card for the straight 2% cash back & an Amazon card for…Amazon.

    • gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOPMEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      Would you care to explain the tax loss harvesting point? Is it just that the fund price drops a bit post dividend and you can squeeze out a bit more “loss”?

      There are still some good credit card bonuses out there. I am working on assembling the Chase Trifecta, and right now that involves using the Freedom Unlimited card on all groceries to get 5% back. I don’t think that promotion is still going, but I am pretty sure that both the Freedom Unlimited and Freedom Flex are offering $200 back on $500 in the first 3 months, though you do have to be careful about really churning them because I think Chase gets mad if you apply to too many cards in a certain time frame.

      As far as FI/RE goes, on Beehaw at least that community is mixed in with general finance. I think we’re just about the size to start having a viable general finance community, and if we split it up we would see even less activity.

        • TheWoozy@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          My understanding of TLH is that it just delays taxes. You’ll have to pay them eventually, but possibly at a lower rate. It seems like a lot of work for a so-so potential benefit. If I had enough money for it to be worth the effort, I’d probably have enough money to pay some one (or a robot) to do it for me.

  • gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOPMEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    Alright broad rundown time so I can reference on future posts:

    For retirement I am currently following a portfolio allocation from Ben Felix, adapted for the U.S. by this website, with a 15% bond allocation. For those who don’t want to click through, this is essentially a total market portfolio that makes sure to cover domestic and international equities, with a bias towards small cap value stocks, which historically have shown additional returns over large growth stocks. The bond allocation is more by accident if I am being honest, and I will probably gradually reduce it as I am pretty young and I find the arguments presented for lifecycle investing pretty convincing. I am more or less hitting my target allocation now, as I just finished a 401k rollover and was able to get everything the way I wanted.

    I have a small hobby investing account, funded from my hobby budget and currently less than $1k in total after getting a $100 bonus for funding the account. The investments there are mostly picked based on what I think is interesting, including the following:

    • Funds

  • UltimoGato@kbin.social
    2·
    2 years ago

    Since you mentioned credit card rewards, I received another promotion for the Shop Your Way credit card (spend $750 and get $50 back for online purchases). I thought people were kidding about how often it gives cash back promotions, but I’ve had the card since November and have already gotten $485 back in just promotion dollars. Add in the Raise discount and it has been by far the most rewarding cash back card I’m aware of.

    • gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOPM
      2·
      2 years ago

      Huh, I have never heard of that one. I’ll have to look into it. As I mentioned in my other comment, I am working on assembling the Chase Trifecta of cards, which should help me pay for the majority of my travel needs via points. How do the redemptions work on the Shop Your Way card?

      • UltimoGato@kbin.social
        1·
        2 years ago

        It’s a weird card in that the ShopYourWay program is originally the points program for Sears and KMart. However, the points can be redeemed for gift cards on Raise at $.01/each. So at 3% back on dining & groceries and 5% back on gas combined with constant bonus offers, I’m averaging like 8% back each purchase. It doesn’t come with any travel perks, but as long as points can be redeemed on Raise it’s an amazing cash back card for my needs.