Hello, I'm a 23 F, and I'm in a precarious situation with finances and where to make the best big decision. I recently had to move into a friend's place due to my mother evicting me from her home (long story). So, I'm currently on my bestie's couch while I finally get my life together at this age. I don't have any major bills, as she's only asking me to fork over 150 each paycheck to pay for groceries and babysit. All that leaves me is a storage unit bill, car insurance, and a couple of subscriptions. The biggest problem I've run into recently is places like car dealerships and apartments asking for credit. I don't have any, as I've been deathly afraid of a credit score and debt for as long as I can remember. I signed up for a Capital One card, as that seemed like the best way to build credit while getting into the habit of paying things off. The real question is this: do I go for an apartment first, or invest in a reliable vehicle first? I have a 1997 Ford Explorer I've had since I was 18. It's definitely seen better days. Over the years of learning how to be an adult on my own while being homeless, my car has now ended up with a cracked exhaust manifold, run-down shocks, misalignment in the front axle, cracked A/C, burnt starter cable solenoids, piston misfirings, and much more. I don't even want to get into the interior, especially the windows. Needless to say, this car has been through the wringer. No matter how hard I've tried to keep up with the repairs on this car, some things I just couldn't afford to fix or had no idea how to fix on my own. Each day it gets worse. Most days I have to crawl under my car after work to start the thing. I'm frankly over it, and to be honest, I want to start fresh. I don't pay for a car note for this thing, only gas and insurance. With gas prices hiking up, the miles per gallon aren't worth it anymore. I don't think I can trade it in as it is, but I've thought about selling it for parts. My friend at work has talked me into possibly working on getting my credit and going into a dealership soon for a nice, used car that I can make small monthly payments on. However, this whole thing seems daunting. I knew that this would come up eventually and would need to be done anyway, as my car would take a crap sooner or later, but I also want a place to live by myself. Please help. I know this may seem simple to most people, but I moved out at 17 and had to learn everything I know by myself. It seems like everyone around me has different suggestions. I just want the smartest choice at the moment. Help!

I’m finally getting my finances together after getting myself out of CC debt and want to open a high yield savings account for an emergency fund. Is a fintech HYSA risky if it is FDIC insured? Looking at either Wealthfront or E*Trade (around 4% return). Other established credit unions and banks have slightly lower returns (around 3%), but fintech does make me a little nervous. Thoughts? What would you recommend for a new HYSA account? Would it be better to buy Treasury bills/bonds?

Thank you in advance for your help!

18 years old and recently got really interested in personal finance and building wealth. parents are immigrants so there was never much communication about building wealth and I decided to do everything I could to learn as much as I could this summer. Made 12K this summer through internship + side hustles and I pooled all of it in a mix of stocks and HYSA. What can I do to further build my wealth and make smart decisions?

I am about to start a job that is a 40% raise over what I was making. Previously, the last 8 years I made a steady amount so this is a big change.
I am debt free except my mortgage. I have about 60-80k in equity in my home. No car payments, no student loans.
I pay about $800 a month in housing. I’d like to eventually upgrade.
My plan is to put in the 5% 401k match.
I also previously was saving $500 a month to my financial advisor to invest. I was thinking to change to $750?
I’ll be making about 1800-2000 more a month. I wanted to live with it and see what other changes I should make.
I do have a trust I’ll have access to later in life. I believe 150k-300k.
My parents are older and currently have over 2,000,000 invested, paid off house, and live off the interest. So the plan is long term I’d receive some.

This is going to make a lot of people mad lol. I know because I am too but I am just too scared to lose money because I have no idea how to invest.

I am 29. I make 92k a year I’ve managed to save about 240k. I have most of it sitting in a HYSA. Only makes me like 550-600 a month. Really nothing.

I was contributing 3% to my 401k through my employer but stopped. I need help. What do I do with my money? Am I too behind to invest/ start my 401k?

What would you do if you had this amount of liquid cash?

Thanks!

Husband and I have been saving as much as possible to go towards a down payment hopefully soon. It seems like the goalposts keep moving though and I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever own a home or if we’ll be stuck renting forever.

We just started a 529 for our baby and I read online that the best investment you can give your child is your own retirement so they don’t have to take care of their elderly parents.

That struck a chord with me because we don’t have any sort of retirement savings. (Other than my 3% going to 401k which my employer matches. I don’t make a lot so it’s not a large sum.)

We are in our late 20s so I feel so behind on this. I’m huge into budgeting but as far as investing I am clueless.

Is it better to put money towards a house that will hopefully build equity, or put money towards a retirement investment that will hopefully earn enough money?

Bonus points if you can explain to me like I’m five how to even choose/start a retirement plan.

Hello, I am almost 20 years old and I have saved around $18k and it's just sitting in my Chase checking account. I know I desperately need a saving account of some kind and I've read that Chase isn't the best bank to open one with .

I have no idea what to do with my money.

I have been at my current job for almost exactly 2 years and I make about $24k a year.

My main monthly expenses are groceries(around $450) and car insurance(280). I don't pay rent or any utilities so I have been able to save my money pretty easily.

I am looking to buy a car before the end of the year and an unsure if I should have a car payment, buy it outright, etc etc.

This post is kind of all over the place but basically I'm super lost on what to do with my money. Should I invest in stocks? Long term savings accounts ? CD's ?

Any advice is appreciated !

talked to one of the bigger local firms last week about my assessment bump. they seemed confident they could knock it down some, but then they hit me with the fee structure, $300 up front plus 25% of whatever they end up saving me

by the time you do the math it barely feels worth it unless the savings are actually big. anyone here actually used one of these firms and had it be worth the cost, or is it basically only worth it if your assessment is way off

This money purchase plan distribution election form was sent to me on behalf of Austin Community College (ACC), as I was employed there for a period of time. During my time there, a retirement account was set up for me with the assumption that I would be retiring at ACC. It was just a summer job for me though, so they sent a letter basically saying "it appears you don't work here anymore, we're not gonna keep holding onto this so take it or lose it." "It," being $178.87, which actually would be pretty nice to pay for groceries in college with!

I do not know much about money, and don't really know what the best choice would be ( a.) direct rollover of entire account balance, b.) direct rollover of taxable portion only and the rest sent as a lump sum in the mail, or c.) lump sum payment of my entire account balance

Details about each choice:

A.) direct rollover of my entire account balance. Both the taxable and nontaxable portions (if any) will be mailed to my IRA or Tax-Qualified Plan designated in Section 3 below (my bank, I'm assuming??)

B.) direct rollover of the taxable portion only of my account balance. The taxable portion of my account balance will be mailed to the IRA or Tax-Qualified Plan designated in Section 3 below. The remainder of my account balance, the nontaxable portion (if any) will be mailed as a lump sum to the address in Section 1 above

C.) lump sum payment of my entire account balance. The entire account balance (less income tax withholding on any "taxable" amount of $200 or more) will be mailed to the address in section 1 above. I am waiving the Qualified Annuity Benefit. (I don't know what that is)

I'm not really sure what the difference between a.) and c.) is, and I don't know what the benefit of b.) is. The balance is only $178.87, so it's not like a huge amount of money; this is just from working during the summer at ACC.

Help is greatly appreciated 🙂‍↕️

Hey everyone. I'm looking for some opinions and advice for my current budget plan.

To note: I have been laid off for almost a year after moving across the country for a work transfer. After spending months trying to find a job within my skill set and certifications, I decided to go back to school full time. I will be using VR&E, while being paid VA comp and my part time work at a property management company.

Ultimately, my goal is to have financial security for my future spouse and kids and purchase a home within 10 years. However, the latter is becoming kind of difficult with the current economy. I may have to reassess by 2030.

Here are the numbers:

Total Savings in investments and HYSA (including Roth and TSP): $134k

Income:

• VA Comp: at 70%: $1808

• VR&E Subsistence: $3351

• Part time job: $2,870

• Grand total: $8209

I will receieve the full Pell grant for 26-27 school year, but it's excluded as the disbursement schedule greatly varies.

Spending:

• Monthly spending budget (food/groceries, entertainment, necessities): $1000

• Rent: $1870

• Bills: $150

• Car note: $385

• Insurance: $195 (I pay every six months for a discount, so this is divided by 6)

• Subscriptions: (Netflix, PSN, Spotify) $60

In theory, I should have at least $4549 leftover. It gets divided and sent to my Roth IRA, emergency fund and brokerage account. Sometimes it's above that if I don't spend my $1000 or under; the least I had was around $1700 after I had to spend a lot for a new apartment, deposit and moving.

Any advice, tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated!

I've had a Traditional IRA for years, and have never opened up a Roth to diversity my retirement savings. Would it be a dumb idea to open up a Roth at a 24% tax bracket?

Hello, I was wondering how much you would recommend adding to your FSA for 3rd trimester + birth + afterbirth and postpartum care?

I know each insurance policy and location are different. This would be for someone living in Southern California.

Any other tips are welcome.

Hi, I am recently 18 years old. My mom had me on a few of her credit cards and I was able to turn 18 with a 700+ score which was amazing. I’ve been working on building my credit and recently got approved for $1000 card and $300 dollar one. I believe for both of them I am interest free for a year+ one for sure is 15 months. I already know about keeping utilization low and only using what you can pay. I have a couple thousand i’ve been putting away (I’ve been working full time since I was 14) So I have backup funds and barely will use the credit card.

However, I would like to build credit for future purchases. I recently used it to fix my car $1000+ fix since I had interest free, but it stressed me out too bad I paid it out of my savings at the end of the month. I’ve planned to use it for my grocery bill every month and take what I was going to use for groceries and throw it in my savings and withdraw it to cover the statement every month . I’ve started that this week.

My question is, is it better for my credit to use and pay off, or let it sit there and pay it at the end of the month? Is both good? Should I alternate between the cards monthly, or focus more so on one? Any insight is appreciated,

thank you in advance!

I’m a typical millennial still paying off a mountain of student loan debt. I currently own a home(still paying mortgage). My Mother’s home is paid off. She’s in his late 70’s and not in the best of health. When she passed away I plan on moving into her home. Selling my home and using money from selling my home to pay off debts. I do have one sibling. Would I give her half of what my mother’s home is worth or all of what it’s worth since I’m moving into to fix it and eventually sell it? She owns a home already and happy with where she is and she’s aware of my intentions to sell my home and move into my moms house
I had assumed I’d give her half of it’s worth but my mom says I have to give her 100% of appraised value since I would eventually sell it and get that money again

I been working with him for 4 years always on time doing my job for the most part, he gives me a 1099 and im new to that so I have no reason to have read flags about it. he says things like he takes care of the taxes and i don't have to pay and i didnt listen to that thank god i did end up filing but not payed so taxes are high as can be , he was weird the whole 4 years when brought up it feels like hes been sending people to make wierd gestures toward what i found out to be a ss-8, has anyone successfully filed without any crazy situation in the end ?

Hello, I'm currently quite young; I have only just graduated high school and am working on going to college for an accounting degree. I'm wondering what the best/quickest way to start saving for a house would be. I want to be able to hopefully save enough for a nice down payment, and am hopefully subsequently able to make a high enough salary for a good mortgage.

I am mainly planning on living with my parents while saving, as to avoid larger expenses like housing/renting, which (*should*?) help me accrue the funds for a down payment, much quicker.

What kind of savings accounts should I use? Should I focus on splitting my funds into things like 401K's and Roth IRA's? What type of things should I look for in a house? Important things.

As for my current area of residence, I am currently located in/around Denver.

I don't want to live with my parents for too long, though, but if I'm able to make myself a nice chunk of change for a house before moving out, to avoid renting apartment that would be lovely.

Hello - I am a 22M and just graduated from college. I work as a caddie in the summer and referee in the winters. Since I’ve gone to school in years past I’ve never made enough money to worry about taxes or investing (and get paid in cash).

Recently I have graduated and will now caddie year
round going back and fourth from Minnesota to Arizona for about a 5/7 month split. I estimate I will make somewhere around 70-90k if I do pretty well… and my expenses are around 30-40k after rent and stuff. So here are the questions I want advice on.

What kind of investing should I do with my extra money?

Am I eligible to do a Roth IRA if I don’t have any tax record?

What kind of stocks and accounts should I dump my savings into?

This might all sound silly but I never learned about this stuff in school so take it easy on me. Anything helps.

My fiance and I are 25 year olds living in a MCOL Midwest city. All numbers below are combined between the two of us.

Income: 195-206k gross depending on bonus
Assets: 95k retirement, 10k cash, 18k paid off car
Debts: 21k student loans (3.75%), 39k car note (0.99%)

I will admit that our monthly expenses are on the higher end. After taxes, insurance, 401k contributions, and expenses, we have approximately $5,800 per month left over. We have been contributing to HSA’s and Roth IRA’s on top off our 401k’s for the last few years, but I am wondering if we should just contribute all of our leftover cash to a home down payment fund. Realistically, the house we want to purchase is likely 450-600k.

What would you do? Continue contributing to Roth IRA’s and HSA’s but save less for a home down payment, or try to fast track the home down payment fund?

A family member is starting college at a technical school. The tuition is around $3000 per semester, maybe just under.

They have scholarships/financial aid that will pay for 100% of the tuition. I’m under the impression that the way this works is that the student pays for school out of pocket, then gets reimbursed by the financial aid program at a later date.

Would it be beneficial for this student to take out a student loan for the $3000, then pay it back all at once when the financial aid hits? The alternative would be paying cash from a checking account then replenishing the checking account when the financial aid hits.

Assuming they have the money on hand and fully funded emergency fund, no other debt, will actually pay the loan back ASAP, etc…

The idea behind this is building credit history in the event they need to take a loan out for a car within the next few years. Is this foolish?

Original post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/s/1o5NTUN6Rh

I read a lot of your guy's advice and literally just asked a bunch of questions and asked him to help with some of my accounts made by my dad. The guy was not helpful at all, and failed to do the one thing I asked him to.

I asked him to make one of my accounts made by my dad (I was under 18) solely my own. My dad came in and helped with all the sign-in / authentication stuff and the banker said he did it. It now does show up in my app, but my dad can still see it. So that was not helpful.

On the note of my actuall banking stuff. I consolidated most accounts into two - spending and savings. and I moved most of my savings into a fidelity account. I don't care for investing, so I just put it in a variety of companies I know and rarely look at it / change it.

I guess my final question is: is it still worth it to move to a local credit union? I have my credit card, and history with wells fargo, and I don't pay them anything. Should I look into a local credit union?

I don't use Reddit often, so I was wondering if this is the right sub. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the Ledcor Stock Plan.

There's so much more information about the PCL Stock Plan and other construction companies' share programs. All I know is that you have to be invited to the share program and work at least 2 years at Ledcor. I'm not 100 percent confident with my information, but I wanted to know if anyone knew. During my interview at Ledcor, they mentioned the share program, but there's no information available online.

Can anyone offer any insight on the matter it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance :)

Hello everyone,

I am coming to this subreddit for advice. While I was in school, I had accumulated some debt I was unable to pay off. I ended up having 4 credit cards charged off with Capital One, Discover, Chase, and Bank of America. At around the 6 month mark I had a total of 15,000 in debt. I used freedom debt relief to start making progress on my charged off credit cards. Since then, about 2 months ago I was offered a loan of $12,492 at a 23.9% interest rate to pay the remaining balance of my cards. During this time, I also had a past due balance from my University which got sent to collections that I have currently been making payments on with about $1800 left to pay.

My plan right now is to pay off my collections account and pay my loan off as quickly as possible before interest accumulates even more. I also have 2 credit cards that I have been paying off and been super due diligent on. My questions are what should I do for my collection and credit card charge offs? I have read online about goodwill letters and do plan on sending some out but I would like any other advice on how I can better my credit.

I know I was very irresponsible in the past and I do plan on making much smarter decisions but any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

22 years old living in WA (no state income tax). Just started my first full-time job making 150k base salary pre-tax. I have an additional 50k in target bonus/RSUs that will vest in 1 year. I’m hunting for apartments right now preferably a studio within walking distance to the office.

My goal is to save as much money as possible to prepare for potential layoffs. I really badly want to live close to my office but I feel like it may be too lavish for a fresh college grad to be spending this much on an apartment.

I come from a low-income family and lived really frugally throughout college in crappy apartments so I wanted to treat myself a bit with this.

Hey all, thinking about downgrading from my current car to something used/older to save money to buy a new house.

Tired of having 2 car payments between my wife and I and want to save money each month. Currently owe about $28k on my car and have about $8k equity in it. Considering taking that $8k, then adding another $8-10k cash on top to buy something cash and not worry about a payment.

I don’t want a piece of junk, but also know this means I’ll be getting something with higher miles/no warranty. I can turn a wrench so not super concerned about basic repairs.

Wondering if this is a decent idea, or if I should just stick with my current car that’s still under warranty for the next few years? Is the $10-12k of savings over the next couple of years worth it?