vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
The point of an RRSP is that you can put money in when you are paying a lot of taxes (maybe a 50% marginal rate) and take it out later when you are paying less taxes (maybe a 30% marginal rate.) You will thus end up with more money. Since you are not paying high taxes on your modest income, this aspect of an RRSP doesn't really apply to you. When the time comes that you start withdrawing from your RRSP, you will pay taxes on the entire withdrawal, both principal and interest. A TFSA on the other hand allows withdrawals (typically limited to some small number a year) without the principal or the interest being considered taxable income. That seems like a better approach for you. However, they are not very liquid - you can't deposit, withdraw, deposit, withdraw week after week. Look around for not-exactly-banks that offer higher interest rates than the banks do. Set up a TFSA with one, and put about 8k in it. (If you have time to investigate GICs, ETFs, and whatnot, fine, investigate that for a while and set up a TFSA that holds those.) Put the other 2k in a high-interest savings account from that institution. High interest will be between 1 and 2% which isn't very high, but oh well. Assuming you get some notice when you need to replace your car, you could withdraw from the TFSA to get that money. Or you might be lucky and need a car at a terrible time for dealers to sell cars, and get a great deal on a new car with a long warranty, something you could keep for another 15 or 20 years. If you could afford the loan payment then your savings could stick around for a rainier day.
I would think the opposite. If I were in a situation where I could pick my start date, unless I was really hard up for money, I wouldn't want to go into the holiday season with a new job that and no vacation time accrued. Who wants to work on Christmas eve?
Exactly.  My unit is short staffed nurses.  I get payed double for every extra i work and that's not including over time.    I do it because it's short lived until new staff are hired and trained.  If my boss was not the boss she is, i would not do this.  We are not short staffed because of her.  We are short staffed because we are constantly learning and pushing ourselves to the next level and for many that means higher education either a doctorate program in nursing or medical school.  We all work on a great unit where we learn every day.  We work together every day.  We are a team.  We do not code patients on our own.  We do it together.  There is no other place i have worked in healthcare that is so clearly a team than where i am now.
Daniel, first of all, I'm jealous of your predicament.  That said, I think you've gotten some good advice already, so I won't repeat what's been said.  But I will throw out a few ideas that haven't come up.  My first thought is that you may be underestimating upcoming expenses.  It sounds like your current expenses are low, and that's great!  I'm impressed that you're living below your means, and looking for the best way to use your extra cash.  But you may not be thinking of a few things. You have a girlfriend, and maybe your relationship isn't such that you are planning a wedding quite yet.  But, regardless of whether your current girlfriend is your future life partner or not, if you think marriage may be in your future at all, you'll save yourself a lot of stress if you've got some savings for a wedding in place before you're ready to commit. Next, what are you driving?  If it's a good car that you expect to last you another 10 years, you're probably ok right now.  But if you may need to replace your vehicle in the next few years, start saving now and you may be able to buy it outright.  (I expect your interest rate on financing a car would be higher than your current student loan rates, so I would save for a car before paying down loans with such beautiful rates.) A house has already been discussed, and there was also mention of additional education, and both of those require a solid financial plan that begins far in advance. In summary, I think you need a lot more than $5K in savings.  Sure, have some fun, and take advantage of opportunities to travel, etc, as they come along, but if you're able to bump your savings by $500 to $1000/month, I think you'll really be glad you did.  When it comes time for a new car, or you find you're ready to settle down, it will be nice to have somewhere to draw from, and if there's only $5K in your savings, you may come to regret choices you made when you were 22.
"Looking at your numbers, I would definitively consider selling the car, and use the public transportation instead. You could easily save $450 month, plus gas and maintenance. As you mentioned, public transportation will be only a fraction of this amount, so you might end up saving around $400 monthly. If you decide to keep the car, the amount that you will spent monthly is easily a payment for a brand-new car. What if, God forbid, for any kind of reason, you get a traffic ticket that can increase your insurance premium? What if the engine stops working, and you will need to spent thousands of dollars fixing the car? With this, and all of the other expenses pilled up, you might be unable to afford all this at some point. If you decide to sell the car, the money that you will save monthly can be put in a savings account (or in any other sort of ""safe"" investment instrument). In this way, if your situation changes where you need a car again, you will be able to easily afford a new car. Regarding your need to visit your friends on the suburbs every other weekend, I think you can just talk with them, and meet on places where public transportation is available, or ask them to pick you up in the nearest station to the suburbs.  In conclusion, based on what you said, I do not think the ""little"" convenience that you get in owning the car outweighs the big savings that you get monthly, if you decide to sell the car."
"As someone who has a very similar debt amount and environment (new grad, nice new paying job, want a car, etc), I'd like to share something with you. Life has unexpected costs. Luckily I didn't buy that new car the first few months out of college like I had planned to; I'm glad that I didn't because, as a fledgling ""adult"", despite having lived on my own while in college while working part-to-full time there are some things you just don't realize until it either happens or it happens to someone else. Here are some of those things: I could go on but I won't. $95K is good money and I would definitely recommend spending it a bit to enjoy yourself. But I would honestly tell you that taking your monthly expenses, adding a few hundred on top of that and then multiplying  that sum by 3 would be a smart savings amount before picking up a car loan. Maybe that's an excessive savings but I've seen way too many people burn out over their cost-of-living and their failure to adjust appropriately when shit hits the fan. So instead of having to deal with the stab at your pride when having to lower the cost/quality of living that you'll probably grow accustomed to at a $95K salary, just prepare for the worst.  Oh, and did I mention... A NEW JOB IS NOT A SECURE JOB Consider yourself to likely be the first asset dropped from the company if even the tiniest thing goes wrong. I know way too many people who were fresh hires at Intel, Boeing, and a few other big tech companies that pay around what you make and, despite being bad asses in college, they were dropped like a bad habit when their employers hit rough patches. To those even more experienced than me, please feel free to add to the list. I'd personally love to know them myself."
My opinion is that 50% savings is the number to shoot for, and I strive toward that number as often as possible.  10% - savings for retirement 10% - savings for short term emergency fund 25% - payment on mortgage principal 5% - savings for planned big purchases I overpay the principal so that 25% of my income goes to principal payments, and I separately account for the mortgage interest/home owners insurance as another expense in my budget.  Because of this aggressive payment schedule, the house I bought 2 years ago will be payed in full in another 9 years.  I own another property outright that I paid down in the same fashion and I collect rent on it as a supplement to my income.  I started with a small townhouse that I could easily afford, but now I have a much larger home that I can still easily afford. The emergency fund doesn't need to be more than 6 months of expenses, which is 3 months of income if your expenses are only 50% of your income.  I keep 6 months of expenses liquid and another 12 in a low risk investment.  Once you have your emergency fund funded, you can add that percentage to a different category (say 15% to retirement and 10% to planned big purchases), or you can over-fund it.  I have had a few catastrophes that have depleted that fund, so I like having the extra 12 months of income available. I set the last 5% aside for wants that are not regular expenses.  If I want a car, I save 5% of my income until I can pay cash for it.  I have an infinite number of these wants, so I prioritize them and buy them in order when the cash becomes available. The reason I use percentages is to keep me focused when my income increases. Instead of spending all the additional money that I could afford to spend each time I get a raise. I instead only increase my expenses to the 50% mark.  It was much harder to save 50% when I got my first job out of college, but now I live quite comfortably on that percentage and I could take a large hit to my income before I would need to make significant changes to my lifestyle.
My car loan, much to my disappointment, was through Wells Fargo. I went to my credit union and refinanced (with a .1% increase of interest) and I feel a lot better about my payments.  In reality, it pays for itself because my credit union is customer-owned, and my dividends offset the extra cost. :)
now i use the term ""developed"" very loosely here as there are countries ahead of them on that list that clearly arent part of the developed world but its not up to me to decide what the swiss rank is. &gt;So you work in construction, an industry in which commercial is notorious for underbidding a contract (whether to government or to private), and then running into unexpected overages that cause the job to go over schedule, over budget. This is dangerously false. The industry isnt known for underbidding and going over budget. Only really really really bad contractors do that. What a lot of good contractors do is, when you know a general contractor for a long time or youre trying to to build a relationship you do eachother favors so they will say for instance ""hey man i dont have the budget to pay you what you need so take a loss on this one and we'll take care of you on the next one"" or they will find some money unaccounted for in the budget and throw it your way in the form of extra work done. &gt;Its not like the government just sits around and takes it. I know of at least one federal contractor who went to federal prison for fraudulently winning contracts in my part of the country. In my line of work they really do just sit back and take it, from what ive experience you have to be super greedy and really fuck up to get their attention. 1 job i did, i was only there for 3 weeks total and in that 3 week period i saw all types of osha violations, rescource waste, time waste and plenty of govenrment workers who didnt really know what they were doing ""checking"" on the job to make sure progress was being made. &gt;It is because government has tremendous resources that they can throw at a problem. This is where we really do differ, i see this as a bad thing. I see it as them not spending money efficiently money that they got from me and my hard work. Look at the f22 raptor for instance it is now 3 times over budget from the projections for how much of an upgrade? Whats the point of a contract if someone can just go over budget 3 times over without anyone blinking an eye.
Don't order anything deep fried and stop getting a soda - makes most fast food reasonable aside from over-the-top stuff like the Burger King Mac-N-Cheetos.   Even a 7-11 hotdog makes a decent meal depending on your nutrition needs. Load it with jalapenos, onions, tomatoes and get an unsweetened drink. Lots of salt and the bun is full of carbs (toss it if you don't need the extra carbs in your diet), but it's my go-to on a hard 40 mile bike ride as I'm usually sweating a lot and need the quick energy.
On paper the whole 6 months living costs sounds (and is) great, but in real life there are a lot of things that you need to consider. For example, my first car was constantly falling apart and was an SUV that got 16MPG. I have to travel for work (about 300 miles per week) so getting a sedan that averages close to 40MPG saves me more in gas and maintenance than the monthly payment for the new car costs. When our apartment lease was up, the new monthly rent would have been $1685 per month, we got a 30 year mortgage with a monthly payment of $1372. So buying a house actually let us put aside more each month. We have just under 3 months of living expenses set aside (1 month in liquid assets, 2 months in a brokerage account) and I worry about it. I wish we had a better buffer, but in our case the house and car made more sense as an early investment compared to just squirreling away all our savings. Also, do you have any debt? Paying off debt (student loans, credit card debt, etc.) should often take top priority. Have some rainy day funds, of course, but pay down debts, and then create a personal financial plan for what works best in your situation. That would be my suggestion.
I would apply extra cash left over at the end of the month as follows, in order of priority: Realize, though, that this is my take on priority. My experience has been that a liquidity crisis is much more stressful than having a mortgage or other debt -- illiquid wealth is almost useless when you need cash. So if you still have strong feelings about retiring that debt after considering the liquidity issue, go ahead and swap #3 and #4 above. Make plans to pay off the mortgage over the next 10 years. Find a mortgage payoff calculator and make extra monthly payments that keep you on a 10 year schedule. I'd strongly suggest making sure your retirement savings are on track, though. Time is on your side here, and your required monthly contribution will be low now while you're still in your 20s.
"So this has been bugging me for a while, because I am facing a similar dilemma and I don't think anyone gave a clear answer. I bought a 2012 kia soul in 2012. 36 months financing at 300/mo. Will be done with my car loan in 2015. I plan on keeping it, while saving the same amount of money 300/mo until I buy my next car. But, I also have an option of trading it in for the the next car. Question: should I trade it in in 2015. should I keep it for 2 years more? 3 years more, before I buy the next car? What makes most financial sense and savings. I tried to dig up some data on edmunds - the trade-in value and ""true cost to own"" calculator. The make and model of my car started in 2010, so I do not have historical data, as well as ""cost to own"" calculator only spans 5 years. So - this is what I came up with:  Where numbers in blue are totally made up/because I don't have the data for it. Granted, the trade-in values for the ""future"" years are guesstimated - based on Kia Soul's trade-in values from previous years (2010, 2011, 2012) But, this is handy, and as it gets closer to 2015 and beyond, I can re-plug in the data where it is available and have a better understanding of the trade-in vs keep it longer decision. Hope this helps. If the analysis is totally off the rocker, please let me know - i'll adjust it/delete it. Thank you"
Car and health insurance, etc would be budgeted.  Most people know what their monthly nut is and how long they can spend on a job search.  If you really feel that your boss is treating you poorly, sometimes the best thing to do is to tighten your belt, start saving and look for new opportunities.   It is not easy.  Nothing worse doing is.     I know people generally have difficulty saving money, but like I said, ultimately, you are responsible for your own happiness.
I too bought a car on eBay in 2002 . I flew to Georgia from Ohio to pick it up. It was an awesome experience and the car was a great car for me I loved it ! The whole experience was perfect.  I Would never do that now!
"I thought the same thing when I was making $40k in 2010. I'm around 110k now. Mortgage (300k near Portland,  OR which is really damn good) + taxes + insurance and two kids is expensive. I have a single 14k car, my phone was free, and I drink tea. We vacation once every 3 years and don't dine out much (2x per month max). Our grocery bill is ridiculously expensive though and every month I end up spending a fortune on some bullshit like new tires, dental/medical copays, plumbing issue, electrical issue, or whatever the fuck else decides to break and cause more grief. The electric bill in winter peaks at $400/month with our electric furnace ... we never set the thermostat above 68. Probably more stuff I'm forgetting buy basically on a good month,  I can set aside $600 in savings. That's not bad at all, it's great compared to the average family, but it's not even close to ""wealthy"". I still consider myself middle class."
Sadly, Fox News will limp along on cable for the next 3 decades.  Ditto on the commercials. It's been a while since I saw a commercial that actually made me want to go out and buy something, with the exception of car commercials. Yeah I'll admit it - I want to go out and buy a new Lincoln.
"If there's one reasonably close to you, you could go to a no-haggle dealership.  Instead of making you haggle the price downward, they just give a theoretically fixed price that's roughly what the average customer could negotiate down to at a conventional dealer.  Then just do your best broken record impression if they still try to sell you dubious addons:  ""No.  No.  No.  No.  No..."" The last time I bought a new car (06), a no haggle dealer offered the second best deal I got out of 4 dealerships visited.  The one I ended up buying with made an exceptional offer on my trade (comparable to 3rd party sale bluebook value). - My guess is they had a potential customer looking for something like my old car and were hoping to resell it directly instead of flipping it via auction."
3) Fuel economy is not that good and btw you have to use the most expensive gas. 4) If you are really set on buying a BMW because you enjoy driving and won't drive like an old lady (my apologies to those old ladies that drive at least the speed limit, but you are not the majority), then still do not by this one and check out auctions. I bought my 2003 330i in 2005 for 21k when it cost over 40k new. You could probably find one with less than 20k miles on it. My final advice is either a) learn to at least do basic maintenance or b) stick to always buying new cars which don't have any issues in first 4-7 years, then move on before you have to schedule your life around your cars. on the bright side I doubt you'll have to ever replace the exhaust and you can buy tail lights on e-bay for roughly $60 :)"
"I worked at a Best Buy for a summer.  I worked in merch (basically I was a stock boy) and we ""sold"" something greater than 80% of the product if I remember correctly.  People mostly don't want/need a person to help them.  That said, even though I wasn't really supposed to talk to customers I still really enjoyed helping them.  I even sent a few home to the internet to order basic computer hardware because our store prices were stupid expensive (50%-100% more than a similar product online).  I wasn't ranked on how many stupid extended warranties I sold though because I was merch and not sales.  That shit was stupid.  Most of the products they sell at Best Buy are disposable.  Even the more expensive items will probably last longer than is worth trying to get them fixed.  But that shit gets pushed on employees and if they want to get raises they push it on customers.  Margins are shit on lots of the stuff they sell though.  Except car audio.  Car audio has a massive mark-up."
Like you, I can afford this vehicle, however, if someone were to come to me today (3.5 years later) and offer me the opportunity to take it back and purchase a 4-5 year used vehicle, at a 4-5 year used car price, albeit at a much higher interest rate (since I financed), it would be about a 0.02 second decision. I like my car, but, I'd like the differential cash savings between it and a reliable used car more. $27,000 is also fairly expensive for a new vehicle, there are many, very nice vehicles, for 21-23k. I still would not consider these priced appropriate to spend your money on them, but they exist. However, you do very much need a reliable vehicle, and I think you should get one. On the home front, your $400 all inclusive rent is insanely cheap. Many people spend more than that on property tax and PMI each year, so anyone who throws the ""You're throwing money away!"" line at you is blowing smoke to justify their own home purchase. Take the money you would have spent on a mortgage, and squirrel it away. Do your own due diligence and research the home market in your area and decide for yourself if you think home prices have bottomed and will stay there, have further to go, or are going to begin to rise. That is a decision only you can make for yourself. I'd add a section about getting expenses under control, but you said you could save 50% of your takehome pay. This is an order of magnitude above the average. Good job. Try doing 50% for 4 months, then calculate your actual amount. Then try to beat it."
Those twelve loddars are destroyed, they are gone, the shoe-maker is twelve loddars poorer, without spending it and without anyone else getting twelve loddars richer. Why do I not still owe you $12? My value engine is gone, but wouldn't you keep my debt on the books and still hold me to it? Wouldn't I have to pick myself up, work somewhere else for a wage or make and sell something else, and pay you money I made over time until the $12 (or more with more interest) was paid off? And has any new money really been created if I work for that money, get it from someone else, and then pay it to you? There's no new money there yet that I can see. Seems like you created new money when somebody else agreed to let you buy things with the promise I wrote you. That sounds like new money. But if my orchard is destroyed and for reasons I'm not clear on (see above), the $12 of value I could have gotten out of it is destroyed, but you already spent the new money, how are you out anything? Seems like you're still up $2. I feel like there is either one too many pieces on the board or one too few and I can't get my head around it. I feel like I have one foot still in the ELI5 example and not all the way out in the real world."