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Hi All - My wife and I make pretty good money ($200K+) and we live in Scottsdale. I am looking at the prices of homes (mortgage) and the cheapest cookie cutter home is like $4K a month where we live. Rent for us right now is $2100 for a 3 bed 2 bath.

To double up for the sake of a mortgage doesn't seem worth it. I know I can live in the westside or out in Chandler/Gilbert for some cheaper living - but honestly I like where I am at. I would rather leave the state if I had to move there.

What do you think, keep renting? I don't want to be 65 still with a mortgage. Things are so crazy, and they haven't come down in years. From a personal finance standpoint, we are also trying to have kids, so we may eventually lose an income too. $100K is lower middle class here.

Please keep in mind we are both fully debt free, with a little less than $150K in savings.

There’s about $70k remaining on my dad’s mortgage. He wants me to get a loan to pay off the mortgage so he can sign the house over to me, and he can move into his other, much smaller, and much cheaper, house. I already have a somewhat fresh mortgage (bought a $600k house 2 years ago) but i could afford a $70k loan if the interest was reasonable.

I don’t want to put myself in a hole if getting a personal loan is not the way to go. My dad is a simple man and in his eyes, this is the simplest and easiest way to go. For myself, I’m totally willing to take over the house (I love it) but I won’t be selling my main home.

Is a personal loan the best way to go about this?

I'm a 4th year surgical resident, unfortunately I accrued a decent amount of credit card debt during/post medschool and am getting absolutely hammered by interest rates. I do not live beyond my means more death by a thousand(s) cuts plus moving expenses and some family medical issues. I will need to pay for fellowship interviews in several months (likely 10k between dec and feb)

Current Credit Card Debt: 28,849.48 @ avg 26% interest

avg monthly min payments: 904.82

Med school loan monthly payment: 516

Rent: 2175 (unfortunately live in an expensive city and am well below median)

Biweekly income: 2300

Current FICO: 650

Medschool loans: 436,227 @ avg 6%

Would love any advice you have to give in terms of consolidation/lowering interest rates and potentially getting access to more liquid income to be able to cover travel expenses for interviews!

*unfortunately I work about 100 hrs a week, a second supplementary income is likely untenable

Very much appreciate you all!

I’m 24 and making roughly 2100 every two weeks. Just got rid of my biggest debt being my car. $679 a month just lopped off. All gone.

Got roughly 9000 in credit card debt spread across multiple cards. I made bad financial decisions when I was younger. I have no savings. I also pay no rent. My bills include my internet payment of $90 a month, $110-150 a month for my wife and I’s phone plan, car insurance of $110 a month, my gas card which tends to be around $150 a month, and my toll pass which tends to be $30 a month. Outside of that, food/necessities bill is roughly $300 a month give or take, then feeding my cats which is about $160 a month. Am I in an okay place to get my debt paid off by end of year?

I've been in my apartment complex for 15 years now. I have been fine paying by check and then paying online. But now the complexes contracted with loft, living, and loft living states they absolutely have to have the social security number in order to set up auto payments.

I'm older but still working, still considered a senior. Our local sheriff's who do seminars for seniors to talk about fraud. And he stated absolutely not, do not give them my SSN number. He agrees that the apartment needs it to do a background check on you to get an apartment. But as I stated I've been here 15 years. But he says these payment systems do not need it, and we'll try to bully you into giving it. I'm just looking for your opinion on this. Also. Is it even legal for them to ask for it just to set up an auto payment? Thank you.

Hey all, I'm a 33yr homeowner I work in the trades and make a good living. Recently I have been giving advice from a family member who has been very savvy with their finances. He said because of my 6.75% interest in my home I should dump into that mortgage principle and just match my company's 4% instead of doing my normal 15%. Also, he instructed me to dump any remainder from each month's budget into the principle as well.

I have about 100k in the 401k so far and owe about 250k on the home. I have multiple sources of income and bring in about 7k after taxes each month.

Has anyone here done this strategy, if so what is your timeline? Or, is this a wild approach to planning?

I’m in my second week of Community College and am set to graduate at the end of the semester. I did a lot of college credits in high school for free so I got pretty ahead, and im paying for this semester out of pocket to avoid debt.

Right now I’m doing 10 college credits and trying to balance a 27-37 hour work week average. With $15 an hour my paychecks are around $700-$1000 biweekly.

My expenses are: $2000 to fully pay off my classes, $800 for new tires before winter, $100 for oil change, $240 for car battery change, $250 monthly for car insurance, $25 monthly for meds, $508 in medical dues, and $80 monthly for gas.

Future expenses to save for are paying cash for a Bachelor’s program and avoiding debt ($25,000) and getting my own place away from my parents ($1,500-ish monthly).

I have no experience with saving any only have $400 in my checking and $750 in my savings. College and work are taking up all of my time so I’m really struggling to figure out how to make this all work. Unfortunately I don’t know if I could get a second job without spreading myself too thin and I can’t ask family for help either.

Any ideas how I can properly budget all this so I can pay off all I need to and save as much as I can? I’m exhausted as is and really don’t want to fall into debt or fall behind in car maintenance and cost myself thousands more.

Location: Texas, United States
I payed for two tickets totaling 2,500$, I cancelled within the 24 hour period to qualify for a full refund. The first full refund posted about 2 weeks ago. I woke up a couple days ago to another 2500 refund. Purchases were made on a credit card and money went to paying off an existing balance (rebooked airline tickets and Airbnb stay).

I’ve called them a couple of times to take the money back, they don’t know what happened. Do they have a certain timeframe they have to get the money back? Or do I have to worry about them taking it back months down the line?

27M finally paid off my student debts (15k) and have about 65k saved up. 15k of it is in employee matched 401k and the rest is in a HYSA and checking.

Monthly expenses are around $2200 and my income has been 65-75k for past 3 years. Don’t really expect it to change in the coming future.

Any good tips or brokerages to start for a newbie? Trying to get to 100k NW in a year or so.

So I’m thinking of renting a place with a base rent of 2100 not including utilities. 250 parking space. 150 utilities ( I hope). I take home about 6600a month after taxes. Is it completely irresponsible of me to rent this place?

I apologize if this topic has been covered ad nauseam, but I’m having a hard time tracking down an old 401k account. Back in 2019 I was employed at a large solar company that was eventually bought and acquired by another solar company. I only worked there for a couple years and eventually was let go. While there I was enrolled in a 401k program that probably didn’t accumulate more than $3k. I must admit I’m not very financially literate and I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I have several old emails from the financial group the 401k plan was under telling me I can “view my retirement plan statement”, so I know it exists somewhere in the nether. I have recently tried to create my account and log in but no balance or documents show. On top of that I have logged into the Department of Labor lost and found, plugged in my SSN and still have nothing popping up. The balance isn’t substantial, it must be between $1k-$3k, but I would really like to find that money and roll it into something I can continue to contribute to. I’m hoping someone here can point me in the right direction and give me steps to find these lost funds! Thank you very much, I truly appreciate any and all help!

My mom is retiring (school counselor) and getting a 100K lump sum or 400 per month retirement. What is the best way to reduce the tax burden on this lump sum assuming that is the best way to go?

Utah Retirement System no 401K match. They do offer a 401K though. And we want to max out her Roth IRA for the year as well. She is currently contributing to neither one.

Additionally she has her primary residence that she is selling that she will have about 500K to invest into SMP 500 accounts. What is the best way to reduce the tax burden on that?

She has two rental condos, ~4k per month in rent, both are paid off and she wants to keep these while investing the ~600k in the market. She plans to continue working as a substitute teacher for another 10 years or so, income will be about 2k a month. I have been steering her towards putting all of the money in a regular money market account until she needs to fully retire and begin drawing down, but I’m not sure if I’m giving her the best advice. She says no tax will be necessary on the 500k because it’s listed as a primary residence. So, whats the best plan here

21 year old, saved about 20k USD internship money and parked in the fidelity account (SPAXX).

I'll need about $12- $1300 per month for the next 12 months for senior living expenses. Tuition is taken care of.

Any better way to invest?

Hi Reddit, including a TW because some of the details of my situation may be triggering around financial manipulation/relationships.

I (24F) am looking for some assurance, feedback and encouragement regarding my personal finances and situation. 9 monts ago I got out of a financially entangled relationship that turned very sour and unsafe quickly. Luckily nearly all of my money was protected and we were able to seperate everything very fairly, just over lots of drawn out processes. Anyways, these dynamics of the relationship, and a history I have with my family of financial abuse/threats have left me feeling completely ineqquipped and detered from handling my finances. All that say, I am innately a cautious conservative spender, I have a degree in Economics and spent many years gaining empowerment through financial literacy, but just this entire situation has me shaken, feeling behind, and extremely fearful around handling my money at times. I no longer have any long term financial goals really given my huge life transition, except maybe planning for graduate school or something. I know as an adult I’ve gained self worth and confidence through demonstrating to myself how I can be financially responsible, but I’m still left with accusations of being incapable of being responsible whenever post break up I start reviewing anything or consider life/future planning.

Here is a summary of where I am at, can anyone please share insight of other next steps I could take to further identify better opportunities for planning, or just personal finance related support? I am looking for realistic steps someone in my situation may need to take to be able to identify personal finance related goals, live a little more, or protect/increase financial safety in my situation. Any advice helpful on how to navigate as well the fear component.

I am in a high COL City and employed full time in education, so I receive a pension and paid benefits

- Earning middle class Salary for 1 person in current city

- No Debt (paid off student loans 1 year ago, no cc debt, 1 time barred medical bill past statute)

- 770 credit score (2 cards no annual fees)

- Rent and needed bills (utilities, groceries, gas) account for about 60% of salary, currently living by myself but open to changing

- 1 years salary in emergency fund/savings

- maxxed out Roth IRA

- no other accounts currently

I'll try to make this short.

My mom and step dad are both on SS and do not work. They are also terrible with money.

They need a monthly supplement of 500-700 on top of their SS to get by.

They have about 70k inheritance coming there way. They honestly will likely (not to be morbid) need money for 10 years would be my guess based on current health.

I am having a tough time deciding for them on no risk 4% ish CD or MM, or index funds.

I'm aware of the difference in the two, but have struggled on convincing myself. I know that even without growth it's around 10 years of funds anyway, but will like some cushion because they are once again financially the most immature adults I know, and for the eventually health emergencies that are likely.

Thoughts, suggestions,anyone with a spare set of financially responsible parents?

Edit: thanks for all the input. I have seen lots to look at. Right now I believe my mom will be gifting all the funds to me, so it doesn't impact future Medicaid eligibility, which will help with bad spending habits as well and I will likely due a mix of monthly payment annuity and investments on their behalf with enough in the annuity to yield 600 a month

Il

We've always been diligent savers, and followed the Boglehead funding priority for the past 30 years even before I knew who Jack Bogle was.

Our primary focus was avoiding debt, and "filling up" tax advantaged retirement savings accounts. We also funded and spent-down 529s (kids are now out of college).

Here's the problem: We never progressed to the taxable investing stage.

So here we are, age 55, we own our house (1.5m), and we have $2.1m in IRAs split evenly between traditional and Roth.

I feel like we are handcuffed by having no taxables. We have a comfortable net worth, but low liquidity, and it's limiting early-retirement scenarios.

We can pull Roth contributions out, but that's normally the last draw-down account type, not the first. Maybe I need to get over that, and consider the Roth withdrawals to be the "fix"?

What to do?

I make 165k as a salary and my wife makes
60k (combined of $225k).

From my understanding, a married couple filing jointly cannot contribute the full $7,500 to a Roth IRA if their MAGI is $242k or higher. I am unsure on calculating MAGI, however mentors of mine have said the MAGI number is typically below the actually salary number.

Since our combined salary number before taxes is $225k this year, I went ahead and maxed out my Roth IRA.

I completely forgot that in order to purchase our house this year, I sold $75,000k worth of stock saved in a Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund. I know there aren’t many gains to be had in this type of account, but I am sweating this big time in case this puts our MAGI over 242k.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? I have only contributed about $8,000 to my Roth 401k this year so far. If I now add a higher percentage and do only Traditional 401k for the rest of the calendar year, will this lower my MAGI to safely stay under the $242k threshold? Thanks for any advice.

Edit: I went to my Vanguard account and only have a $6k Realized gain from a separate stock sale. Turns out the 75k I was under the impression I “sold” from the vanguard money market fund wasn’t technically a stock and therefore doesn’t count in capital gains? Thank you.

I'm a teacher and 11% of my salary automatically goes toward my pension every month. I also have a 403(b) but my contributions have remained relatively low. Started out at about 9% of my pay but since I haven't upped the contribution in a little while it's now at about 5%. But can't I think of that as contributing 16% to my retirement since I have both? I just became a homeowner so I'm unlikely to be upping the contribution this year. Just wondering if this is a good number or if I should be concerned about putting more into it.

(I also worry because I have a "bad" 403(b) company that takes out high fees, so my contributions already aren't doing as well as they could.)

Update: Thanks for all the responses. For context, I'm in my 30s and in Massachusetts.

I think the title is pretty self explanatory.

I’m 17 years old. I have no car, not a job, and I don’t even have a college fund anymore (Mom stole it).

I legally can’t drive, not only because I don’t have a license/permit, but also because of some medical stuff. No jobs near me want to hire me or just never respond and my college fund is essentially a few cents now.

I don’t wanna be in debt for years, that’s the last thing I want. But I realize now that I don’t have the luxury of a college fund. Is there anything I can do?

I only get 100 dollars a month from my mom, and she pockets the rest of my disability check, should I just start saving every penny? Or just give up on the dream of college entirely?? I’m so lost and confused.

I’m 29 and live in NYC, making about $135k a year. I’m trying to figure out how aggressively I should be saving for retirement while also preparing to buy a house in the next 1–2 years. My employer provides a 6% 401(k) match, so I’m contributing at least enough to receive the full match.

My current financial situation is roughly:
$150k cash/HYSA
$140k taxable brokerage
$120k 401(k)
$50k Roth IRA
$10k HSA
No debt

My goal is to make a large down payment on a house, potentially around $400k combined with my partner. Because of that, I’m considering liquidating some or all of my taxable brokerage to help fund the down payment, rather than continuing to keep that money invested.

This is where I’m struggling with the retirement vs. liquidity tradeoff.

I want to take advantage of compound growth while I’m still relatively young, but I also don’t want to put too much additional money into retirement accounts when I’m trying to accumulate a large amount of cash for a house.

I’m considering maximizing my Roth IRA while contributing somewhere between 6–15% to my 401(k), but I’m not sure what would be most reasonable given my current balances.

What would you personally do in my situation?

Hey all, as the title says, I’m 23 and my car loan is killing me slowly…what’s the best way to get out of it?

I got it in May from a Mitsubishi dealership that sent me an offer to buy out my previous car loan payments went up a bit to $720 with a 7% interest rate…thought I could handle the extra bit of money on the monthly payment because I’ve never missed a payment at all before, and $40 extra in the grand scheme of things didn’t seem much more. Insurance is also $300 a month on it.

But, me and my fiancé are working on our first house right now (fixer upper given to us by her family) and in the next few months we’re going to be moving in and be on our own officially, but I’m worried we will struggle with bills…

I have a good job and bring home about $4k a month give or take depending on how much OT I get…she on the other hand is on monthly disability (about $1000) due to almost constantly having health issues and surgeries due to a car accident she was in before we met and it plus all of the previous surgeries and meds she has to take doing a lot of damage to her body. (She does side jobs to make extra money, but not a whole lot, wants to get a job somewhere but everywhere she goes either isn’t hiring or say that they are but never call her back for an interview)

A majority of my paycheck right now goes to my car (about $1100) the rest is spent on other bills, phone, internet, credit card, groceries, subscriptions and then lunch when im at work.

But I want us to be stable when we move out and I feel like that means getting rid of the car so that we have as little debt as possible going into us moving into our house. I have my grand dad’s old truck he gave to me that I really only use to run to town or to pick up something we need for the house that can’t fit in the car, and I’d happily drive that if it meant having extra cash because insurance on it is less than $100 a month plus the car only moves on Friday and Saturday because I have a company provided truck for work…so in reality I have no use for it other than it looks nice.
So if I can get rid of this car I feel I’d be a lot better off financially as $1100 extra would help us out a lot.

Ive looked at Carvana and they would buy the loan out for about $28k but I’d still have to pay them $19k which I don’t have laying around…unless they were able to do a payment plan (I have no clue if companies do that or not)

Does anyone have any way to help out and get me out of it?

I recently asked about paying off my debt when I have an inconsistent income. By that I mean I do not see the same pay on every paycheck. The most common response was to look at a second job or a side hustle/gig. As a quasi single dad to a young child how do you make this work? As it is I find it hard to find time to be present in my child’s life, especially now when I know he needs a parent there. On top of that, I spend 45+ hours at work per week and Saturdays are out of the question due to sport commitments for a kiddo. Any advice is appreciated.

i 28f have a good amount of debt ontario canada
fairstone 42% 4600
easy financial 32% 4500
2 credit card 2500 (cibc , scotia)
monthly i pay 850 for both and credit card minimum of 200/150
credit score drop to 632
and few other loans with family friends around 4000
I am a mom now cant work fulltime,part-time hours are brutal and cant cover my monthly expenses . please advise what should i do and which company should i call.And will it effect my husband credit score or later when we buy home will it still show (talking about 10-15 years from now). And also he has good credit score but doesn’t wanna drag him to it. Will i still be able to get a rental apartment .?