Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by psv1 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

psv1

Important features of any good setup:

- you consolidate your finances in the minimum number of accounts & cards

- you have a couple of months of expenses as cash in a current or savings account

- you pay off your credit card in full every month

- you invest some amount every month

- all of this is automated - paying bills, credit card repayments, investing, putting money in savings, all of it.

Once you have these things down, you can then adjust percentages, providers and all other details according to your personal situation and preferences.

View on HN

I love this minimal approach, but I've learned the hard way that there's a missing word - "resilient".

"you consolidate your finances in the minimum resilient number of accounts & cards"

I almost lost my iCloud data when my single credit card at the time was compromised and the new card got delayed. I now think one should carry at least two independent credit cards of some sort, if one is paying periodically for critical IT (cloud data, domain names, etc).

Another anecdote: a relative had to pay cash (the venue didn't accept cheques) for an expensive rehearsal dinner, because their only credit card was compromised the day before at a business lunch.

Likewise for emergency funds. I've now split my e-fund between two banks to reduce the risk to paying my mortgage in a financial crisis.

I've automated everything except paying bills and credit card payement: I like feeling that money going away.

I automated specifically after getting a few stupid late fees in my 20s. At this point, if it’s not automated, I’m at least 25% likely to be late.

Fortunately, there are only a handful of small bills that I have that aren’t automated. They’re annoying.

I noticed a 15 euro charge to "Jet Multimedia" on my internet bill one month, and made a point to not direct-debit anything due to the simple fact that a leachy parasite game co. (I've never played a game in my life) was able to latch onto my internet bill somehow.

Allegedly I signed up for this, but they could neither produce my signature, nor could they explain the mechanism by which they are allowed to agglommerate onto my internet bill, and a quick call to the ISP removed this surcharge, but wisened me up to how utterly cheap and tawdry an ISP could be.

Direct Debit had best be reserved for actually trusted actors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com