query: Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement?

positive: You aren't in trouble yet, but you are certainly on a trajectory to be later. The longer you wait the more painful it will be because you won't have the benefit of time for your money to grow. You may think you will have more disposable income at some point later when things are paid off, but trust me you wont. When college tuition kicks in for that kid, you are going to LAUGH at those student loan amounts as paltry. The wording of your question was confusing because you say in one place that you have no savings, but in another you claim to be putting away around $5k/year. The important point is how much you have saved at this point and how much you are putting in going forward. Some rules of thumb from Fidelity: (Based on your scenario) Take a look at your retirement account. Are you on track for that? It doesn't sound like it.  Can you get away with your current plan? Sure, lots of people do, but unless you die young, hit the jackpot in the stock market or lottery, you are probably going to have to live WELL below your current standard of living to make that happen.

positive: You are making close to 200 K a year which is great. The aggressive payments on loans takes out around 30K which is good. The fact that you are not able to save is bad. Rather than pushing off your savings to later, scale down the lifestyle and push the upgrade to lifestyle for later

positive: Yes, you should be saving for retirement. There are a million ideas out there on how much is a reasonable amount, but I think most advisor would say at least 6 to 10% of your income, which in your case is around $15,000 per year. You give amounts in dollars. Are you in the U.S.? If so, there are at least two very good reasons to put money into a 401k or IRA rather than ordinary savings or investments: (a) Often your employer will make matching contributions. 50% up to 6% of your salary is pretty common, i.e. if you put in 6% they put in 3%. If either of your employers has such a plan, that's an instant 50% profit on your investment. (b) Any profits on money invested in an IRA or 401k are tax free. (Effectively, the mechanics differ depending on the type of account.) So if you put $100,000 into an IRA today and left it there until you retire 30 years later, it would likely earn something like  $600,000 over that time (assuming 7% per year growth). So you'd pay takes on your initial $100,000 but none on the $600,000. With your income you are likely in a high tax bracket, that would make a huge difference. If you're saying that you just can't find a way to put money away for retirement, may I suggest that you cut back on your spending. I understand that the average American family makes about $45,000 per year and somehow manages to live on that. If you were to put 10% of your income toward retirement, then you would be living on the remaining $171,000, which is still almost 4 times what the average family has. Yeah, I make more than $45,000 a year too and there are times when I think, How could anyone possibly live on that? But then I think about what I spend my money on. Did I really need to buy two new computer printers the last couple of months? I certainly could do my own cleaning rather than hiring a cleaning lady to come in twice a month. Etc. A tough decision to make can be paying off debt versus putting money into an investment account. If the likely return on investment is less than the interest rate on the loan, you should certainly concentrate on paying off the loan. But if the reverse is true, then you need to decide between likely returns and risk.

positive: "First, I would recommend getting rid of this ridiculous debt, or remember this day and this answer, ""you will be living this way for many years to come and maybe worse, no/not enough retirement"".  Hold off on any retirement savings right now so that the money can be used to crush this debt. Without knowing all of your specifics (health insurance deductions, etc.) and without any retirement contribution, given $190,000 you should probably be taking home around $12,000 per month total.  Assuming a $2,000 mortgage payment (30 year term), that is $10,000 left per month.  If you were serious about paying this off, you could easily live off of $3,000 per month (probably less) and have $7,000 left to throw at the student loan debt.  This assumes that you haven't financed automobiles, especially expensive ones or have other significant debt payments. That's around 3 years until the entire $300,000 is paid! I have personally used and endorse the snowball method (pay off smallest to largest regardless of interest rate), though I did adjust it slightly to pay off some debts first that had a very high monthly payment so that I would then have this large payment to throw at the next debt. After the debt is gone, you now have the extra $7,000 per month (probably more if you get raises, bonuses etc.) to enjoy and start saving for retirement and kid's college.  You may have 20-25 years to save for retirement; at $4,000 per month that's $1 million in just savings, not including the growth (with moderate growth this could easily double or more).  You'll also have about 14 years to save for college for this one kid; at $1,500 per month that's $250,000 (not including investment growth). This is probably overkill for one kid, so adjust accordingly. Then there's at least $1,500 per month left to pay off the mortgage in less than half the time of the original term! So in this scenario, conservatively you might have: Obviously I don't know your financials or circumstances, so build a good budget and play with the numbers.  If you sacrifice for a short time you'll be way better off, trust me from experience. As a side note:  Assuming the loan debt is 50/50 you and your husband, you made a good investment and he made a poor one.  Unless he is a public defender or charity attorney, why is he making $60,000 when you are both attorneys and both have huge student loan debt?  If it were me, I would consider a job change.  At least until the debt was cleaned up.  If he can make $100,000 to $130,000 or more, then your debt may be gone in under 2 years!  Then he can go back to the charity gig."

positive: As a rule, one should have a retirement. HOWEVER, you also have over a half a million dollars of debt.  Paying down debt is another way to prepare for retirement.  I would say throwing your excess money at your debts is a fine strategy right now.  Especially the student loan (the mortgage probably has a lower rate and brings tax savings, so paying it off is less urgent). If I were you I'd probably put SOMETHING into tax deferred retirement accounts because in your tax bracket, the savings from doing so are significant. The max you can put in tax deferred is $5,500 per year (each) in IRA's and up to $17,000 to your 401(k) each.  The tax-saving contribution opportunities will not come up again...you can't make up for it later. Any retirement saving beyond the tax advantaged part makes no sense while you have outstanding debt.

positive: The question regarding your snapshot is fine, but the real question is what are you doing to improve your situation?  As John offered, one bit of guidance suggests you have a full year's gross earnings as a saving target. In my opinion, that's on the low side, and 2X should be the goal by 35.  I suggest you look back, and see if you can account for every dollar for the prior 6-12 months. This exercise isn't for the purpose of criticizing your restaurant spending, or cost of clothes, but to just bring it to light. Often, there's some low hanging fruit in this type of budgeting exercise, spending that you didn't realize was so high.  I'd also look carefully at your debt. What rate is the mortgage and the student loans? By understanding the loans' rates, terms, and tax status (e.g. whether any is a deduction) you can best choose the way to pay it off. If the rates are low enough you might consider funding your 401(k) accounts a bit more and slow down the loan payments.  It seems that in your 30's you have a negative net worth, but your true asset is your education and future earning potential.  From a high level view, you make $180K. Taking $50K off the top (which after taxes gives you $30K) to pay your student loan, you are still earning $130K, putting you at or near top 10% of families in this country. This should be enough to afford that mortgage, and still live a nice life.  In the end there are three paths, earn more (why does hubby earn half what you do, in the same field?), spend less, or reallocate current budget by changing how you are handling that debt.

negative: My first reaction to this is that it'll strike generations differently.  I (25 years old) would be excited to have this done for the convenience.  My sister (30, married with a kid) said she would be scared of being tracked over the weekend or during off time, but would consider a bracelet form of the chip.  My dad and grandmother both simply said hell no.

negative: The literal answer to your question is that a number of different types of mutual funds did not have significant downturns in 2008. Money Market Funds are intended to always preserve capital. VMMXX made 2.77% in 2008. It was a major scandal broke the buck, that its holders took a 3% loss. Inverse funds, which go up when the market goes down, obviously did well that year (RYARX), but if you have a low risk tolerance, that's obviously not what you're looking for. (and they have other problems as well when held long-term) But you're a 24-year-old talking about your retirement funds, you should have a much longer time horizon, at least 30 years. Over a period that long, stocks have never had negative real (inflation-adjusted) returns, dating back at least to the civil war. If you look at the charts here or here, you can see that despite the risk in any individual year, as the period grows longer, the average return for the period gets tighter and tighter. If you look at the second graph here, you see that 2011 was the first time since the civil war that the trailing 30-year return on t-bills exceeded that for stocks, and 1981-2011 was period that saw bond yields drop almost continuously, leading to steady rise in bond prices. Although past performance is no guarantee of future results, everything we've seen historically suggests that the risk of a broad stock-market portfolio held for 30 years is not that large, and it should make up the bulk of your holdings. For example, Vanguard's Target retirement 2055 fund is 90% in stocks (US + international), and only 10% in bonds.

negative: First let's define some terms. Your accrued benefit is a monthly benefit payable at your normal retirement age (usually 65). It is usually a life-only benefit but may have a number of years guaranteed or may have a survivor piece. It is defined by a plan formula (ie, it is a defined benefit). A lump sum is how much that accrued benefit is worth right now. Lump sums are based on applicable interest rates and mortality tables specified by the IRS (interest rates are released monthly, mortality annually). Your plan can either use the same interest rates for a whole year, or they can use new ones each month. Affecting your lump sum is whether your accrued benefit is payable now (immediately, you are age 65), or later (deferred, you are now age 30). For example, instead of being paid an annuity assume you are paid just one payment of $1,000 on your 65th birthday. The lump sum of that for a 65 year old would be $1,000 since there would be no interest discount, and no chance of dying before payment. For a 30 year old, at 4% interest the lump sum would be about $237 (including mortality discount). At age 36 the lump sum is $246. So the lump sum will get bigger just because you get older. Very important is the interest discount. At age 30 in the example, 2% interest would produce a $467 lump sum. And at 6% $122. The bigger the rate, the smaller the lump sum because interest helps an amount now grow bigger in the future. To complicate things, since 2008 the IRS bases lump sums on 3 different interest rates. The monthy annuity payments made within 5 years of the lump sum date use the 1st rate, past 5 and within 20 years use the 2nd rate, and past that use the 3rd rate. Since you are age 30, all of your monthly annuity payments would be made after 20 years, so that makes it simple since we'll only have to look at the 3rd rate. When you reach age 45 the 2nd rate will kick in. Here is the table of interest rates published by the IRS: http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Minimum-Present-Value-Segment-Rates You'll find your rates above on the 2013 line for Aug-12. That means your lump sum is being made in 2013 and it is being based on the month August 2012. Most likely your plan will use the same rates for its entire plan year. But what is your plan year? If it is the calendar year, then you would have a 5 month lookback for the rates. But if is a September to August plan year with a 1 month lookback, the rates would have changed between August and September. Your August lump sum would be based on 4.52%, your September on would be based on 5.58% (see the All line for Aug-13). For comparison, a 30 year old with a $100 annuity payable at age 65 would have a lump sum value of $3,011 at 4.52%, but a lump sum value of $1,931 at 5.58%. The change in your accrued benefit by month will obviously have some impact on the lump sum value, but not as much as the change in interest rates if there is one. The amount they actually contribute to the plan has nothing to do with the value of the lump sum though.

negative: Not to pick your words apart, but I'm used to the word laddering as used with CDs or bonds, where one buys a new say, 7 year duration each year with old money coming due and, in effect, is always earning the longer term rate, while still having new funds available each year.  So. The article you link suggests that there's money to be saved by not taking a long term policy on all the insurance you buy. They split $250K 30 year / $1M 20 year. The money saved by going short on the bigger policy is (they say) $11K.  It's an interesting idea. Will you use the $11K saved to buy a new $1M 10 year policy in 20 years, or will you not need the insurance? There are situations where insurance needs drop, e.g. 20 years into my marriage, college fully funded as are retirement accounts. I am semi-retired and if I passed, there's enough money. There are also situations where the need runs longer. The concept in the article works for the former type of circumstance.

negative: I work in marketing - there's always spillover. We love hypertargeting people but it's still effective to target a broad audience so overall awareness of your brand is higher than your competitors.  Seems like a waste to serve a 20 year old a Rocket Mortage ad. But 20 year olds become 30 year olds eventually.

negative: Mines 3 years old, aside from 1 memory hungry game where it still mostly plays well but sometimes stutters on, it's all a-okay.  Updates and all.  Probably will keep it 1 more year as a game isn't worth upgrading a phone over.  Might switch if the competition is good, I do hate lightning jack with a passion though.

negative: > The point was the 30% threshold is too low...  Okay, my bad.  Although [the average household spends closer to 15% on housing](https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-household-budget).  > ...as you in fact get 100% takehome to work with.  No, these people still pay FICA, state, and sales taxes.  Regardless, 70% of minimum wage isn't enough to cover a car, a child, a good vacation, a serious health care problem, an aging parent, or a modest retirement. Basically you are fine provided live throws you no curve balls.

negative: Yes your basic math is correct. If your tax bracket never changes, then either type of retirement account will end up in the same place. Assuming that there are no income restrictions that will limit your ability to contribute to the type of account you want. Now your job is to guess what your tax bracket will be each and every year for the next 3 or 4 decades. Events that will influence your bracket: getting married; having children; buying a house; selling a house; paying for college; the cost of medical care; moving to a state with a different state tax structure. Of course that assumes that you don't get a big bonus one year or that congress changes the tax brackets. That is why many people have both types of retirement accounts: Roth and non-Roth.

negative: "The policy you quoted suggests you deposit 6% minimum. That $6,000 will cost you $4,500 due to the tax effect, yet after the match, you'll have $9,000 in the account. Taxable on withdrawal, but a great boost to the account.  The question of where is less clear. There must be more than the 2 choices you mention. Most plans have 'too many' choices. This segues into my focus on expenses. A few years back, PBS Frontline aired a program titled The Retirement Gamble, in which fund expenses were discussed, with a focus on how an extra 1% in expenses will wipe out an extra 1/3 of your wealth in a 40 year period. Very simple to illustrate this - go to a calculator and enter .99 raised to the power of 40. .669 is the result. My 401(k) has an expense of .02% (that's 1/50 of 1%) .9998 raised to the same 40 gives .992, in other words, a cost of .8% over the full 40 years. My wife and I are just retired, and will have less in expenses for the rest of our lives than the average account cost for just 1 year.  In your situation, the knee-jerk reaction is to tell you to maximize the 401(k) deposit at the current (2016) $18,000. That might be appropriate, but I'd suggest you look at the expense of the S&P index (sometime called Large Cap Fund, but see the prospectus) and if it's costing much more than .75%/yr, I'd go with an IRA (Roth, if you can't deduct the traditional IRA). Much of the value of the 401(k) beyond the match is the tax differential, i.e. depositing while in the 25% bracket, but withdrawing the funds at retirement, hopefully at 15%. It doesn't take long for the extra expense and the ""holy cow, my 401(k) just turned decades of dividends and long term cap gains into ordinary income"" effect to take over. Understand this now, not 30 years hence.  Last - to answer your question, 'how much'? I often recommend what may seem a cliche ""continue to live like a student."" Half the country lives on $54K or less. There's certainly a wide gray area, but in general, a person starting out will choose one of 2 paths, living just at, or even above his means, or living way below, and saving, say, 30-40% off the top. Even 30% doesn't hit the extreme saver level. If you do this, you'll find that if/when you get married, buy a house, have kids, etc. you'll still be able to save a reasonable percent of your income toward retirement.  In response to your comment, what counts as retirement savings? There's a concept used as part of the budgeting process known as the envelope system. For those who have an income where there's little discretionary money left over each month, the method of putting money aside into small buckets is a great idea. In your case, say you take me up on the 30-40% challenge. 15% of it goes to a hard and fast retirement account. The rest, to savings, according to the general order of emergency fund, 6-12 months expenses, to cover a job loss, another fund for random expenses, such as new transmission (I've never needed one, but I hear they are expensive), and then the bucket towards house down payment. Keep in mind, I have no idea where you live or what a reasonable house would cost. Regardless, a 20-25% downpayment on even a $250K house is $60K. That will take some time to save up. If the housing in your area is more, bump it accordingly.  If the savings starts to grow beyond any short term needs, it gets invested towards the long term, and is treated as ""retirement"" money. There is no such thing as Saving too much. When I turned 50 and was let go from a 30 year job, I wasn't unhappy that I saved too much and could call it quits that day. Had I been saving just right, I'd have been 10 years shy of my target."

negative: I love how this probably won't get many replies because your in the trenches doing it, keep up the hard work. I graduated high school with 1k in savings and dropped out of college to help support my depressed and unemployed mother with some help from my Father.   I am now a married new construction homeowner and we take home enough money to have new cars, save for retirement, and enjoy life with no college degrees. I went from 8 an hour to over 35 now in 4-5 years.  We both had to get off social media because of all our old high school friends who went to college for garbage degrees, never tried to get entry level jobs in their industry while in school or network, and now cry all day about how Bernie sanders didn't win the election and why school should be free so they don't have to pay off debt for a worthless degree as they wait tables. No sympathy

negative: Make sure that you have the smallest house in the neighborhood.  Then hopefully anyone with nefarious intent ill go elsewhere.   Don't have anything visible from the street that is expensive.  This includes cars (park the BMW in the windowless garage), fancy grills, pools, bikes, etc.   For maximum effect, put a broken down car in front of the house.  Preferably something 20-30 years old and up on blocks, like an old pickup truck.  A couch on the front porch and a old tub in the yard (unmowed) will complete the effect.

negative: One more thing to consider is that $1M today is not the same as $1M 30 years from now because of inflation.  Consider that just 30 years ago (1980) the average house price in the US was only about $69K and a new car cost around $7K on average.  When you retire, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that you could be paying $1.5M for a typical house, $100K for mid-grade car, by the time you retire in 30 years.  Of course, over the rest of your working life your salary will likely increase due to inflation too, so that will help. In 1980 the average US income was around $19K/year. So even though that number seems huge, it is because it is denominated in currency that has been devalued significantly.

negative: According to the IRS, you can still put money in your IRA. Here (https://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Participant,-Employee/Retirement-Topics-IRA-Contribution-Limits) they say: Can I contribute to an IRA if I participate in a retirement plan at work? You can contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA whether or not you participate in another retirement plan through your employer or business. However, you might not be able to deduct all of your traditional IRA contributions if you or your spouse participates in another retirement plan at work. Roth IRA contributions might be limited if your income exceeds a certain level. In addition, in this link (https://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/IRA-Deduction-Limits), the IRS says: Retirement plan at work: Your deduction may be limited if you (or your spouse, if you are married) are covered by a retirement plan at work and your income exceeds certain levels. The word 'covered' should clarify that - you are not covered anymore in that year, you just got a contribution in that year which was triggered by work done in a previous year. You cannot legally be covered in a plan at an employer where you did not work in that year.

negative: "If I were you, I would rent.  Wait to buy a home.  Here is why: When you say that renting is equal in cost to a 30-year mortgage, you are failing to consider several aspects.  See this recent answer for a list of things that need to be considered when comparing buying and renting. You have no down payment.  Between the two of you, you have $14,000, but this money is needed for both your emergency fund and your fiancée's schooling. In your words: ""we can’t reeaallllly afford a home.""  A home is a big financial commitment.  If you buy a home before you are financially ready, it will be continuous trouble.   If you need a cosigner, you aren't ready to buy a home.  I would absolutely advise whoever you are thinking about cosigning for you not to do so.  It puts them legally on the hook for a house that you can't yet afford. You aren't married yet.  You should never buy something as big as a home with someone you aren't married to; there are just too many things that can go wrong.  (See comments for more explanation.)  Wait until you are married before you buy. Your income is low right now.  And that is okay for now; you've been able to avoid the credit card debt that so many people fall into. However, you do have student loans to pay, and taking on a huge new debt right now would be potentially disastrous for you.  Your family income will eventually increase when your fiancée gets her degree and gets a job, and at that time, you will be in a much better situation to consider buying a house. You need to move ""ASAP."" Buying a house when you are in a hurry is a generally a bad idea. When you look for a home, you need to take some time looking so you aren't rushed into a bad deal that you will regret. Even if you decide you want to buy, you should first find a place to rent; then you can take your time finding the right house.  To answer your question about escrow: When you own a house, two of the required expenses that you will have besides the mortgage payment are property taxes and homeowner's insurance.  These are large payments that are only due once a year.  The bank holding the mortgage wants to make sure that they get paid.  So to help you budget for these expenses and to ensure that these expenses are paid, the bank will add these to your monthly mortgage payment, and set them aside in a savings account (called an escrow account).  Then when these bills come due once a year, they are paid for out of the escrow account."

negative: "I find this very hard to believe Believe it.  The bottom quarter of American households have negative net worth, and the bottom three quarters have no more than a tiny amount saved up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States#/media/File:MeanNetWorth2007.png In an emergency, 63% of Americans would not be able to come up with $500 without going into debt.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-americans-dont-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-500-emergency/ Nobody can retire with 5k in the U.S. The money will be gone within a year. Is it possible? Now you begin to see why the long-term stability of Social Security and Medicare are at present hot topics in American political life. Without them, a great many more Americans would die in poverty. What is the actual figure? The $5000 figure is accurate but irrelevant; that median includes people who are thirty years from retirement and people who are two days from retirement. The more relevant statistics are those restricted to people at or close to retirement age, and they can be found lower down in the article you cite, or in numerous other studies. Here's one from the GAO for example: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-419 The figures here are, unfortunately, no less terrifying: Now $104K is a lot better than $5K, but it's still not much to retire on. Why we believe that it is reasonable to throw out all the zeros before taking the median, I do not know. That seems like bad math to me. UPDATE: There is some discussion of this point in the comments; all I'm saying here is that this is a clumsy and possibly misleading way to characterize the situation. The linked report has the actual data, but let's try to summarize it here in a more meaningful way. Let's suppose that we make buckets for how dependent on SS is a retirement-age household to avoid starving to death, being homeless, and so on? Maybe these buckets are not ideal, and we could move them around a bit.  The takeaways here are that the ratios of nothing:inadequate:barely adequate:comfortable is about 40:30:20:10. That only the top decile of retirement-age households can fund a comfortable retirement without help illustrates just how dependent on SS American households are. how do 50% of old Americans survive in their old age?  Social Security and Medicare.  As the cited GAO report indicates: ""Social Security provides most of the income for about half of households age 65 and older."" Do most old Americans rely on their children for financial support? One day I met a woman at a party and we were making small talk about her kids. She had a couple already and one more was on the way.  ""I want to have lots of children to support me in my old age"", she said.  ""Do you support your parents?"" I asked, which frankly seemed like an entirely reasonable question.  ""Of course not! I can't afford it. I've got a baby on the way and two more kids at home!"" I left her to draw her own conclusions as to the viability of her retirement plan."

negative: There IS an amount of money you can pay to make people deal with very unpleasant situations.  Offer me my old pay + 50% to go back into the workplace daily and deal with my last boss? Yeah, I'll tell you to go fuck yourself.  Offer me 3M+ a year to do it? Okay. I'll take that and do JUST ENOUGH to keep the job for a year or two, and then I'll never fucking work again. Or I'll get fired and laugh all the way to the bank anyway.

negative: ">Of course; the generation Xers are those in the age range where many were approaching the time when they would, but had not yet, transferred the bulk of their retirement savings to lower risk investments.  **Your analysis is WAY off-base.**  Gen X was more than a DECADE AWAY from even *thinking* of switching to ""lower risk investments"".  The OLDEST Gen X'ers were born in 1964 and have (just now) turned 48 -- they were (at most) 44 years old in 2008 when the market crashed.  The YOUNGEST Gen X'ers were born circa 1981-82, and (just now) have reached age 30 -- they were just getting started in their careers (around age 26) in 2008 when the market crashed.  The MAJORITY of Gen X'ers were -- in 2008 -- in their mid 30's.  NO ONE switches to ""low risk investments"" in their mid 30's.  ---  No, the only Gen X'ers who DIDN'T get ""screwed"" by the market crash were either:   1. Savvy enough to have SEEN the bubble & crash coming and so got OUT of the stock market and/or housing; or...  2. Waited out the storm & sat tight -- and allowed their market holdings to both crash and then rebound (though they would still largely be ""down"" from where they were at peak 2008, they wouldn't have suffered huge losses)."

negative: >But on the bright side, the most common decade for people to start saving is in their 20s. Twice as many 30 to 49 year olds said they started saving in their 20s instead of their 30s, while the 50 to 64 age group was “only slightly more likely” to have started saving in their 20s over their 30s, according to the report, which surveyed 1,003 adults living in the continental U.S.  So they are basing their analysis of how early people start saving purely by studying people in their 30s and 40s with those in their 50s and 60s. They don't compare either of those age groups with those in their 20s and 30s to see how things have changed?

negative: I decided to open it with funds b/c the checking account I have is used as a savings, and has been stagnant. Doesn't make any noticeable interest, and I'm not tapping into it for now. Figured why not get some of it moving. Especially since I'm not working right now and am not contributing to retirement otherwise.  The old 401(k)s have been sitting still for many years, and aren't that full. Really miss my old deferred compensation fund, that does well even when I'm not contributing!

negative: According to pages 6 & 7 of the instructions for form 1040 in 2009 AMT was only temporarily patched for the year. Congress can't politically afford to drastically cut AMT exemptions by 30 to 40%, and may even retroactively change it, if it isn't passed by the end of the year (despite the constitution forbidding ex post facto laws) : What’s New for 2009 ...    Alternative minimum tax (AMT) exemption amount increased. The AMT exemption amount has increased to $46,700 ($70,950 if married filing jointly or a qualifying widow(er); $35,475 if married filing separately)... What’s New for 2010 ...    Alternative minimum tax (AMT) exemption amount. The AMT exemption amount is scheduled to decrease to $33,750 ($45,000 if married filing jointly or a qualifying widow(er); $22,500 if married filing separately). So, if you are married, and several regular tax deductions push your income below the AMT exemption amount of $45,000, it's quite possible you would be required to pay AMT, even if you didn't last year. There is a work sheet for AMT in the instructions for line 43, but the IRS also provides an AMT calculator. According to page 146 (E-8) of the instructions for form 1040 AMT is paid as: the smallest amount you are allowed to report as your taxable income (Form 1040, line 43). It is also the smallest amount you are allowed to report as your alternative minimum taxable income   (AMTI) on Form 6251, line 29. If the [AMT calculation] is larger than your taxable income would otherwise be, enter the amount from column (c) on Form 1040, line 43 [or ...] Form 6251, line 29.  As always, congress finds ways to further complicate things by making a few credits and losses deductible against the absolute minimum you're expected to pay taxes on, making the AMT a misnomer.

negative: "Rob - I'm sorry your first visit here has been unpleasant.  What you are asking for is beyond the capability of most software. If you look at Fairmark.com, you find the standard deduction for married filing joint is $12,200 in 2012, and $12,400 in 2013. I offer this anecdote to share a 'deduction' story - The first year I did my MIL's taxes, I had to explain that she didn't   have enough deductions to itemize. Every year since, she hands me a   file full of paper substantiating medical deductions that don't exceed   7.5% of her income. In turn, I give her two folders back, one with the 5 or so documents I needed, and the rest labeled ""trash"". Fewer than 30% of filers itemize. And a good portion of those that do, have no question that's the right thing to do. e.g. my property tax is more than the $12K, so anything else I have that's a deduction adds right to the number.  It's really just those people who are at the edge that are likely frustrated. I wrote an article regarding Standard Deduction vs Itemizing, in which I describe a method of pulling in one's deductible expenses into Odd years, reducing the number in Even years, to allow a bi-annual itemization. If this is your situation, you'll find the concept interesting.  You also ask about filing status. Think on this for a minute. After pulling in our W2s (TurboTax imports the data right from ADP), I do the same for our stock info. The stock info, and all Schedule A deductions aren't assigned a name. So any effort to split them in search of savings by using Married Filing Separate, would first require splitting these up. TurboTax has a 'what-if' worksheet for this function, but when the 'marriage penalty' was lifted years ago, the change in status had no value. Items that phaseout over certain income levels are often lost to the separate filer anyway. When I got married, I found my real estate losses each year could not be taken, they accumulated until I either sold, or until our income dropped when the Mrs retired.  So, while is respect your desire for these magic dials within the software, I think it's fair to say they would provide little value to most people.  If this thread stays open, I'd be curious if anyone can cite an example where filing separately actually benefits the couple."

negative: "Why it is good to be risky The reason why it is good to be risky is because risky investments can result in higher returns on your money. The problem with being risky, is there is a chance you can lose money. However, in the long term you can usually benefit from higher returns even if you have a few slip ups. Let me show you an example:  These two lines are based off of placing $2,000 in a retirement fund at age of 20 and then at age of 25 start investing $6,500 a year (based off of a salary of $65,000 with a company that will 1 to 1 match up to 5% IRA contribution, presumably someone with a Master's should be able to get this) and then being able to increase your contribution amount by $150 a year as your salary begins to increase as well. The blue line assumes that all of this money that you are putting in a retirement account has a fixed 3% interest (compounded yearly for simplicity sake) every year until you retire. The red line is earning a 12% interest rate while you are 20 years old and then decreasing by 0.5% per year until you retire. Since this is using more risky investments when you are younger, I have even gone ahead and included losing 20% of your money when you are 24, another 20% when you are 29, and then again another 20% when you are 34. As you can see, even with losing 20% of your money 3 different times, you still end up with more money then you would have had if you stuck with a more conservative investment plan. If I change this to 50% each 3 times, you will still come out about equal to a more conservative investment. Now, I do have these 3 loses placed at a younger age when there is less to lose, but this is to be expected since you are being more risky when you are young. When you are closer to retirement you have less of a chance of losing money since you will be investing more conservatively. Why it is OK to be risky when you are young but not old Lets say you loose 20% of your $2,000 when you are young, you have 30-40 years to make that back. That's roughly $1 a month extra that you are having to come up with. So, if you have a risky investment go bad when you are young, you have plenty of time to account for it before you retire.  Now lets say you have $1,000,000 when you are 5 years from retiring and loose 20% of it, you have to come up with an extra $3,333 a month if you want to retire on time. So, if you have a risky investment go bad when you are close to retiring, you will most likely have to work for many more years just to be able to recover from your loses. What to invest in This is a little bit more difficult question to answer. If there was one ""right"" way to invest your money, every one would be doing that one ""right"" way and would result in it not turning out to be that good of investment. What you need to do is come up with a plan for yourself. My biggest advice that I can give is to be careful with fees. Some places will charge a fixed dollar amount per trade, while others might charge a fixed dollar amount per month, while even others might charge a percentage of your investment. With only having $2,000 to invest, a large fee might make it difficult to make money."

negative: There has been an abundance of articles in recent years which make it fairly clear that many participants in the Social Security system-- especially those who have started contributing recently, and going forward from that-- will experience negative rates of return. In other words, they will put in more than they will get out. Some examples of such articles: Time Magazine: But it is now official: Social Security is a lousy investment for the   average worker. People retiring today will be among the first   generation of workers to pay more in Social Security taxes than they   receive in benefits over the course of their lives, according to a new   analysis by the Associated Press. That AP piece, referenced by Time: People retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who   have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they   will receive in benefits after they retire. It's a historic shift that   will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by   The Associated Press. A piece which appeared in DailyFinance (includes a helpful graphic summary):  10 Myths About Social Security: Myth 4: Social Security Is a Good Deal for Today’s WorkersEven if   there were no reduction in benefits or increase in taxes—an   impossibility given Social Security’s looming financing   shortfalls—Social Security is an extremely bad investment for most   young workers. In fact, according to a study by the nonpartisan Tax   Foundation, most young workers will actually receive a negative return   on their Social Security taxes— they will get less in benefits than   they paid in taxes. Some studies indicate that a 30- year-old   two-earner couple with average income will lose as much as $173,500.   That actual loss does not even consider the opportunity cost, what   workers might have earned if they had been able to invest their taxes   in real assets that yield a positive return. In fact, a study by   financial analyst William Shipman demonstrates that, if a 25-year-old   worker were able to privately invest the money he or she currently   pays in Social Security taxes, the worker would receive retirement   benefits three to six times higher than under Social Security. Has that answered your question?

negative: "if you have 401k with an employer already, has the following features: Your contributions are taxed That's only true if you're a high income earner. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/2017-ira-deduction-limits-effect-of-modified-agi-on-deduction-if-you-are-covered-by-a-retirement-plan-at-work For example, married filing jointly allows full deduction up to $99,000 even if you have a 401(k). ""the timing is just different"" And that's a good thing, since if your retirement tax rate is less than your current tax rate, you'll pay less tax on that money."

negative: the problem for millenials, is that even if the economy DOES return in a few years, they will largely looked over in favor of the fresher generation Z [or whatever it is called] graduates.  Why hire a 30 year old with no professional experience when you can hire a brand new graduate with no professional experience?

negative: "I argued for a 15% rule of thumb here: Saving for retirement: How much is enough? Though if you'll let me, I'd refine the argument to: use a rule of thumb to set your minimum savings, then use Monte Carlo to stress-test and look at any special circumstances, and make a case to save more. You're right that the rule of thumb bakes in tons of assumptions (great list btw). A typical 15%-works scenario could include: If any of those big assumptions don't apply to you (or you don't want to rely on them) you'd have to re-evaluate. It sounds like you're assuming 4-5% investment returns? As you say that's probably the big difference, 4-5% is lower than most would assume. 6-7% (real return) is maybe a middle-of-the-road assumption and 8% is maybe an unrealistic one. Many of the assumptions you list (such as married/kids, cost of living, spouse's income, paying for college) can maybe be bundled up into one assumption (percentage of income you will spend). Set a percentage budget and as you go along, stay within your means by sacrificing as required. Also smooth out income across layoffs and things by having an emergency fund. By staying on-budget as you go you can remove some of the unpredictability. The reason I think the rule of thumb is still good, despite the assumptions, is that I don't think a ""more accurate"" number based on a lot of unpredictable guesses is really better; and it may even be harmful if you use it to justify saving less, or even if you use it to save far too much. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_bias Many (most?) important assumptions are not predictable: investment returns, health care inflation, personal health, lifestyle creep (changing spending needs/desires), irrational investment behavior. I agree with you that for many scenarios and people, 15% will not be enough, though it's a whole lot more than most save already. In particular, low investment returns over your time horizon will make 15% insufficient, and some argue that low investment returns over the coming 30 years are likely. Without a doubt, 20% or more is safer than 15%. Do consider that ""saving enough"" is not a binary thing. If you save only 15% and it turns out that doesn't completely replace your income, it's not like you're out on the street; you might have to retire a few years later, or downsize your house, or something, but perhaps that isn't a catastrophe. There's a very personal question about how much to sacrifice now for less risk of sacrifice in the future. Maybe I'd better qualify ""not a binary thing"": some savings rates (certainly, anything less than 10%), make major sacrifices pretty likely... so in that sense there is a binary distinction between ""plausible plan"" and ""denial."" Also, precise assumptions and calculations get a lot more useful as you approach retirement age. You can pretty much answer the question ""is it reasonable to retire right now?"" or ""could I retire in 5 years?"" (though with a retirement that could last 30 years, plenty of unknowns will remain even then). I think at age 20 or 30 though, just saving 15% (20% if you're conservative), and not spending too much time on a speculative analysis would be a sound decision. That's why I like the rule of thumb. Analysis paralysis (saving nothing or near-nothing) is the real danger early in one's career. Any plausible percentage is fine as long as you save. As your life unfolds and you see what happens, you can refine and correct, adjusting your savings rate, moving your retirement age around, spending a little less or more. The important thing earlier in life is to just get in the right ballpark."

negative: Okay, but the point is that the models are the calendar-meant for long terms. They're not designed to capture short term trends. You're pointing to a calendar and telling us it's wrong because it won't tell you if it's 1:30 or 4pm.

negative: Is my financial status OK?  You have money for emergencies in the bank, you spend less than you earn. Yes, your status is okay. You will have a good standard of living if nothing changes from your status quo. How can I improve it? You are probably paying more in taxes than you would if you made a few changes. If you max out tax advantaged retirement accounts that would reduce the up-front taxes you are paying on your savings. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor?  The best time to see a financial advisor is any time that your situation changes. New job? Getting married? Having a child? Got a big promotion or raise? Suddenly thinking about buying a house? Is it worth the money? How would she/he help me? If you pick an advisor who has incentive to help you rather than just pad his/her own pockets with commissions, then the advice is usually worth the money. If there is someone whose time is already paid for, that may be better.  For example, if you get an accountant to help you with your taxes and ask him/her how to best reduce your taxes the next year, the advice is already paid-for in the fee you for the tax help. An advisor should help you minimize the high taxes you are almost certainly paying as a single earner, and minimize the stealth taxes you are paying in inflation (on that $100k sitting in the bank).

negative: "Compared to a lot of other parts of the country it most certainly is, specially near the coast. My old neighbors in NH just sold their 2200 sqft 20 year-old home on about an acre for $420k. 4 bed, 3 bath, pool, 2 car garage, nice driveway on a quiet cul-de-sac, updated inside, excellent school district and all that crap. Listed for $405k and sold in less than 2 days. That home is 15 mins from the MA state line and 30 mins West of Hampton Beach. Now I'm in San Diego and $420k would buy me a 1100 sqft 60 year-old home on maybe a 7-10k sqft lot out in East County (mountains and desert, not the CA most people think of). Still only 30 mins from the beach, which is nice, but if it was anything close to my neighbor's old house it would be $800k-$1M, so yeah, while maybe not ""cheap"", Southern NH is pretty affordable for what you get."

negative: ">I kept hearing...the last new refinery in the US being built over 30 years ago.  Which is a misleading statement. Tearing down an old unit and replacing it with a higher capacity one does not count as a ""new refinery"", but increases capacity."

negative: I realize this question is a few years old now, but I wanted to address one of the OP's questions that hadn't been answered yet (my answer is framed as though the question were recent): However, on the plus side, the monthly payment would likely be $200 less/mo with this house vs our current rent. On a 30 year mortgage it would be almost $3-400 less. This makes me think that I could use the difference to pay directly toward the principal each month. Is my logic sound? The way amortization works, if the interest rate between 30 and 15 were the same, then making principal-only prepayments on the 30 year to cover the difference in monthly payments would result in the exactly the same schedule as if you did minimum payments on the 15-year - i.e. the numbers would be practically indistinguishable.  Of course, in practice the interest rate is slightly better on the 15-year, which makes the 30-year with prepayments compare slightly less favorably. If you're confident that you'll be able to reliably keep up with the monthly payments, the 15-year would minimize the total amount of interest you pay, and help you get off of PMI slightly faster.  But the 30-year w/ prepayments gives you the option to skip a prepayment or two if you run into any financial difficulty, which is a nice option to have.  But you do have to be disciplined about making the prepayments every month.

negative: He was referring to tech companies. I am referring to old-school companies that haven't missed a dividend payment for 30 years. Anyway Facebook is probably a good bet – they have an even trying to monetize it other than to cover costs. Let someone else bet on that. it turns out that a lot of people open accounts and are active for about the first 30 days and that's it. But the accounts remain on the books. Linkedin – talk about worst in breed. Anyway, I still don't know what Facebook has that MySpace didn't.


query: How can I cash out a check internationally?

positive: I know someone around there, who might be able to collect it for   me.Would I still be able to cash it out in the other country? Or can   he/she cash it out for me? Unlikely. Unless they deposit it into a US bank account in your name. You can cash US checks in almost any decent bank anywhere in the world, but it may cost you some and will probably take 2-3 weeks. Since the amount is won in the US, how would I pay the taxes? , since   its earned over there. You would file a tax return with the IRS and send them a payment. You can buy drafts in US dollars almost anywhere in the world.

positive: "Your friend probably cannot deposit the check to your U.S. bank account. U.S. banks that I've worked with will not accept a deposit from someone who is not an owner of the account. I don't know why not. If some stranger wants to make unauthorized deposits to my account, why should I object? But that's the common rule.  You could endorse the check, your friend could then deposit it to his own account or cash it, and then transfer the money to you in a variety of ways.  But I think it would be easier to just deposit the check in your account wherever it is you live. Most banks have no problem with depositing a foreign check. There may be a fairly long delay before you can get access to the money while the check clears through the system.  I don't know exactly what you mean by a ""prize check"", but assuming that this is taxable income, yes, I assume the U.S. government would want their hard-earned share of your money. These days you can pay U.S. taxes on-line if you have a credit card. If you have not already paid U.S. taxes for the year, you should make an ""estimated payment"". i.e. you can't wait until April 15 of the next year, you have to pay most or all of the taxes you will owe in the calendar year you earned it."

positive: This question was asked three years ago, but now that it's 2017 there is actually a relatively easy, cheap and fast solution to at least the first half of your question. To cash the check: I've done this a half dozen times while abroad (from the US) without any problems.

positive: I've been a landlord and also a tenant. I have been able to deposit money in an account, where I have the account number, and/or a deposit slip. In a foreign bank you can deposit by a machine if in the bank or someone is there for you and knows the account number. With regards to cashing a check in another country, it is up to the bank and the time is at least 14 to 21 business days, with a fee is added. As of a winning check, since its in your name, if you are in another country sign the check, for deposit only with a deposit slip and send it to your out of country bank by FedEx - you will have a tracking number, where as regular mail it might get there in 3 months. I hope by now you came to your solution.

negative: You have a few options: Personally, I would cash the check at my broker and buy a mixture of US Government and New York Tax-Exempt securities until I figured out what to do with it.

negative: "Anyone can walk into a bank, say ""Hi, I'm a messenger, I have an endorsed check and a filled out deposit slip for Joe Blow who has an account here, please deposit this check for him, as he is incapacitated. Straight deposit.""  They'll fiddle on their computer, to see if they can identify the deposit account definitively, and if they can, and the check looks legit, ""thanks for taking care of our customer sir.""  Of course, getting a balance or cashback is out of the question since you are not authenticated as the customer. I have done the same with balance transfer paperwork, in that case the bank knew the customer and the balance transfer was his usual. If the friend does not have an account there, then s/he should maybe open an account at an ""online bank"" that allows deposit by snapping photos on a phone, or phone up a branch, describe her/his situation and see if they have any options.  Alternately, s/he could get a PayPal account.  Or get one of those ""credit card swipe on your phone"" deals like Square or PayPal Here, which have fees very close to nil, normally cards are swiped but you can hand-enter the numbers.   Those are fairly easy to get even if you have troubles with creditworthiness.  S/he would need to return the check to the payer and ask the payer to pay her/him one of those ways.  The payer may not be able to, e.g. if they are a large corporation. A last possibility is if the check is from a large corporation with whom s/he continues to do business with.  For instance, the electric company cashiers out your account after you terminate service at your old location. But then you provision service at a new location and get a new bill, you can send their check right back to them and say ""Please apply this to my new account"". If s/he is unable to get any of those because of more serious problems like being in the country illegally, then, lawful behavior has its privileges, sorry. There are lots of unbanked people, and they pay through the nose for banking services at those ghastly check-cashing places, at least in America.  I don't have a good answer for how to get a check cashed in that situation."

negative: Will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Will a bank convert a check to cash?  In my experience, no.  Even for small checks.   Unless you happen to have a VERY good relationship with your banker (read as: have an existing large bank balance.)   The exception is if you go to the bank the check is drawn on.   But even then, I doubt they'll cash a $2M dollar check. Can you deposit a $2M dollar check?  Most definitely. How long will 2 millions dollars check to be cash? Depends on your bank's policies, relationship with you, and the origination of the check.  You'll need to talk to the exact bank in question to find out.  Some guidelines from my own experiences: Out of country checks will take quite awhile, say 4 weeks, even for trivial amounts.  I'm not sure what a $2M size would do.   Beyond that situation, it will likely depend on whether you have more money than the check's worth in your bank accounts.  If so, they may be willing to give you cash in a few days.  Or if you only want some of the money as cash in a few days, that might be possible. If the bank couldn't cash for him, will the bank give him some of cash   for example, $500,000 for now, and the rest wait to be cash at later   time like 24 hours or 1 week? Unless you already have a lot of money in your relationship with the bank, I think it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they will let you have ANY of the money in 24 hours.  You MIGHT get some of it in a week.   The issue will be that such a large check will be viewed as having a high chance of being fraudulent, so they will want to be exceptionally conservative.

negative: You can pay with a cashiers check or personal check. You can even pay cash, or combine payment methods. However, in the USA if you give the dealership $10,000 or more in actual cash, they will be required to fill out a form 8300 with the IRS.

negative: "You withdrew the 'cash' portion, and will pay tax on it. How was the check ""another for move remaining to B"" issued? Was it payable to you? If so, it's too late, it's your money and the whole account was cashed out.  If it was payable to B, you should have had it sent directly to their custodian, are you saying you still have that check? You might need to ask A to reissue the check to you, since you are no longer in the US. I'm not sure if you can roll it to an IRA at this point."

negative: "It's a scam. The cashier's check will be forged. Craigslist has a warning about it here (item #3). What kind of payment do you think is not fakable? Or at least not   likely to be used in scams? When on craigslist - deal only locally and in person. You can ask to see the person's ID if you're being paid by check When being paid by check, how can seeing his/her ID help? In case the   check isn't cashable, I can find that person by keeping record of   his/her ID?  If you're paid by check, the payers details should be printed on the check. By checking the ID you can verify that the details match (name/address), so you can find the payer later. Of course the ID can be faked too, but there's so much you can do to protect yourself. You'll get better protection (including verified escrow service) by selling on eBay. Is being paid by cash the safest way currently,   although cash can be faked too, but it is the least common thing that   is faked currently? Do you recommend to first deposit the cash into a   bank (so that let the bank verify if the cash is faked), before   delivering the good?  For Craigslist, use cash and meet locally. That rules out most scams as a seller. What payment methods do you think are relatively safe currently?   Then getting checks must be the least favorite way of being paid. Do   you think cash is better than money order or cashier order?  You should only accept cash. If it is a large transaction, you can meet them at your bank, have them get cash, and you receive the cash from the bank. Back to the quoted scam, how will they later manipulate me? Are they interested in   my stuffs on moving sale, or in my money? They will probably ""accidentally"" overpay you and ask for a refund of some portion of the overpayment. In that case you will be out the entire amount that you send back to them and possibly some fees from your bank for cashing a bad check."

negative: "If you are going to keep your US bank account for any period of time, the very best option I know of is to withdraw Euros from an atm using your US card once you are in Germany.    I draw on my US account regularly (I'm in Munich) and always get the going ""mid market"" exchange rate, which is better than what you get from a currency conversion service, transfer agency, or bank transfer, and there are no fees from the atm or my bank for the currency conversion or withdrawal.   Of course you should check with your bank to verify their rules and fees for atm use internationally.  It would also be wise to put a travel advisory on your account to be sure your transaction is not denied because you are out of country."

negative: You could buy a money order with your cash, then mail the money order to Deutsche Bank Germany for deposit into your account. You could also buy a prepaid debit card (like a Visa/AMEX giftcard) with your cash. Then, open a new Paypal account and add this prepaid card. Finally, send money to yourself using the prepaid card as the funding source. You could use a money transfer service, like Western Union, to transfer the cash to a friend/family in Germany. Then ask them to deposit it for you at Deutsche Bank Germany.

negative: "How does this get any business? You'd be surprised on how much profit these type of businesses can bring in and the number of people who cash their checks this way. They make profit off people who want their checks cashed ASAP. Usually cheques written to ""cash"" or something can just be cashed for   free at the bank right? Yes, most banks cash your check for free. Some may not cash it right away and may require a few days to process. Some charge a small fee if the check is not from the same bank. Some personal checks may not even be processed the same day as well. Wouldn't the only cheques that people would cash at these places be   bad cheques? Yes and no. Yes because it may be ""easier"" to try to cash a fraudulent check at these type of check cashing places. However, some places may only cash business checks and require your ID in which they write down the information in order to possibly track you down in the future. Also some places only cash a check to a certain amount.  And wouldn't this mean that the business will lose a lot of money   since it pays out cash but then has the cheque bounce?  Of course the business loses money if the check bounces or is fake. That is why they try to minimize their losses with certain requirements that needs to met before the check can be cashed. Who uses these services exactly? Just about anyone who needs their check cashed ASAP or like ChrisW stated in his answer is trying to keep their money on the low. There is a demand for this service even though it may seem shady to you."

negative: Phil's answer is correct. Just to add to his response: Distributions are not taxable events -- you already paid your taxes, so you can take out $50k or $52k and the IRS is not concerned. You can simply write yourself a check for any amount you choose! To answer your specific question: to match your K1 losses and profit exactly, you could take out $50k. But that might leave the business strapped for cash. One way to decide how much to take out is to use your balance sheet. Look at your retained earnings (or just look at the business bank account balance), subtract however much cash you think you need to keep on hand for operations, and write yourself a check for the rest.

negative: The legal department at the Bank left me a message telling me that the bank check was paid & the recipient got the funds. Call up the bank and find out who the recipient was. Generally it can only be cashed by the person whose name is on it - the original business partner to whom it was intended. It is unlikely to be cashed by the attorney, unless he misrepresented the facts to the bank and got the funds. My question is how could he have cashed it without the original bank check? The other possibility is your mom lost this check, went to the bank and requested them to cancel this and reissue a fresh banker's check and give it to the business partner - in which case the check you had was worthless. You would need to work with the bank and ask them for details. However without the details of the original bank check that you found, it would be difficult for the bank to help you.

negative: Is this a USA bank to a USA bank transaction?  If so, it will clear in one to two business days.  Once cleared, the landlord cannot stop pay it.  He can, however, dishonestly claim it was a fraudulent check and attempt a chargeback. If you want absolute certainty the money will not be recalled, go to the landlord's bank and cash the check as a non-customer.  You will have to pay a small fee, but you will walk out with cash.  I suggest you take a photocopy of the check, and staple your receipt to it as evidence that the check was cashed for any impending legal proceedings.

negative: ACH transfers are reversible and traceable. So what's stopping them is the ease and the speed with which they would be caught. When you give a check - you have to provide some information to the payee so that they could cash it. You can't withhold the bank or the account number - how would they charge you? So it has to be on it, and if it is on it - it can be put on any other (fake) check. That is why checks come also with your signature, and are always available for you to inspect when they're cashed. If you notice something out of the ordinary (check you didn't give? ACH transfer you didn't authorize?) on your statement - it is your responsibility to notify the bank within X period of time (60 days, I think) of the statement, and it will be dealt with. So the best way to protect yourself would be to keep an eye on your account and verify that the transactions that you see are all authorized, and do it frequently. Keeping large amounts of cash on your checking account is never a good idea, regardless. Also, since checks are inherently unsafe - try to only give checks to people you trust, and use bill-pay or credit cards with anyone else.

negative: Actually What you Can do here, Deposit the money to someones account who has an Account in abroad and Linked to Master Card.  Or Another option is You can take help from two banks Standard Chartard or HSBC, they provide  RFCD Account, which is a Dollar Account and International Cards which you can use in abroad.

negative: Several possibilities come to mind: Several online currency-exchange brokers (such as xe.com and HiFx) offer very good exchange rates and no wire transfer fees (beyond what your own bank might charge you).  Get French and American accounts at banks that are part of the Global ATM alliance: BNP Paribas in France and Bank of America in the USA.  This will eliminate the ATM fee. Get an account at a bank that has branches in both countries.  I've used HSBC for this purpose.

negative: "To answer length validity and security implications of draft checks issued and negotiated within the United States, I am heavily addressing the common erroneous assumptions of where the funds sit while they're ""in"" a draft check and how to get them out. Tl;Dr The existing answers are incomplete and in some ways dangerously misleading. Jerry can still be potentially defrauded by Tom, and even if the check is legitimately drawn and negotiable, Jerry may still experience delayed access to the funds. The funds sit in an account held by the issuing bank. As long as the bank has sufficient funds, the check does. However, there are significantly more factors that go into whether a check will be returned unpaid (""bounce""). If I hand you $5000 in cash, will you give me $5000 in cash? Probably, and you'd probably be pretty safe. How about I give you a $5000 draft check, will you give me $5000 in cash without doing anything except looking at it to verify the check? I hope not (Cash America sure wouldn't) but people sell expensive goods with the ""same as cash"" attitude. Remember: The only non-cash form of payment which cannot somehow be held, reversed or returned unpaid in the U.S. without consent of the receiving party is a payment order (a.k.a wire transfer)! The draft check is ""as good as cash"" in the sense that the money for a draft check is withdrawn from your account before the check is negotiated (deposited). This does NOT mean that a draft check will not bounce, so Jerry is NOT as secure in handing the goods to Tom as if Tom had handed him cash, as it is still a check. Jerry's bank will not receive the funds for Tom's draft check for an average 3 to 5 business days, same as a personal check. Jerry will probably have access to the first $5000 within two business days... provided that he deposits the draft check in person at his bank's branch or in a bank-owned ATM. In the United States, Regulation CC governs funds availability. Regarding official, draft, or tellers checks: ""If the customer desires next-day availability of funds from these checks, [your bank] may require use of a special deposit slip.""  Mobile deposit availability in the U.S. is NOT regulated in this way and will likely be subject to a longer hold on more, if not all, of the check! Draft checks, don't, as a habit, ""bounce"" in the colloquial sense of ""returned for insufficient funds."" This is because they are prepaid and drawn upon a financial institution's account. Banks are insolvent far less frequently than other businesses or individuals. Draft checks, tellers checks, official checks, bank checks, etc CAN, however, be returned unpaid if one of the following is true: As an aside: an institution is not obligated to honor a stale dated check, but may do so at its discretion. If you have a personal check outstanding for over 6 months, it may still clear and potentially overdraw your account. In this case, contact your bank ASAP to process a reversal. The depositing bank mis-scans the check and the issuing bank refuses the resulting data. I have seen systems mis-read which data field is which, or its contents. Also, there is the possibility the image if the check will be illegible to the issuing bank. The draft check has been cancelled (stop paid). This can happen if:  a) The check was fraudulently bought from the issuing bank using Tom's account  b) Tom has completed an indemnification agreement that the check was lost or otherwise not used for its intended purpose, without fraud having occurred against Tom c) The draft check is escheated (paid to the state as unclaimed property). This case is a subset of case 1, but will lead to a different return reason stamped on the (image replacement document of) the check. The draft check was never any good in the first place. Because of the perception that draft checks are as good as cash (they're not but are a lot better than personal checks), forgery and attempted fraud is shockingly common. These aren't actually underwritten by a real bank, even if they appear to be. The only money ""in"" them is what the fraudster can get out of you. Jerry did not properly endorse the check before presenting it for deposit or otherwise negotiating it. In my time in banking, I most commonly saw cases 3 and 4. Unlike most counterfeit cash, case 3 will fool Jerry and Jerry's teller. Tom gets an immediate payout (a car, a wire transfer, a payday loan, etc) and Jerry's bank doesn't know the check isn't valid until they call the alleged issuing bank to verify its negotiability, or in the case of smaller checks into lower-risk accounts, it is simply returned unpaid as fraudulently drawn. To conclude: Call the alleged issuing bank's verification line before handing over the goods, always properly endorse your deposits, and address what happens if one does not receive or collect on prompt payment in your contracts."

negative: "Checks (in the US, anyway) are only good for six months after they have been written. After that. under the US Uniform Commerical Code they are considered ""stale checks"" and banks need not accept them. My experience is that they generally won't -- but you probably shouldn't count on that, either when figuring out whether to try depositing an old check or figuring out how much cash you need to keep in your checking account to cover recent stale checks. The check you now hold is certainly a statement of intent to pay you and thus is a useful document to supplement other evidence that they still owe you the money -- but since checks can be cancelled and/or a replacement check may have been issued, its value for that purpose may be limited. You can try depositing it and see what happens. If that doesn't work (or you don't want to bother trying it) you can contact the retirement plan, point out that this check went uncashed, and ask them to send you a replacement. If they haven't already done so (you might want to check your own records for that), there shouldn't be any problem with this. (Note: Many business checks have a statement printed on them that they're only good for 90 days or so. If yours does, you can skip trying to cash it; just contact the retirement plan offices.)"

negative: You don't.  When you get to Japan, use your ATM card to withdraw local currency.  My bank (ETrade) doesn't charge me int'l fees.

negative: Several options: Banks - ask in the branches near to you if any of them would do that. They generally only service their account members, but if you smile and talk nicely to the tellers they might do that for you. It may involve some nominal commission. Check cashing places - they're everywhere, and they carry large denomination bills. They will probably do that, but will likely charge a commission. Money orders - if you don't want to give a personal check, buy a money order at the post office, and dump the cash on them. It costs a nominal fee ($1.60 at USPS).

negative: "Once upon a time (not all that long ago), British cheques used to say something like ""Pay to the order of ..,,,, or bearer the sum of ...,..""  (emphasis added) and could be cashed by anyone unless the cheque-writer drew two parallel lines in the upper left corner of the cheque. These lines converted the instrument into a crossed cheque which could only be deposited into a bank account of the payee; a bearer of the cheque could not walk into the bank and waltz out with the cash equivalent. Perhaps British banks no longer use this styling (Indian banks still do) but if that cheque for 60k is not a crossed cheque, it better be sent securely with lots of insurance. An uncrossed cheque is the same as cash since it can be cashed by anyone. That being said, I am with @mhoran_psprep in thinking that all this is just a scam with the OP (mug) being asked to send 3600 bucks to ""girlfriend""  (scammer) to cover the cost of sending the check with full insurance, and when the check arrives and is deposited by OP into his bank, it will turn out to be a dud, and ""girlfriend"" will be long gone.  The description of how the girlfriend signed a contract for 90k and received 60k of this amount upfront, but in the form of a check payable to boyfriend (!) OP reeks of scam; is this scenario realistic?  In the past, I  have received offers (usually from Nigeria) from ""women"" wanting to be my girlfriend, and I am sure that such offers will continue to come in the future...."

negative: One way you can accomplish this is on a cruise ship.  Most cruise ships have casinos, and most will allow you to sign out chips at the casino cage.  You can then exchange the chips for cash.   The chips that were signed for are resolved as room charges.  Those room charges can be charged to a CC.  Those signed for chips are rolled into the total room charges and are thus not treated as a cash advance.   The cost of the cruise not with standing, you could earn money in that form.  Step off the boat, deposit cash in the bank, and send a check to the CC company. All that being said, it is an cheap and safe way to get cash while you are traveling in that method.

negative: One way is to wire transfer large amounts. If you transfer $5,000 at one go, that $50 fee works out to 1%, same as the $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal (and ATM fees, hidden and explicit, tend to be higher than $5).  The downside is exchange rate risk (taking more money at one go exposes you to that day's rate, good or bad, vs taking it in multiple chunks). If you're American, you also have to report large transfers and foreign balances on your taxes. Shopping around for a good home bank (with low wire & foreign ATM fees), is quite important.

negative: I am assuming that you are talking about US Savings Bonds: Here is a page that talks about maturity dates of US Savings bonds. If They aren'tSavings bonds but are another type ofUS Government Bond Assuming they are Savings bonds, here is information regarding redeeming of bonds. How do I redeem my EE/E Bonds?  Electronic bonds:     Log in to Treasury Direct and follow the directions there. The cash amount can be credited to your checking or savings account within one business day of the redemption date.  Paper bonds    You can cash paper EE/E Bonds at many local financial institutions. We don't keep a list of banks that redeem bonds, so check with banks in your area. What will I need to redeem a paper bond? Before taking in the bonds to redeem them, it's usually a good idea to check with the financial institution to find out what identification and other documents you'll need.   When you present your paper bonds, you'll be asked to show your identity. You can do this by being a customer with an active account open for at least 6 months at the financial institution that will be paying the bonds, or presenting acceptable identification such as a valid driver's license if the >redemption value of the bonds is less than $1,000. If you are not listed as the owner or co-owner on the bond, you'll have to show that you >are entitled to cash in the bond.  The treasury direct website also discusses converting bonds, rules regarding using them for education, how often they are credited with interest

negative: I would go to the bank and just express the concern that the check sent to you might not fully clear. You don't want to spend it until you're sure it cleared. I'd ask for a manager to tell you when it will clear, then confirm after that date that it's cleared, with the same guy.  Perhaps someone in the industry can explain how long the bank has before deciding the check is bad. 10 days? 2 weeks? Really, it should either clear or bounce by the second night.  I'd not risk doing this for anyone. Anyone I know personally can cash their own check, and I'd not get involved with anyone I don't know on a financial matter like this. EDIT - See Littleadv comment below. Good checks clear fast, a forged check has time for the victim to go to the bank and challenge the signature and cashing of the check. The victim can have 60 days to do this. That's the issue, I am wrong, the bank manager couldn't confirm the check was good so soon.

negative: "The wire is probably the quick way to go. There may be a lower cost method through an international bank like Citi or HSBC. If you are a US resident or have a ""substantial presence"" in the United States, the IRS may be interested in the origins of your money."

negative: "I have checked with Bank of America, and they say the ONLY way to cash (or deposit, or otherwise get access to the funds represented by a check made out to my business) is to open a business account. They tell me this is a Federal regulation, and every bank will say the same thing.  To do this, I need a state-issued ""dba"" certificate (from the county clerk's office) as well as an Employer ID Number (EIN) issued by the IRS. AND their CHEAPEST business banking account costs $15 / month. I think I can go to the bank that the check is drawn upon, and they will cash it, assuming I have documentation showing that I am the sole proprietor. But I'm not sure.... What a racket!!"

negative: A USD bank draft from any of the major Canadian banks is a good solution. They clear quickly in the U.S. I use them frequently and have never had a problem depositing them in a U.S. bank account.  If you carry more than $10k across the border, even as a cheque, be sure to declare it.

negative: You can remotely close the account and transfer the money out to your account in home country. If you have netbanking you can also setup remittance service to your country

negative: A non-cash transaction will not be a problem. The bank will have to fill out federal paperwork if there are large amounts of cash involved.  This is to stop the underground economy.  This can even extend to non-banks. If you were to walk into a car dealer or some other stores and hand them a bag  of cash they will also report it. You can do what you propose without having to transfer any money between accounts. Your girlfriend can put the furniture and landscaping on her credit card, or write checks to the stores or companies. Based on the number of questions on this site regarding how to transfer funds between banks and accounts, the mechanics of the transfer is the hard part. Resist the urge to use cash to make the transfer. That will require paperwork. Many people find that the old standard of using checks to transfer funds is easy, safe and quick.

negative: You could get a prepaid Visa card. You don't need a bank account and at least here in Australia you just buy them over the counter at the post office. I believe the U.K. has a similar card: Travel Money Card Plus from the Post Office.  The card requires a UK passport or driving license. Other European countries may have similar prepaid cards but may also require resident status and electronic identity / credit inquiry.

negative: "Depending on how the check was made out, you may be able to file a DBA (""doing business as""), which would give you the business name locally.  Then open an account under that name and deposit the check. Or simply go back to the customer and say ""hey, I don't have yhe company bak account open yet; could I exchange this check for one made out to me personally?"" That's how I've been handling hobby income under a company name. (I really do ned to file that DBA!)"

negative: I just tried doing that on my PP which is in the Netherlands, I have added a USD bank account (from my dutch bank) and they sent the verification amount in Euros, I called the bank and wonder why they didn't let me choose account currency they said it's not possible and if I cashout Dollars that I have in my PP (cause we usually do international business so we set it to dollars) it will be changed to Euros, So we decided to keep the dollars in account to pay our bills instead of getting ripped off by PayPal in xchange rates.