Personal Finance

TLDR: meme coin rug pulls, among other issues around centralization

Crypto-believers often blame greedy financiers as the cause of the Great Recession in 2008. But we argue that crypto is not immune to these same risks.

Public blockchains operate on a distributed peer-to-peer network. This network provides each user a complete record of transactions that is updated in real time. Users can send digital cash between themselves without relying on a centralized authority.

Since each user has a full record of transactions, the system promises full transparency. But our research demonstrates that public blockchains, and the cryptocurrencies that run on them, do not actually replace trust with transparency.

Speculation, manipulation and market crashes remain very real dangers, regardless of whether the financial system is centralized or decentralized.

Centralization of power in the hands of insiders is still a major issue in the cryptocurrency space. This is particularly an issue for emerging cryptocurrencies like memecoins. Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency named after internet memes or similar jokes. They draw their value entirely from speculation.

I feel I should get rid of them or stop using them but most have good benefits so I am unsure what I should do. I tried using YNAB but it isn't how I think about money. I really need to stick to my budget but with my partner and child I feel money is constantly flowing out.

• Sams card great for Sams and gas. Free. Only use for the above.
• PNC unlim good all around and free.
• Older PNC card, told not to cancel because it is free for my credit. Only pay utils on it. Not worried about this one.
• Amazon card, 5% discount on amazon for family essentials, free.
• Amex, 95$, good all around, and great customer support.

I'm thinking I should possible cancel Amex and Amazon because they easily add up, then focus on just using my main PNC unlim card. Thoughts on this?

The Amazon discount and Amex purchase protection are both nice but having more than one with so many purchases as a family is stressful.

I don't see any reason to cancel the old PNC card or Sams card. Use around 100$ a month on them.

I can easily find things like rent, internet, insurance prices, but how do I find things like grocery prices? I honestly don't even know what an average grocery list might look like, are there resources to help with this? my gf and I are looking into moving out, and assuming a monthly income of ~4400 USD and rent being 500 USD, I think we should be okay, but I need to be 100% that we won't be barely scraping by or anything. thank you everyone

I'm putting away $300 a month, my question is where to put it. savings account has basically 0 interest, there are HYSA (high yield savings account) that would give me 3-5% apy, or I already have some money in stocks that have grown consistently 25% over the last year (index funds only)

what would you guys recommend? I'm looking to buy it probably 3 years from now. that way either I've got a fat down payment or I can just buy it cash

thanks

Up until now, I’ve just been saving an emergency fund in a HYSA. I’m getting to the point where I’d like to put excess savings into the market, and am looking at something like the VOO ETF. It seems things are essentially at an ATH right now, and there are a lot of big political things happening at the same time.

Would it be ill advised to buy into VOO right now? I could hold this in my HYSA but at the same time, I’m not needing this money for a while and long term I would think the market will continue to rise.

I know there was news a couple days ago about Berkshire Hathaway selling their S&P 500 ETFs, but this made up ~0.01% of their total portfolio.

Should I move my checking/ savings from my credit union? Should I move my investments from Schwab? Should I move to different institutions or what can I do to protect ?

I have a medical malpractice annuity that pays out every month and goes up 2% compounded every year. I live in another country where cost of living is way lower than in the US and am worried that rapid inflation in the US or just overall instability will lead my annuity to be practically useless. Are these worries baseless?

Paywall removed https://archive.is/Psa8g

Hospital says payment plans don’t work since it’s gone to collections…

Between rent and school payments, I am paying quite a lot over ACH and am wondering if there’s any way to also get some benefits back from these payments.

There are cards out there like the “Fold” card that will give back up to 1.5% in BTC for ACH transactions, but that’s contingent on you spending a lot on other transactions and the card also has a $100 annual fee.

I don’t care if the rewards are USD, BTC or booster packs of Pokémon cards. I’d just like something back from these transactions.

I'm young and a student and I have most of my savings in a VMFXX money market account which I basically use as a low risk place to set and forget my money. Most of this fund is federal cash and securities. I like that it is there when I need it and that it makes more interest than a savings account.

I've been hearing vague things about Elon Musk messing with the treasury since Trump got elected and there is just seems to be a lot more uncertainty in the federal government overall.

The value of the money in this money market account has never dropped before, but is there any risk that the current administration could mess things up enough that my savings could be at risk? If so, is there anywhere else I could leave my money that would be similarly low risk but earn more interest than a savings account with my credit union?

Location: USA

My last job was barely paying me enough to get by and when I had a health issue last year I fell several months behind on my mortgage and other bills. That medical issue has since been resolved so I am no longer falling further behind but I am also not catching up.

Things are starting to look better though because I have recently gotten a new job which should pay slightly more (starting hourly rate is barely higher but overtime is more likely) and it should vastly reduce my expenses (cheaper and better insurance along with a company provided vehicle and gas). In addition it is going to be a far more secure job in the comming economic crisis. Honestly, it's also looking like my dream job. However this new job requires me to purchase many of my own tools. There is a tool stipend but it accumulates hourly and only pays out quarterly so I will need to front my own tool costs to start with. The problem here is that even the cheap tools are going to cost me about $1000 and if I want a set of tools just good enough that they aren't an active hinderance I'm looking at closer to $2000. I currently have no money which isn't allocated to bills that I am already behind on.

It seems like a simple solution would be to take out a loan from my 401k. Right now I could take out a maximum loan of a bit over $6,000. $5,000 would be just about the perfect amount to catch up on all of my bills and buy the tools needed to do my new job. If I set it at a 5 year repayment term then the monthly repayment is under $100 which I should definitely be able to afford with my new job. I could go with a shorter repayment plan but my thinking is that without knowing exactly what my finances are going look like, I want to have the smallest required payments and just plan to pay it off early if my finances are where I expect they will be even if that means I pay a bit more in interest.

At the same time I don't like the idea of taking out a loan to pay off debts that aren't charging me any interest. My bank isn't forclosing on me yet and, considering I am still paying them every month, I doubt that they will. My medical bills may go to collections if I let them sit much longer but there aren't any late fees and I can always pay off the collections company as I get money. Just looking at the money it almost seems like the more financially sound long term plan would just be to choose to fall a bit farther behind on my bills now to buy my tools and then catch up on those bills later. My credit is already trash and will be for a while. But I also already own my home, have no plans of moving, and tend to buy dirt cheap used vehicles with cash, so I don't really need a good credit score right now or anytime soon. So my late bills really aren't doing anything but causing me stress right now. Does it really make financial sense to start paying interest on a loan just to get rid of that stress?

At this point I am heavily leaning towards taking out the loan. But I can't help but feel that I'm going to be paying a whole bunch of money in interest just to feel more secure. I've also never taken out a 401k loan before. So should I take out the 401k loan or just temporarily fall even more behind on my bills? Also if I should take out the loan is there anything I need to know about 401k loans or any pitfalls to watch out for?

Pretty much as the title says.

The wife and I are currently using Simplifi and it works well enough, but I’ve been hearing a decent amount about Monarch Money. Just curious if anyone here has tried both and why they prefer one vs the other. Even if you haven’t tried Simplifi, if you’ve used Monarch, I’d be curious your opinions of it!

I'm a complete newbie. The only "investing" I've ever done is use HYSAs. Obviously the yield there, while pretty good, isn't as good as investing in say, the S&P 500. So I want to invest a chunk of my savings into that and just leave it there until I retire. I'm not really looking into daily/active trading or anything. The problem is I don't know how fees work with brokers.

I saw this graph a while ago so I was thinking of Fidelty. It also helps that I already have an account there for my employer RSUs and my 401k. On the other hand, a colleague of mine suggested Schwab and said they don't have any fees.

Can anyone suggest the best broker (minimal/no fees, easy-to-use, set-and-forget) that I should go with if I just want to invest in the S&P 500?

There's a pretty popular savings chart in the personal finance community, and I just noticed it seems to be missing the option for when your employer offers an ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan) unless I'm completely missing it.

Where would you guys put it if you could add it to this chart?

10 years ago, I graduated Uni with no debt and about $1,000 net worth.

My first job (engineer) paid $100k/yr. After taxes & expenses, I saved $70k per year for 3 years.

With $200k net worth, I lived on $5k per year and for the past 7 years, I worked only 30% of the time – just enough to cover my expenses without dipping into my savings.

This year I sold bitcoin (bought for $7,000. sold for $1,000,000). My target to retire-retire was $800,000, so I've finally reached my goal.

The sell orders executed so fast that I don't know where to put it. I already stuffed every US bank that I have to the $250k FDIC max, but my last sell order exceeds that. I've applied to open bank accounts with maybe 100 banks in the US, and I've only succeeded in opening 1. My requirements:

[1] No monthly fees
[2] No inactivity fees
[3] No phone or phone number required
[4] Online Banking with 2FA support (TOTP, Webauthn, or email)

99% of the banks that I've tried to open with auto-deny me. My credit is great. When I call and ask why, they say something about the information I gave them not matching their records. The ones that have an appeal process told me "the system" denied me, and there's nothing they can do – even supervisors.

My long-term plan is to buy a small condo in a city and a lot of land in the country. But it'll probably take me 6-24 months to find and finish those deals, and in the meantime I want to keep my money somewhere safe.

I'm also a bit worried about the USD tanking. I've looked into banks in Europe and Canada, but Canada requires a tax ID and I only speak English. Can anyone recommend a very stable bank abroad (with English language support) that a US American can open remotely that meets the above requirements?

Where would you put your money if you were in my situation?

Hi all–

Just had a tax meeting today in Denmark, and the Danish government like a fair few other governments, recognize 401k/trad IRA investments as retirement, but not Roths. This means you have to pay annual tax on the gains for your Roth, that you can't touch until you're 59.5.

This leaves us looking at pulling the money out and eating the tax/penalty. And my questions in case anyone knows are:

1. is that money income in the US?
2. is there anything particularly good to do with the money? Beyond the obvious of buying a house (here)
3. how has no one told us about this in all the posts/threads, financial advisors, etc that Roths are fairly commonly not acknowledged and are absolutely terrible if you plan to leave the US?

Thanks in advance. Sorry for my grumpy tone... I'm certainly grumpy

For the last decade or so, my SO and I have been more or less dividing our expenses, and Venmo/ PayPal-ing the other as needed (rent, etc).

I know a lot of couples use a shared account that they both contribute to via direct deposit. How many of you do this? Any drawbacks or other options I haven’t mentioned?

For someone in their 30s, does the following allocations make sense? The goal is to have a fair amount of diversity and to more or less “set it and forget it”

55% VG INST 500 IDX 35% VG INTL STOCK IDX 10% VG TOT BD MKT IDX

I’m wondering if maybe there should be less in International and more in one of the other two, etc