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Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

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Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#371

Post by Shikadi »

josiahpeters wrote: post #200
lotsofpulp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a credit card is not the same as going into debt to make your purchase. In the US, you can easily get 1% to 4% back from the credit card company by using your credit card, and so you actually save money by paying with your credit card. Whether or not you want to pay off the balance at the end of your credit card's billing cycle decides whether or not you are going into debt, but many, many people pay it off. It…

Its not like you're just pulling free money out of thin air by using a credit card. And it seems likely that the finance institutions behind the credit cards are offering them as a product that makes money and not as an act of goodwill. If everyone paid their credit cards off at the end of the month like they say they do, do you think credit cards would be advertised or pushed as hard as they are? The finance institu…

Credit card companies make money every transaction even without interest, so yeah, they would be pushed as hard as they are.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#372

Post by magnetic »

josiahpeters wrote: post #356
magnetic wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people. ...until today! Hi! I'm "magnetic" - nice to meet you! It's not as uncommon as you think: many tools allow you to not miss payments nowadays, from email/SMS/push notification reminders to automatic payments. If you have the mone…

Hi magnetic, nice to meet you! Out of curiosity, where would you say you developed your money management skills? Was it from your parents, from school, or just organically as you started taking on more responsibility as an adult? To acknowledge your point, I was definitely the reason for the interest charges. As I mentioned in other comments in this thread: growing up my parents didn't teach me much in the way of han…

> Hi magnetic, nice to meet you! Out of curiosity, where would you say you developed your money management skills? Was it from your parents, from school, or just organically as you started taking on more responsibility as an adult?

I am not so sure I know the answer to that, but I've had to "live on my own" at 16 as my parents were living abroad and I was living by myself in an apartment while going to high school. They'd give me a monthly "budget" and I had to manage the money to deal with life expenses. Perhaps this helped.

One thing I always strived for was to not purchase something unless I could afford it cash. I couldn't do it for my house so it was the only thing I really got a loan for, and even that I worked really hard to pay it off faster than the required schedule (which isn't necessarily a smart thing to do financially speaking, but it has a "peace of mind" value to me that is worth it).

The other thing that helped is that I'm not extravagant with purchases and - except for the times when I had a mortgage to worry about - my income would usually be high enough that I wouldn't have to go through mental gymnastics to figure out whether I should worry about the end of month.

So I developed a mechanical "pay the credit card in full at the end of the month" process, and that was it. The rest would go to savings, and once the savings had enough (a few months worth of living expenses), the overflow would go into more risky investments (like stocks, etc).

I don't like automated payment systems so I avoid anything that gives automated access to my money to a third party, but I do like reminders for bills, and most online banking systems will provide reminders to you in due time and let you pay your stuff online easily.

I also try to keep the amount of accounts to a minimum: I have very few credit cards and bank accounts. It simplifies the management of money.

Lastly, I am from Europe, and the credit card madness isn't something I was exposed to when I grew up, so when I came to the US I didn't feel like I needed a CC. It was hard to get one in the beginning anyways, since I didn't have any credit history.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#373

Post by pdimitar »

penpapersw wrote: post #348
HillaryBriss wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even better: lie, cheat, steal, and hurt those who are ten steps ahead of you. they're the ones with all the money.

I'm sure there's got to be a way of getting ahead that doesn't involve lying, cheating, or stealing, from anyone, no matter how much they deserve it.

I ain't a historian or a philosopher or an economist, but at 37-year old with a relatively eventful life I have the ever-accumulating feeling that the whole system is rigged against everyone except the people at the very top.

Most of us aren't scientists that record their every impression and what it was based on so I can't really tell HOW that feeling grew and solidified in me, but it's a fact that it has been a background observation of mine ever since I hit 12-13 years old, long before being educated on the global economics, wars and social systems.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#374

Post by pdimitar »

tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #156
koonsolo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are twisting my words. I never said poor people are stupid or the other way around. I said the US credit card system puts people without insight into finances in a serious disadvantage. No sorry, it rips them off. And nobody is talking about it, because it seems everybody thinks it's normal. Explain your credit score to a European for example, and you will be met with a blank stare or disbelief.

You're still not quite getting it. If people have to choose between going into debt from a finance charge or starving on the street with no roof over their head they will choose the former. It's not about financial education it's about hard choices of the underprivileged.

Quoting George Carlin:

"Trust me on this one folks, raisin oats are not a major purchase. ...and you're holding up the f*cking line, too!" (talking about people paying with CCs on a queue in a retail store)

"Nobody should be paying a bank 18% of interest for Tic-Tacs."

Not sure how accurate he was but IMO your parent commenter was expressing a sentiment that is relevant to these quotes.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#375

Post by throwanem »

wutbrodo wrote: post #370
throwanem wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a really bizarre assertion: my bubble is such that I've literally never met someone (that I'm aware of, just as with your claim) who _doesn't_ pay their credit cards off in full each month. That's one hell of a bubble. Almost no one does this. Source: worked customer service for an issuer for 18 months, ~150 calls/day, saw a broad cross-section of the customer base, and it was a rare day in which I talked t…

> That's one hell of a bubble. Almost no one does this. Source: worked customer service for an issuer for 18 months, ~150 calls/day, saw a broad cross-section of the customer base, and it was a rare day in which I talked to a monthly PIF. Yea... That's why I went out of my way to call it a bubble. The point of mentioning my bubble was that "I've never met anyone who doesn't carry a cc balance" isn't a sound basis for…

Talking of individual finance here. As long as you're sufficiently liquid again to PIF before your bills go past due, you're fine. If you're not, then not only do you accrue late fees - usually easy to have waived by just calling and asking for it, if you've been a highly diligent customer prior - but you also start accruing interest on the balances you're suddenly carrying, and you almost certainly lose preferred rates on those balances and find yourself paying north of 15% APR.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#376

Post by upvotinglurker »

pdimitar wrote: post #374
tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still not quite getting it. If people have to choose between going into debt from a finance charge or starving on the street with no roof over their head they will choose the former. It's not about financial education it's about hard choices of the underprivileged.

Quoting George Carlin: "Trust me on this one folks, raisin oats are not a major purchase. ...and you're holding up the f*cking line, too!" (talking about people paying with CCs on a queue in a retail store) "Nobody should be paying a bank 18% of interest for Tic-Tacs." Not sure how accurate he was but IMO your parent commenter was expressing a sentiment that is relevant to these quotes.

In modern US stores, it's generally people paying with cash or check that "hold up the f*cking line" (paying with a credit or debit card is much faster).

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#377

Post by pdimitar »

upvotinglurker wrote: post #376
pdimitar wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting George Carlin: "Trust me on this one folks, raisin oats are not a major purchase. ...and you're holding up the f*cking line, too!" (talking about people paying with CCs on a queue in a retail store) "Nobody should be paying a bank 18% of interest for Tic-Tacs." Not sure how accurate he was but IMO your parent commenter was expressing a sentiment that is relevant to these quotes.

In modern US stores, it's generally people paying with cash or check that "hold up the f*cking line" (paying with a credit or debit card is much faster).

That's a pretty interesting tidbit, thanks for sharing it.

In my country paying with a CC or a debit card is at least a 2 minutes dance and it gets awfully annoying for everybody on the queue.

One of the reasons why several months ago I moved on to buy stuff from local smaller stores that offer delivery at home and allow me make the order from their website -- no phone involved. And I am investing in local businesses, too, so it's a double win.

Back on topic, why exactly is paying with cash slower than with a CC? Very curious.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#378

Post by upvotinglurker »

pdimitar wrote: post #377
upvotinglurker wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In modern US stores, it's generally people paying with cash or check that "hold up the f*cking line" (paying with a credit or debit card is much faster).

That's a pretty interesting tidbit, thanks for sharing it. In my country paying with a CC or a debit card is at least a 2 minutes dance and it gets awfully annoying for everybody on the queue. One of the reasons why several months ago I moved on to buy stuff from local smaller stores that offer delivery at home and allow me make the order from their website -- no phone involved. And I am investing in local businesses…

Most stores* have a point of sale machine where you either swipe the card or insert it into a slot for a few seconds, then tap a confirmation. You may be asked to tap a PIN (if using a debit card) or write your signature with a stylus (credit card), but I'm encountering this less and less often for small transactions. I suspect the companies involved have calculated that the extra time/processing isn't worth the potential savings from reducing fraud reimbursement on these small transactions.

Paying cash requires either the customer or the cashier to count out correct change, which generally takes longer than the above. Hand-writing a check takes even longer, though maybe partly because it is mostly elderly people doing it these days, and they tend to perform all activities more slowly (not that they can help it or that there's anything wrong with it).

*Small businesses sometimes still have older credit card machines that are a bit slower, but the number of these I encounter is fewer and fewer.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#379

Post by pdimitar »

upvotinglurker wrote: post #378
pdimitar wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty interesting tidbit, thanks for sharing it. In my country paying with a CC or a debit card is at least a 2 minutes dance and it gets awfully annoying for everybody on the queue. One of the reasons why several months ago I moved on to buy stuff from local smaller stores that offer delivery at home and allow me make the order from their website -- no phone involved. And I am investing in local businesses…

Most stores* have a point of sale machine where you either swipe the card or insert it into a slot for a few seconds, then tap a confirmation. You may be asked to tap a PIN (if using a debit card) or write your signature with a stylus (credit card), but I'm encountering this less and less often for small transactions. I suspect the companies involved have calculated that the extra time/processing isn't worth the pote…

I understand. Basically your banks and financial insurers upgraded their system, and the retail stores followed suit by modernizing their machines.

Not happening in my country. The general attitude one could extract from the glacial pace of upgrading around here is "well, it works right? why would we spend money on touching anything?". This, in addition to pretty experienced and fast cashiers leaves me with the opposite impression you described.

Back to Carlin's quote -- are the CCs really working against your interests (pun half-intended)? I heard about the mythical 18% extra on small purchases several times. Is that actually true? Are you actually gonna get $1.18 off of your CC if you buy something for $1.00?

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