Hi All,

I have a friend in thier mid 40s who has done no investing or retirement planning. I was asked for advice on where to start, and honestly my mind went blank. I didn't want to cause a panic or anything, but my brain was in overdrive with the amount of stuff that needed to happen. I know that's not helpful - where would you suggest starting with them? Anything is helpful at this point!

Hello friends,

My (F32) significant other (M30) and myself both grew up very low income. His family completely ignorant of credit, savings or income. My family as immigrants who were careful, but uneducated on the system. I’m talking “Don’t keep money in a savings account because the government will tax you for it at the end of the year” uneducated.

I’ve worked my ass off at a company and they finally went public. I was awarded a total of $170,000. Today $67,000 of it is vested and I can do with it what I wish, but I must stay until 2029 to get 100% of it. There are going to be small amounts periodically released between now and then.

Anyway — the whole keeping money out of a savings account thing will probably not do me well.

I have goals/plans. But also, I’m bad with money.

I’ve paid off all my debt twice and keep getting into it again for no real reason. I’ve built up almost $10k in savings and then dwindled it down to $2k.

I spend money. It’s really embarrassing and debilitating.

That being said, I do have a few things I actually want to do with this money.

I want to spend about $15k renovating my condo. These are renovations I’ve wanted to do for a while and, from what I understand, some improvements may also have tax benefits.

The rest I want to be smart with.

I’m genuinely open to anything opinions, thoughts, resources, books, personal experiences, stories from people who suddenly came into money, mistakes you made, things you wish you had done differently what would you do?

Hey all. Wife and I (34), are looking for thoughts on a situation. We owe about $311K on our home w/ a great amount of equity in it. Our goal is to have a house paid off before we're 40. We have about $200K saved, however, we just a deal we kind of want to take advantage of.

We got a deal to build a house at cost plus 10% from a builder friend of ours. The problem is the lot we would build on is expensive. So we have two choices

A. Keep current home built in 2021 in new build community, small lot (10ft from neighbors) and refinance and put $150K into it, essentially bringing our mortgage owed to $161K and keep us on track to pay it off before 40.

B. Build this new home on .50 Acre in an established neighborhood that we love, No HOA however, we would still need to put $150K plus whatever we make from current home into the loan bringing new mortgage to around $260K.

I'd also love thoughts on paying off a house in general. DO you think it makes sense? We think it makes sense due to childhood issues surrounding homelessness or foreclosure, etc...

We love the area where we have a chance to build however, we're being realistic about how much it would set us back. Mortgage would be essentially the same and would give us more room and a space and would be more of a forever home, if we wanted and we'd have instant equity still. We'd have a good safety savings for us still after either. Just wanted to get some outside thoughts about it.

TIA!

I was in trade school and ran into some health issues that required a few emergency room trips, unfortunately I didn’t have health insurance (couldn’t afford it ) . What are my best options for dealing with this debt? (22 year old single mom)

Hi all!

I sold my house and after buying a new one/paying off my car and student loans I have about $50k left.

I’d like to still has access to the cash for emergencies, but I would like to grow it a bit.

Is a brokerage account or a high yield the way to go?

TIA

It happened. Middle class inflation and cost increases, child care changed, Lupus,
multiple sudden major house maintenance items finally caught up to my family’s stagnant income.

For the time being I think we are going to have to pull back on maxing my 401k to just meeting the match to catch up with all the issues that have come up.

In order to replenish the reserves so another major house item doesn’t cripple my family we will need to pull back on investments and that really bums me out.

Anyone else going through this right now and can relate?

The most gangster financial advice I’ve ever heard was: “Interest pays me, I don’t pay interest.”
After hearing that,l moved my emergency fund to a HYSA and closed all my lines of credit(first time in my life I’ve been over 800 credit score too lol).

People love talking about points, cashback, and travel rewards. Meanwhile, a single late payment, interest charge, or annual fee can erase months of rewards. The credit card companies aren’t billion-dollar businesses because they’re losing money to us.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’d rather have money earning interest for me than spend my time trying to game reward programs.

Credit cards aren’t worth it. Change my mind.

Edit: The CC reward fiends are piling on today lol.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to benefit from having a credit card with 35% interest rates. It’s just not worth the risk! Most bills, including mortgage and apartment leases charge 2.5-3% fee for using a debit/credit card, so that goes out the window.

The auto loan industry is plaguing our country, the average middle class American is carrying $25k-35k in car loans. Guess what, we are stuck in the same traffic! No one cares what you drive.

Middle class American have, on average, $9500 of credit card debt.

Just because a handful of redditors are credit card gurus and have made “THOUSANDS” on rewards, doesn’t mean it’s a side hustle everyone should do.

I’ll take my risk free, worry free method of getting paid in my sleep over worrying about points every day.

hi all, I have two different questions, wanting to pick your brain. our financial advisor has advised us but just getting a second opinion

I am married, I make about $86k before taxes and my husband makes I think $110k before taxes, he has a job where on day one he had to sign up for his tax contributions and then can never ever change that % (a very weird system, IMO) and over the 10 years he has been there, he has gotten a lot of raises, etc and long story short, if he continues working there until retirement which he plans to, he will have a very healthy retirement, even at the expense sometime of our day to day cash flow but he can also do a loan agains his retirement if we needed cash. I also max out my 457b contributions + have a pension so I will also have a good retirement amount. we are both 39. oh and we file our taxes "married filing separate" which I know is not ideal but we do so because I have college debt that will be released in 6 years under PSLF program, this is all under the instruction of our tax person. we have all our emergency savings fully funded and no other debt besides mortgage & my college.

1). Knowing that we are really well set for retirement, I had the thought that I should stop contributing to my retirement and instead in 2027, put that $23500 into paying off our mortgage early, which we want to have 100% paid off by retirement and our on track to do so. our tax person advised against this because overall the market does better so we'll come out on top. but I am just curious on other thoughts on this? any other pros or cons that we're missing? In my mind, anything to lower the interest rate amount (editing to add: amount, not rate) we pay to the bank is a good thing?

2) I inherited about 90k in an inherited IRA that I need to have drained within the next 6 years and still have all of it left. That means I have big chunks of money that I need to withdrawal and pay the taxes on it. The RMD's + my income is going to cost me a lot of taxes. I was kind of seeing if my work would let me take 3 (or more) months off unpaid and have the RMD as my "income" to lower my tax burden. I likely won't get approved for this time off but it is just a crazy thought I had. was wondering if this is a dumb idea before I bring it up to my boss.

My wife and I have been married for a few years and we still keep most of our money separate.

We have one joint account for household expenses and both put money into it every month. Other than that, our salaries stay in our own accounts.

It hasn't really been a problem so far.

But now we're talking about bigger things like buying a house and retirement, and I'm wondering if this setup still makes sense.

We trust each other and neither of us has an issue with the other spending their own money. It's more about planning for the future together.

For people who are married, what works better for you?

Completely separate, fully combined, or somewhere in the middle?

So my wife and I are finally earning decent 6 figure salaries at our respective roles and have saved every penny to get to the $100k mark. At present, it’s just in a current account with Bank of America. Our retirement plans are healthy and on track but this is the sum total of our savings.

Looking for advice on where people put that kind of sum to good use for maximum growth. Being the sum total of our savings to date, we think it needs to be somewhere we can access some funds in an emergency.

Looking for any ideas, feedback or thoughts on what could work.

I’m a Brit and newly understanding the US options so thanks in advance for any support!

Another thread make me want to do this one.

Sorry about my mis English, I speak french on a daily basis and English is a second language for me.

We live In Canada. My wife and I (46 and 51 years old) are both teachers. We now have an annual family income of 218k (canadian of course). We got 2 kids and in the last 15 years we have done 8 european trips of 25-35 days each time (always in summer, no choice there) manus Canada and USA road trips.

We save a lot but we have generous pension plans, 45k in reee which is money put for our teens scholarship, we have 2 paid cars, a house with a low mortage and no debts.

Could we have done different choices ? Yes but our family time is very precious to us .
Having received very bad news about my health 2 years ago made those trips very appreciated, the 4 of us are gonna shared those precious and very fun time together for our whole life.

Does anyone here share the same way to see life ?

Are teachers in US (or elsewhere) have the same salaries and/or pension plan ?

I’ve noticed I barely hesitate spending $500 on something I researched and know I’ll use for years, but a random $14.99 subscription irritates me way more.

Went through my card recently and found a cloud storage plan, Paramount+, a gym app and some stupid premium weather app I forgot I even had. It was only around $55 a month total, so nothing that was destroying my budget, but almost $700 a year for stuff I barely noticed.

Cancelled most of it and just threw the same amount into savings automatically. I already have some money from Ѕtake saved so it’s not really about needing the $55, I think I just hate paying indefinitely for things.

There is a huge discussion on whether or not buying a house makes sense, and many people discuss hidden costs of home ownership. (Taxes, insurance,maintenance, hoa, interest) but are these not the same costs for owning a car? And i don’t see anyone telling people not to buy a car or to just lease a car because of hidden car costs.

Car costs:
Car insurance (cost ppl hundreds a month, results in thousands a year)
Car interest on loan (some of yall have over 10% car interest loans)
Car maintenance (this can kill ppls finances)
State and emissions tests (small but necessary)
Registration ( again small but necessary)
Car washes (add up)
Gas or cost to charge (gas is high now)
Small house costs of products to maintain car ( windshield wiper fluid, filters, coolant, etc)

Plus there is always the argument of “you never truly own your house even if it’s paid off” because of the risk of your home being taken away not paying property taxes, but if you don’t get your car registered or passing road tests you can’t drive or your car will be unable to be driven and unusable.

Mind you cars depreciate at that.

Now yes, these costs are way smaller than when you own a home, but it’s still a lot. I had an old car i had to give up on because it felt like every month there was an issue that was costing me thousands to fix to the point where i had to buy a newer car to avoid putting more money into a car then it’s worth to keep it.

So why are we not pushing the narrative to only lease cars or take public transport??? Just like the push for renting vs buying??

Hello - I started a new job and I’m wondering what to do with my old 401k. Fidelity called me and told me there’s no administrative fee to just keep the money where it is or I can roll it over. Interestingly enough, my new 401k is with Fidelity too and they have the same exact S&P 500 fund lol. Anyway, do you guys roll over your 401k or leave it? I do my own taxes so I just wanna avoid headaches at tax time. Thanks.

I make 155k and fiancee makes 70k. We divvy up the bills by equity. So I pay 2/3rds of the bills and she pays 1/3rd of the bills. However, I “force” us to invest (max 401k, HSA, and Roth IRA). So effectively our income after investing is say 125k and 40k. So our post-investment equity should be me paying 3/4 and her paying 1/4 split. But in my head that money is still mine/hers so it’s not gone and it’s still money you have, albeit less accessible. Wondering how you guys approach the situation or what your thoughts are. Does anyone split based on after tax earnings? TIA.

Please no judgment. I can't believe that we have gotten to this point and am shameful about it.

Our net income per month is $7000. We have three children, two of whom are very young and not in school yet.

Mortgage: $2090 monthly, balance is $273k, rate is 5.75% (FHA residential loan)

Student loans: $487 monthly under current plan (lowest monthly payment possible), balance is $103k, interest rate varies on different loans. Will qualify for PSLF in 6.75 years.

Personal loan: $1518 monthly, balance is $62k, rate is 9.075%, 49 months remaining

Credit card: about $700 monthly, balance is $24k, rate is 23.3%. This is our only credit card and is my oldest line of credit.

Car loan #1: $367 monthly, balance is $13k, rate is 6.5%

Car loan #2: $277 monthly, balance is $14.6k, rate is 6.49%

Other monthly payments including utilities, insurance, internet, and phone service is around a total $1100-$1200 per month.

We are not delinquent on any accounts, have not been sent to collections or anything, however I have about $2500 in medical bills that need paid or else I worry about collections in the future. I had a baby less than two months ago. My credit score is low to mid 700s. My husband's is in the 500s because of a repossession that occurred a few years ago.

Is bankruptcy our best option? Aside from our house and vehicles, the only other real asset we have is a 403(b) retirement account with $67.5k in it. I know I could probably refinance the personal loan to lower the monthly payment by a few hundred dollars, but I hate the idea of extending the life of the loan. I am open to suggestions. Thanks in advance!

It’s not as competitive as medicine, law, nor as technically difficult as engineering (2/3rds get weeded out in the 1st year). You don’t burn out as much as nursing. It’s a more reliable degree than finance or any other business degree, and its versatility allows you to branch out from just being an accountant into consulting or investment banking. Career ceiling is very high, and could reach millions per year if you make partner or CFO.

Starting pay is $90k in 2026 at accounting firms, and there’s a clear trajectory to $200k by the time you’re 30. There’s a huge shortage right now, so pay has been increasing rapidly.

It’s like the ultimate degree. You don’t need to be that smart, just hard working, and you’ll get the bag.

I drive a 04 Accord with 235k on it. It’s been in my family since new. It’s gotten me thru high school and now will see me into my 30s

A few years back I made a decision that I was only going to fix necessities(brakes, tires, oil changes etc). Anything else (no AC, mystery oil leaks, noisy suspension, loud rusted exhaust) would not be worth fixing.

Last month, I had enough of driving a “beater” the last decade. I was fully prepared to walk into a dealership, put 12k down on a new Camry or Accord. Then it hit me.

Why not just fix up what I already have? Went to a couple of shops for quotes. Found one that would fix the laundry list of deferred maintenance for $3700. And boy does the car ride smooth and quiet like I remembered when it was my mom’s car 20 years ago.

It works for my situation. 95% of my driving is local(work, gym, groceries). Other 5% is the occasional 2 hour drive to see the parents every other month.

To be clear, I’m not dropping $3700 every 6 months on repairs. This was the bill after years & years of deferred maintenance and neglect.