Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

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Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by avidsaver »

Posting

When you have researched your retirement plan options and have a list of your current investments, it is time to post. We do not need to know your name or the amount of money you have invested or anything else that will identify you. To help us help you please post in this format:

Emergency funds: None (bad i know, I am willing to do a Roth emergency fund and have been reading about that)

Debt: $1,500 in credit cad debt @ various interest rates (highest being 23.99%, I am in the process of switching to a 0% balance transfer for 18 months card to consolidate this debt and pay it off faster).
I also have $610.60 in SSI overpayment repayment debt @ 0% interest ($60/month payment plan)

Tax Filing Status: (Single, Married Filing Jointly, Married Filing Separately, Head of Household, Qualifying Widow/Widower with Dependent Children) Single (legally blind if that makes a difference)

Tax Rate: xx% Federal, xx% State I believe I am in the 0-15% bracket(s).

State of Residence: Illinois

Age: 24

Desired Asset allocation: 80% stocks / 20% bonds

Desired International allocation: 30% of stocks

If you want to give us a detailed breakdown within each asset class (xx% large caps, xx% mid caps, xx% bonds, xx% cash, etc.), go ahead. (Most people probably will not want to do this. If you are not sure what this means, please disregard.)

Please provide a hint as to the size of your current total portfolio (as in high four-figures, mid five-figures, low six-figures, etc.) What might be appropriate for a very large portfolio might not be appropriate for a new investor.

less than $1,000, just starting out.

Providing the split of your assets and contributions between taxable and tax-advantaged accounts is also helpful. Please include all investment and retirement accounts (yourself and spouse or civil partner, if applicable) as it's important to look at the portfolio as a unified whole rather than look at accounts in isolation. Also include the available funds in your employer provided retirement plans. For example:

Current retirement assets

Taxable $100 with Betterment.com
xx% cash (for investing – do not include emergency funds)
xx% fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
xx% stock company name (ticker symbol)

His 401k (Will be eligible for this starting October 1st)
30% BLACKROCK RUSSELL 1000 INDX TR (n/a) (0.03%)
15% BLACKROCK RUSSELL 2000 INDX TR (n/a) (0.05%)
20% INTERNATIONAL EQUITY FUND (WMTX2) (0.47%)
10% REAL ASSETS FUND (WMTX7) (N/A)
05% SMALL MID CAP GROWTH EQUITY FD (WMTX6) (0.57%)

10% BOND FUND (WMTX1) (0.31%)
08% JPMORGAN SHORT TERM BOND TRUST (ZDBCFT) (0.15%)

02% BLACKROCK MONEY MARKET TRUST (BGMMT) (0.12%)

xx% fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
Company match? 100% (dollar-for-dollar) match up to 6% of my annual pre-tax income.

His Roth IRA at Vanguard
xx% fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
xx% fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)


Contributions

New annual Contributions
$1536 his 401k ($768 from me, $768 from my employer -6% per paycheck+6% match)

Available funds

Funds available in his 401(k)
They are not in an easily copied table. In addition to the above, there are a few more stock options and a target retirement date "MYRETIREMENT 2055 FUND" with a 0.34% expense ratio.

Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)

Funds available in her 403(b)
Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)
Fund name (ticker symbol) (expense ratio)

Questions:
1. I am getting a yearly raise which would equal approximately that $64/month which I would like to use to max out the company 401k match.

2. Are my proposed choices (I won't be eligible until October 1st, but am able to see the investment choices now) okay? Would it be better to go with the target retirement date fund as the only thing in the 401K and put anything else into Vanguard or Betterment (for now, until I have the $3,000 saved) IRAs? I tend to agree with the boglehead philosophy and keeping things simple. Is there any way to simplify the 401K choices from what I have?

3. I want to start saving for retirement, but realize that I need to build up an emergency fund and pay off this credit card debt. Should I delay enrolling in the 401K to throw as much as possible at the debt (foregoing the "free money" from the employer)?

I do not have much experience investing but I am someone that strongly believes in living below my means and saving as much as possible. I do have a taxable account at Betterment and am interested in low cost index funds as a result. Vanguard looks significantly cheaper but I do not have the necessary money to get into most funds (yet!).

Thank you for looking and any insight you can provide. I found this site only a month ago but I find myself reading it almost every day on my lunch breaks! :).
mnvalue
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Joined: Sun May 05, 2013 2:22 pm

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by mnvalue »

1) Close the Betterment account today. Put that money back in your checking account.
2) Then go download a trial of YNAB: http://www.youneedabudget.com Build a budget and start following it. It'll be rough in the first couple months as you try to figure out which categories make sense for you, how much to budget in each category, etc., but it gets much easier with time. If YNAB doesn't play well with your screen reader (you said you were blind), then unfortunately I don't have any specific ideas. Maybe just build your own budget spreadsheet or text file or whatever works well for you.
3) Sign up for the 401k as soon as you're allowed. Contribute exactly enough to get the full match, no more, no less. You need to be focusing all your extra cash flow into building an emergency fund and getting those credit cards paid off. Make sure to pay off the 0% deal before it expires. I typically recommend you pay it off a month earlier than you think is required, just to avoid any problems. In the 401k, I'd just use the target fund to keep things simple for now.
4) Once you're been following a budget, and the debt is gone, and you have an emergency fund of 6 months' required expenses, then come back here for further help on retirement investment planning.
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RyeWhiskey
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by RyeWhiskey »

^ What was just said is correct. Read it again. :sharebeer
This post was brought to you by Vanguard Total World Stock Index (VTWSX/VT).
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Duckie
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by Duckie »

avidsaver, you have a desired AA of 80% stocks, 20% bonds, with 30% of stocks in international. That breaks down to 56% US stocks, 24% international stocks, and 20% bonds. Given the mentioned 401k options I'd go with either:

401k -- 100%
50% (N/A) BlackRock Russell 1000 Index Fund (0.03%)
6% (N/A) BlackRock Russell 2000 Index Fund (0.05%) <-- Roughly 90% Russell 1000 plus 10% Russell 2000 makes up most of the US stock market.
24% (N/A) International Equity Fund (0.47%) <-- Probably only developed markets. It'll do for now.
20% (N/A) JPMorgan Short Term Bond Fund (0.15%)

or

401k -- 100%
100% (N/A) MyRetirement 20XX Fund (0.34%??) <-- Whichever fund has close to your 80/20 AA.
Lafder
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Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:56 pm
Location: East of the Rio Grande

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by Lafder »

I wish I had started investing for retirement at your age! Your numbers may seem small, but they will add up over time. I would give as much as you can afford to your 401k for the match. And yes pay off that cc debt asap.

best wishes
lafder
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Watty
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Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2007 3:55 pm

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by Watty »

Except for the Bettermint it sounds like you have a good plan.

I agree that contributing enough to the 401k to get as much of a match as possible should be a high priority.

You may also be able to get a retirement savings credit on your federal tax return of ten to fifty percent of the first two thousand dollars of retirement savings. This is a non-refundable credit though which means that if you don't owe any taxes then you don't get a refund.

Note when I say “owe any taxes” that is different than if you get a refund or have to pay more taxes when you file your tax return on April 15th, that is based on if you have had enough payroll deductions to cover the taxes that were calculated on the tax form.

The main restrictions are;
Age 18 or older;
Not a full-time student in 2014
Not claimed as a dependent on another person’s return.
Your income level

The details are at this link;

http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Pla ... 9s-Credit)

For a single person they can get a match with up to thirty thousand dollars of adjusted gross income or AGI. It is important to note that your salary might be higher than that but then there are a lot of adjustments for pre-tax payroll deductions for things like health insurance 401k contributions, and other things. These reductions can make your adjusted gross income low enough to qualify for the retirement savings credit.

Most retirement accounts like Roth, IRA, 401k, etc will qualify you for this so with the Roth or IRA you can set those up as late as April 15 of next year when your taxes are due. You can also combine these so you could put $800 into the 401K and $1,200 in a Roth account and get up to a $1,000 non-refundable tax credit.
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

Hi, thank you everyone for the suggestions and advice :-). I can sign up for the 401K as soon as October 1st, so I will be doing that and electing to take 6% out of each paycheck which is the maximum my employer will match.

mnvalue: I do have a budget of sorts, i keep a spreadsheet on my desktop where I estimate my bills and income for each month to get a rough idea of how much money I have left over. Then, as each bill comes in, I replace the estimated value with the actual value. Then, minus any unexpected expenses, at the end of the month I know exactly how much I should have in the bank to put towards the debt. Now that I have transferred the balances to the 0% card, I can sleep better by not being as aggressive and building up a cushion (and eventually an emergency fund) of cash-- fighting against the interest rates was killing me psychologically where I hated not putting any extra cash towards the debt heh. I have tried following stricter budgets and the like using software and paper budgets but I have a hard time sticking to them, at least my way is better than nothing... :).

Watty: Thanks for the link, I had recently seen that savings credit mentioned (it was actually in my 401K plan information papers iirc) and that's good to know!

As for taxes, I'm not sure if i will owe any or not. I will have some self employment income in addition to my current employer though much less SE income than last year (in past years I was exclusively self employed) so depending on how much I bring in this year freelancing I may or may not owe taxes vs what i withheld. I can't recall at the moment if I ended up withholding 'extra' through my employer or not to account for that heh.
mnvalue
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by mnvalue »

If you're budgeting and avoiding putting more on credit cards, that's the important thing. Go with whatever works for you! :)
denovo
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Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:04 pm

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by denovo »

Do yourself a favor and put your credit cards in a lockbox.
"Don't trust everything you read on the Internet"- Abraham Lincoln
cherijoh
Posts: 6591
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:49 pm
Location: Charlotte NC

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by cherijoh »

denovo wrote:Do yourself a favor and put your credit cards in a lockbox.
I had a friend who froze her credit card in a small container of water. If she really needed it for an emergency she would thaw it out, but it wasn't in her wallet for impulse spending :wink:
Tamahome
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Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by Tamahome »

Good advice. I would like to add this. After getting your match of 6%, put $0 towards retirement. Instead, do this:
1) Get $1,000 emergency fund.
2) Aggressively pay off your interest debt.
3) Build emergency fund to 2 months. Even if you are using your ROTH as an emergency fund, you really want 2 months worth of money for small emergencies so you do not have to disturb the ROTH if at all possible.
4) Start putting every penny into the ROTH.
5) A and B (in no particular order)
A) Once ROTH is maxed, start increasing your 401k savings
B) Add to your emergency fund. There really is nothing worse than having to pull money out of a retirement account... and then you do not have it in there anymore. If an emergency comes up, you are not damaging your future in any way. Also, if the market crashes, you are not forced to sell low. Again, this can be done before the 401k increase. (Or simultaneously.)

Best of luck!
I'm not a financial professional. Post is info only & not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship exists with reader. Scrutinize my ideas as if you spoke with a guy at a bar. I may be wrong.
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

Thanks for the input Dulocracy (heh, I like your signature).

As Duckie mentioned, I looked into the myRetirement 2045 fund with has 17% bonds. One thing I noticed about all of the myRetirement funds (or at least the ones far out, i did not look at the ones before 2040) is that they list a "portfolio turnover ratio" of about 40%. What the heck is a portfolio turnover ratio and is that ~40% number something to be concerned with?

I tried googling and found the definition but I'm still not clear on what a 'good' ratio to look for is?

The funds in the MyRetirement 2045 Fund are:

Fund %Assets

BlackRock Russell 1000 Index Trust 33.35
BlackRock MSCI ACWI ex-US IMI Index NL F 13.44
RCIT Robeco Large Cap Value Equity Fd F 5.21
Mondrian Intl Value Equity Trust 4.47
American Funds EuroPacific Gr R6 4.36
.......................................................................................................
Annual Turnover Ratio % 44.92

Thanks again for the help!
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

Hi, I wanted to thank everyone for the help once again and to update the thread with the results.

I spend a couple of days thinking about what to invest in and the target retirement funds. In the end though, I didn't fully understand what everything the MyRetirement funds were investing in (some of the stuff in the documentation was vague and/or too technical heh) and going on the old adage of if you don't understand it, don't invest I instead opted for a 4-fund portfolio.

I signed up Oct 1st and my first contribution posted to my account today :).

I ended up with:

50% Blackrock Russel 1000 Index Trust (0.03%) $40.52
6% Blackrock Russel 2000 Index Trust (0.05%) $4.86
24% International Equity Fund (0.47%) $19.46
20% JPMorgan Short Term Bond Trust (0.15%) $16.22

I'm excited to see my savings grow, especially with the match. It's not much but it's a start. Thanks for helping me get started with low cost index funds bogleheads :).
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

Hi everyone, my 401k has been chugging along nicely. I was looking around at the fund choices, and while I've decided to stick with my original selections, I had a question.

I have two bond funds available, the JPMorgan Short Term Bond Trust (0.15%) and a Bond Fund (0.31%).

(Note that I have 20% AA to the JPMorgan one)

The Bond Fund, while having a higher expense ratio, has (at least historically) had much better returns at ~4% returns (YTD, 1yr, 5yr are all 4.xx %). The JPMorgan Short Term Bond Trust has seen returns of around 1% by comparison.

However, looking at the fact sheets provided, the Bond Fund is invested in much (comparitively) riskier assets while the JPMorgan one is invested in US Treasuries and a small % in money market accounts. The Bond Fund is invested in:

Top 10 Holdings as of 09-30-14 % Assets
Prudential Core Plus Bond Trust 45.10
PIMCO Total Return Instl 44.89
Chicago Equity Partners Fixed Incm Core 10.01
.......................................................................................................
Annual Turnover Ratio % 289.02

After some deliberating, I am sticking with my original choice of the JPMorgan Short Term Bond Trust and it's governemet-backed securities. While I am giving up /potential/ returns, the reason I have 20% in bonds is to reduce my overall risk and equity exposure. The lower yielding securities are safer, and the higher risk/potentiallly higher rewards should be left to the 80% in equities.

Is my logic sound on this? I think it makes sense, but if I want to make sure that I'm staying the course that's I'm supposed to be staying on (the logical/boglehead one) :).


Thanks for any opinions/insight on bond risk. :sharebeer
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BL
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by BL »

I think you made some smart choices. Now you can just forget about investing for a while and let the fund go up and go down, etc.
Well, maybe first read this free book by Boglehead, William Bernstein, If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly:
http://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf
Just pick up some general ideas such as what/who to avoid.

Put everything else either toward emergency fund and/or loans. Don't charge anything, at least until all CCs are paid off. Never charge anything on a card that isn't paid off every month, as you will owe interest from that day on. Charge cards can be very dangerous to many people, as it is so easy to spend money you don't have with a card.
Topic Author
avidsaver
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

BL wrote:I think you made some smart choices. Now you can just forget about investing for a while and let the fund go up and go down, etc.
Well, maybe first read this free book by Boglehead, William Bernstein, If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly:
http://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf
Just pick up some general ideas such as what/who to avoid.

Put everything else either toward emergency fund and/or loans. Don't charge anything, at least until all CCs are paid off. Never charge anything on a card that isn't paid off every month, as you will owe interest from that day on. Charge cards can be very dangerous to many people, as it is so easy to spend money you don't have with a card.
Thanks, I will check out that book, sounds like it's right up my alley (getting rich slowly :P).
LeeMKE
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by LeeMKE »

bump

Love reading about folks getting a solid start on their professional life and investment life. Good for you!
The mightiest Oak is just a nut who stayed the course.
Topic Author
avidsaver
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by avidsaver »

Hi everyone, I hit a milestone this month and I wanted to update everyone on my progress and, once again, thank you all for the help as I would not have felt confident to start when I did without your guidance and would have missed out on months of employer matches (free money! :moneybag ).

My 401K account balance just crossed over $1,000 this month. It may not seem like much, but it is a lot of money to me and it makes life a bit less stressful to know that I have /something/ put away for retirement and that I will be able to retire one day if I keep at it. Going after that financial freedom is really rewarding! (EDIT: I forgot to add that I have been checking on the balance less and less frequently and have not messed with my AA, 80/20 seems like a good fit for me./EDIT)

My insurance finally kicked in (for some reason, it did not start until march rather than January) and I am putting enough in my HSA to get the full employer match there as well.

Things are a bit grim on the debt front, however. I have been using ReadyForZero and slowly paying them off ($200/mo right now is the plan) but my dog had to be hospitalized at the end of January and that added a rather large vet bill to my debt (considering she keeps me sane though, she's worth it and it is on auto-pay to be paid off in full before I am charged interest on a 0% card). This month I also paid off the remaining balance of my SSI overpayment in full ($310). I know it was not the most logical or financially sound thing to do since it was a 0% interest –i debated with myself back and forth for awhile on this – but at the end of the day knowing that it is finally over with and out of the way is a huge emotional win! It also was the highest minimum payment of all my debts so it does free up cash flow if things get hairy (and I don't want to resort to credit cards!).

I do have a small bit of cash in a savings account as the start of an emergency fund just under $200 as well.

So some good, some bad news but overall a huge thank you to the bogleheads community!! :sharebeer
Spectre
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by Spectre »

Congratulations!
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BL
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 40

Post by BL »

Yes, congratulations! You have made progress and handled the ups and downs.
Topic Author
avidsaver
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by avidsaver »

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share a quick update and some observations I've made that are 'duh' things but did not really sink into until now when i'm seeing it in action. Since the original post, I have though a lot about my risk tolerance and how I reacted to changes in the market at 80/20. I decided that 90/10 was more of what I wanted (and probably needed to reach my goals tbh). After thinking about it some more, I set it in my mind that is what I wanted and set it so that any future contributions are made at 90/10 so it my allocations has slowly been moving in that direction and will eventually be 90/10.

Some interesting things I have noticed though, after leaving Mint for HelloWallet when Mint was not syncing with my accounts (Mint finally is working with them again so I've moved back to using that as I like the interface better), each contribution HelloWallet would give me the percentage increase in value which I did not really think about before. With each contribution, the balance grew higher and each following contribution became and even smaller percentage of the overall balance. Of course, since the amount of the contribution isn't really changing much this makes sense, but... this is going to mean that at some point market movements/fund price changes are going to be bigger than the contributions and the growth is going to outpace the contributions. This is a concept that has always been kind of hard to grasp--I've understood that it's how the compound growth is supposed to work but as it doesn't really line up with more tangible things like compound interest it has been hard to picture. Now I "get" those charts of projected savings where at a certain point the growth of the portfolio becomes exponential and diverges from the contribution line.
Image

It's funny.. I never thought I'd be glad to look forward to lower percentage increases after each contribution, but that just means the overall balance is getting higher ;).

Of course, this amplification (probably not the correct term) can also work against me and be a decline in value instead of growth but that's a risk I have to take and will just have to be as diversified and low cost as possible since that is all I can really control! Hopefully these thoughts from a new investor will help Bogleheads even better explain some of these harder to understand aspects / where the confusion is.
Topic Author
avidsaver
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by avidsaver »

Hi everyone, it is now a year later and I thought it was time for an update. A co worker asked me about my 401k choices which led me to check this thread, hopefully this update helps some people in a similar position as me.

Well, 2015 has had both good and bad for me and ups and downs for my investments. The previous image I showed has nice increases in fund values along with contributions and I was rather excited. However, as you all know the second half of the year was not nearly as kind and we had a large drop in fund values. My funds have mostly recovered but I am still sitting at YTD performance of -1.84%. Several things happened though including that I did not stop or change my contribution percentage--I just kept the deductions going even as the value kept dropping (that big correction a few months ago was harsh to watch). And I even stuck to my IPS and did not go back on my decision to move to a 90/10 allocation, telling myself that at least I get to buy some stock at a discount :). Currently I'm sitting at about 85% stock / 15% bonds with each contribution moving my AA closer to 90/10. I also, and this is perhaps the most important, stopped checking the balance so frequently! And now even with the values inching upwards I have not been very inclined to check. I will look at the balance following each paycheck to make sure it's being deposited properly but other than that I do not pay much attention to it, just letting it sit there and (hopefully) grow for my future self.

I wish Mint was working to show you all the new graph with all the red declines to counter the one above but unfortunately my investment accounts are greyed out on that tab and it's not letting me pull up the performance charts so they must be doing some work on the site :/. It's quite a lot of red yet I made it through heh.

--not required reading below--

As for the bad stuff that I mentioned for those curious... the debt payoff has not been going well due to money being especially tight after having to quickly move out of my apartment in august to a more expensive one. Our landlord had passed away and the new owner was... well it wasn't a good situation with a whole litany of issues. Luckily my SO's family member was able to loan us the money for the security deposit (needless to say even though I covered my butt with photos, cleaned it well, and followed the letter of my state's landlord-tenant laws they would not do a walk through and then proceeded to never give us the security deposit back for a BS reason... the toilet flap thing that stops water from running that we've been telling the landlord(s) about since we first moved in of all things). Sigh. So I've been paying my half of that loan back and more expensive rent which was all my "extra" money I was throwing at the debt avalanche :-(. Once my loan is paid back and I get my pay raise in February I should be able to make progress on that again. For now I'm just putting as much as I can towards it. Our new apartment is much nicer and the landlord is a decent personal though so here's to 2016!

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope that you all had wonderful holidays and that my wall of text (sorry!) update is able to help someone!
Tamahome
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by Tamahome »

A quick note on your "not required" reading...

In many states, if the Landlord does NOT do a walkthrough, they are required to return 100% of the deposit, regardless of damage. Depending on state law, you may be entitled to putative damages (damages to punish the landlord) in addition to the return of the deposit. Look for a landlord tenant lawyer or research it on your own and take it to small claims court. Also, there may be resources for renters through local or state government that can point you in the right direction for your rights. Do not walk away from your money. It is yours.
I'm not a financial professional. Post is info only & not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship exists with reader. Scrutinize my ideas as if you spoke with a guy at a bar. I may be wrong.
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by avidsaver »

Hi everyone, I wanted to post here to share a short update. I would not have this success without your advice so I figured you all deserved an update.
My 401k has continued to chug along and it recently hit a milestone: I passed $5,000 in my 401k!

Today, it is sitting at 87.96% stocks and 12.04% bonds with the allocation slowly moving to my desired 90/10 with each bi-weekly paycheck contribution. The balance is sitting at $5,228.50 with a cost basis of $5,014.28. 8-) :moneybag

I am still working on trying to live within my means and pay down debt. I felt that I was finally ready emotionally/psychologically to go back to schol and I am currently enrolled at the local community college where I am going to finish up that associates degree and get that piece of paper! heh

Thank you everyone for your support and advice! :sharebeer :sharebeer
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BL
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Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by BL »

Thank you for the update and for sharing your struggles and successes. I think it is important for us to see that and hopefully is helpful for you to share it as well. Kind of the old "two steps forward, one step back" life.
Topic Author
avidsaver
Posts: 76
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:47 am

Re: Please Help: I am eligible to participate in my first 401K.

Post by avidsaver »

Yes, it is helpful to talk to you since I do not have many people in real life that I can talk about this kind of stuff with! :D
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