Personal Finance Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of January 01, 2021 |
- Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of January 01, 2021
- My $200 mistake
- Roth401k seems vastly superior, am I missing something?
- Happy IRA Funding Day!
- Here is how to find out how much you spent on Amazon this year
- Year after year, my bank massively overcharges my escrow account.
- Tracking Every Dollar in 2020
- I am 25 years old. Live by myself and need to decide on buying a vehicle.
- Every day expenses for a year - family of two, one income, HCOL area.
- Charged a cancellation fee at a barber, can I dispute it?
- I'm 40yo and pretty lost.
- Tracking Every Penny in 2020
- Do stipends count towards Medicaid? (possible overpayment - very anxious and scared)
- Building from nothing
- I have twins on the way this March. Should I adjust my withholdings now?
- Jan. 1, Contributed to Roth but will likely be ineligible
- Ready to pay collections. Where do I start? Pay for delete? Payment plan? Clueless
- Debt collector screwing with my account?
- Out $1300 over Elective Procedure, COBRA
- Can someone help me understand the Recovery Rebate Credit for the US economic impact payment?
- Can you use Amazon's credit card to buy gift cards. for other retailers, and still get 5%
- When to invest in Roth IRA?
- What to do with Mortgage Down Payment Savings
- Save or pay off card
| Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of January 01, 2021 Posted: 01 Jan 2021 01:00 PM PST 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]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 03:26 PM PST I financed a Trek bicycle at zero interest in November of 2019. I let the zero interest promotion period pass with a balance still on the account of $110, thinking I'd just have to pay interest on that. No. It's DEFERRED interest and now I owe them just under $200 in interest. Why did this happen? I was lazy about reading my emails and statements. It was clearly marked in my November statement, and I'm sure I saw an email about it and just deleted it. Read your statements. Read your emails. Learn from my mistake. [link] [comments]  |
| Roth401k seems vastly superior, am I missing something? Posted: 01 Jan 2021 05:53 AM PST Hi everyone, hoping you can help clarify the "traditional 401k or Roth 401k" question for me. 30 years old- 100k salary.
In 40 years when I am 70, that 20k will roughly double 4 times based on a 7% rate of return, and
What am I missing? If I do Roth, I pay 6k, If I do traditional, I pay 10k. Thank you! Edit: Thanks everyone for the excellent info! One thing to consider is i probably would NOT invest the 6k i save every year as that would be added to my emergency fund or for family vacations, so by not investing the savings I think that skews towards ROTH being a little better. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 11:22 AM PST We have entered a new year. For us sickos that get exited by funding our IRA and For you normal people who might need a friendly reminder. TODAY IS THE DAY! [link] [comments]  |
| Here is how to find out how much you spent on Amazon this year Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:28 PM PST Here is the link to access these reports from Amazon. It creates a spreadsheet you can download. A few caveats:
Hope this is helpful to someone! Here is a link to the step by step instructions thanks to /u/slammedtgs [link] [comments]  |
| Year after year, my bank massively overcharges my escrow account. Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:45 PM PST Hello, I was referred to this sub via r/legaladvice. Any help or advice is appreciated. New Hampshire, USA This is a bit of a long story, so, sorry ahead of time and thanks to any and all who stick with me. I own a single piece of land with a home, that is actually split between two different towns. As such, I owe taxes to both towns. The land is NOT equally divided. Let's say 95% of my land is in one town and only 5% in the other (that's just a guess.) So, I owe $3,000.00 twice a year to one town, and only $150.00 twice a year to the other. Every year, like clockwork, my mortgage absolutely skyrockets because my bank mistakenly believes I owe the $3,000.00 to both towns. Essentially doubling my escrow. Whereas my escrow account should be at about $6,300.00 yearly, it's now at $12,000.00. Getting them to correct this issue is normally like pulling teeth, but this year is different, it would seem. They are claiming they actually paid $3,000.00 to both towns last year, which is false. I've contacted the town in which I owe $300.00 to, and they confirm that is exactly what was paid (not thousands of dollars as my bank claims.) I am unable to eliminate the escrow account because of PMI and I am not over 20% equity. A brief search of this company shows many, many people have issues with them and you tend to see the word "fraud" thrown around a lot. I'm scared. I don't have the money to pay what they're telling me I have to. Can they just make my mortgage whatever they want? Do I have to pay what I don't owe? What can I do? All attempts to explain this to them is met with a robot-like response claiming I'm incorrect. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:13 PM PST Long-time r/personalfinance lurker... 32M with spouse and toddler - after many years of making money choices with "How it felt" and not really understanding where every dollar was going, I took the time to track all our accounts in 2020 and aggregate into a single spreadsheet to manage and thought I'd share. Here's a quick % breakdown of where our money went: What I learned: [link] [comments]  |
| I am 25 years old. Live by myself and need to decide on buying a vehicle. Posted: 01 Jan 2021 05:32 AM PST I'm a new graduate and have been living on my own for almost 6 months. I make about 53k a year as a new grad RN. I got into an accident about 3 weeks ago and I only had liability insurance. (Pretty poor until recently). I was quoted 2,000 to fix my 2012 Ford Focus with 160,000 miles on it. It's worth about 3,500 at the most and I'm really unsure if I should fix it.
Edit: one detail I didn't mention was that I have about 2 and a half months to save before I need to buy a new car. I'm borrowing one for the time being Edit 2: I really appreciate the perspectives!! Thank you all!
Edit 3: finishing up a shift so I'll start responding more [link] [comments]  |
| Every day expenses for a year - family of two, one income, HCOL area. Posted: 01 Jan 2021 11:51 AM PST Hi all, I just finished out 2020 budget summary and wanted to share. I'm proud of how much we've saved this year. All numbers are net income. Link to the sheet https://imgur.com/xgII5HW Link to a pie chart https://imgur.com/dPWhn6m [link] [comments]  |
| Charged a cancellation fee at a barber, can I dispute it? Posted: 01 Jan 2021 06:29 PM PST So I had an appointment at a barber for 6 yesterday in the northern Illinois area. I went right after work and made it there around 5:50. Someone was already in the chair which made sense since I stil had some time. But I noticed other people waiting and asked one of them if they were waiting. He told me that he was next and someone else was after him. So i asked when he scheduled his appointment and he sid he scheduled it for 5. At this point, I know my wait time will be around 90 minutes since there were two people ahead of me and another guy still in the chair. I'm ok waiting 15 to 20 minutes if things are running behind, but over an hour behind? That just seems like poor time management. So I call the shop owner from my car and tell him I need to cancel, the only issue is that the appointment was made through booksy. So if you cancel, it charges a fee of $20. I called to see if he could reschedule me and he gets mad at this point telling me that no one has this issue of waiting over an hour, people dont cancel and how he could have given my spot to a different client. Of course no one wants to cancel, its $20 just to not get service, and I even tell him, my spot of 6 - 6:30 will not be met since I didn't recieve the service in a timely manner. So he goes on to say, just becuase I have a spot at a certain time, doesn't mean I'll get seen at that time and any good barber takes their time and will have a wait. I've had barbers I've had to wait for, usually 15 minutes at most, and if I'm not getting seen at the time I scheduled, thats just poor time management. So I want to know if I have a good chance at disputing the charge based on the fact that I did not recieve timely service within 6 - 6:30. I feel if anyone ordered a pizza and it was 90 minutes late, you'd probably want to cancel it and eat something else or at least call the restraunt. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 12:32 PM PST So I'm 40yo, with a 13yo daughter who I have custody of and I make about 80k a year. I rent a home, I have no savings, about 10k of credit card debt, no real retirement saved, and no real idea how to get headed in the right direction. I pretty much just get my paycheck, pay bills, then just use whatever I have left for groceries, entertainment, etc, with no real plan or direction, and frankly, I'm kind of scared of my future. Where should I start, to get moving in the right direction? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 06:37 PM PST Thank you u/STravSCU for the idea! I also tracked every penny that I spent in 2020. I'm a single 26 yo M, working in NYC and living with 2 other roommates in Jersey City, NJ. I used Google Sheets to do this. Every month had a tab and each tab included 6 categories - (Savings, Subscriptions, Miscellaneous, Housing, Groceries, and Transportation). At the end of the year, I made an "Annual Expenses" tab and calculated how much I made after taxes and how much I spent. I'm writing this #1 because I'm very proud and #2 to share what I've learned with others. Here is the break down: Savings: 60.6% (This does not include a 6% contribution to a 401k account with my work. This does include funding a 6 month emergency fund and $6,000 invested in a ROTH IRA act. The rest is going toward a house downpayment and is sitting in a high yield savings act. The ROTH is invested in domestic, international, and US bond index funds.) Subscriptions: 1.6% (Includes phone bill, Amazon Prime, gym membership, Spotify, Disney+, etc.) Miscellaneous: 9.4% Housing: 16.6% (Includes rent, parking, gas and electricity) Groceries: 5.3% (Costco, Costco, Costco) Transportation: 6.0% (Included transmission replacement) The obsession with P.F. started this year and the learning is ongoing. Thank you Dave Ramsey & Team and Graham Stephan. I hope someone reading this will gain some inspiration. If you have any questions or have any feedback or pointers, I'm all ears. Thanks, ya'll. [link] [comments]  |
| Do stipends count towards Medicaid? (possible overpayment - very anxious and scared) Posted: 01 Jan 2021 07:10 PM PST Earlier this year my future job gave me a $16,000 stipend a few months before I was supposed to start working. Due to Corona, they pushed back my start date to 2021. I then filed for Medicaid. I reported my monthly income as $0, which it was, and my yearly income as $0 because I had not worked. In September, my job sent another stipend of $4k to help us through the fall and winter (so if stipends count as income, there will have been 1 month when I did not qualify based on monthly income). I also received unemployment benefits from June-December, which I did update them on because I was made aware that they count as income (with the stipends plus the overall unemployment, I've gotten $30,000 this year total). It only came into my head right now (I know, I'm an idiot) that those one-time stipends may have counted as income and made me ineligible for Medicaid. Would they count the $16k for Medicaid since I was given that before I filed? As for the $4k, would they just make me pay back the benefits I used for that month? Will I go to jail? Can someone help me with what to do? I plan to call the office on Monday to tell them what is going on but I'm going to be an anxious mess until then. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 06:56 PM PST Welp. I have not used my reddit other than passive reading for some time. At a moment of desperation, I am reaching out here. 28 year old female who has a job but still cannot make ends meet. I either eat or I pay rent. Any advice for trying to work and save up while living paycheck to paycheck? Or passive income? Feeling pretty hopeless at this point. I want to save but all my money goes to medical expenses or rent and living. I dont go out, I don't hang out, I don't have vices I waste money on, I don't have a partner, its just me. How do I make a change when I have nothing? My food is instant style because I have one pot and no knives for now. How do I build on this?? Any budget tips that saved you? I realize this will be a slow process but I'm not sure where to start. [link] [comments]  |
| I have twins on the way this March. Should I adjust my withholdings now? Posted: 01 Jan 2021 08:10 PM PST Hey, title pretty much covers it. I'm married and me and my wife both work. We each claim 1 withholding. We have twins on the way in March. The plan is for the wife to take a year off work to raise the children. Should I adjust my withholdings now? Wait until the twins are born first? My plan was to enter 5. [link] [comments]  |
| Jan. 1, Contributed to Roth but will likely be ineligible Posted: 01 Jan 2021 03:27 PM PST Looking for some advice to remedy this dumb mistake in the best way possible. Today, I mindlessly made contributions for 2021 to my and my wife's Roth IRA's. I realized in the afternoon that because of raises we will likely be above the MAGI threshold to contribute. I know that I should've just done a backdoor Roth, and I had even thought to myself to remember to do that when Jan 1 hit. Is there any way I can remedy this and end up doing the backdoor Roth like I planned? I know that once Roth balance is withdrawn it can't be "re-contributed," but could I convert back and forth to a traditional IRA or something along those lines? [link] [comments]  |
| Ready to pay collections. Where do I start? Pay for delete? Payment plan? Clueless Posted: 01 Jan 2021 07:58 PM PST I'm a 23 year old with a 2 year old collection for $1,500 from a community college. It was a rough time in my life, I dropped out and just ignored my responsibilities. I messed up, I know. I've ignored all the calls and everything, but I'm ready to tackle this. I work full time but with all my bills I don't have enough money to pay it in full. I've been reading about collections and pay for deletes on Reddit, but it all seems like so much. I just don't know where to start. Is it possible that I could get a payment plan and do pay for delete? My credit is sitting around a 580 now, but I need to get it up more so I can refinance my car. Any advice is appreciated! EDIT: should I dispute this charge/ask them to validate the debt first, even if I know I owe it? [link] [comments]  |
| Debt collector screwing with my account? Posted: 01 Jan 2021 07:56 PM PST I won't bore you with the intracicy of my pathetic credit however it's mostly debt collections and prior to the financial disaster that this ever evolving virus has carried with it, I was working to pay them down. My strategy has always been to just ignore them until I one day decide to call and settle with them. This may or may not be now I handle most problems in my life but that's between me and my therapist ANYWAYS I have some medical debt from a few years ago. Maybe 5 or so. The debt was placed for collections to an agency, Phoenix Financial Services. Off the top of my head, I would say that this debt has been reported for 2 years give it take 6 months. It was recently, maybe 2 or 3 months ago, removed from my credit report. Today I get a notification that a new collections account was reported and what do you know, it's the same company, same amount, same original creditor but with a shiny new date of 12/30. Can they do this? I've never seen it, I would understand maybe if the debt was sold to another collections agency but I feel like if that was the case then the rules surrounding time on credit reports would be obsolete? Thanks in advance, if I need to provide more detail let me know. [link] [comments]  |
| Out $1300 over Elective Procedure, COBRA Posted: 01 Jan 2021 07:48 PM PST After being part of the "furlough wave" in the airline industry on October 1, I elected for COBRA to continue my health insurance because 1.) I was in the middle of an active medical condition, and 2.) the health insurance was excellent ($15 copay for a $17k procedure in June). However, since health insurance is immediately cancelled on the date of loss of employment (Oct 1), and since I didn't receive paperwork to even make COBRA elections until Oct 19, there is no way for my insurance to be verified in the mean time. Since I had time on my hands (thanks to the furlough), and was eager to not delay care for my medical condition (especially when I'm paying for health insurance after all), I opted to get a screening procedure out of the way while in the "COBRA gap". Since my insurance showed inactive to the doctor's office, I was told I had to cancel the procedure until it could be verified. Knowing verification could take another few weeks and that I was already paying full priced COBRA premiums for October, I thought I should be able to receive treatment without delay. The doctor's office offered an "uninsured" price for the procedure of $1300. I contacted insurance (Anthem BCBS) and asked if I could file a claim for this procedure once it was retroactively activated. They said yes I could and I went ahead with the procedure. Fast forward to the first week of November and COBRA "kicks in", now it's evident to everyone I was covered from October 1 to present. I went ahead to file the claim and Anthem said claims were required to be filed by the doctor's office when in network. So I asked the doctor's office to resubmit the claim and they said it's against their policy to submit a claim when a patient opts for the "uninsured" payment, which was not disclosed to me prior to the procedure even after explaining the COBRA situation. So now I'm in limbo between Anthem and the doctor's when I paid $1300 for something that should have been $15 while paying $800/month for COBRA premiums. (The employer paid 75% of the premium, I would have gotten a cheaper option if I wasn't in the middle of a health issue). Anyone have similar scenarios? I know there is a state insurance board but honestly I don't see what the problem would be for the doctor's office to just resubmit the claim (against their policy) and have Anthem pay their contract rate for it. I've contacted Anthem several times about this, and no one will elevate it to plan administrators/case managers even though I've asked directly for them. tl;dr got an elective in network procedure during the "COBRA gap", provider won't resubmit the claim, insurance won't let me submit the claim myself, and I'm out $1.3k after paying a ton in premiums. [link] [comments]  |
| Can someone help me understand the Recovery Rebate Credit for the US economic impact payment? Posted: 01 Jan 2021 05:42 PM PST I never received my first stimulus check even though I know I was eligible for it AND I got my tax refund direct deposited both this year and last year I went to check the Get My Payment website today for the first time in months and there is a notice about the Recovery Rebate Credit. As someone who is not financially or legally literate, I do not understand what they said or their instructions. Can someone help eli5? [link] [comments]  |
| Can you use Amazon's credit card to buy gift cards. for other retailers, and still get 5% Posted: 01 Jan 2021 07:15 PM PST Basically the title. For example, can I use Amazon's credit card to buy Apple Store gift cards and still get 5% back? Amazon sells Apple Store gift cards, so if this works this beats the Apple card's 3% cash back. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 01:09 PM PST Hello! I apologize if this question is very simple. I have $6k I'd like to put in a Roth IRA for 2021. Should I put all $6k in today, despite having high returns right now, or wait until the market drops? I know that generally the advice is time in the market is greater than timing the market, but as long as I invest in 2021, wouldn't trying to invest in a time where the market is lower make more sense? EDIT: I'm going to invest it today as a lump sum. Thanks for your advice! [link] [comments]  |
| What to do with Mortgage Down Payment Savings Posted: 01 Jan 2021 06:54 PM PST Happy New Year everyone! So I currently have about $45,000 in a savings account (currently about .50% APY) that is been saving for a down payment on my home this year. Plans have changed and it's looking like I won't be buying a house for about 5 more years now. I max my 401K/Roth annually and have no debt elsewhere so there isn't anything else to really pay off or to use this money for. Question is: Would it be recommended to leave this money in the savings account and continue stashing cash away here (My expected 20% down payment will be about $60-70K) at a lower amount each month or taking the current cash and future investments and investing it elsewhere? If elsewhere, what recommendations would there be for an account that I'd be able to access without penalty in approx 5 years that would make more in interest than I make now? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2021 05:14 PM PST Got my $600 stimulus check. I'm wondering if I should use it to save for the future or should I pay off a credit card in full that's currently maxed out at $500? I'm using YNAB and have started to save and have about $500 saved up already and I don't know if I should keep the $600 and keep making the payments I have planned for this card over the next year or just pay it off so it's done. [link] [comments]  |
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