I'm very broken by what I read on ima. I feel brainwashed.

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Forum -> Household Management -> Finances

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tigerwife

Thu, May 04 2017, 7:56 pm

amother wrote:

Tigerwife
Are you a financial advisor?

See my last post 🙈

amother

Bronze

Thu, May 04 2017, 7:59 pm

tigerwife wrote:

Do you mean financial training?

I am the opposite of financially savvy. I am an artist and I think in anything but numbers lol. That's exactly why I would hire someone else to help me. If I knew more, I wouldn't pay someone else to invest for me.

Got it. I'm in the same boat.
Our posts bumped each other.

amother

Scarlet

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:33 pm

This tread makes me very uncomfortable.

amother

Bronze

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:36 pm

amother wrote:

This tread makes me very uncomfortable.

Why?😔

trixx

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:37 pm

OP you need to stop with the "whatever" attitude which assumes everything is all shot to hell anyways, when it doesn't have to be.

Does Mesilah give financial education courses? Check them let

finprof

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:41 pm

Ask any question you want. I have a PhD in finance and am a finance professor, what do you want to know?

sequoia

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:46 pm

finprof wrote:

Ask any question you want. I have a PhD in finance and am a finance professor, what do you want to know?

Oh man you are going to get so many PMs now Smile

amother

Bronze

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:47 pm

trixx wrote:

OP you need to stop with the "whatever" attitude which assumes everything is all shot to hell anyways, when it doesn't have to be.

Does Mesilah give financial education courses? Check them let

I was waiting someone to pick on my whatever attitude.
There was something magical about posting my whatever blah attidute here and getting it out of my system. It frees up space to get real and start thinking.

Amarante

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:48 pm

If you have no money, you don't need a financial advisor as those people generally help people plan how to invest their money. If you don't have money to invest what is the point.

But that doesn't mean one should be a financial ignoramus.

There are very basic financial skills like budgeting and if you don't have a clue as to budget, there are many on-line resources to help. Unless you are truly destitute, theoretically you can put aside a certain amount of money, however small, to start growing funds - first an emergency fund - then a larger emergency fund that would fund your expenses for six months.

The next step would be figuring out how to "invest" any money but honestly you don't need a financial advisor for that. How limited is your knowledge. Are we talking that you don't know what a mutual fund is? How mutual funds make money? How the stock market works? etc. Do you know what a CD is? Do you know what a dividend is? Do you understand what an IRA is versus a Roth plan.

If you know none of this, start at basics like Finances For Dummies To learn basic stuff. Magazines like Money or geared to consumers. Many articles teach the basics and there is a mix of more sophisticated stuff.

Once you have money, let's say $1000 above and beyond an emergency fund that you need to keep very liquid, then you can invest. Both Fidelity and Vanguard are companies that offer very low fee, no load mutual funds and/or index funds - do you know what an index fund is and why for most people it's better than trying to outguess the market and pay fees for more expensive funds. If not, again, any basic handbook geared to a consumer will teach you this.

You can't absorb all at once - commit to 10 or 15 minutes each day or every other day to read about investments and finances or budgets.

In the meantime, if you have no savings, the best thing is to park your money in a savings account - low interest but completely liquid. Once that grows excess put another safe relatively liquid form. Are you taking full advantage of tax savings or are these even meaningful.

Of course, the fly in the ointment is that people with middle class incomes can't afford tuition however you slice it or dice it. One has to make so much more than the norm to be able to afford this kind of expense and still be able to have "prudent" finances - I.e. emergency funds, retirements funds - not talking about a lavish lifestyle but the basics so that one isn't one paycheck away from disaster and one doesn't face the prospect of old age living on cat food - albeit kosher cat food :-)

amother

Bronze

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:49 pm

finprof wrote:

Ask any question you want. I have a PhD in finance and am a finance professor, what do you want to know?

Thanks so much!
I want to know 1.2 million things.
I'm going to sit down in a few and come back with my questions.

amother

Violet

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:52 pm

finprof wrote:

Ask any question you want. I have a PhD in finance and am a finance professor, what do you want to know?

What was your PhD topic? What courses do you teach?

I remember chatting with my finance prof about how I was moving out of my parents house at age 23 (and therefore we'd stop seeing each other on the bus ride home). He told me I was crazy to waste my money. I told him there was more to life than saving. Smile

amother

Violet

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:57 pm

amother wrote:

I'm sure many of us picked up on it (I did) - and were too polite to say anything. Trixx figured out a nice way to phrase it.

cozyblanket

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:23 pm

Well, now that you got that attitude out of your system, you can get educated.

One of the non Jewish money guys is Dave Ramsey. Look at his website - there is lots of info. You can get his main book (The Total Money Makeover).

However, as Amarante said, frum people have unique challenges that he doesn't understand (trust me on that - he was very unsympathetic when a frum couple called into his radio show once and mentioned private school tuition -I wanted to call in and give it to him - but that's not me).

Mesila is frum and can also help. Call them. This is why they exist.

Last edited by cozyblanket on Thu, May 04 2017, 9:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Green

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:28 pm

finprof wrote:

Ask any question you want. I have a PhD in finance and am a finance professor, what do you want to know?

Ok, I'll ask. I'm assuming planning for the future always amounts to putting aside some amount of money in the early and middle years. Even if it's only $100 a month. So my question is how does a family who simply cannot survive without tuition discounts, often depending on family help to pay the monthly bills, (forget about when a simcha comes up) put money aside if they are literally living paycheck to paycheck? I think in 2017, there are more families than ever that would not survive without help. How should those families who don't have money to pay for today, put away money for tomorrow?

amother

Burgundy

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:30 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

You're young. That's great. Do you know that if you invest $1000 this year, and another $1000 every year for 40 years (68 is a decent retirement age), at a modest 6% return, you'd have $137,000 at retirement. OK, you can't live on that, but its pretty amazing what you can do with a small investment.

But start now. If you wait 10 years and do the same thing, you'd only have $75,000.

I'd love to know of a relatively safe investment that yields a six percent return--especially for such a small amount of money. These days, 3% or less is probably more realistic.

Although your point regarding compounding interest stands.

amother

Purple

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:30 pm

amother wrote:

THIS!!

amother

Burgundy

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:37 pm

amother wrote:

I agree. If you can't pay your bills, you can't put aside cash for savings. Unless you can contribute to a 401k through work, and just view it the same way you view taxes--ie, something that was never yours and never passes into your checking account.

Or a house--assuming you can afford one. That's an investment that should appreciate over time with the added bonus of you not having to pay a mortgage in 30 years.

Or, I guess, you can ask the schools for a slightly higher tuition break and put some of that money aside, but people may have some ethical issues with that.

Curious to hear other opinions.

amother

Violet

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:42 pm

amother wrote:

you either earn more, or spend less. (and savings is an 'expense' that the tuition break committee should be allowing for IMHO).

amother

Burgundy

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:45 pm

amother wrote:

you either earn more, or spend less. (and savings is an 'expense' that the tuition break committee should be allowing for IMHO).

Earn more--yes, either said than done. Spend less--she was saying that there is insufficient income to cover basic expenses, to the extent that family members are paying their bills.

amother

Purple

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:49 pm

amother wrote:

I contribute to a 401k though work and view it like taxes as you said. I most certainly can't afford a house. Can't really ask for any more tuition break than I already get, and if I did that money would just go to cut down the help my parents are kind enough to give me.

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