How are you building your financial wealth and retirement savings? I’m a few years away from 30 years old and have not done much. I honestly get crippling anxiety just researching personal finance. Please share what’s working well for you and what you would’ve done differently early on.

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-$1,000 base in checking account for immediate emergencies
-6 months of expenses in a money market account for a major surprise expense
-15% into 401k
-$150/month into 529 plan for our daughter
-$200/month into a Roth IRA

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I don’t live in a major city and keep $20k to the side for emergencies. It’s bailed me out in a big way before. Takes a while to build up but worth it in my opinion.

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I’m a staff 2. I come from low income background so this topic is very important to me. I’ll provide what I have been doing from what I’ve researched coming out of grad school and I have been doing since. One thing to note, try not compare yourselves to other people when taking about financial planning, everyone comes from different backgrounds. The important thing is to incorporate the lessons. So when I left school I choose to live with my parents to save money on rent. I used the money I saved to aggressively get rid of my student loans. I fully paid them off in less than 2 years. I also contributed 6% to 401k for my first year working and invested about 250 every paycheck, and 250 every paycheck to savings. I also fully contributed to an HSA my first year. Now during my second year working, students loans are gone. I put 22% to my 401k which is the limit. Im on track to max out HSA this year and I’m on track to max out a Roth IRA that I opened up this year. I opened up a 529 for my brother (he’s young and again I come from a low income background so I would have ended up helping pay for his college anyway) and I contribute 200 a month to that. I upped my investments to about 800 a month. Still live at home. Rn my network is about 35k, hoping to get 75k net worth by year end.

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That’s awesome, EY1. Good job!

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I automatically max out my Roth IRA and Roth 401k and invest all my money in the SP500 index fund. When it comes out of your paycheck every time you don’t even notice it.

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@D2 I’m not at Deloitte any more and I live in a VHCOL city so I get paid more than $60k. Not saying everyone can max it out, but if you automate it it’s way easier.

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If you get crippling anxiety researching personal finance, I suggest you start small. Make a few small manageable changes that help you breathe a little easier each time you think about your finances. Automating $50 a month into savings to build up an emergency fund, bump up 401K by 1%. Baby steps might help alleviate your anxiety and allow you to dive in further!
A book with lots of outlined steps and info might help. I liked I Will Teach You To Be Rich. 6 week plan that starts off at w very basics!

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Best retirement plan is the lotto. Investing in mutual funds through 401ks and IRAs is a suckers move. Industry is built around taking your earnings and putting it into the fund managers pockets. But I am a suck too cause it’s the only option if you aren’t rich. Pretty much we are all screwed as we are really the first generation with no pension funds as the boomers made sure to get rid of those to make a few more pennies for themselves. So don’t worry about we are all F’ed!!!!!

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I’m in your generation bro.

Been putting money into crypto since 2017. I can pretty much retire by now tbh...but now that institutions are beginning to invest into bitcoin, I’m willing to wait another year or 2 before I sell and quit my job.

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Damn, good for you!!

I save cash to max out my Roth IRA at the beginning of every year, contribute 6% of my paycheck to my 401k, and save about half of my remaining paycheck in a regular brokerage account. I mostly invest in a mixture of aggressive growth and total index ETFs, with a few individual stocks and option plays here and there.

That said, I don’t have many personal expenses, my rent is relatively cheap in a HCOL area, and I don’t like to spend much as is. I like watching my money grow.

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Put more in your 401k. Because taxes.

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KPMG has engaged Ayco for employees to receive free financial advice. Ayco professionals don’t manage your assets for you, they just provide advice. You can schedule a meeting on the website and they will call you at that time/date. If you don’t know where to start I highly recommend this.

likesmart

I wish I had invested in growth ETFs instead of SP500 ETFs. May not be a wise move now at these valuations.

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I’m a broke NYC staff literally living pay check to pay check 😬 the anxiety is REAL

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Bitcoin. Period

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Just buy from Coinbase

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Set up automatic investments to S&P index with what you can afford to save. Contribute what you can to pre-tax retirement accounts. That’s like 90% of it.

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Max out my 401k (split between Roth and normal), plus 10% gross to individual stocks that have strong dividend history. Maxed out the 401k even before I paid off the student loans, then switched 50% of the student loan payment to additional retirement (the stocks) and the rest to “fun money”. Reinvest the dividends. Have several savings accounts that I keep funded to very specific goals. It sucks at times, but I know it’s the right thing to do. Daily spending is like I did 5-7 years ago when I had no money, but get to budget now on things that make me happy.

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Net worth 330k 28 100k investments 120 in cash (prepping to buy investment properties), rest is equity in home. Put about 25% into 401k, max out Roth every year and max out HSA last couple years. Been pretty frugal save roughly 50% of income and bought a house in 2017. Roth is invested in roughly 20 different stocks mostly motley fool stocks and 401k is in mostly growth index funds.

likehelpful

What's your age and rank. That's mad impressive

GameStop lol and individual tickers.

In all seriousness, 75% in index funds, 10% in crypto, 5% in individual stocks, and 10% cash will do wonders.

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Every raise I received I would raise my retirement savings %.

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I also got anxiety. Pick a low cost index fund and take the worry out of it for awhile until you are more comfortable.

Differently—I would have done a Roth IRA and used the Roth 401k option and taxed protected the earnings on the investment rather than the investment itself. I cringe now after almost 20 years saving how much the tax Bill on the ROI is going to be from the first 10 years when I wasn’t doing it.

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If you have anxiety about I would first focus on retirement savings and emergency savings. Once you have those at a good spot, you can start considering potential investment options. It may help to think about this in terms of liquidity and short term/long term goals. Retirement is obvs long term and your emergency savings is hopefully long term but should stay pretty liquid for an emergency. Once you have that safety net in, if you want to save for something specific (a house, etc) map out your timeline and see how much time you have to invest v. just save. I find it easier to think about by savings/investments on timelines fo help guide what I am going to do. Anything in investment accounts is money that, unless something truly extraordinary happens, I shouldn’t need to touch with short notice. So it can invest and grow but that’s Bc I also have cash savings. I think once you know you have your emergency’s fund it’s a little easier to think about the long term. Also, unless you plan fo become an active day trader, ignore the GameStop esque frenzies and just focus on consistently saving/investing with stable returns and odds are you end up in the same place in the long run.

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Just hold cash, it's all right. No one goes broke because of holding cash.

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Might want to check the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar over the past 50 years. Inflation is real. Cash is trash. Just hold to cover 5-6 months of monthly expenses. Invest the rest

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For OP I think you'll feel better at my situation and it's not as hyper successful as lads over here

I'm turning 31. I was international student with around 40k of debt when I graduated. had to do MBA while doing my years at my firm to stay legal in usa which costed about her 45K, so pretty much all of my money went to loans and tuition. After leaving USA ended up with 20K of debt and 7k cash in hand.

Moved up another country later on with HCOL but pay worse than Arkansas. But slowly managed to pay off debt, and was able to accumulate 10% of income to the government mandated savings/401k.

As I've progressed in ranks I was able to save some and invest some. My total investment and savings is around 25k. It's not much but thing is you'll slowly get there. I have a new job starting soon which should help even better. What I'll suggest perhaps is to divert 10% of pay directly towards a savings account which you can't withdraw money from unless in person, 10% straight to IRA/Roth etc and 5% directly to retail trading. Baby steps but you'll get there

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