Debt Dumpers - 2018

[DLgal]

This is probably a no-brainer but all the retirement posts and just paying more attention to our own financial situation has got me thinking! Would y’all recommend meeting with a financial planner?

We are newly married, no kids, both with steady local government jobs. But I think it would be beneficial to meet with a neutral party who can answer questions about retirement, savings, etc.

For those that have met with one, did you go through a large company or find a local person? TIA for any advice. This thread has been immensely helpful and eye opening.

If you think it would help you, then by all means, do it. I think you should look for a FEE BASED (not commission based) financial advisor. The person you meet with should not be trying to sell you any investment products. He/she should just be ADVISING you.

I never have felt the need to meet with a financial advisor. You can learn pretty much all you need to know by doing some online research and reading books. Unless you actually have assets or a large amount of money to invest already, it seems kind of a waste of money to pay a financial advisor to give you information you can get for free. We are in our late 30's, have two teenage kids, and are on track to have a $5m retirement (military pension plus TSP plus Roth IRAs) by the time we want to retire. We could have had a lot more, but hindsight is 20/20 and frankly, we couldn't really afford to save more than we have up to this point, with the choices we made regarding me being a stay at home mom and quitting my job 14 years ago.

The best thing you can do is max out your Roth IRA every year (if you qualify based on income limits), set your 401k contribution to 15%, and let it ride. Invest heavily in stocks (domestic and international mix) while you are young, adding in some bonds and government securities as you approach retirement age. If you have kids, start saving for college the day they are born and contribute as much as you can to a 529.

 

[pblack]

So the hubby and I have decided to be a little spontaneous and hit up the Disneyland parks on Saturday! Our AP's expire in 2 weeks and we'd like to get one last trip in before they do since I don't think we'll be renewing. We had originally talked about going down for this weekend, then nixed it because we didn't want to spend the money. This morning I decided to look at flights for going down Saturday morning and coming back Saturday night and luckily there were flights that worked out. ! (Living in Sacramento sometimes has it's perks.) Best of all it shouldn't be a completely budget breaking trip! I paid for my flight with points and since I took advantage of the Southwest companion pass promo when they had it, hubby's flight was "free." I spent $23 in total on security fees. We're going to rent a car ($52) and park ($20) instead of using Uber (~$60 RT). It's slightly more expensive, but gives us a bit more leeway if we decide we want to do anything else before heading to the airport. (Hello Roasting Water! It's a coffee shop that has fabulous coffee...I highly suggest checking them out if you can if ever in the Anaheim area.)

Anyways, I know that this update isn't completely budget related, but had to share my excitement!

 

[MamaBelleRN]

One of my goals is to someday have a rental property (or several) that we can use for income during retirement. I feel like having that available, in addition to retirement account funds, would be a very great benefit in retirement.

As far as how much you should save towards retirement, I would say as much as you can. The more you can save, the more secure you will be in retirement. Generally though, 15% is a pretty decent rule of thumb, but depending on circumstances in your old age, it may or may not be enough to maintain the standard of living that you want.

DH is in his late 20s and I am in my mid-30s. We are currently saving 19% of our income towards retirement. We work for a university and get a generous 10% match when we make a 5% contribution toward our retirement. The other 4% comes from maxing out my Roth IRA. We have worked our way up to the 19% over a little time and my goal is ultimately to get us to the point of maxing out an IRA for both myself and DH. That would put us around the 23% savings mark. And I might even aim for 25% eventually. But I don't think we will be able to get there for some time given our other priorities, such as funding a 6-month emergency fund and wanting to increase our savings towards DD's college fund. Right now we are putting in just $100 a month in her fund, but my goal is to be putting in $500 a month eventually. It is just hard to do it all when we are paying a huge amount towards child care expenses too.

We definitely need to work up to contributing 15% of our income. It probably won’t happen overnight, but my DH and I talked about it over lunch. If we stick with our goals, at a quick glance we figured we should be able to get there within 2-3 years. Both of us only get a 4% match and no pensions, so we really need to start focusing in on our savings.

We are super blessed to have free child care from our moms, but I only work once or twice/week. If I worked full time and we had to pay for care, 70% or more of my paycheck would go for child care. Day care can be prohibitively expensive! The positive side is that once my youngest is in Kindergarten (five years from now ) I could easily double and nearly triple my current income. This will make a significant difference in our ability to save.

If you think it would help you, then by all means, do it. I think you should look for a FEE BASED (not commission based) financial advisor. The person you meet with should not be trying to sell you any investment products. He/she should just be ADVISING you.

I never have felt the need to meet with a financial advisor. You can learn pretty much all you need to know by doing some online research and reading books. Unless you actually have assets or a large amount of money to invest already, it seems kind of a waste of money to pay a financial advisor to give you information you can get for free. We are in our late 30's, have two teenage kids, and are on track to have a $5m retirement (military pension plus TSP plus Roth IRAs) by the time we want to retire. We could have had a lot more, but hindsight is 20/20 and frankly, we couldn't really afford to save more than we have up to this point, with the choices we made regarding me being a stay at home mom and quitting my job 14 years ago.

The best thing you can do is max out your Roth IRA every year (if you qualify based on income limits), set your 401k contribution to 15%, and let it ride. Invest heavily in stocks (domestic and international mix) while you are young, adding in some bonds and government securities as you approach retirement age. If you have kids, start saving for college the day they are born and contribute as much as you can to a 529.

Do you have a book you found particularly helpful? Like I said, I am like a fish out of water when it comes to financial planning. I wish I had the same forsight you had to get myself on track for a hearty retirement fund when I was in my early 20s. While getting serious about retirement at 34 is much better than getting serious at 54, I feel pretty anxious about meeting our retirement goals. Hopefully we’ll still be able to get to a savings that will allow us to retire with financial security.

 

[Eureka]

If you think it would help you, then by all means, do it. I think you should look for a FEE BASED (not commission based) financial advisor. The person you meet with should not be trying to sell you any investment products. He/she should just be ADVISING you.

I never have felt the need to meet with a financial advisor. You can learn pretty much all you need to know by doing some online research and reading books. Unless you actually have assets or a large amount of money to invest already, it seems kind of a waste of money to pay a financial advisor to give you information you can get for free. We are in our late 30's, have two teenage kids, and are on track to have a $5m retirement (military pension plus TSP plus Roth IRAs) by the time we want to retire. We could have had a lot more, but hindsight is 20/20 and frankly, we couldn't really afford to save more than we have up to this point, with the choices we made regarding me being a stay at home mom and quitting my job 14 years ago.

The best thing you can do is max out your Roth IRA every year (if you qualify based on income limits), set your 401k contribution to 15%, and let it ride. Invest heavily in stocks (domestic and international mix) while you are young, adding in some bonds and government securities as you approach retirement age. If you have kids, start saving for college the day they are born and contribute as much as you can to a 529.

You can even start with a rep from your bank and then maybe they can recommend a financial advisor if they can't answer your questions or if you have a more specialized topic you want to discuss. Ours has never tried to sell us products we don't want.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Do you have a book you found particularly helpful? Like I said, I am like a fish out of water when it comes to financial planning. I wish I had the same forsight you had to get myself on track for a hearty retirement fund when I was in my early 20s. While getting serious about retirement at 34 is much better than getting serious at 54, I feel pretty anxious about meeting our retirement goals. Hopefully we’ll still be able to get to a savings that will allow us to retire with financial security.

I'm fairly new to Reddit (read: I have no idea how to post there and have just been lurking around the site), but I recently started reading the /r/personalfinance board and it has some good information on investing. If you go to that board, on the right side of your screen there will be links to a bunch of different wikis including debt, managing money, investing, retirement, etc. These are good places to start with information you need all in one area. You can then branch out to read some of the questions people have posted to learn more.

As far as mine and DH's retirement goes, I work for local government and maxed our 403(b) plan last year. I can put in 9% of my salary and my work will match up to 7.5%. I also started contributing to our 457 plan the 1st of this year. I am doing Roth contributions for now at $40 per paycheck. I found out the other day that DH is only putting 2% of his pay into retirement and thereby missing out on the 5% match his work does He has instructions to get that up to speed soon, especially since he has an extra $90 in his paycheck now. His work does give him stocks every year though, so we do have shares issued to us in May every year, plus he started participating in a new program this year where employees can purchase stocks at 75% of their value. I hate the idea that he's been throwing away 3% worth of free money for the last two years though!!

 

[MamaBelleRN]

I'm fairly new to Reddit (read: I have no idea how to post there and have just been lurking around the site), but I recently started reading the /r/personalfinance board and it has some good information on investing. If you go to that board, on the right side of your screen there will be links to a bunch of different wikis including debt, managing money, investing, retirement, etc. These are good places to start with information you need all in one area. You can then branch out to read some of the questions people have posted to learn more.

As far as mine and DH's retirement goes, I work for local government and maxed our 403(b) plan last year. I can put in 9% of my salary and my work will match up to 7.5%. I also started contributing to our 457 plan the 1st of this year. I am doing Roth contributions for now at $40 per paycheck. I found out the other day that DH is only putting 2% of his pay into retirement and thereby missing out on the 5% match his work does He has instructions to get that up to speed soon, especially since he has an extra $90 in his paycheck now. His work does give him stocks every year though, so we do have shares issued to us in May every year, plus he started participating in a new program this year where employees can purchase stocks at 75% of their value. I hate the idea that he's been throwing away 3% worth of free money for the last two years though!!

Thanks for the tip! I’ll check out Reddit. I didn’t even realize they had a personal finance board!

 

[dayvewc]

Sadly, most of my retirement planning has been to save beer cans, cash them in and buy a PowerBall ticket.

So far, I'll be working the morning of my funeral.

Actually, working as a teacher I get a defined benefit pension at 80% of the average of my 5 highest paid years. Plus SS, so not a bad deal overall - provided I don't have major debt going in to retirement. I'm looking at about 17 years until retirement age, so I have also been increasing my Roth IRA contributions, a tax-deferred 503 (?) paycheck contribution, and a few other investments (~$100 / month). I probably won't retire with millions, but if I can reduce my debt, I'll be comfortable when I get there.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I'm fairly new to Reddit (read: I have no idea how to post there and have just been lurking around the site), but I recently started reading the /r/personalfinance board and it has some good information on investing. If you go to that board, on the right side of your screen there will be links to a bunch of different wikis including debt, managing money, investing, retirement, etc. These are good places to start with information you need all in one area. You can then branch out to read some of the questions people have posted to learn more.

As far as mine and DH's retirement goes, I work for local government and maxed our 403(b) plan last year. I can put in 9% of my salary and my work will match up to 7.5%. I also started contributing to our 457 plan the 1st of this year. I am doing Roth contributions for now at $40 per paycheck. I found out the other day that DH is only putting 2% of his pay into retirement and thereby missing out on the 5% match his work does He has instructions to get that up to speed soon, especially since he has an extra $90 in his paycheck now. His work does give him stocks every year though, so we do have shares issued to us in May every year, plus he started participating in a new program this year where employees can purchase stocks at 75% of their value. I hate the idea that he's been throwing away 3% worth of free money for the last two years though!!

When DH started working at the university, the first thing that I did was help him set up his retirement contribution at 5%. There is a one year delay between starting work and getting the 10% match. I wanted to be sure that he wouldn't miss a dime of that match once the 1 year mark hit, which was this past September. It is really nice to see that extra money going towards his retirement account every month now.

 

[DLgal]

We definitely need to work up to contributing 15% of our income. It probably won’t happen overnight, but my DH and I talked about it over lunch. If we stick with our goals, at a quick glance we figured we should be able to get there within 2-3 years. Both of us only get a 4% match and no pensions, so we really need to start focusing in on our savings.

We are super blessed to have free child care from our moms, but I only work once or twice/week. If I worked full time and we had to pay for care, 70% or more of my paycheck would go for child care. Day care can be prohibitively expensive! The positive side is that once my youngest is in Kindergarten (five years from now ) I could easily double and nearly triple my current income. This will make a significant difference in our ability to save.



Do you have a book you found particularly helpful? Like I said, I am like a fish out of water when it comes to financial planning. I wish I had the same forsight you had to get myself on track for a hearty retirement fund when I was in my early 20s. While getting serious about retirement at 34 is much better than getting serious at 54, I feel pretty anxious about meeting our retirement goals. Hopefully we’ll still be able to get to a savings that will allow us to retire with financial security.

Gosh, I can't think of any books off the top of my head. I generally will just Google different finance/investment topics and read anything that sounds helpful or interesting. utilize various calculators, and read financial forums. A lot of information is out there and none of it is super secret.

 

[Eureka]

When DH started working at the university, the first thing that I did was help him set up his retirement contribution at 5%. There is a one year delay between starting work and getting the 10% match. I wanted to be sure that he wouldn't miss a dime of that match once the 1 year mark hit, which was this past September. It is really nice to see that extra money going towards his retirement account every month now.

I get a 10% match too and that's a very generous match, but I was eligible after only three months on the job. Dh's company just started matching too but he doesn't remember how much. Doesn't really matter since it's free money to us since we're both maxing out right now, plus he does the over-50 catch up. When the kids are in college, we may reduce how much we put in (still putting in some, but I only need to put in 2.5% to get my match) but we'll see when we get there depending on how the market goes.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Love reading everyones plans and commitments to pay down debt for 2018! It motivates me a lot and I am almost done with my CC debt.

Of course I have my car payment but with that I am 50% through with the loan

One day soon I will post up my goals and where I stand! Just trying to figure out now where I actually stand haha

Hang in there! I was in your shoes too in 2015. We paid off dh's truck 6 mos early which felt so so good to cross that off our list.
That was a $500/mo payment which is now 25% of our current snowball. yay!
We normally take turns getting a new car but I've been holding out a little longer because I dread starting that all over again. Once I start looking at new cars I get excited but then look at my snowball and know I love that more.
The crazy thing is when I paid my car off in 2011, I asked dh to just hold off 6 months and let me caught up a bit with some bills but he was like a kid in a candy shop and wouldn't wait. There was nothing wrong with his truck except that it was 10 yrs old and he was tired of looking at it.
Now that it's my turn, Bwah, ha ha!!! he has no choice but to wait longer now for a truck.
(Sorry, that's the little evil streak in me. lol) July will be 2 years since it would have been my turn to get a car and we've made great progress since then. That's the part he doesn't really "see" because it's invisible.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

If you think it would help you, then by all means, do it. I think you should look for a FEE BASED (not commission based) financial advisor. The person you meet with should not be trying to sell you any investment products. He/she should just be ADVISING you.

I never have felt the need to meet with a financial advisor. You can learn pretty much all you need to know by doing some online research and reading books. Unless you actually have assets or a large amount of money to invest already, it seems kind of a waste of money to pay a financial advisor to give you information you can get for free. We are in our late 30's, have two teenage kids, and are on track to have a $5m retirement (military pension plus TSP plus Roth IRAs) by the time we want to retire. We could have had a lot more, but hindsight is 20/20 and frankly, we couldn't really afford to save more than we have up to this point, with the choices we made regarding me being a stay at home mom and quitting my job 14 years ago.

The best thing you can do is max out your Roth IRA every year (if you qualify based on income limits), set your 401k contribution to 15%, and let it ride. Invest heavily in stocks (domestic and international mix) while you are young, adding in some bonds and government securities as you approach retirement age. If you have kids, start saving for college the day they are born and contribute as much as you can to a 529.

This is great advice. I found an ad through Amex back when ds21 was a newborn. There was no internet back then and no one I knew of used a financial planner so we figured Amex is a solid company that we trust. Well I can't type the names I'd like to call him.

He sooooo didn't have our best interests in mind when recommending things. At the time, I had been contributing to my Vanguard at work, pre tax, no load, since before I even started dating dh. He was trying to steer us toward investments that have a 5% load. Of course he didn't have much to say when I asked why would I waste 5% paying a load when I can do it free through work? He also was trying to sell us whole life insurance which cost hundreds per month when we really just wanted term coverage. We had a baby and bought a fixer upper house in the same week so we suddenly had a lot of expenses. It was already hard trying to keep funding the Vanguard so we weren't really looking for another avenue of investing right then. The plan we eventually got for dh was $25/month. Arrgh! He was shocked I do our taxes myself (my dad has an accounting degree and taught me at 16, starting with the EZ form and gradually building up.) He was so desperately trying to find some write-off I missed on our return but couldn't offer any tips there either.
If I had known the difference between fee-based vs. commission based planners I would not have wasted our time with him. We would have gladly paid a fee to have someone looking out for US!

 

[jen7233]

This is probably a no-brainer but all the retirement posts and just paying more attention to our own financial situation has got me thinking! Would y’all recommend meeting with a financial planner?

We are newly married, no kids, both with steady local government jobs. But I think it would be beneficial to meet with a neutral party who can answer questions about retirement, savings, etc.

For those that have met with one, did you go through a large company or find a local person? TIA for any advice. This thread has been immensely helpful and eye opening.

We’ve met with financial planners in the past. I would say they were more like insurance salesmen posed as financial planners. I get it, insurance is a factor in financial planning, but they were very insistent to get their whole life products. It was through First Command, (edit so as not to confuse-technically yes back in that time it was USPA&IRA, but the bank was First Command and the financial planning later went to FC so it is just all synonymous to me) who later had a lawsuit brought against them. We were both active duty at the time, enlisted. They had monthly “investment” briefings and sponsored a steak dinner, lol. This was I think in 1999. We walked out with front loaded ROTH IRAs and a money market account. The next year they called for us to do a financial planning update, where they tried to push whole life again. We turned it down again, they weren’t too happy. We didn’t see the point of the whole life and wanted simply to talk funds. Every year they’d call and want to do financial updates, and we would from that point turn it down. We opened up our own accounts with Vanguard some years ago for taxable accounts for other investing, but kept our ROTHs until last year, and finally broke all ties with them and transferred them to Vanguard. Just be cautious of financial planners that are pushing their own product so much.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

@MamaBelleRN I find Money magazine to be a really great learning tool. It is written in a way that a beginner can gain a lot of value. I have been reading it for years and have learned so much about different financial topics such as investing, taxes, insurance, real estate, etc. And because it is a magazine, they keep you updated on any changes to tax or investing laws, which I find really useful. I usually read it on a plane when I travel for work and it takes me the whole flight to get through if I read it cover to cover. Nice way to fill the time.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

@MamaBelleRN I find Money magazine to be a really great learning tool. It is written in a way that a beginner can gain a lot of value. I have been reading it for years and have learned so much about different financial topics such as investing, taxes, insurance, real estate, etc. And because it is a magazine, they keep you updated on any changes to tax or investing laws, which I find really useful. I usually read it on a plane when I travel for work and it takes me the whole flight to get through if I read it cover to cover. Nice way to fill the time.

Thank You @Jen and Ashwin! I just checked it out and ordered the digital and hard copy subscription A beginner’s tool is exactly what I need!​

 

[GlamMistress]

Thanks for the tip! I’ll check out Reddit. I didn’t even realize they had a personal finance board!

Also check out R/FinancialIndependence - probably my fav sub next to churning. https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/

 

[DnA2010]

Wow so jealous of all these 10% match companies! Figuring out our retirement savings is one of my goals for the next couple of months...I don't really understand how DH's pension works (he's a part time paramedic but works equivalent of close to full time- can only get full time if we move which we won't ) and I think my company contributes 6.5% or 7%, but I should know, then I do another 10%, plus I have a smaller contribution with another bank...really should know where we are at

 

[HappyGrape]

joining the forum if this is ok. i have good pension, but would like to focus on other savings and getting more out of my hard earned cash.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Wow so jealous of all these 10% match companies!

Me too! We don't have a 401(k), so no match at all, but we do our best to contribute to our IRAs and Vanguard Fund every year.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Our trip to Indiana is in 2 weeks. I'm trying to get everything paid up this week so I can essentially use our whole checks for the trip. This week and next week are what will be on that check. I actually got quite a few hours for my shift (I think in was at 32, which is pretty good for me since I only work 3 days) and just got a call to come work overtime in the morning! I may actually see an hour or two of overtime. Hoping I can maybe get one more day in next week to give us a nice bit of extra cash for the trip.

I found a vehicle online I really like. $13,500 for a 2015 dodge journey with only 30k miles on it. I'm going to go have a look next week and see what they say as far as down payments and monthly payments. I highly doubt they will go for this, but I'm going to ask if they'd take the down payment in a post dated check for the day my taxes will be deposited so I can maybe not have to rent a car for our road trip. It's a very very long shot, but the worst that can happen is they say no, so I'm going for it. Maybe if I play the poor momma whose car got totally and needs something for her babies card I can make it happen. Lol. Kidding. Kinda.