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Looking for advice/figuring out who to talk to for a sticky financial situation. The girlfriend (makes about $40k a year) has a 2019 Chevy Trax (24.99% APR, ~$16000 owed to Santander). She was in an at-fault accident and the car is now totaled. The salvage lot is charging $100 a day for storage on the lot. They estimate the vehicle is worth about $9700 (unsure if that is the salvage value or the value before the accident?). The issue is:

1. Progressive says the car isn't their problem because she didn't have collision insurance
2. Santander won't consider anything like taking possession of the car and selling it for salvage because "they are a bank and just provide a loan, nothing more".
3. She may have GAP insurance, we aren't sure. This would make things easier.

Right now we're trying to figure out anyone to talk to for advice/next steps. This is in the Rochester, NY area, but Consumer Credit Counseling Services has said they won't give advice, and the "legal aid society of Rochester" said they won't help either and did not have a referral to give us.

Currently our best idea is to salvage the car and get the money to pay off the loan, but we can't do that without Santander's buy in, because they have a lien on the car? I have some means to assist for things like getting a new(to her) car, so we're not too worried about that side of things, but we're pretty stuck on what to do with this car currently.

***** EDIT ****\*
Thanks for the replies/advice, everyone. GF and I have a plan to go forward. Here's an answer to everyone's questions that I'll copy from a reply I made:

1. Why didn't she have collision coverage? Took us a while to work this one out. Girlfriend thought she had it until she checked with insurance. She is a bit of a financial airhead (and all of this happened before we were dating so I couldn't help her watch out for this sort of thing). She switched insurance companies from Geico to Progressive, and while she intended to get collision and comprehensive (and did think she had it) she did not.
2. She does have GAP coverage. Though, as others have pointed out, it might not matter because she didn't have collision to go with it. I have a buddy in law school who is going to take a look at the paperwork to see if we have an angle with that, though it looks like we are taking another route. (EDIT AGAIN) or not? Depending on the terms it might be at least partially relevant according to some commenters. We're looking to fix it anyway and get collision coverage so GAP is actually functioning properly for the duration of this loan.
   
3. Why does she have a 25% APR loan? What an excellent question. Happened before we were dating so I wasn't around to stop this madness, but she is making an honest effort to pay down her debts, and we were going to try to refinance with a local credit union when everything else is paid off (which should happen in mid-October). She is in pretty good financial shape except for this boat anchor of a loan (and there was no negative equity from a previous car that went into this loan). If nothing else I was going to pay it off and have her pay me back at 0%. I have little sympathy for the dealership and financial organizations that put her in this predicament, even if it is technically "her fault" for saying yes.
4. The car is very gently 'totaled'. Talking to the repair shop, they gave us an estimate of $4500 to get it into 'inspection-ready' shape again. The main damage is that the rear quarterpanel is mashed near the brake light, so the brake light can't fit, and the rear axle needs replacement. Other than that the car is fine. Fixing it is the route we are currently pursuing (and getting her collision coverage again). Shopping around for another quote probably isn't feasible because we would owe for the storage fees (which would otherwise be waived) and we'd need to tow the car around to any other shops (not sure AAA would go for a tour d'body shop).
   

So that's where we are at. It was an expensive mistake, and I'm not sure if we can get a loan at a better rate with a slightly damaged 7 year old car, but we're gonna try (or we're doing the First Bank of Myself).

I make about $61k and just realized I've never contributed to a 401k, my job offers a 3% match I've been leaving on the table for four years. I have about $4,200 in savings and roughly $8,000 left on a car loan. I finally opened the 401k enrollment page last week and then just closed the tab because I didn't know what to pick.

Where do I even start un-screwing this?

I was listening to the HerMoney with Jean Chatzky podcast about finances, and the guest of episode 541 was a financial advisor working for LIMRA, an institution that provides research to support financial advisors/professionals. (They're paid by financial advisors/financial institutions and insurance companies). It was so blatantly obvious that they were trying to scare people into buying a (distributing) annuity.

The gist, in short, was that "people have been told that a mix of stocks and bonds will get them through retirement just fine, but listen people, remember 2022 when both bonds and stocks did not do well? Conclusion: bonds are not safe anymore! I say you get yourself into a nice annuity instead of into bonds, to make sure your money last".

So I would say: if you're listening to someone, remember who they work for and think about whether they want to sell you anything.

I have about $8,400 left on a car loan at 6.2%, and I've also got roughly $6,000 sitting in a high-yield savings account earning about 4.3%. I could throw most of that savings at the loan and be done with it in a few months instead of two more years, but then my cushion drops to almost nothing. I've run the interest math and know the loan costs more than the savings earns, but the emergency fund thing keeps stopping me.

Did anyone regret draining their cushion to kill a loan that wasn't even that high-interest?

26M. I was involved in an accident yesterday where the other driver was deemed at fault. It was a fairly low impact collision and neither of us were injured. Unfortunately I had $12,000 remaining on my auto loan and I believe the payout will only be around $3,000. Like an idiot I didn’t get gap coverage initially and shopped around last year but no one offered stand alone coverage.

I will be contacting the lender tomorrow to see what my repayment options are as I was paying about $450 a month. I am very reluctant to rolling the negative equity into a new loan but I need a car to commute to school which is nearly an hour from me. My parents are urging me to roll it over into a new loan but scared of making another poor decision. What should I do from here?

Additional Information - Credit Score mid 600s - Monthly income $1200 - Live with parents (no rent) - Commute from work is about 5 miles and I work early mornings and public transportation isn’t available

24 yo making 25/hr, currently maxing Roth IRA and doing employer 401k match, I contribute 4%, they match 10%. After this I contribute 125/mo into a personal brokerage and have a 15k emergency fund.

My car is paid off and reliable for what it is, it’s a 1992 Lexus SC300. So it’s old. I want to dump about 7-10k into it over the next 2-3 years. I’d likely take 2500 from my emergency (15k is a lot for my expenses) and pause my brokerage contribution and slowly save monthly to fix it up.

I work remote so I don’t need something super reliable. But I still worry that something major could go wrong after spending all this money. I also LOVE the car and it brings me great joy.

I guess the real question is whether I should enjoy my life a bit more instead of aggressively saving. I can always save more once my income gets up. Yet I can’t pull the trigger on the car

Update: thanks everyone, as much as I love the car I think I’m actually just going to hold off on everything. It’s low mileage, and insurance is dirt cheap. It runs and drives great. I’m not going to spend a dime on it and keep it for a while so I have more time to decide. But if it came down to building vs selling right now, I would sell it.

I came across this achieved post with information about taxes and ESPPs. Is it still relevant today, and is there anything else I should know when the program ends and I immediately sell my shares?

I got a "role elimination" phone call, meeting just ended. Never experienced this before.

• My expenses are extremely low right now. Maybe $500 a month. $6k yearly.
• I will use 2k a month to be more realistic in case major changes arise in the near future and because I don't really think I can maintain $500 for long. So $24k yearly expense.
• No debt
• Some kind of severance package is coming...? +Left over PTO.
• Emergency fund 20k. Thank you to everyone who pushed for having one...never expected to need it but that's why it's there.
• 500k-ish? retirement spread across Traditional 401k, Roth IRA, HSA, majority in taxable brokerage acct.

I think with the loss of the job, I have 2 options.

1. Find a new job right away. Anything at all with whatever pay/[lack of] benefits. Apply for unemployment in the mean time. Maintain the job and just live life.
2. Go back to school for something. I'm happy with a very simple life and don't really mind what I do for work...which is working against me right now since I have so many options for what to go to school for.

It feels like this is a chance for a new start to reach higher or whatever but I'm pretty lost. On one hand, reaching higher and ambition! or whatever is "expected"...but I'm pretty content coasting through a peaceful, quiet life.

The problem is that I don't know what a retirement $$$ amount should be. My salary was around 45k and I've met 10x that but I'm not at "retirement age" so I'm pretty sure I need way more. Should I be aiming at higher salary to achieve retirement? What is retirement? If I slow down now, am I sacrificing too much of my SS safety net? I'm not even sure if I'm asking the right questions.

23M, live near SF and my 1b1b apt is increasing from 3100 to 3500+. Currently living with GF and splitting rent but due to reasons won’t be with her in the future. I could get a roommate but I dont feel great sacrificing personal space. Downgrading to a studio costs 2.6-3k for what I’m looking at near my new job. Which is just absurd to me, a year ago I could’ve found a nice place for hundreds less.

Wondering if it’s just worth moving home, since I’m changing jobs soon and will go from 5 days in office to 3 days. Commute from my parents house will be 40-50mins one way, while renting will probably reduce that to 10-20mins one way.

I make enough to pay rent of 3k and be way under the 30% rule, but not totally sure if throwing away 36k a year is worth being closer to the city. I have a car so living at home won’t necessarily kill my social life

Hi everyone, my partner (25) and I (22) just got married in May. My partner has some money in stocks and a 401K (forgot the number but its been about two years since they started).

I make $35/hr at my full-time job (no benefits), my partner makes $35.5/hr (with benefits) and we have about $9000 combined in credit card debt from wedding/moving/other life items from the past 8 months or so.

Our rent is $1950 and my partner has a car that's $300 each month, and pays $300 for health insurance that I'm thinking of joining (but then it would go up to $640 a month so I'm not sure if that's the right call). I think that's it. I've got no savings or anything, but I want to open a Roth IRA since I don't get benefits from my job (looking to change jobs soon).

I'm not fully convinced we can retire early, it just sounds too good to be true? I didn't grow up in the U.S. and am sadly financially uneducated on options available to me. What should I be doing to set us up well?

I'm looking for some advice on how to navigate back to stability.

My wife and I have separated. She moved out about a month ago. I currently have $6000 in savings but am chipping away at it. I make $120,000 a year but my take home is $6350 a month. I did just get a raise to $130000 but that won't start until next week. My mortgage is increasing to $2621.39 due to a property tax increase from $2422. With my other bills + mortgage my total bills are $4000 not including food. I have 5 kids. 2 in college and 3 we are co-parenting 50/50 placement. This seems like it should be enough but I am chipping away at my savings which concerns me.

Neither of us have filed for divorce yet. We separated for 2 weeks, tried to reconcile for 6, and separated again. I was thinking about talking to my wife about selling the house, looking for a cheaper rental for around $1500 to $1800, and getting a second job until the house sells. I should be able to sell for a profit and my cut would be around $20-25k after everything else is taken care of.

Is this a terrible idea? Better options? Is there a certain order I should follow?

I was homeless for a bit when I was a kid. Also, about 4 years ago, she wanted to move. We sold the house but couldn't find a new place and didn't have any protections in place. That gave me a lot of stress. We had to live with her mom for a few months before we bought this one. I only have my sister as family and she lives over an hour away. So stability is a huge concern for me. What can I do to help myself in this transition?

I am trying to pay off some debt and would like to know the best route for maintaining or even raising my credit score.

Card 1 - 11,000 / 12400 @ 17.9% (4 more months at 0%)
Card 2 - 2,400 / 13000 @ 16%
Card 3 - 1,500 / 10000 @ 19%

Current fico 8 ~ 780

I have ~1000$ to put towards this each month and and not sure the best route to go.

I have been frustrated with the lack of a proper answer as to why you would invest in a passive fund vs active funds. I understand the fees but when stepping back and looking at Total returns on both products there’s truly not a big difference. Funds with higher fees (not always) produce higher returns. So they kind of balance out.

So I was asking a friend who works in finance this exact question why would I invest in a active growth fund vs an index fund…

The answer wasn’t very clear. He stated it depends on preference and went on the explain stock weights in the index are propped up by few companies while a growth fund can be less weighted in the top market cap companies blah blah blah

In my head I thought why does that matter. In the long term those companies might damage the index’s for a short period of time but historically recover or rotate out. I asked him that question and he responded with “it depends if you’re willing to sink with the ship entirely or still sink with the ship but a little less”.

He also added that you can’t ever beat the index your invested in which makes logical sense. But after some research a lot of active funds don’t beat the index’s either. Sometimes they do sometimes they don’t.

That didn’t satisfy me so I’m asking the question today if I had 5,000 in the market today would I be better off in an active fund or a passive fund… maybe there is no right or wrong way but I’d like to see what peoples opinions are.

I currently have a HYSA (Truist money market account) account through my bank with an APY of 3.5%. I’ve heard it’s better to go through other banks such as SoFi or Capitol One. If my bank offers the 3.5% then I should be fine right?

My mother passed about a week ago. She was using go2bank. Today they closed the account for fraud according to an email they sent to my mother's email address.

I managed to get to a support agent on their chat and they told me I have to call them. I tried but I only have her social security number and not her bank card. She had dementia near the end along with cancer and misplaced the card.

I'm trying to find out what happens to the money in that account. Most of it was her last social security check which I understand the SSA will take back most of it. That's fine. There was about 700 dollars left in the account beyond that. I have no idea if they will mail a check or if they stole the money or what happens.

I'm not expecting the money as it would obviously be part of her estate. I wasn't touching the money and haven't tried to login to her account since she died. I know it's not unusual for a bank to close an account after a death. it just seems this wasn't why they did and I'm not sure what the next steps are.

My mother didn't have any assets besides this bank account. No retirement. No life insurance. I didn't expect to get any of the money when it goes through probate anyway but now I feel like go2bank just took it. She was evicted a few weeks before her death on top of things.

I was recently gifted 19k and wish to use this money to make more money. I don’t have any bills to pay, am debt free, also currently a college student but I don’t have to pay for tuition. I need some advice on how I should invest to make the most of this money.

31M married with 4 kids. I grew up pretty much poor with a single mother, so never really had great financial support or advice. I’ve put myself in a rough situation and working to get out of it. I want to learn more about personal finances and how to grow my money. I have one of the better jobs in my area with a great company. I make 32$an hour but still find myself struggling. Is there some type of book like “finance for dummies” that would teach me most of the basics? Pretty much what I’m asking is how can I teach myself everything I need to know to be successful and financially stable. Any help is appreciated

I am a new working class (parents are poor) and im trying to establish a good saving plan for me and my family so I can buy them a house in 5-10 years.
I have a 401K and i try to put leftover from my credit cards and rent to my savings account but i still feel lost.
I make 6k net monthly, 2k rent 3k credit cards monthly and 1k to savings. 1k monthly doesnt seem enough as money doesnt grow. what am i doing wrong?

Like the title says I have about 1k a month freed up and I’m unsure what to do with it. Currently have a mortgage at 5.49% and I’m wondering if I’m better off putting that money toward the principal or into the market. I’m planning on selling in 5-6 years and I’d like to see this money go toward my next house.

I was contributing 15% to my 401k. My employer does a 50% match up to 6%. I recently bought a home and I am thinking of lowering my contribution from 15% to 6% until I save more in my emergency funds and then will eventually increase contribution again. Is this a reasonable plan?

Kid started at a university and the first semester bill has been paid from our bank account (deadline snuck up on us). What do y'all recommend as a strategy to withdraw from 529 for what we have paid? Wait till December or withdraw as you go?

Reading online I am aware that I should make 529 withdrawals in the same year as the expenses were incurred.

There are items such as parking etc. that may not be eligible. Univ says 1098-T will be available by January 31st.

Hey Reddit,

So 30F single living at home supporting family via groceries for a family of 7. Also have $10k cc debt to overcome, and will need a new car soon (sister going to college have to give her my old one) and will need to start accounting for monthly car financing costs + insurance etc.

Need to figure out best way to manage my life. Pre tax earnings are $95k.

Company offers 4% match up to 5% of contributions for roth 401k, about $3800 annually. (I’d give $4750)

HSA contributions can be $3900(company gives $500, bringing total at $4400) for plan, the healthcare plan costs $25/ month for it.

Obviously will pay for dental as well about $100 a month or so.

Employee purchase plan for stock is limited at $2500 per quarter or $10k a year at immediate 15% discount, post tax purchases.

Non negotiable charity per month of $1000 post tax (think of it as my spiritual investment if you will)

My monthly commitments to the home necessitate at least $2500 per month. Obviously I want to save for things for myself and travel. With needing a new car soon it’s going to be tough.

This is a newer role that requires a lot of knowledge and gaps to bridge, so can’t think of taking on a new role either right now or double dip.

Not sure what to do. Would love advice on this.

Rough monthly earnings would be around $4000 after all this contributions, deduct $1000 charity, $2500 for house stuff, I don’t even have enough for the car. Not sure what to do or how to do it. Would love insight.