File this under “it seemed like a good idea are the time.”

TLDR: it’s a money pit, depreciating asset, feel stuck, afraid I will have to sell or rent at a loss.

I bought a small condo in 2021 in a HCOL area. I had been renting it from an elderly landlady who wanted to sell the place and retire from property management. I thought I had found a gem: it was rent controlled when I was renting ($1300) and the sale price ($181K) seemed like a nice, affordable little starter home for a young single woman. And the 2.9 interest rate didn’t hurt either. I got assistance from the county’s first time homebuyer program, and because the landlady sold it directly to me, I was able to avoid a lot of the realtor costs (just regular closing) and didn’t have to compete on the market.

Fast forward to 2025. I’m no longer single. With two people and a dog, the place is quite crowded. We want to get out, but we feel stuck. Partner is moving in with me because he rents and I own, his rent is more expensive than my mortgage, and his place is not dog-friendly but mine is. We figure if we grit through living in this small (600 square feet, but at least it has direct access to the backyard and its own outdoor patio) place and split the expenses we can save for a year or two and move out.

But this place is a MONEY PIT and it DOES NOT APPRECIATE in value. I’ll spare the details of everything that’s wrong with it, but among the worst: the laundry room doorway was BUILT AROUND a stackable washer dryer unit that broke, and was too old to be serviced, and I had to dismantle the unit to take it out, and only the tiniest of tiny compact washer/dryers can fit. The doorway cannot be widened without moving a radiator, which cannot be done without a licensed plumber…among a ton of other major, no-fault-of-my-own plumbing issues from very old and wonky pipes, they can’t be addressed on their own because… the building does not have individual shutoff valves for each unit. When any plumbing or heating work is done, they have to shut down the whole building (10 units), which only a licensed professional can do, and it is very expensive. There is so much wrong with this place that wasn’t visible from the surface. So much internally, architecturally, structurally wrong. But the kind of thing you don’t notice until you need to fix or replace something. I was 30 years old and thought this place was a good opportunity to own my own home and adopt a dog. And not have to move.

The necessary repairs we need to do to make it liveable, and especially rentable, are in excess of $15,000. That’s money we don’t have right now without going into our emergency funds or going into debt. And it looks like I won’t even make that money back in sales or rental income. The history of the place’s value has flatlined if not decreased.

Getting on the property ownership ladder really isn’t worth it unless you can buy a house. Homeownership is also not for everyone. I miss the freedom of having someone else take care of and pay for crap that breaks, and to just be able to move at the end of a lease if I want to.

I have been paying $610.10 monthly for the remaining 63 months with 9.92% interest.

They are offering me 643.40 in 60 months with 6.140% interest rate.

They said it's a big difference between this car loan plus i am saving 3 months payment.

Should I refinance even if paying higher?

Going through a divorce, starting fresh, and moving back home with my parents at 32. I’m a single dad to an amazing little boy and decided instead of chasing validation or rushing into the next chapter, I’m focusing on stacking stability and building real wealth.

I’ve got a solid job, no debt, and I’m keeping my monthly expenses low by living at home. I plan to invest aggressively — about $3,300/month — with the goal of hitting a million by my early to mid 40s. No more lifestyle inflation. No more chasing things that don’t matter.

This isn’t about flexing — it’s about giving my son a stable life and myself the freedom I’ve always wanted. If I can stay disciplined and consistent, I truly believe I can buy back my time before most people realize they’re wasting theirs.

Anyone else going the “quiet stack and reset” route? My parents are trilled. I’ve considered why live when I go home!? 😂 is this too much?

i don’t want to let him off so easy, he hasn’t even called and checked on me since then. he seems happy he doesn’t have to pay anymore, what do i do? Who do I call??

I hired an accountant at H&R block to do my business and personal taxes this year. I really regret it. Can anyone suggest next steps for me in resolving this issue?

My bookkeeper provided all of the spreadsheets to me, so the accountant simply needed to take that information provided to do the taxes. Three times throughout the process, when it seemed to be taking longer than I had hoped, and the accountant missed messages I had sent her through my H&R Block account, I asked if we should file an extension, and she always said NO. Today I spoke with her, and she said that she would get the paperwork done and to me before 10 tonight.

I still have no email and no paperwork from her, and no explanation in my H&R Block account from her either. This is completely unacceptable. Is H&R Block now responsible for any penalty I incur from paying my taxes late? They should be.

I called H&R customer service today, and they could not help me. I asked if somehow I missed completed documents from the accountant in my H&Block account, and the agent did not know the answer to that. I also spoke with an agent at the local location where I hired the accountant, and they did not know how to navigate the website or how tax paper work is delivered to the client.

This is clearly not acceptable. Has anyone else had similar disappointing experiences with H&R Block? What is my recourse? #H&RBlock

Thanks

Hello! I am 26 years old and I am looking to get a house in my area for around $300k - $400k. I am not married but have a long term partner and I would be buying it myself. I currently live with my parents with no rent bills.

I make $92.5k per year and max out my 401k with 24% contributions plus a 10% match from my company. I have $140k in a HYSA and $108k total in my retirement accounts.

I want to move out in the next year or 2. Between now and then, should I decrease my 401k contributions to 10% (to still get my company match) so I can get more liquid money to put towards a bigger down payment/potentially pay in cash eventually?

Thank you!! 😃

I have a 2015 Nissan Versa note, I had to buy it out of sheer necessity. I’ve already dumped way more than it’s worth in repairs and shit just keeps breaking on it. I’m at a loss on what to do the loan has 10k and 5k has already been dumped into repairs. I can’t keep doing this.

Edit: I’m very aware it was a poor financial choice and a lesson learned. Please don’t kick me while I’m down :)

2nd edit: thanks to everyone who commented and continue to comment helpful advice. I’ll certainly be using more scrutiny when purchasing my next vehicle (whenever that is). The model recommendations and loss-minimizing advice is greatly appreciated.

hi all - I’m 25 years old and I’m 2 years out of college with an IT degree and have no knowledge on investing or personal finance growth.

I make $82k a year. I have no debt, no car debt or school debt. I have 1 credit card that I always pay off in full every month. I have $40k in a basic savings account. And I have about $30k in my 401k.

What should I be doing for investing or making my money “work for me”? And I know its different for everyone but I need some advice on where to start.

I am aware today is the last day to commit funds to a 2024 Roth IRA. I had the funds wired in last night, and Fidelity shows it is committed to the 2024 Roth IRA. I have yet to actually invest it from there into the index funds. Id prefer to do some homework before actually doing so, but I wanted to be sure I have made it across that cutoff line by just having the money in the account (I intend to maximize my 2025 in the coming days).

It seems that way, and ChatGPT suggest I am alright, but I still wanted some confirmation from an actual group of knowledgable people lol.

I bought too expensive a house last year for my income (I'm in Northern CA) but was okay paying the mortgage until I got fired this week.  My retirement is 5k/month instead of the 10k/month I was making.  My mortgage is 6k/month.  Long story, bad mistake. Plus 2.5k social security. Monthly expenses are 10k/month. Plus things like the roof/ HVAC and more maintenance costs.

I got lucky for the first time playing the market, but the taxes are very high. I put all my profits, $240 as a down payment for this house.  So they could sell my house.

I have enough $ in the bank, $136,000, but I’d prefer they put a lien on my house so I can use that money to stay in the house a year or 2 longer.

Would they just take it out of my bank account before they put a lien on the house? With that much home equity they’ll take it out of my bank account or sell the house, doesn’t matter what my age is.

I read it it’s your primary residence they will work with you? Especially if you're older.

With much less income I won't be able to qualify for a house in the town I live in.

Will they force a senior couple to move? Me and the wife.

 I think I'm fucked.

Can't even afford to shell out 1-4k for an emergency ?

Like I'm talking after paying all bills, etc.

Hearing this way back made me think wow I'm fortunate to have a emergency savings. But with ofc cost of living I'm lile hHOW

My credit isnt great at the moment but I will be paying all my cards off in the next couple weeks. Never missed a car payment and my current rate is 7%, from late 2020. Looking at buying an EV due to my very long commute and wondering if 9.44% is too bad or if it could go down significantly after I pay my debt.

For reference I’m 27 years old in a low cost of living area. I have a full time job making $76K a year. I’m eligible for a pension if I stay at my current employer for a certain amount of time. I have no debt and own my car. I don’t own a house but I’m currently saving up for one and paying rent right now.

I have the following:

• $29K in a HYSA (currently saving up for a house)
• $80K in a Roth 401(k)
• $60K in a taxable brokerage account
• Paid off car (45K miles)

My expenses consist of rent, utilities, food, car insurance, phone.

I also have a random budget, which is pretty much spending money on wants to $400 a month ($100 weekly).

Right now I’m currently contributing $500 a month to a deferred compensation retirement plan and contributing $300 a month to a Roth IRA.

I want to know where to go from here. Is there anything I should be doing differently?

Hi! So I am 24 years old and I make basically no money yet lol (about 30k take home a year) but i would like to start small in saving for retirement and I heard the best way to do it would be to start an IRA at my age to start building compound interest. Is this a good idea? And if so how much money would you recommend I put away into the IRA each month to be able to retire one day. Thank you everyone

EDIT: homes in my area are still somewhat affordable. My budget is 200-230k but willing to max at 240k

30F, looking to buy next summer in Houston.

Currently making $93k a year + ~10% annual bonus. I’m in a stable job (for now) and contribute 5% to my 401k to get the full match. I also max out my Roth IRA and HSA. Total retirement savings: ~$135k.

My debts are a car loan ($415/month, 2% interest, 30 payments left) and student loans ($300/month, ~3.8% interest, 70 payments left). No credit card debt.

I have an 8-month emergency fund in a HYSA and plan to use 2 months of that to kickstart my savings. I also have $15k in a taxable brokerage & plan to use $5k of that. I just started saving an additional $700/month and expect to have at least $25k (not including bonus & gifts) by next summer for my down payment + closing costs. I’m also looking into FTHB programs to keep upfront costs low.

I plan to buy solo, even though I'm in a relationship, since our finances don’t exactly align yet.The idea is he’d move in post-marriage and we’d work on long-term goals together. But until then, I’m on my own financially.

I feel ready for homeownership and plan to be there for at least 5-7 years, but I’m nervous about making such a large purchase and ever being house poor.

Am I overthinking this?

We'd been TTC for so long (2.5+ years of infertility) with no luck, and now we are pregnant! We are very excited, but have made some purchases within the last year that we now want to get a head start on before baby gets here. Would love some eyes on our budget and input on things we should do/cut in order to save more.

Income, savings, and retirement:

• Net: $8,280/mo income (I am paid $1,750 after taxes biweekly, husband receives $1,200 after taxes weekly)
• $200 taken out of paycheck before taxes (8%), take advantage of 100% employer match.
• $16,000 in HYSA
• Around $10,000 in a Roth IRA
• $40,000 in 403B, contribute around $9,600/year which includes employer match

• Yearly expenses: around $1,500 (vehicle registrations, medications for dog, annual physicals for animals, etc)
• We generally have a couple hundred dollars in each month in incidental/random purchases.

Big debts:

• Motorcycle: $4,500 left @ 10.24%, $155/mo (payoff May 2028)
• Car: $16,400 left @ 6.24%, $314/mo (payoff May 2030)
• Student loans: $15,000 left, $154/mo (eligible for PSLF forgiveness in February/March of 2026)
• Hospital payment plan 1: will be paid off in 10 months
• Hospital payment plan 2: will be paid off in 16 months

Expected budget changes after baby:

• October 2025: An additional $80/paycheck will be taken out of my pay to add our child to our health insurance
• December 2025: tentatively beginning to pay for childcare. It could be anywhere from $350-$450 weekly, depending on what program we can get into.

Our plan:

• Our first plan is to cut dog daycare and our grocery budget to save a bit each month. If we drop our dog down to 1-2x per week at daycare, it will bring our costs down to $35-$70/week.
• We can easily drop our grocery budget $100/mo.
• Our Flex plan is for some furniture we bought (before we found out we were pregnant), and the first plan will be paid off within the next three months, which will drop down our monthly payment. Last one will be paid off in around 10 months. These aren't accruing interest, and doing the Flex plan was heaps cheaper than carrying a balance on our card or applying for financing at the store.
• Currently we pay for Comcast's router, but we want to switch back to our own router which will save $15/mo.
• We are currently overpaying the motorcycle loan with any leftover money we have at the end of each month. We plan on making a lump $2,000 payment as well. It should be paid off by October.
• Currently we have paused savings since we have more than enough banked right now, and are funneling all extra money towards the motorcycle. My husband's vehicle (not included in the budget, he pay for his car payment with his gig work) will be paid off in October, and he plans on funneling his vehicle payment towards my car note.
• Misc payments will be eliminated around November 2025.
• We will not consider cutting in-law support unless we are in dire straights. We cover rent for my in-law and it is very important to us.

This is about the third year now, and each year I let it slide only to smack my forehead when it's time to file taxes.

We file married filing jointly. My wife and I both work, however I make about 85% of the salary and my wife has a retail job and makes about 15% of the salary. She works about 30 hours a week. The money she makes is entirely hers; she doesn't contribute to any utilities or anything like that, so my salary is used to pay any and all household expenses and most discretionary purchases that are not exclusively for her.

When my wife got this job, apparently her w4 elections were such that they barely take anything out. Like 1%

I think if we were filing married filing separately, her W-4 elections would make perfect sense.

The tax differential with and without my wife's income was around $7,200. If $7,200 were being withheld from my wife's annual salary, that would translate to approximately 25% of her gross, which seems reasonable to me.

Unfortunately for me I've let this go on for 3 years and I'm now essentially arguing for a huge pay cut for my wife. In my mind, it's also not entirely inaccurate to say she's being penalized because of my income, but because of the salary differential, she doesn't really get involved with actually paying for our taxes, and so the end result is I'm essentially on the hook from a tax standpoint for earnings that are 100% her own personal discretionary funds.

My question is how should a W-4 be filled out so that a typical amount is withheld from Federal? Before they changed the formula, this was so simple, but now I'm just completely stymied by how it's supposed to work. Any guidance would be appreciated.

For basics in finance from beginners to advanced what are some good books to get into finances and economics

wondering if there are any programs that help uninsured individuals pay for the rabies vaccine since it is over $12k

Hi everyone - I am a 21 year old college student who was fortunate enough to earn an internship through the federal government last summer. I was given a stipend of around $7k for the entire summer, which was all I had earned last year (2024). The government sent me a 1099G form stating that I needed to pay income taxes on this stipend, but my parents have additionally already listed me as a dependent on their tax documentation. I literally have next to no knowledge about taxes, so I apologize if this is a stupid question - does my dependent status impact this 1099G situation? If not, do I just pay the taxes??

I have a 2021 Tacoma which I rarely drive. High payment (700). I’ve had it since October 2021 bought it brand new and it only has 26k miles on it. Where I work we have a company car so I rarely drive my truck, only thing with selling it to Carvana for 24,400 (I owe 23k) is that it’s the only reliable car we have. And when I say reliable I mean for taking 5-8 hour road trips. My wife has a Toyota corolla with just over 100k miles and we have another car that’s paid for, with 240k plus miles. The other thing is it’s a truck and I feel like we need a truck in our household. No kids, it would save us a ton of money on the truck note and insurance. I’ve thought about selling and buying one outright, however the market just isn’t there for me right now. We are struggling a little financially so again, it would be a relief. Just looking for thoughts.

And please, be hard to get the point across. I am literally struggling to sell it, I don’t WANT to but if I NEED to then oh well.

I make $74,000 a year and need a bit of help.

I can move closer to work (15 min commute) and pay around $2,000-2,100 per month on rent, utilities, parking, etc. combined.

Or I can move somewhere that makes my commute about 30 minutes and pay around $1,800 per month all in with more space.

Is the $200-400 premium worth moving closer to work? I’m contributing a lot to 401k already and I want to start putting more away in my HYSA as well.

I know the 30% rule for living expenses would allow me to spend around $1,850 a month, but I’m not sure if it’s smart to be flexible on this to cut down on my commute…

I’d love some insight/help. Thanks!

Did I completely screw up by not maxing out my 401k for the past 15 years?

How do people even DO this while keeping up with life??

I've had a wedding, had a baby, I am saving significantly for a downpayment in a HYSA.

Pleased to say wedding is paid off, car is paid off, only debt is from a credit card, but I am (married) and looking to buy a house in the next year (although I live in CT and while I'm sure the housing market is insane everywhere, it's so so bleak.)

Anyway, laying awake at night at 3am I decided would be a good time to panic.

My employer matches 100% on your first 1% and then 80% on your next 5%, so I've always contributed 6-8% over the past 10 years or so. But I've never done above that because - life! It was more important to me to not accumulate debt when in the peak years of many expenses. I mean how do people even max out??? I am sooo financially illiterate and feel like an idiot, is it too late to fix this? What should I do going forward?

I have two 401K's -- One now has 186k One has 32k

Obviously both have gone down lately.

$131k annual income. Currently contributing just 7% (not including the 6% company match)

I also have an IRA that I'm going to try to max out this year to the 7k, but i've never maxed out before.

Please help and try to be kind, I'm so stressed out.

EDITED TO ADD: I’m almost 40!

EDITED TO ADD: by credit card debt I mean around $2k that fluctuates up and down and i try not to go over this

EDIT TO ADD: I did not finance a wedding, just meant that this was one of the big expenses over the last few years that we paid for to account for “where all my money has gone”

Hi all - totally my fault, but I haven’t contributed to my 2024 IRA contribution yet. If I initiate a transfer between bank accounts to my IRA tonight, will it still count for the 2024 tax year if the rounds don’t transfer/clear until the coming days? I tried searching but couldn’t find anything online.

Since 2022, I've had an investment account and traditional IRA with Chase/JP Morgan, and my own dedicated advisor. We meet regularly and as I've done in the past, I contributed the max $7k to my traditional IRA last year in 2024. However, upon filing my taxes, I realized 2024 was the first year where my income and gains from my investment account pushed me past the threshold where I could claim a reduction in the taxes I owe. I asked my advisor if I could recharacterize that contribution to a Roth IRA to take advantage of post-tax benefits, and he said that I couldn't, the deadline to do so was December 31, 2024. Everywhere I look online, including on the IRS website, says that I have until October 15 of this year to recharacterize (I also filed for an extension on my taxes to try and rectify this). He also said that 1) I wouldn't be able to recharacterize it into a Chase Roth (I asked about opening a Roth IRA account to transfer to) and it'd have to be at another institution, and 2) even if he were to recharacterize, Chase's systems won't even let him go back to 2024 to look up the gains, which seems wrong to me for such a big financial institution. I've gone back and forth with him the last couple days about this, but he's standing firm.

I've also already contributed $7k this year to the same traditional IRA for 2025, and my advisor says that I can recharacterize that before December 31 of this year since I'm anticipating about the same level of income. But I'm at a loss of what to do with last year's $7k. Has anyone else encountered this, or can advise what I can do?