One potential consideration in the Roth discussion is when are you thinking about retiring? If it's before 59.5 then a Roth provides a more convenient vehicle to bridge the gap between your retirement age and 59.5 (which is when you can start accessing 401k, 401a, 403b, tIRA funds without penalty) because you can withdraw your
contributions (not gains) to the Roth before that age as long as they have been in the Roth for at least 5 years. Not to say you can't access other funds but it gets a bit more complicated. If that is a potential concern the applicable rule for penalty free withdrawals from tIRA and 4XXy plans is
72(t)
As for what you invest in ideally you should maintain your portfolio objective\design across all your retirement accounts although that doesn't necessarily mean you invest in the same thing across all accounts as you may need to adjust for retirement age, tax efficiency and investment options. That said since you are doing a target date already in another account that would be a very solid choice again. Yes you can replicate a "Do it Yourself" target date fund with Vanguards own shares (they essentially tell you how under the Portfolio tab under "Allocations to underlying funds) when you adjust for fund weighting its not that far off. For example the Target 5050 fund has an ER of 0.15%. The fund contains 55% of a stock fund with an ER of 0.05% and 30% is a fund with an ER of 0.17%. I'm not the greatest with weightings but my quick napkin math means the ER of a DIY is in the 0.08% range. Using FINRA's Fund Analyzer the difference in cost of $100,000 over 20 years is $5,000 vs $2700. So you're paying Vanguard $115/year to manage your fund for you, rebalance and follow general guidelines for when to make your account less risky given your retirement date. That's not the worst cost in the world. I looked at Edward Jones' options (Holy shitballs what a gross mix of Front End Loads, 12b-1 and redemption fees
in addition to the high expense ratios....). I picked one of their more "reasonable" funds with an ER of 1.16%. (some are over 3%!) Over the same period mentioned above you'd pay Edward Jones $22,747 on a 1.16% ER fund compared to paying Vanguard $4995. So are they providing that much more value in their returns? Given that 70-90% of actively managed funds fail meet the returns provided by an index fund every year it is very unlikely.
If you ever want to compare fund costs to better understand the impact of the Expense Ratio on your investments the tool is currently available here:
https://tools.finra.org/fund_analyzer/
(Although they keep changing the damn URL breaking my bookmarks)
Ok I couldn't help myself. I picked one of their 3+% funds (CPCRX). Costs $75,745 over 20 years on a $100,000 investment...That better be one hell of a golden egg investment fund to make up for that cost
You definitely need another good credit card (that Amazon one--VISA right? is good). I'm not sure if it gives Ultimate Rewards points or not, but if it does, it's better than I thought.
I'd suggest the
Chase Sapphire Preferred. One usually, historically, would recommend the Reserved (hell, there's a very long thread here, pretty much specifically about that one, lol), but the fee has become absurd and the offer bonuses aren't as great as it used to be (hence: history). Used to be 100k points. 50k is a downer....BUT, the annual fee for the Preferred is very tolerable considering that the Ultimate Points accrual is very similar. Now, if you do travel constantly, and actually use Lyft and Doordash all the time, then the Reserve might still be worth it to you (they added the Doordash/Lyft stuff when they bumped up the annual fee to $550). ...you still get $300 annual credits for "travel expenses" (this includes things like parking costs, on top of you know, rentals, airline tickets, etc), so the fee is actually $250 if you are good with that every year. ...still, I'd probably go with the Preferred because the current sign-on point bonus is greater? That's weird....
Yep that is a great card. It's the only one I've kept since I started churning back in 2012. I've had great experiences with their travel insurance protections and they are one of the few cards that provide that coverage for a points and miles trip. All you have to do is pay for the taxes and fees with the card and you get the same insurance coverage as if you paid the full fare.
That said, travel rewards is a bit of a tough slog atm and a lot of point\mile offers are down this year so I wouldn't necessarily discount the ones with $500 statement credits like the Bank of America Premium Rewards. Either route you go - keep track of what you applied for, when and when you close it. And if you do any Business Credit Cards make sure those are called out. Credit card companies keep coming out with rules for when you're eligible for signup bonuses and it can be somewhat of a complicated mix of changing rules. But if you have a record you can always go back and check yourself to see what you are eligible for (and can argue with the CC company when they say an Authorized User counts and get that decision reversed)
ZERO deductible? The fuck employers you work for that gives that?!
TBH in the past 9 years and 3 employers I've only had 1 year where I was eligible for an HSA and 7 of those years were on a zero deductible plan. Sure my one now is currently a HMO but for my two image assisted back injections with sedation I paid a total of $75 out of pocket ($25 office visit for referral and $30 for specialist eval, Xrays, MRI + injection and then another $30 for the next injection)
Facebook
Twitter