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Do you have an emergency fund? If not leave enough in a cash savings account to get by for a while. I only use ITOT and IXUS in a brokerage account if that helps at all. This assumes you already have Ira also
Chief
Makes sense; I had way more cash than usual when I was planning a bunch of house remodels.
It might help if you mentally separate that into a separate bucket. You may have all that money in the same bank account, but it’s really two bundles of money for two different purposes: your emergency fund is to cover your living expenses in case of emergency so you don’t have to take on expensive debt or sell other assets at a loss.
In addition, you may also want to save money to move, but if you’re optionally doing so at a time of your choosing, that’s not an emergency, that’s just something your planning for in the future.
I started with an IRA (backdoor Roth for me). After that, I did a brokerage with vanguard: nice and simple VTSAX. After a baseline, I added more value index and growth index. I do mutual funds so I can DCA.
Not at these allocations. For example, I started the year at 70% value or so. I tend to weight the funds more than recommended, but it’s worked well so far.
Chief
What is some of the conflicting advice you’ve heard that you want help with?
Chief
Crypto: I just starting speculating in it a tiny bit this year. All I can say for sure is that being comfortable with it going to $0 is a good mindset to have. I’m not saying that will happen, but a bunch of “experts” also said that BTC would be at $100k by the end of the year and it’s currently at $47k.
I think it is high-risk and for everyone who has made a lot of money, there is someone who has lost a lot of money. I would avoid trading options until you have more knowledge and understanding of the risk, and means to weather huge losses if you bet wrong.
Financial advisors: there are good ones and bad ones, and I agree you can’t trust some of them, but it’s not helpful advice without more detail.
You want want one who is a fiduciary. The Edward Jones and insurance company ones are the ones you can’t trust. They sell high-fee products that legally do not have to be in your best interest. A fiduciary is legally required to act to your benefit.
Pro
It doesn’t need to be overwhelming! Make sure you have a solid emergency fund in an HYSA before you look into investing. Then, the next step for most people is to open a traditional or Roth IRA (depends on your income level) and buy and hold a mutual fund or ETF that tracks the S&P500 or full US market (I’ll save you the time and just look up VTSAX or VTI). After that, do the same thing with a regular brokerage account.
Pro
Roth IRA! You can contribute to it until your income is about 140k if you’re single. Even after that, you could do a backdoor Roth IRA but you don’t need to worry about that right now.