RealGM

inspired by Gambitx's life talk and didn't want to sully deep emotional talk w dirty money talk. idk if this would get traction but i'm curious to hear the board's thoughts re: money, finance, retirement planning, etc.

as an elder millennial, i'm the generation of kids of ppl in Dobro's generation (not to pick on Dobro, just working off what he shared in Life thread), and a lot of our brushes with loss and grief are coupled with severe financial ramifications of our parents' retirement, infirmament, death, etc.

i don't want to turn it into another boomer-bashing thread but there are definitely parallels between professional boomers unwilling to let go of the reins of corporate america and boomers in their private life unwilling to let go of the reins as "man of the house" and it's really led to unsound financial planning, ranging from big stuff like estate planning and little stuff like giving access over the family cell phone plan. Definitely felt like my grandparents' generation were more willing to pass the torch, financially, than my parents.

like, there's a way to optimize even trivial expenses like having everyone be under one Amazon prime plan (and other subscription services) on up.

I agree. The world is very different from what it was in the 90's when Gen-Xers were leaving their parents home and establishing themselves. It was bad enough for us to try and afford a home in the 90's after decades of financialization inflated a housing bubble. But now, home affordability is absolutely ludicrous.

It's flat out cruel to adopt the Boomer mindset of kicking your kids out of the house and forcing them to be "independent". In this climate, if you are a parent and have your finances under control, it is your duty to help support your kids as they leave the home and get themselves established.

As far as money management goes, one bit of advice I have is to only invest in a 529 Education Plan as a last resort. You should definitely first max out your 401K and Roth IRA accounts, as well as a health savings account, (and pay down your mortgage if you are paying high rates) before putting any money into a 529. College financial aid is remarkably generous if you can appear to be relatively poor on paper. The key is to understand that they don't expect you sell your house or cash in on retirement plans to pay for tuition, but they do assume that you will cash in on your 529. If they see a pile of money in your 529, they're not going to offer any financial aid.

No one can predict the future, but over the last many decades the best things you could do with $$ was 1) invest some in a downpayment on a house to live in & 2) put the rest in the stock market.

As to the latter, IMO the most (as in only) sensible thing for a neophyte to do is buy into a couple of No-Load Mutual Funds. Here's a couple of articles:

https://money.usnews.com/investing/funds/slideshows/best-no-load-mutual-funds
https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/mutual-funds/602176/kip-25-best-low-fee-mutual-funds

OTOH, if you'd put $1000 into Apple stock in 2003, what do you think it would be worth today?

.....

If you put $100 into Uber at IPO in 2019, you'd have $107 today.

pancakes3 wrote:If you put $100 into Uber at IPO in 2019, you'd have $107 today.

For many potential investors the first issue is generating enough income that you have enough left to invest, and it took me many years to get there. The second issue is navigating the wealth of information regarding how to invest. My wife had a mixture of prescience and luck in investing with Apple. I am horrible at picking winners (teams, presidents, stocks) so I just invest in 401Ks and IRAs and let others figure it out. I think mine appreciated at approximately the same rate as Uber over the last four years. Apple probably did better.

PS: I agree about the issue of kids not being able to afford their own home. I lived with my parents during college, which helped me attend without loans. I know a number of kids living with their parents after college, working, trying to save money. That model is not unusual in the history of the world, with kids frequently remaining at home until they get married.