Recent content by hellodeli1

The nice thing about 529 plans is the ability to change the beneficiary to any of the following: A son or daughter, or a descendant of either; A stepson or stepdaughter; A brother, sister, stepbrother, or stepsister; The father or mother, or an ancestor of either; A stepfather or...

Actually, since you are considering cost averaging, the assumption is that you'll be in the market for a while. In this case, it's actually better to go ahead and invest the lump sum. In the long run, you'll get a better return because of the time the money was in the market. musings on...

Bank of Mom and Dad I never grew up with the opportunity to make any withdrawals from the Bank of Mom and Dad, but as a new parent, I don't think that giving your kid some money to help them get started is in itself a bad idea. BUT, you have to have raised them right with proper understanding...

My main gripe with the calculator is that it doesn't factor in contributions investments leading up to retirement. It also appears to overstate the amount needed in retirement, but I didn't investigate it fully. musings on personal finance

Raise and Bonus I received a 9% raise now preceded by about an 11% raise 6 months ago. I also got a ~5% bonus. No complaints from me! musings on personal finance

In 5 years ... To me, five years is a pretty short amount of time to do anything with -- which means, I suspect I'll still be in the workforce doing something much like what I am doing now, but still consistently socking it away and sticking to a plan of an early retirement. I was reading...

Will it stimulate the economy? I read an interesting post on this over at musings on personal finance -- to summarize, Americans have such a poor savings rate, that it's a pretty good bet that that money will go directly into the economy. Now, I'm not sure on a higher level what kind of impact...

~2x income We purchased our current home for about 2x our annual household income and we are able to manage our savings, retirement, and other expenses quite nicely. I think it largely depends on where you live as to how much you'll qualify for, but my advice is not to overextend yourself --...

Strength Training Yeah, I have to agree that you need to lift some weights and break up your eating into smaller meals throughout the day. Doing both will increase your metabolism (by building lean muscle mass). Sorry, this isn't a quick fix, but I don't think there are really any quick fixes.

31 in 2005 Well, I was 31 just a few years ago, so I know it wasn't a drastically different situation than what I am in now. HH income around 200k and a net worth around 500k. I'm hoping to retire "as soon as I can" . . . I stumbled across a blog for someone with similar tastes, thought I'd...