The military also moved me halfway through last year but that still doesn't explain why my wages only say $2300.

Edit: Also when doing my taxes they think I'm eligible for Earned Income Credit and are alloting $300. I definitely do not qualify for this credit.

Important info: - I owe $22,100. - Value is $18,000 according to online appraisals - No family or friends I can rely on. No dependents. - Net Income is around $2,000 a month - Main Expenses are: groceries ($50 to $70 a week), rent $930 (plus gas, electricity and water which varies), gas ($100), therapist visits and medication ($130 monthly), internet ($50 monthly), car loan ($520 monthly). - Not looking to start a family. - Going through a break up, so technically single. - I'm a student getting a second bachelor's degree. I plan to work on a CPA license after. That might help increase my income, but it's uncertain. - I live in Illinois. - No public transportation and work is 20 minutes away. - The problem: Once I'm done with my college degree, I may not be able to pay both the car loan and student loan without an income deficit.

It's a 2024 LE Corolla. Financed with Toyota. All payments are made on time. My credit score is 740 on Transunion (above 750 on FICO and Equifax).

Interest is 10.3% and term is 7 years. I've made some extra payments, so now I have 5 years and two months remaining.

Edmund's online appraisal estimated my car is worth about $18,000+ right now with the highest offer being from CarMax; $20,000.

It has 17,000 miles on it.

I need a car for work.

I have $7,000 across all my bank accounts. I've cut off all discretionary spending; no subscriptions, only eat home, etc.

I'm a student and I will have to pay student loans when I graduate in about a year. I would like to do something about the car loan before I have to start paying student debt.

What is the best way to go about this?

My wife and I are in our mid-30s, with 3 kids. We do not own a home, and pay $2950/mo rent. We've wanted to buy a home, but living in Denver, it's been tough to find a home in our price range (~$500k). When they do pop up, they're instantly snatched up with cash offers.

Despite the current economy issues, both of our jobs will thankfully be very secure. With that in mind, houses are now popping up in the area and actually sticking around long enough to entertain offers. Some are even actively dropping $25k+ in price.

Is now the time for us to really push for a house, since it seems others are hesitant to do so?

We're good about our funds, but we admittedly have ZERO idea what we're getting into. My gut tells me to buy, but if anyone has any insight or advice against it, please let me know!

Thanks so much for any input!

EDIT/UPDATE: Thanks everyone for all of the information and perspectives! This has been very helpful for us as potential first-time buyers in a tough area and tough economy. We're gonna do a bit more researching on the process over the next couple weeks, then hopefully get going on the journey. Im sure its gonna be great, horrible, and everything between....but that's life!

Hi! I am living paycheck to paycheck on $70k to 100% cover two people (bf got laid off so I’m covering both of us temporarily) in a MCOL area and I’m not sure if my income is the issue or my spending. Idk anyone who is good with money, so thought this would be a good place to ask. I’ve outlined my monthly income and expenses below:

Income: $5384.62 Gross / $3029.70 Net Deductions: - Medical: $368.50 - (individual copay plan - sadly the cheapest option at my job) - Dental: $9.26 - Vision: $1.74 - FSA: $115.38 - Roth 401k: $807.70 - This is 15% of my salary. I am thinking about reducing this, but my financial advisor has recommended against it unless absolutely necessary. He says I’m not projected to have enough for retirement based on my current contribution and cutting back will make the issue worse - Taxes: $1,053.34 - I live in a state with high taxes, but I’m pretty sure this is accurate. I actually owed the IRS at tax time the last couple years, so I don’t think this can be reduced Expenses - Rent: $1285.00 - Wifi: $89.99 - I know this is high, but I only have one internet provider in my area so I’m stuck with it. I already tried to call to get a lower rate, but they know they’re the only option so I had no negotiating power - Electric: $65.00 - This fluctuations between $40-$65 depending on the month. In the summer, it can be $100ish - Car Loan: $280.63 - Car Insurance: $138.73 - Tried to shop for a lower rate and couldn’t find similar coverage for less - Phone: $39.50 - Groceries: $700.00 - This is the average we’ve spent on groceries for two people over the last 3 months. We typically spend between $150-$250 per week. We go to Price Chopper because it’s one of the only grocery stores in my area, but are considering a switch to BJ’s or Aldi’s. - This included most toiletries, too! - Gas: $60.00 - This fluctuates. This estimate is a little on the higher end - Credit Card: $100.00 - This fluctuates, but I try to keep it under $100. I put my laundry costs on this card and occasional misc online purchases in order to build credit. - One Calendar Subscription: $6.48 - This is an app that sync my work calendar and my personal calendar. My job used outlook and I hate it and don’t want to use it in my personal life, so I got this app to be able to see my personal GCal and my work Outlook calendar in one view. Would love to keep it, but might have to cut) - Netflix: $8.63 - Spotify: $11.99 - Entertainment/Travel: $230 - My bf and I don’t live near family and have to travel to see them. This doesn’t happen every month, but this covers gas and a hotel. Neither family has space to house us when we visit so we have no choice but to book a hotel. It’s too far for a day trip. - This also covers some luxury toiletries like makeup

Difference Income vs Expenses: $13.75

While I can technically cover everything, I’m able to do it just barely. If expenses for the car come up (like oil changes or inspection), I won’t have enough money to cover it unless I cut back entertainment/travel to save up a little. I definitely don’t have money for any major unexpected expenses.

Do you have any advice?

Hi all,

To provide some context, my parents (both in their mid fifties) moved to the US about a year ago because my dad got a job here. My mom has been a stay-at-home mom her entire life, so she hasn't been paying any social security taxes, nor does she have any retirement accounts set up. This hasn't been an issue until now, because the country they moved from provided its citizens pension regardless of whether or not they worked. However, it is to my understanding that the US is not the same (please correct me if I'm wrong).

My dad has a pretty stable and well paying full time job (~200k), and I'm doing pretty well in my career too, so we just want to make sure my mom is set up for retirement the best she can.

What are my dad and I's options to help her with her retirement? Any accounts we can open on her behalf that we can contribute to?

Thanks alot

After my father passed I spent a half year getting his home ready for sale. It finally sold and I received my share of the inheritance - $200K. I immediately put it into my S&P 500 index fund. And then a day later: the market crashed.

I keep saying to myself, "you can't time the market." But then I reply, "yeah but you probably should have seen something was coming and waited a bit." Ugh.

And I know that historically, it will come back. But given everything going on I'm starting to wonder. And if it does come back it could be years...

EDIT: Thank you for all the supportive words, you guys are the best! Someone in the comments suggested I sell and immediately buy a different diversified fund like Russell 3000, to take the Cap Gains loss for tax purposes. Is this sound advice or if not, does someone want to explain why it isn't?

I am 18 years old. I make about $2060 a month. My monthly expenses total to $400. I am saving up for a house. I put most of my earnings in a high yield savings account.

I live with my parent and am fortunate that I do not need to move out soon so I can save. But with how much I make, there’s no way I could afford a home. Even if I save up a lot and purchase a home, if I continue on with my current pay I could not sustain myself.

As I begin to look into possible career choices (it’s so difficult), I want to know how much money I realistically need to make in order to own an average home (~$250,000) and live without any other income.

Can I even own a house in today’s economy?

I am 35 and very new to understanding 401ks so keep your responses as if you're speaking to a 12 year old. I know I am behind but trying to grow in this area.

Just looked into my Roth 401k and realized I had set 45% of my allocations to aggressive growth funds with the other 55% to a target retirement fund. Is this dumb? Considering current events and talk of a possible recession, do I want to stay as conservative as possible or is buying into aggressive funds while prices drop a good strategy?

Hey everyone.

I am a 20 year old Firefighter/Paramedic. Recently due to some personal events, I was awarded a little over 21k. With all the recent financial things going on in the world, I have absolutely no idea what to do with this money/where to let it sit and develop interest. Looking for advice. I already max a Roth IRA every year and obviously have retirement benefits/pension from work, so I'm not too worried about saving for retirement.

A little bit about me:

- 20 years old

- Full-time career with benefits.

- Military benefits

- Single

- Still live with my parents, but would like to move out. I am open to having a roommate, but would prefer to live alone if feasible.

- My only real debt is my truck (wanted to splurge on an academy graduation present!), which I owe about ~25k on. Monthly, I pay about 900 a month, including insurance. I've considered putting some of the 21k (maybe 5k max) towards the truck just to pay off some principle, but I make enough to not worry about struggling to pay off my vehicle.

- I am a college student, but my tuition is paid for by a 529 plan. I graduate in a little over a year.

What should I do with/where should I put this money? Any general personal finance advise is appreciated too.

What would be the best use of this amount of money? I want to invest in something, but I don't know what.

I’m UK based- and an ex employer form years ago has randomly added me to their payroll it seems as when i log into HMRC i can see their company and is making me pay tax

For reference i work two jobs currents and am under the personal allowance limit in the UK

But for some reason this employer has got me and provided a tax code meaning i now go over it without receiving any pay but still pay tax.

How do i go about rectifying it and getting a refund as its happend the last two months

My HSA card automatically charged my Amazon account and my taxes were completed before I realized this happened. Do I need to get my taxes redone? I already sent payment in to my HSA Bank and a Distribution Reversal form but the amount returned isn’t in my HSA account yet. Taxes are due the 15th of April right? What do I need to bring to my tax person to get this resolved before deadline?

I’m the type of person to always get things done on time and try to always play by the book so I’m worried to say the least!

I, 22, will be inheriting 60k shortly after the death of my father, for reference I currently rent and have no active savings accounts.

Question, I plan to rent for the next few years, and so what is the best use of this money? there seems to be many different methods and I honestly dont know what to do with it? stocks? ISA? etc etc.

*IRA. Title got auto-corrected.

I initiated a Roth IRA transfer of assets from Acorns over to Fidelity to consolidate my finances about 2 weeks ago. As a part of that process, Acorns will liquidate all assets and transfer it to the receiving firm in a process that takes 2-3 weeks according to Acorns.

Since I haven't seen the money leave my Acorns account and it's been rapidly shedding value, by the time the transfer goes through, I'm guesstimating I'll be down maybe 10-20% from my original principal amount of $13100. Since that loss will be locked in without the opportunity to tax loss harvest since it's a Roth, how should I best re-deploy those assets?

Since they're retirement assets I won't be touching these funds for another 30 years or so. My first instinct is to lump sum it back into a 60/40 US:Int ratio, but there's a case for DCA during volatility. I'll be trying to make up for lost principal since those were my hard earned Roth contributions dammit.

I went through a period of addiction that completely ruined my life and I needed to rebuild life from scratch in the last couple of years, needless to say but I was dead broke during that period. I worked really fkn hard and managed to finally save up an emergency fund as well as a travel fund in just a year which I was feeling incredibly proud of!

My dog needed emergency life saving surgery and it drained my emergency fund, then I had a family emergency overseas which I needed to be there for, and now my travel funds have been drained.

After a year of a lot of hard work, saving money like crazy, I feel like a failure, because all the money I worked so hard to save is now gone and I have to start from scratch again.

I know the money was put to genuine causes, and I am grateful I was able to afford my dogs surgery and family emergency without needing help from credit or family. But how do I deal with my bank accounts being so empty after I worked so hard to ensure that never happened again?

I know this is a silly question but I am a total newbie to finance. I have 50K saved up. 20K is in a cash savings account on Trading212 app earning 4.5% interest. The rest is in a savings account earning basically no interest.

How do y'all "invest" your money in trackers, funds, the S&P500, etc? Are there apps for it? Do I have to sign up to the NYSE or something online? Please treat me like the smoothbrain that I am, I just don't know where to start.

Then people start talking about diversifying, portfolios, etc...just what the hell do I do to start? I don't want my 50K just sitting there doing nothing in this era of inflation

Me and my wife filed the 2024 taxes last Saturday, and are hit with a federal tax bill of 55k. We wanted to cover this by selling some RSUs but the market crash has us worried. We are exploring the option to use the IRS short term payment plan as deadline to pay the tax is 04/15: https://www.irs.gov/payments/payment-plans-installment-agreements. Our financial situation forces us to use the RSUs paying at a later date too, is it wise to go with the payment plan given the market volatility or should we just avoid trouble and clear the balance now? Would appreciate any insights on any consequences beyond the obvious risk of market going further down in the next 180 days. Thanks!

Hi all, I’m currently in $18,000 of credit card debt across three cards: • Discover: $14,000 balance (minimum payment $400/month) • Credit One: $4,000 balance (minimum payment $150/month) • Citi: $2,000 balance (minimum payment $50/month, 0% APR until Jan 2026)

My credit score is 690. I’ve carried this debt since college (I’m 27 now), but it’s officially maxed out and weighing on me every day. I feel completely trapped and can’t believe I let it get this far.

I keep reading about debt relief programs, snowball vs. avalanche payoff methods, calling credit card companies, Take Charge America, etc.—but I’m honestly overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin.

Here’s my financial situation: • I’m a teacher making about $55K/year, plus I made $10K this past year from coaching and refereeing (but that’s over now). • After taxes, I bring in about $1,500 every two weeks. • My fixed monthly expenses look like this: • Mortgage, utilities, Wi-Fi: $1,000 • Car payment: $350 • Car insurance: $100 • Gas (I commute ~90 miles/day): $250 • Phone bill: $100 • Family loan (engagement ring): $200 • Personal spending / takeout: ~$150

This leaves me with around $850 left over most months—and I try to put as much of that as possible toward credit card payments. But most months, I can only afford the minimums. Once everything is paid, I usually have maybe $100 left, and there’s no credit cushion if something unexpected happens. That’s the cycle I’m stuck in, and I’m honestly so embarrassed.

I just got engaged in December, and we’re planning a wedding for summer 2026. Thankfully, her father is helping with some of the cost, but I’m still stressed. I feel like I can’t afford to have any fun, and I definitely can’t contribute financially to our future in the way I want to.

At one point, I was managing okay—paying everything with a little extra cash. But now, it feels like every time I start to get ahead, life throws something at me. I keep bouncing between bad spending habits and trying to be responsible, and I just don’t know what to do anymore.

I need this debt gone. I need help. What would be my best move right now? Any advice or even just encouragement is appreciated.

my wawa credit card company is shutting down, and i just want to know if it will affect my credit score. i haven’t used the card in years (this is unrelated- they are NOT closing my line of credit for inactivity, the entire company has folded). i have worked really hard on maintaining an 815 credit score and really don’t want this to hurt it.

Alright so, I’m 19 turning 20 in 2 months with a 750 credit score. I have 4 credit cards 3 with BOFA and 1 Amex. I use them well never max example: I go out come back home pay it off. I have a full time job making $4500-5000 a month had this job for 4 months. I had some debt but no interest $5k for braces $220 left on that and home depot $600. Never missed or late on a payment. I don’t have much savings because I was helping my parents with their debt but here’s what I have and my plan to increase my monthly income. $4k in crypto on XRP avg 1.98 and $2k in MSTY (stock) avg 20.55 .I want to sell the XRP and dump that into MSTY and take that $20k loan and also dump it into MSTY. Monthly that should net me profit from dividends $1820 (calculated conservative $1.4 per share). Then with that dividend money and some from my work let’s round up $3k per month dump into the loan to pay it off early. Which is around 6.5months. Now I’m not 100% sure on how high the interest rates go I’m just gonna say high 8-10% for 60months so around $410-440 per month. Now yes I can save for 4 months and have $20k and pay off my debt now but I don’t think this specific stock is going to stay at that price and I don’t want to waste that opportunity even if this company (MSTY and MSTR) just go bankrupt the next 30 days I can still pay the loan off comfortably. Should I take out a personal loan for this? And if so what do I say at the bank this plan or something else and what kind of paperwork do I need to give/show them. I live with my parents so I don’t have bills but I help whenever I feel like they need it so my risk tolerance is high. What do you guys thinks stupid idea or not? I get it it’s risky but I think it’s a good time to be risky when I’m younger with time to fix mistakes.

Good morning. I am looking into retirement fund investments and I am automatically a hundred percent invested in an SSGA retire 2050 fund. I have the option to invest I. Different things like bonds, the S and P 500, etc. I have no idea what to do. Advice ?

I’m 21 and have a hard time saving money, honestly I feel like it just disappears but ig I just spend too much. I want to create a budget, because I want to pay for my college as much as possible. Problem for me is that I am a server/kitchen worker. My checks get weird. If I serve I walk out with cash every day, and if I work in the kitchen, it goes to my check that I receive every 2 weeks. But with my checks it automatically deducts the taxes from the cash I did make. So I can never actually get a proper idea of how much I did make.

I have like 2 things that I consider essential just because I live with my parents. One being my car payment, and the other being monthly payments for school. I track all my money in my notes app, but like I said it’s off a decent amount. And also I kinda struggle with spending because it’s small things that add up. $10 here and there eventually becomes $700 in a month. I’ve read the budgeting tips on this subreddit but it seems to apply to salary/ hourly employees who are paid like that full time. Any idea on how a server can do it. And also how you guys stopped yourself from spending so much when you knew u had a problem?

I (29M) recently joined a job in Syd and have saved around 20k so far. My initial plan was to hold AUD in the Saver accounts with 5% returns and slowly invest into India or US index funds using IBR or Moomoo (both still under personal research, suggestions welcome)

However given the alarming depreciation of AUD , it seems like had i converted to INR or USD last month itself , I would have saved atleast ~5% of the erosion right away (which the saver accounts will give me over an entire year)

So my dilemma is , 1) send the money back to India and hold in INR and SIP into India index funds (and other funds with calculated risk)

2) fasten the account opening process with IBR/Moomoo and start SIPing or put some lumpsum amounts into the INd and US index funds right away anticipating further erosion of AUD

3) do nothing just sit tight on the funds and keep them as emergency funds since it's only been a few moths I've come and still have atleast a few years to earn and invest and thus create an emergency liquid fund out of these without worrying about it's global value.

4) other options that I am blatantly missing given my lack of knowledge and experience.

Thanks in advance for everyone who replies on this post. 🤘

Hello! Hoping for some advice/guidence as I'm new to investing and have no idea nor anyone in my life who has any kind of financial savvy I can ask.

I recently opened an investment portfolio account which is very much a beginner platform and works on compound interest. It's very simple which works for me I simply put some money in whenever I want, choose a risk level, and they do everything else.

Anyway, my confusion now is because of the market dropping, should I continue to add to my investment account every month as normal?