Social life? If your budgeting and trying to save as much money as possible. That means trying your best NOT to go out. Or if you do hopefully it's doing something free or cheap like going for a hike with buds and then grabbing a quick bite at mcds, doesn't mean stuff like yah let's go see a movie every week and get snacks and then after eat at a restaurant.

If your moving out of country your car will be useless

I agree on cutting any cost for a move. Means car must go at some point. Leaving so if Uber or Lyft works to save do. Great advice.

A 0.04% ER (vs 0% FZROX, for example) costs $25 on $62.5k per year...not 'over a decade'.

Yes, it's a small amount, but yes this is one factor that can make an IRA better than TSP.

ER isn't the only thing either...access to early withdrawals can be situational, not recommended, but still easier and cheaper with an IRA than with a 401k / TSP.

Look at it from the other way around, would you recommend someone roll money from an IRA (with good low ER funds) into TSP or a 401k? Why or why not? My point is entirely that there are more reasons to have money in an IRA than there are to have money in a 401k-style plan. TSP is great as far as 401k's go, but it doesn't beat (or match depending on your needs) an IRA so logically you should prefer to move your money to an IRA unless TSP offers something special (which it really doesn't other than maybe the G-fund).

You don't understand, depending on where you are and your needs it is very difficult to not own private transportation.

>A walkable city.

You've never seen pictures of Pgh have you? Aside from some areas in the City proper/peninsular, its nothing but steep hills and a literal mountain. I grew up about two miles from the second steepest city street on the planet. This is why normal long time residents simultaneously mock and respect the pedal biker extremists.

>With great uber and lyft options.

I had an employee who didn't own a car and used this strategy. Our office was Downtown so he took the "T" (light rail) for $100/mo (don't recall exact figure) on the yearly pass and used Uber for groceries etc. from his house in the suburbs. In 2018 we looked at his receipts and Uber was about $150/mo at the time, combined with the T pass he was sitting $250. Now he rightly argued it was still cheaper than anything but a cheap lease or paid off car between payment, fuel, and insurance but that was 2018. I don't know what Uber is going for today, the math may no longer be there.

>And pub transpo is awrsome

Based on the phrase "public transport" you sound as if you're from a Commonwealth nation. Firstly, "public transport" mostly sucks everywhere in the US and especially here in Pgh. There are a swath of City neighborhoods with regular busses but because of the geography of three rivers, bridges, tunnels, and hills or mountains very regular bus service drops off outside of Zone 2, 4, and 5. There is a light rail service but it only flows from Downtown to the South Hills, and it sucks too (it was built on existing remnants of a street car system). The Port Authority is also massively bankrupt all of the time and has essentially failed, for the service it does provide vs cost the ROI is not there and most of it should just be shut down, but I digress. The Pittsburgh region has geographical challenges closer to Switzerland but without the wealth and tax or gov't structure.

Just stay put for now. You won't be getting a better mortgage rate than the one you already have. Save your money and increase your down payment and keep paying down any debt you have. This will allow you to obtain a favorable mortgage rate from your lender in the future and frees up more cash for your monthly budget.

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Some people made a point of selling your car. I agree with that 1000% even if you have to fork out some money and Uber. No car payment, no car insurance, no gas. You are moving out in 6 months. In 6 months your car will depreciate so much more, so you need to sell now. Your social life with the crew will be zero once you move, so not having 6 months with no social life is not that big of a deal. Not going out to eat will save but it will add to your grocery. Cut the subscription, and internet too, your phone probably has unlimited data on it… sell your stuff in the apartment. I mean it sounds like you can save a lot and make some too. :)

Ok so here’s something I learned when I was young and in debt up to my eyeballs. Your social life doesn’t have to revolve around going out. Some of the best times I have had with friends have been at home pot luck style, playing board games or watching movies. Some of the best date nights I have with my hubby are when we find an interesting recipe to try, shop for the ingredients and then cook together with a nice bottle of wine. Total cost of our date nights are usually under $30 including the wine. Our eating out is reserved specifically for special occasions birthdays, anniversaries, promotions or while on vacation. Our shopping budget is like $50 per month, we don’t shop to shop, we shop because we truly need something. Coffee is made at home every day and poured into a travel mug. Once a month my son and I have a mom/son coffee date and that’s the only time we go out for coffee. You can trim a lot out of your budget just by scaling back your lifestyle. Either that or you have to increase your income by a 2nd job or side hustle. To get myself out of credit card debt I worked 2 jobs plus pet sit/ dog walked on the side. Everything from my 2nd job went to debt, everything I made for dog walking/ pet sitting went to savings on top of what I was making from my regular job throwing at debt and savings. It took me 18 months of it but I got out of debt plus had a 6 month emergency fund at my disposal.

We make over 6 figures a year, have an $1100 mortgage payment that will be paid off in the next 2 years, no car loans because we drive older used cars, no credit card debt because we live below our means. We could afford a much more extravagant lifestyle but choose to live frugally to retire early and live comfortably when we are old. We learned the hard way what it was like to live with crippling debt and made the decision to FIRE. You have to make sacrifices to make your dreams a reality so you may have to compromise on what your social life entails. We host BBQ’s, dinner parties, etc with our friends instead of going out. Or we might meet up with friends for a quick drink and conversation and spend $20 total. There are ways to still have a social life that doesn’t involve constant going out and spending money

Sorry I have to disagree here. With expense ratios like 0.04%, you're talking like a $25 difference over a decade. The difference is trivial, and not enough to 'beat' anything. An IRA doesn't provide much benefit here.

When we say that you should seek funds with low expense ratios, we're mostly talking about unscrupulous funds, mostly managed funds, who charge more than, say, 0.25% when they earn less then the market; or the old days where expense ratios like 1% were the norm.

So yeah, an IRA might have funds with a slightly lower expense ratio. But that won't help you to beat the market. The fees for most funds in most IRAs are going to be much higher than 0.04%.

Sell the car. Am I right to presume you plan to move to a third world country and work remotely to live better?

Seconding this, friends are usually more than willing to help out (drive you one way, uber back, etc)

>Figure out public transit.

We don't really have that, and what we do have -regular bus service to a small area in the City proper and a light rail which only goes south from the city- is -250% in the hole and has basically failed.

>Stop using AC/Heater.

Um yeah we get 0F here now, so we can't really turn off the furnace. Humidity gets brutal June-Aug/Sept so yeah you're going to want that A/C too but yes one could pretend its the 80s and survive without it.

Renting within the City has gotten kind of dumb, despite the overall suckiness of said city compared to the surrounding boroughs.

Pgh "luxury" is probably not in same vernacular as actual luxury enjoyed in real cities.

Yinzer bro, I know what you're talking about all too well. I am confused though, if you are leaving the country in June why does any of this matter? Do you think you will get repo'd by then? You and I know all too well you can't not have a car between now and then, yet it doesn't really make sense to get into another one for six months or rent one for the same amount of time. You can't stick this out and dump the car at the end of May before you leave?

I mean it seem very clear to me how to save money in your situation.

I have no idea why someone tight on money would be eating out and shopping so much. The new pairs of shoes can wait. Date nights might have to be in the apartment. Cut the subscriptions, you can watch almost any show ever made online for free.

If you cut these expenses in half, you save an extra ~$275. I have no idea what car you’re driving but a $550 payment is insane as a young adult.

Phone 151? Internet 123? Electric 200? We pay 60 a line for phone, 50 for internet and electric average is 100 a month in the winter 150 with heat steadily at 67 degrees. I know it’s not much but I think you can at least lower phone and internet

Man, if this isn't the truest thing I've read in a while

You have multiple simple and obvious solutions staring you in the face. What advice would satisfy you here?

90% of the personal finance sub is people basically complaining about their out of whack priorities, and then complaining about the common sense solutions everyone proposes.

Unfortunately this is super common. Buy that 2006 Honda, people!!

Wow. I guess I’ll stop complaining. My daughter renting a 1500sf house here for $2800. Just a regular one story house on a street in a subdivision

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Ya, that’s fine. The cash from selling the item later is part of the gift your brother gave you as long as it didn’t appreciate in value since then.

He can give you up to $13k worth of gifts per year without any tax implications at all and just file some record keeping forms for up to millions after that.