Personal Finance Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of October 19, 2020 |
- Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of October 19, 2020
- Part-Time but getting 35-40 hours a week.
- I was kind of dumb and was tricked into opening a Macy’s credit card, is there anything I can do?
- They say money can't buy happiness but good god it makes things easier.
- How Do I Help My Mother In Law Sort Her Finance & Living Situation Out?
- Want to buy a house... where do I start?
- Are credit unions really any different from a bank?
- Is taking out student loans better than saving up beforehand?
- Car Loan Process
- My position salary got public and I’m probably underpaid
- Should I Sell and Buy, Sell and Rent, or Rent and Rent?
- Potentially getting kicked out by parents soon. Engineering Associate's degree but limited job opportunities and savings. What should I aim for?
- Opened A Second Checking Account | Is It A Mistake?
- Managing a budget and tracking expenses
- If I used my HSA for something not medical-related, how do they find out?
- Stay with my current employer or make a move?
- Capital one upgrade card, should I do it?
- Bank of America closed my checking account. What kind of follow up is needed? Credit Impact?
- About to start my Roth IRA(3 fund portfolio) on Vanguard. Is it impossible to get 3 funds my first year? Each has a minimum requirement of 3k. Am i understanding this correctly?
- Joint Bank Account - Should we open a new account?
- How can I value money more?
- Credit Card Fraud - Identified Fraudster - Steps to take??
- Is the Discover It Cash Back card a good starter card?
- Several months late on notifying bank of mother’s passing....how bad will this be?
| Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of October 19, 2020 Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:00 AM 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]  |
| Part-Time but getting 35-40 hours a week. Posted: 19 Oct 2020 12:36 PM PDT Should I ask my boss to just make me a full time employee so I can get benifits (insurance) When I started its was only 6 hour days but then I was asked to start coming in an hour earlier when we moved warehouses. She made out the extra hour a day as a temporary thing but its been going on for a few months now. My roomate said I should be getting benefits for working this much. Occasionally I go in for 5 or so hours on Saturdays. Edit: just asked my boss's boss about it and in addition to saying she'll ask HR she also mentioned getting me more hours. Yay! Edit #2: its a pretty stand up company and I truly believe they just didnt notice that I was putting in so many hours and wasnt full time yet. My Boss's boss seemed surprised that I hadnt been getting any benefits. Edit #3: thanks for the gold and the award! Also my hours are determined by shift. The worst that can happen is that they tell me to return to my normal evening shift. Edit #4: Im getting quite a lot of repetitive advice. Please read through before commenting. Im currently at work and cant reply to everyone. THANK YOU GUYS FOR ALL THE ADVICE AND LINKS! [link] [comments]  |
| I was kind of dumb and was tricked into opening a Macy’s credit card, is there anything I can do? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 09:50 AM PDT Yeah I was stupid for giving my social for a "membership account" but stupid happened now I'm kind of pissed about it. Should I just cancel and move on or is there something I can do? I was hit with -25 on credit and I'm in the middle of searching for apartments so that kind of sucks. Will keep my eyes open a lot more after this mistake for sure. [link] [comments]  |
| They say money can't buy happiness but good god it makes things easier. Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:41 PM PDT My parents are seperating. The big issue is that they have been on an interest only mortgage, and have saved no capital to pay it off at the end of the term in 4-5 years. The house was appraised at £425-450,000 before COVID, and the mortgage is around £180,000 leaving them with approximately £200-250,000 after fees and everything when they are forced to sell. My mum wants to keep the house, which seeing as they owe £180,000 and aren't paying it off, is never going to happen. My dad wants to sell the house now so he can buy a small little place with some of the money. If split evenly, the remaining money equates to very very little in terms of property in the area we live, not even really a 1 bed flat each. If not split evenly, one is miserable and barely in a livable place. In an ideal world, finding £280,000 would pay off the mortgage for my mum and give my dad enough to move somewhere suitable for him. What the hell do they do? [link] [comments]  |
| How Do I Help My Mother In Law Sort Her Finance & Living Situation Out? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:48 AM PDT Please forgive me if this may be on the wrong page and needs to be moved. My mother in law was a typical 9-5 working, white picket fence having, tax-paying citizen. However, she went through a traumatic life-changing experience which has taken a toll on her in many ways. She has a son who is a recovered drug abuser but is not really the smartest, nor helpful, nor has the greatest career at the age of 30 to offer much financial assistance. So all responsibilities ends up coming down to her daughter (my fiance). My mother in law lives in North Carolina. I live with my fiance but we live in a different state as her. She currently has $0 in savings, and unemployed. After life insurance kicked on from her late husband she purchased a home, and car. That home has since been sold after she ended up getting behind on bills, being unemployed, and house became too much work as she ended up turning into a hoader just like the TLC shows. She sold that home to purchase an RV Camper that she intended to live out of near the beach. It didn't quite work out so she moved into an apartment with her son in the mountains. They both share the lease and were paying the rent on time however is now behind and at risk of eviction. However, the RV is still paid for in a lot sitting near the beach vacant. She has an extensive medical history largely focused around mental health diagnoses and conditions. She did end up receiving a disability settlement as she wasn't working for years and was honestly not mentally able to. She ended up working full time eventually for about a year up until Feburary. She ended up being fired which is still unclear for true reasoning. But over the years she is definitely growing less cognitive than before for knowledge base jobs (can barley work an iPhone, or computer), and has pain from extended standing or movement (for any type of service jobs) and I truthfully don't believe she's able to work anymore. We recently had a scare as she was rushed to the hospital because she sat at home while having a broken ankle for a week which had gotten infected, and apparently now has diabetes. But we found out she doesn't bathe regularly, use the restroom when needed, eat, and really needs someone to watch over her. Although she lives with her son, he is not reliable to make sure she monitors her health. My fiance and I aren't in a financial position to assist her medical needs, or living situation. We also have established careers that prohibit either of us actually being her care-giver. What is the smartest thing to do about her living situation? It would be nice to have her live closer to us so we can visit after work or on weekends. However, for the time being without employment are there any programs that will offer her housing assistance if she could get approved showing her medical history and situation? I have done preliminary research on having her apply for Medicaid, possibly disability again. Are there any other programs, or assistance that I should look into? Is it out of the question if she gets approved for Medicaid if they would cover a care giver to make sure she takes care of herself? Also if so is the RV at risk for being taken from Medicaid Estate Recovery? Any insight would be great if anyone is able to offer. [link] [comments]  |
| Want to buy a house... where do I start? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:04 PM PDT I said to myself the last time the housing market was down that the next time it happened I wanted to be in a position where I could take advantage of it. Well, I think I'm there, but I honestly how no idea how to even start! Do you look at houses first? I don't know if I want to hit my credit with inquiries if I don't even find something I want to buy. How do you choose a bank to work with? I bank with a credit union but unfortunately it is out of state (I moved and haven't ever needed a local bank) so it seems like it would be quite difficult to work with my own bank since they gave no local offices. What things do I need to know as I get started? I know about disclosures and title insurance and things like that for when I get to the point I actually want to buy something, but everything before that is just a mystery to me. [link] [comments]  |
| Are credit unions really any different from a bank? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:39 PM PDT Currently I've been banking with navy federal for about 2 years. I have a cc, checking, and savings account. I've also applied and been accepted for loans tho I've never actually cashed em. I've also been banking with chase and Bank of America for about 2 years each. Bank of America has even by far the most "pain in the ass" bank I've dealt with. Chase has a pretty good customer service in my opinion. Transactions when been quick and straightforward, no shananagins or unexpected fees/bills. That being said, I've heard chase is a horrible bank to bank with if you're on a paycheck to paycheck type of situation since they charge fees. Never been there tho so I can't say anything about that. Navy federal is alright. I've had some fraud happen on my cc before which navy fed didn't really do Much about it. For atms I stick to the one near me and I don't really go for anything else..? I don't think they charge fees other than for overdraft. But where people say credit unions are "better" is in loans. I've taken out a car loan with both chase and navy and they both gave me same interest rates. My credit score is in the high 750s, it's even a while but last time I checked it was around 780ish. Currently 21 etc. So, how exactly are credit unions better? Am I missing something here? Edit: oh and navy has reimbursed me for atm fees tho it took ridiculously long (about 2-3 months) [link] [comments]  |
| Is taking out student loans better than saving up beforehand? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 03:32 PM PDT (Obligatory "I'm on mobile" note) To jump right in, I (18,f) just moved out of my mom's place, with very little real life experience, and no back up plan. I have no substantial savings ($500cad). My current employment is nothing special, but it's union and can pay my bills right now, pulling in 2.3k after taxes every month. I have no debt, no dependants, and my car is paid off. My rent is $680 a month in British Columbia (including utilities), it's total 1360 total, I split it with my SO. I plan to save up enough to cut my hours in half and go to school (without loans) in 2021 and become a dental assistant. With my living costs right now I think I can afford to save between $500-1000 each month. (Edit: I need to save 7.5k for the courses I need) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 08:56 AM PDT Hello! Looking to buy my second car eventually. First car was through Carmax, and although I didn't have the best interest rate since I had just started my credit, I hated how they ran my credit and tried to get me loans through other lenders. Ended up having to get a loan from them in the end. This time, I want to go through my personal bank, but I have no clue how the process is. Here are some general questions I have: Do I get the loan first then go to the dealership and try to get the vehicle? How close to buying the vehicle should I get the loan? This may vary from lender to lender: but if I get a loan external from the dealership, will I still need a down payment or would the loan just be considered the "full payment" of the vehicle? If you have any other helpful information please advise. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| My position salary got public and I’m probably underpaid Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:32 PM PDT My company is recruiting for some time now and recently they decided to openly post online the salary numbers for the position they're trying to fill on one of the job boards. This got to my attention since one of my colleagues from my previous company came across it and got interested, so knowing I currently work there he reached out to me asking how things are going there, how do I like it there, etc, sharing the job ad as well. While I generally like the company and happy to recommend it anyway, I also found out that my salary is barely touching the bottom range of the numbers they're advertising in the ad. What is worse, while I'm having the same position as the one in the ad I'm doing significantly more - I'm senior software engineer but we have a very flat structure and I'm effectively sharing some responsibilities with our CTO. To give the full background - this is a tech startup during a transition phase into something more mature (we're also after a big series A investing round recently). I'm there for 2 years now, one of the first devs in our team, top or one of top performing software engineers here (according to all mid and end year reviews in a row since I joined), having big impact on the product and processes, mentoring other devs, speaking with clients and overall doing well in my opinion in general. What is interesting is that 3 weeks earlier my boss reached out to me out of nowhere proposing a raise I once asked for but was declined at the time. The raise proposal came before they made the salary public in the ad (but they were actively looking for people back then already). Before the raise (and still now) I was getting significantly less (-15%) than the bottom range of their public offer. After the raise is effective (next month) I will still barely touch the bottom range of the salary given in their ad. Normally I would be happy about the raise I'm getting (+15%) but now it seems like there a lot left on the table (the public offer is up to +45% of what I'm making now and it's for a senior dev position, not team lead or architect). I don't know how should I approach this, and I'm pretty bad at salary conversations to be honest. I also suspect they may be making this ad offer overly high and over the market since we are quite under-staffed currently (some people left, there's big business pressure to iterate with the product fast and it's very hard to find anyone good on the market right now). Am I in position to ask for another raise while I already happily accepted one 3 weeks ago (which they themselves proposed)? Also, to be honest, I am also somewhat overworked recently and overwhelmed with the amount of responsibility I got and was even thinking about quitting some time ago (so that I could go back to simply coding and not having to worry about managing people or delivering a multi-person project on time, I would also don't mind taking some time off to do some open source coding for a while) but decided not to (wouldn't want to leave things in the middle & this is still very good learning opportunity for me). This didn't impact my performance at work I think but it is hitting my personal life and energy levels outside of work pretty heavily recently, so on top of this this situation really bummed me up and lowered my morale. I would really appreciate an advice. I would like to talk to them about this but not sure what to say & honestly this type of conversations always stress me so I would like to have a good plan for this and be prepared when I'm talking with them about this [link] [comments]  |
| Should I Sell and Buy, Sell and Rent, or Rent and Rent? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:44 PM PDT I know, awkward title. I am 24, about to be 25, very blessed in life to be honest. I work a job for about 15 an hour, nothing special but a good amount of overtime, and have saved about 20k with a Condo I purchased two years ago. I have not put any work into it- nothing has broken I have been lucky. I bought it for 62k on a 15 year Mortage @4% APR, put 15k down, and have about 48k left on it. I am going to be leaving next summer for law school. I know that's about 10 months away, I am going to one of three haven't found out which one yet, but I have been thinking a lot. My condo, which I bought for 62, could go for about 82-88k depending on which site you look at- my neighbors went for over 100k, same size, but he installed granite, stainless steel appliances, etc. In the towns I could go to law school there are, in all of them, 3-4 bedroom condos/townhomes with 2-4 bathrooms running 150-200k. My credit is far better than then and I qualify for loans at the local credit union @ about 2.7%. I have been running the numbers and if I sell (after commission netting conservatively, very conservatively about 22000) and put down 30k I would be looking at about 1k a month- versus the 750 I pay now. If I rented out the extra rooms I could be living basically for free. I really want to start making a decision now on what to do so I can get officially approved. Whichever school I go to the towns are roughly similar in price and the like. But I could also just keep my existing condo and rent it- after the property management fees I would probably lose about 25 or 50 bucks but at the same time it would all go into, or rather a lot would go into, equity. Said equity, upon graduating, could be used to help pay off my loans quick. If I decided to just rent at any school the rates range from about 400-1000 depending on the amount of roommates and quality of housing. Thank you for your time to anyone who reads! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:55 PM PDT I apologize in advance if this post is all over the place. I'm just including anything that I think could be relevant. For context, 21M. I'll be earning my Associate's degree in Engineering come December from my local community college. I was pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, but ran out of money half way through. I haven't had to take out any student loans thus far, but if I did, they would not be enough to support my remaining 2-3 years. I have a car which runs but not very well, and $1700 in the bank. I have a medical condition which prevents me from getting a job which requires too much strenuous activity, so my list of potential entry-level jobs is limited. It also prevents me from joining the military. I've applied for a few dozen engineering and comp sci internships, but it seems most of them are looking for students in their third or fourth year pursuing a bachelor's degree. I've found myself not meeting most of the listings' requirements. If I do get kicked out, I have some friends who I could stay with in CA, but I'm on the east coast, and I'm not sure I'd trust my car to make it there. Should I keep applying for internships hoping one of them accepts? Should I just try to have student loans and scholarships push me through finishing my bachelor's degree? Thanks for reading [link] [comments]  |
| Opened A Second Checking Account | Is It A Mistake? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:27 PM PDT Hello everyone! I currently do all of my checking with Chase, hold my Roth IRA with Vanguard, and my Savings/CC with Discover. I recently opened a checking account with Charles Schwab (with the attached brokerage) because I heard it was great, and I was going to invest some spare cash from online surveys into the brokerage, which I now think I could've just used Robinhood or Chase-YouInvest for. My question is, is there any penalty to leaving this account open with just a couple bucks in it even if I do most of my banking with Chase, as a "spare" I can "flee" to at any time, or use the debit card overseas (if I ever travel that is) Also, the $100 bonus requires you to keep $1000 in the account for one year, something I was not aware of so that may be something to keep in mind with Schwab. I'm not sure if it's worth it to tie down $1000 into that account for that long. Unless I switch fully away from Chase. So, as a summary: -What are your thoughts on the two institutions? -Do I need two checking accounts if I'm not really going to use one often, did I make a mistake in opening it? -Should I take advantage of the $100 bonus and in doing so tie down 1k that could go to my roth or somewhere else instead? -Is there any other information I should consider? Am I worrying too much about something that doesn't really matter to begin with? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Managing a budget and tracking expenses Posted: 19 Oct 2020 08:45 AM PDT My wife and I have a hard time managing a budget. I feel that we're in a pretty good place financially, and also manage to save. My wife feels less like that. If we face a certain expense - fixed or one-time, and it usually goes like this: My wife: We have no money for this How do we know we're in good shape and how should we approach spending? We are still a young couple (with a child) and do not know how much to put aside and how much can be spent ... Also, regarding expense tracking: there was a time when every dollar we spent was manually put into an expense tracking app. At some point it was too annoying for me. I did not fully understand the purpose and thought that it might be enough using an app that does this automatically from our cards. I would like to know what you think and how you manage your family budget. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| If I used my HSA for something not medical-related, how do they find out? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:44 PM PDT I just recently decided to max out my HSA but I wanted to understand how it works. I've read that if you erroneously charge your HSA for something that is not eligible, you have to report it on a tax form. So how does this work - do we have to keep track of all our spending even if we used HSA funds on medically-necessary items/services? I guess I'm paranoid that I'll no way of finding out whether I've been penalized for something or not. I'm very new to this and still learning so wanted to know if anyone had any experience with that. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Stay with my current employer or make a move? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:11 AM PDT I have an opportunity to make a significantly higher salary with bonuses that could exceed my current employer's ability to pay me. The issue is that I love the people I work with and the work we do. The additional pay would be a big help but my current employer has offered to match the proposed compensation. My fear is that during these economic times, the the new employer (while generally speaking is very well managed and solvent) would be less stable than my current employer. Am I nuts for taking this new opportunity with the economic risk instead of staying put? [link] [comments]  |
| Capital one upgrade card, should I do it? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 11:02 AM PDT Hello everyone! I'm VERY new to credit score and trying to learn how to keep my pretty good credit score (747) for 2 years. Capitol one sent me an email saying I'm pre approved to a card upgrade to 1.5% cash back. I currently only have two credit cards. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to go for the card upgrade. Will this ding me and lower my credit score temporarily? I already have 3 inquires and I don't want to risk getting a 4th one because of the card upgrade. Do you have any suggestions or any insight of this? TYIA [link] [comments]  |
| Bank of America closed my checking account. What kind of follow up is needed? Credit Impact? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:20 PM PDT I recently opened a checking account with Bank of America in order to take advantage of a checking bonus opportunity. I was approved for the account initially. A few days later I get an email that action is required, and it turns out that BoA closed my account because they could not verify my identity. I know a soft credit pull was done (I declined overdraft coverage so no hard pull). I asked for confirmation that my account was closed and they could not provide an email or anything. They said that if I don't wish to reopen and account with them, no further action is needed. Can anyone confirm that no further action is needed? Is there any kind of credit impact on an account being closed so quickly or that they thought it was fraudulent? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 07:28 PM PDT 6k max per year. The typical 3 funds recommended each have a 3k requirement...so i guess I'll just ignore bonds this year? Any other tips? Feel like I've gotten a late start; I'm willing to take on some risk. -Age 29. Researched extensively on whether to go mutual funds or ETFs. Really wasn't swayed either direction. [link] [comments]  |
| Joint Bank Account - Should we open a new account? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 07:25 PM PDT My wife and I just got married and we want to open a joint bank account. The thing is, we both have run-of-the-mill bank accounts through Wells Fargo and a local bank. We are fine having separate accounts, but we're thinking we can do something smart with our money to put a large amount into a savings account that actually accrues interest instead of a measly .2% or so. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 07:18 PM PDT I grew up in a pretty fortunate environment. But I'm starting to realize that I'm not thankful enough, i don't feel it. I realize now that I'm older I don't "respect" or "value" money. I took a little trip and I realize that people were struggling for 8 dollars. But I waste 20 dollars on random things. Now that I'm trying to be independent how can I break out of this mindset? [link] [comments]  |
| Credit Card Fraud - Identified Fraudster - Steps to take?? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:24 AM PDT I noticed a $0.01 authorization charge on my credit card with an online retailer I've never used (or heard of). This was immediately followed up by a couple hundred dollar charge. I immediately canceled my card with the issuer. However, I also called the retailer to ensure the order was canceled with them. They looked up the order and actually gave me the full name and address of the person who placed the order. I Googled the information and it appears to be a real person in the correct location. What steps, if any, should be taken to handle this correctly?? [link] [comments]  |
| Is the Discover It Cash Back card a good starter card? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:54 PM PDT I have never had a credit card before and applied for one without a whole lot of knowledge/research on it (kicking myself for this!). I got the Discover It Cash Back card as my first credit card and was wondering if I should keep it or if it's worth it to close it and open a student cash back card. I heard it's a credit card for people with established, good credit scores but I obviously don't have that as a first time credit card user. Any advice would be appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Several months late on notifying bank of mother’s passing....how bad will this be? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 02:40 PM PDT I'll make this post brief and to the point 👍 My widowed mother passed away in April. She had set up a revocable trust, naming my sister as the successor trustee. Fast forward six months later: we are selling the house and we close/settle tomorrow. The check/wire transfer has to be made out to a trust account (obviously), so my sister decided to have them send a wire transfer to my mother's bank account (she and my mother notified the bank after creating the trust with the attorney, so the account is the "SoAndSo Revocable Trust" account). Here's the problem: when making this decision, she realized that she never notified the bank of my mom's passing. She notified the pension/retirement benefits accounts, my dad's life insurance account which was paying my mom monthly, health insurance, utilities, etc etc...but not the bank.
She called me freaking out over this, because you're obviously supposed to let the bank know when someone is deceased. I said "well, we'll probably be okay because once you notified Social Security, they probably notified the bank." crickets. She didn't notify Social Security. Jesus Christ.
So now we're in a position where we're about to close on a house tomorrow, and not only has she not notified the bank (where the account is about to receive a large wire transfer), but she also hasn't notified SSA - which presumably means that there are six months of social security deposits that have been wrongfully deposited into the account. Fuck.
My questions:
I realize I'm just asking people to speculate here...I'm just curious what everyone's thoughts are. Either way, I imagine we will find out tomorrow - when a large sum of money is wired to my mother's trust account (to then be distributed).
What a fucked situation this (seems like it likely) is. It's out of my control, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pretty damn concerned about the prospect of the house funds being tied up for some ridiculous period of time due to this. Any thoughts would be appreciated [link] [comments]  |
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