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S/O oh How much do you save?



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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 2:25 pm
Been married 15 years. Desperately want to know how investing works. Both my husband and I are not financially savvy. We kill ourselves at our jobs. We cover our basic bills with very lityle left over. BH we work in jobs that have pensions. Both my husband and I were immature when I got married. I'm inspired and so impressed!
Please give me advice on how to invest.
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amother
Dimgray


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 3:13 pm
I posted in the other thread about Robinhood and Charles Schwab. Both are apps you can use that are self-directed and very straightforward. You transfer money from a bank account to the app, and can then choose what to invest in. IMO, for long-term, what you want are index funds. Rather than invest in a single company's stock, index funds are comprised of many stocks. That ensures you don't put all your eggs in one basket, and it mimics the performance of the market in general, which trends upwards. Over the long term, it is considered relatively safe. As I mentioned on the other thread, funds like QQQ and VGT (Vanguard) are good places to start.

One important note is to not try to "time" the market. For example, right now a share of VGT is around $400. If you bought it today, but then tomorrow it's $395, you might think "oh no, I should've waited until tomorrow to buy!" or "oh no, I'm down $5!" The point is to be patient over the long term. Over the past year it went up 43%, from $282 to today's $400, and over the past five years it went up 288% from $104 to $400. On Robinhood you can invest in fractional shares, which means you don't need to have $400 right now - if you have $20, you can use that to buy a fraction of a stock.

Therefore, people will say the best time to invest is yesterday. My personal goal is to use our investments to buy a house. Some days we fluctuate thousands of dollars up and down but over the long term (5-10 years) the returns steadily increase.

If you're new to this, you should definitely have a conversation about risk tolerance. Would you guys be more comfortable putting in $100 and testing what happens before putting in more money? Would you okay with putting in $100 only for it to drop to $90 in a month? The worst thing to do would be to pull everything out when it drops, so you need to be okay with rockiness and have your eye on the longer term prize!
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amother
Ginger


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 4:12 pm
It may be worthwhile for you to pay a financial advisor to guide you. My husband and I did that when we first were interested in investing and knew nothing about it. He educated us and invested our money wisely (I think in a variety of mutual funds) and BH it's doing well 3 years later
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amother
Dustypink


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 4:28 pm
Do you keep on top of your Robinhood stocks and check them often? I thought that it was a way to invest hands-off. In your opinion, would it be fine to invest and then "forget" about it for 15-20 years, or do you need to stay on top of it? Also, can Robinhood work well for short-term investing, such as 5-10 years, since I thought it was ideal for long-term investing.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 4:40 pm
amother [ Dimgray ] wrote:
I posted in the other thread about Robinhood and Charles Schwab. Both are apps you can use that are self-directed and very straightforward. You transfer money from a bank account to the app, and can then choose what to invest in. IMO, for long-term, what you want are index funds. Rather than invest in a single company's stock, index funds are comprised of many stocks. That ensures you don't put all your eggs in one basket, and it mimics the performance of the market in general, which trends upwards. Over the long term, it is considered relatively safe. As I mentioned on the other thread, funds like QQQ and VGT (Vanguard) are good places to start.

One important note is to not try to "time" the market. For example, right now a share of VGT is around $400. If you bought it today, but then tomorrow it's $395, you might think "oh no, I should've waited until tomorrow to buy!" or "oh no, I'm down $5!" The point is to be patient over the long term. Over the past year it went up 43%, from $282 to today's $400, and over the past five years it went up 288% from $104 to $400. On Robinhood you can invest in fractional shares, which means you don't need to have $400 right now - if you have $20, you can use that to buy a fraction of a stock.

Therefore, people will say the best time to invest is yesterday. My personal goal is to use our investments to buy a house. Some days we fluctuate thousands of dollars up and down but over the long term (5-10 years) the returns steadily increase.

If you're new to this, you should definitely have a conversation about risk tolerance. Would you guys be more comfortable putting in $100 and testing what happens before putting in more money? Would you okay with putting in $100 only for it to drop to $90 in a month? The worst thing to do would be to pull everything out when it drops, so you need to be okay with rockiness and have your eye on the longer term prize!


We would be fine with it going up and down. In a way I just want to forget about it. Do you think its worthwhile using a financial adviser or Robinhood is good enough?
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 4:41 pm
amother [ Ginger ] wrote:
It may be worthwhile for you to pay a financial advisor to guide you. My husband and I did that when we first were interested in investing and knew nothing about it. He educated us and invested our money wisely (I think in a variety of mutual funds) and BH it's doing well 3 years later


How much do they charge? Do you keep putting money in?
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amother
Dimgray


 

Post Fri, Jul 02 2021, 5:11 pm
I used to have a widget on my phone that showed me my Robinhood stocks at all time, but I had to delete it because it was getting really excessive. Some context - I initially had maybe 4k in Robinhood and thought I was being all savvy by having some money in there. When we got married, my husband had tens of thousands in Robinhood and convinced me to move tens of thousands from my savings account into RH too. So I did, but since it was such a huge move for me, I obsessed about checking it constantly. I'd text him "oh no, I'm down $2k!" and he'd respond "that means they're on sale, buy more!"

I knew it wasn't helpful to keep such a close eye on it, so now, I check about once a week, just to keep an eye on it and for my own peace of mind. If I have an extra few hundred dollars I'll move it into RH, see what makes sense to invest it in that day, and then forget about it.

In my mind, 5-10 years still is long term! That's basically the range I'm looking at for a future house purchase.
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amother
Bellflower


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 6:38 pm
This book really explains it well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod.....psc=1


You dont need an advisor. You can open up a vanguard account in less then 10 minutes and start buying index funds in a few minutes and keep on adding
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amother
Orchid


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 7:50 pm
I'd recommend speaking with a financial advisor... we knew a little about stocks- but the investor knew exactly where to place which amount of money for best growth and in a diversified portfolio ... BH doing well after a few years.. much hatzlacha!!!
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amother
Cerise


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 8:01 pm
We are married 15 years. This is how we invest.

1. 401k for me through my company. Roth for Dh. Fixed monthly.

2. per child investments. We put away a set amount per month per child into mutual fund via direct deposit. We met with a financial planner who did not charge to advise us. This has worked out very well for us. For kids whose funds have done well we reduced our investment when they reached an amount we wanted so we could keep on investing for other kids. We plan to use this for weddings and post wedding support.

3. Our Real estate. We started with 30k. Partially from refinancing our house maybe 10 years ago. My dh was familiar with maintaining snd renting homes from work and worked in an area that then was cheap to buy homes. He bought one home. Fixed it up. Rented. Refinanced. Bought another home. In the end bought 6 homes over 5 years. Those homes bring in minor income from rents. They have also increase in value which helped us with
4. Real estate investments. We refinanced the original homes and invested our money with large investors. Typically they require $150k minimum. Our first time we did100k with penalties. You get an average (not guaranteed) 8% return on your investment. When they refinance you get money back based on the percentage you invested. You still get back your return until they sell the building. So you get 8k a year on 100k and then get your 100k back hopefully after 3-10 years. (After which you get a smaller return). Bec we reconvene our homes investments and already got our first investment back we did a few of these
You get a larger percentage and less risk owning your own homes but it is a pain in the neck. And sometimes you don’t have tenants or can have major expenses.
5. Robinhood. I hate this. Feels like luck.
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amother
Blue


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 8:19 pm
We are married over 20 years. We live way below our means. Im not to happy. Example we are 3 drivers sharing one car. It causes alot of conflict.

On the flip side, we max out a Roth Ira for both of us. Dh maxes out of his 401k. I just switched jobs and starting contributing this year to a 401k.

We have stocks as well. This is DHs department. He has a Robin Hood account as well as something else.

We own a house, im unsure exactly how much equity we have in it.

Dhs goal is to able to retire even before all kids are married.
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amother
Cerise


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 8:25 pm
We also live way below our means
Very small home.
Ppl think we are poor.
But have lots invested
If we lived to our salary we wouldn’t be able to invest.
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amother
Hunter


 

Post Sun, Aug 01 2021, 8:46 pm
We use vanguard and I followed the tips on the boglehead forums.
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