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Purpose of thread: Figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. Currently have no "plan" on what I should be doing, or even any goals in sight. Viewer participation strongly encouraged and welcome. Current Budget: http://preview.tinyurl.com/pwfr66a Net Monthly Income: $4,849 Total Debt: Currently debt free Total Assets Start of Thread:
Potential Liabilities: 2003 Mazda, 160k miles Current Net Worth $43,854.44 Goals:
Background: I've been working after college for 5 years now and it feels like I've been treading water the last 2 not making any changes with personal finances and basically lacking any direction at all. Renting an apartment and have 2 dogs, and while a house would be nice it looks like I will be changing locations often enough that it doesn't make sense to invest in a house. No family planning in my future, can't/won't have to worry about kids so the most trouble I can get myself in is with an SO, but currently single. 401k 1 is from a previous job, 401k 2 is from my current employment. As of right now I am not actively contributing to it anymore, dealing with some personal health issues and depending on how that all plays out I may not have to worry about making it to retirement age.  So what do I do goons? I've been stagnant for years and am looking to change. Do I pump up my 401k to employer matching and just treat it as an emergency fund and deal with early withdrawal penalties? Start actively investing my money in stocks/bonds/bitcoin/dogecoin/unicorn farts? I will update the OP as I get beyond this nebulous sense of "I need to do something" to "I'm actively going for x" and track progress as I go. 10/25/15 Edit: Added link to budget spreadsheet for anyone wanting sweet sweet numbers. Slightly modified goals. Hoping to have hard financial targets and goals by end of year. Update 11/6/15  Saved $2,400 out of my $4,900 take home in OctoberStarted a new car savings account with a goal of 10k in 14 months. After than small contributions until my current car dies. Updated budget link for October. I have NO idea how I spent so much on "groceries" which apparently I'm hiding all my blow money in. I shop at Walmart so I can get a lot of other stuff there. Started out this month at Food Lion for a real grocery trip. Going to try and be more honest with that category this month. Set my 401k contributions to 6%, employer matching max, no real interest in going above that for now. Haven't seen my utilities bill for October? Really need to call about that. VanguardFelix fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 18:15
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Have you looked at the OPs of the newbie finance and long-term/retirement savings threads?
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Oct 1, 2015 18:37
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Cicero posted:Have you looked at the OPs of the newbie finance and long-term/retirement savings threads? this is definitely a good first start as literally all of your questions are answered there!
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Oct 1, 2015 19:28
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If your company offers a Roth 401K do that. You will still get the match (into a traditional) but your Roth contributions are withdraw-able without penalty or tax after 5 years (contributions only not earnings) so it can be used as a combo retirement/emergency vehicle.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:00
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Spend it all on booze, women, and speculative penny stocks!
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Oct 6, 2015 02:53
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Save 75% of your income for the next 20 years and become a king in the climate change apocalypse. Just be sure to invest in Purestrain Gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9ZPiR4RxE8
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Oct 6, 2015 06:32
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Make a budget. If your employer has some sort of match for the 401k you should be contributing enough to get the max of the match. You can't roll the old 401k into your current one (I think), but you can roll it into a personal account that would let you manage it yourself, and probably pick better funds than what is is currently invested in.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:30
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VanguardFelix posted:words quote:Goals: quote:401k 1 is from a previous job, 401k 2 is from my current employment. As of right now I am not actively contributing to it anymore, dealing with some personal health issues and depending on how that all plays out I may not have to worry about making it to retirement age. quote:So what do I do goons? I've been stagnant for years and am looking to change. Do I pump up my 401k to employer matching and just treat it as an emergency fund and deal with early withdrawal penalties? Start actively investing my money in stocks/bonds/bitcoin/dogecoin/unicorn farts? I will update the OP as I get beyond this nebulous sense of "I need to do something" to "I'm actively going for x" and track progress as I go.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:50
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Cicero posted:Have you looked at the OPs of the newbie finance and long-term/retirement savings threads? I have skimmed through them, but most of it all seems targeted to starting from square 1. I don't have any debt to pay off, and my savings plan isn't exactly long term. I use humor when talking about it, like in the OP, but legitimately I will likely not make it to retirement age and even if I could I could never afford my current medical costs sans an employer subsidized health insurance. I will work until I drop dead. n8r posted:Make a budget. I'm planning on posting a budget end of month to see how it all shakes out. I believe I could roll my 401k over as both are managed by Vanguard, but I will have to check with my employer to see. Active investing in general is something I'm interested in, but I'm in a bit of analysis paralysis right now as I learn about it. DJCobol posted:I've been in your position. I'm still kind of in your position. Making good money, not a lot of obligations for said money, no clue what to do beyond "hey, save some of that money!" I know we have FSAs but I do not know about HSA, thanks for the tip I will definitely look into that. I always set my FSA to my maximum yearly out of pocket since I always blow by that so at least I know what portion will get spent and what could be saved if that is an option. I guess I'll take a longer look at Roth as an option. Mainly what I'm struggling with is doing work with my savings/future earnings in a way that is somewhat liquid. I don't want to have everything tied up for age 60+ when that doesn't serve a purpose. No family to speak of either so anything left over will just be donated anyways. Basically I'm struggling against the nearly universal save as much as you can until you retire wisdom. What's the advice in the case that there isn't a retirement end-game? Need to get back to reading some of the recommended books, Intelligent Investor, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, etc. I also need to catch up with some of my friends who worked trading futures in Chicago 15 years ago. By no means am I trying to be dismissive of the advice given. I will be looking into what options I have at work, but will have to figure out what fits best.
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Oct 12, 2015 00:24
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You seem to not know WHY to save money, so I think that's an important first step before you bother too much with the how (although the how is obviously very important). I think a lot of people are lacking a good "why" and then they just spend whatever money they have because they don't know what else they are supposed to do with it. In your situation, here are some general things I would think about wanting to save for. Please pay no attention to the completely random order, and keep in mind these are in today's dollars. 1. A wedding (5k - infinite apparently) 2. College education for children (40k - 200k per child) 3. A nice house (200k - 600k) 4. Retirement income to supplement your social security income (500k+) 5. Enough money to retire early ($1000k+) 6. A vacation fund 7. Enough money to start a business and work at it for 6+ months 8. A vacation home 9. A rental property 10. Fancy cars and other "toys" Personally, I really can't imagine working until I'm 65. I don't know how people do it, it just seems terrible to imagine doing this for 30 more years. So number 3, 4, 5, and 6 are important to me and that is what motivates me to save my money. Lots of other people want vacation homes and new cars all the time, or golf memberships or whatever so that's why they try and accumulate money. If you have no desire to retire early, I would still feel the need to save up like 500k as early as possible in retirement accounts to kind of mentally check off number 4.
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Oct 12, 2015 01:48
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VanguardFelix posted:I have skimmed through them, but most of it all seems targeted to starting from square 1. I don't have any debt to pay off, and my savings plan isn't exactly long term. I use humor when talking about it, like in the OP, but legitimately I will likely not make it to retirement age and even if I could I could never afford my current medical costs sans an employer subsidized health insurance. I will work until I drop dead. One of the things that often comes up is that people live longer than they expect. I am assuming your medical condition is pretty serious but I have a number of friends who have major medical problems and have lived substantially longer than their doctors believed possible. In the event that you live a longer life than expected then being able to fund medical expenses would be a huge benefit. In terms of investing I was in a similar situation last year where I wasn't sure how to invest well and not make major gently caress ups (due to some past poor decisions). It's easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis but what I would strongly recommend is reading The Four Pillars of Investing (linked in the retirement thread) as this will teach you how to invest. You don't need to be a very active investor to make good returns. It will take a while to read but you will have a completely different understanding of investing after reading it. Droo has raised an important point of why? What I also think about is what would I like to do? Is there a financial reason that I am not doing or experiencing something? I regularly review where I am at and try to change things if I think I am missing out on something.
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Oct 16, 2015 20:47
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Minor update to the OP, have a budget roughed up and hosted on google drive, not sure if that is the appropriate means of delivery. Fast food was bad this month since I've been working 12 hours a day. Going to be worse before the end of the month as I go on nights Monday. Also unexpectedly had my car battery die so that's where I got tagged on maintenance. Also Metal Gear Solid 5, who can resist? Books is going to stay 200 budgeted a month for awhile as I'm getting books together for my PE exam next year.Droo posted:**snip** Droo you are quite on the money with the why and that's something that I really am struggling with. I really have no clue. A wedding is always possible I suppose, kids very much not. Either in desire or capability. Does a house really make sense given I change geographic areas wildly every 3-5 years? Seems like the costs associated with purchasing, moving, closing etc. doesn't really get covered until well after 5 years in one house. #7 has always been interesting to me. But you're right that I need to work out what I want this to be for. Devian666 posted:One of the things that often comes up is that people live longer than they expect. I am assuming your medical condition is pretty serious but I have a number of friends who have major medical problems and have lived substantially longer than their doctors believed possible. In the event that you live a longer life than expected then being able to fund medical expenses would be a huge benefit. I try to remain open to the possibility of changes in my prognosis but things have been heading the wrong direction. I know the smart thing to do is plan on needing to pay for a long retirement. However the though of temporizing my life away in the hopes of retirement only to miss the mark is irritating. That said I do need to dig up my investing books and get into it again. I'm going to generally leave my 401k managed by Vanguard (unless that is a terrible terrible idea?) and actively invest with excess cashflow from work. Again thanks to everyone offering advice, hopefully things will get more interesting when it turns into a rollercoaster ride of shoddy active investing.
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Oct 25, 2015 20:43
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VanguardFelix posted:I try to remain open to the possibility of changes in my prognosis but things have been heading the wrong direction. I know the smart thing to do is plan on needing to pay for a long retirement. However the though of temporizing my life away in the hopes of retirement only to miss the mark is irritating. That said I do need to dig up my investing books and get into it again. I'm going to generally leave my 401k managed by Vanguard (unless that is a terrible terrible idea?) and actively invest with excess cashflow from work. Again thanks to everyone offering advice, hopefully things will get more interesting when it turns into a rollercoaster ride of shoddy active investing. The Vanguard account will be fine. The reason why I recommended The Four Pillars of Investing is to steer you away from active investing. It takes the effort and stress out along with making mistakes. If you active invest only use 5-10% of your total investing capital. Seriously read the book it will prepare you completely for investing.
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Oct 26, 2015 08:41
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Devian666 posted:The Vanguard account will be fine. The reason why I recommended The Four Pillars of Investing is to steer you away from active investing. It takes the effort and stress out along with making mistakes. If you active invest only use 5-10% of your total investing capital. I'll have to check it out. Just found the other books I had gotten last year so I have a lot to read. And yeah I'd definitely keep the active portion small, something that I wouldn't notice going up in smoke.
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Oct 26, 2015 18:25
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VanguardFelix posted:[*]Start active investing before end of calendar year Definitely agree with Devian's sentiment, active investing is much more of a hobby than a solid investment plan (whether people realize it or not). Markets generally go up, so it's easy to think you're doing well, especially if you increase risk, but any profits beyond that of a passive portfolio are coming from a zero-sum game with everyone else in the market (and really not even that, a little bit comes out of every transaction). Against big banks, hedge funds, insider trading/industry experts, sure some people will win, but you're playing a losing hand thinking you can pick which stocks are over/under valued at any given time. Read up on how to properly diversify, pick solid assets that rise in value over time (entire markets, commodities, etc), something like the Four Pillars of Investing is a great start, and just forget about it. There are other things to consider as you get more money to invest, rebalancing, leverage, tax implications, etc, but you can learn about them over time and I wouldn't worry for the first few years.
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Oct 29, 2015 04:46
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November 2 and my monthly budget is completely out the window. Double vet visit for the two dogs on short notice, $600 all said and done  I had planned on getting a carpet cleaner this month because the dogs make them godawful, but that will have to wait until some other month. I am looking to follow most everyone's advice on investing. That is once I stop signing over significant portions of my check to the vet! edit: Updated OP. End of month budget is up. And I actually started contributing to my 401k per everyone's advice! I possess at the very least some basic listening skills! edit 2: Up to $900 in personal medical expenses and $1,100 for the dogs this month. My budget is the Titanic getting hit by the Challenger at this point. VanguardFelix fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 3, 2015 01:22
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