Why did you join SA forums and what have you learned since?

[Eagle]

Why did you join SA forums and what have you learned since?

Some people have been here a while. Others just recently joined. What have you learned? What changes have you made to your personal finance and/or lifestyle?

[Tabs]

Came here when I was having a complete meltdown in my personal life.

I owe this site everything actually. I knew next to nothing financial when I first started, so yeah, everything.

[creditcardfree]

I don't know how I found the site, but I know that blogging nearly everyday about our personal finances has help keep me accountable with our financial goals. I also like to help others who don't know where to start.

[feh]

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/general-discussion/73596-why-you-here.html

[frugalredhead]

I joined when I added up my credit card balances and found that I owed $75,000 on them. I started researching the best way to pay them off quickly, best ways to cut costs, etc. That was in January and I have paid off $8K in just 8 months. I find that posting and blogging here helps me stay motivated to keep going as I tackle this mountain of debt.

[Bob B.]

What brought me here four years ago is that my mom and dad were considering retirement. I was fairly clueless about personal finance, but I have a college degree, and am fairly handy with the internet. They have no college degrees, and are clueless about the internet, and I suppose that's why they asked for my input.

So I went looking for retirement advice forums, and other information on retirement planning, and found this site. I asked my very specific question for them, and it was answered, end of story, or so I thought.

A bit more than a month after that, I began taking a cold, hard look at my own personal finances. My wife and I had 24K in credit card debt, and we were a long-distance owners of a house that we were trying to sell, and we were upside down on the mortgage. My credit score was shot (about 580 if I remember correctly), and we had a pile of past-due bills.

I started asking questions, and seeking advice. At times I was offended by the brashness of the answers, but I knew that the advice was sound.

Now, four years later our CC mess is cleaned up, the extra house sold in April 2013 (short sale), my credit score is surprisingly in the 720+ range. For whatever reason, the short sale has not caught up with my credit score. I'm not sure that it ever will, but we'll see. We also are able to pay our bills on time. Oh, and my parents are retired.

What I think is the most important thing I learned here is that there is no secret formula or complicated strategy to paying off huge debts. Income must exceed expenses. Duh. Either increase income, cut expenses, or do a combination of both.

There is also no short cut to improving a credit score. Pay your bills on time, and don't carry balances on your credit cars, and your score will steadily improve over time.

A final important thing I learned here is that if a vehicle must be financed, it should be financed for no more than 36 months, and the combined payments of all vehicle loans should be no more than 10% of your monthly income.

At this point, we have one vehicle finance - my truck. DW's van is paid for. I am 19 months in to a 36 month loan, and the monthly payment is 5.9% of my monthly income.

[Permanent Temp]

I don't remember how I found SA but I do remember that time in my life. My last contract was going to end in a few months and I needed to figure out what to do to make it work until the next job.

I had credit card debt an upside down car loan, an EF that had been recently crippled by medical expenses and an underfunded Roth IRA. With the combination of the SA forums and a book that was written specifically for contract/temp employees like myself I was able to pay off both the car and the credit card while refunding my EF to 1K over pre-decimated levels, plus getting up to 5-6 months worth of expenses plus getting my Roth from under 1K to over 3K. And that was in 11 months or so as the contract employment kept going on and on and on.

Now I have a good business relationship with the company who will be calling me back the minute they can, a decent EF to help out should anything happen. And my part-time job and super part time temp work company to make it through.

Also my husband got a new job so no worries there any longer. I am currently enjoying having the break from my 60-80 hr work weeks to figure out other avenues of making money and getting to do things I love.

Blogging has been the most helpful here. Sometimes when I post about my situation the only advice I get is get a full-time job which is not helpful and makes me think twice about posting my situation in the forums. Although I do enjoying helping out others on the forums. I have made my situation work and now with this amazing relationship with this company that I will continue to foster I know that I will have gainful employment in the future. The focus now is to make income in the "off" times. Which I am currently working on.

[Eagle]

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/g...-you-here.html

Six years ago...was looking for advice on whether to take out a mortgage for a home purchase or to pay cash.

Nice. I'd like to have had the option to pay cash for a house.

[Eagle]

Why did you join SA forums and what have you learned since?

Some people have been here a while. Others just recently joined. What have you learned? What changes have you made to your personal finance and/or lifestyle?

I joined SA this year as other sites relating to PF still had articles but the discussions there seemed to be dying down.

Since joined early this year I started a blog, have continued to learn a lot about debt/investing/budgeting/etc. , transitioned my thinking about credit cards from a score centered view to a utility view, and found about the free PF course through the Uof. I love getting various perspectives from people from different walks of life and different parts of the world.

[tripods68]

Why did you join SA forums and what have you learned since?

Some people have been here a while. Others just recently joined. What have you learned? What changes have you made to your personal finance and/or lifestyle?

I use this site to learn and apply it to our daily lives. I don't blog as much or give advise but rather read carefully and see what others do. The most interesting about this site is how people are open about their finances and the truth-telling facts. There are no secret in paying down debt and saving for retirement as others have pointed. You simply just do it to buckle up--be united and committed to the goal. There are many routes to get to where you want to be, most takes longer than others. We try to apply the most sense to us. Retirements for us is a long ways so we treat as such step-by-step learning adventure.

[UDRogue]

I joined because I was at the end of my rope feeling out of control with credit card debt.

I have learned that I won't gain control until I become conscious and aware of the flow of money in and out - until I learn to use a budget.

What I have changed is that I've implemented a great tool (YNAB) that looks like it's going to help a lot. I am now learning to use it and entering information and learning how to track items, also starting to engage my husband in discussions about it. I have also signed up for the YNAB daily email lessons.

It's only been a couple of weeks so I have not made any progress in actually reducing debt, but I think this site has motivated me like nothing else ever has been able to, and I look forward to coming here and telling you how improved things are.