{"id":1916,"date":"2021-02-27T14:46:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T22:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dadspersonalfinance.com\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2021-02-27T21:09:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T05:09:10","slug":"investing-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dadspersonalfinance.com\/investing-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Investing – the beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by\u00a0Alexander Mils<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Investing will be discussed continually throughout the blog.\u00a0 I feel it is important to give you a taste at this point before we get too far down the road. \u00a0\u00a0Recall that investing is a simple formula just like losing weight.\u00a0 Losing weight is eat less and move more.\u00a0 Investing is all about making more money, spend less and invest the difference.<\/p>\n

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If you are reading this, the assumption is that you are close or you already have your debt paid off.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t created your budget and paid off your debt, then you should go back and complete those two tasks first.\u00a0 Then come back after your debt is under control.<\/p>\n

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The first thing that you must learn is that your house is not an investment.\u00a0 Too many times people will leave college and go out and buy a car and a house and think that they are setting themselves up for life.\u00a0 Well, there are a few issues with this thinking.\u00a0 The thought behind this is that we all know of stories where our parents or grandparents bought a house 30, 40 or 50 years ago and when they eventually sell their house or leave it to their heirs, there appears to be a windfall.\u00a0 This is a bit misleading and if you compared the funds spent on the house vs other investments, you will see that the gains are not all that great.\u00a0 We will go into the numbers in a later blog entry.<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s lifestyle is much different than that of our ancestors.\u00a0 We tend not to live in houses for more than five years.\u00a0 It is difficult for appreciation to cover the closing costs of the buy and sell in such a short period of time.\u00a0 Especially if you consider that interest rates are low.\u00a0 Also, should you lose your job and cannot make the payments, the house does not put money in your pocket.\u00a0 True assets bring a regular return on investment.\u00a0 Also, consider the fact that if you do not pay your property taxes then you will lose your house.\u00a0 So do you really even own your house?<\/p>\n

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The very first investment people come up against is the 401K.\u00a0 Most W2 jobs at this point have some type of 401K. When I say W2 job, this is just another way of saying that your work for someone else.\u00a0 \u00a0If you are self-employed then you can open up a solo 401K, SEP IRA, or ROTH IRA.\u00a0 This can be a great way to go as you will obtain help with the growth of your account by compound interest on the tax deferred portion of your salary that remains within your account.\u00a0 A good rule of thumb is that you should at least invest enough into the 401K to obtain any matching that your company provides.\u00a0 \u00a0Of course matching doesn\u2019t apply to the self-employed.<\/p>\n

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If you are not investing elsewhere then you should start with your company\u2019s 401K.\u00a0 If you are investing elsewhere then you should run an investment comparison study to determine which investment entities bring you the best ROI (return on investment).\u00a0 You may even determine that you can invest in both your personal investment and the 401K.\u00a0 Run the numbers.<\/p>\n

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The first issue that blocks and confuses people is how to allocate the funds in a 401k.\u00a0 By allocate, it means to determine what funds you allocate your savings to.\u00a0 The fund names across 401K accounts tend to be similar.\u00a0 You will hear things like small cap, large cap, fixed assets, index funds, etc.\u00a0 For the best advice on this one, I would recommend that you read JL Collins book entitled the Simple Path to Wealth<\/a> by JL Collins.\u00a0 I\u2019ll summarize what JL recommends here.\u00a0 Invest 75% in Vanguard\u2019s VTSAX and 25% in VBTLX.\u00a0 This savings rate is what is used in the 4% rule and is based on William Bengen\u2019s analysis of what investing rates should be to make ones portfolio last 30 years with a reasonable rate of success.\u00a0 I have paraphrased the 75\/25 investing rate here so you can reference JLCollins and William Bengen to draw your own conclusions on the investing rates.<\/p>\n

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If your 401K does not have access to Vanguards accounts, then read through each of your potential investments and pick one that is based on investments that make up the S&P 500.\u00a0 The VBTLX is a bond fund and you should be able to find a fund that invests in a broad spectrum of bonds.\u00a0 With the current low interest rate environment, bond investments will not fare well so you may want to consider increasing the equity (VTSAX) portion of your investing.\u00a0 So maybe a 80\/20 or 90\/10 investment of equity to bonds may be considered.<\/p>\n

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The second issue that usually confronts people beginning their investments is the amount they should invest.\u00a0 A lot of financial advisors would say 15%.\u00a0 It turns out that this is a number for those who plan to retire at 65.\u00a0 We\u2019ll tackle the math behind this at a later date.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have 15% to invest then try to invest as much as possible to obtain the employer match and then slowly increase the amount your save keeping the 15% as your target.\u00a0 \u00a0If you can save and invest more than that then go for it.<\/p>\n

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I can remember in one of my earlier jobs, we used to share investing strategies with one another.\u00a0 We would make fun of one another and other people who didn\u2019t know what percentage of their salary they were saving.\u00a0 That persona became a \u201closer\u201d in our minds.\u00a0 We never heckled the person directly, but it was used as a prod within our group to compete for the highest savings rate.<\/p>\n

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Should this savings rate be before or after tax or another way to say this is your gross pay or your net pay.\u00a0 Once again start out with your net pay since that is less and build up to 15% of your gross pay.\u00a0 I can recall that I was saving 45% of gross pay and 54% of net pay at the time.\u00a0 One might think that this severely impacted my life, but it really didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I still enjoyed life just as I always have.<\/p>\n

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Note that this is the beginning of investing.\u00a0 We will have a lot more to discuss as we master our personal finance.\u00a0 As always, consult with your mentors, tax and financial experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by\u00a0Alexander Mils\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash.   Investing will be discussed continually throughout the blog.\u00a0 I feel it is important to give you a taste at this point before we get too far down the road. \u00a0\u00a0Recall that investing is a simple formula just like losing weight.\u00a0 Losing weight is eat less and move more.\u00a0 Investing is all …<\/p>\n

Investing – the beginning<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"right-sidebar","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[47,9,48],"yoast_head":"\nInvesting - the beginning - Dads Personal Finance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dadspersonalfinance.com\/investing-the-beginning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Investing - 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