Hi! I am 27 with a modest salary that covers all of my needs in a hcol area (I rent with roommates). I currently have around 15k in savings which includes my emergency fund in a hysa that the interest is coming back to earth on. I have separate retirement accounts, none of which are 100% maxed out but i am maxing my employer contribution, and then additional money into a Roth IRA. My question is regarding investing ~1/3 of that money. Open to suggestions on the amount i should invest vs emergency fund size. I save about 300 a month and would continue going forward to add this to whatever investment portfolio i create. What is the best way to invest money that i would want to use in 5-7 years for a portion of a down payment/ car/ other major life events ? I know likely etfs but where can i do so / what platform so it could be accessed before retirement ? What would be the best way to avoid getting taxed heavily on minimal gains because of the low totals?

39 y/o married couple with a baby. I am staying at home with baby for the time being (hopefully 3-4 years), so we went down to single income after baby was born 7 months ago. We sold our condo (that we purchased for a great rate in 2020) to move to another state for a job opportunity that, unfortunately, my husband doesn’t like. Currently renting.

I still have quite a bit of grad loans to pay - around $125k. We have $33k in savings right now and $40k in a HYSA. No other debt (cars are paid off, etc).

Do we save for a house, aggressively pay my loans, or something else? What should our main priority be right now?

My MIL is on a fixed income, no retirement savings, measly disabilty and foodstamps checks, and is reliant on her kids to fill in the gaps. She thought that taking out a life insurance policy would be the only way she could give her kids something after she dies - but now she thinks the policy she signed up for was a scam, so we are dealing with getting that straightened out at the moment.

Any tips for moving forward? Is a life insurance policy worth it for someone in her shoes?

Hi everyone,

I’m in a really tough spot right now and could use some advice on how to navigate this situation. Over the weekend, I had a moment of clarity about my current living situation, which has been taking a serious toll on my mental health. For context, I’ve struggled with dark periods in the past, and I don’t want to risk going back there. I’ve realized that breaking my lease and finding a new place to live is necessary, even though financially, this is far from ideal.

Here’s my situation:

Financial Overview: • Income: ~$53,000/year from my main job + $350-$450/month from a side job. • Fixed Monthly Expenses: • $1,250 rent • $365 car payment • $223 car insurance • $115 utilities (electric/cable) • Other Expenses: Gas, groceries, general living costs, and a few “buy now, pay later” accounts. • Debt: ~$7,000 in credit card debt (all maxed out). I’ve been making minimum payments but recently missed a few. My credit score is around 585. • Collections: I have a $2,400 ambulance bill from 2020 during COVID when I was furloughed and thought it would be covered by insurance.

Current Living Situation: • Breaking the lease requires 60 days’ notice and a fee of about $2,350. • I want to move into my own place without a roommate. I’m 37, and I just can’t do the roommate situation anymore. While my boyfriend (who’s dealing with health challenges, including an upcoming double hip replacement) will likely live with me, I don’t want him on the lease. It’s important for me to prove I can do this on my own.

Financial Support: • My mom has offered to tap into the equity loan on her house (which is in my name too, as part of my parents’ inheritance to me and my sister) to help. While I’m so grateful, I want to be mindful of how much I take.

Where I’m Struggling: • I need help figuring out how to manage this transition, especially balancing my debts and finding a place with my current credit situation. • I’m considering balance transfers or personal loans to consolidate debt, but I don’t know where to start. • I also need advice on budgeting for the lease-breaking fee, moving costs, and securing a new apartment while improving my financial situation.

This isn’t an impulsive decision—I’ve been trying to stick it out for months, but I’ve reached a breaking point. My mental health has to come first, even if it means making tough financial decisions now and dealing with the consequences long-term.

If anyone has experience with breaking leases, consolidating debt, or navigating similar situations, I’d be so grateful for your advice. Are there services, tools, or resources that could help me get through this?

Thank you in advance for your help—I’m feeling pretty lost and just want to start moving forward.

Posting from burner account (name checks out):

Over a year ago my “bread winner” spouse was laid off from her big corporate job. Long story short she hasn’t landed a job yet as she’s primarily focused on highly sought after corporate marketing roles. I make about $90k gross per year, my income was never intended to carry the household alone. We thought she’d be landing somewhere easily within the $120k-$150k range but it just hasn’t happened. We also have two children under six.

As our savings dwindled while she looked for jobs, I first took out two loans from my retirement. These totaled $50k and I pay these back automatically through payroll deductions. We primarily used three credit which we paid off every month. This situation caused us to get hear the limit on these cards. I opened three balance transfer cards with zero interest promos (no interest until fall 2025) and filled those cards with the accumulated cc debt.

Fast forward to now, two of the cc’s we use are almost maxed out and another has about $7k limit. My credit has taken a major hit due to high amounts on these cards relative to their limit. I naively did not realize how fast the score could drop…I’ve always had good credit (700+) until this situation.

We currently have about $23k cash in the bank. My wife’s 401k has about 200k in it, and we’ve considered withdrawing some to pay off the current cc’s. Of course the worry is we are right back here six months from now, if she’s not able to find a job.

We have resisted asking family for help for various reasons. My dad is well off enough where he could lend us some to help, but we really want to use that as a last resort.

Now my main question is the best route to pay down the cc’s…401k cash out, home equity loan/line of credit(?), loan consolidation, bite the bullet and ask family? Also for repairing my credit, I imagine just keep those cc accounts low and pay fully every month once we’re able. We do plan to not use the cc’s anymore and just use debit cards. It’s just scary right now only having the $23k cash on hand with fixed mortgage and childcare expenses. Also, we are hopeful her job situation changes and we are back to a strong income level.

25m) 90k salary living at home. I currently have 30k saved specifically for a down payment on a house sitting in sgov for the last couple of years slowly adding to it to get to this point. I’ve now switched gears to start saving for my next car which will also be roughly 25-30k (have 12k saved in checking account rn). Been adding about 4K a month to the checking account but I’m gonna move this money to sgov most likely. I have about 15k in voo so most of my money is in my sgov as this money is primarily set aside for large purchases. I was having a discussion with a friend who said it would be better to put the 12k for the car in the market and then take a loan. Apr for used cars are like 8-13% so I figured paying it with cash would be the smartest option. I’ve chopped this away as being a risk tolerance and personal portfolio diversification decision but wanted to hear the subs thoughts on this. FYI I was planning on purchasing the car sooner hence why it was in the checking account but I foresee that could change and will most likely move it to sgov.

Hello I am currently renting a townhouse with a roommate. The living dynamic is turning sour and have choosen to go our separate ways once the lease is over.

I am trying to figure out a plan come August as I make enough to rent a 1 bedroom apartment. I qualify on everything but my credit score. Years of being irresponsible hurt but I'm getting back on track with that. I make enough to cover rent and meet the stipulations of having 3x the gross income in rent. I have good rental history as I have been paying rent for over 6 years now.

The only thing that is bad is my credit score. Will places still accept me with my credit score or should I be on the lookout for specific places that will over look that. Even if it comes down to bigger down payment I'm fine with that.

Pretty much exactly what the title says … my partner and I have been talking about wedding timelines a lot recently. Our loose plan is to get engaged in the next 2 years and take 2-3 years to plan a wedding so we’re looking at a wedding within the next 4-5 years. We both have large families so I’m anticipating a large wedding. Looking at my current budget, I have about $50-100/month to put aside.

Here’s my question - there’s so many options in both stock portfolios and hysa and I’ve heard that both are good for this type of saving but I’m not sure which would be better? Any suggestions? If you suggest one option, do you have any suggestions on either a hysa or stock portfolio that would be beginner friendly?

• "Abby" lives along in a senior community (not assisted living but subsidized by the state) and she is 67 years old

• Lives off small fixed income which should be enough to cover all her bills

• She is bad with managing money and had run up a moderate credit card bill. She has previously declared bankruptcy twice

• "We" (children) we paid off her credit card and gave her small monthly allowance to improve her quality of life. We also told her that she needed to not splurge as our funds are not unlimited

• Within two months she went and bought expensive clothes and shoes she is probably not going to wear more than a few times (cold weather clothes while she lives in California) from expensive brands. Now she is back in credit card debt

Considering asking her to get rid of her credit card entirely and just use cash, debit card, and checks. But wondering if there is a better solution.

Hi I am just curious about how people allocate money to loans.

I have a mortgage agreed in 2023 for £135k with interest of 4.19%. I can make one annual over repayment up to 10% of the mortgage with no additional charge.

I have c9k in savings and am thinking of allocating 3k as a mortgage overpayment in December which I’ve calculated will save me around £485 in interest charges to the end of the 5 year fixed mortgage but then beyond for the remainder of the mortgage life.

I have a student loan where the interest rate is 6.5% which is deducted as normal from my salary. This is a higher rate than my mortgage but smaller loan value (imagine c25k). Most google searches suggest not paying student loan off early?

I then owe a family member so I’ll allocate 3k from my 9k savings to that and left with 3k as a buffer - rainy day fund.

Is this the most sensible thing to do or should I invest my money instead of repaying mortgage early? I know this is a personal decision. But wanted to hear some other opinions.

My monthly wage covers my house bills and social activities /holidays with maybe a couple hundred to go towards saving.

Coming up in January, I will get my yearly bonus. It'a a bit bigger this year due to some changes in the company. I'm looking at $23,000 pre tax, let's call it $14,000 after tax, just purely based off the percentage of last years.

Background: I'm 24, I make about $94,000 a year, pre-bonus. In monthly terms, that's about $5500 a month after tax. After all my bills, payments, and 401k contributions, I'm left with about $1400 a month to spend. Usually, $500 of that is set aside a month. So $900 to spend on whatever.

I have about $25,000 in HYSA, and $32,000 in my 401k.

Besides my rent, my biggest bill is my student loans, which is about $628 a month. Pretty big, and is what leads me into my main question. I am unsure of what I should be doing with my bonus money here. I have a couple options in my mind that I would love advice on, or if any other ideas come to mind.

1. I put the majority of the bonus into my student loans. I believe the balance is still around the $80k mark and is set to keep being paid until 2040 if I continue with the $628 payments. I believe my average interest is 5.25%, I wanna say.

2. I put the bonus into my HYSA, to start saving for a down payment on a house. I live in a higher end of MCOL area, so houses are pretty expensive. $500,000 or so. So if I want to start saving for a house, it would take a while and l'd want to start as soon as I can.

3. Maybe the most "not smart" option, buy a new car. I have a 2018 Toyota Corolla. Only 40k miles on it. Nothing is wrong with the car, but I could sell it for about $13,000. Giving me $27,000 to work with. The biggest reason I don't like my car is the winter months. It being a FWD, if it snows past an inch I'm kind SOL until the roads get cleared. Very annoying. Other than a few small grievances, the car is fine.

I know the last one might be the least smart, but it's still in my head as an option because of the idea that life is short, and me dumping money into loans might mean nothing in 5 years, and it scares me! Would be lying if I said it didn't. And also the fact the longer I wait to sell my car, the less it will be worth, the more new cars will cost, ultimately costing me more money (?). What is the best way to utilize this bonus?

What are the things you've always wanted to know about but have been too afraid of asking? What do you need to retire? Is your financial advisor working on your behalf or just raking in fees? What does it all mean?

Remember - this is a safe place. Upvote those that contribute, and only downvote if a comment is off-topic or doesn't contribute to the discussion, not just because you disagree.

I'm a 21 year old with 60k saved up in my bank account. I'm really just at the point where all this money that I've worked hard for is sitting in my bank account and I feel like I need to take this as an opportunity to do something smart with it. I've been working for quite some time now and would say majority of my money comes from making tips working as a server at a restaurant. I have about 1/3 of my money in a 2.5% interest 360 day premium period savings account. I've taken a lot of time off this year and travelled around a lot and I did it cheaply enough that it barely put a dent into my savings. I still have a huge desire to travel even more. I live in Canada also, and I haven't yet gone to school because I don't know what it is I want to study yet. I want some advice on how I can grow this money, if there are any tips or things I should be doing that future me will look back on and be thankful for. I appreciate any opinions and tips!

My (20M) mother has said she’d sign her apartment over to me if I paid a part of the mortgage as she’s currently struggling. I do have the money to do it as it’d be coming from a fairly stable but small income stream. But I’m not really at a stage where I’m confident about my finances and I feel like the money could be of use to me once I graduate college and step into my adult life but I know I’d manage without it. There isn’t long left on the mortgage, less than a decade. Over the course of it, it’d add up to roughly enough to pay for a 15% deposit for a small place of my own. On the flip side the house is currently worth about 4.5x of what I’d be paying in.

She also wants to live at the house for the rest of her life understandably so that might be 30 years before I could sell and obviously it wouldn’t be generating a rental income. It’s located in a completely different part of the country I can’t ever see myself living in so the house would solely be a financial investment with a view of selling in the future.

The area has seen a significant housing boom but there are signs it’s reached its peak now and I really have no way of telling what the situation will be in the future. It is in a major city and highly desirable area so I’m not worried about it losing its value however but there is uncertainty as to how much it will increase in value and maybe investing the money would be less stressful and still yield profit.

I’m apprehensive about this idea but I fear that by passing this up I’d be missing out on a big financial opportunity. I don’t have any other generational wealth or inheritance. Would love to hear people’s opinions on what I should do

I currently live in a suburb of Charlotte and plan to move to Los Angeles. My employer has stated that my performance in 2024 will constitute a raise and they will cover my moving expenses for Los Angeles, lease me a vehicle, and give me a “Cost of Living Stipend” based upon my 2025 salary (end of year review is in 2 weeks so then I will know what my salary will be).

My question here is why would they not increase my salary? Tax benefits? Accounting purposes? Is a cost of living stipend standard?

Just recently got engaged and I wanted to be able to clear out my/our debt before our wedding. In total between the two of us, we probably have around 30ish-k in debt. Individually, I have about 12k, and she has the brunt of it. As a way to consolidate all the debt into one place, is it smart to do a loan to do that?

Between the two of us we make about 150k before taxes. Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or advice on this?

I bought a house in 2022 in texas. I thought I would end up staying here much longer but due to a great job opportunity I am moving to Washington in a couple months. However the financials of my house are leaving me in quite a pickle. I owe 335k on my mortgage and a realtor said that the current market would put my house close to 300k. Adding in 6% for buy/sell agents fee i’m looking at being 60k in the red. And to make matters worse I have a 24k loan on solar panels that would need to be payed off as well. My other option is renting which isnt looking great either. My current mortgage is around 2400/month and I think i’d only be able to rent it for around 1850. Plus i’m living out of state so would probably need to get a property manager. Both options are bad but at this point I just want to minimize my losses as much as possible. Any advice?

Live in the bay area with my brother, who works as well. I am 22 years old.

$6,000 in checking at all times $41,000 in emergency fund

$20,000 in union 401(a) (contribute $1 an hour, employer currently contributes $2 an hour and will contribute $11 an hour when I graduate)

$14,000 in fidelity brokerage account (contribute $500 a month)

$28,000 in roth ira (contribute $1000 a month)

Pension as well, 15 an hour goes into that without me doing a thing.

I have a twelve year old honda accord with 220k miles on it, do my own maintenance, no major issues, and expect it to run for another few years.

No debt.

Rent is about $3300 a month, split evenly between my brother and I. All utilities combined about 400 a month. No health insurance premium and incredibly cheap co-pays, though it will go up slightly as I switch to a better plan for the sake of my health.

I will be graduating spring 2026, and as a journeyman I will be making a lot more money. Currently make ~100k and will be making 150k+ as a journeyman, higher if I decide to go the route of foreman, detailer, or PM. I want to travel a bit to celebrate, and also have it be a yearly thing because I will have more money and I’ve worked myself to the bone for the past five years. Problem is: I don’t travel, ever. The exception is to see family very rarely(organized by family members who manage to convince me to come) or for conferences or education.

I want to go somewhere up north and rent a cabin for a few weeks or something, just relax to celebrate my graduation. But I see all this stuff about airline prices fluctuating and planning in advance by 6 months and rental cars and negotiating a place to stay and it makes my mind spin. How do I even start? Should I just start a separate savings account to begin, and think about it as it comes up? How early should I book? How do I deal mentally with the knowledge that I’ll be missing weeks of wages just to hang out somewhere?(no pto)

Any advice is appreciated. I really want to go outside my hometown when I graduate.

My mom bought a car and financed it through Capital One for her nephew, and has been making payments for him and now she has died. She had no will and only one surviving son. Her nephew did not register the car in his name and he doesnt have the money to pay off the balance. My mom only has a few thousand dollars in the bank which is not enough to pay the balance, and I do not want anything to do with this situation nor do I want her last remaining money to go towards the car. The nephew also lives in Mexico and is insisting he keeps the car no matter what. I do not want to be held responsible. What do I do?

When I was younger, 21 to be exact (I am in my early 30’s now), the bank nor the car manufacturer would finance me on my own for a 35k car with a 7k down payment. I didn’t make amazing money but I had a lot in savings just not a lot of credit history. I had to get a co-signer. Now I see constant posts and people, even people in their early twenties stating they are in “crushing” debt because they have a $1500/mo payment on a vehicle that they clearly can’t afford and or shouldn’t have gotten approved for. Is this just banks not caring anymore or what’s the deal these days?

So I have a bit of a different situation.

I’m very blessed in that I do not have to pay for rent or utilities.

My only bills due are my phone, car payment, and auto insurance.

I’m doing really good with my finances, but i feel like the way i pay my bills is a bit strange.

I keep all my money invested in a separate bank than who I normally bank with.

For example, I have all my investment money with one bank and I cannot touch it because it’s locked up in whatever I’ve chosen to invest in for 3 months.

My regular checking used for my bills, I only keep about $300 in.

I try to not spend too much and stabilize the amount and then do the following.

1st paycheck of the month —- auto insurance 2nd paycheck of the month —- car payment 3rd paycheck of the month —- savings 4th paycheck of the month —— refill cash envelope system

My whole paychecks don’t go to this of course, some will also go to savings each week.

But I feel like this method is kind of awkward, and what if I get sick one week? I can’t pull from investments?

Is there a better system?

I could keep x amount in my checking account, but I also want as much money as possible invested.

What’s a good amount to keep just in case something happens?

Beginning my Journey of Financial Independence

I am currently 22, I am employed and wanting to begin investing seriously and also begin retirement planning. I know I should've started a few years ago, but I am here now and wanting to begin this journey.

I graduate in December with a Software Engineering degree, so I will be blessed to have a larger income(hopefully). I have a couple hundred dollar in stocks, but I am very bearish and just don't touch them. I want to begin learning to take more risk, but also will be unsure of how much time in the next few years to tend to them.

I keep being told by Relatives that Edward Jones has helped them, are they reliable and trustworthy in terms of my early years growth?

If anyone has advice/wisdom, I would love to hear it. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Money would solve literally all of my problems

So here's the stitch:

I've always been good with what little money I've had, but my toxic habit is hanging onto it in my savings accounts because I never had enough to invest and let go of long enough to accrue any interest or growth (i.e. paycheck to paycheck life & on my own since 16). I always needed an emergency fund, which would be depleted ever couple of years during a crisis. Despite this, my credit has taken a massive hit due to some poor decisions, and I am finding it almost impossible to recover from, even if I paid off all of my debt, which would leave me with no safety net.

I've had a corporate job for nearly 3 years now, which comes with a 401K. At first, I was only contributing 5% because that's as much as my employer was matching. They stopped matching for about a year, then started back up again this past July. So my return is currently around +17% with a high risk profile.

It occurred to me recently that this is all pre-tax contributions, and while I'd take home less if I contributed more, my untaxed savings would grow exponentially while I was taxed less on lesser take home pay.

I've accrued nearly $14k in my time with the company and recently changed my contributions to 10%. However, I am seeking a way to cash it out and put it somewhere where it will double, triple, whatever in a shorter period of time, and I am willing to take the 10% tax penalty to do so - if it's worth it.

So my question to you savvy investor members is - have you ever cashed out your 401K, and what did you do with it in order to have your money make you more money? Possibly even navigating the economy in such a way that your money ended up working for you so well that you were able to retire on a passive income.

Is this possible? Do I have enough to do something like that? What are your suggestions? Should I roll it over? Are there opportunities I am unaware of and missing out on? Any and all feedback is welcome.

I opened a Schwab Intelligent Portfolios brokerage account maybe six years ago. I've never been thrilled with its performance - it's very risk-averse even though I've tried setting it to the highest risk tolerance it allows. Even with that, it's allocating 8% of my assets to cash. I already have cash in checking and savings accounts, so this seems like a waste to me. I'm just not getting the returns I was hoping for. But, I imagine closing the account/withdrawing all the funds would have its downsides (I'm not an expert on that stuff). Do you think I should just leave the money in there, or should I explore other brokerage options?

Hey everyone-

So for starters I’m currently 22 with around 28K in my 401K 14k from my old company and 14k from my new company.

Between medical debt, credit card debt, and my wife’s debt we have a combined debt of around 6000 (if you don’t count house and car debt)

Combined we make around 85k a year (62 from me 23 from her) and monthly payments on debt is around 900 a month. (200 Wells Fargo, 75 chase, 100 Apple, 100 discover, 200 her debt, and 225 medical debt)

My question is, should I take out of my 401k to eliminate my monthly payments?

I will admit, we’re not extremely frugal with our money. But the interest we’re racking up doesn’t fuel me with joy.

I can break down my budget even harder if needed but as a general question I was wondering if eliminating my debt today would be better than trying to pay off with interest.

TIA

I am planning early retirement in April or May of 2025 and trying to decide if I should continue my 401K contributions after new year starts. I know that there is a tax advantage of 401K and my company matches 5% of it as well but only the following year for the current employees. Since I will not be there in 2026 I will not get that match. Would I be better off to contribute that amount to Roth IRA for future growth and use in retirement?

Hey all, so I have heard that you are supposed to contribute up to the match in a 401K, then max the IRA and with anything left over contribute to the 401K. Does this hold true to a Roth 401K as well? What are the advantages to a Roth IRA over a Roth 401K? I am currently contributing the match at my company and trying to figure out if I should be throwing excess to the IRA or if I can just throw extra to the Roth 401k and call it there. For context, company matches $.75/$1 up to 10% of my salary, then contributes an additional 5% of my salary on top of that. Any advice is appreciated!

Was wondering if we still needed a will if we had our kids as beneficiaries on all our accounts...

Thanks.....

I'm doing some end-of-year financial paperwork at home. It looks like my daughter's 529 will have quite a bit left when she graduates despite our plan to underfund both of our kids' 529s. There is still time but I'm trying to make a plan how to transfer the funds to a Roth, but there are some complications.

Biggest is that the funds are all in my daughter's account. My son is older and when he received a free ride to college we still covered expenses but it didn't use all of his funds. When he graduated I just transferred the funds to my daughter's account. She also received a very generous scholarship and now it looks like there will also be a good chunk left when she finishes.

I would like to split whatever is left between the two of them as Roth. Does the wait period for him start when I move 1/2 the money back or is the time from when I opened his account originally? It is still open with zero balance.

Does the $7K max Roth contribution include any money they are already putting into a Roth IRA? Our son is already out, working in a good job, and has opened his own retirement accounts.

Myself and my spouse (DINKs) *might* make too much to open a ROTH IRA, but are interested in opening one. I am new to investing and still learning so please let me know if I'm incorrect, but be kind. We already max our 401K (spouse)/University of North Carolina ORP (me). My understanding is that we can contribute to 2024 Roth until end of tax filing season in April for 2024 year. Since that's the case, it seems like it may make the most sense to do the following:

- Get all of our financial info/W2 to our accountant for tax filing as early as possible

- Assuming we get return back before tax deadline, ask accountant to double check MAGI to determine if we qualify (I think they should be able to do this...?)

- If within income limits, open Roth IRA for 2024 and contribute max amount (as long as before tax deadline). If not within limits, investigate backdoor Roth option

I am also aware backdoor Roth exists, but seems like a lot of work to do in the chance we do qualify for traditional Roth. I also feel like this is the safer option to avoid potential tax penalties (?) if we just went ahead and opened Roth without definitively knowing MAGI. I do know we will forfeit some compounded interest by waiting later in 2025.

TLDR: Not sure if we are over income for Roth (trying to calculate giving me an ulcer), can I open and contribute for 2024 post-tax filing and max out as long as it's before tax deadline?

TYIA!