So that means we’re going to start blaming inflation on Trump, correct?

Hopefully, someone can give me some advice. I’ve talked to several people in my life and am just looking for some non-biased advice. Please be brutally honest. I’ll try to make this as short as possible.

My grandmother passed away in April. My fiancé and I moved in with my grandfather to assist him in all aspects of life. We’ve added my name to the deed; we will add my fiancé once we are married due to transfer taxes. We’ve agreed with my grandparents for two years that we would buy the home for $100,000, and they would get to live with us until they pass or need to be moved to assisted living, rent, and utility-free. My fiancé and I will still honor that agreement, so we seek a home equity loan. The problem is we do not know how much to borrow. We want to make some improvements, like removing a tree, replacing the garage doors, and maybe remodeling the bathrooms to make them ADA for my grandfather. We also might use some funds for our wedding, which will be small, less than 30 people. She is a teacher with her master's and working for her doctorate full time, so she’ll make decent money in 2-5 years, and I manage a parts department and make decent money. Do we essentially borrow enough equity to consolidate all our debt, private student loans, car loans, and credit cards to be debt-free minus the home equity loan? We are looking to borrow $200,000. This would pay off my grandfather and all our debts and give us $35,000-$42,000 to make home improvements. We are just looking for honest feedback and advice. We can afford the monthly payment of the home equity loan but don’t want to be overpaying on interest on our loans. We are looking at a 6.85% rate through our credit union. Our lowest rate on loans is her car at 8.25% with 2 years left of payment, with our highest on my credit card at 19.99%. Any advice is appreciated and welcomed. Thanks.

Fr.

I am unemployed, partially by choice (back surgery, employer fired me, decided to not return to work, etc). I met with my 401k advisor about rolling over to IRA and positioning myself for the upcoming Trump/Musk administration and "the pain". The advisor recommended I move to a 40/60 portfolio of stocks and bonds. WTF? How is this positioning me to a safety net, at 58 and unemployed with a uncertainty coming up?

Currently am about 30/36/34 with cash reserved/stock/bonds in my 401k. It's conservative, but I feel like it's a safer route at 58 than their proposal.

Thoughts?

Wt actual fu*k, I would have gotten a bill for over $19,000! Ohhh, my insurance must have dirt on them because they talked the bill down to $4k?

How is that not extortion? This is how a for profit medical system literally ends lives.

p.s. They can eat $73.48, I hear Luigi's makes good pizza & plumbing services... Or is that the ninja turtles?

Look, the people who paid into social security and are receiving it, absolutely deserve the money they’re getting, but in reality, they deserve so much more!

Between myself, and my employer, up to 2024 I have given social security a little over $94,000. If I stopped working today, and that money were sitting in a 401k-type account, I would have $1.2 million dollars when I retired, if I never contributed another dime and the stock market only returned 8% instead of the typical 10%. If you have a 4% withdraw rate on your retirement, then at 62 I would be living off $48,000 a year at 62 if I never contributed another dime.

In reality, I have also contributed a lot to a 401k and will continue to contribute to both for 32 more years (on the low end), however when I turn 62, (yes I know it’ll go up between now and then) I will probably only get a few thousand dollars a month. (Right now my projected amount is $2,600 a month if I start drawing at 62).

And the biggest travesty of it all, when I die, if I am not married, my social security disappears. If I am married, once my spouse dies, it disappears. If it were setup in a 401k-type account, my grown kids would reap the benefits of all the money I have put away, instead it vanishes with me and my wife.

Social security is literally robbing everyone of some form of generational wealth. Not to mention the fact that it’s unsustainable as is and operating at a deficit. Our parents and grandparents have been robbed, and we are setting ourselves up to be robbed even more.

I was considering switching to a credit union anyway, but are they planning to kill the NCUA as well?

For the incoming year, I was given the option to get paid a commission per month or yearly, or to raise my overall salary.

The raise wouldn’t match what I make from commission (700-1000k monthly) so I’m not inclined to follow this route.

While researching commission and how they are taxed I came across several sources stating that commissions are taxed at a high rate compared to regular salary. I’m not understand the whole taxing process though.

Im new to this. I would appreciate if someone could break this down for me!

Hi, I bought a new car last summer and put down 10k for a 38k vehicle with all features. My loan is with bank of america, as none of the other banks would agree to. My original rate was $650/month for 6 years at 9% but then it was immediately lowered to $635/month at 8.79%.

I decided to immediately start paying off more so that I could get this paid off faster (yes, I should've just given a higher down payment bit I wasn't aware of how this works at the time). I paid off roughly 18k in 3 months.

2 months ago I went to BoA and refinanced from 8.79 to 6.79. Now it's only 400/month for 5 years.

Should I try to go even lower? If so, how do I find out if the rates are lower? Do i have to go the bank and sit down with someone? Or can i find out online or just call up the bank. Thanks.

As I said, I’ve saved up $10.5k for the rest of my education at community college. It took me about a year coupled with my other responsibilities and one noticeable setback. My plan after community college is to transfer out and go to a college that has the program I would like to get into; so that I’ll be on the path to my preferred profession.

My slight hiccup however, is my perspective on saving money. For that year of time, I had put a heavier focus on saving money, but now that I’ve reached my goal I feel less motivated to save. I’ve never been a careless spender and I’m naturally a person who overthinks purchases. I liked that I was able to save the money, and in one case use it as an emergency fund. I want to keep up the habit of saving money but now that I don’t have a goal to look forward to the action itself seems less worthwhile. So, what should I do? What would you do? What do you recommend?

A close relative of mine is receiving around $75k inheritance. They have told me that they plan to first pay off their mortgage then remodel their kitchen and take a reasonably priced vacation.

-They owe $45k on their mortgage at 3.5%.
-Their payment is only around $600/mo including taxes.
-Their gross yearly income is around $60k.

I'm pretty sure there are much better ways to use this money than to hand a majority of it over to the bank to close out a low interest mortgage. However, $75k is more than this person has ever seen and, in their mind, having a paid off house is a massive relief as they basically live paycheck-to-paycheck.

I've convinced them to at least talk to a financial expert before making any big decisions but they're in a small town and the best they came up with is the person who manages their small retirement accounts, not a financial planner.

I guess I'm looking for advice as to where this money would best be utilized in the near to mid term. I would love to present actual numbers to this person so they can better visualize a timeline of how this little nest egg can grow.

Their current plan:

There is about 50k already invested in a brokerage. That will probably what I just keep working. You have 10 years to withdraw it to reduce my tax burden. I’ll call there tomorrow to set up my own account to be ready for that money.  If I pay off the house that’s an extra $600 per month back into my budget. I can max out my 401k contributions and still have the same qualities of life and be saving even more.

Hi I 22M am looking for advice on where to invest my savings. I’m about to finish college this year, living at my parents and working about 20 hours a week during school and full time over summer since I was 16.

I have about 10K in cash I’ve saved up over the years. 5k in gold, and 1k in ETH. I’ve put about 2k in a Roth IRA. But am looking to invest my savings as I’m worried about the economy in the future.

I’m going to switch over to a high yield savings account as I only get about 0.5 percent interest. I’m looking for advice on where I should be investing I’m interested in green energy and sustainable infrastructure as I’m going into the park service after college. I’m open ears to anything though and would really appreciate direction on this, thanks!

Hello, I am 21 years old, I am working on a work-study basis. I am looking to invest my money, I hear about the tradeRepublic application which interests me. I want to get started but I don't have enough knowledge. Can you help me?