How much money do you have in your bank account?

[rocadelpunk]

enough for 1.5 times what I usually need per month (fixed costs + guilt free spending). The extra half is for emergencies/variations like gifts.

Anything more is automatically diverted to roth ira/403b/savings acct

I don't know what it's at right now, but rarely more than 2k at a time.

To you guys with $100 bucks in your account...Do you have a job? Do you not know how to budget? Are you actually living within your means...Not here to judge, but having that little is a bit more beyond living paycheck to paycheck.

Budgeting is great because I have about 50-60% fixed costs (rent/internet/food), 20% investing/saving and the rest is guilt free spending...Sometimes you have to be a bit creative to stretch that money, like if I go out to dinner and I know I need to watch my spending I"ll just drink water instead of getting a beer..But overall I don't have to worry about it. Just saying :0.

Also to those with 20-30k in checking and aren't about to make a huge purchase with cash(why would you anyway) WHY!?

Your money is just sitting there not doing anything for you when you could be maxing out your roth, 401k. Even in a savings account you're not beating inflation (purchasing power) afaik. At the bare minimum, put it in a 'high' yield online bank account.

Isn't this common sense? I don't pretend to be any sort of financial guru...I'm in my first real job out of college, but I thought everybody was taught to have your money doing something for you and not just sitting around.

 

[ebaycj]

..

 

[StageLeft]

Enough that I am quite relaxed about it

 

[ebaycj]

In what?

You should have dumped it all into the market during late March 2009.

 

[HelloWorl]

You should have dumped it all into the market during late March 2009.

Everyone should have, but that doesn't help me right now.

 

[Bignate603]

Wow, that's pretty dickheadish...

What do you mean by that? You brought up kids that can only get a joint account with their parents. Saving up money when you're living at home and having your parents pay for all your necessities is not the same as living on your own and having to cover your own expenses.

While some kids work hard without much support their parents the vast majority can pretty much blow their money on whatever they want. When all your necessities are given to you 100% of your cash is disposable.

You may feel special that you've saved up enough to start looking at buying a 90's civic but until you move out and start supporting yourself you really can't compare it with people that are out on their own.

 

[SZLiao214]

Low 6 figures....if you count the ones after the decimal.

 

[IronWing]

Also to those with 20-30k in checking and aren't about to make a huge purchase with cash(why would you anyway) WHY!?

But it's earning 0.03%!!!

 

[rocadelpunk]

Everyone should have, but that doesn't help me right now.

Does your employer offer 401k? Does it offer a match?

Lets say your employer will match up to 5k...that's free money. Divide 5k by # of paychecks you receive and have that money automatically sent for your 401k. Even if you can't do that much, you can still invest something. When it's automatically taken out of your paycheck you

a.) feel better knowing you're investing
b.) learn to budget without that $25, $100, $250 /whatever a month

If you don't know what to invest in with your 401k, go with a low expense retirement index fund. These are funds that are automatically diversified and change based on your age. In your 20s? You'll have say like a target retirement fund called 2050. When you're young it'll be about 90%stocks/10% bonds. Within that 90% stocks it'll diversify automatically between large cap/small cap/emerging markets/etc and it'll match what the market does.

Over the long run market returns about 8%. Very very few individuals beat the market, and very very few "brokerage" people beat the market, so why bother paying them fees? Let a computer match the market, take your 8% over the long run and don't worry about it...

If you've met your match in 401k, maxed your roth ira...go back and give more to your 401k. Depending how old you are have an emergency account to cover mortage/expenses for 3 months...and setup various savings accounts to save for short term goals like a vacation.

Point being don't worry about what to invest in, just do it and setup automatic payments to those investments so you don't have to worry about it, it's just done. If you have no interest in learning about market/doing your own diversifying each year...Well they have stuff you can invest in without the need for a middleman that'll do just as good a job, if not probably better b/c you won't be paying outrageous fees.

 

[Engineer]

But it's earning 0.03%!!!

There are still checking accounts that are around 2% or so.

I don't have a clue what I have in my accounts. I keep putting money in there in anticipation of being laid off and here, 7 months after the supposed closing date, I'm still employed and traveling, making quite a bit of money on the expense money (mileage, meals, etc).

 

[thepd7]

2107.45 checking
225.07 savings

some cousins are turning 18 soon and get control of their trust, so they will have ~150 million. I hope they spend it wisely.

Their parents aren't too bright. My parents set up a small trust (money won from a malpractice lawsuit due to my dad having cancer/being paralyzed) and I got about 20% at 18, 20% at 21, 25% at 25 (about to get that), and 35% at 30. When I turned 18 I thought it was stupid. Even though I'm pretty good with money I now know this is the smartest decision they could have made.

About 92,000 between the 2 savings accounts and 1 checking account.

invest.

Seriously.

In what?

Everyone should have, but that doesn't help me right now.

The market is still low and tons of great companies are undervalued.

12K in Checking

50K in liquid savings

rest in 401K

Do you really need 50k liquid?

2 months checking, 6 months savings.

That's exactly what you should have. I keep about 4 months in solid stock and 2 months liquid.

 

[Bignate603]

Also to those with 20-30k in checking and aren't about to make a huge purchase with cash(why would you anyway) WHY!?

I keep enough in my savings and checking accounts to cover about a year of expenses. While I believe I'm relatively secure in my job you should always have some emergency funds that are very liquid assets.

 

[ebaycj]

Over the long run market returns about 8%. Very very few individuals beat the market, and very very few "brokerage" people beat the market, so why bother paying them fees? Let a computer match the market, take your 8% over the long run and don't worry about it...

This is defeatist thinking, and a sure-fire way to come out "average". Which can be an OK thing, if you are OK with being "average". The biggest reason people don't "beat the market" is because they don't pay attention, or make bad decisions.

The biggest reason "brokerage" people don't beat the market, is because you don't have enough money invested. If you did, you would be beating the market. The really really good people (and there are) don't want to deal with piddly 20k accounts. Most won't even talk to you if you have $1M liquid to invest. $5M might get you in the door, though. You will pay much more, but you will also make much more.

 

[rocadelpunk]

I keep enough in my savings and checking accounts to cover about a year of expenses. While I believe I'm relatively secure in my job you should always have some emergency funds that are very liquid assets.

do you have wife/kids/mortage?

If I had any of those then that would make pretty good sense to me. I'm pretty young so that stuff is a couple years away from getting into the savings account

I can picture my savings account doing the "hello my future girlfriend, this is what my voice sounds like" routine.

 

[HelloWorl]

Does your employer offer 401k? Does it offer a match?

Lets say your employer will match up to 5k...that's free money. Divide 5k by # of paychecks you receive and have that money automatically sent for your 401k. Even if you can't do that much, you can still invest something. When it's automatically taken out of your paycheck you

a.) feel better knowing you're investing
b.) learn to budget without that $25, $100, $250 /whatever a month

If you don't know what to invest in with your 401k, go with a low expense retirement index fund. These are funds that are automatically diversified and change based on your age. In your 20s? You'll have say like a target retirement fund called 2050. When you're young it'll be about 90%stocks/10% bonds. Within that 90% stocks it'll diversify automatically between large cap/small cap/emerging markets/etc and it'll match what the market does.

Over the long run market returns about 8%. Very very few individuals beat the market, and very very few "brokerage" people beat the market, so why bother paying them fees? Let a computer match the market, take your 8% over the long run and don't worry about it...

If you've met your match in 401k, maxed your roth ira...go back and give more to your 401k. Depending how old you are have an emergency account to cover mortage/expenses for 3 months...and setup various savings accounts to save for short term goals like a vacation.

Point being don't worry about what to invest in, just do it and setup automatic payments to those investments so you don't have to worry about it, it's just done. If you have no interest in learning about market/doing your own diversifying each year...Well they have stuff you can invest in without the need for a middleman that'll do just as good a job, if not probably better b/c you won't be paying outrageous fees.

No 401k from the employer. I have one from a previous employer which I took advantage of the 100% matching. Currently I have a pension plan which pays 100% of my highest 1 year salary when I retire if I work there long enough.

 

[Bignate603]

do you have wife/kids/mortage?

If I had any of those then that would make pretty good sense to me. I'm pretty young so that stuff is a couple years away from getting into the savings account

I can picture my savings account doing the "hello my future girlfriend, this is what my voice sounds like" routine.

I've got a mortgage and a wife, no kids yet. If I was single and renting I'd be willing to be a bit more risk tolerant with my finances.

 

[rocadelpunk]

This is defeatist thinking, and a sure-fire way to come out "average". Which can be an OK thing, if you are OK with being "average". The biggest reason people don't "beat the market" is because they don't pay attention, or make bad decisions.

The biggest reason "brokerage" people don't beat the market, is because you don't have enough money invested. If you did, you would be beating the market. The really really good people (and there are) don't want to deal with piddly 20k accounts. Most won't even talk to you if you have $1M liquid to invest. $5M might get you in the door, though. You will pay much more, but you will also make much more.

That defies logical thinking imo. If you already have millions you are going to be investing in a lot more secure stuff like bonds to preserve your wealth, not make it.

Most people don't have 100k to invest...most people don't invest anything. My point is even if you only have $25 on a shoestring budget, that's still something and once you get into the habit of automatically investing - that's a good habit to have. Being average is ok...80% of the results without having to worry/lift a finger is a LOT better than worrying about some stock to pick or where to invest.

Yes if you take the time to read/learn/do everything yourself you *might* be better off, but more than likely after a few months you'll give up. It's not sexy, you won't have any great stock tips, but you won't have to care about it

Most of the results with very little effort so I can enjoy my money and not have to worry about it is better than the two extremes doing nothing/going overboard imo.

This is what most of those amazing investors recommend. Warren Buffet/the guy who does the princeton university investing who's had like 16% return all the time...They all say the average investor should just stick their money in a low cost index fund and go about their biz.

 

[rocadelpunk]

No 401k from the employer. I have one from a previous employer which I took advantage of the 100% matching. Currently I have a pension plan which pays 100% of my highest 1 year salary when I retire if I work there long enough.

Well I'm just a youngin'. I can't offer any real investing advice other than the basics that investing = good. Keeping your money in a checking account where you'll lose out on inflation = bad.

If you're making more than 100k than you won't be able to invest in roth ira...but regardless if you don't know what to do than I would find someone to talk to.

Preferably someone who works on an hourly salary and not on commission, the idea being people on commission will hock their products at you even if it's not in your best interest. Shop around - there are lots of websites that talk about expense ratios and what not and it wouldn't hurt to pick up some books on basic investing (I don't really have any recommendations, but I"m sure others might : ).

Either way - it's never too early, never too late to start investing.

 

[HelloWorl]

Well I'm just a youngin'. I can't offer any real investing advice other than the basics that investing = good. Keeping your money in a checking account where you'll lose out on inflation = bad.

If you're making more than 100k than you won't be able to invest in roth ira...but regardless if you don't know what to do than I would find someone to talk to.

Preferably someone who works on an hourly salary and not on commission, the idea being people on commission will hock their products at you even if it's not in your best interest. Shop around - there are lots of websites that talk about expense ratios and what not and it wouldn't hurt to pick up some books on basic investing (I don't really have any recommendations, but I"m sure others might : ).

Either way - it's never too early, never too late to start investing.

How old are you? I have a 401k and Roth IRA setup, though I could stand to put more funds in it.

Of course I am saving to buy a house, so I'm not really in the investing mood until it's over with.

 

[rocadelpunk]

How old are you? I have a 401k and Roth IRA setup, though I could stand to put more funds in it.

Of course I am saving to buy a house, so I'm not really in the investing mood until it's over with.

25 - first year of working out of grad school.

 

[MAKENITO]

$216.00 with another week til payday.

 

[HelloWorl]

25 - first year of working out of grad school.

You're not that young.

 

[rocadelpunk]

You're not that young.

: (


young at heart.

 

[fleabag]

What do you mean by that? You brought up kids that can only get a joint account with their parents. Saving up money when you're living at home and having your parents pay for all your necessities is not the same as living on your own and having to cover your own expenses.

While some kids work hard without much support their parents the vast majority can pretty much blow their money on whatever they want. When all your necessities are given to you 100% of your cash is disposable.

You may feel special that you've saved up enough to start looking at buying a 90's civic but until you move out and start supporting yourself you really can't compare it with people that are out on their own.

Well, someone with a wife and kids could always say the same thing about you.... Living on your own isn't always to the benefit of everyone excluding one's self. You are right to an extent but your last post made it seem like the money the kid had wasn't even theirs at all which is why I was so appalled at it.

 

[Patranus]

I guess 1/2 of you guys don't know the meaning of the word inflation.