Personal Finance My journey from a 450 credit score to 720 in a year and a half. |
- My journey from a 450 credit score to 720 in a year and a half.
- 66% of people between age 21 and 32 have $0 saved in Employer-sponsored retirement plans
- 27 yo. Inherited fathers 401k. Need advice?
- Saved Over $100 on Paying Back Taxes by Calling the IRS
- The IRS just lowered the HSA max contribution for a family by $50. This is effective for *this* calendar year.
- Dad suddenly died outside of the country, is there anything I should make sure I do?
- NYC Landlord offering crazy deal, advice please.
- small investment with huge ROI - cable modem.
- Should I take a same base pay job with likely better benefits or keep the one with bonuses?
- Advice please! Stuck with unpayable $80k student loan, college closed down, so no degree and no good job.
- A question about Vanguard Personal Advisor Services
- Home purchase
- Buying a house. Is 4.7 interest bad?
- I might've messed up on buying a home.
- I just signed a small loan, with $0.00 required down. I was prepared and had a couple hundred anyways. Well my creditor processed it as a payment after the initial sale, rather than as a down payment. Did this hurt me in any way?
- What do you think of Condo flipping?
- I'm 32 years old and financially illiterate. I am trying to get better at literally everything in my financial life, so I can show my son how to avoid living like I have. But where do I even begin?
- Graduating college in May, accepted first real job, how much should go towards rent?
- My mom took out a credit card in my sister's name five years ago. Now she is $12k in debt.
- Buying House from Family - Tax Question
- Identity theft: Someone knows my husband’s SSN and keeps opening accounts and letting them go to collections.
| My journey from a 450 credit score to 720 in a year and a half. Posted: 07 Mar 2018 07:10 AM PST First, I want to thank many of you who have helped me realize the importance of having good credit (here in the US). This sub has taught me a lot, and a lot of the information I've read on this sub over the last year has really stuck with me. To give some background, I grew up with my grandparents who didn't have a solid financial understanding, so I didn't understand the importance of credit at all growing up. Hell, I didn't even know what a credit score was until I turned 26. However, I understood the value of saving because growing up in a household with three siblings and two retired grandparents were not easy for them. So, I lived my life paying cash for everything. A trip to Vegas, cash. Christmas gifts, cash. Twenty-day Eurotrip? Cash, cash, cash. At the age of 28, I met my current girlfriend who is six years my senior and much more successful - work and financially. As things got serious, we started talking about finances since I was always paying big purchases items with my debit card (which is fine), but she asked why don't I use credit for a few of these purchases to rack up points. I looked at her with the most confused face and asked what points are. Her eyes lit up, and she realized that I did not know how credit cards, scores, and the whole system. We downloaded one of those free credit motoring apps and checked my score. BAM! 450. She showed hers -- 820. I felt embarrassed and knew I had to do something. She told me that she would help me better understand how it works and how to get started. We opened a secured card with $200 to get started. That was it. Why was it a 450? Well, at the age of 19, I got a credit card in college and never paid my bill. It went to collections. Pretty obvious. The first six months was a waiting game. Making purchases, paying the card off. I always maxed out the card, but still paid in full when the bill was due with auto pay. Around month 7, I get an email from the credit card company saying they will send back my $200 deposit, and now going from a secured card to unsecured. AWESOME! My limit was now $1000. My score went from 450 to 550. Now I'm checking my score on my app every other day. I know it's not going to change much from day-to-day, but I enjoyed staying on top of it. I slowly see it climb by being responsible for paying the card off IN FULL every month. Having a better understanding of the system, I applied for a new card that's ideal for people who are rebuilding credit. Applied, fingers crossed, approved for a $3k credit limit! This is awesome! I go through my entire budget, switch bills I used to pay with cash to my credit cards, set up auto pay and done. A year later, the excitement of checking all the time has worn off, but I went on just to see how things are doing a few months back. I check my score, and I'm at 720 with a 30k revolving limit. Thinking this was a mistake, I'm searching through the entire app until I see why. My GF added me as an authorized user on one of her cards that has a 26k limit with an 8-year history and paid in full on time every month. That was her gift to me for sticking with it. She trusts me enough to hold the card in case of an emergency. But I want my own big boy card now even though I'm fine with what I have now. After a couple of months of doing reviews and prequalify checks (which I didn't pass), I bit the bullet and applied for the AMEX Gold Card. Approved! I'm sure there are better cards out there, but I thought this would be great for me. It was something I always wanted as a kid, and now I have it. All because of staying focused and a bit of luck. So, that was my journey from 450 to 720. From only having a debit card to 4 credit cards. The habits I learned over the last year and a half will stick with me forever, and now I have a new goal to pass my GF's credit score. Sorry for the long post. Edits: grammer [link] [comments]  |
| 66% of people between age 21 and 32 have $0 saved in Employer-sponsored retirement plans Posted: 07 Mar 2018 12:16 PM PST The report is based on an analysis of the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data from the U.S. Census Bureau. It examines the distinct challenges posed by the current retirement system in America for working Millennials between the ages of 21 and 32. This only looks at retirement accounts through employer sponsored plan. It does not take into consideration other retirement accounts such as Traditional or Roth IRAs Access
Participation
Barriers
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| 27 yo. Inherited fathers 401k. Need advice? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 06:29 AM PST Hello. I will give more details when I get to the document in my car. My uncle passed a few months ago and I received paperwork that gives me options to decide on a plan in which to do with my portion of the 401k. What are the stipulations if I receive it in lump sum? I am in Massachusetts by the way. My aunt keeps telling me to put it into a strech ira but I don't understand half of this lingo. I am struggling financially and have much debt to pay off. Can anybody give me some advice on my best option for this 401k inheritance? Edit: something I should have mentioned. The 401k is going to be split 7 ways between cousins. Me and my brother were life insurance beneficiaries. I already purchased a much needed car with that and still have something put away. Only thing left to do is chose an option for the 401k [link] [comments]  |
| Saved Over $100 on Paying Back Taxes by Calling the IRS Posted: 07 Mar 2018 04:30 PM PST I had a pleasant conversation earlier today with the IRS and learned some interesting stuff about paying my taxes that I wanted to share in hopes it might help someone. I received a letter in the mail saying my tax refund was applied to the balance of my back taxes, which I knew was going to happen. What I didn't expect, however, was the remaining balance the letter claimed was owed. A little frustrated and confused I decided to call the IRS and see what was up. Eventually, after being transferred to the balance department, the wonderful lady on the phone explained to me that there was interest and penalties that accrues on these back taxes. Now I just want to note, I knew this going in, but I didn't know why the remaining balance was so much. She walked through each month's payment, as well as the interest and penalties that accrued over the last 10 months. Relieved that I wasn't going crazy, she told me I could write in a letter called a "First Time Penalty Abatement." Basically, this means that I can write in and request that they remove the penalty fees that accrue, which then adjusts the interest accrued and overall lowers the balance owed. So my $429 remaining balance dropped down to $306 after this abatement was applied. I had no idea this was possible and I am so grateful that this wonderful lady took the time to explain and submit it for me over the phone. It saved me a good chunk of money to pay back. She also told me that once I approach the payoff of the remaining balance to call back and request the abatement for the penalties and it would be removed. Because it's being applied to the same tax year, the abatement is still considered "first time." I'll also provide a link to the IRS website that explains how one qualifies for a First Time Penalty Abatement and how it works. I hope this helps anybody who owes on their taxes and is able to cut down on their amount owed. Just to add some more information as to why my situation was this way: -I had to set up a payment plan to pay those taxes because I couldn't afford to pay it off at one time. - I never received any statements by mail and have been trying for at least 6 months via the IRS website and phone to set up my online account, to no avail. -My taxes owed was under $2000, so in retrospect saving $100 might seem minuscule to what others might owe or even save. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 08:08 AM PST This is incredibly annoying if you already maxed your account at the beginning of the year. It was just announced, so expect the your employer to be reaching out if this is you to make an adjustment. [link] [comments]  |
| Dad suddenly died outside of the country, is there anything I should make sure I do? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 10:50 AM PST I truly don't know where to ask this on line as it's not actually directly financial advice or anything. My dad was hit by a car & killed while vacationing in Mexico. My aunt (his sister) kind of did all the initial work. She was the one that went down to Mexico to ID him, get his luggage back, contacted funeral home etc. Initially getting his death certificate was difficult because it was in Spanish & according to the funeral home it didn't count until they got it from Mexico translated into English, and cremating him was delayed for like maybe a week because of this. We still have been unable to get a copy of his autopsy report and my aunt says she is now dealing with the US consulate to get Mexico to hand it over. He always told me I was in his pension but I don't even know how to check on that or whatever, I was told by my aunt that I can only get the pension if we get the autopsy. I'm next of kin, and when she went down to Mexico to ID him they first told her that she basically couldn't officially ID him that it would have to be his kids, but she told them we were minors so that she could just do it. I'm 25 & my sister is 22. I'm not really asking anything in particular I was just wondering if anybody else has had something similar happen or knows how to deal with the complications from a situation like this where the death occurred out of the country. Right now I'm just kind of letting my aunt handle it but I'd like to make sure this stuff is going down correctly I just don't know anything about it. If it matters he was a resident of Michigan, 49, and he was in the bricklayers union. [link] [comments]  |
| NYC Landlord offering crazy deal, advice please. Posted: 06 Mar 2018 11:26 PM PST Hello! I live with my long-time girlfriend in NYC. We rent a very large 1.5 bedroom apt for $1,750 per month. Our apt is the top floor of a 3 story brownstone, and the only other resident is the owner of the home/landlord who occupies the first 2 floors. We have lived in this apt for 5 years. Our initial rent was $1,450, so our rent increases have ranged from moderate to nothing. Our landlord is...strange. He keeps odd hours and works as a janitor at a public school somewhere in Brooklyn. He only accepts rent in cash via hand to hand transaction, and will often ask for the rent a week or two early. Once he asked for 2 months rent at once because he was in a bind. We often see notices on the house that his gas is in danger of being shut off if he doesn't make an immediate payment, but it's never actually been shut off. We don't mind this too much really because we can afford it and in return we get to live in an apt that could easily be rented for $2,500 for $1,750. He also fixes any necessary repairs promptly and we generally only have contact with him when we are paying rent. He has been very good to us despite being a bit of an oddball. Tonight he approached me and said that he is very behind on his water bill and that he owes taxes to the IRS and needs money. He said that if I pay him $10,500 (6 months rent) up front, he will give us 6 months rent free. We would sign a yearly lease paid in full for the amount of $10,500. We know that he owns the house outright, and that he is the only owner. He is asking that we make the payment in May, not immediately. My girlfriend is an attorney for the city with an annual salary of 110k. Her job security is iron clad. I manage 2 restaurants and make 75k, I am in a very secure position but recognize that you never know what could happen. I also have a law degree and am eligible for bar admission in NY/NJ. We have 12k in checking/emergency and that's it for liquid cash. Am I crazy for wanting to do this? I realize how nuts it sounds, but we would rebuild our savings in 6 months and then double it over the next 6. I know that something too good to be true usually is, but as long as everything is recorded properly, in what ways are we putting ourselves at risk? Thanks in advance. Edit: we have our own utilities, as in our own gas meter and water heater. [link] [comments]  |
| small investment with huge ROI - cable modem. Posted: 07 Mar 2018 06:17 AM PST I have a 330mps connection and spend $10 a month on a modem rental after talking them down from $15 a month. I just bought a cable modem for $45. I'm not sure how to go about doing the ROI, so lets do it over 2 years: Renting: 24*10 = $240 Buying: $45 (edit: +$10 (2 years at 10% interest)) So I'm getting about a 500% return on my investment over 2 years. Or an annual rate of growth like 125%? (lol, i really don't know how to calculate this) :) So even though I've had the same cable modem for about 4 years without issues, lets say the one i have has a lifetime of 2 years. That's still a crazy return. Maybe this is more /r/frugal, but I've found that by trimming these recurring costs, I've helped my bottom line a lot. edit: as /u/showersareevil pointed out, the router i'm replacing has some functionality I'm not using and a comparable device is more than $45. Although on amazon I found one for $49. :\ [link] [comments]  |
| Should I take a same base pay job with likely better benefits or keep the one with bonuses? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 06:36 PM PST I received an offer from a school district for 54.5k/year on a contracted 236 days a year, 9 paid holidays, 3 personal days and 12 sick days (about 5 weeks of vacation, 3 days Christmas week are forced to be taken). With about $1000/year in union fees. Overall better benefits. Historically looks like 2% cost of living raises a year plus a bump up the pay scale by about $1000/year each year you're there. My current job pays 55k/year plus about 6k/year bonuses with 3 weeks vacation and 6 holidays paid. Been at my job for 8+ years. Unlikely for any pay raises and no promised cost of living raises. The work is similar, but it wouldn't be in a manager position like I'm currently in. I feel both jobs have no real growth potential, but the school district might be more available to transfer to different departments. The new position would require me to do more graphic design, which I haven't done truly in 9 years, but they seemed to like my portfolio, but I don't feel comfortable with my own skill (maybe just out of practice). I was upfront and honest with my abilities to them. What do you guys think of losing out on what really equates to a lose of $7500/year? The additional time off seems lovely, and it's a use it or lose it on those days. Both positions are salaried. Current job is 20 miles away about a 25 min drive (highway). Offered job is 6 miles away and about a 15 min drive (thru town) and bikeable during summer months in what Google estimates is 30 mins. I'm no familiar with an Union or contracted days. Thoughts? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 03:34 PM PST First of all, this is my friend's situation, not my own, but I really want to find some good advice for him. He's a great guy, very smart and motivated, and just got the worst end of the deal here, and has been stuck for a few years already... The situation: He was at a private college a few years ago paying something like $20k/yr tuition, and took out loans for 2-3 years worth of tuition at a high interest rate. I forget exactly, but something like 8-9%? Maybe even higher? His current balance is something like $80k. Before his senior year, the school lost accreditation for his degree program and shut down. As a result, he has no hope of getting his initial degree, but also can't transfer any credit for the courses he took into any other school. He'd have to start from scratch at a new school. He has no money to pay for any new school, nor does he really want to start over and waste 3 years that he already did, plus he can't take out any new loans on account of the debt on the old ones. Because he has no actual degree, he can't find any well-paying job, and is stuck somewhere just above minimum wage. He already exhausted his legal options (that he knows of) on getting the student loan written off. It's not qualified to be discharged in a bankruptcy. It was taken through a private agency, nothing gov't related, and doesn't qualify within those new loan-writeoff laws if a collection agency can't trace the actual loan ownership. Given the interest gathering on the loan, it can truly never be paid off with his available income, and the balance actually just continues to grow larger. At the same time, he has no real incentive to work because whatever he earns would get taken to pay toward this unpayable loan. So with no seeming way out, he simply moved home, didn't work for a long time, and gave up making any loan payments. But this thing is still hanging over him, apparently forever. He's been doing free online courses basically full time the past couple years to learn programming, but can't get his foot in the door anywhere in that field. I think his leading plan right now is to leave the country, abandon everything, and risk never coming back. I wish I had some suggestions to give on how to dig out of this, but I just don't even know. Any advice is appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| A question about Vanguard Personal Advisor Services Posted: 07 Mar 2018 03:57 PM PST Vanguard offers Personal Advisor Services when you have $50,000. Does that figure take into account all funds, including SEP IRA, which I understand their advisors can't advise on? Also, does anyone have any experience with a Vanguard Personal Advisor? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 05:24 AM PST I've been looking and planning up to buying a house for a few years now and was planning on pulling the trigger on a house this year, my dad has recently decided to move and offered for me to buy the house our family currently lives in. He's offering a hell of a deal for it and I'm feel like I can afford it with some careful planning so I want to buy this house from him. The part I'm getting worried about is he want to keep the mortgage in his name he said. Our understanding is that he will be acting as the bank I take a loan from to pay for the house. My question for yall is what do we need to do to make this all legit and make sure neither one of us ends up getting shafted. Any help or things to worry about would be much appreciated [link] [comments]  |
| Buying a house. Is 4.7 interest bad? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 10:52 AM PST I am buying a house right now in Mesa Arizona. The rate im getting is 4.7. I have been told that is fairly average right now. 760 credit score no negatives on my credit. I currently own a condo i am renting out. That is under 4% bought 4 years ago. I am selling it for the downpayment and whatnot for the new house. [link] [comments]  |
| I might've messed up on buying a home. Posted: 07 Mar 2018 01:42 PM PST 10 months ago, we bought a new house ($250K). Our previous home was smaller, older but in a more desirable area. A realtor we spoke to said we could sell it at $225K. We took a loan from my father, which was supposed to be temporary of course, as a down payment on the new home ($45K), with the idea we'd pay him back when we sold the old house. We currently owe $160K on the old house. 6 months with the original realtor (who said we should ask $225K) and the sale obviously went nowhere. We'd dropped the price to $199K before that contract ended. We got a new realtor who said we should start the price at $189K. That was 2 months ago, and we've now dropped to $182K. We've used up a chunk of our savings to repaint the entire old house, and replace all carpet. With all the closing fees and everything else, even if it sells at $182K we're walking away with about $3K. My dad has been kind enough to forgive half of the loan, but we'd still owe him $22.5K. But we're facing a very real possibility of having to bring additional money to the closing, because it seems like this house isn't going to sell even at $182K. So what would /r/personalfinance do? Rent it out? Sell at a loss? My wife and I have the benefit of making pretty good salaries. My yearly salary is $107K, plus an 11% annual bonus. My wife is self-employed and should gross $80-90K this year ($70Kish take-home). We've been handling the 2 mortgage payments fairly well without suffering too much. Our mortgage/taxes/insurance/utilities on the old house is about $1500/mo. If the house sells at a loss, we could just forward that money to my dad to pay him back, but that's 15 months of a pretty large expense to pay back. The other option is to rent the house out, give my dad the rent money and in a few years, maybe the housing market will turn around, and we'll have a little more equity in the house and will be a little more flexible in our ability to sell it. Please give me your advice to get out of this whole we've dug for ourselves. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 04:05 PM PST |
| What do you think of Condo flipping? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 07:02 PM PST Say I found a condo in a good area and it was selling for a steal but needed renovation. Do condos sell faster than full sized homes? Will the profit margin be smaller? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 09:18 AM PST I'll start with some background. Growing up, I never lacked for anything I needed, and most of what I wanted. But my mother didn't really have a great paying job for a family of four, and my father spent way more than he saved. I think I learned a lot of my bad habits at that point in my life. When I was in my 20s, I kicked around from terrible underpaying job to terrible underpaying job, never really pushing myself to find something better. I lived paycheck-to-three-days-before-paycheck, and I had a really tough time making sure that I made payments on time. I married someone who was also very bad with money. We struggled a lot. We put ourselves in positions of "Do we pay rent or buy groceries this week?" pretty regularly. We are no longer together, and the finances are at least partly the reason for that. Right now, I'm 32 years old. I have the best paying job of my life, but it's not a ton of cash, really. I made it my goal this year to really get my financial life in order. My credit score was garbage, I had tons of outstanding and written off debts. I'm currently making some headway in these areas. Since the start of the year I have paid off an overcharged credit card, and even got the credit limit raised from $300 to $400 recently (not a huge increase, but it felt really good to be going the right way for once). I've paid off several of those debts that are in collections, and have started making recurring payments on the bigger debts. But I still haven't really started doing anything for my future. I'm still fixing things from the past. Where do I go from here? How do I start saving? How do I start putting away for retirement? Most importantly for me, how do I start putting money away for my almost 1-year old son? I want to show him how to save properly, instead of spending money as fast (or faster) than it comes in. How do I start making an emergency fund? Do I finish paying off these debts before I start trying to save? Thanks in advance for your help. [link] [comments]  |
| Graduating college in May, accepted first real job, how much should go towards rent? Posted: 07 Mar 2018 01:52 PM PST Hey everyone. I'm graduating college very soon and about to be thrust into the real world. I've recently accepted a job in the Maryland area and my starting salary will be $85,000 (my bi-weekly compensation is roughly $3,269), I'm assuming this is all before taxes. I'm also receiving $5,300 for relocation I wanted to get some advice on how much of my monthly income should be going towards necessary bills like rent/utilities. This seems to be a little overwhelming so I want to make sure I'm not in over my head here. The place I'm currently considering living at would cost roughly anywhere between $1700 - $2000/mo (utilities included), it just depends on which style room I want. Is this considered too much of my monthly income going towards rent? I'd like to also leave room to save at least a little money..Looking for advice, thanks [link] [comments]  |
| My mom took out a credit card in my sister's name five years ago. Now she is $12k in debt. Posted: 07 Mar 2018 11:14 AM PST Hey everyone, Back story: Five year ago, my mom opened a credit card in my sisters name. I'm not sure why she opened it. Anyway, my sister was under the impression that the card was paid off and cancelled. Fast forward to today, my sister and I are well aware of our mother's expensive tastes. She can't go without having the best of the best of anything--also, if she sees something she wants, she just buys it on one of her several credit cards that she doesn't seem to want to pay off. She just pays the minimum each month. I got out of class today and received a text from my stating that the card our mom took out in her name was never actually paid off or cancelled. It has been accumulating interest for the past 5 years. I am crushed and have absolutely no idea what we can do. My parents are still together--my dad pays all the bills in the house. He helps me pay for my education because my loans do not completely cover the costs (about $10k a year from him). He has his own loan ($40k I believe) that he is currently paying off n addition to all of this. He only makes about $80k a year. I am crushed and have no idea what is going to happen next. My mom clearly has no financial education or self-control. I'm afraid I won't be able to continue going to school if my dad needs to help get all the other debts in check first. I guess I am just looking for advice. How can I help my sister? What can I do to stop my mom from ever getting another credit card/spending money on one? What should I do to make sure this doesn't happen to me? [link] [comments]  |
| Buying House from Family - Tax Question Posted: 07 Mar 2018 05:04 PM PST My family has a house that they are selling that is the absolute definition of "fixer upper" (think not-touched-since-1975-chic). The house is in a great area, in a very nice neighborhood. 100% renovated, houses nearby sell for $400k-$425k. An appraiser gave this house a value of just under 400k (raised some flags, I thought it was way high...) The family had multiple 3rd party realtors go through the house to get a fair market value. It needs EVERYTHING, top to bottom - new roof, probably HVAC, potential foundation work, etc... all realtors came in around under 300k for a LIST price - who knows what it would sell for from there. My question is - if I purchase this house for under 300k, but the appraised value is almost 400k, would I have to pay a "gift tax" since it would appear my family is hooking me up, even though the "fair market value" is actually way less because of the 100k+ of work that the house needs? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2018 09:29 AM PST My husband's mother used to use his SSN for utilities and cable - she would rack up the bill and let it go to collections. She passed in 2012. SOMEONE SHE KNEW IS STILL USING HIS SSN. Sporadic accounts opened over the last few years. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, TMobile, and a Capital One cc. One as recent as February of this year. My husband doesn't know how to fight it. He tried to freeze his credit, they can't prove he is who he is. Idk what else to do. I want whoever this piece of shit is to go to fuckin jail. I hate that he's had to live with this for so long that it's like regular life for him. This shit isn't cool and as you can tell, I'm pissed. We can't buy a home or a car or get a loan or random utilities if this person keeps doing this. It's disgusting and repulsive that someone would keep doing this over the course of YEARS. [link] [comments]  |
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