> But it's not enough of an impact for me to bother switching.

Maybe you should have them run the numbers on how much those AUM fees are going to run you overall your lifetime. :)

In all honesty, it sounds like like you are pretty skillful with finances. I would not be paying more than a few hundred dollars for the "fun of running a few scenarios." Doing the yearly backdoor roth takes about 15 minutes of your time.

Rule of thumb is 3x yearly income - so 285k is at the higher end.

Make sure you have around 3-5% of the value of the house saved for the first year - there's gonna be stuff that comes up, things you will want to change, etc.

after that, 1%-2% of the value of the home for maintenance

that should be on top of your 6 month emergency fund (at least IMO)

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Target date funds are a “basket” of a funds designed for your age. You would want a 2040 fund. At your age, most experts would recommend about 50% in US stocks, 35% to 40% in world stocks and 10% to 15% in bonds.

A 2040 fund will be made up of about three to five mutual funds at those percentages. As you age, the percentages of each will adjust with you.

The Vanguard 2040 fund would be my recommendation for you. Because it’s already three to five funds, it’s all you need.

How does that process work? My credit is already bad from missing some payments and a high percent of credit used.

Also, would we have to give up our house if we do file?

Thanks for the list! The one I looked at before didn't have any banks I'd heard of and all were <=2%.

You can put 6k in yours, he can put 6k in his

....what

Citibank, Ally, Marcus, Capital One

Ally

>The age-based portfolios will continue to move you into bonds, and while bond prices may continue to fall short-term, bond yields are up.

I wonder if OP is in the age based portfolio or individual portfolios.

Individual: https://www.nysaves.org/home/which-investments/individual-portfolios.html

Age based: https://www.nysaves.org/home/which-investments/age-based-options.html

Stay at home for a few more months and see what you can save. How long have you been saving to get to 13k?

Over the next 3 months, save 2800 for rent. At least 150-200 for utilities. 50 for internet. 200-400 for food (do you cook/make every meal, or do you eat out). 250-500 for random expenses.

Sure, some of those numbers might seem like more than you need, but always have a plan for higher expenses.

If they are laying everyone off how good can the stock be?

The target date fund is really a bundle 4 or 5 different diversified funds. You can be comfortable making it your only fund. Vanguard Target date funds are good and the expense ratio should be low, but you should check. If you want to be more aggressive you can choose a later retirement date than you ordinarily would.

Would you be able to afford the mortgage + car if you stopped paying the other debts?

How long will it take for partner to get a job, do you think it will be relatively quick? If so, will you be able to cover the debts when that happens?

Move it to a HYSA. There are plenty offering over 3%

I get on every board I can to combat this type of thing. I'm almost a professional board member now lol

&gt; I thought about just subtracting the total from my next HOA payment

That's a good way to bring on late fees, and eventually a lien on your house.

Just be a gadfly, and bring it up every year. Then, when you're ready to move away, sue the HOA in small claims court for the damages. Keep records and screenshots.

"Diversification" has several dimensions. The first is really asset allocation. You'll want to spread your investments across different asset classes...some in stocks, some in bonds, some in cash. How you do that depends on your comfort level (risk tolerance). Generally, the younger you are, the more aggressive you can be (more in stocks). This diversification mitigates the risk you'll take losses when whole markets decline. It also depends on your time horizon as stocks may decline in value for several years and a longer time horizon gives you the time to weather those periods, stay invested and not take permanent losses when you need the money. Target date funds will attempt to do this for you, but your risk tolerance may or may not be well represented by their composition. The second is diversification within asset classes. Even if you're buying in a specific asset class, you will always want to be diversified in this dimension. Your stock investments should be in many companies (stock mutual funds or ETFs will do this for you by their nature). Your bonds should be from many issuers. This reduces your risk that you will take excessive losses if a company or bond issuer goes bankrupt (e.g. Enron or Lehman Brothers).

Yeah I definitely don't want to invest it, hence the refusal for CDs or bonds. Ultimately I want it to be out of sight but easy to access in an emergency. The interest is just icing.

Same..my net worth went up 30-40% each of these last few years and this year I ended up increasing it 5%. I guess the way the year has gone I should consider it a huge win.

Don't think of an emergency fund as an investment, it's insurance. I don't agree with Dave Ramsey's views on investing, but I do agree with his view on emergency funds: https://youtu.be/fVToMS2Q3XQ

Thank you for the very informative response!

I may just be getting paranoid in putting all my money into one fund because I see that one is down while another is up. I'm worried about picking the wrong one. I thought maybe if I spread it out, one or two could lose money but the other 3 (or whatever) would make money. Again though, since I am new at this and don't understand it, I realize my thoughts could be way off.

Despite the downward trajectory of bonds over the last year, in general the bonds will not be as volatile as stocks. At age 17 the moderate portfolio is all in bonds and short-term reserves, and the aggressive portfolio is 25% stocks. If you've split 50/50 you're only 13% in stocks and even if they got cut in half you'd only be down 6-7% and your bond funds would almost surely go up. I think the risk of a 30% haircut between now and college graduation is extremely low.

No you can't. 2800$ is nearly your full salary. You should aim for $1500 instead.

Probably not goona get a response because this is the hard question he doesn’t wanna answer.