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Human: It would be helpful if someone explained opportunity cost to me. People have referred to it in some of my previous posts but I don't really understand it. I just got my salary increase to 90K (pretax). I have over 300K in student loan debt. I anticipate being able to make close to 130-150K in the future. As far as opportunity cost goes, people have referred to it when I mentioned my previous relationship. A lot of people stated she is better off making 70K (pretax) with limited income potential and having no debt, than me having a 90K salary with income earning potential with my debt load. We are both in our 30s but she hit close to the max of what she will make. I don't understand why everyone says this is "better off". I realize I have a lot of loans to pay but I make a good salary.

take the $3000/month you are spending on debt repayment and put it in a compound interest calculator like [this one](http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm) - at a very modest 5% annual rate of return, over 15 years you would have $800K+ instead of possibly finishing paying off your debt. That's your opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost is basically saying you can't do two things at once, so you pick one of those things. The opportunity cost is the value of the other thing that you gave up. For example if you choose to stay home and play video games all day, the opportunity cost could be the money you would have made working a job, or the knowledge you would have gained by spending that time in college. It works both ways: If you choose to go to college and study all day, the opportunity cost could be that you aren't out having fun with your friends, or playing video games. It's all about being aware of all your options and making the best decisions that fit your goals, and being aware of what you're giving up after making those decisions.

Human: I have a transitional period between apartments. My lease was up on July 31st and I can't move in till August 21st which is also when my next paycheck is. I've asked friends to stay with but all of them have asked for money in return. I don't have much and I need it to eat. What can I do? Please help UPDATE: Thank you guys for all the help. I talked to one of my managers and her daughter went out of town for a couple days so I got a place to stay for a bit and $60 to watch her dogs. I really appreciate all the advice. I'm going to get myself out of this situation on my own since I got myself into this mess. Thanks again for all the help guys.

Donate plasma if you aren't afraid of needles. You can give twice per week and get around $30 a pop.

Check with your local food banks, department of social services, local churches and the like. If your family and friends cannot help and you are unable to get a loan from a traditional lender (not payday etc), see if there are community resources that can help you during this transitional period.

Human: This is my first text post, but I thought I'd use it to seek consultation for my dilemma! I'm currently taking home about $610 per week at my $17/hr job. MY husband and I live in an apartment in a city on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and rent is only $725. Despite my income combined with my husband's (approx. $150-$180 per.week, retail job & no hours) I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. My credit was shot on moving out fees from my last apartment, a car repossession, and unpaid credit cards (I used to start my life on my own). I have a car note of $250 I pay to a car in my parents' name and bills like Internet, cell phone bills, old vet bills from our dog who passed, and electricity. We never go out, drink, smoke, or buy anything yet we still can't even afford to stock the cabinets! I can't go back to school to get a better job even, I work over 40 hours a week and can't work any less. Any suggestions to better my situation or invest/save?

When people post like you have, it's obvious you don't know where every last dollar is going. It's also obvious that you aren't making aggressive cost cutting moves, such as dropping your internet service or downgrading your phones. In your situation, the fastest way to make a difference is cost cutting and budgeting. Make it a challenge to find out where every single dollar is spent after bills. I suspect you guys are spending $10 here and $30 there and you're too busy looking for hose $100 expenses.

Spend less money. You clearly are not tracking your costs. Make more money. You husband needs to be applying for 5 jobs a day. $150-180 a week is less than someone with no pulse can get. There are literally tens of thousands of jobs available right now in your area that pay more than that.

Human: Got a job offer yesterday where I will be earning $80K. I'm 23, still living with my family but now considering moving. I would be moving to Seattle and found a 1BR apartment for $1750/month. Would his be affordable for me? Background: $20K in student debt, $20K savings, driving to work but moving would cut my commute time by 70%.

You should look around Seattle more. My wife and I have been pricing out 1 bedrooms close to south Lake Union and you can get under 1500 pretty easy

Barely. To close for my comfort.

Human: I have close to $300,000 in federal student aid. what would happen if you only made a payment right before the default period, effectively only making a payment every 9 months? i'm asking about the federal loans only, and right now their site says you default if you don't pay in 270 days. would that effectively mean you can do that for years and end up just paying back a fraction of your loan? every 9 months for the rest of my life is significantly less than the full loan and would have no effect on my yearly income. Assistant: What's your goal here? To have a constantly increasing balance (due to interest and fees) that eventually disappears when you die? Even if they will let you do this indefinitely (which I doubt, there is probably some other trigger for default, like total # of missed payments, or total balance past due that cannot be bypassed), it will trash your credit and just dig you in deeper. These are federal loans, if you've managed to look up the definition of default, also look up the various income-driven payment plans that are available. PAYE/REPAYE sets your payment at 10% of your discretionary income, allowing you to make affordable on-time payments to preserve your credit, and the loan balance is forgiven after 20 years if your payments are too low to pay it off after that time. Human: my issue is that I failed several grad programs and will soon graduate from a related program but with less than half the anticipated income of the original career.

You need to take some responsibility for your actions. I'm sorry, but failing multiple grad programs and racking up 300K in the process? That's just *really* irresponsible and bad decision making. You are a prime candidate for an income based plan and working at a nonprofit or government employer to get rid of this in 10 years at minimal cost. Do that instead of trying to concoct ridiculous schemes that surely will not work.

This is exactly the type of situation that income-driven payment plans are meant to address. Contact your servicer(s) and apply for the one that has the lowest payment for you.

Human: Would love to plan for the future. Both in college right now, not a lot of debt. What should we do with our disposable income? Pretty new to this community, and I'm very interested in it. Any advice or personal experiences would be very appreciated it. Should we apply for credit cards to start working on our credit scores? Anything.

1) Build emergency fund 2) Keep avoiding debt 3) Don't let randos (including relatives, boy or girlfriends) access your credit 4) If you expect to need credit a few years in the future, start building credit. Otherwise, save cash and pay cash.

What others have said and you should check out Dave Ramsey. I follow his plan.

Human: EDIT3: Don't use a damn debit card, I get this now! EDIT2: Filed a police report. I contested the charges after finding a charge to a "FUENTES NOVELS" in an area 8+ hours away from me. I contacted my bank and disputed the charges then found a branch open on a Saturday to have my card replaced and I destroyed the old one, they flagged the old card so the number could not be used. I was granted provisional funds and the person I spoke to said she would be surprised if it was not found to be fraud. Yesterday, always in time for the weekend, I received a notice that the bank found the charge to be valid. What can I do? I feel my bank is helping steal from me? I have charges made earlier that day and after that purchase that prove I was in my city and could not have possibly made a purchase at costco at 10:00 am, withdrawn money over 8 hours away at noon, and been back 10 fucking minutes later to buy coffee. EDIT: I spoke with someone on the phone from a fraud department and he was confused. He told me that the reference number from the letter I received saying the charges are valid doesn't match the ref number of the ongoing dispute. After some examination he told me that there were two attempts for the same amount of money, possibly, and that the first one was cancelled while pending and that the letter I received is likely an automatically generated letter sent to me regarding the earlier dispute. Either way it seems no one that I've talked to knows what the hell is going on and I'll have to wait until Mon. to resolve the issue. Thanks for all of the help so far. Has anyone been through this before? Assistant: I worked for Citibank for many years and what you are experiencing is very uncommon. Ok so regarding the charges themselves we would deal with that on a daily basis. Now many bankers in the branch really suck at what they do, they are actually very bad at what they do. Most are not trained on how to deal with this beyond a 30 minute web based training so its no surprise thats the result you may have gotten. Many bankers don't know the proper forms to even file for the variation of charges, as in the case of whats the card swiped, or was the card entered via a keypad. My suggestion would be to call the customer service number on the back of the card and ask to speak with fraud services. Inform them that you already filed a dispute, however that something was off and would like to claim fraud on the account. The best thing you can do as you already got a rejection from the bank is to file a police report. Ok I know that sounds a lot worse than it is but cops are used to doing this. Just go to your local police percent and tell them "My card information was stolen and I was told that the bank needs a police report on file" Explain that charges were found at Fuentes Novels and that wasn't you doing it. Once armed with a police report you can fax that over to the bank with a form that the bank should have you fill out. The police report pretty much puts the bank in place and is almost forced to give you the funds. Im willing to bet you the banker that initiated the dispute didn't know what the hell he or she was doing. Human: I dealt with two people. Because I caught this when the charges were pending the first person I spoke to assured me she had cleared everything up and it was resolved. Two days later I checked my account, a server issue prevented me from accessing my online account information, I see the charge went through and I was out the money. So I agree no one that I have spoken to seems well informed. Again, I searched for this business and I cannot find anything through any searches. I can't find it as a website or as a business I can find via a map. I even looked in the yellowpages for that city and found nothing. Is there any more information that I need to know? Any chance of doing all of this on a Sunday? Assistant: Gotcha on the two people. Sunday even from a fraud department aspect has always been a dead day. If you call the bank you will most likely get a security rep which is nothing more than a customer service rep who handles calls all day long regarding only fraudulent charges. All these folks do is fill out an electronic form and submit it which goes into a a nice stack for the analyst to start working on Monday morning. I wouldn't do anymore leg work on the business, just a waste of time really, the banks have all the information. What most people don't realize is that the bank simply pulls the money out of the merchants account and it goes back to you so the burden of proof is on the merchants shoulders not yours. You should also get a form in the mail or sign a form in the bank called a Affidavit of fraudulent charges, every bank has one (May go by another name with some banks). Honestly being Sunday shoot over to the police station and just get a police report. Call the bank Monday morning, not sure where you bank but if you are dependent on the provisional credit you would have to wait until Monday anyways Citi wouldn't do anything on a Sunday. Also I know this isn't your issue but the folks talking about Debit card pins and it falling on you no matter what is a huge myth. We dealt with that all the time and we have a different department that deals with that because we do pull video if its an ATM withdrawal 100% of the time, your never on the hook for anything fraudulent, but again I may sound like a broken record but that police report at this point should be really key. Hope this helps some. Human: Seems like I'm due to check out my new local police station then. Is this report something an officer will know offhand how to help me with? The person I spoke to told me that I would have several days to return the provisional funds if necessary and I am hesitant to keep anything in the bank at all unless I know I am spending it that day.

I suggest not just traveling to your local police station. find the non emergency number and call. 1. it is probably a complaint they can handle over the phone, 2. you might into the issue of different jurisdictions where maybe your address is not covered by the police station you wander in to.

Sorry for the delay, ya most cops should have the knowledge on how to do this unless they are just not in the mood. Its a waste of time I know but its worth it to you. DO NOT put the funds back in the account, now the bank will have you believe you have to do that today but don't do it as it will be snatched up ASAP by the bank.

Human: So I recently inherited about $30,000 (canadian). before this money showed up, i've been having trouble covering rent. I'm currently enrolled in university, with a huge course load, and little time for a job (my tuition is covered). I've been doing seasonal work and a bit of part time here and there to scrounge up the money for rent and such. But what I want more than anything is a steady income, even a few thousand a month would be a big deal to me. I don't want to take this inheritance and just spend it on everyday expenses until its gone, i'd like a way to turn this money into a reliable, continuous source of money, whether that's some kind of investment, or buying and selling something, or whatever. Sorry if this is a dumb or unrealistic question, otherwise, thanks for any advice you can give me.

That isn't enough money to pull any real amount of income from. It's a down payment for a house. There's an emergency fund in there. It's also a good amount to invest safely which will add up over decades to be quite a bit of money, but you aren't going to see meaningful income that you can use until much later with successful investing and more saving.

To get anywhere near a "few thousand a month" you need to take a high risk, high reward investment. This can include things like property flipping and starting a business. You will need to actively manage your investment, which will cut into university and/or part time work. The alternative is lower risk, lower reward which can include things like long term stock market, bonds, rental property. You can also use it to fund your university activities. While you may think of it has spending the money on everyday things, it's actually an investment if you spend your time wisely and build up the skills and network you otherwise wouldn't have been able to do to get a higher paying job. This can include things like unpaid, but prestigious, internships, self-study and extra training you otherwise wouldn't have been able to get.

Human: I'd like to argue that in my personal living situation, it makes much more sense for me to rent than to own a home. I just want to see if you guys see any obvious flaws with my analysis. Rent: $295 / month (splitting $590/month with roommate) Saving: $1000 / month (invested in low cost S&P vanguard fund) Assumptions: Home appreciation approximately equal to returns of S&P fund Argument: Let's say I want to buy a $200,000 home with a 20% down payment. At 4.5% interest (I want to be conservative, my credit history is short, also this is for a 20 year loan) my monthly payment is almost exactly equal to my rent plus savings of $1295. For it to make sense for me to own a home at this point, I would want my interest portion of my monthly payment to be less than $295. This is obviously no where near what I would actually end up paying. The ratio of interest to principal for the first payment is closer to $545 principal and $750 in interest. So it seems to me that it would make more sense to continue renting and build up a higher down payment to limit my overall interest for the life of the loan. This is also not even considering how much I would be saving in property taxes, homeowners insurance and other miscellaneous expenses related to owning a home. Also remember that the savings is being invested so it should appreciate at a rate somewhat close to the value of home appreciation. According to the amortization schedule I looked at, it would take 16 years before the interest to principal ratio would be better than what my current situation gives me. Is there anything I am missing here that throws a wrench in this idea? I am no expert, just a recent graduate trying to learn as much as possible about personal finance.

Before I bought my 3 bedroom house 11 years ago, I was sharing a 3 bedroom house with a bunch of friends and my rent was way below market rate for the area - $275 a month for my share. After buying, my mortgage, taxes and insurance shot up my housing expenses to $1500. In the past 11 years, I've had roommates and lived alone in this house and i love being the one to make that decision. No landlord will give me a 30 day notice or tell me my rent is going up. In the beginning, i couldn't split the mortgage with one roommate evenly because $750 was above market rate. It took about 6 years before the rental market caught up with what my mortgage is and at this point, the house can rent for twice what my mortgage is. Studios are going for $1400-$1500 in my area so I am pretty satisfied with my decision to buy 11 years ago.

>Assumptions: Home appreciation approximately equal to returns of S&P fund If this were true, nobody would invest in the stock market.

Human: I was lucky that I left undergrad with very little debt, $9,500. Now things are about to make a major turn. I'm trying to get into dental school and its monumentally expensive. The only dental school in my state has an estimated cost of attendance at $360,000 (that's factoring instate tuition, it would be WAY more for someone out of state. I also applied to a few other schools but they would cost even more than this. Dental school is a four year commitment and takes all your time, I won't be able to work during school. I've looked for ways to reduce the cost and the only real option I see is the military HPSP scholarship. If I take the scholarship they will pay all my tuition and required expenses. They will also give me a $20,000 signing bonus and $25,000 per year I'm in school. I will have to serve in the military for four years and while in I will be paid ~$90,000 per year. Also, I won't have to deal with a lot of the bullshit the military is known for as I won't have to go through boot camp and will enter the military as a captain. On the flip side if I don't take the scholarship I will have to pay the educational expenses with loans, won't receive any income in school, and will likely only make $100,000-$125,000 during my first four years out. Sure I would have more freedom to go where I want and do as I please as a civilian but at major financial cost. However if I go military I will be done debt free. Another thing to consider is if I forgo the military I won't likely be approved for an additional loan right away to open a practice of my own, and will likely have to work for a corporate chain and in this type of setting it is very common to be put into ethically questionalable situations involving expensive unnecessary treatment plans to meet quotas made by people who aren't even dentists, and that doesn't appeal to me at all. Financially it seems like a no brainer to go military, and from what I've heard the life style doesn't sound that bad for a military medical professional. Is there anything I'm missing?

Not knowing anything about the HPSP, it definitely seems like a slam dunk to me.

Did you look into the NHSC Scholarship? Dentists qualify for it. http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/scholarships/index.html You should also look into public service loan forgiveness programs. They have them for physicians. I'd be surprised if there wasn't something similar for dentists. Basically, for every year you work in an "underserved" region, they forgive a certain percentage of your loans. For physicians, your years in residency count if they're in the underserved area.

Human: I am looking for a cash back card. I went through credit karma and this is what I see: 790 credit score. 3 reccomendations- **Citi double Cash card** * Earn cash back twice on every purchase with unlimited 1% cash back when you buy, plus an additional 1% as you pay for those purchases. * Balance Transfers do not earn cash back * 0% Intro APR on Balance Transfers for 18 months. After that, the variable APR will be 13.24% - 23.24% based on your creditworthiness * Click 'Apply Now' to see the applicable balance transfer fee and how making a balance transfer impacts interest on purchases. * No categories to track, no caps on cash back, no annual fee **Bank of America Cash Rewards** * No annual fee * $100 online cash rewards bonus after you spend at least $500 on purchases in the first 90 days of account opening * Earn 1% cash back on every purchase, 2% at grocery stores and now at wholesale clubs, and 3% on gas up to the first $2,500 in combined grocery/wholesale club/gas purchases each quarter. * No changing categories and no expiration on rewards * 0% Introductory APR for 12 billing cycles for purchases AND for any balance transfers made in the first 60 days, then, 13.24% - 23.24% Variable APR. 3% fee (min $10) applies to balance transfers. * Get a 10% customer bonus every time you redeem your cash back into a Bank of America® checking or savings account * If you're a Preferred Rewards client, you can increase that bonus to 25% - 75%. Click "Apply Now" to learn more about Preferred Rewards. **Chase Freedom Unlimited** * NEW! Unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase - it’s automatic * Earn a $150 Bonus after you spend $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening * 0% Intro APR for 15 months from account opening on purchases and balance transfers, then a variable APR of 14.24 - 23.24%. Balance transfer fee is 5% of the amount transferred, $5 minimum * Redeem for cash - any amount, anytime * Cash Back rewards do not expire as long as your account is open * No annual fee I use my credit card now for all my bills (about $1000 month) and I pay it off at the end of the month. I usually don't use my credit cards for much of anything else. Any help would be greatly appreciated. edit: Should I go with something other than the cash back card?

I have that Chase card. The $150 bonus makes that one most worth it, if I were you.

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Human: I'm trying to learn about investment options, and I'm wondering why anyone would invest in a fund like the Vanguard Ultra-Short-Term Bond Fund Investor Shares (VUBFX). Based on it's 10 year performance, it looks like it returned pretty much nothing for about 8 years and has returned more, but still not very much, over the last 2 years. Bonds are a bit more risky than money markets, right? So why would anyone choose a fund like this for the years that it performed so poorly? Also, why would this kind of bond fund suddenly begin to win (however moderately) after so many years of flat returns? There must be something I'm not understanding. Can anyone in PF help? link: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=1492#tab=1

I think you need to work on your reading skills Of course that fund returned nothing for the first 8 years and only had good returns for the last 2ish years, it was only created **2/24/2015**. If you look at the returns chart under the column of "Since inception" it tells you when the fund was created There are funds for everything because there is basically no cost to creating an index fund if someone wants it. Ultra short term bonds are part of a bond portfolio, maybe someone or an institutional investor wants to be able to bias a bit more towards(or against) ultra short term bonds for one reason or another, this fund would let them do so.

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Human: My sister moved to Chicago IL August last year to pursue her Masters in engineering. As soon as she got a part time job with the university, she opened an account in Chase bank because they offered a $300 signup bonus. The only string attached as per what she told me is that, you need to have the account open for atleast 6months and can't close it before that. Her reasoning is that all of her friends did it for the "free" $300, i'm not convinced. Can anyone give some insight to this and/or if there's anything she should be vary of?

It's safe. However, unless she sets up a monthly direct deposit to the account or keeps a minimum balance with Chase, she will have a recurring monthly fee.

My bank offered a 150$ bonus to open an account. There were no strings attached other than the similar must remain open for six months. The bank is betting on the fact that after six months you're unlikely to close the account. Hence they now have a new customer that over the life time of the account they'll make money on.

Human: I'm currently a fully funded doctoral student at an Ivy League school. It's the college of education, and I have a $20k stipend that comes with full family health insurance. I'll be entering my 2nd year, and I believe I will finish in my fifth year. I have a wife and a 3 year old son. We pursued this because it seemed like a logical next step in my career. I was making $48k/year as a high school teacher but gave that up to get this degree. Our expenses right now total to $2700. Rent is $1250 for a small townhouse, two bedroom (that second bedroom is like a large closet, but our son seems okay). Our total income is ~$2100, but my parents have been sending a few hundred dollars a month to help out. My wife is a part time preschool teacher where our son goes to preschool. It pays $10k/year and offers a tuition waiver. We're taking on student debt and due to some unexpected expenses (car issues, unexpected need to travel for sick family member, a bit of previous debt), it's gone up to $7000. When we planned on this, we promised to not have any more than $10k in student loan debt, but that number already seems shot. My wife has looked for a different job, but the only offer she got that seemed worth it was a $30k job that had erratic hours. We lose the tuition waiver at our son's preschool bringing the monthly preschool plus daycare cost to $1250/month. If I'm doing the numbers right, when the daycare/preschool costs hit, we're getting about a $200 bump in income for my wife to take on the other job, but our son gets put in daycare all day instead of being with mom for half of the day. I'm still very connected back where we are from. A friend of mine called last night and said he is looking for an English teacher and jokingly asked if I would come back. I told him I would consider it. Hearing that offer made me rethink our priorities. Further, two weeks ago, I was speaking to another friend of mine that I used to be in a band with, and he told me he's giving up teaching guitar lessons next month. I used to teach guitar lessons at the same music school and could pick up some of his students. Essentially, tomorrow, I could accept this teaching job, pick up about twenty guitar students, and move back home. It's about $80/student/month. My income would be ~$4000/month after taxes and health insurance. My wife could get a similar preschool teaching job but it's not guaranteed. Once our son is in kindergarten, she could get a higher paying job much easier. Looking long term, I would say that a PhD offers better long term possibilities, but the state of the academic market is a concern. I'm also worried that I entered this program as a "logical next step" rather than pursuing a dream. But right now, I see our finances having zero emergency savings, zero in retirement besides the retirement I have from teaching (about $10k), zero flexibility, and zero for incidentals. I've also been feeling the need to provide a more stable situation for our family in terms of finances. In purely personal finance terms, what would you all advise?

The way I understand pay in the world of education, districts will give you a raise just for having a Ph.D. In addition, you will be able to switch to higher ed. jobs without any problems, and will have an excellent credential for pretty much anything you want to do in the future. The fact that you will spend a few years poor and in debt is the sacrifice people make for a better future. FWIW, I've known a lot of people who have dropped out for family reasons, and either never gone back or who had to wait until they were in their 40s. The realistic outlook is that if you drop out of what seems like a pretty good deal, you will likely never go back. The opportunity you have now is your lifetime best shot at the Ph.D.

I work side by side with engineers with MS, and I have a BS. They make about 20% more than I do for the same job. Just a little anecdotal example for consideration.

Human: My SO and I moved to the city a couple of months ago and it really set us back financially. He found a very well paying job that can cover all our bills (but nothing else) and I found a serving job at a really high volume restaurant at a local theme park. So far we've been able to sustaine ourselves, but playing catch up with all our late bills has really taken a toll. This month was supposed to be the last month of any overdue payments, but low and behold last night I had three tables in a row that were absolute nightmares. I found out quickly that "the customer is always right" really means "the customers word over yours...also, fuck you". After trying to explain the situation, I was suspended for today. I have to go in tomorrow and talk to the GM and head manager to find out if I'm fired or not, but let's be honest...I'm just another face for that place. On top of everything, my SO and I are flying out of town next week to an obligatory family wedding. It's a week long that both of us won't be working...maybe me indefinitely. We've sold anything of real value that we have already. I'm out of ideas on how to keep us afloat...

Survival outweighs any wedding obligation. Don't get me wrong. It might be a very hard choice. But you can't afford to become homeless just to make a wedding. Cancel the travel plans. Both you and your fiancee should work. Start looking for other jobs, to protect yourself in case you are fired. Don't be defensive in the meeting with your GM. Explain what happened calmly, and if you could have done something better, explain what you think you should have done differently. I don't work in the restaurant business, but I have managed people directly at work. Defensive answers can come out the wrong way. Be factual about what happened and own up to your own mistakes if any. While it might not be enough to save your job, you never know. Good luck.

This may seem like a huge disaster but really this is most likely just a short term problem. Sorry to hear about your job but you also need to learn a lesson from this and figure out if you did something wrong or if working as a server is really for you. If your SO is making enough to cover your bills, you just need to find another job (or get back in good graces at your current job) and you'll be on top of your finances in a few months.

Human: My 20-year-old shitbox is nearing the end of its useful life. I plan to drive the wheels off of it, but once it's done, do I have any options aside from buying another junker for however much cash I have in the bank? I'd be looking for used. I don't need anything flashy in my current financial situation. I have average credit (high 600s) and low monthly expenses (~60% of my take-home, probably less if I scrimp). I entered my info into Capital One's auto loan site and they said I didn't meet income requirements. Are dealerships more generous? What should I do, starting now? Thanks very much.

can you? sure, should you? no. THey will likely hit you with 10+% interest. you should start saving now, as if you were paying a car loan, one to prove that you can survive the monthly expense, do not ever say "oh I need this other thing more, Ill skip this months savings because I can but it would be totally different if this were a loan". and hopefully, your beater lasts long enough to buy another car with the cash you saved up without the loan interest dragging you down.

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Human: Im using a throwaway account so that I am comfortable talking figures. First off, I'd like to point out that I realise I am very lucky to be asking you guys about investing rather than debt. I am 22 years old, studying at university. I have little overheads as I have moved back into my parents house. The majority of my expenses are visiting my girlfriend who lives on the other side of the country. My brother (17), sister (27) and I inherited a house with a value of >£120,000 along with around £20,000 each when a close relative passed away. We are currently renting the house out after wasting a lot of money keeping it empty while we tried to work out what to do. Now that we are splitting a bit of income, my sister asked my brother and I if we should save the rent to go towards a deposit on a second property. My response was that we already have enough savings between us to put down a sizeable payment on a property, but either way i doubt a bank would be willing to grant the three of us a mortgage; our brother is working full time at a bank but is only 17, I'm a student and my sister is self employed. I questioned whether we could take out a mortgage or loan out against the value of our current property to buy outright a second property, and then look at using the rental income to put deposits down further? Would it be worth investigating these options or investing our money elsewhere? Should we consider forming a limited liability company to host our portfolio? Thanks for reading.

Probably best to minimize the extent to which you do business with siblings. If you get along well this one house might work out fine; otherwise the best course might be to sell that house, and then you use your share to make a deposit on another property that's in your name only. It's likely that someone's going to want to cash out at some point, which will obviously be more difficult the more properties you own together.

> We are currently renting the house out after wasting a lot of money keeping it empty while we tried to work out what to do. That's sensible -- hopefully you and your siblings have setup some sort of legal agreement to protect yourselves. > Now that we are splitting a bit of income, my sister asked my brother and I if we should save the rent to go towards a deposit on a second property. Eh. I'd say you each take 1/3 of the income and who ever wants to can go in on additional properties. > Would it be worth investigating these options or investing our money elsewhere? Do both. Learn what works for you -- being hands on with real estate is not for everyone.

Human: Hey /r/personalfinance, I'm 20 going into my junior year of college. This summer I've been employed at my school and for part of it ended up working 2 positions. The initial position i held at the college was a front-desk assistant. The position had me doing checks of dorms before we rent them out for Conferences that would come to my college to stay at during the summer. As i also had my lifeguard certificate, my boss (We'll call her "Boss") would have me lifeguard for the conferences that would stay during the summer. on top of all of that our main responsibility was to man the info desk. After my first few sessions lifeugarding for the front desk, the person incharge of the pool (We'll call him "boss2") told me that the lifeguard that they hired for the normal pool hours was leaving for the summer and that he needed someone to do those hours and i told him i could. Because i already worked around 40 hours a week for Boss, I was told i would be paid separately from my normal checks. I worked some hours for boss 2 in June then was asked to work some more in July. Boss2 had a sheet that i signed that he was going to put the hours from june on but all throughout July i hadnt seen any pay from Boss2. Toward the end of july, I was terminated from my job with Boss2 on July 28th but i kept working with boss. I have been payed consistently from Boss, but I've yet to see any pay from my hours from boss 2. What do i do here? My best guess is to talk to the office that gives me my pay check but they're closed today. a friend even suggested that the separate pay was supposed to be to avoid paying me overtime? also its nothing too drastic, only 25 or so hours, but honestly I need all the money ive earned. tldr. unpaid hours from second job within the same college. unsure how to solve

Talk to boss 2? Maybe he forgot to file the paperwork or something. This isn't a difficult question.

Don't think about this being about politeness. This wasn't a favor they did for you; you both benefitted from each other—or at least you were supposed to, but didn't get paid. Just go up to Boss 2 and be direct: "Hey, I never got paid for those 25 hours in June. What can we do to make sure I get paid?" The tone you want here is kind of casual. Don't go into it adversarially. "Of course they're going to pay me. Why wouldn't they?" is kind of how you want to go into it.

Human: As mentioned, we want to start trading penny stocks, we realize the gains will be smaller with a greater amount risk. [Edit, i realize more risk, i apologize for wording it wrong.] The problem is that we keep seeing people start trading at $2000 position size, we dont really have that kind of money to start with, so i was wondering if there is a minimum amount we have to meet before we start trading. Edit: As a followup, is there anywhere we can go to follow trends in the market? Familiarize ourselves?

Don't trade penny stocks. They dont have smaller amounts of risk, they are higher risk than most other stocks. If you want to trade individual stocks, open a Robinhood account so you don't have to worry about high fees. Otherwise open an account with Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity and invest in some of their commission free ETFs.

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Human: I recently paid off a few loans ($1500, $8000) and my credit score has dipped 30 points. I was offered an REI Mastercard, but with an interest rate of 18%! Is it worth opening an account to improve my credit score provided I rarely use it? Edit: I also plan on taking out an auto loan (under $15k) within the next couple of months. How would REI CC impact this?

the APR doesn't matter ifyou never carry a balance.

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Human: my employer offers employee stock purchase plan at 5% discount? I am thinking about starting to invest in stocks. I am not sure if employee stock purchase plan is a good idea. Thanks for the feedback. This is my new employer and the benefits packet included the employee stock purchase plan. The employer allows the buy in quarterly. We can buy up 25k worth after tax dollars. I am not sure on restrictions such as how long do we need to hold it for? This would be a really great if they offered dividends but sadly they don't

The general advice about owning significant amounts of stock in the company you work for is that it's not a great idea, sort of putting all your eggs in one basket. That said, you might be able to use the ESPP to start an investment fund. There are a couple things you need to know/consider though. 1. Are the ESPP stocks vested over time, or are you required to hold them for a certain period of time before selling? If so, keep that in mind. 2. The discount offered by your employer will be taxed as regular income when you sell. If you are still working at your company at the end of the year, they normally report that on your W-2, but they might not. If you are still interested, enroll in the program and then just sell the company stock as soon as you can. Put that money in whatever stocks/investments you want after that. Or hold some of the company stock if you think it'll do well.

There's really a ton that goes into this. Is the company doing well financially? Is it run well? Are there any likely changes in leadership or ownership that would affect how the business is run? All of this (and a lot more) have will help determine whether the stock will increase in value. Buying stock with the company you work for is not necessarily a "sure thing"!

Human: I recently was approved for a credit card with 0% APR for 12 months and a $3000 limit. My other CC has ~$1100 remaining at a 20%+ interest rate. Should I pay off the old card with the new card?

That's called a balance transfer. Check what the fee is to do so on your new credit card (usually 3% and you pay immediately). Also balance transfers have different interest rates associated with them where you might pay a higher interest rate earlier depending on the language within the details about your new credit card. So research it and make sure if it makes sense to do

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Human: Hi guys, there was a post on craigslist about a 2008 nissan car for $2000 that seems a little bit far-fetched. However, I still emailed the person selling the car and this is the response I got back with unique pictures of the car. Is there a way for this to be a scam? If it isn't a scam, I'd be super happy about this deal. " My name is *****, and I'm emailing you about Nissan **** that I have for sale. It is a 2008 model loaded with everything. Never had or need any paint/body work done, garaged keep always, without any mechanical problems, tires and wheels are in great shape as well, electric is working perfectly. The engine runs very good and the automatic transmission shifts perfectly. Has a clean and clear title in my name and there are no liens or loans on it.This car was used by my husband who died 4 month ago.The price was reduced at 2000 because I'm in a hurry to find a buyer. I need to sell the car before the 18th of this month, when I will be leaving on military duty with my medical team back to *** for a year and do not want to store my car. Hate to sell it but its not worth keeping insurance and paying storage fees for a year.Right now I'm in a military base of Army National Guard in *****. The vehicle is here with me at the base and the delivery process will be managed by me Also, the car is too big for my daughter so there's no use on keeping it. If you have any other questions, email me back." This was a follow up email after I asked for pictures and how payment will be done. " Hello again, As I've previously told you my medical team will deploy back to ***.Since the vehicle is in a military base in *****,only the Logistic Department can deliver it, because the vehicle is sealed and ready for delivery, in their custody.The vehicle is here with me at the base and the delivery process will be managed by me.The shipping will take 2 max 3 days. It will come with a clear title and reg. I am a member of the eBay buyer protection program and using this service you will get a 7 days testing period after delivery. During that 7 days testing period I will not be getting any money. I need to know if you are interested so I can ask eBay to send you the details on this deal. If interested just email with your legal name (for the bill of sale) address where you want the vehicle delivered and phone # where you can be reached, so we can get the ball rolling. I attached pics" The email looks like a legitimate email, (just a name), and the pictures are unique. What could go wrong if I do send my information? Thanks for the help guys

A quick web search of the text suggests this poor woman's husband also died 4 months ago in 2014 .... Message 107 https://community.ebay.com/t5/Motors/Craigslist-Scams-and-Fraudulent-Use-of-Vehicle-Purchase/td-p/1445320/page/6 >...Never had or need any paint/body work done, garaged keep always, without any mechanical problems, tires and wheels are in great shape as well, electric is working perfectly. ... This car was used by my husband who died 4 month ago. The price was reduced at $2000 because I'm in a hurry to find a buyer. I need to sell the car before the 15 of the next month, when I will be leaving on military duty with my medical team out of the country for a year and do not want to store it. Bla bla bla "garaged keep always" ??? ---- Then, strangely enough, the same dire thing happened to Antonio, who lost his wife ... https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&p=259522 >Never had or need any paint/body work done, garaged keep always, without any mechanical problems, tires and wheels are in great shape as well, electric is working perfectly. ... This Jeep has been used by my wife who died 4 month ago. The price was reduced at $2000 because I'm in a hurry to find a buyer. I need to sell the Jeep before 30 July, when I will be leaving on military duty with my medical team out of the country for a year and do not want to store it. ---- I could go on .... http://yourittoday.com/scammer.php?scammerid=1001747 Probably you'll want to avoid that one because it is only "reduced at $3000."

Hey guys I was on Craigslist and thought something might be a scam, so rather than read the link on Craigslist about scams and how to avoid them, I thought I'd just post here and wait for responses. Or maybe this is just a really easy way for people to pretend to be completely inept and farm some quick reddit karma. Scamception.

Human: I have been an active reader and sometime poster in PF for about 2 years now. I have actively tried to apply things here and there to my life and a growing business and it has saved me. I am now an extremely frugal person. I live well below my means with a wife and child and we make our situation work. I also have a business I started over 5 years ago and without this sub it probably would have failed. I got my standard of living is low enough that I didn't have to pull money out of my business or I could pull $1000 a month to live off of. I got my family to buy in and the frugal mentality carried over to my business and to my employees. It has been a brutal 5 years trying to make this work. I have heard my wife cry more than I wish. I have wanted to quit many times. I have constantly wondered if this was all worth it but we have kept at it. I reinvest every bit of profit my company makes to fuel our growth. While I have been trying to repair my credit over the last few years I don't get much from banks. We have to save to purchase things we want. I have raised my credit score about 100 points in the last year though. Mid 600s and soon I will break 700 in the next year. I have learned that everything worth doing takes time. Emergency funds are there to avoid the huge fees that come with running out of money. Our system is set up to reward people who plan ahead and aren't in a huge rush to get things done. Systems take time to develop and implement. We were on pace to break 1m in sales by next year. We are a very niche company in the midwest. Its a much bigger deal here then somewhere else and that money can go farther. We just signed a deal that will bring in an additional 800k-1m in revenue this Friday. I was almost in tears. I know the statistics and real stories of how hard it is to make it to this level and beyond. Without the financial discipline I applied in my own life this wouldn't have been possible. We operate on about a 50% margin so we are likely looking at 1m in profit per year now. I don't intend on changing my lifestyle. One of my goals is to buy a large apartment complex to hedge the risk with having all of our money in this business. I hope to be able to do this in the next 5-7 years.

Reading your post is encouraging. Thank you and more importantly congratulations!

Congratulations. You have done wonderfully well for yourself. I wish you all the best in the future.

Human: I've been working for this company for just over 4 years. It was the first position I accepted after graduating college & has been a great place to get my feet wet in the industry. I've been fortunate to advance quickly and be recognized as someone they'd 'like to promote to the leadership team in a few years time.' A few months ago, they approached me about the opportunity to relocate to one of their other offices where they'd lost a valuable senior staff member. The office is about 600 miles away from where I currently work & the cost of living in that city is roughly 5-10% higher. The job they've asked me to consider includes a multitude of new responsibilities, not the least of which is managing & mentoring a staff of 3-4 junior team members. I currently make just over $51k and the value of the contracts I manage exceeds $700k. The company generally makes a profit of 20% contract value. Friday, they gave me their offer consisting of a 5% raise and an offer to share moving costs. I was taken aback by this as I feel I add far more value to this company than they are compensating me for and, as it was their request that I relocate, I think they should be covering moving costs in full. When I pushed for an explanation of why the offer was low, I was told that my salary already exceeds others with my years of experience and that they can't go higher because it "isn't fair to my peers." I was told that I should be grateful for the opportunity & potential 'fast-track' advancement after proving my managerial chops. It's extremely frustrating to me to be expected to take an offer based on the promise of future advancement. They are essentially asking me to replace someone with twice my years of experience, in a different state, and to manage a staff on top of my current duties, for about $2500. I have a follow-up meeting on Monday. I'd like to make a counteroffer, but haven't settled on what that should be. 15%? 20%? If they don't budge, my inclination is to walk away from this offer & my employer, chalk this up as a learning experience, and find somewhere where I'll be more valued. What is your thought? **EDIT: Thank you all for your input! This got far more attention than I anticipated & I truly appreciate you guys taking the time to weigh-in on my situation. I'll let you know how the follow-up goes! **UPDATE: Meeting was delayed until this morning, so apologies for keeping ya'll on the edge of your seats! I decided to counter for a 15% raise (bringing me up to just shy of $60k) + full moving costs (including PTO to find a place, lodging & rental costs during said trip, cost of hauling possessions, and cost to break my current lease--likely around $5k in total value). While they declined my request for a salary increase (due to years of experience, as expected despite my best effort to combat that argument), they approved paying for full moving costs & are working on an offer for me to get a percentage of the profit from my contracts in perpetuity. No word on what that percentage is just yet, but I will know likely by the end of today. If it comes back as an attractive offer, I plan on accepting & relocating for at least a year to get the resume line before jumping ship. For anyone looking to do the same, this is my experience: I went in with a counteroffer letter succinctly thanking them for the opportunity, letting them know what I objected to, and restating my cause (happy to share my write-up if anyone is interested). There was **a lot** of discussion--mostly me reinforcing why I am of extreme value to the company and them reinforcing that they can't increase my salary based on their 'verified data.' We hit a stalemate about 20 minutes into the conversation, which was only broken when I asked what else they'd be willing to put on the table. They suggested the profit percentage as a way for me to have a more direct investment in the company & make some extra money to bring me up to the level of pay I originally requested. I'd thought of asking about this option previously, but honestly didn't think that they would go for it--shows that you might as well throw it out there! We'll see what happens next. Again, **thank you** for all of your input, sympathy, and cautionary tales. I would not have been nearly as prepared without your help! Assistant: That's an insane offer on their part... They're asking you to take on more responsibility, less pay (relatively), and uproot your entire life. All on a promise you "might" advance in the future. Turn down the offer and start looking for new jobs. Even if you like the company, after turning down this offer you have no future there. They'll never offer you another promotion and you'll be dead ended. Human: Agreed. I feel like they backed me into a corner where there is no possibility of me 'winning' in the long run. Time to bust out that resume! Assistant: What about telling them what it would take for you to accept the position rather than flatly rejecting it? Shoot a little high as negotiations usually land somewhere in the middle of the high and low offers. And if they don't negotiate with you, then it's not you turning them down. And if they can't make the offer tempting enough and you pass, think about suggesting a couple names of people they should look at next (if you can think of any). Human: Definitely planning on doing this in my counter offer tomorrow, but in the initial discussion they were really adamant about not being able to justify any additional compensation. Any ideas how to get around the years of experience argument?

If they are adamant about not offering more money, you are adamant about not taking the position. They're trying to fuck you over. I'm sorry, but even 20% more than you make is less than we pay supervisors where I work. I'm not even talking about managers, I mean supervisors. As in someone with the ability to approve time cards and write your consolidated performance evaluation to present to the manager.

You were recognized as someone they want to promote to leadership roles based on your potential and skills relating to the job and that's what makes you so valuable. If any of it was about "years of experience", they would likely be looking for someone with years of experience to fill the position.

Human: I just received my first credit card a month ago ($300 limit) and I'm in the process of building my credit. So I was wondering, for people like me, who just started building their credit is there an average range for the first credit score? I'm just curious and wondering what to expect once I get my credit score. Assuming I utilize 10% of my card, and always pay early and in full what will my credit score be around?

A FICO score can only be generated on a credit file with more than one trade line reported within the last six months and over six months old (and the consumer must not be dead). Below the minimum criteria, you will not have a credit score at all. After six months, I would guess you would start somewhere between 600 - 700 on FICO models. You would be subject to wild swings due to your thin file. You won't have any bad items, but you won't really have any good items either.

Everyone starts with no credit, which usually shows up as zero (0).

Human: As the title suggests, I'm a first time car buyer. How do people typically negotiate for a better deal? What are some reasonable things to ask for? Everyone I talked to says don't pay whatever they come up with at first. What's a typical % off on a brand new car?

It's a lot easier if you do tons of research online, find out what the market is for the specific model you're looking for (TrueCar), and go to a dealership that has the car you want at a good price. I think the availability of information at this day and age removes a lot of the leeway for bargaining. Also, get pre-approved for an auto loan from your own bank/credit union. If you get a really good rate, the financing people won't bother you unless they can beat it, which is good for you.

"I want a better price if you want to make a sale." Skip the games and don't be afraid to walk away. Bringing in competitor quotes can be useful too.

Human: Hello reddit, Please explain if this sounds legit or not. Little back story, my girlfriend's mom has a gambling addiction and has taken loans from her 401k. After borrowing so much money from my girlfriend, she couldn't take it anymore so we decided to find a place together. Now we're leasing a townhome and her mom is asking for our least agreement which shows how much we agreed for rent. I don't want to give it up but her mom is saying it shouldn't hurt me when I file for taxes or anything. I'm 25 and I am not knowledgeable on this stuff. Please reddit, can you let me know if this is legit? I wouldn't think you would need any info like this for taking another 401k loan out. We asked for proof it's for voya but she's stating it's over the phone. Her mom keeps saying that my girlfriend is a beneficiary and something about hardhip. Please help me understand this, I don't want to do anything that will cause issues in the future. Thanks!

> gambling addiction this is where i stopped reading. Your GFs mom is about to do some shady stuff to feed her addiction. and if the first shady thing doesn't work, she'll try the next, even shadier thing. You should go read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/identity_theft And take the appropriate steps to make sure that: - a) there is no ongoing identity theft - b) future identity theft will be made impossible / much, much harder Identity theft from a family member is really hard to deal with, not just legally, but also personally. I would strongly recommend to take the steps to prevent it before it even happens.

Don't do it. Why take the chance?

Human: I graduated college and moved to this town about three of years ago and I've been living in an apartment ever since. I've saved up money for a down payment and have an appointment with a bank next week to get pre-qualified. I've been to some open houses and have a general idea of the price-range and area I want but I have not hired an agent and I may not hire one if I don't have to. Is a buyer's agent always required or can I get by without? There is a house that I'm interested in based on zillow and on driving by. The agents name and number is on a sign on the front yard. Can I just call the agent and get a tour to see what the inside looks like (no interior pictures on zillow)? Would it be better to wait until I'm pre-qualified? If, hypothetically, I do like the house, how do I make an offer? Do I just say "I want to buy it?" Do I talk to my bank first? I've done some reading but I feel like I'm missing the details of exactly how everything works in home-buying which is why I'm waffling on getting an agent. Thanks

Hire a buyers agent. It doesn't cost you anything and it sounds like you don't know anything about the home buying process. The agent will guide you through and handle all the paperwork that you'll be stuck doing yourself otherwise.

Find a buyer's agent, you're paying for them anyway via the sales price. I own a coop since 2014. Real estate agents are useless for the most part nowadays.

Human: I have a steady full-time job that pays $15/hour. currently my expenses including bills, car payment, and spending do not exceed $650 a month. That leaves me with about $1500 a month that could go to rent or savings. Really I'm trying to decide if I want to move out within the next January into an apartment somewhere closer to work and school (as I live pretty far away) or save as much as I can for the next year and a half to buy a tiny house. **edit:** I did not expect to come back to this many responses. I genuinely appreciate all the advice given. From what everyone is saying, staying with my parents (at least for a little while) is the better option. Thank you everyone!

I think you should stick with your parents for one more year and put all of your attention and focus into studies. It's the post important thing for you right now.

Maybe you should take a course on finances.

Human: Got about 8k saved up, I'm optimistic I'll have a job within 3-4 weeks. I could move move out to my parents house but living in the suburbs is ugh. Thoughts? No debts

Get the job first.

We're all optimistic we can land a job in 3-4 weeks. What happens if you can't?

Human: So here's the backstory. I currently live in southern CA where I am from with my mom and my sister. I'm 20 and she's 19. Were both going to school full time, and im going to a community college, half and half online and in class. A family friend of my grandma asked me if I wanted to come work for his company in a tiny little town in Illinois. The starting pay is 14 bucks an hour and supposedly with time there it will rise fast. Another issue is that I'm having trouble finding a job out here, so that alone really makes me want to do it. Essentially the question here is will I be able to survive out there completely alone on 14 dollars an hour. I'm assuming the answer is a strong yes because that not only beats minimum wage in CA, but it's head and shoulders above it, but also I want to know if I do it at the very least will it be an 'eating bread and water every night' lifestyle. I can continue my College online no problem, so it's not an either or situation. Sorry if this sort of post is against the rules, I don't comment or post here much. Thanks.

I am going to guess that since you said 1.5 hours to Iowa that the job is in central or north central IL. So if we pick arbitrarily pick the LaSalle / Peru / Ottawa IL area you could get by with 28k per year. Now you won't be living like a king, but you should be able to afford somewhere to live and still be able to put gas in your car and food on the table if you are frugal. My real worry is that you could get stuck in this town if were to lose this job because in many of the small towns in central IL the job market is not all that robust, so finding another well paying job cold be difficult. If you are within commuting distance from the Peoria area or the far western Chicago suburbs I wouldn't be too concerned about that, but further out I would definitely look to see if there are other similar companies you could get a job at if you get laid off. I am pretty familiar with North Central IL if you have any other questions.

What region of IL? By the river it's either stupid humid or stupid cold.

Human: Hello! I have come to realize that I need to invest some of my money instead of just letting it sitting in the bank. However, I want to be smart about this and I am looking for suggestions on various avenues for investment. How much of my money do you think would be wise to use? More information: No debt- car paid off, no loans etc. Gross income about 55k per year 401(a) through my company I contribute 5% they contribute 8% Monthly bills, rent etc,- ~600 Thank you in advance! And please ask questions if I forgot to mention something important. Assistant: You could buy a house or a condo. You have enough for a 20% down-payment and that way you would get the benefits from the property appreciating. If you don't want to buy a residence, you should start investing. Maybe something simple like an S&P index fund. Human: I probably will be buying a house in the next 2-3 years, so I think saving for that is smart but also investing in something simple like you said, thank you!

If you will be buying a house in the next few years I would strongly advise against putting any of your downpayment money in stocks. Stocks are entirely too volatile to count on being able to get that money out exactly when you need it without suffering a loss. Instead, you should look into either CDs with a local bank or credit union, or Treasury bonds. If you have additional money that is not needed for the house, you should look at investing that into broad based index funds in an IRA (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, S&P 500 Index, etc).

If you don't mind jumping through a few hoops each month you could [setup an account with Consumers Credit Union](http://www.doctorofcredit.com/consumers-credit-union-5-07-apy-on-up-to-20000-rewards-checking/) and get 3.09-4.59% on $20k since you wouldn't want to stick money you'll need in the next couple years into the market.

Human: I'm 25, I live in Ohio, I have a degree in English, and I've never had a job I didn't like. I just like to work. I've been a teacher, waiter, and a cook. Someday I'll probably go back to teaching, but I want to give other careers a try while I don't have many obligations tying me down. My first thought is programming via codeacademy.com. Is that a viable entry into that career? I'm looking for something that most people aren't willing to put the time into learning/doing. I'd be willing, and financially able, to work for free for at least a couple months. I have a reliable car, and I have 12 months of expenses saved. Assistant: If you like the service industry, have you considered fine dining? I knew waiters who made 70k+ working at fancy places. Human: I'm in fine dining. I enjoy it, I've learned a lot about food, I can temp meats by touch, and it's just rewarding to make something expensive for people to immediately consume. I've been a waiter at a cheaper restaurant: I liked the satisfaction of literally serving people, but it's too much talking and not enough making for me. The money is absolutely incredible even at cheaper places. Ideally, I'd like to make/do something AND make (more) money. That's why coding, and now pharmacy tech-ing, are appealing, rather than sales. Thanks for the response!

Pharmacy technician training is a waste of money. Where I live, there are more people than jobs for this industry. If you do feel the need to do it, go hospital versus retail. Customers in the retail world are little bitches. They will drive you mental. Also, as a pharmacy tech it really is a dead end job. It's not like a cashier who could work their way up to a manager.

that sounds like bartending to me!

Human: This happened to my girlfriend today. She had a flight booked from kunming airport to Shanghai airport (layover in shanghai), and then a flight from Shanghai to the US. After leaving Kunming, the airline flew to an airport that was NOT on her itinerary (that airport was called Hefei). The layover in this unexpected stop was so long that she missed her flight from Shanghai home. Now we had to book a same day flight from Shanghai to get her home. The fault is clearly on the airline because they flew to a city that was not on the itinerary. What can we do? Edit: UPDATE- China Eastern Airlines rebooked her flight for free and gave her a hotel to stay overnight IN SHANGHAI (for real this time) apologizing for the inconvenience in Hefei. Expedia allowed us to cancel the new flight. God is good, folks. Assistant: She should have been put on the next flight out of that airport to the US; did she contact customer service? Human: Not if she booked two separate tickets. Otherwise it's the same as simply not showing up to your flight. The airline doesn't owe you anything in that case. Assistant: It's not clear to me whether she was booked two separate tickets, or whether her entire itinerary was on China Eastern. Either way, it's moot now. She missed her flight from Shanghai due to her own error and then booked a flight on a different airline on her own. Human: Out of all the "screwed" by the airline posts on /r/personalfinance I'd say near 0% are actually the airline doing anything wrong. Don't get me wrong, the airline industry deserves tons of criticism and derision, but the posts always simply highlight how the OPs made errors on their end and get mad at the airline. Assistant: The gate agent looked at her ticket, and pointed to the door and said "your flight is tomorrow." Human: And that was that? Come on, you have to be your own advocate. She knew the flight wasn't tomorrow. She should have been more assertive. It was likely some translation issues. If a US agent walked up to you at LAX and said "your flight is tomorrow" while you're waiting to board, you know you wouldn't leave it at that. I know you want to protect your GF, but be reasonable here. Assistant: She thought she was in Shanghai when they landed. Which I shake my head at. But the gate agent didn't help to clarify and sent her on her way.

> She thought she was in Shanghai when they landed. You're really not helping her case.

Sometimes I wonder about people in general...

Human: I'm a 17 year old from the midwest US entering my senior year who has a decent seasonal (Sept-May) job paying $10/hr who is also currently pretty much broke. I am looking to get an apartment a little over an hour away from where I am now. I have all the credits I need to graduate save one, which I *should* be able to earn remotely. The two primary reasons I am trying to leave is to get away from my NPD (narcisstic personality disorder) parents, who are progressively getting worse and making my life more and more stressful, and to join my girlfriend when she leaves for college (one year older.) I drive a car that doesn't belong to me (name is not on title), so getting a car, even if it's a beater, feels like it should be a priority. I'm broke because I have had to pay for all my food and gas, and would obviously have to get a job in my destination city. Apartments there start at around $350, which is 12 hours a week at minimum wage, which obviously doesn't include any other expenses, so I'd have to schedule quite a few hours or get a job that pays more or work remotely. I'd really appreciate any advice that /r/personalfinance has to offer!

Yikes, that's not a good situation. You're setting yourself up for financial trouble. In the short term, you don't have a deposit for an apartment, so you're stuck with crappy shared accommodation living until you can put together a month's rent for a deposit on an apartment. You also have no credit, nor are you 18, so technically you can't sign a lease. I'm pretty sure that means that you'll need to go to court to get emancipated before you can even legally rent an apartment or have your own car insurance. Also, long term, do you have a career in mind? If you're slinging burgers for $10/hr, your future is pretty muddy. Moving off somewhere with a girlfriend at 17 for a minimum wage job is a ***life altering decision***. This begins to set the trajectory of your life and specifically sets it in a path of minimum wage jobs and unstable situations. It will take you YEARS to recover from that decision. I'm going to add to the suggestion that the military might be an option for you. It sounds like you need to find something to grab onto for stability. A minimum wage job in a distant city with a high school girlfriend is not that. If you do it, I can guarantee that you'll find yourself broke and desperate, if not immediately, at least multiple times in the first few months. Also, if you've never lived out of town or moved much in your life, you'll find yourself lonely and doubting your decision on a regular basis. I'm not saying you CANT GO. I'm just laying out all the challenges you have in front of you. I almost moved out of the house at 17, too. My parents might not have been as bad as yours, but I seriously considered it, but I'm very very glad that I didn't. Instead of leaving the house broke, I was able to rely on their financial help figuring out my last year of school, applying to university and they even helped a bit with random things like renting a uHaul. Sure, I paid for gas and food and other stuff because of the tension in the house, but when I was really stuck and needed help, they found a way to do it. I'm 35 now, and I'm very glad I didn't move out. If I had struggled a little more during my first year of University, I might not have finished, and I certainly wouldn't be looking at $150k jobs and a stable life these days. Moving away might burn those bridges, so just be careful.

Military might not be a bad idea in your case if that's something that interests you. You'll get money, place to live, food, and can go to school afterwards. If that's not for you, I'd try to get a job where you currently are and save up for a car, yeah you would have to tolerate your parents for a bit longer, but you would have transportation. Could also live in it and get a gym membership for showers if things got bad enough. Is there any friends you could rent a spot with or your girlfriend have a place? Do you have any friends that would also want to move, it would make rent cheaper? Also a thing to think about, when I got an apartment they ran a credit check to make sure I didn't have bad credit before they approved me, if you don't have credit it may be harder to rent. My recommendation would be to stay as long as you can while saving money and getting a different or second job and when you have a few months expenses and a car to move. You'll most likely need one months rent as well as a security deposit which ours was another months rent(you get back when you move if you don't damage it) and a car for work minimum.

Human: I'm not trying to advertise here. Just telling you my recent experience that made me feel dumb. Long story short, my younger brother used one touch through Amazon to get one of many monthly subscriptions that Amazon offers. The price was $9.99 and had been going on for 5 months until today. He truly is younger and it was an honest mistake. I usually check my account transactions by skimming through purchases to ensure no unauthorized activity is occurring. I buy from Amazon a few times a month and just missed this certain transaction somehow. My new bank is Simple and every transaction results in me receiving a notification about it. This small feature allowed me to put a stop to that subscription and save money that was being wasted. TL;DR: Actually read your bank statements/Look at your transactions.

I set my cards to send me a text for every purchase over $0.01. Works great.

I don't use Simple but Mint kinda does the same thing. It displays all transactions whenever it gets updates.

Human: Hi there. I'm a current senior in high school and it's that time to start worrying about college! It's been in the news, all over the media, and perhaps even on reddit that student debt is a huge problem (apparently) in the country. Forgive the ignorance...but how? Mind you, I'm a high school student with no knowledge in finance, but given that many private and public institutions offer generous (sometimes) financial aid packages, the cost for college by the time of graduation should be around $20K - 100K, no? (Feel free to correct me). If you get a job that pays a minimum of 65k a year with that brand spanking new college degree, you should have no problem paying that off in 2-4 years, right? Given that you get at least SOME assistance from your loving parents, of course. I'm not making fun of you for having student debt, it's just a problem that I hope to avoid facing, or at least avoid encumbering me in the future. Thanks!

"financial aid packages" often are federal student loans. The majority of my financial aid package was and I graduated with 43k in federal student loans. Some were subsidized(meaning interest was paid for while I was a student) and some were not. Having that 440/mo minimum payment on top of all my other bills is not nice especially when shit happens. Oh, my cat got sick? Gotta shell out $300. All 4 of my tires went bad? That's $500. My sister roommate lost her job? Guess I'm covering everything for a couple of months. All those things won't ruin me but there's no way in hell my student loans are getting paid off in 2 to 4 years.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure you can graduate from school with loans no more than your starting salary for the degree you obtain. There are two sides to this equation: select a school with affordable cost, select a degree with an adequate starting salary and available jobs. I've seen so many posts on this sub with people who have $150k-200k loans because they chose to attend a very expensive school and a job that only pays $35k because they obtained a degree that doesn't pay well. If you have the money to pay for school then you can choose whatever school and degree you feel like. But if you are taking out loans to pay for school then you have to be pragmatic in your choices.

Human: Hi, /r/personalfinance: I'm a young teacher who works at a private school in a suburb of NYC, and I declared that this year—my quarter-century mark—is the year of stability. I am struggling right now in terms of budgeting, mainly because I am not going to break even and my knowledge of finances is abysmal. Yes, I read the information on the sidebar, but there are a lot of factors to weigh in here. For instance, I make about 50,000 per annum. After taxes, it's a little less than 35k. Rent is about 1650 a month for my own place. The average rent is 1400, but the safety is horrible. Parking is 600 per annum. Loans are 100 a month. Electricity is 50–75 per month. Cable (really Internet) is 55 a month. Netflix and Hulu amount to 20 a month. Thankfully, the car I have and cell phone are provided by my ever supportive family, who are making ends meet. So I take care of all the mechanical fees, etc. But now I find myself having to pay for a graduate program because my school is so stingy that they only pay for 30% of my *tuition*—**just tuition**. Fees, books, and transportation (it's in the City proper, so there's public transit, which gets extremely expensive) are not included, and those will rack up more than tuition. I *have* to get my degree, they said, since it's so important for their sake of vanity, wanting to show that almost 100% of their faculty have graduate degrees. I want to contribute to a retirement account, but I merely cannot put a few hundred dollars a month because I need to feed myself. In my budgeting, I attribute the most to food. I don't buy clothes. I'll splurge on a meal or two at a nice place with friends in the City, but that's about once a month. Twice max. My school doesn't contribute to my retirement until my third year of teaching. I'm entering year two. I haven't put a cent into my retirement with them, though I have about $5,000 from my first year of teaching at another school, where I put in, I think, 8, maybe 10% of my income. I cannot move into the City, or else I'd have to buy transport tickets, leaving me flat broke. I don't know what to do, and I'm in need of some coaching. I want to be able to be financially stable, but right now, that just doesn't seem plausible. I'd give anything to have someone sit down with me and help explain how to be financially secure in a way that leaves me able to enjoy my life, too. When I'm old, it's great to have money to retire, but that's only half the battle. I want to enjoy the life I have now while I have no commitments: no girlfriend, no children, etc. Once I settle down, there goes ample opportunity to do what I want to do. I am penny-pinching for things I want, but it's literally just change. I won't be able to enjoy a legitimate vacation. And then there are the bullshit expenses. I've been away from the country on work (not on vacation), and came back to a $50 parking ticket. Then I dropped my iPhone for the first time ever in my life and shattered it. That's another $109 + tax. These small expenses are fucking killing me, and hurting any progress towards some proper savings and fiscal promise. I'm just…frustrated about all this. I'm begging Apple to be gentle, and petitioning that my ticket be waived due to my not being in the US at the time. The latter won't happen, because the town government is so into money and bureaucracy. Please, guys, tell me what I should do. I don't know any of these things, especially things like IRAs, which are so vital for my future. I don't want to gamble my retirement funds on stocks, especially given just how uncertain things are. Stables ones, by contrast, don't offer much, either. I don't know. Please ELI5 all of this for me, because I grew up in a household with a financially irresponsible father, who maxed out his credit cards and took out more loans than I have fingers. I don't want that for myself or for my future family. Much love, Silverpeth. Assistant: You're paying 1650 a month rent on a 35k salary. This is where all of your money is going. Let's break it down. That's almost 20k a year or more than half of your net income. That leaves you with very little for everything else, so a broken phone becomes an issue. The amount you spend on housing is the problem. Human: No shit he's living in the NYC. I wonder whether he has full apartment or just a room though. Assistant: Full apartment. 800 square feet. /u/LawBookstore, I appreciate the words here on the roommate, but I'm afraid I will say, "No" to that. I may be in the minority here and counterintuitively be digging myself into a bigger hole, but having a roommate is a step backwards, ya know. Yeah, you save your money, but then you have additional stress and bullshit. I'd rather have my own place, where I don't have to worry about lifestyles clashing, etc., even living with a complete stranger. I've had my own apartment since I was 20 in all the areas I've lived (including college), and I've loved that. It's a huge step. Yeah, sure, it costs a little more, but that's much more preferable than splitting up a place just to save a little hundred. Also, I indeed worked this summer, and put those few thousand I made into a savings account. :) This year is about hustle.

The thing about getting stable financially is you pretty much have to make concessions from your lifestyle to make it work. Living with a roommate can suck, but you are dumping way too much into housing at the moment and its the single easiest thing you can do. So looking at the position you are in you have choices, the more pain it costs you emotionally the more money it will bring you long term. Saying that you've lived alone since you were 20 and won't go back is pretty much the definition of lifestyle creep. You got used to living alone and now you don't want to step down to save money, like buying cheap toilet paper after buying the good stuff. There is no way for you to become financially stable without making some kind of a sacrifice.

By roommate you mean person living in the same room or flat? Living with someone in your room I can understand why you don't want to go back to that. I wouldn't neither. But having your own room vs flat? Amount you can save is significant. And is it really that bad living with someone in a flat? I'm in my late 20s and prefer that to living alone.

Human: My dignity says " Don't work at Taco Bell, Work for Lockheed Martin" but realistically I have zero experience, even for their entry level programs I do not qualify, I'm currently working at Taco Bell as a manager because it's all I can find in this hell hole of a town, Ft. Worth is 30 minutes away. I can't even save up enough money to buy a car, pay student loans, pay previous loans borrowed to pay student loans, I've restructured my student debt to a 25 year pay plan. Anyone out there than can offer some positive advice that I'm not going to be at Taco Bell forever? How am I suppose to apply my degree to a worthy career , if I don't have the required experience? Thanks in advance! *Edit: Just got off work 4:30CST, haven't been able to reply. Assistant: Hiring manager dropping in: 1. You are actually gaining skills right now, managing a taco bell. Don't be dismissive of what you already accomplished: hiring, training and managing people is important. Do you budget? Do you manage deliveries? Do you schedule? All important skills. 2. You need to know what you want to do. Knowing what you don't want to do isn't going to help you find the right thing it just eliminates things. Be positive and affirmative in what you want to do and it will make the search easier. What jobs/job titles interest you? 3. What I do care about is what you can do, your skills and your accomplishments. If you hang your hat on "degree from Purdue" - I can easily find someone better than you in my giant stack of new hire resumes. It's not a good enough sell. Your peers who I've hired know how to frame their accomplishments (no matter how meager), and can show me why they will bring value to my organization. 4. Taco Bell is your career right now, leverage it. The longer you stay there the more important it becomes. It's part of your story, "When I graduated college, I took a management position at Yum! Brands location to develop my (x,y,z skills)." No shame whatsoever in managing a taco bell. None. Human: This was tremendously helpful. Specifically 4.

To add to u/dainty_flower 's advice, make sure you're updating your resume to reflect these tips when you start applying elsewhere. Your current feelings toward your current job seem very negative, but you can always put a positive, connecting (or relevant) spin on your job towards your resume for a new job. You can check out r/resumes for help with this if you need more help. Best of luck!

Seriously there is a reason for high rollover rates at fast food. Get in get some xp and get out for something better with that xp. People hire fast food managers. Fast food is a pretty damn hard job considering how short staffed everyone runs things. If you can make it there you have proven you can make it anywhere else you are looking at. Sell it.

Human: Some background: Last year, we made 133k. Total Fed taxes were 16.5k, not including SS and Medicare. Total NYS taxes were 7k, NY City taxes were 4k. Total itemized deductions were 14k. Two kids. I need to know: a) other than not paying NYC taxes anymore, approximately how much TOTAL tax savings could I expect over the course of a year? b) By what proportion should I reduce my federal and state withholdings by, starting now? In other words, for example, if I will have a total of 12k in taxes savings (again, not including the fact that I'll no longer be paying NYC taxes), should I allocate it 50/50 between Fed and State? 60/40? Something else? Keep in mind I'm only asking for a rough ROUGH estimate until I get to talk to my accountant next year to get more exact figures. I just need to increase my paycheck now, because I was counting on a significant decrease in withholdings (and therefore bigger paycheck) to be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments and other expenses.

>I just need to increase my paycheck now, because I was counting on a significant decrease in withholdings (and therefore bigger paycheck) to be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments and other expenses. Yikes. If you're in need of bigger checks to afford your mortgage payment, I do hope you didn't buy too much house. Back of the envelope, based on $34k in taxes and interest says you've got a mortgage in the neighborhood of $560 - $600k? But that point aside, /u/Forestman88 has the best idea -- just plug the interest / tax numbers into last year's return, and take out the NYC taxes. The rates haven't changed significantly, and you'll get a pretty close estimate of what next year's tax situation would look like.

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Human: I was recently offered a promotion into a position that will occur over the next 2-3 years. When my boss retires there will be some movement and I was approached about filling any of voids that will occur, and of course I am all for it and agreed. He mentioned a "ballpark" salary, but I don't expect that until I am in the role. Moving forward, my current position is paying $20k elsewhere, and I have a friend pressing me to apply to her company. At the end of the day I don't want to work for the company she works for, and on top of that the position I will be transitioning into with my current company is just about as awesome as I could want at this point. Her company does not offer anything like this division that I will be transitioning to. So, moving forward, how do I approach my company about this salary difference? I don't want to leave and if I give an ultimatum I know thats not getting me anywhere so I am not even considering it. I have been with this company for a year, so I couldn't be happier given the opportunity that they are offering me (albeit in 2-3 years, but things take time). I pushed for a title changed during my KPI in April, but was told outright I haven't been here long enough. So if I couldn't get the title how in the hell can I expect a $20k increase... SO...I haven't been here long enough for a title change, but another company is willing to pay me $20k more per year (to do the SAME work, different industry) and a $15k signing bonus. I would think that my company should be receptive to that salary increase if they knew that was whats being offered elsewhere, but I dont want to go and apply/get an offer letter and drop that on my boss. If I get the same salary that would make the next 2-3 years more bearable while grinding out the training/schooling. Not to mention ease of mind knowing I can be getting paid a lot more elsewhere in the same position. tl;dr -- How do I approach my company for that extra $20k per year without pissing anyone off or risking my confirmed promotion? Thanks!

You don't, unless you are willing to and want to move to that other company that pays more, you don't say anything. If this were the same company but a different location, then sure, it would be worth bringing up, but it's pretty pointless to bring it up unless you are willing to switch to the other company AND your own company sees you as valuable enough to pay you that much more.

I think you need to take the theoretical promotion off the table. The archives at Ask A Manager are full of letters from people who were promised promotions "soon" who have yet to receive them. I'm not saying your company is operating in bad faith, just that a lot of things can happen in 2-3 years. Your boss may lose a bunch of money in the stock market and decide not to retire. He might retire and his boss (if he has one) might want to fill the opening an external candidate. Etc. You cannot count on this promotion happening. But I'm not saying you should switch jobs either. Sometimes it's better to stay in a position that's a little underpaid in exchange for a good working environment or a clear path to advance. If the job at your friend's company would be a dead-end for you, career-wise, you might be better off sacrificing short term income for long term advancement. It also depends on how much of your current income 20K is. If you make 40K, it's a pretty big jump. If you make 120K already...it's a little less clear. I personally make about 25% less in my current job than I would if I took a job with a different, larger employer in my city, but I plan to stay in my current role for a long time. I make enough money already for our needs, and switching to a higher-paying job would mean that I would spend 100% of my time doing my least favorite thing, which is currently 20% of my current job, and I would not be able to spend time doing my favorite parts of the job. I would also probably be working an additional 15 hours a week. It's not worth it to me, but it might be to someone who needed the money or enjoyed that part of the work more than I do. ETA: I think you should also think about whether the additional 2 years at your current place of work will give you skills that you can take to a new place, should the promotion not pan out. If they're talking about training and development, that can certainly be worth something as long as they're willing to actually put some effort into it.

Human: Was calling the Chase Auto Loan department to make sure everything was in order before I went out hunting. A chase service answered and after a few options offered me "a 100 dollar voucher good at Target or Walmart for just 1.95" so I hit it because it sent up alarm bells. A woman answered and asked for my name and for me to get my credit card ready. I didn't give it to her of course. Turns out I had transposed the last four digits of the actual number from 7204 to 7024. They are camping out at numbers similar to legitimate phone numbers just waiting for people to call. Remember guys: if it seems too good to be true, it is. ~~And your bank should never ask you for your credit card or bank account numbers or your full social security number.~~ If it hadn't been so blatantly obvious I was at the wrong number, I may very well have given up SOME information to her and I am pretty quick on these things. I did report it to the legitimate agency once I got my business done. I am not sure how much they;ll be able to do about it though. Hopefully something. I am sure this is a problem that isn't limited to just this one number, though. Stay safe. Edit: fair point on the SSN. I have never had to give account into or SSN over the phone myself so jumped the gun on that. But definitely for numbers you don't usually dial or odd sounding offers. Edit2: I know this seems like really basic advice. The main point is that We are automatically suspicious of numbers that call us but when we are calling what we believe to be a reputable place, we may be less discriminating.

Bank worker here. Please be more careful when advising not to give CC# or SSN over the phone. If you are calling from a number we recognize, we can usually pull you up automatically. But if we don't recognize your number, we have to ask for your full card number. If you refuse that, we have to try either your phone number, SSN, address, or other sensitive information. If you refuse to give any of this information, we can't pull you up. From our perspective, we have 1 million+ customers... And you could be any one of them. The last thing we want to do is give sensitive account info to the wrong guy. Call the number on the back of your card. Check it twice, three times, four times before hitting "send". Save the number to your contacts to prevent dialing errors. If the person on the other line asks for your information, it's probably us trying to figure out who you are. Edit: worth noting, the reason we do this is for legal and information security reasons. According to GLBA, if you refuse all of that information, we *legally* do not have enough information to verify you. Assisting you in spite of this is a violation of federal law.

> a 100 dollar voucher good at Target or Walmart for just 1.95 Or just use common sense

Human: Throwaway, of course. I work for a small startup. After missing some (not sure how many) payments to our payroll/benefits company, they cut off our account. Which means that along with not having properly managed payroll, we don't have healthcare, direct deposit, or any of the other benefits that we had enjoyed before. As a stop-gap, my employer has been cutting checks for our "take home" pay, with the assurance that they will pay taxes on them when a new payroll company is instated. We were also told that if we need health coverage, we can pay for COBRA and they will reimburse us; practically speaking, this means that short of an emergency, no one has access to healthcare. Along with this, they aren't making these payroll payments in a timely manner (currently they are about a week late, the longest was three weeks). My concern is, aside from wanting to get paid on time, the pay we are receiving is going to be a tax liability if they don't pay the appropriate taxes on it. Additionally, while our employment agreement promises us healthcare, we don't have access to it in any practical way. And, because of all the red flags this raises, I'm of course concerned with the possibility of relying on unemployment benefits -- and my salary, at this point, includes about three months of no reported (I imagine) income. I'm well aware of how problematic it is to work for this sort of employer. At the moment, I'm more concerned with their legal obligations, and the steps I should take to square away the problems they have potentially caused. Thanks for your input.

3 things 1) RUN RUN RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN 2) Have copies and everything promising to pay the unpaid for taxes. * Keep any paystubs when you were receiving Paystubs. * Keep a clear trail of the transactions and how and when they should be paid as well as actually paid. * If possible have the employer provide you with a manufactured "Paystub" that clearly indicates your moneys due for each paycheck. (Have an officer sign this) * Have them "Prepay" the Cobra to you instead of Paying them back. 3) When you get your W-2 Hopefully next year after you have Run from this business, confirm the paystubs against your W-2. If it's not valid, see the below. This is also valid right now as you suspect your employer is not paying your taxes. https://www.irs.gov/uac/employer-and-employee-responsibilities-employment-tax-enforcement

Bail. This company is failing. Ask for last paycheck and quit. If they can't pay you because they're too broke, report them to your state's dept. of labor. There is zero excuse for a company to not payout payroll and then not pay the taxes withheld. That level of irresponsibility is not acceptable and hurts the employees.

Human: So my laptop I use for school has been falling apart at the hinges since freshman year (now a senior), and its looking like I need a new one. I am planning on building a desktop computer, as I have found I really don't ever need my laptop in class. My question is this, I have enough money to purchase the parts outright, however I am always hesitant spending large sums of money in the fear that in an emergency, having a couple thousand saved up can be a life saver. So I have been considering taking out a small student/personal loan of somewhere in the ballpark of 1-2k. This is a fairly small loan, and I have the funds to pay it off as quickly as I wish. This way, I don't have to watch 4 figures drain out of my savings, and it gives me the flexibility to pay for the computer in increments I see fit. Is this a good idea?

First off, if you are talking about 4 figures (1-2k?) for building a computer, that sounds like way more computer than you really 'need' for school. In fact, 1k+ on building a desktop sounds suspiciously like 'gaming computer' to me. You should probably evaluate how much you really need to spend on a computer, figure out if that is affordable with what you have saved up, and if not, just save up for a couple of months to buy what you need.

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Human: Well, this has been a roller coaster ride. Fiancee left. She was not on any of the paperwork for the house (large blessing) and said she wants no part of it. My monthly payment (mortgage/PMI/insurance/taxes) is $1263. It's an awesome house that we lucked out in landing in a great neighborhood. It's a 13 minute car ride from work. I don't want to let go it unless I absolutely have to do it. No student debt. No credit card debt. I own my car out right. $12,000 in my 401K. $8000 in my IRA. $4000 in my emergency fund. I make about 50K a year hourly and have the option to work occasional overtime (5-6 hours a week). Am I crazy? Can I pull this off?

You're all right to coast for a few months, but if you find your spending money to be diminished you can consider getting a roommate. Definitely not an emergency situation.

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Human: My girlfriend and I joke about these lessons all the time, and I realized that someone else might ~~get a kick out of laughing at my mistakes~~ want to avoid learning these lessons themselves, so I decided to write some of them down. Feel free to add your own! **1. The Windex lesson.** This one was all on my girlfriend. First day in her new apartment, we went shopping. She bought literally everything store-brand, the absolute cheapest she could find. Most of it worked...okay, until we got to the "Glass Cleaner." It was the worst. It streaked, didn't clean a damn thing, and we ended up going back to the store to buy the real thing. **Lesson:** Sometimes, it costs *more* to buy the cheap things, because you either have to use more of it, or you need to go back and buy better versions. **2. The "Organic" lesson.** This one was mine, unfortunately. You know those awesome giant bag cereals that are all off-brand and delicious? I had eaten those all my life, and decided: "Hey, the super fancy organic cereal must taste amazing! It costs like twice as much!" It was awful. It tasted bad. It smelled bad. It didn't soak up the milk, so it was like eating rocks. After the first half-bowl, that box sat in my pantry for about 6 months before I finally admitted my mistake and threw it out. The worst part? When I actually compared the nutrition facts, it wasn't even much better for you than my cheapo Fruity Dino-Bites. **Lesson:** A high price tag doesn't necessarily mean it's better. **3. The "Convenience" lesson.** Also me. Dammit. This one is me forgetting to properly plan for our vacation. We went to Hawaii. I didn't pack sunblock. Sunblock at our local Wal-Mart? Like $3. Sunblock anywhere within a 20 mile radius of our hotel? $17. **Lesson:** be prepared. It costs way more to buy things you need where you need them, because, chances are, demand is super high there. **4. The "Travel Site" lesson** ...Also me. A theme is starting to develop. No one mention this to my girlfriend. This one was also from our vacation. I booked on one of those travel websites that gets you awesome deals on hotels. We booked this awesome undersea tour for about $80 a person. When we got there, we saw the pricing sign. It was $69 a person. That rate was also available on *their* website. It was still an awesome activity, but I could have saved $22 just by paying for that separately. **Lesson:** Do your damn research. Don't immediately buy something just because you think it's neat. **5. The "Landlord" lesson** This one was my girlfriend's fuck-up! Ha! Our landlord has you pay with checks or money orders. Well, she didn't have a checkbook, so she would go and paid $3 for a money order from the local convenience store. She threw away the bottom copy, because she'd never had any trouble paying her rent before. She always just wrote her name on the envelope, and the landlord knew where it went. Well, the landlord threw the envelope away without looking at it this time. She got a notice of non-payment on her door the next day, and we had zero evidence that she'd actually paid. Turns out, a bunch of people use that same place for money orders, and a few of them also hadn't paid. Her saving grace was the fact no one else came to claim the unlabeled money order. **Lesson:** Keep your pertinent documents regarding any major transaction, or even minor transactions. Your landlord has no duty to keep your records for you, and other people make mistakes sometimes. Also, make your signature recognizable. A squiggly line does not a signature make. **6. The "Terrible Car" lesson.** This one is my fuckup. I decided that I would empty my savings, including my e-fund, to pay for my last semester of community college, because fuck student loans, amirite? Then my car broke down. The timing belt snapped and bent every valve stem when it did. Total cost was $1600 to fix it. I had no way to pay, and I was looking at using my credit card to pay for it. That's a 22% interest rate. Basically, instead of taking a ~4% loan, I left myself with no way to pay in an emergency and was almost forced to take out a 22% "loan" so that I'd have something to drive. My grandfather stepped in and saved me with a 0% loan, but that could have been really, really bad. **Lesson:** This sub harps on an emergency fund for a very, very good reason. You have no idea what will happen to you next month, tomorrow, or even in the next 6 hours. Not everyone has an awesome grandpa to step in and save them from drowning financially. A lot of these, in retrospect, seem like common sense. When I was 20, just starting out into the world on my own, though... not so much. No one had bothered to teach me, and honestly, I thought I was way better prepared than I was, so I never sought out help. I'm 26 now and in a decent financial position, with an excellent credit score and a good job, but some of these fuck-ups could have done a lot of damage. Hopefully this does more than give a lot of the /r/personalfinance old-timers ammunition to make fun of me. If there are any teens in this sub, be warned: you will likely think you're smarter than me (that might even be true), but there are a host of financial problems that you won't see coming. Take any advice you can get.

We have all been there, and not many people will want to laugh at your distress. Emergency funds are for things that break (houses, cats, cars) and for things that leave (health, job, spouse), and most of us never see those events coming. So you have not only the expense, but the trauma of the triggering event. Yeah, we've all had that heartache.

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Human: I am 28 years old, and I make 14.25 an hour to answer phones for a government program. Net I end up at about 1340 a month. I end up missing around 5 hours of work a week. I attend therapy once a week, trying to deal with my depression. My rent is 425 a month. My phone bill is around 120. My utilities are around 75. Gas is roughly 100. Food is 200. Student Loans are 120. I have around 10k in loans. Car insurance is 113. Doctor's Visits are 120. That totals 1273 a month in expenses. That leaves me with 67 dollars a month. Some of these numbers are low. I didn't even include the cost per month for my antidepressants. I am around $300 in credit card debt at the moment, after moving. Because of my family situation, I can't afford the time to get a second job; my father is in failing health. I have a degree in English. I've been seriously looking in to going back to school, but if I did, it would be to get an MSW. How can I even be thinking of doing that? First I take on more debt, and then for a degree where I get paid less than a teacher? Who am I joking? How can I make any sort of future for myself when I'm this cripplingly strapped for cash? I just crunched this all out, and I've got to say, I'm terrified. I feel like every decision I've ever made has been a mistake. I don't see a way out of this situation. I keep thinking that maybe it would be more financially realistic to save money for a gun.

Can you change your therapy times to earlier or later in the day to cut the 5hrs of missed work down? Even if you can get 1hr back that will give you an extra 50ish a month. The cell phone bill is too high. How far from work do you live? Is your accommodation shared or solo? Do you have the potential to lease out a room? As others have said look into what you can do with your car.

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Human: Really, the best time to look for anything is when you don't need it, but this is specifically about job hunting and how it worked out for me. The quick background: I've been in manufacturing 20+ years, mid-level management for the last who knows how long. I happen to love my current job. I have a great crew, good benefits, a boss that let's me run my department with very little interference, close to home... etc. The pay, definitely below industry standards, but people put up with it because of the perks. Basically, you trade lack of stress for lack of pay. A long time ago, I was told that you should always keep an eye out, never get too comfortable, so I did. Over the last few years, I applied for a few different jobs, and listed very high salary requirements knowing that if I didn't get an offer, I'd be okay because I was in a job I enjoyed. I received an offer recently for a position I have a great deal of experience with, and was able to negotiate a 53% increase in salary. Similar benefits (though obviously I don't know about the team, etc). I hit it off with my new boss very well in the interview, I have no worries there. I'm very excited about this position, and thought I would share with the rest of PF that even if you're happy, keep an eye out, and take a shot at improving your wage bracket. You have nothing to lose by asking for what you want (if you're in a position you're okay with being patient with for a little while). You just might find out someone thinks you're worth it.

One thing to keep in mind when looking for a job is that your current employer will not advocate your worth - they will pay you what you two agreed on and you won't make much more after that. Call me a cynic, but they will pay you as little as they can because that means more money for the company. Have you ever put in a notice and had your current company ask if a raise would help keep you around? That's proof that they could have paid you more, but didn't and even more reason not to stick around. It's only until you're putting a strain on the company that financial compensation is talked about instead of paying you what you're worth. After accepting an offer, I commit for a year. After that, I start casually looking. I build up some self-confidence, say I'm worth more than what I'm making and start looking with that mindset. Like OP said, the worst that can happen is that you don't get the job; and the best that can happen is that you're in a more financially stable position.

the rich get richer, it's as old as the world.

Human: I'm torn. My SO and I have been unemployed for eight months now. We went from six figures to living on public assistance and we've finally hit the month where we have to choose whether we pay our mortgage or our credit cards. (we'll be paying the mortgage) The question I have is, now that we're at that "point," do I work for a temp agency to help us crutch along and try to find better work as I find time? Or do I put in the full-time work to find a job that will be able to pay all the bills and I will, hopefully, enjoy? We were finally able to get our oldest in daycare this month so I'm amble to focus more on finding work. Any advice is appreciated as I'm having a difficult time looking at this objectively.

Daycare is expensive. You are both unemployed why are you paying for daycare ? Surely you can look for jobs and watch your child at the same time.

Daycare is expensive. You are both unemployed any are you paying for daycare ? Surely you can look for jobs and watch your child at the same time.

Human: I told a potential buyer that I would be able to work out a deal with him. I'm selling the car for 5k, and he's willing to put a large down payment of 3.5k down. I said maybe we can set up an installment plan for him to pay the rest. As a private seller, what can I do to make a legit contract that holds up to the law if something goes wrong? Is there a such thing or is this an honor code situation?

You can tell him to find someone else to loan him the money. Absolutely under no circumstances EVER. EVER. EVER! should you go along with this. Are you a bank? A car dealer? Do you have contracts with collection agencies and repo companies? No? THEN DON'T DO IT!

You can get a Lien on the title at the DMV when you transfer it to him. That way, if he doesn't pay you can go collect the car. It's likely to be in rough shape, engine or transmission problems. Do not do it unless you're OK with selling the car for $3.5k instead of 5.

Human: Hi personal finance, I'm 23 years old and was recently given ownership of a UTMA account that my grandfather had in my name. This account currently has ~$16.6k all in Walmart (WMT) stock. I retitled this account as an individual brokerage account and am looking to either sell all shares and diversify those funds using one of fidelity's other investment products, or sell all shares and use that money to pay off my student loan that is currently sitting at $17.7k. Either way I'm also concerned about how much I'll be paying in capital gains tax with this decision. That loan is made up of the following: Direct Unsubsidized Stafford $4,945.94 6.550% Direct Unsubsidized Stafford $5,678.72 6.550% Direct Subsidized Stafford $4,510.10 3.610% Direct Unsubsidized Stafford $2,557.81 3.610% Other factors to take into account: Salary: $85k in NYC Emergency Fund: 3 months covered 401(k): $4k - Contributing 5% (Employer matches 4%) Roth IRA: $2.7k - Fidelity (FFNOX) My dad wants me to leave the fidelity account alone and just continue letting the dividends reinvestment however based on the wikis and advice here I think it would be best to do otherwise. I'd greatly appreciate input on which route would be best here or if there are alternative routes I should also consider. Thanks!

I agree with you about diversifying the account, yet take my advice with a grain of salt as I am a new regular to the PF sub. If I were you, I'd start by paying off the two high interest student loans you have. Total, that should come out to ~10.5k, leaving you with about 6k left over. I'd leave the other two loans alone as they have a much more manageable interest rate, and the principle amount is much lower as well. Try to pay those off early if you can, but I wouldn't use this money on them. With the additional 6k, I'd probably throw it into the emergency fund. 3 month coverage is nice, but you do live in NYC, which has a much higher COL than just about anywhere. At 85k/year, a major expense could completely take your Emergency Fund away, and leave you hanging high and dry for some time until you can rebuild that fund up. Throw some of the money in there to get yourself in the 6-9 month coverage range. Anything else you should chuck into your 401k p.s. You should think about increasing your 401k contributions, unless your employer won't allow you to contribute more than 5%. Most recommend contributing at minimum 10%, and you might want to think about going even higher to 15%.

Markets are at 0% this last year and probably won't improve until this election is over. Those 6% student loans are a guarantee. Throw some money at them. Pull out the rest and put it into an Ira.

Human: I am 20 years old and live with my parents. I am verbally and physically abused. I have grown to resent my home and the area I live in because I feel very trapped in this abuse. I want to move far away (Los Angeles). I read an article stating that I would need to save approximately $8000 to move and have a bit of wiggle room to find a job. I have never moved or lived on my own. I have never been very good at saving, especially that much money. I considered taking out a personal loan, as I pay my bills and have (I consider) decent credit, but I know that's not the most responsible thing I could do. I am also a student at the local university and have to consider the cost of attending a different university when moving. I don't know where to begin. Any advice at all will be helpful. EDIT: My income is $300 a week. Neighboring towns are too close to my incredibly small town to avoid my family.

Find a women's shelter or move in with a family member. If you have made the conscious decision to leave then gtfo of there.

Well, going to LA with out a job and not much money pretty much guarantees youll be back here in six months hawking your first porno shoot. It wont be glamorous or special but it will make rent. Unless your goal is to go there to do pornos to get back at your family. Then go for it. Or that guy you hook up with when you get there will be hooking you up with sweet tarballs and your post here will be near your last. Try somewhere that has better cost of living, better community(real community) You dont say where you are now but I bet there are better places that are equidistant to LA that are way better to start off in.

Human: **tl;dr Can I buy a $1.5M house with $300k income and a $300k downpayment?** I'm 32, single and renting in San Jose at the moment. I'd like to buy a house after I get married, whenever that is. **Income, yearly** * Salary $160k * Bonus $25k * RSU vesting $120k * Total $305k * Net $200k ish **Expenses, monthly** * Rent $2000 * Charity $600 * Fixed bills: PGE, internet, phone, etc, $400 * Spending: food, gas, clothes, etc, $1700 * Vacations, one time expenses, etc, $1500 Total yearly spending is $77k **Accumulated Savings** * Emergency fund, cash $10k * House downpayment, cash $217k * House downpayment, stocks $21k * Other stock $9k * 401(k) $268k * Roth IRA $17k No debt I max my 401(k), get a 50% match from my employer. Add some in post-tax to Roth conversions, $5k ish. The rest of my savings does towards my downpayment for now. I do wish I had more in retirement savings; for my income it's not that substantial, but I started my career making $58k and have dramatically increased my earnings over time. I'd like to buy a house in the $1.5 - $2 million range, I think. That seems to be the range where I can get something I'd be happy with in an ok school district, without making my commute too long. Once I hit $300k saved, is a $1.2 million mortgage doable for me? Maybe assuming I have a wife and a second (possibly much smaller) income at that point? Could I do more?

Your payments would be around $6k per month. Your debt to income ratio would be very reasonable with that payment amount (about 33%), but that is an additional $50k per year you would spend on housing that you don't spend now. Also, not sure the RSU will count as income.

Crunch some numbers based on the conservative advice here: http://www.financialsamurai.com/three-home-buying-rules-for-all-to-follow/ The biggest challenge is that half your compensation is RSUs. I think some banks will count this as regular income but you will have to shop around. Are you getting fresh RSU grants annually to keep that payout going moving forward?

Human: Hi everyone. This is my first time posting here and even really visiting this sub. I graduated college in May and recently moved to AZ to be with family. My money has dwindled down to only $100 as of today. I start work tomorrow at a restaurant but I've had no luck getting a job with my degree. I'm looking everyday. Luckily I'm living rent free right now but I'm stressed and worried. My only bills right now are car insurance, food and gas. I don't have health insurance now, but I will soon hopefully. And student loans don't hit until November. Am I doing something wrong? Should I be doing more? I'm actually very responsible with money but this is the first time I've been so broke. Graduating college hit hard cause my parents basically told me the day I graduated that all the bills they paid for me are now my responsibility. Which isn't the biggest deal. I've had bills in the past. Just not so many. Health and car insurance being really the new ones. And now I can't handle it all. Thanks and sorry if this post breaks any rules or is formatted poorly. I'm very tired.

Your basic task right now is surviving but your most important task is job hunting. If you didn't do a lot of internships or have a good network, finding a first career job is a terrible experience, even if you have a great degree. Here are some tips that ended up working for me: Be geographically flexible. By limiting yourself to a certain area you will miss out on many possible jobs. On the other hand it will be much easier to move back to your family once you have experience. A good rule of thumb for recent graduates is that you need ten applications to get an interview and five interviews to get a job. The first part of the rule only applies if your applications are good. If you send out multiple applications a day, they are not good. You are applying as a skilled worker and the application is the first piece of your work that an employer sees. - Finding good opportunities takes time. Getting to know the employer takes time. For every cover letter you need to rearrange and modify text blocks as well as add something entirely specific to the job. Your CV is not supposed to be the same for every application either. Finally, have someone proofread every single application. This is true, no matter if you apply to a job add or send out a speculative application. However, if your search is thorough and covers a large enough area, you should find more job offers than you can send good applications to. Job offers usually guarantee you that your application at least gets glanced at in the next 3 months. Speculative applications don't. Spend most of your time applying to job offers. When you've sent out a lot of good applications you will eventually get invited to your first interview. Get ready to be rejected. It's a terrible feeling but it will make you better at job interviews. Your goal in the interview is to have a professional talk about work. Being prepared to answer the standard questions is the minimum. Asking questions that get a conversation going is what gets you the job. Get a job to survive (as you are already doing). As a waiter you should be making enough to live a rent free life. Accept that it is a shitty time in your life and hope that it's over sooner rather than later. Now for the elephant in the room: What if it doesn't eventually work out? Set yourself a time frame (a year sounds good) in which you will only work your survival job and search for a career job. Afterwards try to get work experience no matter what: Get an internship. Work for (almost?) free. Yay. ____ Hope that helps at least a little. I know your situation well.

> I've had no luck getting a job with my degree. The best thing you can do right now is to continue applying for entry level jobs that require a degree. You should be able to earn enough money from your restaurant job to cover your minimal living expenses, but don't stop job hunting until you find something better. How long have you been job hunting, and what have you tried so far? Also, what is your degree in? Any professional experience (internships, co-ops, part-time work in your field)?

Human: I am currently employed but have been looking at job postings in my area and have applied to a few. One thing I am seeing very often is that employers will ask for the minimum salary you are willing to accept; this question is not an optional one. In a particularly extreme case, one application asked for my current salary along with all benefits (retirement, health, etc.). Again, not an optional question. I understand companies do not want to pursue candidates that are unaffordable, but it's also said that the person who names a number first loses. How do you deal with companies wanting to know your salary demands immediately? How do you deal with companies asking for your current compensation?

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ That is a very good esay. When asked my salary, I always ask "How much does this position pay?" *then shut up* It's not easy, yet it's what I do.

I'm not sure how you could lose if you put in what you'd legitimately want for the position. Throw in a little extra for good measure if you want. You'd be surprised the offers you'll get if you're qualified for a position.

Human: Hi all, hoping you guys can help me out. I took a rental car out from Avis and there were no issues when I recieved the car. Unfortunately, I backed up into something (low so I didn't see it at night) and there's now a rather sizeable crack in the bumper. I declined all insurance except the additional liability and I paid for the rental using my chase sapphire following their terms (under 30 days, declined insurance) which has the benefit rental car insurance. I don't have personal auto insurance. What do I do when I return the car in a few days? Will there be a large repair fee? Does my credit card company cover the entire damage cost? Is this covered under collision insurance. I'm rather new to renting cars so I'm looking for any advice. Thanks!

First call Chase and find out what they recommend and if you are truly covered.. My Amex told me to return the car and give them Amex contact to submit the information. When you return the car all they are going to do is fill out a report, they have to get estimates of damage and then reach back out.

To piggyback on this post. I backed a rental into a parked car in my rental a few weeks ago (minor damage to both). We exchanged information and a report was filed. I put a claim in through budget and am waiting any communications from them. After talking with the people through my credit card (Citi) I'll just have to file a claim with them once I get an itemized receipt. The form seemed relatively straightforward but requires pictures and a few other docs. I'd recommend keeping copies of everything.

Human: I was an early investor in a new cryptocurrency called Ethereum (see /r/Ethereum for more details) and my initial investment of ~$500 is now worth ~$12,000. This growth occurred over a period of about a year. I'm pretty blown away and excited about this return. I feel there is a good chance it will continue to grow (though I'm realistic that I can't expect it to grow at that same rate forever) - but I'm also wary of keeping money in a volatile investment and possibly losing it. So - should I sell now and be happy with my good fortune, or hold out for more? What factors should I consider in making this decision? Selling now would help me reach a savings goal that I have much more quickly, but obviously the more I can squeeze out of this investment the better.

My philosophy is to never have more than 10% of my assets in speculative investments. I made a $1,000 investment in bitcoin which turned into over $50,000, and I completely liquidated my position in 2014. Don't make the gamblers fallacy. You got lucky. Sell the $11,500 and let your initial investment ride if you want. This $12k can be a jump start to paying down debt or investing.

I would sell that immediately. I just don't understand how cryptocurrencies are sustainable, though, so that definitely influences my opinion.

Human: My wife and I are looking to buy our first home by the end of the year. We currently have separate bank accounts where we have both been saving money specifically for a down payment. There is no particular reason that we haven't combined our accounts (and our plan is to eventually do that), other than we just haven't gotten around to it since our marriage. We want to start the process of talking with lenders in the next few weeks. My question is, does it make sense to combine our accounts now, or will it just cause more headaches in the mortgage process if we have all of these account changes so close to when we would be applying for a mortgage? Would it make more sense for my wife to just transfer all of her home savings into my account so that our downpayment would all be coming from one account?

It doesn't matter either way as long as you plan to both apply for the mortgage jointly. Lenders will look at your combined joint finances.

No. Separate accounts just means you'll have to provide a couple more bank statements to them.

Human: Status: fully employed, making approx 45k. I have two loans: Car: 12k with $250 monthly payments. Very low interest rate. School: 47k (3k of that is interest) that will become $500 monthly payments. Very low interest rate. I have 12k saved up, but really like having that in the bank. I could continue to pay $1 k a month from my paycheck rather than savings toward loans, that might be my ignorant preference. What are your recommendations? I will be moving out on my own now and I don't want to be rash with my savings. Edit: Thanks all, I think I will wait for my next paycheck for the end of August and then pummel the auto loan. The interest rates are about the same (I'm pretty sure ~4%), but then my minimum payments will go down. I will then continue to direct $1k a month towards lowering debt while simply maintaining rather than adding to savings. That would put me around 4 years to pay off my loans, but I'm sure plenty will change by then: income, expenses, and so on. Thanks!

>Very low interest rate. It would be helpful to have the actual numbers here.

Make the minimum payment on the lower interest loan. Make additional payments on the higher interest loan until it is paid off. Keep an amount of money that you feel comfortable with in savings (people will disagree with how much, but 3 to 6 months of expenses is pretty common).

Human: Just... trying to get a handle on this. Is my credit rating fucked? Is there any chance of improving it? Can I even do anything? 1. Sent to collections twice in 5 year span by UPS because they failed to charge my CC for package delivery fees. 2. Have overdraft protection on my bank account. Only out of the red on payday, after I pay my bills & buy food for that week back to the red until next pay period. Almost a year of this now. I'm wasting so much in fees. 3. $500 credit card has been maxed out for 3 years. Able to pay slightly over the minimum each month but end up spending the payment money again on essentials toilet paper. Always on time with payment. Payment obviously increasing due to card never being paid off. 4. Previously owned and flipped a house for profit in 2014. Used first time homeowner's credit to save some money there. Not sure if this affects rating. Currently rent. Always on time with rent. 5. Owe about $8K on my car. Co-signed with Father. Have missed 2 payments in the 4 years I have owned the car. 6. Co-own $6K in debt from husband. No joint accounts, common-law unsure if this affects my rating. 7. Owe government $200 because I became common-law last year causing an over payment in trillium benefits. 8. No school debt. Have nursing degree, unable to work in field any longer due to deteriorating mental health. Currently work min wage as a server. Hours just got cut in half due to temporary construction outside the business. Is there anything I can do? Is there a point, I cannot see myself living past age 40, who gets my debts when I die? Do life insurance policies cancel out if you commit suicide? Sick of the voices calling me a failure. Sorry for wasting your time.

If you are considering suicide or know someone who is considering suicide, **call the [National Suicide Prevention Lifeline](http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) at 1-800-273-8255** immediately. There is also a list of [alternative and international](http://www.reddit.com/r/SWResources/comments/17gu7g/hotline_numbers/) phone numbers. If you suspect a friend or family member may be considering suicide, call the hotline and read up on warning signs [here](http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/gethelp/someone.aspx). /r/suicidewatch is currently the most prominent subreddit featuring support for other redditors suffering from suicidal thoughts. Here is a [list of resources](http://www.reddit.com/r/SWResources/comments/1c3p3z/helpful_resources_for_those_struggling_with/) for those struggling.

Havent read what you wrote yet, but to answer your question: no probably not.

Human: Dream company is where I've always wanted to work. I'm in the tech industry, so you can probably have a guess, they're known for treating their employees well and being a great place to work. The problem is I've recently started my new job at another tech company, still learning but it's been difficult because I'm a team of one person and my boss is remote. It's pretty frustrating when I'm studying the database schema and no one can answer where X is stored. It's pretty unorganized. But it'll get better hopefully. I don't hate it and I get paid above industry standards. But I can't say I'm happy at this job yet, since I have no team mates I sit in a cubicle all day without saying a word, I learn everything with google since there are no documentation (which is weird for a big company like this), as an extroverted person this is super difficult to adjust to. My last job was a team of 15 people and every day we would chat over our desks and have nerf gun fights. My questions are, is it a good idea to leave my current job so soon? And how do I answer if the recruiter ask me why I want to leave my current job so soon after starting? I'm going to assume they'll pay me similarly and the benefits are pretty similar too. Possibly better at the dream company. Update - I took the advice and spoke to the recruiter. I passed onto my second round interview :)

You can get away with doing this a couple of times in a career. Esp if after this short hop, you have a long tenure at the next place. If you are unhappy, certainly no harm in talking to the recruiter. Just b/c they reach out doesn't mean you are getting an offer. One step at a time. The answer is to the "why question" is pretty simple. You are presenting a far better opportunity and I've always wanted to work at XXX and can see myself having a long successful career there".

One time leaving a company quickly can be fairly easily understood. 3+ times and you have a problem. You have the company culture angle, the remote boss or lack of team being difficult etc. as long as that's not the standard at a new job you are seeking.

Human: On [Vanguard's page for their Total Bond Market Index Fund](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0084&FundIntExt=INT), it lists about a 5% annual yield for the last 10 years. The graph shows $10000 growing to $16000 over 10 years, so a 60% increase. However when I search VBMFX on Google, the value didn't increase that much, from 9.67 in 2006 to 11.18 in 2016, a 15% increase. I feel like there's an obvious answer but I don't know what it is. Why the discrepancy?

Because Google is only tracking fund price, not distributions, which is where most bond fund returns will come from.

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Human: Hi PF, long time lurker on this thread. I have about 17k in student loan debt (interest ranging from 3.5-6.1%), 10k in car loan (2.5%), and 2.5k in credit card debt (0% interest for next 4 months). I am a 24 y/o male, live rent free with girlfriends family at the moment, work as an engineer with a 2nd job tutoring, so I make decent money for my age. My neighbor just graduated and got into wealth management, so I agreed to a couple of sit downs with him and his colleague. His colleague is pushing extended disability benefits on me big time, to the point where he said "If you don't see the value here, I don't think we can work together." I see the value (estimated $40 per month cost to increase my coverage from 50% monthly salary to ~85%) but at such a young age with decreasing debt at fairly low interest rates, I don't feel that it is completely a no brainer for me. He is also pushing cash value life insurance. This has been my first exposure to this type of asset, so any advice is much appreciated. My company offers me 2x salary death benefit, and with no dependents and much less than 2x salary in debt, I don't see the rush on getting into this either (maybe when I have a mortgage and family to protect?). I'd much rather open a Roth IRA (am already participating in my 401k up to company match), but he says that the other two are much more important to engage in first, and I can start the Roth IRA after my current debt is settled. I feel like he's trying to pull a fast one on me... I'd rather pay off my debt, contribute to my 401k and open a Roth IRA, then consider a real estate investment or brokerage account after my debt is paid. Do you agree with me, or can you shed some light on why the financial adviser is so gung ho about the CV life insurance and disability benefits for someone in my current financial position? Thanks!

There is really no need for life insurance if you don't support anyone financially. When you do, get term life insurance. It's cheap. The only reason someone wants you to get whole life insurance is because they make money off of it.

Cash value = comi$$ion. Some companies require quotas on this terrible product because it is such a BOON for the insurance company.

Human: I opened up an amazon synchrony card and 2 chase cards, along with a background/credit check for an apartment over that time. Is this a normal drop? All bills get paid in full every month. No delinquent accounts, no bankruptcy, no eviction or anything negative.

Sure. You have had three recent credit hits in the last 6 months. Those weigh negatively against you. You've also dropped your average age of credit by opening two brand new cards. Credit scores also fluctuate month to month, and formula to formula. A 780 score is high, but it doesn't mean much without knowing what scoring model you're using.

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Human: Some additional details: my office offers a 2% cost of living increase, but a few years ago some select people only received a 1.8% increase. I was one of those people. No, it's not a very huge sum, but the reason they gave us for the disparity, was to help fix some salary inequalities. Is this something that I should fight for? Or it's just this the nature of capitalism? And even if I do fight for it, how do I bring this up that I know the new person's salary?

Are you worth more than you are being paid? Would another employer be willing to pay you what you are worth? If you answered yes to both questions, it is time to move on. If you answered no to either question, probably best to stay put. If you decide to stay put, you could always build an argument about why, after 7 years of working within whatever system it is, you are more valuable, and thus, more deserving of additional income.

Other person's salary is irrelevant and it is totally inappropriate for you to use your knowledge of their higher wage for your negotiation purposes. What you need to learn is why they aren't choosing to invest in you. Is it because you haven't asked them to, or is it because you are not a good investment? What attributes are you considering as conducive to "favoritism" and why aren't you perceived as having them? Why aren't you dealing with multiple competing offers and having the problem of turning down jobs? These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself and have honest answers.

Human: (X-posted in r/FinancialPlanning) My mom has Huntington's Disease. She hasn't been officially diagnosed yet, but at this point the doctor says that any testing for the Huntington's gene would just be confirmation testing. The reason they've held off on the genetic testing is because the doctor recommends that all her children set up some kind of long term health care insurance or something. Once Huntington's shows up in our medical history, the doctor said costs would go way up and many agencies would deny me any sort of long term care insurance. I have done a little bit of research, but I am just so confused and overwhelmed. The insurance agencies I've looked at so seem to work exclusively with people aged 55+. Even then, the cost seems like it's extremely expensive, to the point where I would basically end up paying 100% of the cost of the care, just over a long period of time. If that's the case, maybe it would be better to just put the money into a savings account or something and not deal with an outside company. I don't know. I'm in way over my head. Anyone have any experience or suggestions?

Can't help with PF, but let me know if you want to talk otherwise. Username is relevant. Check my other account /u/cure_hd.

Hookers. And. Blow. You're welcome.

Human: I want to open a credit card with 0% intro ARP for 12+ months (depending on which CC) to pay for my classes and pay it off within a year. The classes that I need to take are $4720 and from my budget, I can pay it off before interest starts. I currently pay off the balance on my credit cards every month and have no debt. Is this a good or bad idea? Which credit card should I apply for to do this? edit: I don't think there's a cc fee with the school. I checked and couldn't find anything. This is what it says: Make a Payment Pay with Credit Card, Check or International Bank Transfer. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and International Bank Transfer are accepted methods of online payment.

As long as your credit can take the hit of opening a new account and the inquiry they will make to open it, this is a great idea. Just make sure you are able to pay off the balance in full before that interest starts to accumulate.

I did this with a Chase card that I found with 15 months at 0%, and charged a similar amount. It will ding your credit a bit I imagine.

Human: At the beginning of june i ordered two necklaces from pacificlunejewelry.com for my anniversary. I emailed them twice about my order, only getting one response, about two weeks ago, saying that a number of packages were lost and would be resent. Fine. It took you six weeks to tell me I had to wait. Now, going to their website, it looks shut down. I am just looking for help.

file a claim on your credit card.

Thanks for the help guys. I've been in contact with the business and I think the shipment is just still on its way in a very slow pace.

Human: I have about $9000 that I will be receiving through stock grants in a month, and I have about $8000 in my credit card (18% APR) and about $45000 in my student loan (5.5%). I plan on using all of it to pay off either one. What do you think I should get rid of first?

Pay off highest interest 1st. Learn to pay your CC in full every month so you don't run up a balance.

The lower debt, which in this case is the credit card.

Human: Okay, So i work part time at a supermarket whilst ive been studying we get paid every 4 weeks but my wage just about covers my bills etc with a little left over for social activities.. so any money i can get is great. what i dont get though is that if im getting paid 13 times a year and bills come out 12 times a year what happens to that extra paycheck ? ive been here for 2 years now and both years ive yet to have a paycheck where i keep to myself ? is this a stupid question or have i to be more money wise?

Well instead of paying bills in smarch you can use the money for savings or debts. You're probably using it to cover shortfalls which slowly accumulate the rest of the year.

This means that there is one month per year in which you get an extra paycheck. If you were to budget so that the paycheck you get every four weeks covered an entire month of bills, that extra paycheck would be purely extra money in your pocket. If you're not ending up with anything extra, it just means your monthly expenses are a bit more than the amount you earn each four weeks.

Human: Hi everyone, I'm newly married and my husband and I want to merge our bank accounts. I have checking and savings with a great credit union, so my husband wants to close his other bank accounts to join mine. The problem is, we can't find any information on how the closing of his accounts would affect his credit. He has two credit cards with Capital One, a checking account with Capital One 360, and a checking account with Citizens Bank. We've called each of these places, along with Experian, Transunion, and Equifax, to ask. NO ONE has been able to give us an answer. Capital One said they don't have the information for this, and that we needed to contact a credit bureau. Well, we contacted the three main credit bureaus, and they all were incredibly useless. They wouldn't give him a straight answer, and told him he needed to talk to his bank. We are hoping to buy a house in the next year or two, so we obviously want to keep our credit scores as high as possible. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you so much in advance!!

Checking accounts don't affect your credit score and credit cards do. If the credit cards have no annual fee, then he should keep them open.

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Human: Me and my so have been considering getting an appartment together so we don't have to be so far apart (plus living together sounds cool and "teen indipendence" and all that jazz) anyways what I was wondering was that if two people on a minimum wage job with school could possibly live together without extra support or what kind of support would be needed. What kind of hours would need to be worked, ect.

No, it's too low. It would be poverty living and any emergency would totally derail you.

No, you can't afford it. At $7.25 an hour, with an average rent of like $1,000 in Texas you'd each need to work about 51 hours a week every week of the year to afford rent. If your state is like mine, you can't even work that much because teenagers are usually capped at 20 hours of work a week during the school year. Regardless your financial priority now is to finish high school and to not get pregnant/get someone else pregnant. Focus on school, get part time jobs if you like, and use a little of the money you do earn for dates but save most of it for college or trade school.

Human: I have been offered a great deal on a food truck. 6000$ I could probably double my money just buying and cleaning it up.y wife would like to give the business a shot. My question is what would be my best finance options? We just got back for an Alaskan cruise and I used most of my available cash. My credit is not good, and I am thinking I would need 12k to give it a serious shot at a money making venture.

Just dropped all of your savings on an expensive vacation, have bad credit, but want to go into debt on a busy that can be extremely fickle, and difficult to get started with. This whole idea has trouble written all over it. If this is something you really want to do, then save up, prepare, and get into it when you can actually afford it.

Find out what kind of regulations, permits and inspections you will be subject to. It isn't as simple as just parking in a lot and selling food.

Human: My mom bought my younger brother (19) a car and took a loan out to afford it. Its under her name, he was supposed to pay off the payments on the loan. But being the mess he is, he never started paying her back. Now she wants to take the car from him and give it to me, along with the rest of the loan ($18,500) AND the down payment ($4000) she already made. The payments are $292 a month. I (21) just started a new career as an industrial inspector. I'm only making $810 a paycheck now but I expect to be making more in the years that come. I dont know what to do. I have no one to discuss this with and have so many questions. I kinda want to go through with it, but it already looks like my brother has scrape marks on one of the corners... He's the poster child for bad decisions and reckless mistakes you make as a teenager. And $22,000 in total is worth more than both cars I've owned growing up. I'm annoyed that she did this for him, but then again she did buy my current $2,500 car for me. So I can't do much but be petty about that. She's also trying to guilt me into it which annoys me more. I have bad credit from when my savings ran out the last year of school. That said, I'm wondering if the best decision is to have her transfer the loan to my name and I pay it off myself (this builds credit right?). Buy dash cams for my car cuz my brother is going to be super pissed I'm betting. AND tell her that I wont pay the down payment, just whats left on the loan. **Edit:** So far it seems like this would be a terrible idea. Which is a shame cuz my cars an ugly clunker... What about asking for a lower price? Assistant: Is 810 after taxes? Per week? Human: After taxes every 2 weeks

Listen to the others in the thread. This is a bad deal. Keep your $2,500 car and tell your mom to sell that car if she wants to. Don't sign any papers that she asks you to sign.

That is giving nearly 20% of your income for 6 years, and then 4000 dollars on top. Not sure about that.

Human: Could you file bankruptcy immediately after college when you have essentially nothing and then have your student loans paid off with that? I'm not thinking about this, just curious

No. There is almost no way out of student debt. It's written that way on purpose, otherwise we'd all declare it. Its possible but highly fucking unlikely: Current bankruptcy law EXEMPTS education loans and obligations from eligibility for discharge unless doing so would cause the consumer undue hardship. The problem is that undue hardship is not defined within bankruptcy law, leaving the bankruptcy courts to decide what this means. While all courts are different, many use what’s called the Brunner test to determine if requiring a consumer to continue to be responsible for an education debt would cause him or her undue hardship. There are essentially three criteria a consumer has to meet under the Brunner test. First, continuing to pay the loan must cause the borrower to be unable to sustain a minimum standard of living. Second, the borrower's financial situation must be unlikely to change in the future. Finally, the borrower must have made a good-faith effort to pay his or her loans. http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/2014/08/13/debunking-the-student-loan-bankruptcy-myth So basically you have to try your bestest to pay it off, you have to prove that you are never ever ever likely to make enough to pay it off, and you have to prove that you can't remain above the poverty line while paying it off (which, with income based repayment is nigh on impossible). Trust me you are not the first person to think of this solution by a long shot--- with love from someone $68,000 in debt growing $5.11 bigger every day (no matter what I do)

If you can prove that you are entirely disabled from ever working again in any capacity, you may stand a chance. The government will still oppose you at hearing.

Human: Posting from a throwaway account for personal reasons. I'm a longtime lurker of /r/pf and have read tons of horror stories involving people's finances and their families. I never thought it would happen to me or someone so close to me. Today my girlfriend found out that her parents took out a federal student loan with her name on it a few years ago. That loan was used towards paying her tuition at a university. There has never been any sort of payment made. She found this out after checking her credit score and seeing that it was 417. She doesn't have any credit cards, no overdue medical bills, and no sort of (other) debt. The only thing on her report is a delinquent account for a federal loan that is past due. It seems like her parents aren't accepting responsibility for this at all. They're claiming that since she dropped out of the university to go to a community college they thought they wouldn't have to pay the loan, I call bs on this. They're successful small business owners who own a house, have car payments, etc. I'm sure they know exactly how a loan works. Where should she go from here? Is this fraud? Identity theft? She called some credit bureaus today and it was suggested to her that she file a police report, what are the pros/cons of this? (besides the obvious damage to family relations) Does she start paying off this loan asap? If she does, should it be payed as aggressively as possible? I should mention the following things: We're currently trying to find out whether or not her parents cosigned for this loan, we should be finding this out tomorrow morning. The loan is under 10k. Also, she'll be reading your comments so feel free to speak directly to her, we'll both be responding via this account. Thanks in advance /r/pf, you've always helped point me in the right direction when it comes to my finances. I constantly tell my girlfriend about all the things I learn from this subreddit I'm sure you can come through for her.

> That loan was used towards paying her tuition at a university. To me, it seems like they put the money to good use. It was used on her, not on things like an expensive holiday for themselves. That gives them some credit, if you ask me. I mean, they aren't amazing dream parents for it (they still hid this from her and didn't make payments), but at least your girlfriend got to use that borrowed money. I think I would first ask her parents, now that they know that the loan needs to be paid, whether they want to chip in on those payments? (They may say yes...). Then, I would start making regular payments on the loan, with or without the parents' help. And of course, change all the contact information to hers. Generally speaking, often for student loans, after two years of regular payments the delinquency status is lifted from the loan. After that, she may also be able to refinance (to a lower interest rate). I would also let her freeze her credit report with all three credit reporting agencies. That way, they can't do it again. If she ever needs credit (she should probably get a secured credit card to help her rebuild her score), she can temporarily unfreeze her credit report by providing the credit reporting agency with a password. Finally, I want to point out that your gf's parents are letting her live at home. That is worth something. And they don't have to do that, with an adult child. They could ask her to move out. Her being able to stay at home for free (I assume...?) is probably worth over $500/month, compared to your gf having to live on her own. So even if they don't want to help her pay the loan, she should know that thanks to them she has extra financial room to actually pay down that loan.

Credit karma has a dispute option. Claim

Human: Hi /r/personalfinance, I'm currently in the middle of a situation that I have no idea how to navigate, and you guys always seem to give great advice. My father was a very successful lawyer, but also a functioning alcohol, for most of his life. In the past 8 years, his mental condition has deteriorated, leaving him unable to care for himself. I (27m) stepped in about 6 years ago as his POA to help him with any and everything. My responsibilities grew with time as his condition got worse, but I didn't know he was not paying his taxes, especially in the first couple of years. He has not worked since 2011 but did receive a few settlements in 2012. Currently, he is in a memory-care facility and diagnosed with alcoholic dementia. The IRS is claiming that he owes >$50,000, but he only has about $14,000 to his name, with $2,000 monthly in social security. The facility that he currently lives in costs $2,900 a month out-of-pocket. I've been trying to make enough money so that he can continue to live in the facility once his money runs out. Does anybody have any advice or knowledge of what is best to do in this scenario? Should I respond to the IRS? What are the next steps they will take after responding? Thank you for any help you can offer. It is appreciated much more than I can express.

Yes, please do respond. As his legal rep, you are responsible for filing taxes. Ask them to allow you to file the taxes retroactivity and pay without fines or penalties.

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Human: Hello, This is my scenario: *DINKS *Early 30's, established careers *110,00 before tax income. 2-3k unused income after current budget allocations. Aggressive savers. 20k cash emergency fund, 35k for other goals, and retirement accounts. *Homeowners in Midwest US. We are homebodies, and I have many tools and enjoy doing projects/improvements. *No Debt besides mortgage. Own 2 cars. *3 cats and a doggie. *Finally, I have 7 classes left for a masters program (job is fully funding) and can finish in 1 year if 2 class per semester, or 2.5 years if 1 class per semester. So, I handle all the outside house maintenance, and my wife and I share the inside duties. Wife dislikes cleaning, and I don't feel like I have the time to allocate the effort to the various chores. During the school year, we often let 20 loads of laundry build up (towels, casual clothes, etc). With the pets, someone needs to vacuum at least once a week, or it gets bad quick. Do you think it is a good idea for us to hire housekeeping help? Can we afford it? Has this helped your lifestyle? How do we hire a company (or an individual), and what do you recommend. I ask your opinion because no one in our family has achieved our level of financial independence this early in life, so I have no one IRL to ask. All advice is appreciated. I am thinking a person(s) who comes in weekly to vacuum, load the dishwasher, dust, clean bathroom, change towels, clean litter boxes (is that weird?), mop every 2 weeks, etc. Edit: wanted to provide an update. Today the service I selected came out and did an estimate and got to meet one of the two owners. We will be paying for the initial cleaning and then weekly cleaning at $110 per week. Feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. They will be doing pretty much everything except for dishes, laundry, and cat litter.

If whatever cleaning company you hire works for a certain amount of time, e.g. 2 hours per week, then it's pretty important to do a bit of tidying up before the cleaner arrives. Ideally you'd want them doing the mopping, cleaning the bathroom, etc. rather then picking stuff up off the floor or moving magazines from the coffee table.

Go for it. You're outsourcing low return activities for higher return activities. It's not a bad thing.

Human: I really don't make that much, it's a part time job. Can someone explain taxes in the most general sense? Edit: avg 20 hours a week. Recent college grad filing 0. Should I be filing something else? Can I claim exemptions? Assistant: State, fed, and social security tax. Even for the lowest income bracket it is like 23% total depending on your city. Welcome to America. Taxes in general: you know the road you drive on everyday? Taxes. Public school? Taxes. Street cleaner? Taxes. Human: This makes sense...my most recent pay was just around that percentage in deductions. Can I expect this pretty regularly?

Yes. As in every paycheck for the rest of your life.

If not more as you make more.

Human: Hello everyone, this is my first time posting here and I am not even sure if I am posting in the right place, if there is a better place to post this let me know. Also if there is any information I forgot to add, let me know and I'll add it. So recently I have begun job training at my local supermarket as a part-time cashier, everything seems to be working out so far ( besides the fact my only training was computer training but thats not the point ) and I receive a little more than minimum wage there. Yesterday I had received a call from another place I have applied for a part-time position at a fro-yo place which is right next to said supermarket. From what I know the pay is minimum wage but the work seems to be very similar to the last job I had, which was a food vendor at the mall. My issue at the moment is if I was to get the job at the fro-yo place, I should attempt to work both jobs and quit one of them later on. I have a list of questions I would like to be answered; 1. When dealing with work times, which place should I let know I now have 2 jobs, the supermarket, the fro-yo place, or both of them? 2. When it comes down to quitting, which place should I give my two week notice to? 3. I am not used to working one job, let alone two, so how do I adjust to make sure I do not overwork myself? 4. When would be a good time to hand in my notice? My mother had suggested at the beginning of November, but that date seems a bit far for me. Lastly before I forget what is important to know about me is that I am 19 and I still live with both my parents but I have plans to move out before I turn 21, I have only worked one job ( a food vendor at a mall, worked there for 6 months ), and I suffer a bit from anxiety ( if that helps factor anything, i don't know ). Another thing to add in is currently the only bills I really have to worry about are cellphone bills and a monthly 15$ bill from my doctor, but I have been told by my mother that I have to help start paying bills soon, the amount is unknown.I may update this post if I can think of anything else that is important to figure out, until then, thanks for reading my wall of text!

Frozen Yogurt is probably seasonal, compared to the Supermarket which is year around. Even in the Fro-Yo isn't seasonal the amount of customers will probably drop in the Fall into Winter so you will most probably be forced to resign for any number of reasons. Just keep this in consideration. Supermarket is the longer term job out of the two in this situation. Also, If you can pay off the Doctor bill paying more than $15 a month do it. You don't want that bill hanging over your head.

At my supermarket my work time jumps around the place and is never the same. The best way to work 2 jobs is to make sure that your employers know exactly what times you are available and when your not. Like you can only only come in MonTuesWed for the supermarket gig and ThursFri for the froyo place. In terms of overworking, maybe make it so you have a day off. I would suggest Saturday or Sunday. If it all becomes too much I think you should quit the fro-yo place since it's minimum wage.

Human: I graduated from a private university in 2015 and ended up leaving with about 150K in student loans (including parent plus loans that I will help my parents pay off). I found a sales job in San Francisco right after college that pays about 50K a year. I have been paying $1000 in rent and paying $300 towards my loans per month. I love where I live and I want to make it work but also need to be responsible with paying back my loans since it is such a significant amount. I have been living paycheck to paycheck with these payments and saving no money this past year. I have had no guidance with how to budget my money. I know there are more career opportunities in San Francisco but the cost of living is extremely expensive. I don't know if I should save money, move back home, and live with my parents in order to aggressively pay back my loans now at 23. OR try to stick it out another year or two, find a higher paying job, and learn to budget more while living on my own. I don't want to have a life that revolves solely around paying off my loans but I don't want to get stuck in a hole by not being aggressive about it now. What are my best options?

Regardless of what you decide with respect to your living situation, you do need to work on budgeting. It's a necessary live skill and not exclusive with staying on your own or moving home. With that, I found myself in a similar situation as you when I was younger. I had a ton of student loan debt and had a decent job. But between rent and repayment I was paycheck to paycheck. For whatever reason I was dead set against living at home. I just felt like it would have been a poor reflection on me. Looking back i absolutely should have done it for a year or two to save more.

If your parents are in the area, you should be living with them. The reality is you're thinking about this all wrong. **Your income is NOT $50k a year.** Your income is $32k. You need to start thinking about the money coming in that is your. You should be having $1,500.00 a month automatically taken out of your bank every month to cover your student loans. That isn't your money to touch. Once you start thinking about your actual situation more accurately, you can start making the right decisions.

Human: EDIT 3: This thread has grown far beyond what I anticipated. To those that offered advice on the subject matter, thank you. To those that offered relationship advice, thanks but no thanks, I can head over to /r/relationships, and some of y'all need to stop with the negative outlook on life and relationships. It ain't all that bad! I'll preface this by saying that I've read some articles on the matter at hand, but I was hoping to get some opinions from /r/personalfinance on the matter. I have been with my SO for about 18 months now. She's an all around great girl, sharp (two bachelors) and a great job as an ICU RN. She has an income that's about 2x the mean for the area, and i'm about 1.5X. I myself do alright as well. If we were to get married today, we would have a combined income of about $130K, plenty of income to pay off student loans, buy a house and live comfortably. But we're not getting married today, instead, she is leaving the workforce for two years to attend an accelerated program in anesthesiology at a school/hospital about an hour away. It's a stressful program that requires 60-70 hours a week of classroom and study time. We came to the conclusion that it would be best to live together. We decided on a city/neighborhood about 10 minutes from the hospital and 55 minutes from my office. I'm OK with commuting for two years (it currently only takes me 5 minutes to get to work!), we plan to move back to the area when she is done with her program as her field is in high demand and the company I work for is growing rapidly. We started preparing for this over the past few months. We came to the conclusion that buying out her auto lease was a good decision as it would be damn near impossible for her to get financing next year when her lease came due. We started putting aside some money, individually, for moving expenses. But we haven't figured out how we're going to divide the costs. What kind of options do the fine people at /r/personalfinance propose when it comes to a couple moving in together. She will have no income other than student loan money (the program automatically budgets living/travel expenses into the tuition as they do not allow students to work during the program), and we can manage anything else just fine on my $60K/year. Do we get a joint checking account for common expenses/bills? Has anyone had success with doing a 60/40 or 70/30 split on expenses? Our rent at our new place will be $850 and I have no problem covering up to $600 of it as that is what I currently pay (thanks mid-west!). What about saving, new purchases? I'm honestly pretty lost on how to join finances with someone, something I'm not proud to admit at 32 years old. Maybe some of you with experience in this matter can provide some advice. edit: words edit 2: Just to be clear, I'm hoping this doesn't turn into an /r/relationship post. I was really hoping that I could just get some good ideas of how to make this happen. We're moving in together, that's happening. My commute is increasing, I signed up for this so I know it's not ideal. At this point, I'm hoping for different ideas on how to split costs when she will have a fixed income (loans) and I will have a salary.

My wife and I kept our finances completely separate when we were living together un-married. Looking back, we both agree that it was a wise move. Just avoids a lot of fights. I wrote her or she wrote me a rent check every month on the 1st when it was due, same for bills. We did buy a house together while we were engaged, not married, so that goes against some of the advice in this thread but oh well. Turned out fine. Although I would be very leery of funding most of her living expenses without being married or engaged first. That can really go south in a bad way.

I think you should split the rent 50/50 and then you pick up utilities. She pays her car expense. Everything else either 50/50 or you pick up. Don't get joint checking accounts, or credit cards, it does not solve any problems and creates many.

Human: I am an engineer and I've made the "mistake" of saving too much with the expectation of doing something with the money (home ownership or something similar). I am roughly 26 years old for context. I have about 55k in savings. I am in the middle of a move and I forsee expenses that will not allow me to save but my bank assets of 55k will not adjust until after October. I have a 401k that I contribute roughly 12% of my income to and an HSA. I would like to get into investing or some other means to make money on what I've saved but I am not sure where to start. I've seen suggestions for investing in an index funds like the S&P. I'm not really sure what would be a smart amount of my money to invest and what avenue to go with. Relevant Information: My car is an old Honda Civic '00 with 100k Miles I don't forsee myself buying property for another year Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Edit: Company match to 401k is effectively 3% if I contribute 6%. Edit 2: I probably should've provided this before, perhaps it would've added more context. My 401k currently has 41k in it which is independent of the 55k my question is related to. I do not have an IRA Edit 3: No Student Loans or any Debt currently.

There a quite a few people responding as engineers. Well... 30 year old, engineer I see a lot of people recommending you go and read this or that or basically learn all you need to know that a professional already knows. Which isn't bad but, in my opinion, that is similar to teaching yourself how to design a building from a book with no practical experience or education. Therefore, you may benefit from discussing your financial future with a reputable financial planning firm. My wife and I did and we don't regret it. In fact, they provided a lot of great information and helped my wife and I plan for short term as well as long term. Basically, we put our money into multiple buckets for short and long term savings.

gpu mining rigs . invest in the future , today

Human: The title should actually read PARTIAL IRA Withdrawal at 59 1/2. I will be turning 60 (Sept 2016). I have an IRA which hasn't been performing well (my investing mistake by not doing something about it, but that's another story). I am thinking about pulling a portion of money from the IRA to reinvest in a good dividend paying stock (GE). The amount I withdrawal from the IRA, won't put me in a different tax bracket. Reason, I want additional income from the stock dividends, plus as this is a poorly performing IRA and factoring in my age, I'm wanting to try to pry myself away from this IRA. I would certainly appreciate any advise or insight from the more experienced investors.

You could also roll the IRA to a brokerage account and buy any stocks you please inside of it.

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Human: So I paid off my CC debt about two and half weeks ago, however it's still not showing on credit karma. Should I dispute the accuracy?

Chill. It's only been two weeks. Credit cards report monthly. Give it at least 2 months.

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Human: To add some pertinent details, the existing car is a 2004 Ford Escape. So 10+ years old and in fair condition. Would I get better value is using this as a trade-in toward my new vehicle or donating it to a cause (example Cars for the Blind) and using it as a tax write-off? 2nd question - IF donating would be better, what would be my best option (Pennsylvania resident)

You'll only receive a fraction of the car's value as a tax refund, and that only assuming you itemize. If you're looking to optimize for getting the most money, you'd be better off selling private party than either of the options you presented.

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Human: I'm speculating the costs to be above $1,000. Ruined carpet, damaged tiles.

That is sort of between you and your roommate. Don't try to involve the landlord it this unless you rented completely separately from your roommate. Talk to the roommate and negotiate this. If they won't negotiate, you may be screwed. Some 'wear and tear' is normal for an apartment, but if this goes beyond that, someone will end up paying.

I'm doing her a favor in hopes she doesn't completely stiff me on the final damages bill. The shrimp prank may come in handy at some point though!

Human: Hello PF! Quick background info: I'm using a Discover It student card, it is my first credit card, and I am in my first month of using it (I have yet to pay any balance yet) I still have 10 days until my statement closing date. I just received an email from mint.com saying that I spent 34% on my card and I should spend less than 30% or my score could drop. I have spent $346 of my $750 limit. The whole purpose of this card is to raise my score, so that would be incredibly ineffective. I have spent $346 of my $750 limit Would it be best for me to pay ~$128 to get my card under that 30% cut off before the bill comes? I know that if I pay some of my balance before the bill comes it has no positive or negative effect on my credit score.

If you have no need for your credit score right now or in the next month, ignore the 30% credit utilization rule. CU has no memory.

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Human: At my job I was initially hired as a contractor for this hybrid position partly copywriting, and partly Proofing Quality Assurance. Over a year ago I was hired full time as a copywriter only, as only that role and with its associated responsibilities. Now management is trying to offload significant proofing responsibilities back onto me, and they will impact my copywriting workload. They are doing this because 2 people who used to do the proofing on my team are leaving. So, do I just suck it up and make sure the replacements take their work back when they are hired (management won't like this because they think these 2 positions shouldn't do it in the first place)? Do I request a raise now due to added responsibilities and a change in job role? How do I frame that discussion? And if I did secure a raise, I wouldn't be relieved of this extra work in the future, which would suck, and drive me to find a new job. Any other recommendations?

If you were hired explicitly as a full time copywriter, and they try to give you additional stuff to do that's clearly outside the scope of your contract, then i'd argue suggesting a hefty raise would be in order. After all, if they want you to do your own job + the job of 2 other people, for the same pay, your effectively hourly wage is slashed by 67%.(unless you are paid by the hour and have access to all the overtime you want and are comfortable with working more in order to earn more) The way i see it, there are 4 options. 1: you agree to take on the extra work for no extra money and the company hires 2 replacements who do something else than the people they are replacing. You end up working a whole lot more than you used to without this being reflected in your paycheck, leading to burnout and bitterness on your end, probably resulting in you leaving your job. 2: you agree to taking on the extra work for a big raise. The company hires 2 replacements with different tasks than the people they replace. 3: You refuse to take on the extra work as this is outside the scope of your contract, the company hires 2 replacements with the same tasks as the people they replace. 4: You refuse to take on the extra work as this is outside the scope of your contract, the company hires 2 replacements with different tasks than the people they replace: and you suggest that since the job of proofing needs to be done by _someone_, they hire additional people and spin the proofing off to a different team since they apparently dislike the structure of how the job is being done right now. If they insist on you taking on the extra work without it being reflected by a raise, and insisting that the replacements be given something else to do, i would suggest looking for another job. Why work at a place that is unwilling to pay your worth?

Been there, done that. Management tried to get me to do 3-4 roles for the price of 1. Don't take this lying down. Ask for a salary a little more than 1.5x what you're making now and expect that to get whittled down. If you're denied, start aggressively looking for another job. Realistically, they'll throw you a meager bone in the form of a slight raise to shut you up (I got $2/hour) and you'll have to start job hunting. The kind of company that would do this to you in the first place doesn't have your interests as a high priority.

Human: I posted this in /r/investing so will keep the same format. * Age: 33 years old * Income: Yes, 3k per month after taxes * Goal: Reduce debt, increase worth * Risk: Medium-ish * Current holdings: 50 shares BerkHaB, 9 shares Disney * Assets: Trust- 24,000Usd to be received within a month * Time: No rush *Debts: Student Loans and Mortgage -Loan 1: 1,900Usd, 3.87% (Discover) -Loan 2: 11,500Usd, 0.60% (Swedish) -Loan 3: 1,560Usd, 6.8% (DirectLoan, Unsub, fixed) -Loan 4: 2,796Usd, 4.75% (Directloan, Sub, consolidated, fixed) -Loan 5: 17,033Usd, 4.75% (Directloan, Unsub, consolidated, fixed) -Mortgage: 107,264Usd, 1.69% -Home loan 1: 12,223Usd, 1.92% -Home loan 2: 5,356Usd, 3.97% The most salient points regarding my request for advice: * In a month or so I will receive approx. 24,000Usd from a terminated trust. I would like to apply this as wisely as possible. * I am an American/Swedish citizen living in Sweden and thus do not need to save in earnest for retirement, children, etc. My fiance and I currently put away about 400Usd per month into general savings. * I have no issues with my current monthly payments towards reducing my debt. * As I am currently quite comfortable with my economy I have no issue with investing in a longer term solution should it yield larger returns. So my question is, what is your advice regarding the application of this 24,000Usd? My extremely basic considerations was: -Take a small portion, say 2k, to do some nice things for myself and my fiance. We dont ever spend much on anything and live by a budget so each of us buying one nice thing we would not otherwise afford would mean a lot. -Pay off some of the higher interest loans with smaller balances. Loans 1, 3, and 4 perhaps? -Take the remainder and invest in something. -OR, should I just pay off as much of the high interest loans as possible because investing in anything will not be as financially beneficial as removing these debts? Loans 1, 3, 4, and 5 could be covered by 24k. I am extremely grateful for any advice you can give.

Pay off 3, 4, 5 and use the rest for something nice.

Pay off your smallest debts and then invest the extra money you would spend on those debts each month. Would you go borrow 25k on margin to invest? No. Thats what you would be doing if you invest without paying your debts check out dave ramsey may be hokey and corny but if youre really having to ask yourself this he is the finacial advisoor you need. Of course its fine to take 2 or 3k and buy yourself something nice too. In this particular case i would do exactly what you planned on doing in your post. Pay off loan 1345 and buy yourself something nice. You got it figured out, you dont need us.

Human: 26 Married Male. My wife makes $40,000 gross. I'm currently working part time at $10/hr while I look for a better job. My monthly take home is ~$743. Health Insurance through healthcare.gov is $180 a month. I take anti-depressants which do not have a generic and costs me $120 a month (with insurance and discount card). Which leaves me spending 40% of my net income just keeping myself a functional human being. No debts or loans. Wife has a mortgage with her name on it. Is there anything I can do?

Talk to your doctor about switching to a different drug. Work full time. It's not really fair to say 40% is going to medical expenses when you work part time and aren't considering HH income.

Finding a job with more income would be my priority

Human: Hey team, longtime creeper/first time posting. Just wondering if this fine sub can give me a breakdown of the financial benefits of marriage? I was married once before, and now divorced. I'm in a new relationship, everything is going great, but I don't think I ever want to get married again. Just all the paperwork to get married then divorced was annoying (I also changed my name), and it's just not something I care about anymore. But we all care about that $$, so I'm wondering if there is a financial reason that might make me change my mind? Thanks!

Taxes (potentially good and potentially bad), health insurance and other benefits, and tons of implied rights that would be a pain to replicate.

Writing to save this to share with my SO.

Human: Hey guys. First post. I work as an industrial mechanic apprentice in mid Ga. After taxes, 401k contribution and insurance I bring home $500 a week for a 40hr week. There is a lot of overtime though. It is not guaranteed at all though. Let's say the overtime is cut completely. How would you live comfortably?

$500 a week would be an upgrade for me

In my circumstances, not at all.

Human: I have three job offers. The locations are San Diego, Seattle, and New Mexico. The pay is 54k, 45k, and 100k respectively. I understand the cost of living in the first two can be high and the pay in NM is pretty good. I also do not want to live in the middle of a desert. I'm not sure the Seattle salary is viable (at least not living in the city, outside of it). This is the environmental field. Any insight if anyone has had a similar situation? Assistant: NM all the way. If this was a $10k difference id say follow the location but NM has some sweet spots and, with the low cost of living, you could be in awesome shape after three years. Then, when you're looking for jobs again, people will use $100k as your base and offer up from there which would then make it viable to live in a more expensive city. Human: The NM gig is a federal job. Requires extensive travel (international and domestic), on-call rotations, top-secret equivalent clearance etc. Not sure if that's worth it to me, even with the pay.

If you're not interested in the job, then no point but it sounds like a sweet gig (if you're traveling a lot, your per diem adds up plus you rack up miles and points redeemable for thousands of dollars worth of vacations). The fact that they're getting you top secret clearance is a plus in my book since, depending on your line of work, many employers highly value it. Keep in mind any future job prospects will offer you based on your previous salary -say a 15%-20% increase which is pretty usual; that means your next job puts you at $120k in one option and the other at $55k tops. I know you can SOMETIMES luck out double your salary by making lateral moves but USUALLY the increases are not that big. This is not fully related to finance but for a moment don't think about these offers you have on the table -think about the job you want next. Which of these offers better enables you for that next job? Be it because of its location, title, salary, industry, those things sometimes matter more than money.

you gave location and salary in your op. If you want a better analysis, you have to provide us with the relevant information.

Human: Like the title says, I'm feeling pretty fucked here. I have no college education and I'm helping my parents out by living with them in their apartment. I don't know a single soul out here and the reality of the situation seems absolutely bleak.

I say this to all my friends who are about to be laid off and looking for a job. Start studying something that will get you somewhere. Start to learn web development and get a job in this growing field by joining a bootcamp. A free one is https://freecodecamp.com and start marketing yourself by going to meetups. I say this because three of my friends have no college degrees, went to that bootcamp, and tried hard during their unemployment time to talk to people in coding meetups, and job events. All 3 of them were hired at 60k+ salary, with no college degree and no college expense. My friends didn't know how to code prior to doing the free bootcamp, and none of them finished it completely. It's time to grow yourself.

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Human: So in middle June I got a call from a employer for a job I really wanted that I was getting an interview. I was busy when she called but she left a voicemail to call her back, pretty reasonable. I called her back the day after and she never answered. Waited again the week after and her voicemail message said she was on vacation, wouldn't be back until after the 4th of July. Pretty annoyed at this point but figured I'd just wait until then people go on vacation. She didn't call me back until FOUR DAYS AGO August 6th. She told me she planned an interview for today August 10th. Problem was (and I told her this when she called) I had minor surgery yesterday August 9th and needed a couple days to recover so I couldn't do that day and asked to push it back a couple days. She goes on a fit saying she already planned it with her other supervisors and wouldn't reschedule. My issue is is that she waited TWO MONTHS to give me a call back but now wants to go completely on her schedule? Should I just cut my losses and tell her I'm not interested anymore? I'm relatively new to the job search is this how it's always gonna be?

Don't waste your time with them. Find a new job.

Let it go, find something else.

Human: Are there actually programs out there that will help me buy a house? I have awful credit and I'm having a hard time fixing it. There isn't much in my credit history in terms of debt, just nothing to show I'm trying to fix it. ...because it's so bad that no one will give me the opportunity. A giant catch 22. The only thing I'm finding that is a workable solution is a contract for deed. And the only affordable one in my area that I've found wants nearly 50% down! If I had that much money in savings, I wouldn't be looking into contact for deed! I had a home when I got married a decade ago, but it's s charge off now.

Doesn't sound like anyone would want to help you buy a house because they probably won't get paid back. Look into a secured credit card to start fixing your credit.

If you have minimal debt then "fixing" your credit will only take a year or two and it will fix itself. You just need to do three things: First, do not take on any more debt. Second, make sure any responsibilities like current debt, rent, utility bills, etc. are all paid on time. Three, start saving for your future house. If you do not have the money and terrible debt then buying a house will be a curse and not a blessing. If you buy a house and don't have any money I assure you the air conditioner will go out the next month and the roof starts leaking the next. Do NOT do "contract to deed". You don't have the money. Just take your time and let your credit fix itself (should only take a year as long as you don't have any ongoing issues like default or late payments) AND at the same time sock away as much money as you can. In a year or two you can put 5% or 10% down, have some savings in addition to that (to take care of air conditioning, roof, etc.), and buy a house at that time. That way you can ENJOY your house:)!!

Human: I was laid off today. My boss approached me and said that we had to part ways because the company wasn't getting enough work (i work(ed) at a production company). When he told me this he kind of tried to put words in my mouth, phrasing things like "if you want to call it a mutual decision to part ways to make yourself feel better you can" and "im not trying to put words in your mouth" and stuff like that worded different ways. I replied to saying "I understand you guys are low on work right now and I get why you need to let me go". The thing I was wondering was, if I were to say its a mutual decision would that affect severance? He then handed me a check for this weeks pay and then the following two weeks pay. I was there a year and one month about. Sorry if this is unreadable, happened like 30mins ago.

You shouldn't expect any severance beyond what you've gotten. If you agree it is a mutual decision you probably won't have access to unemployment. Just say you understand why you're being let go and apply for unemployment starting from the last date you were paid for.

Thank you guys. I appreciate the confirmation of my gut not to say it was mutual was the right move.

Human: Question about 3% down payment. Hi everyone. Please comment only if you have actually put down a 3% down payment and have real experience...was it amazing, terrible or so-so? I have done lots of research, browsed many forums, etc. I know that a 20% down payment is ideal. I know there will be PMI insurance etc. I would like a house ASAP however for the following reasons: 1. My husband and I both have amazing credit. Mine is over 700 and his is over 800. 2. We got married young and became parents young. My son is 3 and I'm due with a baby girl in a few weeks. 3. He's almost done with his masters and he currently has a great job (great salary & benefits). 4. I completed my bachelors years ago and my plan is to complete my masters slowly and then start working full-time when my baby is like 3-4 years old. I work part-time and will continue to do so after having my second child. My son is already 3. He may move out on his own as early as at age 18. So I would really like to buy a house ASAP, within a few years. If I'm going to buy a house at all in my lifetime, I'd like to actually have my kids grow up and live in it. We have decided to only have 2 kids and no more, so this is more reason to buy a house now. If I go with a 3% down payment, I can buy a house in a few years and still have substantial savings. Please share your experiences if you have gone this route. Oh and where I live (Long Island/NYC area), a 1 bedroom apartment is as low as $1200 (extremely rare), but on average $1700. It can go well above $2000 a month though. Compared to that, a mortgage for a nice home seems pretty good. Also, I know it's hard to give advice because I'm not offering information like salary, savings, etc. This is why I'm asking for your actual experiences. Thanks!

Everyone I know who put nothing/close to nothing down did so pre-crash and it worked out terribly for all of them.

I did 5℅ and was offered an APR very close to the 20℅ payment. I'm glad I got into the Atlanta market now, because home values continue to skyrocket. However, I am very familiar with long island real estate (grew up there, parents are currently trying to sell their house there), and I know that with an average home price of $400k+ in Suffolk and taxes of $10k+/year in many townships, you would be hard pressed to find a home buying situation that would be worth it compared to renting ($3000-$4000+). Personally, I would wait a few more years as Long Island values further from NYC continue to drop. Because if you put down a low down payment in an area where values are dropping, you may find yourself underwater and may never recoup the value you pay on your mortgage. That being said you can always call a few banks and find out what rates they'd offer you so you can do the real calculations including homeowners insurance and taxes with the right APR. If you weigh all the costs and risks and you still want to do it, at least you'll be prepared to start searching when the times comes.