There are lots of apartments in that area (and getting to be more by the day--I'm looking out my window at Kirkland right now!), but to give you an answer about what's in your price range I'd have to do the same research you would. I'll just say that most of the formulas for what's an affordable rent are 30% of your gross monthly income, and I really have no idea what that is for you since you only list your net pay, and even then it's not really net because you have deducted "savings, etc" which could be just about anything.

Oh, and there isn't a train in that area, but if you pick the right neighborhood you can get good bus service.

I would just have written a note on their car saying "no".

But since you didn't do that and you didn't hit their car, I don't know why you need to do anything. They're not necessarily scamming you; maybe they just noticed the scratches for the first time and noticed you had some as well. Regardless, there's no upside to calling them and thus giving them your number.

By the way, you say that this seems like an "unusual" place to do this; what would you consider a "usual" place?

This all hinges on probabilities, and only you can really be the judge of that. Your statement "Of course the bonus is never guaranteed" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. How much you factor that bonus income in depends on how likely you think it is that you'll actually not get a bonus in any given year.

You don't want to be in a situation where one down year causes you to lose your house, so you need to structure things so that won't happen. Maybe that means you have a certain amount set aside in liquid accounts so that you can pay a year (or even two) of mortgage if you don't get a bonus.

A relevant question here: how much do you actually want to spend on a house? Are you just trying to spend as much as humanly possible, or do you have a target in mind? Because there's no point in spending a lot of time and energy figuring out your exact limit if you're not going to come close to that. It seems like you could easily put aside a year or two of mortgage on a really nice house and then never have to worry (about this, at least).

Except the question was why the bill was for 10k more than your math would suggest. A warranty is a definite possibility.

What was the 1300 for? It should say on the contract, and it would answer this question. Normally people ask for first month, last month, and deposit at signing. However, if they're asking for pro-rated, maybe that means you didn't actually pay first month.

If you're at all concerned about this, I'd keep your receipts (which presumably will say what month they're for). They can't just randomly double-charge you for a month legally, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

If you borrowed $17k for a car while making $18k/year, you have paid way too much for your car. The absolute maximum vehicle value you can afford is half your annual income, and in general way less than that would be better. It's just too hard to save money while paying for that vehicle. Even if it were already paid off, the depreciation is costing you too much money.

So if it's a struggle to find a car that fits that limit (or if the only cars available are so damaged that they're costing you tons in repairs), then the real financial advice is to figure out a plan to be making a lot more money in a few years.

Yeah, I'd be paying extra to get rid of this debt; 5% interest isn't terrible but the less interest you pay, the better. And take really good care of that car so you minimize repairs and maximize lifespan, while in the meantime figuring out how to move into a career that will boost your salary. Maybe that requires some education or training, so the smartest financial thing you can do is figure out how to pay for that while keeping other expenses low. The reality is that there aren't a lot of good financial answers while making $1500/month, because no matter how good your financial choices and budgeting are, everything is always going to be tight and unexpected emergencies are going to put you in a big hole.

Real estate can be a great part of a good financial life plan, but it will only make your life better if you actually want to live somewhere that affordable real estate exists, and you are okay with (or even like) taking care of a house or condo and possibly a yard. And also if you are sure enough that you want to live there for at least 5 years, which is about the minimum time you can own real estate that you would come out ahead financially if you decided to sell.

If owning a home or condo doesn't seem like something you'd actually enjoy, at least for now, then it's unlikely to improve your quality of life to buy it anyway because you think you are supposed to.

Just be aware that one of the reasons people who own real estate tend to come out ahead is that a mortgage acts as a kind of "forced savings" because you are building equity over time, and later in life you can pay off your house and lower your expenses, or even sell and downsize to get cash. So if you decide owning real estate doesn't fit your lifestyle, you can still have a great life but just be aware that sufficient retirement savings are even more critical because you need to plan for paying rent throughout your life.

Was the itemized list of costs from your actual sales contract that you signed, or was that from something unofficial that they gave you as part of the buying process? Because they can only hold you to what you signed, so hopefully you have the original sales contract. If your itemized numbers are correct, your remaining balance should be 41k, not 51k! That's a huge discrepancy. It's definitely not normal, and there aren't a lot of add-ons that could cause that, so if they're trying to tell you that's the bill, they either didn't give you the price they said they would, or they've sold you a more luxury model of the same car (or at least charged you for that).

By the way, since you're new to the USA, it's worth knowing that here we use commas (,) to separate thousands, and dots (.) to separate decimal values or cents. So your price would hopefully be 49,000 :).

First of all, stop beating yourself up about this. It doesn't help, and the "everything I do is wrong, so it doesn't matter what I do" mentality often leads to more bad decisions. You're only 21; we've all made dumb mistakes and if you learn your lesson about not buying cars you can't afford at 21 (and you definitely can't afford a car that you can only buy with 22%, never mind 28% interest), you learned this lesson cheaply.

So, no, don't get another car right now if at all possible. You're already paying off two car loans, and you don't want to be paying 3. If you could even get a car loan, you'd get another high-interest loan because the lender would (reasonably) want to be compensated for the high risk that you wouldn't be able to keep up with the payments and default.

And you could look into personal loans or refinancing, but you're likely to run into the same problem that you're going to look like a default risk. But if you can get a better rate (like at a credit union), then go for it.

But you are NOT going to borrow your way out of debt, so the loan restructuring is not the solution. What you need is a (possibly temporary) infusion of extra income. If you can get overtime where you work, great. If not, you're going to need to get a second job. The faster you can pay these loans off, the less it matters what the interest rate is. Right now you're paying $3000+ of your $8500 in annual car payments to interest, which means it's going to take you two years to pay them off. If you could add another $400 a month to that, it would only take you 14 months; if you could add $1000, it would only take you 9 months. Can you figure out how to add $100/week?

Normally at this point I would say "delivering pizzas", but that doesn't seem like a great option for someone with a totaled car in their recent history. And most regular insurance doesn't cover accidents while driving for work (State Farm is an exception). But I'd really start looking for something. If you can temporarily boost your income (and/or cut expenses), you can get this behind you a lot sooner. And if you can keep it going for a while, you can add to the down payment and get a more reliable car, as well as building up an emergency fund so that any future events don't become crises that send you spiraling again.

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding your question, but I can't possibly see how anyone except you would be in a position to answer this, especially since you've given us zero data on which to even do some math on your behalf.

Isn't it as simple as which is the cheaper of the two ways to pay for public transportation? Can you estimate how much "using public transportation a lot" translates to in dollars of tickets? And how does that compare to what it costs to buy the transit pass pre-tax? The only tricky thing is that since paying full-fare is with post-tax dollars, you'd have to figure out your overall tax rate to know what that would be in pre-tax dollars.

It's not great that you blew that money, but if you have learned the lesson about balancing future needs with current wants and don't make this mistake again, you will come way out ahead from this experience, especially because you are learning it at 22. We've all made dumb mistakes, but the key is to not make the same mistake twice.

As far as how much money you actually should have at this point, the only thing you really need is enough to get yourself set up in your career and whatever your post-college living situation is going to be. By far the most important thing to have invested in at your age is your skills and future earning power, and it sounds like you've done that. Don't beat yourself up any more.

Bill Cosby is threatening to go on tour again.

Do you have a reason to believe that dividends would be a hedge against inflation? If so, what is it? Because I don't know of any. Perhaps if you explain why you think so, we could respond.

The only other thing I'd say is that, while it's great you're getting started on your Roth, 3 portfolios is already a large number to be dividing 1000 by, and adding a 4th would seem to add more fiddling than could possibly be worth it. If you value your time, you'll cost yourself more in lost time than you would make by maximizing the average gain of diversification.

When you're starting out, by far the most important factor in your future wealth is how much you contribute, not the exact allocation you use. Personally, I'd just go with one index fund until I got to about $10k.

How long is the car going to be in the shop for? That seems like the crucial question, and the body shop seems like they should be able to give you an answer on this. But without that, your post is pretty confusing because you're talking about things like affording health insurance for the year or working somewhere else, which seem like long-term solutions to what seems like it should be a short-term problem.

You mention Seattle, but I'm not quite sure how that fits into the equation and whether you are saying that you live in Seattle or what. But I also live in Seattle and every single place around here is hiring so it seems like, even if you weren't willing or able to get a job in your field that had less of a commute, you could get a second job closer to your residence temporarily to plug the leak while your car is getting fixed.

Better yet, keep working that second job long enough to build up an emergency fund so that the next time something like this happens, you have a cushion.

The Prime Directive for this sub

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/

covers all the basic questions you're asking. Start by working your way through that and come back here if you have specific questions.

I'm assuming you read the terms and conditions after you purchased it? I'm a little confused by that. What motivated you to read it then?

And which customer service are you talking about? Because if this is indeed a scam, you probably need to call your debit card customer service to get help on not accepting the charges.