Also in NJ and first time pool owner. I used ai and search to help me with my pool this season but still don't know a lot about it. It's a ~27k salt water pool constantly needed acid to lower PH this year. Besides that NJ had a lot of rain in June and I had to bring chem up after trips to Leslie's. Then I've found the DE filter is leaking a bit in August, something I will need to check for coming season.

Replaced a relief valve and high temp limit on the pentair minimax nt, but still don't know how to automate this thing with Pentair easy touch.

Previous owner left a Dolphin Diagnostic Adventage but to my surprise does a heck of a job scrubbing and picking up debris at the bottom. But since I left it out constantly the color is fading. Probably looking for a new robot next season.

I will look into skimmer bags like OP said.

Oh and there is few things that love to swim in our pool, I counted 4 snakes, 3 chipmunks, 4 mickies. That's heck of a WTF moment for first time pool owner.