Tag: Dave Ramsey

The best way to pay off credit card debt

How To Pay off Credit Card Debt: From the Snowball to the Avalanche Method

Piggy 7 Comments

The Harvard Business Review has published a story on “the best strategy for paying off credit card debt.” The research, originally published in the Journal of Consumer Research by Keri L. Kettle et. al. benefits the millions of Americans who are literally $1.13 trillion in collective credit card debt according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Those trapped in the cycle of debt could truly benefit from a solution, so it’s worthwhile research.

The researchers (hereafter Kettle & Co.) tested a couple different methods for credit card debt reduction:

  1. Dispersing payments equally across multiple credit cards each month.
  2. Concentrating as high a payment as possible on one account at a time.

Their results were definitive and monumental! Truly a groundbreaking study! At last we know the one true way and light of how to pay off credit card debt!

I jest, of course. Because—say it with me now!—personal finance is personal. If there were one singular, perfect solution to credit card debt, everyone would use it and it wouldn’t be the question that launched a thousand personal finance influencers.

Today I want to break down a few of the different methods that work for paying down credit card debt. I’ll cover Kettle & Co.’s findings, some conventional wisdom from those who have survived debt, and one of the most hated, obnoxious, and ethically questionable men in personal finance media.

For verily, I say unto thee: Even a broken clock is right twice each day.

-The Book of the Bitches, Chapter III, verses 5-6
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What's the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

What’s the REAL Rate of Return on the Stock Market?

Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 5 Comments

Our awesome Patreon donors have asked us to tackle a really interesting question this week: what’s the real rate of return on the stock market?

If you ask people this question, you get surprisingly different answers. And for some reason (boredom at my day job) I decided to get all art school with it. Here, I wrote you a one-act play on the topic!

WHAT THE FUCK IS IT EVEN: THE REAL RATE OF RETURN ON THE STOCK MARKET

A Play in One Act

SOME PEOPLE
(With great confidence)
Ten percent!

OTHER PEOPLE
(With low confidence)
Ssssssssssix?

MOST PEOPLE
(In anguish)
Why are you asking me this?! Shit. Am I supposed to know?!

SOME PEOPLE
(Smugly)
It’s totally ten percent. Why would you ever buy a house or pay off debts when stocks are so mathematically superior?

OTHER PEOPLE
Ssssssseven??

MOST PEOPLE
(With self-loathing)
I feel like I’m too busy to know this. But also I made time to watch that Zac Efron Ted Bundy biopic on Netflix, so…

SOME PEOPLE
Don’t even buy a single tube of mascara or a ham sandwich. It’s a waste. It’s unoptimized garbage. I buy nothing but stocks and Soylent!

OTHER PEOPLE
Wait, is this the four percent thing? I’ve heard people talk about the four percent thing. Is it foooourrrr?

DAVE RAMSEY bursts onto the stage.

DAVE RAMSEY
It’s 12% if you follow my system! But I never agreed to be here! My company sends cease and desist letters to people who criticize me!

DAVE RAMSEY exits the stage and the playwright forgets to go back and delete that part.

MOST PEOPLE
(With resignation)
No, you know what? I know that Alleras the Sphinx is actually a lost Sand Snake, and I know three quarters of the verses of Mambo #5, but I do not know what the rate of return on the stock market is and I have accepted that fact about myself.

SOME PEOPLE rubs stocks all over his torso. He visibly nips out. OTHER PEOPLE keeps mumbling random numbers. MOST PEOPLE starts adjusting the Pinterest board for her wedding, even though she is not engaged or seeing anyone seriously.

Rocks fall; everyone dies.

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Dafuq Is Credit and How Do You Bend It to Your Will?

Piggy 12 Comments

We’ve been getting a lot of variations on the same question recently: “How the fuck do I credit?”

How indeed? A lot of our readers are struggling with not only maintaining a good credit score, but with even understanding the whole concept in the first place.

It’s one of the many money terms I have the sneaking suspicion everyone else in my high school class was taught on a day I was absent.

Thus, I’ve been left to figure it out for myself over the years. And what I’ve found is reassuring: it’s not nearly as scary or complicated as you’ve been led to think. But like a pack of trained raptors, it must be treated with care and attention lest it rend you limb from limb.

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