Personal Finance Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of June 18, 2021 |
- Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of June 18, 2021
- Scam with Bank of America, Zelle and Chase
- Credit Score 487, Accounts Closed, Single mom no job.
- Always check you Pay stubs... Lesson I am learning the hard way
- Is 1200/month too much to spend on rent if you make 59k/year pre-taxes?
- Can we talk pools? Specifically, putting one in, paying for it, etc.
- When can I spend some money?
- Offered more on a house than intended
- Crazy used car prices!
- Living on my own for the first time, how much can I afford?
- Overwhelming debt, have no idea what my next step should be
- How can the fed possibly say inflation will be 3.4% this year when we’re almost past that in the first 5 months?
- When is the best time to buy into index funds and etfs?
- Regretting decision
- Getting Paid Under the Table
- Child tax credit advances
- Rhode Island Makes Financial Literacy A Required Class For All High School Students
- I keep getting fraudulent charges even after bank blocked the merchant
- If employer changes vesting do they vest past contributions?
- Uber is refusing to refund me despite them screwing up orders multiple times. What are my options?
- Should I buy a car in Seattle just for my hobbies (not commuting)?
- Online banking and delayed checks from the bank.
- Scam alert- DirectTV called offering a new promotion
- Car Dealership Question
- How to play credit card game
| Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of June 18, 2021 Posted: 18 Jun 2021 02:00 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]  |
| Scam with Bank of America, Zelle and Chase Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:07 PM PDT So I wanted to write about a scam I *almost* fell for recently. I haven't seen anything else out there about it. I don't consider myself gullible and these people were prepared for savvy folks. The other day, I received a text message purporting to be from Bank of America, warning me that someone tried to send $3.5k to someone using Zelle. I was asked to respond YES if valid and NO if not. I of course have not authorized such, so I said NO. I then received a call that appeared to be from Bank of America (it was the same number as on the website and the back of my debit card). They gave me their name and employee ID, and MOST IMPORTANTLY- THEY NEVER ASKED ME TO SHARE ANY PERSONAL INFO. However, the $3.5k transaction didn't show up in the records on my side. It was the steps they asked me to go through that made me suspicious. They wanted me to send money to myself to "refund" the money that was supposedly "stolen". They first told me that since Zelle is third-party, they couldn't stop the transaction directly. They then asked me to send myself two $$ transfers to get my refund- one for $2.5k and one for $1k. They also had me give them a code that came from an email- supposedly from Chase bank as they were the bank the "stolen" funds were sent to. I didn't give the correct code just in case, but after looking at the email details (sender etc) I don't think it came from Chase at all. I was suspicious at this point and made a comment about how it won't let me do that because I didn't even have that much in that account. They then said that they'd do a refund for the $2.5k from their end, but I still needed to do the $1k transfer to get all my money back. I said that didn't make sense- if they could refund part from their end they should be able to do all. He couldn't give a logical answer. At that point I hung up and called Bank of America directly. The lady said that BOA texts only come from short-text-codes and they don't call after that. If I say no, a transaction is simply denied and there's no reason to call me. (?? I'm not sure about that). She confirmed that his ID number was false and so was the procedure he tried to get me to complete. I'm not sure how the scam would have worked exactly if I had sent those transfers. I assume they were trying to set up another Zelle account with my email address, that would have collected the money I would have thought I was sending to myself? I'm not sure. On my bank I used my phone number for zelle, not my email, but they clearly have both. But they were good. They didn't ask for personal info, they spoofed the bank number and made up employee numbers. They were careful to be ready for savvy people who ask questions. They didn't expect me to hang up and actually call the bank, since it looked like they were calling from the bank. While I was talking to the bank lady, they were trying to call me back. They tried a few times the next day too. Be careful out there y'all. If anyone calls "from your bank", hang up and call the bank directly right away. I did post this at r/scams but I thought I'd ask here too, thinking someone might have more insight into how his scam would work. If you know, please enlighten me. Since I don't know how the scam works, I don't know if I've covered all my bases Learned:
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| Credit Score 487, Accounts Closed, Single mom no job. Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:21 PM PDT Hi there, please be sure to read through this post before being judgmental or responding. I will try my best to give all the information I can. Basically, Right when Covid hit I was Pregnant with my second child. From December of 2019-May of 2020 I could not work due to pregnancy complications. I then had horrible complications that landed me in and out of the hospital afterwards. I also have back problems (scoliosis) and well as diagnosed OCD and Bipolar 2. I've never recieve any type of disability or unemployment. I went back to work briefly this past holiday season but hours were low and I could barely afford to save anything with childcare. Two of my bank accounts have been closed for being past due and I have multiple financial accounts in collections, mostly medical. I'd really like to start improving my financial situation. I job hunt every day and am hoping to find something soon. In the mean time, does anyone know of any relief programs I can sign up for or basically anything that might aid me in my journey to healing my financial situation? Do I call my banks? Do I call the debt collectors back even though I can't pay anything right now? Am I just screwed until I get a job? For those wondering how I have been surviving, I stay at home with my two kids while my boyfriend (their dad) has been working and recieving unemployment. Obviously one income is not enough for me to work on paying off my debts. We live at my mom's and she gives us a great deal on rent in exchange for claiming me on taxes. She's claimed me in 2020 so I'm not sure what kind of relief I can qualify for. Thank you in advance for all responses. [link] [comments]  |
| Always check you Pay stubs... Lesson I am learning the hard way Posted: 18 Jun 2021 07:29 AM PDT So I work for a company that have a PTO policy that basically states after X years of service you get moved to the next branch and get an additional week of PTO I am someone that never really takes large PTO so I just saw the balance go up and just assumed it would accrue correctly Recently I started looking at my pay stubs in more detail and I just noticed that I was eligible for an additional week of PTO for the last two years but my accrual was still the base accrual... I basically missed out of 80 hours of PTO... Not sure if I have any recourse can I basically ask for Back pay since per my employee agreement that I should be getting the additional week of PTO or is that just lost money at this point? I have reached out to my HR but not sure what rights I have should I basically ask that the company go back and figure out how much PTO I am due? And does the company have to give that to me even though its been two years? [PSA] So I am learning the hard way that its always important to check you pay stubs for everything deductions / 401k match / PTO accrual. Don't just blindly trust the accounting to get everything right... Also throwaway account because I am paranoid TLDR: I was eligible to get additional 40 hours of PTO per year but never checked my stubs to see it was actually happening I caught it 1 year later like an idiot... Edit: Update - talked with HR realized that last year because of COVID we had put a halt of PTO accrual and in reality the total is only 20 hours so its not 2 -weeks of pay so I feel a little better. Basically they said they will look into the numbers but it should be no problem getting it added to my PTO balance on my next paystub... lesson learned check you pay stub for every detail just because the total is still the same doesn't mean you are missing out of (PTO / Employee 401k match, etc... [link] [comments]  |
| Is 1200/month too much to spend on rent if you make 59k/year pre-taxes? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 05:21 PM PDT Hello! I am starting a first full-time job in a few months and trying to figure out how much to spend on rent. My annual salary pre-taxes is 59k, or 43.747k post-taxes. That is a monthly take-home pay of $3,646 post-taxes. A studio near my workplace costs around 1200-1400/month including utilities. Would this be a good option, or should I be spending less than that on rent? 1200/month is 33.6% of post-tax income, 24.4$ of pre-tax. (Not sure if the 30% rule of thumb is for pre or post tax income...) 1400/month is 38.4% of post-tax income, 28.4% of pre-tax. I will not have car or transport fees (my public transport is reimbursed). I do not have any debt. I will have more medical costs than average but nothing too crazy. I'd like to be able to splurge for takeout and things without stressing too much. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Can we talk pools? Specifically, putting one in, paying for it, etc. Posted: 18 Jun 2021 10:59 AM PDT My wife wants a pool. Badly. She'd probably say it's her #1 desire at our house. I struggle with the idea of one because I'm cheap. I'm enlisting PF'ers to help add some clarity to the debate. Background info:
Now that we have that out of the way...
So, now my questions.
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| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 06:57 PM PDT I hope this doesn't sound like a ridiculous question, but at what point is it considered okay to spend money on something you want? A lot of the information I've learned here talks about how to save for the future, but I haven't seen anything about when it's considered okay to spend some of your income. For reference I'm 30 years old, I have a savings account/emergency fund, I'm maxing out my 401k, have a brokerage account, and going to open a ROTH IRA next week. With all of this in place, what is considered "acceptable" to spend on various things I want? I know this heavily depends on someones income of course. I'm curious if anyone has any percentage they follow for this type of thing, or maybe just general advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Offered more on a house than intended Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:39 PM PDT Hey guys, I'm buying my first house, currently comparing lenders, already under contract. Reviewing some paperwork, I noticed the House Cost was asking price, $210K. I specifically asked my realtor to offer $195K, and allow it to go up to asking if there were competing offers. All this was verbal, the only text evidence is her confirming the high $210 threshold, not the starting bid. I signed offer paperwork with asking price on it, my bad, I didn't read the documents covering the largest financial endeavor of my life so far, I messed up big. I saw the price and assumed that was the worst case scenario, not the offer on the table. The current owners have accepted my offer at asking price and moved out. Am I SOL? It's late, I plan on talking to my realtor first thing tomorrow. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 01:25 PM PDT This is getting really insane! About 2.5 years ago I bought a used Toyota Highlander (2018) XLE (nicest car I've ever owned, leather seats, push button ignition, adaptive cruise control, one step down from their "Limited" highest end version) for $30K after playing some hardball (walking out and waiting for them to call back). This was from a GMC dealer. Today I get an e-mail from the SAME place I bought it (clearly I'm still in their database) offering to pay me $6K OVER Kelly Blue Book value:
KBB value is currently $800 OVER what I paid for it! I know they'd work some shenanigans to get it down some, but that's still ridiculous. Granted, I'm not tempted, since I'd still need to replace it with *another* car with it's price inflated, but man, if you've got a spare car in decent shape you don't need, now's the time to sell it! [link] [comments]  |
| Living on my own for the first time, how much can I afford? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 04:17 PM PDT Hey guys, I am moving out from my parent's place and found a job in Chattanooga TN making around $2350 a month after taxes. I will be living on my own for the first time. The average rent for a decent (A place W/O cockroaches, mold, bad landlords etc) 1 bed/studio in Chattanooga is around $900-1000 per month. I do not know anyone there to be roommates with and I don't like the idea of having a stranger as a roommate. These are my predicted expenses: Food: $400 Car: $200 Student loan: $230 Utilities: $200 Is this manageable? I'm very stressed, thanks in advance. Edit: I have been saving my whole life and have around $20k. I'm working as an EMT so I'll be at the station for eight 24 hours shifts a month with the option of OT. [link] [comments]  |
| Overwhelming debt, have no idea what my next step should be Posted: 18 Jun 2021 06:38 AM PDT We are a family of seven. Two adults, and five children. We were extremely comfortable and had over $50,000 in savings before COVID hit. Perfect credit. Life was good. Once COVID hit, my husband lost his very good job. We immediately went into frugal mode and saved every cent we could, but life had other plans. Two of our children developed health issues, one requiring five days a week of various therapies, we had several home repairs happen, our primary car broke down completely, and the list goes on and on. All while we were still paying all bills on top of my husband frantically searching for a job. I picked up work to help try and float us through, but it didn't cover nearly the amount my husband's job did. It covered groceries and that's about it. A year later we are broke and severely struggling. My husband just started a new job a week ago that pays $70,000 a year. So no paycheck yet, it should hit next week. We have just come out of forbearance for our home and had our monthly payment lowered, so we should be okay there. But utilities have fallen behind (and are at risk of being shut off), credit cards are behind, saving accounts overdrawn, everything is behind. We were hoping to use our tax return ($13,000) to pay down these bills and start fresh/begin saving again with my husbands paychecks, but even though we filed in February, we were told we won't be getting a refund until likely August. We reached out to a local charity to help us with the utility bills (at least with the past due amounts) but I'm not sure what else we can do. Are there any other options for us? With our credit tanking over the last year, we can't get a loan to consolidate debt. Though I'm sure that's the worst option anyway. We literally aren't buying anything right now other than groceries and we can hardly do that right now. We haven't stepped foot in a restaurant in over a year, no events, no shopping, etc. We aren't spending, we are focusing every cent on paying down debts, but it's just one thing after another that prevents us from doing so. We just need some option to help us through the first few months of my husband's new job while we pay down everything. Does something like that exist? Any advice on this situation? ETA- I cannot get a job if my husband is working as someone has to be home with the children, we have no family/friends who could watch the children, and childcare costs here would defeat the purpose of me working entirely. I have been picking up odd jobs online as often as I possibly can. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:46 PM PDT What are your opinions on what inflation going to be this year? Are you scaling back purchases more than usual to save money? We're already at a 2.7% since January and the year isn't halfway finished. Kinda worrisome. [link] [comments]  |
| When is the best time to buy into index funds and etfs? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 07:39 PM PDT I'm trying to invest some money and I'm not sure if I should start now. There's no time like the present but every week the market hits all time highs and then it goes back down. I understand that in the long term it won't matter and would be good to buy in now and if I do dollar cost average I'll be fine. But historically market performs bad in September so I'm not sure if I should wait until then and start buying. I have about 30k invested in index funds, etfs and apple. I do invest $500 every month in roth ira but how much should I buy every month/week (dollar cost average) if I were to invest another 50-60k? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 02:39 PM PDT Recently, I just found out that going to community college for 2 years and a university for the next two, is a great idea. I found this out after paying over 200 dollars for my orientation, aka club and housing application with my moms money. I have gotten a job to pay her that money back but I screwed up. I signed the lease for my university housing and I fear that it's too late to back out. Could I just reverse the situation and do my first two years at a university and my next two at a community college? I'm going back for another 4 years to become a nurse practitioner after that. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 02:20 PM PDT Hi all, So I'm currently working as a nanny. The woman who hired me never asked me how I wanted to get paid, and is paying me under the table. I don't want to "confront" her about this now, as I have no idea how she'll react - it's possible she would fire me or make our relationship uncomfortable. However, I'm planning on quitting before the end of the year, and would be fine talking to her about this afterward. I've always paid taxes on my income and plan to continue doing so. As such, I'm thinking of filing a 4852 (also known as a replacement W2 form). Of course, the first step would be to contact her and ask her if she could make me a W2 (again, I won't be working for her at that time, so that would be fine). I know that it is possible to file as if I'm self-employed, but for various reasons, I'd really prefer not to misrepresent the type of work I'm doing (including the possibility that I could get audited myself). Is this a reasonable idea? Is there any possibility that I might get in trouble? Would there be a better way to go about this? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 05:07 PM PDT Is anyone opting out of these? The way I think I understand it is your child tax credit is getting advanced in the form of monthly payments so come tax time you will not be getting that credit ie might be owing IRS instead of getting your refund. Is that correct? [link] [comments]  |
| Rhode Island Makes Financial Literacy A Required Class For All High School Students Posted: 17 Jun 2021 09:39 AM PDT Bottom Line: The success of teaching students how to manage money and balance their household finances has Rhode Island to pass a bill requiring the class for all high schoolers in the state. Gov. Dan McKee signed the bill into law last Wednesday at Tolman High School. Hopefully more states get with the program. The more people learn young the better...the most powerful tool you can show someone as a financial advisor is a simple interest calculator. Starting early is critical. Saw this on /uplifting news credit tou/salmansyed I thought it belonged here [link] [comments]  |
| I keep getting fraudulent charges even after bank blocked the merchant Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:30 PM PDT I got over ten fraudulent charges from some company named Vodafone, each amounting to $14.14, and about four more charges amounting to $0.42. I looked up the company and it seems to be based in the UK. I keep getting phone calls from the UK (area code 208). I'm not sure it they're related, but the charges were on the same day as the phone calls. I only answered once and it sounded like a scam so I hung up. I already called my bank back and they blocked further transactions from that merchant, but more charges came in just today. I have only ever put my account/card information into three websites (chipotle, enrollment for my job, and venmo). Could the phone calls be related and is there a way to prevent this from happening again? [link] [comments]  |
| If employer changes vesting do they vest past contributions? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 07:49 PM PDT This one is pretty dumb and straight forward. I was hired on with 6 year vesting with 20% starting year two. It was changed to 3 year vesting 100% and 0% before that. I'm less than 3 years and about 80% is vested (from 0% last I checked). Do they vest old contributions before starting a new vesting schedule? Edit: to make it clear, I'm almost 2 years in. So I would have expected 20% vesting if there was no change. [link] [comments]  |
| Uber is refusing to refund me despite them screwing up orders multiple times. What are my options? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 06:22 PM PDT Uber screwed up a $79 order from Benihana, by delivering me someone else's food. I received a full refund. Prior to ordering from Benihana, I ordered from Oromo Cafe for $18.40. That order was someone else's food as well. I received a refund for that. Today, their delivery person left my Chipotle food somewhere else, and Uber is refusing to refund me 28.27, as I used refunds on the other orders. This is unacceptable. I will be using Lyft and Grubhub from now on instead. I suggest you do to. What are my options for getting the money back? I'm definitely considering chargingback, and switching to their competitors. [link] [comments]  |
| Should I buy a car in Seattle just for my hobbies (not commuting)? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 03:07 PM PDT I feel like this is less of a personal finance questions and more of a lifestyle one, but I feel like it's hard for me to justify throwing 30k into a car + all the fees associates with it so maybe personalfinance could help. I'm 24 and I work in tech. I will be moving to Seattle shortly. I haven't owned a car before; previously I was driving family cars and rental cars but more often than not I was using public transportation and cycling. I plan to live within a 30 minute bike ride away from work (in SLU), and I don't want to drive to work. This likely means parking fees I'm guessing to be anywhere between $200-300/mo. I understand that I don't need a car in the city, but the vast majority of my hobbies requires a car. I'm very into hiking/camping/backpacking, watersports (kayak, paddle board), snowboarding, etc. I understand that I could do these activities with friends that have a cars, or just rent cars on weekends where I need them. I also know that there are bus or carpool services to hiking locations and such but following those schedules seem to be a lot of work and planning. Renting a car every weekend would definitely be much cheaper (~$45-60/day with a corporate code). But that requires me to plan any activities in advance, plus the hassle of getting myself to and from the rental car location. Also, after renting a car for two months in another state, I realized I explored a lot more (especially on weekdays) and generally just did more things since it was easy to do so. With all my outdoorsy hobbies, I'd like to purchase a SUV instead of a sedan for better clearance, Another option is that I could try to buy a used sedan for now (where it seems like the used car market is a little bit better compared to an SUV) and then a couple years down the line I could buy an SUV. I don't need the I'm fairly sure that I could afford it, but the cost of the car + parking + insurance + maintenance + gas etc. is difficult for me to justify. Here are my finances if you're interested: Salary: 120k/year + 10% bonus RSU (public company, at current market prices): ~55k/year I currently have saved: Cash/emergency fund: 25k (+ waiting for a 15k tax return) RSU's not sold: 27k Retirement accounts: 60k Currently I've been maxing out my 401k at the beginning of the year and living off savings/RSU's and then putting 30% of my salary after it maxes out into megabackdoor IRA (results in around a net income of 4k/mo on just my salary with 30% taken out). I haven't figured out what my saving goals are yet (e.g. house? How much?) so I haven't saved specifically for anything so my plan was just to cut back on my retirement account saving once I figure that out. I haven't put together a budget for average monthly costs in different spending categories as I was previously in school and then moving around a lot and living in temporary places for the last year so my past spending habits won't be representative of the future. I'm estimating rent to be around $1800-2300/mo for a 1 BR. Should I
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| Online banking and delayed checks from the bank. Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:24 PM PDT For the past few years, I've been trying to get more efficient by scheduling checks to be written by the bank and sent to my kid's daycare. For years 1 and 2 I had two instances where the checks never showed up. Now it seems that checks are either always a week late or don't show up at all. Two major problems here, 1. Late fees. 2. regions will pull the funds out of my account when they're scheduled to be delivered. Even if the check is never delivered. For example. I scheduled a check to be delivered on June 1. I was charged on June 1. The payment is due on the 5th and it's still not arrived. Luckily, I have a good relationship with my local bank and a particular employee has helped A BUNCH. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this AND do you have any recommendations for what I should change to? I've been thinking about moving my funds to an online only company but I'm very happy with the ability to call and speak to a specific person. Thank y'all. [link] [comments]  |
| Scam alert- DirectTV called offering a new promotion Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:33 AM PDT $99 a month for 2 years, premium channels included; but the first three months have to be paid upfront. We were given a number to call the billing department to set it up (by 8pm today). My husband called DirectTV and got routed to their billing department where they confirmed it was a scam. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:20 PM PDT TLDR: I've only owned three cars in my life, and normally drive them until they fall apart. Wife and I are past needing to do that. I want my wife secure and comfortable in a vehicle, but don't have vehicle purchasing experience to know the best purchasing options (how to spend/save money). My wife (53F) and I (55M) wish to run a scenario past the Personal Finance subreddit crew. We find amazing insights here and welcome your thoughts. Apologies in advance if there is a better subreddit on which to post this question. Please redirect me if needed. We're in a position to pay cash for a new or newer used vehicle. We know which vehicle we want and are watching the availability and market closely. We're in no rush to buy. We currently have a vehicle that has APPRECIATED in value by 25% in two years due to the craziness we now live in. If we find the vehicle we'd like to purchase, what would your experienced recommendations be for:
Thanks in advance for any insights! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:05 PM PDT Hi, I have no idea how to play this credit card game and are confused, I have a secured card and have been paying it on time and before it's due date for 16 months and my credit range has not even grown in fact it's dropped, I've used it and then paid the bill but you'd think my credit would have gone up after a while and it simply has not, it's like it's reported when there's high utilization that drops my score then when I pay it off in full it goes up then when i do it again nothing happens. I desperately want to raise my credit and acquired a second card recently but I need desperate help figuring out how to play this game to ensure my score raises and that I'm using the card right [link] [comments]  |
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