PlayerHader

How does this work? Are you referring to a 401(k)? Can you explain this?

Same. I do have some cash in my HSA that I might take off the sidelines soon and throw into the S&P or a total market fund.

Am I completely off in thinking that #25 seems quite low for our current system? Did Ashby graduate from their list?

Moving 50-60% of my emergency fund to I-bonds today. Should have done this a month or two ago probably, but better now than never. Any anybody else done this? It's a bit less liquid, at least for a year, but that's something we can deal with if the worst case scenario happens.

I'm curious to hear more. How old and where are you currently at with retirement money? I'm 44 and I don't think I'd crack $50k in retirement savings just yet. I'll also have a pension but that won't be more than about $1200/mo. Another benefit is work will continue most of my medical benefits between retirement and 62. Between this and my side job I should be starting this year, saving $1000/mo is realistic if not somewhat conservative. Although I'm a little unsure yet just where to save it all. I have a 401k and a self-directed IRA, but also taxable stocks/crypto. I'm in work housing, so when I retire I'll need a place to live. Sounds crazy right now but I still hope to retire before 60. I've heard rumor you can withdraw from an IRA early without the penalty in order to buy a house, but I also doubt I'll be buying one. So at least for now I'm stuck with capital gains. And since I'm single no kids I have ambitions to retire in Belize. No income tax, no capital gains and a slightly lower cost of living. I’m no expert, and maybe you already do this, but I’d probably start by maxing a Roth IRA. You can get access to some of that if you do reach your goal of retiring before 60. After that I’d throw the rest into your 401(k) assuming you have decent, low cost investment options in there. Get as much money growing and compounding fully tax free. If you believe in crypto, keep a sliver in there. I’m a Bitcoin believer. Or I think I am. I’ve invested money before, but have never had the balls to keep it in and keep contributing. So maybe I’m not a believer after all.

When I originally did this years ago it was a correct statement and it still pretty close the way I was thinking of what a payment is but when I say one extra mortgage payment I was including the entire payment including your escrow tax and insurance (which I guess varies by user). I am also thinking it may depend on interest rates as rates are very low right now. Ah, I see. I didn't include escrow money, so that very well could explain it. Either way, it's not a bad idea at all. I know when we were transitioning from the construction loan to our mortgage we asked about making bi-weekly payments on our mortgage and our bank didn't allow that (or at least not in a way that made a difference in the amortization).

That's what I did when I owned property. I ended up making one extra mortgage payment a year. One extra mortgage payment a year knocks something like 6.5 years off a 30 year loan. We always used our tax return for such purposes. Just threw an annual single extra mortgage payment into a payoff calculator and it showed the loan would be paid off 3 years and 5 months earlier. This is a 30 year loan.

To add...this past summer we took a family trip to see friends in North Carolina and then spent a few days on Myrtle Beach. We returned from a family trip to Disney on New Years Eve. My wife and I will be going to some beautiful Caribbean island for our 10 year anniversary in June. We aren't in a position where we can afford 3 trips like this in a 12 month plan going forward, but pulling off one of these trips a few years ago would have been tight (and probably would have required CC debt). I think a lot of people would be surprised by how much money that could have if they weren't using it all to pay for previous decisions they made.

I'm curious to hear more. How old and where are you currently at with retirement money? Debt freedom is SO liberating. We had a stretch where we were entirely debt free (minus a few thousand on my wife's student loans), with $400 monthly rent (brother in law's trailer on land that we'd eventually build on). It was AMAZING how quickly we were able to build up $50-60k for our building plans. We just broke the $100k gross income last year as a household, so it wasn't due top end incomes, either. Back to a mortgage and now an auto loan, so not quite like it was, but being so far removed from the days of CC balances and other consumer debt feels great. It's simply not an option to carry CC balances at this point.

The majority of people sharing info are going to be those doing well and/or those with an interest who've taken the time to learn best practices. It'd be like going on a running forum and coming away with the idea that the country is super healthy. Great analogy. I've spent zero seconds on a running forum in my life, and my "shape" would suggest that!!!!

One thing is certain…we have some financial mutants here. When I read about the average American family’s financial situation I feel like my family is doing very well for our future. Then I jump in these conversations on here or Reddit or elsewhere, and I’m often blown away by what others are doing and begin questioning just how well we actually are doing. I think, ultimately, it’s a signal of the importance of being aware of the future and involved in investing in it. It’s actually pretty simple to build wealth, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. People not doing it aren’t likely talking about the process online. Thanks to all sharing ideas and experiences in here. I really love learning more and more about this.

I'd agree. I was fortunate enough to pay off my student loans when we sold our first home. Still whittling away at my wife's final few thousand dollars (and I just found out she hasn't been making regular payments while the interest was frozen...AAAHHHHHHHH). We are down to our mortgage and recently financed a vehicle after a few fender benders took both of ours out. I'm not loving it, but we were able to get a good deal and privately secured a 0% interest loan. Times are so strange that our new (to us) ride is actually worth a few thousand more now than we paid for it back in September.

What kind of rate did you have on your loans? I'd always pay down the car loan asap as a depreciating asset. I'd have more flexibility with the student loans depending on the rate.

This is what I currently do not have that I wish I did. Should be able to start something up after fully settling into the new budget with the new home.

Yeah, I waver on the idea of paying off a mortgage early. We just built and are about 6 months into a 30 year mortgage at 2.75%. I absolutely plan on retiring within 25 years (hopefully 20; I'm 37). I won't retire with a mortgage, but right now it makes sense for us to put extra money into our retirement accounts to get them working for us. As a teacher, my job is about as safe as can be. My wife also has a very secure job, so that makes it easier for us to assume the "risk" of the mortgage. At some point, probably around age 50 when both kids will be out of HS, the plan will be to attack the mortgage. Obviously things can change, but that is the plan.

It's the Half Baked cameo for me. Sad news. I'll second this. This was how I found out that Bob Saget the comic was not Danny Tanner.

The easiest way IMO is to project out what your income needs would be. Most places I've seen say that you need 80-90% of your current income in retirement (based on whether you have a mortgage or want to travel, etc..) Then your income times 25 would be your retirement need to last approx 30 years. https://www.fool.com/retirement/how-much-do-i-need/ If you are X years from retirement, you can project your current 80-90% income by the typical 2-3% average inflation and use that as your target. Of course, there are many special circumstances that may factor in. Your retirement income needs might drop considerably from current if you have kids that move out of the house. Or pay off your mortgage. Or you may have kids still living with you... The idea is to project out your potential future annual income needs. Do a best case and worst case scenario and see what variations might be there. I did this for myself a year ago and feel much better about my plan to retire at 59.5. Plus, I know what my variables are and can work on them to mitigate the "worst case" scenarios (e.g. pay off my mortgage sooner). 80-90% of current income would allow for a pretty decent upgrade in lifestyle for most, I would think. You're probably paying less taxes at that point if you did a little planning. You are no longer forced to save a significant portion of your income at that point (probably 10-30% for many). There's a decent chance you'll no longer have a mortgage payment, at least through much of retirement. Right now my wife and I have nearly 50% of our income going to retirement/savings and our mortgage payment. Those are all expenses that will be gone at retirement with some planning.

How many years can be taken off now?

I finished college around the same time (Dec. 2009), but was able to get a job in my career field immediately (partially because nobody wanted to get into education starting around this time). I didn't quite manage the 4-year plan, so I was about to turn 25 at graduation. Thankfully I had some forced savings through my pension at that time, but I didn't open a 403(b) until 2017, and that was mostly because my district began offering a $1k match to do so. I wish I hadn't waited until I was 32 years old to do this, but the second best time to start investing is right now, so I'm happy I finally got around to it. I've since opened a Roth IRA, as well and contribute a small amount to that each month. Between the 403(b) and Roth IRA I am contributing just over 8% of my gross to retirement accounts. With the 6.5% that goes to my pension and 6.5% matched by the district, I feel pretty solid about retirement, but you still always wonder. We had a pretty fantastic retirement thread on here a couple years back...I may have to search for that and revive it.

Really like it. Give up two solid prospects, but neither close to a lock to be mlb players. Clear up some $ to strengthen the roster now. We needed HR’s pop.

Maybe, but I think Vogt fills a big need there. Be nice if they guy had a lick of offense, though. Gonna be a roller coaster year. Soooo young. Looks like GG gonna let them push the ball up the court. Definitely a more athletic team, but there will be major lumps taken.

They have two guys who transferred in who may have regular rolls. This is a young team by just about any standard outside of comparison to teams like Kentucky or Duke.

This team isn't all that young. It's only "young" by Wisconsin standards. Besides Davison who'll be playing his 5th year, the starters should include a senior, Chris Vogt, who's started 50 games at Cincinnati, a junior, Tyler Wahl and a sophomore, Johnny Davis. Both Wahl and Davis have extensive experience. Depending on the lineup, they could start a freshman PG, Chucky Hepburn, a 4 star recruit, but they also could go with junior transfer Jahcobi Neath who's played extensively at Wake Forest, or sophomore Ben Carlson who was ticketed to see extensive action last year before getting injured. This turnover isn't uncommon at all at in major college basketball. At most they'll have maybe 3 freshmen in their rotation. Stephen Crowl is the one sophomore besides Carlson who figures to have his role expanded significantly. I’d be very surprised if Vogt started or played more than 15 minutes a game or so. Crowl or Carlson start at the 5. 11 of the 15 scholarship players are in their first or second year of college and 2 of the other 4 ‘ship guys are in their first seasons with UW. This is a young team that has very little experience playing together.

I don't think Cronenworth makes sense for the Brewers. For Hader I think the teams the Brewers are going to target are probably the Mets, Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies and the White Sox. Maybe the Mariners and the Blue Jays try for Hader but I am not 100% sold that would be a move they would make. The Giants are also another team that could show some interest but I don't like anything from the Giants. Curious what names in particular from that list of teams (Mets, Sox x2, Yanks, Phils) catch your eye. Phillies were a team I thought about, but I wasn't sure which pre-arb/arb bats they had that made sense.

Hader is expendable, IMO. He's a TREMENDOUS weapon, but also the exact type/time you want to get rid of before a down year. Would a deal with San Diego that included a guy like Jake Cronenworth and some minor league arms make sense? Want to improve the O right now with a trade of Hader.