Useless Conversation

[calapine]

You should tell someone your Steam password. Just in case...

[Cyrrex]

Far Side is amazing.  Didn’t he stop making them ages ago?  A crime.

Seriously hoping things are good for Poly.  Scary shit.  I got a serious concussion way back when I was 16....lost 4 hours of time or so, but recovered quickly after that.

[Polysorbate80]

You’d be vastly disappointed in my Steam library.  I actually have very few games on there.  My ancient ass likes owning an install disc when possible 

[Rasix]

Heh. I didn't even bother putting a DVD drive in my recent build. I really can't remember the last physical copy of a PC game I've bought. I'm done with physical media for the most part.

[Sky]

I was bummed my Spider-man PS4 came with a physical Spidey disc for the game. Gah.

I was cleaning my closet because goddamned moths and found a stack of old game discs. I'm almost tempted to see if some of them will load up on windows 10!

Just kidding, I threw them all out lol

[Polysorbate80]

Official word: scan shows no time bombs lurking in the skull   

Just have to keep things slow until it clears up. Still feel like my head is half-filled with cotton, and more than a little exertion gives me vertigo, but it’s improving slowly.  I expect a couple weeks like as not.

Thank you all!

[Sky]

Glad to hear it!

[Chimpy]

Good to hear.

[Cyrrex]

No serious damage and a few weeks' excuse to do fuckall?  That's a better result than what it could have been.

[Soln]

Good. Glad you’re not a mental potato. Drink sparkling water. Feel superior. Be smug.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, I had Sky first in the deadpool. If you died before him, it would screw up my whole matrix.

--Dave

[Morat20]

Official word: scan shows no time bombs lurking in the skull   

Just have to keep things slow until it clears up. Still feel like my head is half-filled with cotton, and more than a little exertion gives me vertigo, but it’s improving slowly.  I expect a couple weeks like as not.

Thank you all!

Good to hear! (the lack of time bombs, not the lingering aftereffects of a concussion).

[Sky]

Yeah, I had Sky first in the deadpool. If you died before him, it would screw up my whole matrix.

--Dave

Ironically, I've lost most of my friends from my youth already and I'm well on my way to last man standing. Out of my 4 best friends, 3 are gone (1 just succumb to cancer this past weekend) and my deadlist is just about ten times longer than my fiancee's (she's in her mid-fifties). The memorial table at our reunion was packed full.

I'm kind of used to it, but having a really close friend go brought it all back again. Statistically improbable.

If I hadn't mended my wild ways, I'd definitely have been gone 20 years by now.

[Morat20]

I hate getting credit cards. I finally bit the bullet and got a rewards card (the Chase Sapphire Preferred one everyone recommends) to cycle my monthly bills through (you know, the ones I pay off in full the 15th of every month). I still hate having it. As soon as it comes through I plan to cancel the old 'emergency' card that pays for vacations (which I either pay off over three months or the day I get back, depending on how expensive it is), and even lower the ridiculous limit they gave me (twice as much as I'm comfortable with), and I'll still have twice as much damn credit room open. I hate the damn expensive rate (it is a rewards card, the money has to come from some idiot). I hate the yearly fee.

That makes me nervous. I've got great credit. I pay off my bills on time. The yawning chasm of how much trouble I could get in makes me...uncomfortable.

Intellectually, I know it's a good move. Deep down I'm still 22 year old me, who did some stupid shit with credit cards and luckily got bailed out.

Day it arrives and I activate it, I plan to cut the limit they gave me in half, cancel my existing "oh shit" card, and I'll still have double the room. And I don't even hit 5% utilization as it is. Hell, it'll even simplify my bill paying.

I just obsess over how stupid I could be, you know? I'm in my 40s and I still worry I'm a dumbass kid.

[Abagadro]

I ran up a bunch of cc when I was young.  I now have 5 amex and 3 Chase cards and don't pay a dime of interest. Just takes a different mindset. If you get hooked on points it helps because that game is all about maximization and if you are paying interest at all it completely destroys the value proposition of it.

[Trippy]

Day it arrives and I activate it, I plan to cut the limit they gave me in half, cancel my existing "oh shit" card, and I'll still have double the room. And I don't even hit 5% utilization as it is. Hell, it'll even simplify my bill paying.

FYI: lowering your total amount of available credit may actually may hurt your credit score.

[schild]

Day it arrives and I activate it, I plan to cut the limit they gave me in half, cancel my existing "oh shit" card, and I'll still have double the room. And I don't even hit 5% utilization as it is. Hell, it'll even simplify my bill paying.

FYI: lowering your total amount of available credit may actually may hurt your credit score.

i really thought we'd all be really nice and let him discover that on his own

[Samwise]

I used to hate credit cards, but going through the hassle of getting approved for a mortgage without any prior credit history got me to grudgingly accept that it's useful to have a credit score that isn't "N/A".  Once I got my first credit card I discovered the points game, so the credit cards and I have a truce now.  I set them up to autopay in full every month so that I can mostly just pretend that they're debit cards, and they give me points that I can turn into cash.

The thing that freaks me out a lot more than whatever I could run up on a credit card is the fact that I can could, as far as I can tell, completely cash out my retirement savings with a few taps on my fucking phone, and nobody would try to stop me, any more than they would stop me putting a new car on my credit card.  But, y'know, all I have to do is Not Do That.

[schild]

they will actually stop you from putting your car on a credit card

most places won't let you put more than $5k on it

source: tried, three times, two different states and called my bank and asked

[Abagadro]

Amex Plat has a program where you can buy the whole thing on your card but you have to use their system where they basically set the price that is supposedly a "guaranteed savings" but who knows.

[Mandella]

I've actually gotten big purchases put on a card by talking the seller into breaking up the total into pieces small enough to run and then doing a separate transaction each day until done. Nobody has tried to act like they were payments and charge me interest or even a service fee.

I should also say that I have gotten into the whole "credit card points as a game" mentality myself, and everything is paid off monthly.

I have heard from acquaintances that work within the credit business that people like us are known as "deadbeats."

 

[Yegolev]

Interestingly even if you pay your balance every month, if you have a high balance compared to your limit then it will also lower your score. I don't really care since I'm hovering around 800 and I pay for everything in cash, but we do have a card or two for points.

We pay for the Amex Platinum so we can use airport lounges. I'm going to try using the points on it to partially pay for airfare today.

Now, if you just want to make bill paying easier, I will recommend using Privacy.com for this. Someone finally commercialized virtual debit numbers and provided a simple but effective way to manage payments. It already helped me where I set a limit on the one I use for PeachPass (Georgia govt toll pass) and I somehow managed to have it try to charge me 3 times, but due to the limit it only charged once. We also use it to buy things from Alibaba and Alibaba Express. Note that it is a debit card and you'll have to back it with a bank account.

[01101010]

On the topic of credit cards... I got way under water in the few years after college. So much so that I ended up at a credit agency and did a consolidation and spent the next 2 years paying that off... that was back in 2008. Defaulted on a student loan that I forgot about and my credit score was in the toilet hovering right in the 400s.

After coming to the realization that I am now considered an adult, I started taking my credit stuff pretty seriously and also shifted to being way more attentive to my finances. Since then, I have consolidated my student loans into a single loan payment under a payment plan, I keep 1 credit card and 1 bank card. The credit card I pay off within 2 months and is generally used only to cover work trips while I wait on reimbursements. I have kept my nose clean for the last 10 years and when I check my score last year I was around 800. Of course now, I am basically a miser and only splurge on games and occasional weekend get-aways with the wife. But it did take the scare of a credit score at basically the bottom of the barrel to shake me into being more cognizant of my money situation.

[Chimpy]

If you don’t want a card anymore, just don’t use it (usually for a year) and the bank will close it for inactivity. You calling and closing an account actually is a negative on your rating while the bank closing it has no impact outside of what your total limit to balance ratio is.

[Morat20]

I ran up a bunch of cc when I was young.  I now have 5 amex and 3 Chase cards and don't pay a dime of interest. Just takes a different mindset. If you get hooked on points it helps because that game is all about maximization and if you are paying interest at all it completely destroys the value proposition of it.

Well, I've spent years cultivating the right mindset (as my empty card can attest). Avoiding interest charges isn't too hard, even if I'm doing something like paying for a big vacation up front and don't feel like drawing my savings down that far. It's not like i haven't had an open credit line with my CU for years, with a much more reasonable rate. I don't anticipate ever paying a freaking penny in interest rates.

It's just my nature to worry about it.

And yes, I know closing cards and adjusting limits down impacts your credit. However as long as it doesn't bump your utilization rate above 10%, it's a temporary ding and my credit can absolutely take it. I might adjust the limit and just leave the other card alone (as Chimpy suggested) until the bank closes it. Of course it's a credit union and they don't seem to care as long as you pay on time. Empty, not empty, it's no skin off their nose.

[HaemishM]

I have heard from acquaintances that work within the credit business that people like us are known as "deadbeats."

The credit system does not make a profit off people who pay off their debts every month. You are just the revenue that keeps the lights on. The real money is in the vast amounts of people who are fucking terrible with money, or who have to use their credit cards to keep from going under and then end up paying interest they can never pay down as well as late fees.

[Sky]

Undisciplined people allow me to get almost a grand a year in Amazon credit, so I dig it. However, I'd be a lot happier if the Fed would jack rates so I can earn by saving, instead.

I keep a couple cards, my Amazon rewards card being my 'push all money through that' card, because art books ain't cheap. Then a card from my bank as a backup. A third card that's all about zero interest balance transfers, from when I was recovering from buying my house and truck and didn't feel like living like a pauper for 5 years. Dodged interest almost completely and then paid it down quickly when I paid off the truck (and then I paid down the house completely, as well).

Now I'm debt-free. Fuck debt, it's a means to an end, not a state of existence. Not addressing financial hardship debt, that's a stickier wicket. And even then you'd better have an exit strategy before setting course.

Low interest credit is a blight on society.

[Samwise]

Interestingly even if you pay your balance every month, if you have a high balance compared to your limit then it will also lower your score.

I can't even imagine having a monthly balance that high, as my limit is roughly what I spend in a year.

 

[schild]

my limits combined are

uh

high

I'd have to be buying fucking giant diamonds and shit on the reg

[Yegolev]

The AmEx doesn't have a actual limit, so I don't know how that is calculated. We plan for it as if we were paying in cash, but we charge it so we can get the points.

Turns out going to Europe 3 times is kinda expensive. Also a couple other places. Today I just bought plane tickets to Cancun, but that's on a different billing cycle.

[Abagadro]

Heh, I could pay off my mortgage with the cumulative available credit on my cards.  The low utilization rate is what is keeping my credit score high balanced against me churning through cards to get sign up bonuses.

[Morat20]

I have heard from acquaintances that work within the credit business that people like us are known as "deadbeats."

The credit system does not make a profit off people who pay off their debts every month. You are just the revenue that keeps the lights on. The real money is in the vast amounts of people who are fucking terrible with money, or who have to use their credit cards to keep from going under and then end up paying interest they can never pay down as well as late fees.

They might -- I suspect the fees they charge merchants are much higher than are needed to maintain their network. They don't make crazy money off people who pay their bills on time, of course. The crazy money is off the crazy people, who are often young 20-somethings.

Who, you know, are neurologically disposed to discounting long-term risks in favor of short-term gains, and have virtually no experience in managing money.

[Sky]

I had a crappy math teacher in 7th grade honors math, bombed out of the class. When I was signing up for 8th grade, there were two 'lesser' math options, regents and business. I took the business class and was all the wiser for it. Ever since I've felt there should be business math fairly early on for kids.

[Paelos]

they will actually stop you from putting your car on a credit card

most places won't let you put more than $5k on it

source: tried, three times, two different states and called my bank and asked

This is true, I tried to run my back porch construction project through the card and no matter what I did no payment processor would run it.

[Sky]

That's why you get a corporate card for big purchases.