48 years old, currently have no investments. My net worth is my car and the clothes on my back, and I don’t ever want to be in this situation again.
(Edit: I don’t need to buy a house or anything whatsoever related to a house, so please don’t mention the “h” word in your response, it’s triggering me for tangential reasons. Let me be clear, I will NEVER care about real estate whatsoever, mmmkay? Just trust me when I say I have a roof over my head and it’s completely paid off, no property taxes, and No, I will never sell it, so the whole h-word" aspect of life is not a concern for me, k?)
Just looking for guidance where to invest this relatively small amount of money every month so in a few years when I’m older & frailer I’ll have enough for retirement. I don’t want it to just sit in my bank account, I want it to grow.
For reference, I’ve been living on approx $1500 per month for as long as I’ve noticed, so I don’t need much per month, and the sooner I die, the less retirement fund I’ll need, but we can never predict when anyone’s death will happen, so let’s assume I’ll live to 100 because I’m ridiculously healthy & an exceptionally good driver, never been in an accident, one speeding ticket in my entire life, no social life so I never get into risky situations, so let’s just plan for the possibility I’m going to live another 50 years.
TL;DR: index funds and tax-protected accounts.
Index funds because none of us (including the professionals who study them all day long) know enough about individual companies and the future of the economy to pick winners consistently. Investing in “everything” averages out the winners and losers and gives you the natural growth of human activity.
Tax protected accounts because you’ll make withdrawals at a time when your income is (presumably) lower, and deferring income to that time means deferring taxes to the lower tax bracket. In the US, tax protected accounts have special purposes: education, healthcare, retirement.
At 48, education is probably only relevant if you want to pay for kids’ college, and that’s what [https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc313](529 plans) are for.
You are definitely coming to the point in life where, regardless of your general health, you will begin to incur healthcare costs. In the US, that’s an incredibly complex topic, but one aspect to be aware is [https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/health-savings-account-hsa/](Health Savings Account). You have to be on ‘high deductible’ insurance to qualify for these, so probably not empoyer-sponsored insurance, but if you’re self-insuring through the marketplace, many of the lowest-premium plans qualify. HSA will let you save around $4000/year tax-deductible and tax-free, with the restriction that it can only be used for healthcare costs (not insurance premiums) until age 65, at which point the money becomes available for any purpose, still tax-free.
Retirement is probably you main long-term concern. If your employer offers a 401(k), you can put up to $22k in that every year. If your income is $42k, you pay $3200 in OASDI and around $1500 in Federal income tax. Putting $20k in a 401(k) will reduce your declarable income to $22k, your OASDI tax to $1700 and Federal tax to $0, effectively giving you an extra $3000/year to spend/save. 401(k) money is fully taxable when withdrawn, but if you have to withdraw $18k/year (1500/month) after retirement, that is still below the Federal tax threshold (depending on your social security benefits).
For sure, if your employer offers any kind of match to your 401(k) contributions, contribute at least enough to get all of that match. It’s literally free money.
Non-employer retirement accounts are IRAs, either Traditional (tax deductible contributions, tax deferred withdrawals) or Roth (taxable contributions, tax free withdrawals), with $6500/year contribution limits. Roth makes retirement planning very easy, because however much you have saved is what you can spend, but they also mean paying taxes on that money today. In your case, at a marginal tax rate of (7.65+12) = 19.65%, that means $1280/year, where, as with the 401(k), it looks like your after-retirement tax rate will be around 0%, anyway. For most people who qualify, traditional IRA is the lower cost solution, even though it increases the after-retirement tax cost.
Finally, I’m not a pro, this is all just information I’ve picked up. If you’re really unsure, it might be worth your peace of mind to find a fee-only financial advisor and pay them a few hundred dollars for a consultation. Think of it like therapy for your financial mental health. They’ll give you completely boiler-plate advice, but they know all this stuff inside and out, and should be able to set you on a good path in just one meeting. Don’t sign up for an annual contract.
I have heard you should make sure your financial advisor is a fiduciary. My understanding is they are legally required to advise you on things that are in your best interests.
Definitely true, although I think this is more of a concern when you hire one on an ongoing basis to manage your accounts. That management leads to conflict of interest between commissions the advisor might earn on particular investments and maximizing return for the client. Fee-only (is supposed to) mean the advisor doesn’t accept commissions, and should minimize the conflict of interest practically, rather than legally.
I think this is actually not true at the moment since the Trump administration removed that rule (?). It seems the Biden administration has a plan to put the rule back as of a week or so ago though. If someone knows for sure I’d love clarification.
Either way I wouldn’t bother with a fiduciary at the moment unless you have a very complicated retirement setup. Retirement planning is something you can easily learn by yourself by following standard “Boglehead” principles (the strategies everyone in this thread are suggesting). If you get very close to pulling the trigger and are uncomfortable you could check with one just to make sure everything is in order, but you don’t need their advice on “picking stocks” or where to put money etc.
I have no idea myself, was just throwing out what I’ve heard. But thanks for the extra detail!
Thank you. I am implementing everything you said, I will just weed out a couple things that are irrelevant to me,
first of all my healthcare is completely covered as a military veteran,
second I will never hire another financial advisor after my experience with Edward Jones a few years ago who cared nothing about my “financial mental health,” (which I urgently needed help with at the time), they only cared about how my money was helping them.
I trust people like you on Lemmy more than I will ever trust a paid financial advisor. You guys are honest and you always give the same logical advice over and over again, I just need to absorb it, remember it, and do it.
I would add, invest in your health. As a retiree, I can tell you that all the money in the world won’t mean much if you’re too ill or feeble to do the things you enjoy.
If you’re really unsure, it might be worth your peace of mind to find a fee-only financial advisor and pay them a few hundred dollars for a consultation.
Where can you go to find one of these, and make sure they have the proper credentials?
Google is probably your best bet, honestly, but it’s not as easy as I implied. https://www.napfa.org/ is a good place to start. I tried to find one willing to do a one-off consult when I retired. Figured “fee only” would have a business model like lawyers, but most of them seem to be built around annual contracts with fees based on assets (1+%), which generally means that their target market is people with at least seven figures liquid wealth. At least in my MCOL urban market. There may some good options, or courses, for normal humans associated with a local university or community college.
Astonishingly, to me, a lot of the financial planners I contacted were fully subscribed and not accepting new clients. There are a lot of people out there ready to spend $10,000+/year for the reassurance of a quarterly meeting with a CFP who’s almost certainly not getting them $10k/year in tax savings or investment return. Definitely not improving tax savings by that much in the second year over the first year.
I mean, I’m a numbers guy, so I’m totally comfortable with exponential growth, uncertain returns, and tax models, even if I don’t know all the legal loopholes. To me, the CFP is most useful for knowing those loopholes. I know enough people who are intimidated by calculating the tip at a restaurant to understand the value a financial planner subscription brings, but the fees for apparent effort absolutely blow my mind. Even famously low-fee Vanguard offers a personal advisor service, for 0.3% of assets, which is basically a human to plug your numbers into their robo-advisor.
The most interesting part for me would be how much those subscription advisors may be held liable if (when?) they screw up and make you a huge loss in addition to already big total you’ve spent on them over the years of advising.
Why so weirdly touchy about a house??
“the h-word”
I think op was a vanlifer for too long.
The Personal Finance wiki from that other site has a Prime Directive flowchart that spells out how you should allocate windfalls. Here’s the US flowchart but they have them for other countries with their respective finance programs.
In short, if you already are able to live off a smaller income, build an emergency fund so you don’t go backwards, then pay your future self. Don’t inflate your expenses unnecessarily because that just makes the goal of retirement cost more in the end.
Thank you. I do miss a lot of the resources from “that other site” but they just banned my sixth account and I’m so done with them. I have noted all your advice and I will implement it.
You don’t need an account to just view posts and whatnot.
This flowchart was key to helping me logically lay it all out. As the chart and others have mentioned, get your emergency fund in order before you start investing.
The goal is essentially incremental financial independence, with retirement being the final “stage”. Early on, you want to limit higher interest debt and have the cushion to absorb day to day “surprises” without taking on more debt. Then you get to move into the exciting world of retirement saving, starting with employer tax-advantaged accounts and then into brokerage. I found https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio helpful in simplifying the overall decision making (TL;DR index funds).
Definitely worth familiarizing yourself with the flowchart to give you the high-level familiarity. Then you’ll be hooked and pulled down the rabbit hole with the rest of us!
Is it just me or is your us flow chart horrible and unreadable qualify? Downloading it or opening it in a new tap doesn’t allow me to read it at all. Tried on mobile brave and Mozilla browsers.
Think it’s just you. You should try viewing it not on mobile if it’s giving you issues. It’s a 1665x3441 pixel image, plenty of resolution to render all the text.
Viewing as a desktop site fixes it on mobile. From there you can download the image and view it in another app if wanted. The size difference is huge, like 0.04MB on the mobile site vs 1.8MB when viewing as desktop.
I’m going to take a slightly different approach, although I generally agree with all of the advice here.
- Establish an emergency fund. If you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck and do not have a significant amount of money in accessible savings, you’re taking a risk of not being able to handle something like a car repair or unemployment. Withdrawing funds from tax-advantaged retirement accounts can take time and incur significant financial penalties. The rule of thumb is to figure out what you spend in a month, and plan on an emergency fund that can carry you through 6 months of zero income. Some people do less, some do more, and if you’re really thinking about it you can figure out what expenses you can cut in order to make those savings go further.
- Putting money into a matched 401k is a no-brainer, and going with an index fund or retirement date fund is the easiest way to go. However, realistically examine the expected savings by the time you plan to retire. This tells you how much you’ll be able to draw down and for how long. I’m going off of memory here, but I think the consensus safe draw down rate is 4% per year. That means $1M in retirement savings will give you about $40k per year to live on (not including things like social security). Depending on where and how you live, this might be sufficient. You’d have to plan for it though, which is my point.
- There are plenty of retirement calculators online to help with this. You enter your age, when you want to retire, the amount you’re saving, and it will tell you what your savings will be when you’re 65 (or whatever) and how long it will last at different draw down rates. Some will let you estimate things like rate of return too. Be realistic.
- Realize that the closer you get to retirement, the more conservative your investments should be. To paint with a very broad brush, low risk=low reward, high risk=high reward. The further you are from retirement, the longer you have to recover from a downturn. Look at the retirement date targeted funds - they move over time from a more speculative set of investments to a more reliable one. What I’m saying here is that you’ll read things about being able to plan around a 10% rate of return. That’s the average for a stock based portfolio, and it can swing around quite a bit. Individual stocks have a higher risk than an s&p index fund, and the index fund will have a higher risk than a conservative, income-oriented fund. Remember that when you’re using those retirement planning web sites.
The general advice goes like this; If your work offers a match on a 401k then contribute up to the match. If you have more money, max out an IRA. If you have more money, max out the 401k.
If your health plan is a high deductible plan with an HSA you can also contribute to this. They are designed for health expenses but they can also serve as an additional tax advantaged retirement account.
Beyond that you’d be investing through a taxable brokerage account.
As far as what to invest in, S&P500 index funds are usually advised since they tend to capture the overall average returns of the market. Target retirement funds are another option if you want a set it and forget it option that will rebalance to less risky investments as you near retirement age.
Put that first $2k into an IRA before the end of the year.
Got it. Will do. This is the kind of advice I’m looking for because I don’t understand anything about investing, all I know investing is the only way to get ahead in life. Roth IRA. Got it.
If you have a choice on what stonks you invest in: pick an index fund. Don’t go for single stocks.
Index fund. Got it.
The max per year you can put in is $2k. Get the whole $2k in there right now.
In January, put the next $2k in.Generic “assume everyone on the Internet is from my country.” US Roth IRA contribution limits for 2023 is $6.5k, going up to $7k next year. If different country, disregard.
Aye! Thank you. Yes USA. 7,000 maximum Roth IRA annual contribution. Got it.
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You can actually put money into the 2023 IRA until you file taxes, not the end of the year, if that changes anything for OP
This is all great advice in this thread that I can vouch for. If you have more questions post more threads - this investing stuff is more or less a “solved” math problem so you’ll generally get “the right answer” from anyone in this community.
There’s also more to learn beyond what to buy and where it goes. You should also look into the psychology and strategy of Boglehead investing. You’ll need the nerves/rationality to never ever sell your stocks or react to market changes in any way. Don’t even look at the market or your money ideally. Set a course and trust the math. The best way to lose invested money is by touching it. The more you touch it, the more you lose. Index fund investing is so simple that you may feel anxious that you are not doing enough - this is normal and it’s important that you don’t start fiddling with your money by e.g. tilting towards tech or trying crypto etc.
You should look at the funds once or twice a year to rebalance your funds back to the ratios you planned originally.
Eg, your plan is to be 30% bonds 70% stocks. You check every January 1st and see if you still have that balance. If it’s 25% bonds 75% stocks, move 5% stocks into bonds to return to your planned ratio.
Yeah, annual rebalancing is a thing if you’re going that way. You’ll need less rebalancing if you invest in a total world index fund (auto-rebalances domestic+foreign stocks) or a Target Date Fund (auto-rebalances everything for you). I’ll also note that ideally you shouldn’t sell any positions while rebalancing, just start buying more of the other thing. If your plan is 30% bonds/70% stocks and you’re at 25%/75%, pump your next paychecks into bonds until you reach the right ratio again.
I disagree with this. Since bonds and stocks average the same over time, if one is over or under performing, a rebalance will sort of time the market. Plus it’s way easier than changing things multiple times. Also, let’s say that 5% difference is 20k. How long will you invest to rebalance that ratio?
I’m not sure if you meant it in the way that it reads but stocks and bonds absolutely do not return the same amount of money over time - why would anyone ever buy risky stocks if bonds returned the same? Also, if your 5% difference becomes that wild then you can try rebalancing every paycheck instead. There’s no downside to this other than needing to calculate more frequently. When you’re retired and no longer earning, you can sell from your portfolio’s overweighted portions to rebalance instead.
If one section of your portfolio has gotten smaller that means that part is doing bad or other parts are doing well. Buying portions that are doing bad means you’re buying them “on sale”. Buying portions that are doing well means you’re “paying extra”. The end result is similar to selling high and buying low, just like a sell+buy rebalance would, except that you’re only ever “buying low”. This changes to “selling high” in retirement.
To be more clear, you can sell and rebalance if you want but make sure you’re not causing taxable events by doing so - avoiding these taxable events is the primary reason to ‘only buy’ to rebalance (or ‘only sell’ in retirement).
Where physically do I go, and who do I contact to begin an index fund?
It depends on where you’re putting it. Someone already posted the US flowchart which I highly recommend following.
- If you’re putting it in a 401k you’ll be setting that up with your employer’s 401k provider, which you don’t get to pick.
- If you’re putting it in an IRA you get to choose your own provider, and the best ones that people recommend are Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard. You’ll be served well by any of those 3, as they are all friendly and have no fees etc.
- If you’re putting it in an HSA you’ll set that up through your employer’s HSA provider, which you don’t get to pick.
- If you run out of space in your 401k/IRA/HSA you can also open a “brokerage” account which gets put raw into the market with no tax-advantages, but has no yearly input limits. This type can also be started from your Fidelity/Schwab/Vanguard account.
Not a financial pro just advise-
If your job offers a 401 or anything with matching funds - do that. It’s money you won’t miss and what money the company matches is free money.
Start a safety cushion. This should be about 3-6 months of income to fall back on or you van tap into in case of life’s Iittle mishaps. Car repairs, medical, house repairs, family emergency, job loss ect.
CD - cash deposit rates are actually worth investing right now. Over 5% returns and they are guarenteed funds. The more the government jacks up rates, the higher % CDs will be offered. They pay out a flat % over X amount of time. 3 months, 6 months, 12, 18. I wouldn’t go more than 18 months as rates can can change. Most you should be alble to withdrawl the money in case of emergency. They usually pay part interest evey month so you’ll still have the money in case you need to, but the amount you get will be the time invested so you wont get the full 5% for example if you pull out 6 months into a 12 month CD. You’ll only gain 2.5%.
Some of them require higher starting balances than others, but most are pretty easy to get into. Take part of that cushion and make it work for you. Savings accounts offer jack squat. Not very aggressive but better than the stock market casino where even good companies are getting taken for a ride. The market right now is very broken.
If you can, save for some gold, silver, platinum to diversify. The US is going to experience some wild inflation due to it’s continued war mongering and isolation of the world and it’s resources. I don’t think the world is going to forgive us for the whole Palestine / Ukraine thing. Look at the price of gold back in 2000 before 9/11 - $200 / ounce. It’s now around $2,000 an ounce. It’s a known hedge against inflation. I wish I did that earlier. Unless we get really into space mining and reach the Golden Nugget asteroid, they should continue to be a hedge. Learn about SPOT price and PREMIUMS over spot prices. If you have funds backed by physical assets there might be storage fees or maintenance fees associated eith them. Take a look at ONE GOLD and APMEX or JM BULLION.. There are others but these are some of the larger more trusted orgs for example. There are many ways to get access to these commodities.
Shop around for a good financial adviser professional tell them about your current situation and retirement goals. Be careful of higher fees. There are annual fees for these funds and percentage takes when you do withdrawl in retirement. But they can help get in diverse and larger funds and ask about Roth IRA’s. (tax free withdrawls since you already paid taxes on the funds) There are usually minimums associated with certain funds.
Don’t count on or put all your eggs in one basket. You’re going to want to spread RISK so in case a market or sector crash or some other thing happens that royally fucks something up you won’t lose all your assets in one blow.
Just here to second this. CDs are great right now, there are websites that will help you find the best rates for the funds you have to buy in. Definitely figure out how to max any matching 401k/IRA contributions.
Max out your yearly maximum of $10,000 in Series I savings bonds, purchased from the US Treasury.
Or, like others are probably saying, create your own retirement portfolio that allows you to defer income tax payments until you retire.
They’re only paying like 3.6% right now. I’ve been earning more interest in a high yield savings account lately and it doesn’t have all the withdrawal penalties.
The current rate is 5.27% Yeah if you withdraw before 5 years you lose the last three months of interest.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/i-bonds-interest-rates/
Mine likely have not updated to the new rate yet. I was just on the Treasury Direct site and am still receiving 3.6%.
Recently purchased bonds are paying 5.27 Older ones pay more like 4. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/files/savings-bonds/i-bond-rate-chart.pdf
They’re structured to pay barely more than inflation - 0.0-0.5% more through most of this century - which means that even the 5.27% rate on todays bonds will fall when inflation goes back to its 2% target. They’re about the safest investment you can make, but you’re not going to increase your purchasing power.
The rates will update every 6 months on both ends, but depending on when you buy, your new 6-month rate may lag behind by 1-5 months after they’ve changed it on their end.
Max our employer contributions to 401k then use a managed plan that adjusts risk based on your age
What are your goals? Most people answer retirement, but I have friends who for genetic reasons will die at 55, they have different goals.
A house can be a great investment if you pay it off before you retire, since then you live there rent free. (You still have taxes and maintenance costs). However you have much less time to pay it off. Houses are about location though, for some they are great investments, for others really bad. You need to stay in the same house for many years though, if you move they are too risky.
In the US social security payments increase the longer you wait, so plan to retire at 72, or maybe draw down non ss funds first.
Are you married? This is a personal decision, but your spouse’s savings and income are factors as well.
Just follow the Bogle strategy. Low fee index funds.
Whole lotta folks are gonna recommend index funds, if you’re in the US, I highly recommend putting money into a Roth IRA up to the yearly limit. But don’t forget about a safety net, savings rates are high enough right now y hat you can keep a couple months rent and expenses in a savings acct to keep some more liquid cash on hand for emergencies than keeping it in the market
Okay we’re getting to the point where you are repeating the same advice other people have already given. Please read through the other comments before you make a redundant comment. I have to read through all these and my brain & attention span & patience can only bear so much. Thank you.
Do you have any debt? Outstanding credit card balances, loans, etc…
Right now I’m putting most of my extra cash in TFLO, which is a short term treasury bill fund. It’s a very safe fund for preserving capital with a current payout around 5%. I do also have some money in stocks, but right now I’m just taking advantage of the safe returns while deciding how I feel about the broader economy.
