I will be living in Minnesota, but working in North Dakota.. My gross income is $5070, but after all deductions, I’m guessing it will be around $3500 monthly. The “sponsorship” portion is essentially just a sign-on bonus that I have added to my income for the next 2 years. The child support is all going directly towards daycare.

Does the budget look good so far? Is there anything I could possibly be missing? I have deducted about $1570 from my gross pay. Should I deduct more? I get paid biweekly, so essentially I’d be left with around $660 after each paycheck.

I’m honestly very nervous. Even at $32.50 an hour, it doesn’t seem like a super livable wage. I don’t have that much wiggle room. I do plan to move in with my partner next year, so expenses will definitely be easier to manage then, but for this year, I have to be able to do okay on my own.

After all your bills and expenses are paid each month, how much do you have left over? Do you throw it in a HYSA? Invest it? Save / plan for a vacation? Pay off mortgage? Or all of the above? My wife & I are 25 and are about two years into our careers. We take home 11500, and have zero Debt besides our new mortgage. After all bills & expenses we save around 5500 a month into a joint savings.

28F, between stocks, mutual funds, 401K, HSA and HYSA, I personally have $133,000 saved. Landed my dream job 1.5 years ago. Has a pension. 15% of my income goes to my 401K. I max out my HSA every year. Plus I’m able to save another $2,000-$2500 a month in cash after all expenses are paid for. I have zero debt. I have a 2017 VW Tiguan that I bought new and has been paid off since 2018. The past 2 years it has cost me $2,000 a year for maintenance and it’s up for another $2,000 repair. I’m sick of this car constantly having issues.

Debating purchasing a Tesla Y due to their 0.99% financing option. Could reasonably put down $10-$15,000 in cash and after the tax credit / trade in Tesla would give me, would be financing $15-$20,000 at 0.99%. I can charge for free at work. Concerned this is a stupid decision because I’m cheap lol

Is anybody using a self built AI scenario to analyze your personal finances and integrate it into to a LLM to make financial decisions? If not self built model, then any services that we trust that do this? Thanks.

My FSA for this year is maxed out... Is it allowed to save my receipts for the rest of this year to turn in Jan 2025 when my FSA resets?

26M, monthly budget. I am trying to buy a home by end of 2025, payoff my student loan, and then buy a new car in 2026.

I moved back with my parents, drive an old paid off car, and am living as frugally as possible. I've sacrificed some personal growth by doing this so end of 2025 is my self set cut-off.

Income: $99k + up to $30k OT (not shown)

Retirement: $36k

Savings: $41k (4.6%)

Private Student Loan: $40k (2.7%, $835/mo)

My plan (ADVICE NEEDED!)...

1. Save down payment and emergency fund ($75k, March 2025)

2. Save for new car ($25k, August 2025)

3. Save for lump sum loan payment, then payoff loan ($25k left, December 2025)

4. Buy home (~December 2025)

5. Settle into home expenses for a few months and keep saving for car. Buy car early/mid 2026

Anything stand out as bad planning or stupid? I've done the math on budgetting/timeline, more looking for feedback on the order of events. Thank you!

The turbo in my wife's car went out for the second time in 12 months. Last time it was under warranty, but not this time. (By 6 days) We bought a house 2 years ago and have put just under 100k into repairs. The basement being the most recent as we paid a deposit for flooring to be installed next week. (Strike 2 for poor timing) We have 30k in savings, our mortgage is $2800, and we have 4 kids. My wife wants a new car, I think that is unreasonable. We haven't had a car payment in almost 10 years and I don't want to jump in the deep end getting a new car.

What would you do?

Hi all, I’m 26 and looking to get back into investing. I used to invest through Robinhood pretty aggressively in Tesla, Apple, Biotech stocks, etc. but I haven’t been involved in the market for about 2 years now. Currently have $0 invested outside of a 401k

I have my Roth though Fidelity, but it’s just in their SPAXX account. Honestly I know Robinhood gets a lot of hate but I kinda like it.

I would just use Fidelity for ease of having both accounts in the same app, but you can’t auto invest in an ETF in an individual account on Fidelity.

What platforms do you like the most? Do they have a good mobile app and allow auto investing? Can I increase the frequency?

I’m looking to build either a dividend stock portfolio, a mix of individual stocks and ETF’s, or just a broad 3 ETF portfolio. What would you recommend?

Does anyone else have this experiance. Local branch of bank proving compleately useless dare I say harmful with their attempts to get us bad deals for myself and partner. First for retirement then now for mortgage. They have literally lied to our face about our status, caveats and never gave us a straight answer of if we were declined or not.. because i suspect they dont want to deal with us cause we are asking for a low mortgage. They mocked our plans or living within our means suggesting to us we get high paid jobs ( cause we can) so we can max out on mortgage., they mocked our company and asked why we have it? Like they even went borderline prejudice at points. Exausted... If i wasnt scared they would so some unhinged crazy harmful shit to us i would probably complain.. Are we the only one, is this fucking common? Are all bankers wankers?

Income is a frequent topic of discussion on this forum. Sub members seem to have a wide range of incomes, and some have different opinions of what incomes are representative of middle class. If you consider yourself to be middle class, what is your income? For this purposes of this poll, income is gross (pre-tax) total comp in a typical year.

View Poll

https://preview.redd.it/raznlr1tog0d1.png?width=2800&format=png&auto=webp&s=868638caf9a6fc40dc42fae2308a677984955e0c

Wife [29] and I [27] are expecting our first child soon. Was feeling nervous but feeling better after seeing the amount we save. Wife and I both work and the $700 comes from a renter in our house. I usually let our savings build up a bit before spreading it between a Roth IRA or Money Market as a rainy day fund.

Total in Retirement: $60k

Total in Money Market/Checking: $100k

Total in Home Equity: $235k

I hope this post isn't too far-fetched for this sub, as I suppose most people here are American. That's actually why I wanted to ask here, since I associate the concept of the middle class strongly with the US.

I'm Polish and have lived in Poland my entire life. I make roughly $53k take-home pay a year. I own an ~1100 sq ft row home with a small garden and without a garage, which I bought with an ~88% LtV 30-year mortgage, with a fixed rate of 2% for the first 10 years (thanks to government subsidies for first-time buyers). My monthly payment is about $580 USD. I drive a 14-year-old paid-off Renault Megane.

I save quite a lot; in months without extra spending, I tend to save more than 50% of my salary (though that's been a bit harder recently since I bought the house last year). I don't take vacations often because I enjoy staying home, but when I do, I usually splurge on a nicer hotel.

I know some aspects of my life are hard to compare directly with an American family, since here we don't really worry about health insurance or student loans (my mortgage is my only loan for now). Still, I'm really curious to know how you guys see it.

Looking forward to your responses! :)

I've been doing a lot of calculations recently and I have found especially for young professionals starting out the threshold for "Middle Class" is increasingly rising.

My (35m) wife (35f) and I make more than I ever could have imagined (250k HHI, double what we were making just 4 years ago) yet it I can’t shake the feeling of being “poor” because her spending / never ending desire of big ticket “needs” is stressing me out.

This has been amplified after moving from our starter house in the city to our new build “forever” home in the suburbs. The house is beautiful and we have great neighbours with similar aged kids but it’s taking up too much time and money to maintain for my liking. More importantly it just feels like my wife will never feel content with our own home since she’s always comparing to the neighbours who a) all seem to be at least 5 years older than us b) moved in two years before we did so have a head start on things like interior decorating/landscaping and c) have just flat out spent more than we have and thus I’ll always feel this way despite being in A beautiful home and in the best financial shape of our life.

Off the top of my head, in the past 18 months we’ve have spent 8k on a fence, 3k on window treatments for two rooms, 5k on a mattresses, 4k on a second car, and 5k on lasik. All things that we “needed” but just seems like it’s never ending and leading to more expensive purchases. Now she wants deck and 100k backyard.

We’re saving a decent amount, albeit about 80% of total retirement savings have been in my accounts despite her income being 33% more than mine. I just hate this feeling of non-stop spending when we could be better securing our future. Ive been raising this to our therapist for years but my wife just can’t stop and/or doesn’t seem to care.

The stress led to a mental health breakdown recently in part due to my wife’s spending but also some personal reasons (stress from my job, my niece turned 14, which was the age I was when my dad died to obesity (caused by family, work, and financial stress), and my mom started chemotherapy and I was exposed to her awful financial picture, despite having a paid off house and decent pension).

It’s not all bad financially with my wife so it would be a disservice not to mention the following things that I consider myself lucky to have in a spouse. 1. She’s smart and makes good money 2. She never spends what we don’t have (goes into debt) 3. Her desire for more was the extrinsic motivation that led to increased incomes for both of us, but i thought the saving would continue after we had enough for the new house. Unfortunately, it’s just turned into lifestyle creep.

My main goal is living life to the fullest (heavy on experiences, less so on material possessions) and teaching my daughter a healthy and active lifestyle. Should I be this stressed with our financial picture? Am I just being paranoid? Maybe I need to stay off all these money forums? Or do I need to give my wife some sort of ultamatim about getting on the same page financially if she wants to stay together?

HHI: 250,000 Monthly Net: 11,000 (after taxes, health insurance, 401k, hsa, and dependent care fsa)

Major Expenses Mortgage: 4000 (640,000 remaining, pmt includes P&I, home insurance, and taxes) Daycare: 1300 Grocery/Gas: 600 Utilities: 400 Cleaner: 250 Cars: 0

Retirement Accounts: 152,000 (401k, 403, HSA) Cash: 20,000 Brokerage: 17,000 Monthly Retirement Savings: 3,333 Monthly Sinking Fund Savings: 800

I don’t even know if I’m actually middle class but here I go. I live in a HCOL area in the south, home prices are outrageous here and I feel like homeownership is essentially not realistic for me. I’m a single 27 year old aerospace engineer with $18k in student loans with 8 years remaining, $7k on auto loan with 2 years to go, $65k in 401k, $32k in a private brokerage account and $6k in cash savings. I’m investing aggressively, heavy in the FAANG stocks which have yielded me about 19% yoy since i started investing 4 years ago. What more can i do to get to a house, i already live frugally and have a roommate. Im so frugal i have maxed out my vacation hours and have to burn them on days fishing at the pier because I dont want to spend the money to travel. I thought becoming an aerospace engineer would get me a much better financial life than this, the salary has been inflated away to crumbs compared to home prices where i live. Its actually getting very depressing

When my parents ask me what I'm thinking I'd like to do when I retire the only thing I can think of is "I'd like to avoid homelessness."

Hi there, long-time listener first time poster. I'll get right to it. I just took a call from the executor of a great-aunt's estate. She says that my minor children will inherit some money, and that it must go into a custodial account for them. I was not given a number, but it's four or five figures. As much as I'd love to say that's an amazing windfall, by the time they're ready to graduate that may pay for textbooks for college. I'd like to try to maximize their chances of being able to actually take a class, so does anyone know how I can set up an account that meets all the legal guidelines of being a minor custodial account but offers a better return than a CD? Are there magic words that I need to say to the bank or to a broker? How do I take a cheque (which will likely not arrive for several months) and make it earn a profit while staying within the rules?

Thank you in advance.

I've been grinding for a long time and driving an old economy car for 9 years. No debt besides house. $75k retirement. $40k savings, want to use $25k on car down payment.

This new car is reliable and I'd plan to keep/maintain it for 15+ years until it dies. Yeah I could buy a corolla outright but this would be the perfect car for me and I only have 1 life 😂 It's just me (27M) and my dog

Monthly numbers...

Monthly Income (post tax/HSA/401K): $6200

Mortgage+Utilities: $2500

Other Necessities: $500

Savings: $1000

All Wants/Non-necessities: $1000

Estimated Car $$$ (Loan+Ins+Gas): $1200

Car estimate details using auto loan calculators...

+$700/mo payment ($25k loan, 48mo. 7% int)

+$125 gas

+$300 insurance (estimate??)

+$75 rounding up

= $1200/mo. Total

So...doable or dumb?

Several family members have asked to wire money to my son for his future. College, house down payment, car money, etc. what is the way you save for your kids? I’m planning on seeing my financial advisor and I would like to have some sort of direction or plan before we meet.

How many of You guys have a life insurance policy like a VUL or IUL (I think that’s what they are called). Do You guys think it’s worth it?

Currently at about $250k TC, work remote LCOL. We have no debt, 2 kids, have always contributed to 401k, and have emergency savings fund. No car payment. And have a house mortgage at about 2.5%. We are early 30’s.

We’ve been considering moving in to a larger home as we plan to have more kids; however, with current prices and interest rates I’m not sure what to do. The other side is we have accumulated about $300k of equity in our home as we were quite lucky in buying time and buying price and the area has taken off.

Should I consider a new home or is this not a great idea right now in the current market? We have an emergency fund. And probably 30k of liquidity, with investments in 401k, stocks, crypto, etc as well.

I’m used to being extremely frugal and trying to save 40%+ of my gross income. Grew up very low income. However, travel is also an important way to de stress and see the world for me. Can I afford to drop $500/night for an all-inclusive resort? I could put in brokerage or HYSA instead, it’s so much money.

Recently received promotion from ~66k to ~70k. Upped retirement from 16% to 18%.

I come from extreme generational poverty, and finally have a small amount of money to invest. I'm looking for financial advisors, but realized I don't know enough to know if I'm getting scammed or taken advantage of somehow. Are companies like Edward Jones and their ilk trustworthy? Or is it another legal way to take advantage of people who don't know any better?