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We did the same thing this week. Moved the kids 529s from stocks to bonds/money market accounts. SMH. The market volatility had me worried, but sadly, I'm not sleeping any better, watching stocks go up.

We have 4 kids at home and are an one-income household. We're hoping to retire in the next 5 years. My husband will leave the military next year and pursue another job. He's looking for something not too stressful to supplement his military pension. Our oldest two will be headed to college soon...

I feel for you. I've had back pain since I turned 40 (7 years ago) due to herniated and bulging disks and degenerative disk disease. Nothing works for me either. We have 4 kids and I do my best to be available for them. But it really frustrates me when my pain gets in the way of enjoying my time...

Sorry that happened to you OP...how scary! I definitely think getting additional life insurance now is a good idea. We're a military family and purchased life insurance in our mid-30's. Our only regret is not getting more of it when we did. We both bought 20 year policies which are set to...

We were hoping to retire in 2 years but with 4 school-aged kids still at home (two of which will be headed to college in the next 2-3 years), we decided to continue w*rking for another 5 years. Better to be safe than sorry. We won't fund our kids entire education, but hope to help them with...

I tried reading it a few months ago...it was a bore and seemed to be very self-promoting (no surprise for Tony). Most of the information he spoke about can be found in shorter (more concise) financial planning books.

I could have written you post. We bought a fairly large amount of Precious Metals in 2011 (USAGX) and lost over 50% of it's value over the last 4 years. We held onto that fund and kept thinking it would turn around soon, but that never happened. Earlier this year, we bite the bullet and sold the...

We just hit $100K in our TSP fund. It feels good to see it there. We do have more money in Roth IRAs, but for some reason seeing the TSP made it more real. Congrats to you!

Thanks so much for sharing that with me wrigley...there is definitely a lot to consider in the renting game. You've given me a lot more to think about and I'm glad you had such a positive experience.

I would love to hear about your experience? Did you have any problems? Was it a good financial decision? We know renting it out would put us in a better financial situation (we're already looking at losing $20K when we list it), but we're not sure if it's worth the headache.

We're a military family and in the process of moving (PCS'ing) to another state. Stories like this make me realize that property management is not for us, so we're trying our best to sell our house. Sadly, the market is sluggish in our area, so renting our house may be the only option. Either...

Congrats! You should definitely be proud of your milestones.

Welcome Erik. Enjoy the forum!

Definitely keep it as an option and I would suggest you look at it sooner, rather than later. As Nords mentioned above, many military families miss out on this great saving vehicle. If we could go back in time, we would have put more money into TSP a few years ago. I'm not sure if "love" is...

Welcome to the forum. We're a military family too and you're a lot further that we were at your age. We didn't really start saving until we were in our early 30's (long story on that one). My only recommendation would be to revisit the TSP program. It's a really good program with very low...

We're not obsessed, but it's definitely a subject that comes up very frequently in our household. We still have a good 5 years to go and we may have to extend that time, depending on our finances.

Welcome to the board Chris. You sound like you're well on your way and a lot further along than I was at your age. Your parents sound very wise and hopefully my kids will say the same thing about us one day. My parents never talked about money when we were growing up (except for the fact that...

Thanks for sharing the link!

Yes, it seems like old traditions die hard, even when you're raised in Canada. Personally, I would have rather gotten a nice set of flatware, an espresso machine, CASH, etc...:)

I already have more gold than I know what to do with. In our culture it's common to give 24K gold when you get married. The problem is, I hate yellow gold (prefer white gold or platinum). So it all sits in the safe...obviously, I should have sold it when gold was at an all-time high. :facepalm:

Thank you for the additional advice and links. We're still discussing the best strategy, but leaning towards holding until the end of the year and see what happens. I don't think DH and I are on the same page as far as having Precious Metals, in our overall investment portfolio. But since...

Thank you for the different perspectives on this fund. I've never been a big fan of volatility, but we are relatively new to the mutual funds arena and learning through trial and error, what works for us. I'll pass this info onto my DH and we'll take another look at this fund and decide what...

This is my first post and I would appreciate any advice I can get from seasoned investors. We would like to retire early and hope to do so in about 7 years, when my DH retires from the military. We have four kids to put through college first. Our Roth IRAs are currently at USAA, but I'm...

Very nice ride OP. The major splurge for us, will be a cruise for our family (six of us). It's something we haven't been willing to do in the retirement/college saving years, but we definitely plan to do it. We'll have a separate fund for it, so it won't feel like we're taking away any money...

As the wife of an Army man and former marine, I would try my hardest to discourage my DS or DD from joining the service. It's a brutally hard life and not just for the person who joins. If he doesn't need the money for college, he can find other ways to see the world and find mental/physical...