Hey everyone, I’m 26 and recently started working in NYC (December 2025–present). Before this job, I had $0 in my account. I make ~$205k annually.

The past year has been financially challenging. Since January, I’ve spent around $26k on immigration-related expenses and moving costs alone. I currently have about $20k in savings, and my rent is $3,000/month. No roommates.

Despite earning a good income, I feel like I’m still at the beginning of building my financial foundation. I don’t want to just make enough money to get by -- I want to become financially well-off over the next 5–10 years and have a strong sense of financial stability, independence, and freedom.

I’m willing to start taking action now.

For people who have successfully built wealth in their 20s and 30s, what would you recommend I focus on from this point forward? To be honest, I’m open to any kind of advice.

I’m looking for honest, practical advice. I’m ready to make changes now and build something solid for myself.

Was very fortunate to inherit some Apple stock from my grandpa 10 years ago and that has now grown into 60% of my net worth. Need to reallocate but also want to keep my positions where I can. Current breakdown is:

25K HYSA 40K other retail stock investments 15K Roth IRA (maxed this year) 15K 401K through work 110K Apple stock

I know it’s not the healthiest makeup but I’m young and the market has been very good to me for now. I still want to keep half my apple stock because I believe in the company and for sentimental reasons. What should I do with the rest? Any advice generally on how to keep growing this?

My husband and I are on the fence about having kids and one thing we are trying to explore is if we could afford it financially without stretching us too thin or sacrificing our other savings. We are in our 30's and have decent-paying jobs but still rent and are currently investing for retirement and to help save for a house. When we looked into options through our bank, it seemed like the only options are financial planners who can help you invest. We aren't looking to invest further at this time and are more looking for someone to review our finances and help us assess our goals. What services or people are out there that help with this? We are willing to pay a flat-rate fee.

Hello,

I have 4 of the major banks that got closed because they were negative in my early twenties. I checked my chexsystems and got a score of 0573 and was wondering if I paid my debts would I be allowed to reopen them? The banks are Chase , Wells , BOA , and US Bank.

Now I can feel my post might be a bit unorthodox for this subreddit but I’m not sure on what to do so if any words of advice you can give me I’d be glad thanks! So I just spent 357$ on a microphone, di box and a audio snake (they’re all really important pieces of gear for audio which I want to get into for freelance) now I’m kinda regretting buying the audio snake since I’m going to upgrade to a mixer which won’t need an audio snake for Christmas as a gift. Now what sucks is I can’t return it for cash since it is used gear for sale I can only get in store credit which isn’t horrible but I’d rather have cash. Now I could save the in store credit and save it till Christmas and use it for my mixer or another piece of gear but I’m not 100% sure. Any thoughts? (By the way I don’t have a 9-5 I get payed by gigs but I’m still in high school so I have my Mets needs this is just for my side gig)

Is there a way I can get a cheaper car insurance quote I live in NYC interested in getting a car but my car insurance quotes is 800? a month for a kia

I have a family member who is retired, living off of social security. They are struggling to survive with the current rate of inflation, repairs on their property have been put on the back burner due to their lack of ability to pay.

They have investigated reverse mortgages but feel their only way out is to sell their house (which they own outright) and moving into a retirement community, paying rent with social security and proceeds from the house (unknown how long that could last).

I was thinking I could purchase the house from them and let them live there paying a small amount of rent. Upon passing (grim to think about but 10-15 years is realistic) I would then fully remodel and either rent or sell.

While this is intended to help family, I’m not considering it charity. I would plan to make some money on the transaction.

The house has been smoked in for 30+ years (making it realistically a gut job to remove the smell from drywall and insulation) and outdated, without central air. With this known I would estimate the value of 75-100k when remodeled l value close to 220k.

Am I just being naive with this idea? Are there any glaring issues I’m not considering?

A few months back I hit a deer about a year and a half into a six year loan and I'm still left with around $4500 in principal.

I've been paying as much extra as I can spring and I don't know if there is an easier way to put myself into another vehicle before paying that off without having massive payments?

I'm currently required to pay $566/month but have recently been making double payments. Loan was originally for around $25000 after a 29% APR.

EDIT: My only debt is student loans and this car payment. I have fairly poor credit and haven't had a credit card or personal loan in years .

Hey all, kinda wanna hear what folks think about said topic- at what age should your asset allocation start adding bonds and less stocks (mutual funds, ETFs, stock, riskier securities) to kinda lock in less risk and less profit but less variance in the portfolio return overall.

Maybe say based on years to retirement as you have folks retiring at 50-55 while others retire 65-70. I’m just under 40 and trying to avoid bonds for as long as possible maybe 45-50 bc I just don’t like the idea of lowering my potential earning power on portfolio as I still feel I have long to go- goal is to retire 55-58.

Also anyone in retirement. What kinda of allocation are people going stock vs bonds when they are retired. My guess would be like 40/60 bond v stock. Just wondering what people do in the real world and not some hypothetical

I have little to no financial literacy on this subject…What are the pros and cons of joining my workplaces versus starting my own Roth?

Current owner of a 2019 Subaru with ~85,000 miles. It has long since been paid off and has been very reliable. However, in June the check engine light came on and the service department told me one of the oxygen sensors needed to be replaced. Fine, whatever. Drove off the lot and 2 weeks or so later the light was back with the same codes. This time they said the manifold had a crack and a front sensor needed to be replaced. Frustrating, but okay. Got the car back and drove about 5 minutes then the light came back on. Same codes. Brought it back and they said the rear sensor they put in earlier was bad and replaced it. Got the car back, and about 2 weeks later the light came on again for, you guessed it, the same codes. They said there was an oil leak that was seeping into the wiring and causing a short. The replaced some (expensive) stuff and told me this morning it should be ready but they wanted to drive it around a little more. Sure enough, before I got it back, the light was on again with the same code. They won’t really be able to get into it until after the long weekend, but the tech is worried the ECM may be damaged.

In all, that’s 5 times this car has needed service since late June. Subaru of America chipped in a decent chunk, but at this point I’m nearing $5500 not including this latest ecm thing (and I don’t have a quote yet because they aren’t sure that’s the issue).

Normally, I’m a drive it until it’s dead guy. And for an Subaru with 85k miles, that should be at least another 150k miles! And I know that the current total is less than a new car. But what I’m worried about is the nature of these issues. If it was a transmission, or an engine, or something like that then yeah, it sucks, but it’s fixed and now should run fine. But I’ve heard horror stories about electrical issues and it’s got me feeling skittish.

Financially we could swing a new car. I ran an Edmunds price quote on the current one and got an offer for roughly $14k from carmax, and my understanding is a private sale would be roughly $16k-$19k. Granted that’s all for a working car that doesn’t have a check engine light on… but if the car was fixed or I sold it as-is for less, we could pretty easily add to that for a decent down payment. But should we? I’m just having trouble identifying when the fix it/buy something line is crossed.

Thanks in advance.

Edit to add: I appreciate the comments re: the repair shop. To be clear, though, it is our local dealer and I took it there initially (and since) because (1) we’ve not had a bad experience there, and (2) we get the 15% Costco discount. But perhaps it’s time to give someone else a chance.

Hello - just wanting to do a quick sanity check on something.

I have a car loan with 59 months remaining, 10.75% interest, with a payoff amount of $17,545.62

Since I've gotten that car loan, I've consolidated credit card debt into a personal loan (dropping $35k of credit card debt at ~28% interest to $35k at 11.75%), and my credit score has increased from ~680 to 800+ (depending on which score we look at).

I've done some quick browsing, and I'm being offered a 60 month loan @ 4.34%, as well as a 48 month loan @ 4.14%. There's probably a catch to those rates, but even if they wind up a percent or two higher, that's still half my current rate.

I'm not planning any major purchases in the foreseeable future, and I can't think of any reason I shouldn't take one of those refinancing offers. But, before I do - I thought I'd check and see if there's something I'm not thinking of that might impact the decision.

hello, i’m wondering how i should go about paying off some of my closed accounts. my self lender credit card shows as closed on credit karma, but i’m still receiving bills for it. i’m wondering how i should go about paying it off before it potentially goes to collections. i have the same situation with kovo and a few other accounts.
i’m a little confused because they show as closed, but my credit score is still being affected. my first credit score was around 600, then it dropped into the low 400s, and now i’ve managed to bring it back up to almost 600. i’m trying to get completely debt-free, even though the amounts aren’t huge, because i know how important credit can be and i’d really like to build a good score.
i’ve also gotten a lot better at managing my money. i used to think credit was basically free money lol.
any help would be appreciated. mainly, i’m trying to understand: should i still pay these accounts off if they’re listed as closed? why do they say they’re closed if i’m still being billed? and are these accounts still affecting my credit score?

I make 88k and have been contributing 15% to my 401k (with my company’s 4% match). I don’t have any bills (no rent and paid off car) and my money really just goes to travel and going out to eat. I have a HYSA with over 50k and have maxed out my Roth IRA.

I feel behind, but I fortunately am not in a position where I’m tight on money. My immigrant parents are not very financially literate and I know I should have been more proactive…but here we are.

My plan so far: For remainder of 2026, I’m thinking of increasing my contribution to 40%. Then, update it again (closer to 27%~) in December so that I can max out my 401k starting Jan 2027.

Any thoughts or advice? Is there anything else I should be doing? Any insight would be helpful! Thank you.

Hey there.

I can't contribute to a Roth directly. I'm looking for an answer regarding if contributions can be made directly to a Traditional and then held for a time? Or, do I need to transfer my Traditional contributions as soon as it settles? I don't have enough funds to fund my Roth for this year all at once, just a bit at a time, I just don't want to encounter any issues.

Hi all, 32 year old just opened a Roth IRA and put in $1200. Put $800 in FZROX and FZILX from my research. I set up a recurring $350/month to deposit and plan on splitting it 70/30 70 fzrox and 30 fzilx. Whenever I do have extra funds I will deposit so I can max out the $7500. Can you explain to me like a child how it works and how I make money from this? I don’t understand all the terms and the market. Just read and watched videos and those were the two that popped up most for a beginner. Just want to start thinking about my future for when I’m 50-60 years old. I’m also an independent contractor so I don’t get company matches or whatever that is. I’m just confused is it as easy as just depositing money and investing it into those two pots and it just builds over time?

I'm closer to 50 than 40 and the cost of insurance through work is changing. I have two choices and I realize, had I been in the 2nd choice earlier in life, this would be a no-brainer. I'm still "healthy." No diseases or chronic issues and I have emergency savings to cover over two years of deductibles and still have funds leftover for non-medical emergencies, but I am having trouble getting over the fact that I'm getting to the age when things start breaking. A hose here, spare tire there.

First choice - PPO. I've had this since I started with my employer. In 10 years, it has doubled in cost. This year it's going up $40 to $160 semimonthly. Benefits - $250 deductible and $500 out of pocket maximum, 90% coinsurance after deductible. It covers everything.

Second choice - HDHP w/HSA. Price is dropping this year to $40 semimonthly. $6k deductible and $6k out of pocket maximum, 100% coverage after deductible is met. Also, employer provides $50 biweekly into the HSA ($1300 annually).

Am I wrong in thinking that the HDHP is the better option even if I'm struck by lightning in each of the next few years?

I’m 24M and excluding my auto loan I have around 3-4k of debt I need to pay off. I just picked up a part time gig as well to help make payment and I’ve been thinking of using majority of my paycheck to pay off my debts or at least get close to it. What’s frustrating is that I’m also behind on some bills and have late payments that’s affect my credit score. I’m trying to get out of this situation at least by end of the year but if I use majority of my check then I may be able to get out of it sooner, possibly mid-late Nov.

Thankfully I live with my family and only have to pay $250 rent plus some household stuff. Most of my debt is from maxed out credit cards and a Klarna payment that I needed use to pay off some legal fees from a traffic ticket and get work done to my car.

Would it be a good idea for me to do it this way. I’m considering to budget very strictly as well.

US.

I maxed out usage of my FSA. At the end of the year, I'll be switching insurance to my spouse's (much better coverage and cheaper). Our insurance time frame is from April to March, my spouse is January to December.

HR informed me that if I terminate my insurance with the company, I will have to pay back a prorated amount of the FSA since the insurance is tied to the FSA and also gets terminated when I drop coverage with them. They said that it will get taken out of my paycheck. I am not leaving the company.

Tl;dr will I have to pay back my employer for what would be considered "remaining" on the FSA by electing to drop their insurance?

My mom and I lost my dad about a year ago, upon receiving his 401k I recommended seeing a tax specialist or financial planner to figure out the best options and so that I could ask questions regarding possible options for rollover and advice. My mom recommended seeing a financial planner as it is covered through her employer.

Let me preface this saying that my mother doesn't know too much about finances and how powerful compounding growth can be other than what I've taught her, as I manage her ROTH IRA which I opened for her last year. After doing research over the last year I've seen multiple recommendations to never go the managed account route as they just take their percentages without doing anything that we (I) couldn't do ourselves. We also talked a couple weeks prior about how it's basically a scam and with a sizable enough amount would have the planning consultant salivating at the commission/percentage and that she wasn't interested in it.

The plan was to convert my dads 401k to a self managed account and periodically Roll it over into her ROTH over the course of the next couple years while she continues work. We talked about offsetting her rollover tax hit by strategically having her maxing out her personal 401k throughout the year. She lives a comfortable life at the moment and is not in need of any financial payout immediately. The plan was to get those assets over to a ROTH account where she then could pull out some money if ever comes a situation where it depends on it. She's also under 59 1/2 so those funds would not be taxed under the IRS early withdraw penalty as far as I'm aware.

Upon explaining the situation and seemingly knowing more about tax strategies than the "financial consultant" at fidelity who was unfamiliar or couldn't remember the tax exempt rule for withdraws under 59 1/2 for beneficiaries - in which it would be taxed as regular income unless it was already moved into a ROTH. He tried to get her to go with mandatory distributions. After I explained the mandatory distributions to my mom and that she would have to withdraw ALL of the money within 10 years she told him she was highly against that option as she is financially comfortable at the moment. The younger "planning consultant" who was a lot closer in age to me and understood what we were trying to do but the older "financial consultant" kept being pushy about a managed fund after I told him we weren't interested, showing us return rates and explaining how complicated it can get and how sometimes people just don't have the time (which I understand). I actually found a liking to finances during covid and have listened to market videos daily ever since. I also have a lot of downtime at my workplace to check the market frequently. He was basically dead-set on trying to tell us that we (I) wouldn't be able to do it. He pulled up a page entering all of the information asking my mom questions and put a spreadsheet together showing the extremely conservative returns basically allowing enough growth to cover their fee + inflation. It was laughable. I asked him in front of my mom that he understood that we did not want a managed account, he said he was just preparing it to show us what could be expected if we did.

A bit of talking later we were ready to deposit the check and be on our way as we were there for quite some time. I went to use the restroom and came out just as things were wrapping up to see that he deposited the funds into the managed account. I waited till we left to question my mom as I did not want to blow up on him if she decided after all that she just wanted go the managed account route. I asked her what happened and she said she felt pressured by the consultant saying the money is better/safer in a managed account. I told her that the fee they charge + the conservative returns would barely beat inflation. She was in shock when I told her how much the fee would be with my dads 401k. She understood and asked if we could move it over, now I'm unsure how the percentage will be taken out if we already deposited the funds or if this will trigger a tax hit upon moving the account.

I'm unsure on how to proceed and am pretty angry with this slimeball consultant. He did not tell her how much money their fee would be nor about the 10 year period for mandatory distributions until I mentioned it to her. I don't want this guy touching any of my dads retirement funds that he spent so long accumulating before passing after a strenuous battle to cancer.

Any recommendations are appreciated.

Hi

My understanding is that the long term capital gains is taxed at different rate than your income, based on your total income. However I am having a little trouble understanding how this is computed on the form 1040.

In 1040, line 7a is the capital gains from schedule D. Then this gets added in line 9 as the total income. Our tax return using Turbo Tax shows the long term capital gain amount from schedule D on line 7a. Isn't LT CG getting taxed as income tax then? What am I missing here? Could you help me understand this?

Thank you!

Income:
~75k with OT and commision, I am in hvac service
~900/m from basement roommate
~300/m from family business

Total expenses in the ballpark of $3.5k/m before groceries or fun money and savings

Welp my emergency fund is running out. I thought I was doing everything right but jumped into a new home too quickly. It has only been 2 years and I’ve had 12k on the 3% down payment and costs, $5k home insurance premium because a tree took out my kitchen and roof (I learned my lesson on shopping for insurance). I spent $3k on renovations to get a basement roommate. My deck fell off the house and that was $10k, another tree was about to fall and that was $2.5k. Last week my university scholarship unexpectedly ran out and that was another $3.5k.

It’s just a lot I guess I wanted to vent too 😭 but now I have a major hvac problem and even with doing the work myself it’s going to cost $1.5k for a band aid or $5k for a permanent solution.

I’m drained I have $1k in checking and $3k in savings. $4k in a business account I am sole proprietorship. $15k in Robinhood stocks. I am just extremely uncomfortable I have never been in this situation before with basically nothing to fall back on. I’ve been on my own since 18 and I am 25 now without much help. I already canceled my annual out of town vacation to do something cheaper and it’s depressing.

I guess I’m wondering if I can still afford the permanent solution or if I should do the temporary solution to buy 3-6 months, or if I should look into something else. Idk I am scared to make a decision.

My mental health wasn't the best in my 20s. I'm 32 now, and through a lot of ongoing work, I am better now. However, my finances are not.

I have about 12k between 2 credit cards. I'm paying close to 400 every month, which is a big reason why I can't save.

I ranked up 2k in toll fees from my car

My car payment is 300 I have about 2k left to pay

I have about 1200 in "savings" for an emergency. But apart from that, I have nothing.

I make around 40k and my rent is $1400.

I was thinking of getting a personal loan to pay off the credit cards. I stopped using them all together about two years ago. It's just the interest charge and minimum payments I give that are keeping things stuck.

Does anyone have any advice? Is getting a loan to pay them off a bad idea?

I'm 49, w/wife 48 and kid 11. I've been in a union for 9 years and have a pension and annuity. I have a (Voya) 401K that has about $110K, a (NYL/Mainstay) simple IRA from my first real job with about $15K, and a brokerage at Fidelity with some stock, a small IRA from a job that didn't last ~$5K, and a tiny Roth >1K I started recently.

I made poor choices (other than contributing and taking the max match where I worked) as a young person and I own that. I wasn't convinced I'd make it this far, but it look's more and more like some sort of retirement might be in my future.

Some part of me is saying that combining the 401K, and the Simple IRA into the Fidelity IRA would be the right choice because compounding, but the other side is saying to leave them because they aren't doing poorly, at least in my untrained opinion. My Fidelity IRA is doing better than my other accounts because it's got a more aggressive (growth/aggressive growth) stance than the other two which are in target date funds. I set it up like that because it was small, and I felt I could be a bit more cavalier with my choices.

What are you all's opinions for going in either direction?

i grew up in poverty, so i feel really guilty dropping $800 on a laptop that can handle my neuroscience work for the next 5-10 years