retirement planning

[Vanz_007]

still a long ways off for me unfortunately, but still figure I should educate myself, although I find the topic super boring...

Thinking of picking up this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Reti...ustomerReviews

Thoughts, advice?

I plan to make an appointment with a financial planner soon but wanted to educate myself a bit more first...

Vanz

[dodger]

I dunno, would really advise to try to do it yourself but I get it. The subject can be really really dry (unless you go whole hog and become a diversified investor in which case you have to learn a little bit of anything and everything).

I say this because it seems that industry is sorta on the rocks and people in it may be desperate and protections for the consumer that was supposed to happen, did not. Robo advisers are a thing now, ETF/Index funds that require no manager are a thing now, and fintech companies have software that will do basic retirement allocations automatically for a small fee. With brokerage fees going to $0 and these folk losing that subsidy, it's not been fun for them.

If you do get one, be very very very very very very very suspicious if they suggest any sorta of variable/adjustable/market based annuity. I heard they get crazy huge commissions for those but even if that part was not true, I've read enough prospectuses for them that makes me want to burn them with fire. I mean yes, I can see where they could make sense but ugh anyone with experience with what the market does in the long run would blanche at what you give up for the safety of these annuities.

[KAC]

$5 mil in the bank before 55 is the target.

[SubCog]

ok, so this isn't exactly retirement advice, but my stock investments are up 20x in the last 10 years, and I've made more $$ from one particular investment account this year than I've made in my salary. Yups, I'm good at both picking stocks and managing risk. I figure if I can maintain the same rate of growth for the next 25 years, I'm projecting a nest-egg that is in the tens of millions... crossing my fingers that I can keep it up!

Otherwise I'm just pumping $$ into my 401k and taking advantage of company matching.

[KAC]

That’s great. I am too late into the game. Should’ve been doing stocks at 30.

[acroig]

Originally Posted by KAC

$5 mil in the bank before 55 is the target.

What currency?

[KAC]

Originally Posted by acroig

What currency?

It says $.

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by SubCog

ok, so this isn't exactly retirement advice, but my stock investments are up 20x in the last 10 years, and I've made more $$ from one particular investment account this year than I've made in my salary. Yups, I'm good at both picking stocks and managing risk. I figure if I can maintain the same rate of growth for the next 25 years, I'm projecting a nest-egg that is in the tens of millions... crossing my fingers that I can keep it up!

Otherwise I'm just pumping $$ into my 401k and taking advantage of company matching.

thats what I'm doing right now pumping max into 401k and going over company matching amount, but I feel like I should be taking more investment risk... I used to try and do my own stock investing but it was taking too much time and sucking fun time out of my life... but I wasn't nearly as successful as you, hopefully you're diversified so you don't get hit hard by a sudden down swing....

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by KAC

$5 mil in the bank before 55 is the target.

so us dollars? that's impressive... now I can why you're buying more video cards...

[Silent-Runner]

Originally Posted by acroig

What currency?

we're all millionaires here, obviously. Awesome!

[koralis]

Originally Posted by Vanz_007

I plan to make an appointment with a financial planner soon but wanted to educate myself a bit more first...

If you're going to let someone else pick your investments, etc, make sure they have a fiduciary responsibility to you. This means that they are obligated, by law, to give you advice based on what's best for YOU, not what gives them the best commissions, etc.

If you don't do that, you'll end up with someone pimping Whole Life Insurance as an investment... yes, it is... but with a lot of overhead/fees, or similarly bad deals.

If you go your own route, and don't want to get into the weeds, you could do worse than investing in an S&P500 Index mutual fund. This would give you low fees and your investment will track the market as a whole. You won't score big, but shouldn't lose big either. Some studies have shown that most stock/fund picks underperform the S&P.


But yes, you should take advantage of 100% of employer matching at the bare minimum, and if you can afford it throw extra into the 401k up to the minimums/year (I think it's around $15k max right now, would need to google to figure it the specific number.)

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by koralis

If you're going to let someone else pick your investments, etc, make sure they have a fiduciary responsibility to you. This means that they are obligated, by law, to give you advice based on what's best for YOU, not what gives them the best commissions, etc.

If you don't do that, you'll end up with someone pimping Whole Life Insurance as an investment... yes, it is... but with a lot of overhead/fees, or similarly bad deals.

If you go your own route, and don't want to get into the weeds, you could do worse than investing in an S&P500 Index mutual fund. This would give you low fees and your investment will track the market as a whole. You won't score big, but shouldn't lose big either. Some studies have shown that most stock/fund picks underperform the S&P.


But yes, you should take advantage of 100% of employer matching at the bare minimum, and if you can afford it throw extra into the 401k up to the minimums/year (I think it's around $15k max right now, would need to google to figure it the specific number.)

thanks koralis, for this:

If you're going to let someone else pick your investments, etc, make sure they have a fiduciary responsibility to you

how do you make sure, is this something typical to make sure is in a contract with a financial advisor?

[acroig]

Originally Posted by KAC

It says $.

[SirBaron]

Originally Posted by Silent-Runner

we're all millionaires here, obviously. Awesome!

It's one of the many reasons I love converting Euro to Yen when I go to Japan, few times in my life I feel rich, until I get there ofcourse.

[OverclockN']

how do you make sure, is this something typical to make sure is in a contract with a financial advisor?

Best thing to do with a "financial planner", is find one that's willing to actually teach you how to manage/invest the money. Then part ways and make your own decisions based on what you've learned. The best way to manage your money and do what's best for you, is to manage it yourself. It's fine if someone needs a little education, but to rely on someone else 100% is a bad plan...IMO.

[Lazy8s]

Originally Posted by Vanz_007

thanks koralis, for this:



how do you make sure, is this something typical to make sure is in a contract with a financial advisor?

Here's a primer:

https://www.findyourindependentadvis...d=kwd-63471240

iirc I got the same advice from koralis a while back.

edit: Take note of the last item...

[huskylord]

Buttcoin

R/WallStreetBets for some awesome investing advice

[huskylord]

Serious though

1) Put savings in low cost, broad market equity ETFs
2) Take advantage of employer match (or DB plan if you're lucky)
2) Take advantage of government savings/tax advantage/deferral programs
3) Spend less, save more
4) Come up with a plan

[Nascar24]

I know my now retired boss was paying $1200 a year for this. I was thinking what for? I guess when you have money to burn and 2 manager paychecks and no kids its a drop in the bucket. He is now retired but I really dont think he needed a financial planner for that. When they had been putting one of their Salaries away for 20 years yea you could have done that on your own and still retired. Me on the other hand has never had the luxury of a managers paycheck and another full managers paycheck from a wife to retire young, I will be working till I'm almost dead. Not because I dont have a financial manager that I cant afford, because I have bills and no one else to hand over the cash to put into retirement. He was high on the Financial manager making him be able to retire young. I just dont see it that way. He could have done it himself.

[SubCog]

Originally Posted by Vanz_007

thats what I'm doing right now pumping max into 401k and going over company matching amount, but I feel like I should be taking more investment risk... I used to try and do my own stock investing but it was taking too much time and sucking fun time out of my life... but I wasn't nearly as successful as you, hopefully you're diversified so you don't get hit hard by a sudden down swing....

I've been making it a point to make bolder stock bets, but I also mitigate alot of risk. Even when a stock is going way up and I expect it to go up higher, I usually sell chunks as it goes up, to ensure that I don't lose $$ if something unexpected happens. For example, when I bought AMD at $1.98/share, I sold a good chunk of it when it hit $7, to lock-in enough profit to ensure I wouldn't lost any money even if the stock dropped to zero, and then sold a bit more when it hit $10, and little bits as it continued going up. Sometimes when the stock would drop a bit I'd go buy some more at the lower price, but then I'd keep selling chunks as it went back up. All-in-all, I probably made 15x my original investment on AMD over a couple years, eventually selling most of the remainder it at $30. It's gone up 3x since then, btw, so I could have made alot more. But at some point you have to take profits.

I've had similar runs, although maybe a bit less dramatic, with Nvidia, Amazon, and now Tesla, which accounts for a massive chunk of my growth over the last few years.

My strategy to investing is to only bet on companies that I already know well, in industries that I follow closely anyway. In the case of AMD, I saw that their stock was WAAAAY down because they had nearly a decade of terrible chip designs, but that they had been working on their new Zen architecture for 4 years... knowing that the chip design process takes ~5 years before it launches as a product. I knew that Jim Keller was the lead designer for that architecture, and that he had recently left the company, signaling that he felt his job was complete, plus lots of rumors that Zen had engineering samples that performed well. This, plus movement with their GPU designs, plus seeing that Lisa Su actually knew what she was doing, and I had strong intuitions that AMD would dramatically improve their performance the following year. At the time I reasoned that the worst-case scenario was that I could lose $2 per share if the company completely imploded, but more likely scenarios would push the stock over $10. I had very strong justification for that bet, and now I only wish I had been even more bold.

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by Nascar24

I know my now retired boss was paying $1200 a year for this. I was thinking what for? I guess when you have money to burn and 2 manager paychecks and no kids its a drop in the bucket. He is now retired but I really dont think he needed a financial planner for that. When they had been putting one of their Salaries away for 20 years yea you could have done that on your own and still retired. Me on the other hand has never had the luxury of a managers paycheck and another full managers paycheck from a wife to retire young, I will be working till I'm almost dead. Not because I dont have a financial manager that I cant afford, because I have bills and no one else to hand over the cash to put into retirement. He was high on the Financial manager making him be able to retire young. I just dont see it that way. He could have done it himself.

financial planner can help you determine when you can retire, maybe you should wait one or 2 years, or maybe you can retire early? If you don't plan it out how will you know?

[huskylord]

This is a great website to get alot of basic investing knowledge:

https://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/

It's from the Ontario regulator dealing with investments. Though it's Canadian based, it very much translates all the important concepts.

[huskylord]

The only other thought you should consider and this is based on a small selection of my friends/family that have become truly, truly financially well off is coming up with your own business, not working for someone else,....

If you're young, can afford to take risk, no dependants, not tied down, ask yourself what kind of career do I want, am I happy now, etc. I know I'm bluring the concepts of retirement, financial independance, accumulating wealth, but I guess I'm saying think big while you're still young.

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by huskylord

The only other thought you should consider and this is based on a small selection of my friends/family that have become truly, truly financially well off is coming up with your own business, not working for someone else,....

If you're young, can afford to take risk, no dependants, not tied down, ask yourself what kind of career do I want, am I happy now, etc. I know I'm bluring the concepts of retirement, financial independance, accumulating wealth, but I guess I'm saying think big while you're still young.

its high risk, lots of businesses going bankrupt in this covid time

[Nascar24]

Originally Posted by Vanz_007

financial planner can help you determine when you can retire, maybe you should wait one or 2 years, or maybe you can retire early? If you don't plan it out how will you know?

Still figure you can determine that on your own but hey what do I know, I don’t see retirement till I’m older then I want to be. But it is what it is I guess.

[Vanz_007]

Originally Posted by Nascar24

Still figure you can determine that on your own but hey what do I know, I don’t see retirement till I’m older then I want to be. But it is what it is I guess.

you can definitely figure it out on your own, I view them as a second set of eyes if I make a mistake or overlook some tax loop hole or miss something... since that is there expertise... I'll probably go to a couple, for fidelity they offer free appointments paid for by my company...