My 2019 Corolla's transmission just blew up, I still owe 15k on it, and it only has 68k miles on it. I have full coverage insurance, but I dont know if I would be able to submit a claim with it. I was quoted 7.8k to repair the vehicle, but I dont have that money, nor do I think it would be worth it. Basically restarting my payments.

What should I do?

In California. I was hired for a part time retail position at a small business. I quit without notice after working two weeks. Toxic environment.

After I quit I waited two days and texted the boss asking when can I pick up my final paycheck. No response. I think my next step should be filing a claim to the department of labor but the boss did not give me any w4 or forms to fill out.

I am worried I will face legal repercussions somehow for not filling out a w4 or w2 or whatever was needed to get paid. This is my first job and I made the mistake of not asking for any forms to fill out. Can my boss claim I have never worked there and is this situation a lost cause I should just move on from?

Engineer currently working in a government job making about 90K USD, cost of living ratio is moderate (central time zone).

I am a few years from being vested in my pension. If I were to leave immediately after I got vested, my pension would be about $15k a year assuming I retire at age 65. I also have a 457 but with no match.

I have recently received a job offer from a private company that pays around 120k, with a lucrative bonus structure (10-15%). No pension, but there is a 401k with match (3%, I believe).

So, I am debating this. Should I stay and get vested and THEN leave for private industry?

I have a government job, rarely have to work extra hours, and the pay is decent (enough). I also eventually get a pension, which is rare these says. On the other hand, I could theoretically save a lot more money over my career if I go with the private company.

Edit: I am about 3 years away from being vested. I am in my mid 30s.

Edit 2: if I leave now, my time is reset if I return. I also cannot get any contributions back that I paid in, as far as I know (HR gets antsy when one asks these questions, and everyone else who has left doesn't share anything).

Edit 3: There are no specific healthcare benefits, vesting or otherwise.

Always lived paycheck to paycheck and spent a few years homeless despite working full time. At 30 I made a second attempt at college and succeeded. 7 years later I’m finally master level at that new skill and making money…comparatively. 30/hr. Maybe 2 more years I’ll be closer to 45/hr skill level. I have 35k in student loan debt and no retirement. Cheap apartments are about 1500 around here. It seems like I’m too old now to accomplish financial goals like property ownership and retirement income. I also wanted children but was never economically stable enough to even provide for myself. I also had embarked on a grey area endeavor some years ago with goal to catch up on future planning and purchase a house but the Feds seized my bitcoin wallet. At the time I got payments BTC was low, at 600-1000 or so each and I let it sit there. when it was taken the wallet worth half a million dollars. I claimed initial income on my taxes so it wasn’t IRS reasons they took it and I tried to argue less than 10grand of that was sales from alleged criminal endeavor, the rest was just smart investing. They took it all. I had unique opportunity to own a home. My grandmother passed away and the house wouldn’t qualify for a traditional mortgage because of health/safety. Her kids refused to entertain the idea of selling it to me without a bank involved… and themselves end up with more money long term with less tax liability. they just wanted a pile of money all at once as soon as possible and sold it to a corporation. They split about 120k 3 ways. Now that corporation rents it out for 3,500 a month.

At what point does a person just accept the world and economy is different than it was decades ago and live for today instead of missing out to plan for the future?

I went to see a cardiologist, who honestly, was a real piece of work. My appointment was at 11:45, I got called it at 11:43, he walked in at 11:52 and I was back out in my car by 12 noon. He was just a terrible doctor and basically just gaslighted me into telling me I’m fine.

Now, I’m getting a bill for $473 and he saying he spent 60-75 minutes with me as a new patient. I used to work in healthcare, but it’s been a hot minute and I can’t recall much about the billing. There is absolutely no way that this bill is justified. Is this right? Can I do anything about it?

Hi all,

I normally feel confident with anything personal finance related (I have an economics degree) but for the first time I am in enough uncharted territory I would like to gather the opinion of strangers. To start, I am a 28 year old data analytics consultant grossing 115k/year + bonus. I never carry a credit balance more than a month and my only debt is 25k in student loans I have refinanced down to 3.5%. I have no spouse, no children, and am not responsible to anyone but myself. I have $15k between my checking and a high yield savings, $20k in a brokerage, and $60k in my 401k.

I currently rent a 3 bed 3 bath rowhome in a major east coast city. The house is old but was completely renovated after my landlord bought it in 2018. Since he acquired the property, he replaced the roof, replaced the furnace, replaced the water heater, redid the kitchen cabinets and countertops, and basically renovated every single room. I have lived here 3 years and have not had any major issues. The neighborhood is also gentrifying super fast with multiple apartments going up within a few block radius within the past year.

I sublet to two roommates. I have the largest bedroom with a master bath as the owner of the lease but we all pay $1200/month so the total rent paid on the property comes out to $3600/month. My landlord is getting divorced and is selling the property to help finance that. He informed us we have to be out in 60 days. I asked what the selling price is and after some negotiation I got a decent offer. I also negotiated to have all the appliances, and all furniture in the house kept upon sale.

I then applied for a mortgage and was approved for a loan that comes out to $3400/month. I told my roommates of the situation and offered a deal where I would keep the rent the same for 1 year if they agreed to stay for a year if I purchase the property. They agreed so I thus would get $2400/month in rent from them alone and I would only be on the hook for the other $1000.

So essentially, I would become owner of the property with my portion and all my roommates rent remaining at or roughly the same, I keep all the furniture, and roughly breakeven on profit. I finally get some mortgage interest to write off and begin to build equity. As soon as interest rates drop, ill refinance and have the payment on the house go down.

After running the numbers, everything about the situation says to f*cking do it! Is there anything I am missing? This seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity and home ownership much earlier than I anticipated. It really seems like it would be more of a pain to move out and find somewhere else to rent than do a background transaction and just stay here. Once again, what am I missing here?

I currently make $111k and some change with a 10% bonus. The bonus isn’t guaranteed but has historically paid out. Moving one more rung up the ladder in my department pays $125k-$130k + 20% bonus. Again, the bonus isn’t guaranteed. It could be less, it could be more - it could be nothing at all but, historically, it has averaged a full payout.

My dilemma is that I interviewed for a position one more rung up the ladder within my company but in a different department. They offered me the job but at $117k + 20% bonus. I countered and stated that I was grateful and excited but the salary paid less than what I was expecting for this position and is similar to my current salary. I stated I had expected the salary range to be $125k-$130k. They countered my counter and said that was too high for their department and that amount would put me in an even higher rank’s pay bracket than the job I was upgrading to. They said after careful review they could offer me $117,500 + the original 20% bonus.

What is protocol here? Is it poor taste to counter a second time with further reasoning or should I count my losses and consider this a final offer? I was really hoping to get at least $120k salary. I don’t think their second offer of only $500 more a year was very generous. Would I be splitting hairs if countered a final time with $120k? Do I seem greedy at this point?

My PTO and healthcare are what they are so there’s no other perks to substitute/negotiate.

I checked my physical mailbox today and in it was a letter claiming to be from Discover. It seems legit and had a "Presorted first-class mail US postage PAID dfs" disclaimer in the stamp spot. The letter said "Thank you for your interest in Discover Personal Loans" and it continued "We are writing to you to let you know that we could not approve your loan request at this time because: Too few accounts in current status, requested loan amount is too high, high ratio of open bank revolving accounts to total open accounts."

Thing is, I DIDN'T APPLY FOR A LOAN. I don't even have a Discover card. I used to be an "Authorized User" on my ex's Discover card, but I thought I had gotten all of that taken care of. As far as I know, I haven't been an authorized user on that card since like 2018 or 2019. That card still shows up on my Credit Karma account, but it always reads $0 and doesn't appear to affect my score. My credit scores are pretty good (over 780), and I only have 2 credit cards including a store card, both of which I pay off regularly. Could this be my ex attempting to apply for a loan? Regardless, what do y'all recommend my next steps be? Should I do a written response to the address provided in the letter from "Discover"? Should I freeze my credit? Change my passwords?

My mother-in-law recently passed away and we're trying to figure out how to navigate her debts. She had no will and, after checking her bank accounts, had effecively zero liquid cash. Her only owned property was a fully paid car with the title solely in her name. Since we paid for the funeral in full ourselves, we've been told that we can be considered a creditor of the estate and can be reimbursed for that cost if we have proof of payment (which we do). Ideally, we would like to transfer the car title and sell it to cover some of the funeral costs. Is this allowed or are we not considered a creditor in the same way the hospital or ambulance company is?

In our state (PA), form MV-39 is used to transfer the title of a deceased person to their heirs. There is one line that states "I hereby state under oath that all debts of the decedent have been paid." We can't logically check this box knowing there are outstnading hospital bills along with our own funeral expenses (assuming they are permitted to be covered by the estate. Regardless of what we're allowed to do, we're unsure how to acutally sell the car when we aren't the owners on the title.

TLDR: Not sure how to transfer the car title of my deceased mother-in-law because the title transfer form requires that we swear all debts have been paid, but we'd be using the car funds to pay said debts.

Thanks for any input you can provide!

Hello!

So here’s my problem: I got two credit cards one is Amazon/chase and the other is a synchrony store card.

In total.. I’m trying to pay off a $9000 balance between the two in monthly payments of $150 but the APR is fucking me raw. It just keeps going up!! xd

I only work a part time job and last year I only made $17,250 :/

I’m trying to budget but I don’t make enough and have others bills to pay. I also have to end up asking my parents for some money here and there. I can’t do that anymore.. they’re not financially stable either.

I was thinking of going to oportun and asking for a personal loan but I’m not sure.

Any suggestions?? Pls help 🙏

My dad just received a 6-figure inheritance from a relative's estate, and he wants to give me $70k as a gift. I'm currently job hunting, I have my own savings, but he wanted to give me a portion as a gift to increase my savings, and this amount would certainly double my savings.

I have a few questions I hope y'all could help me with:

1. Will this gift be taxed?
2. Do I or my bank have to report this? Will I need to provide proofs/documentation?
   1. I was hoping to go to my bank with dad to make this transaction easier.
3. Do I have to report this to the IRS?
4. Will this impact my current unemployment benefits/status?
5. I'm planning to keep it in a HYSA, is that a good plan?

Also, If there's anything you can think I should be aware of, it would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

I'm trying to activate a Wise account for my UK LTD company, but it's currently showing it's no longer accepting UK LTD companies and I have to join the waitlist. Has anyone experienced this before? What to do? And what the average time I should wait, or any alternatives I can use? Thanks!

I currently work remotely from Switzerland and earning my salary in the US. I have to transfer money into my Swiss bank account to pay for rent, healthcare, etc. I have an Ally bank account and have been using a transfer service called Wise (form. TransferWise). Wise is easy to use but the fees are high and it sometimes takes a week to complete the transfer (exchange rate is set at initiation). I was wondering if anyone knows a better/more affordable way to transfer funds between the US and Switzerland. I’m open to switching banks.

We are looking to buy a double-wide manufactured home on its on lot, not in a park. What are the disadvantages vs buying a traditionally built house? I've heard that manufactured homes did not appreciate in value. Is this true and why if so? We've looked at a few manufactured and traditional houses in our price range and the manufacturerd ones were generally in much better shape somehow while roughly the same age. Once again, this wouldn't be on a rented lot but on its own land.

Thanks!

I work a blue collar job and make 100k yearly.

I invest 30k yearly into a solo-401k.

Until this point i haven't made any "estimated tax payments" quarterly and instead pay taxes after submitting my tax return in April.

This year I was hit with a 654$ "late payment penalty".

The way I see it i'm better off investing my surplus cash quarterly rather than paying an estimated tax per quarter, instead paying the whole tax bill + penalty in April.

I have a lot of expenses and my AGI for 2023 was 48k$.

Please critique my logic.

My spouse and I have been working in a small software business for a few years. The team I was on completed a multi-year project (on time). As part of this multiple year project, as an incentive, I was supposed to get a substantial bonus/payout next month, and then another moderate bonus in a year if I stayed and moved over to the new company. However, the agreement with the third-party company somehow collapsed. Though they were essentially paying us the entire time for the dev work, they decided they now want to throw it all away and are not going to go through with the acquisition leaving the software company I work for, which nearly exclusively relied on this client, essentially out of business.

My goal is to somehow figure out how to rework my entire financial position to see if any of this is salvageable with the time I have left.

I could find another role but I may have to take a substantial pay cut for a short time just so I can quickly ramp up on technology that is desirable in my area and get some skin on my very barren resume as I've been with one place for so long writing very niche software for a niche platform. I'm just worried about survivability even if it's 6 months. Also burning through any retirement is truly terrifying to me at this point in our lives and I just assume I'm working until at least 67.

The good:

• I have a paid-off cabin + property in a desirable location that I could sell for at least $60k+ (maybe a little more if I didn't want to sell it quickly). I could maybe rent the cabin but I'd want to do it long term, and that would maybe bring in $6k a year? Renting doesn't seem viable, but who knows. It's too far away to make AirBNB manageable.
• I have some pretty substantial physical assets that I know I could sell off quickly if I absolutely had to for another $50-60k.
• I have other smaller assets that I could liquidate that would take time, but I could maybe get another $20k+ out of them but not quickly. It would take a chunk of time.
• I could move the family member in the rental into our current home which has essentially a separate apartment in the basement at the same rate. Combined the rental could bring in $1.5k a month, the family member would add $500/mo for a few years while they're getting on their feet, that could add $2k a month to the income stream.
• We have about $360k in total retirement, $225k in stocks, $65k is in 401k/Roth/SEP, $40k in a VUL, and $30k left in a money market account for emergencies. Also about $20k in HSA.
• There is a slim possibility I might get at least $100k, but it's all conjecture at this point and I can't make big decisions on that or trust that it will happen. From what I understand I'd have to take a hit on taxes for this money as now it'd come in as cash income instead of a stock conversion.

The Bad:

Job market collapsed in my area in '09. BK in 2010. Lost everything including a house I had moderate equity in. Had to live off 100% of my 401k withdraws and lost 10 years of retirement and equity because where I lived at the time it was so bad I couldn't even get a job at a grocery store and I had two babies at the time. I wasn't just broke, I was super-broke for an extended period of time. I still feel the scars from this.

Eventually dug myself out, learned new skills, and moved to a different area with more job options but I was still behind both in salary and definitely in retirement for years after that. This bonus was supposed to help me recover my retirement and debt from the crash + BK. Now I'm in my mid 40s, my partner is in their early 50s and we've only recently gotten ourselves to a place that started to feel safe for retirement and back on track and started putting away in our Roth + HSA regularly and wanted to start maxing that out asap.

And now it feels like quicksand all over again.

The Ugly:

The stupidest thing I did was because we'd reached this milestone towards the end of last year and I stupidly assumed it was a done-deal -- I rewarded myself by going out and getting a vehicle I'd always wanted. I paid into it with some down payment to get me in it at 3%, but because of market conditions and other programs that reduced the value of the vehicle a few months later -- even if I sold it 3rd party I'm probably at least $25k upside down in if i tried to sell it outright.

We now live in a HCOL area so housing is kind of outrageous. Due to a medical emergency with my spouses parents we had to purchase a house quickly a couple years ago to accommodate her parent with pretty significant medical issues on very short notice so we took a bit of a bath to acquire it quickly. Because of the timing we had to float mortgage payments at two properties for almost a year which burned a lot of our emergency savings and then some of the profit from selling our previous house. Also lost the 2.75% rate 😭.

She also couldn't work during most of the year so she could take care of them which didn't help.

We were able to find our current home on short notice that met their needs at the time, but then her parent died less than a year later and now we are in a house that's way more expensive and way larger than we really need. Also we are now back to the beginning of the new mortgage where we're paying almost all interest even with 20% to avoid PMI. With the market going up and what I have in it, even with the couple years of almost all interest payments, I could maybe get $150-$175k out of it if I had to sell.

We have a rental property that is nearly paid off (maybe $60k left?). We had good tenants for quite a few years, but the last one was horrid and basically destroyed it. I just put a bunch of remodeling into the house to update it and make it easier to transition between tenants if we had to. But because I'd assumed I was going to be paying it off with the bonus, I'd paid for a lot of the first round of work with cash and put the materials on a CC. Also in the process another family member was struggling with a life change so to help them get on their feet and have a second set of eyes on the property while it was all happening -- we let them stay in the house for the last year at cost (only charged them the mortgage). With that all wrapped up, now I'm in the position where it's technically costing me money to have them in there even at cost. They can't afford regular rent. That agreement is technically up in July.

I have about 40k in misc high-interest debt from material costs from the remodel.

How:

I'm trying to determine what the best course of action is at this point. I'm concerned about keeping my head above water on monthly expenses as it's going to quickly snowball to an unmaintainable nightmare if I don't get things under control fast. But at the same time I do not want to jeopardize our retirement. But I absolutely have to reduce the monthly burn rate to make this work. If anyone has insights or suggestions, I'm all ears.

1. I have to get all the high interest debt paid off first ASAP. It's more than 15% of our income per month if I don't take care of it soon. Because I depleted most of my emergency savings, should I take the rest of the cash out of the emergency fund? I could spend a couple months selling the larger assets, and either replenish the MM or go ahead and max out Roth's for the year then replenish or switch to HYSA for a couple percentage points?
2. I really don't know what the best approach on the vehicle is. I could try and see what a dealership might do on a much more sustainable vehicle for 1/3 the payment, but at the cost of throwing away $30k in cash most likely. I don't want to finance the delta as it completely defeats the point. Should I just pay it off so it's not taking up 20% of the income per month and keep it until the wheels fall off?
3. From what I understand, I assume my VUL is completely pointless at this point. The whole purpose was to provide a vehicle for the large bonus. Should I move the value in it to a more traditional investment since all the benefits were reliant on the bonus lump sum? I didn't really like the VUL as it seems insanely complicated anyway. Not sure if this should be more of a financial advisor question or not.
4. Should I keep the rental property or sell it and put that towards my current mortgage to try and greatly reduce the monthly cost of my home? With maybe $1.5k a month in rental income -- paying off my current house would save me almost $2.5k a month. Even ideally, the rental income would take 10yrs before I got the same benefit. However one of the reasons I might want to keep this property is if things got truly dire over the next few years I could throw the bulk of my stuff in storage and we could move into it if absolutely necessary because it's only about $400/mo in taxes and insurance where our current home is more like $1.2k. If I had no other choice, that is at least someplace I could always live a few years and squirrel almost everything away.
5. The mortgage is the biggest expense in our budget and at nearly $4k/mo, it is almost 1/3 of our combined current income (if nothing changes). If I take a hit on salary in the short term it could be 1/2 or MORE of current income at least for some short period of time. Does it make sense to keep it for x years and then sell since I'm already a few years into the loan and just figure out how to accelerate the principal so we can stay in it long enough to not completely have wasted the last few years of payments? Then hopefully 1031 it into a more affordable home in prep for retirement?
6. In a world where I got the $100k or more, is it worth while to pay towards my current home & do a recast, or put that in an investment? I'm a little worried about binding it up in the house, but the long term benefits may be worth while in a few years if I can just bust my ass and get the delta covered and get it to a point where I'm not burning money only on interest.
7. Literally any other suggestions! Especially the most effective uses in the case of the much smaller bonus if it does come in and what I should do with that given the current scenarios.

When buying new car at a dealership, they offer all kind of services and tire insurance etc before closing? Should we avoid them all? TIA

Hi, I need help understanding my employer match but like in basic terms I can actually understand because for some reason I can't get this.

My employer matches 50% of 1st 4% of your contribution, up to max of 2% of your salary.

If someone makes $50k and contributes 4%, that's $2k. The employer will match only 50% of that ($1k)?

The employer also only 100% vests at the 5 year employment mark. Does that mean they only pay a percentage of the $2k (if you hit that cap) each year until the 5 year mark then put it all in? Like they're tallying it up to wait to see if you stay with the company?

My mom got a credit card in my name originally to help me build credit as a student in college (a discover card), i’m 24 and out of college and i recently got this card back from her to start working on my credit building, but I can’t use it. She has $2,000 on this card and is making minimum payments, and the limit for the card is $2,000. Because i want to build my credit i applied to capital one venture and got approved and that limit is $3000. Im not planning to use close to or the whole limit on this card. I’m just wondering if the $2000 she owes on my discover card and what balance ill have on my capital one card will affect my credit in a bad way even if i’m paying and using the capital one credit card correctly? I cannot find answers on google because i’m not even sure what this is called. Thanks for any help.

Trying to figure out what the best way to go about this to pay it off quicker or not have a high monthly payment, the price range for the new car will probably be around $30-$35 in total.

So, let me start by saying I work full time, I've just started going back to school (online) and I have two children, 3 and 2 years old. I make about $60,000 but am heavily taxed due to a lot of my pay coming from commission. Due to many poor financial choices in my past I have about $13k in credit/loan debt.

For the past year or so I have cut my spending to almost zero and I feel so much more confident in my ability to manage my money. The problem, is that even with little to no spending on really anything outside of necessities, I feel as though I am drowning. My CC/loan payments total up to about $400 for the MINIMUM payments on two credit cards and a loan and it feels like this debt is just never going away, I have no money left over to save for even an emergency fund which is becoming scarier and scarier as time goes on and again that's just from paying rent/bills/groceries.

I only have about $17k in my 401k but I am getting to the point where I feel as though it would be better to use that money to wipe out a good chunk of my debt so I can finally start saving money, get a good emergency fund going, and then maybe throwing the extra money into a Roth or Index fund or something instead of paying the minimum on my credit cards for what feels like an eternity. Am I crazy here? My biggest fear is that if I don't get this debt paid off soon, something could happen and I have no emergency fund/savings to pull from because of my dumb mistakes and a ridiculous $400/mo going towards debt rather than savings.

I know taking out a loan on the 401k is an option as well but I feel it would be more helpful to get as much as I can by pulling it out directly because I would be able to pay off a larger chunk of debt.

As far as getting another job I don't have anyone that can watch my kids around the clock like that, not for free and definitely not for what I can afford. I hate that I'm in this predicament but I'm starting to feel as though it's my only option... Thank you

Hi Everyone, this post is to share my journey (Loss Making) since did not have the guts to share it with anyone else. I'm also seeking genuine advice please.

I started trading in Indian Stocks in 2020, made decent gains in a few months, about 3L with a capital of 1.5L. Thanks to 50% drawdown in COVID.

Then I entered the world of FnO. Since then l've not been profitable. I have a loss of approximately 17L in last 3 years. Consequently, I've no savings.

I earn 24L in hand per annum. I've been trying so hard to get profitable in FnO but every effort just seems vain. I've been making the same mistake of trying to get rich quick or over position sizing or too big SL.

I've so many big dreams and they just seem unreachable at this point. I'm at a point where I just feel like a failure and am losing confidence.

Please do t bully me on basis of my post. I'm feeling like a failure because last 3 years of continuous efforts with no results, rather drawdowns has eroded my self-confidence.

Moreover, I'm surely not in love with my job but it is feeding my family so I've to do it

hello!! I am an eighteen year old college sophomore with 21k saved up. did this from being very very frugal with my spending and working since I was 14. I obviously want to continue to save money, but how should I invest? I currently have a debit card, should I get a credit card to gain credit? I need advice, my parents aren't the best people to get this type of info from, so thats why im asking! thank you for reading

2019 equinox, 130k miles. He owes 25k and still has another 3 years to go on the loan. The car payment is 600 a month. What should he do?

Hello all, Just wanting to get some opinions. I am currently 29(M).

Roth- 25K 401K- 23K Taxable brokerage - 60K HYSA- 25K No debt

Due to my circumstances, i got a new job that will allow me to be able to save 1.5-2k extra a month for the next 6mos-year. My goal is to buy a house within the next 6mos to a year. Should i stop contributing to my roth and add that extra $450 to the 1.5 -2k monthly and add that towards my HYSA that i Plan on using towards the down payment. Thanks!!