Due to a series of unexpected expenses with car stuff and health stuff, I’m in a situation where I have a maxed out credit card, $0 in my savings and $100 left til I get paid on the 11th. What do I do? Rent is already paid.

Hello, I wanted advice on my current portfolio investments to see if I should change anything because of potential overlap. I max out 401K, Roth IRA, HSA and anything remaining is in savings / personal brokerage account.

401K: 60% Target Date Fund 2060 / 20% Russell 3000 / 18% International Equity / 2% Company Stock.

Roth IRA: 100% Target Date fund 2060

HSA: 80% S&P 20% Total international

Personal Brokerage: 95% VFIAX 5% VXUS

Was wondering if a dividend fund would be nice to add to my personal brokerage? Let me know what we think of the split. I imagine the target date funds and 500/3000 index overlap.

So I signed up for a credit card that had 0% APR for the first 15 months. That 15 months is sadly coming to an end and I have a balance of about 4k. I signed up for another credit card that has 0% APR on balance transfers for 18 months and initiated a transfer, which 14 days from account opening + 2-3 business days of processing will put me either on the day the 0% APR expires or the day after…y’all think I’m going to get hit with the interest or just make it? If the balance transfer goes through on the day the 0% APR interest expires will I still get charged? This seems like a good idea that may just work but I could be missing something

First off, I will provide as much context as possible to help out with my request:

• I currently make $20/hr. My monthly paycheck is pretty much exactly $2,550 after taxes (Taxes zap about 20% of my bi-weekly paycheck). I work full-time, 40 hours a week, and do not have any other form of income, since I do not have any side-gigs or another job. This would equate to about $30,600 per year, and I do plan on making more in the future but as of right now this is what I have until I get more job experience under my belt since I do not have a degree to makeup for lack of experience

• 23M, reside in the state of Kentucky

• I do have student loan debt. I attended university up until Junior Year and then dropped out. I have 5 loans, and in total it equates to roughly $14,250. The interest rates for three of them is 5%, the other 2 are about 3%. Currently on Deferment until September 2025, waiting to see what happens to IDR/SAVE Plans, but I would be projected to make monthly payments of about $145 on a Standard Repayment Plan, however I do not plan on doing this and am hoping that the SAVE/IDR Plans are still around come September

• My credit score is 760, and I am currently with PNC Bank. I don't have any other debt besides my student loans, which I have been told is pretty low compared to what most other people have.

• Monthly payments are only for my S25 Ultra($55) and Rent. I live with my Mom and 2 younger siblings, and fortunately my Mom is willing to charge me only $500 in Rent. I do NOT pay for groceries, utilities, amenities, HOA, insurance, 401k, anything like that. Total monthly payment as of right now I would roughly say $600 since I do pay for some occasional stuff like shampoo, soap, mostly cleaning products or snacks. Also tacking on Gas but that can vary greatly since it can be anywhere between $2.50 - $3.50 and how often I need it

• The car that I want is a 2024/2025 Toyota Prius LE Trim which isn't exactly 30k but pretty close to it. It is available at my local dealership and the TSRP is a little under $30,000 for a 2024 model.

• I did submit a claim for an accident that occured on December 2023, and I was considered at-fault. I am on my mother's insurance though, so I am unsure if getting a new car would affect my insurance rates since I would be getting insurance under my name instead of my mom. Idk if it would reset or something and as a result wouldnt affect my own personal rates?

• I have never owned a car. I have driven a 2014 Volkswagen Beetle since I was 16, however this is my Mom's car and she also owns a 2016 Dodge Journey which she uses. Because of this I wouldn't really have anything to offer in terms of trade-in since my Mom wants to keep our Beetle as a backup car incase anything were to happen. We bought the Beetle at 70k miles and now currently has 90k miles on it and I'm the only person that really uses it so.

• I currently have about $4,000 dollars saved up in my account.

Any and all advice will be extremely helpful! I can provide any other additional information as well if it will help.

I'd like to open an HSA, but I think I'm getting some conflicting information about my eligibility. Any clarification would help!

I'm currently enrolled in a self-only HDHP through my employer that's HSA compatible, my spouse isn't covered by my benefits. My spouse receives health benefits from her employer and has a general purpose FSA; I'm not covered by any of her benefits.

IRS publication 969 leads me to believe I'm eligible to open and contribute to an HSA, provided I'm not covered by my spouse's benefits.

However, I found the following comment from my employer: "HRA and general purpose health care FSA plans can pay for the same medical expenses as an HSA. This restricts you from having both at the same time. This also includes plans your spouse is enrolled in. Even if you are not covered by your spouse's health insurance, HSA rules consider your spouse's HRA or general purpose health care FSA to be other insurance."

Im assuming I'm not eligible for an HSA, is this correct?

I invested 5 years into a pension plan from my old job. Last year I got a new job that has a different pension. Old pension does not rollover into the new one. I’m not sure what to do with old one, it’s a state pension and there’s a ~25% chance I see myself possibly getting a job with a agency with the that have the old pension. I like where I am for the moment, and most likely I will stay with my current company until I retire if things don’t change. If I withdraw the money now I can invest it into my Roth IRA slowly, but I will lose my 5 years of service and have to start over if I ever go back to old pension? The money has been sitting there for a year now, still can’t decide what to do. Anyone ever been in this dilemma?

Just wanted to run across a question in this thread to see if it is a good idea for financial assistance to my brother. As background my brother is 29 and I am 31. My brother works as a machine operator for a manufacturing company and only makes 18/hr, he does have a bachelors degree but hasn’t found an opportunity yet to pursue. He lacks some confidence and communication issues and I believe that has held him back from employers offering him a position. He currently rents an apartment for 950/month without utilities and other costs (car insurance, phone, etc.). He barely has any furniture, no internet, etc. and my heart breaks for him. While I am over here with a house, 2 newer cars with my wife and I. And we make around 170k combined gross. We are doing well. I want to provide some financial assistance to my brother in some amount every week or month to assist him in his bills, build savings or contribute more to retirement. He also has no significant other to help with anything and has a 14 yo car with 175k miles that will need replaced soon. He had just moved out of my parents 2 years ago so he did have some cushion saving up since he had no housing costs at home.

So, my wife is pretty territorial when it comes to our money. I wanted to run this by her and see how she responds. Which I am unsure at this time. But would this be an ok consideration given our circumstances? As just a quick background on our finances we have around 280k left in mortgage on house (6.4%), 15k on car loans, 70k in HYSA joint acct and over 200k in 401ks and IRAs combined. We are doing just fine and have disposable income (which we do put more on mortgage each month). I was thinking maybe just like 50 or 100 bucks a week to support to pay his utilities and gas at least. Does this sound reasonable? I also don’t want to offend him by offering financial help. I envision he would use it on his bills or for savings because he doesn’t spend much money on himself at all. Does this sound reasonable? Anyone else do this for family members?

Hey everyone,

I’m in a tough spot and could really use some advice. I have a lot of debt, and a while ago, I hired Elite Legal Practice to help me take care of it. I’ve been paying them almost $300 a month for 42 months, but now I’m seeing a lot of people say that this company might not be legit.

This has me really worried. I don’t want to keep paying them if they’re not actually helping, but I also signed a ton of paperwork with them, so I don’t even know if it’s possible to cancel. I’m thinking my best option might be to just call my creditors and work out a payment plan directly, but I don’t want to make any moves without understanding my options first.

Has anyone dealt with Elite Legal Practice before? Can I stop payments and get out of this? What’s the best next step? Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance!.

Good morning. Im looking to find a calculator that steps tax percentages for me when calculating so that I don't have to perform multiple calculations for each time I need to find an answer. Basically, I'm trading and will also be withdrawing amounts from an inherited ira. This means that depending on how well I do, ill need to figure the amount to pay the irs during the withdrawal to eliminate penalties as I've learned through this first year. It gets annoying when I'm trying to figure withdrawing 300,000 and it asks for the amount to pay the irs, but I need to figure it based on different income percentages because the systems steps these tax brackets. I hope I'm explaining it correctly and I hope I understand it correctly. Has anyone seen a calculator android app or windows tool that does this? Even a website would do. I wouldnt mind paying for an app if it is of good quality. Thank you.

Hi all - I currently have a car loan (4.99% APR, $7k left on it) that I’d like to get paid off within two years, give or take a few months if I need to. The transmission on my car recently failed and it’s getting fixed up for a really good price, so my car should last, but I’m worried about my car possibly falling apart again before I get this loan paid off. I’d like to avoid two monthly car payments haha

On the other hand, I have an emergency fund which right now would cover about a month of expenses. I have a 401k that I’m not currently contributing to, but that and my emergency fund is all I have in savings/investments. I would really like to get the emergency fund built up to a three-month supply before I worry about anything else, but I’m worried about my car.

we have a 5 month old together and I just want what’s best for us!

He got recruited from a buddy of his. Even in the interview he clarified and mentioned that this is kindof sounding like a pyramid scheme and the interviewer informed him there “is no body at the top” since everyone can essentially gain more than the CEO, or some bf. My understanding is he had to complete his certifications and gain 2 clients to get paid.

Anyways, he’s been with them for a couple months now and is just continuing to try to gain recruits. I really believe in him as he is so so so smart! But I worry this isn’t his best decision. I sat in on his business meetings with the whole group and it’s everyone just motivating each other?

Idk I graduated for social work so I don’t know much about financial advisors and that field….. but I am worrying that this MLM - multi level marketing isn’t the best?

I have about $8,000 I'd like to start investing with. I've commonly seen this order of investing suggested:

1. Contribute the maximum your employer will match to 401K. (I'm already doing this @ 6%)
2. Max out Traditional / Roth IRA (I'm not eligible for a Roth IRA due to exceeding the income limit)
3. Contribute to a taxable brokerage account.

I am hesitant to commit funds to an IRA - as I don't like the idea of being penalized 10% then paying taxes on gains if I need to withdraw the money for something. As I understand it, I can only contribute 7,000 per year so I'd still have another 1,000 + whatever else I decide to invest this year left over. I'm unsure if the tax benefit of IRA contributions outweighs the potential penalties. Am I better off just starting with a regular brokerage account?

I'm traveling to a country where the U.S. dollar has strong purchasing power. Are Apple product prices adjusted accordingly, or could I get a significantly better deal by purchasing them there?

I️ (25M) work in a sales role that pays out our annual commission once a year in April. This will be my first year actually receiving a decent paycheck, around $17,500. After taxes, I am expecting this to be around $11,000.

I️ hate taking on debt ever since I️ made the mistake of taking out student loans and want to payoff my private loan as quickly as possible.

Student loans left: Private loan $5,341 @6.42% Federal loan $26,609 @4.00%

No credit card debt. Around $2500 in a HYSA emergency fund and $1000 in checking. Decent amount in my 401k, behind on investment accounts.

I️ need a new car. Currently driving a mid-2000s jeep that is falling apart and has not had air conditioning or heat for the last 4 years, which is unbearable and honestly not safe in the winter months living in a northern state.

Current plan is to pay off the private loan in full, take $5,000 out for a down payment on a $10k used car and keep the rest in the HYSA to build it back up. Any reasons to not pay the private loan off in full?

31M. We live in a mcol area. I have wife and 2 kids. Our condo is paid off. We also have 600k invested. Wife makes 70k a year, I make 80k a yr from regular job plus 40k from side business.

We save about $4,000/month currently. We live frugal and dont spend much.

My job is currently destroying my body. Its extremely labor intensive. I have been doing it for 8 yrs since I was 23.

If I quit this job my next job wont be as much, it would probably be around 55k a yr.

Does it really matter though? We have saved up so much money, always saved, to me losing almost $2,000/month is hard to grasp. Thats alot of $$$.

On the flip side today I couldnt even get out of bed. My back was killing me. My back, hips, and knee r always sore from doing job.

Should I just say fuck it and start looking for jobs asap. Or do I try to grind it out for another few years?

I'll try to summarize relevant info- partner and I recently moved out of state to accept new job offers. We have moved from a LCOL to MCOL area.

We have already moved- found a home we love in a nice area. We bought last November with 5% down, sale price was $390k, interest rate 5.99%. Current PITI payment is $2800

Our old house has been on the market since before we moved and is taking longer to sell than we'd hoped. Bought in 2020, 20% down payment, interest rate 2.7%. Purchase price was just under $200k. PITI on this home is $1100. Currently listed at $270k at the guidance of our realtor. We have had interested buyers, and two offers- but both backed out during the inspection period.

Combined take home income is $11,500 (excluding bonuses, occasional side gigs for myself and my partner). This also excludes 15-20% set aside for retirement savings. So we can swing both mortgages without extreme lifestyle changes (even though we'd prefer not to, obviously).

Primary question: We have enough in savings to make an additional 15% down payment on the new home. We have an option to recast without any fees or repeat assessment if done before March 15th. Could still be done after that but there would be a cost associated. We can request removal of PMI with a recast- which I like. Removing PMI and with the additional down payment this would likely bring house payment down by $300-500 which isn't huge, but also brings our equity up quite a bit. We have enough in savings to do this without affecting our emergency fund- but only by about $10k. Meaning we wouldn't have a lot of liquid reserve left over.

I'd hoped we have a sale at least pending on the new house before moving forward with the recast- but now I'm worried there may be issues that we don't know the extent of with the old place. It's an old home and we did a number of repairs- but maybe we need to leave more budget to allow for more if needed?

At this point I'd still like to do the recast, but looking for other opinions. Can provide more info if needed. Thanks!

I have been getting charged for last 3 months for this and I'm not sure what this is.

Has my card been compromised?

Please do let me know if you know what this payment is for

I’m 21 and have been working a decent job since 17. It’s not the greatest pay but it makes me money, I don’t really enjoy it but I don’t hate it. I’m looking to invest this money into something that can secure my future and benefit me in a not so distant future. I already have a 401k account up and put over 100$+ per paycheck (weekly) just to get her chugging and build up speed.

Anything else I’m missing out on that I should be investing in? Thanks!

So I had my car hit while it was parked, so totally the other persons at fault. So my insurance is for only liability, is there any reason to notify my insurance for assistance? Would it benefit in anyway

I make annual contributions to my After Tax Solo401K account and then move those funds into my Roth Solo401K account (Mega Backdoor Roth). I am not clear how to report these contributions on 1099R and other forms. There is no tax impact as the contributions are not deductible. Help? Thank you.

Hello, Just want to get some insights on VOO ETF. Have some non emergency savings and getting 3.90% APR. Want to know it is better to invest in VOO ETF or better to leave at bank? Looking at VOO it’s growing definitely more than bank interest. Want to get people’s perspective and advises based on their personal experience. Thank you!

I am part of a faith-based organization and recently came across IPX/Pera for 403b retirement funds. Can anyone tell me if they are legit companies? Too many scams online nowadays. Thanks for your input!

For tax year 2024, I apparently over contributed to my HSA by ~$150, due to my employer counting one of the contributions that should’ve been in 2023 as a current year contribution for 2024. I didn’t catch the mistake until early this year when it said I over contributed.

The company HSA is managed through Optum Bank, and I’ve already filled out their excess contribution form and submitted it via email to them. However that was 3 weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything back from them.

Their customer support is absolutely terrible after calling them 3 times. They say they’ve received it but that’s it, no updates on whether it’s actually been addressed.

I’m pretty sure I have until tax deadlines 4/15/25 to have this sorted out, but I’m wondering if it will actually be resolved by then.

I’m wondering if anyone else has dealt with Optum Bank HSA excess contribution and their experience with it, to see if I need to take a breather and wait longer, or try another method of dealing with this excess contribution.

Any advice on this is appreciated.

I need some guidance on how to manage finances on an investment property. For background I am a project manager and my bf is a contractor (Dba, works for himself). I currently live in his home and we have split the finances in a way we agreed was fair.

I pay for mortgage and expenses (except renovations, which we split) at investment property (which is in my name because his credit isn’t great) and he pays mortgage and expenses at our primary house. The mortgage at the investment property is much higher than his and this property has oil which is very expensive compared to NG at the primary home. All that said, I agreed to this arrangement.

I need some help with a request or complaint he’s made and I don’t know how to handle it. The investment property needed new floors upstairs. Since he knows the business, I asked him to share what that might cost. It was well above what I could dish out now since we haven’t started Airbnb yet. So I said we could wait, and of course he found cheap floor, purchased it immediately and soon we are up installing floor. He installed and I HELPED and worked (I work remotely). He is asking I pay more than half of the flooring because I did not do as much labor installing the floor.

I have been married and owned homes with my ex and never once did he charge me for his labor. I don’t know what to say to this request, is it fair? We aren’t business partners, we talk about getting married.

Should I be paying him for his labor in the house?

I work at a small business. Payroll and taxes are through a local bank who offer the services. We get checkstubs through our email and I’m not real great about checking them.
When I got my w-2 I realized I had only paid in 22$ in federal. I had him check my w-4 and it’s set to single with zero. He says he has no clue what the issue is. Any advice on what could be the issue or how to fix it before next tax season.

Hey all - I’ve recently been learning about the ins and outs (pros/cons) of HELOCs and I’m having trouble putting together a sound opinion. My knee jerk reaction was wtf? Interest only payments and it’s up to you to pay principal for the first ten years seems predatory in a way. I’m looking at about $80k (house worth 450, owe 275) to finish our basement and we might move anyway in five years.

So my question is, how should I be looking at the loan?

If I pay interest only for that five years it’ll cost me ~35k, but am I banking on that appreciation to cover it when the time comes to sell? Is there a general rule of thumb when a heloc becomes “worth it”?

I should add my current mortgage is 3.5% and I’m open to the discussion of scrapping the project and just moving to a home with finished basement / the room we need.

Many people here seem to slightly misunderstand depreciation, which can lead to advice that is sometimes questionable.  So, here are my thoughts on this.

Depreciation is short for Depreciation Expense, which is a rational allocation of an asset’s cost over its useful life.

For example, if you pay $30,000 for a vehicle and drive it 250,000 miles then give it away for free, your depreciation was 12 cents per mile ($30,000/250,000 miles).  That 12 cents per mile was the depreciation in the first year, the second year, third year, etc.  It didn’t depreciate more in the first thousand miles than it did in the last thousand miles.  So, cars don’t really depreciate more in the first year.

Why then does everyone say they do?  Because they are assuming conversion… a.k.a. selling the car.  Let’s look at that same car from above but suppose you sold it back to the dealer for $25,000 after one month and only 1,000 miles.  In that case your depreciation would be $5 per mile (($30,000 - $25,000) / 1,000 miles) or $5,000 per month.  When you look up the current depreciation on any automobile, it is going to tell you the amount of value that car has lost this year, which is only important if you are selling the car this year.  If you are not selling the car then it is immaterial to you.  Your depreciation will always be your net cost of a car (what you paid less residual value) divided by the time or miles that you used it.

In the end, an auto is just a prepaid expense.  The only real difference between your electric bill and your car is that your utility company didn’t require you to pay for all the electricity you are going to use years in advance.  However, if you did…that too would be an asset. 

When people talk about cars having some amount of depreciation in their first year, what they are really pointing out is that a cheaper car is better.  If we look at the two scenarios above… If you could buy the $30,000 car with 1,000 miles on it for only $25,000, then you could drive it for 249,000 more miles and your depreciation goes down to about 10 cents per mile. 

However, that doesn’t mean that a used $30,000 car is a better value than a new $30,000 car just because it has already had a depreciation hit.  Assuming you will drive both cars the same amount and they both have the same residual at the end, then the cost to you is the same.  People get so hung up talking about depreciation amounts that they ignore price and financing options.  That is problematic.

Furthermore, the saying “don’t finance depreciating assets” has no basis in mathematical reality.  You should finance things when the benefit of doing so is lower than the cost of doing so, regardless of what it is.  The depreciating asset vs. investment argument is immaterial.  In fact, it makes more sense to spread the payments for a depreciating asset out over the depreciation period (match the cost of the car to the month it provided the benefit).  However, because of interest charges on the financing it is usually smarter to pay much faster… but occasionally interest rates will be low enough to make financing a car a smarter idea.

The one complicating factor in this is forced conversion.  If your car is totaled in an accident then you are forced to convert it to cash.  So long as you carry replacement coverage though, you could simply rebuy the same car in the same condition without having any additional out of pocket.

Hey guys, newbie with this stuff.

I received ARN numbers from a merchant so I could track my refunds. I was given codes that are only 12 digits long, despite internet saying they should be 23 digits long. My bank can not check ARN codes so I do not know what to do. Are these fake?

I have had a collections agency calling me. At first I thought it was a spam call because I get SO many, and some of them will be these fake collection calls. They have left messages, but the message left is never a complete one. Well, I finally figured out their number after seeing it on my credit report.

I called last night and requested a validation letter and itemized bill. She said they sent the validation letter months ago and they can’t send any more than the initial letter. I stated that I have informed USPS delivery and never saw anything. We also have an issue that our neighbor across the street on our same block has the same house numbers as us with 2 numbers flipped. They get our mail here and there, but they won’t send it back. (We know this from a previous situation with them.) Either way, we never got anything. I stated to her that I’m not paying anything when there’s no validation that it’s actually a debt that I owe. She told me that I can go on their website (then she gave me one called EvokePay) and I should be able to find the validation letter and bill. I don’t really feel comfortable going on their website vs receiving an actual letter in the mail. Maybe I just have trust issues.

Any thoughts on how to handle this situation? It’s a $750 medical debt. I’m unsure from when or where.

Currently, I have my retirement accounts and brokerage accounts handled through a financial advisor. These accounts are low maintenance mostly managed by me, all in mutual funds. I require infrequent help from my advisors, but they do whatever I ask. For this. I'm paying 1/2%. The total amount is 2 million plus or minus, resulting in 10 k per year for the fee. I'm thinking of transferring everything to Fidelity. These accounts at Fidelity would also be non-managed. I'm told I would be paying no fee for after this transfer. I'm planning on doing this. Is there any downside. Thanks in advance.