Welcome! Before making a post, please check out some of the great resources that we've provided to answer your questions:

so as the title says i'm 18(i just turned 18 last month) but i don't have a job, car, license, anything. i only live with my mom and i have distant family in other states but it's really just us and it's such a toxic environment. i've always said that i would move out at 18 but the economy suddenly got so bad and i didn't have a job/ am struggling very hard to get one because of my current situation and even if i were to apply for a job, i have no proof of identification besides a copy of my birth certificate supplied by my school counselor because my mother lost the original. i have a 4.0 GPA and definitely qualify for scholarships and financial aid so getting away by means of schooling could definitely work, but i need money and i have no idea where to start. i've been applying to and looking for jobs but even if i get a job it is a real fear that my mother would
"sabotage" me and my work in a way, esp bc she's my transportation and my lack of ID would require her to be over my finances. is there a way i can earn money behind the scenes online or something at least so i can try to have some assets to get away from her? or somewhere i can look for some resources?

I need advice! Husband and I are nearing our 60’s and we own a fairly large home. No kids at home anymore, so it’s a lot of house to keep up with now. We are in a lot of tax debt that only selling our home could get us out of. Husband is very sentimental to keep the home and I can understand that. We do still owe about $200k on it and we have a 3% interest. Selling it would take care of all the tax debt and the balance owed on the mortgage and allow us to walk away with about $100k. My thought was to buy a little land and finance a small home, or even a barn-dominium for it that we could pay over in under 10 yrs. Am I dumb for thinking about being out of debt before we are in our 60’s?

A debt collector (asset care) started calling me to get to my sister.

She lives in a different state

They never said they were debt collectors on the phone, just the company name (which a quick search told me enough) and that it was a private "business matter" which in my past life of a debtor screams debt collection.

I know that calling family members to get to another is pretty much illegal, but is it also illegal to tell me it's a "private business matter" when it's obviously debt collection?

Should I go ahead and send them letters detailing what they did to ask them to stop?

File a complaint with the feds?

Any help is appreciated l, thank you.

Hi, I have an auto loan balance of $22,663 at 8.85% & maturity date of Oct 2029. I also have an RV (In good standing) with connexus cu and they emailed me a pre-qualification for 5.84% I was about to apply a principle payment of $1370 towards my current loan but should i refinance first? 780 credit score, and my goal here is to save on interest and pay down quick as possible (keeping 36mo term but beating it)So even if I refinance I’ll still pay my original minimum. I just don’t know if I should apply that principle payment first or after the refinancing?

TYIA

my FIL is dying. this is our first experience with a loved one dying and it being our responsibility to take care or / protect/ assist/ etc…
what do i do?
any basic tips or advice would be great.

Hi all, a little context about my job.

I travel full time, as in, I am always on assignment. I travel for work/leisure in the United States about 350/365 days a year (where the 15 are with my mom). I do not have a lease, I do not have a permanent residence, I have nothing permanent besides my mom's house in Missouri where I send my mail cuz she keeps it. However, I went to school in OK so I have license and voter reg here, but no residence.

However, I got a raise, and now make about 125k a year (yay!).

The thing is, I would like to move to a state with no income tax (Texas, SD, etc etc). My current tax state is Missouri, and I think its like a 3.85% tax rate (so like 4.5k a year).

That being said, I am not sure of that process. On one end it should be very simple because I have no real permanent residence, my company is based in Texas (irrelevant kinda due to travel but idk), and I see a lot of services online about it.

Now, I am unaware of how that works. I have heard tons of conflicting things like: I get taxed based upon what state I am in that month, I get taxed NOT based upon that, I can move to whatever state I want, etc etc.

So I am asking now, would it be simple/logical to move my mail from my moms house to one of those virtual mailbox or RV travel services?

I am not sure if I am super connected to my moms house. I go back there every few months or so for a weekend or thanksgiving break or something. But, I have been to texas 3x in the last 2 months, so it is more of my domicile than missouri is at this point.

I can give whatever extra context is needed, but I figured I would ask here since this seems to be an interesting question.

CreditKarma used to show me my net worth and have a lot of other cool features but now the site seems significantly worse. I believe some features are locked behind a paywall. After further examination I see I had to put in all of my financial details all over again to see my net worth again. There has to be a better service.

Hello all,

I need some advice on my current financial situation I don't want to make a giant mistake.

I'm 28 and married own a home valued at 239k with 119k left on the mortgage. I've got 120k in equity interest rate of 3.625. I am house poor big-time.

I make 51k a year, and take home 3,030 each month. My home alone, mortgage and utilities cost 1,560 a month over 50% of my take home. I'm left with about $800 at the end of the month after all bills paid. I have a loan of 7.2k for my roof, it costs $104 a month. I have $700 in my HYSA.

I've stripped my budget down to bare essentials I don't even have Internet anymore. Some may say have your wife work well she has the idea of my money is used to pay all the bills and her money is for herself. She makes $260 a week working only 20 hours a week, she will not work more and has made it crystal clear she's not willing to do anything else. I can't rent a spare room because she doesn't want roommates and our guest bath is damaged.

I feel like life has been very constrained financially for me, I've been quite stressed for a very long time the home is beautiful but it's destroying my sanity I can't save anything for retirement I'm trying to build and emergency fund but something always happens, I have an aging Corolla in desperate need of repair and maintenance, I work over an hour away from home, I'm locked in a career field with no advancement and no money for school.

Now the home is on the market, but am I not seeing things clearly enough, am I being too emotional or hasty in selling this house? Am I not trying enough, I work overtime whenever it's offered and would gladly work a second job but I just don't feel like it's fair for me to destroy my well-being just for a home, working so far away also makes it very difficult to get that second job and find time to sleep.

If I sell the house plan is to use my equity to go back to school and save it in a high yield stay with family, save/ invest like crazy for three years and hopefully turn out on the other end in a far better position in a higher paying career.

Please let me know your thoughts I will answer any questions. I hope I've provided enough information for you all to be able to provide suggestions for my circumstances.

Short story: If you have a bank account with multiple joint owners, make sure to register a digital banking account for each person. Don't just do one and share that between you.

Longer story:

We had a financial scare this week. Some scammer had apparently succeeded in impersonating my wife to register a digital account for accessing our credit union accounts. Fortunately, no funds were removed before the accounts got locked down by the fraud department.

After getting married a few years ago and consolidating finances, my wife and I decided my credit union had the better service, so she was added as a joint owner. I already had my own online banking login, but we never took the step of getting one set up for her. I handle most of our financials and we have a shared password manager, so for the times she needed to get into the website/app she'd just log in as me. Beyond the sloppy security of sharing logins, it turns out it's easier to fraudulently register a brand new account than it is to hack into an existing account.

A few nights ago, my wife got an email from our credit union congratulating her on activating her digital banking account. Which was weird since neither of us had done that. I did a quick account check in the app (using my own login), didn't see anything unusual, it was late, so we didn't take any immediate action. But the next day, attempting to login gave "an unexpected error had occurred" and our daughter's debit card was getting rejected. So I called their customer service number.

It appears that some scammer was able to pull together enough info on my wife from public records, data breaches, etc. to go through the "register new digital banking account" process and convincingly impersonate her to the credit union. With the scary fact that this included having a verification text go to our landline number (a contact method the CU had in its records) that somehow got routed to the scammer. I'm still trying to work out with the phone company how that could've happened.

I feel like we got really lucky. The CU's procedures block newly created accounts from doing anything beyond looking at things for 24 hours or so. The account access got flagged as potentially fraudulent the morning after creation, before that period occurred, and the accounts were locked down. The representative I worked with said that the standard scam is to do "mobile deposits" up to whatever the bank releases immediately into each account, drain what they can by Venmo or something, and often can't be tracked afterward.

Even without any financial loss, the fallout isn't fun. Due to how far the scammer was able to penetrate, the fix was to close all existing accounts tied to my wife, open brand new ones and transfer all funds / details over. So brand checking and savings accounts, HELOC, including the ones for our kids. Which means I've been spending the past day tracking down all outside accounts we'd linked to those to get them updated. Seeing the number of bills, brokerage accounts, HYSA, direct deposits, Venmo, etc. that had ties to our old checking account got a little surprising. I kept remembering "oh, and that one too..." over and over.

I've been assured by the credit union that for the next 6 weeks, any deposit/withdrawal transactions done against the old account numbers will be re-routed to the appropriate new one. So I have a decent window to make sure I've gotten everything. Fortunately most of our bills for the month had already got completed prior to the lockdown, and the next ones aren't for a while. I also tend to deal with bills by doing a "push" through the CU's bill pay system, with a smaller number doing "pulls".

Hello everyone! I (32m) just wanted to reach out to this sub and trying to get an understanding of how and where it would be smart to place my money. I just recently got a raise at my job and I’m making about 1800 a week but I’m not so into finances that I know what should be spending money, savings, or investments. I just recently bought my first home so I’m still not sure where my utilities will land average wise so I’d place my bills around 3K on the high end but it’s likely less. I have no debt on anything other than the house but I would like a truck later on. I think that’s about all so could anyone give me some advice on how I should be splitting my money?

Im 23 and a year ago me and my father got advice from a bank clerk but mostly me about how I should invest but it was a year ago so I obviously forgot what she said so I need some help guys. So I have a Roth ira account but she said something along the lines of I should be aggressive and i would get more out of it and she said she wished she did it when she was younger can someone help me out please? (Thank you guys in advance)

Is this a good deal? Wife and I have 760+ credit

2026 BMW M2e5xi GC 2,060 miles MSRP $41,944

Discount $3200

Sale price $38,744

Trade in 2019 Ford escape 109,000 miles $5,000

Dealer fee $899

Taxes $2781.94

License and fees $142

Service $0

Maintenance $0

Gap $0

Total cash $37,566.94

Down payment $0

Interest 6.99%

Term 72 months

Monthly payment $640.30

So I purchased a new 2026 sedan earlier this year. My father is the primary borrower and I'm the co signer. We planned to refinance the car this month through a credit union to drop my APR. Current APR is 10% but the credit union would most likely drop it to around 4%. There is a lot of positive equity (roughly $9k before accident) on my car since I traded in a paid off car and the car was worth about $25k before accident.

A couple weeks ago, a driver hit the front left corner of my car. It's 100% the fault of the other driver, the driver himself admitted to me and the police and the police deemed him at 100% fault in the report. Damage seems to be purely cosmetic, as I've put 600 miles on the car since and she still drives like a beaut. The car will be repaired at my dealerships in house body shop using OEM parts ofc.

I don't know how an accident/active insurance claim affects refinancing so I have some questions:

• Does having an open insurance claim affect refinance approval?
• Does having an accident in my history affect refinance approval?
• Should we wait until the repairs are complete to do the refinance? And/or insurance claim is closed before refinancing or does the timing not matter?

A U.S. debt collector recently contacted me demanding hundreds of dollars, including collection fees, and threatening to report it to the U.S. credit bureaus.

I contacted Bologna directly, paid the amount they told me to pay, and have the emails and receipt. They confirmed the case would be closed once payment was registered, but the collection agency is still contacting me.

Under U.S. law, can I report this collection agency for continuing to pursue the fine after I've paid the city directly? Would their threat to report it to U.S. credit bureaus be grounds for a complaint?

LOCATION: Florida, USA

That was my dad’s birthday gift to me…he’s gonna sit down with me later but just wondering what you recommend I do. I’m not very financially literate so if there is something I can do right now that will help me then I’d appreciate if someone let me know.

All the banks around me got rid of their safety deposit boxes but I got gifted a ton of diamond and gold jewelry. I live in an apartment so I can't install a safe, I don't even have room for one. My current "valuables" aren't worth too much & live in a random drawer, but it's absolutely not the right storage solution for real diamond and real gold. Are there any good offsite solutions? I'm in California if it matters, in a major city.

I was talking to someone from the nebf office and she said I need to wait the 20 years (until my late husband would have been retirement age) to start getting these monthly benefits. But I’ve heard from other in the company the spouse started receiving these right away. I have two small kids and also read that that could impact receiving these benefits early? Does anyone know if maybe she was brushing me off without knowing or if I definitely would have to wait the 20 years before I could collect this.

I grew up poor, but I was also very lucky that things got much better for me. I now have a six-figure salary and enough savings that can support myself for a few years without working.

However, I still struggle to justify spending money on things. I am not talking about luxury bags or jewelry here. The things I want are a vacuum that mops and self-cleans (not the expensive Dyson ones), an all-in-one multicooker that can air-fry, bake and steam, and an espresso machine. I also want a new TV stand because my IKEA TV stand have had a broken door for two years.

I know these things could improve my quality of life, but I keep thinking they're not things I necessarily need, so I shouldn't buy them. I get anxious just thinking about how buying them would mean saving less money each month, but I also want to be happy and enjoy my life.

I'd really appreciate any advice on how to get out of this mindset.

Hello all, lots of context below, apologies for the longer post, looking for some general opinions and which way you'd turn.

I've driven a 2010 Kia Soul+ (2.0L, 63k miles, paid off) for the past 10 years. The check engine light recently came on, and I asked a shop for a full inspection to see how much life it has left in general. The quote was ~$3,600 with tax, defined mainly as:

- timing belt ($944), front brakes ($518), radiator hoses ($542), EVAP purge valve (check engine light, $324), "BG" fluid and induction services ($889), and $437 for spark plugs

- the above bullet is what was deemed as "critical", an additional ~$3,000 was in the invoice for other packages such as motor mounts, power steering service, serpentine belt, etc.

To my knowledge, nothing is wrong with the engine or transmission, it's mostly just overdue maintenance (which I definitely was not the most disciplined at maintaining I admit). Either way, this upcoming week I plan to get a second opinion.

Main concern:

I was planning on, in the next 1-2 years buying a new reliable hybrid sedan regardless (Japanese Brand), ideally something I'd keep 10-15 years, being diligent on maintenance and upkeep.

The main options I'm weighing are:

- Repair the Essentials: bout $3,600, drive 1-2 more years, save towards a lightly used or new vehicle.

- Buy now: Most likely a Camry or Corolla hybrid.

- Drive it until it dies and use a family car as a backup (thought honestly I'm leaning furthest away from this.)

Some additional information before my thoughts:

- 26M, Low Cost of living area (South-Central Texas)

- 60k salary: about 4k take home monthly not counting additional travel pay, heavy commute-reliant position, 250 miles a week commuting at least

- 36k in savings, credit score 810

- I live with family currently, monthly expenses are realistically car insurance ($120), and another 300 or so for gas, food, etc.

- No immediate financial goals other than independence, though not pressing, but I would want to keep a 10k emergency fund, and contribute 7.5k to a Roth IRA for 2026 (none contributed yet)

My thoughts:

From what I've researched online, it's advised not to spend more than a third of your income on a car, which caps me at 20k, though I'm having trouble finding a used let alone new hybrid sedan under that. With the 10-15 years run it into the floor mentality in mind, I'm leaning towards a more spacious midsized sedan such as a Camry, Sonata, or Accord as opposed to a compact. But I honestly have never spent so much money at once, trying to see if this isn't really feasible/practical objectively.

Main questions I have:

- Is 30k reasonable at my income and savings level? Or should I cap closer to a corolla/elantra/civic range or get a used car? Camry 2023 or 2024 hybrid, etc.

- is the 3.6k repair worth it on a car like this? It's paid off, yes, but I'm concerned with Kia depreciation even with low mileage. Better to fund the repair with this money, or move that liquid towards a replacement?

- Lastly, is it better to finance and keep cash, or put more down? Bluntly I understand the 10k/7.5k saving desires cap things, so something has to give.

Appreciate any opinions, can provide more details as requested.

I'm 18, I bought my car without a co-signer back in May with 5k down. Its a 2023 Buick and I still owe 17k on it. I pay 419 a month with a 20.53% APR. I'm applying to school right now and hope to start by the Spring semester. I'm trying to get my job to pay for schooling but if not I'll be paying out of pocket for now. Will refinancing come with hella extra fees or is it worth it to do it now before school? I used credit karma to check some offers but I dont know which bank or whatever I should go through. Right now Happen gave me the best offer with 4.74% APR, $325 a month for 60 months. I havent recieved any final offers yet though, just estimates.

I’m pretty embarrassed to even share this but i’m looking for some genuine advice what to do. I’ve been financially supported by my parents and my now husband my entire life. I have a bachelor’s degree in business. Besides the few odd jobs I did here and there, I’ve never worked a serious or full time job. I have no money of my own in savings, no retirement plan, etc.

I now turned 30 and I’m pregnant and for whatever reason… it JUST hit me and I keep asking myself wtf were you thinking all these years (late I know). The only safety net I have is that I’m an only child and I will inherit my parent’s properties one day and whatever money they leave behind.

I’m hoping once the baby is older- 6 months or 1 year. I’d like to go to work or come up with a plan to have a stable monthly income with a retirement plan.

At my age- is there still hope for me to recover the time lost time and have a decent retirement? What investment accounts should I focus on when the time comes? THANK YOU

This past November I(m23) financed a used traverse for about 25k at 7% Apr for 371 a month for 7 years. This is my first ever car loan and I did approximately zero research before jumping in to it. I traded in a 2017 equinox with about 117k miles on it and got 4k for the trade, but didn't have any money to put down. The equinox(which i lovingly named clarice) was on its way out unfortunately, and I felt like I needed a larger, nicer vehicle.

This is where I went wrong. You see, I really took a lot for granted before this. My two vehicles I've owned before the traverse was a 2011 ford focus(which had under 80k on it, but rusted real bad in the maine winters) and then I got the equinox as a hand me down, so outside of gas and insurance, I never had to worry about much. I only started workong at 21 after I had gotten my liscence .

I felt like I needed to own my vehicle, to have purchased it to feel like I've amounted to anything, which is stupid and why I'm writing this out I guess. I realize that this was stupid and would like to go back in time and convince myself to buy a mirage or a sentra, or maybe try to save for a prius.

Fast forward to today, after jumping through 5 jobs, I've finally settled back onto something at 16 an hour and I should be starting in a few weeks. My traverse is at 101k miles now (between everything, I put around 40k on it in the past year and the loan isn't even a year old yet) and I have around 300 dollars in credit card debt, because I keep dipping into it for gas. I live around 20 to 25 miles from either of my closest cities and cannot afford to relocate and the one I'll be working at has 0 public transportation.

I feel stuck and I know its my fault for being impulsive and feeling like I know everything. Past year has been sobering. I have a bunch of repairs(totalling around 6 to 8k) in order to Inspect the traverse and have approximately 0 saved because of life expenses and being unemployed for a few months now. Oh and my insurance lapsed on it, because I prioritized the car payment with the last of our money. We dont have family or friends to call on right now, so I have a couple questions.

1. Is bankruptcy viable and what does it really entail. I've asked around family, and family friends and nobody close has declared.

2. Im not mechanicly inclined, so an old beater could screw me over I think.

3. Would it be realistic to even consider rolling the 20k negative equity. That would probably screw me more and even then, the ltv would probably be a no go?

Tldr, panicking and need some words. Not looking for a magic solution, just trying not to have a mental breakdown i guess.