How is your 401k doing? Are you saving enough for retirement?

Do you have an individual investment account? What do you invest in? Individual stocks or mutual funds/ETFs? Actively managed or passive?

My opinion to get things started is avoid actively managed mutual funds. Evidence shows that they typically do not outperform passive funds (for the most part perform the same or even worse). But to make matters worse, the fees on actively managed funds are much higher.
So even if they did outperform, fees will eat into whatever the difference is.

Here is a simplified example of the effects of fees over a long period of time:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/millennial-retirement-fees-one-percent-half-million-savings-impact/

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I never really messed with actively managed mutual funds because I'd always read that very few beat the market and even fewer do it consistently.

I've also tried being an active stock investor but I realized that I don't have the time or temperament necessary. I'd rather casually track the market and a handful of stocks and make a couple trades a year than track a list of stock and make several trades a day.

So my portfolio has evolved into 90% Vanguard total stock market index (or equivalent) and the rest in a handful of blue chippers (JNJ, BRK.B, CHV), tech darlings (AMZN for now, AAPL and FB in the past), a bond ETF and some overseas indexes.

Outside of that, I also invest in real estate. I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to start investing during the bubble over 10 years ago. I've learned more than I've earned over that time period but I'm re-applying that experience towards a more focused strategy.

The goal is to completely replace my work income with real estate income in the next 10 years through investing in multi-family properties.

So I've been listening to alot of podcasts from biggerpockets.com, reading books and getting my savings together so I can make my first NEW purchase next year.

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Is it possible to invest pretax dollars without a 401k

Should I roll my old 401K in with my Roth IRA?

I’m a novice at this stuff. I just set it and forget it but I want maximize my investments.

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TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

>I’m a novice at this stuff. I just set it and forget it but
>I want maximize my investments.

I just rolled over my old 401k to a rollover IRA with my cousin. He proposed I take a chunk of my savings and invest with them as well. I'm still mulling that over. I would classify them as an "actively managed mutual fund company" but he tells me they'd be spreading out my investments in 90% equities, whatever that means (anyone ? Bueller ?). Funnily enough I passed my series 6, 7, and 63 right out of college in 2006 for a job I wanted but have obviously forgotten every single thing I learned from all the studying I did for those tests. The only reason I don't open my own account and not pay fees, and do "passive," as the OP says, is because I can never find the time / am largely too lazy to keep up with even that. I'd rather pay an expert, and the family fee to invest with my cousin is essentially 50% of what those costs normally would be. So we'll see.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

I want to start investing a little bit at a time.

There was a dude on here who had a plan for buying stocks. Pretty much save a G and buy 1 stock every year with it. He sounded like he knew what he was doing.

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TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

>I want to start investing a little bit at a time.
>
>There was a dude on here who had a plan for buying stocks.
>Pretty much save a G and buy 1 stock every year with it. He
>sounded like he knew what he was doing.
>
>

Don't do this! Maybe with some throwaway, lottery ticket money. But this is pretty much the definition of putting all your eggs in one basket.
You'd be taking on unnecessary risk without the additional expected returns. Better advice is contribute what you want into a diversified mutual fund (no need to wait to save a G, you can invest anything as little as $100)

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I have an account with Vanguard. Every paycheck, I just open up the app and transfer some money into one of the three mutual funds I own (Total Stock Market, Mid-cap Value, and 2050 target retirement). Takes about 1minute every two weeks.

>>I’m a novice at this stuff. I just set it and forget it
>but
>>I want maximize my investments.
>
>I just rolled over my old 401k to a rollover IRA with my
>cousin. He proposed I take a chunk of my savings and invest
>with them as well. I'm still mulling that over. I would
>classify them as an "actively managed mutual fund company" but
>he tells me they'd be spreading out my investments in 90%
>equities, whatever that means (anyone ? Bueller ?). Funnily
>enough I passed my series 6, 7, and 63 right out of college in
>2006 for a job I wanted but have obviously forgotten every
>single thing I learned from all the studying I did for those
>tests. The only reason I don't open my own account and not pay
>fees, and do "passive," as the OP says, is because I can never
>find the time / am largely too lazy to keep up with even that.
>I'd rather pay an expert, and the family fee to invest with my
>cousin is essentially 50% of what those costs normally would
>be. So we'll see.

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I literally know nothing about Vanguard or any of this. Did you research those funds ? How long did that take you ? How have they been doing ?

These are serious questions, and good timing for this post - I'm genuinely at the point of either going with my cousin or doing something like this. Maybe both. Can't let this cash sit in a 1.9% savings account anymore, even though that's pretty good. I want to make some moves for sure.


>I have an account with Vanguard. Every paycheck, I just open
>up the app and transfer some money into one of the three
>mutual funds I own (Total Stock Market, Mid-cap Value, and
>2050 target retirement). Takes about 1minute every two weeks.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

There are very basic (mid-cap value I guess is a little less basic). I bought the Total Stock market fund to get exposure to the entire market. If the market does good, it goes up. If the market goes down, it goes down.

The Target fund is a mix of a bunch of stuff (bonds, stocks, international). The mix is determined by the risk you should be exposed to based on how close you are to the retirement date (gets safer as you get closer to retirement).

I pretty much just set it and forget it.
The good thing about them is that almost all Vanguard funds are extremely low fee.
The performance has been right in line with what the market has done. Up 14% over the year.

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Either way thanks. This is helpful at least to get me going. Since you're on top of this ish I'll be sure to up this post if I have any other questions hah.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

*depending on your income. There are income limits which affect how much can be deducted from taxes.

Rolling over? Really just depends if you are happy with what your 401K is doing in terms of investment options, fees, etc.
If you are okay with all that, then I don't think there's any reason to roll it over.
But from what I experienced, 401k plans tend to be more expensive for no reason, so I would rollover

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I haven't put shxt in it yet. still doing research.

IG: amadu_me

"...Whateva, man..." (c) Redman

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I still hit the minimum that kicks in the company match but not anything more.

Changing up who I have my IRA and Roth with soon so I need to start some homework. I don't like touching those accounts to change anything so I look at them every quarter to make sure I'm not bleeding somewhere.

I really don't know much of anything so I try to pick up any advice on how to evaluate and stick to companies and I products I know. With that said I need to diversify and not have so many stocks.

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We rationalize dumb shit

Contributing the max for the matching of my current employer.
Passive - Mostly Funds. Retiring 2042ish. Maybe earlier.
Stacking metal - it's on sale right now.
I have some of the electronic stuff too - BTC/ETH/LTC/ETC. For fun. Not relying on it.
Low and slow.

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Stoicism and chill.
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Stay +.
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I made some money from my side hustle last year so I copped a 2 yr CD and T-note
I realize this is the epitome of scared money but I really didn't want to start playing Gordon Gekko
I do the max 401k at my job with their match (Vanguard)
and I put every dollar I save into the 1.9% online savings account

Other than that I'm clueless

I'll watch CNBC and Bloomberg sometimes and just think back to that quote
"If you're reading about it in the paper, it's already too late"
Them, the magazines, the WSJ, all that business media
I feel they're just selling a dream, and I'm not buying it

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Stoicism and chill.
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Stay +.
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Trading

I am trading EUR/USD and AUD/USD in forex.

I am doing Gold right now in futures.

I will be getting back in the stock game soon. I will only look for (and only buy) stocks that pay a dividend.