The Intersection of FIRE and Disney

[elaine amj]

I just FIREd last month. Wasn't sure how DH would handle the market downturn. Thankfully, money has been flowing in lately through a variety of different sources so he hasn't been anxious at all and even gave me the green light to put another big chunk of cash reserves into the stock market next week. More Vanguard funds, here I come!

 

[calypso726]

So uhhhh how about that stock market?? I was doing my weekly financial update in my spreadsheet and it seems there was another rough one.

Not even going to look at the account balances right now. My current mantra is "everything is on sale, buy more while it's on clearance."

 

[tink1970]

Not even going to look at the account balances right now. My current mantra is "everything is on sale, buy more while it's on clearance."

Welp DH and I lost a BMW this week

Actually, thanks for the reminder @SouthFayetteFan since I hadn't funded my IRA yet this year. End of the year sales! I can't think of it any other way because otherwise I know my IRA lost a car, too (maybe a really stripped down BMW or MB, or a fully tricked out Honda, sigh).

 

[1st*toright]

I just caught up on the last 10 pages or so - lots of interesting thoughts here. Enjoying seeing how everyone else is handling the now/later/enjoyment/savings dilemma.

Thanks to @SouthFayetteFan, I'm going to kick myself in the pants and go stick some of my HSA money in a vanguard fund. My company uses Health Equity as its HSA provider, so I have no excuse. Also, going to figure out how to efficiently submit health stuff for reimbursement and start using rewards earning ccs to pay medical bills/prescriptions. We usually use our HSA card directly, for ease of processing, but that means we are losing out on rewards.

The stock market stuff has been interesting, for sure. I admit to being ridiculously head in the sand as far as my retirement accounts go - both DH and I have 401ks that we pretty much ignore - esp. the ones from our previous jobs. I'm sure we've taken a hit, but I don't need to care for about another ten years, so I'm not worried about it.

I have been paying closer attention to the performance of my company's stock. I work for a fortune 500 company and I get options each year, which are typically quite valuable. Our stock is down $20 a share from where it was this past summer, in spite of the fact that the company has had its best financial results ever this year. Fortunately, I exercised some of my options when the stock was at its peak, or I'd be kicking myself for sure. Again, I don't have to exercise any of my options anytime soon, and our stock will bounce back along with the rest of the market eventually, so it isn't terribly stressful because I haven't been banking on that money for anything immediate.

I'm pretty comfortable with risk when there is a long time horizon, but any cash I know I will need in the next 2-3 years goes into CDs or stays as cash, because I would be worried about that short a time horizon. So I've started building a CD ladder in anticipation of my oldest going to college in 2 years. A financial goal for 2019 is to get a better handle on the retirement stuff and longer term financial plans.

I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with my YNAB reports to look at our expenses/income for 2018.

 

[1st*toright]

Yeah, this is an old ccoversation, but its interesting to think about!

1. Emergency Fund - having ready cash makes me feel much more financially secure, so this is key for me, both in terms of planning and peace of mind (and bank bonuses!)
2. Contribute to get 401k match - as @amalone1013 said, free money!
2. Pay down CC Debt - yes, things on fire. We did used to live on the float, pre YNAB, so although we paid off in full and didn't incur interest, we were spending ahead of our income - not great.
3. Max 401k/HSA/ - lowering taxable income = instant return of something like 20% for us, in addition to this being our main form of savings (set it up, forget it exists)
4. Pay Ahead on Student Loans - we didn't have much in the way of student loans, but we got through them asap because the interest rates were higher than anything we could get on savings.
5. Pay ahead on auto loan - purely psychological for DH's benefit. He hates owing anything on a car just because he does, so even though the interest rate was super low, he just wanted it gone.
6. Super secure investments - CD ladder, relatively short term for anticipated college expenses
7. Market investments - cash outside 401ks that doesn't have a near-term need associated with it.
8. Pay off mortgage - really low priority for me. We have a good rate on our mortgage, and I expect inflation at some point, so having some low-interest debt might be a good thing in the next 10-15 years. Also, its a duplex, so part of our mortgage is related to our rental property and we can deduct that from the rental income, so it will continue to benefit us from a tax perspective, even if we don't wind up itemizing deductions on our personal return because of tax reform.

 

[Mome Rath]

Welp, if you are interested in market history; today was the single largest point gain on the Dow.

 

[GlamMistress]

Welp, if you are interested in market history; today was the single largest point gain on the Dow.

The market is bonkers right now. I guess this is our Santa rally. It just came a little late this year. Either that, or its a dead cat bounce. I kept right on buying, week in and week out, so I get the highs and the lows.

I prefer the highs, lol.

 

[georgina]

My 23 year old DD's company had a seminar for the employees on how to save after tax dollars through payroll deductions and then convert the money to a Roth IRA. (particularly easy if it is a Fidelity Roth it seems.) Because her company doesn't match 401k contributions, she would be eligible to save the max $18,000 in pre-tax dollars and up to $37,000 after tax. She doesn't have THAT much extra but we are looking at how much she could add to her existing monthly savings.

We haven't done anything with our stocks lately but we did change a portion of our bond funds to fixed annuities since we are retired.

 

[mmmears]

The market is bonkers right now. I guess this is our Santa rally. It just came a little late this year. Either that, or its a dead cat bounce. I kept right on buying, week in and week out, so I get the highs and the lows.

I prefer the highs, lol.

Yep. That downward spiral didn't last as long as I thought, but it could be bouncing up and down right now.

 

[WVMomof3]

We had to cash out our 529 to pay spring tuition and it happened on Christmas eve.

 

[elaine amj]

Welp, if you are interested in market history; today was the single largest point gain on the Dow.

We lucked out. I bought $7k of stocks last week and another $20k on Christmas Eve. DH was happy today

I have another $6-10k to invest in January.

 

[AlohaNow]

I’ll follow up on my previous “I’m totally chill and don’t care about market slumps” post with the fact that it did prompt me to check on the adjustments into more conservative portfolios that happen automatically in the kids 529s. All is well on that front, as my high schooler’s money has shifted significantly into the safer havens area! I knew that they shifted on their own timetable, but I hadn’t actually looked at the chart in years. It’s good to brush up on these things and be informed about your own investments!

 

[alryan]

I am also a set it and forget type investor, only looking at our balances once a quarter. Definitely the biggest drop we've had in ten years. But I do remember 2008, we had just reached $100,000 and that felt like such an accomplishment. So that $50,000 drop felt a lot worse than this one, but I'll just keep plugging away each month. But yes, the highs are much more fun, like when our investments made more than our income one quarter. Hopefully those days are here again soon!

 

[alryan]

We lucked out. I bought $7k of stocks last week and another $20k on Christmas Eve. DH was happy today

I have another $6-10k to invest in January.

Maybe this question is too in depth for here, but I'll ask anyway. I know I always hear of buying more when the stock market is down, but my question is, where does that money come from? For us we are investing all we can every month, regardless of how the market is doing. So even when the market is down and I'd like to invest more, there is no extra money. Since we are still at least 10 years from retirement we are almost all in the stock market. I think you have recently FIRE'd, so is this money that you have in cash? So when did you start to build that cash reserve?

 

[DisneyMandC]

I decided to check my county 457 plan to see what it was looking like today. I only started this account this year and only put $20 in per paycheck (I max my state 457 and 401(a) contributions). I've contributed $480 to this plan and it's currently valued at $425 Lol I know it will come back around, but I was like dang, that's disheartening haha.

 

[1st*toright]

I decided to check my county 457 plan to see what it was looking like today. I only started this account this year and only put $20 in per paycheck (I max my state 457 and 401(a) contributions). I've contributed $480 to this plan and it's currently valued at $425 Lol I know it will come back around, but I was like dang, that's disheartening haha.

I added to our 529 plan yesterday (wanted to max the contribution out to get state tax benefit for 2018) and it was depressing to see that the return for the year was negative. It does suck when you are just starting out so the losses are coming out of your actual contributions, rather than just a loss of investment gain.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

I became a really good saver because my parents would buy everything for me lol. Then I became super stingy with my money because I didn't want to spend my OWN money, but their's instead.

We can relate. DH's son was living with us going to college. Yes he also worked. He would help himself to whatever he wanted in the kitchen. One day (and only once) he purchased some beer. DH grabbed one from the fridge. Well an uproar was heard throughout the house "that's my beer". Very soon after he had his own fridge in his own apt. Two bulls in the same corral never works out.

 

[elaine amj]

Maybe this question is too in depth for here, but I'll ask anyway. I know I always hear of buying more when the stock market is down, but my question is, where does that money come from? For us we are investing all we can every month, regardless of how the market is doing. So even when the market is down and I'd like to invest more, there is no extra money. Since we are still at least 10 years from retirement we are almost all in the stock market. I think you have recently FIRE'd, so is this money that you have in cash? So when did you start to build that cash reserve?

We had a bit of an influx of cash from various sources around the time I FIREd (just one of those awesome quirks of timing) and DH insisted we hang on for a little bit longer waiting for a market drop before we invested it.

I actually have another large chunk from a recent rental property sale that DH just put in a 3 month GIC so I'm a bit miffed I didn't have that money on hand to dump into the market earlier this week.

Also for us, DH feels better with a chunk of cash reserves so we generally have larger cash reserves than advised. If it were solely up to me, I'd be doing it like you with every spare bit invested as soon as possible.

Oh well, he's good at finding a variety of cash sources which I think is a great skill

 

[QueenIsabella]

We have a lot of individual stocks on our portfolio, so just for yucks, DH checked them yesterday. Bottom line, it just reminded us why we're better off not looking--they were up for the day but down for the year. Interestingly, our mutual funds were down yesterday--still scratching my head on that. But again, overall, they've been doing great by us, so I'm not going to let one day break our faith. It was just interesting. And angina-inducing.

 

[Mome Rath]

Maybe this question is too in depth for here, but I'll ask anyway. I know I always hear of buying more when the stock market is down, but my question is, where does that money come from? For us we are investing all we can every month, regardless of how the market is doing. So even when the market is down and I'd like to invest more, there is no extra money. Since we are still at least 10 years from retirement we are almost all in the stock market. I think you have recently FIRE'd, so is this money that you have in cash? So when did you start to build that cash reserve?

I grew up watching markets and talking stocks; we were always taught to keep cash on hand for the express purpose of putting more cash into the market when it the time was right. In short, you want a cash balance in your investment account in order to take advantage of a decline... now, that is a no-no to some that really don't like people trying to "play the market." Some people have an inflow of income and split the extra income; invest most of it right away, but keep some in a cash balance in the account to play with or pick up deals.