• The KillerFrogs

OT: How Do You Invest Your Money?

tcumaniac

Full Member
Don't carry unnecessary debt and put some precious metals in your portfolio. My precious metal portfolio is mostly catalyzing metals like palladium and rhodium, with some gold and silver.

Edit. And scheiss dotcoms.
Can you elaborate on your precious metals investing? How do you practically go about doing that? I’ve heard of Birch Gold that Ben Shapiro advertises on his podcast, but know very little outside of that.
 

berryfrog95

Active Member
If you have a company 401k, it’s imperative you do a handsome portion of your contributions into Roth source vs traditional pre-tax source..... while it won’t reduce as much from your taxable income now, it will be a huge game changer come retirement as Roth distributions will be tax-free.

also, look for the loop-hole of using after-tax contributions to put into your 401k. (If your employer plan allows it). Eventually, you can roll that source into a Roth, called the mega backdoor conversion
 

AroundWorldFrog

Full Member
My advice - if you are planning to have kids, and your wife is going to quit work - treat these dual income, no kids, mid/late 20s as the time to save a ton of money. I wish we would have put away more during that time where we had tons of income and little expenses. Now that I need to care about which school my house is zoned to, it's become quite the pickle. Granted I have no idea where you live and work and what your threshold for commuting is.
There's some good logic to that.

But I had lots of friends through the late 20s and early 30s that saved like sumbitches while I saved some and had lots of fun. You can't do as much crap when you're 65 as when you're 30 and life can be short so don't save to the point of not doing anything you want to.
 

Hoosierfrog

Tier 1
Diversify, diversify. I have a good wealth manager if you’d like to talk to someone.

Generally paying the minimums on credit card debt is a losing proposition. But with your high debt, perhaps that’s all you can do. If you can afford to half it every month, third or even quarter, will cost you less interest and lower it faster.
 

AroundWorldFrog

Full Member
Can you elaborate on your precious metals investing? How do you practically go about doing that? I’ve heard of Birch Gold that Ben Shapiro advertises on his podcast, but know very little outside of that.

I had a background in my younger years in catalyzing metals such as palladium, platinum and rhodium so I always followed them and bought at low points and sold after they hit historic highs (hanging on right now because both palladium and rhodium are used in catalytic converters and there are physical limitations to in ground stock, but I wouldn't probably buy any right now). Just a matter of following the historical charts which is easy. An easy source to use is kitco.com/market to follow and look at historical data. They're an easy company to deal with in both buying and selling. If I was as young as you, I would probably be buying more silver as it has a tremendous up side. It might be 5 years or 20 years, but silver will appreciate.

Here's the 5 year chart for rhodium and the 20 year chart. I missed the 2008 spike, but not this one. If palladium/rhodium go down again to 3-5 year lows, I'd buy again. Some luck, lots of patience and lots of research.

rh1825lnb.gif


rd00-09.gif
 

tcumaniac

Full Member
Diversify, diversify. I have a good wealth manager if you’d like to talk to someone.

Generally paying the minimums on credit card debt is a losing proposition. But with your high debt, perhaps that’s all you can do. If you can afford to half it every month, third or even quarter, will cost you less interest and lower it faster.

Go back and read my comment. I said I was just kidding about the credit card debt.

I do have peers (not TCU grads) that have excessive credit card debt, make less money than me, yet they live far more extravagantly than I do, and drive nicer cars than I do.

They’re creating a debt burden they will never recover from. It’s terribly sad to watch.
 
That's a tough question to answer because it's really a comprehensive and globally diverse investment portfolio that invests in assets classes far beyond just the US Stock market.

Check out this blog post from Wealthfront. It does a much better job explaining than what I am incapable of. https://blog.wealthfront.com/benchmark-diversified-portfolio/

Also a side note: Wealthfront charges a .25% annual management fee. However, for every person you invite that signs up, you get an additional $5k managed free (as does the person that signs up through the invite link). I've invited enough friends that have joined, that I still have all of my money managed free. Happy to send an invite link if you're interested ;)

As an aside, fees are going to be a thing of the past in less than 12mths. The whole Financial Advisory industry will fundamentally change. I used to charge 2/20 as a P/E Fund ten yrs ago, then 1.75/15, then 1/10 and now 0.75/7.5. My firm is not small but will still have to rethink fees going forward. It's a race to zero (with the exception of the Blackstones of the world).

What does that mean for you? You will have ppl begging, perhaps paying, you to manage your cash. Keep the dry powder. Check in again with the board in 12mths.
 
Go back and read my comment. I said I was just kidding about the credit card debt.

I do have peers (not TCU grads) that have excessive credit card debt, make less money than me, yet they live far more extravagantly than I do, and drive nicer cars than I do.

They’re creating a debt burden they will never recover from. It’s terribly sad to watch.

Good for you.

Look at the lifestyle of those five Founder suite owners. They don't flash the jets, the cars or the ice. They don't need to. We aren't financially capable of living a lifestyle we cannot afford as it eventually catches up to you and is nearly impossible to dig out if, despite what the Dave Ramseys of the world would say.
 

YA

Active Member
My family has been working with this man for decades as he has moved around several financial companies till he formed his own https://segmentwm.com/. We set a plan and he does it.

Wife and I max out my 401(k), our IRA's and invest in real estate from commercial properties to home rentals. I really dislike the rentals and the tenant headaches, but the wife does real estate now and she handles that end.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
I think a reasonable goal for someone who makes a decent living is to be completely debt free by age 40, including having the mortgage paid off. And never borrow again for anything. I probably hate debt more than the average person.
 

Hoosierfrog

Tier 1
Go back and read my comment. I said I was just kidding about the credit card debt.

I do have peers (not TCU grads) that have excessive credit card debt, make less money than me, yet they live far more extravagantly than I do, and drive nicer cars than I do.

They’re creating a debt burden they will never recover from. It’s terribly sad to watch.

My bad...
 

AroundWorldFrog

Full Member
I think a reasonable goal for someone who makes a decent living is to be completely debt free by age 40, including having the mortgage paid off. And never borrow again for anything. I probably hate debt more than the average person.
I hate debt also and have none other than my mortgage which I hope to pay off this year or next, but 40 is pretty aggressive. I think 45-50 is more realistic. If you've ever moved for work, that becomes more difficult.
 
401k and Roth IRA are all in high growth managed funds with expense ratios of .75 or less. Like to spread across total market, minor international exposure of 5%.

Mid-term savings (rainy day fund) are in VWINX which is my favorite conservative/balanced fund.

Short term savings are all in high yield savings at Ally, 1.6% currently with daily accruals and monthly deposits.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
I hate debt also and have none other than my mortgage which I hope to pay off this year or next, but 40 is pretty aggressive. I think 45-50 is more realistic. If you've ever moved for work, that becomes more difficult.

Yeah, you’re probably right, it’s definitely a goal a person of somewhat normal means would need to start thinking about in their mid 20’s to pull off. Not that easy. Even debt free by age 50 is good though.
 

Double V

Active Member
My advice - if you are planning to have kids, and your wife is going to quit work - treat these dual income, no kids, mid/late 20s as the time to save a ton of money. I wish we would have put away more during that time where we had tons of income and little expenses. Now that I need to care about which school my house is zoned to, it's become quite the pickle. Granted I have no idea where you live and work and what your threshold for commuting is.
The 1 thing you cant get back is time.
 

Flip Frog

Active Member
My family has been working with this man for decades as he has moved around several financial companies till he formed his own https://segmentwm.com/. We set a plan and he does it.

Wife and I max out my 401(k), our IRA's and invest in real estate from commercial properties to home rentals. I really dislike the rentals and the tenant headaches, but the wife does real estate now and she handles that end.

I max out my 401(k) and luckily the last couple years reached the maxed limit. But I’m not knowledgeable enough in investing that I know what to do once I reached that limit. Also IRAs have an income limit correct?
 
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