Like the other commenter I pronounce it sen-tor. Just like the word "dinosaur" I would pronounce die-no-sor if that makes sense. Both words end in "aur".
...though now you've got me curious about how you and your wife pronounce dinosaur :)
Otherbarry
joined 2 months ago
Debt consolidation feels like it was a scam.
Sounds like it, whatever that was that you signed up for does not sound like anything people recommend doing. If anything you could try doing promotional balance transfers onto a lower interest rate credit card if it gives you say 12-24 months 0 interest rate - that strategy is only temporary to give you some more time to pay things off.
When struggling with multiple credit card balances you essentially need to decide how you want to pay them off (debt avalanche vs snowball method) e.g. pay the minimum on all the cards except one of them, that one you pay as much as you can until it is paid off, then keep repeating until you're done with all the cards.
https://www.creditkarma.com/advice/i/debt-avalanche
or
https://www.creditkarma.com/advice/i/what-is-the-snowball-method
And in the meantime obvs stop using them until it's all paid off.
But I have such a poor credit score now that I cant imagine anyone renting to me now.
Yeah that might be tough. Maybe living with roommates or temporary prepaid subletting is an option? Those sort of arrangements are less likely to run credit checks.
Does your employer offer you a match on your 401k contributions? That's free money regardless of how the 401k is invested so you definitely want to keep that going.
Even without that generally speaking you'll still want to continue contributing to your 401k. Remember that a 401k is long term retirement savings, the market will continue to rise/fall during your employment over the next x years. You're not required to invest 100% in U.S. specific index funds, in fact most people would recommend allocating a mix of U.S. / International / Bonds e.g. the "lazy" portfolio is one of the more famous recommendations https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Asset_allocation
Or for just set-and-forget you can invest in target date retirement index funds if your 401k offers them (most 401k plans offer those nowadays).
Cash back rewards cards work well, I end up with at least 2% - 5% cash back on all my shopping.
The key is to treat credit cards like cash e.g. pay your bill in full every month, never ever carry a balance. It doesn't work for everyone and that's okay, some people just can't help themselves and get too spendy and end up in debt.
Other nice thing is that fraud is handled better with credit cards, if my card is lost/stolen no one has a direct line to my bank account and can't try to drain my bank balance with debit purchases. Sure your bank may/may not void those transactions but in the time it takes for them to "investigate" you're going to be out real money in your bank account. With a credit card you just dispute those fraud charges and never actually pay for them.
In NYC people never thought he was cool, he was just another rich blowhard in the NYC area. He has spent pretty much his whole life desiring some sort of celebrity coolness he never really attained.
I don't know about people outside the NYC area, maybe they always thought he was some sort of cool real estate rich guy? Do people down south idolize that type of person? Seems unlikely then again stranger things have happened.
Usually what I do is put the plate in the oven towards the end of whenever I need to take food out so it heats up a couple of mins or so then take everything out. Use oven mitts in case you left the plate in there a bit too long.
Misleading headline on the Daily Mail site, both articles say he might be stepping down "soon". So that might happen eventually but I can't find any news reports saying it actually happened.