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Boosted_C5 posted:My wife started a new job (MD, first post-residency job) and brought me her 401k materials. If that's the approach your wife's employee takes with their employees, it's more than likely they will sell them as leads to other scams. Your wife is also going to get to deal with slick jerks trying to sell whole life insurance, crappy estate planning services, disability insurance that is a poo poo deal. Of the above, have your wife shop around for disability-it's the only financial product that she genuinely needs. State medical associations might provide it as do other private insurance firms.
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Aug 14, 2015 22:31
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Boosted_C5 posted:My wife started a new job (MD, first post-residency job) and brought me her 401k materials. I did the best job I could allocating to a couple of different fund options that weren't as garbage as the rest of the options, and came up with an overall allocation that was roughly where I wanted to be as far as % US stocks, Int. stocks, and bonds. american funds is a really horrible company since they often have kickback schemes to steer financial advisors and similar people towards their lovely funds. The company also practices the costly active type investment management that this thread recommends with for many good reasons. Also the easiest way to find the best investment options is to sort by expense ratios.
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Aug 14, 2015 23:52
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etalian posted:american funds is a really horrible company since they often have kickback schemes to steer financial advisors and similar people towards their lovely funds. They are not a horrible company. No one in this thread should or would consider them, or anything with a sales load. But they have lower costs (after loads) than other active fund companies, have a strong team-oriented management, low turnover, and a generally great reputation. They tend towards value investing, so factor exposure has generally explained their outperformance, but their history of providing the factor exposure without negative alpha is actually far better than most fund companies. And the esteemed William Bernstein have stated if he ever was forced to pay a load, he would go with American Funds, and Jack Bogle has called them a great company. All in all, American Funds have served their shareholders well, despite the loads.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:30
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onefish posted:I think Vanguard's ETFs and Admiral share funds have the same expense rations, for most of the ones I was looking at. For Total US and Total International anyway. Can anyone give me a link/example if not, in case I'm being thick? (Was looking at this because I wanted to get out of some funds where I was locked in Avg Cost cost basis b/c I didn't have good records and into specific ID cost basis). Yea that is pretty much right. Admiral and ETF shares have the same ER's across the board. Stick with the Admiral shares for simplicity, imo. If you ever start using other ETF providers (like iShares or Powershares), it might be worth converting Vanguard index funds to ETF's (a non-taxable event, even in a taxable account), since it is a bit easier to rebalance when all activity is happening in ETF-land, otherwise you deal with mismatched settlement dates and unavailable funds for days.
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Aug 15, 2015 00:36
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80k posted:They are not a horrible company. No one in this thread should or would consider them, or anything with a sales load. But they have lower costs (after loads) than other active fund companies, have a strong team-oriented management, low turnover, and a generally great reputation. They tend towards value investing, so factor exposure has generally explained their outperformance, but their history of providing the factor exposure without negative alpha is actually far better than most fund companies. And the esteemed William Bernstein have stated if he ever was forced to pay a load, he would go with American Funds, and Jack Bogle has called them a great company. All in all, American Funds have served their shareholders well, despite the loads. It's a company that employed the common scheme in which advisors and brokerages steer greenhorn investors into American Funds in exchange for sweet commission rates. The company also tries to sell their active management success despite contrary evidence and their foreign stock active funds are incredibility expensive compared to Vanguard in both sales load/expense ratio. from business week: quote:"...nor has American emerged from the fund scandals completely unscathed. It's under investigation by the Securities & Exchange Commission and the California Attorney General's office for allegedly making undisclosed payments to brokerage firms that gave it preferential treatment. American says it did nothing wrong. "We disclosed what was considered an acceptable level at the time," says spokesman Chuck Freadhoff. "The SEC saw our prospectuses and never raised the issue.
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Aug 15, 2015 01:33
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Peanut3141 posted:That's fantastic! If I could get my match by maxing it by March, I would. More months to grow, right? This is in a Vanguard Target Retirement Fund if it matters.
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Aug 15, 2015 15:18
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Investing it all at once has better historical returns as a strategy, but some years the incremental deposits outperform due to declining markets. The issue here is that no one, and I mean no one, really knows if the Bears are going to take control. The market is up more than its down, so put it in as soon as you can to catch that rise. If you're truly worried about the risk inherent in the market, don't invest with money you can't afford to lose. In this thread, the money you're putting in is stuff you're not going to touch for 30 years anyways -- it goes up or down tomorrow? whatever. It'll be up in 30.
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Aug 15, 2015 15:33
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It's also somewhat challenging to come up with a 5500 lump sum, so you end up doing something like regular monthly deposits. Things like auto-deposits or making sure to setup your 401k contributions are really effective in the long run since they force you to sock away money for retirement.
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Aug 15, 2015 16:24
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Mr. Glass posted:i'm putting about half of it into after-tax 401k (to be converted to roth) and i'll probably pad out the emergency fund a bit with the rest. Forgive the probably obvious question but what is an "after-tax 401k" if not a Roth 401k? I thought that's what Roth meant... E: VV Thanks! VV Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 16:26
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:forgive the probably obvious question but what is an "after-tax 401k" if not a Roth 401k? I thought that's what Roth meant... http://www.bedrockcapital.com/blog/bedrocks-guide-to-saving-for-retirement-the-mega-backdoor-roth-ira/
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Aug 15, 2015 16:34
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Mr. Glass posted:http://www.bedrockcapital.com/blog/bedrocks-guide-to-saving-for-retirement-the-mega-backdoor-roth-ira/ Great article explaining that. My company just started having after tax contributions, but it doesn't do 2 and 3 below: quote:Assuming you have the money to make additional retirement contributions, you need to have a 401(k) or 403(b) plan with the right features. The plan has to: Any idea what this other strategy is? There haven't been any more posts by that author since.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:30
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Thanks. I'm in a position where I can max my Roth IRA right away but I can see the benefits of regular contributions.
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Aug 15, 2015 20:09
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What you're talking about is dollar cost averaging, plenty of papers have been written about it and it generally gives lower returns over the long run because the markets have historically gone up - and if you're not expecting them to trend up, why are you investing at all? Putting in money from each paycheck as you can afford to isn't dollar cost averaging, though, and some people get a bit confused by this. If you have the money it's better, on average in the long run, to put it in immediately. Dollar cost averaging in that case would be like splitting up your biweekly paycheck and investing 10% of it each weekday.
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Aug 15, 2015 20:20
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I put money in my IRA on the "Oh, gently caress, I've got some money saved up for this, let me shove it in there" schedule. Usually 1-3 times per year. It's not (in my opinion) worth spending any brainpower worrying about as long as you're meeting your yearly max.
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Aug 15, 2015 20:30
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CannonFodder posted:Thanks. I'm in a position where I can max my Roth IRA right away but I can see the benefits of regular contributions. then go for it
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Aug 15, 2015 20:40
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Peanut3141 posted:When you say should, do you mean "required by law" should or "don't be an rear end in a top hat" should. If the former, I have some coworkers that need to know.
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Aug 15, 2015 22:13
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Dik Hz posted:Honestly, I don't know. It's common practice to true up at the end of the year. But I don't know if that's because its a legal issue or a not-be-and-rear end in a top hat issue. It's relatively common but not nearly universal. It's not a legal issue. Companies can set whatever stupid rules they want for matching, or just offer none.
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Aug 15, 2015 22:58
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Desuwa posted:It's relatively common but not nearly universal. It's not a legal issue. Companies can set whatever stupid rules they want for matching, or just offer none. I always thought requiring the match be spread out was so people couldn't up their contribution and quit midway through the year. I don't see why that would stop a policy of per paycheck basis matching with a true-up at the end of the year prorated on the amount of the year you were employed.
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Aug 15, 2015 23:40
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Boot and Rally posted:I always thought requiring the match be spread out was so people couldn't up their contribution and quit midway through the year. I don't see why that would stop a policy of per paycheck basis matching with a true-up at the end of the year prorated on the amount of the year you were employed. It wouldn't stop it but there's nothing that requires it. Companies don't have to do very much. There's a lot they can do, like mine doesn't care when the money goes in, they just match 50% of everything. Hell my company is actually a bit nicer because there's a true up to 100% matching on the first X if you contribute less than 2X (with the effective matching, counting the true-up, on the second X being 0%). I have a friend and I believe he gets a 3% match on 4% of his paycheck and I don't think he gets a true-up but I'm not sure. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Aug 16, 2015 |
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Aug 16, 2015 00:31
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Boot and Rally posted:I always thought requiring the match be spread out was so people couldn't up their contribution and quit midway through the year. I don't see why that would stop a policy of per paycheck basis matching with a true-up at the end of the year prorated on the amount of the year you were employed. Most of the quitting early is controlled by companies being allowed to have up to 3 years for vesting.
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Aug 16, 2015 00:58
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etalian posted:Most of the quitting early is controlled by companies being allowed to have up to 3 years for vesting. 6 years. My previous employer took things as far as they legally could.
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Aug 16, 2015 01:11
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onefish posted:I think Vanguard's ETFs and Admiral share funds have the same expense rations, for most of the ones I was looking at. For Total US and Total International anyway. Can anyone give me a link/example if not, in case I'm being thick? (Was looking at this because I wanted to get out of some funds where I was locked in Avg Cost cost basis b/c I didn't have good records and into specific ID cost basis). That is correct - as far as I know admiral shares and vanguard ETFs have equal expense ratios. However, admiral shares are still better because ETFs have an added cost layer that is the bid/ask spread when you buy and sell them in the market. The less liquid the ETF, the higher the spread.
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Aug 16, 2015 15:26
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Swingline posted:That is correct - as far as I know admiral shares and vanguard ETFs have equal expense ratios. However, admiral shares are still better because ETFs have an added cost layer that is the bid/ask spread when you buy and sell them in the market. The less liquid the ETF, the higher the spread. Vanguard ETFs have such a massive assets under management with really high daily volume that the bid-spread ratios are really small and for retirement you shouldn't be doing constant trading.
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Aug 16, 2015 18:09
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When rebalancing ETFs are people generally selling from one fund and then re-buying from another to do the rebalance? Assuming you're investing monthly, is there anything wrong with just changing how you're buying in order to rebalance over time?
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Aug 17, 2015 06:44
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Shrimpy posted:When rebalancing ETFs are people generally selling from one fund and then re-buying from another to do the rebalance? Yea, just sell and buy ETF's to rebalance. And yes it is fine to maintain balance with new money.
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Aug 17, 2015 07:31
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Would you guys help pick my 401k investments? Here's what I have right now but would love some advice.  I just moved my contributions to 45% for both vanguard accounts(90% total) and 10% for the American Century. Am I retard? RisqueBarber fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 16:53
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Vanguard Cap Opp and Vanguard Dev Mkt are closed now - I guess you can still get them in your 401k? I am not familiar with those two. Of the others, I would choose a combo of Vanguard Total Bond and Principal S&P funds.
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Aug 17, 2015 21:20
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So I am in a strange position I never expected (or hoped) to be in, so I thought I'd throw this to you guys and see if you there was an obvious YES/NO answer. A relative passed away a couple of weeks ago, leaving me with an inherited IRA. It's not a ton of money as far as long term goes - say $50,000. He had it with AxA Equitable, and it was in a 3% fixed interest account. They don't sell the 3% fixed anymore, because obviously no one's giving out that much. I don't want to even get in to what they've made off of him by paying 3% and pocketing the rest since 1998, when he opened it. Anyway, my immediate reaction was screw you guys, I'm throwing it to Vanguard with most of the rest of my money and out of here; a 3% fixed interest account is a dick thing to sell to the 40 year old man they sold it to in 1998, and it makes even less sense to me as a 31 year old. 3% is inflation; it will never be worth more than the $50,000 it's worth right now, as far as true spending power goes. But it occurs to me, since I'm doing alright, maybe I can move it into another fund for now with Equitable and try to make some money out of it, then throw it back into the 3% fund when I'm much older. It will always be available to me because I'm grandfathered in, even if I temporarily move it out. Now the only paperwork they gave me showed recent results but no expense ratios. From past experience, eyeballing the funds, they all looked like high expense ratio type funds. I don't know poo poo about Axa Equitable... maybe they take even more off the top typically than even just the expense ratio? Anyway, my question boils down to: is there any scenario in which keeping my money in Equitable could make any sense, knowing that I could eventually lock whatever's left into a 3% fixed account to basically protect my assets from inflation at a later date? I'm assuming I'll see the expense ratios and/or front loads and immediately laugh and roll this badboy to Vanguard, but is that maybe premature given that my current retirement savings (again, at age 31) make this essentially play money?
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Aug 17, 2015 23:59
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What are the reasons one might or might not choose to move funds from a 401k account from a previous employer? My wife has a pile sitting in her previous company's fidelity account and I was idly considering moving it all, but wasn't sure what advantages or disadvantages there might be.
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Aug 18, 2015 00:03
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Brian Fellows posted:So I am in a strange position I never expected (or hoped) to be in, so I thought I'd throw this to you guys and see if you there was an obvious YES/NO answer. I was under the impression that you can't just keep the money in there forever, and that the federal government requires you to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) that draw it down over time. In this case, it looks like inheriting it as a named beneficiary rather than within a general estate changes how it gets distributed. http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Inheriting_an_IRA
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Aug 18, 2015 00:14
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waloo posted:What are the reasons one might or might not choose to move funds from a 401k account from a previous employer? My wife has a pile sitting in her previous company's fidelity account and I was idly considering moving it all, but wasn't sure what advantages or disadvantages there might be. The local JP Morgan rep will go golfing with her former boss, and they'll become the new 401k provider. You get a letter in the mail saying "Effective September 1, your shares of *FUSEX SP 500 - 0.1%* will be rolled over to our new offering *OGEAX SP 500 - 0.91%"
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Aug 18, 2015 00:17
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Brian Fellows posted:So I am in a strange position I never expected (or hoped) to be in, so I thought I'd throw this to you guys and see if you there was an obvious YES/NO answer. waloo posted:What are the reasons one might or might not choose to move funds from a 401k account from a previous employer? My wife has a pile sitting in her previous company's fidelity account and I was idly considering moving it all, but wasn't sure what advantages or disadvantages there might be.
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Aug 18, 2015 00:18
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SpelledBackwards posted:I was under the impression that you can't just keep the money in there forever, and that the federal government requires you to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) that draw it down over time. In this case, it looks like inheriting it as a named beneficiary rather than within a general estate changes how it gets distributed. I can't; there are required RMDs starting in the year after inheriting it based on MY life expectancy. I'm 31, so while RMDs will eat into it, it won't be that significant. This happens whether I roll it to Vanguard or keep it where it's at.
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Aug 18, 2015 00:43
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waloo posted:What are the reasons one might or might not choose to move funds from a 401k account from a previous employer? My wife has a pile sitting in her previous company's fidelity account and I was idly considering moving it all, but wasn't sure what advantages or disadvantages there might be. As long as the fund selection is good there's not any immediate need to rollover. Like mentioned, rolling it over to a traditional IRA is going to complicate any future backdoor Roth conversions you may ever want to do -- possibly to the point of making them not worth it. If the fund selection is bad, though, rolling over gives you the freedom to invest in whatever you want and that is very worth it.
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Aug 18, 2015 01:09
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RisqueBarber posted:Would you guys help pick my 401k investments? Here's what I have right now but would love some advice. I always use expense ratio to sort funds when you have so many: 10% Vanguard Income Fund 34% Vanguard Developed Market Index Admiral 50.4% Principal Investors SP500 3.92% Principal Investors Midcap 1.68% Principle Investors Small Cap
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Aug 18, 2015 02:33
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80k posted:Yea, just sell and buy ETF's to rebalance. And yes it is fine to maintain balance with new money. Better, even, because you're hit with one trading fee instead of two. The ideal (unless it would hilariously knock your allocations out of balance?) is just to direct 100% of your contributions to a single fund every month/pay period/whenever. You do have to calculate which one you're most underweight in each time; I guess that might be too much micromanagement for some people.
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Aug 18, 2015 02:55
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waloo posted:What are the reasons one might or might not choose to move funds from a 401k account from a previous employer? My wife has a pile sitting in her previous company's fidelity account and I was idly considering moving it all, but wasn't sure what advantages or disadvantages there might be. Only reason to rollover is if the new employers offers low expense ratio quality funds compared to your old plan.
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Aug 18, 2015 03:24
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Fuschia tude posted:Better, even, because you're hit with one trading fee instead of two. The ideal is to move yourself towards your target ratio and, if you have excess, contribute in that ratio. Of course this is assuming you're not eating trading fees, which you shouldn't be. Most of the major brokers (Fidelity, Schwab, etc) have their own funds which are good enough that I wouldn't go eating fees just to get Vanguard funds if I already had a very good reason for investing with them instead of Vanguard. Personally I have some some of Schwab's index funds because I'm already banking with them and it's more convenient, though I am continuing to contribute to my Vanguard taxable account at least until I hit the level for admiral shares in it. I have a spreadsheet where I just plug in my current balances and new contribution and it spits out how much I should be putting in each fund. e: etalian posted:Only reason to rollover is if the new employers offers low expense ratio quality funds compared to your old plan. I'd say the advantages usually swing in the direction of rolling it into an IRA instead. IRAs are more permissive of early withdrawals than 401(k)s, though 401(k)s have advantages in unusual cases like if you have large retirement accounts and declare bankruptcy. The difference between the best you'd get in an IRA (Vanguard Admiral shares) and the best you'd get in an employer plan (Vanguard Institutional plus shares) isn't worth the loss of flexibility, in my opinion. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 03:27
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Thanks for the answers! Currently I think it's all in a 0.11% ER target retirement fund. Having just now checked this I see there is also a .10% "management fee" which I hadn't noticed before...
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Aug 18, 2015 03:50
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waloo posted:Thanks for the answers! Currently I think it's all in a 0.11% ER target retirement fund. Having just now checked this I see there is also a .10% "management fee" which I hadn't noticed before... .21% is good for a target fund, vanguard's own target retirement fund is .18%
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Aug 18, 2015 06:19
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