Credit Cards that waive the annual fee for the first year... what happens if you cancel the card before the first year is up (after you get all the benefits). is that possible?

They go find a new sucker.

It has worked for me on multiple different cards. Might hurt your credit rating so I wouldn't do it if you're going to apply for house or car loan soon.

Yes, pretty common

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...-w-jl-1264513/

New job, they have some profit sharing thing separate from 401k. Don't know really how much will be "shared", and if it's anything I won't have access to it for a few yrs at least, maybe 100% after 5 yrs.

I've only done some basic reading on how these investments work. Any advice on how to allocate what will likely be a small amount of employer committed funds? I'm mid 20s and don't have much of any savings myself. Not a huge decision, but if there's one direction or another that might be best I wouldn't mind doing that.
Appreciate any help. Thanks 🙂[spoiler][/spoiler]

Just go for Target Retirement 2050 as an easy default, unless you have a compelling reason to do different.

If they offer a match on the 401k itself, you should definitely be doing that too.

Why wouldn't he consider the Vanguard 500 95% and bonds 5% if the fees are better or just straight 500 fund?

Limited diversification.

Yep and I was keeping it super simple.

If he wanted to do 500 + Extended Market and then rebalance it appropriately over time, that's just fine.

Cool, I'll consider those options just briefly then go with one or the other. Know nothing about fees so maybe that'd be worth looking at too. Looks like 90/10 is the highest ratio they'll allow. So from the suggestions here, if I did consider the non-target funds it'd be either 90% 500, 10% total bonds or 40/40 of 500/extended market, 10% bonds.

I think any decision isn't hugely consequential at this point in this case, especially if I can change the allocations later. The 401k w/matching they provided is through Fidelity rather than Vanguard.

Definitely recommend against simply 90% 500. You are missing a HUGE chunk of the market doing that and if anything you should probably want to overweight the Extended Market, not 500 fund.

If you do choose to do the 500/Extended Market...the normal ratio is like 80/20. You could certainly overweight Extended Market like you suggest, but be aware that replicating the total market isn't an equal split.

Thanks for that clarification. 70/20/10 then could be one way of doing it. This seems like not a bad opportunity to experiment a little, but seeing as I don't really know how all this works, am only just starting to try to learn, it might be safe to stick with a target fund and not worry about it for a while. Definitely some good advice, I'll be able to do some more reading on this kind of stuff.

Other than my 401k and IRA, what are some good options for a newbie investor to put a small amount of money away for relatively passive investaments?

i would start by maxing those. if you are not doing that you might as well not worry about the "others," throw it at the IRA and 401k

if you have maxed them; CD's, savings accts, bonds, money market accts would fall into the criteria you are in search for. Or, if you have some liquid cash, start opening bank accounts and meet their easy criteria for signup bonuses, bink!

If you've maxed those, simply open a taxable investment account. You can buy and hold forever the same indexes in there.

Hi guys! I was hoping to get some thoughts on my ROTH account. I currently have 21.75% of it in cash, and was wondering if there is any merit in waiting for a dip to invest it, since the market is obviously at record highs.

I’m 26, and likely won’t be able to contribute any more to it for the next ~4-5 years due to the career route I’m taking and law school loans coming due in late 2018. I was fortunate enough to have my parents fund the account with ~$15k when I was a kid, so it’s been doing quite well.

Below are what positions I have at the moment. Any thoughts on what direction I should go is also very appreciated! I’d like to be as aggressive as possible.

Foreign (26.81%) (divided evenly)
FEDDX Fidelity Emerging Markets Discovery
FMIJX FMI International
MAPTX Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund
OAKIX Oakmark Intl Investor Cl

Domestic Contra (25.88%): FCNTX Fidelity Contrafund

Cash (21.75%)

Domestic Index Growth (11.16%): VUG Vanguard Index Fds Growth ETF

Domestic Small Cap (8.52%): FCPEX Fidelity Small Cap Enhanced Index Fund

GILD Gilead (3.96%)

TSLA Tesla (1.92%)

So overlooked. I somehow never knew about the bonus game until this January. So far made $500 from Chase checking/savings, $200 from PNC, and $1600 in Chase credit card travel credits. Ton of money for a relatively broke law student.

trying to time the market is a dangerous game. Probably better to just invest it in periodic equal chunks over the next months/years - maybe 2% each month or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closin..._the_S%26P_500

Milestone Closing Level Date First Achieved
1,565.157 1,569.19 March 28, 2013
1,600 1,614.42 May 3, 2013
1,650 1,650.34 May 14, 2013
1,700 1,706.87 August 1, 2013
1,750 1,754.67 October 22, 2013
1,800 1,804.76 November 22, 2013
1,850 1,854.29 February 27, 2014
1,900 1,900.53 May 23, 2014
1,950 1,951.27 June 9, 2014
2,000 2,000.02 August 26, 2014
2,050 2,051.80 November 18, 2014
2,100 2,100.34 February 17, 2015
2,130.828 2,137.16 July 11, 2016
2,150 2,152.14 July 12, 2016
2,200 2,202.94 November 22, 2016
2,250 2,259.53 December 9, 2016
2,3009 2,307.87 February 9, 2017
2,350 2,351.16 February 17, 2017

People have been saying the market is too high since ~2012. Here is a list of milestone highs since 2013. If this was 2013, would you have been better waiting, or investing? The market routinely sets new highs. At a minimum you should DCA like Biesterfield suggests. I would do at least 5% a month, but anything is better than nothing.

And just in case we do have a down turn:
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014...-market-timer/

Let's say we have a target of $10 mil for retirement, and we are young and have the highest risk tolerance imaginable. What is the most hyper-aggressive long-term investing that can be done without being foolish?

ok so im 31 and really bad with mpney i dont get it. My parents have done my tax returns every year and i have some money in iras. I want to withdraw some money but not sure how to do it. I work in a grocery store and make 1400 a month. please dont be a troll.

its also relevant because i need to pay some people money on here and im done gambling but im worried if i take out money i wont do it right.

Good timing. I am almost exactly the right amount drunk.

Taking money out of an IRA is almost surely the wrong way to do it.* Make a commitment to pay those you owe a certain amount out of each paycheck. Pay them first, then live off of what you have left. It will hurt, but in a good sort of way.

Congratulations on giving up gambling. Making amends by paying people back will make it easier to sleep and go a long way towards making you (and others) feel good about yourself.

*if it is a ROTH IRA, then you can withdraw everything but what you contributed without severe penalties. Since parents do your taxes, they can probably figure that out for you.

100% in VT.* Invest as much as you can every month.

*The ETF, not the state.