Category Archives: Retirement

Investing, Retirement

Investment Advice From Y’all…

7 Comments

I received quite a few comments on my last post regarding my freaking out about losing $100+ on my Roth IRA and mutual fund investments. Thanks to goldnsilver, enoughwealth@yahoo.com, glenn, savingdiva, wanda, and hazygrey (and “anonymous”) for your words of wisdom. Here are some highlights from the comments, and my responses…

hazygrey said…

“This is your IRA – you shouldn’t be pulling out money for 40 years. Don’t worry about it and leave it for now. I know it’s easier said than done. Also remember that there have been double digit gains in the stock market for several years now, and a correction or crash could happen soon. When that happens, don’t panic and don’t touch the money!”

response: I’m less concerned about my Roth IRA and more concerned about my mutual fund investment. I’m terribly confused about what I should be investing in with my “extra” savings right now. I have $12,000+ tied up in average-rate CDs, which I consider my stable, low-risk investment. Then I decided to be somewhat(?) risky and put $4,500 into the Vanguard Mid Cap Growth Index Fund. While the thought of losing that $4,500 isn’t exactly one of a happy sentiment, I could deal with losing the money. I don’t want to lose the money. That $4,500 might be a long term investment. I’m only 23 now, so I’m hoping I’ll make enough money in the coming years to keep at least $5000 away in a long-term, non-IRA investment account. But I also would like to save for a house and/or grad school. I’m not sure if that’s a year out or ten years out. My life is rather in flux right now. Therefore it’s hard to plan financially. My Roth IRA is fine. It’s in the 2050 retirement account for a reason. I don’t plan on touching it until then.

Wanda said…

Don’t look at your investments every day or even every couple of weeks. Unless you are a day trader, there’s no reason to. …If a 2050 fund & a mid-cap makes you sick at night, then it’s not the investment for you. Like goldnsilver said, pick something that pass the stomach test. Pick something with 20% bonds. You’ll have less risk (of losing your money), but you’ll be giving up the rewards (or potentially larger returns).

So what’s the difference between “bonds,” “money market funds,” and “CDs.” I get the index fund versus stock thing, but beyond that I’m lost. Is a CD a bond?

Anonymous said…

How much do need the money in the other [non roth] account? Were you depending on a quick gain to pay the rent this month? If not, give it atleast a year. These are supposed to be long term investments, not quick capital gains.

I’ll gladly leave my money in the mutual fund account for a year or more. I just don’t want to be losing $100 a week on this account. I guess that’s unlikely, but looking at the performance thus far I’m just a tad bit nervous.

SavingDiva said…

I understand your frustruation with your loss. I don’t like to lose any money. I’ve had to stop checking my retirement accounts every day because of market fluctuations causing fluctuations in my blood pressure! 🙂

Thanks for understanding. I probably should stop checking my accounts every day as well. I’m sure I’ll be fine once my account starts to grow past my initial investment. It’s just now I’m down $100. And that’s not a good feeling.

Glenn said…

Take a step back and look at the big picture. If you are young and you will not need the funds for over 10 years don’t panic. You will be adding to your investments over time. If they funds are still lower when you make your next investment, you will be buying the same companies at a lower price. When you go shopping would you rather buy the same product at a lower price or a higher price? The same goes for mutual funds and stocks.

Good points indeed. As I noted above, my Roth IRA fund is for 2050. But the mutual fund account could be needed sooner. In 10 years I’ll be 33 years old. I have absolutely no idea what my life will look like at 33. Maybe I’ll already have kids. Maybe I’ll have decided kids aren’t for me. It’s just so hard to plan when I can’t figure out when I’m going to need this money. I’d like to invest so I can obtain enough cash for grad school in a few years. Or at least so I don’t have to take out tons of loans, I really like the idea of paying up front for as much as possible. But it’s also likely that I’ll never go to grad school. How can I plan my finances based on a life I’ve yet to figure out?

enoughwealth@yahoo.com said…

If a drop of more than 10% would make you feel like liquidating your investment, then your current asset allocation doesn’t match your risk tolerance. — Enough Wealth

I’m not going to liquidate my investment, I’m just not all that comfortable with the idea of losing my money. But I doubt anyone is really comfortable with losing cash when it comes to investing. I mean, sure some people are more risk averse than others, but the way I see it is I’m young now and I have time for my cash to recover if the market gets wonky. If anyone should be making risky investments, it’s people like me who are young with no debt. Right? I know I can survive without that $4,500. But it sure would be a shame to lose it.

GoldnSilver said…

Market fluctuation is normal. It has only been 2 weeks. Generally if you are investing for the long term, the advice is not to check your balance everyday. However, people have different habits, no one can make you do or not do something. Compare your funds to its peers or industry benchmark, that’s how you can judge your funds performance. That being said, if you are risk adverse, (seeing a drop with turn your stomach upside down). CD or bond funds are not bad options. So many people focus on time horizion…if you are young you should invest more agressively. There’s truth to it. However, just as important, one should know one’s risk tolerance. There are many investment/savings vehicles out in the market place that can help achieve your goals. Pick one that you can stomach.

You know, I’ve never been a gambler. Maybe that’s because I’m female. Maybe that’s because I was raised by a risk adverse family. But I don’t want to be dumb about it. If lots of people invest in somewhat risky mutual funds, they can’t all be “wrong.” Not that there’s really a “wrong” in index fund investing, but, I mean, it’s not like I’m rushing to trade individual stocks.

Investing, Retirement

Vanguard Woes

7 Comments

Ok, I know mutual funds are rather safe when it comes to an investment, but I’m really bothered that my $8500 invested in a Roth IRA and index fund has turned into about $8338 over the course of two weeks. I know I have to deal with fluctuations in the market, but it’s no fun to lose over $100 in two weeks. The only thing that keeps me from pulling my money out is knowing that if it lost $100 in two weeks, then it certainly could gain $100 in a similar time span. But that’s not really the point of investing. I’m supposed to be making money, not watch it all sink down the drain. Maybe my investments are bad. Or maybe the market just isn’t doing good for the time being. At what point should I be worried about my investments? When my $8500 is $6000?

Vanguard Mid-Cap Growth Index Fund Investor
Shares 180.505
$24.56 –$0.14 *$4,433.20
Subtotal $4,433.20 (Bought for $4,500)

Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund
$24.06 –$0.07 $3,955.61
Subtotal $3,955.61 (bought for $4,000)

Investing, Retirement

Too Good to be True?

1 Comment

I understand that mutual funds are fickle, but I’m still rather excited by the fact that my $3000 has made $31.28 in just two days. It’ll probably drop down again sometime soon, so I’m not sure how much weight to put on that $31.28 cent gain. Still, that’s pretty cool… to think, it’s possible to make an extra $15 a day. That’s enough for lunch!

Meanwhile, my Roth IRA has gone up $18.40. So I’m up $49.68 in two days. That’s not bad, is it? I wonder how long until my accounts are at less than what I started with.

I’m still confused about the CD I tried to open online. It was that $5000 one at 5.01%. BoA called me but I still haven’t gotten back to them. And, as I noted before, I tried to take of the matter with a real person at an actual banking center, but because I bought the CD online I can only ask my questions to online banking reps via the phone. I’m kind of hoping something went wrong with it and it didn’t go through. That way I can take that $5000 and put it into another mutual fund, perhaps a large cap one. Or maybe I’ll be risky (stupid?) and put more in my VMGIX fund.

One thing I don’t get is if mutual funds work like the stock market. For instance, is it best to “buy” when the price is low for each fund share? Or does it matter less because you’re buying pieces of a bunch of stocks as opposed to just one stock?

I wish my bank would process transfers faster. It gets confusing when it looks like my checking account has $14k in it but really I know $6k of that was moved to the IRA & mutual fund and $5k of that is supposedly tied up in a CD that may or may not exist.

Off on a tangent, it’s quite exciting that I’ve gotten so many comments on my blog in the past day. One person who reads my other blogs actually figured out who I am! I don’t really care much if people who know me read this, but I guess I’m partially ashamed of being such a spoiled brat with my cushion of savings in the bank, and I feel awful that I don’t have student loans to pay while plenty of my friends do.

Then again, I also have friends whose parents will gladly put them through grad school and I know that, while my dad would help out here and there, I’m on my own when it comes to any higher education. Or am I? Well, my father says he can access his 401k funds in about 3 and a half years. It seems like he’s hinting at the fact that at that point he’ll be able to help out with money a bit more.

A part of me wants nothing to do with his money right now. I’ve already received more than I desire, and I feel guilty about that. But there’s also reality, and how I’m likely going to be making a “normal” salary for the foreseeable future. My $24k in savings doesn’t seem like much when I figure plenty of my peers are making $50k or $60k per year. Give them two years or less and already we’re on an equal playing field. So how guilty can I let myself feel, really?

Investing, Retirement

PF Jitters

3 Comments

My $6000 was officially transferred from the safety of my Maximizer checking account into my IRA and Mutual Fund investment accounts. I’m excited about taking the investment leap myself, but nervous as all hell that the leap might be futile, or worse. I’m pretty comfortable with the $3000 I put to my Roth IRA. It’s in a nice Retirement 2050 plan that’s already diversified with my retirement date in mind. And since Vanguard seems to be a pretty reputable company, I’m not too worried. However, the $3000 I put towards that Mid-Cap Growth Index Fund is probably a bad idea.

As of 10:25am, my $3000 in my mutual fund is down 5 cents, and my $3000 in my IRA is up 3 cents. Why is a 2-cent loss making me so god-damn nervous? And furthermore, why is my Mutual Fund down 5 cents when looking at the day’s activity in the fund, it should be up a bit? I’m rather confused right now. Maybe it dropped down the second I put my money in. I know I’m going to be anal about checking how the fund is doing, despite that I’m going to try to force myself to keep my money in there for a few years (until grad school) unless someone more knowledgeable than me advises me otherwise.

I’m kind of glad I’m prohibited from getting involved in the nitty gritty of stock trading (due to covering technology companies that I’d like want to invest in), so I’ll likely avoid making any major investment mistakes. Still, putting $3000 in an account that could drop down to $2000 in a few days makes me rather nervous. I mean, the largest investment I’ve ever made with my money thus far was that godawful CD with a 3.1 % interest rate. I put $7000 into that a few months after I got out of college. It seemed like the wise thing to do at the time. It was an 18-month CD, and I figured since I had upwards of $30k in savings somehow, I could spare $7000 for such a “risky” investment. Well, it felt risky at the time.

Sadly enough, I didn’t bother to call my bank when the CD matured, thinking that it would just automatically transfer to my checking or savings account and I could deal with it then. Of course, now I know that CD’s automatically reinvest themselves at the same rate, for the same amount of time. So now I have my $7000 (which is at about $7400 after gaining the 18 months of Interest, which I guess is better than nothing) tied up in this low-interest CD. Meanwhile I recently saw an ad on Bank of America for an 8-month 5.01 % CD and I threw $5000 at that. For some reason they haven’t processed my CD investment yet, though. I guess I have to call them and confirm some things before they can pull my money from my checking account and put it in the CD.

In more exciting news, since last weekend I’ve made $1.57 since enrolling in BankofAmerica’s “Keep the Change” program. It’s kind of neat – every time you use your debit card, they roll your spending cost up to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference in your bank account. So, for instance, if you spend $1.01, they’ll toss in 99 cents. Of course, most purchases end up being, like, $2.92, so in that case you only get 8 cents. But over the course of one week and eight transactions, I’ve afforded myself a small coffee. I also apparently racked up $2.46 in my AdSense account somehow. I guess that means people are actually reading my page. That’s exciting! Extra income, even $4 a week, is certainly helpful. I’m nervous about this AdSense account thing, though. I’ve read some horror stories about how Google has shut down accounts if you click on your own links. And it’s not like I’m going to do it on purpose, but sometimes I’m not thinking and I’m actually interested in an advertisement shown on my page. I’ve never had to restrict myself from clicking something. So hopefully I can restrain myself.

On another note, I’m saving some money this month because I’ve offered a friend who’s recently moved to the area a place to crash until she finds a place. I wasn’t going to make her pay anything, but since she offered I figured I’d split my rent and pro-rate it. So that comes out to $15 a day. And I’m also possibly designing some websites for my friends for a rather small fee (compared to my normal rate.) But I never count my freelance money as income. It’s always “extra,” although in actually due to my poor spending habits and inability to keep a budget, I’m lucky if my freelance wages cover all the cash I’ve spent in a month.

So salary-wise, make about $2200 a month after taxes. (Though this year I ended up owing a lot in taxes and I haven’t done anything with the W4, so I’m figuring I make about $2100 a month, really. $905 of that goes to rent & utilities (PG&E, water, trash, etc are “included” in my rent). Oh, what the hell, here’s a list of my basic fixed monthly costs:

$905 — Rent (includes utilities) – Going up to $1050 per month in July, plus requiring renter’s insurance.
$60 – Verizon Cell Phone Bill, if I remember to pay it on time and don’t use 411, etc.
$64 – RCN TV & Internet
$8 – the converter box from RCN that I’ve yet to find time to return, that I’m apparently “renting” on a monthly basis
$5 – RCN “Home networking” – on my RCN bill, but I have no idea what this is. WTF?
——————————
$1038 total for now
$1188 + whatever rent’s insurance costs in July.

Now, time for some depressing figures…

My spending on rent currently is 45 percent of my income (you’re only supposed to spend 20-30 percent of your income on rent, I hear.) In July, sans a raise (and I doubt I’m getting a raise anytime soon) I’ll be spending 50 percent (or more) of my income on rent.

It doesn’t take a personal finance blogger to tell me that’s a terrible idea.

I’ve been thinking about writing a post about why on earth I live alone in the SF Bay Area on $35k a year, so I think I’ll write that up over my lunch break later this afternoon.

In any case, with $1050 left for all the other things in life outside of basic housing, TV, Internet and phone, I just keep overspending. It doesn’t help matters that I’m spending upwards of $350 a month in gas to get to my various rehearsals that are 40 or so miles from my home (my “hobby” is doing community theater – which is free, outside of gas mileage and makeup for shows and the like.)

But hey, at least I made $1.57 in “keep the cents” change. Then again, Bank of America, for some reason, has that $1.57 noted as a “spend” in my checking account. So I’m down $1.57 for the time being. What’s up with that? Grr.