You probably need to stay in your shared housing situation (or find another with similar costs) and purchase a cheaper vehicle. Various thoughts:

• A $3k used car might not exist in your market, but there are certainly cars that will cost less than $500/month in finance charges with a $5k+ down payment. That's a huge range and for some reason, you've only considered only the extremes.
• $5k in savings is enough for an emergency fund, a car down payment, or a moving fund, but not enough for all three. You don't have enough savings to do all of these things at once.
• Using your credit limit to make spending decisions is insane. You need a complete budget, both to guide your spending and evaluate the decision to move. Right now, you've said nothing about costs other than groceries, rent & bills and debt. Most people also buy household goods, clothing, medical care, and they certainly have to maintain a vehicle if they have one. Those gaps make this decision impossible to evaluate.

Well what I mean is, what is the financial benefit of a 1099k vs a schedule C or whatever? Is the tax advantage better than if you were to be sent a 1099k?

They delay helps both financial companies and users insure they are marking shared payments as personal, instead of business. The first would not be taxable, while the other is taxable.

For example someone may want to pay the restaurant bill most of time to get extra points on their credit card. They might venmoed more than $600 from dinner companions over the year when sharing the bill.

I had not paid close attention to this recently, so dont know if I had been making a mistake.

No risk (FDIC insurance applies to online banks too). You're just giving up the convenience of having physical branches, in return for much better interest rates.

Also he is moving to a different country in 6 months. So I’m not sure why he is so concerned about cultivating the social circle he is about to ditch completely

151 for phone? I pay $15 a month on a 5 year old iPhone X! Sell the car if it is cheaper to Uber/carpool bike/etc. Internet should be <75, cut cable if need be. Clean HVAC filters, refrigerator coils, use LED bulbs, keep things unplugged if not in use to cut down electricity. Eating out? Twice a month (including date night). Should slash that number in half at least. Coffee can be mad at home for cheap.

My advice, live within your means and it will relieve a lot of stress.

For debt repayment, pay the highest interest accounts first. You should be dumping your savings into any high interest debt, your savings serves nearly no purpose if CC debt is eating you up. If it's low/zero interest then carry on.

For the vehicle, financing at 500/month on your salary is a mistake. What is the actual vehicle price? The two options you have are not "500/month new vehicle or $3000 beater" -- you are choosing not to see the options inbetween.

> How does 'not' getting the 1099k sent to you this year take a load off your shoulders?

The small time flippers get to cheat on their taxes for another year with no real way of getting caught. And more importantly the Average Joes that that use those services for stuff that doesn't generate any tax liability should have a way to designate such transactions one the guidance is issued.

If you can't afford the car, why are you paying an extra 75 a month? Shop around on insurance rates.

Your prospective regarding NEEDING a car for your social life is silly. Invite people over. Ask for rides, sit at home and enjoy your self

OP has his priorities all out of whack. Spending over 1/3 of his rent on a car payment (half after taking into account insurance/fuel) is clearly not as important as having a great social life.

How is ALLY (or I guess SoFi) different from “standard bank savings”? Is there risk involved?

> My goal here is to lower my taxable income as much as possible so I can keep as much cash on hand to save up for our first rental property

You don't get it both ways. The best way for W2 workers to reduce tax liability is to save for retirement with a 401k.

Lack of financial sophistication related to tax matters among the general public. It was clear nobody understood the change or their existing obligations.

The only reason to delay is to raise it back to $20k or something close.

That’s an expensive lesson. Your leasing office while technically right, is being unnecessarily mean about it.

Where I live, it’s 60 day notice but we didn’t even get the lease until like 30 days past that, so there should be some flexibility on that in general (maybe not in your case unfortunately).

60 days is standard, so you have to really plan your move well in advance unfortunately

Your “ social life” is costing you $800 a month. Sorry but it’s time to grow up and make tough decisions. You cannot afford that car.

I live in Pittsburgh too and all of your bills look atrocious. Like why are you paying $123 for internet?!? We've never paid more than $65 (both Verizon and Comcast) the five years we lived here.

Your gas and electric combined is really high too. We have a 1500 sqft house and never spend that much. I lived in a luxury apartment where we paid $1200 and our comfort billing never went over $40.

So many of our friends lived in super connected neighborhoods for $600 month. The only reason I did the luxury apartment was to have in-unit washer dryer (you're paying $50 for laundry?!?!?) since my husband was short on time so he did laundry when we hung out.

I would venture to guess that the average person has no idea what any of this is about. Based on the posts here over the last year, people’s understanding of this new 1099-K rule tends to be something along the lines of “if my friend Venmos me $600 (regardless of the reason) I have to pay taxes on it.” They don’t understand that it only applies to goods & services payments, and that the amount reported may not be entirely taxable, so they hear about this delay and they are relieved because they get to put off figuring it out until a year from now when they will all start to panic once again.

> even if you don't get a 1099k sent to you, you are still supposed to file taxes on all your sales

A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that if they don’t get a 1099, then they can get away with not reporting the income.

>I mean even if you don't get a 1099k sent to you, you are still supposed to file taxes on all your sales through a different form anyways and go through the same meticulous process.

The majority of people affected do not understand this part.

SoFi now offers 3.75%. Been using it for about a year now—would recommend!

It’s not a perk. It’s an extension so the irs can develop guidance and the payment processor can become compliant

Sometimes, tips and bonuses don’t count.

For my car loan, it had to be consistent across two years tax returns. The facts I started earning tips and bonuses this year didn’t make the cut.

It depends on the loan provider.

Upvote for Ally it’s where I store my emergency fund as well as some savings goal! Of course I keep a little cash with my standard bank savings account at USAA but Ally has been fantastic as a HYSA!

I’ve used ALLY for a few years now and it’s been a great experience

Agree. Range is what they want to pay though, not what you need, which could be more, less or the same. Many states require the range be disclosed upon request. I do that before I ever schedule an interview though, to know if it’s even something I want to interview for. I don’t consider that “the interview” though, hence the comment.

Thanks. I’ve only had my job for 4 months, will that make it impossible to get a loan because of the lack of history?