Money Money Money

January 14, 2010 11:53 AM

Please: point me to your favorite personal finance questions (and answers) on AskMe.

I am finally getting my financial act together, and am really enjoying reading personal finance related things at the moment. I've been browsing through related tags on AskMe, searching AskMe with Google, etc. etc., but I'd love to be pointed to questions and answers that other users found really exceptional, whether they're just excellent elucidations of common information or mindblowing new insights that totally changed the way you think about your money.

I am happy to compile these into a Collected AskMe section on the wiki.

posted by ocherdraco to MetaFilter-Related at 11:53 AM (22 comments total)

Please call it PayMe.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:54 AM on January 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

YES.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:56 AM on January 14, 2010

Not exactly what you're looking for, but have you seen Mutant's profile page? Lots of finance info there.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:06 PM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not looking for big-f Finance things, which is what Mutant specializes in. I'm looking for stuff that might fit on Get Rich Slowly, or some such website--less markets and investing, more this is how you structure your cashflow.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:16 PM on January 14, 2010

Sorry, I have nothing.
posted by Elmore at 12:22 PM on January 14, 2010

Here is a good one.
posted by mattbucher at 12:26 PM on January 14, 2010

Advice for niece starting college

US vs Europe "money culture" (this one's a little more about systems but has kind of a nice "what would you tell a Martian about how banking works" angle to it)

My sense is that a lot of the finance questions are specific to the asker's personal situation, but a lot of the same advice gets repeated in each of them.
posted by yarrow at 12:27 PM on January 14, 2010

Perhaps scan through the comment history of MeFi's own jdroth -- not that he comments solely on personal finance questions, but it's a start.
posted by somanyamys at 12:30 PM on January 14, 2010

Great, now that Abba song is running through my head.
posted by Melismata at 1:12 PM on January 14, 2010

Please call it PayMe.

I'd dub it SaveMe.
posted by orange swan at 1:23 PM on January 14, 2010

Sorry, I have nothing.

Yeah, I'm broke too.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:27 PM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Please call it PayMe.

I'd dub it SaveMe.

Isn't that the show on FX about guys with long, floppy penises?
posted by grobstein at 1:55 PM on January 14, 2010

Metafilter: about guys with long, floppy penises.
posted by special-k at 2:02 PM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hmm... not as many answers as I'd suspected there would be. That's all right, though. I'll still compile the ones that are here, and add any that I find on my own.
posted by ocherdraco at 5:22 PM on January 14, 2010

Yeha I have no idea why that is the case. Sorry if I kicked off the thread by being TOO LULZY.

The most useful threads for me have been the ones where people are either

- getting out of deep deep credit card debt
- trying to deal with collection agencies
- waaaaa behind on their taxes
- trying to figure out if how they manage their money in their house is "wrong"

There are a lot more tags for that sort of thing than you'd think. jdroth is a good person to follow as is Alt-F4 [I think?] who made that cool Pear spreadsheet thing which is terrific.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:29 PM on January 14, 2010

- "How can I afford to build an 'emergency fund'?"

- "Stabbing myself in the eye with a letter opener doesn't seem to be an appropriate reaction to this problem." This thread isn't really about managing cashflow, but about organizing papers (bills, receipts, tax documents, etc). For me, keeping documents organized really helps with staying up-to-date on the status of where the money has gone/needs to go -- I found a lot of helpful tips in the comments.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 11:52 PM on January 14, 2010

What I was sort of thinking but didn't say when I alluded to the questions tending to be both asker-specific and repetitive is that I think this is a topic that might benefit more from a smart curation of good answers to questions than just a collection of links to threads - finding and highlighting the best advice within all the "help me with my credit card debt" and "what do I need to know about mortgages" and "how do couples deal with joint finances" questions.

But that seems like a lot of work.
posted by yarrow at 6:39 AM on January 15, 2010

It'll be an ongoing project. I've created the page, and will start adding links this weekend.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:05 PM on January 15, 2010

Here are some good (if slightly old) threads:

What should I do with my money?

I have $100,000. What should I do with it?

Investing $100K.
posted by googly at 8:31 AM on January 16, 2010

Googly, those investment threads from 2004 seem like pure hubris now:

"spend the $100k on tuition at Harvard Business School, and then look for a job at one of the big investment banks."

"The great thing about real estate IMO is the ability to leverage your investment 4:1."

One of the things I observe in those money threads is how rare it is to see "diversify" among suggestions, and how many that do are primitive in their suggestions. At worst it's high medium and low risk stocks (stocks, stocks and more stocks!), and at best its a mix of stocks and bonds. The development of ETFs for commodities and REITs could make it a bit easier for people to invest in a diverse set of assets, but I'm not yet convinced they're safe for retail investors.
posted by pwnguin at 3:28 PM on January 16, 2010

All right, I've added the first batch of links to the page. As I find more, I'll keep adding. If you come across more, feel free to add them, too.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:36 PM on January 17, 2010

Thanks for doing this. I had nothing to contribute, but think this is a cool idea.

I was just reading a book on being frugal and saw so many errors in it I threw it at the wall, so hopefully these links will be better.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:53 AM on January 18, 2010