Money Saved on finance charges
Avoiding a cost (interest) isn't quite the same as income. There is no entry, nothing for you to consider for this avoided interest.  What you do have is an expense that's no longer there, and you can decide to use that money elsewhere each month.
It sounds like they want to enter you into a contract in which they are allowed to charge a flat fee for filing contingent on money saving results from a tax review service, paid in full. Like those who answered before I have no legal experience.  IRS Circular 230 defines the ethics for tax practitioners and the definition of a tax practitioner is broad enough (effective Aug 2011) to include those who are not EAs, CTRPs, CPAs as long as the person is compensated to prepare or assist in a substantial part of the preparation of a document pertaining to a taxpayer's liability for submission to the IRS. Section 10.27 Fees: (b)(2)A practitioner may charge a contingent  fee for services rendered in connection with the  Service’s examination of, or challenge to — (i) An original tax return Paragraph c defines what a contingent fee is basically a fee that depends on the specific result attained, in this case saving you money. In the section above  'Service's examination'  is an audit in plain speak.  If your 2013 return has not been submitted and you have not received a written notice for examination, H&R block can not charge a contingent fee, period. Furthermore, H&R Block cannot hold your tax documents, upon your request, they must return all original tax documents like W2s and 1099s ( they don't have to return the tax forms an employee prepared). Like I said above, I'm not a lawyer, unless I missed a key detail, I don't believe they were permitted to charge you a filing fee contingent on saving you money. There are a few factors at play here. Depending on the bank that has offered you the card there are different types of overdraft protection that may have been set up. Typically, if they attempt to run the card with no money, if one of these is in play, you will be spared any overdraft fees by the transaction charging to a designated overdraft account, usually savings, or by the transaction failing due to insufficient funds.  If you know the transaction went through, and you know there were not enough funds in the account to cover the transactions, then you have a few options. If you have overdraft protection that auto charges insufficient funds charges to a separate account, then you have nothing to worry about. If you do not, most banks offer a grace period where you have until the end of the day to zero out your account, that is to say pay the overdraft amount and bring your balance to at least $0.  If this is a charge that occurred in the past, and you have already been charged an overdraft fee, there may still be hope. I cannot speak for all banks, but I know that Chase Bank offers a once per year overdraft forgiveness, where they will get rid of the charges if you agree to bring the account out of the negative. There is a chance other banks will do the same if you call their customer service. Do I need to pay for an inspection, or am I likely to save enough money from skipping it to cover potential problems that they would have caught?  A home inspection costs hundreds of dollars.  The average is $315.  Inspections regularly catch things that cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix, e.g. a new roof or a cracked foundation.   You also might find that a home inspection is required for your mortgage.   do I need a realtor, or can I do their job myself? Unless you are a licensed realtor or you buy directly from a seller without a realtor, the fee (charged to the seller) will be the same regardless of whether you have a realtor.  The seller's realtor will share the fee with your realtor if you have one.  So you can do the work yourself (perhaps not as well), but you won't save money by doing so.   If you have a lot of flexibility in when you purchase, you could look for especially cheap properties with motivated sellers.  Arrange financing ahead of time (before you find a house), so you can close quickly.  Some sellers will give you a discounted price to finish the sale quickly.  Even small savings on the price of a house will outweigh most savings on closing costs. "Given the state of the economy, and the potential of a rough near future for us recent grads (i.e. on/off work), I would recommend holding off on large purchases while your life is in flux.  This includes both a NEW car and purchasing a house. My short answer is: you need a reliable vehicle, so purchase a used car, from a major dealer (yes this will add a fairly high premium, but easier financing), that is 4-5 years old, or more.  Barring the major dealer purchase, be sure to get a mechanic to check out a vehicle, many will offer this service for a reasonable payment.  As people point out, cars these days will run for another 100k miles.  You will NOT have to pay anywhere near $27,000 for this vehicle.  You may need to leverage your 10k for a loan if you choose to finance, but it should not be a problem, especially as you seem to imply an established credit history. In addition to this, start saving your money for the house you would like to eventually get.  We have no idea where you live, but, picking rough numbers, assuming a 2 year buy period, 20% down, and a $250,000 home, the down payment alone will require you to save ~$2,000/month starting now. Barring either of these options, max out your money to tax sheltered accounts (your Roth IRA, work 401k, or a regular IRA) asap.  Obviously, do not deplete your emergency fund, if anything, increase it.  10k can be burned through in a heartbeat. Long Answer:  I purchased a brand new car, right out of school, at a reasonable interest rate.  Like you, I can afford this vehicle, however, if someone were to come to me today (3.5 years later) and offer me the opportunity to take it back and purchase a 4-5 year used vehicle, at a 4-5 year used car price, albeit at a much higher interest rate (since I financed), it would be about a 0.02 second decision. I like my car, but, I'd like the differential cash savings between it and a reliable used car more.  $27,000 is also fairly expensive for a new vehicle, there are many, very nice vehicles, for 21-23k.  I still would not consider these priced appropriate to spend your money on them, but they exist.  However, you do very much need a reliable vehicle, and I think you should get one. On the home front, your $400 all inclusive rent is insanely cheap.  Many people spend more than that on property tax and PMI each year, so anyone who throws the ""You're throwing money away!"" line at you is blowing smoke to justify their own home purchase.  Take the money you would have spent on a mortgage, and squirrel it away.  Do your own due diligence and research the home market in your area and decide for yourself if you think home prices have bottomed and will stay there, have further to go, or are going to begin to rise.  That is a decision only you can make for yourself. I'd add a section about getting expenses under control, but you said you could save 50% of your takehome pay.  This is an order of magnitude above the average.  Good job.  Try doing 50% for 4 months, then calculate your actual amount.  Then try to beat it." Which way would save the most money? Paying of the car today would save the most money.  Would you borrow money at 20% to put it in a savings account?  That's effectively what she is doing by not paying off the car. If it were me, I would pay off the car today, and add the car payment to my savings account each month.  If the car payment is $400, that's $1,500 a month that can be saved, and the $12k will be back in 8 months. That said - remember that this is your GIRLFRIEND, not a spouse.  You are not in control (or responsible for) her finances. I would not tell her that she SHOULD do this - only explain it to her in different ways, and offer advice as to what YOU would do.  Look together at how much has been paid in principal and interest so far, how much she's paying in interest each month now, and how much she'll pay for the car over the life of the loan.  (I would also encourage her not to buy cars with a 72-month loan, which I'm guessing is how she got here). In the end, though, it's her decision. The big problem I see with this article is it does not state what the profits would be minus the licensing fees. It only states revenue, which is obviously a bad indicator of taxes owed.   Also, licensing fees are applicable in some markets. For example in markets like China that mandate a company do business under a subsidiary, licensing is a legitimate expense, considering the subsidiary might not be wholly owned by the parent company (per the country's laws).   That said, this is the UK we're talking about, so it is clearly not in that situation. I was just pointing out in some markets it is a legitimate expense. Maybe the UK could make licensing fees a non-deductible expense after a certain percentage of subsidiary income. Its a complex problem, I would be interested to see if any other jurisdictions have tackled it. "This is ""incentive financing"". Simply put, the car company isn't in the business of making money by buying government bonds. They're in the business of making money by selling cars. If you are ""qualified"" from a credit standpoint, and want to buy a $20k car on any given Sunday, you'll typically be offered a loan of between 6% and 9%. Let's say this loan is for three years and you can offer $4000 down payment and/or trade. The required monthly payment on the remaining $16k at the high end of 9% is $508.80, which over 3 years means you'll pay $2,316.64 in interest. Now, that may sound like a good chunk of change, and for the ordinary individual, it is, possibly enough that you decide not to buy today. Now, let's say, all other things being equal, that the company is offering 0.9% incentive financing. Same price, same down payment, same loan term. Your payments over 3 years decrease to $450.64, and over the same loan term you would only pay $222.97 in interest. You save over $2,093.67 in interest over three years, which for you is again a decent chunk of change. Theoretically, the car company's losing that same $2,093.67 in interest by offering this deal, and depending on how it's getting the money it lends you (most financial companies are middlemen, getting money from bond-buying investors who expect a rate of return), that could be a real loss and not just opportunity cost. But, that incentive got you to walk in their door, and not their competitor's. It helped convince you to buy the $20,000 car. The gross margin on that car (price minus direct costs) is typically 20% for the dealer, plus another 20% for the manufacturer, so by giving up the $2,000 on the financing side, the dealer and manufacturer just earned themselves 4 times that much. On top of that, by buying that car, you're committing to buy the parts for the car, a side business with even higher margins, of which the car company gets a pretty big chunk. You may even be required to use dealer service while the car's under warranty in order to keep the warranty valid, another cha-ching. When you get right down to it, the loss from the incentive financing is drowned in the gross profits they make from selling the car to you. Now, in reality, it's a fine balance. The percentages I mentioned are gross margins (EBITDASG&A - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization, Sales, General and Administrative costs; basically, just revenue minus direct cost of goods sold). Add in all these side costs and you get a net margin of only about 3.5% of revenue, so your $20k car purchase may only make the car company's stakeholders $700 on the sale, plus slightly higher net margins on parts and service over the life of the car. Because incentive financing is typically only offered through the company's own financing subsidiary, the loss isn't in the form of a cost paid, but simply a revenue not realized, but it can still move a car company from net positive to net negative earnings if the program is too successful. This is why not everyone does it, and not all at the same time; if you're selling enough cars without it, why give away money?  Typically, these incentives are offered for two reasons; to clear out old cars or excess inventory, or to maintain ground against a competitor's stronger sales numbers. Keeping cars on a lot ready to sell is expensive, and so is not having your brand driving around on the street turning heads and imprinting their name on the minds of potential customers." Are you saying that you have an account where the same form (or screen, if on line) shows interest you earn on savings, and also interest charged on a credit card balance? I've never seen such a situation. It's safe to say if the rate is over 6%, it's what they are charging you. If it's under 2%, it's what you are earning.