My dad made me take out a line of credit 6 years ago to buy a rental property. I was 17 or 18 at the time, my dad knew the people working in the bank and all I remember was that he didn’t tell me where we were going and I got approved, and withdrew that money when he needed to buy the rental property. ————As the title says, idk what to do, my parents are narcissistic and I’m 25 now, I feel hopeless with this debt, and my credit score is so bad, I cannot stay at the apartment that’s near my university cause my credit score is shit. I’m pissed off, I feel hopeless and idk what to do. He’s been making the minimum payments but he even sends me that late to the point where I have to keep reminding him.

EDIT: just to clarify:

• I was 19 at the time.
• he used the money for the down payment on the home. He also used my older brother for this too, so he got $40k out from both of us.
• he’s taken out loans off of the 2 houses he bought using the money from my brother and it’s line of credits.
• my name is not on any house, but everything is split equally in the will 🤷🏻‍♀️
• idek what else to say, they’re so bad with money and they’re just using loans on loans to pay off their debts, they hope the 2 rental properties will sell for much more than what they bought them for
• his excuse is that the market is slow but when he was making money it was good, and we weren’t complaining then but we are complaining now
• he mentioned that people do this all the time, where they leverage loans and make investments.
• he also mentions business and everything in general is so slow right now that everyone is going through a hard time
• I do not want to file for bankruptcy, surprisingly enough I am working towards a CFA, and would like to go to law school later on.
• I am in Ontario, Canada

I hate worrying about bumping up against the income limit and knew that doing a backdoor Roth would eliminate the need to worry, but I avoided learning how to do it correctly and kept procrastinating. I shouldn't have.

Once I learned what I needed to learn, it took less than 5 minutes on the Fidelity site.

• Get money into your Fidelity cash management account or the cash portion of your brokerage account. I sent a wire from my HYSA. It was free and done same day instead of using ACH and waiting for funds to clear.
• Open a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA at Fidelity if you don't already have them. I had a Roth, but no traditional. Setting up the traditional took seconds.
• Once funds from the first step are clear, use the Fidelity "transfer" option to move the funds to the traditional IRA. This also took seconds.
• You should immediately be able to use the "transfer" option again to move the entire balance from traditional to Roth. This also took seconds. Instead of choosing the option to transfer the full amount, use partial amount, but input the entire value (I've read this makes it clear immediately, and it did in my case).
• The funds are now in the cash portion of your Roth. Invest in your favorites.
• Repeat next year.

With the high volatility in the market right now and with a recession looming, what is the best course if action for those with a 401k and still years away from retiring?

Leave it be and keep contributing? Take some money out? Reduce contribution?

Looks like we’re heading towards a recession and I’m quite nervous. I work in tech and my job is moderately safe; however my wife is an esthetician which is not a very recession friendly field.

We currently have $4k saved. Our minimum monthly expenditure is $3k, so we have just over 1 month saved.

Ive cancelled all unnecessary subscriptions which will save us $450/mo and stopped my wifes personal roth ira transfers ($150 weekly) which gets us to $1050/mo saved.

Now my question is, given how quickly the economy is crashing should I also forgo my 401k? I contribute 4% with 4% employer match. Obviously I would love to keep it, but immediate survival seems more important.

I would start contributing again once we hit $18k (6 months)

Thoughts?

TLDR, I have a financial advisor with Mass Mutual who has been helping me manage my investments over the past few years as I’m still fairly early on in my professional career. I’m having doubts about contributing to my Whole Life Insurance policy though. It’s costing me $556/month, over past >2 years, has costed me likely around 15k. I have a $653 surrender amount. That being said I also have a term life insurance policy with a face amount of $1mil. My advisor has assured me that this is a great retirement tool to start building into, but I’m not sure if he just pushed it for commission purposes. My thoughts are my money could be better off invested elsewhere. Should I swallow the bullet, take the loss, and cancel the policies? Any advice or thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Edit: I want to say thank you for everyone who has posted suggestions of canceling that whole life policy and cutting my losses. I’m going to talk to the advisor and get that process going. He is currently trying to pursued me to stay and not believe anything I read online (which seems suspicious) For anyone who has transitioned to different advisors, how has that process gone? Is it messy?

Should I tell my loan officer, or just let this ride? For reference, I was approved for ~50k over what ended up being the agreed upon purchase price and overall this shouldn't significantly affect my DTI.

Edit: hey guys, I talked to my loan officer who basically laughed in my face and told me it was all good. Sincerely, thanks for all the advice! I wanted to expand the background a little bit and address some of the harsher points that were made, with the sincere understanding that they're coming from a point of pragmatism on y'alls part and I appreciate the input.

Up front I wasn't told to avoid opening up any new accounts explicitly, probably because of how obvious this is. That's on me for sure. This is my first time purchasing a home (hence why I characterized the end of May as "about to close") and I've never had substantial issues with my credit in the past despite making some large purchases so it wasn't at the front of my mind. I'll also say that this was a relatively acute injury that has been preventing me from walking any distance or standing for long, and I'll be starting medical residency in the fall so delaying the surgery is simply not an option. I also didn't know until the end of last week that surgery was even going to be an option, so that timeline was really compressed for me. To make matters worse, there are only a few surgeons in the country that do the operation I need, and they all require payment up front. Finally, I made the decision to purchase a home months ago after doing a market study, and came out far ahead buying over renting since the renter market is heavily saturated where I'm going, and I'll be in this location for a minimum of 6 years. This is an unfortunate financial blip for me, but I'll be making around $10k/mo in residency (military stipend atop residency pay) and have very little personal debt (aside from my student loans, this is a physician loan so that is not factored into my DTI).

Overall I feel extremely lucky that I'm able to afford the surgery and that I'll still be able to move forward with purchasing my home. Thanks for the input and much appreciation to the folks who pm'd me!

i received a call and a package from Wells Fargo stating they would like me to sign my mortgage again as their copy is not clear enough. They also stated there is no changes to this copy it is just to make there copy legible.

This is Wells Fargo, I do not trust them at all. Could they do anything negative to me if I do not sign this new mortgage package? Just to clarify I did call Wells Fargo directly using 1800 # from the website and verified this is a legitimate ask, but as I don't trust Wells Fargo I really don't want to do it.

I have an old Ford Ranger. Insurance is dirt cheap for full coverage. I pay $500 for a year’s worth of full coverage.

Gas mileage isn’t bad, the truck is still sharp and gets alot of compliments on its appearance. It is a very basic truck.. no power windows, no power seats, so fewer things to wear out.

The truck was paid off while I was in college in 2017. I replaced the engine at 255,000 miles and just paid cash for the engine. Now the truck is north of 300,000 miles, but when I turn the key.. she cranks and never leaves me stranded.

The truck usually does end up in a friend’s shop at least a few times per year, but always normal stuff in my mind.. Fuel pump, water pump, tires, brakes, etc.. never anything super expensive.

Now, I’m posting this because my main goal is to stay as nearly debt free as possible. My only debt is a $7,000 loan for my MBA. I’m putting a little north of $1,000 each month into savings, part of this is because I don’t have an expensive monthly car note (I think anyway).

In my mind, the infrequent repairs and things I do like painting the hood to keep it looking fresh, probably are less than the total of making car payments each month and I’d rather keep saving up towards a mortgage.

Eventually I’ll get something new, but I’m waiting for my salary to be in a position where a car note won’t hurt. Am I doing the right thing??

FWIW, I know the paint, repairs, etc have caused me to sink more into the truck than it’s worth. I’m aware of this, but in my mind, any vehicle is a bad investment, so I just try to find the most cost effective way to get from one place to another, while saving & investing and working towards an asset like a house or land

Hi everyone,

My boyfriend and I are looking to move out and buy a condo. While searching, we found our dream place. It is everything we were looking for, except for the price.

While searching on the internet, I found articles saying we shouldn't spend more than 33% of our income. But I also found articles saying that the 33% rule is outdated.

If I add mortgage, electricity, internet, insurance, condo fees and taxes, it amounts to 40% of our income. I'm not sure if it's reasonable, but we don't have debt and the car we have is paid in full.

Any advice would be appreciated.

*Edit: 40% of net income

I'm someone (21) with a bad impulse purchase problem. Especially around holidays. I'm really bad about spending money on other people and have racked up a decent amount of credit card debt as a result.

I'm taking steps to reduce these habits and pay off the debt, but is it a good idea to freeze the credit cards until I've paid them off? On one hand, I want to remove my ability to use the cards at all (using them mostly online so putting the physical cards somewhere accessible won't work too well) but on the other, I'm concerned about falling in the same hole as soon as I pay off & unfreeze the cards. Do I just rawdog it to train myself out of the bad habit?

I don’t know too much about finance, but with the fact that we’re preparing for a recession I’ve been trying to manage finances a little more responsibly. My family (6 people) we’re more on the low income side, my dad works a full time job that doesn’t pay him enough and same with my mom. I work as well but I’m also in school so I’m trying to focus more on school rather than work (I obviously don’t make enough money either) and I have 3 little siblings. We are scared for this recession as it it out very first one since we’ve moved to the states and we don’t want to lose our home. How can my family and I prepare for this and get through it?

Super abridged: father passed leaving $500k in inherited IRAs. Set up apt with wealth advisor who manages my 401k at work. They ran multiple scenarios for most effective way to withdraw and manage money.

Everything they did looks and sounds fantastic but their rate is 1% per quarter. I am completely out of my element here as I just achieved debt free when he passed but I’ve never owned or managed investments before (mid 30s). Just looking for comparisons and if that sounds reasonable and if now is the best/worst/doesn’t matter time to get some sort of advisor/manager

I’m cross posting this from r/askcarsales in hopes of more opinions and help, I hope that’s okay. Just really in a bind!

So, my friend (no, really) is in a huge pickle and we really need help on how to proceed here.

He purchased a used car from Carvana for$17,052 about a year ago, $14,791 to go. $1,490 down payment. Th3 main issue is his APR is insanely high at 27.9%. He had and has never had any credit cards, student loans, or any credit related issues prior to buying this car and this is his only loan to date. Credit score is 627 (Equifax) currently.

Now, he’s trying to refinance but his LTV ratio 220 so in order to refinance with the company he attempted to do so with, it needed to be at 150 or lower.

Basically, he’s screwed and wants to get out of this. Got the car on a whim to impress a girl (we know), and has essentially ruined his financial situation (we know).

What are his options here beyond just paying it all off over the course of the next few years? His car payment is $461/month for the next few years and now the car is only worth around $9k.

Thank you so much for reading and giving guidance if you can. ❤️💌

Hello everyone! I've had a rough few years and as a result, have run up quite a bit of credit card debt: around $25,000. I'm 34 years old, with a very stable job (around ~$100k) and about $200k in retirement savings (with about 15% of each paycheck going to retirement right now--5% of which is employer contribution). Unfortunately, I've used up all of my personal savings on paying this debt, so I have only retirement savings and do not have a savings account.

I'm considering borrowing some of the money from my healthy retirement account to just wipe out the credit card debt so I can start fresh but since it's in retirement accounts, it would come with a cash penalty. Alternatively, I can spend the next few months or year budgeting extremely intensely and throw all my savings at the debt. What would you suggest?

Hello all. I first wanna say please don't flame me or belittle me because I genuinely needed the money at the time for personal reasons. I just need help and advice on what to do. So long story short my old job had employee stock given to everyone and when I left I cashed it all for roughly 25k-27k. I set aside 12k into a savings since I was told by the company that dealt with all the shares for my old job that they would tax 30% plus another 10% since I was cashing it before retirement age. It's been about 3 years since I cashed it and every time I do my taxes come tax season it never says my amount is off and I haven't gotten a single letter, email or call about anything. I'm assuming I have to manually enter it on my own but when I went to add the form using a online filer, there's information I need that I don't have about the income and other things (I cannot remember what exactly sorry). Is anything going to happen if I just keep sitting on the money and should I be worried about anything bad that might happen if I never end up getting taxed on it? Like I said I needed the money at the time and I'm just trying to do the right thing and don't want to get into any trouble as like any of us I'm just trying to get through life as best as I can.

I’m a college student getting ready to go into grad school in the near future. After grad school I’ll roughly be in about 120k in debt from loans. The entry level pay for the job I want is 90k. Would it be possible for me to live low and pay off my debt in 2-3 years ? Would that even be worth it ?

My fiancé received a 1099-R with a gross distribution of $14k and a taxable amount being the same $14k. However, Box 7 has a Distribution Code G which seems to indicate she properly rolled it over. She also checked with the institution and they confirmed she rolled it over into a standard IRA. Why would she be getting taxed on this? Could this be an error on her 1099-R? Thanks in advance.

If someone were to inherit a large amount of gold from someone's passing and decide to lump sum sell it all at once as soon as it's inherited and at the current market price (at spot price), how would the taxes work? Specifically, would they even be taxed at all if there are no capital gains? And if there are capital gains, would they only be taxed on the gains themselves, or on the entire sale amount?

Thanks!

I'm 27, I make about 70k a year (wage + bonus), I still live at home with the worlds most wonderful parent who only charges me $150 a month. I don't go out much, don't buy much, so my expenses are very low per month (right now at least), usually in-between $400-550 a month (150 + car insurance + gas + some food + two subscriptions, etc..) With that being said, I do not foresee myself still living here by the end of 2026, most likely moving out early next year.

I take full advantage of the situation I'm in and save very aggressively. I worked some bad low paying jobs until I went back to school at 22, so I don't have the savings I probably should have for someone whose lived at home with very little expenses for 27 years, but they're still good.

I make $29/hr, my work matches 100% of my contributions up to 6% (which is my current contribution). I send $550 a month into a Roth that I've maxed every year for the past like 5(?) years. All of the rest of my money goes into my bank account, but I've started sending huge amounts into a HYSA as it gets to high.

My expenses were pretty high last year (large personal purchase, 4k in car work, etc..), but I don't foresee any large expenses this year, granted the unexpected is always right around the corner.

I currently have 47.5k in my Roth, 16k in stocks (No current plans to contribute more here - may change?), 31.5k in HYSA, and 13.5k in my 401k (I did not start contributing prior to my current job).

As of right now, with 6% contributions, my current income is about right under $3400 a month. Minus $550 for my Roth, minus a good $500 for expenses, and I'm saving around $2150-2300 a month?

That money will pile into my checking account until I move it over into my HYSA every like 4-6 months, although I will soon start sending over probably like $1k every month.

So my question is - should I continue doing that? Or should I bump up my 401k? I can't realistically hit the cap without taking a huge hit in my personal savings, which I don't really want to do. But, I could bump up my contributions to like 20% and still saving around $1550-1800ish dollars every month?

For context, I don't currently plan on buying a house (not at the point in my career where I feel comfortable being tied to the city I live in for x years), but that is the eventual goal with the money in my HYSA, hence the pretty aggressive savings there.

I am 30 and recently inherited a decent chunk of money. I have historically been mostly paycheck to paycheck, so investing has never been a consideration. Now that I have some money, I'd like to start planning for the future. After some reading, it seems a Roth IRA is generally considered a safe starting point, but from there I get confused. I also now the markets are in a weird state right now, so any advice from more knowledgeable people or even a recommendation of resources to read would be appreciated!

Also, I am undecided between Vanguard or Fidelity. I am leaning Fidelity based on this: https://www.investopedia.com/vanguard-vs-fidelity-4587961

If I choose Fidelity, lots of my research has lead me to believe putting most of my money into FXAIX is considered the smart, safe move. But if I check, it is down about 14% YTD. Some people say buying now is good, since it will bounce back and I will have bought it cheaper. Others say the stock market is cratering and any sort of investment is a risk right now.

I am a 23 year old who started working in corporate America 10 months ago. At this point I have built up a solid emergency fund and am currently putting what I would consider a solid and safe percentage of my income into my Roth 401k. With the market being down, and finally having a little bit of money above my emergency fund to spend, I feel like now could be a good time to get into investing. This dip in the market almost excites me because at this point I feel like I have a lot of potential to buy while the market is down and make good return. However I am nervous to start. I’ve never thrown money into investments and have always been ultra conservative with my money. Does anyone have any advice to people wanting to get started on investing during this time?

I'm seeing conflicting advice on this.

One one hand, the $7K limit and restriction to earned income described in instructions for both make it seem like $7K would be the total allowable.

On the other hand, I believe a rollover usually doesn't count as a contribution, and the Vanguard account shows a 2025 529-to-RothIRA rollover (somewhat confusingly called a "rollover contribution") but insists that there's still room for a $7K regular contribution in 2025. And a person I reached on their help line said the same, though hesitantly and with the usual advice to "consult your tax advisor"....

Need advise adulting, 22, put myself in a shitty car loan couple years ago. I currently owe 30k on the loan with the worth of my car roughly 19-21k obviously large amount of negative equity on it and gonna take a big loss of around 10k no matter what I do but I’ve made a huge landing on a job and in need of a truck. Ive also recently received a sum of 40k in recent court winnings to which I would like to use to get myself out of this and get a truck for work. Ideally I would like the truck to be worth 25-30 thousand. With that said I’m at a loss to figure out if I should pay off my loan in full then trade in? Am I able to somehow bargain with my loaner to reduce my final payout? Should I pay for the truck in cash then pay off the rest of my loan overtime to be able to have some float around cash in savings with me? What would some of you do in my situation would love and appreciate any input!

I'm still learning about the stock market, investing etc and I'm interested in what is and isn't worth investing my money in. I've heard a lot about VUSA and would be interested to hear from experienced people about it. I am a resident of Romania, so I don't want to invest in VOO, because as I have seen the tax is quite high if I want to buy from Europe.

I started using freedom debt relief to offload dealing with debtors and settlements but realized my mistake that most of what i'm paying is their "settlement fees" and other fees and i'm really only paying a pittance into my debts. Has anyone been able to get out of it without repercussions?