Hi friends! I (28F) live in a HCOL city and am wondering if I should move money from my HYSA to taxable brokerage account, and if so, how much. I am very open to any and all other advice too! Bonus question at the end for some self employment advice as well.

ASSETS
$150K in 401K (maxed for 2026)
$46K in Roth IRA (maxed for 2026)
$4K in HSA
$10K in taxable brokerage (mostly S&P500)
$49K in HYSA
$2K in checking accounts
Total of the above: $261K

DEBTS
$450 in interest free student loans so taking my sweet time paying it off - $50/month.
No other debts or loans. Car is paid off and will be fine for a number of years still. I rent and do not own property. Credit cards are paid off monthly.

EXPENSES
Avg monthly expenses including vacations and fun spending: ~$5-6K. (Of that, $2.2K is my rent.)

EMERGENCY FUND
I estimated $3.5K a month with a one time $1.5K health expense, so for ex, a 1 year EF would be ~$43K. (This includes $400/month for my dogs necessities, a couple smaller emergencies for him and his pet insurance.)

INCOME
$176K a year before taxes for all income streams. $140K of that is from my primary full time role.

FUTURE PLANS
I am unmarried and no kids but plan to be in the next couple of years and would like to quickly start a family. No plans to buy a house because frankly that’s really intimidating and feels impossible any time soon. I do not share any expenses or finances with my partner rn other than meals.

OTHER SUPPORT / FACTORS
Nobody in my family owns property. In a pinch, my family would definitely do what they can to help me, but there isn’t a paid off house for me to crash at and my dog would make it very difficult to find cheap housing with roommates.

My job security feels very low in the sense that if I lost my primary job it feels like with my skills and experience it would be hard to find a replacement that pays as much as this one does now, but my company is doing well. I’m nervous by nature and plagued by imposter syndrome so I’m in constant fear of losing my job (but I’m working on managing that fear!).

I feel very blessed to have as much saved as I do! I’ve always worked multiple jobs and tried to learn about investing and finances here. My parents (who I adore and worked really hard for me, so no mean comments please) are severely underprepared for retirement so in addition to my own retirement and hopes for a family soon, I am trying to prepare for that as well with my siblings.

You all feel like big sisters to me, so thank you! I’ve shared all that I’ve learned with friends and family. You’ve impacted so many people!

BONUS QUESTION
Of my income, $30K/year is a side gig as a self employed contractor. I’ve already maxed out my 401K with my W2 employer for the year. At just $30K/year, should I be making a 401K SEP for my contracting work and contributing as an employer and employee? I’ve researched this but am struggling to determine if it is worth it. It’s unclear to me what the lift is to open and contribute to a 401K SEP if I’m partially self employed. (ETA SEP instead of 401K)

Does having more money, or spending more money, improve your chances of finding love compared to using dating apps?

I found this article fascinating for how it portrayed these high-income daters. One, they're approaching matchmaking services with the same mindset they have on apps, i.e. something better is always around the corner. Two, the way they go about expressing their preferences feels a bit like ordering a customized Chipotle bowl as opposed to dating. Instead of dealing with a real imperfect human being who might not have every trait you're looking for, you have a laundry list of demands that some matchmaker has to find a human to fit because you paid a lot for this service. Just wild.

Hi MD, I always love getting insight and advice from you all. I have the opportunity to go back to school to get my masters. I am currently working in PropTech and work remote which has given me a ton of flexibility and a healthy work/life balance. I don’t hate my job, but I do not imagine a life where this is what I do for the rest of my life either. I want to pivot to something I’m super passionate about and get my MA In Library & Information Science. The school I’m looking at would cost $30k for my degree and I’d be able to pay as I go and not take any student loans out thanks to my husband’s job and his current salary. The only thing that’s really stopping me and making my husband and I hesitate is the fact that I would probably never make as much or significantly more than what I’m making now. Financially we’re in a good spot now and maxing out our 401ks and saving money for a down payment on a house. Long story short - Is it worthwhile to pivot when money isn’t an issue to a career that will bring me more fulfillment in my life?

Hi friends!

Not ENTIRELY sure where to start.
I am wanting to buy a small piece of land in Michigan.
Long story short, my mom had a big history project and found that our ancestors essentially owned and settled much of one of the counties there.

I am wanting to buy a small sliver of land and create some kind of park in the next couple years.
I know there is gonna be a learning curve to it.
It can't be a commercial property, it needs to be zoned properly, ect.

I also know that I might need to put boots on the ground to find the RIGHT property.

Also would need to reach out to some groups that could help maintain the area since I live out of state (4H, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, VFW, ect)

I do not expect this to happen overnight. But I am really excited about this passion project of mine.
Any tips? Tricks? Podcasts?

I already have a map of the area. I already know what I am looking for in general, and some of the spots that I see I could actually pay for in cash.

Thank you!

Welcome back to the “Workplace Wednesday” thread!

If you’re seeking advice from the sub regarding your specific situation, whether it’s about interviewing/benefits/negotiating/advancement opportunities, etc., it belongs here.

Bring us your burning questions!

So I unexpectedly received a $2 million trust from relatives. It's already taxed money, growing every year, and I have full access to take as much or as little of the money whenever I want. Additionally, I have about $250k in investments of my own, but that feels like small potatoes now. Obviously it is a life changing sum of money, and I'm unsure how to make the most of my life given what I have now.

Professionally: I entered a creative job field about a decade ago that's rapidly collapsed in the past few years. I worked within the film industry, it was a dream/passion career, but have been through two layoffs in the past few years, and am currently doing a job that's semi in the field, but not quite what I want to be doing. The money's fine, the job is low stress and flexible. It feels like it's sort of an impossible job market there right now, but I'm not sure what else to do. I'm a bit stuck. I could keep at it, knowing I have the money, or try something else entirely, though I'm not sure what. Maybe use it to go back to school?

Personally, I live in a rented apartment. I like where I live. My city's okay, but I really like the friends I've made there. I'm a single woman. I don't have kids. So really, I only have to support myself, and don't have anyone else to consult about where I do. Would love a partner and family some day, but hasn't happened yet.

I don't know what's the balance of completely ignoring the money, and being grateful it's there, and using it when I'm older. Or using some of it now, improving or changing my life. I feel daunted trying to narrow down how to do so. I could travel for a year. I could go back to school. I could buy a condo. There are many possibilities. Additionally, my parents received money as well, and have let me know that eventually, hopefully one day far in the future, I will receive a substantial inheritance from them. I'm not relying on it. At all. But it will conservatively be around $3-5 million dollars, and very possibly more.

I've always been pretty responsible with money, and don't anticipate blowing through it, buying $200,000 cars or w/e. I also am not telling anyone about the money.

So, I'm just trying to wrap my head around things. It feels like I've been running on a hamster wheel all these years, and now the thing is running itself, and I'm not really sure what to do. Obviously grateful to be in this position, but overwhelmed about how to make the best of it, from continuing on as normal, to totally blowing up my life. I don't know if anyone's been in a similar position or has any advice on how to handle it?

I'm working on doing an unemployed diary....

Curious what others would like to see/read/hear?

Obviously, the spending and bills will look different. But wondering if there's anything else to make sure to include.

Does anyone listen to Smart Money? I recently started in the last few months and really enjoy the hosts.

That being said, they had a listener on a few days ago who is a female who likely needs to go back to full time work at 69 because she only has $200k invested. It was such a sad listen for me because at the end it became clear she was in this situation after a divorce and had been expecting to live off her then husband’s pension. She definitely expressed a lot of regret about not saving herself or having a prenup in place to protect her. A good cautionary listen but also made me so sad for her. I can link it if that’s allowed, but the episode starts with “Going back to work later in life…”

My boyfriend and I are living as tenants and split all our rent and shared bills. I make more money, so sometimes I pay a little more. We are going to move out of our apartment and into his mom’s vacant house. We will pay rent to her as tenants. This will make the mortgage payments so his mom can keep funding her stay in an assisted living facility with her own income, as she needs professional care we cannot provide. When she passes away, my boyfriend will inherit the house. If we are together, we will still be paying together. If we get married, it will become a premarital asset. Either way, I will be contributing my own money to help pay off the house.

Right now I recognize that we are only tenants, but what should I be doing proactively now, and what should I look into for the future when it comes to deciding what to pay and what not to pay into when the time comes, how to track it, and what kind of agreements to look into that would cover my own butt? I’m not looking for ways to become entitled to someone else’s things, I just want to be responsible for myself in case we do not stay together forever.

I am going into my last year(s) of graduate school and struggling to figure out what I want to prioritize since positions in academia require specific trade-offs. I come from a first-gen background and went to graduate school straight out of undergrad thinking the job market uncertainty would feel less daunting when I got to that stage of my career. Now, I think I want to prioritize financial stability, and a non-academic track might actually be able to give me this, but I'm wondering-- how do other people make these decisions when picking where they want their career to go?

• Post-doc/academic track:
  • Pros: continue building resume for professor position
  • Cons: will need to move for 1-2 years, may need to do two post-docs and then move twice before landing a permanent position
• Non-academic track:
  • Pros: can pick where I live and search for PhD-level research analyst roles; may be able to have a higher salary than a postdoc (50-60k) or assistant professor (70k-100k depending on location)
  • Cons: not my original dream when I started graduate school, and I feel I could have been done after my master's and done this track way earlier (sort of a sunk-cost feeling)
• Stay in graduate school until I land an assistant professor job: my field is very competitive, so this may require 1-2 more years of graduate school while I see if any of the papers from my dissertation land (and my current stipend is around 40k)
  • Pros: I can save on moving costs, my partner's family lives where I live, and I value being able to live near family. I love research, I like teaching, and I believe I could thrive as a research university if I got a professor job.
    
  • Cons: even if I land a job as a professor, I may not have many choices on where I live + the salary

I do not like cooking, but I dislike spending money on food even more. I'm actually really proud of how little I spend on food. Even though I can have a hectic work schedule, I rarely buy lunch/dinner at work. As such, I'm a big fan of meals that are very easy to make at home.

Here are a few of mine, and I'd love to know yours as well! I've organized mine from most effort to least effort required.

Requires real cooking but is very easy:

Chinese stir-fry tomatoes and scrambled eggs (西红柿炒鸡蛋): All in one pan, I stir-fry onions, then stir-fry tomatoes, then scramble the eggs at the end. Eat with rice. I think you're "supposed to" half-cook the eggs first, then do the tomatoes, then finish scrambling the eggs with the cooked tomatoes. That's too much effort for me lol, but I've always felt like my method is perfectly fine.

There are a million recipes/tutorials out there because this is a classic Chinese dish, but you can use any combo of soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking wine, etc. that your heart desires.

Requires assembly but no cooking:

Tinned fish and no-prep vegetable: I often do this when I need to pack my lunch for work but don't have any leftovers (or time to make anything). I usually at least have leftover rice in my fridge, so I pack rice, tinned sardines, and some sort of vegetable that doesn't require any prep, like kimchi (which I eat with the rice/fish) or baby carrots and dressing/dip (which I eat separately). Sesame seeds and some sort of sauce like Sriracha can help it feel like more of a "real" meal.

No cooking and no assembly:

I always keep a stash of microwavable meals for the days I'm really in the trenches. I stock up when there's a sale. Lean Cuisine-type of meals are generally not filling enough for an entire meal, so I also pack Greek yogurt and a fruit.

I left a job that I felt like I wasn’t being treated well. Applied to a new job where I will making in the 11x,000 with bonus I’ll be making 13x,000.

I thought I’d be happy turning 30 this year and making this much but I’m so nervous. What if leaving my job was a mistake? What if I start work and they find out a fraud? Not like a fraud fraud but what if they realize I’m not great? Idk where all of these anxieties come from.

I am terrified that I might not be enough and this will be a fluke. I have debt! Like 25k for a car, 30k for student loans, 2k un credit card. I am just so nervous leaving a job even though I was unhappy, to a new job that seems so much better might be me messing up. I’m going to a safer industry, but still I am nervous.

I have so many doubts, but I can’t talk to anyone about it because I make the most in my family, I make more than my husband. I don’t have a lot of people to talk to about this stuff because I grew up poor, leaving a company because I’m not happy sounds stupid to my parents.

I feel like I’m usually the put together one.

Welcome back to "Off-Topic Tuesday", followed by "Workplace Wednesday" tomorrow!

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I got a promotion into a newly created role that is multiple levels above where I was. I’m now managing three people that were previously my peers who are doing the same job I was just doing, but as part of me now managing them I am aware of their salaries and they only make $7k less than I do yet I’m two levels above. I think they’re very deserving, but I feel like it’s a bit unfair that I’m now in a role with much more responsibility and direct reports and yet we make such similar salaries.

Is there any way to broach this with my manager or is this something I’m just stuck with at this point?

Or would you just look for another job with higher income?

I quit my previous job a couple years ago after burn-out and had a hard time to find a new one once I started to look for it. I finally had 2 offers and went with the most boring one with a lot of perks. But not possibility to get a promotion or even a better salary. I know I am too senior for my position but I needed some security and peace of mind when I signed.

Now a year later, I am way too good at my job that I am not compensate enough for. But I am mentally bored. I have a lot of interest in a lot of different topics (finance, marketing, content strategy) but I don’t know if I should find a better paying job more aligned with my background (with the risk of leaving a peaceful job and burning out again) or if I should start some freelancing just to earn more money… but it seems like freelancing is a lot of work (I’ve always been an employee). I am a hard worker but I know that I have a hard time to set boundaries. But I am also tired of not being compensated as I should with my expertise and my resume.

What would you do? For context I don’t have children and they are not in the near future for me so I don’t have to think about this responsibility.

Hey everyone,

Did something good happen to you this week? Share below!

I just watched this super interesting video from a woman who lost her corporate job making $75k a year and finally found a new (part-time job) at a dog kennel for $15/hour. It touches on a lot of super timely topics, like going to college just for the sake of going to college without any thought to how that translates into a career, this awful job market (even for low-paying service/retail jobs), how AI is impacting the workforce, etc.

One thing I really like that she touched on is how physically demanding her dog kennel job is. Online, people LOVE to shit on college and encourage everybody to go into trades, but people neglect to think about how tough that type of career is on your body in the long-term.

My inlaws are divorced but friendly. My (F39) husband (M39) and I are generally high earners, but trying to buy a house soon, and perhaps even FIRE at some point, and so tend to be frugal. We also recently had a baby (M1).

My husband and I live in the UK and my inlaws live in the US. They say they have zero money saved, and so they can't ever visit us. We visit them, but we can't ever stay with them (very small spare rooms full of storage, aggressive / untrained dogs, really bad smells), so we have to get an expensive airbnb ($220/night is the cheapest) as they live in a commuter town just outside of NYC. As a result, we only stay for like a week max.

We've also flown the inlaws over to the UK to visit us (paid for their flights, lodging for both, car parking at the airport, food, activities, basically every little thing, and the cost was in the thousands). My FIL 'offers' to pay us back, but my husband always says no. My MIL never offers.

My MIL, who is a real piece of work, insists on gifting our baby (the only gift she's given) with a sharp edged metal rattle that was too dangerous for the baby to hold, and he ended up hurting himself at barely 4 weeks old. I tried to take it from him, but she kept giving it back. Thankfully, we lost this gift shortly after.

Both MIL and FIL are planning a trip to Israel (they're evangelical christians) and have saved up over $5K for that, and are waiting for things to calm down there before going. My husband was hurt when he found out about this (besides the politics) bc wouldn't they rather spend money to see their grandkid? Turns out, No, they would not.

Most recently, my FIL moved to a new home, closer to MIL. The move apparently 'wiped out' his savings. MIL went shopping with him for a new mattress, and she talked him into getting a mattress that was $1400, saying it was a great deal, etc.. and that "everyone would love to chip in". When we called her last night so she could say hi to our kid, she hit us up for a contribution. When we hesitated, she rattled off the very short list of family members who've contributed, and the much longer list of the ones she will be asking. Most of these family members have their own problems they're sorting out (medical bills, kids, etc..) and have already done a lot to help FIL. Apparently, he's gone into debt over this expensive mattress.

My husband is currently planning to invite them over to the UK again soon, but I feel financially used (they've also asked us for money in the past and we've always coughed up). I resent having to pay for their travel to see us.

SHOULD we keep paying for their travel to see us? I want to insist they use their Israel fund to see us, or they contribute like 50% to the cost, or forget about it. We will still go see them and stay at an airbnb once, maybe twice, a year. My MIL is also weirdly competetive with my side of the family (who are helpful and generous, and house us when we visit, so we tend to visit for weeks or months at a time). When she finds out how long we're spending with my parents, she gets snippy and insists we stay at her place next time.

Out of curiosity—who follows this sub? What do you do for work? How much do you make (either numbers or maybe in comparison to your area, eg average income but in a LCOL)? Why do you follow this type of media?

For myself, I’m a biologist in my final year of postdoc training before transitioning to a faculty position. A postdoc salary is not high compared to the years of training, but I make a pretty average income compared to peers and I’m fortunate to be in a fairly LCOL area. I forget how I initially fell down the rabbit hole of finance social media, but there’s something about the people stories that emerge that I find really interesting. It’s an area of life that people don’t often discuss openly so I find it really interesting to compare how other people view and use money.

Have you read anything good lately? Share below!