Paying For College

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

thats still pretty low, a mortgage is $550 per 100K, need 5% or more down in cash.

I am seriously thinking retirement in another country is wise!

A country where you can live like a king for $500/month!!!!!!!!!

You can do that in Canada, if you chose certain rural areas. You'd lose out on most of the creature comforts of larger cities, but there are lots of places with very low cost of living.

 

The biggest reason why not everyone lives in these places is lack of jobs - the local economies can only support so many people. But if you're retired, that's not really a thing you need to worry about.

[WhatTheHell]

25 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

My bank actually doesn't supply much more than transaction history

Ouch.

[Canada EH]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You can do that in Canada, if you chose certain rural areas. You'd lose out on most of the creature comforts of larger cities, but there are lots of places with very low cost of living.

Yup no name towns with nothing to do, cheap cheap cheap home prices, and cold!

Think acre of farmland for $10K and a mobile home and the cold!

 

I like the looks of

Calitri, Italy

Koh Samui, Thailand

San José, Costa Rica

Coronado, Panama

but in order to retire, I'd say pay off that student loan as fast as possible.

Then save another $250K and invest wisely, trying to garner 3-5% a year every year. Thats $10K/yr.

[AshleyAshes]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You can do that in Canada, if you chose certain rural areas. You'd lose out on most of the creature comforts of larger cities, but there are lots of places with very low cost of living.

Also, for a lot of Canadians, their jobs wouldn't exist outside of certain regions.

 

Myself as an example, as a visual effects artist, outside of Greater Vancouver, The Greater Toronto Area and Montreal my job doesn't exist in the country. 

[dizmo]

6 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

thats still pretty low, a mortgage is $550 per 100K, need 5% or more down in cash.

I am seriously thinking retirement in another country is wise!

A country where you can live like a king for $500/month!!!!!!!!! which is $6K/yr with a gic rate of 3.5% thats only 200K to save!

 

https://blog.mint.com/goals/9-places-where-you-can-retire-and-live-like-a-king/

Entirely depends on where you live. You can easily buy a place with an income like that in Edmonton, for example.

Haha yeah, that's a great idea. I wonder how affordable it'll continue to be by the time I retire though Plus, the healthcare etc in places like that is usually not on the same level as you'd find in Canada. I also wouldn't want to rent, I'd rather own if I was moving to a place like that.

 

...apparently you can buy a small apartment in Italy for $30k. I know where I'm moving.

[WhatTheHell]

I think we're going to see a change in what people will be buying Europe side,

 

I live in a small 3 bed house in England which sits at around £320,000 (nothing special, tiny garden) near the south coast, but I think a new age of living style designs will change the way we operate because fewer people here desire actually spending so much, I'd take a 3d printed house made of recycled materials at a fraction of the cost built on a stack like flat system if I could.

 

That and we have no land.

[Egg-Roll]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Ahhh gotcha. You'd need around $20/hr to get a decent mortgage acceptance though.

Haha, I wouldn't want to go back and forth across the border every day. Plus you have to declare foreign property on your tax return You also have to put way more down, and it's harder to get a mortgage.

For the 50,000 save $30,000 take out a $20,000 from non bank entities for a year, transfer it to a bank the following year to save on interest

 

For canadian side it depends, one could get a mortgage if your monthly payments are 1/3 or less of said persons income, it's what many define as a stable cost of living. So grabbing a low fee condo which costs 150 (hahaha good luck at finding one in Ontario, near T.O), with 45k down a person making Min wage might just squeeze by with a mortgage payment of about $740/m + condo fees + utilities ++.

 

Just now, Canada EH said:

thats still pretty low, a mortgage is $550 per 100K, need 5% or more down in cash,

Really? We need 30% here...

 

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

Yup no name towns with nothing to do, cheap cheap cheap home prices, and cold!

Oshawa is fairly cheap, so is many town near the US border.

 

5 minutes ago, WhatTheHell said:

Ouch.

No complaints, the tellers are nice the machines are fairly new with envelopeless machines Those transactions usually give as much detail as possible (name location number). For me it's a minor inconvenience of inputting it into a form, but not having to use envelopes at ATMs, priceless...

Just now, AshleyAshes said:

Also, for a lot of Canadians, their jobs wouldn't exist outside of certain regions.

 

Myself as an example, as a visual effects artist, outside of Greater Vancouver, The Greater Toronto Area and Montreal my job doesn't exist in the country. 

Couldn't you work from home? But yea lot's of jobs only exist in G_A/_A (_ insert City)

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

Also, for a lot of Canadians, their jobs wouldn't exist outside of certain regions.

 

Myself as an example, as a visual effects artist, outside of Greater Vancouver, The Greater Toronto Area and Montreal my job doesn't exist in the country. 

Fortunately my job is a lot more common (IT in general, but I specialize in Library Systems) - though job openings are actually quite rare, because people in my specialty are still often "lifers". No job opening until Bob in IT dies or retires lol.

 

I got lucky (no one died... but someone did get fired).

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, Egg-Roll said:

Couldn't you work from home? But yea lot's of jobs only exist in G_A/_A (_ insert City)

This would depend on the scope of the work.  Visual Effects can involve some pretty sensitive material that clients want carefully secured.  There's generally a tier scale used in the film industry with 'Tier 0' being the highest level of security, typical measures are electronic doors with ID cards, workstations without internet, all cellphones secured in lockers when employees enter the building, stuff like that.

 

Or to put it more simply: Do you think that Disney would let someone just VPN to work from home, on their personal computer, and access footage of Star Wars months and months before it's release date?

 

Working from home can certainly be an option, even for freelancing, but it can limit what projects you can potentially work on.

[Egg-Roll]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

This would depend on the scope of the work.  Visual Effects can involve some pretty sensitive material that clients want carefully secured.  There's generally a tier scale used in the film industry with 'Tier 0' being the highest level of security, typical measures are electronic doors with ID cards, workstations without internet, all cellphones secured in lockers when employees enter the building, stuff like that.

 

Or to put it more simply: Do you think that Disney would let someone just VPN to work from home, on their personal computer, and access footage of Star Wars months and months before it's release date?

 

Working from home can certainly be an option, even for freelancing, but it can limit what projects you can potentially work on.

Very true, but if you're working in such places the pay has to be good, else no one would ever stay  Unless the benefits package is second to none...

 

In one sense I hope Amazon gets to come to Toronto (for possible things like AGo) and equally I want them to stay away from Toronto

[AshleyAshes]

7 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

Very true, but if you're working in such places the pay has to be good, else no one would ever stay  Unless the benefits package is second to none...

There's a lot of VFX studios here so there's steady work.  Not to mention how much is being filmed here.  Good transit system.  Not to mention just about anything you could want is here in this city.

[Techicolors]

going to community college is a start, but make sure credits transfer. 

 

but since you're doing computer science, consider a coding bootcamp if you've heard of those. just beware of scams. a lot of them are popping up the past few years. bootcamps all lack theoretical, it'll be harder (and necessary) to learn those 

[ShredBird]

I lucked out.  My undergrad education was about $32k, I had scholarships that helped pay most of it and I had a paid research as a grad so I got out with a master's debt free.  I am debt free and I will be able to save for retirement, it saddens me to think that for majority of people this will never be a reality for them.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Egg-Roll said:

For the 50,000 save $30,000 take out a $20,000 from non bank entities for a year, transfer it to a bank the following year to save on interest

 

For canadian side it depends, one could get a mortgage if your monthly payments are 1/3 or less of said persons income, it's what many define as a stable cost of living. So grabbing a low fee condo which costs 150 (hahaha good luck at finding one in Ontario, near T.O), with 45k down a person making Min wage might just squeeze by with a mortgage payment of about $740/m + condo fees + utilities ++.

They factor condo fees into your affordability index. Condo fees that are too low aren't good for the building. $45k isn't that easy to save, a person making minimum wage wouldn't really be able to do that unless they lived at home and never went out.

[Mr.Meerkat]

7 hours ago, dizmo said:

Haha, yeah but you guys pay a lot more in taxes

Nah, people living on Scotland pay about as much as people in England (higher income tax but lower council tax and what not so it roughly levels out). We get free tuition on our first degree (if we go to a Scottish Uni) however English students have to pay £9250/year. Their interest rates are also higher at 6% (versus our 1.5%).

[wasab]

On 2/11/2018 at 10:41 PM, BuckGup said:

I was just doing some calculations for college and life stuff and how do people do this. If I went to school I would pay $60,000 and say I start at $55,000/year it would take 13 years to pay it off at $400. Then add in rent, food, gas, taxes, other expenses you are only making $18,000 a year. Put half in retirement and some in for investments how do people live? I mean I take buying a $500 for granted now. If you need 1mil to retire it would take 55.5 years saving all $18,000. This is all assuming you don't get a pay raise and $55,000 is a little low for a computer science degree with specialization in cyber security and AI but it was just the low end to see. How do people manage stuff like accidents or buying exspensive cars and PCs?

i went to a community school and transfer to a 4 year public institution. Saved so much money that way. taking countless free AP classes and college now courses in high school also helped. Knowing straight what major you want and research what you classes you need for those major also cut down on costs and time. Remember, every semester after 4 year of not graduating vastly increase your financial burden so dont be one of those i will take random classes to discover myself first before committing to anything type of student, unless you are filthy wealthy of course which you obviously arent. Take maximum credits allow by your school if you are a full time student. these extra credits are usually free of charge as long as you are full time. if you arent a full time student, well, you will take longer to get a degree but more time to advance in your career so you may be able to improve your financial situation a few years down the line.  

 

Dont bother applying for the most prestige universities with tuition of 60k or more each year if financial aid package is not sufficient. state institution offers in state tuition in most US states which subsidizes the tuition by as much as 50% and as long as you are committed, studied well, and make an effort to search out any and all opportunities, chances are you will end up working in the same field and position as those from more prestigious universities anyway. 

 

dont take out any loans, even the federal if you can avoid it. i borrow everything from my parents which are far more flexible in repayment plans, the penalty of non payment, and interest than ALL loaners out there

Of course, if it adds great financial difficulty to your family, then please just take out loans from the feds or other sources and shoulder the burden yourself.

 

dont buy expensive gaming pc. you dont need it. dont buy expensive this or that which you dont really need. honestly, you can get though college using all the resources on campus, the library, the computers there, the printers, the ect which you have already paid for in your tuition and fees. why would you pay more to buy these things? instead of purchasing a textbook, just ask to borrow it for a few minutes from a friend and take photo graphs or just photo copy. reckless consumerism can come later after you graduated and working in the field making those 6 figures. The kids in college with those things? well, they usually have their most expensive shit like tuition and rent all paid for by someone else, usually their parents so that how they were able to afford these things. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TopDollar]

On 2/11/2018 at 10:41 PM, BuckGup said:

I was just doing some calculations for college and life stuff and how do people do this. If I went to school I would pay $60,000 and say I start at $55,000/year it would take 13 years to pay it off at $400. Then add in rent, food, gas, taxes, other expenses you are only making $18,000 a year. Put half in retirement and some in for investments how do people live? I mean I take buying a $500 for granted now. If you need 1mil to retire it would take 55.5 years saving all $18,000. This is all assuming you don't get a pay raise and $55,000 is a little low for a computer science degree with specialization in cyber security and AI but it was just the low end to see. How do people manage stuff like accidents or buying exspensive cars and PCs?

After I graduated, my situation was actually fairly close to your numbers. Took a couple years to get some momentum, but I'm no longer living paycheck to paycheck. What I did more or less was just make a loose budget, started tracking my expenses, and developed some longer term goals. You've got some pretty reasonable numbers and this is a fun thought experiment, so lets expand on it a bit.

 

Job: $55,000/year gross. Lets assume you get paid bi-weekly for 26 pay periods and have some basic benefits. To estimate taxable income:

Pre-tax health insurances: $100/pay period = $2,600/yr

5% Into pre-tax traditional 401k: $2,750/yr

Taxable income = $55,000 - ($2,600 + $2,750) = $49,650

 

Student Loans: Lets go off your $400/month. Assume a 5% interest rate and a simple 10 year interest loan. Principal is about $37,750 in this case. Assuming you get financial aid, scholarships, or pay some out of pocket, this is probably a decent estimate if total cost of school was $60,000. Interest paid per year in this case will be about $1,030.

 

Taxes: I'm going to use 2017 tax rules here. Assuming single filing and no itemized deductions. Also leaving out State taxes since those are variable depending on where you live.

Taxable income: $49,650

Standard deduction: $6,350

Personal Exemption: $4,050

Student Loan Interest: $1,030

Therefore your Adjusted Gross Income (amount you owe taxes on): $49,650 - ($6,350 + $4,050 + $1,030) = $38,220

 

Federal income tax: $5,226.25 + 0.25 * ($38,220 - $37,950) = $5,294

FICA (social security/medicare estimated at 7.65% gross income): $55,000 * 0.0765 = $4,208

Total tax: $9,502 (lets round that to $9,500 for simplicity sake).

 

Net Income: Net Income = Gross Income - (Taxes + Health Insurance + Retirement Contribution). This is what you take home and can make a budget off of.

$55,000 - ($9,500 + $2,600 + $2,750) = $40,150

 

Allowable Income Per Month: $40,150 / 12 = $3,345

 

Monthly Expenses:  

Rent + Utilities: $1,200

Groceries: $400

Student Loans: $400

Insurance: $100

Fuel: $150

Misc. Expenses (cell phone, car payment, entertainment, etc.):  $500

Total: $1,200 + $400 + $400 + $100 + $150 + $500 = $2,750/month

 

Savings: $3,345 - $2,750 = $595/month