I'm 49. I earn a decent salary and I have the average expenses. I've had a 401 and 403 for years but borrowed against it and contributed the minimum. I try not to live my life by "what if...?" but I can confidently say that had I started contributing sufficiently and not borrowed from it, I could retire in 11 years or so. Now I will have to work until I'm 70 so that I can get the max social security. I'll most likely have to work part time after that.

The point is young men and women, sock it away now. Sure the cost of housing and goods is high but you can save something, anything. Unless you want to end up like me which you don't.

I’m a 70 year old widow with a house paid off. I can get around $650,000 if I sell. I have also about two hundred thousand in money markets, an IRA worth about $45,000 with penalties taken out if I withdraw and $30,000 in life insurance. My husband was handling finances and took out multiple credit cards and made me the primary on them, including a home equity loan with $70,000 left on a $100,000 line of credit. I had no idea I was the primary. He was playing games- paying minimum amounts on cards with high interest rates. I’ve been sick with stage 4 cancer for the past 8 years but kept working as an independent contractor. He told me everything was fine financially. He played games with the IRS with his accountant and has been paying off back taxes. I get also about $2000 in SSI checks and pay $300 in supplemental insurance. I’m getting rid of 1 car and have another one leased. I also make about $3000 a month but often need to take time off for dr visits. Besides that he owes the Gardner $1000 and $400 to a pond maintaince company. He made a fish pond. How should I proceed? Credit counseling or a lawyer to fight the credit card companies that the cards were fraudulent? I need to get rid of the debt. I need income to live on. I’m lost. I live in NY on Long Island.

My parents have been financially responsible, I've been financially responsible. We are far from rich but all in good shape financially. My kids have good jobs and should be ok. I will receive a decent inheritance which I won't need.

I have two granddaughters currently, I would expect more. A simple financial calculator tells me 400k invested for 50 years at 8% (I'd index the SP500) would be worth 21.5 million dollars. With proper estate planning could I set something like this up to give this money to the grandkids in 50 years? Am I oversimplifying, am I overly optimistic?

Thanks everyone for answering and helping me figure things out. Wasn’t expecting to get so many responses. Also I don’t mind answering questions about the legal process for anyone else going through the same thing, might put your mind at ease:)

As the title says. I am going to inherit 1.5 million in stocks, assets and cash and I have no idea what to do with this. I am in my 20's and already received $150,000 into my checking account.

I would love advice, direction, tips and/or guidance because I have no clue what to do and talking with attorneys makes me so confused about it all

I certainly don't want to deter people from saving and thinking about their future. Just remember that there is life now too. I just got done diagnosing Alzheimer's in a woman in her early 60's.

Her and her husband were looking forward to travel and leisure and life, all these things they forbade themselves in the prospect of "enjoying it later." Now they are likely looking at assisted living if not a nursing home.

Balance. Be wise about your future, but don't get caught up in the rat race. Enjoy your life now, but don't forget about rainy days.

Thank you guys for the wonderful advice on this subreddit.

Edit: IDK how many of these awards cost real money. But if they do, give it to a charity and post a link on here instead! Thanks y'all!

I'm 18 and my dad died and I'm inheriting about £400,000 in a trust fund. I have no clue about money, i'm a student and I don't have a job. My grandma also changed her will so whatever my dad would've got i'm getting, she's unfortuntly got mnd too. I live with one of my trustees and he wants to charge me 1.4k a month in rent out of my trust fund. I'm planning to go to uni or get an apprentiship in 2025. 1.4k seems absurd for a room. They both said they would be ok with me buying a place in the trusts name. I don't know if thats a good idea or staying here and paying the rent is better. I know i'm young and it's not my money yet but i don't want it to just waste away and i have no idea what the right thing to do is and people keep asking me what i want to do with it and i have no clue or if buying a house is a good investment, no idea if this is the right place to post sorry if not Edit: Thank you all so much you’ve given me some ideas and things to think about Edit with extra info : My trustees are my Dads friend who was my foster carer and my uncle. I think he’s charging me that amount because his mortgage is expensive and he wasn’t expecting to have me and had semi retired. I live in south east england. If I go to my chosen university I get a 13k a year scholarship as i’m a care leaver so will not have to use my trust for any living expenses. it’s just between now and then and then the after uni. My dads mate said buying a place was a good idea then renting it out and they both are leaning towards that but now i’m not so sure

Another edit : The post is starting to die down a bit now but i am definitely going to speak to a fca financial advisor, spend as little of the money as possible and invest. I know one of my dads formal wishes was that the money be spent on my education so will definitely be using a bit of it for that and live off the interest till uni then after university think about buying a house. But thanks again everyone even though some of the advice was a bit americany it’s really been helpful. My favourite piece of advice has to be the guy who said don’t get a girl pregnant, fortunately, I don’t have the facilities to do such a thing, I’m a woman.

I was recently diagnosed with an illness that will likely take my life in the next half decade. I want to make sure I’m not leaving behind any financial headaches when I kick off.

I’m 33m with no spouse, no children, and no family other than my mom and brother. I have a fully paid off car with no debt. I don’t own property but I do have several healthy investments, a life insurance policy, and a decent chunk of money in savings. I have a will outlining my desire to pay for my funeral and then to split the rest between my mom, brother, and charity.

On paper, it seems everything is squared away but wanted to post here to see if anyone can think of anything I may have missed or should keep in mind moving forward.

I'm 56 years old and I own four cars free of payments and my house also free of payments. I take home $1,000/wk. I have 42k in stocks. What should I do

Early January i quit my job to start my dream business. A dream i have been wanting to accomplish since i was a kid. I saved up 35k dollars, put 3 months of rent on the side and allow me to spend 100 dollars per week for food. I put this money on an envelop. It came to my head that if invested my 35k dollars, i could have a higher investment to put into my company. Fast forward 2 months. I lost 24k. This is putting a giant cloud on my head. It took a happiness inside me. I don't know who to talk about this. Deep inside i know i need to continue, but this hit is dragging me down. I need some advice.

Hi everyone,

After many years of school/training, I am finally starting my first “real” job.

Background:

• I am a 35yo single M living in a HCOL city in California. I will be making about $600k+ a year (medicine) which, after taxes and maxing out retirement, comes out to around $25k/take home a month.

• I could probably add another $100k+ a year if I take extra call

• Rent is $3k/month

• Credit cards are paid off every month and run about $7k/month

• No car payment (driving a 10+ year old car that should last another couple years)

• Have around $150k in cash sitting in a high yield savings account (5% interest)

• $400k in student loans, all currently federal with high interest rate (6.5% average)

I’m not sure what I should do with my savings and disposable income. Should I consolidate with a private lender once the student loan pause ends in a month? Should I pay off my student loans aggressively now? Invest? Buying a house isn’t huge on my goal list and no plans for kids in the immediate future.

Thank you!

Edit: Thanks for all the replies so far everyone. Seems like the consensus is to aggressively pay down my loans. Wondering if this would be true even if I were to consolidate into a lower interest with a private lender? Looking around 4-4.5% right now.

To answer everyone’s question about what I spend $7k/month on - this is just an average of what is usually somewhere between $5-10k a month.

• Majority of it goes to food (I don’t cook, it takes too much time and I am usually exhausted after work so I have every meal I don’t have at work delivered)

• Traveling is a big expense. I get 8-12 weeks off (unpaid) a year so I have a trip planned probably once a month. It costs a lot but it makes me happy and I didn’t get to do a lot in med school or residency

• Dating. Very expensive lol

I don’t have any student loan debt, worked through school and never grew up with money. Got a job at 14 so I could pay for my own stuff. Didn’t even know my grandparents had money but makes sense as they go on 3 month long trips every year.

What do I do? I live in a LCOL area, where good houses are 400-500k. Do I invest it and wait until I’m like 40? Or pay off a house and use the savings from mortgage to invest more in other ways…

Edit: also don’t have any credit card debt and my credit score is estimated around 800 (using credit karma).

My wife works for her sibling and he had a phenomenal year in 23. As a result she is receiving an expected bonus. Her annual salary is 65k and I make 96k in a government job. Question becomes how we should utilize the money.

She would like to do some remodeling of our house with new windows (I’d estimate this would be around 15k, and she would like to pay a portion of her debt.

She has 75k in student Loan debt, and 25k In cc debt. She worked five years as a public school teacher.

We have a three year toddler and a baby on the way in June.

We haven’t set up any college plan for our toddler.

Thoughts of what to do, I would like to use money wisely pay off some of her debt, and or invest.

I'm 50 and just laid my wife to rest yesterday.

We have lived with my in-laws for several years. My wife has been their caregiver and I assisted while running my little business. We put a little in our Roth's and were paying half the bills here also. Do we didn't have much extra cash.

My wife and I would have inherited a reasonable real estate and some other investments etc.

Now that my wife has passed, I've been told they are changing the trust and I'm not getting anything and BIL gets it all. While it upsets me that my wife and I have up several years of building our business and growing our retirement, I understand they choose family blood over me. Which is fine. He'll need to move him and his wife here from 1,200 miles away to be their servants.

On to my question now. I'm 50 and now widowed. I don't plan on remarrying. I intend on fully maxing out my Roth.

I want to know does anyone have any advice on a tax account for dividends?

I want to build extra income. I have no family. Everyone has passed away. I want to know if I end up sick or injured, I have something coming in. I know there will be taxes, but I'm also lower income so taxes are not a real issue right now.

I've had success picking investments and I study companies well. My Roth has a good mix of ETF's, Stocks, Mutual Funds etc.

I'm wanting to build a solid little income taxable account that I can keep reinvesting and only start using dividends from it if I'm in a position of needing them.

Thoughts?

I'm still a student who has access to hereditary wealth (1.5M after taxes) due to death of a close family member. I don't really require the money right now so I'm up for investing 100 percent of it. I'm gonna pursue further education as well and it's all paid for. What are the best ways I can multiply the money that I have? Where should I start?

Hello everyone I’m 22 years old. I work a job where I make a base pay of about 55k a year. I do side hustles on the side too that can make me between 500-5k extra a month. I have no debts whatsoever so far everything is paid off. I started a side hustle in 2022 that blew up and I made about over 500k. I still have about 150k worth of product left but the demand seems to slow down so either it’s a lost or extra money but I wouldn’t count that now. I have about 310k in my Checkings, 80k I’m cash and 70k in a sep ira. What should I do with my money, it’s a lot of money and I don’t want it all to go to waste. I have been looking at real estate and try to get some positive cash flow going. But what else can I do with this lump sum of money!

I just bought my first home with my girlfriend! Yayyy!

Anyways she’s feeling a lot of anxiety about it because it was so expensive. Which is understandable. The house was 360k. We put 5% down. Interest rate is 7.5% 🥲 I can not wait to refinance. We make 162k base salary not including overtime & other side gigs we do. Mainly dog sitting. I’m feeling pretty confident & have no worries about this purchase.

Rough monthly expenses

Mortgage: $3100

Phones/Apple watch: $180

Food:$400-$500

Car insurance we do pay in full every 6 months. $230 a month for both vehicles

Internet will be $50 per the quote I got

Gas for cars: $300-$400

We just closed on the house last week. So don’t have gas & electricity numbers yet.

House is on a well $30 a month for salt I’m guessing

We do both have car payments. Mine is $543 & hers is $695. Besides that we don’t have any other debt & we really don’t spend a lot of money on random stuff. No going out, no eating out, etc.

To wrap things up. Do you strangers of the internet feel we made a mistake?

Edit: We both understand the concern/potential outcome of buying a house together while not married. We’re both on the same page if something were to happen it’s 50/50. We have been together for 7 years & living together for 5 years. Marriage is the next step for us! I do appreciate everyone’s concern about this.

I’ve been feeling so trapped lately and the anxiety is really getting to me.

I make roughly $30hr working part-time for one of the richest companies on the planet. After deductions this amounts to roughly $1300mo. Some other income comes from selling oddities online but the amount is so small it’s almost negligible at this point.

I’ve lived in California my whole life. I’m in my late 40’s and in my lifetime have accumulated all the things you might expect; bikes, ladders, chests full of tools, heavy duty shelving, tons of other crap etc.. My current rent for a 1br with garage is $1400 and that’s a smokin’ deal in this city because I’m grandfathered in having been here 16 years. All my neighbors are paying about $1620-1650+

I am now faced with moving for the first time in 16 years and there is nothing in my price range other than renting an 8x10 room inside someone else’s house or possibly a tiny studio in a terrible neighborhood. The cheapest and best place I’ve found that is even decent is $1650. I’m scared not to get the place and I’m scared to get the place all at the same time. I was already struggling and this would mean an increase of $250 a month. And that’s not even factoring in food and other expenses etc.. This is not sustainable and I feel so trapped. My whole family is here in Ca. and my parents are old in their late 70’s and I am the only child. For many years I kinda thought I had a plan for my old age where I was investing all my extra money but it seems like ever since Covid everything has gotten so expensive that I not only no longer have any extra money to invest, I’m actually having to slowly sell everything just to make rent and feed myself. I really don’t understand how everyone around me is surviving knowing that most of the common workers are making <$30hr. I feel extremely lucky to have made it this far in life and I’m very grateful for friends and family but just having a hard time seeing a bright future. Do all the common workers just live in crappy studios? Even if I got rid of all my belongings except for clothes, bike, and guitar, I’d still be paying $1600+ for basically one room. Can’t really move and leave my family and job. Damn this sucks I feel like my future is disintegrating.