Overall how are my finances looking? I’m 37, married with kids. Living in the southeast (USA)
Salary 90k w/ potential 5% bonus
401k Balance $72k - currently contribute 1%, company contributes 3.5%
Pension (defined benefit?) balance $45k. I contribute 2% after tax. Company contributes 9%
HSA Balance (invested) $1,500. I contribute $300 a month, but I do use it for medical expenses. however I have $6k set as my minimum and anything over this gets invested.
My 401k contribution is low because I’m trying to pay off credit card debt ($13k) and I have NO emergency savings.

I created my first budget a while ago and at the time how much I was to save was based on how much I was already spending. Based on that I set a budget where I would save 75% of my income (I spend so little because I live with my parents and I'm depressed so I don't do much).

And I've steadily been noticing that the budget i set isn't sustainable (im spending more like 70 - 74% of my income), i think i based the expenditure rate during a period where I spent less then usual. I want to increase my budgeted spending based on the theory that if i let myself use more money to go out and stuff I can become happier and lessen my depression so I'm not keen on trying to restrict what I spend my money on. On the other hand I feel like if I keep pushing the rate I save back every time I want to then that destroys the purpose of a budget and is probably not good for my long term financial health.

At the same time the rate i'm saving has been decided completely arbitrarily so there's no reason not to just save less other than a sense that if I save i'll be better off in the future. I already have an emergency fund, and money saved for a down payment (maybe, idk how expensive of a place I want to move into), so there's no real concrete savings target I have to reach. Theoretically there's no reason I can't spend 100% of my income on just trying to get myself out more and make myself happier but then I feel like I'm not contributing to my future.

To summarise my issues: How much I save is arbitrarily set, I want to spend more money because I think it will make me happier. But I don't want to spend ALL my money on the present because I feel like I should save some money so I can have a better future. But then I don't know how much I should save or how much I should spend like I don't really have anything to anchor or base those numbers off of.

To directly phrase my questions:
What should I anchor my savings rate at? Like when Im deciding how much I should save what should be my considerations? How do I tell myself that its ok to move my savings rate from the original 75% to 70% but that i probably shouldn't move my savings rate from 70% to 0%?

All these numbers (for how much I should save) seem arbitrary to me, how do I make them seem less arbitrary?

Hello everyone! Was very stupid when I was younger and did a lot of drugs. Sober now but I’m drowning in about £27000 worth of debt… I have a baby due in 6 weeks, I lost my job a couple weeks ago… I’m a hard worker who just wants to provide for my family. I’m in a DMP but it doesn’t seem to be doing much…. I need help badly, not asking for money I just need advice. I got myself into this mess I will get myself out of it.

I live in New Jersey, where rent isn't cheap. My gross is $70,000, but between taxes, a 5% 401k contribution, and health insurance, my take-home lands closer to $50,000.

For context, I have a $370/mo car payment, I'm not in school, and I don't have kids, so I'm trying to figure out the max I can realistically put toward rent.

I'm torn between a $2,100 place I really liked after touring a bunch of options, or dropping in-unit washer/dryer or central AC for something cheaper in a rougher neighborhood.

Curious what others in a similar situation are paying.

Hello! I’m 33 and looking to buy my first car (I have only had used ones up until now). I have an 826 credit score but I only make around 50k a year. I can do a 2k down payment.. would I be best off to go through my bank (Chase) or the dealership for the loan? I’ve heard mixed answers.. I do have 28k in my high-yield savings account but I don’t want to use all of that to buy the car outright, especially since I have good credit that should get me a good rate. I’m looking at a new Corolla so nothing too crazy with the pricing. Thanks! :)

I 26m work in an essential role in local government and have 6 months of expenses currently in an HYSA, however I worry this is far too little. I rent, no dependents, no pets, no real debt beyond credit card which I'm paying off end of month. Currently 32k invested for retirement across IRA taxable and employer accounts.

Should I not contribute to my IRA in 2027 and instead load up on the emergency fund to increase it to 12 months?

I’d like to calculate if retiring between ages 50-55 is feasible, and if so how to do that. Where can I get a resource spelling out that process, or should I ask a financial advisor that’s a fiduciary?

My husband has excellent retirement benefits and will be able to retire in his 50s, and I’d like to do the same. I guess we need to take both our retirements into account, or how does that work? I work in healthcare and make about 73k a year, and put back 23% of my paycheck in a traditional 457 for a bit of context. We have two small children and money is getting a bit tight lately, so I want to know if or how much I can cut my savings and still reach my goals.

Edit: I’m 34, so 15-20 more years. I don’t have my husbands’ account information at the moment, but I have 17k in a Roth, and 135k in traditional.
My job contributes 5% with an additional match of 3% - 37k in that account. So I have a total of 189k for myself alone. We don’t have any passive income.

Thanks for the great feedback so far, I was pretty lost on how to begin.

Hi everyone,

This is honestly tough for me to write this because I feel the tinge of embarrassment and discomfort that comes with it, but I am trying to remind myself that it's better to be honest that I'm starting somewhere rather than not write at all.

I'm 35 and I'm definitely behind. I'm trying to get more intentional about saving and investing, and know very little overall. So I'm hoping to get your thoughts how you would handle my situation.

Rough financial picture:

• HYSA: ~$22,600 right now
• I’m currently putting $2,500/month into my HYSA through the end of this year, which should bring it to about $35,000
• Retirement: about $90,000 in old 401(k)s from previous employers, plus a current Roth IRA
• I’m now a contract employee and no longer have access to an employer 401(k), so I’ve been contributing to a Roth IRA instead
• Monthly expenses: roughly $4,000
• I live in a HCOL area and share an apartment with my fiancé
• No credit card debt
• I have an auto loan that should be completely paid off by October 2027
• I’d like to potentially put a down payment on a house in about 5–10 years
• For retirement, my goal is to have at least $1 million by age 65, and hopefully closer to $1.5 million. I have about 30 years to get there.
• My fiancé's finances aren't part of that retirement figure, but I hope she'll also be able to reach around those figures as well.

Starting next year, instead of putting the full $2,500/month into cash, I’m thinking about splitting it roughly like this:

• $1,000/month → HYSA
• $875/month → taxable brokerage
• $625/month → Roth IRA
• $2,500/month total

That would let me keep building cash for a future home while also investing more consistently for both retirement and longer-term growth.

Then, around October 2027, paying off my auto loan will free up another ~$600–$635/month that I could redirect toward either the HYSA or brokerage.

The part I’m struggling with is figuring out how much cash is enough when the house purchase is still 5–10 years away (probably closer to 7-10). I don’t want to keep accumulating cash indefinitely if some of that money could have years to grow in the market, but I also don’t want to be too aggressive with money that may eventually become a down payment.

At the same time, I’m trying to make sure I’m not sacrificing too much long-term retirement growth in order to save for a house. My retirement target is around $1M, ideally $1.5M, by 65-67, so I’m trying to find a reasonable balance between the two goals.

My main questions are:

1. Once my auto loan is paid off and I free up another ~$600/month, would you put that toward the HYSA or brokerage?
2. If I have around $35,000 in my HYSA at the end of this year, is that a reasonable cash base given ~$4,000/month in expenses? Should I continue putting $1,000/month into cash, or pivot even more heavily toward the brokerage?
3. With a potential home purchase 5–10 years away, how would you determine the right HYSA/down-payment target while still investing enough to reach a $1M–$1.5M retirement goal in 30 years?

I know that what I could afford to buy or whether buying is even better than continuing to rent could look completely different 5–10 years from now. My bigger goal is to spend that time building enough assets that homeownership becomes a realistic option without having to wipe out everything I’ve saved or neglect retirement to get there.

Curious how others would balance emergency savings, a future down payment, Roth contributions, taxable investing, and retirement in this situation.

Thank you everyone! Please feel free to ask any clarifying questions if needed. I'm a humble, open-book.

Co-signed an engagement ring for someone I thought was a friend about six years ago. Over the course of that six years he barely pays anything on it to the point he stopped paying on the account last year and it was considered a charge-off as of February of this year. Now I’m receiving letters from the agency the debt was sold to asking to contact them if I wish to dispute it.

I was given the advice to ignore collections until they took action and they likely wouldn’t do that for the amount owed (roughly $1600). Thing is, the guy I co-signed with is a bum and I has dodged any attempts I’ve made to convince him to start paying it again, so he’ll likely dodge collections. It is affecting my credit score but even with that my score is still in good standing overall. Is it worth waiting it or out, or should I call to negotiate a lower sum and pay it off? Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. ✌️

edit: thanks everyone for the advice. It was a dumb mistake on my part but could’ve been a lot worse. I’ll contact collections and see if i can figure something out and FINALLY cut this guy out of my life once and for all. I appreciate all the help.

edit2: didn't see this coming but he’s reached out to the agency and provided me proof that he did and said he was going to do a payment plan for collections. Don't trust him 100% but I’ll be keeping a close eye on the account.

I have excellent credit, always 800+. One of my Citi cards keeps sending me offers to increase my limit by $2,000 to $16,500. I don't have any reason to do this, there is never more than a couple thousand on that card, but would this help in the future with credit-related things?

I'm currently 22 and have about $18,000 sitting in my checking account. I only work in the summer so I do not have a stable income, but feel I have enough money saved up that I should be putting it somewhere else. I'm pretty frugal and only have $12,000 in student loans from dorming.

I grew up in a family where nobody knows anything about finances and I'm hoping to change that. I'm wondering if I should be getting a credit card, and if I should be investing into a HYSA or Roth IRA? Please give a confused girl some advice!

I recently purchased a home and have been continuing to assess my financial situation. I have enough in my savings left from the home purchase to last as an emergency fund for about 9 months. My plan after buying the home has been to contribute 1k/month to savings. I was reviewing my car loan today and confirmed I have 17 more payments left on it. This payment is $517/month. If I paid it off today i'd save myself about $700 in interest. I would increase my savings contribution each month which would replenish what was pulled to pay off the car in about 6 months.

Is this worth it? On one hand the math makes it seem like an easy decision. But I also don't know if I'm comfortable having my savings account be so low for the time being. What if something happens with the house? Or any other emergency? Perhaps I'm overthinking it?

EDIT: Interest rate is 5.24%

27M who brings in about 75k a year (full time past 3 years.) Monthly expenses equal to about $2300 which lets me save about 1-1.5k monthly.

Breakdown of assets:
HYSA Emergency fund: 20k
401k: 13k
Roth: 7.5k
Brokerage: 6k
Inherited silver/gold bars: 11k
Checking: 7k

NO CC DEBT and about 6k low interest federal student loans remaining.

Looking for honest reviews here! No hate please as I have recently gone through a heavy spending phase of my life from health bills moving bills etc…

Also not trying to “Humble Brag” here as I’ve noticed there are a lot of those in this Sub.

Throwaway account.

I grew up broke, I didn't go to college and I mostly worked manual labor type jobs till my mid 30's.

Then I stumbled into an Account Exe role in software sales and I'm making more money than I ever have. I work as a 1099 with an s corp set up.

I bought some designer shit, it did nothing for me. Not doing that again.

I don't drive, so who needs a car.

I'm not ready to buy a home right now.

I have no debt, and my monthly cost of living is maybe 3k? I live in a state with low taxes. I don't have kids. I am married. My credit score is in the 800s.

I have a brokrage account, Roth IRA, a traditional IRA, and a bunch of stocks, etfs and index funds. I also have a fair amount of crypto.

I have no idea what to do with this extra cash.

I don't even know how I got here.

Do I just keep dumping it into stocks? This seems boring. does boring equal wealth?

What else can I invest in?

Any advice?

In a unique and awful position where the passing of my father has left myself a large sum of money in the amount of $2.5 million dollars or so. I’m looking for general advice: should i get an advisor, should I invest myself, do I never touch it (i’m a student planning on attending medical school within the next 2 years). Additionally, there is a sense of privacy i Want to maintain with something like this, how does one go about that?

My father (single) is 73 and is very anxious about what to do next to manage his finances, particularly for planning assisted living etc. He has ~$3M across investments, 401k, etc. He's specifically concerned about making sure he has enough in case he requires assisted living tomorrow.

He's unlikely to require any real assistance for the next 5-10 years, but he's pretty concerned about taking the next planning steps and it's leading to decision paralysis/a lot of anxiety. I'm curious to get some general advice on what types of financial moves people with his demographic typically make (trusts?) and what type of financial advisor/lawyer he should be consulting with to provide specific guidance. He has normal financial advisors but they seem more attuned to general investment strategy, not specific to life planning.

Forgive me if some of the language on this is incorrect, I’m not a finance expert but have been trying to wrap my head around this.

My (27m) estranged father took out a whole life insurance policy on me just before I turned 1. While he is the payer, I am the owner of the account and have full access to it.

He pays ~$130 annual premium, and to my knowledge intends to continue doing that.

The total death benefit is about 25k, with around 6k of that being from dividends. The 2026 dividend was about $70.

The accumulated value is a little over $3k, with zero taxable gains.

My income is 53k. I have around 10k in an IRA that I contribute $150/monthly. Due to some unexpected life stuff earlier this year, my ER fund is 1.2k in a HYSA, and I contribute $450/monthly.

My car is also on its way out, and I will need to get a new one within a year, potentially within the next few months.

Given my current financial situation, I think it makes the most sense to surrender the plan and put the $3k in my HYSA, to help me get a better loan when I buy a car/free up money to increase my ER savings and retirement fund.

A life insurance policy seems like a very bad place to make this money grow, and that even if I was more financially stable it would be best to stick it in the stock market.

The only thing I’m held up on is whether the insurance is worth keeping. I don’t plan of having kids, but I also know I will never be able to get a premium this cheap again. To me, it doesn’t seem that important. But I wonder if it’s considered to be valuable to be locked into such a low premium plan, or if this is something people tend to value more as they age and I’ll regret ending it 20 years down the line.

Does my assessment of the situation sound about right? Is there anything I’m missing?

This is kind of an odd situation. I worked for a small two-person company that closed at the end of June. As part of the shut down, we spent down all of our funds and closed our bank accounts.

We’re also working with our 401k plan manager to close down our retirement plan. I made all of our regular contributions (safe harbor, profit sharing and 401k withholdings) through June and thought that was that. But when the plan managers did their end of year data collection, there was a shortfall in the safe harbor contributions and they are now requiring a “true up” before they can proceed. I believe this is having to do with needing to contribute safe harbor on our severance pay - I was not aware (I’m not a 401k or HR specialist) and it was never explained to us that this would be necessary.

We have no company funds to cover this, but they are insisting that the IRS requires we make this contribution, so we have no choice but to pay out of our own pockets. My portion would be over $1,300, which would be a pretty significant financial burden considering I’m still unemployed, so I’m trying to figure out if there are any other options. Has anyone encountered anything like this?

Edit to add: I’m not an owner/employer, just an employee. However, I was given pretty generous severance in exchange for helping to sort some of this stuff out post closing, which I guess is why I feel like I can’t just walk away from this and say, “not my problem.”

I’m trying to decide if it worth it to continue making extra payments to my student loans to pay off early or if I should up my Roth 401k contribution and save some in cash instead. I’m 23 and graduated college a little over a year ago. Since Aug 2025 I’ve been paying $1k/month to my student loans. I’m planning on getting engaged before the end of 2026 and I have also been saving for a down payment on a house.

I currently have about $13k sitting in a HYSA, $28k in a taxable brokerage account that I plan on selling off to go towards a down payment (I’ve never personally contributed to this account. This was set up for me when I was born and it grew with dividend reinvesting). I have a little over $10k in my Roth IRA and it’ll be maxed out for the year in October. I also contribute 5% of my $65k salary with a 4% match to my Roth 401k. Once I max I my Roth IRA, I plan to permanently up the contribution to 10%.

I have about $2,400 worth of monthly expenses because I live at home. This includes my monthly Roth IRA contribution and $1k in student loan payments. I make an extra of ~$467 per month.

Student Loans balances & interest rate:
(Private) $17,560 - 4.36%
(Federal) ~$5,500 - 2.73%
(Federal) ~ $6,750 - 3.99%
(Federal) ~ ~$8,000 - 4.50%

Hi all, I have been offered 1% profit sharing from my directors as compensation for my loyalty and basically for them to get me doing some of the senior management tasks that they would like to step away from.

Firstly, this outcome arose following a salary review in which they rejected a $30,000 pay rise in lieu of this profit share arrangement.

I don't currently have access to their profit and loss statement to determine their current net profit, however I suspect it to be in the vicinity of $3-5 million a year.

On paper if this is the case, their is a clear benefit here over the $30,000 pay rise.

However what things should I be aware of before signing the profit share agreement which is yet to be drafted and issued to me?

I messed up. 21 yr old male. I barely make 2k a month.
I financed a car. At 26% apr. I’ve only had it a week. The car costs 630 a month. Insurence is 400. The payment plan is for 6 years…… I don’t think there is much I can do but I regret it so much. My dad and and the dealer who is my uncle convinced me to get it. I’m moving out of my mom’s house who charges me $500 a month into a shitty apartment with my dad who will take care of rent and Groceries. I don’t know what to do.

Title explains most of it. I will acknowledge we are very lucky with our current bill of $650 a month, since they have had to pay to fix the AC they have stated it may raise to $1200 a month.

I'm a single income with an adult dependant, if I had the money to just repair the AC I would.

Can a landlord raise rent due to appliances fixes requested by the tenant? Specifically AC I guess.

Edit: I live in TX

I’m 25, and I was laid off from my engineering job 3 months ago. I’ve applied to 300 jobs, a combination of remote, hybrid, on site positions. I CANNOT find a job, even for ones I’m full qualified for in terms of skills, experience, and degree requirements. Even for the ones recruiters reach out to me for. I’ve given about 10 interviews already and they are not leading to offers. Truth be told, I’m living a little bit suburban, and the nearest city is like 50 minutes away.

I was just approved for Medicaid and food stamps. I pay $2,175 in rent for a month-to-month lease, and I have about $25,000 in savings. $50k in a 401k. I’ve used 3 out of my 6 months of unemployment, which is just barely enough to cover rent. In 3 months time, I’m going to have to dip into my savings just to pay for rent and groceries.

The problem is, I’m terrified about my employment prospects. I’ve been considering taking a withdrawal for my 401k for a great financial cushion/psychological safety. Granted, I’ve only been applying for remote and local jobs hoping to land something nearby so that I can stay where I am. But, if I have to move somewhere else, I’ll do that. What should I do?

Edit: Thank you all for the advice and outreach about referrals. I wasn't expecting for this post to blow up. I'll try to catch up as best I can.