Take a look at your budget.

You're looking to spend an additional $2000 / month and then you're on the hook for maintenance and repairs. Does your budget have $2k a month plus utility increase plus maintenance without compromising other goals?

If you can rent a comparable home for $2000 it may make sense to rent vs buy unless you're committed to the area for a long long time.

Taking loans doesn't help your credit.

Paying your loan back per the terms of your agreement helps your credit score.

In your situation where you have thousands in collections a loan isn't going to be a magic bullet.

Borrowing from your 401k is the worst thing you can do in a down market. That means you'll liquidate your holdings which when you 'pay the loan' you'll re-buy plus after tax interest at a potentially different price.

If you can't afford a cheap car and are going to need to buy and maintain an interlock device along with an SR22 insurance plan then I'm not sure you can afford a car and putting it on a credit card (which isn't possible most places) is just leading you down a slippery slope.

>If I completely cash out both, I'd lose ~$1300 in surrender charges and have ~$16K.

Are you sure?

RIRA basis is yours tax/penalty free. Earnings will be taxed as ordinary income plus a 10% gross penalty.

TIRA will be 10% on all distributions plus it's taxed as ordinary income.

Your math on the $1300 sounds like you've got hte 10% penalty from RIRA earnings and the whole TIRA distribution. You arne't considering the tax portion (which is going to be larger).

Florida auto insurance rates are something like 60% higher than the national average because of no fault laws and rampant abuse of medical cost coverage based on laws. Outside of shopping around there's not much to be done.

It's pretty common for a teaser rate to get folks in the door and then hit them with 20% because insurers know that most folks won't shop around every 6 months.

Understood. Thanks for clarifying. That also makes the mortgage math ~2x my reference.

Check in on your planned budgets for medical expenses, furnishings, all the items above and then consider if you need to broaden your budget buckets in other categories.

Are you sure this is an all inclusive budget? I see (even with the mortgage/$900 to savings/$500 to IRA) $4k in expenses vs almost $8k in income.

Any consideration here isn't going to be effective if you don't have all of your expenses in here. Clothing, shopping, entertainment, vacations, gifts, irregular expenses like auto registration/tires, new phones, the occasional event yadda yadda. It all adds up.

Is $1000 a feasible mortgage amount? At prevailing property tax / insurance rates/ mortgage rates that will cover about a $125k mortgage. Not sure if that will buy much where you are but I know here that would not be feasible.

As a whole, one's problems often seem insurmountable but when parsed through there is usually a set of solutions that are achievable, measurable, and reproduceable.

It seems semantic but you never use the active tense in describing your situation. Everything happens TO you and you accept 0 accountability for WHY your loans have defaulted, why you're rejected for jobs, why you're in your situation. Certainly bad things happen to good people often but rarely can one accept no liability for the bed they've made. Become an active conductor of your own life and get milestone A to lead to B to lead to C.

You describe no details about what your specifics are and as such no one can help you but step 1 from years of therapy is to get over your wallowing, accept responsibility and decide if you're going to roll over or if you are going to control what you can control/improve. I wish you luck.

If you're being extended a >9% rate from a lender I'd be bailing on them ASAP. That's a bit of a joke even in today's mortgage market.

2009 the google machine says. Making me feel old.

What is the loan term (30 years or 15) and what is your interest rate?

For a $96,500 loan to end up at $800 a month before taxes you're talking about 9.375% on a 30 year or 5.75% on a 15 year.

That's a very niche 'benefit' but I've used discover for a decade+ and they're fine (no bank is good. Fine is as good as it gets). I've never once called customer service which to me is exactly how customer service should work... everything is accessible from their web portal/app.

Tax free is better than taxed in a vacuum and no negative returns is better than the option for losses but you aren't in a vacuum. You gain those tax benefits and stability at the expense of skimmed gains and expenses.

The 'no losses' thing operates because your funds will have enough returns in good years for the IUL company to skim profits, pay the salesman, pay for marketing, licensing, bonding, an office, advertising, registration / accounting and THEN pay you some portion of gains even during down years. They aren't doing anything special that you cannot do yourself with enough of an investment window.

Walt Disney also died with a modern equivalent of > $1billion dollars. I can't speak to the value for him but even if this was his best path it has 0 bearing on you or I. This logic is akin to saying 'I use the same deoderant as LeBron James, why am I not a basketball legend?!' /s

>I was wondering what's the best option to save as much of my savings?

You can keep all of your savings by dropping out and living under a bridge but that isn't really what you're after here.

You can comply with the request or not. Manipulating or excluding financial data for your benefit is fraud. Fraud isn't a good thing to do.

Your problem isn't financial. Your problem is behavioral and manifesting in your finances. Go seek professional help. When you know you don't want to do a thing but do it knowing you'll regret that is a mental schism that you can bridge with behavioral therapy, drugs, cognitive treatments, etc.

Talk to your therapist and see a psychiatrist. This is a mental health issue.

I haven't seen the prospectus/don't know OPs end game but for a vast vast majority of people it is not the most efficient path to wealth building or insurance over any timeline.

Someone will almost certainly sell you an IUL policy and will certainly sell you AS MUCH AS YOU WANT (because you'll be putting their kids through college).

Whether you should buy it or not is the bigger question.

Call back.

It depends on the interest rate of the loan and also what you expect in terms of depreciation/fuel savings by changing cars.

If you owe (for extreme example) $15k more than the truck is worth but are paying .9% interest then the 'hit' already came and you'd be better served making payments on this while aggressively tackling your high interest debt. Reducing fuel costs is great but even if you drive 1500 miles a month and go from 15 mpg to 30 at $4 a gallon you're talkking $200 a month which is potentially less than you'd be paying in interest on $15k on credit cards.

Do some research.

With tires the issue is that you pay a fixed rate for mount, balance, and disposal that is a pretty healthy portion of the cost of hte tire.

Buying a more expensive tire with a longer treadlife / durability to withstand road hazards might be a bigger bill on day 1 but if you get 2 extra years out of a set of michelins vs nokians was the extra $250 on a $800 worth it?

Personally I find the sweet spot is usually in the middle. Cooper touring tires have a great reputation and while michelins are lightyears better in terms of noise and snow performance the price tag is steep.

That's an error or linking issue or if it was in person that's an error or a joke.

That just isn't where the market is right now nor was it ever. That's a $10k car if it's mint maybe.

If you can buy and sell immediately then there is no downside and you should max it out as it's free money.

If you're required to hold for some period or there are strings then it depends on what those strings are.

Name and ZIP are used for marketing purposes and almost exclusively to sell your information and not for any validation at all.

Outside of gas pumps I've never gotten pushback for declining or when told 'we need it to proceed' giving them '44444'.

Very well put.

>Should I be investing my down payment or have it in cash, CDs, or Treasuries?

I don't want to crush your dreams on supporting a million dollar home with a $100k income but considering your timeline is likely many years out investing your down payment likely serves the best growth potential. Certainly there is risk involved but the length of time is likely great enough that you can weather ups and downs before needing liquidity.