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Maybe if you phrased it as what would you like to spend an extra $10k on this year? That's 3.5% x $300k. If numbers aren't her strong suit and she's never managed any of this before then it's all too overwhelming for her. That is more than you all have saved for retirement so it sounds like she is paralyzed and doesn't want to lose money that obviously someone worked so hard to leave to her. It's completely understandable.

Amex high yield is paying 3.5% right now. I'd at least park it there instead of the 1% account. Other than that, it's her money if she's not comfortable plunking it down in the market this late in the game then I'd listen to her. Maybe use it to fund a Roth IRA for both of you every year? What does she envision using the money for?

How much of her income goes to taxes, eating out dinners, outsourcing things like cleaning the house? If you can still continue to save for retirement and have her stay home if that's her heart's desire (it was mine) then I think you'll be fine. Hopefully she is like minded financially. I stayed home, but I also became our finance person devouring every book I could get my hands on and we were still able to max out both of our Roth's and his TSP every year and save in their 529's still. If she is going to lose her income but not have a preset spending plan for what is leftover after goals this could be a little muddy. Do you guys converse well about money issues or is she going to feel like you are telling her what to do?

Both your wife and you are eligible for Roth IRAs based on your income. You could contribute to 2022s IRA up until April 18th this year and also contribute the maximum amount for 2023 at the same time. You are eligible for catch up contributions based on your ages. There are some really attractive CD rates right now that you could dump the rest of it into for your emergency fund. I would do this unless you are fully funded for retirement. Do you know what to expect for social security payments for you and your spouse?

Pente
Clue

First time yesterday since 2020. I moved about 2% from G fund to stocks so I could feel like I was doing something. If it drops another 3 to 4% I may move some more.

nydoc wrote: ↑Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:48 pm They want to live in the house with their stuff until they close on their next house which they think can happen within 24 hrs of our closing.

Why do you think it can't happen within 24 hours of closing? Those funds from the sale of their home will be wired to the next title company (there are no checks cut) so that they can close the next day. We've done it multiple times, sometimes on the same day, sometimes the next day. It's absolutely possible. It should be in the contract how much they have to pay you after staying one day, two days, etc. If anything longer than 24 hours I would charge them by the day.

I'd definitely payoff car loans as others suggested and then possibly the mortgage regardless of the rate. I think you guys are doing great. Just keep plugging away and soon you'll see the magic of compounding.

We switched to the Tmobile tower for $50/ month. It's not available in all areas yet though. Cancelled everything else.

Mint updates it daily. It no longer bothers me to see the fluctuations.

When you say all profits will be tax deductible, don't forget about depreciation recapture. Also have the major systems been updated? It would stink to keep a house for 3 years only to have to put a new roof or HVAC in it for the renters? I'd sell. Keep it simple.

As it turns out I had $10 on there so this was a timely reminder.

I don't use the app at all. I just occasionally login online at target.com and enable to spend on the next transaction. That way when I put my phone number in the next time it automatically comes off. Only problem is if my teenager uses my account before me ha ha.

Botanic Gardens has an awesome children's garden. We loved it. Depending on the price you might want to consider the Trolley Tour which allows you to hop on and off at all the monuments and some other major museums. The zoo is amazing and can take a whole day.

We locked in a 5 bedroom house in the PNW precovid for $2700. We love our rental and we only had a year left before moving out of the area so really didn't want to have to find a rental locally. Our landlords raised it less than 10% to cover the increase in insurance/taxes which we gladly paid since we had signed a 2 year lease and we are still under market rents for the area. We take immaculate care of this house. It is probably cleaner than when we moved in even though we have 4 children. A good tenant is worth their weight in gold. Maybe do a pre-inspection of the property so you can see what the inside of the house looks like and whether you even want to keep them as tenants.

Doom&Gloom wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:51 pm The CC auto-schedules a pull of the statement balance from my checking account on the due date. No issues at all so far.

This is what we do. I review our transactions daily or at least weekly so there are no surprises.

Have you consulted with your spouse on the riskiness of this plan?

Not really answering the question (which is usually a pet peeve of mine) but since they are still expecting parents and they don't really know anything about their future expenses with said child (maybe additional children too?) they may not want to reduce the life insurance policy after all. And we all know the future can change.

What are the expense ratios of the funds that you selected?

Consider hiring a night time doula for you and your partner to help with feedings, a housekeeper if you can afford it at least twice a month and increasing your food budget if you have one whether nursing or using formula. Look in to how much time you can legally take off of work paid and unpaid to help your partner adjust to this new way of life. Developing some good routines now that make things like laundry, making coffee/lunches at night, unloading dishwasher (little stuff that when done make things go so much smoother in the day). Make sure she gets time to take a shower everyday. Only allow family to stay with you if they are going to actually be helpful. Freezer meals that can be chucked right into the crockpot are a lifesaver.

We also thought of the 529s as part of our overall allocation. DD is in college and still 100% equities. It worked out well this year. We took an end of the year distribution right before the market took a little nosedive. I estimate that of the distribution $850 was contributions and about $3400 was gains. I figured if the market tanked before a distribution we would just cashflow and reimburse ourselves later or let it go completely and pass it on to our younger generation of college goers who are only 7 and 4 now. If we didn't have the money to cashflow this we wouldn't have kept it as a strategy.

G fund looking pretty good right about now. Glad we have 20% there for now.

Tmobile wifi tower $50/ month no taxes
Tmobile also pays most of our Netflix bill monthly as part of our unlimited cell phone.
Because we are military we have home internet, unlimited data for 4 cell phones and Netflix for $155/ month.

We cancelled everything else.

We're in the Denver area and in a similar boat: we prefer a $750k budget, but now are willing to go up to $1M (or even a little over). As crazy as the Denver market has seemed over the past 5 years, in just the past 9 months it's grown even more absurd (and shown no signs of stopping). We're not even sure how competitive we can be given all the fierce (and numerous) bidders, but we've also made peace with having to rent a single family house for 1 to x years if needed. The somewhat bountiful rental options across the metro area (including the locations and suburbs you're looking at) is a little bit of a bright spot, so you may want to keep that in mind if your ideal purchase timeline does not quite come to fruition. Thank you for this. We ...

You can go to optoutprescreen.com to help cut down on offers. Not sure if it helps with the mortgage stuff.

Oh I thought maybe other people were able to see what their limit was. I entered $4k and it said we were okay just as a one off but I'm not going to sit there and plug numbers when we don't use that card that much anyhow, just for the perks.

How would I see what our limit is? I can't find it on our statement and it simply says no Preset limit.

I didn't know the Amex platinum had a limit.

We expect a certain level of contribution towards the household (trash vacuuming laundry) and babysitting from the older two. For that we cover cell phone and car insurance. They get $35/month to manage for all toiletries, school supplies and clothes throughout the year. They babysit outside of our home and petsit or save birthday and Christmas $$ to earn any additional spending money they need.

If you have a smart phone there are multiple free scanning apps. I've had to use them to get documents for lenders etc and they've worked very well for me.

We have to move there for work as well this year. Luckily we've saved a nice down payment so our mortgage will still be a little less than rent would be but we refuse to get into a bidding war and will only be in the area 3 years. It is what it is.

Basically I set it for transactions $.01 and above. I figured that'll get me all notifications.

Thanks for posting. I've been meaning to turn this service on for this card for awhile since it's our primary. You can have it set up to text or email you after you verify it. And there are about 16 different settings to choose from based on what you want to get notifications about.

Freecycle is about 10 years ago. Look for Buy Nothing Groups on facebook in your area or Pregnancy Crisis centers that take these types of donations. Lastly just post on your own Social Media page if you have one, usually someone knows someone who is in need.

joer1212 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 06, 2022 3:22 pm

kelvan80 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 5:44 pm We use our banks bill pay service to send a monthly transfer to our landlords Wells Fargo account # that they provided to us. It's been super convenient to have it simplified this way and I don't have to remember to send anything.

Does every bank offer this service?
My tenants live in rural Massachusetts, which is served by very small, local banks.

I have no idea. My bank has offered free bill pay for as long as I've had them. I can't imagine banking with someone that didn't offer billpay.

Typically DCA $500 a month but may front load this year. Still deciding. Either goes into International or Total Stock depending on the account. Index funds are the way to go.

We use our banks bill pay service to send a monthly transfer to our landlords Wells Fargo account # that they provided to us. It's been super convenient to have it simplified this way and I don't have to remember to send anything.

Katietsu wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 12:00 am I think you are fine. A couple comments though.

Taxable scholarship income is considered unearned income and subject to the kiddie tax. If her only unearned income is the $1500, this will not come into play.

You can use 529 money to pay for tuition or books and for the AOTC. But, the earnings part of the withdrawal that goes to the $4000 of qualified expenses gets taxed as unearned income if you make this election.

Yes she doesn't have any other earned or unearned income at this time. I anticipate in the next few years she will. We are military and always happen to move in the summer, plus covid this year we were still laying pretty low when possible.

TimeToThink wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:50 pm On the $1500 rcvd, if there is no state law preventing it, I would contribute it to your 529 to take advantage of any state tax deduction you can, and then withdraw it.

We don't get a state deduction since we are military and his income is already state tax free. Good idea though. We are almost 100% sure we have already overcontributed to their 529s even though we have 4 kiddos. Mostly because of the GI Bill and contributing so early to the 529s.

We had this exact same situation happen since we waited 3 years in between purchases. We were lucky enough to grab some 2-3% CDs a few years ago at $100k each. Now there is nothing comparable in the market so it's all sitting in a couple of different Money market accounts earning .45%. It's annoying for sure but I'm not willing to lose the principle. Have you though about I bonds?

We switched to G fund for our bond holdings a little over two years ago. I got tired of our "safe" asset having any volatility. It helps me sleep well at night knowing we have 20% in an asset that should stay relatively stable while the market jumps around which is has proven to do so well these last few years. It helps us stay 80/20.

You can ship a car from coast to coast. I can't imagine renting a car for 8 months. See if someone in your circle is selling their parents car that is just sitting in their garage now.

Please say yes, please say yes.

I believe they report damage that is fixed based on the VIN number but I'm just guessing.

We still do a $1 coin or bill here too. I've heard of my friends giving $20 for the first tooth. I feel like that just sets an insane precedent and honestly makes me feel bad for kids whose parents can't afford that. Half of the time I end up borrowing it from their own money anyhow and paying them back. I never have cash.

Anything that child may touch I would consider getting used but good quality. This is helpful to the pocketbook, and the environment and your sanity when they inevitably color on your table in crayon and spill milk on the nice couch. Bedroom furniture should be safe though to buy a new because kiddo probably won't be able to ruin it and maybe a nice compromise and you can easily keep it 20-30-40 years. I think we are at 19 years on our set that we spent about $2000 on and we'll probably keep it another 20. I don't see a need to replace it. I'd rather the money go towards other stuff. $30k on furniture is just not something I could do but we move alot and things end up damaged.

Does your bank offer a money market account? Ours pays about 10 times what the checking account pays. Not much but better than nothing.

I doubt any institution will open a checking account for an infant. (Savings? Sure.) I’d deposit into infant savings and transfer out fro there. We were able to open a checking account for our first newborn child (we went with the custodial account). Now with the second child, we're wondering if that was the most advantageous which is why we're re-evaluating now. So far we've been doing what you've said - deposit into infant account and then transfer out. Thanks! Our kids had savings accounts until about 14 when we opened checking so they could start to manage their own money with a debit card. If we ever received checks in their name I just endorsed them and deposited into their savings account via my mobile app since I'm joint owner on b...

Have a natuzzi leather sectional that we bought used that has held up through 3 moves and 6 years so far. Spent $400 and worth every penny. We will buy nice furniture when we stop moving and the kids stop spilling things they aren't supposed to have on the furniture. We also have some great power recliners from lazyboy that have held up exceptionally well. They are microfiber and wipe off pretty well too.

Any interest in string instrument? My daughter didn't start violin until 5th grade but I think she would have loved it at 3rd grade. She was very advanced in her studies as well, 3+ years ahead. Sometimes they need a break from advancing themselves so much and need to expand their other horizons more. Balance is good.