Probably been asked a million times, but;

Most advice here pretty good. Some obvious points, but I wish I could go back in time and force myself to live by them
1. Save as much as you can and do NOT try to keep up with the jones's -- by car used and keep as long as possible, etc.
2. Watch out for fucking fees!!!! This is the power of compound interest IN REVERSE. Even small fees over 40 years can make a HUGE impact. Go with Vanguard is my advice, although I'm told that, e.g. Fidelity also has low fees now. I don't know, i'm sticking with Vanguard.
3. As much as possible you want to be maxing out a tax advantaged account, this means IRA and or 401(k) (if you have one through your employer). When the managers of the account shift funds around, e.g. sell a bunch of Amazon and buy ExxonMobil, then, if it is in tax advantaged accoun then that is NOT taxable.
4. Index funds ftw. do NOT try to pick stocks. If you are on biz then I assume that you ALREADY have risky investments, meaning your crypto stack. So you want your other investments to be as SAFE and boring as possible, this means low fee mutual funds.
5. You can set up vanguard to automatically deduct from your checking account once per month.

Also, don't waste your money on packrat hobbies like collecting comic books or especially beanie babies type crap. Be selective and buy what you really like. Keeping things digital helps keep you mobile for good jobs while you are starting out.

By thinking you can properly time the market, you’re actually most likely missing out on lots of gains and will do significantly worse than if you just set an allocation and forget it

In general, people will screw up, but I bought and sold my etfs at the right times over 3+ year periods. I put the money into guaranteed investments and I beat the passive portfolio. So far I beat the market twice and I'm hoping to do it a third time when it drops within 2 years.

I just keep putting money in every biweekly paycheck. When the market is up, I buy. When the market is down, I buy. I never sell. Timing the market is gambling.

I don't disagree with you at all. Here is a question: If you have $1.2mill to invest, then do you feel safe investing that money in S&P500/Global Market index fund today?

If I were being 100% logical I’d jump in all at once since that would historically perform better in the long run than dollar cost averaging. But dollar cost averaging feels safer so I’d probably end up doing that.

Not the guy you asked, but personally I’m 24 and don’t plan on making any large purchases (house, car, etc.) for at least another 3-5 years. So I’m very comfortable only keeping $10-15k in liquid cash and investing every other cent I have in a low cost stock index fund. I’d probably invest most, if not all, in VTSAX or a maybe a three fund portfolio of sorts. Even if we had a huge crash and I woke up one morning and my $1.2 mil was $700k, I’d be pretty damn bummed but the fact that I don’t need any of the money for 5 years would allow me to stay level headed and just keep chugging along

I like to dca. Going all in would require balls that I'll never have. I guess the market will beat me at some point, but I've gained so much and I would only be losing potential gains. I guess I'll step away at that point.

I mean I contribute X amount of my paycheck to Roth IRA, Y amount to 401k, and Z amount to taxable brokerage every 2 weeks so by doing this I’m naturally DCA’ing as well. The only time I’ve ever made lump sum investments was when I first learned about investing and maxed out my IRA and dumped 10k into VTSAX. Since then I’ve been adding slowly and consistently. It’s a personal preference to me to keep things simple and easy, and I don’t really like spending too much time worrying about my portfolio, which is why I happen to like to set it and forget it approach. The fact that I’m putting in minimal effort and still beating whatever 90% of other people are doing is a nice feeling. I’m not saying you’re not in the 10% of people doing better, maybe you are. And if that’s something you enjoy then keep doing it. But for me, passive and smart investing is the way to go

This. Time in the market beets timing the market 99.999% of the time

Why are people in here recommending index mutuals over the ETF's like VTI, VOO? Dollar buying?

Basically what I said here

I like being able to contribute X to IRA, Y to 401k, and Z to taxable brokerage where X, Y, Z are arbirtary values that I can set that aren’t equal to a full share price of an ETF. I want all of my money working for me all of the time automatically without having to worry if I’m buying full shares.

What’s the benefit to ETFs? Low expense ratios and tax efficiency? Vanguards mutual funds are just as cheap and tax efficient. Unless you can’t meet the minimum investment, I see no reason not to go mutual fund

If you track your spending, stick to a budget, stay out of debt unless you have a Very Good Reason, use your tax advantaged space, invest automatically in a target date fund, you will be doing better than 99% of the rest of the working class. Even if you don't retire 'early' you will be on a good track. Don't compare yourself to others, but to your past self.

The ultimate galaxy brain move is to find a way to make money doing something you like anyway, and suddenly it's not a grind towards retirement anymore but a real life worth living that you can fill with friends and loved ones.

First you should be taking advantage of Roth IRA and 401k's from your employer because they're tax deferred accounts and with the Roth IRA go through vanguard and invest in a target date fund. Investing is very difficult as 90% of day traders fail, institutional investors are only right about 55-60% of the time and hedge funds rarely produce returns that beat the s&p500 index. If you are going to invest in a taxable account like say ameritrade or something just put it into VOO or VTI and total bond market ETF. Ideally though you should also be saving cash and making an emergency fund for yourself as I doubt you have a lot of money.

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No reason to do taxable in ameritrade or anything else. Just use Vanguard

I agree but vanguard doesn't have forex, commodity, or option trading. not that anyone here should be messing with those markets.

I don't like bonds in taxable, that's not proper asset allocation. Go foreign in taxable for the tax credits, or muni bonds

I don't get the Vanguard drones like you. Take Chase's new You Invest service. Buy any ETF or stock with 0 commission. Or Robinhood, zero commission on any asset. Bank of America's Merrill does the same thing at the $50k mark. Schwab does free trading on their ETF's or the Intelligent Portfolio.

Vanguard shills have to open up to other ideas.

Is 70K a good salary? I don't want to actually retire early, just semi-retire (work a part-time job for 20 hours or less a week). I think if I had 500K I would switch to part-time.

Are robo advisors(wealthfront, betterment etc) overrated garbage or worth it?

I’m not saying Vanguard is the only option. I use it because it meets my needs and it’s the best in business for what I’m looking for, which is low cost and tax efficient stock and bond mutual funds.

You mention features of Chase and BoA brokerages that make them comprabale to Vanguard, but what makes them better?

Fidelity is also a good alternative to Vanguard

I don't have time to write a long explanation but:
> don't try to time the market
> don't trade stocks (just buy and hold)
> buy a mix of stocks/bonds depending on how risk averse you are. If you're young the best strategy is most likely to be (almost) 100% stocks.
> buy index funds and/or a very diversified portfolio
> yes you can more or less just put your money in and forget about it (except for taxes). Passive investing is the best strategy for almost all retail investors.
> Reducing fees is the easiest way for retail investors to get a better (risk adjusted) return. Make sure you're using a cheap broker and invest in ETFs with low expense ratios.
This is the consensus among people who know what they're talking about. Use Google if you want explanations. Good luck.

t. working in finance

70k means nothing without context

What industry? Where do you live? How old are you and how many years of experience do you have? What are your living costs like?

70k in NYC and SF means you’ll have minimal savings. 70k in a Midwest flyover state and you can do very well for yourself

Trash

Personally I use Chase's new service in combo with their new Sapphire checking so that I don't ever have to pay commission again. That way I get the banking services perks, plus easy trading. Sometimes, say you want to mix in a non-Vanguard ETF, or an individual stock like Apple. That is free to buy with their service.

Just saying there's more out there. Vanguard is great but others are making an effort

Absolutely, with the new zero fee funds I'd actually steer new investors that way.

What are the benefits of Cash Sapphire checking over a normal checking account?

Also btw Vanguard has over 1800 commission free ETFs, many of which are non-Vanguard. You can also invest in individual stocks. Not sure if there’s commission on those as I don’t have any interest in that

Chase Sapphire*

The checking account has no fees on withdrawals, at any ATM. Stuff like no foreign ATM or currency fees, free checks, can grab a points bonus etc

Vanguard is fine but it depends on if you want everything under one roof, etc. They aren't very tech friendly either as far as their interface

>don't try to time the market
no way this is a perfect time to sell

Ah yes, live like a fucking poor person and waste the best years of your life (20s and 30s) staying in and not spending money.

You will be so happy when you retire at 40 with no friends, nothing to do, and your youth gone.

Why are you guys still on the Vanguard train? Schwab has the lowest cost index mutual funds and ETFs at .03%

Gotcha, sounds pretty standard. Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything I was missing

>They aren't very tech friendly either as far as their interface
This is completely true. My one knock on Vanguard is that their app/website interface is quite archaic. But for me, as a passive investor, I actually don’t mind that at all. The lack of flashy interfaces/ bells and whistles discourages me from regularly checking my account and playing with it, so i really don’t mind all that much.

As for the all “under one roof”, I don’t mind being spread out over a few different institutions. My Roth IRA and taxable brokerage is under Vanguard, my company 401k is managed by Fidelity, my emergency cash is in CapOne 360 money market, and my monthly spending cash is in Citi. It’s been pretty manageable for me

>You will be so happy when you retire at 40 with no friends, nothing to do, and your youth gone.

Well, yeah.

Because switching brokerages isn’t worth .01% difference. And technically Fidelity has 0% so you’re wrong

"For instance, over the past decade Schwab Total Market Index Fund, which charges investors 0.03% of assets a year, or $3 per $10,000 invested, has returned 10.62% a year, on average, according to Morningstar. By contrast, the Fidelity Total Market Index Investor, which charges investors 0.02%, or $2 per $10,000 invested, has returned 10.53%.

Many investors should now be able to get a fund equivalent to Fidelity Total Market Index Investor for free. But the benefit of that — equivalent to boosting the Fidelity fund’s return by 0.02 percentage points a year — wouldn’t have been enough to overcome the Schwab fund’s long-term outperformance."

>what is tracking error

I know that there’s more to consider than ER when it comes to mutual funds. This is why I’m not switching from Vanguard to Schwab over .01% difference. From what I’ve read, the biggest differences actually don’t come from ER or tracking error, but from tax efficiency and Vanguard funds seem to be most tax efficient

True. Even that is minimal though as well. They are index funds ffs. The tax benefit between one over another would be nominal.

same my 401k is Fidelity, funny enough with vg funds

Good advice from this user. Listen to it. I used to use Vanguard, but my current employer uses Fidelity, so I switched. I find them very similar; can't really go wrong either way.

You can invest but you would need either a lot of time or a lot of capital to make meaningful gains. Meaningful = you can depend on it as your income you could have with college education. Second option is to trade. Making small gains but often can easily lead to riches. You can take 10 grand and make it into millions but you will never be able to do this with standard investing. Pick one of these. Also you can not take others money to boost your capital investment since you need both school degrees for this per law as well as certificates and other bullshit. You can not just start investing firm without proper paperwork and education background. Look into how investment / trading laws changed in 1930 to get an idea.

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