General Adulthood, Planning for the Future: Business, College, Budgeting, Investments, etc! $$$ - General

I wouldn't even know how to do that with my current university. If there was something like that, I'd love to do it. My major is art though which makes it difficult.

[QUOTE=Pascall;51591182]I wouldn't even know how to do that with my current university. If there was something like that, I'd love to do it. My major is art though which makes it difficult.[/QUOTE] Make an appointment with your major's designated guidance counselor/speak with a teacher that likes you and ask them if they have many recommendations?

Heyo, weird question: can ya'll recommend any good books for improving my social skills? I'm not looking to pick up chicks; I just want to better understand how to properly establish trust and influence, and how to make the best possible first impression, so that I can better succeed at establishing myself as a trusted professional. I reckon that charisma is just like any other skillset: study and practice helps it grow. I'm not anti-social, I'm just a bit socially clumsy.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51591485]Heyo, weird question: can ya'll recommend any good books for improving my social skills? I'm not looking to pick up chicks; I just want to better understand how to properly establish trust and influence, and how to make the best possible first impression, so that I can better succeed at establishing myself as a trusted professional. I reckon that charisma is just like any other skillset: study and practice helps it grow. I'm not anti-social, I'm just a bit socially clumsy.[/QUOTE] Mark Manson's books: [I]Models The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck[/I] Dale Carnegie's classic [I]How to Make Friends and Influence People[/I] Carnegie is mostly what you're looking for, but Models is basically on using honesty in your interactions and making lasting relations in that sense. Models is also more oriented towards dating, but the majority of the content can apply to most social contexts. If you were interested in the romance and/or self development side of this stuff, I've got a whole lot more I can recommend.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51591485]Heyo, weird question: can ya'll recommend any good books for improving my social skills? I'm not looking to pick up chicks; I just want to better understand how to properly establish trust and influence, and how to make the best possible first impression, so that I can better succeed at establishing myself as a trusted professional. I reckon that charisma is just like any other skillset: study and practice helps it grow. I'm not anti-social, I'm just a bit socially clumsy.[/QUOTE] There's a youtube channel called Charisma On Command which has some good videos about it

I've already read Carnegie's book, and it was top shelf. Made a big difference for me, and that's why I'm actually eager to study charisma in more depth. I will be sure to look into your other two suggestions!

Hey everyone. I'm 19, college freshman, and I have about $1,000 I've saved up that I want to invest. I've done some research here and there, but I'm still unsure of the best places to put my money. I don't have a ton of faith in Reddit (oddly) and other major websites and have been scouring for trustworthy info. First off, I'm trying to avoid any discount broker / e-trade with transaction fee type deal. I know it's probably easier since I'm newer to this but at the same time I don't want to drop money for every trade I make. So far I've looked into DSPPs and DRIPs as a possbility, I'm just trying to figure out which companies would be the best suit for a long term plan. My man issue is whether I should do more cheaper ($50 minimum) investments or a few larger ones (around $250). I know more diversification is better, but a lot of the companies I've glanced at have first-time fees, so the fewer of those the better. I've looked into Vanguard and mutual funds, I feel like that should be the largest portion of my money just for a decent return/risk balance? Then of course treasury bonds and such which I will probably put a small portion of money in. Any honest and good advice from someone with experience in this would be wonderful.

I have no experience with stock investments, and have only read a little bit about them while in pursuit of more information about real estate, but the common thread I seem to see as far as advice goes for newby stock investors is to simply consult a qualified professional broker. I hear what you're saying about wanting to avoid as many fees as possible, but the safer bet here is most likely to work with a pro on meeting your investment goals. That said, if you're dead set on not going that route, I would recommend first reading a few books on the subject, and practicing what you learn with some free stock simulators online for at least a few montgs, if not a year or so. "StockTrainer: Virtual Trading" seems to be a well rated one available in the Google Play Store. Probably on iPhones, too. This will teach you a lot of the fundamental skills needed to be successful as a stock investor without having to put your own money on the line in a trial and error process. Again, I'm not in any way experienced with the stock market, but that's the approach I would take if I weren't going to use a broker for any reason. One universal rule applies for all kinds of investments: never invest in what you don't understand. So, work hard to understand it, or seek professional counsel from somebody who already has! Probably not the answer you're looking for, but it's the only one I can safely give. Now, if you've got questions about real estate investments, I'm your guy! [editline]31st December 2016[/editline] I could use a third party to help me figure out the best strategy for my business growth, relating to blogging. The situation in a nutshell is that I agreed to launch a blog under our company's name to help boost our credibility, generate passive leads, and improve our local Google search rankings. I've begun work on one, and have a fairly attractive, if simple, layout all put together thanks to Wordpress's user friendly development kit. I still need to work on some things, and I haven't yet integrated MailChimp or any kind of lead capture system, but it's at least in a semi-workable state. I started writing articles last month, and have twenty or so uploaded already. They are all related to local real estate, business, and development news. I'm not getting any reliable visitors yet, but I get a few spikes every now and then (170 unique visitors in one day is my maximum so far, after posting an article about a local business). Thing is, I'm beginning to worry that I may have made the focus of my blog too broad. All the guides and advice articles I'm reading on growing blogs recommend targeting a very specific niche, because knowing exactly who you're writing for makes it much easier to write the right kind of content for that target, makes it easier to build a reliable community, and ensures you're hitting all the right keywords within nearly every article. So, I've broken things down into the three main demographics I was hoping to capture, and now I need to focus on just one, but I can't make up my mind! What do you think? [quote][B]The blog will provide local [U]entrepreneurs[/U] with articles, interviews, and advice relating to [U]small business growth[/U].[/B] Growth strategy: borrow fans of the businesses we feature, regularly engage featured business owners for further content and referrals. Easy to build a dedicated core community. Fewer articles needed, but at a higher time investment. Articles have a medium shelf life. Not directly related to real estate. Difficult to directly monetize, must rely on referrals of partners. [/quote] [quote][B]The blog will provide local [U]homeowners[/U] with [U]real estate market information[/U] to help them track prime times to buy and sell.[/B] Directly related to our business, easy to directly monetize. Articles have a very short shelf life. High volume needed. Growth strategy relies primarily on guest writing, social media, and/or paid adverts Difficult to build a core community. Low repeat visitors. Slow growth. Time intensive.[/quote] [quote][B]The blog will provide local [U]professionals[/U] with insights and advice into [u]real estate investing[/U].[/B] My personal and professional passion. Can easily supply high quality articles at a relatively quick pace. Articles have a very long shelf life. Easy to build a dedicated core community. Growth strategy relies on social media, investment club networking, and paid advertisements[/quote] They've each got their pros and cons, and I'm having difficulty determining what the best direction to take is! Opinions have been mixed at the office, too. The first is likely the easiest to grow and stay on top of, but it isn't directly related to our business. The second is the most relevant to our specific role in the real estate world, but also requires the largest ongoing investment of time by far, and may be difficult to build a community around. The third is easy to supply content for, won't lose relevancy very quickly, and is my personal passion, but it is only tangential to our primary business, as nobody in my team handles investors on a regular basis.

[QUOTE=dnqboy;51603963]Hey everyone. I'm 19, college freshman, and I have about $1,000 I've saved up that I want to invest.[/QUOTE] In my honest opinion, if there are that many fees you might just want to not do it when it comes to that small amount. I have a bank with very little to no courtage for stocks bought in Sweden, my advice is look for one of those. Then if you do find one do as big dumb american recommends, read up on companies you think would do well. Get an understanding of how the market works. I wouldn't suggest seeking professional help for an amount as small as $1000. I'm not even sure I'd invest in it, but rather keep it as a buffer in case you get some unforeseen expenses. If you are inclined to invest still, there are some companies that are usually very safe bets: - Very large companies - Food producing companies Of course there are more categories, but a large food producing companies are very often a safe bet. And of course don't invest all your money in only one company. There is no shortcut to getting reliable information, you'll have to go and look at a company yourself rather than to trust someone else on it, unless it's a professional. Regarding what to save in, funds are generally easier for you, but funds just consists of stocks so I'd recommend going the extra mile and researching information about some companies and invest in stocks. Also: When it comes to your money, take all advice and recommendations you get from anyone with a big pinch of salt.

[QUOTE=dnqboy;51603963]Hey everyone. I'm 19, college freshman, and I have about $1,000 I've saved up that I want to invest. I've done some research here and there, but I'm still unsure of the best places to put my money. I don't have a ton of faith in Reddit (oddly) and other major websites and have been scouring for trustworthy info. [/QUOTE] If you are willing to do everything yourself, as in researching companies, watching stocks, etc. and you're willing to trade from a smart phone, i'd recommend checking out Robinhood. You deposit money you want to invest into your robinhood account and search for the companies you'd like to buy stocks from and buy 'em. There are no fees for adding funds, buying/selling stocks, or withdrawing money. Ofc i wouldn't recommend sinking all your money in right away, but you could do as i did and sink in something small, and go from there so you can see how it works and if you like it. They are a member of FINRA and you're investments are protected my SIPC. Just my 2 cents.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51604240]Now, if you've got questions about real estate investments, I'm your guy![/QUOTE] I'm interested in this as well. How does it differ from other investments? I've looked at a sort of mutual fund where you can buy into it more and until you actually own houses or something like that? [QUOTE=FrankPetrov;51606215]If you are willing to do everything yourself, as in researching companies, watching stocks, etc. and you're willing to trade from a smart phone, i'd recommend checking out Robinhood. [/QUOTE] So all of my transactions would be through this app? I've tried something like this that is probably simpler called Acorns (it's more of a saving tool but it's earned $10 over the past 6-7 months lol). I'll look into it, the more variety I have I feel the better.

[QUOTE=dnqboy;51606251]I'm interested in this as well. How does it differ from other investments? I've looked at a sort of mutual fund where you can buy into it more and until you actually own houses or something like that? So all of my transactions would be through this app? I've tried something like this that is probably simpler called Acorns (it's more of a saving tool but it's earned $10 over the past 6-7 months lol). I'll look into it, the more variety I have I feel the better.[/QUOTE] We'll, the biggest obvious difference is that in real estate investing you own an actual physical asset, as opposed to a somewhat theoretical partial share of a larger corporate entity. Real estate is also much more stable, and quite a bit more predictable. Excepting major events, it sees relatively slow growth and/or decline over a period of years, and is generally much better protected against the kind of short term panics that can cause huge nightly spikes and collapses in paper markets. The flip side is that, while stock investing can hypothetically see your investment skyrocket overnight, that kind of growth is much more rare in real estate. Wealth building is done over years rather than days or weeks. However, it's much easier to make safe investments. If you know the right numbers to crunch, the right conditions to look for, and the right kind of properties to target, you'll be able to know with a large degree of surety whether or not you're getting into a good deal well before you actually put any money on the line. Stock markets aren't nearly so reproducible. Finally, may favorite point: real estate investments pay out often and repeatedly through several different channels. Rent earns you monthly income; appreciation builds equity and nets you a higher cashout once you sell; equity built through appreciation and debt paydown can be leveraged through equity loans, or "withdrawn" through refinancing. Plus, real estate investing has tons of tax incentives. There are way too benefits to real estate investing to list in one post, but I guess that summarizes the top points. It's also not nearly as expensive to break into as you might think. If there's anything specific you'd like to know, I'm happy to do my best to answer!

Realizing that I owe a lot more on my car than it's worth and without a regular income, not sure how to refinance to get a lower interest rate so it doesn't keep piling up. Frustrating.

[QUOTE=Pascall;51606757]Realizing that I owe a lot more on my car than it's worth and without a regular income, not sure how to refinance to get a lower interest rate so it doesn't keep piling up. Frustrating.[/QUOTE] unfortunately, most lenders won't take the chance if the car is worth less than the remaining balance due. However, that shouldn't discourage you from trying to get approval. As for how to, just walk in to a bank that provides loans and meet with a rep asking to apply for an auto refinancing loan.

[QUOTE=dnqboy;51603963]Hey everyone. I'm 19, college freshman, and I have about $1,000 I've saved up that I want to invest. I've done some research here and there, but I'm still unsure of the best places to put my money. I don't have a ton of faith in Reddit (oddly) and other major websites and have been scouring for trustworthy info. First off, I'm trying to avoid any discount broker / e-trade with transaction fee type deal. I know it's probably easier since I'm newer to this but at the same time I don't want to drop money for every trade I make. So far I've looked into DSPPs and DRIPs as a possbility, I'm just trying to figure out which companies would be the best suit for a long term plan. My man issue is whether I should do more cheaper ($50 minimum) investments or a few larger ones (around $250). I know more diversification is better, but a lot of the companies I've glanced at have first-time fees, so the fewer of those the better. I've looked into Vanguard and mutual funds, I feel like that should be the largest portion of my money just for a decent return/risk balance? Then of course treasury bonds and such which I will probably put a small portion of money in. Any honest and good advice from someone with experience in this would be wonderful.[/QUOTE] Get an index tracker fund account you know already of vanguard, 0.25% will be the fee per year. Use it as a saving account set up auto deposits once a month. Well done for saving the $1k, work out first how much your monthly bills are and continue to save to cover 3 months worth of them. Only once you have that amount in cash and easy to access should you look to start planning investments.

[QUOTE=Doom14;50629509][FROM JULY 1, 2016] Finally gonna open a brokerage account and put this 50mb something Excel file I've been drafting to use. [B]Time to see if I crash and burn or not.[/B] It tracks about 1490 S&P stocks, and a few commodities too. I set it up for correlations, financial statement info/ratios, and all kinds of other fun stuff.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3a5rb8v.png[/IMG] (RAD's still awaiting a buy-out for $9 by Walgreens iirc.) Well, that was fun. Scrapping through finals into my last semester made me put it off, then combined with [I]a certain election[/I] doing wacky stuff, mostly positive now, to the market. If I have any advice for a new trader messing around with stuff like I did, [B]don't trade 3x leveraged, precious metals. [/B]Too much stress. One more semester and this long haul is over. :v:

Is anyone here good with calculating interest rates etc? I want to chart out my student loans payment from beginning to end so I can see how much interest would accrue month-over-month with my current rates. I can't figure out how to calculate the monthly interest for some reason. [B]Principal:[/B] $17926.69 [B]Term:[/B] 74 months The loan is split 70/30 federal/provincial. Interest rates use prime rate of 2.7%: [B]Federal:[/B] Prime + 2.5% [B]Provincial:[/B] Prime + 1% I'm paying $300 a month towards the loan, which started in November as month 1. Of the 300, $262.58 went towards principal and $37.42 accrued in interest which cancelled part of it out.

Anybody got any tips for college application essays? This is technically my second time writing one (Transferring from community college to a university), but I'm definitely having trouble knowing where to begin.

[QUOTE=Prez;51612148]Is anyone here good with calculating interest rates etc? I want to chart out my student loans payment from beginning to end so I can see how much interest would accrue month-over-month with my current rates. I can't figure out how to calculate the monthly interest for some reason. [B]Principal:[/B] $17926.69 [B]Term:[/B] 74 months The loan is split 70/30 federal/provincial. Interest rates use prime rate of 2.7%: [B]Federal:[/B] Prime + 2.5% [B]Provincial:[/B] Prime + 1% I'm paying $300 a month towards the loan, which started in November as month 1. Of the 300, $262.58 went towards principal and $37.42 accrued in interest which cancelled part of it out.[/QUOTE] What's confusing me is your first principal/interest lump. If that interest value is attached to the prinicpal you provided, it implies a 2.5049% interest rate which is way different from how I understood your Federal/Provincial definition. This is how far I got with the information you provided. (Ignore that last $300 payment.) [t]http://i.imgur.com/sQlc7WA.png[/t] If you want, I can just provide the Excel file if you want to mess around with it. As far as I can tell, paying $300, if I had the interest rate right, will actually pay you off early.

Guys I think I'm gonna try this app, it links to your debit and credit cards, and when you buy something it rounds the price up to the next dollar and invests the difference. [url]https://www.acorns.com/[/url]

I've heard a lot of good things about Acorns. Lemme know how it treats you!

[QUOTE=Doom14;51613685]What's confusing me is your first principal/interest lump. If that interest value is attached to the prinicpal you provided, it implies a 2.5049% interest rate which is way different from how I understood your Federal/Provincial definition. This is how far I got with the information you provided. (Ignore that last $300 payment.) [t]http://i.imgur.com/sQlc7WA.png[/t] If you want, I can just provide the Excel file if you want to mess around with it. As far as I can tell, paying $300, if I had the interest rate right, will actually pay you off early.[/QUOTE] Thanks! I didn't provide some preceding information which I thought wouldn't affect things, but thinking about it now it definitely does. My original owing amount was $18,390 but I paid off both the capitalized interest and had a lump sum of $500, for a total of $942.20. With that and some extra interest accrued, it brought me to the value of $17926.69. Also, the original term was 114 months to pay it off (the standard, which is ~9.2 years or so) at around 229 a month. I wanted to up it to a more round number so I pushed it to 300. The second payment went through tonight but their site is down. Once it's up in the morning (hopefully) i'll see what the principal/interest break was.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51620435]I've heard a lot of good things about Acorns. Lemme know how it treats you![/QUOTE] I'll guinea pig it for the gang here. So far so good, sign up was a breeze.

[QUOTE=viper shtf;51620216]Guys I think I'm gonna try this app, it links to your debit and credit cards, and when you buy something it rounds the price up to the next dollar and invests the difference. [url]https://www.acorns.com/[/url][/QUOTE] A friend got me to try Acorns a little over half a year ago. I started out with 50 bucks then and now am up to about 260, with $14 dollars of that being actual return on investment. So nothing to really write home about, but it does make for a good saving tool.

[QUOTE=dnqboy;51622257]A friend got me to try Acorns a little over half a year ago. I started out with 50 bucks then and now am up to about 260, with $14 dollars of that being actual return on investment. So nothing to really write home about, but it does make for a good saving tool.[/QUOTE] A 5.4% ROI really ain't too shabby, actually. Like you said, i's nothing crazy, but it's certainly higher than your standard savings account.

It's hard to get lost in active investing with missed opportunities and dreams of grandeur, but all you're really trying to beat is a standard savings account and/or inflation. Or if you want a little more challenge, the entire market itself.

I have a 3.98 GPA as a second semester junior in college and I'm still worried about getting into medical school

I assisted with my first open house today -- at a friggen mansion. Five huge bedrooms, seven full baths, a movie theater, pool room, two full studies, massive foyer, three indoor balconies, blah blah blah. Six thousand some odd square feet. It was... Excessive. We had a family wandering the house for ten minutes today before we even realized they were there. I honestly don't understand how somebody could live in a house like that. It'd be so impersonal!

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51642693]I assisted with my first open house today -- at a friggen mansion. Five huge bedrooms, seven full baths, a movie theater, pool room, two full studies, massive foyer, three indoor balconies, blah blah blah. Six thousand some odd square feet. It was... Excessive. We had a family wandering the house for ten minutes today before we even realized they were there. I honestly don't understand how somebody could live in a house like that. It'd be so impersonal![/QUOTE] I've always thought that too. If I ever have tons of money one day and feel like buying an expensive house, I'd much rather the money go into quality rather than size. I've always thought it would be really cool to have a modestly-sized home that is extremely well built

Material possessions give rise to conceit. Conceit give rise to envy. Envy give rise to hate. Hate is suffering. I should renounce my possessions and move to Nepal.