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I'd rather you borrow from your 401k than reduce contributions.

You can only put so much in per year, you don't get that window back.

Borrowed funds can be paid back. And market rates of return are unlikely to beat savings in credit card interest.

That said, I agree with others, $6k is low enough that either of the above can likely be avoided - but it may take some major self discipline.

Thanks for this! I appreciate the direction! I am very slowly learning all this money stuff.

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Start by contributing toward a Roth IRA. There’s a limit on how much you can contribute per year. You can still contribute for 2022 until April, then start contributing for 2023.

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My daughter wrapped our Subaru around 2 trees. The cost to repair vs value was within $500. The insurance company repaired it.

That said, I wouldn’t have comprehensive on a vehicle that is worth under $3000.

If the home has been owned for more than 2 years, there is no capital gains tax on the first $250,000 for single house hold owners and $500,000 for married owners.

You can change your W-4 to single to increase your withholding. Doesn’t matter if you are married or not. This is basically just a way to tell your employer what to withhold.

When filing taxes you will still go with married, filing jointly (or married filing separately in rare cases).

I appreciate this thank you. I've been diving into the wiki that was linked earlier. Mainly looking at Roth IRA and I-Bonds and thinking about how much money I have. I already keep track of my expenses on a spreadsheet so I know if I'm wasting money, if I have enough room to spend money, etc. Not exactly budgeting but it's something.

Thinking about...
- Savings for expenses under a year (emergency fund, or if something comes up)
- I-bonds for expenses past a year (down payments on a new living situation, battery for my car, potential trips, etc.)
- IRA for retirement

Man, money things are so complicated. ;_;

EDIT: Thinking of brokerage accounts with low cost index funds too but the tax stuff scares me. I don't want to invest and then suddenly have to pay a whole bunch of taxes ;_;

He needs to talk to his bank or credit union to try to get pre-approved for an auto loan. Once he knows how much he can spend, he can start looking.

Follow up questions...

1. Can we change status back to "single", even though we're married?
2. When filing taxes next year, do I enter our filing status as "single"? Or "married, filing jointly"?

Thank you so so much for making this easy for me to understand.

For how many years has your managed fund beat the index fund? If you've held both for less than 3 years, anything's possible in the short term. Longer term? Might be different.

No, you can set it to single. Or you can check box 2c, same thing at your income level.

What kind of research did you do on vehicles to make you land on a Mitsubishi in 2023?

You could've got an older loaded mint condition Toyota for half the price with pretty much the same amount of life left and 4x the performance and quality.

That's more than the insurance for a Ferrari I used to own.

Just read the instructions for the W4.

If you put married filing jointly, your employer withholds as if you have $25k standard deduction, $20k at 10%, $60k at 12%, etc. Which is correct, those are the tax brackets for married filing jointly.

But if you have multiple jobs (eg both you and your wife work), then combined between your jobs your withholding looks like you have $50k of standard deduction, $40k at 10%, etc. So you massively underwithhold.

The solution is to follow the instructions in step 2 for multiple jobs. (Or alternatively, you could both select single instead of married filing jointly).

> Could you please clarify?

Here is the W4 as published by the IRS.

Read Step 2.

• https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

They're both brokerage accounts. For the "Cash Management" account, you would earn interest (currently 2.21%) on cash that is "swept" to various FDIC-insured banks, whereas for the other type of brokerage account you would earn dividends on cash in a Fidelity money market fund (probably SPAXX, currently yielding 3.95%).

You can buy T-Bills in the same manner with either type of brokerage account, so choose whichever one fits any other needs you might have.

And I'm not supposed to change it back to single once it's in this rate, correct?

Lots of folks took off dependents for the two years of extra covid child tax credit. Them didn’t put it back. This is the third or so post today just in this topic.

Never said insurance companies are required to force coverage. I said insurers are required to guarantee coverage for their policy holders. That’s the market requirement. To exist in the market, you have to be bonded and guarantee to cover fault.

I’m sure your idea of stipulating against regulation is going to work out well. Be sure to keep records on every denial, they’ll be necessary.

Sure, lots of vehicles without any insurance. And for that there’s hefty fines and possible jail time for people using public roads without following the laws. You keep trying to convolute drivers and the state where this discussion is on insurers and their regulators.

You’ve really sold me on the idea of felony charges for insurers who deny coverage for at fault claims based on some contract stipulation. The very idea that you could outright stipulate against the foundations of the system requirements is absurd. It’s good timing too.

Yeah I figured this was the way. Appreciate it!

FML. My employer didn't explain this, but I should've been more on top of this as well. Thank you and will be doing this ASAP.

Max out. Invest. Market could possibly be low right now and you'll be buying shares at good prices, giving you huge upside in the future.

...or the market could continue an overall downward trend for decades like Japan. No one knows

I'd still take my chances with maxing out and investing.