Personal Finance

can someone explain leverage to me as practised by those RE ~~bullshitters~~ finfluencers. I feel their whole spiel is just bullshit but I don't know enough to be sure about it.

according to them, you "buy" a home - you put X% down and pay your first monthly (and then post on r/firsttimehomebuyer). then you go to (another?) bank and say "look I got this house I wanna use as collateral" and they go "wow you own a house! sure, have this bag of money"... repeat until you "own" like a city block.

like, how does that not crash and burn at the first step, just a cursory glance at the asset's status? how are they not "lol you ain't got no house dumbass come back in 20 years when you actually own it"?

The US government is telling everybody that inflation is 3.4% per year. That is not correct. Try 14.2% and that's about right. Source : gold/usd 1 year simple moving average.

I wanted to start using a budgeting program to better organize my spending/ goals, and basically narrowed it down to 3 --YNAB, Actual and Quicken Simplifi.

I setup a self-hosted instance of Actual and was able to import my spending from my account by exporting from my bank and importing into the app, however this seemed like it might get tedious over time, so I decided to try YNAB.

So far this has been pretty straight forward. I’m still waiting for things to sync up with my linked accounts, but I like it so far. I would try Simplifi but there’s no trial period there; though the graphs and UI make it seem appealing.

Anyone here have any experience with Simplifi/ YNAB, and why might you chose one over the other?

I'm looking for the top European bank that doesn't block your funds without reason. For instance, many individuals have reported online that Revolut has blocked their accounts suddenly and sometimes for various months.

Hello,

So I recently revisited (and recreated) my savings spreadsheets so that I can track my needs, wants and savings. To try to keep track of my fixed costs and also try to follow the 50/30/20 rule (not sure if this is a good strategy or not).

I have everything mostly sorted, but as new things come up, say a new subscription or a cancelled one, changes in rent, etc. It will be a bit of a hassle to keep this up to date.

Are there any software/ apps that you guys use that you like that make this kind of thing easier to see where your money is going?

How would you go about selecting a Certified Financial Planner?

My wife and I are financially successful adults, but we need guidance with the next steps, including:

• Private equity co-investment
• College savings for children with special needs who may or may not attend university
• Retirement savings beyond the standard 401k and IRA options
• The tax ramifications of all of the above

My friends are generally not at this level of planning needs, so those who have worked with a CFP have had only much more basic questions. We have known plenty of financial advisers over the years who just give bad advice or canned advice. I expect our needs will become more complex over the next decade.

How do we find a quality CFP who can help with the above? What is a reasonable price to pay for this help?

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

Hi. With the new tax year fast approaching, I've been contemplating transferring my current stocks and shares ISA account with IBKR UK to another provider/brokerage. I am interested in InvestEngine since they seem to have lower fees. However, I'm wondering how this process will work, especially since I have shares in stocks and ETFs that don't seem to be offered by InvestEngine, but which I'd ideally like to keep. As such, is it possible to transfer ISA accounts to a new service provider if they don't offer the shares held in the account? If it is, how might I trade those shares in the future?

I always see advice about which software to use and there's always the advice that FreeTaxUSA is the best bang for your buck and does everything you need for when your taxes are "simple." I've used and thought it was great for years. But as my career has grown and no longer filed as a single I've begun to question when my taxes and earnings become "complicated" to the point where it is worthwhile to have a professional do my taxes. Are there general recommended bullet points or scenarios?

As the title says, should I be concerned? I get the impression this is just a bureaucratic change (company doesn't want to deal with both salaried and hourly workers for timesheet reporting). But I'd like to make sure.

■ The Japanese Yen continues to draw support from expectations for a hawkish BoJ pivot.

■ Bets for a June Fed rate cut undermine the USD and further exert pressure on USD/JPY.

■ An upward revision of Japan’s Q4 GDP print contributes to the offered tone on Monday.

Goal: the least amount of withholdings possible

The inevitable at last arrived. Last month, for the first time, passively managed funds controlled more assets than did their actively managed competitors.

I honestly thought this happened a while ago...

Need help please. If I am enrolled in 2024 for 10 months of the year (March-December) in an HSA-elligible HDHP will I be able to max out my HSA to the individual contribution limit of $4,150 or will I get hit with a big tax penalty? Do I have to "pro-rate" my contributions and subtract the first two months since I was not enrolled during that time? Very confused about this and am seeking clarity as I am reading conflicting information online while trying to max out my HSA if possible. Thank you for any assistance.

Sorry for long title:

• USA
• in a state with no state income tax
• my former employer (international corporation) messed up 401ks, resulting in class action lawsuit
• settlement gave claimants <$20 each
• just received a 1099r for this amount
• box 7 = "7", which means normal distribution per IRS
• I am under 59.5

I don't understand the table on the IRS website. Just wondering if there will be a penalty for this settlement "distribution" or if it is waived since it was part of a lawsuit. I usually do my taxes by myself so I don't have anyone to ask.

I've had a few people in my life tell me that they lost X % of their 401k during the (insert financial crisis).

Recently when a friend told me they lost 50% of their 401k in the 2008 time, I said: "Well you didn't really lose anything, because you still had the stocks, and even though they were worth less, you still had the same number of stocks, so you could have waited it out?"

To which my friend replied: "That would be true if the person managing my 401k didn't sell".

I hadn't actually thought about that. I mean personally most of my funds are in age based target funds, but those funds are also managed by someone, right? So is there a way to prevent someone from selling your stocks if the economy tanks? I have a pretty long retirement horizon (still in my 30s) so I can weather the storm for a bit.

Edit: Thank you everyone for the insightful answers. This really helps to clear things up

Looking to pay off $15k of student loan debt of my partner. It's something we could wipe out with cash on hand if we wanted to relatively quickly. But one of the loans is 4.5%. Am I better off just riding that out but keeping the cash in for that loan in a HY savings account or keep reinvesting it in short term CD's that have a 5% return and to have more liquidity?

There's a part of me that used to really enjoy the piece of mind of being debt free when I paid off my student loans. But now that I'm more financially established and disciplined, I'm wondering if it's better to pay it off slowly.

What are my options when my provider sends me a bill without submitting a claim with my med insurance, and is ignoring my repeated requests to submit the claim and send me a revised bill post-settlement? How do I prove that I do not owe the billed amount, and I do not owe them anything until they claim it through my insurance first?

Unfortunately, I did encounter something very similar with a previous provider - and I naively decided to wait and watch when their "billing desk" was busy ignoring my requests to submit the claim first - just to get to the day when they sent it to collections. Dealing with collections is another nightmare, and while it went in my favor at that time, I promptly left that provider and switched to another.

So I want to be cautious here this time, because although the "billing desk" of my provider might be a bunch of inefficient a-holes, I don't want to deal with collections again.

Would welcome any insights ! Thanks !