What HYSAs are offering 5%?? I just opened one with discover at 3.3 and thought I was getting a good deal lol

If land lord will give you a discount greator then what you could earn in a HYSA then yes. If not then no.

Unless your credit sucks to where your landlord wants you to pay a certain amount up front don’t do it. Its better to have cash on hand just in case you want to do something. Plus if you prepay rent you can’t use it as a incentive for quicker maintenance.

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Good to know, thanks!

Don't dump your cash on hand into paying off the house. Just pay the mortgage plus the additional $500. Mortgage will be paid off in less than 3 years.

Full Retirement Age is when you can collect benefits with no limit on earnings, so I'm shooting for that for Social Security. Dying between 67 and 70 would leave money on the table if you wait.

Since I plan on earning income until around age 70, it doesn't make sense to start before 67 due to benefit reductions.

Note that you should apply for Medicare as soon as you are eligible at age 65. Do not wait until you start collecting Social Security. The older you are when you sign up, the higher your premiums are for supplemental plans. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

You don't need an emergency fund until you have an emergency. If I were you, I would not dump my savings into the mortgage payment. By having an emergency fund, you probably are probably in a position to absorb a financial emergency.

To set my mind at ease, I would calculate how much longer it would take to pay off the mortgage at the rate you are paying it. Then I would recalculate how much I would have to increase the payments to pay off 12 months earlier. Then I would make a decision of how much to pay off. If your mortgage doesn't have balloon payments, I would just maintain your regular practice.

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I did this when I went back to college in my 30's. I paid 18 months cash up front and my landlord gave me a 10% discount.

One thing that helped me when I had a car loan was I forced myself to think about my routine purchases. $6 at Starbucks or an extra $6 towards my car? $10 for lunch out or $10 extra towards my car? At the grocery store $4 for Oreos or an extra $4 for my car? Every time I made the decision to not purchase something at pay extra towards my car, I transferred that money immediately to my savings account.

When my payment was due I would make my regular payment + whatever I transferred over extra that month from not buying something else. It usually wasn’t a small amount between $100-300 a month because I have a serious caffeine addiction. On the flip side my car got paid off faster, I cut my Starbucks habit, cut my going out to eat habit, started eating healthier and it made me much more aware of how much useless spending I was doing. It changed my whole mindset on how I spend my money and what truly is a need not a want.

Is 0% somehow better than 3-5% to you?

This is our plan, as well as any acquired assets communally during the marriage to be just that with the exception of the 401k vehicles. Just looking for what an equitable split might be before another property is acquired. Maybe percentage based?

is the concern with your partner paying part of the mortgage pre or post marriage? pre-marriage, i would say look at comparable rentals and what they would have to pay towards that. post-marriage i would say draft a prenup where you get to keep the equity in your house and 401k as of the marriage date, and he gets to keep his 401k as of the marriage date. any growth/additional equity will be split 50/50

As a landlord I understand your logic of trying to make your application more attractive by paying so much ahead of time. To a landlord with a bunch of applicants it does add some measure of confidence (providing it's legal). So there is some value. If it isn't legal, perhaps a larger security deposit. All most landlords care about is getting long-term good tenants. Convince them of that and you'll be ahead of the pack. As for the suggestions of negotiating a lower rent, that's completely out of the question when it's a tight market and you want the place. The first thing the landlord is going to think is that you can't afford the place.

Edit: Another great idea would be to offer to sign a longer lease. That's attractive.

Fidelity Cash Management account, buy SPRXX, 4.16% with no fees, no wire fees, no NSF fees, no ATM fees, fully liquid and no games. I used to mess with HYSA, now I just use Fidelity.

You can also get 4.5% in tbills with no state tax if you can commit to a month

Okay, then each get an attorney and draft a prenup. The prenup specifies the current equity in the house as your asset that remains yours. In the divorce you’re planning, you keep that equity, and any further equity is divided equally between you. You each keep your investment balances as of the date of the wedding, and balances created during the marriage are split.

Or even better, sell the house, you keep the proceeds, then buy a new house together and each put in equal amounts.

But you really do need to consider whether 50/50 is always fair and whether it will always work. What if you become disabled or partner gets leukemia or one of you is sued and loses a million dollar judgment or partner’s child needs a kidney transplant and can’t pay for it or you get burned out doing your six-figure job and need six months off or to become a kindergarten teacher or youth pastor for a 75% pay cut. There are reasons why married couples have traditionally pooled their assets and budgeted together.

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I did and haven’t regretted it. You could always get an equity line at the same time. In case you needed do access money

This isn't the info that I asked for and I think that a real marriage means that you plan for all events while in love. Including the compromise of your marriage and assets when you aren't in love from the original intent of care that started your Union. Being smart about future contingencies is excellent personal finance.

What else should they do with one months worth of money? You don’t invest it when you need it so quickly…

Worked in the industry for a while, but did not buy property at that age since I left to live in the EU for fun for a few years and to get my MA (no house but have friends who settled around your age). Real estate is a great investment, but you will not be making stonk returns (5-10% ROI yoy) think of it like an anti-inflation vehicle and if you rent it then it will be a self paying savings account with random fees associated with it (repairs).

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1. If you are 100% on living there for 5-10yrs in that district and etc read on.
2. You know the pitfalls of a home (they have random fu expenses). At 24 I would 100% recommend looking into a condo or something along those lines instead of a house house. It would function the same as your current renting but now you own it without worry of maintenance outside of your own appliances. Just look into the HOA for pending litigation or etc.
3. As others have noted your income would be an issue and lacking cash for a downpayment/closing cost. You can often negotiate sellers pay closing cost so keep that in mind (at least here in MI that is generally standard practice for sellers to pay but not all the time).

What no one has mentioned is Teachers, EMT/paramedics, Police and Fire generally have access to programs through HUD or often your state GOV that help with a downpayment that can be forgiven (so no pay obligation). For the good neighbor program (through HUD) for example you need to agree to live in the property for 3yrs, it must be on their list of areas, and you cannot refinance out of your terms early or sell the property without penalty due to the lien HUD places on the property during that window of time. It will also be a FHA loan which you will want to generally refinance out of once at 80% loan to value to get rid of the PMI since it sticks to FHA even after you cross that threshold unlike a conventional loan where it drops off. Good thing is rates are trash so there will be a time to refi down the line (5-10yrs realistically). Link to HUD - https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/sfh/nsc/gnndserv

Just be sure you budget accordingly, and I would play out some scenarios (like your car dies tomorrow can you still afford your mortgage and etc with a new car payment?) Then be sure to get an inspection no matter what anyone says. Also I advise only working with real estate agents associated with the board of realtors when you decide to make the move. They have higher ethical obligations even in buyer beware states.

Don’t do it. Forget about the lost opportunity cost of not gaining interest on that money, even if the landlord gave you a discount it’s still not worth it. It just increases the ways you can get screwed over: it’s a lot harder to get money back from someone than it is to just not pay them. If landlord does something to break your lease agreement, you could easily end up having to sue them to get your money back.

It doesn’t sound like you are both really in a marriage mindset. If you were, you wouldn’t be talking about splitting the mortgage 50/50, or of his contribution to your marital home being “rent” he is paying you. You could try premarital counseling to figure it out, but I suspect staying single will work best for you.

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