Painful experience trying to open Merrill Edge account I’ve been trying to open a Merrill Edge account for a month. Initially I got an email asking to contact them for “additional verification”. The email doesn’t even list a number to call them at, but okay, I Googled, got on the line, learned that I needed to provide address verification, and uploaded a pdf via secure email. Then radio silence for …

Investing into your mortgage Hey everyone! Suppose I had a mortgage with a 7% rate. If I make extra payments towards the principal each month, is this equivalent to investing that money into a fund with a guaranteed 7% return? submitted by /u/baltastro

How do I teach my kids to handle financial matters better than my parents taught me? My parents never really taught me anything about finances when growing up other than “be responsible ” I didn’t know how to buy my first car, or budget for example. But worse probably long run I didn’t know how to make the money moves that make you prosperous long run. I’ve muddled through but still not great at it. I want to make sure the kids …

Halfway through 1st year of law school and about to be homeless Throwaway because I’m insanely embarrassed. I got accepted to a top tier law school with an partial entrance scholarship, had savings from working in securities when I started and got a government loan for 17k which was applied directly to the remaining tuition. I plan to become a tax or securities lawyer so I won’t be broke forever but right …

Not having kids because of finances When I say this I get hateful comments. Which really baffles me, because it’s a personal choice. But people get irate. “YOU’LL REGRET IT!” Yada yada But I’ve received so many insults for choosing not to have kids. From, “you aren’t a real woman until you have kids/it’s god’s purpose for a woman/ raising kids and having kids are 2 different thin…

Need a plan/Urgent help with CCs Long story short, I’ve caught myself in too much debt. My spending habits were trash during my divorce. The divorce cost me money, temporary places to live above my means started my snowball into debt, and furnished an entire new home. A 10K emergency in the summer. I make $128,000 which brings in $3,091 biweekly. 30K in 401 K with 5% match, $…

Advice for newly retired, regarding his 401K now My girls friend’s dad has recently retired. He has about 150K in a 401K with the company he retired from. He has no plans to use the money now but wishes to roll it over to another brokerage. He is 69 years old and does not plan to work again. I thought maybe he could roll it over to a IRA but I wasn’t sure if he should do a Roth or regular IRA….

Apartment complex charged me $400 this month because they forgot to add it to my account when I moved in a year ago. I moved in a year ago and this place has been awful, but I renewed my lease for one more year to hopefully buy a place at the end of this year. Today I noticed that my rent check bounced and looked into it and it’s because they charged me $400 more than what my rent is. They said it was because corporate went through and did an audit and found t…

Does APR on a credit card only apply if you don’t pay off the full amount each month? I’m curious about the APR stuff. Does this only apply if you don’t pay off the full amount of the credit card each month? submitted by /u/walkrcp

Vanguard Digital Advisor I went to open a joint investment account for my wife and I, and was offered 90 days on their digital advisor program. With my initial deposit it simply split the total stock and international stock market funds 60%/40% respectively. Does anyone have experience with this service? I have been investing in index funds like the S&P500 index fund on…

Daycare cost increase GUT PUNCH We have worked extremely hard to pay off CC debt over the past two years, and are about to pay off the wife’s car almost 2 years early. We were so excited to have the extra breathing room and were just told the in-home daycare we were using is closing this summer. Average cost right now is $1200 a month for two kids. Cheapest public daycare in o…

Any Financial Apps I can use to replace my spreadsheet I’m currently subscribing to rocket money (premium) to try and replace my spreadsheet. I’ve been using a spreadsheet for the last three years which starts withy wife and mine combined monthly income and then using basically formulas subtracting monthly debt from there (subscriptions, insurance, mortgage, car loans etc) to keep track of. Overall …

Opinions please: How stupid is it to quit my job to travel for 6 months in 2025? Hello Reddit! This is a throwaway account, as it feels vulnerable to write all of this. I was hoping for some general perspective, pieces of advice, or any input on my situation at all really. I’ve been planning on taking time off by quitting my current job in May with no backup, but the current job market is making me seriously reconsider. For …

OpenAI Blames Cloud Provider For ChatGPT Outage via @sejournal, @martinibuster OpenAI releases report on ChatGPT outage that blames cloud provider for lack of automatic failure recovery The post OpenAI Blames Cloud Provider For ChatGPT Outage appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Should I buy a condo or max out investments? I have about 20k cash right now & would like to start the year off wisely. I’m thinking about purchasing a little condo this year. I’m wondering if I should keep this as cash and at some point (this year) use this to buy a condo or should I take this to max out my IRA, add to my EF, and other investment accounts? submitted by /u/itstotal…

“Is It Dumb to Prioritize a Vacation While I’m Still in Debt?” Hey, r/personalfinance, I’m in a bit of a dilemma. I’m $20k in debt (mostly student loans), and I’ve been grinding hard to pay it off. This year alone, I’ve managed to knock $5k off thanks to a raise and picking up freelance work on weekends. I’ve been proud of my progress, but now I’m stuck between being ‘responsible’ and letting myself live a …

Please critique my savings plan as a confused 24 year old Hi! I started my first corporate job in 2024 and here is the split of my paycheck I have been doing. Gross salary – $85k Monthly $ in – $4600 after taxes Monthly saving structure – 401k – $850 HYSA – $1000 (i have a very hefty emergency fund in place, so i guess im just saving this money for car, future house, vacations??) Roth IRA – maxing out …

My retired dad told me his financial planner charges him a 0.8% fee. I self-manage, but if I had that same fee, it would push out my target retirement age by 6 years. For anyone who doesn’t want to spend the time learning what it takes to invest wisely (which can be very simple), you could gain a few years in retirement for several hours of short term pain and research here and there. And for context, I used $100K as a target annual retirement spend, 7% return, 3% inflation. The calculator projected a retirem…

Am I Crazy, but Shouldn’t You Save 3-6 Months Before Paying Debt? After some personal experience, I feel saving 3-6 months of expenses should come FIRST before paying down high interest debt. I feel like it makes more sense to have savings to cover big items/emergencies so that those don’t go onto the credit cards. submitted by /u/chief_kayak

Want to get my 18 year old started with a Roth IRA My daughter works and is in school with no debt and a few thousand in savings. I’d like to get her going with a Roth IRA, but she wasn’t interested in using my financial planner, which is fine. If we setup a fidelity or vanguard account, what do you recommend for a fund? Target fund, S&P, etc? Thanks everyone, this sub has been great. subm…