Personal Finance Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of May 29, 2020 |
- Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of May 29, 2020
- Good credit is a means to an end only
- Magic bullet for getting Citibank to close an unauthorized savings account
- My Mum wants me to co-sign a mortgage.
- 20k income & a really stupid decision. In need of financial guidance.
- What should I do next now that all my debt is paid off?
- Had the most ridiculous interaction with a credit reporting agency, what to do going forward?
- 20 years old with $10k in savings, wanted to know if there’s anything smart I could be doing with my money to help it grow
- My dead mother committed fraud in my name. What to do?
- Should i pay off student loans fast?
- Should I cancel my Amazon Prime account since nothing is being delivered in 2 days anymore?
- Where to live during law school?
- Withdrawal from 401k as a non-resident, is it taxed as income in my resident country as well as the US?
- No HSA records - what can I do?
- Fiancé was denied a credit card because she ‘doesn’t exist’ and couldn’t provide confirmation of who she is. How do we fix this?
- Hello, does anyone know of any good budgeting app? I’m currently 21 making around 1-1.3k a week and at the end of every month I check how much money goes out and I was surprised!
- How exactly does buying a house work?
- Where I think USAA shines over everyone else with bank accounts & budgeting...
- Do you include retirement accounts when calculating cash percentage of portfolio?
- How would I access shares meant for me?
- Struggling to pay off credit card due to interest - what are my options? [College Student]
- High-yield savings account within Roth IRA
- Sick Mother needs to move to hospice/nursing home ASAP, we will lose the bed if not. Home is charging two full months for a month and 2 days. is this normal?! (California)
- Incorrect utility charges sent to collections, ruined credit score and chances or renting a place. How do I fix this?
| Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of May 29, 2020 Posted: 29 May 2020 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]  |
| Good credit is a means to an end only Posted: 29 May 2020 10:46 AM PDT I recently paid off two loans, one student and one medical, after which my credit score promptly dropped 50 points. The two reasons for the drop, as far as I can tell, are that I now only have a couple credit lines open aka a thin file, and that I no longer have a mix of revolving and installment accounts, only revolving (credit cards). This probably won't affect me since I'm not looking to make any big purchases at the moment. It's just so ridiculous that this is how credit scores function. I paid off two loans (one of which took me about 8 years so I feel very accomplished) without having one single missed or late payment, and the result of that accomplishment is a significant credit score decrease. If I were to look to improving my credit in the short term, the best ways to do it would not actually be financially beneficial to me. I could open a new credit card line, which I have absolutely no need of, and/or to obtain a loan for something, which I also have no need of. I am a renter, my car is paid off, and fingers crossed there are no more large medical bills in my future. All that being said, this is a great reminder for me that a good credit score can be a very helpful tool towards achieving and maintaining financial stability, but that it should not itself be pursued as an end goal - it is a means to an end only. Obviously that idea is nothing groundbreaking, but I figured since I needed the reminder myself, that maybe some others would too. [link] [comments]  |
| Magic bullet for getting Citibank to close an unauthorized savings account Posted: 29 May 2020 11:47 AM PDT Background I've spent the last ~7 months attempting to get Citibank to close a high yield savings account that was never supposed to be opened and had never been funded. After applying and waiting almost a month for them to "verify my address" off of a utility bill, I called to ask them to stop the application process, which they confirmed they would do. I also never returned the tax form they stated in writing was required for account activation. Thinking the application process was halted, I applied for a similar Capital One account (which took less 5 business days to activate). After being told my application was halted, Citibank attempted to withdraw funds from my existing savings account, which was rightly flagged by the bank as fraud. Since then I've called 1-3 times monthly asking Citibank to close the account, which shouldn't have existed in the first place. I was told multiple times that the account would be closed, only to receive yet another monthly statement indicating it was open. Resolution I lucked out and found a mention of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a forum for getting Citibank to act. On 19 May I submitted a complaint. CFPB requires that the bank respond within 15 days, and today, finally, Citibank closed the account. I'm normally cynical about the effectiveness of government agencies, but this was impressive. Thought I would share with others for future reference. [link] [comments]  |
| My Mum wants me to co-sign a mortgage. Posted: 29 May 2020 02:20 AM PDT Hey everyone, I have a little bit of an issue and I would really appreciate some advice before I make a decision. My mother bought a block of land a few years ago and has been planning to build on it. She was approved for a loan a while back, but since then had an accident which has killed both of her arms. She wasn't able to complete the loan paperwork due to excessive time in hospital, so now it's all be revoked. She still owns the block, but in order for her to be able to secure a loan and build on it, she needs me to co-sign the mortgage with her. I'm 20 years old and still live at home and she keeps telling me this could give me a huge head-start in life. She tells me she will be the one paying the loan, but needs to use my income to secure the loan. She says because of this, she will leave the house to me in her will and not my brother and sister. However, she doesn't want to put my name on the title of the house. To me this is a major red flag. I asked her what would happen if 5 years down the track I want to buy my own place with my girlfriend. She says that it would be easy because I could use the equity from the property to make a deposit, but if I'm not on the title then wouldn't I just have a debt with nothing to show for it? Is there any way I could go about this or would refusing to do it be my best option? Please help me out. I'm pretty clueless with all this stuff. Thanks. EDIT: What would the situation be if I could talk my mother into transferring the title into my name? Judging from the way she speaks about it, she'd still be happy to be the one making the repayments, even if I was the owner. After all, if she's promising to leave it to me after death, why not just do it in the beginning? That way, wouldn't I be protected because I own the property? I could sell if it wasn't being paid? Is there more too it or would doing it this way be a good decision? Would it even be possible? Also, I'm from Victoria, Australia. I'm a full-time carer for my mother and I get paid $1100 a fortnight from government benefits. It's the best possible situation for me as I am also a full-time uni student who studies online. I've had many jobs in the past but I was required to work 30 hour weeks in order to earn the same amount. Being a carer means I can get paid comfortably, study without too much pressure and also help my mother. I'd like to thank everyone for the incredible advice. I already told her no a few weeks ago, but was just seeking some more information which has only solidified my decision. I won't be doing it. She will sell the block and we will find a more affordable rental. I am not going to be roped into something so incredibly risky. I really appreciate the comments so thank you all again. ADDITIONAL EDIT JUST FOR HUMOUR: She even hired a 'financial advisor' who told me it was all a good idea. My mate told me to be weary seeing as she was paying his bills. Good thing I listened to my mate and not the 'expert'. [link] [comments]  |
| 20k income & a really stupid decision. In need of financial guidance. Posted: 29 May 2020 06:08 PM PDT I'm 22 years old and make a 21k annual income working full-time. I live check to check while living with my dad who also lives relatively check to check. We both have 0 in savings/emergency fund. My old car went poop, and I bought a 2017 Toyota camry 20k miles for $23,000. I was able to get it with my dad's name on the car too. We put 0 down and my payment is $545.00 a month. The Kelly blue book trade in value is $12,000. I still owe $22,000 and have had the car for about 2-3 months I'm very late to the party, but I realize I just took a giant shit on the floor and stepped in it. Please help me save myself while I possibly can. [link] [comments]  |
| What should I do next now that all my debt is paid off? Posted: 29 May 2020 04:34 PM PDT Hello Reddit, I'm 28 years old at the moment, and I finally finished paying off all my debt (student loans, credit cards, and car payments). I currently have 13k in a 1 percent interest savings account (Ally Bank went from 2.2 int to 1.25 unfortunately), and I put 9k into stocks (worth 11k at the moment). I'm able to save about 2k a month, and I've been putting in about 65 - 70 percent of that into savings, and the rest into my personal stock account. That percentage does vary depending on whether I see a good deal on any long term stocks currently going at a discount. I'd stay my stock portfolio is pretty safe and diverse, but, by no means am I a financial expert in the stock market, and with the housing market expected to fall next year I'm wondering if I should put all my money into my savings in case an opportunity to buy a house at a discount pops up, or if I should stop putting money into stocks and just go the safe route with a Roth IRA? I have to definitely say I feel blessed to even be in this position in the first place where I can choose where my money goes, but, I definitely want to make the right moves going forward. [link] [comments]  |
| Had the most ridiculous interaction with a credit reporting agency, what to do going forward? Posted: 29 May 2020 01:37 PM PDT I'm a 21 year old new grad looking to rent an apartment in a fairly high CoL area. I will be making $100k+/yr once I start working ~4 weeks from now, and the rent for the apartment is ~$2100/mo (lease begins ~2 weeks from now), so no red flag or anything there. As a part of the lease approval process, I had a credit check done on me by a third party, which I assume is fairly standard. The oddities came when I was conditionally approved. I have fairly good credit that I've built over the years (member of federal credit union, paid off nearly all of my student loans ahead of schedule, never missed any rent or utility payments, etc.) so I was surprised to see that, especially because I had unconditional approval to rent at the other apartment I applied to rent at. Conditional approval means that I would need to pay a security deposit (which would be waived if I were unconditionally approved). I asked the apartment building rep to send me a copy of the adverse action letter, which she did. I then contacted the third party who ran the credit check. The call was immediately extremely choppy, and I could barely make out what the rep was saying. From what I could tell, after going through identity verification and other due diligence, they were ready to access my report. The conversation then went like this: Them: "We cannot send you a report, as we were unable to generate one." Me: "Why not?" Them: "Experian cannot generate a credit report for you. Do you have credit?" Me: *Explains I have credit* Them: "Well, they cannot generate a credit report for you, so you have no credit. Thus, we could only provide conditional approval. If you would like a credit report, we can send you over a form that you can fill out, and we can then process your credit report for you." Me: "Sure, what kind of form?" Them: *Describes a form used to run a credit report* Me: "So to send me a credit report, I need to send you a credit report, which you would send back to me?" Them: "Yes." Me: "Would this affect my conditional approval?" Them: "No." Me: "OK. Nevermind then. Goodbye." *Hangs up* Is this reasonable? Did I do anything wrong, and if so, what should I have done differently? I'm a bit new to adulting, so any advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 03:56 PM PDT I'll be graduating debt free in 2 years and plan to continue working while school is in session. (On campus job) I get about $6000 a year from my job. (I think like $8.74/h) I live at home and I barely have any expenses. I currently put $200 a month into savings and anytime my checking hits $1000 I transfer some over. My dad has also set me up a Roth IRA which we started by putting $1000 split in half across 2 funds. I'm planning to put $50 or maybe $100 in a month once work starts back. My main question is is there anything smart I should do with my current savings? I don't need them currently as my parents will support me for any necessities. Is there some kind of stock market fund I should put some of it in? Any advice would be appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| My dead mother committed fraud in my name. What to do? Posted: 29 May 2020 05:53 AM PDT Okay I don't want to make this into a sad r/raisedbynarcissists post, so I'll just skip to where I'm at right now. (Also on mobile, I apologize for the formatting) I'm 25 and am currently looking to use my VA home loan sometime within the next year. I usually use CreditKarma to keep track of my credit score, but I decided to open a TransUnion account to get a better feel of what I'm working with. Well on my TransUnion account, I saw that I have accounts open in my name starting from when I was 7 years old. My birth year is wrong and everything to make it seem like I was 20 when I opened these accounts. Now, I know from my uncles that my mother did the same thing to them, opened credit cards in their names as well and used them for a while before they realized. They filed police reports and got their situation under control. My mother died last year (heroin overdose...what a life) and I need to know if I need to file a police report even though she is dead, or if I just need to soley correct the inaccuracies through TransUnion and not worry about informing the authorities. I really appreciate any and all advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Should i pay off student loans fast? Posted: 28 May 2020 11:43 PM PDT I'm 21 years old and I have 27k in student loans at an average interest rate of about 4.75%. Is it worth it to aggressively pay off my student loans or use the money to put more into investments and savings. If I paid $300 per month for 10 years I'd be paying about 7k in interest. That is $700 a year in interest. I make 75k but my income will most likely double in the next 5-10 years. I could pay off the loan in a few years but sacrifice investments or saving towards a house until the loans are paid off. EDIT: I'm a software engineer. I live in a LCOL area. My take home pay after taxes is $4600. My expenses are about $1700 a month 900 rent 200 food 200 utilities 200 insurance 100 gym 100 gas I have $2900 left over at the end of the month. I put about $1100 towards retirement in between my 401k and IRA. I have 20k in federal loans and 7k in private. The private is at 4.5% and federal are 4-5% [link] [comments]  |
| Should I cancel my Amazon Prime account since nothing is being delivered in 2 days anymore? Posted: 29 May 2020 08:04 PM PDT I've been paying for Amazon Prime for the past few months but I'm beginning to think that it's a waste of money since nothing is being delivered within 2 days anymore. [link] [comments]  |
| Where to live during law school? Posted: 29 May 2020 07:16 PM PDT Should I continue to live at home during law school and commute an hour each way, or rent an apartment close to the school and rack up 80k of debt? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 07:12 PM PDT Bonus question, if I borrow the tax-free amount, is that taxable in my country (Australia)? [link] [comments]  |
| No HSA records - what can I do? Posted: 29 May 2020 03:18 PM PDT When I was fresh out of school, HDHPs and HSAs were being raved about in things I was reading and hearing so I elected to have both since I started my first FT job. For the first two years, I was reimbursing myself immediately when I incurred any legitimate medical expenses (I have been paying out-of-pocket since). My concern is that I did not do all my HW back then and did not keep record of any of those expenses and have no receipts for prescriptions, appointments, etc. 2 Questions:
Note: Thank you to everyone on this subreddit and helping us all lean on each other [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 01:42 PM PDT This is a confusing situation. She doesn't own any credit cards of her own, and is 26 years old. She's applying for a store one that leverages no interest deals regularly and she wants to build her own credit with those methods. She applied and had to call, and when she called was told she needs a phone line in her own name or another card in her name. Without either of these they can't confirm who she is and have to deny her. Is this normal? This honestly doesn't sound like anything I've ever experienced. Shouldn't they just go off her SSN and information provided? Is there anything she can do to bypass these issues? She has a credit score of 700+ and low debt with high income. What are the options for her moving forward? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 06:51 PM PDT I really need a good budgeting app or something that shows specifics of what category my money is being spent on. It says on the chase app that I'm spending around 3.3k or more a month and I don't know on what! I only really have a couple bills I pay a month. Car note- $380 Car insurance- $320 Phone bill - $200 Rent- $200 [link] [comments]  |
| How exactly does buying a house work? Posted: 29 May 2020 05:06 PM PDT I'm looking to buy my first home but I'm a little confused by the process. I've tried doing online pre-approvals but they seem like they all lead to nowhere, essentially a consent agreement to sell/give your e-mail and phone number to interested parties so I gave up on those. I was planning on just going to my credit union within the week. But I'm still kind of ignorant of the whole process, do I first get approved for a certain amount, find a home, agree to purchase, then actually find a mortgage agreement I like? [link] [comments]  |
| Where I think USAA shines over everyone else with bank accounts & budgeting... Posted: 29 May 2020 05:01 PM PDT I've tried Chase, Bank of America, U.S.Bank, Ally, Alliant, and formerly SunTrust now Truist and none of them have the Future Transactions/Projected Balance Feature lole USAA. It's a nifty little tool that let's you input manual/future withdrawals (weekly check to the yard guy, etc.) and it also accounts for any scheduled bills/transfers you have set, even the recurring ones.Great for budgeting and preventing overdrafts, etc. If I'm wrong and someone else has this feature please post a reply! [link] [comments]  |
| Do you include retirement accounts when calculating cash percentage of portfolio? Posted: 29 May 2020 06:28 PM PDT My position is 10% cash including retirement accounts, but 25% cash without retirement (post-tax investments only). I'm early 30s so would like to be around 10-15%. [link] [comments]  |
| How would I access shares meant for me? Posted: 29 May 2020 06:25 PM PDT So basically. When I was just a tiny baby, my grandma had bought me shares of various stocks. That's my mother has told me at least. That's all I know. I'm not really on speaking terms with her anymore. How would I find out more about this and how to access them on my own? Thanks for the various times y'all have helped me :) [link] [comments]  |
| Struggling to pay off credit card due to interest - what are my options? [College Student] Posted: 29 May 2020 06:24 PM PDT First of all, thank you to everyone that participates in this community! I've definitely learned a lot. I'm a college student and I have a credit card with Discover that has racked up a few thousand dollars in necessary purchases during my time in school (rent, food, etc). It's currently near it's credit limit as well. I'd like to slowly pay it off as it's begun to hurt my credit, but most of my monthly payments are being offset by the interest accumulated. Someone told me to consider opening up a new credit card and transferring the debt to the new card and paying it off there with the 0% APR introductory period. Is this a sound and legitimate idea? Does anyone know of any other alternatives to help me pay this off in the most cost and credit effective manner? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| High-yield savings account within Roth IRA Posted: 29 May 2020 06:24 PM PDT I've realized that Roth IRA can serve as an emergency fund (you can withdraw without penalty at any time up to the amount you've contributed). It seems advantageous to transfer my savings into a tax-sheltered account, but I haven't found an institution that offers a fixed-interest-rate account within a Roth IRA that rivals Barclays 1.15% APY. Currently, I don't want to invest more than I already do, and I can't afford to max out my Roth contributions. But, I could max out my Roth IRA contributions this by moving chunks of my savings into a Roth IRA savings account. Why would I want to do this? 1) Avoid taxes on savings interest...OK this is small for me (I made $300 in interest last year), but still...taxes brings my effective interest rate to ~0.85%! 2) Hopefully in 5-10years I'll be in a much higher income bracket (currently a math/CS PhD student); once that happens, my current savings/emergency-fund can become cheap (in terms of up-front taxes) capital for tax-free investing. Right now, I have a target-date fund in my Roth IRA, but it is important to me to maintain a substantial emergency buffer with non-invested funds. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 01:03 PM PDT If this is in the wrong subreddit please let me.know. My mother is at the end of her life and needs to be in a home. she was denied MediCal (California Medicare) for several years due to making less than 100$ over the limit. she was finally approved for Medical but at a tier where we will still have to pay nearly $1300 a month for care at a facility. After searching for two months, we found a facility to take her, (today) but she has to move in tonight, and we have to pay for the whole month of May and June in order to keep the bed. Does anyone know if this is normal? If it is, are there ways to retroactively get back the nearly whole month of payment we are paying extra? I am aware this may be standard in this vampiric healthcare system. Any info helps. We are paying for it to help her live comfortably for the remainder of her life, because if we don't, we don't know if and when we will find another bed. I am out of my depth and could use some info. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2020 04:45 PM PDT Good people of reddit I am in need of some help. This happened to my boyfriend but he doesn't have a Reddit account so I'm posting here (and please let me know if there's somewhere better to ask)! Essentially a few years ago my boyfriend was renting from this guy who turned out to be a real jerk. This landlord lied so much, about animals having lived in the house (my bf is super allergic and needed to know), stole their entire deposit and they would come home to find their landlord snooping around inside the house (unannounced). While living there my bf had the trash, electric and cable in his name. He always paid rent and utilities in full and on time. When he moved bf called the utility companies to cancel his accounts but they told him someone would have to take over the account instead. After moving out however the landlord (who was selling the property and did not put in new tenants) did not transfer the accounts into his own name and my bf had the next few months of utilities charged to the account in his name even though he was NOT living there. My bf received no communication from the utility companies in the months following letting him know there was unpaid bills. These unpaid bills have since been sent to 3 different collection agencies. We discovered this recently because we are now in the process of trying to rent a house together and discovered that his credit score has been badly affected. Before he had no score because he's never taken out a loan or had a credit card, but now it's something like 537 because of this. It's also showing up in his background checks and is freaking out potential landlords. My question is now that the collection agencies have this information how do we get these delinquencies reversed? Should we call the utility companies or take it up with a credit bureau? How do we let landlords know we are in the process of contesting this and that we are reliable tenants? Thank you so much everyone! [link] [comments]  |
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