Schools Teaching Finances?

[RoyGBiv]

(mainly due to the risk of using a debit card in public and online).

OT.

I have a card which is debt/credit. I recently went to a local store/gas station to fill up a gas can. I put my card in the reader and tell it debit card. I get a message that I have to go inside. Then I reinserted the card and said it was credit. GTG. First time I've seen that.

I thought all Debit cards work that way.? Skip the PIN and it will run as a "credit" card but still debits your account immediately...

[jeep45238]

For those interested in portfolios rather than individual stocks, there is https://portfoliocharts.com/

Duces

Eh.....that doesn't really provide any information to people, and sure comes off like a site that gets commissions in some fashion that tries and competes with seekingalpha.com. Seeking Alpha was fantastic, because it taught me my yearly membership I bought was a waste of money and gave a place marker for market/sector timing, and the increased stress/under performance it brought. The number of those portfolios that focused on commodities or reits(which are owned within market portfolios) is telling that they likely don't understand the long term implications of the tax man, and how much better risk adjusted, post-tax returns are to measure versus chasing yields and past performance.

Bogel Heads, Money Guy Show, Rational Reminder, and Late Starters have been excellent with discussing the foundation, and later on touching the allocation.

The biggest thing I regularly see is people thinking they're smarter than they really are, and try to use economic reports to do investing to "beat the market" (but can't define the market). These same folks don't understand that economic reports are backwards facing, and market prices are forward facing.

[jeep45238]

I thought all Debit cards work that way.? Skip the PIN and it will run as a "credit" card but still debits your account immediately...

Debit scares me, with how much fraud is out there. Having watched what co-workers and employees went through with a single case of fraud to try and get a penny back, compared to the fraud protection that a credit card offers, I'm firmly in the credit camp.

With the caveat that you pay it off every pay day, treating it like cash. And move the cash-back into a savings/retirement/brokerage account, versus rolling it into the monthly payment.

[RoyGBiv]

Debit scares me, with how much fraud is out there. Having watched what co-workers and employees went through with a single case of fraud to try and get a penny back, compared to the fraud protection that a credit card offers, I'm firmly in the credit camp.

With the caveat that you pay it off every pay day, treating it like cash. And move the cash-back into a savings/retirement/brokerage account, versus rolling it into the monthly payment.

1000% agree.

My atm card has a $0 limit for purchase transactions.
You can set those limits separately, just call your bank.

[TGS]

With the caveat that you pay it off every pay day, treating it like cash. And move the cash-back into a savings/retirement/brokerage account, versus rolling it into the monthly payment.

I briefly considered just letting my cash rewards build up indefinitely to serve as an additional emergency fund.

But then I decided that a custom built Mk12 Mod-H and OCM-5 suppressor was an emergency.



So, I've settled on it being my impulse fund that I don't have to feel guilty about buying frivolous shit with.

[mmc45414]

Debit scares me, with how much fraud is out there. Having watched what co-workers and employees went through with a single case of fraud to try and get a penny back, compared to the fraud protection that a credit card offers, I'm firmly in the credit camp.1

First thing one morning I looked at my phone and there were warning emails about what turned out to be about $20k in fraud. Good thing I was already sitting on the throne, and good thing it was all on credit and not debit.
I only carry the debit card because it is the ATM card and still seldom use it.

With the caveat that you pay it off every pay day, treating it like cash. And move the cash-back into a savings/retirement/brokerage account, versus rolling it into the monthly payment.

But then I decided that a custom built Mk12 Mod-H and OCM-5 suppressor was an emergency.
So, I've settled on it being my impulse fund that I don't have to feel guilty about buying frivolous shit with.

I am usually backfilling for an impulse that already transpired, when you find primers on sale on a random Saturday you better snag 10k of them!!!

Thread Drift: Speaking of cash back cards, mine has a big ass cash advance fee, and I learned this the hard way. I linked the card to Venmo to buy a raffle ticket to benefit a friend's son's traveling baseball team. It woulda been nice if I won something, since I spent $50 for one ticket ($20 + $30 cash advance fee).

[0ddl0t]

The glock 19 of investing advice is to regularly buy an S&P500 index fund (like VOO) during your working years and start mixing in bonds as you approach retirement age. It won't be the ideal investment, but just doing that will put you ahead of 99% of people and you won't ever have to think about it.

Stuff that I was never taught, even in college micro and macro economics, was stocks and bonds. They were de jure part of the classes, but not de facto. What they are was talked about but how to properly use them wasn't really. And trying to find a reliable source on basic stock market stuff in the internet age is tough... lots of shills pushing an angle but hard to find information that will help you learn. Every asshole with a Robinhood account after the gamestop thing made a guide course they shill.

The classic textbook on stocks and bonds is Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. I found it dry and dense and it took multiple readings separated by other study for me to feel comfortable with it. But the Depression-era text is still used today and is the foundation upon which value investing was built.

A far more approachable introduction to stocks and bonds would be to start reading Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html Buffett writes them as if he is explaining his choices to close friends and family members who never studied business. Reading them with 40+ years of hindsight is also informative on the limitations of predictions as industry disruptions occurred...

[RoyGBiv]

I briefly considered just letting my cash rewards build up indefinitely to serve as an additional emergency fund.

But then I decided that a custom built Mk12 Mod-H and OCM-5 suppressor was an emergency.



So, I've settled on it being my impulse fund that I don't have to feel guilty about buying frivolous shit with.

I'm going to try and forget I read this.... I'm not going to check and see what dollar value I can convert my points into.... No... I'm not.

[Borderland]

Debit scares me, with how much fraud is out there. Having watched what co-workers and employees went through with a single case of fraud to try and get a penny back, compared to the fraud protection that a credit card offers, I'm firmly in the credit camp.

With the caveat that you pay it off every pay day, treating it like cash. And move the cash-back into a savings/retirement/brokerage account, versus rolling it into the monthly payment.

I think banks make millions, maybe billions every year from people that use a credit card as a payday loan or cash advance. Carrying a lot of debt is more or less accepted as part of the economy now. I Remember Donald Trump said he was the king of debt.

[Borderland]

I thought all Debit cards work that way.? Skip the PIN and it will run as a "credit" card but still debits your account immediately...

Apparently it does. I've just never had a pump reject my debit with a pin. I've never used that card and said it was a credit card. I looked and as you say, immediate debit on my checking acct. So going forward I'll just tell the pump it's a credit card. I'll probably stop using it eventually and just use my Visa card. I'm pretty new to using a credit card, one with a seperate billing website, but it's smooth, real smooth.