7 Most Important Reddit Threads To Read on Personal Finance

The Reddit personal finance subreddit can be an interesting place. Here are 7 threads I consider must-reads.

1. “Paying rent is not ‘throwing away money'”

If I ever go bald, know it’s because I tore my hair out every time I heard people say this.

From the /r/personalfinance thread:

While it is true that when you buy a home a portion of your monthly mortgage payment will be going to principal, and therefore you are paying yourself in some ways, however, the cost of home ownership is significant. Some of the lesser known costs include the lack of flexibility, stress, the risk of home price declines, home maintenance, real estate taxes, and HOA fees.

These are also known as phantom costs — the expenses you don’t normally consider when you buy a house.

OP also offers a great mental reframing of rent, saying, “As human beings, there are several things we need to survive, including food and shelter. Paying money for rent is no more a ‘waste’ of money than paying for food is.”

For more, be sure to check out my article on real estate investing myths and my post on how to buy a house.

2. “Your parents took decades to furnish their house”

It’s easy to look at someone successful and compare yourselves to them. You start feeling like you aren’t doing enough to reach your own goals and might try to rush things to achieve their level of success.

In reality, the most successful people devoted a lot of time and energy into getting to where they are — and you should do the same.

That’s what’s at the heart of this thread about the importance of patience when it comes to your goals:

If you’re just starting out, remember that it took your parents decades to collect all the furniture, decorations, appliances, etc you are used to having around. It’s easy to forget this because you started remembering things a long while after they started out together, so it feels like that’s how a house should always be.

It’s impossible for most people starting out to get to that level of settled in without burying themselves in debt. So relax, take your time, and embrace the emptiness! You’ll enjoy the house much more if you’re not worried about how to pay for everything all the time.

So whether you’re saving for your wedding or trying to get out of debt, know that these things take time and that’s okay. Once you stop worrying about trying to accomplish your goals quickly, you can focus your mental energy on the things you can control to accomplish your goals.

3. “I found out that a coworker in the same position, with the same education, experience, workload, etc. is making almost twice what I make”

A fascinating story about a research assistant who finds out she’s being paid MUCH less than a coworker who joined six months after she got the job.

When she raised the issue to management, her boss tried pulling some corporate trickery that’s common with bad companies:

One week later she called me into her office. She absolutely berated me for thinking I could move into the coordinator position for which I was already doing the work, and complained about my work performance. Last month I had an evaluation, and received very high praise for my performance, and there has not ever been complaints about my performance in the past. All in all, I assume she was making excuses not to increase my pay.

Eventually, she was able to find a job at another place that offered her more than she was currently earning — which led to a bidding war between her old boss and her new employer (aka the best position you could possibly be in as a job seeker).

A few lessons for job seekers from this post:

• Negotiate mercilessly. OP could have just shrugged her shoulders and kept quiet when she found out she could be earning more — BUT she didn’t. She addressed the issue and now has two different companies vying for her work. That’s why it’s always in your best interest to negotiate your salary even if you think you’re earning enough.
• Adopt an abundance mindset. It’s easy to take any job offer that comes your way — especially when money’s tight. OP had two job offers and knew that if one didn’t work out, the other would be there for her. This is also known as an abundance mentality, and it can be a powerful mental shift for the way you approach finances.
• Know your worth. The first step to any salary negotiation is knowing how much you’re worth. While websites like Glassdoor or PayScale can help you get a good sense of this, talking to people in your field about their earnings can give you a sense of what you should be making (like OP did). So don’t be afraid to ask. Top Performers do all they can to know what they’re worth.

Be sure to check out my article on how to negotiate your salary and the Briefcase Technique for more.

4. “A list of things to do when a loved one dies”

When tragedy strikes, you find yourself asking questions you’ve never even considered before. This /r/personalfinance thread tries to answer one of those questions: How do I handle my finances when someone I love dies?

While the post deals with money accounts and estate issues beautifully, it also goes into the more lesser known parts of dealing with death, like where to get an urn:

The funeral home won’t tell you this, but you don’t have to buy things like urns and whatnot from them. I chose to, because the prospect of receiving a plastic baggie with my husband’s ashes that I would have to deal with was horrifying. A friend bought an urn for his father’s ashes on Amazon. There are options that are cheaper than the funeral home, but I chose to pay the obscene markup so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the logistics.

Overall, it’s a great read for anyone — even if you haven’t suffered any personal tragedies. It’s an excellent perspective on life, death, and where our finances fit in between it all.