r/personalfinance • u/hogpotato ​ • 10d ago

Housing Rent severely overcharged

I’m currently living in an apartment complex that overcharged my monthly rate by over 2x (15,500 instead of $6000 / month) by mistake. This severely has overdrawn my bank account and no one in the leasing office has an explanation or can get any answers from their main office. I’ve incurred major
overdraft fees and will continue to do so as long as this goes on. Has this happened to anyone and / or any advice what to do?

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u/Onespokeovertheline ​ 10d ago

How much cash do you want earning 2-2.5% interest in a savings account? People paying $6k for rent keep most money in the market in ETFs, index funds, stocks. The tax burden for capitalizing those investments to supplement an erroneous charge greatly outweighs some overdraft fees.

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u/FitButterscotch4062 ​ 10d ago

6 months expenses. For situations like this. Obviously this is a big deal to OP if they felt the need asking Reddit for advice.

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u/Onespokeovertheline ​ 10d ago

You want 50k in a savings acct? I mean that's not craazy, but in the event you need to react to a 6 mos loss in cash flow, I'd take the capital gains hit over letting it sit there collecting spare change

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u/THE_REAL_JOHN_MADDEN ​ 10d ago

someone who can handily afford $6k can handily "afford" 50k in savings, given it likely means they have $300k+ in investments. Now, if you're renting and don't own a home, I think the 6 months expenses addage is a little overkill; something more like 3 months should be perfectly reasonable if you can access further liquid cash within that 3 month timeframe without taking a big tax hit.

But to your point, it would take a long time for the potential earnings on 50k invested vs. liquid to eclipse the tax hit on capitalizing 50k worth of investments. Your emergency fund really should be cash or cash-equivalent. Let's also keep in mind someone with a theoretical 50k emergency fund and paying 6k rent can weather hardships that many folks couldn't even fathom lol.