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May 13, 2014 22:00
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| # ? May 26, 2024 11:11 |
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My (small business) employer does not offer a 401(k). I have been bugging the owners to implement it, but they've been slow to respond, and I have my doubts they'll ever actually do it. Obviously, I am currently looking for other employment, but I am really happy with the job itself and my co-workers, and plan on sticking around at least for a few years. My question is, can I start a sole-proprietorship of just me, not do any business, and open a Solo 401(k)? Other than the state filing fees for a business (very cheap where I live), and the setup of the Vanguard 401(k) is there any reason this won't work?
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May 14, 2014 00:17
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Low-Pass Filter posted:My question is, can I start a sole-proprietorship of just me, not do any business, and open a Solo 401(k)? Other than the state filing fees for a business (very cheap where I live), and the setup of the Vanguard 401(k) is there any reason this won't work? "Contribution limits for self-employed individuals You must make a special computation to figure the maximum amount of elective deferrals and nonelective contributions you can make for yourself. When figuring the contribution, compensation is your “earned income,” which is defined as net earnings from self-employment after deducting both" bolded mine
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May 14, 2014 00:27
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IT BURNS posted:So, MY WIFE and I are debt free - no student loans, car payments, or unsecured debt. Our combined income is 100k, and we have 11k in savings (we had 25k until we recently decided to use a big chunk to pay off a loan). What are some good short-term investment options? We are possibly facing a move/relocation in the next year. Should we focus on rebuilding our savings? We were also considering maxing out our 410k. Generally the advice is: 1. Emergency fund. Build up 4-6 months of expenses and keep it liquid (i.e., savings account). 2. Roth IRA(s). 3. 401(k). With your upcoming possible move, that changes things a little with regards to 3... do you own your home? Are you considering buying a home post-move? How much will it cost to move? I'd throw as much as possible in to a normal savings account past your emergency fund to handle that potential. If it turns out you don't need it, you can crank up your 401(k) contributions and make up the difference with that extra money and you'll only be out a few months of growth. The difference between 1% (bank) and 5% (market) is huge over the long term, but over the short term you'll come out way ahead if you have the savings when you need them rather than having to pull out retirement contributions or going in to debt. Just make sure not to leave the retirement contributions paused for very long.
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May 14, 2014 07:33
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What is the goon-approved savings account? I found GE Capital to have the highest rates but they don't integrate with Mint, which I use religiously. I noticed Ally does integrate with Mint, but they only have an APY of .87% versus GE's of .95%. Is Ally any good? I've always used Wells Fargo and have no real complaints (I never get hit with any fees...) but now that I've got a decent emergency fund, I'd like to get non-zero returns on it.
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May 14, 2014 20:28
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chupacabraTERROR posted:What is the goon-approved savings account? I found GE Capital to have the highest rates but they don't integrate with Mint, which I use religiously. I noticed Ally does integrate with Mint, but they only have an APY of .87% versus GE's of .95%. Is Ally any good? When you get down to it, the amount of money you're getting out of the difference is so incredibly small, that it makes sense just to put it wherever is most convenient regardless of return. I would just keep it in your primary bank and enjoy your .2% or whatever it is. All told, the money you make off that is the difference between a meal at McDonalds and a meal at Burger King.
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May 14, 2014 20:50
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chupacabraTERROR posted:What is the goon-approved savings account? I found GE Capital to have the highest rates but they don't integrate with Mint, which I use religiously. I noticed Ally does integrate with Mint, but they only have an APY of .87% versus GE's of .95%. Is Ally any good? All returns come with some amount of risk, so not having a return on your emergency fund shouldn't irk you. .7% versus 1% doesn't really matter all that much in that context. But if you must, the goon-approved answer is to find a local credit union which will probably have above-average rates. I would personally advocate for the former ING Direct, but since Capital One bought them, I dunno anymore.
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May 14, 2014 20:54
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I'm as skeptical of anyone else of Capital One, but Capital One 360 f.k.a. ING Direct basically hasn't changed at all since the acquisition except for the color scheme of the website. It's been what, almost 2 years now? Same with Sharebuilder.
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May 14, 2014 21:36
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SlightlyMadman posted:When you get down to it, the amount of money you're getting out of the difference is so incredibly small, that it makes sense just to put it wherever is most convenient regardless of return. I would just keep it in your primary bank and enjoy your .2% or whatever it is. All told, the money you make off that is the difference between a meal at McDonalds and a meal at Burger King. Haha, if only Wells Fargo's rates were that high. https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/rates/ Chupacabra, I opened an account with Ally weeks ago, and I use WF for my checking. Process went fine. 
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May 14, 2014 22:12
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Minty Swagger posted:Haha, if only Wells Fargo's rates were that high. https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/rates/ Sweet, I think I'm going to do that. It may not be much money but it's at least $50/yr that's risk-free money... Better than sitting in my WF account!
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May 14, 2014 22:21
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Minty Swagger posted:Haha, if only Wells Fargo's rates were that high. https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/rates/ Wow, yeah I'd probably take my money out of that bank not for the money, but just on the principal of it (no pun intended). I mean, interest rates are poo poo all over, but those rates are what poo poo shits.
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May 14, 2014 22:51
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SlightlyMadman posted:Wow, yeah I'd probably take my money out of that bank not for the money, but just on the principal of it (no pun intended). I mean, interest rates are poo poo all over, but those rates are what poo poo shits. Eh, I have no real complaints other than the rates. They have branches everywhere (I live in West LA), but I generally don't interface with them at all. I pay 100% of my transactions with credit cards (Amex Blue Cash for groceries/gas, Citi Forward for mostly everything else). The only time I even use my WF accounts is to either pay off the CCs or to pay rent (via check). But still, with a decent average balance these days, I should maybe look into something above 0%? One bank that caught my eye was Alliant Credit Union http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/depositsinvestments/checking/ If you use online banking and use electronic deposit, you can get 0.65% APY on your checking account. Has anyone used this for checking?
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May 14, 2014 23:10
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I have an Alliant checking and savings acct, the savings is a bit better than checking but both are good comparatively. They've been great for me and I recommend them highly.
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May 15, 2014 01:14
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SmartyPig still pays 1%.
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May 15, 2014 16:35
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moana posted:I have an Alliant checking and savings acct, the savings is a bit better than checking but both are good comparatively. They've been great for me and I recommend them highly. Cool, just opened an account with them Time to slowly get away from WF. No real complaints about WF but it seems like I can do better elsewhere...
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May 15, 2014 18:50
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nickutz posted:SmartyPig still pays 1%.
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May 15, 2014 19:35
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I don't use them but they will be adding a debit card for everyday spending from the account. Says its "coming soon."
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May 15, 2014 20:14
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nickutz posted:I don't use them but they will be adding a debit card for everyday spending from the account. Says its "coming soon." They haven't updated their iPhone app since April 2013. I'm not sure I'd rely on their promises for future additions to their service tbh.
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May 15, 2014 20:25
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I have my doubts that they would offer you 1% and also give you a debit card to make unlimited transactions. It just doesn't make sense.
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May 16, 2014 18:24
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mike- posted:I have my doubts that they would offer you 1% and also give you a debit card to make unlimited transactions. It just doesn't make sense. That's what my credit unions do, and offer even better rates. 
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May 16, 2014 20:53
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I'm probably going to be putting $5,000 into Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares (VWITX) in the next couple of days and wondering if there's any downside I'm missing. It appears to be a pretty good yield, and tax free. I don't have a 401k at my work, and will max out my ROTH by the end of the year and do a HSA contribution. There's pretty much no plan for the money longterm, just want to get more than .87% or whatever I'm getting with Ally.
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May 17, 2014 23:42
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Harry posted:I'm probably going to be putting $5,000 into Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares (VWITX) in the next couple of days and wondering if there's any downside I'm missing. It appears to be a pretty good yield, and tax free. I don't have a 401k at my work, and will max out my ROTH by the end of the year and do a HSA contribution. There's pretty much no plan for the money longterm, just want to get more than .87% or whatever I'm getting with Ally. Are you in the top tax bracket? If not, just regular (not tax-exempt) bonds are probably better. Keep in mind that the tax advantage is priced in; typically muni bonds are bought by people in the top tax bracket so they tend to yield the same as a similar corporate bond but minus the top marginal tax rate.
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May 18, 2014 00:43
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Finance goons: its long past time I should start getting more of a return on my money. Ive got something like 70k in savings, and I think I would be comfortable enough to invest 50 of that. Through work im putting 5% in a 401k, and getting that matched (maximum amount of match). Ive heard good things about the Vanguard funds that require a 10k investment and have super low fees. Can anyone give me a little advice about these or other reasonably safe things to invest in?
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May 18, 2014 00:45
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First, start maxing out an IRA (probably Roth). Do it every year. Then, you have 44k in cash that you're not going to use for a while. How long of a while? Once you decide that, you can decide on the stocks/bonds/cash ratio for it. At that point you've pretty much answered your own question and you can build a corresponding portfolio with 1-4 Vanguard funds. The ones with Admiral shares are cheapest which unfortunately leaves out the very convenient Life Strategy funds, but even they are < 0.2% ER.
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May 18, 2014 01:01
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Before you start a taxable account though you should max out your 401k. You should use like 50 of the 70k to pay for expenses over the next 3-4 years due to a smaller paycheck from maxing the 401k. Maxing a 401k out costs about 1450 per month, but since it's pre-tax it'll take a bit less than that out.
Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 01:43 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 01:37
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Echo 3 posted:Are you in the top tax bracket? If not, just regular (not tax-exempt) bonds are probably better. Keep in mind that the tax advantage is priced in; typically muni bonds are bought by people in the top tax bracket so they tend to yield the same as a similar corporate bond but minus the top marginal tax rate. State Mun bondsi despite the shaky 2009 recession also have a better overall record of avoiding bond defaults compared to junk bonds or corporate bonds. Lakedaimon posted:Finance goons: its long past time I should start getting more of a return on my money. Ive got something like 70k in savings, and I think I would be comfortable enough to invest 50 of that. Through work im putting 5% in a 401k, and getting that matched (maximum amount of match). Ive heard good things about the Vanguard funds that require a 10k investment and have super low fees. Can anyone give me a little advice about these or other reasonably safe things to invest in? With the except of low yield options like CDs there's no such thing as a safe investment. For higher yield investments you need to figure out both you overall timespan for the investment and also you risk tolerance. Vanguard does have a handy ETF matcher on the website which helps pick a few sample funds for you. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/etf/tools/recommendation?reset=true etalian fucked around with this message at 04:15 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 04:09
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Echo 3 posted:Are you in the top tax bracket? If not, just regular (not tax-exempt) bonds are probably better. Keep in mind that the tax advantage is priced in; typically muni bonds are bought by people in the top tax bracket so they tend to yield the same as a similar corporate bond but minus the top marginal tax rate. I'm in the 28% bracket, which seems to put me in the range of break even/slightly ahead going with muni bonds based on past returns (I know this isn't the most accurate way to rate them).
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May 18, 2014 15:51
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Moved jobs a few months ago and still have my 401k sitting with their program in Fidelity. I have my IRA, brokerage, checking, and savings accounts with E*Trade and wanted to roll over my 401k so that I can manage/view everything from a single account. Is there any reason not to rollover from Fidelity? E*Trade has given me the option to open a OneStop Rollover that is some special "professionally managed portfolio" that keeps you from being able to trade - is this as bad an idea as it appears to be? The money is mostly in a Vanguard Target Date fund already with a small amount manually managed.
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May 18, 2014 16:12
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Does eTrade charge that 0.9% fee on top of the ER of the funds you use? Because that would be ridiculously expensive.
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May 18, 2014 16:26
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Nephzinho posted:Moved jobs a few months ago and still have my 401k sitting with their program in Fidelity. I have my IRA, brokerage, checking, and savings accounts with E*Trade and wanted to roll over my 401k so that I can manage/view everything from a single account. Is there any reason not to rollover from Fidelity? E*Trade has given me the option to open a OneStop Rollover that is some special "professionally managed portfolio" that keeps you from being able to trade - is this as bad an idea as it appears to be? The money is mostly in a Vanguard Target Date fund already with a small amount manually managed. I have yet to hear anything good about ETrade and retirement accounts. If you want to see everything on one screen, I would suggest you move everything to Fidelity rather than the other way around. Fidelity has "Spartan" funds with low ERs. ETrade is going to make you pay to move, most likely.
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May 18, 2014 16:47
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See title of this thread. It's quite accurate.
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May 18, 2014 18:34
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How concerned should I be about expense ratios for 401ks? Obviously, lower is better, though I'm just wondering if I'm safer using a single, balanced fund with a slightly higher ER over using multiple, specific funds with lower ERs. For some context, I am currently investing in a balance Vanguard fund (VASGX) through my 401k, and it's going away soon; it has an ER of 0.49. I'm planning on either switching to its replacement fund, which is an Invesco fund (ACEKX) with an ER of 0.60. The alternative I was leaning to was splitting my contribution to 40% Int / 40% US / 20% Bond with ERs of 0.34 / 0.42 / 0.42; these are all Vanguard funds (VDMIX / VMVAX / VBTLX). I'm 30 and open to suggestions on adjusting those ratios. Mainly I like the idea of a lower ER, I just Have No Idea What Im Doing in terms of selecting appropriate funds, and I'm basing those fund ratios on what I've gleaned from this thread. I don't mind a more aggressive fund ratio (lower bond) since I started saving a bit later than I should have.
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May 19, 2014 01:59
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ntan1 posted:See title of this thread. It's quite accurate. Except they should probably add "and Kevin Spacey" to it now.
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May 19, 2014 03:56
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jooky posted:ACEKX That difference in expense ratios is pretty small. Main concerns are the allocation (which you've already thought about) and the nature of the funds. ACEKX is actively managed with relatively high turnover and I would absolutely not recommend it unless you know what you're getting into with that. It is very different from VASGX, not a reasonable replacement at all.
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May 19, 2014 05:45
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jooky posted:(VDMIX / VMVAX / VBTLX) Of those three funds only VBLTX is an appropriate surrogate for your desires (US/int/bonds). I will elaborate: It is generally considered a good idea to diversify as much as possible (read for pillars for why). With that on mind owning the every stock in the world is a fantastic starting point for any investor. A total world portfolio really should be the default unless you know enough to consciously deviate to a more personal approach (many people overweight specific sectors). You can achieve a world portfolio with just three funds: total US, total int, total bond. I gather you are trying to do this using vdmix and vdmax. VDMIX is a subset of the total int market, but it is missing Canada and Emerging Markets. The best option is to forget this fund and buy a true total international fund like VGTSX. Failing that, you could supplement this fund with a dedicated emerging markets fund (you'd still be out  , but meh). Of your 401k lacks these funds then use VDMIX and buy an emerging markets in your IRA.VDMAX only contains mid sized "value" us companies and is a terrible proxy for the total US Market. Some people love mid caps and value (stocks that are viewed as underpriced), but they buy funds like vdmax in addition to their us stock holdings in a deliberate move to overweight this sector. Do you have an S&P500 fund or something to replace it? VBLTX is great for approximating the total US bond market and it should capture a portion of your portfolio. (20% bonds at age 30 is fairly standard and reasonable). Post your fund options and we will help you. Velochis fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 05:45
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Hey long-term thread. I have some questions about asset allocation in my 401k, IRA and Roth IRA. The holdings are all with Vanguard. Planned retirement in 2055ish. There clearly are some issues because I think I'm holding way too many different things. And some of them are redundant (why the hell would I hold 500 Index Admiral Shares and Investor Shares?). I set this up a month or two ago when I rolled over my 401k and Roth 401k from my last job and now I can buy/sell into any fund because the restriction window has cleared. Do you all have any suggestions on how to re-allocate things? The 401k is currently getting the maximum contribution to achieve the full employer match. The 401k overview didn't give any tickers. Here's my current allocation. All percentages are "total allocation/allocation within each vehicle". IRA code:code:code:Any suggestions? edit: I'd also appreciate if no one quotes this since I'm going to edit out the specifics of my portfolio holdings once I figure out what to do. axeil fucked around with this message at 17:08 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 16:56
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Come at it from the other direction. Figure out what you want and how to get it with 2-4 funds (you can) and then rearrange everything to match.
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May 20, 2014 18:04
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What's the rationale behind having both a Traditional and Roth IRA? If you're saving pre-tax anyways, those Institutional Plus class funds in your 401k are the way to go and I'd prioritize maxing that over more Traditional IRA contributions. All it lacks is a good international index (emerging markets and international growth don't cut it). e: vvvv I mean for axeil specifically. He didn't want his post quoted. Kilty Monroe fucked around with this message at 07:45 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 21, 2014 13:00
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Kilty Monroe posted:What's the rationale behind having both a Traditional and Roth IRA?
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May 21, 2014 13:44
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| # ? May 26, 2024 11:11 |
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I'm a little confused with Vanguard. I'm trying to open an account for my kids' savings ($6k). The savings are primarily for college but I want them to have the freedom to buy other things if college ends up being less expensive than what the fund has 14-15 years from now. I'd like to put it in VFINX, but Vanguard is asking for a settlement fund first: quote:Select a settlement fund for your brokerage account and offers these two guys: VMMXX Prime Money Market Fund VMSXX Tax-Exempt Money Market Fund Why are they asking for this and which do I go with?
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May 21, 2014 14:07
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