Well since you know you have a pregnancy/birth coming up next year, if you do choose the PPO you should certainly contribute something. You know you will have out of pocket medical expenses. May as well get an effective 22% (+whatever your state tax rate is) discount on them.

That said, the math here makes it so that in virtually all scenarios you come out ahead with the HDHP, so long as you do actually max out the HSA.

If you have $0 in healthcare expenses, the PPO will cost you an effective -$3401, while you will actually be +$1510 better off on the HDHP. As in, with the employer HSA contribution plus your tax savings from contributing, you will make money on the HDHP as a starting point.

In the maximal care scenario where you hit the (shockingly similar) out of pocket max for both plans, the PPO effective cost will be -$6,851, while the HDHP effective cost will be -$5,290. So in the worst case scenario you'd be $1,561 better off on the HDHP.

Things can get a little hazier in the middle though. In theory, if most of the care you need is in the form of visits that require a copay rather than cost sharing, it's possible that there's a zone of moderate healthcare usage where the PPO makes you better off. At least in terms of direct out of pocket expenses.

For example, say you have 10x visits to specialists. On the HDHP this might be $2,000 out of pocket towards your deductible (assuming $200 billed per visit), but on the PPO it might only be $350 out of pocket in copays (assuming a $35 copay per visit).

Though even then, while the that extra $1650 out of pocket for the same care might sting your checking account, your overall effective cost accounting for the employer HSA contributions plus your tax savings on the HDHP would be $1561 - $2000 = -$490, while the PPO would be -$3401 - $350 = -$3751.

So still much better off on net. The difference would be even starker if instead of office visits you had coinsurance-eligible care on the PPO, since the 20% rate is the same.

On the other hand contributing to an FSA with the PPO would moderate the differences somewhat.

Two questions needed from you to be sure;

• What's your federal and state marginal income tax bracket?
• How much do you plan to contribute personally to the HSA for the HDHP, or an FSA (if available) for the PPO?

> I’m unclear as to whether I can spend HSA money on the family prescriptions and office visits

Virtually any healthcare spending is a qualified expense for HSA purposes. It's any medical expense that could be counted towards the medical expense deduction on your tax return, for you, your spouse, or any dependents, regardless of whether they're enrolled in the HDHP. It's pretty easy to spend HSA money. Less so to contribute it if you're trying to mix-and-match coverage.

There's loads of spots depending on how much time you want to spend on transit. You could park as far out as New Haven CT or Brewster NY and take the regional rail (MTA) in to Grand Central. Though that's a 2 hour trip.

I guess it depends on what tradeoffs you'd prefer to make.

• You can drive all the way, pay the tolls, and put your car in a garage all day for $60-80 (or more).
• Chance it with street parking and figuring out when/which meters you have to feed, and whether you have to move your car every two hours or whatever
• Pick your favorite station that looks like it has parking nearby on google maps, and decide how much time on the train is too much that you'd have preferred to just pay for the garage anyway

>Also do you guys think the Trade Center is the right building to do this? I know NYC has lots of rooftop views and idk which is the best, but I feel being that the Trade Center is the tallest building it would be the best

The Edge at 30 Hudson Yards, and Top of the Rock, are the usual recommended observatories. Mostly because you can't see One WTC when you're inside it (same for Empire State Building).

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>For anyone that’s done this before, do I need to buy tickets in advanced, and what will the parking situation look like?

Early March isn't exactly tourist high season, but you never know. No reason to leave it to chance.

As for parking, the situation will be bad. Don't count on nearby street parking. Garages will be expensive, but are likely your only option. The better plan is to park wherever, and then use transit the rest of the way. Depending on the direction you're driving in from, parking near a Metronorth or NJ Transit station, or other park and ride, could be less of a hassle.

Thread from yesterday;

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https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/11cvu27/how_much_should_you_have_in_retirement_at_age_30/

The Ohio plan has many Vanguard funds as investment options. Either as the "Vanguard Ohio Target Enrollment Portfolios", or you can just straight up invest in Vanguard US, international, and bond market index funds.

There's really no advantage for you to look elsewhere.

Can you share which state you're in, your state tax rate, and amount you plan to contribute? It's a math problem of whether the drag from bad investment options/high fees outweighs the tax savings from contributing to the eligible state plan. In most cases, the tax benefits still win.

You should also be aware, you can't just open a "fidelity" 529. Fidelity manages a few state plans (Arizona, Mass, Connecticut, Delaware, and New Hampshire), and for non-residents who still want a fidelity-managed plan, they route them to the NH.

Though even in that plan, you don't get access to the full suite of Fidelity funds. They have a few options for managed portfolios that you can choose.

Same goes for Vanguard plans. They manage New York, Colorado, and Nevada's plans, and route non-residents to their Nevada plan.

That's almost always the case, yes. And it's the main factor you should consider when choosing a plan.

>to what to do with my PF planning

Well, what do you want to do with your life right now? Keep working? Retire and live off the windfall? Relocate? Travel the world? Change nothing? Buy some toys?

The plan you setup for the money will be in service of goals - short term or long term. But clear goals need to come first.

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>All my eggs has been there in one basket for over 8 months. Price has come down for more than 10%. I still freeze and don’t know what to do.

There's not much advice to give without the specifics (and not encouraging you to share anything that might identify you - again, see the windfall wiki). No one here can predict the price movements of the stock you're invested in, or whether it's a good idea to hold and wait for it recover before plotting your next move (though generally speaking, if the allocation isn't right for your goals or is too high risk, the best time to get out of it was 8 months ago, and second best time is now). We also don't know the jurisdiction you live in, and the tax consequences of selling/rebalancing all at once versus slowly transitioning out of it.

You probably need professional advice beyond the scope of what can be provided here.

That's not how the policy works anymore.

You can't just roll up to border. There's an app used to file claims before departing, and if you just show up at port of entry without an appointment for your claim, or you are caught crossing the border illegally you get expelled back to Mexico, with some exceptions for unaccompanied minors, etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/us/politics/biden-border-crossings.html

>Am I really behind now in life?

No. The average 22 year old has negative net worth and has never heard of an IRA. Spend less frivolously (without budgeting for it), and don't get addicted to gambling. You'll be fine.

Peloton had a huge surge in sales during the pandemic. But they struggled to stock enough inventory to fill orders, leading to long waits. In the meantime, they made bets into expanding into a whole bunch of different markets that compared to the growth they were promising wall street; app-only subscriptions without the equipment, music festivals/collaborations, hotels and gyms, and apparel/lifestyle brands, among other things.

As things started to re-open, they got hit with a high volume of returns, cancelled subscriptions, and the treadmill recall JUST as their production had finally caught up. They were stuck with inventory that no one wanted, and a lot their expansion bets fell flat. In their June '22 results, compared to the year prior their revenue fell by 10% while their costs went up by 40%. Within 6 months their stock was trading -75% from its pandemic peak.

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Robinhood's initial growth was a right-place-right-time kind of thing. They were one of the few fintech companies that were making a bet on commission-free retail investing, aimed at new/small investors, which they called "democratizing". But because regular trading was free, they earned their revenue by charging fees on more exotic transactions, like options, IPOs, crypto, futures, margin, and other things the average person couldn't really explain if asked to write a one-page essay about it.

Nonetheless user growth was rapid. In Q1 2021, they had something like 18 million users. By Q2 it was 22.5 million. As they explained in their prospectus, there was extraordinary growth in retail investing. A combination of the crypto bubble, meme stocks, bored people working at home hoping to turn day-trading into a hobby, and spike in savings from lifestyle shifts and pandemic relief funds. 40% of their revenue was from options trading. Another 20% from crypto.

Hoping to capitalize on this growth, they went IPO. In their annual reports, they say their chief competitive assets are "Creative Product Design", "Brand", and "Scale". But investors saw the writing on the wall - either the retail craze would slow down on its own, or anyone else could come along and build a good app targeted towards retail. Their stock price fell ~10% on its first day of trading. Their brand took a hit following accusations on order flow and transaction limits related to GME. Today, it's also about -75% down from the initial price.

There may be a difference of opinion between stores on what they think items do or don't qualify for FSA.

If you think it's a legitimate expense, you can submit the receipts for reimbursement to your benefits administrator directly (they should have a form).

Sure, the city could raise income taxes to fund whatever it wants. Though it already has some of the highest individual state and local income taxes in the entire country.

But for Citibike in particular this is a terrible idea. The city shouldn't be subsidizing private companies that are perfectly capable of funding themselves, especially considering the public benefits they already get

In addition, Citibike had about 100,000 daily riders at its pre-pandemic peak. Meanwhile, the city has about 4 million households subject to city tax, ~25% of which have household incomes at or above the $150k threshold you're suggesting, so about 1 million households would be subsidizing the daily transit of 100,000. That's inefficient, and that money would be far better spent on other transit projects with more reach.

Lastly, hundreds of thousands of households who might be subject to that tax live in the large sections of Queens, Brooklyn, and all of Staten Island that are not served by Citibike at all. This is not equitable.

>This isn’t raising revenue. This is maintaining revenue during inflation.

That's semantics. I wasn't suggesting that they were raising prices just for the sake of improving profitability. Just that their costs are going up and so they need to increase revenues or else operate the system at a reduced profit or even a loss.

That said, Citibike's parent company Lyft has been on a tear of price increases and operational cost-cutting across all of its divisions following big declines in their stock price. Municipal programs like bike and scooter rentals have seen layoffs and price hikes in many cities.

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>The city could just look to increase income tax slightly as an alternative

City taxes don't pay for Citibike. It's completely privately-funded (with the exception of community grants for NYCHCA residents, and city employee subsidized memberships).

>Unless you’re advocating for lowering the wages for already underpaid by Motivate/Lyft employees … who is known for being an employee friendly company.

There's other ways that they could raise revenue besides hiking the annual membership for commuters.

They could do additional advertising/corporate sponsorships. Sell more bulk passes to businesses. Increase rates for single rides/day passes targeting tourists. Seek additional funding from the state/grants. They could change the pricing model on the e-bikes from an additional fee per minute to a premium tier for those who opt-in.

I'm sure they considered all this. But the issue is that they, as a private entity, is optimizing for profit, while the city would want them to optimize for offloading trips from other transit/individual cars. Considering all the public space we've given to them, it's surprising the city isn't flexing its muscles a bit more.

I know plenty of people who work for anchor tenants in some of the Hudson Yards developments specifically. A few of them bought houses in the suburbs right before or during covid, and now commute into the office full time or on hybrid 2/3 day per week schedules. This comports with stats on office capacity approaching 40-50% of pre-pandemic levels.

When push came to shove, they may have disliked going back, but they're still doing it. Especially in the midst of layoffs (e.g. tech workers).

There's some paradoxical patterns here when it comes to companies investing in physical office space despite the big shifts to remote work. When you require a few days per week office attendance, you can get away with paying for a fraction of the square footage. The drop in aggregate demand means that the price falls, which may induce some companies that would have otherwise avoided getting any office space in Manhattan to consider it. Specifically when they can suddenly afford class A modern spaces. Real estate companies have dubbed this a "flight to quality", and is one of the only bright spots in the sector right now.

>Cause all the money keeps going to Vornado who in turn intentionally leaves that shit undeveloped and run down to keep getting more money
>
>The article even says as much with the Bloomberg building.

I think you may have misunderstood. Vornado doesn't get payouts from the government for keeping their properties dilapidated. Their endgame is to postpone paying to renovate their buildings while waiting for special permission from the city/state to build something larger on the site.

It's shitty behavior if deliberate (it's not specifically alleged in this lawsuit for these properties). But they wouldn't be the only real estate company ever to rationally decide that there was no point in paying good money to refurbish buildings in the shitty part of town. Certainly not while the floor is falling out of the commercial real estate market.

The upshot is that even if it is bad behavior getting rewarded, the city is still going to penalize them by extracting billions of dollars from the company upfront to pay for infrastructure (rather put the city billions of dollars in debt upfront and have to wait for 20 years to make the money back on tax payments).

>Places like Hudson Yards are just too "out of the way" at this point.

It's a 6 minute ride on the 7 from Grand Central, and 10 minute ride on the 7 from Port Authority, and 10 minute walk from Penn Station. It's really not that bad for commuters.

I think this is more about what you see when you compare the environs (in terms of high-rise office and residential) of Penn Station to Grand Central. It's underdeveloped for such a central point in the city's transit network.

Maybe I need to re-read the proposal, but I don't think the state is paying for any of the private developments. By designating it as blighted, they can permit reconstruction that skirts normal review and zoning to build faster and higher than the ordinary process and air rights would allow. But the developers would be paying for it, and pay the state a fee which would in theory finance a big a chunk of the reconstruction of Penn Station and expansion to Penn South.

How many can you name that have fully fabricated their educational and professional histories? Beyond the pale of the little white lies and embellishments that everyone, not just politicians, do?

What George Santos did isn't in the same galaxy as run of the mill "shrug, politicians be lyin'!" quips.

It must be exhausting to be THAT cynical

The adage about politicians lying is normally about unkept policy promises. Not that their entire lives and qualifications are fabricated.

>When I pressed about the previous visit, they said they submitted it over 7 months late.

Then they should be SOL. Call your insurance company again and reiterate that an in-network provider (if that's what they are) is trying to collect from you after they failed to file a timely claim despite having your information. That should get them to bring the hammer down and settle this on your behalf.

If not, contact your state health insurance regulator.