So, let me start by saying I work full time, I've just started going back to school (online) and I have two children, 3 and 2 years old. I make about $60,000 but am heavily taxed due to a lot of my pay coming from commission. Due to many poor financial choices in my past I have about $13k in credit/loan debt.
For the past year or so I have cut my spending to almost zero and I feel so much more confident in my ability to manage my money. The problem, is that even with little to no spending on really anything outside of necessities, I feel as though I am drowning. My CC/loan payments total up to about $400 for the MINIMUM payments on two credit cards and a loan and it feels like this debt is just never going away, I have no money left over to save for even an emergency fund which is becoming scarier and scarier as time goes on and again that's just from paying rent/bills/groceries.
I only have about $17k in my 401k but I am getting to the point where I feel as though it would be better to use that money to wipe out a good chunk of my debt so I can finally start saving money, get a good emergency fund going, and then maybe throwing the extra money into a Roth or Index fund or something instead of paying the minimum on my credit cards for what feels like an eternity. Am I crazy here? My biggest fear is that if I don't get this debt paid off soon, something could happen and I have no emergency fund/savings to pull from because of my dumb mistakes and a ridiculous $400/mo going towards debt rather than savings.
I know taking out a loan on the 401k is an option as well but I feel it would be more helpful to get as much as I can by pulling it out directly because I would be able to pay off a larger chunk of debt.
As far as getting another job I don't have anyone that can watch my kids around the clock like that, not for free and definitely not for what I can afford. I hate that I'm in this predicament but I'm starting to feel as though it's my only option... Thank you

Hi, this is my first post on this sub, and I'm not totally sure how it all works (also true for Reddit as a whole). I work at a major department store that has store credit cards. We usually need to meet a certain quota of applications everyday, and on this particular day (Around December 2023), we hadn't gotten a single credit. This made my managers go around and try to pressure the employees to apply for a card so they could meet their quota. I was asked multiple times and sort of surrounded at one point by coworkers basically begging me to apply. Since it was the holiday season and I was very tired + had school the next day, I agreed to apply in exchange for going home early. For some context, I had turned 18 in October of that year, and was still a high schooler. I applied for the card, and got rejected due to a lack of credit (something I found out through the mail later). A few months passed, and I just sort of wallowed in misery about my stupid choice, but I recently took a required ethics training, and it was mentioned briefly that situations like these where managers/supervisors coerce employees into applying for cards was strictly forbidden. I've been thinking about the situation, and was wondering if I had any power to lodge a complaint about the situation. It feels unfair to me, even though I accepted the 'reward' (leaving 45 minutes early). I was just wondering how to proceed from here, and if there is anything I should know. It's just making me anxious knowing I'll have that mark on my credit for 7 years over something I think was dubious. I understand it was a bad decision on my part, but I'm wondering if there's still anything I can do.

I (28f), my husband (31m), our son(1m), my SIL(29f let’s call her Tee), and my BIL(19m let’s call him Jay) all live just moved in a house a little over a month ago. We all agreed to split the rent. My husband and I rightfully take up 2/4 of rent cost because that’s fair. My husband and I have been paying all other bills/utilities.
For some additional context my BIL(we’ll call him Jay) failed his senior year of high school last year as my MIL(Call her Vee is a single parent with a sponsor as a coparent we’ll call him Bee) was traveling for work and wasn’t able to fully focus on Jay’s schooling ect. Jay loves video games a lot and had been playing video games instead of doing schoolwork including instances of my MIL taking away the devices and him sneaking them back. Tee, who until the last 4 years pretty much raised him and at the time lived 4/5 hours away, took his game console from him only for my Bee to buy him a PC instead.
My husband has been wanting to step in and help for a while to kind of act as a “father figure” for Jay. I convinced my Vee to allow us to take over and get him through his second senior year, with lots of pressure from Bee and Tee. The PC came with him as he needed it for school. Despite Tee, Vee, and I protesting that he won’t stay focused. We made an agreement he sends his grades to my husband and does chores and he can have play his video games when he’s not working, weekends and breaks for school. Well Jay will be graduating this year at the end of the month.

Over the weekend Tee and I drove to Vee’s home, who lives a couple hours away, for Mother’s Day. It was about 11am, Tee had just gotten off work as she works 3rd shift and I slept in a bit as I had a late night with my 1yo. Jay doesn’t go as he had to work that night and my husband left ahead of us with the baby as he had other things to do earlier that day. I ask Jay to do dishes and take the trash out before we leave and before he goes to work as we were running . We come home later and neither was done. Jay says he didn’t hear me say it. My husband tells him it’s cool do it when he gets home. Everyone goes to bed as we’d all been gone all day and Jay starts on his chores. 

Monday morning Vee calls asking Tee insisting that she goes to Jay’s school to check him out as there’s only a few weeks left of school and Jay has finished all schoolwork. I know the issues that we’ve had this semester including an instance of Jay showing grades from another semester so that he can keep his gaming privileges for the weekend as per our agreement with him. Him missing days due to having the wrong days for a school break and him lying to us saying he didn’t need to go to his classes in the morning(my husband called the school and it was a blatant lie). So it’s safe to say I think it’s a bad idea as he can still be failed for missing too many days.

Tee loses it because she’d gotten up later in the night and saw him up on his game and the task/chores weren’t done and she’d had to tell him to do them at around 3 am. She’d also woken up around 8 am and he hadn’t gotten up for school so she’d had to also wake him up for school(my husband had to do this multiple times last week as well and he had an important test). She says he needs to stay in school. I tell MIL it’s fine but my only worry is his tardies and absences. Vee calls the school and confirms Jay is good to go. They say yes. So now I’m like ok cool. 

My SIL calls FIL and starts ranting at him about what BIL did the night before and having to wake him for school. He says he feels like we(SIL and I) were jumping on Jay and treating him like a kid, which I can see that. I tell him no the same task/chores he does I do as well besides the trash. I just don’t have to be told as if I see something needs to be done and have time I do it. I also cook, I do grocery/supplies shopping for the entire house and my husband and I pay all utilities. He just continues to say well he pays rent there too. I get angry and just say well we pay everything else. He continues trying to talk over me and reiterating how Jay is an adult. He also starts playing the age card making it seem like because he’s older i need to respect him and just listen and not talk back. I let him talk and he’s just saying the same things over again about Jay being an adult and I just say “well you buy him food and other supplies then.” He then decides that he wants Jay to move out. I just need to know if I’m the AH here? Because I’ve been thinking I could have handled the conversation better with my FIL.

Has anyone seen this before? I received 3 transactions of 200 dollar apple gift cards. They are in my email account. I opened my Walmart account and saw the the transactions so the emails are Walmart generated. The credit card used is not mine though. I can't wrap my head around what's going on. Does anyone know what's going on? I looked at credit Karma to make sure I'm not missing any credit card, and I have all active cards.

I tip my sons teachers and social worker a hundred dollar gift card at the end of every year. is this weird? one of the other parents told me I should not do this. what do you guys think?

Hey,
They got my CC details, address, phone number, email, and bought a bunch of tickets to a Baseball game.
It's a work CC, and I dont do that many purchases with it, and its also quite a new card. Where is this information commonly leaked out? Would it be a payment service that is hacked, so when I purchased something online? Or could it be malware (im running a scan now). Just trying to prevent this happening again.

Seller from Lazada has just cancelled my order stating they couldn’t fulfill it (insufficient qty ata). I paid them using Unionbank credit card. Based on your experience, how many working days did it take it for the refund to reflect in your CC? Thanks!

"Asking for a friend after recent opinions showed me a different way to deal with these crooks."
They've used dabble on and off for over 6 months. provided all verification upon sign-up and has lost quite a bit since then, withdrawn various amounts but significantly in the red all-time. Never had an issue previously but they've paid out all withdrawals prior, withdrew $515 overnight and woke up in the morning to this:
This is a courtesy email in regards to your account. We are needing to further verify your account, as part of our Advance Customer Due Diligence in relation to accounts with Dabble.
We need you to verify the following:
Asking for sensitive info such as full bank statements, pictures of all credit/debit cards/passport/medicare/ID all with selfies while holding them.
After back and forth they've sent this as the right to withholding winnings.

12. Fraud

12.1 We reserve the right to withhold deposited funds and/or winnings from settled bets should we determine that a deposit or withdrawal has been made fraudulently. Any matters of inappropriate or fraudulent use of any deposit method will be reported to the relevant authority. Your Account may also be closed. 12.2 Dabble Sports may employ third party technologies to track and store technical information on the device that Customers choose to use. Customers accept that this data may be used to reach decisions on investigations where Accounts have been operated in a manner which is contrary to these Rules or applicable laws, including but not limited to Account takeover, bonus or betting abuse, multiple Account operations, and payment fraud. 12.3 Dabble Sports reserves the right to close the Accounts of, and void any or all bets made by any person, group of people or corporation in an attempt to defraud Dabble Sports. 12.4 Dabble Sports may periodically review Accounts to monitor any activity that it might consider unusual. Dabble Sports reserves the right to suspend an Account pending an investigation, without notice. 12.5 Dabble Sports does not permit beneficial owners that are not the registered account holder, or any arrangements or schemes that do or may facilitate this. Where we reasonably suspect a third party beneficial owner, we reserve the right to close the Account and/or void any resulted or pending bets on your Account.12. Fraud
Just wanted to get some clarity about this, is this even enforceable? How can you claim fraud after 6 months of account usage?
TLDR : Blocked account and withdrawal requesting sensitive info, now citing fraud when questioned about it
What does everyone here think? I've suggested my opinions but i'm not a lawyer let alone trained in anything.

Hello!
I have two hotel stays happening in June and August that I would like to prepay right now. But I’d like to split the charges to two different cards (unequally, in case that matters), partly because my credit limits aren’t that big (university student) and partly to be able to take advantage of two 10% cashback offers on one of my cards that expire in a week and cap out around ~$500 each (planning to charge the remainders for both reservations on a different card). I know Sertifi is the credit card authorization portal but I’ve never used it before so I wanted to ask if authorizing two charges through it is possible. Many thanks in advance for any insight!

I have HDFC millennia (LTF) and TATA NUE+ (paid, took it for upi mostly and is worth).
Credit score CIBIL 770+ and Experian 740+ (4 months credit history, if it matters). I always keep my utilisation below 30% and Pay my complete card bills on time.
I have a salary of 50k+ (did not receive my increment letter as of now). I am 22 (if that matters).
Utilisation is mostly shopping, food and upi but from now looking to spend in more categories.
Mostly looking into cashback(ltf) cards but let me know of all the good options out there.

I have below cards and I could use your help in cancelling or getting new cards.
Credit Cards:
ICICI - Amazon Pay Credit Card - Lifetime Free.
ICICI - HPCL Coral Credit Card - Lifetime Free.
ICICI - Coral Credit Card - Rupay - Lifetime Free.
Axis - Flipkart Credit Card - Annual Charges.
Debit Cards:
Canara - Platinum Debit Card.
State Bank - Debit Card.
Indusind - Debit Card.
ICICI - Debit Card
HDFC - Debit Card
I do bill payments and UPI most of the time. I barely use any cash.
I feel like I need to organise my cards. Please suggest me on how I can maximize cashback.

I guys i am new to credit card and looking for maximise the value. I have Axis Bank Airtel credit card. How is Axis Bank Grabdeals? Should i buy vouchers from their portal or Gyftr?

New boiler installation coming in the next couple of weeks with a local tradesmen. If I pay an invoice with a credit card is it a purchase or a transfer? Can I even go onto an app for a credit card and pay someone? Never paid a tradesmen this way before. MBNA offering 0% on purchases for 21 months so would like to pay the £3.5k balance on this.

The payment gateway, which acts as a digital middleman when you make an online purchase, makes sure your credit card information is secure and gets to the appropriate locations. This is the process in detail:
You Make a Purchase: Suppose you choose to make a purchase while browsing a website. You input your credit card number or other payment method along with additional payment data. Security Through Encryption: Your payment information is taken and encrypted by the payment gateway as soon as you click "buy". This indicates that your information is encrypted to prevent unauthorized parties from viewing it. Transmission to the Payment Processor: Subsequently, the payment processor receives the encrypted payment details. This business assists in overseeing safe payment processing between your bank and the retailer (the store you are purchasing from).
Checking with Your Bank: In order to determine whether the transaction can proceed, the payment processor then gets in touch with your bank, which is the one that issued your credit card.
The Bank's Choice: After reviewing the request, your bank determines whether to allow or deny the transaction depending on many factors such as available cash and security checks.
Reaction to the Payment Gateway: The bank replies to the payment gateway via the payment processor, indicating whether or not the transaction is approved.
Merchant Gets the News: The payment gateway then tells the merchant (the online store) whether your payment was approved or declined.
Finalizing the Transaction: The funds transfer from your bank to the merchant's bank account, if all goes according to plan. This is not instantaneous and may require some processing time.
Verification for You: Finally, the website will confirm that your order was placed and processed.
When you shop online, payment gateways ensure that everything runs quickly and safely behind the scenes, ensuring that your transactions are safe and successful.

I went in to a dentist for the first time in about 3 years today and got X-rays. I was told I needed 3 extractions, 3 root canals, possibly another extraction, and then MORE work afterwards. In total they estimated 28k full price, 17k with their "discounted" plan.
I am seeking employment and my mother recently applied to have me on her insurance but that's not guaranteed, and I just very recently got approved for med-ical, but don't know what steps to take next.
I have heard dental schools are a good cheap option but will they even cover such extensive work? How will I get into contact with them and schedule work? Is this worth taking a credit card out and going into debt for the rest of my life for? (obviously not really something reddit can answer, but any insight into this option?)
I know this could kill me eventually and it causes me such excruciating pain sometimes I struggle to get out of bed, but I feel stuck and I have no idea what to do.
Any insight or advice would be appreciated. Will provide photos of X-rays when I get them.

Hello,
I was just wondering if anyone has been through a similar situation and what they did
About 2 weeks ago, I placed an order at Dominos Pizza in Nuselská through their app that was meant to be collected and paid at the restaurant, the bill was 308 CZK, and I paid it using my card, the pizza was okay nothing impressive. However, when I reached home I realized that the restaurant had charged me 3008 CZK. The restaurant was already closed at that time, so I decided to call them the next morning. I believe it’s a simple human mistake and they would just simply reverse the transaction, but when I called them they said that the manager is not there but they will forward the complaint to him and took down my details, they didn’t call me back however and simply asked me to write an email. I wrote the email, and informed my bank about this they said they would look into it. Fast forward 2 weeks nothing had been done, when I sent dominos a follow up email they said they are looking into it but I should have just contacted my credit card company. I did however already contact my bank and nothing has worked out so far.
I do have an email from dominos on the same day and time amounting to 308 CZK from the same day for collection of my pizza.
Should I continue waiting as these kind of things take longer, take further action or just accept it?
It may not be a lot of money but it goes a long way as a student

What banks and credit cards do you have (which institution)? What about registered accounts like TFSA and RRSP?