Any Dave Ramsey students?

[69hurstolds]

The part where I do disagree in his teachings is that money is meant to buy you experiences and items that are fun. They don't make happiness, but it sure augments it. Saving for retirement is important but if you slave your life away from 22 to 62 and then retire half the stuff that you wan't to spend your money on you can't use because you are old. If buying a boat at 32 to go out with your family on the lake makes you happy, go ahead and do it.

THIS.

Our savings plan was aggressive. I saved into a Roth and a 401K with a 1% automatic increase every year until I retired. It was 22% my last year before taxes. The wife wasn't as aggressive, but her pension is almost twice mine and her pay was a little less. She was doing 18% the year she retired. My pay raise varied between 1-8% per year. This meant I got to save more each year, but then my paycheck still got bigger. So we took trips, bought the cars, done all sorts of ill sh*t. Luxury cruises every month? No. But every year we would do something kind of big. Cruise, trip out west, Disney, rent a mountain cabin for the week. Crap like that.

So we saved what we were going to save, and that's what we got. We've enjoyed ourselves for the most part so far, have no real wants, and we are on that solid road of financial freedom. A bad economy could wipe that out though, but we wouldn't be the first ones to suffer if it did. There'd be a lot of hurtin' turkeys along with us.

I don't quite agree with the "compounding interest" on IRA and 401k. Normally, they're not interest bearing accounts. You can lose your *ss in a 401k or IRA in an instant. Overall over a long period of time, it usually does well, but you can't automatically assume IRA/401Ks are intrinsically safe. There may be investment vehicles within the IRA or 401k that allows interest, but usually that's a very nominal thing. The faster way to roll up the $$, IMO, is find some good, solid dividend stocks. Where they pay you just to hold the stocks. If you choose to reinvest the dividends then every quarter or whatever dividend cycle you get, Gotta keep your eye on them though, as sometimes they'll slash dividends or end them altogether, or do reverse splits, etc. Sometimes they do regular splits, and also could rise in market value. But right now I'm averaging $3,000 per month just in dividends over about 17 different stocks, all being reinvested at the moment with buying more stock when dividends are paid. Which the purchase of extra stocks means additional dividends. This currently comes to about a $50/month raise EVERY MONTH before taxes. Upside is, that even if the stock does poorly every now and again, the dividends are still solid. Depends on the stock quality, obviously. But again, you can't just sit back and be complacent. You still need to keep an eye on your money working for you.

 

[Daca214]

That's my current situation.

Here here.... gbody expenses excluded of course

 

[69hurstolds]

I only listen on the radio and enjoy it. I was raised if you didn't have the money you didn't have to buy it. and Cash is KIng. I feel like I am in the minority when I go to pay for some thing and I reach into my front pocket and use cash and everyone else is swiping Plastic.

I try to pay with cash as much as possible. My dad also had the "if I don't have cash then I'm not buying it" mentality and it rubbed off on me. Obviously I use PayPal and my debit card for online stuff, but pretty much cash for everything else. Also, jackass hackers can't hack my cash when paying like they can a card, so there's that.

Cash is king. Most definitely. But depending on how you use a rewards card and if you're disciplined into paying it off every month, the rewards can stack up great.

As I mentioned earlier, when you rack up points with the BP Visa card, for every $100 you spend at BP, you get 25 cents/gal off. 5 cents per gallon if you're buying stuff elsewhere like Rockauto.com and stuff. Adds up quick. Today I checked my rewards balance and I have $17.12 per gallon savings. You don't get anything if you use the card at a competitor's gas station, though. Just pay that joker off every month to have zero balance and reap the free gas. I just cashed in some points tonight. Saved 2.49 per gallon with a pump price of 2.599. Filled up the wife's car and paid 1.60 (0.109 per gallon when you cash in points). 14.658 gallons. Tonight's fill up saved me $36.498 over retail pump price. Filling up tomorrow in the truck and it will hold about 20 gallons to fill it up. Will cost me $2.18, but saving me $49.80. Two fillups, 34+ gallons, all for $3.78. My rewards will be down to $12.14 per gallon, but hey, I'll take that just for buying stuff and paying it off. Total savings over 2 fillups = $86.298

 

[motorheadmike]

My wife and I have had some bad experiences with RRSPs and Mutual Funds - 2008/09 killed us. Her Father lost his shirt when his investment portfolio imploded.

This is why we are getting out of our current mortgage so quickly, so we can get into another as an investment property. It seems that about the only thing that appreciates as well as inflation rises is real estate - and Canada doesn't have the same housing bubble issues as the US despite our many other economic weaknesses.

Unlike financial investments in fictitious things like the stock market, you can put your hand on a building/stand on land and say: I own this.

As opposed to owning a concept.

 

[fleming442]

"You'll never be broke if you buy dirt" - unknown

 

[69hurstolds]

"You'll never be broke if you buy dirt" - unknown

And gold.

Or buy dirt with a gold mine on it. Even better.

Tip on buying gold: Buy your gold in COINS. It's money, so it's not considered a commodity like bars or God forbid if you can afford ingots. You could be subject to taxes selling those things. But coins are coins, so they don't tax currency if you sell it for a profit. These little 1 oz. bars are cool, but you could be taxed if you sell it and have capital gains. Just something to think about.

Stock market isn't all bad. There was a couple guys I used to work with that thought all money was bad if it weren't gold, withdrew ALL their 401k money and purchased gold coins. After several years, gold prices went up some so it was good for them, but their total net gain was around 20%. That same time frame my 401k nearly doubled. I was extremely fortunate that our company was trying to shoo out the "old guys" by offering a 3 and 3 plan for voluntary early retirement (they added 3 years of time in service and 3 years to my age for pension calculations). Those plans RARELY happen, but I was in the sweet spot to say yes. So I did. Totally the right move for me. I was the only person in my pay grade in the whole company to take them up on the offer and one of the youngest at our local site. And it was only because I felt we were already in a good spot financially to be able to do so. So far it was the best choice I could have made.

I got to retire when I chose to, but the other guys are still working to my knowledge because they didn't feel they had enough to retire comfortably. The upside to the gold is that if the market crashed, the gold would skyrocket and they'd be sitting in a good spot. That's ok, I bought some gold coins too as a little hedge. But as long as the markets remain solvent, it's historically been a better return rate over time than precious metals. People should buy precious metals for hedging against inflation or a busted market, but like everything else, you usually are better off diversifying investments so you don't risk losing your *ss all at once.

And one more tip: If you're not good with money or confused about where to put your money, talk to a financial advisor. Find a good one you can trust. And check to make sure they're a "fiduciary" establishment and not "sutiability" driven. There's a difference. Fiduciary means they MUST act with your best interest in mind, not theirs. Suitability means they only have to think that what they're doing is in your best interest. If they don't tell you, then ask. I checked one out recently to explore options and they never told me about their plans unless I paid them for more information. WTF? I did figure out they were actually pushing me toward the 3-bucket method and they ran under a suitability platform, but I'm already doing a form of 3-bucket, so I doubt they'd do me much good except take more of my money.

Saving for retirement is scary. You have no idea where things are headed, and when/if they go in a different direction. Am I saving enough? Am I saving too much? (rarely). Financial independence is a personal thing. Find an outline you can live with and go with it but monitor it along the way to make sure your financial goals are going to be realized. Don't forget to treat yourself along the way, though, in moderation. If you're extremely miserly now, you will be later too. And your heirs will be spending all your money instead of you. If you can put something away for later, no matter how much, do it. You won't regret it when the day comes. Sorry for the soap box but it's a fun topic for me because I see my plight as more of a success story about the benefits of saving early and often.

 

[fleming442]

Gold ain't worth crap to me. The only thing it's good for is corrosion resistance on electrical connections and Arab Oil Prince toilets. Never understood the hype....

Saving for retirement is scary. You have no idea where things are headed, and when/if they go in a different direction. Am I saving enough? Am I saving too much?

I have my 401k set on max/aggressive. It's all play money in the market; it's not real until you cash it in.

 

[TURNA]

Why you asking a cook about money advice ?????????

 

[fleming442]

Cook or Crook?
EDIT: nevermind, I'm a little slow today...

 

[Gonzo1970]

07/08/09 Killed everything for me. Now, granted, I didn't have a Ton invested.. it was around 25k when it imploded.. When it got down to $1,200 I just pulled it out (yeah, with penalty) before they lost that too.

No pension for me. No rich parents. Had one wealthy grandmother, but she hated me and gave all her money to my sister ($400k) and she's been living the high life ever since. Never has helped me out. We don't speak anymore. Never had kids. Ex-wife hid credit card debt from me - pretty significant amount - and it was a nightmare for quite some time. Divorce court split up the debt, but a few years later she filed ch7, and all her debt came falling down on my head (because credit card companies really don't give a sh*t about divorce agreements) and I couldn't do it. I finally had to file, but I let them all jump on the bandwagon and did 13 (mostly because of my job). Been doing this for almost two years, but after 3 more, things will look good.. then the house gets payed off with the Ch13 payment.

I never considered myself BAD at finances. My mistake was letting my ex-wife handle everything, and I simply didn't care to give it any attention.

Current wife Was working, but it seems in the last 4 years, shes fallen apart and now shes on disability so her income plummeted... But, we aren't poor by any means.. but any "bigger" purchases have to be saved up for. (Exhaust for the GP is the current one - but something keeps popping up to suck that up, so it still has its factory exhaust system on it, leaks and all... lol)

AM I ever going to get to retire? MAYBE. If I get the house paid off... Maybe.. But at 49 and under $10k in the 401k because I just recently started it back up (gun-shy after losing it all previously)

But, it is what it is... one foot in front of the other..

-Gonz