Congratulations on the baby!

Review your budget. Are you investing at least 15% of your income for retirement? Have you budgeted for childcare?

Is your emergency fund in good shape? Do you have sufficient term life on yourself and your co-parent? Both are essential to giving your child a stable childhood.

Take advantage of thrift shops, Buy Nothing groups, and other inexpensive options for baby equipment and clothing. Babies and toddlers outgrow things long before they wear out.

Stock your freezer with easy to re-heat meals. The first few months are exhausting, so you can blow the budget and your waistline on takeout and delivery.

Think about how you’ll handle cash gifts to baby. Do you want to open a 529? Buy savings bonds? Do something else?

Remember to fund your retirement before investing for college. You can’t borrow to retire and you don’t want your children stressing over elderly parents.

Congratulations!

The person on mortgage is the one at risk if there are problems, payments get skipped, and mortgage goes into default. For that reason, names on mortgage and deed should match.

It may be possible to do a prenup or other contract to protect her if she’s on mortgage and you are both on deed. I‘m not a lawyer.

Take a deep breath.

Check that you transferred all the numbers from W-2 to Turbo Tax correctly. Pay special attention to which box you were copying numbers from. For example, my wages are much lower in box 1 than in box 2, because of my pre-tax deductions, so mixing them up makes my taxes skyrocket. Make sure you transferred over every number. Look for places where you reversed digits when copying or entered the same digit twice.

Check the questions about filing status, being claimed as a dependent, and whether you want to take standard deduction. Inadvertently checking the wrong box is easy, especially when cat walks across keyboard.

You probably need to invest more than typical for retirement. The general guideline is to invest at least 15% of income to retire in your 60s, but that assumes you will be eligible for Social Security. Working out of the country, it’s likely you aren’t paying SS taxes on much of your income, which will reduce that source of retirement money.

You aren’t building home equity, which is a form of forced savings. Living in a paid off home is typically less expensive than renting in retirement. That’s another reason to bump up your investment percentage.

Live the lifestyle you want, just be sure you invest at a higher rate so you can afford to retire one day.

You write a will. You state that you have a sister [Name] and that you are not leaving her anything. You say that your entire estate is left to [CharityName]. You name someone to handle your estate, typically called the executor.

Create a folder or binder that is clearly labelled “estate plan” or “last wishes” or “on my death”. Put that folder somewhere obvious, like in the front of file drawer. Put your will in it.

The executor pays any final bills, notifies heirs, and gets house ownership transferred or sells house and sends charity the proceeds.

Other things for your folder: Documents that will help your executor find your accounts like bank statement and voided check, 401k statement, electric bill, etc. Mine includes a list of people to notify of my death, a draft obituary, and a note about finding my passwords.

FYI, you need to name your closest relatives and specify that you are not giving them anything or are giving them a very small amount. Otherwise, they can challenge will on grounds that you forgot them.

Mine is split. A month’s expenses in local credit union savings, with the rest in HYSA and I-bonds. I don’t expect to need all the money at once, so Im okay with waiting a week or so to get money from online bank and Treasury Direct.

Part-time employment is fine.

Are you wanting to invest for retirement or for some other goal?

if for retirement, open a Roth IRA at Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard. You can open online. Pick a Target Date Retirement Fund that’s close to the year you turn 65 as your investment. Send your money to new account. You can put up to $6000 a year in IRA, as long as you have income earned from employment.

Spend some of your work time developing new skills and learning about different parts of the company, instead of keeping your nose to the grindstone every second. Yes, using some of your working hours that way may require you to do some overtime. But if company expects you to pick up some of the managerial responsibilities, then you need to be sure you’re also continuing to develop skills.

General guideline is to invest at least 15% of income to retire in your 60s. OP is investing 14% plus 6% max, which meets the guideline. The Roth IRA is exceeding the guideline, so OP should be able to retire before their 60s.

You can withdraw Roth IRA contributions at any age, as xanadu111 commented, but you can also do Substantially Equal Periodic Payments under Rule 72t to withdraw from other retirement accounts without incurring penalties. The critical bit is accumulating enough to be able to retire early, which requires investing more than 15% of income.

Tax rules for nonresident aliens in USA

That page also has links to information for resident aliens.

Target date funds are designed for people who don’t know how to invest their retirement money. They are well-diversified. They are automatically re-balanced on a regular basis. The asset allocation automatically adjusts as you get closer to retirement. You pick the fund closest to year you turn 65, then just put money in regularly.

If you want to learn more, look into three fund portfolios and index funds. They aren’t necessary if you have a target date fund, but some people like to be a bit more involved with their money.

FYI, I did three fund portfolio until a few years ago, when I switched to target date fund.

Excellent retirement strategy. With your 14% and 6% match, you are meeting the general guideline of investing at least 15% to retire in your 60s. The Roth IRA adds tax diversification and flexibility to retire a bit earlier or to cut back on contributions temporarily while you pay for daycare or other short-term major expenses. 100% in stock is a good choice at your age and those funds are well-diversified with low fees.

Other items to consider: Emergency fund consisting of 3-6 months expenses in an account that isn’t subject to market swings. Disability insurance. If you have dependents, term life insurance. Paying credit cards in full every month.

Congratulations on making excellent financial choices!

Give written notice today, then check your lease’s terms. Subletting may not be allowed or may require approval of management.

Remember that you remain responsible for utilities until end of lease. If you turn the heat off and pipes freeze, you’ll get hit with costs.

Really depends on the campus, the dorm, and the individual’s personality. I liked dorm life, because everything was convenient and I could retreat to my dorm room when I wanted to get away from people. My brother preferred apartment life, where he could cook and grill and have people over. My brother’s children are in college now; one loves apartment life, one loves dorm life, and one is threatening to move home where he doesn’t have to share living space with other teenagers.

Unless dorm life is awful, I’d take the less expensive housing option.

I have three accounts, checking, emergency savings, and intermittent expense savings. Intermittent is for things like annual property tax, summer vacation, new couch. I have a spreadsheet to track intermittent expenses, which is where I track short-term goals and savings progress.

I frequently see posts about online banks that you you categorize savings into buckets, which sounds like what you want.

When I was looking into assisted living for my mother, they all said that if she or her husband were veterans, the VA might help pay for assisted living.

Ask HR for a copy of the payroll calendar. They should have one that shows payroll period, deadline for submitting time and/or leave, and pay date.

Direct deposit of paycheck is usually set to start processing a couple of days before payday, so banks often have information early. It’s dangerous to rely on the money being available early because glitches happen occasionally. I have no desire to pay overdraft fees, so I have my bill payments set for a couple of days after payday so I can confirm the funds have been deposited.

People who consistently invest 15% of income are able to retire in 60s and maintain their standard of living. That 15% can be invested in any retirement account (401k, IRA, 403b, etc). The 401k is the most common, allows you to invest more than IRA each year, and is funded through payroll deduction so you don’t have to remember to transfer funds, so most people recommend funding the 401k first.

If you invest less than 15% for a couple of years, you’ll likely need to invest a little more than 15% later. Ideally, you stick with 15%, but some people need to adjust percentage to save downpayment in a reasonable time period.

If you have an employer match, you should contribute enough to get the match. If you plan to do 20% down, plan to buy a house with payments under 30% of income, and expect to live in that house for more than five years, it’s okay to drop retirement contributions to match level for a couple of years. Just be sure you re-set to at least 15% of income as soon as you have downpayment & closing costs saved.

Consistent long-term investing in a diversified stock fund averages about 10% return. Consistent is essential, adding money when market is down as well as up. Long-term means 30-40 years.

Over short and medium term, returns vary. You really need a long horizon for stock funds to recover from major declines.

I have friends who volunteer as an alternative to bored spending. Walking dogs for the animal shelter, reading aloud at the Shriner’s Hospital, weeding beds at the botanical gardens….

When do you spend? Can you avoid those situations?

I spend when I have too much free time, when I am feeling bored or lonely. I keep a list of free and inexpensive activities posted on my door and in my car. I’ve also purchased annual passes to museum, zoo, botanical garden, city recreation’s pottery studio program, etc. This morning I packed lunch and biked to the zoo to eat lunch with the lions. Kept me away from both online shopping and coffee shops.

You said your mother is on disability and is afraid she’ll lose the home if the agency paying disability finds out she bought a house. That sounds like she’s hiding assets to defraud government. She needs to check rules of the disability program, as they are usually based on replacing income, not on assets.

Co-owning a house makes you responsible for taxes and insurance and maintenance.