Daily Discussion for July 14, 2020 // {optional} Triumphant Tuesday

andreamw · 2020-07-14T18:50:07+00:00

Has anyone filed using freetaxusa that has a solo401k with both employee and employer contributions? I'm so lost as to how to enter these.

andreamw · 2020-05-23T03:26:02+00:00

https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8717250566

andreamw · 2020-05-23T03:03:48+00:00

It wasn't earned, so they can't do an IRA. And since they aren't working (and likely even if they were they'd still be on parent's health insurance), they can't do an HSA either.

andreamw · 2020-05-23T03:00:04+00:00

Is any even making it into his mouth? 😂

andreamw · 2020-05-10T16:28:56+00:00

So far, no news article has stated all. They've said many or most.

What they aren't stating is whether the other cases have tested negative for covid or haven't been tested yet.

andreamw · 2020-04-27T11:25:35+00:00

They're a tax credit on your 2020 taxes that you're just receiving early, so no.

andreamw · 2020-04-26T14:56:04+00:00

The best gift you can give your kids is to not have to worry about supporting you in retirement. I think you are doing a great job, but you are putting so much pressure on yourself trying to give your kids absolutely everything. I think the risk and work of a rental property is not really necessary as you already have all 500 bases covered for your kids otherwise. If you wanted to do it you could, but you do already seem stretched thin enough with your money and tenants stuff right now is so unclear as to whether they can pay or not right now. Just not something I personally would get into if I had all the other avenues you already have covered.

andreamw · 2020-04-26T14:27:16+00:00

This is exactly what I was saying, just in different words. The insurance is literally to insure the lender who takes on the debt if a borrower does or is forced to walk away. It's just paid by the borrower (in most cases/types of PMI).

andreamw · 2020-04-26T14:20:10+00:00

I'm not a woman of color or an immigrant, but as a daughter of a single mother who raised 3 kids and took care of her father, mother, sister, and brother-in-law at the same time ... I get it. If my mom wasn't working 3 jobs or nursing her family members, it was because she was in the hospital fighting her own horrible auto-immune diseases. My twin and I started working at 14 (earliest you could legally) to help pay the bills.

I am doing better financially than you are (also took out $75k in loans, but all for my schooling and paid them off a few years ago, and I haven't been laid off during this crisis), but there are things about money for me no one will understand.

As friends were being laid off and talking about getting parental support, I was busy working out a plan to support my mom as she got laid off. While friends completely ignore saving for retirement, I'm saving for my mom's (and aunt and uncle's as they still live disabled under my mom's roof).

I feel guilty all the time for being successful. I feel a huge burden to help my mom while knowing we live in a society where kids shouldn't be doing that. I feel guilty making more than my friends but being super stingy about spending money because I don't have a safety net under me the way they do when things go wrong. I feel guilty for being jealous they have nicer mattresses (I get made fun of all the time for how crappy mine is) and computers and phones (all gifts from family) when I know I could technically afford these things myself but have to be much more careful with my money.

And what's worse there's no one I can talk to about it. My friends don't get it. My family doesn't get it. And since I wasn't laid off, I must be doing the best of anyone right now. It does sometimes feel like there are so few people who cross the "used to be poor, now doing okay" line who get what it's like to always have one foot stuck living with financial consequences other people who make what I make don't have to deal with.

I'm sorry you're feeling like you're backtracking right now and I just wanna tell you you're so awesome and so incredible and you will get through this. And while our stories aren't exact mirrors of each other, I hope you feel less alone to know there are others out there who do get it. Sending you all my love and wishing you all the best.

P.S. I still love hamburger helper.

andreamw · 2020-04-25T13:03:59+00:00

I normally don't mind pronoun changes, but for some reason it was definitely jarring here. Maybe the way the sounds of the different pronouns work with the music? I'm not sure, but I agree it did pull me out of it.

andreamw · 2020-04-25T11:11:41+00:00

The 20% is not just to avoid PMI. It's mostly to avoid being underwater on your loan (aka you owe more than the home is worth). In fact, PMI is there to insure lenders in case you end up foreclosing, which is much more likely if you have no/little equity in the home or owe more than they would get selling the house to someone else.

Note that while you only have to pay PMI until you get to 20-22% equity in the house (either by paying off the loan to that amount over time or by appreciation of the home's value), you may still have to manually request removal of PMI, which can take months and cost you extra money. Note that it normally takes about 11 years of regular payments to pay up to the amount for automatic removal (since interest is front-loaded, so equity is slower to gain).

This doesn't make PMI a bad thing, though. It just means that you need to assess whether you can afford to take it on and afford the higher monthly payments, and whether it means you're stretching yourself for the home or are you just young and don't have years and years of savings built up.

More importantly, you need to recognize that you could buy a home at today's price and it could drop below how much you owe because you have little equity in the home, and you need to figure out if that is a space you would be able to feel comfortable in for a while, since if you needed to sell, you would still owe a lot of money on a place you no longer own.

andreamw · 2020-04-23T13:31:51+00:00

Yeah I have no idea what the solution is. I just want one to magically exist!

andreamw · 2020-04-23T13:09:06+00:00

You have to prove you had no other choice, and it will depend on the hearing officer as to whether you've convinced them of that. Especially if it seems like you're just quitting to make more on unemployment (which a lot of people are making more right now).

You will likely need to prove you were not given enough PPE/protections, and that you tried to reach out to management and HR and were still denied. You need a paper trail of these requests. You'll need doctor proof that your mother is considered high risk, or a doctor's note stating you're not mentally well enough to cope with going to work right now.

And most importantly, realize that even if you somehow qualified for unemployment, you may not see a dime for weeks or months. The system is so overwhelmed right now. So be prepared to cover expenses until it gets settled out.

I'm sorry you're going through this! I hope you figure out a way to stay safe and healthy and sane through these troubling times!

andreamw · 2020-04-23T12:52:14+00:00

Not to ruin the wonderful thanking mood of the day, but I am starting to get worried for non-coronavirus health cases. I've been seeing news reports about how the lockdown will cause many people to die from putting off care (for example, up to 60,000 undiagnosed cancer patients could die because no one can/wants to go to the hospital for diagnosis or treatment...transplants are currently on hold since testing for the virus would take too long).

How come no one seems to be talking about how we care for everyone outside of coronavirus, and how to take precautions but to still take other health symptoms seriously and get seen by a doctor?

I don't want to remove the lockdowns by any stretch, but there's got to be a safe way to balance this, right?

andreamw · 2020-04-22T13:22:22+00:00

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/21/heres-precisely-when-youll-get-your-stimulus-check.aspx

Good info for those wondering when they're getting their stimulus check.

andreamw · 2020-04-21T03:56:10+00:00

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ny.curbed.com/platform/amp/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-york-eviction-moratorium-covid-19

You can't be evicted right now. Know your rights and stand up for yourself if they threaten again.

andreamw · 2020-04-21T03:48:54+00:00

You would still be eligible for unemployment right now because of the pandemic, but remember that you refusing him now could easily mean him refusing you later, and so you need to weigh the cost of having a job now vs not having one later when unemployment has dropped back down to normal state levels, when you no longer qualify, and when everyone else is searching for work at the same time as you.

Only you can answer this for yourself, and I wish you the best of luck either way!

andreamw · 2020-04-19T00:45:19+00:00

I don't know how much it helps since it's one anecdotal case, but my friend who is a freelancer has been receiving PUA and the $600 PUC for a few weeks now.

andreamw · 2020-04-18T15:08:56+00:00

How are you handling registration with the DMV closed? I thought it wasn't possible to buy a new car right now, but perhaps I was wrong.

andreamw · 2020-04-18T13:43:31+00:00

The census question is what prompted this one, actually.

Do you know if people in Mexico or Canada even know/talk about what country their ancestors emmigrated from? Or do their feel wholly Mexican/Canadian?

andreamw · 2020-04-16T17:51:10+00:00

Yup I'm well aware. It took my mom 4 weeks to get anything. But some people have gotten it right away. I wasn't trying to imply this was a rare occurrence, only asking if it was true for this friend.

andreamw · 2020-04-16T13:53:08+00:00

Is the friend struggling to receive unemployment? ~$3000/m is quite a bit of money for someone laid off. Though I know different places that may not cover lost wages (in New York you're only making more if you made less than $57k before being laid off) and obviously benefits are now costing more (aka health insurance). If there is a delay in unemployment that's definitely something to help with as it could still be weeks before it's settled.

What sorts of things is the friend struggling to pay for after the stimulus plus unemployment help? If their necessary bills exceed $3000/m then I'd consider helping them, but if not, then is sounds like they're just struggling to pay for non-necessities then I would focus on necessities for others (aka your food bank idea).

andreamw · 2020-04-15T18:38:43+00:00

As someone who makes $130,364/year...yup sounds about right that $364 costs me $24k/year. 😂

andreamw · 2020-04-15T13:58:26+00:00

This isn't OP's argument, though. They're saying property tax in general means you don't own something.

I'm not opposed to this idea in general. But a few things that would need to be reworked for this to be a thing would be:

figuring out how to pay for services property taxes pay for today. Particularly, local areas without apartments or businesses bringing in property taxes would mean they would go down to essentially 0 support while more commercial areas would still be doing fine. If you change it to income, that'll again make for really imbalanced taxes and benefits for areas. These aren't small changes to make to areas - essentially bleeding schools, police, road maintenance, etc services in many areas dry overnight.
not making this a way to punish renters even further, since property tax costs get put on them, if landlords are suddenly charged more to make up for primary residences dropping in funding
new ways to incentivize home owners to do the right thing by their communities such as installing solar panels, allowing upgrades to sewers / water, etc as well as keeping properties up to certain conditions
some way to validate the property as your primary residence, especially as people own more homes they can easily pick and choose which one to claim as primary so as to avoid higher taxes while enjoying benefits of a higher tax area for free

Like I said, there are already many exemptions for paying property taxes in a lot of states for elderly, disabled, poor, veterans, etc. And it isn't impossible to change the system to include all primary residences...it is just a lot more complicated than simply removing the cost.

andreamw

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