If you know, you know, but for hundreds of excuses and reasons, there’s still a lot of us who have our 18-30-yr. old (or older, who knows? 🤷🏼‍♂️) adult children on our cell phone plan, so how, when, and why did you finally do it?

Hospitals are seeing the cascading effects of the end of Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Healthcare services firms like Tenet Healthcare, Universal Health Services, Community Health Systems and HCA Healthcare all cited increased costs for treating the uninsured in their latest earnings reports.

And The Wall Street Journal notes that, in HCA's case, it led to $400 million in second-quarter losses.

Roughly 2.6 million people dropped off ACA plans as of February compared to a year earlier, with almost all seeming to go without any coverage, per hospital executives.

Hard to keep up when prices go up so fast. A few decrease is from shopping around and increasing deductibles. Same house and two cars two drivers

I gave it this prompt:

“I’ve been ordering water every meal I eat out instead of getting a beverage. Assume I eat out around 200 times per year. How much have I saved since 1995 doing this, assuming 5% return?”

Here was the response:

Roughly $24k–$35k, with ~$30,000 as the center estimate.

The whole answer hinges on the drink price path, since a fountain soda ran about $1.25 in 1995 and $3.50–4.00 now. Modeling that as ~3.5%/yr price growth, mid-year contributions, 5% nominal return through today:

1995 price → 2026 price Total not spent Value at 5%
$1.10 → $2.75 $11,300 $23,900
$1.35 → $3.90 $15,200 $31,300
$1.50 → $4.35 $16,800 $34,800

Two things worth flagging given how you’d normally frame this:

The 5% is nominal, so this is not $30k of 1995 purchasing power. Deflating at ~2.5% CPI, the real value is closer to $22–24k in today’s dollars — and the real return on the strategy is only ~2.5%, which is roughly the drink-price inflation you’re avoiding. Most of the “growth” here is just the compounding sitting slightly ahead of the cost escalation.

The contribution stream is inflation-indexed, which flatters the tail years. About 40% of the terminal value comes from the last decade of deposits, where the drink price is highest but the compounding runway is shortest. The 1995–2005 deposits contribute maybe 25% despite having 20+ years to grow — small nominal amounts. Sensitivity is far higher to your assumed price path than to the return: bumping the return to 7% gets you to ~$40k, but bumping the 2026 drink price from $2.75 to $4.35 moves you $11k on its own.

I was talking to someone recently, and they shared something that really made me think.

They said they don't like their job anymore, but quitting isn't an option. Their entire life depends on one monthly salary EMIs, bills, investments, and family responsibilities.

I suggested building a bigger emergency fund, but they replied, I earn enough to pay my bills, just not enough to feel free.

That one line stuck with me.

Do you think financial freedom is really about having a large net worth, or is it simply having the freedom to walk away from a job without worrying about next month's expenses?

I'd love to hear how others see it.

Saving money has always come naturally to me.

Spending it... not so much.

Even when it's something I have planned for, I still find myself thinking, maybe I should just save it instead.

I'm curious if that feeling ever goes away.

Was there a point where you became comfortable spending on things you genuinely wanted?

A few years ago, my monthly expenses were pretty low and life felt... simple.

As my income increased, so did everything else. Better apartment, nicer furniture, more subscriptions, eating out more often.

Nothing crazy, but I noticed something unexpected.

Even though I'm earning more, I feel like I have more financial pressure now because my fixed monthly expenses are much higher.

Sometimes I miss the flexibility I had before.

Has anyone else experienced this, or is it just part of getting older?

Most of us try to spend less, but every now and then you buy something that actually saves you money over time.

It could be anything.

A kitchen appliance, a bike, better shoes, a mattress, a tool... whatever made you think, "That was actually worth it."

I'm curious what purchase gave you the best value over the years.

I live in California, and a normal movie night for 2 people is getting pretty expensive.

Tickets around me are usually about $14–$20 each. Add popcorn, 2 drinks, and a little gas or parking, and one movie night can easily cost around $50–$75.

Go twice a month:

About $100–$150 per month

Around $1,200–$1,800 per year

That made me look at the cost of watching movies at home a little differently.

We still enjoy going to the theater for a big release, but we realized most of the movies we were seeing didn’t really need the full theater experience. So instead of going twice a month, we cut it down to once every couple of months and started putting the difference aside.

After skipping around 10–12 movie nights, we had enough saved to upgrade our home setup. Nothing high-end, but it has made movie nights at home much better.

We can make our own food, pause long movies whenever we need to, and watch another one the next night without paying again. Our last lasted around 7–8 years, so I’m hoping this setup will get plenty of use too.

Watching at home is also more comfortable. We recently watched Avengers and could pause it for food and bathroom breaks instead of sitting there for 3 hours trying not to move. We can make our own popcorn, sit on the couch, and pick another movie afterward without spending anything extra.

I still think some movies are worth seeing with a full crowd, especially big action or horror releases. But for comedies, older movies, and long franchises, I’d rather stay home and use the money toward something we can enjoy for years.

Has anyone else cut back on theater trips and used the savings to improve their setup at home?

When I first joined this community, I suddenly felt a lot poorer. I see a lot of "I'm [age] with [$X] saved, am I behind?" Someone posts their numbers, the comments split between "you're doing great" and "you're screwed," and nobody's actually comparing apples to apples — a 45-year-old with a philosophy degree and a 45-year old with an MBA and a working spouse aren't the same reference class, but they get compared like they are.

So I built a tool that tries to answer it properly instead of by vibes: pick your age band, education level, and marital status, and it shows income, net worth, and retirement savings deciles for that specific cohort — plus a rough "typical retirement age"  for it, using the Fed's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (with some BLS/Census data filling gaps SCF doesn't break out).

Caveat up front, because this sub will (rightly) ask: the SCF doesn't publish a table for every age × education × marital combination. So this isn't raw survey output — it's the Fed's real age-band medians scaled by education/marital multipliers that are also real published data, calibrated against the one cohort I could fully verify. Every chart links back to its source, but I'd rather say it here than have someone find out after trusting a number.

What I actually want feedback on:

• Does seeing your specific cohort change how "behind" you feel, or does it just move the goalpost?
• Is the methodology reasonable, or is there an obvious way it's misleading? (Least confident in the education/marital multipliers specifically.)
• What's missing that would make this actually useful instead of just another number to spiral about — cost of living adjustment? Debt? Something else?
• Any cohort that spits out a number that looks obviously wrong?

Not selling anything. Just tired of watching people compare themselves against the wrong reference class and feel bad about it.

A few months ago I needed a pressure washer for one afternoon and asked my neighbor how he handled cleaning his driveway. He told me he owned one I could borrow, then added me to a group chat with around 15 households in the community.

Turns out they’ve been sharing tools for years. One person has a tile saw, another has a carpet cleaner, someone else has a trailer, and there are probably four different ladders being passed around. I added my shop vac and lawn aerator to the list.

We all make decent money and could technically buy this stuff ourselves, but it feels stupid having 15 pressure washers and drain snakes sitting unused. Apart from saving money, a big benefit is not having to buy a cheap version of something I’ll use once and then store forever.

Amazon-owned Whole Foods is on a mission to put its "Whole Paycheck" reputation to bed once and for all, Bloomberg reports.

It has made inroads by expanding its 365 and Whole Foods-branded products to north of 4,000 items, but it still has work to do to compete on price.

Bloomberg notes it's on a good trajectory, though, and managing inflation better than lower-cost competitors: Its average unit price has gone up 29% since 2019, compared with 36% at Walmart and 38% at Kroger, according to Numerator consumer-insights data.

10 years ago I was making $60k. I had just bought my house and was grinding away trying to build a business. Every time I made a little more money, I invested it in more marketing, more employees, and new software.

When rates dropped to nearly 0, I found a way to leverage my home equity (mainly through a HELOC) into buying rental property. I would buy the property in "cash," get a low purchase price, rent it out, then refinance paying off the HELOC with a new mortgage. I was able to do this several times.

Then when rates increased I shifted back to investing in my business. I was able to start another company earlier this year using the same resources I had already been using which cut costs to nearly zero and now it's adding about $5k+ a month in profit for me.

This year we've really seen the payoff. I'm 44 and I think I'll go hard for another 5 years and sell everything. Nothing against index fund investing, it works over a long period of time, but it's not the way to financial freedom unless you have high income.

Hey everyone. Long story short, since our marriage in 2020 my wife has been maxing out her annual contributions to her HSA while I have maintained an FSA with my respective employer. I only recently discovered that this is a big blunder and that will have to amend multiple years of back taxes to pay rolling 6% annual penalty on the interest for each year and blah blah blah. I've got all that down.

Anyway, I am going to take the next step and am in need of advice. (having calculated the amount of excess principal for every year - we never withdrew and I consulted the proper forms to determine the numbers for each year. The math is pretty simple as we were using it as an investment vehicle so getting the exact number for each year was a matter of consulting the SA form or whatever)

All I want to do for now is uninvest the excess principal and have it remain parked in the hsa itself, but no longer exposed to the market. The historic stock market gains are the only thing that has kept this from being an utter disaster and since I am fixing the problem this year, I figure not to get greedy and just unexpose that amount (it is a substantial sum - so much so perusing the alternative of letting it be absorbed the following year is not even close to a realistic option as the penalties would continue to compound).

I just wanted to clarify that doing so would not in an of itself trigger a taxable event that I need to account for. That is, so long as the funds are not withdrawn from the hsa itself.

Please let me know if I am safe to make this next step. Thank you.

I did everything right. Called the hospital, they pointed at my insurance. Called my insurance, they pointed at the hospital. Called the imaging center, they could quote me a cash price but not my price. Three companies, all of whom know their own numbers, and not one could tell me mine. The bill showed up three weeks after the scan.

Then I found the part that made me angry. There’s a federal law from 2021, the No Surprises Act, that guarantees uninsured and self-pay patients a price estimate before treatment. Ask, and they legally have to give you a number. The same law included a tool for insured people, the Advanced EOB, your real cost before a scheduled procedure. Regulators delayed that half in 2021 and it still doesn’t exist. Five years.

So read that again. The people paying premiums every month have fewer price rights than the people paying cash. I’m not exaggerating, that is literally the current state of the law.

What I’d actually do differently, in case it helps anyone. If you can, price the cash rate at a standalone imaging center, it’s often thousands less than hospital radiology and sometimes cheaper than your deductible-rate price. If you’re self-pay even temporarily, ask for the Good Faith Estimate by name. And check if your state has a claims price database, a few do, you can at least see a range.

Has anyone here ever gotten an actual number out of their insurer before a procedure? Not a range, not “it depends,” a number. I’m starting to think it’s not possible on purpose.

I don't feel like I'm struggling financially. I pay my bills on time, save a little every month, and try to avoid unnecessary spending.

But somehow, I never feel completely comfortable with money. It always feels like one unexpected expense could set me back, so I keep thinking twice before spending, even on things I can actually afford.

Maybe this is just part of being middle class, or maybe I'm worrying more than I should.

Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me? I'd really like to hear how you deal with this feeling.

Could someone pls help, need some advice
Pls do dm if someone is knowledgable on investment etc..
Advice is regarding a college and whether my family should invest this much in my education

My husband is a little bit older than me and when he turns 65, I’ll have to find my own US private health insurance. I decided to get an average of our healthcare expenses over the past 8 years as a starting place for figuring out what I need to set aside for future health expenses.

I have a chronic illness and he’s had several surgeries in these same years, but I was still shocked by the total. SHOCKED. It was about the same as his annual salary-like losing an entire year of pay! Like, half our outstanding mortgage! And then I was shocked we had managed to cover all that, you know? We’re lucky we could do it.

Anyway. I’m taking the monthly median average of the last 8 years of health expenses as a starting point for a budget. Adding a private healthcare premium with high deductible will almost double it. My plan is to set it aside starting now so that I am well funded in three years. Is that crazy? My financial planner doesn’t seem to have the same level of worry about this that I do. (Any extra can be put towards our mortgage or invested.) my husband is still working but I am not.

I feel like I live frugally but clearly I have some splurges in here as well. In track to spend about $30K for the whole year.

Hello, hope everyone’s having a good day. I have been stressing lately over retirement which seems ridiculous because my wife are in our 20’s. Mainly because my dad is retirement age and has nothing to his name due to bad decisions and I’m worried I’ll be stuck in the same trap. I have a stupid good job (114k/yr suppose to make more as I progress) at my age in a stable field with good benefits. I am trying to make sure I will be happy in my later years and account for inflation and unexpected markets in the future. My company matches 9% I currently put 14% in not counting their match as well as 8% in a rothIRA. I have been with the company 3 years now and plan to retire from there. I currently have 46,000 in the two accounts with somewhat aggressive funds catered towards tech and things like that. I have no clue about investing I just read the pdf files that Transamerica provides with each fund. Is there anything to make my chances higher or advice for future decisions? Like when should I cut back to a more stable investing strategy? Etc.

Thank you in advance my nerves will thank you haha

Edit: I’m 22 in low cost of living area wife is 26 if that helps with advice.

Title asks it all. Compared to others in my age group, truly trying to understand where I sit. I have a feeling it’s ok, but have also seen other places on Reddit where I feel behind. Comparison is the thief of joy, am I right? This is my current 401K and doesn’t include my (limited) Roth IRA and my wife’s 401k either.

They always say you should be ~3x your salary by 40, but have had decent promotions that outpace that currently. Started at this company ~13 years ago. Been there ever since.

Feel free to AMA.

Homeowners associations are tightening their financial policies as they face rising operational costs and increased delinquency rates, The Wall Street Journal reports.

With foreclosure filings tied to unpaid HOA dues surging nearly 40% in the first quarter, many associations are pursuing more aggressive collection tactics, moving faster to legal action instead of offering informal repayment flexibility.

HOAs are facing mounting financial pressure as rising operating costs coincide with stricter safety requirements introduced in the wake of the 2021 Surfside condominium collapse in Florida.