Tbh short of taking control of all the finances and treating him like a child and giving him an allowance you won't get anywhere without him helping out. How is your communication? Sitting down and having a frank conversation about finances? Does he understand the stress it causes? Maybe working out a plan and future goals could get him on board I dunno. People are the most difficult part of any equation.

I had a snafu where I had insufficient funds in my bank account when a credit card bill hit. I called my credit union up, explained the situation (and that the funds were transferred would take a few days to get to the account) and they credited the over charge fees back to me.

I would call and ask.

Your TSP and IRA are both investment accounts. Max out both if you can.

If your husband cared enough, he would do it. He doesn't.

Separate your finances, get a separate bank account that you both put money into for bills and household items/groceries as soon as your direct deposit hits. Get a savings for rainy day fund and do the same thing. Then you budget your money as you see fit, and he can blow his money however he likes once he's met his responsibilities.

Yes, starting on January 1st, 2023 pay close attention to your Roth IRA contributions, you will be able to select which year you apply your contributions to.

It's definitely a worthy goal to max out both accounts only if you are on the correct step according to the money management tips of the prime directive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/

I would go ahead only if you have paid off all high interest debt and have a fully funded emergency fund (lots of people skip this step but they end up regretting it because the minute they get into financial trouble they raid their investment accounts. Think of an emergency fund as insurance that helps protect your investment accounts).

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>as well as some digital assets (only a bit please don't judge).

I wont judge, but you can't stop me from giving you the side eye.

Excellent retirement strategy. With your 14% and 6% match, you are meeting the general guideline of investing at least 15% to retire in your 60s. The Roth IRA adds tax diversification and flexibility to retire a bit earlier or to cut back on contributions temporarily while you pay for daycare or other short-term major expenses. 100% in stock is a good choice at your age and those funds are well-diversified with low fees.

Other items to consider: Emergency fund consisting of 3-6 months expenses in an account that isn’t subject to market swings. Disability insurance. If you have dependents, term life insurance. Paying credit cards in full every month.

Congratulations on making excellent financial choices!

100% agree, this isn't really a budgeting problem this is a "we're losing money each month but my spouse doesn't care problem" which is honestly much harder to solve.

OP - there are other budgeting apps out there, or you could build your own in excel, or you could use mint/personal capital (which are more like spending trackers than budgets, but people use them). You could even update to the newer versions of YNAB, which are subscription based but which automatically pull in your transactions from your bank, which would eliminate the not tracking thing you mention in #3. But ultimately unless you and your husband get on board with a spending and savings plan none of that will do anything but let you more easily see exactly how much money you're losing each month.

Any suggestions on getting a spouse to be on board? He is terrible with money, always has been. He looks in the bank account and if there's money there, he spends it. I have had to resort to setting up separate accounts that he cannot see to hold money set aside for bills and monthly expenses, which helps. But our grocery and home maintenance expenses get out of control because he is responsible for a lot of those purchases.

The S&P 500 fund holds the largest 500 companies in the US. The total world fund holds 9,534 stocks from all market capitalizations and all market sectors across the world.

OP isn’t in two baskets. They are in approximately 10,000 baskets worldwide (okay, a bit less if you want to subtract the overlap).

It is literally impossible to diversify further within stocks. If you mean adding things like bonds, treasuries, etc, then okay.

What is the goal of your budgeting?

I use YNAB. I have variable income, but 1 is not an issue. I budget for each month at the start of the month, allocating the funds that came in last month.

2. This isn't something a budget can solve. It is something a budget can bring light to, and with both of you on board can be a tool to help you get spending under control. But the actual changing of his behavior needs to come from him. Does he sit down with you and help you cover the overspending? Seeing exactly what category he has to take from to cover the overspending? That made a huge difference for my spouse. Seeing that his overspending meant less for the kids activities really helped him change behavior and stop seeing it as harmless spending.

3. Do you use auto import and the app? Down time on my phone is when I add spending.

4. That happens each month. We set aside for occasional items very month. But if someone overspends, then they see the progress to that goal take a big hit.

If your husband isn't on board with it then it won't work, not really a way around that

wow i didnt realize I had until April to contribute toward 2022, thank you! Also, I realize how my question could have been written better. I guess I mean Do you think it is worth it to attempt to max out both?

>is it worth maxing out my Roth IRA AND my Roth TSP for 2022? Should I combine the two to max out the $6k contribution?

I am a little confused about this statement, Roth IRA and Roth TSP have separate contribution limits.

2022 Roth IRA contribution limit: $6,000

2022 Roth TSP contribution limit: $20,500

Side note: You have until April 18, 2023 to make 2022 Roth IRA contributions.

Ok then that makes way more sense. I was getting worried. I got an email that was confusing and did not outline what was happening so clearly. It just said I was being charged this one big fee which includes the $12 for the bad check.

I think they already live there.

Why put all your eggs in only 2 baskets? Personally, I'd diversify the investments further

Most banks will give you a one time courtesy of waving a fee. Doesn’t hurt to call up and ask.

Those places run them as e-checks is why. They're just a paper debit card with the enhanced systems!

What really helped me was starting to use a budgeting tool (I swear by YNAB r/YNAB).

Bc it makes your day to day goals and priorities much more clear. Like do I value lattes or Ubers more…. How do I pay for vacations if money is tight etc…

It’s also made it really easy to understand how much my current lifestyle costs.. this includes the ebbs and flows of maintenance and emergencies (I’ve been doing it for a few years so have the days)…

Bc I know what my lifestyle costs it’s much easier to feel confident to invest more at the end of the flow chart bc I feel confident there aren’t a lot of major things I forgot abt…

And for things in X years idk about… well chances are once I decide I want it say a wedding or a downpayment… I can shift towards saving for it …. Anything 5 or more years kit isn’t worth keeping in cash. You could do a CD ladder or i series bond if you’re nervous abt putting too much in the market

Thank you for the advice. I have tried doing this in the past and end up spinning my wheels or causing frustration because I can’t identify hard set financial goals for myself. But restarting at step 1 and trying to lay out just a couple of goals is the best route and work backwards.

> Be very careful about personal checks, that's why they're not accepted in a lot of places anymore.

Unfortunately still too many places though.

*glares at the person in front of me who had to write a check at PetSmart while I was holding a 50 pound bag of dog food*

The deposit didn't really happen , they just 'reversed' the deposit. The fee is the $12.

Start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics

Roth or traditional: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/rothortraditional and https://www.madfientist.com/traditional-ira-vs-roth-ira/

Some math: https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/z5hb8v/_/ixw89x5/?context=1

Don't worry about your social life since you are moving. And I see you put down 200 for eating out but also added that you will have date night. You don't make enough for date night, so either stop eating out and buy more groceries or cut off your subscriptions and Internet. We moved out of the city 4 years ago and for 3 years had no access to the internet other than hotspotting our phones when needing to work or check things. Worked pretty well. You easily find other things to take up your time. Fiber was run last year, and we seriously considered not getting it at 80 a month, BUT with 2 kids and school and them being home a lot by themselves, we figured it was a good "investment.
So Drop internet and lower streaming services Increase groceries Decrease eating out Plan on getting rid of car 2 months out. You are not going to want to sell it last minute anyway.

You are correct. It is not liquid, the same way that my membership in the LLC that owns the rental property I mentioned is not liquid. It does have a date certain though — 5 years — for the investment to be complete (return of investment plus all recurring interest payments along the way, as with other similar loans [although this raises early repayment risk—that the loan will be repaid early before I’ve gotten a chance to get my five years of interest payments—but that’s not really an issue for this discussion, is addressed by the agreements, and is similar to the risk mortgage lenders take that any given borrower may repay their 30 year mortgage well before the bank gets 30 years worth of interest payments and still involves getting your initial investment returned in full]). Although I’m not an expert, I am a lawyer and the agreements/prospectuses are extremely professionally done and I’ve had a transactional lawyer friend who specializes in complex real estate transactions take a look and he said he’s worked on a number of similar deals and it’s kosher, from a legal standpoint. The amount of the investment would represent quite a small party of my total portfolio so if not having access to $10-$15k for a period of five years is what does me in financially then that’s the least of my problems because that basically means the entire stock market has collapsed among other things (and if I did this through an IRA as outlined above then I wouldn’t be able to access the funds until I’m 59 just like any other retirement account anyway, unless you’re talking early withdrawals and a 10% penalty which I think is something no one ever wants to do if they can avoid it). Finally I don’t think that a Vanguard REIT is going to get me anywhere near an 11-13% return over five years (maybe I’m wrong?) so not quite the same investment opportunity. I recognize this is a very “alternative” investment (which of course doesn’t de facto make it bad), and was really just curious about folks’ experiences with similar investments, as opposed to a critique on the wisdom of making such an investment in the first place.

Anyway, all that said, I appreciate your thoughts!