I have a personal loan with outstanding amount of 2.8 lakhs, interest rate 11% paid almost 31 emis and pending 29 now. Currently I have a savings of 3 lakhs. Should I close this loan or look to create some money from 3 lakhs I have. I don't want to go stock market and mutual funds way as I have done those things in particular intraday trading in bank nifty and the nifty. I would have had more savings if I wouldn't have went that way. Any other genuine money making options one can share with less amount of risk.

Hello

I’m looking to buy a Toyota and the way my finance situation works is that I’ll buy it up front no financing

That said, there are a bunch of cars to zero in on when compared used to new.

(None of these numbers account for tax in OH which is ~2k)

So there’s the new Toyota Corolla (2024) at 23,095 and my budget is 24-25k

Cut to dealerships in Columbus that have a huge used inventory for Toyotas in general with costs varying across the board.

If I only pick out USED cars that are in the 60-80 k mile range, no damage, nothing older than 2014 I can get a good deal for 20k -22k

For example they have a 2017 Prius Three for 20k, 66k miles. No accidents. One owner.

The way I’ve done my math is accounting for the fact that, a 2017 Prius for example, will go on for 7-8 years with routine maintenance and repairs and that’s below my budget which leaves me with spare cash for repairs as needed.

Do I then buy a used car or a newer model? All the new model provides is a few months of guarantee which will mean shit because the cars always act up once that’s done. And if you take into account depreciation value? Why bother?

Secondly, can I write off either purchase (used or new) as a tax write off even though it’s for personal use?

Thanks for the input, in advance.

27m have been working as a dental lab technician for the last 8 years. I don’t love the work; sitting in a computer designing crowns and stuff. I’d love to work with patients. I currently make $80,000. With my experience, I could get a job in a different state making $100,000-$120,000. However, I’m considering going back to school for dentistry. Finishing up some prerequisites at the community college and then applying to dental school. I reckon it’ll be a 7 year process to finish dental school and residency. $400,000 for dental school. Is this a bad financial move? Should I be content with my career and salary potential?

I have my 6 months of emergency funds ($20k) sitting in my throwaway savings account since 2022 and I am tempted to pull it out to invest it. I feel like it could be making some gains instead of sitting ideal. Should I do it or leave it sitting forever until there is need for it?

Hi! This is my first time selling a vehicle. I’m looking to downsize/get rid of my monthly payment. I have a vehicle that I owe $27,000 on it, Carmax gave me a quote to buy it for $25,000.

I’m planning to buy a car cash for $6,000.

Would it be smart to make this move?

TIA.

As the title states, I’m currently 18, just finished high school about 3 months early, about to be taking on a warehouse job for a 24hr. I have minimal bills; plan to be paying around 250-300 a month because I live with my sister and rent is relatively cheap, and she works. I want to take advantage of my situation as much as I could, I do not have a problem with saving at all.My ultimate goal is to be able to afford a house in the future. What’s the best financial plan to take this on? I would also like some advice on what path to take for school, because I don’t want to be working at a warehouse when I’m 40 working for mediocre pay. I currently have a shit gpa 2.67, long story short, the first two years of highschool I decided to fuck off, starting tenth grade year I had 0.5 credits( you need 22 to graduate and each class is worth 0.5) There was genuinely a point where I thought I wasn’t graduate. But I did it and will be receiving my diploma in may. What are the best accounts to set up? And what is the best bank to do so? All advice will be appreciated.

I currently have $900 invested in a Automated Bond Portfolio with Wealthfront and I have $100 in my Stock Portfolio through them as well, I just want to make sure I’m putting my money in a smart place and I want to know wheather I should focus on adding to the Bond Portfolio or the Stocks

I’m making close to $800 a week and have been investing a little at a time but I’m ready to start putting away a larger chunk.

Stocks:

TTWO $58.49

JEPI $9.37

SPYD $9.05

VOO $9.00

JEPQ $8.85

Bonds:

Short-term treasuries $387

Floating rate bonds $279

Corporate bonds $238

Long-term treasuries $0

I run a small business with under five employees.

Can anyone recommend a good provider for setting up a 401k that is easy to use and doesn’t charge high annual fees and lets us invest in low cost index funds?

Thanks!

I use my dependent care FSA for summer care since my child is in public school. I changed jobs and my old employer says I can’t claim expenses for dates of service after my termination. I called the FSA company and they urged me to call my company to get them to extend the date. I called HR and explained the situation but they say IRS requires these rules and they wouldn’t extend it. Deposits and registration fees for summer aren’t eligible.

This seems like it would be a fairly common thing — for parents to use the funds for summer care and not use them throughout the year. Has anyone had a company be flexible about the date or been able to access these funds?

Hello all. After reading this and the investing subreddit over the years I have become familiar with the general retirement advice that you should invest 15% of your income in low cost index funds, hope for a 7% return rate over 30+ years, and you might be able to withdraw about 4% annually safely in retirement.

However, I work for the State of Arizona that uses a pension system where I never vest into my employer match unless I leave it until retirement and opt into the system/pension annuity. I am required to put 12% of my paycheck into the system which my employer matches 100%. So for my income of 100k, I "get" $24k into the pension, though as I mentioned I can never access the match for say a 401k or IRA rollover.

The tricky part comes from the fact that the pension annuity is calculated not off the total $ amount but a weird formula: "multiplying your total years of service with ASRS covered employment by your average monthly compensation and by a multiplier factor depending on years of service."

For example if I stay with ASRS for 30 years I would get (10 years*(100k/12 months)*0.021 multiplier)= 1750/month or $21,000 a year. This only replaces 21% of my income which isn't ideal. The math shakes out better the longer I stay and reaches 69% if I stay 30 years.

Given I do not know if I will stay employed with the State of Arizona my entire 30+ year career, how can I save the recommended 15%? I can't just add 3% in an IRA since my remaining 12% is locked in a pension not earning the inflation adjusted 7% one could hope for from low cost index funds that track the market or a target date fund.

Any advice on how to figure out if I am on track with my current 12% pension contribution and how much more in addition I need to place in an IRA or 479b to get me to the ideal 15% recommendation? Thank you.

What happens if my bank account has been restricted by the bank because of possible money laundering? Will it be frozen? If so, how long?

The conventional wisdom is that 401(k) loans are horrible and should never be used. What I have noticed is that people confuse a bunch of different things when thinking about this and end up comparing apples to oranges.

There are basically 3 different issues wrapped into one when you are considering a 401(k) loan and you can't really make a decision without considering each one separately ceteris paribus.

Issue 1: Spending and saving.

In general, everyone considering a major financial decision, such as buying a house and taking out a 30 years loan at 7%, should take a close hard look at their budget.

I think a lot of people who advise against 401(k) loans are really just talking about frugality and balanced budget, and that makes sense. Before you even consider a $50k loan or an extra $50k in mortgage or a 10% vs 20% downpayment you need to make sure that you cut out all the unnecessary spending and are really dedicating all available cash to this major purchase.

A lot of time when people start talking about borrowing from retirement or not putting down the full 20% what is really happening is that they just have a lot of discretionary spending. No type of loan will win against just spending less, so if you can spend less and save more - do that, before borrowing anything in any form.

Issue 2: Saving for downpayment in a HYSA or 401(k)?

Assuming you have optimized Issue 1 - cut all the proverbial avocado toast and now have thousands of dollars extra per month available for a house purchase, the question still remains - should you direct that money towards a HYSA dedicated to a downpayment or should you direct it into tax advantaged retirement accounts and then borrow from them:

• 401(k) can be saved pre-tax, so if you cut your spending let's say by $7,000 extra per year, you could have $50k ready in 401(k) in 5 years or you could have $50k ready in HYSA in 7 years because you prepay all your taxes

• when you have to repay 401(k) loan it will come out after tax so you do catch up with HYSA option eventually, but only for a number of years when you are making regular payments. Presumably at some point you will sell or refi in which case you will payoff the remainder of the loan with non-taxable (cost basis or new mortgage) or tax free (capital gain) dollars.

• your entire 401(k) can continue to be invested in stocks while you are saving for the downpayment. Because you are only using portion of your 401(k) (legally not more than 50% and probably less than that), it doesn't really matter whether the value of portfolio goes up or down when you need the money. You can't afford that in a dedicated HYSA savings, that's why it needs to be a safe HYSA. If you kept your dedicated downpayment fund in a brokerage you run a risk that the markets will tank just before you are ready to buy, not an issue for 401(k) loan

• your downpayment can grow tax free while you are saving. HYSA or equities - anything outside of 401(k) will be taxed in the process reducing the compounding

• you can't catch up on tax advantaged contributions, the $23k and $7k contribution limits available to everyone in their 401(k) and IRA expire every year. If you spend a number of years not maximizing your advantaged accounts because you are redirecting money into the house downpayment fund in a HYSA, then you've lost that opportunity forever. As opposed to a 401(k) loan, where in any given year you can put $23k of new contributions AND you can put $50k repayment that suddenly became available to you after a house sale, thus making your retirement account whole again

• you are tied to your job somewhat with a 401(k) route, it's usually not as dramatic as people suggest though. IRS gives you until next year tax filing to put the loan money back, you can rollover 401(k) balances to new employer and you can take out new 401(k) loan to repay the old one. As long as you still have a job there is usually enough time to refinance that loan. But even if there isn't - being hit with 10% penalty and reduced taxes (since you are unemployed for a long time now) is much less of a problem than defaulting on the rest of you mortgage if you don't get a good paying job

Issue 3: Downpayment vs mortgage

The combination of this issue and Issue 1 is what usually gets mixed into one conflated guidance when people talk about 401(k) loans. Yes, there is an opportunity cost of putting money down on the house or investing them in stocks, regardless of whether that comes in a form of 401(k) loan or cash savings that you put down instead of investing or even higher mortgage that you need to pay monthly instead of investing. Again, issue 3 is completely independent of issue 2 and what matters here is not loan vs cash downpayment, but stocks vs mortgage performance. The things to consider here is again taxes and also your risk appetite.

At 3% mortgage rate it's a no brainer to keep your mortgage balance as high as possible and throw all your money towards investing. In fact you probably want to constantly refi or draw some heloc in that rate environment, because you can outearn 3% with any basic investment portfolio. At 7% mortgage rate... you would need to earn 10% to pay taxes and offset the 7% that you are paying to the bank. While a 10% nominal return is not unheard of, leveraging your house for that is quite a gamble.

You should always add PMI to your mortgage rate when doing this analysis. Obviously your investment return would need cover that as well.

Hello!

I'm due to fill in my tax return (uk) the paper form asks what you do for a living and has 14 boxes, my answer has 14 letters so there would be no space in between the words.

Does anyone know if that's ok? Any work around?

Thanks in advance.

Rent out own home to move in with family?

My MIL has a large house, and lives alone. She is a wonderful grandma to our 15 month old. Recently my husband and I have been contemplating moving in with his mom and either selling, or renting out our 3 bedroom 3 bathroom home. It’s a sellers market right now, and I believe I have almost 100k equity in the home. I could rent it out to cover all of the expenses of the house, plus the 500 a month that my MIL would ask of us. So we would essentially have no house payment/utilities but we would still be able to keep our home.

We have quite a bit of debt (just vehicles and the house, but it still adds up to quite a bit). This would allow us to pay off debt much faster and try to find our dream home with no pressure to immediately sell and buy.

Would you sacrifice your privacy and move in with your MIL to get debt paid off/ financial freedom?

Is it worth it to rent the house out? Or sell and get the lump sum? We love our house, it’s our first house. But the reason we are even considering this scenario is we eventually want to move to our dream home, but we want to have time to find our dream home.

Bonus: I am planning on starting college in the fall online. (My work will cover tuition, trying to take advantage of that perk) Having an extra set of hands at home to help with my child would also be a huge plus so I could actually focus on getting my degree.

I have a day job and a side hustle. My side hustle dried up last year and since then I haven't been able to keep up my finances. I mainly spend on groceries and food, cat food. My greatest expenses are shoes. I sometimes buy an extra pair of shoes, but that is like my only vice.

I live in an area with fairly high cost of living. I don't know how to get out of the hole because I just don't have the energy to hustle hard right now. I hustled for a long time on various things that did not work out or paid minimal dividends.

Hey Reddit,

I hope you're all doing well! I (32M) wanted to reach out and share a bit about my current financial situation and seek advice on how to take it to the next level.

I'm a tattoo artist based in California, and I feel fortunate to be making a decent living. Currently, I earn around $120k per year, which supports my wife, our baby, and another little one on the way. To secure our future, I diligently save $250 from each paycheck and contribute $100 to a 401-k every week.

Although I have a small crypto investment worth $1000, I view it as a risk and don't place too much importance on it. It's okay if I end up losing it, as it won't significantly impact our financial stability.

On the expense side, I allocate approximately $2600 per month for rent and around $400 for utilities, including phone bills, gas, and electric, as well as streaming services.

While I feel comfortable with my current financial situation, I'm still in the rat race and haven't reached a point where I can confidently say I've escaped it. I aspire to provide my family with a beautiful home, complete with a spacious yard and a garden. Ideally, I'd love to be closer to living off the grid, while still being within reach of a city where I can continue my tattooing career and maintain a steady income.

So, here's where I need your help, Reddit. How close am I to achieving this dream? And what steps can I take right now to enhance my financial health and move closer to this goal? I'm eager to hear your advice, recommendations, and personal experiences that can empower me to level up and give my family the lifestyle they deserve.

Thank you in advance for your support and insights!

Help/Suggestion

I live in NV, Las Vegas bought a used Tesla in October from Tesla delarship. Financed from my bank all went smooth. 6 months later constantly receiving letter from the bank to provide them with the title, which Tesla never gave to me nor my lien holder (the bank). Car has my tag since NV doesn’t require title to register the vehicle. So it’s register under my name paid taxes and all payments are in time but don’t have the title.

I contacted Tesla via email but all they say is we’ve asked the team to look into this. What is the risk to me? What can I do? How long do I wait? What happens if they can’t give me the title?

Thank you!

For context, I live in a rather poor African economy where the banking sector is very under-developed.

Most, I would say 90% of my expenses are in cash since most marchants can't or won't take any other form of payment.

My issue is, I'm having a really, really hard time in keeping track of them.

My method so far is to plan ahead most of said expenses and withdraw day by day what I expect I would need for said day + 15% margin.

The thing is, I still have many unplanned expenses within the day that I can hardly deal with (like taking different bus routes because of very heavy traffic, similar items at local markets here fluctuate in price almost day by day and fluctuate market by market, having to move somewhere else to work because of power outage then paying for a new seat at the different place, ...).

Though I try to enter by the end of the day all of the differences from my planning against the actual expenses, there are always some amount, sometime very small, sometime, not so much, that I can't figure out for each specific withdrawal, and by the end of each month, I end up with a sum that isn't negligible for me but I can't figure out exactly what it have been used for so I can't do any action on it.

To be clear, I'm planning ahead all of my day expenses and then when withdraw, I withdrawn the total of all I need for the different categories at once, and I don't really have the possibility of separating them once they are in my wallet (or maybe there is methods I'm not aware of?) , hence why I end up with a very vague idea of where the difference is by the end of the month, it may have been used for transport, for a cyber coffee, for food, for whatever and I would absolutely have no clue.

Also, I don't really have the possibility of withdrawing multiple times a day because of the same reason why I mainly use cash: there are few ATM and most do not reliably work, for the ones that do, there are generally very very long lines if you don't go very early in the morning.

How can I possibly more reliably track these kind of expenses? Thank you!

Let’s say I spent 500 on it and went over the limit by 200$, if I pay it off normally will anything serious happen? I’m asking because I really need to buy an item but it’s more than 300$.

Hi everyone. I’m currently going through a very rough time mentally due to my debt situation. I make $29k a year after taxes. Could someone please give me tips on how I can get rid of this debt? I dread waking up in the morning and going to work because I don’t see any benefit of working since 100% of the money I make goes towards my debt (I live with my family so I don’t pay rent). I beg you to be kind in the comments please. Thanks

I am 36 years old and married with no kids currently . I earn £43K a year and completely own my flat which was bought for £240k. My wife currently earns £28k. I have £35K in ISA and another £50k in stocks through 7 investment. I probably try and save £1000 a month. I am wanting to put more money in my ISA but what kind of stocks should I look at? Would S&P 500 be good for example? I don’t have much experience in finance and would thus prefer to go for safer options.

Hi everyone. I found a great apartment in my budget, but there are some downsides, however to stay in my budget I have to accept that. The downside is the windows don’t have a view, they face other apartments. Also, the area isn’t my ideal area but very close to it. I would like to live a few blocks up where it is more quiet, better views of the city, and a bit closer to parks.

I have always lived extremely frugally and with Roomates. I’m 26 now, starting grad school soon, and I’m ready to sign my first lease. I’ve only subleased or done month-month in the past. Roomates always turn out to be dirty and drama and I’m over my super budget apartment that has old smelly carpet and an old bathroom & no washer/dryer.

I am also moving so I can be closer to grad school. This apartment will save me 30min each way and some $ on my commute. However, I only need to commute 8 times a month. I will be farther from my yoga studio but closer to grad school - I don’t know if this is the right decision.

Also, I have started working for myself recently and made more money than I have in the past. (Getting this apartment will be investment in my business since I can work from home more comfortably) However, the income in unpredictable since I work for myself - this is my worry with this lease. But, I have ample savings and am able to take out loans in grad school.

I will be doubling my current rent for this apartment and the jump really scares me, although I’m pretty sure I can afford it, I won’t have as much disposable income as I’m used to. But I will finally have my own space and a clean kitchen!

My township is requiring all residents within an area to convert from their private septic systems to a newly run sewer system (don’t get me started). The project plus hook up fees is about 20k. I have secured a contractor and they plan to start in the next couple months.

My wife and I have the money to pay for this project in full. We currently have this money sitting in a HYSA. After doing a bit of research, I found that my state offers a program for homeowners that provides a 2.5% loan for eligible owners.

I believe my HYSA is around 4.25%.

My question: would it make more sense to take advantage of this program at 2.5% and take the cash that’s sitting in my Barclays account and either let it sit there or put it in T bonds or some other security?

I live in Los Angeles and want to stay here, but the career I’ve chosen is changing so rapidly that I don’t think there will be any jobs in my field within a year or two.

I’m 44 and have $2.2m saved. Roughly $1.4m is in brokerage accounts (mostly etfs), $350k in my 401k,I have a house with $300k of equity (but a $400k note at 3%), and $150k in rental property equity.

I have no debt other than my mortgage. I am single with no kids and don’t plan on having any. I currently spend about $10.5k/mo, and here’s the monthly breakdown:

Mortgage - $3000 Medical - $600 Food - $1000 (I only eat out) Entertainment - $1000 Slush fund - $1000 IRA - $700 Travel - $800 (monthly, but estimating savings needed for a vacation) Dog - $350 Car insurance - $200 Home insurance - $200 Property taxes - $400 Cleaning lady - $220 Haircut - $120 Electric - $170 Gas - $80 Internet and cable - $170 Uber - $200

I realize that I’m only supposed to account for 4% withdrawal per year, but can I put my $2.2m in riskier assets since I’m so young and would have time to recover from a financial downturn? If I can earn typical market gains of 8-10%/yr, I could double my net worth to $4.4m by the time I’m 50 or so. I don’t think I could reasonably live off 4% of $2.2m for the rest of my life. That’s only $88k/yr.

I know some of my above expenses will seem egregious, especially to those who have regular expenses like kids, but keep in mind that I live like a bachelor who has no responsibilities (and currently make $500k/yr).

Hello Guys, I have just started my first job. My inhand salary is 30000 pm. I had taken education loan , the rate of interest is 11.30% p.a . Please guide /suggest me with how I should be managing my money (investing,savings,loan payment,). I am 22 yrs I don't over spend. I do have shift allowance so I have deducted all my expenses from that. So help me with managing my 30k.

Is there benefits to the employer (not for profit) for contributing to a 401k for their employees?

Finishing my contract in the JET Program in August and currently planning out what to do with my Japanese savings before I return home.

The conversion rate from Yen to USD is atrocious ($1 = ¥154) right now and I'd love to not get eaten alive when I transfer the money back.

I was thinking of letting the money sit in a Wise account until things got better but I'm not too sure how safe or wise (get it) that would be. It would be nice if I could put the money in some sort of savings account but the problem would then be transferring the money back while not present in the country. (Japanese online banking is virtually nonexistent)

I guess this post is mainly me just looking for advice on how to not lose a tone of money coming back. If any previous JETs or even people who were employed in Japan have ideas or thoughts please also chime in.

I am also entirely prepared for the worst case where I just eat the loss.

Hi everyone, just a quick question on the best method for moving assets to Vanguard from Edward Jones.

I currently have a Single 1 Select taxable account at EJ, with all holdings in PCOXX, a money market. Due to an error on my part requesting this to be transferred to an IRA at Vanguard instead of a taxable to taxable account, my advisor is recommending I sell the PCOXX money market shares and have them transferred to my regular bank account at PNC.

I'm wondering whether these holdings (all cash through PCOXX) will be taxed upon liquidation. Are there any other methods I can do besides this since I screwed up the transfer form? Will I have to pay any capital gains for liquidating PCOXX? Thanks for your help.

I’m 20 with 730 credit score how can I get it higher. I have one credit card with 5k limit. Do I apply for another one or how does one “build” credit. Thanks for the help!!

Did not have regular income before that. Just got my job (50k in eu so it’s considered above average) and I need a loan under 30k asap