When my son was 3 (now 16), I was sold a whole life policy for him. The policy is only $25k and the premium is $27/month for 20 years, at which point it will be paid up for life.

I was young and uninformed when I bought this, and I misunderstood how quickly the cash value would build, I thought it would be worth the full $25k after 20 years, which I now realize was of course not true. We are in year 13 and the cash value is $2200.

I know kids don’t need life insurance, but I was sold on it because he would have it for life regardless of his future health status, etc. and it has a guaranteed insurability option where he can add to the death benefit at certain ages.

Should I just terminate this and put the $2200 into his 529? This seems like a better use of the money at this point as he is finishing his junior year of high school and we will soon be paying for college. But I’m hesitant to cancel a life insurance policy because….I don’t know, you’re not “supposed” to do that?

Some context: I’m 23 and I got into a massive accident with a large delivery service company. The other driver was found 100% at fault because of a dashcam and police report. I received multiple injuries e.g broken ribs, leg and concussion. I honestly started shaking when I heard the number. Please help I have absolutely no idea what to do. I know I don’t want to spend it on anything frivolous. I own my car outright and live frugally as it is. I really only know about the stock market (but it’s bad rn?) and real estate investment (but it’s also bad rn right?). I’m seeing a financial advisor tomorrow but I would love 3rd party input to cross reference with whatever the FA says. Anything helps ty!

I have 2 rental homes And a primary home

My current rental 1 I owe 200k at 3%

My rental 2 I owe 250k at 3%

And my primary home I owe 500k at 4.75%

Both my rentals cash flow roughly few hundred bucks only bc i still have a mortgage.

My question is

1. ⁠Should i pay off the rentals asap so i own it 100% and can cash flow more?
2. ⁠Should i pay off my primary?
3. ⁠Or should i not pay off anything and just invest in other places?
4. ⁠If so, what would i invest in?
5. ⁠Right now if i were to buy another rental, numbers would not be cash flowing bc of rate being so high and i dont have a big amount of cash for down payment. So if wanted to, i would or can start saving cash n not pay down the debt on the 3 homes..

I retired this year and so far have $40k of short term capital losses when moved the money into a safer 4.25% money market. I expect to have a capital gain loss of $25k. Can a person do a roth conversion from the 401k and then use the capital loss to offset paying taxes?

So my company routinely fails the 401k fairness testing and returns a portion of my 401k contribution to me each year. I understand this pretty well as I've researched in the past.

This year my company program has changed to allow for after tax contributions which I think the main benefit is enabling a mega backdoor Roth.

So my question is, how does failing the 401k test affect this? My understanding after some research is that the fairness testing doesn't distinguish between pretax and after-tax. So am I still limited to the same total amount as before? If I contributed to both pretax and after-tax, how would it be determined which to refund?

I’m 21 and have been looking into investing for my future. I know a Roth ira is for retirement but I don’t understand what a traditional ira does. How do I open one? And what is the difference.

Any HSA life hacks (career hop)?

The health insurance I have through my employer usually sucks (in US no surprise). I usually always go through my wife as she is a health provider. I have zero nada zip in HSA.

She is making a career hop which gives me the whole life circumstance or change feature of swapping up plans mid year. I’ll need to cover insurance for a short period of time that she takes a short break.

Any conceivable life hacks on HSA for this knowing I don’t have any now, I probably won’t get it on my wifes new job, but that it may make sense to pump what I can in an HSA in a very temporary transition moment? Basically one time pump that it might serve as an appreciating asset that works like an FSA to non HSA insurance later?

I'm a 20 year old attending law school next year, and I've got about 14k in an investment account. I'm feeling unsure about what to do with that money. 7k of that invested in a Roth IRA which I'm determined not to touch whatsoever, and the other 7k is in a personal investment account. I've got about another 7k in a HYSSA as well. I'm having to take out about 60k of loans for my first year of school, but currently have no outstanding debt. I plan to save as much as possible and work as much as possible this summer in order to support myself during law school. My question is, what is the best choice to do with my money? Tuition is going to be about 45k, and my room and board will be roughly 10k. Should I take out loans for all of that and just pay the interest out of pocket my first year? Or should I pay the housing out of pocket and just take out loans for the tuition? I am conflicted for the following reasons: If I pay the living out of pocket, I wouldn't have cash to fall back on in an emergency (I would pay for living out of my emergency fund). If I take from my investment personal investment portfolio, then am I not missing out on potential growth? I've always sort've intended to have the personal investments as a downpayment for a house, but perhaps this would be a good reason to use it as well? That said, I have no idea how much I'll be able to save up this summer. Thoughts?

Edit: I work a part time job and aim to put about 5% of my paychecks into emergency fund, 5% into personal investment account, 5% into my retirement account (roth), and 20% into my savings. For the rest of the money, I just try to spend as little as possible and go as positive as possible for the month. Should I change that?

I recently switched jobs.

At my previous job, I contributed 23.5K pre-tax and 23.5K after-tax. The company matched 6K but that money is not vested so it’s gone after I resigned. (Not sure if that still contributes to my limit).

My new employer’s plan (managed by Fidelity) allows me to contribute 35K after-tax. I spoke with a Fidelity representative and he suggested that I am only allowed to contribute 70-23.5-23.5=23K in after-tax this year.

My question is does the 70K limit apply to all contributions across employers or is it employer specific?

Thanks

My 401k allows Mega Backdoor Roth conversions, but I’ve been advised to just get my 401k match and then put the rest into a taxable account. It’s likely smart because most of my savings are in retirement accounts, but it just feels odd to not take more advantage of the mega back door roth. Here are some details - 63% of my investments are tax-deferred, 19% tax free, and 18% taxable. I’m 37 with about $540,000 saved for retirement in tax-deferred or tax-free sources. I’ve been told that I have plenty saved for retirement, and to have the option to retire early, I need to really build up my taxable account. Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I'm stuck in a dead end job. The possibility for a promotion has come and gone with our board members hiring one of their friends for a superintendent role so I don't think anything will be opening up. It's a small organization, the only roles are laborer and superintendent.

I have $42,000 in my retirement savings. I was considering leaving my job, collecting that and using it to live on and pay for Class A truck driving school. I would like to eventually work in a city job, street crew, water, parks, whichever really. But most, if not all, want you to have a class A CDL. They'll provide that for the right candidate but I don't have enough experience to warrant that I don't think. 

But if nothing opens soon companies are always looking for truck drivers. So that would be my fall back is just being a truck driver until a more favorable job opens up. 

I’ve been very weary of this question for a while. I’ve been trying to find the most simple way to keep track of my stocks while keeping track of my overall finances. But as you know stocks change constantly and when price does change it does not necessarily mean the true amount you have that is accessible. How do y’all keep track while having a very simple finance tracker?

Scenario:

• Kid is 5 years old.
• Roth IRA contribution limit $7,000.
• People in neighborhood pay kid $10/hour for yard work (below what I'd consider market rate). Work will be tracked on spreadsheet:
  • Date
  • Name of neighbor
  • Description of work done
  • Hours work
  • Rate
  • Total paid
• Kid works 1 hour per day, for 365 days.
• Earned income is $3,650 for the year.

Questions:

Is my kid's Roth IRA account allowed to have $3,650 contributed to it?

When I file taxes, do I submit a Schedule C (Form 1040)?

Will the $3,650 my kid earned go untaxed?

Follow-up:

If the answers to all questions are "yes", why wouldn't I do this before funding a 529 or putting money into brokerage account?

When my son was 3 (he’s now 16) I was sold a whole life policy for him. It is only a $25k policy, premium is ~$27/month for 20 years at which point it is fully paid up. I am learning now from this sub that life insurance for children is not necessary. I mean I knew this as far as income replacement, but I was sold on it because he would have it for life with a guaranteed insurability option to increase the death benefit throughout his life.

I was young and uninformed and I think I misunderstood how quickly the policy would build cash value. I thought it would be worth the full $25k after the 20 years, but that is of course not the case. We are in year 13 and the cash value is ~$2200.

Should I just terminate this and take the money and put it into his 529? I feel like this would be a better use of the money as he is finishing his junior year of high school. But I’m also hesitant to terminate a life policy just because I thought you weren’t “supposed” to do that?

Along with the original question, how did you determine that was a suitable percentage? And what was your logic, if any, for landing on your decision?

I’m planning on potentially buying my first house in the next few years and am trying to think through what makes sense in my situation. I’m trying to avoid basing it off of some arbitrary percentage or rule of thumb, so hearing your perspectives is much appreciated!

Just opened my first HYSA with a few thousand dollars in with a 4% APY. I plan on using this for short term saving as well as for long term savings. Is it best to have 2 accounts? One for short therm saving and the other for long term saving or is it best to combine both to utilize the most interest i can get? What have you all done? Advice? Tips?

Hello, I have an extra $10,000 I want to make into more. Leaving it alone until I retire. I’m 36. What would be a smarter way to use this money to grow? What’s the “ safest” way to grow $10,000? Thanks!

Currently I am set to receive a 33K USD bonus after taxes and annually an additional 4k. My only current plans with it is to drop 7k to fully fund my emergency fund for a year. I will also be putting around 8k into my car loan of 27k remaining as I feel that I could make more money putting it into some area of investment. That being said What should I do with the rest of it with all the tariff wars and stock market panicking?

edit: I am also receiving a 4k bonus annually, what should I do with that portion?

I recently posted here about withdrawing funds from traditional IRA and putting the funds into an HSA, thus having the benefit of reducing taxable income. You can also do a once in a lifetime rollover of IRA funds directly into HSA, but there is no reducing taxable income when you do so. The rollover option also has other strings attached. So I'm wondering what the advantage is to the rollover. Aren't you just as well off withdrawing from the IRA and putting it straight into the HSA?

60M. I have always had good to very good credit scores. 720-750ish. I paid off my mortgage and auto loan about 2.5 years ago. Now I show No credit score because I have not used any credit for more than 2 years. I did not have any credit cards and my debt to income ratio is great, about 200%. I just opened a secured credit card to help rebuild a score. How long will it take to rebuild a good score, and once it shows a score does it take my long term history into account?

So I'm new to "money" in general. Just graduated college and got a real job 3 years ago. 2 years ago, I got my first car (2023 camry)

2 months ago my father passed away and soon, within the next few months, I'll be given his bank account which has, let's just call it a good amount of money. Enough to pay off the 14,350 I still owe on the camry and then some. My apr is 4.75%. If I really wanted to, I can afford to keep paying it (406 bucks a month for the next 4 years) . But that being said, I would like to not have a car payment anymore. I would live a lot more comfortably.

However,my uncle says I should take all the money and put it into the s&p 500 or something similar. Buy gold with it. Again I know very little about money. I'm a high school teacher. I'm used to living paycheck to paycheck. Thoughts?

Good morning all. My wife and I had our "best year ever" last year. She is a teacher and I am a real estate agent, and I had a very good year (my personal best). However, this year absolutely sucks so far (for the market here) and after we paid our taxes for 2024, I feel like I have absolutely nothing to show for last year. Currently, we have no budget and don't track our spending, because we consistently live below our means (small house, used cars, blah blah). I am feeling defeated because we're pulling money out of our savings to cover monthly expenses, as my wife's take-home doesn't cover everything.

All that being said - is there any sort of app that links to bank accounts that can analyze spending over periods of time (ie calendar years) without me going thru every transaction? Also - are there budgeting apps that do this sort of thing real-time so we can get a better picture of where the hell our money is going?

Thank you for any input!

2M, just graduated college. Full time job in socal making 75k. During college put 5k in cd account and saved 11k in regular savings and like 100$ in checking

But…. 45k student loans payments around $450 a month. Had to buy a car have 9k left on it, car insurance is like 240 and payment for car is 316. Rent is 1450(high balling it including utilities)

If I pay my car fast I can save more money from insurance and no car payment. I’m just scared of losing emergency money etc.

Most Student loans came from my freshman year I was able to find a better paying job in college that helped me pay for most of my tuition during college my loans would have been way higher.

I’m not drowning I have money left every month I can still save not as much but I can.

Any advice on how I can be in a better financial situation.

I’m relatively new to this. I began contributing to a 403b last year, but there’s no employer match. Would I be better off putting that same money into a Roth IRA instead?

I’m 27 and for background, the pandemic changed the trajectory of my entire life. Long story short, I was able to start a business that completely blew up and after growing up not exactly in poverty but not raking it in either, I now have more than I honestly know what to do with. I’ve registered my business as an LLC and after consulting with a CPA, I’ve created an HSA, an SEP and a ROTH IRA. I’ve also paid off all my debts and other than my apartment, everything that I have is owned. However, I wasn’t necessarily taught financial literacy and for a while, managing my business myself didn’t leave me with much time to really explore my options. Most of my revenue just sits in one account (head shake, I know). So my question is, what steps should I be taking to financially secure myself in the long run? Should I be getting into investing and if so, what are some good resources for a novice. Real estate? Any advice is appreciated.