Personal Finance

I'm in an extremely fortunate position where my Mom, upon learning about current mortgage rates and why I haven't bought a house yet, wants to essentially be my bank to buy a house. As in, she wants to fund the house, put it in my name, and I pay her a reasonable down payment and pay a "mortgage" to her at 2-3%. So what would be the best way to do this?She buys the house then transfers the deed? Should she just transfer the cash and I purchase it?

Side note: I know people are usually against doing big purchases with family, but I don't really see a downside since the house will be in my name, and with that 2-3% rate, the payments will be similar to my rent even considering maintenance and property tax.

They are keeping this quiet, but this affects 2.9% of US bank customers.

There's a lot of talk about inflation and its causes. Is it corporate greed? Supply chain issues? One clear base cause of inflation less talked about is having an inflationary currency supply. Any other inflation caused by supply chain issues, corporate greed, lack of market competition, etc is just added on top of that. Fiat inflationary currency is a rather new invention in terms of the human timeline. In the US, Nixon is the start of it. Central banks aim for 2-3% inflation in "good years". The money supply expands, the portion of that supply a single dollar represents, and therefore its value, decreases. This isn't a conspiracy, it's government policy, and both parties gleefully support it because it benefits their rich donors.

Think of it: in the last 50 years, everything has gotten cheaper to produce thanks to increasing mechanization, outsourcing to cheap labor/low regulation countries, and extremely efficient supply chains. Yet so many things "cost more" than they did 50 years ago. Even basics like bread. What used to be 5c in the US in the 50s now costs $5.00. How is that the case? Shouldn't it cost less? Where is that "extra efficiency" going if not to lower prices? The answer: bread is the same value it's always been, the money has gotten less valuable. This is how they keep working class people running on a treadmill, never able to achieve economic mobility.

Inflationary currency devalues the currency you worked hard to earn by increasing the supply. It hits the middle class the worst because they have more of their net wealth in cash, often in the form of emergency funds, savings, and putting together enough money for a down payment on a home. Rich people have their money in assets which aren't harmed by currency inflation. Actually, even worse, it inflates the value of those assets! If the dollar loses value (all other things being equal), it takes more dollar to buy a share in Amazon, just like it takes more dollars to buy a loaf of bread. Poor people live hand to mouth, so their net wealth is not impacted much, but inflationary currency prevents them from saving and "moving up". If you want to identify the causes of increasing wealth disparity, the inability of people to save money and theft of value from the middle class via money supply expansion is a major one.

can someone explain leverage to me as practised by those RE ~~bullshitters~~ finfluencers. I feel their whole spiel is just bullshit but I don't know enough to be sure about it.

according to them, you "buy" a home - you put X% down and pay your first monthly (and then post on r/firsttimehomebuyer). then you go to (another?) bank and say "look I got this house I wanna use as collateral" and they go "wow you own a house! sure, have this bag of money"... repeat until you "own" like a city block.

like, how does that not crash and burn at the first step, just a cursory glance at the asset's status? how are they not "lol you ain't got no house dumbass come back in 20 years when you actually own it"?

The US government is telling everybody that inflation is 3.4% per year. That is not correct. Try 14.2% and that's about right. Source : gold/usd 1 year simple moving average.

I wanted to start using a budgeting program to better organize my spending/ goals, and basically narrowed it down to 3 --YNAB, Actual and Quicken Simplifi.

I setup a self-hosted instance of Actual and was able to import my spending from my account by exporting from my bank and importing into the app, however this seemed like it might get tedious over time, so I decided to try YNAB.

So far this has been pretty straight forward. I’m still waiting for things to sync up with my linked accounts, but I like it so far. I would try Simplifi but there’s no trial period there; though the graphs and UI make it seem appealing.

Anyone here have any experience with Simplifi/ YNAB, and why might you chose one over the other?

I'm looking for the top European bank that doesn't block your funds without reason. For instance, many individuals have reported online that Revolut has blocked their accounts suddenly and sometimes for various months.

Hello,

So I recently revisited (and recreated) my savings spreadsheets so that I can track my needs, wants and savings. To try to keep track of my fixed costs and also try to follow the 50/30/20 rule (not sure if this is a good strategy or not).

I have everything mostly sorted, but as new things come up, say a new subscription or a cancelled one, changes in rent, etc. It will be a bit of a hassle to keep this up to date.

Are there any software/ apps that you guys use that you like that make this kind of thing easier to see where your money is going?

How would you go about selecting a Certified Financial Planner?

My wife and I are financially successful adults, but we need guidance with the next steps, including:

• Private equity co-investment
• College savings for children with special needs who may or may not attend university
• Retirement savings beyond the standard 401k and IRA options
• The tax ramifications of all of the above

My friends are generally not at this level of planning needs, so those who have worked with a CFP have had only much more basic questions. We have known plenty of financial advisers over the years who just give bad advice or canned advice. I expect our needs will become more complex over the next decade.

How do we find a quality CFP who can help with the above? What is a reasonable price to pay for this help?

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

Hi. With the new tax year fast approaching, I've been contemplating transferring my current stocks and shares ISA account with IBKR UK to another provider/brokerage. I am interested in InvestEngine since they seem to have lower fees. However, I'm wondering how this process will work, especially since I have shares in stocks and ETFs that don't seem to be offered by InvestEngine, but which I'd ideally like to keep. As such, is it possible to transfer ISA accounts to a new service provider if they don't offer the shares held in the account? If it is, how might I trade those shares in the future?

I always see advice about which software to use and there's always the advice that FreeTaxUSA is the best bang for your buck and does everything you need for when your taxes are "simple." I've used and thought it was great for years. But as my career has grown and no longer filed as a single I've begun to question when my taxes and earnings become "complicated" to the point where it is worthwhile to have a professional do my taxes. Are there general recommended bullet points or scenarios?

As the title says, should I be concerned? I get the impression this is just a bureaucratic change (company doesn't want to deal with both salaried and hourly workers for timesheet reporting). But I'd like to make sure.

■ The Japanese Yen continues to draw support from expectations for a hawkish BoJ pivot.

■ Bets for a June Fed rate cut undermine the USD and further exert pressure on USD/JPY.

■ An upward revision of Japan’s Q4 GDP print contributes to the offered tone on Monday.

Goal: the least amount of withholdings possible

The inevitable at last arrived. Last month, for the first time, passively managed funds controlled more assets than did their actively managed competitors.

I honestly thought this happened a while ago...