Hey everyone
Chris here
I am a computer programmer, and do comedy in Chicago for fun.
At 29 yrs old I was on track to retire at 45, thanks to reading the Fool, Retireearlyhomepage, etc. that was only after cleaning up my act at around 26 (when I read the Millionaire Next door and realized hey I gotta pay off this debt and start saving).
Then I quit my job at 31, for awhile tried my hand at my own business (digital surveilance/security) though without a business plan it did not work out well. During that time period I sold a car and liquiated my 401k (26k at the time) for food money (well I could have spent less).
Anyway, got a job about a year ago, and am closing on a house this month and just going over my finances again and I'm just starting to save again. And I just realized how far behind I am on so many goals esp. financial ones.
Here are my numbers:
age:33
cash: 42K (about to drop 14750 on 5% down for loan, plus another 4K in closing costs plus 2.2K in what we in chicago call "Daley's Tax" which the seller pays everywhere else )
credit card debt:
3500 at 0% (for a few more months)
9500 at 1.99% for life of loan
investments:
all are in Roth IRAs:
US small cap: 8500
Emerging Markets: 2500
Other international: 2800
Cash: 750
The 750 cash is in my Schwab SIMPLE account for work it costs so darn much to trade I have to wait till i get 1000 so I can buy a fund without cost. (That is provided by my company).
That's it. This is also my first house. I am kinda freaking out about that too
I am kinda lost as to what to do. I know I need serious asset reallocation I am opening a BrownCo account this week and going to transfer the IRAs there since that's the cheapest and I get pretty good research from Schwab already. But as far as how to reallocate (or even how much I can afford to save) I am thinking of either using Financialengines or Morningstar.
I figure after paying my mortgage & bills I have maybe between 900 - 1200 a month to invest and pay off debt (I don't pay utilities now, so I don't have much of an idea of what I need yet, I only started using Quicken to track expenditures again about a week ago).
But since I work for a little company who just lost one client (out of 6 that we had) I figure 21K in an emergency fund is the first thing I should do. That should cover about $3300 a month. I was going to pay off the debt but that would leave me with only $10K or so and I don't feel safe, esp since I have pretty low rates on the debt that helps a lot.
One question I have, what do you think about using a ladder of 3x3 month cds for the emergency money? I figure will I really need the money that day, or couldn't I wait till the end of the month? It is not to get a higher rate as much as I want to keep it slightly more difficult to get to since I have dipped into my emergency funds before. Just wondering what others think.
Chris here
I am a computer programmer, and do comedy in Chicago for fun.
At 29 yrs old I was on track to retire at 45, thanks to reading the Fool, Retireearlyhomepage, etc. that was only after cleaning up my act at around 26 (when I read the Millionaire Next door and realized hey I gotta pay off this debt and start saving).
Then I quit my job at 31, for awhile tried my hand at my own business (digital surveilance/security) though without a business plan it did not work out well. During that time period I sold a car and liquiated my 401k (26k at the time) for food money (well I could have spent less).
Anyway, got a job about a year ago, and am closing on a house this month and just going over my finances again and I'm just starting to save again. And I just realized how far behind I am on so many goals esp. financial ones.
Here are my numbers:
age:33
cash: 42K (about to drop 14750 on 5% down for loan, plus another 4K in closing costs plus 2.2K in what we in chicago call "Daley's Tax" which the seller pays everywhere else )
credit card debt:
3500 at 0% (for a few more months)
9500 at 1.99% for life of loan
investments:
all are in Roth IRAs:
US small cap: 8500
Emerging Markets: 2500
Other international: 2800
Cash: 750
The 750 cash is in my Schwab SIMPLE account for work it costs so darn much to trade I have to wait till i get 1000 so I can buy a fund without cost. (That is provided by my company).
That's it. This is also my first house. I am kinda freaking out about that too
I am kinda lost as to what to do. I know I need serious asset reallocation I am opening a BrownCo account this week and going to transfer the IRAs there since that's the cheapest and I get pretty good research from Schwab already. But as far as how to reallocate (or even how much I can afford to save) I am thinking of either using Financialengines or Morningstar.
I figure after paying my mortgage & bills I have maybe between 900 - 1200 a month to invest and pay off debt (I don't pay utilities now, so I don't have much of an idea of what I need yet, I only started using Quicken to track expenditures again about a week ago).
But since I work for a little company who just lost one client (out of 6 that we had) I figure 21K in an emergency fund is the first thing I should do. That should cover about $3300 a month. I was going to pay off the debt but that would leave me with only $10K or so and I don't feel safe, esp since I have pretty low rates on the debt that helps a lot.
One question I have, what do you think about using a ladder of 3x3 month cds for the emergency money? I figure will I really need the money that day, or couldn't I wait till the end of the month? It is not to get a higher rate as much as I want to keep it slightly more difficult to get to since I have dipped into my emergency funds before. Just wondering what others think.