Housing is the worst.

by Ninja on January 18, 2012 · 71 comments

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I’ve only really had two financial goals since I graduated college. The first was to pay off my student loans. It took me four years to go in to debt and a little over two years to work my way out. As soon as my debts were paid, it was time to shift my focus towards goal two… Saving.

Over the last year and a half Girl Ninja and I have made great strides towards our goal of a $100,000 down payment. But today, really more like the last few months, as we inch closer and closer to achieving that goal I’m becoming less excited about it. Instead of being jazzed about buying a house, I’m starting to think it’s actually the worst thing in the world. Yes, the world!

How do I go from loving the idea of home ownership one minute, to completely despising it the next? No, I don’t have bipolar disorder (at least I don’t think I do). Instead, I’ve been thinking about how limiting housing really is – notice I said “housing” because let’s get real, renting has some serious downsides too.

Even though Girl Ninja and I have a six figure combined income, I can’t help but feel like we don’t make enough. Do you know how disturbing that is? I mean, I would NEVER complain that we don’t make enough money (because I know we make plenty), but somehow I convince myself that “if only we made a little more” life would somehow become increasingly easier. Yuck.

Girl Ninja is 24. I’m 26. We are in the “prime” of our life; still relatively new to marriage, young in our careers, no children (at least none that I know of), and we have over $60,000 in the bank. WHY AREN’T WE TRAVELING THE WORLD? Oh that’s right, we are saving for a 20% down payment. We’ve decided we’d rather bust our butts for two years saving as much as possible, so that one day we can give the majority of our savings to a complete stranger via a down payment. That depresses me.

If I wasn’t such a wimp, I’d have us both quit our jobs so we could spend the next six months of our lives, and probably $20,000 of our savings, traveling the world. CAN YOU IMAGINE?! I’d get to spend every moment of my day with my best friend. We’d learn a ton about ourselves and what the world has to offer. The American Dream says I should buy a house as soon as I’m financially able, after all “It’s the responsible thing to do.”

Meh, responsibility is overrated. I have the rest of my life to buy a house. I only get to be a twenty-something, kid free, newlywed for a few more years.

Your credit score doesn’t make you cool

by Ninja on January 17, 2012 · 42 comments

I want to both cringe and laugh uncontrollably when I hear someone tell me how “high” their credit score is. I put the word high in quotes because it is a completely subjective term. Most people start getting pretty proud around the 700 mark, and once they breach 800 it seems they want to shout their score from the roof tops. Sorry to burst your bubble peeps, but your credit score doesn’t make you cool.

If you don’t know how your credit score is calculated you can catch up by skimming this post I wrote about it.

I honestly have no idea what my credit score is. I’ve never checked it. I use to have student loans and a car payment, and I currently have recurring credit card accounts. I have a pretty good track record of making my payments on time so I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and assume I have a pretty okay score.

Do you know what the primary purpose is of your credit score? It tells lenders how likely you are to make your payments on time and pay back all that you borrowed. The higher your score, the better rates you get. Pretty straightforward stuff.

But what if you don’t like borrowing money? What if you are going to pay cash for your next car? What if you don’t care what the interest rate is on your Credit Card because you pay the bill in full each month? Hmmmm, suddenly your credit score becomes exponentially less important.

Instead of thinking you are super cool for having a high credit score, maybe you should be asking yourself why you even care? Are you really that excited about being deemed “qualified” to take on more debt?

Don’t get me wrong. I know the difference between a 6% interest rate and a 4% interest rate on a mortgage will save you tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. I’m not at all trying to say people shouldn’t care about paying their bills on time, of course everyone should do their best to be fiscally responsible. But instead of manipulating my spending habits in hopes of them having a positive impact on my credit score (by doing things like taking on a car loan), I’d much rather pay cash and not even have to worry about it.

Long story short: I will NEVER, EVER, EVER put myself in further debt just for the sake of improving my score. And personally, I don’t think you should either.

We’ve allowed the credit score to become far too important in the way we evaluate one’s character (people can actually get denied employment because of a poor score). So today I take a stand and say “Bite me FICO score!” I’m not changing a darn thing.

Are you with me!?  Do you know people who appear to be pretty proud of themselves for having “great” credit? Do those people make you want to cry inside? Do you care about your credit score?

I suck at negotiating.

by Ninja on January 13, 2012 · 25 comments

If I walked in to a Nordstrom and found a pair of shoes I liked, but decided the $100 asking price was too much, do you think they’d sell ‘em to me for $80? Not a chance. Most US retailers don’t negotiate price. If you aren’t willing to pay the sticker value, you best start looking elsewhere. In Korea, however, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Today I am going Skiing… no I’m not playing hookie from work, it’s Saturday here. I made sure to pack warm for my time abroad, but I never even thought about the possibility of hitting the slopes during my stay.

Fortunately I had a good jacket, warm pants, thermal socks, and some sunglasses. I had pretty much all the gear I needed for my mountain day, everything except gloves and a beanie that is. Looks like I had some shopping to do.

Just about every street in Korea is littered with street vendors. They sell everything from fried meats to paintings. Football jerseys to fake purses. If you are looking for it, a street vendor has it. Oh! I even had a woman approach me asking me if I’d like a “massage”. Something tells me she wasn’t just offering a massage if ya know what I mean. Sorry lady, I’m happily married and prostitutes aren’t my thing.

During my epic journey to find some decent gloves and a beanie –tuques for all you Canucks– I realized a few things about myself…

1. I get terribly uncomfortable when the vendor hovers me while I’m looking through their various products. In fact, I get so uncomfortable that my visceral reaction is to put down whatever I’m looking at (even if I want it) and just walk away. I know they mean no harm, but I prefer shopping without something looking over my shoulder telling me “This one very nice, I give you good deal”.

2. I have no idea which vendor I should go to. Every street is lined with dozens of booths. How do I know which one I should go to? It seems like they all sell the exact same things. I get overwhelmed by the options and start loosing interest and motivation to keep looking. (It’s kinda like when you are super hungry but there are a million restaurants nearby and you can’t pick which one you want to go to.)

3. How do I know if the product is legit? Obviously the quality of a beanie is not of great importance, but gloves are a different story. If they don’t insulate well and are not completely waterproof, they’re as good as garbage. I tried on a million different types of gloves, but since none of them are made by North Face, Burton, or REI it’s impossible for me to know if they’ll actually do their job on the mountain. I ended up buying a pair, sure hope they don’t suck!

4. Lastly, the most important thing I learned about myself during my Korean shopping extravaganza was that I absolutely suck at negotiating. Well that may not necessarily be true. I negotiate advertising rates for my blog, I negotiated the purchase price of Girl Ninja’s engagement ring, and I will definitely negotiate like a boss when it comes time to putting an offer in on a house. But I absolutely suck at negotiating small, petty, and already affordable things.

I found a pair of gloves that seemed pretty decent. The asking price was $25. I knew in my head (and from what everyone else tells me) I could easily knock a few bucks off that price. But guess, what. I gave the lady $25 and walked away with some new gloves. So what if I could have negotiated her down to $20 or $15. I got a good deal, and she probably got more than she was expecting. It’s a win-win. Besides, those same gloves at Target or Sports Authority probably would have cost $40, not to mention the vendor here in Korea probably NEEDS that $25 a heck of a lot more than I do.

How can I love negotiating so much when it comes to larger transactions, but clam up like a little kid when it comes to trivial things? Am I the only person that sucks at negotiating with street vendors? Should I let emotions (sympathy) be a part of the negotiating process, or just try to get the best deal possible?

Too good to overlook.

by Ninja on January 12, 2012 · 8 comments

Yesterday I asked you readers to get a little vulnerable and share what kind of debt you had. Many long time readers finally came out of hiding and decided to contribute to the conversation (special thanks to my creepy lurkers). At last glance there was nearly 150 comments left. Some utterly awesome, some terribly depressing, and of course, there was even some drama. I swear this blog could be its own soap opera…

Anwhoozle, I seriously read through every single comment –took me something like 2 hours (don’t make fun I’m a slow reader)– and I was fascinated to see where people stood. Some kicked debt in the uterus (my alternative blog name if I ever get sick of punching debt in the face)…

My debt punching experience began in 2008, when my husband and I got married and had $48,000 in debt. We were debt free in 11 months! In 2009, we bought a house for $95,000 and paid it off in one year. Flash forward to today and our net worth is $245,000. Our average income since 2008 has been $110,000 and our strategy is to live off one income. In your face, debt!

While other’s discussed how they use it to leverage investments…

I think I win for the most debt, about $800k total.

$100k @ 3.5% with 8 years left for rental property #1
$300k @ 3.5% with 15 years left for rental property #2
$400k @ 3.75% with 30 years left for current home

It’s a lot of debt but we break even on the rental properties and housing in our area is expensive so $400k for a home isn’t bad. We paid off about $100k of debt last year.

It’s funny how different people’s perspective on debt can be. Some love it, some hate it, and others are impartial. I’d put myself somewhere between hate and impartial.

Instead of distract from all the nuggets in yesterday’s comment thread by posting something unrelated up today, I simply want to encourage you to go back to that thread, if you haven’t already, and see how other people are doing. If you’re anything like me, you’re nosy and love getting in to other people’s business :)

Anything from yesterdays comments surprise you? I personally was surprised by how much debt some people have. I use to complain that my $28,000 student loan debt was overwhelming, but compared to many, I guess it ain’t so bad.

What kinda debt you got?

by Ninja on January 11, 2012 · 216 comments

My blog’s name is Punch Debt In The Face. I use to talk about punching debt in the face quite a bit, but over the last year and a half or so the frequency of debt related posts has decreased, while my posts about marriage, savings, and unicorns have increased.

I’m assuming most of you don’t come here looking for profound financial wisdom (there are other blogs for that), but instead you read PDITF to see my silly stick figure drawings and to hopefully laugh at my attempts at being funny. My blogs biggest asset however, is unfortunately something that I really have no control over. You, my friends (and enemies), are my biggest asset.

The comments section of PDITF is off the hook exciting, it’s often educational and recently it’s been full of drama. Although I am the author of this poorly written blog, it’s your opinions and contributions –via comments– that keep many people coming back for more.

I titled this blog post “What kinda debt you got” so that you all could learn more about each other. So that you could see where your fellow PDITF reader stands. Some of you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and not a debt to your name. While others, have hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, and not a penny to their name.

You hear my story a lot. You know pretty much everything there is to know about me (except my real name that is :) ). It’s time for you to come out of hibernation and contribute to today’s discussion.

What kind, and how much, debt do you have?

p.s. I’m really hoping this posts gets upwards of a hundred comments. The more people that share, the better our understanding will be of where we stand against the masses. How ’bout it? You willing to be vulnerable today?

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