your timeframe is too short for anything particularly exciting. i'd stick to high yield savings accounts, maybe CDs (these are called something else in the UK but i forget what) if you can find a good rate, maaaaaybe some bond funds.

also it's meaningless to tell us that your income is $4000 without 1) a unit of time! i'm assuming per month but c'mon man and/or 2) an idea of your expenses. this isn't rocket science; use some common sense when filling out the form.

This is a years down the line scenario but I've been trying to play my long term finances with my fiancee now that we are getting married and combining our funds. This is our strategy for 2013. This is my basic idea of our plan for each month.

1. Make sure $2000 in each of our individual ING Savings account
2. Put $1000/ea into joint ING Savings account for paying all bills, monthly costs, etc
3. She puts money into her work's 403b up to her employer match (which we think is only 2%)
3. We both put (1/12)*$5500 into Roth IRAs (my earned income is $0 because I'm on a fellowship in graduate school, but we will be filing jointly so I can put money in my Roth). We will be using Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund (I have about $5k in this already)
4. Put remainder towards each others loans, in order of highest to lowest % interest.

Where it gets tricky is the following: I have a $15000ish subsidized loan, that will begin accruing 6.8% interest in early 2017, but until then will have 0%. How should I go about paying this off?

A: Make payments towards it using same methodology of (4) above once all other loans are paid, even if it is still in deferral and accruing 0 interest.
B: Put remainder from (4) into ING Savings account, where it will make 0.75% interest, then pay off $15k loan in one lump sum the day it comes out of deferral.
C: Once all loans except 15k subsidized loan are paid off, put extra cash into some kind of investment where we will be able to withdraw it at anytime without penalty (and hopefully as a result make more than 0.75%)

Option C seems like the way to go, but I'm still learning this stuff so I'm not sure what to look for, i.e. what is the name of the thing I should invest in. Is the ING thing called "sharebuilder" the way to go?

Also can someone explain "rollover" of a 401k/403b to me? Is my interpretation correct: My fiancee's work has her put money into a 403b plan, when she changes jobs, she may "rollover" this fund into something like Vanguard, and put it into a Traditional IRA (but not a Roth IRA, because in this scenario we are assuming she has maxxed Roth IRA each year)

good on you for taking care of this early.

what is the purpose of this money? is it emergency savings?

excellent plan.

you're thinking about this correctly. option C is the winner assuming you have a couple years to invest the cash before you need to pay off the loan (obv if it takes you until december 2016 to chew through the other loans, you're not looking for some big ROI investment for one month).

you can figure out what to invest in once you get there. it will again depend on your timeline as well as your risk tolerance.

sharebuilder is a brokerage account; it's not an investment vehicle (like a stock, mutual fund, or ETF) that you would hold in an IRA or 401k.

i'll know more in a couple months when i deal with rolling over the 401k from my last job, but i think you've got this mostly right. there are millions of articles on doing rollovers; keep reading them until you find one you like and have convinced yourself that you understand what's going on.

Thanks, yeah the 2000 is an emergency savings / fund for additional wedding and cruise expenses the monthly deposits to our joint account can't cover. I'm hoping to keep it at a constant 2000, not add 2000 to it each month, just 'top it off' if it dips below 2000

So back when i played poker professionally, i set up a SEPIRA with vanguard and put a bunch of money into a Target Retirement xxxx Fund. Now that im not playing anymore, i got a normal job and would still like to put money into that same fund. What do i need to do? Do i need to change it to a roth or traditional IRA? Is that what it means to rollover? Would i be taking any kind of tax hit for this? Im such a noob to all this.

i'm not an expert at rollovers but basically:

- you don't have to do anything with the SEP IRA; you can just leave it alone. if you like the TR fund, you can continue to buy it or a similar fund (hopefully) in your 401k.

- i don't know how it works for SEP IRAs, but for a 401k from a previous employer you can roll the old account over into a traditional or roth ira. rolling over to a traditional (if you do it right) is a non-taxable event.

to convert to a roth, you do need to pay income tax. a common strategy is to roll over juuuuust enough to max out your current tax bracket but not go over. over time, you'll convert your pre-tax retirement money to post-tax retirement money. the usual decision applies about whether a traditional or a roth ira is right for you.

is the timeframe you speficied when you'll need the money to make a fixed purcahse or a general length of time for a particular investment? If its the former id go with a medium term corporate bond etf of UK companies.

Can anyone suggest good books to read for investing in Property (Canada based, but I guess most of the principles will not be country specific).

Another quick question. Would it be better to make min payments on all of our loans at the start of 2013, and max our Roth IRAs first? Would that be better from a time-value of money perspective?

Our loans:
7k @ 6.8%
24k @ 6.2%
12k @ 5.0%
5k @ 3%
17k @ 0.9% (car)
15.5k @ 0% until I graduate (late 2015ish hopefully)

It looks like the VFFVX fund has made well over 7% this YTD. Basically if the VFFVX makes over 7% next year it's better to have maxxed Roth IRA first, correct? But there's no way of knowing for sure so I would be rolling the dice?

you are correct that if VFFVX returned 7% every year then you would pay the minimum on your loans and invest as much as possible with a guaranteed 7% ROI. if it weren't for luck, you'd win every time!

we can talk about estimates of sustainable long-term ROI for a diversified portfolio and try to figure out whether it's higher than the vig on any of your loans, but there are plenty of good reasons to focus on getting rid of the debt:

- simplicity. a portfolio containing a bunch of loans and a bunch of investments is more work to maintain than a portfolio containing nothing.

- debt can be a cause of stress, especially for a couple just starting out. it's money coming out of your paycheck, even when you have other things you'd rather spend it on.

- too much debt can harm your credit score and make it harder or more expensive to get, say, a home loan.

- government student loans are especially good to eliminate since they can't be dispensed in bankruptcy.

so what is my advice? do both if you possibly can! you have until tax day 2014 to contribute the max to your roth for 2013. consider keeping a portion of your emergency savings in your roths[1], and make up the rest a little bit each month. hopefully you can do this while also directing a substantial amount towards the loans each month because i think that's a higher priority -- 24k @ 6.2% gets ugly in a hurry. i hope you and your spouse-to-be are parlaying your educations into lucrative careers!

[1] http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Roth_...emergency_fund

Thanks for the tips!

WRT to parlaying our educations... that's the plan... shes an RN, and i just finished an MS and working on a PhD in structural engineering. Nursing is a sick career to have, she may make more money than me in the end . No way I could ever put up with the crap she has to deal at her job with though lol.

I'll need to read more on the using roth as an emergency savings, at first glance I am not understanding the link you sent me. Either way, I can't replicate the amounts they are listing. The most we probably can afford to put away towards retirement each year is max Roth and her max her employers 401k matching amount

Silver

yeah that is not the droid i was looking for. try:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Emerg...emergency_fund

i've also talked about this technique elsewhere itt. basically, i'm suggesting that instead of funding your roths with new money, you consider moving some of your emergency savings into your roths. this way you fund your roths while keeping your extra income focused on your student loan debt.

ftw

I am in college and would like to start putting away some money now, and monthly or so as well.

Starting with 5k to invest and unsure as to where.
Long term
Risk doesn't matter
Live in USA

roth ira (if you have earned income)
TR fund

1) Europe
2) fixed sum - 10k eur
3) high
4) up to 5 years
5) none

Perhaps a small cap value index.

I was wondering if people had any advice as where to invest excess cash? Current portfolio invested is...

Csco = 20% - owned for 6 months
Pep=17% - owned for 6 months
MACSX = 17% - owned for 7 years
PGMDX = 24% - owned for 5 years
Cash = 22%

I was looking to put cash into some sort of etf. Maybe spy to get broad market exposure but not sure (also maybe some sort of vanguard fund??). I dont really have a precise timeline for the investments am looking to invest all of this cash because i have other cash aside for emergencies and to re-invest later if I feel the time is right.

^ also really looking for something that is has low fees

post fund names, not ticker symbols. i don't know what those things are, so i will behave as though they don't exist.

your portfolio is not diversified at all. i would start with a Target Retirement fund until you understand how to diversify on your own. once you get there, i recommend low-cost index funds.

Okay sorry.

Cisco
Pepsico
Matthews asian growth & income fund
PIMCO Global Multi Asset CL D

Also, I am 20 and not really using money for retirement. Probably gonna use it to pay off college debt, travel, apartment or basically if anything pops up that I really need it for.

Thanks for any help.

dishwasher22,

if you want to have your investment in stocks and/or high risk functions, then the general consensus here is that you should put it into an index fund.

I'm a 22 year old playing poker professionally. I have between 50k-100k that I wanted to start investing that I will not be needing for my current bankroll. Some people have suggested to start with a Roth IRA. What do you guys suggest?

a roth is generally a good idea, but you can't contribute to one unless you have earned income.

also you must define "investing".