"Sgt.Sausage" <nobody[at]nowhere.com> wrote:

- quote -

Another trick along that line: Every time I got a raise, I increased my credit
union paycheck deduction by half the amount of the raise. After taxes, that put
a little more spending money in my pocket and a lot more in savings. Since I
never saw the raise, it was pretty painless.
-- Doug

<hithere62[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c548aad5-c6d3-4917-8a3b-f55121dac692[at]y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
- quote -


Forgetting for a moment what you actually asked for, here's
a tidbit from my history that really, really helped us out
in the long haul.

We both (wife and I (girlfriend at the time -- we married
much later) continued to live the PoorCollegeStudent lifestyle
for nearly a full 2 years after graduating college and
getting the first job.

We lived in the same off-campus housing (large house with
4 additional room-mates (typical of PoorCollegeStudents))
Both our shares of the rent/phone/electric/water bill
didn't add up to even $200 a month, combined.

Where else can ya live that cheap.

We both had good professional jobs after graduating
and matching salaries (she CPA, me software developer) but
lived like we were used to living while we were
paying for school -- e.g. Dirt.Poor.

This allowed us to pay off all student loans,
most of the credit cards, save up most of the
down for our first home, start the emergency
fund, and generally gave us a huge head-start
over our peers who move out into new expensive
apartments/homes and bought a brand new car.

If ya can give it a year or two of making that
kind of salary, and manage to put 1/3 or more
of it away for a year or three, you'll be
really, really, really happy you did it.

Just 'cause the income makes a nice jump to
the 85-90K range doesn't mean you have to
spend it all.

As a comparison, combined our during college
income was a bit over $21,000 -- flipping burgers,
delivering pizzas, and a few paying band gigs at the
local bar -- good income for 15 years ago and
being college students (back when minimum
wage was $3.10 an hour) .

The first jobs out of school, combined, put us
at over triple that. We kept living like we
only had the $21,000 for nearly 2 years. We were
able to put 2/3 of our combined income to productive
use.

Just some advice. It worked for us. YMMV.

hithere62[at]gmail.com writes:

- quote -

That's a pretty decent "life cycle" fund - it's a
diversified mix of underlying investments which is
going to get more and more conservative (it's very
aggressive now) as you approace a "target" retirement
year of 2050. T.Rowe Price and Vanguard also have
very decent versions of the same. There's nothing
at all wrong with them and, while an individual
may be able to do better by constructing a portfolio
on his own, these are still vastly better than
not doing so - which makes them great choices
for a lot of folks.

- quote -

Many folks open a brokerage account and buy mutual
funds inside that account. Fidelity and Schwab and
ETrade and the rest all give you access to enormous
lists of funds within your brokerage account for
no transaction fee, and even more if you are
willing to pay such fees. We've been very happy
with Fidelity brokerage accounts and most of the
accounts we have contain nothing but mutual funds.

- quote -

If you're really in it for the long haul, don't worry
too much about buying more or less when the market is
up or down. Just keep putting in regular contributions
as you go.


--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

- quote -

Yes, you need a long term plan. The result of this long term plan
will be the realization (I hope) that worrying about the current
performance of the market is not an issue, because you expect 40 years
later (2050) that the market will be 3X-10X maybe 100X higher than
where it is now.

If you do not think the market will go up in the future, you need to
find a better investment.

You should do some of the planning tools on the Fidelity web site. I
might also suggest looking at T Rowe Price or Vanguard for a second
opinion.

You will elarn about stocks and bonds, domestic and foreign
investments, you might also read about large caps,mid caps and small
caps. Maybe emerging markets, technology, energy and other
companies. How you pick amongst these is called asset allocation.

Once you understand asset allocation, pick one.

Like 100% equities from age 24-34
Then add 1% bonds per year from age 35-55 (so you are 80% equity, 20%
bonds at age 55). Then maybe add 2% bonds per year from age 55-65 (so
you are 60-40 at age 65).

You might pick another (like 80% equities now, 20% bonds now) and
stick with it until you are 75.

The 2050 fund is probably making similar moves anyways- it will
allocate for you. It might start out with more bonds at age 24, but
the devil is in the details.

If you know enough to pick an allocation and implement it, that is the
start of a good plan.

hithere62[at]gmail.com wrote:

- quote -

I would start by reviewing a few books on investing and asset
allocation. I found the ones by Larry Swedroe (The Only Guide to a
Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need), William Bernstein (The
Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars of Investing), and The
Bogleheads Guide to Investing. I found all of these in my public
library, they are also easily available for purchase.

Web sites I recommend are:

<http://ifa.com> This site is for a professional portfolio management
company, which won't be of use to you at this stage, but they have a
good free risk assessment quiz and all their model portfolios are
available to look at. Those are implemented with DFA funds, which are
not available to the individual, but you can get an idea of the asset
classes they recommend.

<http://www.altruistfa.com/dfavanguard.htm> This goes over available
choices in various asset classes, such as mutual funds and ETFs.

<http://www.fundadvice.com/> You'll find recommended portfolios for
various mutual fund companies, and many company 401(k) plans.

<http://www.efficientfrontier.com/> William Bernstein's site, with many
helpful articles and links.

<http://www.diehards.org/forum/index.php> A forum site for folks
dedicated to the "boglehead" way, proposed by Vanguard found John Bogle.





Brian

--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)

Hi everyone!

I am a 24 year old person looking to build and compose a solid
investment profile and would appreciate any help from experienced
people in this group.

I just graduated from pharmacy school this past May and will make
~85-90K/year. I have done some financial planning of my own of
contributing in a Roth IRA with Fidelity and a TSP (thrift savings
account) and have bought several savings bonds.

I have always max'd out my IRA contribution for the past 2 years and
plan on doing that this year. I currently have the fidelity Freedom
Fund 2050 due to my age.

I am very new to the investing world and it didn't help when I spoke
with the Fidelity people when I mentioned about building my wealth. I
am obviously very young and will have a very steady inflow of income.
I AM IN FOR THE LONG HAUL AND PLAN ON CONTRIBUTING MORE INTO WHATEVER
FINANCIAL PLAN I SETUP. It's just the setting up part is what I need
help.

My question is: can anyone give insightful advice in where I should be
looking at. I was thinking investing in couple of mutual funds. Are
mutual funds the best way to go or should I put into a brokerage
account? Does anyone have experience with the Fidelity 2050? Should
I buy more shares of the 2050 when the market is doing bad or in the
red since the cost of the shares will be lower?

Please any financial advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Dan