If you like the Plat Honors, you can put the money in a ladder of 4 week t-bills (currently getting over 4%) with Merrill Edge. They’re advantageous if you live in a state with high income tax rates.

It’s an extra 6 hours of your time for those four days of commute. (Might be a little more in total if your current commute on that 5th day is shorter). Assuming a 40 hour workweek, that’s a 15% increase in hours for a 42% pay increase (minus whatever you pay in gas). That seems worth it to me if you can put up with the drive.

Without any other changes, this tells them to withhold taxes like your spouse does not work. This means they assume you get both your and your spouse’s standard deductions and lower-income-tax-buckets.

It’ll stay for six months at the current rate, then the rate will change to the updated rate for six months.

Absolutely smart to have your resume ready. When my dad’s company merged in the 2010s, they announced very publicly and loudly that nobody’s job was at risk. About 25% of his pre-merger colleagues were let go within six months.

Not to say that’ll happen where you are, but take any promises about security with a huge grain of salt. If you ever start to feel “weird,” and that management is treating you differently, be proactive.

They can do that, sure. If you’re not taking out a big loan in the next 60 days, though, it’ll (very likely) have zero impact on your life.

You get that 4.742% as an annual rate of return (so half of that after six months).

And inflation is hitting the insurance industry especially hard, when combined with continued chip shortages. Parts are more expensive/harder to acquire, labor is more expensive, and it’s more expensive to replace a car because retail used car prices remain high.

Did they increase your rate to $1150 a month or $1150 per six months? If they’re increasing from around $150 a month to $1150, that’s probably a mistake.

Assuming $1150 every six months: Car insurance costs have been going up sharply and yours isn’t out of line with others. You can shop around to see if you can get a better deal, but there’s no negotiating and no cap to increases, so long as the insurer’s plan is approved by the appropriate insurance commissioner (and you can expect that any increase would be, especially by a major National insurer). If others charge the same amount or more, that’s your new rate. Keep looking every few months.

You’ll only get a 0% rate if it’s advertised by the manufacturer and have good credit. If it’s not something the manufacturer advertises, it’s not something that will be available (especially in this interest rate environment).

It’s not really. You can get 1 year treasuries at 4.7%, which is likely to be as much as or more than an I bond kept for 12 months after the penalty.

$5k per month? Yes.

There are a couple accounts that offer promotional interest rates if you use your debit card five or ten times in a month. It’s conceivable someone has multiple of these accounts.

If the inflation rate gets worse, you can keep that money in there for years and benefit. More likely, it returns to a 2-4% rate for the medium term, trailing the interest rates of treasuries.

It’s probably not even worth it now. You can get 4.7% guaranteed on a one-year treasury, with no three month penalty for early withdrawal. If you withdraw an I bond in 12 months, your effective rate will be 4.85% if the interest rate stays the same (and the government is doing everything it can to make that number go down in six months).

Credit utilization really matters only if you’re planning to get a major loan before paying it off. It’ll go back to normal a month or two after you bring it to normal utilization levels.

What interest rate are your debts? If they’re credit cards or other high interest debt above 20%, and there’s no other realistic way for you to pay it off, this is fine. If it’s debt under 10% interest, definitely not.

Work related (moving at least 50 miles for a work related reason), health related (moving because of better health care elsewhere for an ongoing issue), unforeseeable events (divorce or death of spouse, destruction of your house, a few others).

A pre qualification will verify your assets for a down payment. You can add to your down payment later, but you need enough available to qualify for the mortgage.

If you have nothing saved up today, couod qualify for a mortgage only if you’re eligible for a 0% down mortgage.

If the bank knows (especially if you have written recognition of this), you’ll be just fine.

No. You can roll it over whenever. Make sure you follow all the rules about rollovers (within 60 days etc. if it’s indirect) and you’re golden.

If your 401k plan allows this, yes that’s a good plan.