Ask Lemmy

Honestly, not being a dick and caveat for me not knowing shit about you, but if you are curious enough about the topic to ask, you should take a quick finance course. Not like enroll in college or anything. I wanna say there are tons and tons of free to access resources for learning how debt and assets work that will undoubtedly improve how you manage your own money.

Just to save the search (I use Udemy the most but definitely have not checked out all of these platforms personally, so do yo own due diligence lol)

BYU personal finance courses

• PERSONAL FINANCE FOR SELF-RELIANCE COURSE - In our course of working with and developing courses in personal finance, we found that the best beginning program had already been developed. As such, we have received permission from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to use their Personal Finances for Self-Reliance program materials on this website.

• MONEY WISE FINANCIAL COURSE - This beginning course gives you a broad introduction to the many different areas of personal finance, with the hope that you will continue your study to understand better the topics covered in this website.

Personal Finance 101: Everything You Need to Know

• At the end of this course, students will be able to...
• Build excellent credit
• Manage debt, including student loans
• Invest wisely and effortlessly
• File a tax return
• Get a great bank account
• Understand credit cards
• Understand and get six types of insurance
• Make a spending plan
• Buy a car
• Find a great apartment
• Buy a house
• Get a jump start on retirement
• Save for college
• Get out of credit card debt
• Avoid identity theft and fraud
• Understand an estate plan
• Navigate dating and finances
• Navigate marriage and finances
• Navigate children and finances
• Navigate divorce and finance

Become financially savvy with free online courses from MIT

• August 21, 2024 - MIT Open Learning
• Explore the foundations and practical applications of finance for your personal and professional development.

Fuck it, lol, here is a link to a list of 30 free financial courses for all types of financing.

It's just temporary trust me.
Tonight is the night, I'm going to sleep and have 🗽the American Dream ™️ 🦅

Maybe the real curency was the debt we found along the way?

Cash liquidity =/= standard of living

A lot of people are in debt on things like cars and homes, that’s where a lot of the debt is. There is also credit card debt, but that’s a whole other thing. So long as people can make the payments on the loans, and those payments grow slower than their income, they can maintain a given standard of living.

Also a lot of the super rich make most of their money off of collateralized assets as a sort of tax dodge. Them being largely payed in assets that appreciate in value, they then take loans out against the value of the asset, and so long as the asset appreciates in value faster than the interest rate, they’re fine. Since the assets aren’t taxed until they are sold (unrealized gains) and they’re technically not selling the assets by using them as collateral against a loan, so they’re not taxed on that income. This situation also skews the numbers on “the average debt of Americans”.

Ultimately though, this is all a super fragile situation, and all it takes is for assets (like say a house or stock in a big tech company) to decrease in value for everything to explode.

There are also a lot of Americans who are not in such a situation and are limping along financially, trading debt for time, and live at a much lower standard of living.

I think most americans identify with the book cover, and not the book.

I've dealt with people that made it to adulthood not really understanding that if they have cash in their pocket, but more debt than that, they don't really have money available to spend on frivolous things. Some of them are my friends.

They will be "broke" 5 days of the week, but spend freely from when then cash their paycheck (or get that next payday loan!) until all they have is change.

But, I've been lucky. I got a degree without taking on debt AND the worst CC hole I had to dig myself out of was not even to the limit of one card. I think most people have to ignore student or medical or other debt just to function...

If you own a house or vehicle in the USA there's a good chance you're in debt.

Some of us are just trying to make the most of whatever time we have left.

Hey, it's the land of Hollywood. If anyone in the world is good in pretending, it's them.