Not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure they are legally obligated to give you pay stubs, either paper or digitally.

You do not need an advisor to manage your investments, especially when you have 30 years to retirement.

Put money in broad diversified index funds like VTI and VXUS or pick a Vanguard/Fidelity Target Date Retirement index fund. The fees are essentially 0. Break up with your financial “advisor” ASAP

/r/bogleheads

Start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics

Northwest mutual is the worst.

> Is there an easier or “more typical” way people are investing into the market for retirement that doesnt cost 1.5-2% every year? Saving for retirement outside of a 401k is all new to me.

Read the flowchart and do it yourself at fidelity, schwab or vanguard.

Keep things simple. Complicated plans will cause problems.

If the kids are grown and out of the house does MIL even need life insurance?

I've checked it, it's fine, but I meant something more explanatory. And not so much a to-do list

In hindsight I would have suggested that you pay for the CDL training and get reimbursed by your employer. At least that way you're not dragging a third party into this.

It also sounds like your employer is unreliable. Might be time to start passing your resume around.

Yes, I just realized that the FICO score WF gives me is labeled "FICO Score 9 / Experian data".

I’m pretty sure you meant to say 120-age in stocks, or age-20 in bonds.

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• Retirement Accounts
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do you mean your refund went from 1300 to -291? your return is the entire thing you submit. refund is the amount you get back.

if you have multiple W2 jobs then you need to make sure your W-4 is set up properly to withhold the right amount from each job. one job does not know about the other one so they can't know what your total income will be for the year when you add up all your jobs. sounds like you did not withhold enough so you'll now owe money.

When you earn more money, you owe more taxes.

You can easily withhold more at your current employer to make up the difference.

I have something similar with Wells Fargo simply called "FICO Credit Score" though I'm not sure if it's my actual FICO credit score or an estimation of it. I believed that there wasn't one FICO credit score but 3 different FICO scores, one from each credit reporting company but now I'm not so sure that's right.

You take home about $305 / day. After expenses, about 2 days a month pays for the car. I know this is dangerous way to think about things, but it's a great way to justify things.

Your employer withholds what you tell them to. Your W4 wasn't filled out correctly. If you're working two jobs this year, you need to submit correct W4s to both employers so the proper amount can be taken out.

You can afford it but it wasn’t the best decision you could have made. Life goes on. You should try to pay off the car sooner than 6 years, it depreciates and you don’t want to be underwater on the loan.

>I am wondering if it's a good idea to invest a couple hundred dollars in the iShare S&P 500 ETF

It is ok, but there are better strategies than S&P 500. For example, a total world fund (see VT, 2 letters) or pair a US total market fund with an ex-US fund (one of many examples being ITOT + IXUS).

>I heard investing in index ETFs are better for the long term

Index funds are best for long term. ETF vs mutual fund depends on person, account type, and brokerage used.

>so is 500 dollars too less to begin investing in the ETF? I was planning on investing a dollar amount of $200 dollars into the ETF.

Depending on brokerage, you may not be able to do this. IVV has a nearly $400 share price, you'd have to use a brokerage that offers fractional ETFs.

Yeah, paid in checks, we’re trying to figure out currently if they were personal or business checks but yeah, currently no paystubs to go off of.

Follow instructions on W-4 to withhold properly.

I really like this advice. I was like the OP for a long time, and my husband pushed me to buy things for me once in a while (we have a rule that I am always welcome to buy yarn because I almost never buy other things). There's an element of "if I don't spend my money, who will?" to consider as well. All that money is useless to you when you're dead, and it's possible you won't be able to travel in retirement like you'd always planned anyway due to declining health.

You may find our Taxes wiki helpful.

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> What am I missing?

That some people prioritize debt repayment differently than you are. Maybe even to the point of deferring any retirement savings. Or are able to put themselves into a situation with a high income and very low expenses. That's usually tough to pull off because jobs that pay a lot are often located in high cost of living locations.

Once you get to 5 or 6 figures worth of debt, you have to look at it as a marathon, not a sprint. With $5k a month, that's at least 5.5 years of payments even without interest. You just have to remember that each monthly payment gets you that much closer to your goal, and keep your lifestyle to a level that supports continuing those payments. Balancing debt paydown vs. other goals (retirement, living for today, etc) is also something you have to keep aware of.

An AutoMod reply to posts about “best” “bank/HYSA” could cut this down. Maybe.

I decided to take out one month of savings to pay the HELOC.