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I was talking to a bank today about some saving crap, and didn't buy any of it.
Savings account is 0.24% APY. CD is 1.00%.
Okay, but inflation is about 3%. Even when I had an 401K, it was making about 4%. Saving money in the form of money is just stupid, unless you want to play around in the market all the time. I just want to save it and forget it. Other than keeping a thousand in cash for emergencies, I need to buy gold, or maybe silver since it's not as heavy.

Safety net in cash; the rest in Betterment or Wealthfront. Easy peasy

Quote from: Laconian on February 09, 2017, 05:44:53 PM
Safety net in cash; the rest in Betterment or Wealthfront. Easy peasy

+1

But I think investing in Swifts is better these days

Or 24 Karat Gold Plated Valid Currency (worth $0.00001 in Elbonia) Donald Trump Presidential Commemorative Coins from the Fucko Magucko Mint

My Swift was not a great investment, but only because of rust.

I say buying silver because I can avoid paying taxes on it :mask: :lol:

Quote from: Eye of the Tiger on February 09, 2017, 05:57:33 PM
I say buying silver because I can avoid paying taxes on it :mask: :lol:

Both gold and silver have been hugely volatile over the last few years. I could not in good conscience suggest it as an investment.

Those Fox News ads for buying gold are hilarious. The amount they charge puts the "investment" massively underwater as soon as it's purchased. Should've stuck with fiat currency and the stock market! :lol:

Quote from: Soup DeVille on February 09, 2017, 06:02:10 PM
Both gold and silver have been hugely volatile over the last few years. I could not in good conscience suggest it as an investment.

I blame Obama.

Betterment vs. Wealthfront

same/same?

Quote from: Laconian on February 09, 2017, 05:44:53 PM
Safety net in cash; the rest in Betterment or Wealthfront. Easy peasy

Quote from: CaminoRacer on February 09, 2017, 05:45:28 PM
+1

+2

Quote from: Eye of the Tiger on February 09, 2017, 06:11:09 PM
Betterment vs. Wealthfront

same/same?

Fees are lower on wealth front if you're under $100k.  Fees are lower on betterment if you're over $100k.  That's the gist of it from what I understand.

Why can't I select the first and last option?

What about blood diamonds?

Quote from: MrH on February 09, 2017, 09:10:20 PM
+2

Fees are lower on wealth front if you're under $100k.  Fees are lower on betterment if you're over $100k.  That's the gist of it from what I understand.

Betterment just raised their fees to 25bps on the first $2 million and no fees after that, Wealthfront I believe charges 25bps after the first $10k. So they are essentially the same now, depending on account size.


Edit:  I assumed their fees included the underlying ETFs, apparently that is not the case and the 25bps is just an "advisory" fee and after the underlying ETFs it's more like 35-40ish bps total. I don't know, paying someone 25bps to buy a basket of ETFs for you sounds like a ripoff to me when you can buy underlying vanguard index/ETF products yourself for like 5-15bps.  The value is almost entirely in the tax loss harvesting, which itself has limited value for many/most of the people these products seem targeted to, plus you can replicate yourself. The more I read about these the more I'm surprised they seem so popular among the  low fee / passive crowd. Although I also read betterment has only $6 billion under management, so it looks like their true popularity is much less than the amount of internet buzz they get would seem to imply.

Quote from: Eye of the Tiger on February 09, 2017, 05:43:00 PM

I was talking to a bank today about some saving crap, and didn't buy any of it.
Savings account is 0.24% APY. CD is 1.00%.
Okay, but inflation is about 3%. Even when I had an 401K, it was making about 4%. Saving money in the form of money is just stupid, unless you want to play around in the market all the time. I just want to save it and forget it. Other than keeping a thousand in cash for emergencies, I need to buy gold, or maybe silver since it's not as heavy.

AFAIK, the highest interest rate on a regular bank savings account right now is Ally at 1%. Still peanuts (and yes, likely below inflation), but better than most other options for FDIC insured cash that you can access at any time.  So I would start there until you have ~6 months living expenses saved, more if you have any big purchases planned.

After that I would probably just open an account with Vanguard and put money into their total market index (or open an account elsewhere like fidelity or Schwab and buy the comparable ETF). The fee is 5bps. As I understand it, betterment and wealthfront justify their ~25bps fee by offering tax loss harvesting, which, ignoring the assumption you can replicate that yourself, very well may be worth it for higher income, high tax bracket people especially if they have capital gains to offset elsewhere.  But if you're not in a high tax bracket with gains to offset, I'd stick with the lower fee vanguard products and just regularly plow money into them every month. 

Many ways.

I have a normal checking account with minimal interest (0.05%). This is where my check gets deposited and where I pay my bills from. I then have a small savings account I keep off to the side that gets a little more interest income (0.8%). This money just sits there for the most part. I then have an investment account. I don't any any individual stocks though, just shares in a couple different vanguard (ie: low cost) index funds. This is the one area I am actively putting money in to currently. I also then have a traditional IRA account that I rolled some old 401(k) funds in to. This money is also in vanguard index funds. I then have a 401(k) account at work. I will probably be rolling all (or most) of this money in to my IRA this year since the fees on the index funds (0.05% of assets) are lower than the retirement funds (.39% of assets).  I also own a second house that I rent out. In a real emergency I could sell that home if I had to, but for now I kind of like have a bit of extra real estate to keep some money out of the market.

Right now I am at 50% in a 401k that's invest in a Vanguard target 2055 fund, 10% in some Fidelity bond index fund, 15% in a Fidelity S&P500 index fund, and 25% in an Ally savings account.

Obviously not super scientific and would rather have less in the Ally account and more in the market, but it's going to be a year and a half before we are in the black on a monthly basis so... going to stick with this configuration for now.

This Vanguard market fund thing just shot up a bunch. Clearly, I should wait for the market to crash when Trump makes a tweet before I buy into it.

(https://s14.postimg.org/nlaujwlu9/vanguardtsmi.png)

Quote from: Eye of the Tiger on February 16, 2017, 06:51:02 PM
This Vanguard market fund thing just shot up a bunch. Clearly, I should wait for the market to crash when Trump makes a tweet before I buy into it.

Rule #1: Don't try to time the market.

Quote from: BimmerM3 on February 16, 2017, 07:57:05 PM
Rule #1: Don't try to time the market.

Pfffft. That's not what my day trading book says.

You're reading the candles wrong.

Quote from: giant_mtb on February 16, 2017, 08:27:00 PM
You're reading the candles wrong.

I don't know if you're making a joke, but there are financial graphs with candlestick markers. 

(http://helicaltech.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/candlestick.jpg)

Uncreatively, they're called candlestick charts. 

Yeah, I was joking in reference to those. High/low and open/close...I know things. :praise:

What happens if you light the candle?

Quote from: Eye of the Tiger on February 17, 2017, 06:09:32 AM
What happens if you light the candle?

Your money burrrrrrrrns.  Don't light the candles.

Quote from: giant_mtb on February 17, 2017, 06:14:19 AM
Your money burrrrrrrrns.  Don't light the candles.

I was hoping it would explode like a firecracker and make it rain.

Quote from: giant_mtb on February 17, 2017, 06:09:06 AM
Yeah, I was joking in reference to those. High/low and open/close...I know things. :praise:

:lol:  I'm so proud of you.  I thought the only things you knew about were camo cans and dirtbikes.   :lol:

My friend used to be obsessed with candlesticks.  Every time he had a free moment at work, he would use his Bloomberg to look up candlestick charts.

The funniest thing is that he's one of the worst investors I've ever seen.  Every hypothetical pick he chooses ends up being the wrong one.  He's the model for why it's stupid for low net worth individuals to try to pick individual stocks. 

Indexes are free to trade on Schwab for like 200 funds. Makes investing a little bit each pay period too easy to not do: you just buy shares a handful at a time as the money comes in with no extra costs.

Plus the expense ratio on a lot of the Schwab-managed funds are stupid low, like .05%.

All the Schwab funds are free to trade but those are only like 15-20 off the 200+ freebies offered, and if you want to buy others you can do that too and the trade fee is really low.

Quote from: Raza  on February 17, 2017, 06:34:59 AM
:lol:  I'm so proud of you.  I thought the only things you knew about were camo cans and dirtbikes.   :lol:

My friend used to be obsessed with candlesticks.  Every time he had a free moment at work, he would use his Bloomberg to look up candlestick charts.

The funniest thing is that he's one of the worst investors I've ever seen.  Every hypothetical pick he chooses ends up being the wrong one.  He's the model for why it's stupid for low net worth individuals to try to pick individual stocks. 

My first two years at college, I tried to learn a lot about the stock market. Put like $800 in an etrade account and basically just spent/lost it all.  At first I tried paper trading and did okay at that, but it didn't feel real enough and the site I used didn't have many of the lower value, more volatile stocks I could actually afford to buy bigger chunks of.  I knew a lot more about reading charts and the different indicators back then than I do now, but I definitely remember candles. :lol:

The advanced etrade program was actually really sweet. Made me feel like a Wall Street hax0r.  Could watch virtually any statistic live. Volumes, bids, everything.

(https://cdn.etrade.net/1/16080510390.0/aempros/content/dam/etrade/retail/en_US/images/what-we-offer/our-accounts/pro-main.png)

Quote from: Tave on February 17, 2017, 11:14:40 AM
Indexes are free to trade on Schwab for like 200 funds. Makes investing a little bit each pay period too easy to not do: you just buy shares a handful at a time as the money comes in with no extra costs.

Plus the expense ratio on a lot of the Schwab-managed funds are stupid low, like .05%.

All the Schwab funds are free to trade but those are only like 15-20 off the 200+ freebies offered, and if you want to buy others you can do that too and the trade fee is really low.

That's pretty much true of Vanguard and Fidelity too, although maybe they have a smaller list of no-trade-fee funds. I have my personal accounts through Vanguard, and my 401k through Schwabb (self-directed 401k FTW).

When I was in the industry, Vanguard funds sucked donkey dick. Is that not the case anymore?