New To Investing Thread

[KITNfury]

well i didn't WANT to regret the amount i invested in my 20's but now i am. i did some (401k 10% basically) but didn't emphasize it nearly enough.

That's why I'm so adamant about passive income. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in doctorate time, so my 20s were used killing brain cells instead of collecting dollars.

With passive income, at a sufficient amount, the size of your nest egg is irrelevant.

[catastrophe]

A nest egg is really just a different avenue to passive income. It’s basically employing your money instead of people.

[KITNfury]

A nest egg is really just a different avenue to passive income. It’s basically employing your money instead of people.

To a degree. But there are very important things to know that are also impossible to know in order to determine if the best egg is big enough. How long will you live after your retirement age? What will your future expenses be when considering inflation and health costs?

Obviously a nest egg of a large enough size can alleviate those concerns. I don't know the percentage, but don't think it a bold prediction to say most don't achieve that luxury. Especially considering most nest eggs are in accounts that will have mandatory withdrawals, shrinking the returns.

[DaBigTrain]

GameStop seems like a very good one to get into

[Kat Kid]

The Psychology of Money is a great read. I read it in one sitting. Very clever way to organize the chapters to make you keep reading without wanting to put it down.

I gave away my copy so probably going to buy it again at some point.

[catastrophe]

So I've crunched at the numbers and my Vanguard funds are outperforming my stuff in Betterment after a couple of years.  Not by much, but enough to make me feel like I don't need to pay the .25% management fee on everything I invest.

Anyone have advice on Vanguard funds?  I think I found some that I like, just still don't really understand how much I should worry about diversifying when it comes to index funds.  Right now I'm mostly in VXUS, VTI, VOO, and VIMAX, FWIW.

Depends on how much and what it's for. I mean vanguard's target index funds basically do what betterment does at a lower expense ratio. My company uses Betterment for our 401k and it seems like a rip off.

Betterment has some tools I really like, so I’m not ditching it entirely. Just hoping to come up with a game plan of an asset mix I like for DIY investing. I’m hoping to be able to start relying on investment gains as my main source of income in about 15 years or so, so I think I need to start focusing more on bonds (been 100% stocks up to this point).

Update: back on the Betterment bandwagon.  I have still been using Vanguard for most of my ETF buying the last couple years, but had enough in Betterment to take advantage of tax loss harvesting.  The game changer is that now Betterment allows you to donate shares to charity.  So you tax loss harvesting lets you sell low, and then you donate the full value of the extra-appreciated shares.  Double value!

[Dr Rick Daris]

Hot take- I couldn’t care less about being loaded when I’m 70, if I’m even lucky enough to live that long. I’ll spend my money and have my fun right now thank you very much.

[Dr Rick Daris]

Hey everybody! I’m 26 and socking tons of money away for retirement for when I’ll be in physical pain a lot and probably have old man cancer and stuff. Ok cool dude. Why don’t you just not do that and go take a vacation or get some lap dances or something.

[Spracne]

Hey everybody! I’m 26 and socking tons of money away for retirement for when I’ll be in physical pain a lot and probably have old man cancer and stuff. Ok cool dude. Why don’t you just not do that and go take a vacation or get some lap dances or something.

Because working is what fills me with the most joy.

[Dr Rick Daris]

Hey everybody! I’m 26 and socking tons of money away for retirement for when I’ll be in physical pain a lot and probably have old man cancer and stuff. Ok cool dude. Why don’t you just not do that and go take a vacation or get some lap dances or something.

Because working is what fills me with the most joy.

Working or saving money for retirement? They are very different things.

[catastrophe]

I was gonna say the prospect of early retirement is what makes work most enjoyable, but to each his own.

[Dr Rick Daris]

I was gonna say the prospect of early retirement is what makes work most enjoyable, but to each his own.

Do you mean the prospect of early retirement is what makes investing money the most enjoyable? I don’t understand.

[catastrophe]

I was gonna say the prospect of early retirement is what makes work most enjoyable, but to each his own.

Do you mean the prospect of early retirement is what makes investing money the most enjoyable? I don’t understand.

I mean having a good nest egg gives you a freedom from work.  Like, you know I dgaf if they fire me from this job.  Once you don't feel trapped the work itself is more enjoyable.

[Dr Rick Daris]

I was gonna say the prospect of early retirement is what makes work most enjoyable, but to each his own.

Do you mean the prospect of early retirement is what makes investing money the most enjoyable? I don’t understand.

I mean having a good nest egg gives you a freedom from work.  Like, you know I dgaf if they fire me from this job.  Once you don't feel trapped the work itself is more enjoyable.

Makes sense I guess. I’m a show up and let the chips fall as the may kind of person myself. Things seem to always work out. Like, whatever.

[bucket]

Hot take- I couldn’t care less about being loaded when I’m 70, if I’m even lucky enough to live that long. I’ll spend my money and have my fun right now thank you very much.

This is what I thought when I read, I think, @benji's post about how you earn more investing a certain amount from 18-28 than you do 28-65. When I was 18-28 I refused to invest because I thought I might not live to be 40-50. After reading that I wish I had invested some money at that age.

[ben ji]

I was gonna say the prospect of early retirement is what makes work most enjoyable, but to each his own.

Do you mean the prospect of early retirement is what makes investing money the most enjoyable? I don’t understand.

I mean having a good nest egg gives you a freedom from work.  Like, you know I dgaf if they fire me from this job.  Once you don't feel trapped the work itself is more enjoyable.

This is the ultimate goal for me, summed up by John Goodman in the movie "The Gambler"...FU money


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjKP8vYjpQ&ab_channel=YoutubeVideos

[chum1]

I think the Buffett example maybe wasn't the best illustration of compounding because it sort of comes off like, "see how much money you can have while you're on your deathbed!" WGAF.

And I think the really old, sick person angle applies even before you're really old and sick. Like, I used to dream of traveling the entire world and doing all kinds of crap. But the older I get, the more I'm like, "meh, whatever." I expect this trend to continue and by the time I'm retirement age I'll be fully content watching the birds in my back yard, which is incredibly inexpensive.

[steve dave]

everyone is different for sure and I'm certainly not going to look differently on anyone for how they think about their own situations.

I'd like to build one more house before my kids are in HS so they remember it as "home" and not just "my parents house". and I want it to be somewhere that the entire family can gather when (fingers crossed) we're old and kids are adults and can come with their families (if they have them) and have a ton of room and it to be nice and big and have some acres but not be like in the country and that takes a lot of money, even in Omaha.

I'd like to travel all over the world still and am very excited to start doing that in the next few years with my kids. haven't done so in the last 5 years other than a couple week long trips because my kids were too young and we didn't want to leave them with anyone for too long.

I'm going to pay for my kids to go to whatever school they want to go to (if they do want to) so they don't get into student loan debt.

I'm going to retire in my mid to upper 50s. that used to seem like a really long time from now but as every year passes that gets closer. So that's going to take some earning and saving and investing.

[Kat Kid]

Compounding really is something that most people need to see actual examples of to make sense of it, thus the buffet example.

My mom married two people and both died before they enjoyed retirement much after being pretty good savers so I do think that there is something to that, but I figure I live a pretty good life and I will almost certainly have enough to retire by 58 assuming my kids don’t all take 8 years to get a degree.

[wetwillie]

You can save 15% of your income for retirement and still do fun stuff while you are young.  It doesn’t have to be either or.

[IPA4Me]

You can save 15% of your income for retirement and still do fun stuff while you are young.  It doesn’t have to be either or.

Bingo

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[Justwin]

You can save 15% of your income for retirement and still do fun stuff while you are young.  It doesn’t have to be either or.

A 15% savings rate translates roughly into 43 years until retirement from when you start saving.  That's a too long for me.

And we do plenty of things that are fun, but don't cost very much money.

[wetwillie]

6k a year from 25 to 60 at 12% return gets you 3 million.   Could retire at 50 with 1.8MM on same trajectory.

[Justwin]

6k a year from 25 to 60 at 12% return gets you 3 million.   Could retire at 50 with 1.8MM on same trajectory.

Does that 12% return include inflation?  I generally assume a 5% real (inflation adjusted) annual return.

When I run your numbers I get $2.7 million from 25-60 and $843,000 from 25-50.

[wetwillie]

Not inflation adjusted, meant 25 to 55 in the second part.  6k a year is only 15% of a gross of 40K a year so it’s likely many people here can and do much more than 500 a month.  I think Rick is right that often people get overly aggressive and want to have some monster pile of cash waiting for them and never really enjoy their life along the way.