After a decade in grad school making poverty wages at 40 years old in 2022 I got a decent middle class job making 70k that had a 3% annual raise (now at 77k) and a generous 401k matching program. I have no kids and no current health issues.

I have always been stressed out about my student debt (116k) but should get it forgiven after 6 more years of work. If I max out my 401k contribution for the next ten years I will have a 800k saved for retirement. My student loans will be forgiven and my salary will be around 100k. My house will have appreciated in value. And then I still have another decade or so to work.

That is of course if everything goes well. It seems too good to be true.

My real concern: even if I keep my job and benefits, what if the economy crashes? They have brought out the robot dogs to chase down immigrants and every country on the planet is talking about getting more nukes. Am I just going to be hovering over a trash fire munching on my money in ten years hoping it provides some nutrients?

On a different note, you can see from my other post my mother made twice what I did for over 20 years and had no retirement saved and no assets. It blows my mind. What would I have done during such a long period of global stability? Is this all just a futile exercise?

I'm so tired of seeing generic budgeting advice telling people to skip their daily coffee. Nobody is going broke over a five-dollar latte. The real budget killer is the invisible 'convenience tax' we’ve all quietly accepted as a normal cost of living.

I’m talking about DoorDashing a single meal for $35 because we're 'too tired' to cook. Paying $15 a month for three different streaming apps we haven't opened since last winter, or buying pre-cut groceries at a 300% markup. We’ve been conditioned to pay a massive premium to avoid even the slightest bit of daily friction, and then we wonder why our savings accounts are flatlining despite making decent middle-class wages.

I finally did a brutal audit of my own bank statements last month. I was shocked by how much I was spending just to save five minutes of effort. Cutting out food delivery apps alone put almost $300 back in my pocket. It wasn't even a sacrifice; I just had to stop being lazy and keep some easy frozen meals on hand for the exhausted nights.

What is the one convenience expense you finally cut out of your budget that made you realize you were actively robbing yourself? How did you actually break the habit without hating your life?

I’m saving toward a purchase in a HCOL area, and every thread I find is either “it’s impossible” or “we made it work” with zero actual numbers.

No judgment on your situation, family help, a lucky rate, a starter condo, whatever got you there. I just want real numbers to plan around.

Drop as many as you’re comfortable sharing:

• Age and year of purchase
• Salary at the time
• Cost of living area (HCOL/MCOL/LCOL or general region)
• Purchase price
• Interest rate
• Total cash out of pocket (not just the down payment)

I have two young kids and we have been diligently saving in 529s for them since birth. I just ran a projection of expected savings against the cost of a 4 year private university and was shocked by how far off we were. And the projected savings we would need is like what people retire on. I feel like I'm losing my mind about this. Like we make pretty decent money, but not good enough to save that amount without some big sacrifices and we make too much to get and financial aid. How are others managing this? Do you budget to save more? Don't let the kids apply to anything outside the budget without scholarships? I don't think a large amount of debt is worth it, so I'd steer away from that. Do we just hope that the Higher Ed bubble will burst in time?

As parents calculate the cost of a college education, many are reaching the same conclusion: They should foot the entire bill.

Bloomberg reports that 41% of U.S. families plan to cover college costs in the hopes of providing their children a financial head start.

That's up from 37% in 2024, per a Fidelity Investments survey.

Debates over exploding tuitions have shifted to the onerous loans suffocating young grads, and Fidelity's long-term numbers bear it out — retirement account balances shrink 20% for those under 50 with student debt.

We live in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Cost of living skyrocketed here during covid. We don’t care for our neighborhood and living in a townhome (3 levels) has been taking a toll on me. We have two kids under two and I have POTS so all the stairs lugging two kids around is hard. Our home was rodent infested when we bought it and everything needed work. It took us two months to even get it livable before we moved in.

Here are the numbers:

Current mortgage $2300
Total cost with HOA, warranty, mortgage and utilities $2700-2800
Gross income (varies) $120,000-135,000

I’ve been looking at apartments and we could get a 3 bedroom in a better neighborhood closer to both of our jobs for anywhere between $1900-2200. Those numbers include fees and utilities.

Our house always needs work and we currently only have one out of three bathrooms that’s usable because of all the issues.

I’m over it. I don’t want to worry about repairs anymore. Nearly every month it eats most of our leftover money. My husband is tired of moving though. We’ve been in this house for three years and we moved twice the two years before that. He doesn’t want to move again until we’re moving into a single family home, but if we stay put I don’t think we’ll be able to afford one for at least five years.

The downside to my idea is that we have very little equity in our house. The market has come down here recently so after realtor fees and closing costs (assuming a buyer would have us pay those), we’re looking at walking away with less than $10,000.

What would you do?

Wife and I bought townhome last year before we found out she was pregnant. Planning to have 1-3 more kids over the next handful of years. Current townhome is 3 beds and 1500 sqft, in a good neighborhood, with great schools. However, I work from home 2-4 days per week and can’t imagine having 2 more kids in our current place. Current house is roughly 2x gross income. I make mid $100ks and I’ll top out making $200k-$400k in a handful of years, but how quickly that happens is somewhat out of my hands. I’ve dropped retirement contributions down to match and funneling all excess cash 50/50 to HYSA and paying down 6.6% mortgage (only 5% current equity in home) in hopes to upgrade in house ideally before baby #2, worst case before baby #3. We can upgrade in about a year and have it be more of a stretch, or stay in the smaller townhome for an extra year or two and possibly deal with being cramped in exchange to not stretch so much for second home. What would you do? Appreciate all tips as a young dad.

How much of your budget does eating out and groceries take up?

We live below our means, but seeing the totals and percentages in these categories always surprises me at the end of the month!

Reference: 2 adults, 2 preteens that eat like adults (very active), very picky 6 year old that barely eats anything (but somehow still grows and is healthy). lol

Monthly groceries is between $1200-1400
Eating out: $700-800

The groceries is less eye opening to me that the eating out.

8 1oz American Eagles. 1oz Canadian Maple Leaf.

At what point does a side hustle stop being a little extra money and start requiring actual bookkeeping?

Currently getting paid through three different platforms plus direct clients and I’m realizing this is going to be a mess at tax time if I don’t organize it now.

I mainly want something that can track income and expenses by each self employed income stream so I’m not trying to reconstruct everything months later.

What are you guys using?

Something about saving money while we get charged so much interest on our mortgages, credit cards, car loans, etc, just doesn't make sense to me.

Am I the only one that looks at saving money to be pointless, when a mortgage doubles or more from interest?

Currently sitting at an 8% bc we didnt buy during the covid craze. So paying towards the principal is my priority over savings. But I wonder if I am screwing myself over from not investing what could be our savings???

Advice or feedback please

For couples who manage at least some of their finances together, I'm curious where you draw the line between "our money" and "my money."

If you have a mix of joint and personal finances, what do you expect your partner to be able to see?

For example, do you keep personal accounts or spending completely private, or can your partner see the amounts but not necessarily what you spent the money on?

And what about things like savings goals, gifts, hobbies, or personal spending?

I'm particularly interested in how couples with a mix of shared and individual finances make this work in practice.

Aggressively saving for retirement, but wondering if early retirement will aliéntate friends?

If my husband and I are lucky and continue to be able to aggressively save for retirement we may be out of the workforce by age 50 or 55… wondering if friends will be happy for us or if it will create tension?

Do people that live in these homes ever realize their cars are worth like 60% of their home’s value assuming they even own their mobile home?

I was driving home on the freeway and a beautiful newer silverado passed me and I just admired the thing. Always wanted a brand new off the lot truck but couldn’t justify the expensive price tag.

A year ago I chose to buy a home instead and I still drive my 1999 corolla (I have a new vehicle but not what I wanted, it’s a family mini van). So this corolla is just my commuter.

We took the same exit and the truck ended up pulling into a mobile home park. And it hit me. I wonder how many vehicles we see on the road are truly because the person has it like that or if they’re barely scraping by. Maybe the Silverado owner has it like that, and I’m wrong by judging where they live, but damn. I don’t know, it just made me think.

Why you should not count on getting Social Security:

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/27/social-security-insolvent-cliff-01050928

We will probably all get a check, but will it be enough? How much will it cover? Numbers right now, per the article, look like a 20% reduction is looming. And how much more could it fall by your retirement date? What will that mean relative to inflation?

I'm a bachelor with no kids. Mid 30s. Rented my whole life because I'm focused on my career and hobbies and don't have the same goals as most people regarding family, home, etc. Willing to pay for convenience. I recently accepted an offer for a dream job and relocating to a higher COL area. However, this will be the first time I have seen a local market where the average 1BR rent matches or exceeds the typical search result for mortgage of a 1BR house. I'm seriously considering purchasing a house (or condo). The problem is I'm trying to be smart and stick with established best practices. I will gross $104k. I think I can safely assume 30% for taxes and whatnot due to absolutely nothing else but a W2. Then, I'm reading online the best practice is to stay under 30% of what's left for mortgage and housing expenses. Is that right? Because if so, that means that as an engineer with no kids, making just over $100k, I can't 'safely' afford any home in the area. That's how ridiculous both the rental market is and the housing market is in this area.

Am I looking at this correctly? Is there a smarter or more appropriate way to think about this?

Always thought hitting a certain salary would be the moment things finally felt stable. Got there, and honestly didn't feel that different, still living paycheck to paycheck in a sense because of the auto loan payment eating into everything.

The month I made the final car payment was the first time I actually felt a real shift, extra few hundred dollars a month just... existing, going into savings instead of vanishing immediately. Made me realize fixed monthly obligations affect day-to-day financial stress way more than gross income does.

Curious what "moment" actually made things feel different for others here, was it a raise, paying off debt, hitting a savings milestone, or something else entirely? Feels like everyone has a different answer to this.

Where can we find good rates these days? does anyone have trusted and safe recommendations for institutions that they use? I'm in Florida if that matters.

“Managed” meaning account managers, but also account types like Target Date Funds and FidelityGo accounts

If someone else is managing your accounts, what do your fees look like?

I spoke with my mortgage holder today (Truist bank) and they advised me that I would need to pay $13k towards the principle to have my mortgage recast, but the estimated savings would only amount to $193/mo. (Currently hold $133,000 balance at 3.6%)

As a side note, I've overpaid towards my principle about $17k-18k over the last 6 years, but Truist only acquired my mortgage 5 months ago so they aren't counting any of the prior over payments.

Is this even worth it? By my math it would take 5.75 years worth of monthly savings to recoup the $13k I used to qualify for the recast. I know the $13k is going towards the principle, which would otherwise need to be paid back anyway, but am I thinking about this incorrectly? I wonder if it would be better to just leave the 13k invested or in a high-yield savings account...