Personal Finance Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of August 02, 2019 |
- Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of August 02, 2019
- 62 year old woman, husband has dementia, not sure what to do with some small investments
- Advice: know your total compensation package when doing job hunting
- Mother has cashed in Father’s life insurance, now what?
- Giving away $1,000 to grandparents a bad idea?
- Netting $70k on the sale of my home. What are the tax implications?
- My older parents want to retire soon but don't have nearly enough, and somebody is trying to sell them an annuity. What do I do and am I asking the right questions?
- Am I helping or hurting my kid's credit?
- Housemate Wants To Pay Less Electric Bill - Need Ideas On How To Fairly Split It
- Bankruptcy Help
- BF wanting to buy his parents a house.... I'm not on board. What are repercussions we may not be seeing?
- lower internet bill
- Sanity Check: 15 vs 30 year mortgage
- My wife and I need help.
- Best way to negotiate rent between roommates?
- Lower yield Savings than Checking – Is it worth it?
- Inheriting My Mom's Car. Should I sell it or keep it?
- How should I prioritize and/or invest 30K?
- Can my aunt claim me as her dependent for the purposes of establishing residency?
- IRS took money from the account of an ex-spouse
- Transition to new Vanguard platform?
- Bank error resulting in 2 credit cards... starting to cause problems.
- Found out I'm going to be a dad, but I'm not married -- Can I use MY HSA money towards HER costs? Any other tips?
- (USA) Do my wife and I both need retirement accounts?
| Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of August 02, 2019 Posted: 02 Aug 2019 02:05 PM PDT If you need help, please check the PF Wiki to see if your question might be answered there.This thread is for personal finance questions, discussions, and sharing your success stories:
A big thank you to the many PFers who take time to answer other people's questions! [link] [comments]  |
| 62 year old woman, husband has dementia, not sure what to do with some small investments Posted: 02 Aug 2019 07:57 AM PDT I am 62 and my husband (70) of 39 years is being swept away from me by one of the cruelest diseases as he is in the early stages of alzhiemers with recent indications that the disease is progressing at steady rate. He was (still has his license) a CPA and always handled our finances. It was not a marriage of my husband controlling me through controlling the money. I was not ever interested in the budget, most everything is in both of our names except for a couple of investments in my name only, which I established to have something in my own name. I did not have a retirement account in my name only so I bought a CUNA CMFG deferred premium annunity for $30,000. The ending contract value is $32,165.12 as of 9/02/18. The other money I have is an etrade account (used to be capital one I believe) where I have bought stocks starting when my son was in highschool and he opened an account as a minor with me as guardian for an economics class. I opened my own stock account at the same time.. I bought stocks that appealed to me for random reasons for the past 10-15 years. There is about $25,000 in there now. With the current chaotic environment in our country now, who knows if there will be .25 in it before long. I know I will have to hire an attorney/cpa for assistance as my husband's disease takes more of a hold. It is such a painful loss to whom he has always been for him now not be able to be responsible for the finances of our family. My questions therefore are should I leave the deffered annunity where it is what about or the stocks? Although I do not think I will need to access this money in any short time period, the future is uncertain and I do want it to be accessable if I need it quickly. Thank you, I am feeling somewhat embarrassed that I do not know more about finances. I recognize that I am going to need to handle the responsibility for our finances/my finances whether I feel emotionally able to handle thisor not. [link] [comments]  |
| Advice: know your total compensation package when doing job hunting Posted: 02 Aug 2019 12:36 PM PDT Hi folks, I put the story of why I'm posting this at the end so that anyone who wants cold hard advice doesn't have to read through it. Calculating your total compensation is easy:
So why am I posting this? I just recently was interviewing with a company and the HR person. Called to ask what compensation I was looking for. I tossed out a high number and he immediately said "well I can't do that, but do you mind if I tell you what the base salary and benefits will be?" When I took the above strategy of calculating things, I found that the total compensation for the position was higher than the number that I had tossed out earlier. I told him this and said that financial reasons would not affect my decision to accept/reject the position. He seemed relieved at the end and said that he struggles sometimes with offers. He mentioned that a lot of people get real mad when their base salary isn't high enough regardless of how great the benefits are and turn down the offers which really bums him out. So I came to the realization that many people don't know how to do this calculation in order to compare jobs in a better way and wanted to share. Maybe you have reasons for not caring about benefits and only wanting pure salary, that's ok. I just want to be sure that you have all the tools you need in order to make a well-informed decision. [link] [comments]  |
| Mother has cashed in Father’s life insurance, now what? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 08:36 AM PDT So my father was diagnosed with lung cancer about one year ago and it's just been bad on everyone. Well a week ago, my father passed away. He had a life insurance policy of $300,000, and my mother has gotten that money today. I don't know what she should do, or what she shouldn't do with the money. My father told her to be smart so she doesn't want to spend it or anything, but what should we specifically do with it right now? [link] [comments]  |
| Giving away $1,000 to grandparents a bad idea? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:03 PM PDT I'm 17 years old, freshman in College with my first year covered. I have no bills/debt and have acquired roughly $10k after working a ton this summer. I am interested in investing this money into a 401k as well as a Roth IRA, and start looking out for a few credit cards to build credit. Am I dumb for wanting to give away roughly $1.2k to my grandparents so they can use it for whatever they want? They are very hardworking and I think this could benefit them more than myself who would just probably let it sit. I can't really think of any life changing pros/cons that this would cause so I'm really interested in doing it sometime soon. [link] [comments]  |
| Netting $70k on the sale of my home. What are the tax implications? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 07:45 AM PDT I've never sold a home before so forgive my ignorance. We close later this month but I've already bought another home in a different area. My brother in law (who is not a finance guy in the least) started babbling to me about how when he sold his house his finance guy and him weighed the options of what to do with the profit. He said he would have liked to pay off his student loans but it made much more sense from a tax perspective that he put the money into his new house. This confuses me as I don't fully understand how capital gains works with homes. I've lived in my home 3 of the 3 years I have owned it. It's in Wisconsin. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:09 PM PDT My dad is 71 years old and my mom is 62 years old. They would like to retire within the next 5-10 years, but with their current savings that is probably not possible with their current savings only around $50,000. My mom is getting about $200,000 later this month as inheritance money from her mother passing away and they have been exploring different options (mainly asking me to look into it for them) on what to do with inheritance money to prepare them for retirement. My dad has known somebody from a church group for about 3 years (let's call him Jon) who's been a financial adviser for 30 years and this is what he is saying to my parents:
My parents have had preliminary conversation with him but it doesn't sound like anything serious outside of his recommendation for that annuity. For some background, one of my majors in college (I'm currently 23 and graduated 1.5 years ago) was Finance and I'm currently working in the financial services industry, but on the IT/System Admin side of things. Because of this, they have been looking to me for a lot of guidance and advice. As a next step, they would like me to talk with Jon and these are the questions I am preparing to ask him:
As an alternative to working with Jon, I am able to open investment accounts with no fees through work (which extends to immediate family as well). I don't know what to put the money in, but I feel like Jon's recommendation doesn't make sense and what I'm currently recommending to my parents is that they open an account with my company and they'll be able to invest it in whatever they want and won't have to pay any sort of advisory fee. My hesitation on recommending them a different financial adviser is that they are already quite old and need to save as much money as possible, and I don't want them to have to pay 75-150 basis points to an adviser (although in the grand scheme of things it might be worth it). I need to confirm this with my employer, but I believe they have an advisory option where they will work with my parents and do full goal planning and portfolio selection for 25 basis points. Am I asking the right questions and moving down the right path for them? [link] [comments]  |
| Am I helping or hurting my kid's credit? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 08:52 AM PDT I have an Amex. It's solely my account and I opened it 5 years ago. 2 years ago I added my daughter (14 at the time) as an authorized user so she could have her own card for emergencies. It's not her account, she's just an authorized user. Yesterday I pulled her credit reports (as I sometimes do to check for fraud) and my account shows on her report. I've never made a late payment, the balance is $3k. Am I helping or hurting her credit? I didn't realize my account would show on her report. I have a different Amex provided to me by my work, and that doesn't show on my report. Should I cancel her as a user? Is it a mistake that it's on her report? [link] [comments]  |
| Housemate Wants To Pay Less Electric Bill - Need Ideas On How To Fairly Split It Posted: 02 Aug 2019 07:37 AM PDT TLDR at the bottom Long time lurker, first time poster. I'll keep this as brief as possible. My partner and I occupy the lower level of a two-story home. The tenant upstairs is a single gal living in the one bedroom apartment above us. Unfortunately, due to many circumstances, the whole place is on one electric/gas meter. Traditionally, we have always split the bill 2/3 downstairs , 1/3 upstairs. We are a tenant downstairs that manages/maintains the property. The landlord is 99% hands off, but we have a great relationship with her. After about a year of her living there, she's become very aggressive about not wanting to pay that much because "she uses so little" - and to be fair, her apartment is quite scant of anything. She runs a couple of box fans to circulate air (avoids the a/c unit we gave her due to wanting to pay less for electric) and she doesn't even have cable/internet set up. Downstairs, we have internet, a fish tank, a/c unit, and our own washer/dryer setup (she has a set just outside of her door that she can use). I know that we use more energy than she does - that much is clear. I had a lengthy discussion with her last night about the bill and told her I'd like to work something out that's fair to all parties and does not put anyone at a place where they could feel taken advantage of. When we started using the air conditioner a few days ago, I put a smart plug on it to track the usage. I told her that we would take the usage each month and rate it at the highest rate, and I would pay that amount before splitting the remaining bill. I'm posting here hoping that some of your bright brains might have a solution for this! Looking for a way to split the bill so that it's fair to her for using less, but also doesn't set her up in a place where she can just start using unlimited energy and have a flat rate. Here are options I've thought of:
Thanks in advance! TLDR: Lady who lives upstairs uses much less energy. 2 dwelling home is on one meter. Bill is split into thirds, upper pays 1/3, lower pays 2/3. She wants to pay less than what she has because her budget is very tight and she feels like she's paying for our usage. Looking for ideas on better ways to split up the bill that's fair to everyone. Edit: clarity of landlord / tenant roles. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:23 PM PDT TLDR: We're being sued for not paying bills, but we have no money. What can we do? I don't know if I'm in the right place, but I just really need some help. Please forgive the length, but I feel that it's helpful for me to spell out my situation as completely and succinctly as I can. My husband and I have been shamefully, stupidly bad with our money for many years. As a result, we managed to rack up $70,000 in credit card and loan debt. We were making the minimum payments because that's all that we could afford on our many credit cards. As the interest and minimum payments grew, and emergencies cropped up that we had to neglect making payments in order to afford (do we get a new battery so the car runs, or pay this $100 credit card bill?), we are now staring into the abyss. Our credit card payments are more than we can actually afford with our salaries. If we made all of the minimum payments each month, we would take home -$500. I have consulted with a few debt-resolution companies who promise to help, but they all say the same thing. They ask for the balances of every card we have, tally up the total, then tell us that they can help us if we pay them and then they'll negotiate. I've done my research and found that this doesn't prevent you being sued or having judgments collected against you, and that they don't even negotiate until you've paid enough for them to negotiate WITH. With the size of our debts, that would take a good few months at LEAST. I contacted a non-profit organization, who tallied up our debts and said they could help us for a monthly payment of about -$500 less than what we make per month. We obviously can't afford this, our rent is over twice that. When I told him this, his answer was to 'get a better-paying job?' We've been trying, but my husband doesn't have a college degree so he doesn't qualify for much. I have a freelance job and I've been taking as much work as I can, but I'm limited to the amount of work there is to be had. It isn't as much as we'd need, and isn't as consistent as I'd like. We received a notice that there is a Civil Process against my husband, and he needs to go to the sheriff's office to be served. We've tried to figure out who's suing us, but I double-checked all of our mail and haven't found any actual intent to sue. There is just one letter that says one of our debts went to a collection firm, but it doesn't mention anything about suing. We've considered bankruptcy before, but we live paycheck to paycheck and the fees we saw we wouldn't be able to afford. We are also afraid that they would take our car, and we can't afford to not have it. We only have the one, and my husband needs to be able to get to work. We're at our wit's end, and it's one of those times where I've been researching so much that my head is just spinning. What can we do? What should we do? What would YOU do, in our shoes? Thank you so much for your help. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 04:21 PM PDT So my boyfriend of a year is planning on purchasing a house in his name for his parents. His parents are illegal immigrants and he is a DACA recipient in good standing, so he is the only one in the family with a good social that they could use to buy a house. His parents have saved up x amount of money, and are planning on paying the mortgage of course, but I'm 100% concerned about this. We are both in our mid twenties, with credit scores in the low to mid 600s (working on it.) We live and work in a different city than his parents, although we are in the same state. We've been dating for a year and are planning on moving in together into a rented house this year. It's my hope that we can stop renting as soon as we are able and get a house of our own together. I'm afraid already having a mortgage will affect our chances at qualifying for good rates on a mortgage for our own home when the time comes for us to apply. I'm also afraid having a house in his name in a different city may somehow throw up some red flags when we decide to get married and then apply for his citizenship. I've been told sharing property together (having a house/car/etc in both of your names') somehow makes the process easier. I know this is a lot and a bit meandering, but I'm hoping this sub can at least help me answer my questions regarding how this might affect his credit score and our eventual ability to get a house together (and for him, getting a second mortgage.) I know there are other issues that may arise like his parents not being able to work or pay for the house and then him being stuck with it, but he has told me he will just "rent it out or sell it" if that happens. Thanks . [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:58 PM PDT I have spectrum. first year was 45/month. second year it was 60/month but Talked them down to 55/month. this year, they've bumped me up to 70/month. I need a refresher on how to lower it. Do I just need to switch internet providers or can I still talk it down to 45? Should I be pleasant on the phone; or should i get angry and aggravated? Should I tease cancelling and switching providers? I can see on their website that they still offer $45/month. last year when I talked them down to 55, they claimed that it was due to annual increases in the cost of living. Is it unreasonable for me to want to still pay 45? My income has increased, but what good is it if all my bills increase with it? [link] [comments]  |
| Sanity Check: 15 vs 30 year mortgage Posted: 02 Aug 2019 04:17 PM PDT tl;dr I can afford 15 and 30yr mortgages with plenty of breathing room. Should I take the 15yr and pay less interest, or take the 30yr and invest the difference in index funds? Hello! I'm planning on shortly being a first-time home buyer. I've picked price range that seems reasonable for my living situation (and is far less than what the bank is willing to per-approve for). Doing monthly mortgage calculations, I can easily afford the monthly payment of either the 15yr (~3.2%) or 30yr (~3.6%) mortgages while still having enough each month to put away for incidentals and invest. I'll pay far more in interest on the 30 year mortgage (about $60k more as best I can tell). Would it make more sense to take out a 30 year loan an invest the difference in monthly payment into index funds each month? Or does it make more sense to take the 15yr and pay less in interest? My risk tolerance is relatively high at this point as I'm relatively young, unmarried, and living in a somewhat LCOL area. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:56 AM PDT Hello all- I really need advice. My wife and I are both school teachers in Fort Worth, Texas. We're each making a salary in the mid 50s, but we have three daughters under the age of five that are in daycare that eats up roughly 30% of our take home income. After rent, tuition, monthly expenses, et cetera we struggle every month to make ends meet, to point that it spikes my anxiety hard enough to shut me down every time we try to get a handle on our finances. We constantly talk about wanting to budget to get our lives on track, but when we have the time we don't have the energy, when we have the energy we don't have the time. When we have the time and energy- which is exceedingly rare- I freeze up like a deer in the headlights try to face our situation head on. We're in a deep dark hole of barely making ends meet, and the situation isn't helped by my inlaw's judgemental attitude towards us. We desperately want to dig ourselves out of this pit of negativity and anxiety. We want to be able to buy a house for our girls, save money, not stress about money constantly, and be comfortable enough to not feel guilty, anxious, and depressed everytime we have to spend money. How do we tackle this beast? What works for you? How have you beaten this beast? Someone please help us. [link] [comments]  |
| Best way to negotiate rent between roommates? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 02:58 PM PDT Hey everyone, my roommates and I are figuring out our housing for this upcoming school year. It is a two bedroom two bathroom house and both bedrooms are about the same size. One person is in the master with a walk in closet and private bathroom. Another is in the other single. And my friend and I are in a room addition that doesn't have a door (we'll put up a curtain or something). The total cost of the place is $2700 (CA). In your experiences what has been the best way to split the rent that leaves everyone happy and nobody feeling cheated? [link] [comments]  |
| Lower yield Savings than Checking – Is it worth it? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:14 PM PDT I'm getting my finances together. I've opened a BCU checking account that has 3% APY. I was looking around for high APY savings accounts, but nothing really seems to match the checking without a bunch of conditions. Two questions for the wisened reddit savers,
Thanks so much! [link] [comments]  |
| Inheriting My Mom's Car. Should I sell it or keep it? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 08:11 PM PDT Hello! As the title suggests, I am inheriting my mom's car since she passed away in June. It's a 2013 Ford Escape with only 27,000 miles on it, no accidents, well-maintained. It is currently in IL, so if I decide to take it for myself I will have to ship it to NV which will cost $750-1,000 (driving is not an option due to my school schedule). I will also need to transfer the title, get new insurance, and register it in Nevada. I have had it appraised already and have an offer for $9,000 cash. I do have a car that I like (2008 Ford Focus with 73,000 miles) that has a phenomenal warranty from CarMax that ensures I only pay $50 for maintenance if I bring it to them or an approved repair shop that will be active for likely the remainder of the car's life. If I sell my car to drive my mom's instead, I could get between $3-4,000 for it. Additionally, I am planning to move back to IL where I will not be needing a car once my lease ends in October 2020. My current financial state:
Her car is obviously newer with much fewer miles, and I am slightly sentimental with it. I feel like driving it would be the safer option, but I do have a perfectly fine, running car that I just got new brakes and tires on within the last 4 months. Basically what I am looking for is even though I am not in immediate need of the money, would it be smarter to sell her car (no need to ship, re-title, insure, etc.) and save the money to have after I graduate, or sell my car to have a newer car to drive? I am extremely torn on this and would appreciate your opinion before I make a decision! [link] [comments]  |
| How should I prioritize and/or invest 30K? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 08:05 PM PDT Inherited a small lump sum. I have 14K in subsidized fed student loans and a 4K credit card with 0% APR until January 2020. Also regular bills such as rent, car, groceries, etc. Ive just become eligible to enroll for a 401k with my company. I contribute my portion for a year before they begin to contribute 10% salary regardless of my contribution. Lastly, my final car lease payment is in August, then turning the car in. What would be my best move? Your advice is welcome. [link] [comments]  |
| Can my aunt claim me as her dependent for the purposes of establishing residency? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 08:00 PM PDT I don't know if this is the right place to ask this. I'm an out of state student at a university in Texas, where my aunt lives. (She's my dad's sister). I'm currently paying out of state tuition, which is almost double the amount that's in-state tuition. My dad currently pays my tuition. However, if I can get myself classified as a Texas resident, I can get an in-state waiver. Here are the requirements for being classified a resident. I wanted to know if my dad could somehow wire my tuition to my aunt and have her claim me as her dependent, so I can get in-state tuition. Is this legal? Is it a viable option? [link] [comments]  |
| IRS took money from the account of an ex-spouse Posted: 02 Aug 2019 10:27 AM PDT My MIL had her account drained from the IRS (levied her bank account?) for a vehicle belonging to her ex-husband (who is now deceased). How is this legal? We are trying to rectify this issue, but the IRS has not been very cooperative with her. The lady she spoke to was not helpful. MIL's name isn't on the vehicle. So I thought I'd ask some kind internet strangers. What should be our next course of action. Thank you. Edit: Alright guys, sorry for the misunderstanding. It seems I was missing some information. It was, in fact, not the federal IRS, but the Francise Tax board for vehicle registration collections. The numbers she got were all from her bank. They gave her a case number and gave her the number 888-355-6872, which is vehicle registration collections. Sorry for the confusion. The question still stands, why are they able to take money from her if she was no longer married to the deceased? [link] [comments]  |
| Transition to new Vanguard platform? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 02:01 PM PDT I've been receiving notices that I "need" to transition my Vanguard account to a new platform and I'm a little unsure of the what/why? Do I actually need to do this? Are there actually advantages for me to do so? Is this just a way to force me to have a brokerage account? [link] [comments]  |
| Bank error resulting in 2 credit cards... starting to cause problems. Posted: 02 Aug 2019 04:42 PM PDT Hi, Long time lurker. Basically maybe 5 or 6 years ago I received a credit card through Golden1. Maybe a year or so after, they told me they were closing down that account due to (I barely remember so I'm guessing) switching who they deal with in terms of credit or something of that nature, but they let me know they will replace it. Not too long after I saw the new line of credit on my account as well as the old one and figured the old one would get deleted. Now a few years later I still have both. I didnt really care and basically switched off between the two but now its causing problems. Almost anytime I speak to a teller they ask me if there's been any evidence of fraud on my account because I'm not supposed to have two. I recently went to go buy a car and they told me that they were unable to look up my credit and said usually when that happens it's because my score is (locked?) due to fraud. They also asked me if I've had a case of fraud. I had to go get preapproved by my bank which takes longer and even during THAT process, the teller/lender also asked me if I had any fraudulent activity. At this point I'm getting very irritated and I'm 25 and now seeing this is becoming a problem. I also asked her if I could close down the account that was supposed to be closed (I'm not even sure how it's getting funded because I believe they outsourced or something. I wish I could remember what they said but they switched for some reason...). She recommended that I leave the account open because it is my longest history of credit and i would get dinged if i closed it even though it's their error and i believe it was supposed to be seamlessly transferred over somehow instead of looking like I'm closing an account (but I was 19 or so at the time so I cant really remember). Is there anyway to handle this so I dont run into more issues down the road and get flagged for fraud? Thanks for reading. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 09:50 AM PDT Howdy! I realize this may be something I should talk to my HR rep about, but we haven't even told her parents yet! (That's tonight) Little background -- We've been together for 6 years, but we're not married (we live together going on 2 years in Georgia, where there isn't common law marriage). She's a teacher, I work in broadcasting, neither of us have much money... However, her health plan is great and I've put quite a bit of money into my HSA. I don't want to marry someone just so they can use my Health Savings Account, right? But we're both living paycheck-to-paycheck in Atlanta... Can I use my HSA for her costs? (all her OB/GYN appointments, classes, and for the hospital stay in 7 months?) Any other financial tips for panicked, surprised, financially-struggling expecting parents? (She's a teacher and an Army Vet, if there's anything there. I drink a lot of beer, if that helps us somehow, but that seems less likely). edit: I realized how awful my subject can come across, please don't misunderstand me... These are shared costs. I just said "HER" costs because they're mostly gonna be bills from an OB/GYN and they'll have her name on them. Again - they're my costs too, that's why I'm hoping I can use my HSA... Wasn't trying to say something stupid in 2019. Thank you guys for your help! Sorry to ask such a simple question here, but this hasn't left my brain in 2 weeks and I've searched everywhere I can privately, because I can't really ask family, friends or even HR yet. [link] [comments]  |
| (USA) Do my wife and I both need retirement accounts? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:33 PM PDT I currently have a 401K (maxed employer match) but no IRA. She has no retirement account and none is offered through her job. We have talked about having her open a Roth IRA to diversify our tax situation when we retire but she has nearly zero interest in setting one up or managing it. If the end result is we have one 401K and one IRA, is there any specific benefit to each of us having one or can I hold both with her as the beneficiary should I get hit by that bus people keep talking about? [link] [comments]  |
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