[Kevin001]

Oh sweet!

Really sucks that the feds have lowered saving rates at banks. My high yield savings is only at .6% now. On another not pretty sweet that I don't have to worry about student loan repayments till December.

 

[Kevin001]

Yup. My next payment is January 28th!

Gives me a breather with everything else I'm dealing with.

 

[Kevin001]

Hopefully in less than 2yrs I can start investing 15% towards retirement. No later than age 32.

 

[Kevin001]

Seems like every time I check my savings APY, it keeps dropping. Right now it's .85%. Fortunately my IRA recovered.

Thats not bad considering everything. Roth IRA? Speaking on investments I might switch out my small and medium cap allotments in my 401k for something more aggressive. Trying to diverse but not many options at Wells Fargo.

 

[Kevin001]

Just switched my mid cap index fund for a total market index fund.

 

[Kevin001]

It'll be nice going a few dollars without spending any money.

 

[Kevin001]

Not sure when to rebalance my 401K

For Finance check out Dave Ramsey's program. His 7 baby steps. Has helped me a lot. Will tell you how to get out of debt and start investing.

https://www.daveramsey.com/dave-ramsey-7-baby-steps

True!

 

[Kevin001]

It is usually advised to rebalance 2 times a year. Once in Jan and once in July. Or every 6 months

Got 4 allocations lower 2 are at 23% now might wait till they near 20%.

 

[Kevin001]

So you want to rebalance all 4 of them to 25 percent each? Your not to far off at all so I would wait to rebalance until it gets a bit more out of balance. Is there a fee to rebalance or a limit to how many times you can rebalance? If not then there is no penalty so you might as well just rebalance now

There is no rush just trying to see when to rebalance. Got 2 at 27% and 2 at 23%. Not much difference right now.

 

[Kevin001]

You should do it based on market conditions. When the market started to drop due to Covid I put most of my 401k into a bond fund to preserve capital. When it bottomed out and headed back north I put it in risky emerging market and small cap funds to maximize gains. Looks like its back to the bond fund again, wah wah wah.

Yeah I don't let the market run me, I always stay the course. All stocks. 3 growths and one international.

 

[Kevin001]

At my current rate 27% of my income is going on debt.

 

[Kevin001]

^^ You can mess around with it if you want :stu. I follow Dave's investing plan.

 

[Kevin001]

I've got to get my income up, I'm good with cutting expenses but I'm just not making enough. Extra $500 a month is the goal by end of year.

 

[Kevin001]

Hope to open a IRA then convert it to a Roth in a year or two hopefully.

 

[Kevin001]

Is it easy to open an IRA account? Can you do it online?

 

[Kevin001]

Yes it can be done online. Charles Schwab has very good IRA's. https://www.schwab.com/ira

Oh ok sweet, not ready to but when the time comes good to know.

 

[Kevin001]

I need to be bringing in more income need to be debt free asap. The more I bring in the more I can give as well .

 

[Kevin001]

I really need to start investing towards retirement. I also want to buy a house but what sucks is with the low interest rates and small inventory the prices are getting ridiculous. The economy is crippled yet prices are higher than they were in 2007 now. You think I'm going to buy a house in that kind of market? LOL

Are saving for a down payment now? Whats your price range? We have some good priced homes here but I live in the south and I know prices tend to be cheaper here.

 

[Kevin001]

Hope to only spend $40 a month on gas.

 

[Kevin001]

I've been saving 8 1/2 years. LOL I live with my parents so I'm able to save up quite a bit, plus I don't spend that much money, especially this year.

I could probably get a pretty good house right now for $150-160,000 which isn't that bad compared to other parts of the country. I could put like $60,000 down payment and it would be pretty affordable. Thing is if I lost my job there's no way I could afford it if I had to work minimum wage or part time. I'm just the kind of person that doesn't like to take risks with things like that.

I also kind of want to wait until coronavirus isn't slowing down the economy anymore because things are kind of iffy right now. Honestly though, I don't think it's going to affect houses as much as people thought - but we still have a long way to go it seems. But I don't think they're going to go down much, if any. But I'd hate to buy something and then they all drop like 2009 again. When I was looking into buying a house like 8 years ago you could get a nice small house for $60,000. But I didn't have much money back then and I'd just started working full time.

You're in a good spot bro, you might have enough to buy a house outright soon. For me getting at least 20% down and a low interest with 15 yr rate is my key points.

It depends on how far you live from work and stuff. I can usually get about two-three weeks on a tank if I don't go out much other than work and it costs about $40 to fill my car up. When I used to drive 45 minutes to church two-three times a week it really costed me some gas. I don't miss having to drive that much.

Yeah true