Find some room mate. Share with them. Would come to 1.8k. Will probably save 1k a month that way.

Honestly, not a big spender. I have always grown up saving much more than I spend and perhaps that is why this decision is a difficult one to take.

Btw, is 2.8k your portion of the rent or for the entire apartment?

Santa Clara. Found one for 2.4k. With utilities and electricity would go up to 2.6-2.7k.

My car before this was a 1995 Toyota Tercel that I ran up to 155k miles before buying the 2015. The maintenance on the car was becoming too much for me to take on, especially with having a salvage title (dad was a mechanic and did the rebuild + all maintenance which I definitely didn't do upkeep on when I moved...). Car ended up being given to a friend that was in a situation and he put another ~50k on it before finally calling it quits. RIP Tercel.

The CR-V is doing pretty well, but I know the brakes need to be done soon and it needs new tires, which are light fixes. $19k for a rebuy for it is pretty common in my area for it with a clean title and no damage besides regular wear. Private sales seem to be looking at $15-23k depending on all factors, but I don't want the hassle of dealing with a private sale, even if that meant potentially getting more than what the current offer is on it.

There's literally zero need. You are looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

45 minutes a day is killer. I don't think the trade off is worth it. If the pay was 100k then maybe. I haven't been in the office since 2019 and never plan on going back. Besides working from home is far more lucrative and pants are way overrated.

That's a good heads-up, I didn't consider this so thank you. Some initial research shows that some schools have 5 or 7 year prereq expiration dates, with no exceptions. Other schools have prereq expiration dates, but will waive them with a 500 MCAT. Others have no expiration, so I'd be good there.

Definitely limits my options though. Without an MCAT or redoing courses it looks like I'd go from 12 options down to 2... pretty tough.

Assuming you have the discipline to not carry a balance on the card then, yes you can make it a good financial decision. CC companies make their money (from the user) off of late fees and finance charges (like 19-29%). However, if you use the card to make purchases you would have made anyway (food, gas, utilities) and will then pay off the entire balance each month you are fine. Better than that is to get a card that pays you some sort of rebate program (cash back, airline miles, etc.). Since you are new to credit and don’t know how best to utilize rebate programs, I would suggest a straight “Cash back” style. Typically 2 or 3% of your purchases credited back each month. Just don’t, and I mean never, carry a balance. This will eliminate any cash back advantage. Oh, and make sure the card had no annual fees either.

[removed]

It means you’re wasting your time

You don’t. He doesn’t have anywhere close to enough money to bother with this much granularity

What does that mean?

No because you can manage your tax rate and tax rates change

Listen to podcasts or audiobooks. Your commute will benefit you if you do this. Don’t waste that time.

But how can we compare apples to oranges? The non-retirement account assets are POST-TAX, and the retirement account assets are PRE-TAX.

Get a card with 2% or even 3% back on everything; don't go out of your way to make purchases, but if you're gonna buy "X" anyways, use the credit card, get that 2% cashback

If he has say $100k of equity in his traditional IRA, and his tax rate in retirement is 10%, the above equity amount is effectively $90k needed for calculating his current asset allocation, no?

It’s not great but I’ve seen worse. Do it for awhile and try to negotiate off site wfh.

I live in the BA and make about the same TC, but I split a 3BR with my partner and pay about $2800/month rent.

It's perfectly livable and I still save a good amount of money, but really depends on your spending and how much you expect to spend.

Do you have any notes from school? Either way, the interview process could be a good strategy for pinpointing any gaps in knowledge to gauge how much work you need to do vs. going for bartending. Once you are hired, I think it would be more practical to learn from your co-workers (even ones outside of your discipline) and utilize any educational assistance programs over spending so much on a degree by yourself. 30 years old is still considered somewhat early in your career, especially when one considers covid's effects on many career paths.

Makes sense thank you!

> the more you use your credit card and pay it back on time, the higher your score gets

No.

Paying on time is good for your score. Paying a bill of $0 is exactly as “on time” as paying a bill of $10,000, and has exactly the same effect.

Actually using the card is, at best, irrelevant, and at worst (temporarily) bad if your utilization becomes particularly high. Though utilization is not remembered month to month, so it’s not something that needs to be managed unless you are actively trying to get a loan.

So long as the card isn’t so inactive that the issuer closes the account, using it or not doesn’t matter.

I came here for this was simply going to state that the government has it pretty nailed down what a mile is worth. Good ole travel and per diem rates, ah, I miss those days.

But yeah, just use those rates to see if its worth it. YMMV

> My question is: would it make sense to use my credit card even when I have the money and immediately pay it back?

Yes. That’s how you’re supposed to use credit cards

> From what I understand, the more you use your credit card and pay it back on time, the higher your score gets

Incorrect. Usage has no relation to credit score

Credit Card Basics: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/wiki/credit_cards_basics

Credit Building: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/credit_building

[removed]