Maybe you can find someone to "pass" the inspection for $500.

I think it depends on the condition of the car. 95k miles and impeccably maintained, paint cared for and waxed every 6 months probably makes sense to fix.

But if the interior is falling apart, the car is showing early signs of rust, the clear coat is failing and it needs new brakes, radiator is leaking, etc, it's probably best to cut losses.

Remember the engine is just the engine. They have to unbolt everything that attaches to the old engine and bot it on to the new one.

Insulation on wire goes brittle, breaks when you bend it. All the plastic bits on cooling system are good candidate for replacement, shouldn't cost extra in labor but you need to pay for the parts. Motor mounts for sure should be changed. If it's a manual transmission inspect clutch carefully and overhaul if nearing end of life, etc, etc.

A lot of banks won't do hard pull

Bank of America

Citi

Discover

Capital One

Amex

Wells Fargo

And that's just off the top of my head. Here's another list: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/which-credit-card-companies-do-a-hard-pull-for-a-credit-limit-increase/

Unless you're applying for a mortgage in the next 3-6 months and your scores are already marginal I wouldn't stress a hard pull too much.

Why not both?

Ask your bank for $5k limit, wait a month or two, and then apply for a new card from a different bank.

Higher limit on existing cards will get you higher limit on new cards.

You need to keep balance low and ask for credit limit increase periodically.

You can also just pay off the balance early, Most banks only report your statement balance once a month.

I asked a question there 5 years ago and my post was never approved.

I just wanted to know if you could put a medeco cylinder in a baldwin lock. BTW the answer is yes.

Personally I like VTSAX or FSKAX better since thy are total market index (3000-4000 stocks)

S&P 500 is only the largest 500.

It's not a huge different to be honest because the indexes are market cap weighted. Meaning for example if all the "total market" is worth $100 billion (I'm making up numbers here) and all of Apple is worth $5.32 billion it will be 5.32% of the stock in your total market index (that percent is what Fidelity is currently showing for FSKAX).

So at the end of the day dollar per dollar S&P 500 makes up about 82% of your total market index, that's why they perform about the same.

However personally rather invest in the total market because you're getting exposure (good or bad) to thousands of other stocks.

Also I think the advice "just invest in S&P 500" is antiquated. it's not terrible advice, but the issue is say 40 years ago all these index funds didn't exist and S&P 500 was more or less the most diverse you could invest in.

ETF and mutual fund is the same thing. Use mutual fund in your retirement account and ETF in taxable. It's more tax efficient and also will avoid any possibility of wash sales (as long as you avoid Vanguard funds since they are technically the same fund)

If you have other debts with higher rates it makes sense to refinance and reduce your rate.

Doesn't sound dumb at all.

Only thing is at Fidelity (and many other such as Schwab) they'll charge you a fee around 50-75 to buy 3rd party mutual funds.

Therefore what you should do in the retirement accounts is buy a Fidelity mutual fund such as FSKAX. It's a total market fund just like VTSAX but you won't pay the fees (it's like saying McDonalds vs Burger King, sure you might light the Burger King logo better but at the end of the day it's cheap found with approx. the same nutrition)

In fact I would argue the Fidelity fund is better since the expense ratio on that particular fund is less than half of Vanguard's.

I think the main thing is planning and setting goals. Maybe contribute more to IRA instead of taxable. Does your employer have a 401k match? If so you should take advantage of the free money.

It could be the check itself or the type of account they are using, etc.

You may find you have the issue with other banks if they use similar systems to try to reduce check fraud.

I assume the message is something along the lines of "we have private info suggesting this check might not clear"

We have no idea what they are looking at.

It could be a truth in lending disclosure that includes your down payment, price of the car, and total interest assuming that you only pay the monthly minimum.

It's normal.

Standard deal will look something like $42,000 + $750 dealer fee + 7% sales tax + $750 tag/registration fee = 46,492.50

It would be even higher if they added on any sort of service plan or extended warranty.

Calculate out the balance transfer fee as an APR. It'll probably work out to roughly 3% fee = 8% APR or something like that. Cheaper than a 20% loan.

So if you have 2x 10k balances, and you reduced your 401k contribution by $10k a year that means you are on track to tackle half the debt this year, and with 0% sure you are paying a fee but the majority of your payment goes to the balance. Sounds good, you are on the right track. Sometimes it's best to look at the big picture.

Ask for a larger loan and you have the freedom to do what works best for you

You ask for $10k loan and oops the tax is $125 more and you're going back to re-do all this paperwork all for a $125 difference.

$15k sale price + 7% tax + $500 dealer fee + $750 tag fee = 17,300 out the door more or less.

minus $5k down payment = $12,300 loan. So in this case just go and ask for minimum $14k so you have the wiggle room.

Amex reports as new account. Also Amex Platinum does not have a credit limit therefore most scores will ignore it and since you don't have any other credit card they won't calculate "credit utilization" which makes up 35% of your scores.

Have them add you to non-Amex card. And if they use Amex for everything and have some old Sears card from 1998 that's siting with $0 balance it's a perfect account to add you to.

Have them add you to two older non-Amex cards that have a high limit and report a low balance.

Give it about 30-45 days to show up on your credit report.

In the meantime I recommend you go on www.annualcreditreport.com and pull all 3 reports. They'll probably ask you to mail in with 3 forms of ID. That's fine, do it. It'll help in the next step so when you apply for Discover card they can verify your name, SSN, etc with Equifax, etc.

Then I recommend you start with unsecured Discover card.

Other things could have changed in the past month since the last time they pulled your score.

Also check the date, it could be they pulled that score before you even applied for the card.

If it did drop 58 points for just an inquiry or 4 then you just need to keep adding accounts until you have a more solid credit history.

Building credit is a marathon, not a sprint, and in the long term you will benefit from opening new accounts as long as you pay in full and keep your reported balances low.

So the main thing he needs to do is find all his expenses for those years.

Because what is likely happening IRS gets a 1099 showing $150k revenue

But of that $150k he spent $100k on gas, vehicle maintenance. IRS lets you write off something like half of meals 50+ miles from home, etc.

But IRS doesn't know that. They just see $150k and send a massive tax bill for the full amount. He needs to adjust that and take all the deductions he can. This reduces the amount of tax, and then it reduces the amount of penalty and interest.

Make sure also they aren't reporting too much income IRS doesn't know about. If they say he has a tax debt they should send him the tax forms they prepare. Probably the part "Schedule C" is the main focus. Go over it with your dad and see it if makes senbse.

Taxes for what owed to whom?

Optima sounds like a truck company? What do they have to do with these taxes?

How is the utilization on the other accounts? If it's better maybe just get your self removed from the high utilization account and stay on the others.

On Tranuinion it will show "Estimated month and year that this item will be removed"

DOFD will be that date minus 7 years.

It's your legal right to have debt collectors stop contacting you.

Best thing to do is send them a letter certified mail, and make sure you keep a copy of the letter and certified tracking.

This will require you to answer the phone and ask for their address.

What does it show for date of first delinquency?

Did you pull your official credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com?

Credit monitoring sites don't show full details.