Welcome to the Better Off Bonus Call of the Week.

We are sponsored by Betterment, the largest independent online financial advisor.

I know you are cramming in your last minute year end

questions. Well don't worry you've got a couple of chances every week to get on the

air. We do these bonus calls on Tuesdays we drop them and then after our longer show on Thursdays we've got a listener question. on Ask Jill on money. Ask Jill at Jill on money.

That is what Kristen did.

She's calling from Portland, Oregon.

Tell me what I can do for you, Kristen.

Sure, thank you.

So I am calling because I currently live in a condo and my HOA fees

recently increased pretty substantially.

They are now about 650 a month, which seems really high, especially because we also have to pay

for all of our special assessments and things like that.

And this is especially meaningful to me because I'm doing some career planning as well.

So I know my career is pretty long. I'm in the front half of it and I'm pretty happy working a corporate job,

but as I look at the back half of my career I'm trying to take a

less stressful potentially nonprofit role which will come with a lower salary so

I want to go into that in a really good place from a cash flow perspective.

And I really want to be debt free going into that.

And so as I think about that, and the fact of my HOA fees aren't paying down any debt or building equity, it starts to

feel like a pretty high share of my take home that goes towards housing.

And also my current mortgage is completely paid off. So I'm definitely right now.

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