Not enough info.

Income? Budget? Other savings? 401k balance? Have the causes of $30k CC debt been addressed?

In general, no, it's not a good idea unless you're reaching the "rationing insulin" point. OTOH, if your 401k balance is $875k then raiding $30k is still a bad idea, but a less bad one.

Get on a payment plan with the IRS and get yourself on an aggressive budget. At ~$250k income this shouldn't be an insurmountable problem.

Fidelity and Vanguard are functionally equivalent. If you don't have any existing accounts that would make consolidating at one brokerage more convenient you can literally flip a coin.

Schwab is also in the same tier but I'm trying to preempt your follow up post asking "Schwab says I can make a 2024 contribution…can I?" (persistent website bug, gets asked here about once a week)

If you make too much for a direct Roth contribution then you probably make too much to deduct a traditional contribution so you'll be paying tax now regardless.

If you have no existing tIRA balances, just do a backdoor. The traditional vs Roth, now vs. later tax bracket analysis is more geared toward 401ks. Given the low contribution limit and the low income threshold/phaseout of IRAs, it's usually better to just go straight to a rIRA.

It's probably a better question to ask if 30% is realistic for a V/HCOL area. It's usually not and 40% isn't uncommon at all.

If the delta between base and total comp is 100% discretionary, I'd use the base for calculation purposes. But 35% of base on rent isn't financially reckless either.

>I bring home $3200 a month and have $800 in expenses right now.

It depends on why you only have $800 expenses on $3200 income.

If you're in a two-income household with a $650 mortgage that you split and are otherwise frugal, $500 won't break you. If it's because you're living with parents, you have no "living" expenses, and $800 is all entertainment spending, it's unlikely the $500 will be continue to be affordable for the life of the loan.

That your interest rate is 13% suggests the bank doesn't think this is a good idea for you.

>no deductions

>I'm not withholding anything

You seem to be confused on terminology. If you're not withholding anything, ie you have $0 deductions for taxes on your paychecks, then of course you'll owe at the end of the year.

If you are confusing 'withholdings' with the outdated and no longer in existence 'allowances' and think that "claiming 0" means maximum withholding…it does not. Maximum withholding would be 100% of your paycheck.

Assuming you are neither withholding $0 nor 100%, if your tax bracket is ≥24% and your commissions are withheld at the supplemental rate of 22%, you will always be under withheld on the year unless you adjust your W4 to compensate by over withholding your regular paychecks.

>Why in the world would anyone want to do more?

Because their marginal rate is higher than 20%. If you're in the 37% bracket and only withhold 20% it won't be enough.

>I have 3 other retirement accounts so I don’t need 4

You can roll it over. Account consolidation is preferable to raiding your retirement.

You might have a hard time convincing the state that everyone thinks you're living in, and you say you're living in, that you're not actually living there and therefore are due a refund of your taxes.

>In 2022 I got both a raise and a bonus.

If your bonus was a significant percentage of your total comp and your tax bracket is ≥24% that scenario will almost always be under withheld and you have to actively engage mid year to compensate if you don't want to true up in April.

>How can I make light over this without paying my CPA a lot to look at each individual paycheck?

Look at your paychecks yourself, ask a question here when you come across as inconsistency that you don't understand.

>401k accounts are FDIC insured up to $250k

If your 401k is in FDIC-insured vehicles, you're doing your 401k very wrong.

Assuming your 401k is actually properly invested and not sitting in a deposit account, the pinned megathread explains why your scenario isn't a concern.

It is possible for transcription errors to occur. Run your paychecks through a paycheck calculator with the W4 settings you think you have and see if the deductions match.

Hmm, Married + 2 jobs or Single should work in your situation. Are you sure both of you had the right W4 options selected?

>I’m not really clear why the simple MFJ and 2 jobs was wrong last year.

Do any of the following apply:

• dissimilar incomes between spouses

• significant non-wage income

• significant wage income from bonuses/commissions and ≥24% tax bracket

>So should we both do the 2 jobs and I leave the additional amount?

Depending on how you calculated the additional amount, possibly. Or, you could leave the 2 jobs box as is and increase the additional. It's just different levers adjusting one total.

>I changed my withholding to still MFJ but not the 2 jobs checkbox but included an additional amount withheld.

By not checking the 2 jobs box you reduced the "baseline" withholding, so even though you added extra it was extra to the new lower number.

If you took what you owed last year, divided by number of paychecks, and put that as the additional, you'll need to re-check the 2 jobs box.

>What's the best course of action for me to hopefully rectify this, if anything?

Wait patiently for the impact to slowly diminish over time and put measures in place to avoid this happening again. (Don't rely solely on autopay, you should be reconciling your account monthly.)

Nearly all forms of credit will require a minimum monthly payment. Deferred interest ≠ deferred payment.

But you don't "invest" $120k in a HYSA, you invest in the market which will likely pay more than 4% over the next 20 years.

You could. Some people prefer the dedicated retirement savings rather than the house-as-retirement savings but if you go into it understanding you need to sell the house to access the money I think that's a better way to approach it than the more common "but we won't have a house payment in retirement" strategy.

> Should I instead just up my 401k contribution instead of the 50/wk into the index fund?

If that money is really for retirement, yes.

>I guess if those are the options I'd rather do retirement over a house, so that would be upping my 401k contribution by 700/mo? (50/wk from index fund -> 401k and 500/mo from house -> 401k)

That's less of a math decision than the previous question but if you don't want to split your focus (which if you do at your current income will likely feel like treading water because you won't make big strides in either direction) then, yes, go all in on retirement.

>We also have 15k in investments that were basically for retirement...I currently put in about $50 a week into an index fund.

Don't put retirement money in a taxable brokerage when you have tax-advantaged space on available.

>So total retirement per year is 27,950

You're saving ~17%, which is more than the 15% minimum but far from the 30-40-50%+ that FIRE folks save.

Your incomes are low for SoCal but being DINKs helps to offset that a bit. You have to choose between saving for retirement or a house when you're sub $100k (each) in SoCal.

It looks like neither ID or MT have PTO pay out requirements. CA does, but if you're based in ID and travel to work in MT and CA (rather than a remote employee working in CA) I don't think the CA requirements supersede in that situation.

State?

There are no federal requirements to pay out PTO.

You have to dig in and look at the individual transactions. I'm not familiar with the Optum interface but I'd be surprised if your balance just spontaneously increases one day without any activity details.

If you rebalanced you almost definitely realized something. No HSA admins provide tax docs for CA/NJ residents, you need to track everything on your own. That's why you should either invest simply (ie. pick one fund and stick with it, no rebalancing) or tax-efficiently (tax-free investments or funds with minimal dividends/distributions).