I was thinking the iulia type boiling dip. Iron could be good too. It looks too saturated to freeze and pick.
It also is prob a hand wash garment now. OR you wax the whole thing and have a waxed shirt/jacket.
Ummm if I buy a cotton jacket can I make my own waxed jacket? Would I be the coolest?
I feel like I asked this before but didn’t follow the advice:
My in-laws give us Visa gift cards for Christmas (they used to give everyone clothes but switched, so the idea kind of is that they’re supposed to be for clothes) and I have no idea how to use them. I can use them online I think, but only if the total in the cart is less than the total on the card? I could use them for groceries, but I get 6% back on groceries from my credit card, so that doesn’t seem efficient. We could just put them on Amazon, but we get a 5% back on Amazon and also I don’t really want to spend hundreds of dollars on Amazon (even though I’m sure we would eventually). I have been delaying doing anything about this for a few years now, so I have somewhere between $800-$1000 (depending on how many we can find… and also assuming each card has $200 on it which might not be true) in gift cards that I should really freaking use!
My mom used to give me Visa gift cards and I mostly haven’t used them - Amazon won’t let use then online for some reason.
The only useful thing I can really think of is gas.
You might be able to split transactions online. I’ve done it at the grocery store too, though not with a Visa gift card. $50 was a Butterball gift check thing, then the rest went on my card as usual. The cashier did have to check with a manager that the check was legit, I think that would be less of an issue with a Visa gift card.
I have used them to buy an Amazon gift certificate of that exact amount and then I delete the card from my payment methods and leave the credit there for when I need it.
Restaurants? Then you can have a second method of payment if you run out.
Groceries? Costco (if you’re in the US)? Home Depot, etc.?
I tend to end up with those on occasion, usually as manufactured spending when I want to hit a sign up bonus, and generally I turn them straight into charitable donations, but honestly this is a case where optimization might not be your friend. Even if you can get 6% back somewhere by using your own card, on $1000 that’d be $60 back and $940 spent vs $0 spent (and $0 back, but that matters a lot less if you didn’t spend any money in the first place). Or if there’s a big purchase coming up, check the amount on each card, write it on each card (+register each card in your name if they don’t come like that), and then you can take them all to the for-real store and input them for the full amount one at a time.
Just in case–if they don’t have your name on them, you probably have to register them in your name before you can use them online. They made that change a little while ago to try to deter fraud, and there should be a website or number on the back you can use to register.
Would someone ELI5 a brokerage account for me? Mainly… how much are the fees? Are the fees every time you deposit money? Or a continuing % every year? Are there deposit limits?
I recently opened a Roth IRA and there is a fee on every deposit that is more % than I expected. Obviously with it being a brand new account I am way in the hole now. I probably didn’t ask enough questions when I opened it, but it is done now. I maxed it for 2024 and 2025 so I don’t have any more money to do anything else, but am wondering for future money. I guess I don’t have to ever add more to it if I choose not to…
My brokerage account doesn’t work that way.
What company is your account with? Do you have mutual funds or ETFs?
I have mutual funds (mostly VTSAX, or the Total Stock Index Fund) with Vanguard and they just charge a tiny fee per amount invested (0.04%). I don’t have fees each time I deposit money.
I do not have a brokerage account currently. I only have an older Simple IRA through work and a newer Roth IRA.
What company is the Roth IRA in?
Oh, I misunderstood. I think this does vary quite a bit by company.
A lot of why Vanguard is so popular has to do with the fact that they have very few fees and the ones they do are very low. So with my taxable account there, that 0.04% fee is all that I pay.
I have index funds at Vanguard, I have no fees except for a low, low expense ratio (ER). No fees to add in or cash out, no front load or back load fees.
This is why I love Vanguard (and the index funds have great performance so far).
Sorry, as noted need way more information here. As far as companies, Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab are the big three and I don’t think any of them charge any fees just to open an account (first definitely doesn’t, 99% sure on the second, the third also has a decent reputation from what I’ve heard).
Once you get into specific investments you start getting fees, but worst case you should be looking at a couple percent–you should avoid those, for the record, but at worst it still shouldn’t be enough to put you in the red. For the ones to look for, Fidelity has several 0% fee funds and some 0.0x% fee, Vanguard also has 0.0x%, and again no specifics about Schwab but I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t similar.
I can think of a few things that may have some up front costs to invest (mostly specific funds with a front load fee), but it would really help to know where and what funds you’re looking at to try to answer.
American Funds, only because I used the same advisor I have for my work account. I wanted it as easy as possible.
I’m sorry your work’s vendor is crappy with respect to the fees and not being supportive.
Is there any maximum amount of money you can deposit?
I’m not aware of any maximum for Vanguard, but many of their funds do have minimums. So for example, VTSAX has a $3,000 minimum (to open the account, once the account is open, you can make deposits smaller than that). (They have a similar index fund with only a slightly higher fee if you can’t meet that minimum)
It’s done now, so I just have to wait for it to grow. But I may never add more to it. I did find out that the more money you have in there the fees are less so eventually it won’t hurt as badly. (Around 100k, but I may never get there!)
Do other Roth IRAs have larger fees upon deposit? Or it it my specific account?