← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1881: Ask Farnoosh: Fraud Scares, Fed Rate Cuts, and Investing Baby Steps
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Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better. So money episode 1881 ask Farnoosh. You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Karabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money. Welcome back to SO Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. This is Ask Varnoosh Friday, our Friday edition of the show where I tackle your money questions, everything from investing to debt to career and more. Before we open up the mailbag, though, I want to take some time to talk about what's happening out there in the money world that's important. Not just Wall street headlines, but Main street realities. But before we get to that, a personal story about fraud alert. This happened to me this week. I haven't really shared it anywhere because I'm still processing it, but I think it's important to share this with you. So I got a text from my earlier this week asking me to verify a deduction that came through a check. This was for my business bank account. Now, the amount was for $4,950. And I stared at that for a little bit and I don't really write a lot of checks. So this was definitely a Red flag for me. And rather than going and clicking through the link that came in through the text, because I wasn't sure if this was actually my bank reaching out to me and maybe some fraudster, I went directly to my bank website, logged in from my laptop and saw the check for myself. I saw that it had actually been deducted from my bank account. And there was an image of the check. The image of the check. It did have my bank account number on the bottom of the check, but the check name and address was somebody else. And this person had written the check to themselves. And that was annoying because I thought, why wasn't this already flagged? Like, why does this have to get to me? This is not even my ch. And whoever this person is, they submitted it to their credit union, their credit union then sent it to my bank and my bank luckily caught it. But this is the annoying part. The money was already deducted from my bank account while the bank was doing the investigation. Took two business days to get the money back in my account. In fact, as of this recording, the money is still just deducted from my bank account. That's a lot of money. Imagine if this was 49,000, it would've like completely bounced, probably. Cause I don't keep that much money in my business checking account in a given month. And so I got on the phone today with my bank and I asked them, what's the status? I wanna know if this is getting refunded immediately or it's gonna take more time. And the person said that it should be back, the money should be back in my account by Monday. And they asked me if I wanted to put a fraud restriction on that account. And at first I thought absol. But then they went on to tell me all of the things that I would need to keep on top of in order for this fraud protection to work successfully. So basically it was going to be a 180 day freeze on all deductions from my account, which I think in theory is great, but in practice it means that I would have to reroute all my billers. But in practice it was complicated and it would mean I'd have to reroute all of my billers to a temporary new account number. Then I would have to switch back after six months and the switch wouldn't be automatic. With everything that I have going on, this chance of missing something important felt really risky to me because I have quite a few people and accounts that are attached to my business account. So I passed on the fraud restriction, but I am Keeping a vigilant eye on my account. I'm actually thinking of moving most of the money from checking into savings and just making sure that I have enough in there for whatever's gonna get deducted that month. Just because in the event that someone tries to do this again and it's another $5,000 deducted and for two business days. That's annoying. And if it happens again, I'll probably switch banks, to be honest. But yeah, Dennis in Lapeer, Michigan, we caught you. And you better not try this again. I don't even know if that's your real name, but that was the name on the check. Fraud happens everywhere, my friends. So monitor your accounts, set alerts. Don't assume the bank will always catch it before it hits your balance. And we're talking debit accounts here. Right? Checking accounts where we're talking real cash. It wasn't a credit card charge attempt. Right. Which is a lot less painful. It's not real money in the credit card companies. And in my experience, credit card companies are much faster, more vigilant at catching this stuff and making sure that you never pay for something that you didn't buy. Let's shift gears to money headlines that we are feeling right now. So first, interest rates. You may have heard heard the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percent this week. It's the first cut since last year. And there was a lot of uncertainty around what the Fed was actually going to do this month. And I guess the rationale is that the job market is cooling and they want to give the economy a little support. What does this mean for us? It just means we got some savings. We just got a discount on some interest rates. If you've got an adjustable rate mortgage, credit card debt, a small business loan, you might see borrowing costs get easier in the coming months. Not a huge change overnight, but something to watch. Another thing that is dropping are credit scores. A new FICO report shows that credit scores in America just saw their biggest one year drop since the 2008 financial crisis. The national average slipped just slightly from 7:17 to 7:15, which again, doesn't sound like much, but it's the direction that matters. And this is of course, because more people are carrying high credit card balances. Student loan delinquencies are also climbing since payments restarted. And inflation has pushed people closer to their credit limits. I'm also wondering how these buy now, pay later plans are impacting our credit scores. A lot of people are using their credit cards to enroll in bnpl programs. And although they don't charge interest, if you are late paying these, then you do get penalized. And sometimes that does impact your credit score. If you've noticed your own score, take a hit. Just know that you're not alone. But remember that paying down your balances on time in full and keeping that utilization of your debt to credit ratio low, like below 10% to nudge it back up. Now, let's talk housing. The market's shifting, y'. All, Especially here in Montclair, where I live. Homes are sitting on the market longer. But there's some good news if you're looking to build. Builders are offering price cuts on new homes at the highest rate in five years. Existing home prices are still up slightly compared to last year, but as I mentioned, sales are slowing. Inventory is rising, too. That usually brings down prices in some regions, especially out west. If you live in Colorado or California, price are actually falling in some regions. And so it's not the frenzy of 2021 anymore. And if you're a buyer, you do have some leverage, more than probably more than this time last year. And if you're a seller, it may take longer and it may not get the multiple over asking bids that you saw this time last year. We have a neighbor across the street who interestingly has put their house on the market, but without putting it on Zillow. There's no for sale sign on the front, which is weird, right? I asked actually a local real estate agent about that. I said, is this a new trend? Are people bypassing Zillow for whatever reason? And she said no, but in some cases there might be a seller for their own personal reasons. They don't want to put their home publicly on the market. They want to do what's called like a private sale. And it's a nice house, but it's not a mansion. So they haven't sold yet. I don't think they've had any bites. And it's been a month. It's a beautiful home, but it's a very specific kind of home. It will find the right buyer. But I think if this was 2021 or even 2023, it would have gotten multiple bids. It wouldn't have even probably made it to an open house. Inflation is also nagging us where it hurts most, and that is on grocery prices and food dining out. Also rent. The latest CPI report shows those categories continuing to rise even as gas prices in certain goods are cooling down. And this explains why, even though the headline numbers suggest inflation's EAS households still feel squeezed because we're talking about these recurring costs that are pretty big every month for us, food and housing. Those prices are not cooling. And so while maybe in some smaller areas we're seeing stagflation or even a drop in prices, these bigger categories are being very stubborn. Quick reminder. Later this month, I am hosting a live investing workshop on Tuesday, September 30th. I'll walk you through everything I've learned in 20 years managing my own portfolio, what I invest in, how I choose my investments, how I adjust in uncertain times. Because that's happened. It will be live but also recorded if you register. And so you can go to somoneyworkshop.com to learn more and save your spot. This is very practical. You know me. There's no fluff, there's no hard sell, there's no crypto. It's just how to build your investing portfolio with confidence and a DIY approach for the most part. Details and the signup link again@somoneyworkshop.com in case you missed it. Before we get to your questions, a quick recap of recent episodes you might want to check out from this week. I spoke with Cameron Norman on Monday, who's an expert on step family solutions. In fact, that's her website, Stepfamily Solutions. We talked about blended families and money and the unique challenges of combining households and some practical solutions. Also, we sat down with Amina Altai, author of the Ambition Trap, to learn how to pursue our goals without burning out, without it costing us our health and our mental health and our wellness. Both great conversations and lots of takeaways. All right, now let's get to you and your questions. Let's hit the mailbag. A question from our friend who lives in South Jersey, Farnoosh. Looking for a good estate planning attorney? I would recommend that you talk to friends. I find that the best referrals come from people. And yes, you can go online. You can search for your state. You can search for a law firm in your neighborhood or anywhere, really. You don't have to have someone that's local, but someone who does know New Jersey and is licensed in New Jersey. Very important for you because this person's living in South Jersey. So whatever state you're living in, it's really important that you find somebody who can work in your state. If you have a financial planner, he or she may also be able to refer you to an estate planning attorney. If you have a cpa, this person may also refer you to an estate planning planning attorney. I find that the financial advisor world. Whether you're focusing on investments or insurance or taxes, everybody knows everybody and can make an introduction for you. I don't have any specific recommendations for you, but that would be what I would do. Okay, next cj I've shortened this to have an abbreviated name, so if you might hear yourself in this question. If you're listening hi Farnoosh. Your podcast is my go to for all things money, but also just a familiar voice during my solo days during the pandemic. I'm Canadian, so sometimes the information doesn't translate since the accounts are different. This is a struggle. I find that most of the popular personal finance books are all written in the US so maybe you won't be able to help. But worth a shot. Do you have some Canadian women in personal finance in mind? Thanks so much. Do I. I've had a couple of them at least on this podcast over the years. The first amazing woman that comes to mind, I recommend Melissa Leong. She is the author of Happy Go Money. She is based in Canada. Her book came out a few years ago, but she's very active on her blog melissaleong.com that's melissale n g.com she was on episode 840 on so money back in 2019. If you want to listen to that conversation first, please do episode 840. Other Canadian experts that I have interviewed include Christie Shen. Her website is millennial-revolution.com she and her partner are both early retirees. They were part of my Early Retiree Week, a series of episodes I did with people who retired sooner than most. They have a book called Quit Like a Millionaire in which she talks about her journey from childhood poverty in China to being fully financially independent and a millionaire in her 30s. So yeah, Christy Shen retired at 31 with a seven figure portfolio. She's in Canada. She is awesome. And then also there's Sandra Hanna who is the CEO of Smart Cookies, which is a movement helping thousands of people become debt free. She's big in Canada. She hosted the Smart Cookies TV show on OWN Network in Canada. She has many top selling books. You can learn more about her@smartcookies.com so those are three women that have been on this podcast who've all done amazing work and are very inspirational in the personal finance space. Maybe them you can also find more people to learn from. But thank you so much for listening to Sew Money from Canada. I really appreciate it. Given that you said even though some of the advice is not applicable, but hopefully you still enjoy many of the conversations. A neighbor of mine once moved abroad for a few months and left her apartment sitting empty. It's a great space, sunny, stylish, close to everything, and I kept thinking someone would have loved to stay there while she was away. It had so much potential to become a cozy temporary home for a visiting professor or a couple on sabbatical. Instead, it sat untouched for weeks. 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It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah really? Thanks. Capital One Bank Guy what's in your wallet? Term supply See capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC Monday Sidekick the AI agent that knows you and your business, thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything Seriously. Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use Start a free trial today on Monday.com okay, I'm going to try to answer as many questions as possible now quickly because I have scores of questions in front of me here that people kindly left on Instagram. So first Behnaz, how to start investing with a small amount of money? I love this question and I know I said really quick, but I just want to recognize that many people have have this same hang up that they think ugh, I don't have a ton of money, I can't start. You don't need a ton of money to start. The advances in financial technology in the app world has improved and has become more equitable so that many people, more people can participate. Even people who have just a little bit to start with and so important to just start. Don't worry about how much you have. Just start. Amy Zing 1012 is a 529 for my newborn worth it and how does it fully work? Okay, if you have ambitions for your child to to go to college and or attend private school before college, this may be well worth it. A 529 is an education savings fund. It used to be exclusively for college and graduate school or basically any kind of school after high school. But in recent years it has expanded to also include being able to use some of this money for private pre K private school education that you have to pay for out of pocket prior to college. So I like that it's become more flexible. As we know not everybody is going to college and the whole idea of whether a college education is worth it is up for debate. I still think it is depending on where you go. And of course don't overspend. How do they work? Is the other question. They are administered by every single state. That said, where you live doesn't dictate which 529 you have to open up. So if you live in New Jersey, where I live, you can have a New York 529 plan. You can have a New Jersey 529 plan. There's no rule around that. But some states offer a state tax deduction of your contributions. The money in the account grows tax free and so when you take the money out for education purposes, it Won't be taxed. And that's a great benefit of the 529. A site that I really like to study up on 529 plans is saving for college catitude. I want to understand a partner's finances before marriage. Do you ask to see bank statements? I don't think you want to ask for bank statements just yet. I think that if you haven't broken this ice yet with your partner talking about money, the first step is to first talk about how you learned about money growing up. I really think it's important to not although you want to get to the credit score and how much you got in your bank account right away. But don't skip this step, which is to understand how we were raised. Learning about money, this is so important and foundational because it might explain your differences and it might give you more empathy and compassion in the relationship towards your partner. If you are different and if you are wondering, like, how could my partner be so frugal? Or how is my partner so obsessed with investing? Or how is my partner in credit card debt? It's really important to know the context and the background. It's very important if you're hoping for a committed relationship. This is is extremely important because so many couples of course argue about money and that often leads to breaking up. So talk about your upbringing around money, including things like, did you ever talk about money with your parents? Did you have a job growing up? When you think about being rich, what does that mean to you? Because that's different for everybody, right? So understand your partner's financial narrative, financial history, and then yes, get to the technicals. My husband and I, before we got married, before we even moved in with each other, we went to. It's a famous story. I've written about it in book. We went to our favorite bar and we on post it notes wrote down our amount of money in our savings accounts, in our 401ks, our mortgage balance, whatever debt we may have had, student loans, credit cards and our credit score. What else? Our salaries. And then we swapped the post it notes at the same time. I think we may have even taken a shot right after it. I don't know. Whatever you want to do. Make it it fun and casual because it can be really intimidating, especially if you've never shared your finances with somebody else. It's like getting naked in front of your partner, but a different kind of naked. And I highly recommend doing this before tying the knot. So many couples wait too long and then they're surprised to find out that, oh my gosh, My partner has $80,000 in student loan debt. I wanted to buy a house in two years. This is going to be a roadblock for us. So it's really important to just get that squared away now and have these important conversations now. But in terms of what to be asking for bank statements, it's a little too forensic, I think, at this stage. I think it's enough to just know what the balances are, what the big picture stuff is. Once you start to get further into the relationship, maybe that next meeting, having that money meeting every month, by the way, is very helpful in the beginning of the relationship. Maybe that can be like meeting three or four where you actually come to the table with a bit of a breakdown of how the two of you spend. Where is your money going? I'm not very good at answering questions quickly, but plus 8, 6. If I sell $5,000 worth of my taxable brokerage account, how much tax do I pay? This depends on how long you have owned these investments, right? So there's capital gains tax. Capital gains tax is applied to the profits earned on the sale of an asset, including investments. There's long term and then there's short term capital gains tax. Long term capital gains means you've held the assets for more than a year. The average tax rate on long term capital gains is 15% or lower. But in general, long term capital gains are taxed according to graduated thresholds for taxable income at 0%, 15% or 20%. Although the average person who sells their stocks after a year, they pay 15% or less. If it's short term capital gain, which means that you held onto this asset for a year or less and now you're selling it, you're going to basically pay whatever tax bracket you fall under. That's your tax. So if you're currently paying, I don't know, 10% tax or 37% tax, you're going to pay one of those or somewhere in the middle. So knowing your tax bracket is really important. If you've held these for longer than a year, the short answer is you're going to pay less than what you would have paid if you just bought these investments like six months ago and now you want to cash out. How to break up with a Financial advisor when moving to Robo Investing. Ooh, I love this question because I've done it and I broke up very amicably. I still email with my former financial advisor. It was nothing against her. She was an excellent. In fact, so excellent that we got To a point where I was paying her the fee and I was like, I don't really understand why. Because you've done such a great job setting us up and everything's been automated. Hence I want to move now to an official automated platform where I pay a third of what I'm paying you and that fee, believe it or not, even though it sounds small, like what's a percentage to a financial planner versus 0.3% on a robo advising platform, it's a lot compounded over many years. You're talking thousands of dollars compounded. It's tens of thousands if not more dollars a year. Right? So it's not a little bit of money. And you just write a nice clean email or you have a phone conversation and you say, very honestly, I came to you initially because I was looking for far more than just investment advice. And you've helped me, me, you've helped me with fill in the blanks, saving, budgeting, filling my insurance gaps, estate planning recommendations, college planning, all of that really. Because you, when you work with the cfp, you should hopefully be working with this person, not just for asking them like what index fund to buy. That is not a good use of your money. Instead you want to go for holistic financial advice, which is all sorts of things that I just mentioned. Once all those things are taken care of and maybe the only thing left is the investment portfolio. In that case, I think you're better off working with a robo advisor where you're going to be charged just a fraction of the fee. And I think you just say that you've helped me so much, I'm ready to now transition over to a robo advisor. I'd love to still continue to stay in touch. If you have other fee structures where you might work with clients one on one, say an hourly fee or a monthly retainer, I would be interested to learn that it's a nice way to say I'm not completely leaving you in keeping the door open, but saying I don't want to keep paying you money to rebalance my portfolio, which is something that I can essentially get for a lot less money over on a robo advisor site and that's it. They have heard this many times. You're not going to be the first person to tell this to them. They all know where the industry is going and I think the financial planners that are really on trend, that are seeing the future and working towards the future, they are outsourcing a lot of their investment planning to these robo advisors. And instead dedicating more of their time and their fee services to the more thoughtful stuff, the more goal oriented stuff, the stuff that really does require discussion and back and forth and isn't so technical. But I totally support you in doing this, Alice. Do I pay off my $30,000 in student loans or put all extra cash towards retirement? It depends on the interest rate, Alice. I don't know if these are federal loans, but if your student loans aren't carrying more than 6 or 7% interest, I would put more towards retirement. I would wouldn't do extra towards the student loans. We also know that there is some legislation that could come around soon that would eliminate some of our student loan debt. I don't know what's going to happen, so don't bank on that. But I wouldn't go above and beyond. I say this to everybody, don't go above and beyond with your student loans. Especially if you have other financial priorities you want to address, whether that's paying down credit card debt, saving for a rainy day, putting more money towards retirement. Stay the course with your student loans, of course, don't miss a payment. But to go above and beyond, I think your money will be best invested in the market or put towards other financial obligations. Okay, next. How do I know the best timing to ask for a raise? This is coming from tiny, useful things. The best time to ask for a raise. I'll give you a few answers. I've written about this. Not on Monday and not on a Friday. The best time of week to ask for raise is somewhere in the middle. No boss wants to be hit with that at the beginning of the week, after the weekend and of course not before the weekend when their mind is off of work. But maybe in the middle of the week when you're really in it. And of course soon after you have really crushed it. If you have met all of your goals for 2021 and it's June, this is a great time to have a conversation with your boss. Additionally, if you know that review season is coming up, let's say review season is in September. Don't wait for that review meeting to talk about the raise. I would come to your boss a couple months or six weeks before that to really set the tone for what you want to talk about in that review. Because sometimes you get to the review and the boss has already buttoned up and said, okay, congratulations, you've done great. We're going to offer you 1% raise or no raise or we're not even talking about raise, but you really need to Manage your boss's expectations. I always say manage up. Let them know what you want to talk about coming ahead of that review meeting. Because by then maybe budgets have already been set so you really want to get ahead of it. I answered this in a few ways during the middle of the week when you really had a great streak at work and you can show the value add that you have brought to work, metrics, numbers, data, examples, all of that is really important to set yourself up for success in that conversation about getting a raise. And then try to do it before the review meeting that is seasonal or annual because by then maybe there's already been an agenda set. You want to be the one creating that agenda. So go get ahead of it. Ask for a meeting several weeks or a month or two beforehand so that you can prepare your boss. And remember your boss, while he or she may love you and be an advocate for you, sometimes they're not the bottom line. They need to then go ask somebody else to give you that raise their boss. So giving them all of that data, that information and giving them time to go and be an advocate for you is really critical. Thanks so much for joining everybody. That was fun. I think I answered more questions in this episode than ever a record. Keep your questions coming on Instagram direct message me there. I'll weekly put up reminders to send me questions there. And of course you can always reach me on the the website, click on Ask Furnouche and send me a voicemail or type your message. Remember, if you love what you're listening to, please subscribe forward to a friend. Leave a review. It's so important in order for the show to continue its success. Stay tuned. I hope your weekend is so money. If you love to travel, Capital One has a rewards credit card that's perfect for you. With the Capital One Venture X card, you earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy. Plus you get premium benefits at a collection of luxury hotels when you book on Capital One Travel. And with Venture X you get access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. Open up a world of travel travel possibilities with a Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details. Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple. Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. 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