Personal Finance

I've been on an HSA+HDHP for a couple of years now and only realized recently the interest earned from investing HSA money is also tax free, so I want to start investing a part of my savings and see how it goes. I have 2 options, Betterment or Mutual Funds. I figured I'd try the latter to avoid fees, but I'm not sure which funds to choose. My HSA currently provides 30 fund options.

I see people mentioning Vanguard a lot so I spread out my initial investment into 25% chunks across 4 different Vanguard funds. How did I choose them? Well I literally just looked at the performance graphs and selected the ones that historically went up steadily without major dips. As a total noob, how can I improve my choices? Is there a simple way to decide without having to dive deep into the stock market?

I have been putting part of my paycheck into a high yield savings account, but haven't bothered with investing it in a responsible manner partially due a fear of losing the money due to bad investments. I'm finally realizing how much potential money I've lost by letting my money stagnate. Please advise me on how to responsibly invest my money, thanks!

I like the idea of a less profit-driven business that is maybe more community-focused but I wonder if they have the same capability as a bank? Have you been able to do your banking needs at a credit union? Was the customer service decent?

tl;dr - They haven't reported updated information since last year. How do I get them to do so, or how can I otherwise correct the information on my credit report?

Longer version:

Got a personal loan a few years ago through Lending Point. Earlier this year, I noticed that the last time they reported any updated information to the credit bureaus was December of last year. I paid the thing off back this past May, and had hoped that would trigger them to update it within a month or two, But they didn't, and as far as anyone(such as a new lender) is concerned, I still have an open personal loan that I owe a bunch of money on. Do I have to call these people and complain? Should I dispute the inaccurate information on my credit report? I spent quite a few years banging away at that stupid fucking thing, eliminating every negative account/collections/etc. Don't want to dispute that information just to find out that it's going to somehow backfire on me. As far as it stands now, I have no negative anything whatsoever on my report, and every single account on there is in good standing with a 100% perfect payment history.

Problem is, full-time job pays so little that for the last few years(basically since the pandemic started) I've been stuck more and more using credit cards and Affirm/After pay loans for "luxuries" such as... food, and having electricity, and clean clothes. You know, non-essentials. Using up more than half my (tiny) monthly income just to pay the minimums on the cards and the monthly Affirm payments at this point. Could use a new personal loan to consolidate all of that down to a single payment, but the fact that my cards are all maxed out is keeping my score down, making it difficult. And having it look like I already have an active personal loan when I don't, sure as shit isn't helping my case when trying to get a new one. Being able to consolidate would set me back into a position to where I have enough cash throughout the month to not have to rely on the cards to pay for basic shit in the first place.

My employer recently switched to Fidelity and for now I've chosen the LIFEPATH IDX 2050 A option. It looks like this one provides quarterly dividends, but the yield is 0.0%(?)

I'm looking for some fairly risk adverse options or blends that provide dividends that will be reinvested. Anyone have any recommendations?

Paywall removed https://archive.is/NFELy

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17889213

Nearly four in ten (39%) of US adults say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses, according to a new CNN poll. That’s up from 28% who expressed those concerns in December 2021, and it’s similar to the numbers seen during the Great Recession (37%).

To cope, significant shares of Americans said they are adding side jobs, cutting down on driving and putting more expenses on credit cards.

Hey all. Here are some things my wife (26) and I (27) have learned that have helped us "budgetarily", so to speak. Let me know what you think. I love you all.

• Spend your tax return on debt.

This might seem arrogant for me to say, but having 1 boy and using our child whater-it-is, we were able to pay off $24,000 in 3 years while we were making about $30,000 a year in total (between us, in Idaho, of all places) using our tax returns and our monthly minimum payments. (2 car loans, a civic hybrid and a 2 wheel drive highlander..., student loan debt, and a maxed out $5000 credit card) We have new debts because we suck, but we're dealing with it.

• Cancel your subscription services.

Well, I don't know what to say, other than your local library (especially if you're in a mid-to-large city) has all the movies and tv shows than you could watch in a year. We live in a town of 1,000 next to a town of 20,000. Maybe try it out. Get rid of the $15, the $6.99, and the $2.99 a month payments if you can. Read books together, do things that are challenging in a way that makes you feel like a person.This applies to all subsciption services. Just get rid of them or lower them if you can.

• Cancel your wi-fi.

This really sounds insane, but we have found that using our phones' hotspots, we have had no need to pay for wi-fi. If we have big downloads, we go to a coffee shop and use their 50GB download speeds. It is a difference for us of $80 a month, which is not nothing! Otherwise, we get over ourselves and don't do the thing we want to do. We wait and enjoy life without the internet. This not only includes wi-fi but a whole range of creative frugality. Buy tires from someone with a tire-machine. Find recipes to cook yourself that are cheap, healthy, and tasty. They're out there. Use what is accesible and figure out ways to reduce your costs, even to the extent that you become weird and subvert the system. It's fun!

• Don't become wealthy. Become the kind of person who can become wealthy over time.

This is huge. None of what I am describing is applicable to everybody, but this point is that none of this system is fair, except that it rewards those who already have money and punishes those who don't. Realize this in the seat of who you are. The difficult balance is finding yourself in the place where you accommodate both the fiduciary responsibility to YOURSELF as well as not violating your conscience. So many people don't include finances in their estimation of their psyche's history. It is a massive issue for most when growing up in this world of bad financial advice from school, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, aunts, uncles, etc. The first thing to do is deal with what others have taught us. Realize what they were saying was stupid (despite continuing to love them): bad or no budgeting, debts, bad priorities, etc, and then only after that, we can deal with our own responses to bad advice or bad education, seen in following the trail of our own money, and taking responsibility for our own financial life. It gets easier once we do this, but hard because of the responsibility. But that is really the only way unless you inherit millions, but then you'll have to start over. You are the locus of your financial past, present, and future.

My heart goes out to all those who are struggling financially. It fucking sucks, and that's that. But it does not have to end there. If we continually blame the system (which does have a lot to answer for), we will never be able to take full responsibility for our own decisions as persons who have a financial aspect to our identity. Seek help! It is out there.

This is a thing to throw out there, I hope you all are well and happy. Life's damn hard, but uit doesn't have to tank our spirits and progress as people who are growing.

PM me if you want. I love to talk.

Love, littleradio.

Yes, I do have a full-time job, and I even enjoy it, but it doesn't pay enough to survive in this hellscape of a world we live in. I lack the college degree required to get almost any decent-paying job (plus my last job hunt took MONTHS to get a lead), I don't have the skills or originality to become an online content creator, nor the artistry or patience to create and sell trinkets on Etsy (plus, that would require an initial investment which I simply do not have). Should I set up a GoFundMe? OnlyFans? I wouldn't really be offering anything except a charity basket/collection plate so that feels dishonest at best. Idk, I'm quite literally having a breakdown because I'm probably going to lose my car soon, and then my job, and then my apartment, and then my life. Any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you

The potential charges, says Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan, are a result of new regulatory rules that cap overdraft and late fees. Lake says Chase will be passing along those increased expenses to customers, which would put an end to now-free services such as checking accounts and wealth management tools. And she says she expects other banks will follow suit.

I'm in an extremely fortunate position where my Mom, upon learning about current mortgage rates and why I haven't bought a house yet, wants to essentially be my bank to buy a house. As in, she wants to fund the house, put it in my name, and I pay her a reasonable down payment and pay a "mortgage" to her at 2-3%. So what would be the best way to do this?She buys the house then transfers the deed? Should she just transfer the cash and I purchase it?

Side note: I know people are usually against doing big purchases with family, but I don't really see a downside since the house will be in my name, and with that 2-3% rate, the payments will be similar to my rent even considering maintenance and property tax.

They are keeping this quiet, but this affects 2.9% of US bank customers.

There's a lot of talk about inflation and its causes. Is it corporate greed? Supply chain issues? One clear base cause of inflation less talked about is having an inflationary currency supply. Any other inflation caused by supply chain issues, corporate greed, lack of market competition, etc is just added on top of that. Fiat inflationary currency is a rather new invention in terms of the human timeline. In the US, Nixon is the start of it. Central banks aim for 2-3% inflation in "good years". The money supply expands, the portion of that supply a single dollar represents, and therefore its value, decreases. This isn't a conspiracy, it's government policy, and both parties gleefully support it because it benefits their rich donors.

Think of it: in the last 50 years, everything has gotten cheaper to produce thanks to increasing mechanization, outsourcing to cheap labor/low regulation countries, and extremely efficient supply chains. Yet so many things "cost more" than they did 50 years ago. Even basics like bread. What used to be 5c in the US in the 50s now costs $5.00. How is that the case? Shouldn't it cost less? Where is that "extra efficiency" going if not to lower prices? The answer: bread is the same value it's always been, the money has gotten less valuable. This is how they keep working class people running on a treadmill, never able to achieve economic mobility.

Inflationary currency devalues the currency you worked hard to earn by increasing the supply. It hits the middle class the worst because they have more of their net wealth in cash, often in the form of emergency funds, savings, and putting together enough money for a down payment on a home. Rich people have their money in assets which aren't harmed by currency inflation. Actually, even worse, it inflates the value of those assets! If the dollar loses value (all other things being equal), it takes more dollar to buy a share in Amazon, just like it takes more dollars to buy a loaf of bread. Poor people live hand to mouth, so their net wealth is not impacted much, but inflationary currency prevents them from saving and "moving up". If you want to identify the causes of increasing wealth disparity, the inability of people to save money and theft of value from the middle class via money supply expansion is a major one.

can someone explain leverage to me as practised by those RE ~~bullshitters~~ finfluencers. I feel their whole spiel is just bullshit but I don't know enough to be sure about it.

according to them, you "buy" a home - you put X% down and pay your first monthly (and then post on r/firsttimehomebuyer). then you go to (another?) bank and say "look I got this house I wanna use as collateral" and they go "wow you own a house! sure, have this bag of money"... repeat until you "own" like a city block.

like, how does that not crash and burn at the first step, just a cursory glance at the asset's status? how are they not "lol you ain't got no house dumbass come back in 20 years when you actually own it"?

The US government is telling everybody that inflation is 3.4% per year. That is not correct. Try 14.2% and that's about right. Source : gold/usd 1 year simple moving average.