Thank you all for the help!!

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Mortgage interest, dependents and investing in real estate (depending) will help, absolutely, but won’t be the same as for example, doing the max amount ($20k) in traditional 401k. Filling jointly will also be better for both of you, since the deduction will be higher. With the mortgage interest, dependents it will lower your standard deduction and you will have a higher refund, depending on how you manage your W2. Filing jointly has more benefits than disadvantages.

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Thank you.

Max the 401ks. Does your health care plan come with an HSA? If so, max that too. Take advantage of any other pre-tax perks your employer offers (transit benefits, etc). Beyond that, there's not much you can do to reduce taxable on your W2. Do you have a hobby you can monetize so that you can claim biz expenses on Schedule C?

That's unfortunate. Thank you

Okay thank you. I was curious if there's a way to lower it based on being a home owner, having kids, or investing in real estate. On a side note, is there any benefit to filing jointly now that my income is way higher? We have been filing separately because we don't really see the benefits of filing jointly. I mess around with stocks and crypto, she doesn't want to get involved with any of that.

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Honestly there is not much way to offset W-2 income that actually keeps money in your pocket, besides retirement investing. Most deductions represent money spent. You could give to charity, or run a failing business that has a net loss, but you have less money afterwards.

Nothing meaningful, not as a W2 salaries employee. The federal government doesn't give you a tax break in saving principle for investments; be it rentals, stocks, etc., unless it's in the form of retirement, which you said you're not interested in.

You'll have options for tax savings later when you become a landlord though.

Whats the question? The only way to lower your taxable income is trough traditional 401k, IRA, HSA or FSA and a couple other benefits that are pre-tax. Since you said you aren’t interested in retirement investing, I don’t see how you are going to be able to lower your taxable income by much.

Fed here. My former employer (state government) told me transferring into TSP can be tricky. Anything with the govt can be tricky. I chose to roll into an IRA. Fidelity made it super easy.

Looks like I'm going to go against what other people have said.

I'd check the fees first on the 401k, and if the options are good, leave it. If she doesn't like the options, or fees are high, I would roll the money into an IRA, not TSP. Once the money is in TSP, it is stuck there until she separates or turns 59 1/2. She can't do Roth conversions if she has an unexpected low income year (like having to take a lot of LWOP), or even expected like going part-time.

The only way I would roll it into TSP is if the 401k is awful, and she relies on doing a backdoor Roth. If she doesn't currently need to do a backdoor Roth, the IRA wins, since it can be changed in the future, where moving it to TSP can not (except as mentioned above).

An IRA will give her more flexibility, and potentially even lower fees, than TSP.

Actual investing is very boring and long term so if the teenager thinks it is something exciting then he will be disappointed most likely. If his mindset is that crypto and windfalls of cash from rapidly increasing single stock prices is what he plans on being part of then that is called gambling. Important distinction between the two

I realize there are a bunch of know nothing fortune tellers on tik tok that like to video themselves looking at cool looking stock charts on their computers and talk about the candlesticks and dips and all that shit but the only thing they are doing is fucking guessing and trying to make sense of the past so that it makes them look way smarter than they are and this can look very exciting to the ill informed

Where I live, the apartment owner is required to make a reasonable effort to re-rent the apartment as soon as possible. If they do re-rent it, then you only have to pay for the period of time during which it was vacant (rather than the full 60 days).

I don't know if other locales, or your locale, have similar requirements.

Of course, it may also be difficult to prove just how hard they really tried to re-rent the place.

Ideally, if you could find another renter that they would accept, that could start sooner than 60 days, that might reduce the amount you have to pay.

Honestly I don't trust the government with my money and I was a Fed for 26 years. As soon as I retired, I moved it. I would suggest keeping her $ where it is; usually 401k plans with companies have a low fee to manage and can be well managed.

Yes. Once you file, your return is ‘legit’. And based on your income level, it’s unlikely any additional taxes you pay for being honest will amount to much.

In addition to what others have said, TSP has the advantage of ensuring your investments are in line with any ethics restrictions and super easy for any reporting requirements that may come with her new job.

Your girlfriend might want to check the fednews Reddit. Congrats

Well there are always details for breaking a lease in your contract. It'll still cost you money but you messed up by making assumptions, so this financial cost is your fault.

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> There's a lot more choices for TSP.

This cannot be true. The TSP only offers 5 funds (G S C F I) and Target Date Funds. But they are good funds with low expense ratios.

Brokerages like Vanguard offer well over fifty. Fidelity has hundreds.

I also find it super weird that the performance of your TSP and IRAs varied so wildly. It sounds like you invested in very different things

If you invested most of your TSP in the C Fund, and most of your IRA in a SP500 index, they performance should be almost the same, since they track the same SP500 index

This is the best way to just not waste everybody’s time going through the process if the salary isn’t even in the ballpark