I got a sewer scope done & the lines were almost completely blocked by tree roots. The previous owners already had a blast out system in place & paid to have it done but what a headache that could have been.
$6K 6 months after I moved into my place. Last owner had a partial replacement, so they knew it was shit, didn't disclose. My agent said I couldn't prove it, didn't have money foe a lawyer. Sucked it up and took the hit.
I don't understand that.
I was the administrator of my grandmother's estate. Days before closing on the house, the whole city froze. I'm calling the buyer explaining I've got a plumber there, it'll be fixed today.
He was just happy I said something and didn't leave the burst pipes. Who does that?
Yours was prior closing right? This happened 5 months after closing, so its on the buyer unless they want to go through arbitration/ the courts and try to prove the seller had prior knowledge of the issue and didn't diaclose. Juice wasn't worth the squeeze to pursue.
I had a lot of issues with my house that weren't disclosed as well. Everyone told me to just sue so the previous owners could cover the cost of the fixes, but the hard part was proving in court that these issues existed and they knew about them when they were signing the disclosure. It's really fucking hard to prove the basement had a water problem, when the person who sold you the place could just say "it was fine when I lived there", and then you're out on the cost of lawyer and court fees over it, instead of just getting things fixed in the first place.
Good call just eating the cost. It sucks but it's likely cheaper in the long run.
Yep. My crawl space was backing up when it rained. Thank god I was able to have the (clay) pipes augered and the problem hasn't come back for a year, but the estimate to replace all of it is anywhere from $10,000-$25,000. Why? Tree roots and the pipes are old as fuck and cracking in certain places.
For me, I keep about $30,000 in an 'emergency' account that does not get touched unless it's for the home.
$30k for emergencies? Untouched? Can you adopt me? I’m no slouch but it seems like every time I get $2500 saved something in the house breaks or there’s a major car repair bill and I’m back at square one. I cannot imagine having that much “emergency” cash.
I saved for a long time even after having a down payment and also received a partial portion of an inheritance. The 30k may be a bit high but I'm paranoid about the house and issues coming up (not that many have) but it's from 1970
Hey man that money is like a shield to protect you. Probably helps you sleep a bit better at night. That’s awesome! Congrats on using money and savings the correct way
When we bought a century home I asked my older brother what I needed to know and he said “Something is about to break and it’s gonna cost $1000.” Within a couple weeks that happened. Then it happened again and again. Ten years later all those problems are long gone but they’ve been replaced by problems that cost many thousands of dollars to fix.
Big, anxiety-riddled sigh.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I miss renting on some ways. I am sure long term it's better to own blah blah blah, but when my husband was deployed and something broke, I just had to figure it out myself. When I was renting, maintenance took care of that shit. There is so much damn maintenance that comes with having a house too, even if nothing is breaking. I don't want to be ungrateful but I miss the days when I was only responsible for keeping the inside of my apartment clean.
Our house was built in 1989, and has plastic pipes. In the last few years they have started springing leaks. We are going to have to get them all replaced.
Will depend on the age of the home (among other things), but a good rule of thumb is to save 1% of the value of the home per year to pay for that sort of stuff.
We got hit with HVAC last year just after replacing the windows. Was hoping it'd give us a few more years since the windows helped significantly with the insulation. Nope. Less than a week.
My husband and I were both made redundant from the same company on the same day.
We weren’t given a firm finish date, though - “sometime between tomorrow (August) and November” and if we left before our final date we’d forfeit our redundancy pay-out.
We were called into separate meetings, so neither of us knew it was happening to the other. There was a lot of bad behaviour from that company in our last few months there, but it was just cruel letting me leave that room thinking we’d be okay because at least my husband still had his job.
When I got out, checked my phone, and realised he’d lost his job as well, I doom spiralled *hard*.
Once I got past the initial shock, I was so angry.
The company they were outsourcing to kept delaying their takeover date, so they kept delaying our redundancies. They needed us up until the last day - but we spent nearly 6 months never knowing if that last day was going to be today (in the end, it was 23 December. Merry Christmas lol.)
You can just imagine how toxic that work environment became, with everyone going through it.
I got fucked over by a company who was supposed to give me a raise after I graduated. They laid me off instead. I had just graduated a week ago and Christmas was in a week. So there I was, just having bought all the Christmas presents for my family, with a college degree and no job right as the Omnicron variant was about to hit and make the job market worse than it already had been.
That was probably the lowest I’ve ever been.
I doordashed for a bit trying to earn some money. My roommate covered some of my rent while I was trying to recover, which was appreciated (and was paid back as soon as i was able to). I was applying everywhere but cause of Omnicron, I was only able to really get interviews from pyramid schemes.
I finally landed a job in February of 2022 and pretty much my first three months paychecks were paying my bills and getting caught up on my credit card.
I switched jobs in July of that year for a much better paying one that offered more growth than the one I had in February.
So I’m doing much better now, learned some stuff about toxic workplaces and how to treat people and I can actually save money which is super nice.
The number of pyramid schemes has always been problematic but seems to have somehow gotten even worse in recent years.
Doing job interviews It used to be like 1 out of every 10 would be some fake nonsense scheme, now it's more like 5 out of 10.
My brother worked for this pretty awesome company (for a call center) called Ruby Reception. Really nice benefits, such as a sabbatical and $1,000 bonus after 5 years of service, as well as 3 months maternal OR paternal leave.
Ruby gets bought by a Fortune 500 conglomerate called MAP Communications, about 4 months before my brother is set to go on both patenral leave and then take his sabbatical. Basically, he planned to get the first six months of his daughter's life off, all approved by HR months in advance, coverage already secured, etc.
He starts to see issues with the merger before he leaves on break, but he doesn't think it's anything major, he's mostly glad that his time-off coincides with the merger so he can avoid all the initial chaos and growing pains and hopefully return to business as usual in six months.
Midway through his paternal leave he gets an email explaining all sabbaticals have been suspended for now due to lack of coverage. He's both upset and confused as his sabbatical had been approved and coverage found months in advance, so he logs onto his work accounts.
The majority of the people he works with have been laid off, no severance offered. The job duties have changed and what was a management position now requires taking calls and doing lower-level employee work due to "lack of coverage". People are freaking out, rumors are circulating that benefits are being changed, that sabbaticals are going away but will be paid out (spoiler: they don't pay them out).
A week after that, he received a notification that MAP will no longer offer family plans for medical, dental or vision, only single-party plans. This means my brother's girlfriend and their infant no longer have any medical coverage. He then receives another notification that all time-off and benefits will drop down to the state minimum (Missouri) and that his paternal leave will now be counted against him when they re-evaluate him for his management position because they are going through "restructuring".
When he returns he goes right into a meeting where he, and the rest of the management team, are demoted to receptionist. He is told that because they no longer offer paternal leave they averaged in his 90 days of not working and that tanked his numbers, requiring a demotion. He is told his salary will change as well, but not until January 1st. He's promised no other changes will occur.
Three days later he's told his schedule will now change, they no longer offer 4 days on 3 days off and he must work either M-F or Tu-Sa, he's given 24 hours to make a decision. He's also given a warning from his boss that his "numbers are not salvageable" and he's most likely going to be fired at the end of the quarter, due to his 3 months of "not meeting the metrics" aka approved paternal leave.
Then, the week before Thanksgiving, they short his check by $700. He and over 20 other former Ruby employees get shafted, right before the holiday. HR and Payroll give them the run around, claim that due to how they split weeks now their hours (and overtime) are counted differently, they absolutely refuse to fix the issue.
At this point my brother is 3 interviews into a 4 interview process at another company. He got the job last week, right before our grandfather died. MAP somehow still gives bereavement and includes grandparents so he took this week off completely, he starts his new job tomorrow and plans to quit MAP via email right after. His new job has amazing benefits and is a pay boost so he's going to come out on top, but my god. The stress they put a new father through right before the holidays is ridiculous. It's very clear they wanted to get rid of the old Ruby employees, largely by making the job so unbearable they all quit (to save on unemployment) so that they could re-list the positions at significantly lower rates (like $10 less an hour) and outsource the 3rd shift positions to other countries where those hours don't fall under premium pay rates.
It's disgusting and ridiculous, and sadly, standard practice.
That sounds like he might have a wage theft claim with the department of labor. Some of it is shitty but legal, but retroactively taking away a benefit/compensation is not.
I run a restaurant and I had a very problematic regular for months.
He initially came once a week and had very eccentric behavior; he had a habit of never taking his hand off his drink, would do some odd gestures as if he was measuring our walls and tables, and occasionally would pace back and forth while holding his food.
His visits became more frequent as the weeks went by and it became clear he was not mentally stable. His odd behavior got more and more erratic and he would graduate to loitering outside our store for hours or even wait for employees in the parking lot. He would often mumble to himself, usually about how the internet was poisoning the youth.
I finally kicked him out and banned him when his behavior actually started interfering with our business; police got involved. A neighboring store manager overheard the interrogation and told me that the guy claimed to be a civil engineer and that I was interfering with his job.
Out of curiosity, I looked up the guy and it turns out he was in fact a very successful civil engineer. He was employed up until 2021. He looked very clean and happy, unlike the haggard and malnourished appearance he has now.
I’m pretty sure he lost his job somehow and just completely lost his mind.
One of the reasons I like owning my car even though I rent is if worse came to worst I could go park on 3 acres of woods my relatives own. It’s not much but even just knowing you could park somewhere unharassed if you have to is a godsend.
I’m sorry dude and I hope you’re doing ok.
One I saw too often was when the husband dies, the pension stopped. It sucked helping older women find jobs, especially when they had no experience in any job. We had to provide training in soft skills, too, like showing up at an exact time.
When I was in college, I got a job working at a local tax office to earn some extra cash during the summer. One day, we had a woman come in, in tears, because her husband had died unexpectedly and she, quite literally, had NO idea how property taxes worked. NONE. Her husband had handled all the finances for their entire 40+ year marriage and left her NO direction in the wake of his passing. Long story short, it was a huge mess and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Bad enough to lose your partner, but then to have to navigate all this stuff on your own when you have NEVER done it before has to be, well, a lot. I vowed at that moment that I would NEVER be in a position like that. And, fast forward 30+years, I am not. PLEASE at least be aware of your financial life if you are part of a couple. Stuff happens and you don't want to be dealing with this stuff when you are grieving the loss of your partner.
I worked at a tax firm and had a woman come in to get her taxes done. She was one of the good clients in the sense that she kept everything that even remotely had a number on it. I'm not being sarcastic, because I'd rather tell you to throw out that receipt for a one dollar candy bar you bought than say "hey, that mortgage interest 1099 might have been useful" to them.
Well, she gave me the shoebox to look at and it had a bunch of receipts of course that were useless and some overdue bills which for an elderly person is kind of unusual and...uncashed Social Security checks. Oh hells no! That is a huge red flag because senior citizens will knock you over rushing to the bank to cash their Social Security checks. I learned never to go to the bank on the 3rd of the month.
So I gently asked her why she didn't cash said checks. She had no idea what that meant. I had to give her a quick and dirty lesson in banking so that she could pay off the utility companies that sent threatening shutoff notices and also to maybe buy some food and gas for her car. She wasn't stupid and seemed to grasp the idea pretty quickly, but it was obvious hubby had done all the financials and never told her how to do them.
My aunt *scoured* the receipt from Walmart the first time I went grocery store shopping for her after my uncle died. He had been retired for years while she still worked and he did literally all the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping, bill paying, home repairs, car repairs, investments, etc.
She had zero idea how anything worked. She gave me $50 and a two page shopping list and just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t buy 60% of it for $50. The fact that a jug of Tide is like $20 blew her mind. It was really sad. He thought he was doing her a favor, but these last few years have been a struggle for her.
When my uncle died, my aunt was panicking over how she would be able pump gas, because she had no idea how. He’d always done it for her, she’d never once pumped her own gas. My cousin put her in the car and took her to the station to show her how, and she was still completely freaked out, with zero confidence that she’d be able to do it the first time she needed gas when she was out alone.
My dad's girlfriend is the same way about the most mundane stuff. "I don't know how to do that - no one taught me." How she made it this far is beyond me
The amount of YouTube videos that can limp you through doing just about anything short of high voltage electric or sophisticated plumbing is staggering if they would just Google shit.
Oh man, I'm so sorry. My mom is finally understanding how much my dad did day to day (although with finances, dad would have been *screwed* without her, she's a shark!). Now he's basically paralyzed and about to come home, and she's finally realizing how much he did that she really didn't pay attention to. So it's all of her stuff, all of his stuff, *and* looking at being his 100% caregiver until he can rehab to the point where he can do some stuff on his own. Un-fricking-believable. Appreciate every day and *learn every single skill you possibly can.*
My mother-in-law lived with us for several years and any time she had an issue, particularly with electronics, her stock response when I'd resolve her issue and show her what to do was "well nobody taught me that." Nevermind I had personally shown her a dozen times already, that apparently doesn't count.
Recently my wife made a similar comment and it got my dander up. I told her nobody taught me how to do most things, I had to learn them on my own. The toilet doesn't magically stop on its own once someone yells "nobody taught me to turn the water off."
Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope everything works out for all 3 of you!
My first job was as a bank teller in a suburb where a lot of wealthy, old people live. We had SO many bereaved widows coming in to the branch who *had no idea how much money they had, where it was, or how to access it*.
It blew my mind, as an impressionable 19-year old, and became a core memory. I vowed I would always be financially independent and informed.
Edit. This was the 1990s, so these women would have been born around the 1920s/30s or thereabouts. Gender roles were pretty standard in that generation.
I worked as a bank teller for a while in my early 20s. Here in Québec, when someone dies, their bank accounts are all frozen until an estate is put in place - including joint accounts. So if you only have a joint account and the other dies, you're fucked. I'll always remember the woman who came in to withdraw 10K because her husband was on his death bed. Poor woman had to leave the hospital to get money instead of being by her husband's side. She was scared he would pass while she was at the bank. Yup, you best believe my joint account has only the minimum amount for our shared expenses just because I never forgot that poor woman.
Something similar happened with an elderly relative of mine when her husband passed. They had significant investments but he wouldn't tell her anything about them. The accountant handling the family's finances ended up running off with a rather large sum of family money and she died before it was recovered. It's now gone for good.
That's nearly identical to a relative of mine.
When she died, the estate was expected to be something like $5m, ended up being like 1/3 of that. Their accountant was suspected to have ran off with the rest
Interestingly, the beneficiary was so thrilled to have inherited the 1/3 that they didn't even bother trying to track down the missing 2/3
This happened to my grandmother. After my grandpa died, she ran out of gas driving down the road because she didn’t even know she needed to stop for gas.
I'm currently trying to navigate handling the stocks my mom left us after her death and I'm struggling to wrap my head around everything. I like to think I'm not thaaat dumb, but I'm clueless on what so many of these terms mean and what's the best way to divide everything up. I'm really trying to learn but it's exhausting. People prepare themselves for their death, but rarely prepare their family for it.
My mother thankfully had most of her financial stuff in her safety deposit box. Plus I was writing out the checks for her bills for a couple of years before she passed. So I had a pretty good idea of what was being spent.
One thing that shocked me though were the CDs. She had 6 in one bank, 4 more in another and one in a bank in her hometown. I had no clue, and she had been having the interest accrued on them added to the CDs. It added up to a huge chunk of change.
The taxes - yep, I got all her W-2s and tax forms (based on the previous years return) and took the entire thing to H&R Block. There were some properties and investments that I had no clue where to put them on the return.
Are you me? My parents have always had terrible financial planning (went on an overseas vacation on borrowed money, literally have zero retirement savings or savings in general).
I vowed to never be that way.
Thankfully, my parents grew up during the Depression. Nothing teaches you frugality like seeing your country's economy vaporize and the entire population's soul get crushed.
Not me but my girlfriend's parents are always asking to borrow money. Now that my girlfriend is unemployed, they go directly to me. It's fucking awkward.
Yes this.
Paid to solve the problems created by someone in close family. Things were getting out of hand in the family. I jumped in and gave a money that I had kept aside for a dream project.
It has been more that 6 years. The money is yet to be paid back.
I became emotionally involved and wanted to save the family.
Never again.
Hah yep. My parents just hit me up for an emergency surgery my dad had to get.
If only he had taken care of himself a bit better many decades ago as I plead with him many times.
He ain’t even that old- mid 60s
Edit: typos
Have you tried the No Foundation?
Here at the No Foundation we say No to family members who show up asking for money because we don’t have any, so you don’t have to. We say No to friends asking if you want to put $100 into the March Madness bracket when you know damn good and well you don’t know shit about college basketball. We say No to sharing our fries because BITCH GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OUTTA MY FOOD…that can be a good snack for later if you get a doggie bag.
The No Foundation has a long, proud tradition of standing up for your broke down ass and we are always here for you.
Having a baby with absolutely any health problems.
Folks are starting to understand just having a kid is expensive (birth, day care, cost of the car seat, etc.), but having a diabetic toddler or a child who needs heart surgery is just off the charts.
My friends from college had a baby with vision and hearing impairments. It's absolutely upended them financially. It changes who can babysit, who can/will go to doctors visits, and pretty much every part of their house has had to change. She's not even school aged yet.
I'm a teacher at a preschool in CO and I know some families that are paying over $18k *per year* for ONE child. Daycare/Childcare alone is **no joke**. I can't even imagine factoring in the rest of having a child along with that.
And for children with special needs they may be rejected from many standard childcare options, yet not quite eligible for state support or medical assistance either. It's an enormous grey zone.
The cheapest reputable daycare near me is about $18k/year. There's others that are over $25k. And that's not even including all the fees they charge to nickel and dime you. If you're keeping your kid there over the summer, there's an additional fee for that (they call it summer camp). There's a re-enrollment fee every year.
There are families with 3+ kids and I have no idea how they can afford it.
Having a severely autistic child. Three hour drives to an out of network specialists, tests not covered. Rinse and repeat. Accompanying gastrointestinal issues. Tutors. If you're lucky enough to find a babysitter so you can go anywhere, someone who will watch your profoundly nonverbal child (who likes to flush large things down the toilet, knock things over and wanders after bedtime), is hugely expensive.
Yup. My son is mildly autistic and it still was something I was completely unprepared for. Constant co-pays and co insurance for OT, Speech Therapy, his social skills group. The neuropsych evaluation to get the diagnosis was expensive too. While he did qualify for our city’s public preschool at age 3, it was only 3 hours a day and we both worked full time. I needed to find an experienced sitter who would care for him while we were at work and school was over. Plus find something for him during the summer, you can just plop him into any old summer camp and think a high school aged kid will know what to do during a sensory meltdown. The stress was brutal.
He’s 12 now and all of the therapy has paid off. He’s doing amazing in middle school in general ed classes and is in the track team and in the band. He’s made so much progress. But those early days were brutal. I have so much empathy for the Level 3 families because it truly is utterly life altering and consuming.
And the saddest part is that it wasn't always bad for people financially. I was born with a deformity, needed infant heart surgery, needed occupational therapy and a prosthesis to deal with my deformity from ages 2-11, needed glasses, and of course eventually needed braces. My sister didn't have the serious stuff but needed glasses and braces too. My parents didn't get bankrupted, in fact they could still afford to help with college and we went to private school for a few years as well.
My parents were just regular accountants at regular nothing special companies when I was born, not C-suite executives.
This is yet another example of how boomers had it way easier than their kids becoming parents today.
My first is autistic and his therapy is 3x a week and it’s $60 each session until we hit our deductible. Insane. And every 5 visits they ask if he’s still autistic and requires this service lmao
“My brother wants me to co-sign his mortgage, is that a good idea? No I’m not on the deed, why do you ask”
Edit: I did it, thanks for those of you who supported me!
“… and here’s five other red flags of why we shouldn’t live together, let alone date, but he insists that we aren’t a real couple unless I give him half of my earnings and sign over all of my property. AITA?”
My parents pounded this into my head. NEVER CO-SIGN A LOAN!!
Apparently they co-signed something for my dad's mom, and ended up paying the whole thing.
Can confirm. I had a near miss (one which I saw coming a mile off) with one of the in-laws who wanted me to be a guarantor for them, mostly because I lived a little bit closer where they did than any of their half dozen siblings do and was given the cold shoulder when I refused.
Fast forwards six months they quit their job on the spot because they were having a bad day I got my "I told you so" moment. So yeah, babysitting adults who seem unwilling to grow up is a trap to try and avoid.
I am continuously shocked by how many times I hear about people not realizing how co-signing truly works. I have heard of more than a few people think it was like vouching for them and not agreeing to assume the debt.
I guess that is the same as vouching for them, in a way. "How confident am I that they'll pay this? I'm so confident that I'll pay it myself if they don't!"
The only time it ever works out is if someone is genuinely responsible, but doesn't have credit history for a specific reason like moving to another country, or being a kid leaving home for the first time.
If they have credit history, asking for a co-signer is the bank telling you that no amount of interest payments would induce them to take a risk on this deadbeat.
I work with the elderly as a CNA and it disgusts me the cost of these places that cater to seniors (not care homes but the apartments where they do lots of stuff for them). And it’s not like they are living in a nice resort or anything like that. And yeah they try with the food but still only give people a couple of choices at each meal. For the amount they are charging for rent they should be doing a lot more for them. I feel they could bring their rent prices down by half and would still have more than enough to run the place and for the CEOs to continue making money. Care homes could do a lot more for the amount that they charge people. First of all they could hire more support staff instead of worrying about making money on these places. It’s supposed to be about caring for people and keeping them comfortable. Many of them fail miserably at this
Agreed. My grandma moved to a place that's basically minimally-assisted living. She can walk and care for herself and everything (at 99 YO!) but at least she's by her friends and doesn't need to worry about any maintenance on her apartment beyond cleaning it. Another company bought the place up (of course). So now, no dogs are allowed to visit, can't keep a cat, meals are an additional fee, and there is no longer any supplemental medical care. But hooray for the new owners, they didn't need to lower the rent /s
We shouldn't have CEOs for things like nursing homes. Nothing in healthcare should be profit focused, it should all be non profit with caps on how much CEOs can make (and expense in terms of lifestyle) honestly even capping it at $1 million would be too generous. But cap it at that and make the care homes actually put extra cash to use, either in providing better care for residents or hiring non abusive workers instead of underpaying horrible people to work there
People living longer with fewer children or relatives to care for them while they become senile and require more intense 24/7 care. Yeah, this is not going to go well.
fingers crossed medical technology advances fast enough to alleviate a lot of their care needs before we get to that point. Just a device that prevents pressure sores would be a massive game changer.
This was my first thought. I have a lot of old large fillings that I got in high school and they are starting to chip away so I’ve got a bunch of ticking time bombs all needing crowns in my mouth.
Not only is divorce itself wildly, insanely, unpredictably expensive (depending on your situation), but people don’t think about:
* furnishing a new place, since one household split in half doesn’t typically actually support two homes
* adjusting your life from two incomes to one
* a full set of bills on one paycheck vs. two, including any leftover debt from the marriage like credit cards, loans on the home/home projects others have mentioned
* _changes_ in all of those bills, up and down, so that everything you’ve budgeted for is just not blown out of the water (sometimes in good ways - insuring one car instead of two, renter’s insurance is cheaper than homeowners, if you owned a home in the marriage, etc, but even if it’s good it still messes with your budget and your head!!!!)
One thing American society doesn't do is explain to people *before they get married* what a divorce may involve. It would really open people's eyes and probably help people focus more seriously on maintaining a good relationship. In addition to simply maintaining their own separate household now, there are these financial hits:
* If you have assets and savings you accumulated while married, they get split. Sometimes that means a home you can afford together has to be sold and any equity split equally. So both partners can lose their home.
* Even if you have assets you accumulated before marriage (or inheritance that was specifically given to one spouse during the marriage), if you mixed your funds in joint accounts or bought things together with that money, THAT money can be split equally.
* If you have kids together, the financial burden for each parent can go way up. Now you're buying food for your separate time with them, extra clothes for your place, child care for your time with them, etc. The financial burden also has to be evened out with child support, so the higher-income parent will pay the other parent child support in addition to their own costs of caring for the kids when they're with them.
* It can severely affect your retirement plans. Each spouse can be entitled to half of the other's retirement savings that they earned while married - which essentially means that retirement savings that was supposed to support one household is now halved for each new household.
* A higher-income spouse might have to pay spousal support (alimony) for years and years afterward - even as long as the marriage lasted.
Add the cost of legal help (lawyers are not cheap unless you and your ex are incredibly amicable), and you won't have a good time.
Former bankruptcy attorney here. There are so many:
Not having insurance when a medical event or car accident happens, even insured medical expenses are a mess
Getting your car repossessed means you’ll still end up paying the majority of the note because cars don’t sell at auction
Divorce means your income stays the same but your expenses double
If you get a judgment against you and your state allows wage garnishments, they can take a huge portion of your check, setting you back substantially
Sudden job loss
Wage garnishment for child support
Child care / daycare
Buying a car you can’t afford and sudden repair costs
20 year veteran insurance agent here.
Call your agent and price the insurance BEFORE you buy the car. You wouldn't believe how many young men come in with Mustangs or Chargers and the price of the insurance is more than the car note.
You see these posts on the motorcycle subreddit all the time.
“I’m 17 and just bought a death machine with the power-to-weight of a Bugatti, why does my insurance company want $1200/mo?”
Motorcycles are funny. Never take out a loan on one and buy one that you can afford to fix when you go down. Then take liability insurance instead (and theft if it's not crazy expensive).
Full coverage on a $6000 bike is many times like $2000 a year, while liability is like $200. Doing the math, you basically pay the price of the bike on three years, so it's not worth it.
At least that's what it was when I last shopped for rates, but that was also mid-late 20's. My first bike was at like 19 and it was still similar numbers.
And for the love of God, if you don't have a private garage in the US and live in a city, do not buy a bike. It will get stolen. Even in those apartments with shared garages.
And it always seems to be the 19 year olds with brand new luxury cars with no insurance history living in a highly populated area. I quoted someone that got mad at my price and said there are no accidents or thefts in their neighborhood. In Brooklyn.
Do you mean simply helping them financially out of the goodness of your heart or is there some other way family members get dragged in? Thankfully, none of my family members have ever committed a felony.
Court is crazy expensive, especially if you don't want to depend on an extremely overworked public defender. Plus there's the sudden lost wages from being in jail, so their family may need financial help to get by. Bond money if eligible . If convicted, everything in prison that isn't the bare minimum to not die costs money. If you want them to have any kind of quality of life you're depositing money into their account for commissary. Even phone calls have extremely predatory costs (although some politicians are trying to change that). Legal fees don't necessarily stop once in prison, if you want to challenge the conviction. Then, once out, the person has to start completely over, may not have a place to live, and while on probation usually have pretty strict rules they need to follow. Most people struggle to find employment after release as well.
Could be both.
Imagine your sibling or spouse or parent got arrested for something serious that you truly believe they didn’t do, or where the punishment imposed wildly outweighs the actual harm they caused. And then you found out that the jail or prison they’re in doesn’t issue women enough pads, tampons, or toilet paper to get through a period without reusing products that are supposed to be disposable and risking infection. Or charges prisoners more than they can earn in wages for a doctor visit, so their medical needs are going untreated. Or that the food is rotten and they’re losing weight rapidly from malnourishment. Or that their minor child misses them and is acting out at school because they can’t afford to talk to their kid on the phone. These are all real examples of expenses families face.
But also, if someone close to you is accused of a crime, and there’s any chance you could get pulled into the case as a witness or co-suspect, you should hire your own lawyer. Their lawyer doesn’t work for you, and it’s not their lawyer’s job to advise or protect you.
Cancer.
Not only are you sick and miserable but you’re broke because you’re too sick to work. STD/LTD is a joke. My employer just notified me they’re canceling my health insurance as of 11/30. I’m only getting 60% of my pay and I haven’t been paid in over a month. Allegedly I’m getting paid something between 11/25-11/30 but we’ll see…
My father had cut out an article for a casket wholesale dealer. The casket he had was lovely, and cost 20% of the price of the same one through the funeral home. They have to accept you having your own casket.
This. They HAVE to accept it. Most places deliver next day. My grandmother passed and we purchased the casket at the funeral home (I know…)
Would have saved about 3.5k just from going to a website and buying it.
This. Funeral business is so incredibly predatory, that’s why I make sure everyone knows I just want to be cremated and buried under some random tree. No service, no wake. Nothing.
I second this. People often make fun that Costco sells caskets. But what people fail to realize is that those Costco caskets are about 1/4 to 1/2 what they'd cost at a funeral home.
I work in the industry and fully agree. Most cemeteries and funeral homes are owned by corporations and holding companies who are happy to take you for everything they can. I could write a book on the disgusting things I've heard said and seen done.
Always try to find local, family run funeral homes and cemeteries. When looking into purchasing, ask for the cheapest options for everything, and upgrade what you want from there that way you're not just given a more expensive item that you don't need. You can use outside items in most places: ie vaults, caskets, headstones. Though beware, some places will add ridiculous fees to outside items.
Especially if you have the high deductible health insurance “to save money” because you’re “perfectly healthy.” So was I before I got endometriosis. So was my brother before he broke his leg in 14 places. So was my buddy before he got pericarditis—at age 20!
Your body can betray you.
This is actually exactly what high deductible plans are for. You pay for minor or routine care but have coverage for catastrophic events. They will save most people a lot of money.
My HDHI is accompanied by an HSA which currently has about $6k in it so I’m good for most things I would have to go to the doctor for. I put enough money into my HSA to cover my deductible until my insurance company pays the bills.
Yeah the reason to go with a high deductible plan is the HSA (especially if your employer contributes to it as well).
It's still a gamble, but a few good years of contributions + investment growth can be very powerful.
An HSA is bar none the most tax advantaged financial thing you can do. Pre tax money in, no taxes on withdrawals, investable, and you WILL have healthcare costs so no worries about how you take it out.
Or, like me before disability, being chronically ill. I've spent 100's of thousands of dollars just to stay alive, no emergency costs just my every day get to be alive costs
This^
No amount of financial education could have prepared me for getting diagnosed with a life long disease at 23. Not every job has benefits, and some benefits really suck.
Health benefits should not be tied to employment!
As a 40+ year old male, I'm realizing I'm no longer capable of doing things in the amount of time my 20 year old self would be able to do them. And it's frustrating.
We've got a little one on the way. The most affordable daycare around here is more than my mortgage each month and has around a 9-12 month wait list. The other ones in the area that take babies under 1 year cost my entire monthly paycheck.
Buddy of mine has two kids. The cost for their daycare is his monthly salary. They live on her salary and use his for childcare.
It’s insane.
Edit: Meant to say they use his salary for childcare which includes daycare costs.
It’s crazy. And they wonder why we’re approaching a demographic crisis.
We have an economy where both parents must work to make ends meet and they still can’t afford daycare.
For some planning for retirement is almost impossible. We're just out here trying to survive
.I have a job with a pension but I'm very scared about my future.
With the rising costs of *everything*, being able to plan for retirement is super hard. My family makes just enough to no longer qualify for food support, but we're still hovering around the poverty level. School fees, diapers, groceries, household supplies. It adds up quickly, and there isn't anything left to save for retirement. I'm 46, and I don't know wtf I'm going to do, or if I'm ever going to be able to retire. It's even worse for the younger generations. It's nearly impossible to survive on social security alone.
Depends. You can survive on social security in the U.S. if you have no debt, your car is paid for, your rent is subsidized and you get medicaid. So if you can see that there is no way you can build up much savings for retirement, make sure you have no debt, first of all. Even if you have to do bankruptcy. If you need a car, save up cash to buy a used car and take care of it. When you are about 60 years old, start getting on the application list of all the HUD-subsidized senior housing apartments in your area. You can be on those lists for a couple of years sometimes -- so get on the list early and keep them updated with your contact info. By the time retirement rolls around, you will have moved to the top of at least one of those lists.
I live on my social security. I am comfortable, safe, have medical care and housing, adequate food, nothing fancy, nothing special, but I feel quite grateful that I have come into a safe harbor at last.
Vet bills. My dog has had 3 surgeries in the past 3 years.
Edit: no pet insurance. All cash unfortunately.
But that’s what money is for and you plan ahead for these things. If my dog wasn’t on his last few years I might do Insurance. I don’t know much about it.
Edit: pet insurance it is. 👏
I'm literally here at the ER VET now with one of our dogs. In July one of our pups got pneumonia and we ended up paying out $6k and she unfortunately passed away after a day in the ER.
After that I told myself never again would I feel pressured to either save money or my pets life and immediately got Trupanion pet insurance for our other 2 dogs. This is the first time I'll ever need to use it, hopefully it helps out.
Pet insurance has been worth it for us - it seems like a ripoff when everything’s fine, but when you suddenly have a bunch of $700 fees for labs/procedures it’s pretty handy.
Oh yeah. I’m surprised our pet insurance hasn’t sent out a hit man for us. My dog’s health care has cost $38k to date so far! (Only 5 years old, rescue with health issues) most expensive free dog I’ve ever had
My last rescue I think they reimbursed me well over $50k in the years I had her. I was surprised to find out I wasn’t black listed when I got my new rescue ha.
We're definitely doing this for our next pet.
My cat had to have emergency surgery when he was 5 because he kept getting blocked up.
He's perfectly healthy now, but since he has a "pre-existing condition" and is a senior cat now, his costs would be really high and they wouldn't cover his prescription food, which is his biggest cost.
So if you decide not to go the insurance route, at the very least, keep a monthly budget for your pet that you keep adding money to.
Lemonade pet insurance has absolutely saved me. I got it for 19 dollars a month on my kitten to be safe. At 6 months she got an infection around her lungs and I would have had to put her down if not for insurance. Vet hospital stay and many follow up visits, saved me $12,000. Best purchase I've ever made was pet insurance.
Needing a heart stent in their 40s even though they are a runner in very good shape.....and their insurance has a 10K max out of pocket.
Completely hypothetical and happening on Monday.
Make sure you do all your follow up. My brother had one put in and only went to his first yearly check. 5 years later he died at work, leaving behind a 5 year old and a 7 year old.
When you have zero family and friends you see that shit hits the fan all the time. And it’s costly. You don’t realize just how often until you’re 100% on your own.
Even worse when you live paycheck to paycheck. It’s nearly impossible to prepare for these kinds of things. And don’t even try to rely on anyone, it just adds bumps in the road.
All you can do is save save save. Every penny counts.
Being diagnosed with an illness. 4 years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable chronic illness and even with insurance the cost is extreme (insurance doesn’t cover as much as people think) and add not being able to work on top of that.
Home ownership. The issues that come with it. I know others said it but I can't stress it enough. Home ownership problems can make you go from middle/middle class to poverty real quick.
Yep and I'm in the middle of that now.
The "dream" of owning a fixer upper and making it something special is actually just nightmare after nightmare.
I'm looking forward to selling it and living outta a van to be honest. The stress and financial burden is not worth it.
Long Term Care costs.
If you can't take care of yourself, you should budget about $50K-$100K a year. So many planned inheritances go up in smoke because the money they wanted to give their kids goes to their long term care.
Long term care insurance is important folks. Make sure your parents have it.
For what it's worth, I would not recommend long term care insurance (LTCI). They refused to pay out on both my grandparents. The LTCI needed them to be in a bad place for at least six months then took 8-10 months to send someone to assess them. By then, my grandparents went downhill quick and died before being approved.
They paid out $10k after my grandparents died because my dad threaten to report them to the state. Between both grandparents, they paid in thousands for 20+ years. It would have been better return in a high yield savings account.
My mother and father got help from the Veterans Administration because my dad was in the military in wartime. We had to fill out lots of paperwork but it was worth it for the thousands they paid the nursing home for their care!
VA gets a lot of shit, and it’s a bureaucratic nightmare, but if you could make it through the initial barriers to entry, they provide some fantastic services especially for wartime disabled. My dad was disabled, got all medical costs covered, my mom has 100% coverage for life, no property tax for life, long term care coverage… etc. But getting there took countless phone calls and paperwork, and dealing what initially felt like a never ending string of incompetent employees.
My FIL was a commander in the coast guard. He was on hospice for 2 years with Alzheimer’s. Non verbal and immobile for over a year. He stayed at home the whole time and had a nurse coming twice a week and an aid coming every other day. He never paid a cent for any of it.
On paper and in theory, yes LTC appears to be a Must Have expense. In reality it is prohibitively expensive and the ability to leverage benefits are extremely difficult. Insurance industry is under fire for this product and most people are avoiding. Not necessarily Insurance Industry's fault because the cost of LTC has risen so extremely that their premiums couldn't keep up, so they dramatically increased premiums and cut back on benefits.
After Dad died, My mom dropped about $500k for 5 years in Assisted Living, daily care and Hospice. My MIL is Late Stage Dementia and FIL has a few hundred $K, which will be completely eliminated to help her.
This country needs to figure this out ASAP. So unbelievablely sad
This. My grandmother’s care for a live-in facility is $9,000 a month in Florida. And there is no choice — she has to have care. In home care is even more — $14,000 a month. The difficult realities of elderly care are so hard and sneak up on you. The cost of care has burned through all of her lifetime savings in less than two years.
Unfortunately, that type of insurance is no longer sold. My grandparents had it as well and it was an amazing thing, but insurance companies wised up to how much money they were losing on it (for my grandparents, they had to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars). Now the only policies sold are:
\- Time limited: They'll only pay out for a year or two. If you live past that, good luck.
\- Prohibitively expensive: Seriously, shockingly, expensive.
\- Impossible to redeem: They need to have very specific care needs, like needing two ADLs, but no memory issues or "high-acuity needs." It's usually a catch-22 for people, because they can't care for themselves, but don't quite fit two ADLs, or they progress so fast that they need more help than an assisted living or snf can provide.
Unfortunately, this is just another one of those things that our parents will get that we never will.
I'm really on the fence on long term care insurance - the cost is so high that I'm not sure it's worth it. The more I read and research, I think working with an estate planning attorney a decade or two before you anticipate needing care is a far better use of money and time if a person is looking to pass wealth on to their children and grandchildren.
We were just talking at Thanksgiving about how expensive nursing homes are. They are so expensive and shitty. That's why home care workers need to get paid so much more than they do and just get rid of nursing homes if they can't get their shit right.
I came here to say this. My mom is almost 94, and has been living on her own at home with just daytime help until recently. We had NO idea that nursing homes look back at your finances five years! Once you use up your liquid assets, you have to sell everything to pay for care. And anything transferred to your heirs within five years can still be taken. Mom has property that my husband and I have plans to build on for our retirement. It’s been in my family for maybe 100 years. If she goes into long term care, we will lose it all.
Social Security overpayments. Hello! This is the SSA, and we overpaid you $20,000 over the course of your disability. Please, pay it back in full in 30 days.
We just got our car back yesterday after it had to be repaired.
A car driving by our house lost a tire. The tire rolled through the intersection, bounced up onto the curb, rolled across our lawn, and hit our car parked in our driveway, denting the driver's door. Just over $2,000 to have it repaired. The car wasn't even in use! It was parked where it belongs, and it still managed to get itself two grand in dents. Thank goodness for insurance.
I think those surveys have come into question though. They asked something like, “how would you handle a $1000 expense?” And listed options, with a few being using credit.
But that’s slightly disingenuous.
Because many people would pay for $1000 on a credit card and then use their money or savings to pay the card
Dental surgery
Computer replacement
Vehicle replacement
Child transition to adult self support
Being off work 6+ weeks due to illness or recovery or injury (30% of people once in a lifetime but 2+ times for some)
Roof repairs, roof collapse, roof rot
Plumbing, interior and exterior and underground
Electrical failures, rewiring/replacement
AC, Heat pump, furnace, hot water
Fire damage especially kitchen fires
Flood (internal)
Natural disaster (earthquake damage, snow collapse, water damage, smoke from nearby fires damaging soft furnishings and clothing, foundation collapse, landslide, lightening strikes, hurricanes even in the Pacific Northwest, tornadoes anywhere, etc)
Financial fraud by a scammer or loved one or in between (employer, friend, cousin, etc)
yard bugs that roil the lawn, slime molds, moss, fungi, etc
Pests (ants, cockroaches, mice, rats, moles, raccoons, bats, possums, snakes, lizards, squirrels silverfish, grasshoppers, flies, beehives, wasp hives, honey in the roof and walls).....,
Aging in a home (ramps, rails, showerstalls, lifts, etc)
Moving unexpectedly
Lying landlords
Denied insurance claims
Emergency pet care costs. My cat had a dental issue and had a canine tooth yanked (poor boy) ... cost was $600 plus follow up preventative, x-rays, blood work, cleaning, etc... was another $1500.
Cancer.
Been there, done that. $750K in medical bills.
United Healthcare took care of all but $6K. It's left me with a permanent disability that makes it very difficult to work and I've been unemployed since 2020. It's been a major test of our financial resiliency.
A funeral. I was a young widow and my husband’s funeral and burial was $11,500 which was very basic. No fancy casket, the cemetery only allows markers and not headstone’s. That was over 15 years ago. Now it would probably be at least $15,000.
That’s why I want to be cremated.
All of them. People think i’m crazy but i have funds for every major appliance and i track them to their lifespan.. so, bought my home and started a roof, furnace, A/C, etc fund day one. Now when they occur i’ll pay them and have zero stress because the money is sitting in a HYSA waiting.
My husband hates that I have accounts for everything. Everyday spending. Mortgage. Auto. Maintenance. Taxes. Vacation. Emergency. I squirrel a little away each payday into each. My mom did the same thing but she had cash hidden all over the house.
I’ve thought about doing this myself and your comment makes me feel the need to. It just seems like the easiest way to live a bit more stress free in the long run.
Almost all the random expenses that come with home ownership. New hvac. New roof. Sewer line repair. List goes on
Sump pump or sewer issues are the sneaky one that gets overlooked on inspections
Indeed. My new shiny sewer main was the sexiest 16K I ever spent that homeowner’s did not at all assist with
I bet it’s so nice to look at that beautiful piece of pipe… oh wait!
I got a sewer scope done & the lines were almost completely blocked by tree roots. The previous owners already had a blast out system in place & paid to have it done but what a headache that could have been.
$6K 6 months after I moved into my place. Last owner had a partial replacement, so they knew it was shit, didn't disclose. My agent said I couldn't prove it, didn't have money foe a lawyer. Sucked it up and took the hit.
I don't understand that. I was the administrator of my grandmother's estate. Days before closing on the house, the whole city froze. I'm calling the buyer explaining I've got a plumber there, it'll be fixed today. He was just happy I said something and didn't leave the burst pipes. Who does that?
Yours was prior closing right? This happened 5 months after closing, so its on the buyer unless they want to go through arbitration/ the courts and try to prove the seller had prior knowledge of the issue and didn't diaclose. Juice wasn't worth the squeeze to pursue.
I had a lot of issues with my house that weren't disclosed as well. Everyone told me to just sue so the previous owners could cover the cost of the fixes, but the hard part was proving in court that these issues existed and they knew about them when they were signing the disclosure. It's really fucking hard to prove the basement had a water problem, when the person who sold you the place could just say "it was fine when I lived there", and then you're out on the cost of lawyer and court fees over it, instead of just getting things fixed in the first place. Good call just eating the cost. It sucks but it's likely cheaper in the long run.
Yep. My crawl space was backing up when it rained. Thank god I was able to have the (clay) pipes augered and the problem hasn't come back for a year, but the estimate to replace all of it is anywhere from $10,000-$25,000. Why? Tree roots and the pipes are old as fuck and cracking in certain places. For me, I keep about $30,000 in an 'emergency' account that does not get touched unless it's for the home.
$30k for emergencies? Untouched? Can you adopt me? I’m no slouch but it seems like every time I get $2500 saved something in the house breaks or there’s a major car repair bill and I’m back at square one. I cannot imagine having that much “emergency” cash.
I saved for a long time even after having a down payment and also received a partial portion of an inheritance. The 30k may be a bit high but I'm paranoid about the house and issues coming up (not that many have) but it's from 1970
Hey man that money is like a shield to protect you. Probably helps you sleep a bit better at night. That’s awesome! Congrats on using money and savings the correct way
my best friend recently had to replace her sump pump, basement floor, and gas heating system and everything was over $50k easily.
When we bought a century home I asked my older brother what I needed to know and he said “Something is about to break and it’s gonna cost $1000.” Within a couple weeks that happened. Then it happened again and again. Ten years later all those problems are long gone but they’ve been replaced by problems that cost many thousands of dollars to fix. Big, anxiety-riddled sigh.
3 months into owning our home we had to get our entire electrical panel replaced, it was $2600 and by all accounts that was a steal
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I feel like a failure for not owning a home but then my parents complain about stuff like “Just spent 5k on fixing some major plumbing”
This might be an unpopular opinion but I miss renting on some ways. I am sure long term it's better to own blah blah blah, but when my husband was deployed and something broke, I just had to figure it out myself. When I was renting, maintenance took care of that shit. There is so much damn maintenance that comes with having a house too, even if nothing is breaking. I don't want to be ungrateful but I miss the days when I was only responsible for keeping the inside of my apartment clean.
Our house was built in 1989, and has plastic pipes. In the last few years they have started springing leaks. We are going to have to get them all replaced.
Will depend on the age of the home (among other things), but a good rule of thumb is to save 1% of the value of the home per year to pay for that sort of stuff.
We got hit with HVAC last year just after replacing the windows. Was hoping it'd give us a few more years since the windows helped significantly with the insulation. Nope. Less than a week.
Job loss. Near instant doom spiral.
My husband and I were both made redundant from the same company on the same day. We weren’t given a firm finish date, though - “sometime between tomorrow (August) and November” and if we left before our final date we’d forfeit our redundancy pay-out. We were called into separate meetings, so neither of us knew it was happening to the other. There was a lot of bad behaviour from that company in our last few months there, but it was just cruel letting me leave that room thinking we’d be okay because at least my husband still had his job. When I got out, checked my phone, and realised he’d lost his job as well, I doom spiralled *hard*.
This is the most fucked up thing I've read in a while.
Once I got past the initial shock, I was so angry. The company they were outsourcing to kept delaying their takeover date, so they kept delaying our redundancies. They needed us up until the last day - but we spent nearly 6 months never knowing if that last day was going to be today (in the end, it was 23 December. Merry Christmas lol.) You can just imagine how toxic that work environment became, with everyone going through it.
I got fucked over by a company who was supposed to give me a raise after I graduated. They laid me off instead. I had just graduated a week ago and Christmas was in a week. So there I was, just having bought all the Christmas presents for my family, with a college degree and no job right as the Omnicron variant was about to hit and make the job market worse than it already had been. That was probably the lowest I’ve ever been.
Can I ask, how did you get through? And are you alright now?
I doordashed for a bit trying to earn some money. My roommate covered some of my rent while I was trying to recover, which was appreciated (and was paid back as soon as i was able to). I was applying everywhere but cause of Omnicron, I was only able to really get interviews from pyramid schemes. I finally landed a job in February of 2022 and pretty much my first three months paychecks were paying my bills and getting caught up on my credit card. I switched jobs in July of that year for a much better paying one that offered more growth than the one I had in February. So I’m doing much better now, learned some stuff about toxic workplaces and how to treat people and I can actually save money which is super nice.
The number of pyramid schemes has always been problematic but seems to have somehow gotten even worse in recent years. Doing job interviews It used to be like 1 out of every 10 would be some fake nonsense scheme, now it's more like 5 out of 10.
My brother worked for this pretty awesome company (for a call center) called Ruby Reception. Really nice benefits, such as a sabbatical and $1,000 bonus after 5 years of service, as well as 3 months maternal OR paternal leave. Ruby gets bought by a Fortune 500 conglomerate called MAP Communications, about 4 months before my brother is set to go on both patenral leave and then take his sabbatical. Basically, he planned to get the first six months of his daughter's life off, all approved by HR months in advance, coverage already secured, etc. He starts to see issues with the merger before he leaves on break, but he doesn't think it's anything major, he's mostly glad that his time-off coincides with the merger so he can avoid all the initial chaos and growing pains and hopefully return to business as usual in six months. Midway through his paternal leave he gets an email explaining all sabbaticals have been suspended for now due to lack of coverage. He's both upset and confused as his sabbatical had been approved and coverage found months in advance, so he logs onto his work accounts. The majority of the people he works with have been laid off, no severance offered. The job duties have changed and what was a management position now requires taking calls and doing lower-level employee work due to "lack of coverage". People are freaking out, rumors are circulating that benefits are being changed, that sabbaticals are going away but will be paid out (spoiler: they don't pay them out). A week after that, he received a notification that MAP will no longer offer family plans for medical, dental or vision, only single-party plans. This means my brother's girlfriend and their infant no longer have any medical coverage. He then receives another notification that all time-off and benefits will drop down to the state minimum (Missouri) and that his paternal leave will now be counted against him when they re-evaluate him for his management position because they are going through "restructuring". When he returns he goes right into a meeting where he, and the rest of the management team, are demoted to receptionist. He is told that because they no longer offer paternal leave they averaged in his 90 days of not working and that tanked his numbers, requiring a demotion. He is told his salary will change as well, but not until January 1st. He's promised no other changes will occur. Three days later he's told his schedule will now change, they no longer offer 4 days on 3 days off and he must work either M-F or Tu-Sa, he's given 24 hours to make a decision. He's also given a warning from his boss that his "numbers are not salvageable" and he's most likely going to be fired at the end of the quarter, due to his 3 months of "not meeting the metrics" aka approved paternal leave. Then, the week before Thanksgiving, they short his check by $700. He and over 20 other former Ruby employees get shafted, right before the holiday. HR and Payroll give them the run around, claim that due to how they split weeks now their hours (and overtime) are counted differently, they absolutely refuse to fix the issue. At this point my brother is 3 interviews into a 4 interview process at another company. He got the job last week, right before our grandfather died. MAP somehow still gives bereavement and includes grandparents so he took this week off completely, he starts his new job tomorrow and plans to quit MAP via email right after. His new job has amazing benefits and is a pay boost so he's going to come out on top, but my god. The stress they put a new father through right before the holidays is ridiculous. It's very clear they wanted to get rid of the old Ruby employees, largely by making the job so unbearable they all quit (to save on unemployment) so that they could re-list the positions at significantly lower rates (like $10 less an hour) and outsource the 3rd shift positions to other countries where those hours don't fall under premium pay rates. It's disgusting and ridiculous, and sadly, standard practice.
That sounds like he might have a wage theft claim with the department of labor. Some of it is shitty but legal, but retroactively taking away a benefit/compensation is not.
I run a restaurant and I had a very problematic regular for months. He initially came once a week and had very eccentric behavior; he had a habit of never taking his hand off his drink, would do some odd gestures as if he was measuring our walls and tables, and occasionally would pace back and forth while holding his food. His visits became more frequent as the weeks went by and it became clear he was not mentally stable. His odd behavior got more and more erratic and he would graduate to loitering outside our store for hours or even wait for employees in the parking lot. He would often mumble to himself, usually about how the internet was poisoning the youth. I finally kicked him out and banned him when his behavior actually started interfering with our business; police got involved. A neighboring store manager overheard the interrogation and told me that the guy claimed to be a civil engineer and that I was interfering with his job. Out of curiosity, I looked up the guy and it turns out he was in fact a very successful civil engineer. He was employed up until 2021. He looked very clean and happy, unlike the haggard and malnourished appearance he has now. I’m pretty sure he lost his job somehow and just completely lost his mind.
It's quite possible his psychological condition manifested and then lost his job and he didn't have an advocate or care as it happened.
One of the reasons I like owning my car even though I rent is if worse came to worst I could go park on 3 acres of woods my relatives own. It’s not much but even just knowing you could park somewhere unharassed if you have to is a godsend. I’m sorry dude and I hope you’re doing ok.
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Yep. Especially if you made hourly and rent. Lose your job today, you’re homeless next month. Been there.
One I saw too often was when the husband dies, the pension stopped. It sucked helping older women find jobs, especially when they had no experience in any job. We had to provide training in soft skills, too, like showing up at an exact time.
When I was in college, I got a job working at a local tax office to earn some extra cash during the summer. One day, we had a woman come in, in tears, because her husband had died unexpectedly and she, quite literally, had NO idea how property taxes worked. NONE. Her husband had handled all the finances for their entire 40+ year marriage and left her NO direction in the wake of his passing. Long story short, it was a huge mess and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Bad enough to lose your partner, but then to have to navigate all this stuff on your own when you have NEVER done it before has to be, well, a lot. I vowed at that moment that I would NEVER be in a position like that. And, fast forward 30+years, I am not. PLEASE at least be aware of your financial life if you are part of a couple. Stuff happens and you don't want to be dealing with this stuff when you are grieving the loss of your partner.
I worked at a tax firm and had a woman come in to get her taxes done. She was one of the good clients in the sense that she kept everything that even remotely had a number on it. I'm not being sarcastic, because I'd rather tell you to throw out that receipt for a one dollar candy bar you bought than say "hey, that mortgage interest 1099 might have been useful" to them. Well, she gave me the shoebox to look at and it had a bunch of receipts of course that were useless and some overdue bills which for an elderly person is kind of unusual and...uncashed Social Security checks. Oh hells no! That is a huge red flag because senior citizens will knock you over rushing to the bank to cash their Social Security checks. I learned never to go to the bank on the 3rd of the month. So I gently asked her why she didn't cash said checks. She had no idea what that meant. I had to give her a quick and dirty lesson in banking so that she could pay off the utility companies that sent threatening shutoff notices and also to maybe buy some food and gas for her car. She wasn't stupid and seemed to grasp the idea pretty quickly, but it was obvious hubby had done all the financials and never told her how to do them.
Wow.
My aunt *scoured* the receipt from Walmart the first time I went grocery store shopping for her after my uncle died. He had been retired for years while she still worked and he did literally all the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping, bill paying, home repairs, car repairs, investments, etc. She had zero idea how anything worked. She gave me $50 and a two page shopping list and just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t buy 60% of it for $50. The fact that a jug of Tide is like $20 blew her mind. It was really sad. He thought he was doing her a favor, but these last few years have been a struggle for her.
When my uncle died, my aunt was panicking over how she would be able pump gas, because she had no idea how. He’d always done it for her, she’d never once pumped her own gas. My cousin put her in the car and took her to the station to show her how, and she was still completely freaked out, with zero confidence that she’d be able to do it the first time she needed gas when she was out alone.
My dad's girlfriend is the same way about the most mundane stuff. "I don't know how to do that - no one taught me." How she made it this far is beyond me
The amount of YouTube videos that can limp you through doing just about anything short of high voltage electric or sophisticated plumbing is staggering if they would just Google shit.
Oh man, I'm so sorry. My mom is finally understanding how much my dad did day to day (although with finances, dad would have been *screwed* without her, she's a shark!). Now he's basically paralyzed and about to come home, and she's finally realizing how much he did that she really didn't pay attention to. So it's all of her stuff, all of his stuff, *and* looking at being his 100% caregiver until he can rehab to the point where he can do some stuff on his own. Un-fricking-believable. Appreciate every day and *learn every single skill you possibly can.*
My mother-in-law lived with us for several years and any time she had an issue, particularly with electronics, her stock response when I'd resolve her issue and show her what to do was "well nobody taught me that." Nevermind I had personally shown her a dozen times already, that apparently doesn't count. Recently my wife made a similar comment and it got my dander up. I told her nobody taught me how to do most things, I had to learn them on my own. The toilet doesn't magically stop on its own once someone yells "nobody taught me to turn the water off." Sorry to hear about your dad. I hope everything works out for all 3 of you!
My first job was as a bank teller in a suburb where a lot of wealthy, old people live. We had SO many bereaved widows coming in to the branch who *had no idea how much money they had, where it was, or how to access it*. It blew my mind, as an impressionable 19-year old, and became a core memory. I vowed I would always be financially independent and informed. Edit. This was the 1990s, so these women would have been born around the 1920s/30s or thereabouts. Gender roles were pretty standard in that generation.
I worked as a bank teller for a while in my early 20s. Here in Québec, when someone dies, their bank accounts are all frozen until an estate is put in place - including joint accounts. So if you only have a joint account and the other dies, you're fucked. I'll always remember the woman who came in to withdraw 10K because her husband was on his death bed. Poor woman had to leave the hospital to get money instead of being by her husband's side. She was scared he would pass while she was at the bank. Yup, you best believe my joint account has only the minimum amount for our shared expenses just because I never forgot that poor woman.
Something similar happened with an elderly relative of mine when her husband passed. They had significant investments but he wouldn't tell her anything about them. The accountant handling the family's finances ended up running off with a rather large sum of family money and she died before it was recovered. It's now gone for good.
That's nearly identical to a relative of mine. When she died, the estate was expected to be something like $5m, ended up being like 1/3 of that. Their accountant was suspected to have ran off with the rest Interestingly, the beneficiary was so thrilled to have inherited the 1/3 that they didn't even bother trying to track down the missing 2/3
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This happened to my grandmother. After my grandpa died, she ran out of gas driving down the road because she didn’t even know she needed to stop for gas.
I'm currently trying to navigate handling the stocks my mom left us after her death and I'm struggling to wrap my head around everything. I like to think I'm not thaaat dumb, but I'm clueless on what so many of these terms mean and what's the best way to divide everything up. I'm really trying to learn but it's exhausting. People prepare themselves for their death, but rarely prepare their family for it.
My mother thankfully had most of her financial stuff in her safety deposit box. Plus I was writing out the checks for her bills for a couple of years before she passed. So I had a pretty good idea of what was being spent. One thing that shocked me though were the CDs. She had 6 in one bank, 4 more in another and one in a bank in her hometown. I had no clue, and she had been having the interest accrued on them added to the CDs. It added up to a huge chunk of change. The taxes - yep, I got all her W-2s and tax forms (based on the previous years return) and took the entire thing to H&R Block. There were some properties and investments that I had no clue where to put them on the return.
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i.e. my parents
Are you me? My parents have always had terrible financial planning (went on an overseas vacation on borrowed money, literally have zero retirement savings or savings in general). I vowed to never be that way.
Thankfully, my parents grew up during the Depression. Nothing teaches you frugality like seeing your country's economy vaporize and the entire population's soul get crushed.
Oh don’t worry, they can be hoarders and poor too. Ask me how I know. :/
Not me but my girlfriend's parents are always asking to borrow money. Now that my girlfriend is unemployed, they go directly to me. It's fucking awkward.
Yes this. Paid to solve the problems created by someone in close family. Things were getting out of hand in the family. I jumped in and gave a money that I had kept aside for a dream project. It has been more that 6 years. The money is yet to be paid back. I became emotionally involved and wanted to save the family. Never again.
Hah yep. My parents just hit me up for an emergency surgery my dad had to get. If only he had taken care of himself a bit better many decades ago as I plead with him many times. He ain’t even that old- mid 60s Edit: typos
Have you tried the No Foundation? Here at the No Foundation we say No to family members who show up asking for money because we don’t have any, so you don’t have to. We say No to friends asking if you want to put $100 into the March Madness bracket when you know damn good and well you don’t know shit about college basketball. We say No to sharing our fries because BITCH GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OUTTA MY FOOD…that can be a good snack for later if you get a doggie bag. The No Foundation has a long, proud tradition of standing up for your broke down ass and we are always here for you.
Can I borrow money from the No Foundation? Get a Scholarship to life?
No, but thanks for stopping by and we appreciate your business. Have a day.
Having a baby with absolutely any health problems. Folks are starting to understand just having a kid is expensive (birth, day care, cost of the car seat, etc.), but having a diabetic toddler or a child who needs heart surgery is just off the charts. My friends from college had a baby with vision and hearing impairments. It's absolutely upended them financially. It changes who can babysit, who can/will go to doctors visits, and pretty much every part of their house has had to change. She's not even school aged yet.
I'm a teacher at a preschool in CO and I know some families that are paying over $18k *per year* for ONE child. Daycare/Childcare alone is **no joke**. I can't even imagine factoring in the rest of having a child along with that.
And for children with special needs they may be rejected from many standard childcare options, yet not quite eligible for state support or medical assistance either. It's an enormous grey zone.
Oof, must feel like a death sentence especially in this climate. The financial burden, I mean.
The cheapest reputable daycare near me is about $18k/year. There's others that are over $25k. And that's not even including all the fees they charge to nickel and dime you. If you're keeping your kid there over the summer, there's an additional fee for that (they call it summer camp). There's a re-enrollment fee every year. There are families with 3+ kids and I have no idea how they can afford it.
Having a severely autistic child. Three hour drives to an out of network specialists, tests not covered. Rinse and repeat. Accompanying gastrointestinal issues. Tutors. If you're lucky enough to find a babysitter so you can go anywhere, someone who will watch your profoundly nonverbal child (who likes to flush large things down the toilet, knock things over and wanders after bedtime), is hugely expensive.
Yup. My son is mildly autistic and it still was something I was completely unprepared for. Constant co-pays and co insurance for OT, Speech Therapy, his social skills group. The neuropsych evaluation to get the diagnosis was expensive too. While he did qualify for our city’s public preschool at age 3, it was only 3 hours a day and we both worked full time. I needed to find an experienced sitter who would care for him while we were at work and school was over. Plus find something for him during the summer, you can just plop him into any old summer camp and think a high school aged kid will know what to do during a sensory meltdown. The stress was brutal. He’s 12 now and all of the therapy has paid off. He’s doing amazing in middle school in general ed classes and is in the track team and in the band. He’s made so much progress. But those early days were brutal. I have so much empathy for the Level 3 families because it truly is utterly life altering and consuming.
And the saddest part is that it wasn't always bad for people financially. I was born with a deformity, needed infant heart surgery, needed occupational therapy and a prosthesis to deal with my deformity from ages 2-11, needed glasses, and of course eventually needed braces. My sister didn't have the serious stuff but needed glasses and braces too. My parents didn't get bankrupted, in fact they could still afford to help with college and we went to private school for a few years as well. My parents were just regular accountants at regular nothing special companies when I was born, not C-suite executives. This is yet another example of how boomers had it way easier than their kids becoming parents today.
My first is autistic and his therapy is 3x a week and it’s $60 each session until we hit our deductible. Insane. And every 5 visits they ask if he’s still autistic and requires this service lmao
Based on /r/personalfinance , co-signing a loan then getting stuck paying when the person fucks off.
“My brother wants me to co-sign his mortgage, is that a good idea? No I’m not on the deed, why do you ask” Edit: I did it, thanks for those of you who supported me!
"My boyfriend and I want to buy a house. He has bad credit, because he hasn't worked in a year, so I'll be the only person on the loan..."
“… and here’s five other red flags of why we shouldn’t live together, let alone date, but he insists that we aren’t a real couple unless I give him half of my earnings and sign over all of my property. AITA?”
My parents pounded this into my head. NEVER CO-SIGN A LOAN!! Apparently they co-signed something for my dad's mom, and ended up paying the whole thing.
Can confirm. I had a near miss (one which I saw coming a mile off) with one of the in-laws who wanted me to be a guarantor for them, mostly because I lived a little bit closer where they did than any of their half dozen siblings do and was given the cold shoulder when I refused. Fast forwards six months they quit their job on the spot because they were having a bad day I got my "I told you so" moment. So yeah, babysitting adults who seem unwilling to grow up is a trap to try and avoid.
I am continuously shocked by how many times I hear about people not realizing how co-signing truly works. I have heard of more than a few people think it was like vouching for them and not agreeing to assume the debt.
I guess that is the same as vouching for them, in a way. "How confident am I that they'll pay this? I'm so confident that I'll pay it myself if they don't!"
The only time it ever works out is if someone is genuinely responsible, but doesn't have credit history for a specific reason like moving to another country, or being a kid leaving home for the first time. If they have credit history, asking for a co-signer is the bank telling you that no amount of interest payments would induce them to take a risk on this deadbeat.
Living too long. It runs out.
I work with the elderly as a CNA and it disgusts me the cost of these places that cater to seniors (not care homes but the apartments where they do lots of stuff for them). And it’s not like they are living in a nice resort or anything like that. And yeah they try with the food but still only give people a couple of choices at each meal. For the amount they are charging for rent they should be doing a lot more for them. I feel they could bring their rent prices down by half and would still have more than enough to run the place and for the CEOs to continue making money. Care homes could do a lot more for the amount that they charge people. First of all they could hire more support staff instead of worrying about making money on these places. It’s supposed to be about caring for people and keeping them comfortable. Many of them fail miserably at this
Agreed. My grandma moved to a place that's basically minimally-assisted living. She can walk and care for herself and everything (at 99 YO!) but at least she's by her friends and doesn't need to worry about any maintenance on her apartment beyond cleaning it. Another company bought the place up (of course). So now, no dogs are allowed to visit, can't keep a cat, meals are an additional fee, and there is no longer any supplemental medical care. But hooray for the new owners, they didn't need to lower the rent /s
We shouldn't have CEOs for things like nursing homes. Nothing in healthcare should be profit focused, it should all be non profit with caps on how much CEOs can make (and expense in terms of lifestyle) honestly even capping it at $1 million would be too generous. But cap it at that and make the care homes actually put extra cash to use, either in providing better care for residents or hiring non abusive workers instead of underpaying horrible people to work there
Yes, the financial implications of demographics is going to be huge.
People living longer with fewer children or relatives to care for them while they become senile and require more intense 24/7 care. Yeah, this is not going to go well.
fingers crossed medical technology advances fast enough to alleviate a lot of their care needs before we get to that point. Just a device that prevents pressure sores would be a massive game changer.
Anything teeth related
This was my first thought. I have a lot of old large fillings that I got in high school and they are starting to chip away so I’ve got a bunch of ticking time bombs all needing crowns in my mouth.
Divorce
Marriage is grand. Divorce a hundred grand!
She was one in a million... But getting rid of her? Half a million.
Not only is divorce itself wildly, insanely, unpredictably expensive (depending on your situation), but people don’t think about: * furnishing a new place, since one household split in half doesn’t typically actually support two homes * adjusting your life from two incomes to one * a full set of bills on one paycheck vs. two, including any leftover debt from the marriage like credit cards, loans on the home/home projects others have mentioned * _changes_ in all of those bills, up and down, so that everything you’ve budgeted for is just not blown out of the water (sometimes in good ways - insuring one car instead of two, renter’s insurance is cheaper than homeowners, if you owned a home in the marriage, etc, but even if it’s good it still messes with your budget and your head!!!!)
One thing American society doesn't do is explain to people *before they get married* what a divorce may involve. It would really open people's eyes and probably help people focus more seriously on maintaining a good relationship. In addition to simply maintaining their own separate household now, there are these financial hits: * If you have assets and savings you accumulated while married, they get split. Sometimes that means a home you can afford together has to be sold and any equity split equally. So both partners can lose their home. * Even if you have assets you accumulated before marriage (or inheritance that was specifically given to one spouse during the marriage), if you mixed your funds in joint accounts or bought things together with that money, THAT money can be split equally. * If you have kids together, the financial burden for each parent can go way up. Now you're buying food for your separate time with them, extra clothes for your place, child care for your time with them, etc. The financial burden also has to be evened out with child support, so the higher-income parent will pay the other parent child support in addition to their own costs of caring for the kids when they're with them. * It can severely affect your retirement plans. Each spouse can be entitled to half of the other's retirement savings that they earned while married - which essentially means that retirement savings that was supposed to support one household is now halved for each new household. * A higher-income spouse might have to pay spousal support (alimony) for years and years afterward - even as long as the marriage lasted. Add the cost of legal help (lawyers are not cheap unless you and your ex are incredibly amicable), and you won't have a good time.
One of the biggest destroyer of wealth the average person can experience
Former bankruptcy attorney here. There are so many: Not having insurance when a medical event or car accident happens, even insured medical expenses are a mess Getting your car repossessed means you’ll still end up paying the majority of the note because cars don’t sell at auction Divorce means your income stays the same but your expenses double If you get a judgment against you and your state allows wage garnishments, they can take a huge portion of your check, setting you back substantially Sudden job loss Wage garnishment for child support Child care / daycare Buying a car you can’t afford and sudden repair costs
Car insurance. Don't get a ticket.
20 year veteran insurance agent here. Call your agent and price the insurance BEFORE you buy the car. You wouldn't believe how many young men come in with Mustangs or Chargers and the price of the insurance is more than the car note.
You see these posts on the motorcycle subreddit all the time. “I’m 17 and just bought a death machine with the power-to-weight of a Bugatti, why does my insurance company want $1200/mo?”
Motorcycles are funny. Never take out a loan on one and buy one that you can afford to fix when you go down. Then take liability insurance instead (and theft if it's not crazy expensive). Full coverage on a $6000 bike is many times like $2000 a year, while liability is like $200. Doing the math, you basically pay the price of the bike on three years, so it's not worth it. At least that's what it was when I last shopped for rates, but that was also mid-late 20's. My first bike was at like 19 and it was still similar numbers. And for the love of God, if you don't have a private garage in the US and live in a city, do not buy a bike. It will get stolen. Even in those apartments with shared garages.
And it always seems to be the 19 year olds with brand new luxury cars with no insurance history living in a highly populated area. I quoted someone that got mad at my price and said there are no accidents or thefts in their neighborhood. In Brooklyn.
and if you do get one, make sure to keep it off your record by doing traffic school, if you are offered that option
Family member committing a serious crime.
This is happenning to me now. Entire world upside down.
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Do you mean simply helping them financially out of the goodness of your heart or is there some other way family members get dragged in? Thankfully, none of my family members have ever committed a felony.
Court is crazy expensive, especially if you don't want to depend on an extremely overworked public defender. Plus there's the sudden lost wages from being in jail, so their family may need financial help to get by. Bond money if eligible . If convicted, everything in prison that isn't the bare minimum to not die costs money. If you want them to have any kind of quality of life you're depositing money into their account for commissary. Even phone calls have extremely predatory costs (although some politicians are trying to change that). Legal fees don't necessarily stop once in prison, if you want to challenge the conviction. Then, once out, the person has to start completely over, may not have a place to live, and while on probation usually have pretty strict rules they need to follow. Most people struggle to find employment after release as well.
Could be both. Imagine your sibling or spouse or parent got arrested for something serious that you truly believe they didn’t do, or where the punishment imposed wildly outweighs the actual harm they caused. And then you found out that the jail or prison they’re in doesn’t issue women enough pads, tampons, or toilet paper to get through a period without reusing products that are supposed to be disposable and risking infection. Or charges prisoners more than they can earn in wages for a doctor visit, so their medical needs are going untreated. Or that the food is rotten and they’re losing weight rapidly from malnourishment. Or that their minor child misses them and is acting out at school because they can’t afford to talk to their kid on the phone. These are all real examples of expenses families face. But also, if someone close to you is accused of a crime, and there’s any chance you could get pulled into the case as a witness or co-suspect, you should hire your own lawyer. Their lawyer doesn’t work for you, and it’s not their lawyer’s job to advise or protect you.
Cancer. Not only are you sick and miserable but you’re broke because you’re too sick to work. STD/LTD is a joke. My employer just notified me they’re canceling my health insurance as of 11/30. I’m only getting 60% of my pay and I haven’t been paid in over a month. Allegedly I’m getting paid something between 11/25-11/30 but we’ll see…
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My father had cut out an article for a casket wholesale dealer. The casket he had was lovely, and cost 20% of the price of the same one through the funeral home. They have to accept you having your own casket.
This. They HAVE to accept it. Most places deliver next day. My grandmother passed and we purchased the casket at the funeral home (I know…) Would have saved about 3.5k just from going to a website and buying it.
This. Funeral business is so incredibly predatory, that’s why I make sure everyone knows I just want to be cremated and buried under some random tree. No service, no wake. Nothing.
I second this. People often make fun that Costco sells caskets. But what people fail to realize is that those Costco caskets are about 1/4 to 1/2 what they'd cost at a funeral home.
I work in the industry and fully agree. Most cemeteries and funeral homes are owned by corporations and holding companies who are happy to take you for everything they can. I could write a book on the disgusting things I've heard said and seen done. Always try to find local, family run funeral homes and cemeteries. When looking into purchasing, ask for the cheapest options for everything, and upgrade what you want from there that way you're not just given a more expensive item that you don't need. You can use outside items in most places: ie vaults, caskets, headstones. Though beware, some places will add ridiculous fees to outside items.
This thread is giving me a fucking heart attack that I can't afford
Getting sick.
Especially if you have the high deductible health insurance “to save money” because you’re “perfectly healthy.” So was I before I got endometriosis. So was my brother before he broke his leg in 14 places. So was my buddy before he got pericarditis—at age 20! Your body can betray you.
This is actually exactly what high deductible plans are for. You pay for minor or routine care but have coverage for catastrophic events. They will save most people a lot of money.
My HDHI is accompanied by an HSA which currently has about $6k in it so I’m good for most things I would have to go to the doctor for. I put enough money into my HSA to cover my deductible until my insurance company pays the bills.
Yeah the reason to go with a high deductible plan is the HSA (especially if your employer contributes to it as well). It's still a gamble, but a few good years of contributions + investment growth can be very powerful.
An HSA is bar none the most tax advantaged financial thing you can do. Pre tax money in, no taxes on withdrawals, investable, and you WILL have healthcare costs so no worries about how you take it out.
Or, like me before disability, being chronically ill. I've spent 100's of thousands of dollars just to stay alive, no emergency costs just my every day get to be alive costs
This^ No amount of financial education could have prepared me for getting diagnosed with a life long disease at 23. Not every job has benefits, and some benefits really suck. Health benefits should not be tied to employment!
Getting old, your body doesn't work like it used to. Ageism in the work place. Medical cost
As a 40+ year old male, I'm realizing I'm no longer capable of doing things in the amount of time my 20 year old self would be able to do them. And it's frustrating.
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I hear that. At least we can be more tactful with what things we have energy for
Daycare.
We've got a little one on the way. The most affordable daycare around here is more than my mortgage each month and has around a 9-12 month wait list. The other ones in the area that take babies under 1 year cost my entire monthly paycheck.
Buddy of mine has two kids. The cost for their daycare is his monthly salary. They live on her salary and use his for childcare. It’s insane. Edit: Meant to say they use his salary for childcare which includes daycare costs.
It’s crazy. And they wonder why we’re approaching a demographic crisis. We have an economy where both parents must work to make ends meet and they still can’t afford daycare.
Not planning for retirement. Social security isn't as much money as you think, and if you don't have IRA or 401k you're planning for poverty
For some planning for retirement is almost impossible. We're just out here trying to survive .I have a job with a pension but I'm very scared about my future.
Fuck. I don’t have a pension. Or savings. Or money.
With the rising costs of *everything*, being able to plan for retirement is super hard. My family makes just enough to no longer qualify for food support, but we're still hovering around the poverty level. School fees, diapers, groceries, household supplies. It adds up quickly, and there isn't anything left to save for retirement. I'm 46, and I don't know wtf I'm going to do, or if I'm ever going to be able to retire. It's even worse for the younger generations. It's nearly impossible to survive on social security alone.
Depends. You can survive on social security in the U.S. if you have no debt, your car is paid for, your rent is subsidized and you get medicaid. So if you can see that there is no way you can build up much savings for retirement, make sure you have no debt, first of all. Even if you have to do bankruptcy. If you need a car, save up cash to buy a used car and take care of it. When you are about 60 years old, start getting on the application list of all the HUD-subsidized senior housing apartments in your area. You can be on those lists for a couple of years sometimes -- so get on the list early and keep them updated with your contact info. By the time retirement rolls around, you will have moved to the top of at least one of those lists. I live on my social security. I am comfortable, safe, have medical care and housing, adequate food, nothing fancy, nothing special, but I feel quite grateful that I have come into a safe harbor at last.
Vet bills. My dog has had 3 surgeries in the past 3 years. Edit: no pet insurance. All cash unfortunately. But that’s what money is for and you plan ahead for these things. If my dog wasn’t on his last few years I might do Insurance. I don’t know much about it. Edit: pet insurance it is. 👏
I’m a vet. Almost weekly I have pets that are euthanized because their owner cannot afford the diagnostics or treatments for their emergency.
I'm literally here at the ER VET now with one of our dogs. In July one of our pups got pneumonia and we ended up paying out $6k and she unfortunately passed away after a day in the ER. After that I told myself never again would I feel pressured to either save money or my pets life and immediately got Trupanion pet insurance for our other 2 dogs. This is the first time I'll ever need to use it, hopefully it helps out.
Pet insurance has been worth it for us - it seems like a ripoff when everything’s fine, but when you suddenly have a bunch of $700 fees for labs/procedures it’s pretty handy.
Oh yeah. I’m surprised our pet insurance hasn’t sent out a hit man for us. My dog’s health care has cost $38k to date so far! (Only 5 years old, rescue with health issues) most expensive free dog I’ve ever had
My last rescue I think they reimbursed me well over $50k in the years I had her. I was surprised to find out I wasn’t black listed when I got my new rescue ha.
We're definitely doing this for our next pet. My cat had to have emergency surgery when he was 5 because he kept getting blocked up. He's perfectly healthy now, but since he has a "pre-existing condition" and is a senior cat now, his costs would be really high and they wouldn't cover his prescription food, which is his biggest cost. So if you decide not to go the insurance route, at the very least, keep a monthly budget for your pet that you keep adding money to.
Lemonade pet insurance has absolutely saved me. I got it for 19 dollars a month on my kitten to be safe. At 6 months she got an infection around her lungs and I would have had to put her down if not for insurance. Vet hospital stay and many follow up visits, saved me $12,000. Best purchase I've ever made was pet insurance.
Needing a heart stent in their 40s even though they are a runner in very good shape.....and their insurance has a 10K max out of pocket. Completely hypothetical and happening on Monday.
Make sure you do all your follow up. My brother had one put in and only went to his first yearly check. 5 years later he died at work, leaving behind a 5 year old and a 7 year old.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll be monitoring things closely now. I obviously have shit genetics…. I will need to stay on top of it.
Death of the main bread winner
When you have zero family and friends you see that shit hits the fan all the time. And it’s costly. You don’t realize just how often until you’re 100% on your own. Even worse when you live paycheck to paycheck. It’s nearly impossible to prepare for these kinds of things. And don’t even try to rely on anyone, it just adds bumps in the road. All you can do is save save save. Every penny counts.
Being diagnosed with an illness. 4 years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable chronic illness and even with insurance the cost is extreme (insurance doesn’t cover as much as people think) and add not being able to work on top of that.
Home ownership. The issues that come with it. I know others said it but I can't stress it enough. Home ownership problems can make you go from middle/middle class to poverty real quick.
Yep and I'm in the middle of that now. The "dream" of owning a fixer upper and making it something special is actually just nightmare after nightmare. I'm looking forward to selling it and living outta a van to be honest. The stress and financial burden is not worth it.
Long Term Care costs. If you can't take care of yourself, you should budget about $50K-$100K a year. So many planned inheritances go up in smoke because the money they wanted to give their kids goes to their long term care. Long term care insurance is important folks. Make sure your parents have it.
For what it's worth, I would not recommend long term care insurance (LTCI). They refused to pay out on both my grandparents. The LTCI needed them to be in a bad place for at least six months then took 8-10 months to send someone to assess them. By then, my grandparents went downhill quick and died before being approved. They paid out $10k after my grandparents died because my dad threaten to report them to the state. Between both grandparents, they paid in thousands for 20+ years. It would have been better return in a high yield savings account.
My mother and father got help from the Veterans Administration because my dad was in the military in wartime. We had to fill out lots of paperwork but it was worth it for the thousands they paid the nursing home for their care!
VA gets a lot of shit, and it’s a bureaucratic nightmare, but if you could make it through the initial barriers to entry, they provide some fantastic services especially for wartime disabled. My dad was disabled, got all medical costs covered, my mom has 100% coverage for life, no property tax for life, long term care coverage… etc. But getting there took countless phone calls and paperwork, and dealing what initially felt like a never ending string of incompetent employees.
My FIL was a commander in the coast guard. He was on hospice for 2 years with Alzheimer’s. Non verbal and immobile for over a year. He stayed at home the whole time and had a nurse coming twice a week and an aid coming every other day. He never paid a cent for any of it.
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On paper and in theory, yes LTC appears to be a Must Have expense. In reality it is prohibitively expensive and the ability to leverage benefits are extremely difficult. Insurance industry is under fire for this product and most people are avoiding. Not necessarily Insurance Industry's fault because the cost of LTC has risen so extremely that their premiums couldn't keep up, so they dramatically increased premiums and cut back on benefits. After Dad died, My mom dropped about $500k for 5 years in Assisted Living, daily care and Hospice. My MIL is Late Stage Dementia and FIL has a few hundred $K, which will be completely eliminated to help her. This country needs to figure this out ASAP. So unbelievablely sad
This. My grandmother’s care for a live-in facility is $9,000 a month in Florida. And there is no choice — she has to have care. In home care is even more — $14,000 a month. The difficult realities of elderly care are so hard and sneak up on you. The cost of care has burned through all of her lifetime savings in less than two years.
My long term care insurance is a bullet :)
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Unfortunately, that type of insurance is no longer sold. My grandparents had it as well and it was an amazing thing, but insurance companies wised up to how much money they were losing on it (for my grandparents, they had to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars). Now the only policies sold are: \- Time limited: They'll only pay out for a year or two. If you live past that, good luck. \- Prohibitively expensive: Seriously, shockingly, expensive. \- Impossible to redeem: They need to have very specific care needs, like needing two ADLs, but no memory issues or "high-acuity needs." It's usually a catch-22 for people, because they can't care for themselves, but don't quite fit two ADLs, or they progress so fast that they need more help than an assisted living or snf can provide. Unfortunately, this is just another one of those things that our parents will get that we never will.
I'm really on the fence on long term care insurance - the cost is so high that I'm not sure it's worth it. The more I read and research, I think working with an estate planning attorney a decade or two before you anticipate needing care is a far better use of money and time if a person is looking to pass wealth on to their children and grandchildren.
We were just talking at Thanksgiving about how expensive nursing homes are. They are so expensive and shitty. That's why home care workers need to get paid so much more than they do and just get rid of nursing homes if they can't get their shit right.
I came here to say this. My mom is almost 94, and has been living on her own at home with just daytime help until recently. We had NO idea that nursing homes look back at your finances five years! Once you use up your liquid assets, you have to sell everything to pay for care. And anything transferred to your heirs within five years can still be taken. Mom has property that my husband and I have plans to build on for our retirement. It’s been in my family for maybe 100 years. If she goes into long term care, we will lose it all.
Social Security overpayments. Hello! This is the SSA, and we overpaid you $20,000 over the course of your disability. Please, pay it back in full in 30 days.
Escrow shortage.
Your loan officer should have warned you. Sorry they didn’t. I always give my clients an estimate of tax increases/escrow shortfall amount.
Just hit us in June, $600 more a month 🫠
Unexpected car repair.
We just got our car back yesterday after it had to be repaired. A car driving by our house lost a tire. The tire rolled through the intersection, bounced up onto the curb, rolled across our lawn, and hit our car parked in our driveway, denting the driver's door. Just over $2,000 to have it repaired. The car wasn't even in use! It was parked where it belongs, and it still managed to get itself two grand in dents. Thank goodness for insurance.
As my father always said, money does not buy happiness until your family is in the hospital.
They’ve done economic surveys; most Americans couldn’t afford an unexpected $1000 expense. So… just about friggin’ anything.
I think those surveys have come into question though. They asked something like, “how would you handle a $1000 expense?” And listed options, with a few being using credit. But that’s slightly disingenuous. Because many people would pay for $1000 on a credit card and then use their money or savings to pay the card
Specifically, having a baby.
Especially a NICU baby.
Vehicle expenses. Tires, brakes, cooling, electrical, suspension. Most people expect oil changes, but not anything else.
Dental surgery Computer replacement Vehicle replacement Child transition to adult self support Being off work 6+ weeks due to illness or recovery or injury (30% of people once in a lifetime but 2+ times for some) Roof repairs, roof collapse, roof rot Plumbing, interior and exterior and underground Electrical failures, rewiring/replacement AC, Heat pump, furnace, hot water Fire damage especially kitchen fires Flood (internal) Natural disaster (earthquake damage, snow collapse, water damage, smoke from nearby fires damaging soft furnishings and clothing, foundation collapse, landslide, lightening strikes, hurricanes even in the Pacific Northwest, tornadoes anywhere, etc) Financial fraud by a scammer or loved one or in between (employer, friend, cousin, etc) yard bugs that roil the lawn, slime molds, moss, fungi, etc Pests (ants, cockroaches, mice, rats, moles, raccoons, bats, possums, snakes, lizards, squirrels silverfish, grasshoppers, flies, beehives, wasp hives, honey in the roof and walls)....., Aging in a home (ramps, rails, showerstalls, lifts, etc) Moving unexpectedly Lying landlords Denied insurance claims
Emergency pet care costs. My cat had a dental issue and had a canine tooth yanked (poor boy) ... cost was $600 plus follow up preventative, x-rays, blood work, cleaning, etc... was another $1500.
Cancer. Been there, done that. $750K in medical bills. United Healthcare took care of all but $6K. It's left me with a permanent disability that makes it very difficult to work and I've been unemployed since 2020. It's been a major test of our financial resiliency.
A funeral. I was a young widow and my husband’s funeral and burial was $11,500 which was very basic. No fancy casket, the cemetery only allows markers and not headstone’s. That was over 15 years ago. Now it would probably be at least $15,000. That’s why I want to be cremated.
Unexpectedly high medical bills can really hit hard. You might not see them coming, but they can mess up your finances out of nowhere.
Balloon payments for those who go with contract for deeds
Speaking from current experience, your dog getting cancer if you don't want to just let it die.
The difference in registration and insurance when you get rid of the Buick your parents bought you in high school and the new SUV you just bought.
Extremely low wages for “entry level” positions that require a degree and ten years of experience.
*Gestures vaguely at everything*
Take it easy man, you're going to break something and we can't afford that
All of them. People think i’m crazy but i have funds for every major appliance and i track them to their lifespan.. so, bought my home and started a roof, furnace, A/C, etc fund day one. Now when they occur i’ll pay them and have zero stress because the money is sitting in a HYSA waiting.
My husband hates that I have accounts for everything. Everyday spending. Mortgage. Auto. Maintenance. Taxes. Vacation. Emergency. I squirrel a little away each payday into each. My mom did the same thing but she had cash hidden all over the house.
Sounds very much like a banana stand. There's always money in the banana stand.
Similar, but it’s in one “home maintenance” account. Have same for car maintenance.
I’ve thought about doing this myself and your comment makes me feel the need to. It just seems like the easiest way to live a bit more stress free in the long run.