Personal Finance Company not matching 401k even though policy says they will. |
- Company not matching 401k even though policy says they will.
- Paying off mortgage versus Saving the money
- General Benefits Discussion/2019 Open Enrollment
- How do cashier checks work and what would be the purpose of using one instead of cash?
- College savings for 4 kids VS retirement?
- Don’t forget about the goal feature of you use Mint
- I'm interested in learning how to buy & sell individual stocks, mainly just as a hobby, but I know next to nothing about any of it. Got a few questions about first steps into "that world".
- Is intuitive budgeting a thing?
- Experience using Ally.com for banking?
- Full time student running into financing and living issues. Need advice! (Colorado, US)
- Should I use my credit card even though I don't need to?
- Should I take $5,000 pay cut to go back to a job I left two years ago but liked?
- Medicaid Long-Term Care Lookback Period
- How to get my shit back together
- Work Compensation
- Looking to invest in my future
- Vangaurd more tax efficient than Fidelity?
- Buying Company Stock
- Planning to get my first credit card
- Feeling Overwhelmed and Need Reassurance
- Is using a credit card for a short period of time bad?
- Budgeting with SO; feeling taken advantage of.
- After three different accounts have been breached (luckily detected by their respective companies), I am starting to there is a problem - how do I protect my money from fraud?
- I'm thinking of leaving the country for work on a visa, what should I know about taxes, bank accounts, and investments? (USA to CAN)
- High interest savings account. Why do people recommend a certain place when there's higher rates available?
| Company not matching 401k even though policy says they will. Posted: 31 Oct 2018 07:41 AM PDT My company has a 401k match. I noticed a few weeks ago that the match had not been applied the entire year (shame on me for not checking sooner). I asked the benefits team and I got an odd response. they say that because I started in 2017, the 2018 401k policy does not apply to me and that I must follow the 2017 401k standards and wait one year before getting the company match . The 2018 401k policy states that all employees get a company match immediately and that if you were hired prior to 2018 it is fully vested, otherwise it will take two years to vest. The issue that I have is that I was not eligible to start my 401k until 1/1/2018 AND the 2018 policy does not have any stipulation on eligibility other than you must be 21 and a full time employee, which I am. What options do I have here? To add some more info: This is from the plan documentation overview-"The purpose of the plan is to enable eligible Employees to save for retirement. As well as retirement benefits, the plan provides certain benefits in the event of death, disability, or other termination of employment. The Plan is for the exclusive benefit of eligible Employees and their Beneficiaries." And this is from the plan documentation around eligibility- "A.Eligibility RequirementsYou are eligible to participate in the Plan if you are an Employee.However, you are not eligible to participate if you are:•a resident of Puerto Rico a leased Employee •Temporary Employees However, if you are in the group(s) listed below, you shall become eligible to participate in the plan on the first entry date after you have reached age 21 and have completed at least 1,000 Hours of Service during an Eligibility Computation Period: •Temporary Employees You are also not eligible to participate if you are an individual who is a signatory to a contract, letter of agreement, or other document that acknowledges your status as an independent contractor not entitled to benefits under the Plan and you are not otherwise classified by the Employer as a common law employee or the Employer does not withhold income taxes, file Form W-2 (or any replacement form), or remit Social Security payments to the Federal government for you, even if you are later adjudicated to be a common law employee. You will become eligible to participate in the Plan according to the table below: ........ Employer Matching contributions- Age requirement 21 service requirement-None Entry Date- First date of each month" The plan also states that those hired prior to 2018 will be fully vested upon match and not have the 2 year vesting period. Does that help clarify? or is there another document besides the plan summary overview I should be checking? [link] [comments]  |
| Paying off mortgage versus Saving the money Posted: 31 Oct 2018 01:01 PM PDT I've been looking into this as a first time home buyer and commonly people say that the money you put towards your mortgage principal is guaranteed return on your dollar which makes sense, but a lot say you can typically earn more saving for retirement. What I'm getting stuck on is people keep saying the the return on your extra mortgage principle is equal to your Mortgage rate. So if I have a 4.5% rate then I 4.5% on every dollar extra I pay. But this seems very off to me. The way mortgages work being amortized the interest ends up being far more than 4.5% of the total amount. For instance a $200,000 mortgage with 4.5% interest for 30 years ends up costing ~$164,000 in interest total. And if you were to pay an additional $100 a month over the required payment you end up saving ~$40,000 in interest and paying off the mortgage in 23 years. That means you spent $27,600 and saved ~40,000 which is much more than a 4.5% return. I'm guessing I'm just not understanding something or missing something big here. Any insight would be great. [link] [comments]  |
| General Benefits Discussion/2019 Open Enrollment Posted: 31 Oct 2018 01:09 PM PDT Just wanted to get a general feeling of what other people and industries are seeing with regards to 2019 benefits and open enrollment. My current company is upping premiums and completely removed any HSA company match for 2019 (after reducing the match year over year for the past five years). This will be the fifth year in a row that I have experienced a reduction in benefits with this company. We also have to jump through more and more hoops each year to qualify for any reductions, and spend more time figuring out the intricacies of each plan that is available. Understandably many within my company are not happy but corporate just keeps saying that this is the world we live in and that they are "matching industry trends". General platitudes. COL raises do not keep up with the lost benefits. My questions are, is it normal for benefits to reduce every year? Is every industry seeing this? How do you plan for these constant increases in your budget? When does it end? For some context: This is a professional publicly traded company with worldwide presence. This is not a software or IT related company. [link] [comments]  |
| How do cashier checks work and what would be the purpose of using one instead of cash? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 10:32 AM PDT Here recently I have posted a bed I want to sell. I've gotten a reply from someone whose agreed on the price and wishes to pay with a cashiers check instead of cash. Now I know that a cashiers check needs to be cleared before its printed but why use that instead of just cash to make the transaction? Also, is there and risks on my end to taking a cashiers check? Can I be scammed in anyway? Any and all advice is appreciated! Edit: Thank you guys for the replies! I'm definitely not going through with it now. Once I asked to be paid in cash, I haven't received back an email. So it was most likely a scam [link] [comments]  |
| College savings for 4 kids VS retirement? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 10:48 AM PDT Background and info: I'm 35, I've worked since 15 years old...but I've been self employed for the last 6 years. I have no retirement plan/account/savings. My husband (37) works for the government and has his own retirement set up through them (PERS). He'll likely stay with government through his career. I will stay self employed at least until we can afford daycare for my twins WHEN my now 4yo starts school in 2 years. At that point, I may get a part time or full time job just depending on the daycare cost etc. But it possible that I'll stay self employed. We have 4 kids (13yo, 4yo, & 9 month old twins). I save $20/mo per kid for "college" aka just for their future use whether they go to college or pursue some other training/education. I currently only have $500 for both my 14yo and my 4yo and $300 each for my twins. We just didn't have the income to be saving sooner...and I know that $20/ea per month is really nothing. We know that we will most likely have to take out loans to help the 14yo since we don't have much time there and I'll be self employed for at least the next 2 years. My problem: I need to start saving for my retirement and we have to get serious about college savings for all 4 kids. Don't know where to start with either. My questions: Should I be more concerned with saving for retirement than the college savings? What should I do to plan for my own retirement while being self employed? I have very little understanding of IRA vs Roth IRAs and 401ks etc even though I've heard these terms and used to have a 401k that I cashed out because it was such a small amount after leaving my last "actual" job 6 years ago. And what is the best way to handle college savings? I've only just recently heard of the 529 plans via this subreddit, so I will for sure look into those. Just want to see what all the viable options are! [link] [comments]  |
| Don’t forget about the goal feature of you use Mint Posted: 31 Oct 2018 06:51 AM PDT I know a lot of people on here like to use Mint. If you use the website version ever you should try out the goals feature. It's been really helpful in keeping me on track to pay extra towards my student loan debt and rebuild my emergency fund. You can set a variety of different personal finance goals and mint helps keep you on track. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 03:15 PM PDT I'll try to keep it simple and on point. Here's the basic gist of it: How would I go about learning how to buy and sell stocks as a hobby? I'm not looking to get rich, nor do I have any intention of investing grand sums of money. I just want to "tinker". I have around $1500 to play with, and here's a theoretical example of what I wanna do: I'd love to have the basic knowledge to be able to buy, say, 25 shares of ABC Widget Company today. Then let's say, the price of that stock goes up tomorrow. I might wanna sell some of those shares. Sounds like a pretty simple thing to most of you smart folks, doesn't it? Well, here's the deal: I really have no idea how I, just an average Joe, can go about buying and selling individual shares of stock. Can't just go to the store and buy 'em. Can't just call up ABC Widgets & say "I wanna buy 25 shares" (or can I?). Hopefully some of you will have mercy regarding my ignorance on this stuff, as well as my poorly-written post, and suggest how one can get started from the absolute bottom floor. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Is intuitive budgeting a thing? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 03:51 PM PDT I started aggressively using Mint this summer with good and bad outcomes. The good is that I was able to save about $150 month by looking at my spending patterns and adjusting in ways that I didn't mind. (E.g. I make my own coffee, or get a Red Bull for $2.25 instead of a $4.00 iced coffee). Unfortunately, I also realized that what I crave is to not have to worry about money and constantly logging into Mint to see if I can afford Chinese tonight makes me feel poor even though doing this is going to make me richer in the long run. Has anyone had success controlling their spending in a way that's less labor intensive than checking Mint every day? [link] [comments]  |
| Experience using Ally.com for banking? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 10:04 AM PDT I'm interested in them. Apparently they have no monthly fees, low overdraft fees, no account minimum, high apy. But, they're still a bank so what's the catch here? Surely there's some business tactic I don't know they'll use to get my money (only 18, I'm not experienced with this stuff). Any help or personal experience would be appreciated before I open an online savings/checking account with them. [link] [comments]  |
| Full time student running into financing and living issues. Need advice! (Colorado, US) Posted: 31 Oct 2018 02:29 PM PDT I am a non-traditional full time independent student, and I am just a few days away from a complete meltdown. I am hoping PF can offer some objective advice regarding my living situation and the unanticipated financial obstacles I currently face. I quit my job in April to go back to school full time. Prior to that, I was working as a project manager in telecom for a specific large company for the last 10 years. In 2015, I went back to school as a part time student -- 9 years after high school. Doing part time classes while working a demanding job was barely manageable while I completed my AS, and I eventually came to a crossroads where I would have to choose between school or my job. The remaining classes I needed are only offered during the day, and my employer made it clear they would not be flexible with my school schedule. I was accepted to several universities, so I decided to go for it. I knew I'd be taking a risk, but my corporate America desk job coupled with night time classes was siphoning the life out of me. I selected the least expensive option: an in state university where my credits from the community college were guaranteed to transfer. I had saved enough for rent/basic cost of living for about two years, won grants and scholarships through my community college, and made a lot of lifestyle adjustments to reduce spending down to a bare minimum. My cost of living (rent after splitting it with a roommate, utilities, transportation, etc) comes to about $20k/year. The grants and scholarships would be enough to cover tuition, other school related expenses, groceries, and anything else that might come up as long as it wasn't something on the scale of a medical disaster. I found out I'm eligible for medicaid (since I'm unemployed), so I signed up for that as well. It sounds great, right? A lot of things have gone horribly wrong since I started this new chapter of my life: First, my adviser at the community college (who no longer works for the school) grossly mislead me. She advised that I could take all my gen ed classes at the community college, and that my GPA would transfer to the university with me. GPA is critical to earning grants and scholarships. Apparently, GPA does not transfer! I learned this the hard way when I didn't qualify for funding when I started full time in August. So, I took government loans to cover the cost. Since I've completed all of my gen ed classes, the remaining classes needed for my degree are science and math -- some of which are notoriously difficult to pass, let alone get an A. I don't have the 3.5 cushion GPA to learn on while I finish the second half of this degree. As a result, earning these grants and scholarships will require an extremely high level of performance, which leaves no time for anything else. Second, my car is broken and I don't have the funds to fix it. This bit about my car probably deserves it's own post, but it's important to understand that I do not have a reliable vehicle. I take lyft and/or the light rail (comes with my tuition) to and from school. Other than this, I do not leave my apartment as I spend 100% of my time studying so I can hopefully get A's which will earn grants and scholarships. I even order groceries online (which comes to ~$200/m). Lastly, my living situation is fucking awful. This is probably the biggest pain point in my life at the moment, and it's the reason I'm on the verge of a melt down. I moved into a 1 bedroom apartment in April, 2017. When I decided to go back to school, I found a room mate, and transferred to a 2 bedroom on the other side of the building. Thankfully, my roommate is excellent! The problems are with the neighbours... all of them. There is constant noise on this side of the building; dogs barking, babies crying, people fighting, drunken late night parties, etc. This side is also a smoke pit. Everyone around me smokes cigarettes. It comes through the windows, pipes in the bathroom/kitchen, and hvac system. I call the non-emergency police number several times a week to report noise in the middle of the night, but it keeps happening. I've repeatedly complained to on site management and corporate about the problems. They tell me there is nothing they can do about the cigarette smoke, and if I hear noise past 10pm to keep calling the police. This has been my life every night since I transferred here a little over 6 months ago. Management has offered to let me out of the lease, but I have nowhere to go. When I quit my job, my plan was to stay here until I finished my degree. I certainly don't have money to move, but even if I did, no one would rent to someone who is unemployed. Because of the constant noise and smoke, I haven't slept well in MONTHS. It's like I live in some kind of dark circus. I'm anxious to go home after class because I fear it will be filled with smoke, and that the excessive late night noise will prevent me from sleeping. Not only is this impacting my physical and mental health, it's also severely impacting my ability to focus on school. I've considered getting a job to pay for the car repairs and move, but there is no way I'd be able to get through this 16 credit hour semester (or the upcoming spring semester) if I'm working. Additionally, if I do get a job, I will no longer qualify for medicaid, and I will have to buy insurance (which means I'll have to work even more hours). I can't go with out health insurance; I have some chronic medical issues that require seeing a specialist, constant lab work, and prescriptions. I could drop down to part time classes, but then I would be right back where I was in April; crawling through a degree while working a miserable job, running out of steam, pissing away precious time. If I can get through these final two years of full time classes, I can go work in the field I'm passionate about. This is a small discipline where everyone seems to know and help each other. I've been networking and attending recruiting events locally, and I have no doubt I'll be able to transition into employment during my final semester, as most meteorology seniors do. I'm 30 years old, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm on the right path... I just need to figure out a way to get to the finish line without losing my mind over this apartment drama and without going into a crippling amount of student debt. Any advice or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Tl;dr: I'm a non-traditional, full time, independent, unemployed student on medicaid with two years of classes remaining. Got screwed out of scholarships and grants, so I can't afford to move or fix my car. I live in an apartment with horrible neighbours and management isn't helping so my life is a living nightmare. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I use my credit card even though I don't need to? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 04:10 PM PDT I am a 19-year-old full-time student and work full-time at a hotel. Housing is included with my tuition cost but I do not have a meal plan. Most of my spending consists of food and gas. I bring in a little over $1,000/month and I recently opened up a credit card to improve my credit score. My FICO credit score right now is 657. As of right now, I have student loan debt totaling $6562 (I am a junior in college). The two areas that hurt my score the most are credit age (my credit history only dates back about 8 months) and the fact that until this last week, I didn't have a credit card. So now my question is, should I use my card or should I just basically throw it in a drawer and forget about it to keep my credit use at 0. I have the Discover it Student Cashback Card if you're looking for the details on the card. Essentially it has no annual fee, 0% intro APR for the first 6 months with 21.99% APR after the first 6 months. I plan on paying my bill on time if I were to use it at all so I wouldn't really have to worry about this interest. The card also rewards me with 1% cash back on all purchases and 5% cash back at gas stations, grocery stores, on Amazon, etc. I have never had a credit card before and don't know if it would be worth it to use the card only for things like gas and groceries to get the cash back rewards or if I should just sock drawer it. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I take $5,000 pay cut to go back to a job I left two years ago but liked? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 06:42 PM PDT Long story short I left a company two years ago for a better opportunity. When I left the company I was making right around $75,000 and my new salary was $90,000. In about a years time I starting to dread my new hour long commute and landed at a new company within 10 miles of my house in the city. After I have been working with this new company for about a year now my original employer has contacted me to re-join. Current Job: Salary: $110,000 Bonus: 18% 401K: 5% match with 5% stock in company On-call: Yes Commute: 10 minutes Hours: 6:30 - 4:00 with lunch hour Longer work hours with more weekend work (one midnight shift on the weekend per month but I would get Monday off) - I would like to note I never have had to work midnight's in the past and I hate them Old/New Job: Salary: $105,000 Bonus: 15% 401K: 3.5% match with 6.5% guaranteed On-call: Yes Commute: 10 minutes Hours: 7:30 - 4:30 with lunch hour Sign on bonus: $10,000 I like the work better but sometimes large projects can lead to longer work hours like the first job but less frequent. [link] [comments]  |
| Medicaid Long-Term Care Lookback Period Posted: 31 Oct 2018 04:15 PM PDT I am trying to help a friend plan for his future. Our living situation is a bit odd: I rent a house and I am the only one on the lease. He is an OTR truck driver and only comes by the house for laundry/shower/get supplies and he has no "set" dwelling. He has some learning disabilities, has worked hard his entire life, and there is no one else looking out for his future so I'm trying to help where I can. I'm vaguely familiar with the subject of Medicaid planning for nursing home coverage but looking for some help. He is not near the point of needing nursing home care yet but will likely need it in the future, so we have time to prepare. I know consulting a professional would be in his best interest but we live in the middle of nowhere and it would be difficult to coordinate. However, I still intend to seek professional assistance in the future. My questions concern how I can legally make purchases for him and help pay his bills (he pays them by check primarily) without causing problems concerning asset transfers.
I know that he must receive FMV for any of his assets for the spending-down of them to not penalize him. I am essentially wondering which ways I can safely spend money for him. My understanding is as follows: If he gives me cash or a check directly, he has no proof of receiving FMV. If he pays my credit card off, he has no proof of receiving FMV. If I write checks/use the debit card from his account and sign my name (as I am an authorized signer), will that penalize him? We use a small-town local bank and the notion of "authorized signers" on checking accounts seem to be lost on some people I've spoken to and just added to the confusion but all of our local banks have always allowed authorized signers so we're used to it. Any help would be greatly appreciated and I apologize if any of this is unclear as I am new to this stuff! [link] [comments]  |
| How to get my shit back together Posted: 31 Oct 2018 08:00 PM PDT Hey Reddit, I recently came into some money (~10k) and need help figuring out what to pay off and when to pay it off. I climbed into a hole of debt and luckily should be able to climb my way back out of it with both my monthly income and a few grand of the monies. I have no savings so I'd like to save $7500 leaving me with $2500 to figure out my debt with plus any extra I have for the month until I am finally out of the hole I dug myself into. So, here's the breakdown: ~$2000ish - Monthly income $1252 - Required expenses (Rent, utilities, food, gas, etc) Leaving me with about $748 extra a month. I currently owe: $950 - CapitalOne Balance $1300 - Payday Loan 1 $1131 - Payday Loan 2 $686.07 - Payday Loan 3 $500 - Parking Tickets ~$19k - Student Loans So far I have barely been able to make the minimum on my Capital One card and student loans due to the Payday loans I took out (Definitely learned from my mistakes with those). My credit score plummeted (505) due to the fact that I haven't been able to make a payment on my student loans since June. I recently applied for income based repayment and if approved will get my payment from $108 a month to $56 a month. As of right now, I owe about $800 for a minimum payment on my student loans. I guess what I need to figure out is what I should be paying and when in order to get my credit score up and so I'm not letting the Payday loans accumulate too much interest. Thanks in advance, Reddit. :D [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 07:51 PM PDT Good afternoon all. I was promoted at my job from an AR specialist to analyst. I started working the analyst position on 08.13.18. I did not receive my paperwork right away and was told that they would back pay for the difference. I kept checking in with the VP of Finance for updates but didn't receive my paperwork until 10.15.18. I was making 20.93/hr in the specialist role and had unlimited overtime. I normally worked 45 hours a week. By my calculation, overtime included I currently make roughly $51,697.10 annually. The offer for Analyst position was $47,000.00 annually. This would be a salary position. I looked at this as a pay decrease and they then told me that they would offer $50,000.00 annually. I still have not received this as an official offer and they keep telling me they are working on getting the correct approval. It has now been 2.5 months since I started working this position without a pay increase while it is considered a promotion. Is there anything I can do? Also I live in the United States- just a FYI. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking to invest in my future Posted: 31 Oct 2018 04:04 AM PDT I'm 18 years old looking to change my habits and invest in my future. I recently turned 18 and have almost no idea how to get/use a credit card effectively, or which savings accounts are right for me, and anything else I might be missing to help me strive for financial growth. I'm in California if that makes any difference. I currently make around $850 a month at a well known "Mexican" fast food chain. I pay no bills, no gas, basically I have that $850 to spend on whatever I want. I've started investing a little with Acorns, but besides that and putting $100 every paycheck into my savings account, I consistently blow the rest of my money on cigarettes and fast food for me and my girlfriend. These are habits I want to change or at least drastically cut back on and put that money to other, more helpful solutions. I have a couple of questions as well as any other helpful tips. First off, what's a good savings account for someone in my position? My main account is with chase so I thought it only makes sense to open my savings account with them, but after doing some reading I realized that might not be my best option. Second, which apps are there that might help me budget my money more easily? I tried Mint but the app sucks. Also, would it be smart getting a credit card to start building credit, and if so which cards are good? Thanks in advance for any tips! [link] [comments]  |
| Vangaurd more tax efficient than Fidelity? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 06:47 PM PDT I am looking to open up an account for general long-term investing in etf/index/mutual funds (and an IRA). I already have an account with Fidelity for day/swing trading but I keep on reading that Vangaurd is more tax efficient than Fidelity so I was considering going with Vangaurd for long-term investments. Question: I don't quite understand how Vangaurd is more tax efficient than Fidelity. I have read that they even have patented funds. Also, does this tax efficiency make "a lot" of difference long-term? Can someone smarter than me explain this please or point me to some articles? :) Interested specially if someone has first hand experiences in benefiting from this tax efficiency. Reference: this is one article where I read about tax efficiency, though still not clear to me: https://www.financial-planning.com/opinion/vanguard-vs-fidelitys-zero-funds-on-fees-expense-ratios-and-tax-efficiency [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 10:54 AM PDT Hi all. My company is allowing me to buy company stock through payroll deductions at a 15% reduced rate. There is no vesting period and I am able to buy up to 10% of my salary. Deductions accumulated will be used to purchase newly issued shares on the purchase date. I can only purchase whole shares. Remaining amounts will be redistributed after the purchase of shares. If I decide to back out during the offering period, the funds will be refunded. The stock is currently between $8-10 and it is estimated that it will be between $14-15 in the next 12 months. My question here is how much stock should I buy (if any), and how will I know when to sell? [link] [comments]  |
| Planning to get my first credit card Posted: 31 Oct 2018 06:19 PM PDT Hello! I'm 19 and live in Scotland. I'm currently working full-time during my gap year but will be studying at university next year. I've never had a credit card and to be honest I can't say I'm exactly sure what's so great about them. The only thing I'm aware of is that I need it for credit score. Could you please explain to me the benefits of having one and help me choose which one is the best? There seems to be so many to choose from! Thank you in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Feeling Overwhelmed and Need Reassurance Posted: 31 Oct 2018 01:15 PM PDT Stats: I'm 28, my husband is 30. We have a 1 year old. We are on track to take home about 55,000 this year (not sure about gross). 80k spread between 2 Roth IRAs and 401k. Car paid off. Credit cards always paid in full. 40k in student loan debt ( originally 70k) No mortgage, we rent We used to take home about 10,000 more/year before baby was born/ below crisis. I want to stay home as long as possible. This past spring I was diagnosed with epilepsy after a series of seizures. Prior to this I had a small day care in my home. I was not comfortable continuing this as I was alone with babies (including my own) all day. Luckily I've been seizure-free for 5 months since I began medication, but I don't feel right about taking care of other children at this time. I'm sure that will be in the future again, but I need to know I've been seizure-free for at least a year. So our income decreased drastically during that time as well as having to pay for a few thousand worth of medical bills. I found a job teaching ESL online PT in the early morning and evening while baby is asleep. I'm not making what I was before, but it's definitely enough. We were able to get through those difficult months (both emotionally and financially) without using CCs, but we depleted our cash savings. A few things.... 1) It's so hard to see that liquid savings gone. I know it was there for emergencies (which we had!) and we used it for a good purpose. Still , it's hard to see that deplete and know I may not be able to contribute as much for the time being. We have around $1000 back in that account and slowly increasing but it still feels awful. If I were to have another medical crisis, I feel like we'd drown. 2) I started watching Dave Ramsey and feel so conflicted about these student loans. After college, we did tons of research and decided to continue to invest fairly aggressively and pay off the loans slower. The interest rates range from 4-6%. After hearing Ramsey's advice, I feel even more overwhelmed. I thought we were doing well and felt really comfortable until the medical crisis and now my questioning of our debt vs investing strategy. Did we totally screw up? [link] [comments]  |
| Is using a credit card for a short period of time bad? Posted: 31 Oct 2018 06:02 PM PDT Pretty much my fiancée and I are not going to be able to afford everything that we need for our wedding which is in 1 month. That's not much time to pull together much money for us.. Now I know some of you will think that we might be spending to much on some things, but we are trying so hard to keep it cheap. For example: -Our venue costs less than $600 -Her dress was less than $200 -Her wedding ring (we're using her engagement ring) is a family treasure almost 100 years old and I paid to have it restored completely (a few hundred dollars) which I also consider a lifelong investment. It's all the little things that catch us.. But anyway my question is using the credit card for several hundred minimum, and $3,000 maximum for the wedding a bad idea? We would use it for this, then pay it off as quickly as possible (probably only a couple months) and then get rid of it. Does this hurt our credit in anyway? I can post some details about how much we make and about our credit if that helps please let me know and I'll update. Thanks everyone in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Budgeting with SO; feeling taken advantage of. Posted: 31 Oct 2018 02:45 AM PDT Hi guys, it's my first post on PF but I've lurked awhile. So I got a new job and I will now be making $43000 a year which was a huge increase from my last job, $34000 a year. My SO makes $34000 a year and we were ok. We weren't struggling, but weren't able to save much either. Our plan is to pay off our CCs in full (3-6 month short term goal), then our student loans (6-12 month goal), and then do our emergency fund (12 month to 2 year goal). After our emergency goal is done, we really want to save up for the honeymoon we never got to take. But we were doing our budget last night and although we decided to just go half on all our bills, he did want me to completely take over childcare costs. It's $600-800 for childcare, depending on which one I pick. I just...don't think it's fair that I take the whole $600+ bill of childcare just because I make more. We have two girls together, one son is his from a previous relationship but he's in primary school and my in laws take care of him after school, and the other child is mine from a previous relationship but also in primary and my parents will watch him after school (I compensate my parents already for this but I included that in MY bills, not the shared bills we have). Childcare is for my daughters since they're 3 yers old and under and do not attend preschool. I also forgot to mention: SO doesn't pitch in for groceries, that usually falls on me. He's paid for groceries a handful of times since we've been together and I'm usually the one who pays the housekeeper. I guess I'd just like to have some room to put money into some new clothes (I've been thrifting since I was waaaaay young; can't remember the last time I bought myself something new). SO has hobbies he invests to because he has that extra money from not having to pay childcare. It kinda makes me resent him for it and makes me feel selfish for feeling this way. TL;DR Got a new job with pay increase and we split bills down the middle but I have to do all of childcare costs because I make more. I feel jilted. HELP. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 07:15 AM PDT Two or three months ago I got a notification from Steam that someone was trying to log in to my account from Kyrgystan, then from another country that I don't remember - both between 1am and 3am local time (eastern US). Steam notified me, I changed my password and luckily didn't have a credit card attached to my account. I rarely use Steam except to store a couple video games I bought years ago and one I purchased this December. Then more recently, I got an notification from Ubisoft Uplay of the same thing, from countries in the middle east again. Once again, they're just used to store a few old games and didn't have a credit card attached so I got lucky, I changed the password and added two-factor authorization. I also recently played an old game (as in around last year) on Ubisoft. A couple weeks ago somebody was able to log into my Facebook account from a town about 2 hours away from me, but no money was involved and Facebook did not notify me of this. I only noticed that I was logged in on a device in Jacksonville and unauthorized it. I also changed my password. Most recently, today my credit card (which is through my bank that I use for checking) texted me alerting me that it declined $109 in payments to iTunes for suspicious activity - I had no idea what that was. I'm checking iTunes and it only lists a $20 purchase to some bizarre app with a Chinese character name that I don't have downloaded anywhere, but I am still working with Apple to figure out where the rest of the $109 was being purchased. My credit card is sending me a new card with a new number and CCV and all that now, but I'm concerned that this is the third breach in as many months and I have no idea why this is happening. I'm worried that it will eventually be a not-insignificant amount of money and that a fail-safe system for detecting fraud won't notice. What should I do? All these frauds involve the same email address - my main email address. Admittedly most of my passwords are variations of the same couple things, so I know I should change it. But I have been on the internet with some of these passwords since I was 13 years old, using this same email address since I was 14, I'm in my 20s now - I have NO IDEA how many websites this email account and those password variations are tied to. Most of them don't have credit card information but I'm increasingly terrified of the consequences of this. Is there anything I can do to protect my money now? edit: thank you all. I have downloaded LastPass and after a very lengthy and frustrating process (especially with Apple, jeez) I have successfully changed most of the passwords of the accounts associated with any of my money as well as my email password. When I get home I'll redo my Steam and Ubisoft passwords too (can't do that at work) so they're more secure. It's gonna be a pain trying to think of every website I've ever put my credit card number on - I bought a lot of crap online. I'm having flashback nightmares to all the tiny little e-cig websites I bought juice from in college. But this is a really solid start and I appreciate all of your advice. I'm also trying to delete a lot of these accounts - strangely difficult. I STRONGLY recommend that if you can, start finding a way to document all the websites you have to make an account on, and check the ones you haven't logged in on in a few months. If you don't need it anymore, delete it. ESPECIALLY anything that involves money. I am really pissed about the CashCrate breach that I never got notified about even though it happened in 2016. Shout out to u/ssbastos for showing me https://monitor.firefox.com - type in your email address and see if it's been involved in a data breach. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 11:18 AM PDT For the next step in my career, I've started looking for jobs outside the country. A lot of good jobs in my field seem to be in Canada, and I've started applying for a few positions. I'm an American citizen, and I'd imagine that I would likely apply for a worker's visa and do some work for a few years; it's likely that I would spend a maximum of five years in Canada. I have a simple IRA, a Roth 401k, a few credit cards, a couple of bank accounts, and some investments in Robinhood. Do I need to do anything with these before I leave the country? I also don't really have an understanding of how my tax situation would work, would I pay taxes in both countries? Any and all advice would be appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2018 02:38 PM PDT Ok so I have a large chunk of savings just sitting in my bank accounts, and noticed my interest rate is 0% on some and 0.22% at the highest... Which is garbage. I started doing some research and found some random places on bankrate.com that say they do 2.25% with no fees etc. So I thought I'd check pf because I know this would have been discussed, and all the top responses have been use ally, and a few recommendations for AMEX savings account. Both these companies only offer 1.9% vs the random bankrate.com recommendations that have 2.25%, with 50k that 0.35% would be a difference of $175 annually. Am I missing something here? Is there any reason why Ally with the lower rate is recommended over other random places? Genuinely curious, obviously with large amounts of savings I want to be sure I place it in a trustworthy place (note: the random places on bankrate say they are FDIC example it's Citizens Access bank that offered 2.25%) Any advice would be much appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
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