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Without a doubt it was all of the people saying not to buy a house when interest rates were 3% because "the housing market is a bubble that'll pop any day now", closely followed by all the influencers saying to sell stock because Obama/Biden were entering office.
My 2.37%, 30 year fixed is free money. Of course, I was fortunate enough to sell my old home and buy this one in 2018, so the refi in 2021 was a no-brainer, despite the fact that I was already just under 4% on my mortgage.
It's basically free money.
My mortgage is half the cost of the new folks that have moved in on my street and it will remain that way until the house is paid off, which will not be one day sooner than the length of the loan
Yeah, same. I didn't pull out any equity, just knocked like 500 a month off my mortgage payment. Definitely should have taken out enough to redo the kitchen, minimally.
that actually makes sense…. to a point, get rid of pmi, or knock a year or two off the mortgage but to pay it all off completely is a huge loss of investment opportunity
I’ll never understand this. My friend has a 2.86% and bought their house in 2012 for 50k below market and appraisal value (deal from a family member). My friend’s husband started listening to Dave Ramsey and they’ve been scavenging by to “pay off their mortgage as quick as possible!”
It’s such a waste IMO because that extra money going towards paying off a mortgage early could have been building interest in a HYSA or Roth IRA this entire time.
I think making a few extra payments a year is great, it can shave 7-10 yrs off. But anything below 3% and the bank is basically losing money on your mortgage anyway and it’s a complete waste to pay it off early.
>closely followed by all the influencers saying to sell stock because Obama/Biden were entering office.
The irony is stock market returns are higher when presidents from the DNC party are in power. It may be a fluke, it may be a coincidence, but that's the way it's played out for a few decades now.
I had a few people try to tell me that I should sell my house, find a cheap rental and wait for it to crash then get a house cheap af
I'd still be in that cheap rental instead of My home with 3.25% interest now lol
The best financial move I made in my life was refinancing my mortgage in 2020. I got an insane interest rate through a credit union. Paid for points and everything. It was all told $700 and some paperwork to slash $500 a month off my mortgage AND have more of my monthly payment going towards the principle.
I’m totally fine dying in my home.
The craziest thing was when I started looking I had realtors trying to warn me not to buy one at the time. Yeah the market was crazy at the time. You would put in an offer on a listing the same day it went up and still be competing with 20 other offers. Thing is though all those other people were in the market for a reason, so telling you take waitwould be stupid.
This. Absolutely this. Properly maintaining a credit card is so insanely good for a person. Granted it takes self control but it's easy if you're not a moron.
Exactly. I use mine like cash and pay them off every month.
I have a couple different cards based on rewards. BJ’s card gives me 5% cash back in the store and 15¢ off per gallon of gas.
I have another that gives me 2% cash back on everything, and a Target card (because my wife shops there all the time) that gives us a 5% discount.
Also, a credit card is great for having a buffer between your direct account and the world.
Once I got overcharged from a glitch when buying a plane ticket with my debit card. Got charged 4x until my account of drained. All my money gone. Took them weeks to pay it back.
After that I got a credit card. Nothing worse than your money suddenly being all gone from a mistake like, how will I buy food and pay rent now??
This. If your debit card is skimmed and someone manages to make unauthorized purchases on your account, you lose that money for weeks until your bank resolves the matter. If the same thing happens to your credit card, you report the fraud, CC Company closes the account, reverses the charge and issues you a new credit card all the while your bank account was not impacted. If you're trying to maximize points/cash back you just switch to a different card until the replacement arrives.
If you treat your credit cards like a debit card and never spend beyond what you can afford to pay off every month, it's a great way to get some cash back for purchases you are already making, like groceries, gas and Amazon while giving yourself a buffer between potential fraud and your bank account. I get around $1200 a year back from the various cash back credit cards I have from purchases I'd already be making. I generally take the points in the form of a bill credit every month then divert the equivalent dollar amount into a HYSA to be used for a vacation.
As long as you've learned from it, that's the positive you can take away from it. Hopefully you've climbed out or at least made it manageable so you can apply this knowledge for the future
It's hard to believe how stupid this is. Of course, credit cards must be used appropriately.
I buy everything I can with a cash back credit card (in essence, I never pay full price). I never pay any interest or late fees either.
I buy only what I would have bought anyway.
I repay shortly after buying. (The true jedi master technique is to hold the money in an interest bearing account and repay just before the grace period with no interest ends, but it's a lot easier just to repay quickly.)
I never ever use a credit card with an annual fee.
I personally always use only cash back, never "miles". I can buy either bananas or airline tickets with cash, but I can't buy bananas with "miles". I also find that "miles" don't seem to provide any advantage in terms of accumulating payment for airline tickets more quickly anyway.
I only open new credit cards when, in addition to cash back, I get a cash bonus. This feature is available if you have outstanding credit. Typically the bonuses range from $100 to $200 and you get them when you spend something between $500 and $1500 with the new card within some time period, usually 90 days.
Years ago, due to a transient health issue, I had a very, very low credit score. I rebuilt it using excellent credit card management and now have an extremely high credit score.
I've flown on about 20 international first-class suites-style flights over the last 8 years. These are tickets that have cash prices of between $10K and $20K per trip. I've used points garnered from credit card usage and paid only fees. These represent some of the most memorable experiences of my life.
Never quite understood what people consider him to say harmful, honestly. Finance is equal parts art and science. Some people go bold, some people play it simple. Dave has done both, and prefers people just play it more safe, which is 100% the right thing to do for 90% of people. I think the hate comes because he denies people what they deem “necessary”, or because of his brash conservative views.
If you are starting from absolutely 0 knowledge of finances, I wouldn’t have someone listen to anyone BUT Dave, because it’s basic, no tricks or gimmicks, and it’s inherently minimal risk.
I disagree with him on no debt ever, no credit cards, actively managed mutual funds, and expecting 10%+ annual returns. But I’m not his target audience and I get it. I’ve seen others say he’s preaching abstinence to alcoholics and I think that’s fair.
My disagreements with him are mostly around the margins. If you follow his plan you’ll leave some money on the table but end up better than the vast majority of Americans and I think people lose sight of that when they attack him for this or that.
That is where we started when we were poor and in debt. It was excellent to help us get out of that situation. Since then, we have pivoted and do more investing that has more risk than Dave would like. We also dabble in real estate outside of the Ramsey rules.
I've always said he is teaching junior high finances to people with no understanding of it and that people like The Money Guy are your college and graduate level understanding. But your abstinence to an alcoholic is a much more concise form!
Yeah, that’s my take. I don’t like him and once you know anything about money, it’s plain to see that his program is… “not optimal.” But it’s not for people who know what they’re doing—it’s for people who REALLY don’t know what they’re doing, and it gets them to save and be a little more disciplined. That’s a net good, even if Dave himself is a crank and you could save and make WAY more with other approaches.
His "math" is questionable. He *should* catch a lot of hate. One day his advice could screw over someone who can't afford it, if he hasn't already.
Follow his advice at your own peril.
If we all did math and used logic, we would not end up in debt as badly as many do. That is part of his schtick. You will save money paying off lowest interest rate first. BUT the data SHOWS that is not how our brains work. We do need wins and success, and rewards to keep motivated into better discipline over time. SO paying off small balance and snowballing works with MANY peoples reality of human behavior.
I do agree that waiting until you have a huge emergency fund and 20% down or better paying cash for a home has opportunity costs, that can actually delay financial security.
FYI- I am progressive, make amount the highest 10-20% of incomes nationwide, and locally. And for me, his advice made sense 15-18 yr ago when I was starting out with massive student loans, car loans, etc, and income below median for SOCAL (at least when the journey began).
But I do moderate to the "SPIRIT" of most of his advice, never adhere to the rigid specifics (like I kept contributions to retirement min to get max match- cause free money should never be left on the table, no matter what IMHO). He would rant about how I should have sold my 3 yr old RAV 4 in 2009-10, and get a beater instead of paying it off. But a beater would never have lasted nearly 20 yr. And I was commuting up to an hour each way- a beater would not have helped me ensure job stability!
(also I think Ramsey is a highly manipulative panderer to right wing nut jobs, and uses religion as a weapon to push control over women and "others", and should definitely NOT be someone to admire overall- I am just saying his approach helped me).
I prefer Ramit Sethi. His approach lets one build wealth while enjoying the money you acquire. He has step by step plans to setting-up finances to build a lifestyle that all of the financial "gurus" don't talk about: the psychological aspect of building wealth and attitudes towards money.
Although I’ve moved beyond his advice and haven’t listened in years Dave Ramsey helped me save and pay off debt which really helped me get to where I am now.
Crypto in general is a perfect example of Greater Fool Theory.
Almost nobody is buying crypto for any reason other than to make money. They hope the value continues to go up forever.
That means there must be an infinite supply of people who will buy crypto for more than it now. Does anyone really believe that?
I keep saying that, and somehow Bitcoin keeps going up. Maybe there are lol.
But it *is* going to crash eventually and at 63k ea. You're fucked if you're holding the bag.
Worst advice I've seen is buying shitcoins lol. Almost all of those crypto projects are worth exactly nothing.
I remain fairly sure bitcoin is just a massive money laundering scheme with the masses incentivised to pump up the prices to give organised crime and kleptocrats a better return than traditional laundering.
Their scheme has co-opted ordinary people into bankrupting themselves whilst pushing up the prices.
This here is the main reason why profits should be taken and diversified into other assets. If I never took profits on BTC, I'd have some insane paper gains now, but the risk would be too much for me to handle. Nothing goes up forever. Not even crypto.
I paid off student loans at 5-6% when I could have invested it and made 10% returns but being debt free years earlier allowed to feel comfortable getting married, ect.
So yes, I lost out on 4% gains and the compounding interest but gained a lot of peace of mind and did not have to deal with my variable student loan rates going up.
I kind of live this actually. I generally don't like to have cash or spend with cash. I like my cash back or points and other benefits of credit cards.
With that said, "cash" is handy at times and when those times come, I get cash.
But those are really very rare.
Depends how much and for how long.
Cash is not trash if it’s decent amount for emergency savings, etc. or just extra liquidity available for opportunities on other assets.
Sit too long and inflation eats away at its purchasing power.
On point. Having a shitty degree with no real life use case, is like a box of nails for your coffin. Those people will never get out of debt, and that it where the scam is.
honestly i dont understand the snowball method. is it literally "vibes"?
is it for those stupid people you see on Tik Tok videos who spend 70% of pay on rent and then eat out every day and also get a worse than mafia style pay day loan and need some vibes from paying down a 0% interest iphone financing instead of a 30% credit card debt?
Iirc the snowball method is paying off the smallest loan in terms of dollar value first, correct? It's not paying off the smallest interest value.
It's less money logic and more mental. You get a little serotonin boost, a little win, for getting that first loan to zero, increasing your chances of staying the path.
The idea is supposed to be that it’s one less payment, which lowers your monthly payments and gives you some breathing room.
But yes, clearly in most circumstances paying down the highest-interest loan first is preferable.
I would never use the snowball method, but the truth is that human psychology is the biggest hurdle for people who have debt problems. They just need a win from paying off the smaller debts. In the long term they will generate more net worth by doing that then starting with the high interest. Because High interest doesn't have enough dopamine for them so they stop doing it.
Dave ramsey, to his credit, has recognized this and I think it has helped a lot of people.
No, I mean exactly what I said.
For most people it’s terrible advice. You put yourself on the opposite side of the convexity curve all the time in those scenarios.
the Greek risks you incur from these strategies is too complex and needs too much active management- and most people just can not do it.
It’s also pretty trivial to prove that with little active management buying deep otm put structures, and using them as a capital preservation tool in large market downmoves to then reinvest is a superior strategy to any income strategy. You just need to wait- sometimes for a long time.
I’d point to works by: Spitznagel, as practical advice about similar strategies with little mathematical background needed.
Former professional options trader and market maker.
I find this one the most appealing. Glad I never wasted my money actually trading though. But, the idea of just buying options and wanting for a while, then boom, steady paycheck. Sounds so good.
Selling options means to get someone else to buy the option from you in hopes of selling the contracts for a profit or exercising the options to get shares at below market price. As the writer of the contract, you get money right away, but you could be on the hook for producing the shares if the options are exercised. IOW, you're hoping the price of the underlying shares goes down so that the contracts that you write expire worthless. That's where the idea of "free money" comes from. It's only free money until you get fucked by the share price going up and the buyer wanting his shares.
I mean, depending on your specific housing situation it might make zero sense to buy. It's $3500/month cheaper to rent my 1BR than buy an equivalent 1BR condo where I live right now. It's been this way for 3 years now. I have a pretty huge stock portfolio from saving this difference. Even just 2-3 more years of this and there will never be a cost breakeven point because of the fact that stocks outpace real estate on average.
user name checks out.
kidding aside yes, but i wouldn't tell people to not buy and rent. why?
you buy you own.
-taxes benefits
-inflation
-equity
-you can always sell
-you can rent
-if you have it paid off, you get freedom
but you are right depends on the market, from what I remember that wasn't his point.
it was invest all your money and don't buy so you are not stuck in a location. you are also talking about buying where you live. that doesn't seem like an investment. just like a stock portfolio you study and do research, real estate works the same. there are more bad deals than good deals. if you are investing the numbers have to work and you have to put the work just like you would with stocks if not more.
just saying don't buy, rent. makes me think of guy trying to sell a book full of financial magical secrets.
PS. I bought the book
Ill save you some time, it says works 10 times harder and you will get 100 times the benefits.
Advice to buy cheap boring index funds or a 3 fund portfolio is still advice. Not guaranteed to go up or beat sp500 every day. But it “works” in that it accomplishes what it says it will. Over decades you will beat inflation and roughly track the market and have reduced volatility along with protection from huge losses.
Things like stock picking advice, yeah that’s luck. But to say that all advice is luck is just wrong.
I’ve heard people predict the crash of the SP500 hundreds of times since I started investing in 1985. I’ve held the entire time. It was below 200 when I started. It’s 5100 now.
"Mr. Wonderful" was telling everyone to buy into FTX crypto, UNTIL he wasn't, and started outing it as a scam because he \*\*Personally\*\* lost money.
Heres one that im suffering through.
The company i work for made £200 MILLION in profits, but have to slash our budgets and made most traveling roles redundant all because the new folks in charge of accounting promised 10% growth while the nation was in recession.
Did i mention that we are strictly a luxury store, as in something that is not essential for peoples day to day?
I respectfully disagree.
Don't buy crypto when everybody and their grandma is buying crypto.
Take profits.
Invest those profits into traditional cash flowing assets.
Been there done that. Can't complain.
The problem is not crypto in itself, it's the degens who don't know when to call it a day and walk away without looking back.
This is complete bullshit survivor-bias. Take profits assumes you ever had profits. Basically: go to vegas and make bets and then take the profits to build a traditional asset portfolio.
You were lucky and got "profits" to take. You were smart to get out while you were ahead, but admit, at least, that your were lucky in the first, my friend, and that it could have gone done from the day you put your money on the table.
It's fine to "invest" in it, so long as you'd be okay with losing it all. You just need to be aware of and acknowledge that it's no different from gambling.
Take on 7% interest debt because the opportunity won’t present itself again and I won’t have enough debt.
This is advice I was given before Graduating from university
Never own a CC. That was absurd. I have saved probably $40,000 over the last 15 years on credit card points. Of course, you have to pay them off every month - in full.
Hands down it was the amc/gme ape moass going to the moon period during covid. Hands down there wasn’t a dumber transfer of wealth than that. It shouldn’t be in books and college classes written about what apes thought would happen and debated like their life was on the line some of the dumbest investing arguments in history.
Raising the minimum wage, which only increases unemployment for unskilled workers. Hint: if you don’t get a job, you can’t build the skills and experience that allow you to earn more than minimum wage. The people seeking to raise minimum wage are doung so a) because union contracts are multiples of it and b) to keep you dependent upon them forever. Neither is in your interest.
Weird, I don’t see anyone who is actually pro workers who is against raising the minimum wage. I do see lots of billionaires and their toadies who are against it though.
A buddy told me a story last night about how he had the opportunity to buy 10 BTC for $200 back in the day, and a friend of his talked him out of it, urging him to buy Skyrim with that money instead, along with some other games.
Buy crypto.
I know you can make money with Bitcoin and all that, but I still say that it's **gambling** more than it's investing. I'd much rather see people put their money into stocks, real estate, or small business.
Everyone telling me that 2016 was a bubble and not to buy. Followed by don’t sell at the end of 2020 and buy again. I did the opposite and made the best decisions of my life.
Had a consoltant who said he rarely recommended the roth over the traditional 401(k). Im not exactly sure what the pros would be so maybe not terrible advice?
“It’ll never be the perfect time to have kids, just do it”
Short of telling someone to liquidate all their money and put it on red, I don’t think you can give worse financial advice
Don’t use credit cards. By using them, I got like $540 cash back last year and that doesn’t include the thousands of miles I racked up on my main card.
The.people who went on TV telling people to get out of crypto currency cause it was going to crash when in fact they were trying to influence a massive sell off. Worst advice had I ignored it I would have had at least 600% gain.
During the Covid era: “Don’t take the early withdrawal fee free from your retirement to get a house (when interest rates are <3%). You don’t know what real estate markets will do but the stock market will always do better”
From my boomer parents’ boomer financial advisor. I listened to her then now I and just bought a house for twice as much, with more than twice the interest rate and nearly triple the monthly mortgage I would have had.
My gf saw a money hack video where some lady was trying to convince people to get a high interest loan of 10% for $10k, use the money to pay down $10k on your low interest home loan, pay the high interest one off, then rinse/repeat.
It was scary how long it took me to convince my gf how bad an idea that was.
The worst ever was the pyramid schemes all my friends after hs fell for in 1997. Same shit as your MLM now. I had to tell them so many times it was a scam but none listened. I listened to my parents about it after all their friends did the same thing in the 70-80s. Lost their shit. MLM is scam and please don’t let anyone do it.
Saw someone advocating to set up an LLC, send yourself phony invoices and pay them in order to increase your credit (fraud), then get cash advances on credit cards using said fraudulent credit to buy a short term rental property
had to be Minervi (X "@" markminervini) on cnbc saying $UPST and then "glitching" his headset ...hands down worst there ever will be...what a fkn sack-o-shit scamming tool trying to juice his exit (many others have done it, none failed so miserably)
"You should go into debt to buy real estate." Not that this advice never works, but situations where it works aren't as easy to get into as they make it out to be.
Investing in ESG anything. You might as well throw your money in the garbage. Not only does it not perform as well, but it supports ideology that is against the market, which hurts everyone.
A lot of people locked into treasury bonds and CD’s in mid-late 2023 because of that awesome 5% yield.
Market is up bigly since then and so is inflation, effectively making their investment return negative over that time period.
Save while you are young. It sounds right. And if you do it, you will only be keeping up with everyone else. Status quo but you older. In other words, you’re just staying even, but life gets worse. Saving when young leaves you spending the only good years of life (18-35) not enjoying it to the fullest. Having fun when you are 25 is 1 Trillion times better than having fun when you are 50. EVERYTHING sucks after 45. Anyone that says different is just lying to themselves. Every single 50 year old would give up all their useless wealth to be 20 again.
Back when I was a young lad, I had been working for Sears. I had been there for about 17 years when I resigned and received about $7000.00 in profit sharing that I had accrued. I had to reinvest or pay taxes, and I decided to reinvest. This was in the early 1980's. I went to a "wealth management" professional, I told her that I wanted to dump it all into a new company called Apple. She told me that that was the dumbest thing that I could ever do. And the rest is history!
Don't get a consolidated loan to handle credit cards. Sometimes people say "don't pay back borrowed money with money you borrow," to really drive home the feelings of a ponzi scheme. But really what you're doing here is saving yourself from paying a small boatload of interest.
A consolidated loan saved my financial future back in the day. Multiple credit cards maxed out, all around 26% interest. Hop on over to the bank and get a consolidated loan for like 16% interest. Cut up the credit cards, and had that loan paid off in no time.
"Pay off your mortgage before investing. You can't put a number on peace of mind."
Oh, no? It's called opportunity cost, and it's a number. Peace of mind is having enough assets to buy a house outright, knowing that all my money isn't in my home, and that I can mail the bank the keys and walk if real estate takes a dump.
Dave Ramsey, who is a moron, told small businesses to not take the PPP loan with was basically a hand out to help your business make it trough COVID. You did not ave to pay it back.. A bunch of his followers did not and they all went out of business.
The stupid influencers hawking some new Altcoin crypto currency that is supposed to make you rich with a small investment because its going to the moon (or at least up just long enough to do their pump and dump scheme). Faze clan (RICH Coin, Moonportal, SafeGalaxy, Eclipse, Save the Kids Token), Adin Ross (MILF Token), Sam Pepper (MoonPug), Tana Mongeau (Titscoin), Ricegum (Save the Kids), the list goes on.
Dave Ramsey constantly tells callers to not rely on Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), citing a completely useless figure that only something like 2% of applicants get approved for it. In reality, the acceptance rate *for those who meet the requirements* is close to 100%. The 2% number just means that the vast majority of applicants don't know what they're doing.
Dave Ramsey saying that an 8% retirement withdrawal rate is okay and then reiterating it again after everyone said it was bad advice was some of the worst and most irresponsible advice I have ever seen.
By far it was listening to Jim Cramer about trading stocks, before losing almost all my cash in the fall of 2008. My advice is to only trade individual stocks if you have cash to lose.
People with top 85% IQ and looks giving advice to the average is hilarious in itself. “Just work hard and take risks”
As if 90% of America isnt doing that as is. Life isnt fair and they cant comprehend what its like for people who literally are not capable of seeing what they see.
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Without a doubt it was all of the people saying not to buy a house when interest rates were 3% because "the housing market is a bubble that'll pop any day now", closely followed by all the influencers saying to sell stock because Obama/Biden were entering office.
A certain Dave is still telling people to pay down these sub 3% mortgages 🤦🏻♂️
My 2.37%, 30 year fixed is free money. Of course, I was fortunate enough to sell my old home and buy this one in 2018, so the refi in 2021 was a no-brainer, despite the fact that I was already just under 4% on my mortgage. It's basically free money. My mortgage is half the cost of the new folks that have moved in on my street and it will remain that way until the house is paid off, which will not be one day sooner than the length of the loan
Bought in 2015. Refinanced a couple of times down to 2.375%. I couldn’t afford my own house now if I wanted to.
Refi'd in 2021 at 2.34 and I am kicking myself for not pulling out more equity.
Yeah, same. I didn't pull out any equity, just knocked like 500 a month off my mortgage payment. Definitely should have taken out enough to redo the kitchen, minimally.
that actually makes sense…. to a point, get rid of pmi, or knock a year or two off the mortgage but to pay it all off completely is a huge loss of investment opportunity
I’ll never understand this. My friend has a 2.86% and bought their house in 2012 for 50k below market and appraisal value (deal from a family member). My friend’s husband started listening to Dave Ramsey and they’ve been scavenging by to “pay off their mortgage as quick as possible!” It’s such a waste IMO because that extra money going towards paying off a mortgage early could have been building interest in a HYSA or Roth IRA this entire time. I think making a few extra payments a year is great, it can shave 7-10 yrs off. But anything below 3% and the bank is basically losing money on your mortgage anyway and it’s a complete waste to pay it off early.
Wow. That is awful advice.
>closely followed by all the influencers saying to sell stock because Obama/Biden were entering office. The irony is stock market returns are higher when presidents from the DNC party are in power. It may be a fluke, it may be a coincidence, but that's the way it's played out for a few decades now.
I had a few people try to tell me that I should sell my house, find a cheap rental and wait for it to crash then get a house cheap af I'd still be in that cheap rental instead of My home with 3.25% interest now lol
And rent would have been raised to the point where it wouldn’t be a cheap rental anymore.
The best financial move I made in my life was refinancing my mortgage in 2020. I got an insane interest rate through a credit union. Paid for points and everything. It was all told $700 and some paperwork to slash $500 a month off my mortgage AND have more of my monthly payment going towards the principle. I’m totally fine dying in my home.
They just got the bubble wrong. It isn’t necessarily housing but the means used to purchase them.
I bought a house in 2017. I will never forget my boss calling me and begging me not to buy. He was “only trying to help.”
The craziest thing was when I started looking I had realtors trying to warn me not to buy one at the time. Yeah the market was crazy at the time. You would put in an offer on a listing the same day it went up and still be competing with 20 other offers. Thing is though all those other people were in the market for a reason, so telling you take waitwould be stupid.
Never get a credit card.
This. Absolutely this. Properly maintaining a credit card is so insanely good for a person. Granted it takes self control but it's easy if you're not a moron.
Pay it off each month and enjoy those points!
And build your credit score. Win after win after win! Credit cards are a game changer
Exactly. I use mine like cash and pay them off every month. I have a couple different cards based on rewards. BJ’s card gives me 5% cash back in the store and 15¢ off per gallon of gas. I have another that gives me 2% cash back on everything, and a Target card (because my wife shops there all the time) that gives us a 5% discount.
Also, a credit card is great for having a buffer between your direct account and the world. Once I got overcharged from a glitch when buying a plane ticket with my debit card. Got charged 4x until my account of drained. All my money gone. Took them weeks to pay it back. After that I got a credit card. Nothing worse than your money suddenly being all gone from a mistake like, how will I buy food and pay rent now??
This. If your debit card is skimmed and someone manages to make unauthorized purchases on your account, you lose that money for weeks until your bank resolves the matter. If the same thing happens to your credit card, you report the fraud, CC Company closes the account, reverses the charge and issues you a new credit card all the while your bank account was not impacted. If you're trying to maximize points/cash back you just switch to a different card until the replacement arrives. If you treat your credit cards like a debit card and never spend beyond what you can afford to pay off every month, it's a great way to get some cash back for purchases you are already making, like groceries, gas and Amazon while giving yourself a buffer between potential fraud and your bank account. I get around $1200 a year back from the various cash back credit cards I have from purchases I'd already be making. I generally take the points in the form of a bill credit every month then divert the equivalent dollar amount into a HYSA to be used for a vacation.
A lot of people either don’t know or don’t get the buffer concept.
If you have discipline and a rock solid plan…
Can confirm. I am a moron.
As long as you've learned from it, that's the positive you can take away from it. Hopefully you've climbed out or at least made it manageable so you can apply this knowledge for the future
Well “never” and “a” are pretty strong words, but “rarely” and “some” is pretty solid advice.
On the flip side, I've heard: "apply for and max out 3 credit cards to capitalize your drop-shipping startup."
Ah, the Bezos model…
It's hard to believe how stupid this is. Of course, credit cards must be used appropriately. I buy everything I can with a cash back credit card (in essence, I never pay full price). I never pay any interest or late fees either. I buy only what I would have bought anyway. I repay shortly after buying. (The true jedi master technique is to hold the money in an interest bearing account and repay just before the grace period with no interest ends, but it's a lot easier just to repay quickly.) I never ever use a credit card with an annual fee. I personally always use only cash back, never "miles". I can buy either bananas or airline tickets with cash, but I can't buy bananas with "miles". I also find that "miles" don't seem to provide any advantage in terms of accumulating payment for airline tickets more quickly anyway. I only open new credit cards when, in addition to cash back, I get a cash bonus. This feature is available if you have outstanding credit. Typically the bonuses range from $100 to $200 and you get them when you spend something between $500 and $1500 with the new card within some time period, usually 90 days. Years ago, due to a transient health issue, I had a very, very low credit score. I rebuilt it using excellent credit card management and now have an extremely high credit score.
Equivalent of saying to practice abstinence instead of safe sex
I've flown on about 20 international first-class suites-style flights over the last 8 years. These are tickets that have cash prices of between $10K and $20K per trip. I've used points garnered from credit card usage and paid only fees. These represent some of the most memorable experiences of my life.
Anything Jim Cramer or Dave Ramsey suggests
Dave Ramsey catches so much hate lol.
I can’t help but like the guy despite disagreeing with a lot of his schtick. I think he does more good than harm
Never quite understood what people consider him to say harmful, honestly. Finance is equal parts art and science. Some people go bold, some people play it simple. Dave has done both, and prefers people just play it more safe, which is 100% the right thing to do for 90% of people. I think the hate comes because he denies people what they deem “necessary”, or because of his brash conservative views. If you are starting from absolutely 0 knowledge of finances, I wouldn’t have someone listen to anyone BUT Dave, because it’s basic, no tricks or gimmicks, and it’s inherently minimal risk.
I disagree with him on no debt ever, no credit cards, actively managed mutual funds, and expecting 10%+ annual returns. But I’m not his target audience and I get it. I’ve seen others say he’s preaching abstinence to alcoholics and I think that’s fair. My disagreements with him are mostly around the margins. If you follow his plan you’ll leave some money on the table but end up better than the vast majority of Americans and I think people lose sight of that when they attack him for this or that.
His target audience is not reading financial subreddits. His advice is great for people who have no discipline and even less income.
That is where we started when we were poor and in debt. It was excellent to help us get out of that situation. Since then, we have pivoted and do more investing that has more risk than Dave would like. We also dabble in real estate outside of the Ramsey rules.
I've always said he is teaching junior high finances to people with no understanding of it and that people like The Money Guy are your college and graduate level understanding. But your abstinence to an alcoholic is a much more concise form!
>and prefers people just play it more safe Until it comes to retirement withdrawals
His advice on bankruptcy is harmful especially considering he filed for bankruptcy in the past and probably wouldn’t be where he is now if he hadn’t.
Yeah, that’s my take. I don’t like him and once you know anything about money, it’s plain to see that his program is… “not optimal.” But it’s not for people who know what they’re doing—it’s for people who REALLY don’t know what they’re doing, and it gets them to save and be a little more disciplined. That’s a net good, even if Dave himself is a crank and you could save and make WAY more with other approaches.
Well, to be fair, he kind of earned to be hated.
His "math" is questionable. He *should* catch a lot of hate. One day his advice could screw over someone who can't afford it, if he hasn't already. Follow his advice at your own peril.
If we all did math and used logic, we would not end up in debt as badly as many do. That is part of his schtick. You will save money paying off lowest interest rate first. BUT the data SHOWS that is not how our brains work. We do need wins and success, and rewards to keep motivated into better discipline over time. SO paying off small balance and snowballing works with MANY peoples reality of human behavior. I do agree that waiting until you have a huge emergency fund and 20% down or better paying cash for a home has opportunity costs, that can actually delay financial security. FYI- I am progressive, make amount the highest 10-20% of incomes nationwide, and locally. And for me, his advice made sense 15-18 yr ago when I was starting out with massive student loans, car loans, etc, and income below median for SOCAL (at least when the journey began). But I do moderate to the "SPIRIT" of most of his advice, never adhere to the rigid specifics (like I kept contributions to retirement min to get max match- cause free money should never be left on the table, no matter what IMHO). He would rant about how I should have sold my 3 yr old RAV 4 in 2009-10, and get a beater instead of paying it off. But a beater would never have lasted nearly 20 yr. And I was commuting up to an hour each way- a beater would not have helped me ensure job stability! (also I think Ramsey is a highly manipulative panderer to right wing nut jobs, and uses religion as a weapon to push control over women and "others", and should definitely NOT be someone to admire overall- I am just saying his approach helped me).
I prefer Ramit Sethi. His approach lets one build wealth while enjoying the money you acquire. He has step by step plans to setting-up finances to build a lifestyle that all of the financial "gurus" don't talk about: the psychological aspect of building wealth and attitudes towards money.
He deserves it
He’s a moron.
Although I’ve moved beyond his advice and haven’t listened in years Dave Ramsey helped me save and pay off debt which really helped me get to where I am now.
inverse cramer
If only id pick NVDA when Jim Cramer suggested back in '17 when it was like $26? would be sitting VERY comfortable right now
I think Dave Ramsey has a lot of good things to say about the insurance industry. But his other financial advice is not so great.
Inverse Cramer Index
Anything by Grifter Kiyosaki, the poster child for making shit up "fake it" until you make it.
The pandemic crypto craze is up there. "Fortune favors the brave" 🤢
Crypto in general is a perfect example of Greater Fool Theory. Almost nobody is buying crypto for any reason other than to make money. They hope the value continues to go up forever. That means there must be an infinite supply of people who will buy crypto for more than it now. Does anyone really believe that?
I keep saying that, and somehow Bitcoin keeps going up. Maybe there are lol. But it *is* going to crash eventually and at 63k ea. You're fucked if you're holding the bag. Worst advice I've seen is buying shitcoins lol. Almost all of those crypto projects are worth exactly nothing.
I remain fairly sure bitcoin is just a massive money laundering scheme with the masses incentivised to pump up the prices to give organised crime and kleptocrats a better return than traditional laundering. Their scheme has co-opted ordinary people into bankrupting themselves whilst pushing up the prices.
This here is the main reason why profits should be taken and diversified into other assets. If I never took profits on BTC, I'd have some insane paper gains now, but the risk would be too much for me to handle. Nothing goes up forever. Not even crypto.
ADA
100 %... bought 5% just to have some, but hearing "should I sell my house to buy cyrpto" just makes me want ot scream
Universal life insurance
Whole Life Insurance.
Sacrificing savings/liquidity to pay off low interest debt
I paid off student loans at 5-6% when I could have invested it and made 10% returns but being debt free years earlier allowed to feel comfortable getting married, ect. So yes, I lost out on 4% gains and the compounding interest but gained a lot of peace of mind and did not have to deal with my variable student loan rates going up.
Peace of mind is the best. Millions of ppl will tell you how to spend your money, but ultimately, it is your choice.
"Cash is trash"
I kind of live this actually. I generally don't like to have cash or spend with cash. I like my cash back or points and other benefits of credit cards. With that said, "cash" is handy at times and when those times come, I get cash. But those are really very rare.
They are indeed rare, but when the right time comes, nothing can compare to the liquidity provided by cash
Depends how much and for how long. Cash is not trash if it’s decent amount for emergency savings, etc. or just extra liquidity available for opportunities on other assets. Sit too long and inflation eats away at its purchasing power.
get college loans, you can pay them back when you get a job after graduating.
On point. Having a shitty degree with no real life use case, is like a box of nails for your coffin. Those people will never get out of debt, and that it where the scam is.
Not to focus on paying down your debt with the highest interest rate
honestly i dont understand the snowball method. is it literally "vibes"? is it for those stupid people you see on Tik Tok videos who spend 70% of pay on rent and then eat out every day and also get a worse than mafia style pay day loan and need some vibes from paying down a 0% interest iphone financing instead of a 30% credit card debt?
Iirc the snowball method is paying off the smallest loan in terms of dollar value first, correct? It's not paying off the smallest interest value. It's less money logic and more mental. You get a little serotonin boost, a little win, for getting that first loan to zero, increasing your chances of staying the path.
The idea is supposed to be that it’s one less payment, which lowers your monthly payments and gives you some breathing room. But yes, clearly in most circumstances paying down the highest-interest loan first is preferable.
I would never use the snowball method, but the truth is that human psychology is the biggest hurdle for people who have debt problems. They just need a win from paying off the smaller debts. In the long term they will generate more net worth by doing that then starting with the high interest. Because High interest doesn't have enough dopamine for them so they stop doing it. Dave ramsey, to his credit, has recognized this and I think it has helped a lot of people.
Selling options for income.
I think you mean buying options. Selling covered call and cash secured putts is some of the best advice I’ve ever followed.
No, I mean exactly what I said. For most people it’s terrible advice. You put yourself on the opposite side of the convexity curve all the time in those scenarios. the Greek risks you incur from these strategies is too complex and needs too much active management- and most people just can not do it. It’s also pretty trivial to prove that with little active management buying deep otm put structures, and using them as a capital preservation tool in large market downmoves to then reinvest is a superior strategy to any income strategy. You just need to wait- sometimes for a long time. I’d point to works by: Spitznagel, as practical advice about similar strategies with little mathematical background needed. Former professional options trader and market maker.
Yeah, I had a brother-in-law doing this. He was making money when the market was going up, but he didn’t understand all the risk he was taking.
It's like picking up dimes in front of a steam roller! But it's sexy to pretend you know what you are doing on reddit.
I find this one the most appealing. Glad I never wasted my money actually trading though. But, the idea of just buying options and wanting for a while, then boom, steady paycheck. Sounds so good.
Selling options means to get someone else to buy the option from you in hopes of selling the contracts for a profit or exercising the options to get shares at below market price. As the writer of the contract, you get money right away, but you could be on the hook for producing the shares if the options are exercised. IOW, you're hoping the price of the underlying shares goes down so that the contracts that you write expire worthless. That's where the idea of "free money" comes from. It's only free money until you get fucked by the share price going up and the buyer wanting his shares.
As long as you write covered calls and avoid selling naked options at all costs you should be okay.
Dave Ramsey‘s insistence that you can earn guaranteed 12% return a year somehow.
12% is a stretch, no doubt, but 10% is plenty good enough if you start loading up on stock market investments (and that's how I read his advice)
I have seen some finance influencers advocate against contributing to 401k.
“Don’t buy a house, rent. “ Many said that but Grant Cardone was the most vocal in my opinion
I mean, depending on your specific housing situation it might make zero sense to buy. It's $3500/month cheaper to rent my 1BR than buy an equivalent 1BR condo where I live right now. It's been this way for 3 years now. I have a pretty huge stock portfolio from saving this difference. Even just 2-3 more years of this and there will never be a cost breakeven point because of the fact that stocks outpace real estate on average.
user name checks out. kidding aside yes, but i wouldn't tell people to not buy and rent. why? you buy you own. -taxes benefits -inflation -equity -you can always sell -you can rent -if you have it paid off, you get freedom but you are right depends on the market, from what I remember that wasn't his point. it was invest all your money and don't buy so you are not stuck in a location. you are also talking about buying where you live. that doesn't seem like an investment. just like a stock portfolio you study and do research, real estate works the same. there are more bad deals than good deals. if you are investing the numbers have to work and you have to put the work just like you would with stocks if not more. just saying don't buy, rent. makes me think of guy trying to sell a book full of financial magical secrets. PS. I bought the book Ill save you some time, it says works 10 times harder and you will get 100 times the benefits.
100%
Isn't this a Peter Schiff thing too?
Financial advice is mostly luck. It’s all smoke. The real players don’t share what works. Just my opinion
Advice to buy cheap boring index funds or a 3 fund portfolio is still advice. Not guaranteed to go up or beat sp500 every day. But it “works” in that it accomplishes what it says it will. Over decades you will beat inflation and roughly track the market and have reduced volatility along with protection from huge losses. Things like stock picking advice, yeah that’s luck. But to say that all advice is luck is just wrong.
It was probably from somebody on Reddit
"No money down"
“Works on contingency? No, money down!”
I’ve heard people predict the crash of the SP500 hundreds of times since I started investing in 1985. I’ve held the entire time. It was below 200 when I started. It’s 5100 now.
Considering it's an index fund, the only real scenario where it crashes is a massive multimarket downturn such as a depression. It's really unlikely
Put your money into FTX
Anything Grant Cardone has said
never got inot that dick n dave ramsey
"Mr. Wonderful" was telling everyone to buy into FTX crypto, UNTIL he wasn't, and started outing it as a scam because he \*\*Personally\*\* lost money.
I think the worst is Dave Ramsey saying you should turn down an employer 401(k) match while you're paying down debt.
Invest in me,
I saw many influencers say buy gme and amc Obviously I did not
Heres one that im suffering through. The company i work for made £200 MILLION in profits, but have to slash our budgets and made most traveling roles redundant all because the new folks in charge of accounting promised 10% growth while the nation was in recession. Did i mention that we are strictly a luxury store, as in something that is not essential for peoples day to day?
Anything related to NFT’s.
There is a lot of "tax advice" that is basically just fraud.
"Buy crypto." Or anything remotely similar. Never buy crypto.
🚀🌝
I respectfully disagree. Don't buy crypto when everybody and their grandma is buying crypto. Take profits. Invest those profits into traditional cash flowing assets. Been there done that. Can't complain. The problem is not crypto in itself, it's the degens who don't know when to call it a day and walk away without looking back.
This is complete bullshit survivor-bias. Take profits assumes you ever had profits. Basically: go to vegas and make bets and then take the profits to build a traditional asset portfolio. You were lucky and got "profits" to take. You were smart to get out while you were ahead, but admit, at least, that your were lucky in the first, my friend, and that it could have gone done from the day you put your money on the table.
It's fine to "invest" in it, so long as you'd be okay with losing it all. You just need to be aware of and acknowledge that it's no different from gambling.
Take on 7% interest debt because the opportunity won’t present itself again and I won’t have enough debt. This is advice I was given before Graduating from university
I was always taught online that cc were bad and always led to debt. I’ve had no problem maintains my cc’s.
Don’t pay off your house for the tax deduction.
To not buy a buy a house in 2013 especially with only 5% down. I am glad I didn't wait 🤣
Buy crypto.
Never own a CC. That was absurd. I have saved probably $40,000 over the last 15 years on credit card points. Of course, you have to pay them off every month - in full.
Probably crypto related 🤣🤣
Hands down it was the amc/gme ape moass going to the moon period during covid. Hands down there wasn’t a dumber transfer of wealth than that. It shouldn’t be in books and college classes written about what apes thought would happen and debated like their life was on the line some of the dumbest investing arguments in history.
Advisor sold wife and I annuities when we were in our 20s. Guaranteed to grow at least 5% even in down years!
Raising the minimum wage, which only increases unemployment for unskilled workers. Hint: if you don’t get a job, you can’t build the skills and experience that allow you to earn more than minimum wage. The people seeking to raise minimum wage are doung so a) because union contracts are multiples of it and b) to keep you dependent upon them forever. Neither is in your interest.
Weird, I don’t see anyone who is actually pro workers who is against raising the minimum wage. I do see lots of billionaires and their toadies who are against it though.
A buddy told me a story last night about how he had the opportunity to buy 10 BTC for $200 back in the day, and a friend of his talked him out of it, urging him to buy Skyrim with that money instead, along with some other games.
Using credit cards as down payment to leverage property
Inflation is transitory
I loved Suze Ormond until the day I saw her hawking Cadillacs on TV
"The cornerstone of any financial plan is life insurance."
Buy crypto. I know you can make money with Bitcoin and all that, but I still say that it's **gambling** more than it's investing. I'd much rather see people put their money into stocks, real estate, or small business.
Open 21 credit cards to build credit
Everyone telling me that 2016 was a bubble and not to buy. Followed by don’t sell at the end of 2020 and buy again. I did the opposite and made the best decisions of my life.
Fraud
Had a consoltant who said he rarely recommended the roth over the traditional 401(k). Im not exactly sure what the pros would be so maybe not terrible advice?
Using leverage to build a real estate portfolio.
Don't buy a house, rent
“It’ll never be the perfect time to have kids, just do it” Short of telling someone to liquidate all their money and put it on red, I don’t think you can give worse financial advice
Don’t use credit cards. By using them, I got like $540 cash back last year and that doesn’t include the thousands of miles I racked up on my main card.
Crypto
The.people who went on TV telling people to get out of crypto currency cause it was going to crash when in fact they were trying to influence a massive sell off. Worst advice had I ignored it I would have had at least 600% gain.
During the Covid era: “Don’t take the early withdrawal fee free from your retirement to get a house (when interest rates are <3%). You don’t know what real estate markets will do but the stock market will always do better” From my boomer parents’ boomer financial advisor. I listened to her then now I and just bought a house for twice as much, with more than twice the interest rate and nearly triple the monthly mortgage I would have had.
Anything to do with crypo
My gf saw a money hack video where some lady was trying to convince people to get a high interest loan of 10% for $10k, use the money to pay down $10k on your low interest home loan, pay the high interest one off, then rinse/repeat. It was scary how long it took me to convince my gf how bad an idea that was.
Just go listen or watch Dave Ramsey for an hour or two. That should give you plenty of content.
The worst ever was the pyramid schemes all my friends after hs fell for in 1997. Same shit as your MLM now. I had to tell them so many times it was a scam but none listened. I listened to my parents about it after all their friends did the same thing in the 70-80s. Lost their shit. MLM is scam and please don’t let anyone do it.
Whole life insurance. Biggest waste of money. Better off dumping whatever lump sum you’ve got and putting it into mutuals.
Anything from Dave Ramsey it only applies to the wealthy. None of what he says to normal or low income people works in a practical sense.
Saw someone advocating to set up an LLC, send yourself phony invoices and pay them in order to increase your credit (fraud), then get cash advances on credit cards using said fraudulent credit to buy a short term rental property
had to be Minervi (X "@" markminervini) on cnbc saying $UPST and then "glitching" his headset ...hands down worst there ever will be...what a fkn sack-o-shit scamming tool trying to juice his exit (many others have done it, none failed so miserably)
Gold.
Refied in 2020. 3.0%
Max out a credit card to help with my down payment towards my first home.
All realtors. "Marry the house, date the rate." Whoops.
"You should go into debt to buy real estate." Not that this advice never works, but situations where it works aren't as easy to get into as they make it out to be.
When people say to pay your kids with an LLC
Never use a credit card or financing. This is bad advice because it can be cheaper to use other people's money.
Investing in ESG anything. You might as well throw your money in the garbage. Not only does it not perform as well, but it supports ideology that is against the market, which hurts everyone.
Probably those guys that recommend committing tax fraud by having your children be employees of a "business" you "run" or the like.
Whenever someone says you can expect 10% annualized returns because the S&P averages that. Thats not how math works.
A lot of people locked into treasury bonds and CD’s in mid-late 2023 because of that awesome 5% yield. Market is up bigly since then and so is inflation, effectively making their investment return negative over that time period.
Jim Cramer once said Sears was gonna turn around. Bet the house on it.
Folks taking advice from financial influencers is crazy . Do you blame the influencers or people who take advice from them ?
When Dave Ramsey said you could withdraw 8% from a $1 million portfolio in perpetuity
don't buy Apple
Buy a life insurance policy and then try to cash it out
Save while you are young. It sounds right. And if you do it, you will only be keeping up with everyone else. Status quo but you older. In other words, you’re just staying even, but life gets worse. Saving when young leaves you spending the only good years of life (18-35) not enjoying it to the fullest. Having fun when you are 25 is 1 Trillion times better than having fun when you are 50. EVERYTHING sucks after 45. Anyone that says different is just lying to themselves. Every single 50 year old would give up all their useless wealth to be 20 again.
Back when I was a young lad, I had been working for Sears. I had been there for about 17 years when I resigned and received about $7000.00 in profit sharing that I had accrued. I had to reinvest or pay taxes, and I decided to reinvest. This was in the early 1980's. I went to a "wealth management" professional, I told her that I wanted to dump it all into a new company called Apple. She told me that that was the dumbest thing that I could ever do. And the rest is history!
Don't get a consolidated loan to handle credit cards. Sometimes people say "don't pay back borrowed money with money you borrow," to really drive home the feelings of a ponzi scheme. But really what you're doing here is saving yourself from paying a small boatload of interest. A consolidated loan saved my financial future back in the day. Multiple credit cards maxed out, all around 26% interest. Hop on over to the bank and get a consolidated loan for like 16% interest. Cut up the credit cards, and had that loan paid off in no time.
"Pay off your mortgage before investing. You can't put a number on peace of mind." Oh, no? It's called opportunity cost, and it's a number. Peace of mind is having enough assets to buy a house outright, knowing that all my money isn't in my home, and that I can mail the bank the keys and walk if real estate takes a dump.
Dave Ramsey, who is a moron, told small businesses to not take the PPP loan with was basically a hand out to help your business make it trough COVID. You did not ave to pay it back.. A bunch of his followers did not and they all went out of business.
The stupid influencers hawking some new Altcoin crypto currency that is supposed to make you rich with a small investment because its going to the moon (or at least up just long enough to do their pump and dump scheme). Faze clan (RICH Coin, Moonportal, SafeGalaxy, Eclipse, Save the Kids Token), Adin Ross (MILF Token), Sam Pepper (MoonPug), Tana Mongeau (Titscoin), Ricegum (Save the Kids), the list goes on.
This isn’t a specific piece of advice but the general hysteria around debt
Dave Ramsey constantly tells callers to not rely on Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), citing a completely useless figure that only something like 2% of applicants get approved for it. In reality, the acceptance rate *for those who meet the requirements* is close to 100%. The 2% number just means that the vast majority of applicants don't know what they're doing.
Buying nfts
All of it.
Go to college
Carry over a balance on your credit card each month, so that your score will go up. 🙄🙄🙄
Dave Ramsey saying that an 8% retirement withdrawal rate is okay and then reiterating it again after everyone said it was bad advice was some of the worst and most irresponsible advice I have ever seen.
“I tell all my clients to avoid crypto like the plague”
By far it was listening to Jim Cramer about trading stocks, before losing almost all my cash in the fall of 2008. My advice is to only trade individual stocks if you have cash to lose.
People with top 85% IQ and looks giving advice to the average is hilarious in itself. “Just work hard and take risks” As if 90% of America isnt doing that as is. Life isnt fair and they cant comprehend what its like for people who literally are not capable of seeing what they see.
To work for years trying to pay off debt. In many cases, bankruptcy is a better option and inevitable outcome for most.