Personal Finance Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of September 06, 2021 |
- Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of September 06, 2021
- Middle aged middle class blues [budget]
- Sold our house - what's the smartest thing to do with the profits?
- Applied for FEMA funds and discovered someone had already applied as me. What to do?
- Since Being Paid Weekly, It's Been Much Easier to Manage My Finances
- How do I afford being an adult?
- Laid off, 3 days later they want me back.
- Where’s the best place to hold $25,000 emergency fund?
- Best way to set up a will/accounts in worst case scenario.
- Should I trade in my newer vehicle for a used one to save on monthly expenses?
- 3rd-party ACH (for rent payment)
- Where to put money
- Am I paying too much for rent?
- Got an 'Offer to Purchase for Cash' for a stock I own
- Anyone have experience building a house overtime in "stages"?
- Totaled car with money outstanding on he loan
- Is it worth investing in my job’s 401k if matching isn’t guaranteed?
- Too much emergency?
- Debt, depression and money.
- How to allow fiance to benefit from mortgage
- Can I afford this new home purchase
- Rent out home or buy home with cash outright
- My identity does not exist? What do I do?
- Early life crisis! Please help?
| Weekday Help and Victory Thread for the week of September 06, 2021 Posted: 06 Sep 2021 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]  |
| Middle aged middle class blues [budget] Posted: 06 Sep 2021 12:53 PM PDT We're in our mid-40s now. Some years back my wife and I were finally able to get a 97/3 mortgage in our late 30s after over a decade of saving. Our cars are a 1998 Honda Civic and a 2004 Toyota Camry. I bought them cash and do almost all the work on them myself. I've got social science and language degrees I guess you could call liberal arts. Her degrees are in hard sciences. I work for the electric company, she does some technical computer modeling shit. I have a night job, too, which earns me about another $10k per year. We have kids. We save all our spare healthcare money to cover them. We're far from broke. We earn more than 70% of households in our little Massachusetts town. But we have no college savings for them. Our house is very small, and 150 years old. Both have cheap $17/mo plans on cheap Android phones. 1 TV in the house, $400, bought 6 or 7 years ago. We've got about 20 years to Medicare, and almost no retirement to speak of, I mean less than a year's wages total saved up in the 401(k). But through most of our lives we didn't have retirement benefits. We haven't been on a vacation in 6 years. We don't go to bars. We don't go to restaurants. We grow and can and pickle our own produce. We use coupons. Do my own carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work up to the point of something major that requires a permit. No credit card debt. So where does all the money go?
I'm not sure how much more frugal we could be, short of severely cutting the food budget. Feels like we're living a regular middle-class life. And we're comfortable enough. Nobody's hungry. House is at 65 all winter. But it took us a hell of a lot of As and high test scores and hard work and meeting the right people and lucky breaks to get here. And it feels like retirement is going to be way out of reach. In the end, I guess our lifestyle is far closer to our immigrant grandparents' depression-era lifestyle than our high-school-only educated parents' boomer-era lifestyle. We've accepted that. The sad part is, I think it's going to be worse for our kids. I'd love to give them more of a head start. At this point, we're just worried they'll catch covid at school. Don't want to be a doomer, but their world definitely seems a lot worse than ours was as a kid. In the past few weeks, they've lived through a hurricane, a flood, and now back to the pandemic school house. And despite all the bootstrapping we've done, I feel like other than having more knowledge than our parents did, we're not leaving them in a better material position than we had growing up. So...the point of this post is a Labor Day gut check. Anything here seem way off to anybody? [link] [comments]  |
| Sold our house - what's the smartest thing to do with the profits? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 10:01 AM PDT My wife and I (both 35) sold our house about a month ago and moved into an apartment (wanted a lifestyle change - nothing to do with our financial situation). We were very fortunate in that the housing market in our area was very hot, and we ended up walking away with about $160,000, which is currently just sitting in our checking account. tbh it's making me a little nervous to have so much money there. A few additional financial details: Combined annual income: $115,000 Combined 401k accounts: $77,000 (my wife is contributing 10% of paycheck; I'm contributing 20% - unfortunately right now neither of us are getting employer match) High yield savings account: $20,000 (safety net account – hit $20k a few years ago and we haven't added or withdrawn from it since) Checking account: $167,000 Paid off student loans, no credit card debt, no car loans No kids, no plans to have any. Not really sure we have much to save for other than retirement. We want to continue renting in the immediate future, but I would say chances are fairly good that at some point in the next 5-10 years we might be interested in home ownership again. So what to do with the extra money? The two ideas that seem to make the most sense are: 1) Funnel some of it into our 401ks by increasing paycheck contributions. We could both max out this year at the very least. 2) Squirrel a large chunk of it away to use as a down payment on a future house (somewhere between $135k and $150k?). We only put 5% down when we originally bought the house that we just sold, and paying PMI every month sucked. So my questions are: 1) Where would you move that "down payment on a future house" money to so we could easily withdraw it if we needed to but would be separate from our other accounts, and maybe making a bit of extra money for us in the meantime? 2) Should maxing out our 401ks be the absolute top priority moving forward? 3) Any additional investing you would be considering on top of 401ks if you were in our shoes? Appreciate any and all thoughts and feedback! [link] [comments]  |
| Applied for FEMA funds and discovered someone had already applied as me. What to do? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 04:54 PM PDT I went through Hurricane Ida and went to apply for FEMA help. I put in my info, name, SS#, address, phone, etc. and on the last submit page it said an account had already been made with my info. I then tried to log in and create an account and couldn't as with my info was someone else's email address that I couldn't change. Trying to reach FEMA now, not sure what else I can do. [link] [comments]  |
| Since Being Paid Weekly, It's Been Much Easier to Manage My Finances Posted: 06 Sep 2021 07:33 PM PDT I'm not one to splurge a lot anyways, but having a weekly "allowance" has made managing my finances much easier. Knowing how much I have to my name per week has limited me to only spending up to what I make per week, then carrying over the savings to the next week. The exception being the recurring payments (rent, phone, car, etc.) [link] [comments]  |
| How do I afford being an adult? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 07:43 PM PDT So I have been out of university for about 3 years and now make a lower class income. I have been working hard the past few years to build a saving account for emergencies, pay off loans, and better myself. I essentially live paycheck to paycheck and get into this negative mindset every time something comes up that will cost a lot of money. Recently, it has been my decision to straighten my teeth and realizing that it will cost about $5-8k. I will likely finance this and have good credit, so it's fine, but I just feel like the struggle/debt will never end. Do most of you guys have this dread and panic when you need to pay for something important? I guess I'm looking for validation and also advice on getting out of this cycle of barely meeting my needs. Or anything else I guess. Thanks guys [link] [comments]  |
| Laid off, 3 days later they want me back. Posted: 05 Sep 2021 08:01 PM PDT Story time: I work as an IT in the Desktop Engineering department. My original company which we will call Company A, got bought by a bigger company which is Company B. I was working with Company A for 3 years before we got bought, 9 months in with Company B they decided to lay us off. Reason being, Company B is now outsourcing their IT, so they don't need us anymore. About 90% of us in the department was let go, and the rest remained to company B and some went to the external IT management services. So here's the thing. I was let go, I got severance for a good 3 months and on top of that, i just applied to my state's unemployment benefits. 3 days after unemployment, my ex director from Company B called me asking me back to work with the external IT and he will send my resume to them. Reason being, one of my ex-colleague who now works for external IT just resigned (Because everything was a shit show already). So looks like they panicked and they need someone to fill the position in. They need someone who knows the work already (obviously). And they asked me. I asked me ex-colleague how much he was offered on the external IT, and it was not what we expected. I was making 55k a year. I don't know how much he was making, but he was offered 63k to transition to External IT. For me that's low for someone who has more than 5 years of experience. Especially someone living here in California. Here's my question: What tips can you give me so I can ask for a really really good deal without making me look desperate or over exaggerating my demand. I'm thinking, I want to be rebadged, move all my previous PTO and Sick Time to external IT company, benefits right away because I heard my benefits won't kick in after a year, and I want to ask 70k. I feel like that's a reasonable price for someone who has 5 years of experience, including 3 years of experience in the company who knows the work, and I live in California where everything is basically expensive especially I'm taking care both of my parents, they are old (talk about the immigrant life). So is it too much? I don't want to turn down the offer too because I know I would lose my severance and state unemployment benefits, right? So yeah, any professional and logical tips would be greatly appreciated! If you have any script that I need to study send them my way lol! Thanks in advance! Also, I'll be getting the call very soon! [link] [comments]  |
| Where’s the best place to hold $25,000 emergency fund? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 05:03 AM PDT Would also like to be able to keep "largish" sinking funds so being able to withdraw not necessarily immediately but as needed would be great too. Looking at Bask Bank which gives mileage points for saving or other banks giving deposit bonuses. Is 0.4% really the best high yield available?? [link] [comments]  |
| Best way to set up a will/accounts in worst case scenario. Posted: 06 Sep 2021 09:49 AM PDT 25M going to be moving cross country on a long road trip so I'd like to be prepared. I have 30K across investments, retirement, savings acct, etc but also some small CC debt. What's the best way to establish a will, and share account info with my family so they know where to look (but not give them full access to my login info)? I already have beneficiaries on a few accounts but some will not all allow it. Should I get a lawyer if record to establish this or can I make a will for free and share a list of accounts (but not login info) with my family? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I trade in my newer vehicle for a used one to save on monthly expenses? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 09:33 AM PDT I (f32) have a 2020 hyundai with 18k miles w/ 5y 60k mile bumper to bumper warranty. I am 2 yrs into a 6 year payment with 0% interest. I was offered enough to pay off my loan with the finance company. I was looking to reduce my monthly expenses and found a 2015 ford escape with 39 k miles for 200 less a month.The problem is no warranty, 6 year term and 4-5 % interest rate, full payoff amount would be 5k less total over the life of the loan. I'm gun shy here and I could use advise please. Edit: I have a link to the car if I'm allowed to post it. It's on Carvana. [link] [comments]  |
| 3rd-party ACH (for rent payment) Posted: 06 Sep 2021 11:17 AM PDT Hi there, I know there have been many threads on this topic. I have read through them all but some of the information is outdated so I would like to ask here again. My landlord wants rent to be paid via ACH. I know Wells Fargo used to do this, though it seems like not anymore (another thread), and maybe Schwab and Chase still do it (though this suggests Chase has moved to Zelle so maybe not)? My current bank, Bank of America does not allow it (only Bill Pay, which will send a physical cheque). I cannot use an online bank like Ally as I am foreign. My landlord does not want to use Zelle (not much I can do on that front). Also, it might be possible to set up ACH in person only though at any bank? In short - anyone know which banks still offer 3rd party ACH (push) payments? I.e. I have my landlord's account number and would like to deposit money directly into his account. I think local credit unions and/or my landlord's own bank may be my best guesses. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2021 08:58 AM PDT 23 and the only expenses I have is 400 a month for car and any leisure. FT job making around 60k. I work side gigs that equals about 10k a year. I have 50k saved up in my savings. Where should I put this? I have a Roth that I have not contributed to all year.. [link] [comments]  |
| Am I paying too much for rent? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 08:09 PM PDT I (23M) rushed into a lease because I want to move out of my parents. Housing is surprisingly hard to find where I live for anything not run down or in a 4+ month wait list. Long story short I signed a yr lease for 1,050 a month for 1 br 1 ba apartment that meets all my amenity requirements. But after utilities(trash is $50 and required spectrum is $130) I'll be paying close to $1,400 a month. I make $68,500 a year before taxes, $4k a month take home. Is this unreasonable, should I see if they can find another tenant? I move in 9/20 so first month rent is $405 and I've paid $400 in application/admin fees. So I'm assuming I'll need to eat that $800 for the opportunity to save over $400 a month. After budgeting my fixed expenses and overestimating variable expenses I should still get by with $1200 net a month Edit: alright you guys are making me feel a lot better about my decision. I do really like the apsrtment and all of the amenities. For those asking, since anyone who could take advantage of knowing could easily find out anyway, I live in the dyt OH area [link] [comments]  |
| Got an 'Offer to Purchase for Cash' for a stock I own Posted: 06 Sep 2021 11:40 AM PDT I own one stock in a company, valued at ~$15.50, and recently received an 'Offer to Purchase for Cash' my single share for slightly under current market price by a company called CTI Acquisition Corp. The company is merging into another company and thus the buyout offer. They sent me a pretty big stack of papers with lots of legalese in it. My question is, has anyone gone through something similar before and can give me a breakdown of what to expect should I sell or not? If I don't sell, do they force buy me out? Do my stocks become stocks in the new, merged company? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone have experience building a house overtime in "stages"? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 03:54 AM PDT I live in a southern rural town in the United States. My father-in-law has just gifted us 3.5 acres of his 40 acre property. It is basically an open, flat field of raw land with nothing in it. We are currently trying to come up with a plan of what to do with it. Family size is 2 adults, 2 kids. We are currently renting an apartment for $800 per month. The lease is up in 2 months. The landlord is willing to let us do a month to month agreement if we need more time. I have been pre-approved by a local bank to finance a mobile home, septic tank, and well. I already have all of the permits except the one to actually move a mobile home. We are considering purchasing a single wide mobile home to temporarily live in on the land we were gifted and build a house next to it. Instead of doing the whole construction loan and mortgage route, would it be possible to build a house in stages? Any idea of where I could research or read about people doing something similar? We've only begun looking into what we could do with the land. Any other suggestions are welcome as well. [link] [comments]  |
| Totaled car with money outstanding on he loan Posted: 06 Sep 2021 05:49 PM PDT My son totaled his car this morning. He's fine, but now he's facing a major financial issue. It was a brand new Jetta that he had financed. He owes something like $20k on it but I doubt insurance will pay out more than $15k. He has a 20% APR on his car loan. What now? The insurance said they will send us the money--he was on our insurance. If we use the payout to buy a new care for him and then he defaults on the still outstanding car loan.....what happens? I would never advocate him blowing off his debts, but it's $500 a month and I doubt he will be keeping up payments when the car is gone. As an aside, I know this is terrible, but he made these decisions in the face of our strenuous disagreement. [link] [comments]  |
| Is it worth investing in my job’s 401k if matching isn’t guaranteed? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 09:27 AM PDT After working for a small company for a year, I'm now qualified to contribute to their 401K plan but it's unclear if they match as all the terms say "may", it states:
I already max out a Roth IRA & contribute to a taxable brokerage account I self-manage. Is it worth contributing here as well if my employer does not provide additional contributions? Thank you in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2021 08:46 PM PDT Hi All. I'm hoping to get some advice on appropriate emergency savings amounts. My wife and I gross $145,000 with right around $100,000 for yearly expenditures. We're doing all of the expected employer matching programs, tax advantaged investments, etc. that one would expect. We have $700,000 in a joint target retirement account and about $95,000 in our checking account as our emergency account. We have one car payment and some student loans at less than 3%. My question is specifically about the emergency fund as my understand is that 3-6 months of expenses is the recommended amount to have saved. However, we have close to 12 months emergency saved. This seems a bit too cautious of an amount considering that we could put 30k-50k in our target retirement. I'd love to get some perspective on this. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2021 02:39 PM PDT TLDR; Really struggle with depression, I'm in debt and I don't know how to handle money. If you have any tips to help me I would be so grateful. So apologies in advance for this ramble, basically I suck with money and that's an understatement. I suffer from pretty severe depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. My coping mechanism became spending, I'm not talking about a few ££ here and there, I'm talking about taking out multiple loans and multiple credit cards. At the worst point my debt was £50,000+, after living on the bare minimum I've paid 90% + off and only have £1000 left to go. The reason I'm making this post is because I still get the urges to take out more credit and use it, I'm medicated and getting help from the medical point but I wondered if you had any tips to avoid this? Or any tips for after the debt is paid off for managing money? [link] [comments]  |
| How to allow fiance to benefit from mortgage Posted: 06 Sep 2021 06:56 PM PDT I (28F) bought a house at ~500,000. The down-payment came out to 40K from my fiance (37 M), and 17K from me. The loan is in my name (the lady, in case that matters). I'm worried he's not "benefitting" from the transaction, credit wise. I make 106K, and my fiance makes about the same. The mortgage is in my name. I didn't realize I was potentially robbing him of a credit opportunity in putting the mortgage in my name. State: Utah. I didn't realize my control of my credit might appear as.... controlling/Abusive. I just want to make sure we have a favorable credit posture before marriage. He's probably getting a new car soon. I'm worried he doesn't have enough credit history, as a result of me putting rent/Mortgage/utilities in my name for the last 6 years...Do you have any recommendations on setting him up for success in a reasonably priced car? [link] [comments]  |
| Can I afford this new home purchase Posted: 06 Sep 2021 06:48 PM PDT I'm looking to purchase a 580k home in Ohio, that will result in a total mortgage payment that's equal to 28-29% of my income (130k). I'll put down 20%, and I have zero debt. I will probably need an upgrade in cars within the next year or two but can manage that in cash most likely. I've read enough to know I fall within the lines of most affordability ranges but we're coming from a home that is 11% of our total income. However, I'm working from home with a wife and 3 kids all under 4 years old in a ranch with 3 bedrooms. The wife really wants something bigger as well. All that said, can I afford it? [link] [comments]  |
| Rent out home or buy home with cash outright Posted: 06 Sep 2021 06:16 AM PDT We bought our home in 2012 and now have about $325,000 in equity. We are planning on being in our next home for 5 years and we are stuck on whether we sell our current home and buy our next home for cash or rent our current home and buy the next one with money taken out for our down payment. After taking money out for the 20% down we would owe about $215,000 on our current home. Mortgage would be $1300 and we can get $2200/month from rent New house would be in the $450,000 range so new mortgage would be $1800 We only make $70,000 a year combined and while I like the idea of appreciation gains in a rental property I don't know if it is worth the risk with our limited cash on hand if something were to go wrong. The other option is to buy a house in cash, then in 5 years we would have better cash reserves to rent it out, plus we would benefit from the full rental income as positive cash flow. [link] [comments]  |
| My identity does not exist? What do I do? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 11:01 AM PDT To start I do not really know much about the social security system or credit. I do not have a bank account and never had a credit card. I just began to get on my feet this year, got a job and got a voucher for housing, I'm 24 and I have been basically indigent my whole life. I've been trying to get my life together, it's hard when you start from absolutely nothing but I'm starting to see a lot of progress, I'm at the phase where I'm trying to get an apartment, a bank account, and in the future a car. The problem is there is something wrong with my SSN. So I am a US citizen with a US birth certificate and SSN. I can pass an E-verify and at one point I even called social security (can't go in person because of the virus) and they verified my identity is actually, you know, real. However, I cannot use my SSN for anything. I can't get a prepaid card, I can't use online banking, I can't get my credit checked. I can't even sign up for an account on the social security website. Every single time I get the same message, "sorry, we are unable to verify your identity." It's like.. I don't exist or something. I don't know why this is happening or how to fix it. Even when I called social security they told me they didn't know why I wasn't able to create an account on their website. I'm going to start applying for apartments for the first time, they are going to do a credit check on me, is the landlord going to get some error message that I do not exist? Can anybody tell me why this is happening or how I fix it? [link] [comments]  |
| Early life crisis! Please help? Posted: 06 Sep 2021 08:05 PM PDT Hello, forgive me cuz this is my first time posting. I'm 21yr my truck just broke down, I'm trying to find a job but it's hard because I'm a high school dropout. I have no official job experience. I filled out a lot of job apps but nobody is even calling for an interview. I live with my parents if anybody is wondering. I have $11 to my name not sure what to do at this point. Really just looking for some guidance on how to get out of this situation I don't have much ppl to talk to atm. Any help would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
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