How much do they make? How much is the car they want to buy?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Put 3250 into one Roth IRA and then 3250 into another Roth IRA?

Also I've already been maxing out my Roth for years, so I don't think that would change much as far as how I'm saving.

Or do you mean like doing a backdoor conversion of some kind?

I swear I raised three toddlers in a battery powered swing. Slept great in that thing. MVP of the baby years.

A very beat up Toyota Corolla, nearly 200k miles and 4-5 accidents reported prior to them owning it. I guess the main concern is more the hills & city driving than the cold, as the transmission is starting to give out.

It would be worthwhile to take care of housing first. I'm concerned about your partners low credit score. It would be best, if your credit is good to go for housing alone if your income is good enough. Getting housing with no debt will help. How is your car? Can you share a car for awhile?

Another thing you should consider is that when you mix managed and index funds in the same asset classes, you're often just investing in the same underlying assets just a using a different vehicle with a fee.

But that’s what the credit cards are for…they act as emergency savings when you don’t already have them in cash.

Sure, you can transfer to a 0% card and pay off slowly, but in theory it’s not any different than paying off now and using a 0% card to fund future purchases while you rebuild savings.

> Partners current car is old and beat up, and our concern is that even if their vehicle survives the trip up there,

What about the car specifically makes you think that it won't survive a trip one state over?

The fact that you didn't include any useful information on the actual cost of the car and how much they make, I'm guessing it's going to be a pretty poor decision.

Is the car for business or personal use?

You can make adjustments to your W4 after each bonus based on your calculations from the bonuses you have received that year and projecting a very conservative number for the next one (or use zero).

Ideally you want to let the government borrow as little free money as possible

What is the current car? Why would the cold kill it?

He does not. I have slightly more in savings than he does, but we're not too different. I think it's the shift in mindset of being independent for the first 14 years of adulthood to suddenly being a team that we are grappling with.

Yeah, I'm thinking the HYSA is the way to go right now for the liquidity. And the rates are not bad right now!

6 of one, half dozen of the other.

Yesterday, I put in motion on moving my money from Fidelity to Vanguard. I had to call Fidelity to do that, which, of course, means they try to sales pitch you out of it.

Why? I am consolidating accounts to make it easier for me to manage.

Lucky me, I have more consolidation to go through. I should be done by the end of the year is my guess. I move slow. Do one account at a time, to make sure all the bugs are worked out. Then move on to the next.

I look at my financial madness as sort of like living in our house forever. We accumulate a lot of stuff, and that stuff is put into out of the way places, marked as "to be dealt with later." Twenty years later, you look at that collection of 600 flower pots, and go, "Why?"

"Issues" such as? Frankly, at 60k miles, you're most likely just running into normal "wear" items that will periodically need to be replaced on any car (brakes, shocks, tires, etc.).

That said: You make plenty, so if you want a new truck then go for it. It's just not the best practice to have a car payment in perpetuity.

normally i would say just throw all the funds in one account and call it good. once that spending issue is cleared up and everyone is on the same page, then it can just be a simple all in throw the money in one account and be done but until then i think transparency but discretion.

unless he has a lot in his separate savings account the fact that he thinks spending the whole joint account without warning is a bit concerning financially.

since you have a house & other short term goals I would just put the bonus in a HYSA. you have enough in savings for the short term so if you say the house is a 7-10+ year goal to purchase then there is nothing wrong with a brokerage account to roll the dice that you can turn the bonus money into a bit more

[deleted]

That is good to hear that you are changing your money mindset. I would just continue making the minimum payments for now. Once you receive your enlistment bonus, pay down your loan to what you can sell the car for. Then sell your car.

Speak to someone at your lender.

Escrow is simply the estimated payments for your insurance and taxes. And it's adjusted annually after the actual insurance and tax bills are paid.

Each year, your lender sends you an explanation of the escrow distributions. That's where you saw the "escrow shortage" mentioned. If you think it's incorrect or if you don't understand it, you need to talk with them.

You are usually given the option to pay the escrow shortage in a one time lump sum, or pay it off gradually via a higher monthly payment. You have likely chosen the latter and are getting confused by that "extra" amount.

It's unlikely that you are paying too much. Talk to your lender and they will explain it to you.

Why did you buy the car at this rate in the first place? Do you no longer need a car?

>What should i do?

I don't think I understand the question.

You took out a loan at a high interest rate. Thus, you should pay your bills on time and carry on.

They are variable. I've consistently overachieved and gotten large bonuses, but I wouldn't have an accurate way to forecast what they'd be throughout the year.

My bank direct deposit was just 1 number. The Payroll software has them broken out as separate paystubs, but again I'm not really sure.

Unfortunately, I can assure you I have not :(

I suspect this is more of a him problem than a me problem, though I struggle with it, too.

For example, I suggested that now that we are a team, maybe we should give a heads up when making a large purchase. My threshold for a "large purchase" was $300 and he didn't think we should need to tell each other unless we were purchasing something $5000 and above. Also I only just got him to give me visibility into his accounts last night so that we could come up with a budget.

Like I said, we are newly married (a few months) so we are slowly trying to wrap our heads around everything being joint.

We just started having nightly check ins and weekly budget discussions, so I can bring up the idea of me putting it more, based on our percentages of income.