Long Term Investing & Retirement: The second best time is now

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Long Term Investing & Retirement: The second best time is now

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

There's a lot of talk in this thread about the Vanguard targeted retirement funds, but what do you guys think of the American Funds targeted retirement funds? This concerns a RothIRA if that matters.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2008 23:45

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:55

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Ravarek posted:

You can "backdate" your contributions to the previous year as long as you do it before April.

Yep, this is a really important point everyone should keep in mind. You can do the same for a traditional IRA as well if you make a good amount and need the tax breaks.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2009 17:06

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

I'm looking for opinions my RothIRA. Right now I'm:

code:

AMCAP-Fund A                    25%
The Bond Fund of America A      45%
Capital World Growth and Income 30%

Obviously I'm not thrilled with how it has been going, I'm open to rebalancing as well as shifting into other American Funds funds (I can't move over to Vanguard, not enough money in the pot to split it well--I'll consider this later). I have a pretty high risk tolerance.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2009 18:13

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Looking to increase the relative aggression in my Roth, looking for opinions on:
AGTHX
ANEFX
NEWFX
SMCWX

# ¿ May 12, 2009 01:28

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

abagofcheetos posted:

FAIRX
PRLAX
RYVFX
FLVCX
JORNX

edit: FICDX

Using AmericanFunds for a brokerage in this particular case so even though I like your suggestions of RYVFX or JORNX and may go into them in another one of my brokerage retirement accounts, really looking for advice on the AmerFunds options.

Edit: Though I suppose I could be convinced to move out of AmerFunds entirely, I also trade with Schwab & Tradeking--AmerFunds simply had better autoinvesting.

mcsuede fucked around with this message at 02:05 on May 13, 2009

# ¿ May 13, 2009 02:02

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

abagofcheetos posted:

You were willing to pay 5.75% just because they had better autoinvesting?

I was probably too flippant with that post--I don't pay near the full starter 5.75% load, combine that with the low $10 annual fee, lowish expense ratios, low buying minimums and good performance in bear/volatile markets and I'm comfortable enough compared to my other options. I'll probably be making a move away from them at some point but the timing isn't right for me now (and if you're really curious I didn't originate the account). Any further explanation would require way more words than I feel like typing which is why I kept the original question to: which of these Funds in a list do you like the most?

# ¿ May 13, 2009 05:43

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0906/gallery.fortune_40.fortune/index.html

Thought this article was worth a read over for those who like individual stocks in their retirement shelters, so I'm posting it here. </obvious>

# ¿ Jun 11, 2009 23:56

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

The Noble Nobbler posted:

I don't have the foggiest what all those funds represent, but my guess is that you could reduce your portfolio to 4 or less without any noticeable difference in return

Or a targeted retirement fund, I would imagine. Those are generally just risk balanced amalgamations of all the funds that provider has available, more or less, which seems to be what Boddingtons has going on. Decent chance you'd pay less fees too.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2009 06:13

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

filo posted:

I have a bunch of money sitting in my fidelity cash reserves right now. When do I throw it into mutual funds? I see the market is down substantially today and although I won't need to retire anytime soon, I'd rather not loose a large chunk of my principle by jumping on the rollercoaster when it seems there might be a lot more ups and downs coming soon. I know this is a ridiculously open-ended question and no one can predict the future but I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.

What you're basically saying here is that you have no concept of unrealized vs. realized gains/loss, risk management (specifically as you approach retirement), and the magic of compound interest.

Get that money in, asap! You've already missed out on major gains since early March this year alone! unrealized*

*I am not a financial advisor. But seriously dude, what are you waiting for, a letter from the government telling you everything will be okay?

# ¿ Jun 16, 2009 04:42

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Just as an anecdote I got started in AmerFunds in a similar way (gift from my father), and I've been very happy with them. Of course depends on your style and such but I really like the exposure and purchasing power of their target date funds vs. a lot of the competitors target date funds. I also dabble in some of the C funds (NEWCX for example) to increase specific exposure without a front load cost, though the C fund expenses are high to very high. That's one area I'll be looking at closely when I do my rebalance in the next few weeks, but I don't have the cash yet to make a move away from my "exposure" AmerFund C funds to Vanguard due to minimums, which are much lower with AmerFunds ($500 in many cases).

mcsuede fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jan 25, 2010

# ¿ Jan 25, 2010 06:51

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Anyone know if Schwab has any fees for contributions to a RothIRA? It would be into a Vanguard fund. Can't find the info exactly on the website but as my wife would attest I'm poo poo for finding things.

WHERE ARE MY SHOES

# ¿ Mar 1, 2010 00:59

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Yeah, I'm debating if I should go straight through Vanguard or go through Schwab and open one of their 2% cashback cards. I have an empty Schwab account just sitting there and I don't want to kill it from inactivity (used to have some gifted stocks in it but I cashed all those out in '07).

I'll probably go straight through Vanguard.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2010 01:15

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Looking to drop an grand extra into my wife's 403(b) to reduce taxes a bit and I can't seem to figure out how to go about it...it's handled by Principal (2045 R1 fund). Any ideas? Bother her company HR?

Alternatively, any advice on a solid, low fee/no load targeted retirement fund I could throw that money into by opening a new traditional IRA? Investment minimum would have to be ~$1000 and I know the Vanguard funds are $3000. My retirement stuff is all RothIRA so it doesn't help us any for this tax purpose, though next (this) year I'll have a SEP-IRA.

mcsuede fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Apr 3, 2010

# ¿ Apr 3, 2010 18:54

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

Transferring into a Vanguard Roth, should I go into their 2045 targeted or just into one of their index's? This account won't have enough funds to split into multiple funds (yet).

# ¿ Oct 30, 2011 18:01

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:55

mcsuede: Dec 30, 2003; Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.
-Greta Garbo

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

Excel and Dropbox.

Or Google Documents. Best part about them is you can share the Doc with your significant other and both keep up to date on your state of finance. GCal is also great in this way.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2012 16:52

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