New To Investing Thread

[Kat Kid]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

[wetwillie]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

[Kat Kid]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

Yeah, my friend has 1 rental and it has sounded like an absolute nightmare and he is very handy and can do electrical, plumbing, carpentry etc.

[catastrophe]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

I think that hits the nail on the head. If you read the success stories of like 30 year old millionaires that built an empire by 40 the common denominator is being comfortable with debt and aggressive in leveraging it. Of course, there are lots of untold failure stories as well, but I think the majority of people don’t get rich that way just because it’s overwhelming and they don’t enjoy the hustle.

I actually have a coworker who sounds very similar to KITN and probably has enough passive income to retire now (with a middle class standard of living). The difference is she’s happy interacting with banks, renters, contractors, etc. and literally browses Zillow just for fun sometimes.

[Spracne]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

This reminds me. @KITNfury, do you hold these properties in your personal name? Each held by a different LLC, personally guaranteed by you? What's the legal setup?

[KITNfury]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

This reminds me. @KITNfury, do you hold these properties in your personal name? Each held by a different LLC, personally guaranteed by you? What's the legal setup?

Each purchase has its own LLC. And yea I'm a personal guarantor on all of them.

[KITNfury]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

I think that hits the nail on the head. If you read the success stories of like 30 year old millionaires that built an empire by 40 the common denominator is being comfortable with debt and aggressive in leveraging it. Of course, there are lots of untold failure stories as well, but I think the majority of people don’t get rich that way just because it’s overwhelming and they don’t enjoy the hustle.

I actually have a coworker who sounds very similar to KITN and probably has enough passive income to retire now (with a middle class standard of living). The difference is she’s happy interacting with banks, renters, contractors, etc. and literally browses Zillow just for fun sometimes.

It's not for everyone for sure. I have 7 figures in debt lol. But there's also plenty of equity in the properties.

I always felt like a typical job was soul sucking. I needed to be out from under other people. Something had to give, so I worked really hard the first couple years of investing, got smarter, it got way easier, and I grew. To me it was worth it to "retire" in my late 30s. I don't think someone should do it if they know it's not for them, but I think everyone should at least think about it.

[steve dave]

If anyone has a “soul crushing” job/occupation/relationship/etc. for sure do something different


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[KITNfury]

If anyone has a “soul crushing” job/occupation/relationship/etc. for sure do something different


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Agree. I've said many times that I MUST hate working for other people more than most people. I just couldn't ever be passionate about work because I was helping someone else grow their dream. Nobody is wrong for feeling different than me. For a long time I was jealous of people that did.

[catastrophe]

Alright friends, it’s me again.

I have been making tons of money with the stocks only go up plan, and am now going to stop trading my Roth IRA and want to make a mutual fund/etf portfolio.

Absolute minimum of S&P 500 index is 60%

The other 40% rules—
No bonds (for losers)
Want emerging markets exposure
Want international exposure

Not sure if I should have some sector exposure in single digit percentages (home builders, biotech, semi conductors etc) or do small cap or what or just keep it simple.

Also, let me be clear I made a Robin Hood account and bought in on June 8th my birthday and the recent market top and promptly lost 10% and have been doing super dumb crap constantly and managed to claw back to -4.8% by doing tons of other dumb crap, but occasionally buying OTM VXX calls and sweating them for a week until they go green.  I am here to admit I am a total dumbass.

If anyone (Steve Dave or sdbro or brokercat69) wants to see my IRL RobinHood “portfolio” and help me extract max value from it I will definitely take their (maybe sys too or some finance bro I don’t know about) advice on this matter, but I don’t want to lay that all out here without someone actually offering some help and I’m more concerned with the retirement account than the RH because it is like 20x the value.

Can we get a year in review with the real life market timing experiment?

[Kat Kid]

Well not year end, but sure!

IRA- mostly stopped trading but I am still in a bunch of stonks, overweight EM, overweight China, no bonds.  I can break that stuff down further later if people care.

IRA Dec 2019-Dec 2020 = +30.6%

Robinhood I have mostly been a complete idiot but am still up 7.33% since June so doing about half as well as the market.  Good lessons learned.  Now the account mostly is stuff that I want to hold long term so I will still trade some dumb options and stuff, but this is where I have about half of my BTC and some energy stocks and banks that I hope will outperform going forward so we will see.

[catastrophe]

Interesting! I was mainly asking because of the strategy of moving money to cash then back to stocks. My performance is all over the place. Below is all Dec. 2019-20.

Vanguard regular investments +24%

Wife’s Vanguard target retirement fund IRA: +17.9%

529 (last stock purchase in Aug. 2018): +52.5% 

I’m super curious how my 401k did since I made most of my contributions RIGHT before the market tanked (so basically the worst possible time), but this weekend is website maintenance weekend I guess. :(

[Spracne]

Interesting! I was mainly asking because of the strategy of moving money to cash then back to stocks. My performance is all over the place. Below is all Dec. 2019-20.

Vanguard regular investments +24%

Wife’s Vanguard target retirement fund IRA: +17.9%

529 (last stock purchase in Aug. 2018): +52.5% 

I’m super curious how my 401k did since I made most of my contributions RIGHT before the market tanked (so basically the worst possible time), but this weekend is website maintenance weekend I guess. :(

Why do you hate dollar-cost averaging? Btw, looks like my 401(k) is +24.37% over the past 12 months. I suspect your "Vanguard regular investments" are quite similar to how I've structured my 401(k).

[Phil Titola]

KITN, I'm sure that must be fun and/or motivating to you and congrats on the real estate empire, but that all sounds miserable.

I agree and I think it makes it all the more impressive.   I’d have a panic attack with that much debt.

Yeah, my friend has 1 rental and it has sounded like an absolute nightmare and he is very handy and can do electrical, plumbing, carpentry etc.

Had one 5 bedroom in Manhattan.  Charged $500 a bedroom and still hated every second of it.  Not for me.  Never again.

[catastrophe]

With 529s I feel more urgency since they’ve got less than 20 years to grow (unless you start them before conception I guess).

Also someone in here earlier said lump sum was better. And according to Google I guess Vanguard did a study where lump sum investing outperformed dollar cost averaging 66% of the time.

[Spracne]

With 529s I feel more urgency since they’ve got less than 20 years to grow (unless you start them before conception I guess).

Also someone in here earlier said lump sum was better. And according to Google I guess Vanguard did a study where lump sum investing outperformed dollar cost averaging 66% of the time.

Second question: I know you've dabbled in the back-door Roth stuff. What's the limit for what you can convert? I'm stupidly sitting on a The Hill of cash. Maybe I'll buy some rentals or something...

[catastrophe]

No limit, but gains you made in the IRA are taxable when it moves to a Roth. So timing can be an issue if you have made a lot and expect to be in a lower tax bracket relatively soon. Other than that I’m a fan of just biting the bullet and doing it ASAP.

[catastrophe]

I must also add along those lines that Turbotax does not seem to handle this kind of taxable event well since it’s still pretty uncommon. You have to be very careful to make sure they don’t try to tax you on the entire rollover (basically treating it like an early distribution).

[Phil Titola]

I considered all that backdoor stuff but I landed on I am doing enough for retirement, I'm not putting all my eggs in the getting old and retiring basket. Investing in stuff I can enjoy the proceeds now.

My uncle just retired, bought his and husands dream place, and next month diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. eff waiting for retirement.

[Spracne]

No limit, but gains you made in the IRA are taxable when it moves to a Roth. So timing can be an issue if you have made a lot and expect to be in a lower tax bracket relatively soon. Other than that I’m a fan of just biting the bullet and doing it ASAP.

But I am limited by individual IRA contribution limits, meaning I can't just dump in 100K and then roll it over into a Roth IRA, correct?

[catastrophe]

Oh yeah. Unless you’re over 55 or something you cannot put more than (I think) $6k/year into an IRA, period.

[michigancat]

With 529s I feel more urgency since they’ve got less than 20 years to grow (unless you start them before conception I guess).

Also someone in here earlier said lump sum was better. And according to Google I guess Vanguard did a study where lump sum investing outperformed dollar cost averaging 66% of the time.

Second question: I know you've dabbled in the back-door Roth stuff. What's the limit for what you can convert? I'm stupidly sitting on a The Hill of cash. Maybe I'll buy some rentals or something...

Seriously look into hiring a fee-based financial advisor if you haven't already. Not for a lot of try-hards in this thread but it's been good for me.

[Spracne]

With 529s I feel more urgency since they’ve got less than 20 years to grow (unless you start them before conception I guess).

Also someone in here earlier said lump sum was better. And according to Google I guess Vanguard did a study where lump sum investing outperformed dollar cost averaging 66% of the time.

Second question: I know you've dabbled in the back-door Roth stuff. What's the limit for what you can convert? I'm stupidly sitting on a The Hill of cash. Maybe I'll buy some rentals or something...

Seriously look into hiring a fee-based financial advisor if you haven't already. Not for a lot of try-hards in this thread but it's been good for me.

Yeah, I should do that. I have financial advisors hitting up my work phone a few times a month, but I always shut it down b/c eff you, don't interrupt my day with your cold calls. There are just so many of them, and I have no clue how to tell who is the real deal.

[michigancat]

With 529s I feel more urgency since they’ve got less than 20 years to grow (unless you start them before conception I guess).

Also someone in here earlier said lump sum was better. And according to Google I guess Vanguard did a study where lump sum investing outperformed dollar cost averaging 66% of the time.

Second question: I know you've dabbled in the back-door Roth stuff. What's the limit for what you can convert? I'm stupidly sitting on a The Hill of cash. Maybe I'll buy some rentals or something...

Seriously look into hiring a fee-based financial advisor if you haven't already. Not for a lot of try-hards in this thread but it's been good for me.

Yeah, I should do that. I have financial advisors hitting up my work phone a few times a month, but I always shut it down b/c eff you, don't interrupt my day with your cold calls. There are just so many of them, and I have no clue how to tell who is the real deal.

Ask around for referrals but look for a few fee-based fiduciaries and set up calls with two or three. Being fee-based means they won't try to sell you anything, they only get paid by you and I'm guessing people giving you cold calls want to sell shitty life insurance or something. I think most give the option of a one-time assessment and financial plan and that's it or you can continue after the initial plan is given. We chose to stay with monthly and are glad we did even if we could figure out a lot on our own after the initial plan.

Yelp was actually a pretty good resource for finding advisors because I could tell there were people in similar situations I was in working with the folks I ultimately met with. Some seemed to focus on wealthier people or like startup founders, some focused on getting people out of deep debt, and we found someone in between that had clearly helped people through similar situations we were in.

[steve dave]

Never buy whole life or an annuity of any kind


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