Investing, Stock Market and Retirement Planning Thread

[NAN]

I hit Aldi first and whatever I can’t get there it’s big bird. I splurge on meats at a butcher and occasionally Sam’s club, but I didn’t even figure those two into the $200

ALDI is the main stop, leftover stuff is giant eagle and meat is Dave’s meats.

[NAN]

I'm one of them. I buy what i want but I don't have to be happy about it

I’m one of them too.

[DigitalGypsy66]

So we're working our way through my parents' estate. I think I mentioned ITT that my grandparents took out a life insurance policy on my Dad in 1951, when he was about 10. He took it over at 18 and paid it until he passed away. Of course, there is not any paperwork on it and we only found out about it when they sent a notice of non-payment to my sister.

A month of back and forth and no real concrete idea of what the amount of the policy is. But my grandparents are still listed as the beneficiaries, so we have to get death certificates for them (they died in 1981 and 1984).

Commonwealth of Massachusetts has its own online records service, and I just had to email the town where my grandmother died to make sure they have the record there. Being that it's a small town, they responded immediately and confirmed that they had the record there and not where she actually died (the hospital in the next town over). The town clerk expedited it because she remembered my family (although none of us have lived there since 1987). Nice personal touch (and a handwritten envelope).

Next up was Florida where my grandfather died in 1981. I was dreading it...because Florida. First, all old records are not stored at the county or city level in Florida. The county website says to call the state records in Jacksonville (and not the capital of Tallahassee, because Florida ) I call the state vital records and they say to use a third party system (Vitalchek). Why not put that on the county website? Anyway, filled that out and I got the death certificate a few days later. Not bad all in all. Just interesting how differently the states handle these things.

Florida was slightly more expensive, which was interesting.

Now we send those docs off to the insurance company and see what the policy was. He was paying like $60 a month or something these last few years, and I just have a feeling it was a $20K policy he and his parents paid on for 70+ years. Grrr.

[count2infinity]

Bezos, Zuck, Tommy Tubs all selling massive amounts of stocks… I wonder what’s coming down the road.

[mac5155]

Good day to check those balances, boizz

[NTP66]

Yessir.

[Dickie Dunn]

**** Carvana

[King Colby]

Btc... sup?

[mikey]

[robbiestoupe]

My wife’s new company doesn’t offer any 401k retirement benefits. Not just matching, there are no means to have a percentage of her income taken out pre-tax and into a company-sponsored account.

What are my options here? I’m guessing Roth IRA but are there some places better than others? My company offers 401k through Fidelity. Should I just set up a brokerage account through them to set up this new account? Are there better options out there?

[NTP66]

I think IRAs and Brokerage accounts are the only options, which is unfortunate. You could also do what we do and invest in the IRA and then do a backdoor Roth conversion to get around restrictions/having to do any calculations.

[Beveridge]

I would either open an IRA or increase your contribution into your employer account to account for what she would have done.

[robbiestoupe]

Probably won’t have to worry about restrictions but we’ll see

[robbiestoupe]

I would either open an IRA or increase your contribution into your employer account to account for what she would have done.

Yeah thought about that second option too. Just sad seeing my paycheck get smaller. Also sucks that her paycheck isn’t consistent, so have to calculate whatever %age I want to put in every time

[NTP66]

Source of the post Just sad seeing my paycheck get smaller.

You could always do something like invest in your 401k for her, and have her reimburse the post-tax amount. That way you're getting the full pre-tax benefit, and she saves a few bucks to make it more palatable.

[NTP66]

I do think it's weird that there are no real options if your employer doesn't offer a 401k. I feel like there should be some sort of law that allows the IRA cap to be raised to meet the 401k limit in that scenario.

[robbiestoupe]

Source of the post Just sad seeing my paycheck get smaller.

You could always do something like invest in your 401k for her, and have her reimburse the post-tax amount. That way you're getting the full pre-tax benefit, and she saves a few bucks to make it more palatable.

We combine our bank accounts so no real reason to do that.

[mac5155]

Robinhood will match a 401k I believe. Not that I'm advocating for giving money to those pricks after they cost me a lot in the GME debacle. But if you don't mind I won't judge...

[NTP66]

AAPL has really taken a beating the last week or so. I think it's down nearly $10/share from my last purchase.

[NTP66]

Our retirement accounts at work officially moved to Empower today. And with that, no direct connect support with Quicken, just manual downloads of the QFX files. This kind of **** in 2024 does not inspire confidence.

[count2infinity]

In August of last year, my wife and I realized that we were going to see some huge savings from not sending the kid to daycare anymore. Decided that rather than letting that money start hitting our checking account and we change our spending habits, we'd put it somewhere useful. Started throwing an extra $600 a month toward our mortgage. Didn't really know why $600... just picked a number. I never really gave it any long term thoughts either, but I used this calculator to give me an idea of what it would do for me as far as interest savings: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/real-es ... calculator

Starting when I did and looking at loan lifetime if I keep that extra payment, that'll save me 60K in interest and will cut 12 years off my 30 year mortgage. I'd imagine the interest savings would be more substantial if I didn't have a great interest rate, but the prospect of paying off the house that much sooner is enticing, for sure.

[mac5155]

Isn't this like the third time you've posted that gripe, perhaps time to reevaluate your use of quicken lol.

[NTP66]

Probably. But this would be an issue on other platforms, too. Didn’t Mint also recently close?

[NTP66]

c2i: We originally picked a number to make our mortgage payment a nice, even number. Even when we increased our extra principal, the end result has basically stayed the same through multiple mortgage refinances. I think our extra principal is something weird like $810.14.

[King Colby]

Extra mortgage payments is an interesting concept.

If your rate is 2.5% you can let your money sit in a 5% interest savings account and do way better than the $60k you're paying in interest.

This would be a no-brainer for someone who plans to stay in their current home long-term.