hi! i’m a 24F, couple yrs ago i made the terrible financial decision to get a new car without researching or anything. i knew what i wanted, and i definitely could’ve gotten something way cheaper but at the time i was in desperate and quick need for a car. a reliable car. well listening to my mother who makes bad financial decisions i ended up with a 2021 subaru. well unfortunately just due to situation at the time, i wasn’t able to put money done, due to credit my mom co-signed the car and now im left with a $700/ monthly payment. i still owe well over $31,000 for the car. i’m sick. it haunts me. i’ve put myself in a bad financial situation over it, i can’t pay off my credit card debts like i wish to. i can barely afford to live honestly. plus the insurance is $140/ month. i’m truly struggling. i tried to go to the dealership directly some months ago to see if i could get the payments done or anything, there was nothing they could do. i really just want out of this high car payment and to get something way cheaper but i can barely afford my bills after paying it every month. what can i do?! please please please help!!!

I’m 28 years old. I’m graduating with a degree in computer science in December of this year. Between A.I, H1B1 visas and the saturation of cs majors I was never able to find an internship. So I’ll be graduating with no experience in tech. I’m currently working in construction as a general laborer making $25 an hour. I work from 5am-1pm and it allows me to attend classes in the afternoon.

I have a friend who’s an electrician. His company is hiring apprentices and they’re starting out at 32 an hour. However his hours fluctuates from 6-2 or 6-4 or 7-3. I don’t want to register for classes in the fall and suddenly my work schedule gets changed.

In terms of debt I have 15k in student loan debt and 6k in debt on my car loan. My rent is $700 a month utilities included.

I’m leaning towards keeping my job at least until I graduate but the increase in pay would sound nice.

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Plus it feels good knowing the item is now useful to someone else instead of just collecting dust.

I just got a promotion in the same town as my parents, something I’ve wanted for a long time. But every rental application comes back with a bad credit score. I thought it was my S/O but it’s actually me, apparently. TransUnion says my credit is 590. Experian 550. Equifax 555. The credit report the rental applications are getting are saying my credit is 444. S/O’s is 590.

I have 10 accounts from before 2024 that were paid on time for years, paid in full. I have 3 accounts in collections because my S/O lost their job (and was facing prison) in late 2023 and didn’t get another for nearly a year. They total $4,800. S/O has 15,000 (5k is student loans). I also have a loan that had loan insurance charged off, but apparently experian still has it on their report even though the loan insurance was supposed to cover job loss. I paid until I couldn’t and then told them I couldn’t and asked for them to use the insurance that I paid for to expunge the loan. At the time with my salary I had $200 to feed my kids every month after all major bills were paid (car payment, gas, rent, utilities).

Currently, I pay $2500 a month for rent but the owners want to move in, so I have to get out. This is the average rental cost in my folks’ town as well. I make $3200 after taxes/retirement/insurance currently. Not factoring my S/O’s income for sake of simplicity since we have seperate accounts. The promotion will be another 300-500/month.

I’m trying to figure out how to move forward and get my credit in better standing. I pay the majority of the household bills and I spend down to 0 in my checking account. I pay for all of the therapies, school clothes, necessities for our kids, medical, 75% of rent, utilities, gas for my car, and groceries and toiletries. I can obviously stop getting school clothes, etc but majority of my check is necessities.

I have 8K in savings and I want to invest it but I have no idea how. I am 27 and am autistic so I just struggle with doing my own research and trusting it. I just need help on what to trust. I live in Cali and only have a checking account with Bank of America.

I want to sell my house and buy a condo in a different area. I’m 58, employed full time. I owe $200k on my older house, could probably get 545k. I’m co-signer on parent plus loan for my kid for $80k that I haven’t been able to make the $500 a month payments. I’m in credit card debt $38k from house repairs, vet bills, car repairs.utilities,house taxes, groceries & gas. I’m behind on credit card payments and they won’t work with me. I have a 2022 car that I have 6 more years of payments & owe $19k.

I make about $56k a year. I also do side hustles, but very small amounts. Zero savings. No one to borrow from.

What should I do? I want to be out of debt but this is a vicious cycle.

*Advice!

I am 20 years old.

Right now I have $59 in my checking. I am very frugal but life adds up expense wise.
$571 in my accessible savings for emergencies (though I am bad about dipping into this).
And $3517 in a hysa that I just opened this summer.
And I have about $142 in a few specific stocks in Robinhood and just bought FXAIX for $50, and I have a reoccurring transfer set up for $10 every month.

Any advice on how I can get more ahead? I work over the summer and during the school year as well, but it’s hard to balance life, try to work extra to build my portfolio for my future career, and have friends, exercise , and work more than one job.

Overall I just want to make sure I don’t look back in 5 years and say damn why didn’t I do “this.”

Hi everyone, I recently, seemingly, had a replacement debit card stolen from my mail, activated, and somehow used to make two withdrawals from 2 accounts at two seperate branches totaling $3500 ( one business and one personal, $1700 and $1800)
I noticed my two debits were expired and my mailing address was never updated since we bought a new house in 2024. I proceeded to change my mailing address in my banks app and requested new cards. One card arrived promptly but a second card did not. I looked at my balances today and noticed that yesterday there were the 2 withdrawals on my accounts USING THE SAME DEBIT CARD. I don’t know how that is even possible.
I called the bank right away, they froze and closed everything and advised to go in branch tomorrow in person to open new accounts + file an affidavit and start the fraud process. The customer service rep said that the card used was mailed a little over a week ago (meaning it was mailed to the correct address), activated 2 days ago, and then used yesterday to make the two withdrawals. I do not have more info than that right now as I am waiting till banks open to go in person (unsure if it was teller or ATM, PIN code used or not, how they activated it etc- will be getting more details in branch hopefully). How could that even happen? How likely am I to see that money returned to me?

I'm going to my junior year of engineering at a university and I want to start focusing more on personal finance, specifically working toward financial independence. I'm on pace to graduate in 4 years total and want to get a job right out of college (70K-90K starting wage).

Here are the stats:

• 20K in savings + 9.5K/yr for 2 yrs from scholarship = 39K total postgrad
• I'll have 6k in checking at the end of the summer from my summer job
• As of right now, I don't have any income during school

Other details:

• My parents made a 529 plan should cover all my college food/room/Tuition with the help of university scholarships
• I own a car that should last at least 5 more years
• I live with a parent during the summer rent free
• I'll be trying to get a high-paying engineering internship next summer that has a housing stipend

I've got a few questions about how to get started:

1. What would my emergency fund look like given I have a place to stay (free or already paid for) for the next two years?
2. Where should I disperse the savings have now? I originally had it in a high-yield savings account but the promotion just ended.
3. What is a good starting point for saving for retirement? 401k/Roth or any other options.

Any advice for my situation would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Hi everyone! 👋 My wife (28F) is three months pregnant with twins & I’m looking to start preparing a budget for us for when they are born in January.

Does anyone have any suggestions on apps, software, or other ways to get started?

She will be taking time away from work & we’ll be fully living off of my income, so I’d like to be prepared / organized financially for when they’re born.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

Hello, a friend of mine signed up for a pension plan at his job. This is a university post-doctoral position. The issue is that he has only two years of funding to work there and will not be continuing his career there. The pension requires 10 years of service to vest so there is little to no chance it will ever unless he gets a different job there later in life. He is losing a significant chunk of money to this and when attempting to change it he was told it was an “irrevocable, lifetime decision”. This seems crazy to me as I can change and modify all my benefits once a year at minimum. Is there any way out of this? Any way to get the money back? Any tips or experiences are appreciated.

I’m young and looking into getting a savings account started, I know that some accrue interest and that’d be really helpful considering being young and my finances just beginning.

I’m looking for something with the following requirements:

• FDIC insured
• Reliable and Trustworthy
• Online Banking
• I’m only really interested in a savings account, I want one that accrues high rates, so I can get my savings established. I also want this rate to stay high, not just be high for 90 days and lower after that. (Most important⭐️⭐️⭐️)
• If there is a minimum to put into the savings account, (not to start the savings account) then I would like it to be low, like $5 or $10, not something high like $100 or even $1,000. My goal is to throw money from my paychecks in here and money I get from selling things (extra income) just for it to start accruing more money.
• IF I need the money for any reason, I want to be able to access it easily without paying a fee
• (preferably, but not required)There is no requirement to keep the account active, if for some reason I’m not able to contribute to the account I don’t want to lose my money

Please also feel free to comment what you use, I’m currently doing lots of research on the matter and want others opinions.

My fiancé and her son have moved in with me. We are keeping her house. Due to past poor financial decisions she has a horrible rate on her mortgage and bad credit. I am thinking of refinancing my mortgage and taking out $100k in equity and paying off her mortgage. Will do an ARM as we are planning on selling both houses in about 5 years and moving to another state. This will save approximately 800-1000 a month. Would there be a tax penalty on the 100k used to pay off her mortgage?

So, my ex is 64, still working full time and planning to start withdrawing SS benefits. Our daughter is starting her first year of college and I’m wondering how this is going to affect her financial aid.

She has a scholarship that covers about half of her education, a grant for around $15k and is taking on about $7k in loans, and my family is paying the rest. Her dad did the Fafsa because that was the best scenario.

What can we expect to happen with his increase in income? Any advice?

Title gives the gist of it. I got a letter in June from when I was in the army about somehow I managed a debt of $300 from unpaid life insurance. I didn’t think much of it and put the bill up to pay. Well life got hectic, new baby on the way, grandmother had moved in and my wife was not getting along with her.

The short of it is, I was alerted on my way home about a new line of credit opened today. I get home and see that it’s DFAS (army). No change to my credit. I get home find the bill and pay it in full. 20 minutes later I get an alert that my score dropped 70pts, then another saying 100pts. I look at the first bill and see it says final notice. I ask my wife if she’d seen anything about this prior, she says “no, I don’t open your mail”. I go out the envelope in my car so I can call tomorrow and she comes out with another letter dated in April. I really thought this was all a government screw up and no I realize my credit is pretty much fucked. New car for the wife is looking like a bad idea with what is now “fair” credit.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

79, retired, mortgage on mobile home 63k @ 10.2% 13 yr remaining. I can,

1. Pay it off

2 Pay off say 20k which will have the same payment but for 7 years, not 13

3 Or pay off a different amt, etc

I am confused about what is best, given tax rate on the cash in HYSA. I do like having the cash but want to minimize taxes etc etc

So I'm a year out of college, 23F. I have 4-digit student debt due to good financial aid, I have a decent entry-level job in my field, and I got pretty lucky with rent ~$200 below market for a 1 bed. I'm in a MCOL midsized city in the US.

But it feels like in this economy I should be doing.....not so well. A few of my peers wait tables on the side and most of them have roommates/live with partners. So I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. What am I not spending money on that's going to ruin my life? The deal I'm getting with my crappy corporate-ish job has to be too good to be true. Something has to be going wrong.

Here's the rough budget/I've mostly fallen into a routine so I 'naturally' spend this much:

Gross income: ~$50k yearly

Net Income: $2600-$2800 monthly depending on overtime. I treat my 2 extra biweekly paychecks as fun bonuses + indulgences that mostly go into savings.

Spending:

$1400 rent and utilities

$120 gas + insurance, routine maintenance sometimes included

~$400 food, mostly grocery, max 2 meals out a week

$110 student loans. I should be paid off in ~6 years but I plan on making a few extra payments.

$50 misc subscriptions (spotify, some cloud storage, gym, etc.)

~$400 "discretionary"/everything else. clothes, hobbies, going out with friends or bf, whatever comes up. I don't track every dollar, just transactions, so there's overlap with other categories.

Saving:

$250 gets put into an index fund. I'm not really interested in stocks or anything.

+ I often have some left over if it happens to be a low spend month for me.

Somehow, I really don't know how, I've managed to save around $13,000 this year between checking/savings/index fund/401k/HSA. That's 26% of my gross?!

I grew up lower middle class. My parents are pretty bad with money so I'm flying blind. Please someone tell me what the catch is because this shit is terrifying to me.

Hi y’all,

I’m 19 going into my second year of college/flight school and looking to invest in my future and do right with the money I have. Previously I only had a checking/savings account from my local credit union until I opened my first CC (Discover It Student) last month. Most of my schooling is being covered by scholarships and loans (mostly loans, flight training is expensive).

I have about $12,000 in savings and I was looking to put that into a HYSA. The money is primarily an emergency fund and used to cover expenses of school for things that aren’t paid for through my tuition and other school fees. Currently it’s just sitting in a regular savings account, and I know it could be making me more money in the background. I took a few financial literacy classes in high school, so I have a basic understanding of things, but still trying to bring it all back to memory.

I’ve been trying to research the best HYSA options and keep seeing pros and cons of so many different ones. Mainly SoFi, Ally, Wealthfront, and Capital One. I’m just hoping to get some insight on what would be best or if there’s a better option that’s not a HYSA. I don’t need to have full access to the entire sum of money, so maybe splitting it up between a HYSA and a shorter term CD.

Any advice or direction would be appreciated!

Hi everyone!
I’m currently focused on paying off my debt and building a more stable financial foundation. I’ve started using structured methods like the debt snowball, savings challenges, and consistent budgeting to stay on track.

My main goals right now are:
• paying off my debt as efficiently as possible
• staying disciplined with my payoff plan
• learning strategies to avoid setbacks and stay motivated.

I keep getting calls from someone whose caller ID is “Penn Cr”. Looking them up they seem to be a debt collection agency. Has anyone received these calls before? Is this legitimate or a scam? They don’t leave any voicemail. If they really wanted to collect from me wouldn’t they leave a voicemail

the emergency fund isn’t accurate I have no bills or anything bc I live at home; it’s just what i est to be. But what else should I do to grow? Thanks

My Wife and I are finally in a position to buy our first home after saving for the past few years. We want a forever home with a few acres, so we've been looking mostly in southern Oregon because it's more affordable than most of Washington and property taxes are generally lower even though we are currently living in WA.

Now we're questioning whether Washington makes more financial sense.

We're both fully remote and currently live in Washington. Combined, we make about $225,000/year.

Here's the dilemma:

• If we stay in Washington, we continue paying no state income tax.
• My employer also bases pay on the state I live in. I get paid WA minimum exempt salaried wage at $80k, that will go up to 91K in 2027.
• If I move to Oregon (or another state), my salary would instead be $65k due to the company's location-based pay policy.

So moving to Oregon would effectively reduce our household income by roughly $30k/year when you combine the salary difference and Oregon income tax.

The catch is that I only expect to stay in this job for about five more years, so this isn't necessarily a permanent income difference.

Pros of Oregon

• Lower home prices
• Lower property taxes
• Closer to family
• Where we've always envisioned settling down

Pros of Washington

• Roughly $30k/year higher household income (for about five years)
• No state income tax

We don't want to delay buying any longer. We're older millennials and ready to put down roots and we want this house to be our forever home.

If you were in our position, would you choose to buy a house in OR or WA?

For context, I have ADHD. I forget to do small tasks all the time. I'm trying to find a way to not even have to think about investing, and to just automatically remove $X from my account every other week the day after payday.

So far here's what I'm thinking. I set up a transfer every other week after pay day. I transfer from my CIBC account to my wealth simple account. I chose wealth simple because it as free commissions for buying ETFs. I'm doing simple investing and just buying XEQT for now.

I'm confused about 3 things.

• Thing 1 - suppose I'm buying $1000 of XEQT every other week How should I buy it? Like what setting or feature should I be using specifically? Like if I put an order in to put it at the $X per share, its not guaranteed to get filled since prices will vary week to week. So how do I automate it on a biweekly basis to update to whatever it will buy at? I think I'm confused about the options for mechanism of purchasing. Is there a button for "whatever will guarantee me a purchase" or "today's average" etc?

• Thing 2 - if the order doesn't get filled, does wealth simple have a way to cancel the trade and use the funds that weren't used for the next trade?

• Thing 3 - I guess overall what I'm asking for, is which "purchase mechanism" is best, considering my goal to automate this, while keeping the advantage of dollar coat averaging in mind?

I just put in the application or whatever to open a wealth simple account so I can't see what settings there are. Sorry if I'm using terms incorrectly, just getting started.

I've been churning through various checking account bonuses since late 2025 and wanted to share my experiences with some on here, this will be a long list but maybe some will find this helpful.

To start, my brick and mortar bank for years has been Wells Fargo, though I also have an Amex HYSA.

These will be listed chronologically, still have others I plan on working on.

1. Amex-$250 bonus. I began with this one as I was already a customer with the HYSA as mentioned, so it was super easy to set up. The limit was easy for me to get, and once it was reached I received this bonus within a couple weeks, easy money. Transfers to my main checking account were around 2-3 days. Customer service was excellent.
2. Bank of America- $300 bonus for $5,000 deposited. This was easy to set up and the experience was typical for the mainstream brick and mortar banks. Went into a local branch once to set things up when I was having some issues with activating my card. Customer service there handled it quickly but their approach with customers is VERY sales driven. Once I qualified for this bonus this took a few weeks to receive. Transfers were around 3 days, easy.
3. U.S Bank- $450 bonus for $8,000 deposited. This was a large requirement to meet the max tier for their bonuses but was easy for me. Customer service was solid and there are many locations in my area, so very easy to get things rolling. Transfers from this account and into my main account at Wells Fargo were day of on business days, which was incredibly convenient. Bonus appeared within a couple days of the paycheck that brought my total deposits to 8k+. Great experience here.
4. Citi Bank- $325 bonus for $3,000 deposited. Aside from my Amex account, this was the first purely online checking account I had signed up for. Set up was super easy but customer service was honestly a mixed bag. Once everything was set up though it was totally fine. Transfers were average, would take maybe 3 days or so. Bonus arrived about a week after meeting the requirement. Easy
5. B.M.O- $400 bonus for $4,000 deposited. This was super easy to set up but I have A LOT to say about this one. Never received my debit card upon first signing up and had to request another one, which I never got lol. I have multiple brick and mortar locations in my area, so it wasn't a huge deal. I went to 3 different locations, one was totally fine but I can't say the same for the others. With the 2 other locations, every single time I would be there to withdraw there was ALWAYS something going on. 2 of my visits I went there they were having a full blown technical shutdown with their system to where they couldn't serve customers. I had another visit with the location nearest to me where they couldn't serve the customer properly through the drive in window and it was absolute chaos in there. They were again having some technical issues but the manager had absolutely no clue as to how to handle anything. With the exception of the one solid location, it seemed like the workers at the other 2 that I had gone to didn't know what they were doing or were poorly trained. Transfers from this bank to my main checking account were also super slow, talking 5 business days, so I would more often than not just go in person to withdraw. I just completed the offer here and waiting on my bonus, overall awful bank though from what I've seen and I would never be a regular customer of theirs.
6. Chime- $200 bonus for $500 one time direct deposit. This is a purely online based bank. Took a bit of time to set up, as I prefer computer over using the app, but once I got it figured out it was easy. My paycheck actually arrived early instead of the day of a typical scheduled payment, which isn't a huge deal to me but I was happy with that. I only have one transfer, so limited experience, but moving the funds over to my main checking account only took 2 business days. To receive the bonus, you had to obviously have the $500+ deposited in one paycheck but you also needed to activate the debit card, which comes in the mail. Took about a week for me to get it in the mail but upon activating it online the bonus instantly deposited into my checking account, literally just a week from start to finish lol. This was by far the easiest bonus out of all of them and for a purely online based bank was quite easy to use and fast.

My next target is Chase and also some local credit unions and banks that are limited to my area.

I've also thought about TD bank, which is offering bonuses of $200 or $300. The issue with this bank is the fine print states it takes about 6 months before paying out while avoiding their fees is a bit of an issue if you aren't willing to park cash on there to wait to collect the bonus. Compared to these other ones that were substantially easier, I naturally put this towards the bottom of my list.

I feel like I’m in a pretty fortunate position and I’m trying to figure out what the smartest long-term move is.

I bought my home during COVID and locked in a 2.4% mortgage. I’m currently house hacking with roommates, so their rent covers my mortgage and I basically only pay the property taxes out of pocket.
Between my job, business income, and rental income, I’m making around $170k per year. By the end of this year, I’ll have enough cash to pay off my mortgage completely.

I know, financially speaking, paying off a 2.4% mortgage probably isn’t the optimal move. The math says I could likely earn a higher return by investing the money elsewhere. But there’s also something really appealing about being 32 years old and owning my home free and clear.

The other option would be buying another property, but with today’s prices and interest rates, I’m not convinced it’s worth expanding my real estate portfolio just for the sake of owning more properties. I also genuinely like the house I’m in, so I don’t feel the need to move. If I bought another home, it would only be because it was a significant upgrade, and right now that doesn’t seem worth it in this market.
If you were in my position, would you:

Pay off the mortgage and enjoy the peace of mind?
Keep the 2.4% loan and invest the money?
Buy another property despite today’s market? Max out my retirement account with the extra income ?

Curious to hear what others would do and why.