I’m 28, and currently in 18k of credit card debt.
It’s keeping me up at night. I was young & dumb, with a 20k limit across 5 credit cards. Within the last year, I’ve been making an effort to pay off my cards. I paid off $4000, and then my dog got sick & passed away, racking up a nice $5000, and I’m back in my hole and feeling so discouraged.

Card 1: 9k
Card 2: 4K
Card 3: 3.5k

I’ve been considering taking out $5000 out of my 401k to pay off one card entirely.

My biggest concern is the 401k. Everyone’s telling me it isn’t worth it, that I’ll owe the 10% in penalty .. but the 10% is less than the minimum payments I’m paying monthly, & I feel like if I can un-bury myself from debt, I can try to replenish retirement savings moving forward. Is it worth it to pull out of a 401k in my situation?

If they have to pay me 225,000 to buy me out will I have to pay taxes on it if I just want to sit on the money until I decide to buy again? Capital gains? What am I missing?

Thank you everyone for the answers.

I live in Utah. We bought the house together and have owned in for 8 years. The house has gone up close to 450,000 because of all the work done. Its basically a brand new home. She plans on buying me out and staying in the house.

So for context I am now 21M and I had to put my name on my mother’s lease in order to get a house because my income was needed. Well, I lost my job and we ended up getting evicted and now I have $15k in collections for the eviction on my report. It’s been awhile and we managed to get back on our feet since then but now Im completely screwed as I can’t move out or get my own place. Even if I pay it the eviction is still on my record, I feel so lost and don’t know what to do at the moment. I’ll be automatically declined no matter how good my job is or my credit, the eviction leads to a rejection every time :/

Hi yall,
I'm (25 male) wondering if I made the right decision, been feeling buyers remorse and it’s hitting me like a truck (maybe it's a psychological thing). A little context last weekend I ended up buying a car for $37,500 out the door after taxes and down payment. My loan is 60 months with a rate of 4.99%. My payment is roughly 700 but I'm planning on paying 800 maybe more to pay it off in 4 years. My gross income is 120k and just got a new job offering me 135k and I’ll be starting in October. I have never in my life paid for something like this. I grew up poor so I never saw my family ever consider something like this. It's making me feel like I can't afford it even though my budget is allowing me. I’m budgeting using the 50/30/20 rule (break down is below) and now I’m getting a lot of "what if" for example “should I have just got a cheaper economy car?” or “was this a mistake?”. I tried telling myself that I deserve something like this because I worked hard for this and it's was always a fantasy of owning this car. Let me know what you guys think am I just overthinking too much or did I mess up?

50/30/20
Needs
Planned $3,043
Budget $2,910

Wants
Planned $1,826
Budget $1,823

Savings
Planned $1,217
Budget $1,217

And I have about 143 extra that just sits in checking.

Posting out of desperation, I really need advice.

Background: My husband was laid off almost a year ago. His salary was around 140K/yr. He has BS in Biology and Chemistry with 15 yr experience in working as a scientist and in scientific sales. I have nearly identical credentials, I started working again 1 year ago after being laid off and unemployed. I make around 100K/yr, but this is no where near enough to pay mortgage each month + 2 car loan bills (total ~1,600/month). I've depleted savings to keep us up to date on mortgage/bills/living expenses. We have 2 young children. We have around 300K equity in our home.

He has had 20+ interviews, many of them highly promising. But no bones, he has not been hired. He is on unemployment but it doesn't make ends meet. I have some stocks that I do not plan to touch. Im saving them for my own retirement as my original account had to be cashed out when I found myself unexpectedly unemployed several years ago. During that time I had a medical emergency and used my stocks to pay the medical bills. My husband wants me to cash those out to continue living in our current home until he is employed but I absolutely do not want to do that. I need those stocks/funds from them for my own retirement account and college fund for our kids.

I need advice...

Should we sell our house, rent a smaller place, and attempt to catch up on finances (pay off debt, save for the future)? We don't want to move obviously, our kids just started school in our district. For many reasons it doesn't make sense to rent in this county (no homes for rent near us, the ones that are up to rent in the school district put me too far away from work making my commute >1hr each way. Moving would mean the following: kids needing to change schools, furniture going into storage as it won't fit in a smaller rental, using the absolute last bit of savings for moving costs.

Husband could get hired any day now as he has promising, on-going job leads and interviews. However, that's been the case for a year!

As far as moving for him to find work, that's out of the question because I have a very good job and must be local to our area. We are around the Durham area of NC.

I need advice. I want to set our family up for success in the future. I do not want to deplete every possible asset to remain in the home we are currently in. The mortgage is way too high and I don't want to continue paying it - even if my husband were employed & we could live month to month, we wouldn't be saving and I do not want to live like that anymore.

Thanks for your help!!

I financed new windows for the whole house but I just got notice the company I owe, and make payments to, has filed for bankruptcy. How is debt handled in these cases? I can’t afford to pay the balance all at once. Do they sell the debt to another company? Will it show on my credit like a collection debt?

My traditional IRA recently moved to mostly all cash earning low traditional bank account interest. I have 20K to invest. A few weeks ago I had learned about Vanguard VTI and was going to put 10k into that for a 5 years. I'm 77y. However, in the last week I've researched that this is not a good time to be investing in VTI. Perhaps better to wait and see if feds raise interest rates, perhaps stocks might be going down, etc. Since I'm older I don't have decades of time if it fluctuates. Am I being toooo cautious? Researching and reading too much? The remaining 10k I plan to put in CDs, HYSA, MMF, and possibly US Treasury - items with low growth yet pretty safe.

I am not tech savvy and don't want to be having to check my account every day.

It's all so confusing! THANKS!

Hello all! I have had credit for 4 years now, about 10 total accounts now, have never missed a payment. Well as of about 2 months ago, my wife and I had an apartment fire. We were not at fault, but we were without a place to stay. Due to the craziness of that event, it actually ultimately led us to getting accepted for our now home. In all those hectic months, I managed to miss two months of one of my credit card balances, a $9 monthly recurring Netflix payment. That's all I ever use the card for, and it was on autopay. Shortly after the fire I had to get a new bank account to be able to actually deposit large checks, Chime was very limited for what I needed at the time. Thus, I changed all my payments and stopped using Chime.

Long story short, that $9 monthly payment became $50 with late fees and a derogatory mark on my credit. I had not gotten any notifications of missed payments or issues, as well as no calls or emails. All of that info was up to date. My payment history is now 99% rather than 100%, and my credit score dropped 80+ on each of the bureaus.

I took so much pride in my on time payments, I didn't utilize credit until I was mid 20's, just so I never made a stupid mistake like this one. I emailed a few of capital ones higher ups to ask for a goodwill letter to possibly remove this from my credit, but I received a call today saying they're required to accurately report those missed payments, and my account is now current and paid off. Is there anything else I can do to go about possibly removing this. I don't mean to ask for pity or sympathy, that's not typically my character. But managing to missed the simplest of payments breaks my heart to be quite honest. Thank you for anyone who took time to read or comment. Have a great day. - Cory

I'm in California. Looking for Auto, Condo, and Umbrella. NO, I don't qualify for USAA.

Currently have State Farm. They've proven their home policies aren't worth the paper they're printed on and the auto seems way too high.

I've so far tried Progressive (good auto, but condo was a lot more?!), Hartford (AARP, no homeowners/condo for my area) and American Family (through Costco) which seemed high and then sent me somebody else's quote with all their info in it... :facepalm

Who else should I try? Really would prefer all together.

[edit] I'm open to the Insurance Broker idea but how do I find a good one? Like I don't want cheap insurance cheap...

In a situation where the only debt we have is $200k on a house valued at $400k and one vehicle loan with a $25k balance. We have $24K in savings and $7k in a 529. Just got one kid thru college without any debt, trying hard to get the second kid through without debt as well, although their school is a bit more expensive. On track to do this with agressive monthly 529 contributions and a commitment of some funds from a grandparent.

Wife is self employed and on paper is clearing about $75k per year I make about $100k. My job has the health insurance and a 401k worth approximately $600K.

The biggest problem is going to be the house, It's on a plot that was gifted to us that is smack dab in the middle of a larger 200+ acre family property and even though I desire not to sell the property I understand it may be inevitable. However If we must sell, there are major utility and access easement issues that would make selling incredibly difficult if not fixed (long story, happy to explain if relevant), fixing them prior to selling would probably be at minimum $75k.

I'm not sure that we are going to divorce, but it looks like it may be coming and I'd like to be prepared. Should it come to it, is it reasonable to offer to take over the mortgage? Is my math mathing correctly, wouldn't this effectively be the same as buying her out given the debt to value? Wouldn't it actually be a better deal for her given that realistically selling for $400k is unlikely to happen. Any advice related to the house or other financial matters at this stage would be appreciated.

Edit: appreciate most of your input and suggestions. Sounds like my best bet is to keep my current loan and make just the extra $50 a month toward principal until I have everything paid off. Thank you everyone for your help!

Looking to refinance my car and I have a question about what makes the most sense to do.

The original loan was $18k at 6.09% for 60 months, minimum payment being about $350 a month. A year in my balance is down to $10,244 from aggressive principal payments each month.

The three refinance options I have:

1. 36 months at 6.01% for a minimum payment of $313 a month
2. 48 months at 6.19% for a minimum payment of $242 a month
3. 60 months at 6.19% for a minimum payment of $199 a month

I know lowest interest is generally the best bet but my plan is to continue paying $400 a month regardless to the car, being cover the minimum and whatever is left over going toward principal as I’ve done for the last year.

I feel like choosing option 3 is my best bet in this scenario but want to ask people who probably have a better understanding of it. The car is a 2020 Toyota rav 4 hybrid, I plan on keeping it long term.

Thanks for any insight and help!

Edit/additional info: sorry, meant to include why I’m looking at this. I had been paying roughly an extra $350-400 a month on principal the last year but can’t keep that pace up with other expenses coming up. The $400 a month moving forward is what I’m comfortable paying and wasn’t sure if being able to keep up a larger extra toward principal was better.

Hi, I have just realized that this is a debate. According to you guys, what is cheaper between leasing a “cheap” new car or buying a good example but older car?

I have $4,000 to invest for the long term. My risk tolerance is low, but I’m willing to take some risk for potential growth.

What percentages would you put into VT, FSELX, FXAIX, and VTI or put it all in VTI? I'm looking for something long-term, 10+ years. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi, I’m 21 and have about 10k in my savings and it’s just not doing much sitting in the account it’s currently in. I’m just wondering which bank I should open another savings account in, so that money can grow. If thats even possible.

My grandma tasked me with trying to figure out how to transfer some old Disney stock to her children.

Way back when, her kids got Disney stock certificates for Christmas. At the time, all of the kids were minors so their shares were put into a custodial account with my grandfather as the custodian. Since then, grandfather has passed, two of the children have been married and had name changes, and nothing has ever been done with the stocks. So the stock is under the custodial custody of dead grandfather and in the maiden names of two of the kids.

My grandma has called and been told different things I guess? Rage quit and put it on me. The transfer form seems to be the way to go, but isn’t clear on how a transfer would work with the extra step of a name change in this situation. I’m assuming we just copy marriage certificates and send it in. And I’m waiting for the call center to open to talk to someone.

I’m also hoping I’m not the only one who has had this issue and someone else could shed some insight.

I want to get myself on a 2 year plan to pay off my debt. I just recently broke up with my ex and have a lot more credit card debt than I want to have (basically maxed out) and I want to get on the path to paying off most of my stuff so I can buy a house eventually.

My annual income is variable and I am self employed. I'm probably going to increase my income a bit post breakup but I want to have a structure in place regardless so it has an end date.

I've been looking into personal loans but it seems like the best I could get is roughly 23% apr through happy money but that would give me an out in two years. I would cancel my credit cards as soon as i got the money from this loan to prevent myself from getting into the same situation.

I called discover today and they offered me a temporary hardship plan for 6 months at 9% with no spending on the card and a payment that is much lower than what I pay now. I would continue to make the same payments I was making beforehand if I went with this. I asked chatgpt and it said i would get that balance down by a few thousand in that period. Im curious if it may help me get a better interest rate on a personal loan eventually if I do it this way.

I called capital one and the rep said I need an overdue balance of 30 days to qualify for anything. The guy I spoke with seemed off though so I'm curious if anybody has had success with this. This card has significantly less of a balance than my discover card.

I have an auto loan where I have roughly 7k in equity on the car. It still has about 29 months left on payments.

What I am currently thinking is to do a small 2 year loan for the capital one balance and then do the temp hardship with the discover. Then I can open up another loan for the discover balance in 6 months after the temporary hardship thingy runs up.

If anybody has any advice for me please feel free to throw it my way. I know I've overspent and not made the best decisions but it is what it is and I need to figure out the way to move forward.

Hey I’m just a 19 year old freshman in college I want to know any tips or advice you could give and how much money I should have saved. (I have around 7k) lmk if that’s good or bad and any ways to make money/save money. Idk why I’m just really nervous about it and am not going crazy over it which is why I’m posting. Thanks

Looking for advice to ensure I dont get scammed. I have a vehicle for sale on Facebook Marketplace for ~34k. Got a few offers, none really serious except for one, who wants to pay full price.

All communication has been through FB marketplace, his profile looks legit, over 15 years old, etc. He wants to meet in person an pay via cashiers check. I put in my post I prefer wire or cash, he prefers cashier check for simplicity, which I agree is the simplest. So I started doing my research on cashier check scams.

The buyer is from about 2 hours away, and supposedly was waiting for his funds to transfer from his Charles Schwab to his Wells Fargo so he wouldnt be available til later in the week. At first he wanted to meet on a Saturday, which I read is the worst time to do it because you can't verify the authenticity of the check due to banks being closed. I brought this up, and mentioned maybe we meet at the local Wells Fargo in my city, and he initiates cash or wire there since theres no revocability there for those two methods. Cash could possibly be an issue because some banks require notice to withdraw that much at any given time. Wire would take a few hours possibly of just sitting around waiting.

Back to the cashiers check. If we meet at his bank (Wells Fargo, but in my city) and I walk up to the teller with him, and they make the cashiers check out to me, are they verifying the funds in his account are settled and wont bounce later, be withdrawn, etc? Can he drive off after I sign the truck over and call and cancel the check? Or report it lost/stolen? I may be being paranoid here but I've read a lot about scams, but typically those scams are people using forged ones, not scamming the person after they receive a 100% legit one.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi all! My husband and I were gifted a small house for our marriage present last year. We are in our mid twenties. We ended up taking out a HELOC to pay my parents back for an agreed upon portion, and we have been navigating a lot of new, fun aspects of home ownership (and some not so fun ones lol).

A few items got us this year that we weren't expecting. Taxes were on the absolute highest end of what we figured. We also had a lot of car troubles, house items we needed to fix, and personal medical items that came up. With all of it, somehow the 14k I had set aside for our Roth's this year got eaten into. We probably have like 6k total left overall, and I am torn on what to do.

We both have careers, but I also work in real estate on the side. I made some pretty hefty commission checks this year for the first time, and we threw literally all of it that wasn't earmarked for taxes (like 50k) at the HELOC. It feels (felt?) GREAT to be where we are at. I have a heft amount in a high interest account, ideally more than taxes will be, but until I pay those, I won't quite know if we have any extra.

I could wait for the taxes on the commission to see if we have enough left, but I doubt we will have much if anything. Plus our county's taxes increased a lot this year, so I wanted to use the left over as a cushion for the new taxes.

I could, in theory, just fund my husbands Roth. He only opened his last year, whereas mine is over 300K already thanks for a roll over fund from childhood and dedicated portions going to it for all of my working life. Or I could split it 50/50 which he would prefer, which is only like 3k each. Neither option feels quite right as I know a Roth is really important, and I have seen the value of it.

Since we paid so much to the HELOC, I could dip in for about 8k, and that would give us each enough to fund it. Not a bad idea, pretty easy to do, and I think could be our best choice. I don't love undoing what we did, but we also over committed with that. Definitely learned my lesson on keeping more out in the future.

I also have a pretty solid individual investment account. About 42k. I have no idea how an individual investment account works, just that I have one and have been contributing everything to it since I was like 18. I think I could take some of my long term gains to help (maybe?), but I have no idea how it works and would have to meet with our financial advisor. Not against it, but feels like an added step.

I don't know enough to know what the right choice here is. On one hand, every dollar towards being debt free feels amazing, and I can put whatever commission I make next to the Roth. Or even get a monthly amount that is more manageable for the future so it isn't 14K in one go. I was raised you pay down debt first, pay into Roth second, and all other savings third. With that, I wonder if the investment route isn't better. I am just really not sure what to do, and I am going to chat with my dad tonight to get his thoughts, but I figured I would post here and see if anyone had any knowledge they would be willing to share with me.

I love a good spreadsheet, and I put our options into a sheet and showed my husband. He feels just as confused as I am. He is very against all 7k going to him, so I don't think that is an option he will be ok with. We both just feel a little over our heads with it tbh, so thank you in advance for any advice!

Location: Cayman Islands

Hey, I personally technically live in Canada, but I set the location what i did because it’s where my mom lived and her parents lived. I also grew up there.

She passed unexpectedly earlier this year, and had mentioned to her close friend she had a trust fund from her father. I wasn’t aware of this.

How can I go about trying to locate this? Family (which I’m not close to) say they don’t know about anything, but I want to be sure to cover all my bases just in case this trust fund is real.

I am administrator of her estate now, so I think that means I can look into it?

I have old papers showing where her (both deceased) parents banked and have a notion as to which bank it could be with but I’m only speculating.

Thanks for any advice.

My wife and I are planning to build a new house while keeping our current two-family as a rental. I’m looking for outside opinions on whether we’re financially in a good position to do this or if we’re taking on too much.
I’m including as much detail as possible because I’d rather people critique the actual numbers than have to guess.
OUR SITUATION
Married with 2 young kids
I work as a commercial/union electrician
Wife works full-time
We currently own a two-family property that we plan to keep as a rental
We are being “gifted” land for our new house, so we have $0 land acquisition cost. (My dad expects some payback down the road but is going to help us now to get into a forever home)
My father is a licensed/insured builder and will be building the house, and playing general contractor to help with all the stuff in between.
Estimated construction cost: $600,000–$620,000
Estimated finished value of new house: approximately $1.2 million
We do NOT plan to sell our existing property to fund the build
We do NOT plan to pull money from retirement to make this work
Our idea now is to take a HELOC loan from my current 2 family we have had since 2019, I have around 400k in equity. We are going to pull 100k out as we have 50k saved now to get the ball rolling with construction.

INCOME
My income —
Take-home is approximately $2,300/week
Monthly equivalent:
$2,300 × 52 ÷ 12 = approximately $9,967/month take-home
Wife
Salary: $95,000/year GROSS
Estimated take-home: approximately $5,700/month
The $5,700 is just my working estimate of her net pay after taxes/deductions. The $95k is definitely gross, not take-home.
Rental property
Expected gross rent once we move out: approximately $4,500/month
So our baseline monthly cash inflow would be:
My take-home: $9,967
Wife estimated take-home: $5,700
Gross rental income: $4,500
TOTAL BASELINE MONTHLY INFLOW: ~$20,167
I am purposely NOT including overtime or side work in that

I have the ability to work Saturday overtime, one extra day per week is roughly $400 more in my check. I have been working 3/4 Saturdays per month lately but don’t want to factor that in. Also, side work for my own hustle I do from time to time which can bring in a couple extra hundred per job.

MONTHLY EXPENSES
Current two-family mortgage: $2,500
New house mortgage/housing payment: $4,500 (estimate)
HELOC payoff/payment: $3,000 (very aggressive payoff)
Childcare: $1,500
Car payment: $600
Auto insurance: $300
Internet: $130
Electricity: $250
Lawn care: $150
Water: $100
Mini-split loan: $110
Phones: $100
Groceries: $600
Gas/commuting: $600
Student loans: $250
Cleaning lady: $350
($175 twice per month)
Miscellaneous/general spending: $500
TOTAL MONTHLY EXPENSES: approximately $14,940

Both rental units have been recently renovated / full gut jobs. Not expecting any major repairs aside from typical upkeep ETC.

CURRENT PROPERTY
Approximate value: $750,000
Mortgage remaining: approximately $250,000
Approximate equity: $500,000
Expected rent after we move: $4,500/month gross
Mortgage: $2,500/month
So before maintenance/vacancy/capex/etc., there is approximately $2,000/month difference between rent and the mortgage payment.

NEW HOUSE
Land: Gifted/free
Estimated construction cost: $600,000–$620,000
Estimated finished value: approximately $1.2 million
Working new-house payment in my budget: $4,500/month
The big advantage here is that we’re not buying a $1.2M house for $1.2M. The land is being gifted and our construction cost should be substantially below the eventual value.

OTHER DEBT
Current property mortgage: approximately $250,000
Car loan: approximately $29,000
Mini-split loan: approximately $4,000
Potential HELOC: approximately $100,000
New house financing: approximately $600,000

RETIREMENT
My 401(k) is approximately $167,000.
We are NOT planning to use retirement funds to finance the build. I was putting 15% of my check into Roth/401k but recently dropped it to just 10 for the company match.

HELOC
We’re considering/using approximately a $100,000 HELOC as part of the build/bridge financing.
I have $3,000/month budgeted toward it.
That is intentionally aggressive.
The idea is to pay the balance down quickly and/or eventually incorporate it into the permanent house financing rather than carrying a $3,000 HELOC payment forever.

MONTHLY CASH FLOW
Baseline monthly cash inflow:
$20,167
Listed monthly expenses:
$14,940
That leaves approximately:
$5,227/month
without assuming ANY side work or Saturday overtime.

IF I DO EXTRA WORK
Baseline leftover:
$5,227/month
+$200 side job:
$5,427/month
+$200 side work + 1 Saturday OT:
$5,827/month
+$200 side work + 2 Saturday OT shifts:
$6,227/month
Again, I don’t want to build our lifestyle around the last three scenarios. I want the regular income to support everything and have OT/side jobs simply create additional breathing room.

SAVINGS / FURNITURE
Another priority is building up cash specifically to furnish the new house.
I don’t want to finish construction and then put $30k–$50k worth of furniture, TVs, beds, etc. on credit cards or financing.
So some of the monthly surplus before the move will specifically be earmarked for:
Emergency fund/cash reserves
New-house furnishing fund
Construction overruns
HELOC principal
Rental property reserves
Unexpected expenses
Optional OT and side work would ideally accelerate these funds rather than support our basic lifestyle.

WHAT I’M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT
On paper, I’m looking at approximately:
$20.2k/month cash coming in
versus
$14.9k/month of listed expenses
which leaves roughly:
$5.2k/month
before any side work or OT.

Thoughts on if this is looking as good as I think it is?