>My wife has little credit, most things have been in my name. She doesn't have bad credit or anything negative about her credit, she just has a small credit history. I want to help her build up her credit score. I was looking at a credit card that we could pay off every month and earn travel points (we can afford vacations now!), but very little cards have co-signers or joint accounts and authorized users don't benefit as much as they used to. Advice?

Add as an AU and read the credit building entry in the wiki

>We both have Roth's/401k, but I'd like to do more investing. I was thinking about a mutual fund or investing on my own into an index, but would like some more specific advice or maybe a book(s) I could get.

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

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index#wiki_investing

>I've heard a lot about how the standard "get a job, IRA and investment portfolio" won't be enough for us to retire. What else should we be doing to prepare?

From where? Saving 15-20% of your income is generally sufficient

>Finally, I'd like to maximize my money for today, be able to make big purchases, go on vacations etc. What else can I do to make my dollars work harder for me or maximize my financial usage?

Increase your income

You can look at it, just don’t fret about it. You have 30yrs until normal retirement age, so you have lots of time for it to grow. There will be more downturns but upturns out number those.

> HOAs, specifically the property management side of things are scum and they don’t impact property values like people claim too, especially in the housing market today.

I see people say this, but houses in my suburb (which are all similar 5 designs), if they try to sell on the street of the guy who doesn't manage his property at all causing a rat issue, are dramatically lower value than my street is.

So it really can matter. Not everyone cares for their property, and that certainly can affect the value of yours.

Do you do this manually or as some kind of direct transfer from a paycheck?

Yeah, thinking I need to up our contributions.

Ah perfect, thanks!

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Well, yes - that's the point of diversification. Sometimes the small cap sector of the market will be up while the large cap sector is down, which is why you'll see small cap funds outperforming large caps. If you own two separate funds, you'd have to "average" your results to see the true picture of how your investments are doing. With a target date fund, all of those separate funds are already inside and they do the "averaging" for you (that's why target date funds are sometimes known as "funds of funds"). On paper, the overall performance of target date funds will never be as high as a pure stock fund, but it also won't dip as low when the market is down.

Because you can't really compare apples to apples with these fund choices, I would suggest that you ignore returns and focus mostly on expenses, diversification and asset allocation. The target date fund is BY FAR the best way for you to get appropriate diversification and asset allocation at a reasonable cost.

Thank you. I worked for 8 years before kids and need 2 more to qualify, which I do plan to do at some point

For 2022 I did start and max out a Roth IRA, hoping to max again in 2023. Forgot to mention it until your comment.

You wouldn't want the bank to undo the transaction just to then be responsible for giving a paper check to the HOA for the same amount minus $3.50 or whatever. Or at least I wouldn't. The best course of action here is for OP to be more clear about exactly what they're seeing (screenshot and URL) and to demand the HOA refund the overpayment. HOA will comply if OP is showing them evidence and indicating they're willing to go to court for it with that same evidence. OP would win in court but only if they actually follow through and sue soon after HOA refuses. Not suing and continuing to use the service anyway could indicate to the judge that they understood the actual fee to be whatever was actually being charged rather than what the website says. Personally I wouldn't bother suing over $3.50 but that's up to OP.

And pay all the late fees associated with not paying your HOA dues? I'm not sure what you think that accomplishes.

Horrible idea! If your commission check is late, you’ll run up credit card debt to feed yourself. You shouldn’t be paying more than $1500 a month. Sorry, get a roommate and save money to buy a house.

No problem! If you’d like to play around with how much you need to contribute a year to get there, I like to use this compound interest calculator

This! Maybe talk to your neighbors and ask them hey I noticed on my hoa bill….. is it the same for you? And maybe get a handful of people to come to the meeting.

Which if you do then you're just making yourself as being late/behind on your HOA dues. Not exactly a solution.

I’m down 22% and wife is down 18%, I know I should stop looking at it but I can’t help myself.

This isn’t true. My husband is salaried but he still qualifies for overtime.

Yep, that's what I do.

Thanks for clarifying!

>So should I really expect it to go from $170k to $510k over the next 5 years? That seems crazy and unrealistic to me. What am I missing?

By itself they will not just triple, you have to be intentional on targeting that level.

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An HOA? By all means fight it. They would probably harass you to no end and threaten you with dire consequences if you underpaid by a few bucks.

I’m contributing 12%, employer matches 7%. Wife is contributing 10% and her employer matches 5%. So looks like we’d have to start contributing more to get there. Thanks for your response.

Thanks for the clarification initial thought about apy rate being the rate I earned at end of term is correct