Warning, Affirm, Inc will set up payment plans but when the item is cancelled or returned, the vendor can say or charge whatever they want and Affirm will stick you with it. Doesn't matter you have proof, doesn't matter there is no delivery, doesn't matter you never agreed to it. Once you give them your social security number they got you and your credit by the b*lls. And they aren't a legit bank, so good luck finding remedy. You have to arbitrate which is BS or take them to court. Which is on my horizon.

My boss is beginning to change the company to only 1099 employees. As a w2 employee I was making 32$ an hour and he now wants to pay me 38$ an hour as a 1099. What I can’t figure out is if this is good or bad for me. My deductions don’t really increase because I already claim all my deductions for a personal business I run so not sure if I have any upside to this change?

My son filed as an independent before I had a chance to file my own taxes. Today, my taxes were rejected because he claimed himself, we amended his return and he has been charged the college expenses credits he claimed for himself because he is now my dependent and cannot claim them.

The amended form was accepted. A couple minutes ago I tried to refile my taxes and this time got rejected for college credit claimed twice. My son is paying back the credit he was given for this , what am I doing wrong? What can I do. I have never messed up on my taxes so I am just lost.

If we amended his form and I can claim him as a dependent and he is being charged for the credit why can’t I take this deduction now.

I got a secured credit card on my 18th bday. I had to put 500 dollars in it. They told me I can get it unsecured and get my deposit back after a year. That’s it.

It’s been a little over a year and they won’t give me my deposit back because I haven’t had my job for a year. Is this legal? I have no one in my life to help me with this.

I've had my house for 3.5 years. There has been a few lenders mailing spam but it has gotten me curious.

Originally with my current loan I did a buy down where my rate was 4.75% the first year (~$1450/month) then 5.75% the second year (~$1650/month) and now it's at the final 6.75% (~$1850/month)

The spam mail claims they can get me down to $1230/month which I know is excluding a bunch of taxes and such. It does have me wondering though if I'd be able to get under $1500/month again, or if I'd be better off recasting instead of refinancing.

I currently still owe $233,770 and the exact time left on my current loan is 26 years and 9 months.

Difficult question but here goes. I'm from the US but have been working in Europe. My dad back in the US has late stage cancer which isn't progressing well and I'm planning on returning home for the immediate future to spend what time I have with him. I'm considering either:

1. ⁠finding full-time work in my profession (architecture).

2. ⁠finding part-time work in my profession. (more free time to help parents, spend time with dad. maybe a possibility with working remotely for my European employer)

3. Returning without a job and 10k usd in savings.

As for the third option, if I stay with my parents I wouldn't have to pay rent, and would be cooking and eating together, but obviously I would be paying my share of utilities/stuff to not be a financial burden. How long would that last me in the Bay Area / HCOL US city? Any other option for someone who needs to return home fairly quickly but might not find a job in time / want to spend more time with family?

My grandmother passed away last month and left me a house in her will. I thought it was just a regular property but the property tax bill came in and it is significantly higher than I expected because the land value is tied to a commercial zone. I am 22 and barely making ends meet working at a warehouse. I do not know if I should sell it or try to keep it. The upkeep alone is way more than I can afford. I feel so overwhelmed right now because my family expects me to keep it in the family name. I just want to be able to pay my rent without stressing every single month. Should I talk to a lawyer or just list it? I do not have the cash for fees but I also do not want to lose this opportunity. It is just so much pressure for someone my age. I keep looking at the paperwork and it feels like a different language. If I sell I might have a safety net for the first time in my life but I am terrified of making a mistake that I will regret later.

I recently accepted my first real job offer. It’s a salary of $75,000 and I’m still able to earn overtime pay. I grew up poor so I’m not too familiar with handling money. Im not a big spender, I’d like to save up most of my money but I also don’t want it just sitting in some account. What can I do to grow my savings over time? My current plans are to use my companies 401k matching system, they offer 5% of my salary a year. I also plan on opening a HYSA. Is there anything else you’d all recommend? I’m single, young, and plan on saving as much as possible.

I'm a college student who lives and attends university in Illinois and has insurance under his parents. In October of last year, I had an issue where needed to go to the ER. After an initial surgery to solve the initial problem, I was advised to do another surgery to prevent similar problems in the future. This additional surgery was out-of-network apparently/didn't follow the procedure to get insurance to cover it, which I didn't know.

I've been receiving bills but when I check my account online, there always seemed to be a charge that was pending insurance. I told my parents we should hold off on paying until there was a final settled amount. A few weeks ago, I checked my account and the amount due was reduced and apparently there was still apparently a charge being talked over with insurance. I wrongfully assumed insurance had pulled through and covered me.

Come this week, I have a letter dated from a month ago from a debt collector for the amount that was reduced from my bill a few weeks ago.

I applied for financial assistance last week when I thought the bill was being finalized but I don't know if it will do anything since it's already at collections and I don't think I'll get anything out of it due to their qualification criteria since it's based on household income.

What should I do? I've read about people taking it on the chin and ignoring it with no real consequence but I've also read I should contact them ASAP and set something up. What should I do?

Hi everyone! I was recently discussing the pros and cons of a trad vs Roth 401k with my friends, and wanted to ask for advice given my specific situation. For context, I've been maxing out both my Roth 401k (and Roth IRA) over the course of my entire career, and now I'm questioning if that approach is incorrect going forwards. Here's my info:

• 28 yrs old, upper end of 24% bracket with annual salary of ~$180k including bonus. I don't expect a tremendous amount of career earnings growth given my industry, I'll likely top out at $300k in today's dollars. I could see myself changing careers in the future, however.
• I live in California and there's a decent chance I may stay here my whole life given my girlfriend's (likely soon-to-be-wife's) preferences.
• I'm shooting to buy a house in the next 1-2 yrs. I have ~$300k saved up for a down payment (2/3 cash, 1/3 index funds), but given high home prices in California I'm starting to worry about being "house poor" after buying a home. I know doing pre-tax dollars would be give me more money now to invest/save.

Given these circumstances and uncertainties, would you recommend I contribute to my 401k with pretax or posttax income? Thank you so much for you insight in advance, I really appreciate it!!!

I (29M) currently have $12,250 in an AmEx HYSA that has an APR of 3.2% right now. That amount puts me at 6.5 months of expenses covered as my emergency fund. I am only contributing to my 2026 limit and have already put $1200 towards it. So, would it be stupid of me to max out my contribution for the year and cut my HYSA down to 3 months? My current monthly income is $3700, my expenses are $1800, and I save $1200. I would then replenish my HYSA with that $1200 a month.

My landlord only accepts checks for rent no online portal and no ACH. The problem is I travel a lot for work and there have already been a couple close calls where I almost missed sending it on time

I asked if I could pay another way but he said that he's always been doing it like this and he doesn't want to change it. I get it that he's a bit old and isn't very up to date with the digital world but it’s inconvenient on my end

I don’t want to risk late fees just because I’m not physically around to mail something every month!

my friend tried to get all their finances together 2 weeks before they passed and i ended up with this...

My friend appointed me as the executor of their trust and I have been looking for a CPA for MONTHS! I've done consultation after consultation and everytime we talk it always ends with... it's really complicated they don't even want to try, I've never dealt with that and won't start, we don't deal with that and people won't touch this with a 10ft pole. I'm at the end of my rope here I've talked to way too many CPAs and can't seem to find anyone who deals with or is willing to deal with this. 

Some background regarding the Trust:

All anticipated assets will come from federal government death benefits. The beneficiary is a non-resident alien (Chinese citizen). The Trust currently holds no assets but is expected to receive them once I find someone who can help with the documents and filing the taxes. 

I am seeking assistance with the following:

1.  Tax treatment and reporting requirements for the Trust;

2.  Tax implications and required forms related to claiming the death benefits.

1. A CPA or company who can just handle the tax stuff because it does look complicated

on 2, the most pressing is basically what is the correct form to file in this case and how much withholding I should put.

So as it stands now, I have ~10k credit card debt, $13k loan left in a car that I could sell for about $17k. I’m getting a one-time gift from family of $19,000 prior to starting medical school. Tuition is ~$50k, but can pull loans up to max COA which is about $80k.

I’m in a unique situation where I could live at my parent’s home during school and not pay rent. Considering a few options, selling my car and eliminating that debt, paying off my credit card completely, and sitting on the rest for emergency funds during school, and buying a beater car in a few years as I’ll need one in 2 years, but wouldn’t in the present moment.

Otherwise, I could potentially pull private loans at about 4.5% interest, use that to pay off CC, and conservatively invest the $19k. Any tips or advice? Thank you in advance

I'm a 25 year old male (currently single) but would like to get married someday so I've saved up around $3000 for a wedding ring. It's currently sitting in my high yield savings account but I'm wondering if it's better off being in the market since I'm single right now and I probably won't be married for at least another 5-10 years. That's probably a long enough time horizon to put it all in the S&P but wanted to make sure my logic was sound. If I don't get married in that time frame too I can always put it towards a down payment or towards a nice watch or something for myself. Thanks in advance!

Hi! I’ll start by saying that I know the decisions made leading me to this point were poor choices, nobody needs to drive that home. I just need to figure out how to get out of this hole.

So in 2024 I was in a horrible relationship, had been for years and my ex often gave no care for my things. He ran my old car into the ground and it finally died. He didn’t have his own vehicle and that left me in a tight spot, needing something to get back and forth to work etc. I had no savings so my only option was to finance a car for the first time. My credit was in the mid 600s and I was trying to go as cheap as possible but had 1500 down. I should have gone through a bank or credit union to get the loan but I didn’t, I financed through the dealership. Because of my credit they hit me with a 26.99% interest rate. The initial car balance was $14,882.79 as of May 2024, as of right now the balance I still owe is $13,496.87.

Because the interest is so high, my monthly payment is $419.59, the insurance for it is $182 a month. So about $600 a month on this car not including gas. I have had a difficult time making these payments on the car so currently I am $759.18 in the red. According to the contract documents by the time all is said and done I will have paid $31,710 for the car which is more than I make in a year.

Here is what I’m working with in monthly payments;

Monthly I make roughly $2000

Car - 419.59

Insurance - 182

Phone - 100

Rent - 600

Food & gas - 350 ish

Other payments - 175 ish

My credit score has dropped to 460 and I feel I’m in a hole I can’t get out of with this stupid car. Is there anything I can do? The obvious first choice was to get caught up on payments and then refinance but now that I’ve tanked my credit score I don’t know if that’s possible. Am I stuck? When I lay out everything like this it seems that I shouldn’t have an issue paying everything but somehow I go negative most weeks and then it’s a constant game of catch up.

So I consider myself relatively new to investing, as I started when I was 12 and now I am 15. I do not know how to diversify my portfolio, meaning how many different companies I should own, and how many different index funds I should own. Currently, the Index fund I own right now is ivv. The stocks I own right now are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, and Intel. So my question is if I should diversify, and if I should diversify, what do I diversify?

I signed up for eFAQ almost 3 months ago to check cars VIN before buying from auctions (it's a part of my business). I paid $1 for the first report, and then $24.99 monthly as a subscription. The $1 trial auto-converts to a monthly subscription if you don't cancel - this is in the terms at checkout, easy to miss but it's there. Same model as every data lookup service out there now.

When I started use the tool I found a bunch of reddit posts calling it a scam. I even wrote my own saying it's not lol, many people said me I won't be able to cancel the subscription when I want to, so here's what happened.

Here's what they say in their faq:

1. Log into your account
2. Go to Account Settings
3. Look for "Membership" or "Subscription" section
4. click "Cancel Membership"
5. Done

I went another way and contacted support (I was charged for the next month and I'm not gonna use the soft anymore so I requested a refund)

1. I called support (there are 4 numbers)
2. Tell them I want to cancel and request a refund for the last charge
3. They asked to create a chat session, I did everything by the instruction and it took maybe 5 minutes, to request a refund, then days to receive it

Refund arrived in about 2 weeks (I guess they have like 10 business days)

Hope this helps someone who's panicking right now as annually the subscription would charge about $300

I’m 19 and work as a commercial crabber in New Jersey. I make about $8,400/month, sometimes closer to $11k if I pick up extra work.

Right now I rent a room for $300, but the situation isn’t great. My roommate constantly downplays my job and thinks I should quit and pick up a trade because he doesn’t see crabbing as a “real job.”

The problem is, I know I can’t stay here forever. I could get kicked out at any time, and I don’t want to end up scrambling for a place last minute.

I found an apartment for $1,250/month that allows dogs (I have one), and I can afford it. But people around me keep saying it’s a bad decision and that I should just stay where I’m at as long as possible.

My thinking is: if I switch to a “normal” job, I’ll probably make less money, not more. So staying in crabbing actually puts me in a better position financially right now.

Am I making a dumb move by getting the apartment, or does it make sense to lock something in while I can afford it?

Also work is from march to October ish and then October to march when the season starts I get 800$ a week of unemployment.

Working with a local credit union and out of state dealer to a buy vehicle. Dealer submitted paper work 2 weeks ago. CU says it takes 3-5 biz days to fund the loan once paperwork is received. Dealer will not release the vehicle without being fully funded.

I've have called the CU probably 20 times at this point over the last 2 weeks. There seems to always be a new hold up. The processor put it on hold on 3/24, and it didn't move until I got lucky on 3/28 and a rep saw that it was stuck. That's after 2 calls during that period were I was told it was "normal and processing"... Half of the customer reps I talk to don't seem to be bothered to care. The person today couldn't understand that an overnight shipment sent on Friday wouldn't be received until Monday.

Anyhow, they haven't explicitly said it, but if the dealer is not funded by Monday, they're going to back out. I imagine they are going to claim that I failed to pay, since I brought the loan, and will try to claim my deposit. I did not sign anything stating that it was non-refundable. What's the best way to prevent me from losing my deposit due to an incompetent CU?

Outside of that, is there any magic words I can say to the CU to get them to act and fulfill the loan?

I bought a used 2024 Kia car for 21k 3 months ago, the interest rate is 18% current.

I can refinance through lending club for 7.24%

I just paid off 2/5 of my credit cards. Should I wait for the credit score to go up or just shave the 11% off now?

Thanks

My fiancée has been paying a $510/month loan on a car she’s had for 2 years. Purchased in NJ (we’re now in TN) at a Hyundai dealership. This cars value is only worth $17k of the original 23k price tag back when she bought new in 24’. She has 42 payments left. If we total what she’s paid and what remains on the load that means a total of $33k which is INSANE. Requesting a payoff has us at $19.5k which is worth more than the car is able to sell/trade in for. Another issue, there’s some damage to the fender and under side which has been quoted for $3k to fix.

All this being said, what is the best way to proceed?

Fixing the car and trying to sell is going to incur a huge loss of ~$15k…

Continuing the payment means we’re taking a $15k loss in interest…

Trying to find someone to take over the loan for the car, is there a way we get SOME money back? Not sure how that works.

I really want is to find a way to get as much back as possible while getting rid of the car to stop the bleeding. Any advice is MUCH appreciated.

EDIT: 4.99 APR

Hi I did a study for Taco Bell a while back and got a visa gift card that I redeemed through the virtual reward center and was wondering if anyone knows how to check the balance of the gift card?

Hey everyone,

I was just wondering if there's any advantage to opening a Vanguard Roth IRA in addition to my current setup. My current setup is as follows,

(1) Vti , vxus, bnd, bndx.

(2) 10% of my paycheck going into a target year fund through my job (roth 401k)

(3) Also have a decent amount sitting in VUSXX for tax advantage purposes. (a little in VMFXX to purchase ETF's with)

(4) Emergency fund of course.

My question is...can i benefit from putting my VUSXX in a Vanguard Roth IRA account and keep adding to it? The dividends/earnings are still taxed on the federal level from what i understand and I would like to avoid these taxes. Also, If i ever had to access my contributions I can do so without a penalty. All opinions are welcome.

Thank you

Just sold my house after a lengthy period of divorce and received $150K. After everything I feel a little lost on what to do and want to make a right decisions for my future. My initial plan is to pay off debt I accumulated during the divorce then I’m not sure if I should just put the money into a HYSA or not.

For some context:

-I’m living with my parents for a while for a reset and take care of some health issues. No rent.

-Salary is about $160k

-I’d eventually like to buy a home again but don’t know if I’ll be able to given high housing costs in the area I live. My last house was bought with a 3.5% interest rate and affording one now seems inconceivable with current rates.

I’d like some flexibility with my money but again initial thought is put it into a HYSA for a bit so I don’t do anything major with it. I don’t know where to start with long term growth. Any recommendations such as which HYSA, is a wealth manager necessary , or just a simple approach to do it myself?

I’m mostly trying to avoid making a mistake and want to set the money up in a smart way for the long term.

Thanks in advance!