Yeah, I'd say Target 2055 in a Roth IRA is the Keep It Simple, Stupid answer.

I'm not sure what options are available as military, but imagine there has got to be some tax advantaged options. Probably even better than our civilian options? I would look to transition your existing 9k into to that, while being cognizant of tax implications.

As a US service member you have access to the Thrift Savings Plan. Everything I've heard about the TSP is that its the best option out there.
https://www.tsp.gov/index.html

Country you live in: USA#1
Income: ~87k/year, (~4.8k/month post-tax)
Risk Tolerance: Medium to Med-High for long-term investments, low near-term investments
Timeframe for investment: ~35 years for retirement, ~5 years for a short-term savings (for a house)
Debt: none

Hey guys, I'm looking for two kinds of advice, one for retirement savings and one for shorter-term savings.

First, I want to be a bit smarter about my current retirement plan. Right now I have the following:

401k~31k in various Vanguard funds -- I'm not sure how I'm distributing them is reasonable though (**breakdown below).

IRA~6.5k in a Virtus fund (VRTS GLOBAL EQUITY TREND FUND-A). Basically I opened a Roth IRA about 5 years ago, but have only been putting about $1200/year in it (which from a cursory reading of this thread seems like a mistake and I should be maxing it out?).

ESOP~20k, this is allocated to me by my company, there's not much I can do with this until I retire or leave.

**Vanguard Breakdown
35% Target Retirement 2050 Fund
25% STAR Fund
15% Intermediate-Term Treasury Fund
10% Windsor II Fund
5% U.S. Growth Fund
5% International Growth Fund
5% 500 Index Fund

Does this seem like an okay distribution? Should I prioritize maxing out my IRA before adding more to my 401k? Right now I'm only putting 5% into my 401k because my company only matches 1/4 up to 1% (so it maxes out once I put in 4%).

-------------------
Near term -- right now I'm looking at saving up to buy a house. I live in an area where a reasonable house is going to cost in the neighborhood of 500k. I'm planning to save about 2k/month toward the down payment so it'll take about 4-5 years assuming I put about 100k down. Is there something better I should do than putting the money into a money market account getting about 1%? I have ~10k in one right now.

Thanks!

Your 401k allocation is fine. It has about a 99.35% correlated to the target retirement fund. Putting additional money into that would be just as fine.

The VGPAX that you have in your IRA sucks monkey balls and you should slap or punch whoever sold it to you. Move your money to someone else.

In general get 401k match, then max IRA, then put any additional retirement into 401k, except...

...since you are saving for a down payment, you should direct additional money into that.

4-5 years isn't a very long time, so money market is a good and safe plan.

What about a 4 or 5 year bond or 4 or 5 one-year bonds? Or BND? Or CD ladders?

The $0.13 difference in EV over 4-5 years might be worth it to a certain type of person, I guess. (some of your choices have counterparty and duration risk)

Awesome, thanks so much! Will look into moving virtus bull**** to a vanguard fund or something.

Assuming you don't pay any transaction fees, I'd just move the entire balance into Target Retirement 2050 along with any future contributions. This allocation seems random and it skews you conservatively and towards US stocks. If you did this strategically, then it's all good, but it felt pretty random to me.

Will do, or at least will move future allocations to the target fund. It was definitely a random allocation wrt domestic and international stocks.

PLEASE INCLUDE:

Country you live in: Ohio, United States
Income: $80k salary per year
Risk Tolerance: Medium/High
Timeframe for investment: ??? really unsure (see below)
Debt: None
Any other information you might have that would help us

I currently rent an apartment, but am thinking of purchasing a house within the next few months. 26 years old, single with minimal responsibilities. I have ~$30-40k that I'd be willing to use towards a down payment. Most of that money is tied up in stocks and alt currency right now. Thinking of purchasing a duplex and renting out half of it although I know literally nothing about real estate or renting which makes me hesitant. My biggest thing is I know I do not want to work for the "man" the rest of my life and think I may just be going through a mid-20s crisis with getting into real estate (potential pivot away from the man down the line). Crazy thought doing this or go for it it can't turn out that that bad?

What would you guys say a minimum safe amount of shares traded per day would be? My friend shared this doc his bank gave him for ETF's to invest in. I was shocked to see ones on there with like 2000 shares traded per day. I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole. Then wondered what my cutoff might be.

Is there any reason not to have all of my Roth ira and 401k in the same vanguard target fund?

I'd look at the bid/ask spread, bid/ask size and whether there is a big discount/premium from NAV.

Not really.

Cool, thanks!

Where you live: NJ, United States
Income: $70k/yr
Risk Tolerance: Medium/High
Time frame for investment: 5-10 years
Debt: <5k
Amount to invest: $1200 a month

Any other information you might have that would help us:
Rent: $1k/mo
Car: $4k/mo
Contribute to Roth IRA: $458/mo

I am 30 yrs old and am looking into investing into regular stocks and trading. I really dont know much about anything or how to etc where to look. I have looked into cryptocurrency and I just dont really understand it / seems too risky.

I would like to invest about 1-1200 a month at a time right now.

i think you meant car is 400/mo not 4k/mo? if its 4k/mo obv sell it.

good you max your roth. also max whatever your employer program offers.

just stick the 1200/mo into a vanguard target fund or total stock mkt index/sp500 index.

Bitcoin market is very bullish and setting up nice. Invest in bitcoin now it is exploding. They don't inflate like us either.

Posting this for my partner who recently inherited 100k:

Country you live in: Texas, United States
Income: $110k salary per year
Risk Tolerance: Medium/High
Timeframe for investment: 25-30 years - funds are for retirement
Debt: mortgage, ~295k remaining, we pay an extra $700/mo towards the principal

Any other information you might have that would help us: 401k and Roth already maxed out each year.

What would you suggest as a retirement investment for a person in their low 30s with 100k to invest who is already maxing everything out, full emergency fund, no kids, etc.?

Thanks!

Don't forget to max HSA if available too. Vanguard target retirement fund, or VTI+VXUS.

You'll need to invest using a taxable account.

I'd ask how you are investing your 401k/IRA's first. Google 'tax efficient placement' and read up on that. You'll basically put tax inefficient investments into your 401k/IRA and tax efficient into the taxable account.

You can 100% just stick it entirely into something simple like a Target Date Fund, but I'd personally choose to replicate it manually and maybe drop the bond allocation. Compared to a TDF, that gives you more control over allocation, liquidation in retirement, and an opportunity to tax loss harvest.

Tried to find in this thread, but could not:

Does anyone have any experience investing in crowdfunding real estate sites (Peerstreet, etc)? Seems like a potentially great way to build a bankroll. Throw $2k at like 10 difference projects, reinvest, repeat...
My concerns are the fees and having the money tied up for a potentially long length of time.

Are you US based? I am in the UK and have invested using similar sites but its probably quite different here.

Yes, I'm based in the US. Done a bit more research since posting and it sounds like you can make some money, but generally pro investors are gonna sweep in and take a lot of the best deals right away.

Still would appreciate any insight or feedback from people that have done it.

It is fully accepted and regulated here in the UK now. You can lend in a tax exempt wrapper and even the government is using these sites so I suspect its quite a different climate.

It's not fortunes but I am earning 10-12% on the sites I like best. Property/Real Estate is ok (depending on the loan, they are not created equally) and I have got decent chunk lent out in that sector but I prefer pawn style loans secured on assets like watches. If you need access to your cash there are secondary markets over here where you can sell loan parts on. You can also use these to get invested quickly without waiting for new loans to appear.