5 Questions: Retirement Funds, Savings Bonds and Budgeting

The guys tackle five great listener questions today. For full answers listen to the episode below.

 Question One

 Longtime listener, quick question. I currently put about 25% of my income toward my betterment retirement fund. I rent now but eventually would like to buy a house within the next 10 years. Should I go 15% retirement and 10% home? I would create a new betterment account rather than keeping all in one. Let me know what you’d do.

 If you are able to save 25% of your income then you are definitely on the right track! The split of the savings really depends on your situation, the percent is arbitrary. What is really important is if x% is enough to reach your retirement and other goals.

 Taking into consideration how much you make, what kind of raises you can expect in the future and how much of a down payment you’ll need to purchase a home, will help you figure out if 10% over 10 years will be enough for the kind of home you would like to buy. You also need to figure out if saving 15% a year is enough for the retirement your looking for.

 Question Two

 Hi Guys- I’m 26, in sales (salary plus bonuses) and also work at a restaurant every Saturday. My salary is $42,000, and my bonuses usually total $5,000 per year. Serving money obviously fluctuates, but let’s say its $130.00 a week on average. (520/mo ~ $6/yr) = total $53k

 I have $3,300 in credit card debt and paying that off is my immediate financial goal. I’ve tightened my budget and am using the money i’m saving there plus my serving money to pay that off. Basically, i’m throwing every extra dollar I have at that debt.

 My question is what should I do when I pay that off. I have 19k in federal student loan debt, but I have friends and co-workers who say thats “not bad debt” and I should start saving for a house/investing my money instead of putting all my resources into paying that off as quick as possible.

 Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks again guys.

 We get this question a lot and most of the the time the answer is pay off your student loan debts after you you have suitable emergency fund in savings. You can’t wipe out your bank all accounts to pay off your debt. Leave yourself some breathing room and make sure you have some money saved up for any unaccepted bills or situations.

 Also depending on your debt interest rate, it might be ok to start investing. If you have a low rate (3.8%) putting a little into the market is ok. If you have a high interest rate (7%+) the 19k in loans will become 21, 22, 23k if not paid down quickly. The market average is 7% so if your loans are 7% or higher mathematically it’s a better choice to pay off debt first and fast. The freedom you feel when it’s all gone will be worth it.

 Question Three

 I am 31 years old and married. My wife and I make about 80k per year combined and live in Colorado. I contribute to my employers 401k up to match each year. I have an online high yield emergency fund account with about 10k saved. We only keep about 5k in our checking account to pay off the credit cards and mortgage payments each month.

 Here’s where it gets interesting: When I was a child I inherited a large amount of money, around 250k which was set aside until I was 18. Since then it has been in a portfolio of mutual funds actively managed by a financial advisor. The returns have been a meager 4% since 2004. This is where I’m concerned after hearing about the awesome returns you guys have been getting through betterment and vanguard.

 My financial advisor seems to be making a lot of money off me in quarterly fees (about 2500 per year) with very minimal returns compared to what I could be doing with betterment and vanguard.

 So my question is, what you would you guys do with the 250k? I always thought I wasn’t financially capable of actively...

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