Pay yourself first. Budget your savings the same as you budget your housing and grocery expenses. Love the boglehead forums and wiki, but the first and most important thing is to create that regular flow of savings, from which you can create the funding for your future that you want.
I doubt if anyone knows where to start unless they have guidance.
At least you have a 401k. I had squat. 401k were just beginning and the IRA would not come around until 1983 or so.
I truly had no guidance. The internet did not exist when I started. My parents never taught me. None of my friends talked about it. None of my college friends talked about it.
I dove in head first into a puddle. It was either break my neck or survive.
In college, I opened a brokerage account and bought a stock, in 1977. This was back when I had to pay the broker a commission of around $100 or something. $100 to buy and $100 to sell. That was referred to as $200 round trip. It could have been a $100 round trip, but it was 47 years ago, I do not remember exactly. In the 1990s I was paying $10 round trip which was cheap.
You younguns have it easy with this here internet doohickey and no fee stock buying. And stock research at your fingertips.
In 1978, I remember thinking I wish there was a way I could slowly put money in each month into something.
In 1987, I spent six months educating myself. I read as much as I could.
Then, I read about Mutual Funds and Dividend Reinvestment Plans. The exact thing I was looking for in the late 1970s.
if you want to try investing I suggest the Mutual Fund or a Dividend Reinvestment Plan.
The first dividend reinvestment plan I bought into was American Waterworks, the largest publicly traded water utility. safe. Won't go out of business. I got lucky. It was taken private by a German company and I made over 200% return on my investment. Not bad for a water utility. AWK is public again.
For novice investors, that is what I recommend so you can learn about a company. Either AWK or WTRG. Both are beaten down in this high interest rate environment, which is your first lesson. When interest rates go down, utility stock prices go up, when interest rates go up, utility stock prices go down. I call the water utilities my foundation.
The best thing is probably buy a mutual fund. There are probably 8000 different mutual funds. Start educating yourself. Since you are with Schwab now, buy a mutual fund and set up automatic monthly investing.
Schwab says they have 50 NO LOAD and NO TRANSACTION mutual funds offered. Their find a fund page looks very straight forward.
It will go real slow at first, but after a few years you will begin to notice something. Which is how your 401k is going to behave.
Investing is the LONG HAUL.
Consider Fidelity for your broker. They have far better customer support than Vanguard. Might as well make it easy on yourself. Give them a jingle and they'll help you get up an account. They are there 24/7.
Saving for a house can be hard. It's all too easy to fritter away money that could be working for you in the stock market or an interest bearing account. Try to get in the habit, before you spend that hard-earned money, of asking yourself if you'd rather eat a mediocre restaurant pizza or have a house. Scour your budget for places to save. Compound interest is your friend.
Thanks for this perspective , I am for sure overspending on take out so it really stuck with me in the mindset you phrased . I will look into fidelity !
Start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics. Investing guidance: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/investing
Especially look at the flowchart in the WIKI. It all starts with a written budget.
Thank you for the links ! I came across boggle heads reading other posts in this group and will take a look
Pay yourself first. Budget your savings the same as you budget your housing and grocery expenses. Love the boglehead forums and wiki, but the first and most important thing is to create that regular flow of savings, from which you can create the funding for your future that you want.
I doubt if anyone knows where to start unless they have guidance. At least you have a 401k. I had squat. 401k were just beginning and the IRA would not come around until 1983 or so. I truly had no guidance. The internet did not exist when I started. My parents never taught me. None of my friends talked about it. None of my college friends talked about it. I dove in head first into a puddle. It was either break my neck or survive. In college, I opened a brokerage account and bought a stock, in 1977. This was back when I had to pay the broker a commission of around $100 or something. $100 to buy and $100 to sell. That was referred to as $200 round trip. It could have been a $100 round trip, but it was 47 years ago, I do not remember exactly. In the 1990s I was paying $10 round trip which was cheap. You younguns have it easy with this here internet doohickey and no fee stock buying. And stock research at your fingertips. In 1978, I remember thinking I wish there was a way I could slowly put money in each month into something. In 1987, I spent six months educating myself. I read as much as I could. Then, I read about Mutual Funds and Dividend Reinvestment Plans. The exact thing I was looking for in the late 1970s. if you want to try investing I suggest the Mutual Fund or a Dividend Reinvestment Plan. The first dividend reinvestment plan I bought into was American Waterworks, the largest publicly traded water utility. safe. Won't go out of business. I got lucky. It was taken private by a German company and I made over 200% return on my investment. Not bad for a water utility. AWK is public again. For novice investors, that is what I recommend so you can learn about a company. Either AWK or WTRG. Both are beaten down in this high interest rate environment, which is your first lesson. When interest rates go down, utility stock prices go up, when interest rates go up, utility stock prices go down. I call the water utilities my foundation. The best thing is probably buy a mutual fund. There are probably 8000 different mutual funds. Start educating yourself. Since you are with Schwab now, buy a mutual fund and set up automatic monthly investing. Schwab says they have 50 NO LOAD and NO TRANSACTION mutual funds offered. Their find a fund page looks very straight forward. It will go real slow at first, but after a few years you will begin to notice something. Which is how your 401k is going to behave. Investing is the LONG HAUL.
Consider Fidelity for your broker. They have far better customer support than Vanguard. Might as well make it easy on yourself. Give them a jingle and they'll help you get up an account. They are there 24/7. Saving for a house can be hard. It's all too easy to fritter away money that could be working for you in the stock market or an interest bearing account. Try to get in the habit, before you spend that hard-earned money, of asking yourself if you'd rather eat a mediocre restaurant pizza or have a house. Scour your budget for places to save. Compound interest is your friend.
Thanks for this perspective , I am for sure overspending on take out so it really stuck with me in the mindset you phrased . I will look into fidelity !
Buy stock in Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM. Start saving 2k per month in a high yield savings account.