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Investment advice
ChillyWilly
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi, folks.
Just looking for any books, podcasts, articles, etc. that might help me wrap my head around investing for retirement.
My wife and I are mid-30s, teachers, and have 1 kid, so we're not looking for (nor do we believe in) any strategies that promise retirement in the next 5 years or anything nonsensical like that.
We literally just do not have the first clue about where to start place money and in what amounts so that we can retire in a much more modest 20-30 years (or if that's even possible with our current income).
Any advice would be great. Thanks!
Just looking for any books, podcasts, articles, etc. that might help me wrap my head around investing for retirement.
My wife and I are mid-30s, teachers, and have 1 kid, so we're not looking for (nor do we believe in) any strategies that promise retirement in the next 5 years or anything nonsensical like that.
We literally just do not have the first clue about where to start place money and in what amounts so that we can retire in a much more modest 20-30 years (or if that's even possible with our current income).
Any advice would be great. Thanks!
PAFC Top 10 Finisher in Seasons 1 and 3. 2nd in Seasons 4 and 5. Final 4 in Season 6.
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If you’ve still got disposable income after that, then you make sure you are eliminating any debts first and maintaining a healthy 3/6/12 month emergency fund. After those things are established then you look into extra retirement investments. I’d basically just go with low cost Vanguard funds that are as safe and reliable as you can get when investing in the market generally.
All investments, including 401k and other retirement funds carry risk, just remember that you’re in it for the long haul and if/when markets tumble and your value diminishes that that’s okay and it’s actually a great time to buy as much as you can (which should just be your regular automatic paycheck purchases that you don’t fiddle with after setting up) because in the long run you are getting better value buying low and selling in 20+ years.
I’m not a real expert, though I invest for my own family and have taken a few classes on the subject so definitely consult others before diving in.
There’s a nice thread in D&D just for this sort of thing. I’ll edit it in if no one beats me to it by then.
Edit:
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/207205/cha-ching-its-the-financial-literacy-thread#latest
Real Answer: What davidsdurions said. The only thing I'd offer is don't just invest in one Vanguard fund, diversify it a bit if you hit that point.
Some Vanguard (or iShares) funds are very diversified within themselves. For example if you buy a total US equity ETF, you are by definition pretty diversified within that single fund.
I've recently gone down the path of educating myself on all of this stuff too, but I'm going from a Canadian perspective so a lot of the resources I've been checking won't be as useful to someone in the USA. Definitely look up low fee Index ETFs though.
quick edit:
One thing that you should educate yourself on is "Asset Allocation" - i.e. splitting your total investment assets between Equities (stocks) and Bonds.
As far as books, I always recommend reading The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and then The Four Pillars of Investing.
There's a few others but those are good starts.
Also Ric Edelman's The Truth About Money
(I also have a huge mancrush on host Kai Ryssdal but that's not important)
https://www.schwab.com/ira/understand-iras/roth-vs-trad-ira#:~:text=With a Roth IRA, you,current income after age 59½.
Me personally, I use a Roth IRA through Vanguard target date retirement fund. It is a diverse fund and I just dump my money into the target date fund that is close to my retirement age. When you are younger, it will invest more in stocks and be higher risk, but you need that for growth. As you approach retirement, it will start switching more to bonds. It's important not to freak out about how the market is doing, you are looking at the long game, 30 years from now, rather than 1-2 years in the future. Even the dip back in March has recovered, though this isn't saying the economy has recovered. Set your money in a diversified fund and check it every 6-12 months.
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/performance/vffvx
Other people have given great advice in this thread, but I would also suggest making sure you have a budget and reducing high-interest debt, such as credit cards or some loans. For retirement investing, controlling how much you are spending and how much you pay towards interest is important and will free up money in the long run.
+1 for Bogleheads. Jack Bogle was one of the founders of Vanguard, and a longtime proponent of simple low-cost index based investing. It's an approach also espoused by Warren Buffet (see his bet of the S&P 500 over 10 years destroying a hedge fund guy). Beyond the books, there's also the Bogleheads website which has some good wiki-like articles, as well as a forum. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
Funnily enough, even though buffet did win his bet, to make the bet he and the hedge fund guy put equal money into a US bond, which then also out performed them both.
But if you're going to listen to one thing, go to a fiduciary, not simply a financial advisor.
What is the difference between these two things?
A fiduciary is obligated to work in your best interest. A non-fiduciary financial advisor is more likely to put you into products that give them the most commission (but not everyone is automatically evil).
https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/what-is-fiduciary-financial-advisor
Edit:
video is like a bajillion years old but some useful things in their for the most part.