I want to start investing outside of my 401k and I don’t know where to start. When I try to research I feel overwhelmed by all the information/terms and the conflicting advice. Are there sources of info that you trust? Preferred types of investments/accounts? I currently have all my money sitting in a regular checking account.

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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

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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.

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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.

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What is some of the conflicting advice you’ve heard that you want help with?

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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.

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.

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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.

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