The dealer doesn’t want your tag, but the DMV does. If you don’t complete the process to transfer the tag to your next car, you are legally required to return it to the Florida DMV, either in person or by mail.

Your license can be suspended if you don’t do it within 30 days.

That’s not how this works….that’s not how any of this works….

That’s dealer retail, or private party sale / trade? You won’t get dealer retail.

This partly depends on the rules for the company car and how stable you are in the job. Can you also use it for personal reasons, or is it company business only? Do you anticipate staying in this job long term, or possibly getting a new job within the next year or two?

If it’s company business only, can you get by being a one car family (for personal use)? If not, question answered. Do you anticipate being in this job a while? If not, question answered.

As to which car to get rid of assuming it makes sense to get rid of one, that’s tough. My gut says keep the paid off one with only 50K miles (get snow tires), but you’re almost certainly underwater on your Escape, meaning you’ll have to come up with some cash to get rid of it.

So coming up with cash now or continuing monthly payments? Which is less worse for you?

Mortgage interest on the first $750K of the loan is deductible. So yes, if you borrowed $750K at 6%, yes, that and your other itemized deductions would save you money on taxes as compared to just taking the standard deduction.

It all starts with enough income to support yourself. Rent, food, utilities, car insurance, everything else. A film apprenticeship probably won’t cover it.

You have to itemize.

The SALT deduction (property tax, sales tax, state income tax, etc) is capped at $10K. Mortgage interest is not. With interest rates ticking up and for expensive homes, yes, it’s possible that along with SALT (and other itemized deductions) you could exceed the standard deduction of $13,850 (single) or $27,700 (joint). There is no savings until your itemized deductions exceed those levels.

TLDR, it depends. For most upper middle class or lower earners locked into a low rate mortgage, no. In your case, maybe.

Withholdings are “pay as you go”. Based on how you fill out your W4 regarding dependents and other income, your employer withholds a certain amount of taxes from each paycheck and sends it to the government. Withholdings are just an estimate.

After the year is over when you go to file your taxes, you settle up. Too much withheld, you get a refund. Too little withheld, you owe more.

Yes, the government uses your tax money for infrastructure, social programs, services, schools, and anything else the government provides. They don’t invest it as much as spend it.

No state “gives” refunds. You pay taxes. If you withheld a lot too much, you get a big refund. If you withheld a little too much, you get a little refund. If you didn’t withhold enough, then you owe them more.

You withheld a little too much and got a little refund. That’s what your goal should be. Congrats. You did it right.

Yup. No tax implications of anything done within an IRA. Sell VTSAX, buy VFFVX.

Not 100% stocks. You can’t afford to risk a possible 30% portfolio hit when you’re within a few years of retirement.

A target date fund would probably be a prudent move in a few more years. If you don’t want to risk 100% stocks (and you shouldn’t), let the pros worry about asset allocation.

Foreseeable future, fine. Once you’re closing in on your retirement, not fine.

Buying isn’t about age, it’s about need, income and finances.

Your down payment is already fine. Regarding need, you should be stable in the area, stable in your job, and anticipate owning this property at least 5 years. Regarding income, your monthly mortgage payment (including taxes, homeowners and HOA) should be under 28% of your gross (not net) monthly income.

If all that’s true, it doesn’t matter if you are 22 or 82.

Nobody other than a lender can tell you an exact rate. Download the Experian app, and check your FICO 8 credit score there. Unclear if anything you’ve already checked is meaningful or not. That one is.

Regardless, your approval chances (and rate if you are approved) aren’t only about credit score, it’s also about income, debt to income ratio, your length of credit history and the specifics of the loan (length, age of vehicle, etc).

Bottom line - Pre-apply with your bank or credit union and find out. No one here can say.

I opened one last fall and have it now. The welcome bonus at the time was $300 I think, which I received in January. They periodically adjust rates to keep pace with all the other “big” HYSA banks, although all of those can be at least temporarily beat by little guys you’ve often never heard of.

The current rate increase to 3.5% just happened on Feb 16th. Think it was 3.4% before that, then 3.3%, etc. They adjust it pretty frequently, sometimes even a few times a month to keep up with whatever competitors are doing.

I also like the fact that it uses and shows up on the same AMEX app as the credit cards, and I’ve long used AMEX as my primary credit cards.

TLDR, no catches, no complaints.

Edit - just checked the handy dandy app, the account was opened on Sep 19th, the $350 welcome bonus (not $300, I was wrong before) hit my account on Jan 13.

I wouldn’t say that. I would say it depends on the math. What’s the rate of the old loan, what’s the rate of the new loan, how much will the property rent for, how “in demand” is the area (lower chance of extended vacancy), how does the expected rent compare to your mortgage and maintenance costs, how much is it going to cost you to buy a new place to live yourself and move there?

It’s not an inherently bad or inherently good idea. It’s case specific, depending on the math above.

Say you buy a house for $200K. When you go to refinance, you’ve paid it down to $180K and it’s now worth $250K.

For the conventional refinance loan, they’re going to want you to have at least 20% equity ($50K), meaning they’ll loan you up to $200K on your $250K house. Since you only owe $180K on your mortgage, you can get up to $20K cash out.

It’s still money you’re borrowing though, as you just went from an old mortgage of $180K to a new mortgage of $200K.

There is no free money.

Sure, assuming you’d still have the equity that a conventional loan requires, typically 20% after the cash out.

Remember that VA loans also have funding fees, which get even higher after the first time. Unless you qualify for a waiver (usually based on a disability rating), it’s a significant extra expense and drawback to what you’re considering.

The easiest way is to sell it to a dealer like CarMax. You can be done same day, start to finish. That’s also what’ll get you the least money.

If you want to get as much as possible for it, you’ll need to sell it yourself, which can be a pain, especially since it’s financed and the buyer will likely need a loan. Coordination with both lenders will be required, probably an escrow service too.

Financial advisors are best suited for either the very rich or very clueless.

If you’re very rich, 1% doesn’t matter. If you’re very clueless, you need someone to clue you in.

0% trumps everything. Open the account, transfer your high interest debt, cut up the card.

On $5380 of debt at 25%, the first $113/mo is just interest. So if you pay $500, your debt goes down by $387. If it’s at 0% and you pay $500, your debt goes down the full $500. Which sounds better to you?

Use your cash to pay off what you can.

Then put yourself on a spending diet, don’t buy anything you don’t need to survive until the debt is gone.

While you’re doing that, consolidate the debt to as low of a rate as you can get. Ideally, a balance transfer card with a 0% promo rate. If you don’t qualify for those, while you dismissed the personal loan rates as “too high”, they’re still lower than the 25% you’re currently paying. So lower that rate. 0% if you can get it, but if you can’t, 18% is still less than 25%.

Regarding your $1600 in “savings”, you don’t have any savings. You have $5300 in debt. You have negative savings, and it doesn’t make sense to pay 25% interest while earning only 3%.

First and foremost, take care of your own retirement and investing needs first. The best thing you can do for your kids is to remain financially independent until death, and not put them in a position where they feel they have to sacrifice what their own young family needs to support you.

Once that’s done, I’m a proponent of over saving. Too much is better than too little, and the worst case for unqualified 529 withdraws are taxes (which you’d be paying anyway if in a taxable account) and 10% on earnings only, not principal.

So if you ended up with $150K too much, assuming half was earnings and half was principal, the penalty would be $7500. Not ideal obviously, but that’s still $142,500 back in your pocket, minus the same taxes you’d be paying anyway of course.

As far as worst cases go, that ain’t too bad.

No, you meant biweekly, at least if you want those numbers to add up. While most months will only have two paychecks, two months will have three.

Biweekly means you get paid once every two weeks, which is 26 times a year. 52 weeks in a year divided by once every two weeks is 26 times. Your gross pay of $3077 times 26 is $80K nearly exactly.

Biweekly, not twice a month. Multiply by 26. $3077 x 26 = $80K.