I’ve been applying for an Apple Card periodically over the past few months, but I keep getting rejected for some reason.
I have had a credit card that I use to pay all of my recurring purchases (~$250/mo) for close to 4 years now. I’ve never missed a payment and have a 780 credit score. I don’t understand why I keep getting denied.
Multiple Apple Store employees have told me that they were approved instantly with lower credit card balances & worse credit scores.
I’m told that I was denied because - My payment history on your accounts is too low - My payment on your revolving account(s) is too low - My TransUnion credit report doesn't have enough information about your installment trade(s) history
What does this mean? Thanks for the help!

I'll pay $25 when the referral bonuses hit if you sign up with my SoFi and they will also give you $25 for signing up. You have to open an account and then fund the account with $10. The $10 you fund goes into your SoFi checking account. Also SoFi gives you points for doing specific things and you can trade the points for cash. When you sighn up for their FREE credit monitoring service they give you an instant 1,000 points and you can immediately turn those points into $10 in your SoFi checking account. When you activate your debit card you will get $1 (100 points) when you use SoFi to send money to a friend (instantly send or receive money to anyone that has SoFi, this is how I prefer to pay you the $25 but I can use PayPal cashapp or Venmo too) and you get $1, when you link your debit card to Google or apple pay you get $1. Set up a recurring bill payment and earn yet another $1 (I actually created a fake one got the 100 points then deleted it) SoFi also offers low interest personal loans, student loans, as well as credit cards. They use AllPoint ATM Network and using them are completely free! They even reward you if you open the app everyday!! I have had Chime, Varo and many others. For me SoFi has been the absolute BEST ONLINE CHECKING AND SAVINGS I have ever had. They are spectacular!! DM me for my link!!!

I was able to get an auto loan post chapter 7 filing and before discharge as I gave up a car that was so upside down it wasn't funny. Anyways this new car came with an obvious high interest rate and payment.
My question is how long before I try and refinance to a better rate? Anyone have personal experience? 6 months? A year? Credit score is hovering around 660 at the moment if that matters.
Discharge is slated for mid July! Thanks for any information!

** I know about not falling for the recovery scams, I've been reading this reddit for the past few days coping. Will add a TLDR at the bottom, I just really want to let this out. Maybe my rambling might show patterns to people that they have seen, and they won't be subject to falling for the same thing and they may snap out of it.**
Hi all,
I already know I was stupid, I ignored many red flags blatantly. I was recently affected by a crypto romance scammer. Story as follows:
I have not dated in almost a decade, I closed my heart off to a lot of people and lost a lot of friends on the way. I have always been an introvert, but finally broke out of my depression somewhat a year and a half ago. I began self improvement, and feel a lot better now than I did 5 years ago. I live alone, I'm lonely, and just turned 27. I have my own apartment, and felt it was time to start working on different parts of life, instead of doing everything alone.
I decided to give online dating a try. I matched with a girl on Tinder, and I was the first to initiate. I messaged her, and she did not reply for a day. There were a couple sentences exchanged back and forth, and she asked for my phone number. I ended up providing it to her, since my friends always recommended to get someone off Tinder as soon as possible.
She messaged me on my phone, and we had a few back and forths on many different topics and ideas. It seemed surreal since it felt like I was clicking with her very well. This usually does not happen at all with people I meet in real life, and she was leading multiple parts of the conversations, which did not raise a flag to me. She mentioned that English was not her first language, I was ok with that because the English was written well, a few hic ups here and there in the conversation, but I chalked it up to a language barrier. It did not seem to be translated at all, she was even using well structured sentences with unique words that you do not hear day to day, which I assumed would not be translated in the normal sense (think obfuscate).
Some of the conversations we had was what we did for work, what our hobbies and goals are. Our taste in music, movies, recommendations. It seemed so normal first for a conversation. On the end of the second day, she wanted me to download telegram which was a possible red flag, I never trusted google hangouts, telegram, whatsapp due to scammers being known for using these applications. I was a bit hesitant but she wanted me to download it so she could talk to me while she was at work. I eventually agreed, we said our good nights and I went to sleep. I generally keep my guard up with people (why are they being so nice, what do they want from me?), but I ended up going with it since I was genuinely enjoying this person.
I added her on Telegram, and we were continuing our conversations from the day earlier. Said our good mornings, and talked more about goals and aspirations. She would talk to me about her childhood, and I would talk about mine. We eventually began exchanging pictures (nothing sexual), voice recordings, jokes. We talked for a week, and she began talking about how she uses AI for short term node investing to make money on the side while she was working and invested at times the AI told her to. I said cool, and continued with our normal conversations. Eventually I was beginning to get loved bombed and sweet talked to over the course of a couple weeks. I was feeling great about myself, and confident. I felt like I had a connection to them, I was mentioning her to friends and family about how awesome she was. About a week and a half in, she said she had to travel for a few weeks to a different part of the USA. Another red flag yay. Probably 5 so far?
I was super skeptical, but not enough. This girl intrigued me so much. I was sick for about a week, and she was constantly checking up on me and reminding me to eat, sleep, take my temperature, and to get up every few hours to stretch. None of my family or friends do this for me, which made me fall for her a bit more. She made me reconcile with my parents too, and my relationship with my parents is a lot better than before. She did mention before that she was very family oriented, and it opened my eyes that I should leave the past in the past, and embrace the future.
We had a heart to heart with one another one night, I don't want to go into details but she explained why she was single and why I was single, and this kind of sealed it for me I think. LOOOOTS of love bombing after this. One of the patterns I was noticing through the weeks is that she would always message me at 10 am, the good mornings and the like, and go to bed at 12 am (shift change anyone?). Never any messages before or after this time. She also facetimed me, had a quick conversation, but she claimed the connection was bad, so we ended it after a few minutes. I read this was a common thing after I got scammed. She was a real girl, I've heard her and seen her, but she is most likely just part of an operation. I even reverse image searched her on multiple different platforms, no results showed up. Insane.
She began talking talking about her crypto again, and wanted me to join her! I did not care about the money as much as I was caring about her. I wanted to start for her. She showed me how to to buy crypto, and how to put it in my wallet, and how to set up 2FA to transfer the crypto to said wallet. Seems normal so far, and we continued the next day. One of the things I noticed was that I was getting the drive to learn back, I dislike my current job. It's monotonous, boring, tedious, and this was something new! She got me back into reading, watching shows, improving on myself in different aspects of life.
The next day, she showed me how to use the browser in the wallet, to start staking crypto, and make passive income. I started with 200 USDT. I am kind of broke right now since everything costs so much and I make an OK wage. This could lead to financial freedom I thought. The website itself was fishy, poorly done, numbers had floats attached to them. Did not look professional, but I felt like I was in love and I could trust her. I know it's stupid loving someone you have not met.
After a few days of staking, I withdrew the money into my wallet. Looked legit! I made money. Not that much, but it was something. She mentioned to me how much money this makes compared to a 401k or roth IRA, seemed believable. She then showed me what app she uses for the short node investing. It was not on the app store, so I had to follow a link to download it (yay another red flag I saw and ignored on purpose). I set the app up and we said our good nights.
During the next day, she began walking me through how to use the app, how to input money from the wallet I have, including my staking if I wanted to. She sent me 20 dollars in ETH for the gas fees to send the USDT. Made me believe in her even more. I inputted about 250 USDT into the app, and we began short term node investing. I made about 100 dollars that day. Felt good. Yes I know it's fake.
The next day were serious red flags. She told me how her coworker withdrew his full 401k (40k USD) and put it into staking and short node investing, and has made a few hundred thousand dollars. I was intrigued, and she said I should do that too. I want to thank my job and bank for only letting me withdraw half, and loaning it against myself, and not letting me do a hardship withdrawal. I withdrew about 6000 USD from my 401k, sent it to my bank, and wired it to crypto. After waiting a few days for it to clear, I put it into my wallet, and into the fake exchange for short node investing.
I made about 44000 in fake money over the course of a couple days. She mentioned there's a new member reward, if I put in 10k USD in my account I get another 800 USDT free for being a new member. I mentioned that I can't, rent would be in a few days, and I needed the money for rent. She assured me that I should let my money work for me, and that I can withdraw it when I needed to for rent. Trusting this, I put my rent money into the fake exchange expecting to be able to withdraw it later since I was able to withdraw money before.
I got to about 8.5k USDT, 1.5k away for the free 800 USDT from the rewards program. She recommended me to apply for bank loans (another red flag LOL, but I was blinded). I never really built my credit at all before, only car loans and a credit card that I missed 2 20 dollar payments 4 years ago. My credit is low (640) so I could not loan out 50k from the bank like she wanted me to. The best I could do was 1.5k. I ended up getting my first credit card in a long time, it has a 500 dollar max currently and unsecured.
I did not end up taking out the loan (not yet), and I did not using any of the credit card to buy crypto with. This is when I began to believe something was wrong. There's no way I am getting scammed! She was messaging me and talking to me 15 hours a day, right? That's a lot of time investment.
Rent day was coming up, I went to withdraw my rent money from the fake exchange. I got an email stating I have to pay 5k in fees to withdraw the money because I won a lot of money.
I talked to her about it, inquiring why I could not just take out a portion of my principle I put in, without touching any of the winnings. She claimed it was for tax purposes and forgot to tell me. I half believed her. I talked to 2 friends seeing if I could loan out 5k from them. One said they will talk to their wife first, I respected their decision. They ended up saying no, I said thank you and I understood.
The other friend said sure, since I payed back a loan another friend gave me timely in the past. He tried to send it to me via cashapp, but was told to contact his bank first. I am very happy that happened. I said don't worry about it, I'll find out what to do. Didn't mention it the next day since I was still thinking.
Rent day came, and I took that 1500 loan to pay most of my rent. I still had a little extra money in my account to cover the full rent. Paying 500 dollars back a month on this loan to get it done asap, since my credit history isn't good, and I don't want to pay 30% interest. I'd rather loan from a bank if I can than mess up a friendship due to my stupidity.
I didn't talk to the girl for almost a full day, she kept trying to check up on me asking if I was ok and sending me voice messages. I went to a bar with friends and had a great time. I have 30 dollars in my bank account now, I get payed next week, I have a 1500 dollar loan with 30% interest I have to pay back, and 6000 dollars in a 401k I have to pay off that comes out of each paycheck. I stopped contributing to it so I don't feel as underwater.
I began responding to her, her messages weren't as lovable or frequent anymore (most likely because I mentioned that I am no longer interested in short node investing unless I get a portion of my principle back), maybe good morning and good night, and something short in the day. I used to reread our full conversations from the days when we began first talking, it just felt like bliss to me. Now I hardly want to talk to her, I downloaded and exported our conversation history from Telegram, but keeping her there just incase I can use something against it. Most likely won't be able to.
A friend mentioned to me he saw her account on another dating app, and they reported it. Different name, only a few miles away when she's supposed to be somewhere else. I told one friend about this story so far. They are very close to me and we had a heart to heart about it.
The most painful part about this is that I told my mom and sister about how I met someone new that really clicked with me, and I was finally happy. I struggled for so many years and they noticed my demeaner changed and were super joyous about it. Not only that, I don't miss the money I lost (~8.7k dollars), I miss the person that I thought I was building a relationship with that I would eventually meet and love. I was on Tinder for 3 months before I found her, every conversation was so dry and uninteresting to me until I met her. I only talked to her for about a month so maybe that is why I was able to break the spell early.
I feel free right now. I thought I would go back to being depressed, but I feel like I gained more than lost from this. I learned how to be a bit more sociable with people, what to look out for in scams (this one was way different than any I have ever experienced), to talk to people close to me about their thoughts of what's going on. I kept it all in. My relationship with my family is better because of her, but I will miss the person I thought that was for me. They really are intelligent in what they do, it's crazy. Maybe I found out that I am a hopeless romantic when my guard is not up. Which sucks, but it is what it is.
I will try to pay back all my loans asap, it's not too much money, but I will have to live more frugally at the moment. I'm not ready to let me mom or sister know, but I told one of my friends so far that won't joke about it. I am also happy I did not rope any friends into this. I needed time to clear my thoughts and do what I could to make this right.
Whenever I see her pictures online, I feel melancholic. I report her to the apps but it forces me to see what could have been if it was real. I have also submitted a case to the FBI, I don't know what else I should send to.
Thanks for reading if any of you did, I rambled a lot.
​
TLDR:
- Haven't dated in years, met chick on dating app and I was first to initiate
- She asked for my number, I gave it to her
- Quickly moved onto Telegram
- Lovebombed for weeks
- Mentions she's an investor in crypto, and wanted me to join her
- Blinded by fake love, lose 8.7k USD to the scam, everything in my bank account + half my 401k
- Had to take a loan out from a bank to pay rent
- Will miss the person I thought was for me more than the money lost itself
- Learned more from this than lost in my opinion. Thank god I'm already poor. It could have been much worse if my credit was good. Now I am on the path to building my credit for the first time in years.
- I'm aware that I was most likely talking to different people over Telegram, and she would send the recordings herself or facetimes.

Hi! Would love to get opinions from this sub. I'm trying to figure out if I should splurge a little bit and get an apartment that is $3,000/mo.
Some context:

• I make around $150,000/yr (not including bonus)
• Monthly take-home after taxes, insurance, and 401k contribution is $8,500~
• My expenses (minus rent) are around $1,000/mo (groceries + car insurance mostly)
• I have $40k~ cash and another $65k in investments (mostly index funds)
• Student loans are < $10k and payments start this month
• No credit card debt
• Live in HCOL city (think Seattle / San Francisco / San Diego / New York)
• There are no significant purchases coming up

My fiancé isn't working right now, but will begin in the next year (she has to finish a year-long credential program). Her salary will be around 60-70k/yr when she starts. She'll probably work part-time this year, but trying not to depend on that.
$3,000 is 35%~ of my take-home. Is it okay to splurge a little bit to get the place we really want? I wanted to keep our apartment under 30% of our monthly take-home so we can continue saving for a down-payment on a house, but I'm having a hard time finding places < $3k/mo that we really like.
Would appreciate thoughts/opinions! Thank you!

TLDR; skip to the end for the actual questions. Some of them don’t need context.
I’ll save all the details of how I got myself into this mess in the first place and cut straight to what’s going on now. In short, I was unable to make even the minimum payment on all of my credit card bills. This has resulted in all of those companies closing my account and sending the balance off to collections, in which I have been contacted countless of times about. Now, I do want to preface this with I’m not one of those people who ask questions without trying to find the answer myself first. I have Google’d my questions a million different ways and I either can’t find answers that relate or I straight up do not understand what they’re talking about. Now, I don’t expect a stranger to take time out of their day and write up a personalized credit consolidation plan for another random stranger, but some specific advice is needed here.
I was an Amex customer ever since I got approved for my first CC with them in 2017, I didn’t have much of a credit history so I was approved for $1,000 at the time. I used my card often and I won’t lie, occasionally carried a balance over from month to month but nontheless still made more than the minimum payment every month before the due date. My account was in good standing with no remarks for 4 consistent years until suddenly I was 30, 60, then 90 days late on my balance and it was closed.
I have three total CC accounts in collections and as soon as I was notified by the other two that my account was closed and headed to collections, I received calls from debt collection agencies. For my Amex however, it has never been anyone on the other end of the phone other than Amex themselves. I stopped receiving emails from them about my credit card bill but instead I would occasionally receive an email with an offer to settle my balance and to call or contact them if I have any questions. Can anyone explain this to me? Why am I not getting calls from random debt collectors for my Amex account?
The balance I currently owe to Amex is $1,413. I received an email from them with an offer to settle my debt for less and they gave me a couple of options, one was to settle for $500 and something, the other for $713 and the last option was to pay off my balance in full. Of course, the last option was most recommended.
When it comes to settling a CC collection debt for less vs paying it in full, does it make a huge difference in the increase of my credit score? In the offer letter, it states that once Amex has received all the funds for my remaining balance, they agree to report my balance as $0 and paid in full to the credit bureau. Would I still need to write a letter afterwards asking them to remove the collection off of my report, or is that the same thing in different words? I do understand that it is very easy to settle a debt for less, but I am wondering if that jeopardizes any future relationship I want to have with that CC company in the future? I called Amex to discuss the plan for my payments, and when I asked if paying in full would help my chances of being approved for another card in the future this is what the agent told me; It would be amazing to pay off the full balance and you will then be eligible for the Amex Optima Card (and from my research that seems like Amex’s “second chance” card). Once my debt has been cleared, I am pre approved for an application for the Optima and upon approval, if I make consistent payments I will have the chance to apply for an unsecured Amex card again. When she explained this to me, I was so happy to hear that I wasn’t going to be on that dreaded blacklist for life. I am wondering if anyone has any personal experience with this or even any knowledge at all. If I contact them and tell them I am willing to pay X amount to settle my debt with them rather than paying in full, will my chance at another Amex card be gone?
The same kind of question goes for the other CC companies (CapOne & Chase) but the only difference is that I am no longer communicating with them anymore. I would be communicating with whatever debt collector spent 4 cents on it.
My main questions that I would love any insight at all on are as follows:
Does paying a credit card collection debt in full versus settling the debt for less make a big difference towards a credit score increase? $700 is a lot more doable than $1400, so if it doesn’t change much, I’d rather settle.
Does settling your debt for less completely destroy your relationship with a bank forever?
When I am having these conversations about my debt with the collectors, do I need to ask if they will remove the debt off of my report?
Last question, on a scale of 1-10, how fucked is my credit after all of this? I have around 10k of CC collections under my name. I have a couple of things that are helping, like a car loan and being an authorized user on some other accounts. Right now my scores are at 601, 591 and 579. (Experian)
Even after they are all paid off and potentially removed, will my credit score even be that much higher? Before all of this all happened, I was almost to the 800 club. Feeling very hopeless here!

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

Hey,
Have my credit report from 2019 when I was exchange student in UK, then go back to uk 2021 for MSc, and full time work in London from 2022. I had my first credit card (HSBC UK Premier, credit GBP 6000) Mar 2023.
Tried to apply the BA Amex card, in Apr the eligibility checker's score is 5, now being 7 (guess is because they get first few rounds of credit card payment history) but still get rejected immediately.
I have experian score 820, partly because my credit utilisation is high (45%), but I can always pay in on time, just because spending 3k a month is super easy in London.
Do any guys have any idea? Is my credit report too short for them to review or it's because my utilization high? TY

I need to know how to consolidate my credit cards
I have several accounts but looking to take out five or six thousand dollars
This amount represents two of the highest interest accounts
I looked on US Bank website and it says personal loan requires 660 credit or higher and personal line of credit requires 680 or higher My score is about 620 even tho I make all my monthly payments I have high balances on several cards
I understand that I’ve made bad financial decisions; can’t change the past but want to get serious about making an impact here
I can try to get a loan from a company outside of my bank but I’ve been scammed before so I want to make absolute sure that if I do go with this option I’ll be safe
I’ve been very depressed from being crushed with debt so any help is appreciated

Recently started donating plasma to help with some extra income and I've found a roadblock. They pay me via a reloadable debit card. Places like my credit card company only allow me to input bank accounts as payment methods. Is there any way around this? I checked Paypal to see if I could add funds from the card to my account and then transfer them into a bank account and I can't. It's not the end of the world if I can't use the money for this but it would be a really good motivator to pay down my debt faster.

2022 1040NR / W-7 ITIN Application Guide - Gambling Income Method

The purpose of this post is to provide a simple step-by-step guide for Canadians to apply for and obtain an ITIN so that they can apply for US credit cards and take advantage of US credit card signup bonuses. This guide involves submitting a Form W-7 Application for ITIN and a 1040NR non-resident tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
This is a method that should apply to most Canadians. Please leave all questions as comments, as I often browse through this thread without logging in and generally do not respond to DMs.

Disclaimer

I am not a qualified tax professional, so please use this guide at your own risk. The information provided here is for educational purposes only and should not be used as official tax advice.

Notice about Paid Services

Paid services are available, but they are not necessary as the forms are simple to complete. I do not endorse any specific service. If you choose to use a paid service, ensure that their PTIN and full name are disclosed on any 1040NR form you file.
The preparation of a tax return for compensation, including the 1040NR non-resident tax return discussed below, requires that the preparer be registered with the IRS, and the preparer must include the PTIN and their personal information (including their name) on the second page of the 1040NR under "Paid Preparer Use Only", irrespective of the method of submission. If you pay for a service that prepares for you an 1040NR (including a "draft" of such a return), and fails to disclose their PTIN on the documents you file, that preparer may be subject to IRC 6695 penalties, injunction and/or disciplinary action.
If you are using a paid service always ensure that their PTIN and full name are disclosed on any 1040NR you file. It protects you too, as they can be penalized by the IRS for unauthorized disclosure or use of your personal information.

Big Picture: How it Works

There are very specific reason where the IRS will issue an ITIN. These include to obtain tax treaty benefits, to file a tax return, and more. Throughout the years, administrative efficiency has taken away the need to issue an ITIN for the purposes of obtaining a tax treaty benefit. So if you have been reading about obtaining an ITIN by saying "I need an ITIN to reduce my withholding tax with Amazon/Smashwords", this no longer works, it is not worth your time to try.
Instead, the ITIN can be obtained by filing a tax return declaring some amount of U.S. income, which I will share with you upfront, although paid ITIN services will skirt around informing you of this directly. The fact that you haven't actually earned anything is irrelevant here (unless you don't want an ITIN lol). The self-declared income can be sourced from US-based online casinos, so you don't even need to set foot in the USA to claim US-source gambling income (as noted by Prince of Travel).
Think of it as "I have $85 USD of gambling/interest income sourced from the USA (e.g. gambling: specifically from blackjack, baccarat, craps, roulette, or big-6 wheel; interest: interest from a US source), and I'm an upstanding person so I need to report it to the IRS".
This guide will use gambling income, but it only takes minor changes if you want to report interest income instead on your 1040NR instead.

Timeline

The time it takes for you to receive your ITIN letter varies greatly but appears to have settled around 1.5 months in 2023 at the time I updated this post. You may want to read through comments in this thread or the 2022 thread (for 2021 tax forms), to see other people's timelines. Please share your own! I sort the threads by New in order for newer data points to be more visible.

Who it won't work for:

• People eligible for a SSN (are eligible to work in the USA and don't need an ITIN)
• People who already have an ITIN (it will require minor modifications to submit for renewal)
• People who have other sources of US-source income (please get professional tax help)

What you'll need to prepare the forms:

• Download the following forms
• W-7 Form (and the W-7 instructions for reference)
• 1040NR Form
• Supplementary forms and schedules to the 1040NR: !!!!* Schedule 1 !!!!* Schedule OI
• Proof of identity, Canadian passport preferred, see below
• A listing of dates you were physically present in the USA for, for the year you are filing for (currently 2022 tax year) - it's ok if this is zero.
• Number of days in USA for each of the three previous years (2020, 2021, 2022)
• Your Social Insurance Number (Canada)

What you don't need:

• Proof of gambling income - you are self-declaring gambling income, and in practice the amount of income you declare is less than the amount required for a casino to issue you a W-2G (a form that declares your gambling winnings)
• To step foot in the USA during the year you are filing - you are self-declaring gambling income from an online US-based casino

Completing the W-7 (Rev Aug. 2019)

• Screenshots of completed forms (square is optional)
• At the top right of the form, select Apply for a New ITIN
• Under Reason you’re submitting Form W-7., check b
• Complete the Name section, must match your passport
• Complete Mailing Address: Foreign is okay - IRS will return your documents here
• Complete Foreign (non-U.S.) Address: Yes, you need to write it out again even if it's the same as Mailing Address
• Birth Information: Complete. If your birth country is not recognized as one by the USA, you will need to fill in a country recognized by the USA.
• Countries of Citizenship: You need to enter all the countries you have citizenship in 6a
• Foreign Tax I.D. Number: You MUST enter your Canadian Social Insurance Number in 6b
• Type of U.S. Visa: Leave blank. If you have a US Visa (e.g. F-1, TN or H1-B) and are physically working or studying in the USA, do not use this guide. If you have a temporary visa, you can choose to enter it here (see my comments)
• Identification Document Submitted: Check Passport, enter Canada, your Passport Number and the expiry date, leave blank date of entry
• 6e: No
• 6f: leave blank
• 6g: leave blank
• Sign Here: Sign in ink and enter the date and your phone number (Canadian phone number okay)
• Acceptance Agent's Use ONLY: Do not complete

2022 Form 1040NR:

• Screenshot of completed form (square is optional)
• Filing status: Single, Married filing separately or Qualifying Widower (widowed within last two calendar years, and have a dependant)
• Name: Must match W-7
• Identifying number - leave blank
• Complete preferred foreign mailing address
• Virtual currency: This is about cryptocurrency, NFTs and other digital assets and is explained on Pg 15 of the 2022 1040 Instructions, tl;dr just need to put yes/no, don't need to actually report income on return.
• Dependents: You don't have to claim dependents, just leave it blank
• Line 8: Enter that magical number greater than $75 and less than $100 that you're claiming as your gambling income
• Line 9: Same as Line 8
• Line 11: Same as Line 8
• Line 15: Same as Line 8
• Line 16: If your number that you picked above was >=75 and <100, then enter 9 (for 2022), otherwise consult Page 3 of the Tax Table
• Line 18: Enter the same amount as Line 16
• Line 22: Enter the same amount as Line 16
• Line 24: Enter the same amount as Line 16
• Line 26: 0 (Zero)
• Line 32: 0 (Zero)
• Line 33: 0 (Zero)
• Line 37: Same as Line 16
• Line 38: Leave blank - your income is less than $1,000, therefore you should not owe a penalty according to Form 2210.
• Third Party Designee check no, unless you are doing this for P2 and want to
• Sign Here: Sign in ink, date and enter your occupation. Phone and email are optional. Leave PIN blank.
• Paid Preparer Use Only: Leave blank

Schedule 1:

• Screenshot of completed form
• Name at the very top of page
• Part I, Line 8b: Enter the amount from Line 8 of your 1040NR
• Line 9: Same number
• Line 10: Same number
• There is a Page 2, you can include it blank in your application or omit it entirely

Schedule OI:

• Screenshot of completed form
• Name at the very top of page
• A: What country you were a citizen or national during the tax year (legal immigration status)
• B: What country were you a tax resident of during the year: if you live and work in Canada, it is probably Canada only
• C, D, expected to be no
• E: Write "N/A - Not present in U.S. — No U.S. immigration status" into the line, unless you were physically present in the USA on Dec 31
• F: No
• G: List all dates you entered and left the USA in 2022 (this includes layovers), only applicable if you were physically present in the USA, Possible_Quantity_57 suggested checking the I-94 site for your travel records
• H: Number of days that you were present in each of 2020, 2021 or 2022 (partial days count as a full day) - note that you should get professional tax help if (Days in 2022) x1 + (Days in 2021) x1/3 + (Days in 2020) x1/6 >= 183, since you meet the Substantial Presence Test and may be a U.S. tax resident
• I, J, K: expected to be no, leave the second Yes/No for both J and K blank
• L: Leave blank
• M: Leave blank

Job done!

Congratulations! You finished completing the forms! The next step is to submit the forms to the IRS, briefly here are the four options:

• Book an appt by phone and show up in person to an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center in the USA, must have completed all docs and bring them to appt (no mailing required), you do not need a certified copy of your passport.
• Mail in your forms along with the original copy of your passport (the IRS will return it by mail)
• Mail in your forms along with a Certified True Copy of the passport, obtainable from Service Canada in-person or by mail. You will need to write a short letter to Service Canada telling them you need a certified copy of your passport e.g. "I am requesting a certified copy of my passport as the US Internal Revenue Service requires a certified true copy of a travel document. This document will be used as proof of identity in the application of a Tax Identification number needed to file a US Non-Resident Income Tax Return."
• Apply via a Certified Acceptance Agent ($$$)

Mailing instructions:

Mail signed W-7, signed 1040NR, Schedule 1, Schedule OI and proof of identity (e.g. original passport or certified true copy of passport) to:
Internal Revenue Service
ITIN Operation
P.O. Box 149342
Austin, TX 78714-9342
USA
Suggested method is via registered mail with Canada Post (~$15), for proof of delivery and tracking. If you are using a private courier (e.g. UPS, FedEx, etc.) use the mailing address on Pg 6 of the W-7 instructions.

IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center - In-Person Appointment

You can submit your forms in-person at an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC), located across the USA and available by appointment only during normal business hours. Applying at a TAC saves you from having to mail in your original passport or paying for a certified true copy of your passport.
Call 844-545-5640 to schedule an appointment in advance, up to 2 months before, you will need one appointment per person, even if they are your spouse. Some people have reported difficulty calling from a Canadian phone number, and have been able to obtain success using a VoiP to make the appointment. Others have also reported success from calling 267-941-1000 (not a toll-free number) and letting the phone agent transfer you to the proper line. If the lines are busy, you will need to keep trying until you get through - I would recommend calling with a couple different phones until you get through.
You will need to bring your passport, as well as a duplicate copy of your forms so they can stamp them as received. Upon completion, they will inform you that you will receive a letter letting you know of your ITIN application results mailed to your home.
Appointment length differs based on the agent that serves you. There are data points that go from 20 minutes per person up to 1 hour. Some data points indicate that the clerk at the TAC may confuse your application with another reason of registering for an ITIN (e.g. meeting the substantial presence test). Remember that the clerk's role is to make sure your application is complete before submission, and they do not make any determination on your ITIN application. Kindly remind them that the reason you are filing is to file a tax return (the 1040NR) and that you need it submitted to the ITIN group for their consideration.

Payment

As noted previously, you will owe a small amount of tax to the IRS. Comprehensive instructions on how to pay your US taxes are online.
You can either pay with filing of your 1040NR, or after you receive your ITIN. The easiest way may be to obtain a $USD money order from a Canadian bank (TD, BMO and HSBC are all capable of this), and submitting it with your TAC appointment, or the mailing of your application.
If you have a U.S. bank account (not a $USD account at a Canadian bank) you can also pay by online banking, but only after you obtain an ITIN.
From my own research, if you have a BMO premium chequing account (account fees waived for a minimum balance of $6,000), you're eligible for a BMO $USD chequing account (no fees for withdrawals/deposits), and $USD money orders issued at no fee.

Aren't I Late on filing/paying my taxes for 2022?

If you are concerned about filing your 2022 after the April 18, 2023 filing deadline, it appears from Form 2210 that there is no penalties due if your income is less than $1,000. You will still owe interest on late payment, you can add $2 or $3 to the amount you owe to cover.

I lost my ITIN Letter!

If you lose your ITIN or your ITIN letter, you can get the ITIN by calling the IRS at +1 267-941-1000 and provide your name, mailing address, birthdate. You can then request a generic letter with your ITIN to help you with proof of your ITIN.

ITIN Expiry

Your ITIN will expire. I have not seen any evidence of them reassigning an ITIN to someone else yet, but the possibility exists.

End note

This post was written for free. I'd appreciate it if you would spend a moment to share your timeline (application, ITIN letter, return of proof of identity) and any additional tips you think should be noted! Appreciate the thought. :)

Questions? I do follow this thread. Please post in this thread, do not DM me.

Also, PM me your faxes.

I'm in my 40s now. I opened three credit cards (my 1st three) back in my 20s, then let them get closed due to inactivity. Nothing was charged off and my payments were (almost) always on time, I just found that dealing with credit cards was a hassle, and stopped using them. The accounts were closed with zero balance, around 2012 - 2015. Years later, now in my 40s, I have a much better hold of my life, and I have the bandwidth for credit. I had to re-establish it back in 2020, due to my credit history being gone. I now have 3 new cards, and my FICO is around 800. My credit report says that my oldest account age is 24, so they must be counting at least one of the cards i opened back then, even though they've been closed for 8-10 years.
I imagine my score is partially due to my old age of credit, and I worry that my credit score will drop significantly if/when these old, closed accounts drop off my report. Should i worry about that? And is there anything i can do to keep my score up? Besides pay on time, that is.
PS. I feel i should specify what I mean by "almost always on time" when it comes to my early credit history. Two late payment on the Citi card, two on American Express, none on Wells Fargo, and none of them more than 60 days late. Over the course of 10+ years.

Tymit is an app-only credit card. For each purchase you get the option to pay off in full, get 3 months interest-free or see exactly how much interest you would pay if you want to spread the payments for longer. There are no fees to get the card.
Every month you can also withdraw up to £200 from a cash machine without incurring any fees or interest, which you can also choose to pay back over 3 months interest-free should you need to.
They offer a referral promotion which gives both the referee and referrer £10 as soon as the referred person makes three £5 transactions on the card. You can also earn £10 for every person you go on to refer.
Steps:
1 - Click on the link, set up an account, confirm your identity and order the card.
2 - Card details are immediately available in the app so either use the virtual card to make three £5 transactions or you can wait for your physical card to arrive if you prefer.
3 - You will instantly get £10 credit on the Tymit card.
Ref link £10 bonus: https://application.tymit.com/join/DANIEN9188 or download and enter the referral code DANIEN9188.
Non-ref (no bonus) - https://tymit.com/
Thanks for signing up with my referral link if you do!
Note that as this is a credit card you may be credit checked when you apply.

You can download the WesternUnion app and send the payment from your phone and I will pay the fees.

Desktop Users: Comment on this post and Click here to start a trade App Users, please include the following in your PM (Remember to comment on this post as well):

• Type of card(s) and amount of each.
• What payment method you accept.
• How you acquired the GC and why you're getting rid of it.

BTC, Paypal^1, Apple Pay, Chime, Cashapp, Venmo, and Western Union
I only have Steam as a substitute for cash payments in gift card trades.

Want ↓	Cash or a Gift Card ↓	BTC ↓
Apple	60%4	NA
Amazon.ca	50%	50%
Amazon.co.uk	50%	50%
Amazon.com	70%	55%
Amazon.de	50%	50%
Amazon.es	50%	50%
Amazon.fr	50%	50%
Amazon.it	50%	50%
Amazon.jp	30%	30%
Arrow Films	65%	60%
Barnes & Noble	50%	50%
Baskin Robbins	60%	60%
Best Buy	60%	60%
BJ's (not BJ's restaurant)4	60%	NA
Bloomingdales	50%	50%
Burger King4	60%	NA
Clothing Shops (Small Boutique)	contact me	contact me
Dell4	60%	NA
Delta gift cards4	65%	NA
Delta Sky Miles4	PM me	NA
Delta Vouchers4	65%	NA
Dicks Sporting Goods 4	PM me	NA
Disney Plus	PM me	PM me
DoorDash	70%6	NA
Dunkin Donuts4	60%	NA
eBay	70%	70%
Fandango4	10%	NA
Five Guys4	60%	NA
Gamestop	60%	60%
Gas Station Cards4	PM me	NA
Grub Hub	70%6	NA
Gyft	70%	70%
Half Price Books	50%	50%
HBO4	70%	NA
iTunes4	60%	NA
J crew	40%	40%
JCPenney	25%	25%
Jersey Mike Subs4	60%	NA
KFC4	60%	NA
Khols	30%	30%
Macys	35%	35%
Magazines.com	40%	40%
McDonald's 4	60%	NA
Microsoft6	60%	NA
Moe’s Southwestern Grill4	60%	NA
Nintendo Eshop6	70%	NA
Nordstrom	50%	50%
Panera bread4	60%	NA
PSN6	60	NA
PSN Plus 12 month4	NA	NA
Saks Fifth Avenue	50%	50%
Sears	50%	50%
Sephora	50%	50%
Speedway4	80%	NA
Starbucks	55%	55%
Steam6	60%	NA
Subway 4	PM me	NA
Taco Bell	60%	NA
Target	50%	50%
Uber6	70%	NA
Urban Outfitters	50%	50%
Vudu4	50%	NA
Walmart	60%	60%
Wendys4	60%	NA
Xbox (gift cards)6	60%	NA
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (12 month/6 month/3 month/1 month)6	PM me	NA
Other Clothing Stores, Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Restaurant, & Fast Food gift cards	PM me

¹ When paying via PayPal, I can only send payments via Goods and Services, thus you will be charged a fee. If you'd rather not face this fee there are plenty of alternatives. ² Larger denominated gift cards preferred. ³ PayPal is the only payment option. ⁴ I can't send less than $10 in crypto per Coinbase's rules.

What I don’t buy:

• Amazon.au
• Bass Pro Shop
• buffalo wild wing
• Canadian tire
• Cold Stone
• Dairy Queen
• Fanatics
• Google Play
• Hilton Honors
• Hot Topic
• iTunes from anywhere but the US
• Krispy Kreme
• old navy/gap/banana republic
• Patxi's pizza
• PSN Canada or UK
• publix
• Raceway
• Scheels
• Shell Gas Stations
• Spotify
• Tractor supply
• Xbox Canada or UK
• Xbox live gold

Any fees are built into the price.

Selling

I have:
$500 in Amazon (can be broken up) and am selling at

• 85%: WesternUnion
• 85%: btc
• 90%: Apple Pay or Chime

Here are my GCX Rep profiles with 932 trades worth more than $60,000:

• #1
• #2
• #3
• #4
• #5
• #6
• #7
• #8
• #9
• #10

Important: before you send your codes please make sure your account is secure (if your password is twelve characters or less it's best to assume your account has already been compromised; your password should be eight randomly selected words, see 1 and 2). Scams where compromised accounts are used to leverage reputation to scam an unsuspecting user, used to steal codes during the middle of the trade, and steal unused gift cards the victim was saving for later are increasingly commonplace. If you have any concerns as to your account's security, please reset your password now and force logout of all sessions. Thanks

You can download the WesternUnion app and send the payment from your phone and I will pay the fees.

Desktop Users: Comment on this post and Click here to start a trade App Users, please include the following in your PM (Remember to comment on this post as well):

• Type of card(s) and amount of each.
• What payment method you accept.
• How you acquired the GC and why you're getting rid of it.

BTC, Paypal^1, Apple Pay, Chime, Cashapp, Venmo, and Western Union
I only have Steam as a substitute for cash payments in gift card trades.

Want ↓	Cash or a Gift Card ↓	BTC ↓
Apple	60%4	NA
Amazon.ca	50%	50%
Amazon.co.uk	50%	50%
Amazon.com	70%	55%
Amazon.de	50%	50%
Amazon.es	50%	50%
Amazon.fr	50%	50%
Amazon.it	50%	50%
Amazon.jp	30%	30%
Arrow Films	65%	60%
Barnes & Noble	50%	50%
Baskin Robbins	60%	60%
Best Buy	60%	60%
BJ's (not BJ's restaurant)4	60%	NA
Bloomingdales	50%	50%
Burger King4	60%	NA
Clothing Shops (Small Boutique)	contact me	contact me
Dell4	60%	NA
Delta gift cards4	65%	NA
Delta Sky Miles4	PM me	NA
Delta Vouchers4	65%	NA
Dicks Sporting Goods 4	PM me	NA
Disney Plus	PM me	PM me
DoorDash	70%6	NA
Dunkin Donuts4	60%	NA
eBay	70%	70%
Fandango4	10%	NA
Five Guys4	60%	NA
Gamestop	60%	60%
Gas Station Cards4	PM me	NA
Grub Hub	70%6	NA
Gyft	70%	70%
Half Price Books	50%	50%
HBO4	70%	NA
iTunes4	60%	NA
J crew	40%	40%
JCPenney	25%	25%
Jersey Mike Subs4	60%	NA
KFC4	60%	NA
Khols	30%	30%
Macys	35%	35%
Magazines.com	40%	40%
McDonald's 4	60%	NA
Microsoft6	60%	NA
Moe’s Southwestern Grill4	60%	NA
Nintendo Eshop6	70%	NA
Nordstrom	50%	50%
Panera bread4	60%	NA
PSN6	60	NA
PSN Plus 12 month4	NA	NA
Saks Fifth Avenue	50%	50%
Sears	50%	50%
Sephora	50%	50%
Speedway4	80%	NA
Starbucks	55%	55%
Steam6	60%	NA
Subway 4	PM me	NA
Taco Bell	60%	NA
Target	50%	50%
Uber6	70%	NA
Urban Outfitters	50%	50%
Vudu4	50%	NA
Walmart	60%	60%
Wendys4	60%	NA
Xbox (gift cards)6	60%	NA
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (12 month/6 month/3 month/1 month)6	PM me	NA
Other Clothing Stores, Gas Stations, Grocery Stores, Restaurant, & Fast Food gift cards	PM me

¹ When paying via PayPal, I can only send payments via Goods and Services, thus you will be charged a fee. If you'd rather not face this fee there are plenty of alternatives. ² Larger denominated gift cards preferred. ³ PayPal is the only payment option. ⁴ I can't send less than $10 in crypto per Coinbase's rules.

What I don’t buy:

• Amazon.au
• Bass Pro Shop
• buffalo wild wing
• Canadian tire
• Cold Stone
• Dairy Queen
• Fanatics
• Google Play
• Hilton Honors
• Hot Topic
• iTunes from anywhere but the US
• Krispy Kreme
• old navy/gap/banana republic
• Patxi's pizza
• PSN Canada or UK
• publix
• Raceway
• Scheels
• Shell Gas Stations
• Spotify
• Tractor supply
• Xbox Canada or UK
• Xbox live gold

Any fees are built into the price.

Selling

I have:
$500 in Amazon (can be broken up) and am selling at

• 85%: WesternUnion
• 85%: btc
• 90%: Apple Pay or Chime

Here are my GCX Rep profiles with 932 trades worth more than $60,000:

• #1
• #2
• #3
• #4
• #5
• #6
• #7
• #8
• #9
• #10

Important: before you send your codes please make sure your account is secure (if your password is twelve characters or less it's best to assume your account has already been compromised; your password should be eight randomly selected words, see 1 and 2). Scams where compromised accounts are used to leverage reputation to scam an unsuspecting user, used to steal codes during the middle of the trade, and steal unused gift cards the victim was saving for later are increasingly commonplace. If you have any concerns as to your account's security, please reset your password now and force logout of all sessions. Thanks

This is getting to a blast as people go further into debt and more and more credit cards are being declined. I tell them payments go thru membership and I have nothing to do with it. One woman botched me out said she's a 30 year,Walmart employee and no reason for her card to be declined.