I need to look into my retirement options a little more. I currently have a 401K from my previous company, and a Roth IRA for my current, but need to figure out what is the best there.
Also, I might be the opposite of most people. I have school loans, mortgage and a car loan, but right now, the one with the highest interest is the mortgage. That should hopefully change once I sell the house and get another, but for right now, that’s where I’m putting my extra. Plus it helps me make sure that I can manage with the new payment, which will be another $200-300 for the price range we are looking at.
for anybody about to close the best thing you can do is have as much cash as possible on hand (or throw into the roth because you can take it back out for closing costs as needed).
As long as you understand it’s “pretty safe” and you’re “pretty sure” about that. Most pretend it’s 100% safe and never question it one bit. The portion missing from it being perfectly safe and you being positive about that, fill that void with some tangible assets, that’s all I’m saying, I’m not sure why Glen Beck was brought up as if I was suggesting to avoid the financial system or to avoid paper assets. I have an IRA myself, self directed. I do this because I refuse to pay fees for mutual funds that are non transparent etc…
My message was meant to be about diversification on a level most financial advisors won’t go into because they don’t earn commission on tangibles. Their livelihood hinges on their clients blind faith in paper assets and their willingness to transact on contracts that lead to fees & commission. I can’t say I blame advisors but I can say I blame the clients for not doing their due diligence. The only advisor I would trust is one that earns a % of the gains I earn. If I lose money they shouldn’t get to bilge fees for doing a poor job. I honestly don’t think you’ll find an advisor willing to put their money where their mouth is, gotta be a rare bird. Most advisors (most, not all) are great salesman, nothing more.
^
That’s cool and all but my original post in this thread made no mention of gold and I’m not a gold bug in the least.
You assume I’m a gold bug because I point out there is a difference between perceived and tangible value? I’m not for the gold standard, I’ve said for years that gold is mainly perceived value, not unlike fiat currency. I actually often warn gold bugs (and catch alot of flack for it). I understand the premium/spread game “goldline” and cash 4 gold types play and warn about that as well. I feel that was a pretty big assumption to make without knowing where I stand, especially when all I was suggesting was some diversification into hard asset classes.
Do you “trust the dollar”? What’s your take on a nation seeing true fundamentalgrowth when it’s interest burden alone consumes half a TRILLION bucks per year? Do you expect to see fundamental growth when we are already this deep in the hole and continue to destroy wealth by the TRILLIONS in the middle east? Does the above coupled with wild volatility not make timing and understanding inflation/nominal value crucial? I don’t know what you do for a living or what knowledge you have so I’m not going to assume things like you did with me.
I understand a fair amount about the dollar and our spending power and I don’t like the way things have been headed. I’m a saver that prefers longevity and lower volatility not a debt monger, so it’s easy to see why I dislike inflation and the debasing of a currency. Again, I’m not saying stay out of paper assets, investing is ALL about timing and understanding the fundamental/intrinsic value of that which you’re investing in. Was I a fool for bringing up nominal value? I think it’s a pretty important thing to grasp, especially with the latent inflation we’re likely to see stemming from all the QE and currency dilution. Before it gets implied, I’m not suggesting bitcoin either. LOL
What do you think about the “recovery” in stocks while money has failed to flow out of bonds and into stocks? To me yields are illustrating the economic waves and quirks QE & dilution can cause. I understand analysis evolves and I’m not looking for an exact replica of the 2003 recovery but it would be more assuring if money was exiting bonds in favor of stocks as it has traditionally done, not continuing to flee into bonds. Especially when bonds are an investment producing uber low yields and likely to be negative after adjusting for inflation.
PS: I suspect the bonds are going to decline and I view the many months of weekly price coiling as probable distribution. The 10 year bonds share the divergence and lack of auctioning to a higher price thusfar. If that proves correct we need to find where that bond money migrated to, it will be the next bubble.
Meh, 15yr mortage, now 13 years at ~3.8 or .9% I think. City job(pension + other retirement shit), Wifes employer matches her retirement, $500 a month into Roth IRA, ~$2,000 personal saving a month, $250 a month into kids college fund a month… Should be good if we keep it up. Still looking for some better options though.
My wife and I pumped out 18 payments a year for almost 5 years on our first house (4-3/8%) while maxing out both of our 401k’s. It was such a bad investment, we really should have put money into something else (at least some of it) since we bought another house after about 6 years or so. Tried to sell the first one, ended up just renting it for the meantime.
You think Glenn Becks gold was a scam? Wait until the shit hits the fan on 401K charges. People are going to be pissed when they find out how much they are being ripped off. Get ready for a major crash this summer. (Unless it gets delayed… AGAIN)
Gold is perceived value just like stocks and paper money is. Yes there is a lengthy history of gold being a store of wealth, but it’s success is purely based on faith. I’m not saying tradition won’t continue, only that if it fails to continue gold is very weak fundamentally and price could reflect that.
I dislike 401k and traditional brainless mutual fund style investments because they aren’t transparent, there are hidden fees and games played.
People won’t be pissed because the info is already out there, they intentionally ignore the info. Upsetting status quo is a monumental event, clearly. If not, the prior market crashes should have scared people enough to wise up, no?
^^401K Fee Disclosure. Your statement will show just how much money is being taken from your contributions before any is even invested. It has been delayed twice already because the firms “were not ready” which is complete bullshit because the bill was passed more than 2 years ago.
People are going to shit when they see the fees on their statement.
Same with 403b I wonder? It’s fine, I am still getting double what I put in from employer contributions, so after taxes and fees, I’ll still be ahead, even if the market sucks balls.
This is the only reason I would consider taking a state line. They are working on it for me I guess, technically while I’m in higher ed I don’t have a state line at this time.
I wonder how much control I’d have over their 403b plan, what fund options do you have access to?
Or you have the option of paying into the pension system, correct?
I haven’t looked far into it because I won’t be interested in a pension pyramid. I would let them pay into a 403b for me of course, if I have enough control I may put my own money in as well.
I have plenty of control, I can choose from any number of 403b providers (vanguard, fidelity, etc…) as well as the percent that is pushed to each. ie. 50% here, 40% here, 10 % there.
For me, I don’t have the knowledge or time to micro manage investments. Not at this point. I’m more worried about growing my knowledge base for my career right now. So I’ll likely just contribute to my 403b for a while, and do my best to diversify just that stuff.
It’s not very time consuming if you don’t want it to be. Leading up to the contribution (usually bi-weekly) glance at a weekly chart with some form of a momentum plot (I like slow stochastic). If the stochastic is over 70 it’s “overbought” and you might for example put 80% into bond/stable value funds for later deployment and 20% into the index funds. If stochastic is below 30 and “oversold” you might put 80% into the index funds and 20% into bond/stable value funds (or even 100% index funds). You would also begin to migrate your stable value savings into index funds after a big correction or bear market. You can play with the thresholds and percentages but this concept takes little time and can work wonders for your cost basis. A little effort goes along way, especially when trying to beat inflation and secure nominal gains.
Charts are free. Look at this for an example of what I’m talking about.
Added—
This is something I worked up years back for an article/blog. You can see there are clear times where price has moved up for an extended period and it’s not ideal to be buying heavy at those times. You can also see clearly when the market has been beat down and this is where better values are to be had.
