Nothing crazy is necessary. If somebody starts early, maxes out a Roth IRA, and then puts in enough to max out their company’s contribution, that should be more than sufficient. If somebody can’t live comfortably off $3-5k a month when retired, they did life wrong. At that point, you should have no mortgage, car note, credit card debt, loans, none of that shit.
Outside of the Simple IRA and Roth IRA, what other vehicles besides individual stocks can I do? Which leads me into the Vanguard question.. can I buy a mutual fund without it being in an IRA?
Within your employer plan you may not be able to select Vanguard funds but there are many other ETF's that are very close to the recommended VOO or VTI. If you are restricted to only Franklin Templeton and Pimco your employer should be educated about picking a provider that offers low fee index ETF's. But for now take a look at PSTKX and ask your advisor guy which other funds he might recommend that most mirrors a passive S&P500 ETF like VOO. Outside your employer plan you should be able to buy VOO or another low cost index ETF no problem, within or outside of any retirement plan.
You can get a Robinhood account (app) and buy into VOO or VTI you want on your own, without going through anyone or anything.
Why would you do that? I'm borrowing money for my house at 3.75% and even my low investments are earning 5.5% that means I'm netting 1.75% in that particular situation. As long as your money is working harder than the money you're borrowing it's always better to borrow. An extreme example is my car at 1.9% and one of my ETFs at 27% I could have paid off my $20K car and saved $500 in interest over 3 years or even at 10%APR I'd make $6,000 - $500 in interest for car and net $5,500.
Yeah, somebody might've mentioned that earlier in this thread... Seriously. For 98.6% of the people reading this : 1) contribute to your company 401k at minimum to the point that they no longer match. Under 50, choose SPDR or the equivalent / closest thing to it... Over 50 perhaps ponder a mix of non-mortgage-holding bond funds 2) pay off all interest paying debt 3) once you have zero paying debt (including mortgage and don't let anyone tell you otherwise) contribute max into your 401k. No matter what... SAVE. It's pitiful to ponder the percentage of the population that has zero savings. I truly hope that uncle Sam does not bail those fuckers out, either. But, sadly, much like 2007,he will. And those of us who were responsible enough to NOT overextend ourselves will foot the bill for the less frugal among us. I better stop now before I wax too dungeonesque...
Depends on what mutual fund and what ETF. But for non-technical purposes, consider an ETF to be just like a mutual fund. The index ETFs we are mostly talking about here have market risk only. On average over the last 100 years will grow about 7% per year or more with dividend reinvestment.
I opened up a Fidelity account YEARS ago. You can have access to many investments products outside of Fidelity. I have my Vanguard and multiple ETF’s through them. (BTW, my VTI since I’ve had it is up 115%! LOL). I’m a big ETF / SPDR fan. Much lower mgmt costs compared to a mutual fund. I have some in various markets (energy, industrial, utilities, foreign mks, etc).
I'd suggest 3 things: 1. Buy a house when you can afford it 2. Invest in 401k through your employer or IRA through your bank/credit union 3. If the stock market crashes in your lifetime ignore all of the dipshits speculating about what's gonna happen. Buy low and sell high! I'm still kicking myself for number 3 above... I listened to the jackasses thinking Ford, AIG, and others would go under. There was a long list of stocks under $1 and the Jim Cramer £@#% was saying not to buy the low stocks. I'd be sitting on a nest egg right now if I went with my instinct.
No way I'm banking on living off that little money. No idea what taxes will be then, what health care costs may be, etc....I'd much rather be safe than sorry and live a really nice life when I'm retired. I should be done when I'm 52.
Probably would be attainable if prices and salaries remain stable but you know that's not going to happen when the Fed is targeting certain inflation numbers. So the money put away today for retirement will be worth less in terms of purchasing power.
$5,000/month is "little" money?? Say you live til 85... thats nearly $2,000,000 just off dividend or interest. (assuming you dont retire with loads of debt or monthly obligations or your principle doesnt vanish) I know guys retired from the military drawing pensions that maybe puts them in the <$3,000/month category. Some of them work part time jobs for their car/truck payments. Most of them are not very good with numbers lucky they are still in their 40s...lol. In the private sector I know some fellas that retired from utility companies only to turn around a month later and take a fat 6 figure position at another utility an hour away from their home. As for medical... that could be your whole nest egg or not. My old neighbor had to come out of retirement at 55 because he couldnt go a few years without a bypass surgery. He was cranky before that... you can imagine the gem of a human after that.