I am an unmarried 25 year old guy in a well-paying and stable job. I currently have approximately $21,000 sitting in my ING Direct account and have no debt. I rent an apartment and save on average approximately $2,500/month.

You have mentioned the importance of getting started early – given my situation what would you do with the $21,000 and the $2,500/month of saving? Thanks.

Would visiting him be an irresponsible use of the money while I am financially struggling?

leslie @ 2:01 pm April 28th, 2008 (comment #39)
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Leslie, life is short. If you didn’t get to see your dad last year and won’t next year, I can’t think of a better way to spend the money. And you know that you’ll eventually be able to pay off your debt, but you don’t know if your dad will be alive when you can afford to go see him.

I wish I could spend my money to go see mine.
Sharon

Do you know why it takes so long for me to get your emails? I subscribe via email and I get your emails the next day – and in some cases, two days after you post them.

It’s 11:57 am, May 1st, in Chicago and I still haven’t recieved your April 30th entry. I did go to your site and read it.

All the best.

Do you have any advice on how to go about finding a good financial advisor? Sweetie is thinking about exchanging shares in the company he works for for cash, I’m suggesting that he get some professional advice before taking this step; That there may be some ways to do this gradually and convert the cash value into another asset to avoid some of the high capital gains taxes. I think he’s right that he’s too heavily invested in this area and needs to spred things out, I just don’t feel that he’s thought through the spredding things out.

Thanks in advance.

I am in a similar position having switched to a new job with a more business casual environment then my last job. Also compounded with me losing about 15 pounds, I need almost a completely new wardrobe.

Women’s fashion needs might be a little more diversified than men, but I saved a ton of money by going to discount stores like Nordstrom Rack, Ross, and TJ Maxx. I was able to buy a complete wardrobe of brand name, high quality clothes for up to 75% of retail. I had my slacks altered to fit me, though I could have saved some money and hemmed it myself.

Most important thing to look for when buying new business clothes is to make sure they FIT. Go to the discount stores and buy something high quality you like, then have it taken in so that it fits you. It will be considerably less expensive then having a custom made suit.

My current salary, combined with my wife’s is under the Roth IRA limit. However, I can expect that within 6-8 years, we will be over the Roth IRA salary limit. Should I go ahead and open a Roth IRA for this period, and then just leave it alone once I’ve reached the limit? Does that mean once I’m over the limit, I can only invest in a traditional IRA? What do you do with the Roth once you’ve reached the income limit?

Feel free to edit the question to make it read better.

I may be speaking out of emotion but, unless you are in real dire straits, I would suggest visiting your dad.

From your post it sounds like you have been unable to see him for 1 or possibly 2 years, and that if you miss this opportunity you will not see him for maybe another year. This is a long time away from the ones we love.

I was in a similar situation where I could only see my parents once a year and I sometimes did not see them for 2 years. Unfortunately, my dad passed away and I really regret the times I have been unable to see him.

The point of my post is not to guilt you into making the trip, but to mention that personal fincance is not just about money.
As many have mentioned before, personal finance is about being able to do the things that are important to us while limiting (ideally eliminating) unnecessary expenses. Visiting your father does not fall into the latter category.

Again, I do not know your financial situation and, if you are in such a bad situation where you cannot afford food, are approaching bankruptcy, or have any other extreme financial problem then you probably should not take the trip.

However, if you are not facing impending financial doom I would suggest making the trip and start planning on how to improve your finances.

There are many excellent articles on this site as well as on the net to help you. Perhaps you can start a “family” fund which you can dedicate to family trips for the following year. I hope I am not sounding condescending as it is not my intention. I just do not want you to have the same regrets as me.

Good luck.

Sal

Here’s a further consideration in favor of the counterargument: People often deceive themselves about what they are really like. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect for some examples.) So even if two partners have many frank discussions about finances, religious beliefs, priorities, etc., they’re probably not getting the whole story. Even if both are completely candid and forthcoming, they won’t necessarily have access to their true dispositions. The daily minutiae of living together is valuable because it overrides the influence of self-deception–each partner has the opportunity to see the other ‘as they really are’, so to speak.

That’s what I’m thinking right now, at least. But I’m not wedded (ha) to this if you can think of a good reply.

Couldn’t you use a credit card instead of an emergency fund, and stash the emergency cash(sorry for the rhyme) into a higher paying investment. Isn’t the point of an emergency fund to hold you over until you can liquidate some of your more valuable investments? So wouldn’t a credit card be the same, using the grace period? I wouldn’t think it takes more than 30 days(the grace period) to liquidate enough of your investments to live off of. And you could argue that you’re going into your investment which you shouldn’t do, but isn’t that what your doing when you set aside cash for an emergency fund?

Re; common law.
a couple may not be protected under “common law” in their state. every state is different.

http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/709FAEE4-ABEA-4E17-BA34836388313A3C/catID/3C3AF4CE-DB9E-48C4-8DFCFE2E47C91747/118/304/145/FAQ/

one last thing: the person you start a relationship with may not be the same person as time goes by. life has a way of bending us like pretzels. there are no guarantees living together before marrying or marrying or not.

What do you think about this argument against cohabitation? As I suggested earlier, you probably use less strict criteria picking someone to cohabitate with than picking someone to marry. Consider then the options for a cohabitating couple interested in finding a suitable marriage partner or permanent commitment (I won’t consider the case of people not interested in marriage, as I don’t believe the danger of losing a permanent commitment is a concern for them, hehe). They then have two options that I can see (let me know if you see a false dichotomy somewhere…), break up and leave the cohabitation or proceed into marriage. In this scenario the cost of proceeding to marriage is much lower than it would be if the couple was living separately, as much of the work of combining lives is already done. Furthermore, the cost of a breakup is much higher because all the work of combining lives must be undone. Therefore, when cohabitating as a trial run for marriage, there are stronger incentives to get married to someone who was selected with less rigorous criteria than may have been used if a couple was not cohabitating, which could lead to shakier marriages. It should be noted that this in no way implies that all couples that cohabitated before engagement are worse couples than those that did not, merely that prior cohabitation results in a wider array of married couples from the good to the bad.

One counterargument that someone may make, is that you can’t learn enough about someone without living with them to apply the more strict criteria to decide if you want to marry them or not. However, in my opinion, when considering marriage it’s important to have many in depth discussions regarding values, beliefs, goals etc. before making the commitment. I think it’s realistic that you could learn much about those issues, which I think are much more important than the minutiae of day to day living (as long as one of the values you both have is a willingness to compromise, haha).

But informed decisions are exactly what these correlative statistics won’t help with. What would help people make good decisions is to identify the causes of the problems correlated with cohabitation so that people can avoid or counteract them. And if these causes amount to nothing more than common sense that applies across different living arrangements–e.g., don’t be with a partner who’s abusive, ensure you both share the same level of commitment, etc.–then the statistics on cohabitation are just a red herring. Only if cohabitation introduces special causes will the statistics be of use.

“It is fitting that a woman of a well-ordered life should consider that her husband’s wishes are as laws appointed for her by divine will, along with the marriage state and the fortune she shares. If she endures them with patience and gentleness, she will rule her home with ease; otherwise, not so easily. Therefore not only when her husband is in prosperity and good report must she be in agreement with him, and to render him the service he wills, but also in times of adversity. If, through sickness or fault of judgement, his good fortune fails, then must she show her quality, encouraging him ever with words of cheer and yielding him obedience in all fitting ways—only let her do nothing base or unworthy. Let her refrain from all complaint, nor charge him with the wrong, but rather attribute everything of this kind to sickness or ignorance or accidental errors. Therefore, she will serve him more assiduously than if she had been a slave bought and taken home.”

Also, cohabitators are much more likely to be committing on different levels (see the Survey of Households again) so Andy does make a good point. Nobody is saying all cohabitation ends in every kind of disaster, just that it does more often than marriage.

My predisposition is to think that cohabitation isn’t wrong (financially or morally), but I’m open to persuasion by a rational argument. That said, there are lots of UNpersuasive non sequiturs being tossed around here. Here’s a sampling:

Andy (#62): “In other words, if your partner wants to cohabitate, it means he or she isn’t committed to you, and you would be wise to keep looking for a better partner before investing time and money in the relationship.”

This might follow IF the partner insists on staying at the level of mere cohabitation when you want to take it to the next level and get married. But this hardly means that all cohabitation implies a lack of commitment.

Michael (#68): “I had thought most people here had enlightened attitudes toward women, so I am surprised to find somebody saying that a living arrangement associated with more domestic violence is just as good as anything else.”

By this logic, it follows that because there is a strong correlation between marriage and divorce (namely, only married people can divorce) and because divorce is bad, people should prefer an alternative to marriage. As many have already said, correlation does not imply causation.