Personal Finance Costco refunded my 2-year 24hr fitness pass: never hurts to ask |
- Costco refunded my 2-year 24hr fitness pass: never hurts to ask
- What’s going on with Ally high yield savings?
- I've qualified for a forbearance for my mortgage for 3 months but the bank said the 3 months of payments would be due at the start of the 4th month. What should I do?
- Gold's Gym resumed charges after reopening, without a clear notification and wont issue a refund
- Do I have enough saved to quit a high stress job and move on to a low stress career?
- Pay off or Pay Minimum and Invest?
- Advice 26 year old
- My dad put medical payments on my social when I was a teenager and my credit score is garbage because of it. Please help.
- I checked on my DRiP today. I realized I started it 16 years ago.
- Is splitting a starter home with 2 friends a good idea / possible?
- Should I buy a used car that's $4k cheaper but with ~30k more miles?
- How do I get out of a “financial advisor” sales pitch?
- Putting <20% down on a home purchase
- I'm going to be homeless when I turn 18 at the end of the month, I have around 10k saved up and need some advice on what to do.
- Is it really bad to tell others about how much you make?
- Should I have collision coverage on my 2013 Honda Civic coupe?
- Moving across country on $20k
- Best online savings account?
- Is getting dropped from a renters insurance policy bad?
- can someone help me understand the backdoor roth?
- Mortgage Refi - Is this a good deal?
- How to open an irrevocable trust account and how they are different from revocable trust accounts
- Is there still a benefit of reconciling our credit card statements?
- US Taxes working outside of USA 99.99% income from abroad
- Are rent to own homes ever a good option? I really have no idea about them but I see ads everywhere so it cant be good.
| Costco refunded my 2-year 24hr fitness pass: never hurts to ask Posted: 07 Jul 2020 08:04 AM PDT Last November I thought I was getting a great deal by buying a pass from 24 fitness from Costco. Of course, I did not anticipate a pandemic that would close gyms. I had gotten a good 5 months of use out of the pass, and I figured I was just out of luck. Last week I figured, what the heck, maybe I'll see if they can prorate the pass given that the gyms are closed. The CS person was super nice, said he would forward on the request and it shouldn't be a problem. Today I got a credit for the full amount. Could not believe it. Costco is awesome. I feel bad about the time I got to use the pass being refunded, but really grateful that they stood by their refund policy. edit: thanks for the gold! Also thanks everyone for the great suggestions for other things to buy at Costco. Appliances, tires, and all sorts of things that I might have bought on Amazon are going in the Costco bucket now. [link] [comments]  |
| What’s going on with Ally high yield savings? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:05 PM PDT I opened an Ally savings account back in April with an APY of 1.50%. Seems like every month since then, I'm getting an email about them lowering the APY. I just got one saying that it's changing from 1.10% to 1.00%. What gives? Why is this happening? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 02:06 PM PDT Like I said in the title - I applied and was granted a forbearance on my mortgage for 3 months due to Covid-19. When I read the details on the letter they sent me I saw that the 3 months I didn't have to make payments on (Jul, Aug, Sept) would all be due on Oct 1. So what's the point of this forbearance? Is this standard for forbearances? I can tell you this - if I can't make my mortgage payment today, then there will be no way I can make 4 mortgage payments on Oct 1!! Any ideas on what I should do? [link] [comments]  |
| Gold's Gym resumed charges after reopening, without a clear notification and wont issue a refund Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:49 PM PDT Gold's gym in Southern California froze membership after closing in March. They reopened in mid June and charged me on July 1. The emails I received just said that they were reopening, there was no mention of membership charges automatically resuming. In the email, however, they did link an FAQ page where you will have to fish through a list of Q and A's to see where it mentions that they will resume billing everyone (I did not look at the FAQ at the time, because it just said check this FAQ for safety information-no mention of billing info). I didn't know they could unfreeze my account without my direct authorization. This just seems like a scummy move--are they in their rights to do this, or do I have grounds to dispute this charge? I have not used my membership this month and do not intend to. I canceled my membership for August and beyond, but I would like a refund for July as well. Please let me know what you think or if you have a similar situation, thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Do I have enough saved to quit a high stress job and move on to a low stress career? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:21 AM PDT Hello All Here is the situation, Im 32m, married with 2 kids. Wife and I make around 130k a year working two fairly stress full jobs. I honestly cant remember a day where I havent had to work or be contacted by work. When I take vacation I am still on call and end up working most of it. We currently have 121k saved towards retirement. I dont think I'll ever be completely done working, but we both plan on retiring around 67 or so. Currently combined we put around 30% of our income into the retirement plans. Our house currently is a 400k place on acreage in the close outskirts of a growing city and region. We are on target for having it paid off in around 20 years. I would guess it would easily be a $500k+ place by the time of retirement. We have paid off cars, and only have a small loan left (0% int loan) on a tractor. We keep around 10k in our savings as an emergency fund. We are putting in 1k a year into each childs saving fund, so they will have a decent amount when they graduate. Our kids are almost out of the daycare age, where that wont be a big drain financially. My wife being an accountant is fairly wise with savings and money in general. We know about what we need to make financially to live on, and we could do that with substantially less then we are currently making. Using online data and calculators, it looks like the average is 6-8% return on stocks. If you plug in 35 years with no continual additions to our 401k, on a 6% return at age 65 we will have around $930k in retirement. If we continue working for another 5 years, and have ballpark 225k into retirement, with 30 years of gains before tapping into it, the calculator is showing around 1.3m at 6% over 30 years. What are you guys' suggestions on our situation? It makes sense to me to continue working until the kids are completely out of daycare and gain a little bit more into the 401k. Mentally I cant keep working in a high stress 24/7 availability environment forever, its taking a lot of family time away and draining me mentally. Thanks for your suggestions [link] [comments]  |
| Pay off or Pay Minimum and Invest? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 11:43 AM PDT I have $213,000 in student loans. I am on a pay as you earn plan and currently make approximately $180,000 annually. I have about $50,000 in savings and $50,000 in investments in addition to my retirement accounts. I do not want to touch the retirement accounts, but this ~$100,000 is fair game. My student loan payments are currently deferred for COVID, but they were ~$725 per month, which wasn't even covering the interest (roughly 7% interest rate average for all the loans). My loans get forgiven after 13 more years of making payments if i stay on the pay as you earn, at which time I understand I will have to pay taxes on the "forgiven" amount. I am trying to figure out whether it would be better to pay down my loan balance to something like $130,000 and then refinance (I can get about 3.19% fixed) and try to pay off the loans in 5 to 10 years, or if it is better to continue investing and making minimum payments then taking the tax hit in the year when the loans are forgiven. All input is welcome! Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 04:12 PM PDT Hi guys. I am looking for financial advice. I am 26 years old. I graduated from college (two bachelors degrees) in December 2017 with $75,00 of student loans. I only had $2,000 in my savings at the time. I started a job in February 2018 making around $50,000ish/year (although I do work occasionally overtime), moved in with my parents to avoid rent costs, and started working on my financial goals. I paid off thousands of dollars of student loans. I now have $30,000 left of loans right now. About six months ago I switched from paying everything to my loans, to instead building up my savings. Right now I have about $27,000 in my savings account. I really busted my butt for the past two-ish years to pay off a lot of my loans and build my savings account. Now I don't know whats next. I'm still young and single with no kids. I have the opportunity with my job to make almost double my salary and travel (about 3 months in each place) that was my plan but now with corona virus that got out on hold. I'm hoping to do that later this year if the world permits. Should I take my saving and pay off the rest of my loans? One of my goals is to eventually buy my first house but I don't know what city I want to live I yet (the traveling was supposed to also be an opportunity for me to try different cities and decide where I want to settle down). Should I continue to build my savings for a down payment eventually? I'm not that educated on investment stuff but know a friend who lost $30,000 day trading so I steer away from stocks (maybe irrationally lol). Any advice on good options for next steps when it comes to where my finances are now? My long term financial goals are to buy a house and have enough money for a family and babies and live a humble but comfortable life with vacations and fun activities for my kids. I would appreciate hearing your opinions on options from here! Thank you so much I'm advance! Edit: spelling Edit #2- the loans are government loans with interest rates of 3% to 4% depending on the specific loan. I also have a 401k thru work but I'm not sure of the total. I have $5,000 of the above stated savings money in a CD for a higher interest rate, the CD ends in September. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:51 PM PDT TL;DR I'm 24m, I've lived a debt free life and have been thankful I've been able to do so for so long. I've paid cash for any vehicle I've ever owned, haven't ever been a crazy spender and I've always tried to stay frugal. With this though has come a margin of naivety in that I've avoided having credit, period. Good or bad. A year ago, I opened a Sekure Visa to start building credit, only using it to pay for gas or maybe eating out once a month, and even then, few and far between have I used it if at all. Now comes time for me to start looking at buying a car. The car I want is used, around 10 y/o, but the specific model holding value well, it's still valued around 15-18k and I don't have that kind of cash to throw around and I'd have to get a loan. That said, I pulled a credit report to find out what my credit score is as a forecast of what I could qualify for loan-wise. My credit score is 582. I was quite shocked being I've only been late one payment on my credit card (busy with work, accident, forgot). I started digging and found out that when I was 15 and I almost cut my finger off in a freak accident, instead of my dad running the med payments (from when we went to the emergency room) through insurance, or deferring to a payment plan, he let the payments fall to me and on my SS#. The balance from the ER was sent to collections. The cost isn't something I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is having a debt history I had no knowledge of and having years of delinquent debt from the beginning, and now I have no idea what to do or how to get out of this hole and build my credit up. Any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| I checked on my DRiP today. I realized I started it 16 years ago. Posted: 07 Jul 2020 02:18 PM PDT I started a Dividend Reinvestment Program in June of 2004. I had read a book that tried to make investing understandable to dummies and thought I would just dip my toes in. I started out small with an initial $100 investment and $25 monthly. I have ,as our financial situation improved, increased my monthly contribution periodically. Last month I increased it to $150 per month. I was looking at my account online today and decided to total up the dividends I have earned. It came to 3088.87. While it is no fortune it did help increase my holdings to 175 shares in a stock that was @ $40 a share when I started and is currently in the $75 range. I am sharing because I thought there might be other "dummies" out there who lack the confidence to start investing. It doesn't have to be big to add up in the long term. [link] [comments]  |
| Is splitting a starter home with 2 friends a good idea / possible? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 02:54 PM PDT My friends and I were thinking of renting an apartment together in the future (not anytime soon, probably at least 6 months out). I have always been told by my parents that renting is just throwing your money away. I thought of the idea of the 3 of us splitting a starter home and living there instead of an apartment. That way when we are all finished living there and have moved on from being mid-20 year olds that just want to hang out, we can sell the place and at least make a little money off of it. Now I don't even know if that's how housing works or if this idea is even possible. We all have decent jobs but none of us are making enough money to just buy a house. Can a starter home be split by us and how would that work? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I buy a used car that's $4k cheaper but with ~30k more miles? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:59 PM PDT I'm choosing between: 2016 Honda fit - $14,542 total - $260/mo - 42k miles or 2017 Honda Fit EX - $18,321 total - $300/mo - 13k miles The 2016 has an accident in its carfax but I don't know how big of a deal that is. It doesn't give any details. The lower monthly payment is appealing, but ~$4k more is significant. I'm not sure how valuable the difference in miles is. Thanks for any advice! [link] [comments]  |
| How do I get out of a “financial advisor” sales pitch? Posted: 06 Jul 2020 08:08 PM PDT My younger-fresh-out-of-college-cousin called me up and told me she got a new job. "Wonderful!" I said. "I'm a financial advisor for BlahFinanceAmericaSpectacular." She said. "Oh" said my heart. My brain wasn't tracking fast enough when she said "Can I set up a call with you to practice this week?" Sure! (I naively believe this is just a practice call. We've done similar exchanges in the past.) She honestly sounds surprised that I agreed. "Oh and my boss will probably jump on the call to see how I'm doing. And best of all it's free to work with me!" Now I'm dreading the high pressure sales pitch that I'm going to be presented with. I have zero interest in working with her. How can I navigate this conversation and not make her look bad in front of her new boss but doesn't sign me up for more of these interactions. A friend of mine has already advised me to say, "Since this is just for practice, I'll be making up numbers." What are they going to ask me? I'm not even sure how to have an intelligent conversation about my finances. Whenever I have to walk into my bank, I'm asked "What are your financial goals?" And I rudely answer "I'd just like my stolen credit cards replaced today." I don't want to be rude to her but I'm very triggered by this situation. I'd also like to end this in a way that does not invite her to contact me about this again. Thank you for the people who commiserated with me and offered helpful advice and suggestions. To the person who deleted the comment "Are you really that socially inept...?" Yes, yes I am, that's why I ask for help. Update: I texted "Hey thanks for thinking of me but I'm not interested in doing the phone call next week." She replied "Okay!" [link] [comments]  |
| Putting <20% down on a home purchase Posted: 07 Jul 2020 12:15 PM PDT I'm curious about others' opinions on this. I know that conventional wisdom is to always put 20% down, to avoid PMI. However, right now, the cost of money is so absurdly cheap that it seems more sensible to put less down. My wife and I are looking at buying a second home; we can put down 20% plus closing costs, but when we're looking at an interest rate of 2.75% and a PMI rate of 0.26%, I'm having a hard time justifying locking up that money in equity when we could hold it in cash and use it for upgrades to the home (if we wind up finding and buying one). Even a modest investment should be able to return better than 3%, so the value of "guaranteed returns" seems lower than in another scenario, when we'd be looking at 5+% mortgage interest an 1% PMI. Is there something that I am missing in this analysis? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:52 PM PDT My mom has just let me know that my stepfather wants me gone once I turn 18 at the end of the month. Luckily I am not broke and have around 10k saved up maybe another 2k if I can sell my computer and some other stuff. I don't have a car, but I plan on buying one and hopefully registering it before I am kicked out, but I'm not sure if it is the smartest idea because I know insurance will be a good chunk of change each month since I only got my license a year ago. The whole thing has me freaking out since most of the tips I have found I can't do since we are in the middle of a pandemic. I don't have any family or friends I can stay with. I have a job at a fast food restaurant but, unless I get a car I won't be able to work there anymore since it's about a 10 minute trip via highway. If anyone has some good ideas on what I can do please share them. I am in the North-east coast of the USA if that matters. I don't know what else to include but if i missed something I will add it. [link] [comments]  |
| Is it really bad to tell others about how much you make? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:34 PM PDT Asked a few guys about how much they made on this specific job I was planning on going after. Most responses were a long the lines of "grow the fuck up" or "if you're only here for the money get out". I just genuinely wanted to know. Edit: thanks for the responses guys. I'll be more wary next time [link] [comments]  |
| Should I have collision coverage on my 2013 Honda Civic coupe? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:30 PM PDT I'm debating whether to buy collision coverage for my car or only liability insurance [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:17 PM PDT Hey guys, I'm [21F] still living with my parents right now. It is getting to the point where I badly need to move out. Love my family but theyre grinding my gears. Im currently working two jobs and am quickly approaching my savings goal of $20k, have no debt, and also have my own car that's fully paid off. My friend keeps inviting me to move in with her family. I would probably have to pay around $350 for rent and then my personal expenses on top of that. Which would probably be another $600-$700 a month. Im in the process of applying for nursing at a community college in the area I'm planning to move to. Once I get in, I'll probably apply for student loans($13k) so I can hold on to my savings a bit longer. I was originally planning on moving out there in December, when school would be starting(haven't been accepted yet, maybe I'm overly optimistic lol). But now I'm thinking maybe I should move sooner (October/November) so I can find myself a part time job and settle in. To me it seems pretty straight forward but I feel like I'm still a young naive person who's just itching to get out of the nest. If you guys have any advice, I'd really appreciate it! Should I do it? Am I crazy? I mean, my dad moved to a new country at 18 with less than $1.5k in his pocket, not knowing the language nor a single person. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:29 PM PDT I've always had Chase everything. Checking, savings, car loan, student loans, etc. Now that I have a little bit of savings (10k), I figured its worth looking into options. What are the best savings accounts? I'm looking for one that is easily accessible online and fairly simple to transfer back to my main checking account if needed [link] [comments]  |
| Is getting dropped from a renters insurance policy bad? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 08:10 AM PDT My bicycle got stolen and I talked with my insurance agent and he said that if I filed a claim that the "algorithm" would likely drop me (rant on why no one can give me a straight yes no answer for another day). Is it hard to get new renters insurance if I get dropped? Can I file the claim, get dropped on renewal and easily get a new policy? It was really easy to get this policy, wondering if getting dropped will make it harder in the future. [link] [comments]  |
| can someone help me understand the backdoor roth? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 08:12 PM PDT I am in the 12% tax bracket (after 401k contributions). I plan on being in a higher tax bracket when i retire. Traditional wisdom suggests i should invest in a Roth IRA. But... then i can't backdoor roth, can I? I'm... confused i think [link] [comments]  |
| Mortgage Refi - Is this a good deal? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 04:22 PM PDT Hi PF, I'm wondering if anyone could lend a second set of eyes to see if this deal is worthwhile before I refinance. I'm trying to determine if this is a good deal. House is worth $280k. I have a balance of $167k currently at 3.625%. I have no plans to move and don't see that changing in the future. My objective is to lower my total interest paid and lower the monthly payments. Given the incredibly low interest rates I'm looking at a 30-year refinance as I'd like to use the freed up cash for other financial activities. I've been offered 3 options on a 30-year:
The total closing costs without points are estimated at $4254. Below are the itemized closing costs: Origination Charges Total $2,110.00 Commitment Fee $225.00 Document Preparation $250.00 Origination Fee $835.00 Processing Fee $425.00 Underwriting Fee $375.00 Required services lender selects $690.16 Appraisal Fee $600.00 Credit Report $66.41 Flood Determination Fee $14.00 Tax Transcript Fee $9.75 Required services I select Total $993.00 Title - Lender's Title Policy $368.00 Title - Plat Drawing $75.00 Title - Title Search $550.00 Government recording charges $46.00 Transfer taxes $400.80 Additional Costs Total $15.00 Wire Transfer $15.00 I'm using the Bankrate calculator - https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-refinance-break-even-calculator.aspx It looks like by buying down the rate to 2.5% I'm able to save nearly $20,000 over the life of the loan. I'm also thinking that it could make the most sense since I plan to keep the mortgage/home long term. The calculator shows the break even for the monthly payment savings is 37 months. It's 41 months to break even if looking at interest savings. I'm also thinking locking in at 2.5% might make the most sense if inflation keeps up (who knows...). Am I overlooking anything? Does this look like a good deal? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| How to open an irrevocable trust account and how they are different from revocable trust accounts Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:56 PM PDT My mother accidentally closed the trust account tied to her irrevocable trust agreement (which she didn't actually need, but that's a different story) and I need to set up a new trust account for it, as one of the trustees. My bank currently only offers trust accounts for revocable trusts, and I'm having trouble finding where and how to open one for irrevocable trusts. The text clearly says the grantor must be a trustee as well for revocable trust accounts. My questions are: 1) What are some suggestions for where to open such an irrevocable trust account. 2) Why is there a difference between the two types of accounts? Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Is there still a benefit of reconciling our credit card statements? Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:56 PM PDT My partner and I have been discussing this issue repeatedly as he thinks it's still an area of need whereas I believe 99.9% of our charges are fine. While I know it's a good money management habit to have, is it really worth all the trouble to reconcile hundreds of charges at the end of every month? I personally don't like spending hours on this every month just to find MAYBE one charge that looks off or that shouldn't be charging me. My partner finds it necessary to flag his business and tax-deductible charges for business, but beyond that I'm not sure if there's much value here. Perhaps if I could reconcile at the point of sale, I would do this more often. But once I've got a mountain of charges to look through, I'm definitely not interested in sifting through them to find the needle in the haystack. [link] [comments]  |
| US Taxes working outside of USA 99.99% income from abroad Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:55 PM PDT I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask this questions. I have been working overseas for all of 2019. I have residency in the country I am working in. I have read that since none of my income is from the United States I do not need to file my taxes. I did not sell any stock during the year and I received dividends of less than $150 during the year. My total income in US dollars would be less than 25k. Is it appropriate to not file? Should I file with $0 income? I was living in PA prior to moving overseas in 2018, and obtaining residency here in 2019. I filed my 2018 taxes last year. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:38 PM PDT Can someone explain rent to own homes and why they are or arent a goo thing? [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Personal Finance. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment