Personal Finance Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of September 10, 2021 |
- Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of September 10, 2021
- Started a new job 2 weeks ago, now being offered another for 30% more money
- Why isn’t it common practice for people to just put their money in an S&P Index Fund instead of hiring a FA?
- payday advances and loans are killing me
- Why are IRA contribution caps so low compared to a 401k?
- College savings for new child
- How do I charge more money when I am so used to charging so low because I am afraid to lose work as a freelancer?
- Was never charged for furniture purchase
- Retire on interest?
- Spent $2000 on accident at a fruit stand in Costa Rica
- Can I survive in San Francisco working a minimum wage job?
- Medical Insurance for someone with a Disability
- Is it unwise to try to negotiate a higher salary when you're already being offered the max salary the company said they're willing to give during interviews?
- Refinance 30 to 15?
- Whole life insurance policy cancel or no
- Any benefit in inheriting 25% of family home after family death?
- Is it better to live in a nice apartment and be tight on money or a kind of crappy apartment and have more money to spend?
- I get guaranteed pay, but not additional earnings
- Healthcare provider never sent us a bill, but now it's at collections. Any advice?
- Inheritance tax question(s), please?
- Is there a safe investment right now that gives any interest?
- How to find out fast if someone opened a credit card in my name?
- 2 week bank hold on paycheck
- Apartment Complex Sent Us To Collections with No Notice
- Can you set up a solo 401k as a 1099 contractor that is paid directly?
- Does anyone have any experience with dealing with ATMs eating up their cash deposits?
| Weekend Discussion and Victory Thread for the week of September 10, 2021 Posted: 10 Sep 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]  |
| Started a new job 2 weeks ago, now being offered another for 30% more money Posted: 10 Sep 2021 11:46 AM PDT As the title says I started a job about two weeks ago now I'm just hearing back from a different job I applied for around the same time as the current job and they offered me a position and start date paying 35% more. It's the same type of work just different fields and idk what to do. Any suggestions would be great. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:16 PM PDT I honestly don't understand this. So much research demonstrates that simple investing beats FAs a VAST majority of the time. Meanwhile, the fees for most FAs rob you blind. Why do so many people hire FAs?!?!? [link] [comments]  |
| payday advances and loans are killing me Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:51 AM PDT it started out as just a $100 payday advance here and there and now i'm in the negatives after all the repayments came out this paycheck. i don't have money for groceries and i'm too embarrassed to talk to my parents. how do i get out of this cycle? [link] [comments]  |
| Why are IRA contribution caps so low compared to a 401k? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 03:32 PM PDT The cap on individual's IRA contributions is 6k/yr. However, a 401k contribution is 19,500/yr for employee contribution (let alone employer match). I'm not looking for optimizing strategies or anything like that. I want to know WHY is that cap so low compared to an employer-sponsored account. It feels strange that the ability to "properly" save for retirement is tied to employment and your employer's retirement plan options. Is there an economic reason why the contribution limits are so different? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:39 AM PDT Hello, our newborn is roughly 2 months old now and we received a generous gift of $5,000 from her great grandparents to put towards education. They are stuck in the past and said to get savings bonds. My wife had the same bonds and they were often difficult to work with and hit you come tax season. They also recommended ibonds which still doesn't seem all they appealing. After some research I think the best bet might be to open a 529 account for her since it is tax free if used for college/room and board/ books/ and other expenses. Is this a better choice. We are new to this and any help is much appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 02:52 PM PDT I'm a freelance illustrator / designer and I know that my work is good but in my mind I keep thinking charging $30/hr is a lot even when I ought to demand $60+/hr . Even $60 apparently low but I have been living so poor that I think it's big money. A lot of people my line of work suffer from this issue. [link] [comments]  |
| Was never charged for furniture purchase Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:02 PM PDT Hi all, Have a quick question I am hoping I can get answered. Not sure if this sub is exactly where I should be asking, but it's credit related so figured I'd give it a shot. Mods, please let me know if I did anything wrong. Back in November of 2019 I purchased a dining room table that came out to about $2100. I decided to go the financing route, order was placed in November of 2019 and delivered to my front door Feb of 2020. The first table I received was immediately returned due to the delivery men not being able to open the table to add extensions (wood table that seperates from the middle in order to have extensions put in). New table was received 2 weeks later and all was great. Now to the problem, since the delivery date, I've never received a bill. Nothing sent to my email, nothing mailed to me, no phone calls, nothing. It is now Sept of 21 and the table still sits nicely in my dining room. My question is, are there any potential repercussions I might encounter? Checked my credit report and all is well. Is it possible the company forgot to charge me? In addition, I am now in the market for new couches. They come out to approximately $3k and I would like to purchase them from the same company. In doing this would it be possible that they notice their error and try to start charging me for the table? Thanks in advance everyone. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 08:00 AM PDT If I make $100k a year is it reasonable to retire when all my accounts are making around $125k on interest and just continue to live on a $100k budget? [link] [comments]  |
| Spent $2000 on accident at a fruit stand in Costa Rica Posted: 09 Sep 2021 11:13 AM PDT Hi everyone! My girlfriend and I were traveling in Costa Rica and had stopped at a fruit stand to get some mangoes or something. The currency is the Costa Rican Colón, and 1 Colón is equivalent to 0.0016 United States Dollar (or 1 dollar is equal to 624.42 Colones). We were told we were paying 2000 Colones for the fruit (3-4 dollars), but instead, the store charged our mastercard 2000 USD. After filing a claim with Mastercard, they said that they contacted the Costa Rican police, but since we didn't keep a receipt of the incident, they can't pursue the store and we lost the claim. We also contacted the store on Facebook and Whatsapp - they read the messages but didn't reply. I'm wondering if anyone has some ideas on how to fight this? [link] [comments]  |
| Can I survive in San Francisco working a minimum wage job? Posted: 09 Sep 2021 08:19 PM PDT I'm a young adult just out of college and everybody in my life seems to think I'm crazy so double check my numbers for me! I thought I had this under control but now I'm scared! Income: Trader Joe's, full time (40 hrs) at minimum wage ($16.32) for an average of $2611 per month Expenses: Rent: $1100 including utilities, wifi, and some shared groceries (in a live/work artist commune) Food: $200 (limited eating out; I mainly eat batch cooked soups and chilis and so on. again some shared groceries from my coop fridge help) Income tax: $534 (assuming a yearly income of $31334, according to some online calculator I found) Savings: $260 (10% of income) Climbing/gym membership: $87 Transportation pass: $98 Clothes/home supplies/mishaps/ect: $200 Going out: $130 Total: $2609 Not quite as much savings as I would like but as far as I can see it all seems to add up. I don't have any student debt or car expenses, and I'm on my parents health insurance. (and spotify + phone plan hehe) Are my youth and inexperience causing me to miss any obvious factors that are going to sink me? EDIT: okay, to synthesize the common thread I'm hearing: "yes, you can probably scrape by, but it'll likely be tight and leave you with little room for extra/unexpected expenses. why not just get a better paid white collar job?" which sounds reasonably encouraging to me! I am looking for other jobs; in the mean time this seems like a mostly sustainable stopgap :)) [link] [comments]  |
| Medical Insurance for someone with a Disability Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:20 PM PDT Hey everyone! I'm posting here as kind of a last resort and I feel trapped and don't know how to continue or what to do. I live in the Midwest of the United States and I am struggling at how to cope or what to do with medical coverage. I have an auto-immune disability that effects my joints and cartilage which inevitably means that I have to go to the doctor multiple times a month. I'm turning 28 soon and I'm at the cross-roads of starting my life. My partner and I are talking about marriage and buying a house and are really attempting to strive for Financial Independence (or at least, enough to not have to wait until 60 to retire) but the problem that I keep running into is medical coverage. Here are the (rough) numbers: Medical- $330 per paycheck Dental- $22 per paycheck Vision- $5 per paycheck So before any deductibles or co-pays or anything I am paying $8,568 for JUST insurance. My Deductible is- $1500 My Out-of-Pocket is- $5000 After it's all said and done just my insurance cost (since I reach the max out-of-pocket every year) is roughly $14,000. That's over a quarter of my salary! That's not even including the bills I get from the hospitals, doctors and medication visits which is well over $2000. I don't know what to do! I can't leave my job because I physically can not live without insurance. I can't continue spending close to half of my entire income on medical bills and I can't go on my partner's insurance because mine is the only one I've ever found where domestic partners can be on the insurance. I'm so lost and frustrated because I feel like I'm blocked in and can't go anywhere in life because I am chained to my crappy job because they have insurance that allows me to live. Is there another option? Can I get my own insurance? Please, any advise would be helpful. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2021 10:23 PM PDT During the interview process, I mentioned that I was looking for a salary in the $95-105k range, and I was told for this position they're likely offering in the $95-100k range. That was totally fine with me since it's over $20k higher than what I make now anyway. Flashforward to today, I was offered the position with a $100k salary - while I'm taking a few days to think about it, the hiring manager straight up told me that if my current company offers to match, they're willing to go higher, and that if there's something my current employer is offering benefit-wise that they don't, they're willing to match. I feel like I have a lot of leverage here, since it seems like this company really wants me. I am actually going to go back to them to see if they'll match my current PTO days (I currently have 23, while this new company is offering me 21), but part of me would also like to try to negotiate up to the $105k that was at the top end of the salary I was looking for, even though $100k was the high end of what they originally noted. Am I pushing my luck on that / should I just take the $100k? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 08:21 PM PDT Looking to refinance, wondering about input: Current: 30 years, 2 years in. 4.325% 1350 monthly PITI (includes 163 PMI) New 15 year fixed 2.25% 1475 monthly PITI (dropped PMI, appraisal waived too) Our payment seems to barely change between the PMI dropping and the interest going down. Huge difference in the amount going to principal each month. Market has increased enough that they said they did not need to appraise again but can still drop PMI. Seems too good to be true, anyone have any thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Whole life insurance policy cancel or no Posted: 10 Sep 2021 03:55 PM PDT My sister opened a whole life insurance policy for me last year. She pays $300/month for it. I'll be taking over the payments next year but I am contemplating cancelling it. As of right now, there's only $54 cash value on it. I'm 25 years old. I am not having kids. I share a mortgage with my boyfriend but he is doing good financially. Not planning on getting married until 2030. I have private student loans that will get paid off 2023. I don't think it's a good option for me to be spending my money on. Thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| Any benefit in inheriting 25% of family home after family death? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:14 PM PDT I have an inheritance debacle that I could use advice on. My grandfather died a few years ago followed by my father dying about 6 months later. As such, my sister and I now both own 10% my grandfather's house (grandfather had five children, three living). My aunt is working on officially having the deed (sorry if this isn't the correct terminology) transferred to the surviving heirs. The options I'm being given are: Be given 25% ownership of the home, with my grandfather's three living children having the other 75% of the home (my sister and uncle's two surviving children do not want their share and are going to sign them over to the rest of the family). or Give up my share and the three surviving children would retain shared ownership of the house. I'm not seeing any benefit in me keeping my share of the house, but I'm not very knowledgeable about this having never owned a home. I'm not sure if I'm missing anything though:
Is there any benefit in keeping my share of the home that I'm not seeing? I'm not willing to force a sale/buyout, displace my aunt/uncle/cousin living there, charge rent, or anything like that. It seems that in this case I'd simply be paying to maintain a home I will not be living in. The only possible benefits I've come up with would be:
I have a well paying stable job so I don't need the money, but I still don't want to throw away free money if that's what I'd be doing. Any advice is appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:53 PM PDT As per title says, I'm very torn right now. Very noisy neighbours, stolen belongings, issues with electricity, fire alarms going off in the middle of the night with firefighters coming to evacuate etc. But it has amenities of a large complex (indoor mail, indoor garbage recycling). Other apartment has an extra room, is a couple hundred more a month but in a smaller complex, I know someone living there and none of these issues are present. Any advice? I know I'd get by in either but I'm in university, so I'm concerned about money but but also really concerned about having peace and quiet to study. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| I get guaranteed pay, but not additional earnings Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:31 PM PDT I am unsure if this is the proper subreddit for this but any advice is appreciated. I get paid commission. I've always made at least x dollars. However, during covid I was not making x dollars anymore. My supervisor granted me guaranteed pay of x dollars. Just recently, business has been picking up. I am now making more than x dollars and I was expecting to see the extra earnings on this weeks paycheck. But I was paid only x dollars. I reached out to payroll, and they were told by my supervisor to deduct any additional earnings as I am on guaranteed pay. I thought guaranteed pay was intended to ensure I make at least a certain amount, not just that and that only. Well, now payroll told me they have to wait to hear from my supervisor. It's been 2 days and now it's the weekend I haven't heard anything. I am upset as I was hoping to use the additional earnings for bills I've been meaning to catch up on. Is there anything I can do to get my additional earnings? Can my job do this? I am in the state of Illinois. Edit: I never signed anything or emailed an agreement to any terms of the guaranteed pay. I have nothing in writing. [link] [comments]  |
| Healthcare provider never sent us a bill, but now it's at collections. Any advice? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 11:19 AM PDT Hi folks, I just received a letter in the mail from a collection agency stating my wife owes them $34 for a bill from a diagnostic lab in April of 2020. I've never had a bill go to collections before. I went back through our insurance records and the lab did provide a service for her but the bill should only have been for $24. Additionally the lab never sent us a bill for that particular service, nor did they try calling or communicating in any way. We did receive bills from the same lab for services provided both before and after this one which we paid right away, so this is clearly a mistake on the part of the lab. I haven't talked to the lab or the CA yet. I just finished reading through the Wiki on dealing with CAs, but was hoping for any other advice. How can I hold the lab responsible for never sending me a bill, are they required to show proof that they made an attempt to send it? Is the CA allowed to immediately tack on an extra $10 to the debt, or shouldn't I have a chance to pay the original amount before they start adding fees and interest? For such a little amount is it even worth going through the whole debt verification process, or should I just go ahead and pay it? Since I know we technically owe a portion of the debt I don't want interest to start accruing in the meantime. But I also don't want a hit on my wife's credit score that she doesn't deserve. Any recommendations would be much appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Inheritance tax question(s), please? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 07:14 PM PDT I was just reading a post in r/taxadvice about an inheritance tax in my state of PA. Some people that posted denied that it existed in PA and they're wrong, so I want to post here to see if anyone knows something here. First, I found this (scroll down from first page of document): I read that a survivorship account can be created so I'm not taxed on a bank account like it was for this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/owcxx0/pa_inheritance_tax/ Can anyone comment in on this, please? My mom is elderly and she's asking me to shelter her inheritance for me. I assume that her house will be taxed when I inherit it. My state is one of six states that are greedy af where this is concerned. Since I am her son, my tax will be 4.5%. Thank you in advance to anyone that can give me some solid advice. Have a great weekend! [link] [comments]  |
| Is there a safe investment right now that gives any interest? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:37 PM PDT Sold a house and I have a little cash that I'll have for probably 6 or 8 months while I'm waiting on a new place. Banks' CDs are at zero, same with treasuries, credit unions at best are 0.5%, and nobody seems to be offering anything else that can beat that. Is there a completely safe investment that does any better than that right now? [link] [comments]  |
| How to find out fast if someone opened a credit card in my name? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 03:18 PM PDT I think I might have been a victim of the T Mobile hack and have seen suspicious activity such as people trying to log into my bank account. I've pulled reports from annualcreditreport.com but they don't show anything. My understanding is that credit cards opened won't show on a credit report for 30-60 days. Is there any way to find out faster? I don't want to spend 30-60 days waiting to see if someone is racking up debt in my name [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:54 PM PDT Is a 2 week hold on a paycheck normal? New job for 2 months now, 4 checks, all at a new bank. first 3 went fine and now today I go to deposit the 4th check and they say that there is a 2 week hold? I tried to explain that they have never done it before and they said that it is a standard procedure. I have had banks hold large checks before, but NEVER from a paycheck. Its not the end of the world, but it will start to get frustrating. [link] [comments]  |
| Apartment Complex Sent Us To Collections with No Notice Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:52 AM PDT Hi everyone! I'm really confused this morning. My SO got a letter in the mail from a collection agency saying we owed like $42 to our last complex. This was dated for September 2nd. However, we moved out May 31st. They sent us nothing saying we owed them any money. No emails, calls, texts, letters, etc. The other thing that makes no sense is that a month after we moved out we got most of our security deposit back. Does this have standing? Should this debt from nowhere have been taken out of the security deposit? EDIT: I forgot to mention for the first month after moving out I checked my resident account constantly to make sure nothing popped up [link] [comments]  |
| Can you set up a solo 401k as a 1099 contractor that is paid directly? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 08:33 PM PDT Hello y'all. My wife signed an employment contract with a company as a 1099 contractor. Before signing the contract she asked them if they could pay her sole proprietorship directly. They agreed. We set up a business, elected to be taxed as an S-Corp and she went to work. After a few weeks she was notified by her employer that the payroll company they use will not pay her business and will only mail checks out in her name. AFAIK you have to have a business to have a solo 401k. Is this true? Is there a way to set up a 401k even though she is paid directly? We are ideally trying to save the max of 58k by using her business. But I am afraid that hope is gone now. [link] [comments]  |
| Does anyone have any experience with dealing with ATMs eating up their cash deposits? Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:18 PM PDT I deposited (Thursday night) a thousand dollars in cash at my local BoA ATM and it suddenly errored out... There was nothing I could do at the moment since this was way past business hours for both the bank and the call center. After it errored out, it stated on the screen that before it errored it counted $440. (so I'm thinking, okay... Somehow there's $560 missing...) On my receipt, it does show that there was an error in the process, but suddenly it printed out that I deposited $300 (wtf??? then I'm missing $700 instead and not $560?!) I'm freaking out, and I've read a few similar posts, and in the comments, there's a lot of both good and bad outcomes, which is making me freaking out more. So far, I've contacted (Friday morning; today) BoA's claims department and explained the situation, but the incorrect amount's transaction is still pending, so they said there's nothing they can do aside from opening a claim. Already went (Friday morning; today) in person to the BoA's Center (there was one connected to the ATM; ATM wasn't a stand-alone place) and explained my situation there. They said pretty much the same thing, that they can't do anything yet until someone from some other department comes down to count the cash inside the ATM in person. I'm really scared because I can't PROVE that I put in $1000... What if the machine also errored out for someone else's transaction and gave them a surplus of $700??? (who's to say that all the other transactions are right...) My hands are tied until Monday... or even Tuesday (at least that's what the lady at BoA said to me) My questions:
a. I read in some other posts that it might be worth filing a complaint to CFPB if it doesn't resolve? How were your experiences with going this route, if you have done it before? Thank you for reading this long rant... From a freaked-out human... edit1: I filed a claim, first thing the next business day (this morning) edit2: forgot to mention another thing, the lady rep who helped me said that there would be people coming down from another department to count the cash from the ATM in person tomorrow (Saturday) [link] [comments]  |
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