The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

Don't you folks follow the standard advice about having 3 months salary in a easy access account?

[Habbaku]

I'm just aghast how so many of you guys have 30k$+ in savings to buy cars.

It's...inefficient, to say the least. But I suspect I would be horrified by most people's portfolios and cash management, so I try to ignore it.

Check back with me when you have a family, and you encounter fairly significant unexpected or even expected expenses.  When that happens to you more than once, you start building a bit of a financial cushion.

It's a lot easier when you only have to worry about yourself.

Bold of you to make so many assumptions, but that is your schtick.

[Habbaku]

Don't you folks follow the standard advice about having 3 months salary in a easy access account?

Of course. Though the recommendation is 3-6 months of expenses, not salary. That's over-conservative, IMO.

[Tamas]

I was looking around a bit and it seems to me the salary sacrifice EV buying company my employer is signed up with is little more than a scam.

Like, the net cost quotes they were giving me, I am pretty sure I could get the same rates on the market. I am saying pretty sure because the market ones don't include insurance so I'd have to do that myself but I have done some googling for averages on that.

So they are drastically overpricing their offers so swallow all the gains I could made by using my pre-tax salary for the purchase.

Essentially their proposal is that instead of paying my tax after a portion of my salary, I should give that tax amount to them rather than the state, for the DUBIOUS benefits of not having to sort car insurance myself and the added complexity of having my car rental lease linked to my employment status.

Yeah, that sounds weird.  Normally fleet discounts are pretty good.  And also, normally if an employer wants to give an employee a car as a perk, the car is provided, and then the value of that perk is a taxable benefit.

What you're describing doesn't have much of an upside so I wonder why your employer is even doing it?

What Sheilbh said but the problem of course is that there is no real benefit of this for the employee in this case. Quick search on Reddit etc. confirms I am not wrong and this and other salary sacrifice providers do have prices way above the private market, essentially swallowing all the benefits they claim the employee would have.

I don't know why the company would go along with this, I can't think of an easy kickback here, probably the provider offers attractive terms, and company HR is happy for having provided this "perk".

[Habbaku]

I don't know why the company would go along with this, I can't think of an easy kickback here, probably the provider offers attractive terms, and company HR is happy for having provided this "perk".

If it's anything like my employer, it's probably exactly that last bit. We offer car insurance "discounts" through my employer as part of our package, but every time I've gotten a quote from them their rates are 3x what I'm paying just by shopping around in the normal market.

I can only wonder who secured that deal and what benefit they think they're providing.

[DGuller]

Car insurance rates can vary quite a bit from company to company, but they're so regulated that it's highly unlikely that the plan is to give you a 3x rate offer by roping you in with a 10% discount.  It's more likely that Liberty Mutual, which is probably the company that offers the discount, is not a good fit for you, but for some it may be the lowest rate option.

[Habbaku]

Car insurance rates can vary quite a bit from company to company, but they're so regulated that it's highly unlikely that the plan is to give you a 3x rate offer by roping you in with a 10% discount.  It's more likely that Liberty Mutual, which is probably the company that offers the discount, is not a good fit for you, but for some it may be the lowest rate option.

In this case, it's Farmers. I'm not surprised they were higher, but the sticker shock was very real. It definitely makes sense that they could be a good fit for someone else, to be sure.

[crazy canuck]

I'm just aghast how so many of you guys have 30k$+ in savings to buy cars.

It's...inefficient, to say the least. But I suspect I would be horrified by most people's portfolios and cash management, so I try to ignore it.

Check back with me when you have a family, and you encounter fairly significant unexpected or even expected expenses.  When that happens to you more than once, you start building a bit of a financial cushion.

It's a lot easier when you only have to worry about yourself.

Bold of you to make so many assumptions, but that is your schtick.

I thought it rather bold of you to suggest to people here that having cash on hand was "inefficient to say the least"

[crazy canuck]

I was looking around a bit and it seems to me the salary sacrifice EV buying company my employer is signed up with is little more than a scam.

Like, the net cost quotes they were giving me, I am pretty sure I could get the same rates on the market. I am saying pretty sure because the market ones don't include insurance so I'd have to do that myself but I have done some googling for averages on that.

So they are drastically overpricing their offers so swallow all the gains I could made by using my pre-tax salary for the purchase.

Essentially their proposal is that instead of paying my tax after a portion of my salary, I should give that tax amount to them rather than the state, for the DUBIOUS benefits of not having to sort car insurance myself and the added complexity of having my car rental lease linked to my employment status.

Yeah, that sounds weird.  Normally fleet discounts are pretty good.  And also, normally if an employer wants to give an employee a car as a perk, the car is provided, and then the value of that perk is a taxable benefit.

What you're describing doesn't have much of an upside so I wonder why your employer is even doing it?

What Sheilbh said but the problem of course is that there is no real benefit of this for the employee in this case. Quick search on Reddit etc. confirms I am not wrong and this and other salary sacrifice providers do have prices way above the private market, essentially swallowing all the benefits they claim the employee would have.

I don't know why the company would go along with this, I can't think of an easy kickback here, probably the provider offers attractive terms, and company HR is happy for having provided this "perk".

The whole thing just seems weird, why would the employer want to insert themselves into the transaction and effectively become the leasing agent.  There must be some odd tax rule at play that incentivizes that kind of structure.

[Sheilbh]

I think they're standard benefits you'd expect here in a professional role now - so not doing it looks market.

There are tax benefits for some - I think the low carbon transport (public transport season ticket, bikes and EVs), charitable giving and childcare. But it's a common way of doing things like gym memberships, buying new devices etc.

[Habbaku]

I think they're standard benefits you'd expect here in a professional role now - so not doing it looks market.

There are tax benefits for some - I think the low carbon transport (public transport season ticket, bikes and EVs), charitable giving and childcare. But it's a common way of doing things like gym memberships, buying new devices etc.

I think this is a large part of it, yes. See also: the prevalence of "wellness programs" that HR programs organize, none of which actually work.

[Sheilbh]

I think this is a large part of it, yes. See also: the prevalence of "wellness programs" that HR programs organize, none of which actually work.

Yeah (and sorry meant off-market). I worked for a magic circle lawfirm for a bit, but remember being shown round by HR and told about their on-site doctor, dentist and sleep pods - which made me wonder why they might need an on-site doctor, dentist and sleep pods

I'm not sure whether Scott was just a symptom of the widespread popularity of Romanticism or a major innovator of Romantic ideas, but he surely contributed to its popularity, and the US Southern aristocracy was particularly susceptible.

But the secession of the South was not a particularly unique example of powerful elites engaging in violence to prevent the arrival of the future. 

Some wild resuscitation of old conversations. But I'm reading Huckleberry Finn at the minute and saw something interesting and relevant to this. The wrecked steamboat is called the Walter Scott - and in my edition (Oxford World's Classics, edited by Emory Elliott who is "Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside" and author or editor on 18th and 19th century literature) there's an endnote:

a sarcastic reference to the British novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1830). Twain had a low opinion of his novels, for the dreamy influence they had upon the South.

Can't help but feel a bit sorry for Scott

[PJL]

Don't you folks follow the standard advice about having 3 months salary in a easy access account?

Of course. Though the recommendation is 3-6 months of expenses, not salary. That's over-conservative, IMO.

Much easier to calculate total wages than total spending. Over-conservative it may be, but better that then the other way around.

[Sheilbh]

Unsure if we've had this before: LIFE Magazine 1949.



Full size for easier reading: https://i.imgur.com/100pu9X.jpeg

Sort of related but I'm reading Ruin and Renewal by Paul Betts at the minute which is basically about how European "civilisation" re-built itself after the war (he's a history professor specialised in the GDR but I think with a general interest in the connections of politics and culture).

And there's a really fascinating section on the absolute torrent of basically etiquette guides in the immediate post-war years. He focuses particularly on the ones produced in Germany (both East and West) but it touches on some of this and is a really interesting window on the social concerns at that time.

[Syt]

Well, etiquette in Germany makes sense. My German teacher, who was a little girl when WW2 ended, had to learn that "Heil Hitler" was not a proper greeting anymore and that saying "Guten Tag" or similar was appropriate, and she thought it was silly originally, because he had never known different.