Investing for retirement (TSP, IRA)

[Mambo]

I've often been told that the Sin Stocks are a great investment....alcohol, tobacco and porn...they are always rising.

[Guest SQUARE PAIR]

Index mutual funds are always a good bet for retirement. Now's certainly a good time to buy, with prices down.

[Guest JLUCB]

property is always good, but i don't know anything about the property taxes and such in states other than CA. good on you for asking that question...have you been maxing your yearly IRA contributions?

[Marjackson82]

airline stocks

[Guest Tertle]

?

Funeral Homes?

Yep. Death never dies.

[lloyd christmas]

I have been struggling with this as well. My take is this. I have no debt other than a house and one car. I have two fully funded IRAs and I have a strong percent of my money going into my TSP fund that I have through my technician Guard job. My wife also has 401K and my kids have a large amount of money going to education funds. I don't need to retire with 4 billion dollars in the bank so the rest of our money we have per month we spend on us. Don't allocate all of your money to retirement and investments. Ask yourself what kind of money you really need to retire on and then spend the rest.

[Chicken]

I have been struggling with this as well. My take is this. I have no debt other than a house and one car. I have two fully funded IRAs and I have a strong percent of my money going into my TSP fund that I have through my technician Guard job. My wife also has 401K and my kids have a large amount of money going to education funds. I don't need to retire with 4 billion dollars in the bank so the rest of our money we have per month we spend on us. Don't allocate all of your money to retirement and investments. Ask yourself what kind of money you really need to retire on and then spend the rest.

My goal is to be able to retire at the age of 45 and live on 100% of the income I make at that time if I live to be 80. This is based in a 7.75% return. In order to do that I need to invest another $1700 a month. I will be $1300 closer by July..

We live fine now.. we buy too much crap as it is, eat out all the time, and need to budget. But we still live well, spend money, invest a lot and take vacations. We are dual oncome so if I retire and we struggle financially I should be shot.

[Guest Hydro130]

Index funds are great - easy no-brainers. I'm not one of those people who enjoy baby-sitting investments, so I like the easy stuff. But diversity is key; tons of basic info available out there for free (The Motley Fool is my fave investment site) - spread out with some cash, domestic stocks (spread out some index/blue chip [lower risk], and some higher risk stuff too since you are still young), and international/global funds.

If you can hook up with a good investment planner (someone you know/trust or otherwise comes highly recommended), that can be a very good move. Many folks say "Who needs 'em these days", but they can really help you make smart moves keeping diversified and strategize more wisely as you get older. Just something to consider...

Stay away from Nigeria and pyramid schemes, but that I'm sure you know that. If something sounds too good to be true, it is.

Cheers, Hydro

[Chicken]

Good website.. lots of useful info.

Right now I like whatever I can have taken out of my account and go into investments and like you said, not babysit it. This stuff is like greek to me and I don't understand most of it as it is. Right not REITs have an avg return of 15-20% in some over the past 10 years. So I ask myself why not load up on REITs? Some people have told me to put a little bit in bonds which from what I have found avg a return of like 5%. So why would I do that? The S&P on the other hand has returned an average of just over 10% since like 1926. So would that not be the safest bet? I am told also to invest in short term stuff (like bonds) and long term. Why is that? The site doesn't really go into that. If this is all for retirement then don't I want long term?

[drewpey]

VUL

[Guest Xtndr50boom]

This year I've invested in pumpkins. They've been going up the whole month of october, and I have a feeling they'll peek right around....January. And BAAAM!! That's when I'll cash in!"

[Guest lakefisher]

in the San Antonio area since we plan on retiring there

buy a few acres of ground in the area you'd like to retire in. Don't build on it till you move there/retire.

if you can swing it, 40 acres in the country. that's enough to deer hunt on. :)

[Boxhead]

What ever you do, don't forget to designate on a legal document where that money goes when you accidently fly into the ground or crash your car talking on a cell phone. There is nothing worse (well the dying part is worse) then pasing away with a nice chunk of change put away and no legal guidence for the people who are supposed to recieve it.

I will hook you up if you like. PM me and name me the guy who gets all your stuff.

OK, I may not be the best choise...but I am here for ya man. Seriously...that stuff is just as important as putting the money away in the first place.

[Chicken]

What ever you do, don't forget to designate on a legal document where that money goes when you accidently fly into the ground or crash your car talking on a cell phone. There is nothing worse (well the dying part is worse) then pasing away with a nice chunk of change put away and no legal guidence for the people who are supposed to recieve it.

I will hook you up if you like. PM me and name me the guy who gets all your stuff.

OK, I may not be the best choise...but I am here for ya man. Seriously...that stuff is just as important as putting the money away in the first place.

I update my will every year and do take all that into account..

[PolyestherDuck]

So, like any other brand new 2Lt into the USAF, I got into debt pretty quick out of college. I didn't have much in terms of student loans... around $11k, I think. I bought a used sports car, reasonably priced, but German cars are expensive to maintain. Between the car, credit cards, and student loans, I hit somewhere around $36k of debt within a year or two. After finishing UPT, I went to my first assignment.

There, I was introduced to First Command which turned out to be both good and bad.

The good - My advisor sat me down and helped me come up with a plan. Within a year, between deployment tax free money, living a very low-consumption lifestyle, very good monetary discipline, and a lady in a Chevy truck who failed to yield the right of way (with a very kind insurance company that gave me around $6k to fix a damaged Porsche that had been mechanically faulty before the accident and worth only around $5500), and selling off the wreck for $3k, I clawed my way completely out of debt. I drove a mechanically-sound, high mileage Saturn one of my fellow pilots sold me for $1k for about a year (then eventually sold it to an airman who worked for me and had just had a kid for $1 and a twelve-pack of Amber Bock.) The point is First Command helped provide me a structure around which I could financially discipline myself.

The bad- I bought their whole life insurance and they used to be only front-loaded funds. News flash... single people shouldn't have whole life. Very few married people should have whole life. If you have a decent portfolio when you die, term will cover you just fine in case of early departure, and honestly who needs a huge whole life policy when you're old enough to have grandkids if you've got enough to cover the spousal unit's expenses? Ref the front-loaded funds, it makes it freaking expensive if you want to access the money early for something like, say, buying a house.

So here's my advice:

- Buy a Dave Ramsey book or two.

- Keep your debt down, especially when you're young by driving an affordable car or truck.

- Max your IRA every year. Then put as much into TSP as you can stand. After that, mutual funds or if you're willing to do the research, stock. Check out USAA's index funds. I suggest a mix of small-cap, large-cap, and international.

- Don't get more house or apartment than you need. Consider duration of a PCS, potential for deployment, and the local market. It doesn't make sense to buy a house if you're going to move in 18 months when you finish pilot training or go to ACSC. It also doesn't make much sense if you're going to deploy for 179 days in a few months and your wife and kids are going to live with her parents while you're in the sandbox. Some of you are thinking "Oh, but I'll flip it or rent it out." Fine, just understand the risks involved, the work necessary, and the expenses that may happen if you get crappy renters or the market goes south. There are a lot of dudes at Nellis getting ready to PCS who are down $75G or more in value of their house. Of course, the reverse is true that a lot of dudes sold their houses for more than they were worth a few years ago.

- Consider using your flight pay as a yardstick for your investments. Max your IRA with your base pay, then invest all your flight pay. As your flight pay goes up over the years, don't even think about it. Set it all up to go into your investment fund.

- The ACP bonus. Well, honestly, I don't have a magic answer to this one. Normally, I use it every year to clean up $2-3k of debt, I toss about a quarter of it into TSP (a VERY good idea if you get the bonus while deployed... ALL of it that you throw into TSP is tax free if deployed... FOREVER), and I usually do something fun with a portion of whats left, like buy guns and ammo or a cruise. This year, I'm going to use a chunk of it to pay down what I owe on some land I own back home and possibly to buy another rifle or two.

- Precious metals: You're not going to get rich with them. Still, it won't hurt to buy a couple thousand dollars of gold or silver coins every few years. Wait until you get the bonus for that, unless you're feeling super aggressive. Gold's at an all-time high right now and silver's creeping up too. Silver has a few more industrial uses than gold, so right now I think silver's a better investment (and cheaper to get started with...) Precious metals are not really an investment, per se, but rather a hedge against inflation. If we ever get a 2001 Argentinean economy type meltdown, thats where having a some of precious metals comes in handy. On that note, my best investments have been copper and lead... in the 9mm, 5.56, and .308 varieties. I bought a bunch of ammo back between 2004-2006 for about 60% of what its worth now. For anyone living in Cali, I suggest loading up on handgun ammo before the new laws prohibiting mail order ammo purchases and requiring ammo purchase tracking goes into effect in Feb. Thank Arnold for signing that.

- Get a good CPA to do your taxes. Keep him or her.

In closing, don't be a dumbass. Avoid too much debt. Live a responsible lifestyle (but still have fun). Consider the old adage, "if it flies, floats, or $^(&s, rent it."

[nsplayr]

Um...sweet, if not groundbreaking, advice man...isn't there another thread this can go in?

[StoleIt]

Honestly,

I would be wary of precious metals right now. They have grown a lot very fast and are due to drop. I'd say they are pretty close to as high as they are going to get. Nothing worse than riding the wrong side of a financial wave.

[ClearedHot]

Honestly,

I would be wary of precious metals right now. They have grown a lot very fast and are due to drop. I'd say they are pretty close to as high as they are going to get. Nothing worse than riding the wrong side of a financial wave.

Fairly sound advice but I would avoid gold right now. Despite the devaluation of the dollar and other signs that the dollar will no longer be used to carry the price of oil, gold has in my opinion been manipulated. Several big investor sites now claim there is a gold bubble and I tend to agree. If you want a hedge against inflation look to some of the other precious metals that are often overlooked. As an example silver (as mentioned), is doing very well and so is platinum. Do your own due diligence but most "precious" (platinum, silver, copper), metals saw tremendous growth in the lead up to the housing bubble. They trended up not because of the U.S. bubble, but because China is seeing unprecedented growth.

Whatever you do, make sure to maximize your Roth and TSP. Investing all of your Pilot bonus should be a given...three more years and I am done for good.

[T Pain]

Quick Q: is the fly pay taxed (and what other bonus/incentive is.. bah,bas..)? if yes, i understand the advice to invest it in tsp. if no, shouldn't we be taking our tsp allocation from our base pay to lower our monthly taxable income?

ClearedHot - how are you able to call it quits in three years? INSTRUCT ME

Edited October 19, 2009 by Cherub

[BFM this]

[...]There, I was introduced to First Command which turned out to be both good and bad.[...]

Had me going there. Got my monkey ass good.

[LJ Driver]

Precious metals are likely a good investment to short right now, considering their absurd rise in value of late.

[ClearedHot]

Precious metals are likely a good investment to short right now, considering their absurd rise in value of late.

I would be very careful shorting "some" precious metals;

As I mentioned, it appears gold has been manipulated as of late.

However, Platinum is in a steady trend related to growth and the recovery. The correction is clearly visible as is the recovery mainly because China is still building (as are several other Asian countries).

Silver is still a bargain.

Palladium will be a good recover investment as it is one of the primary metal used in catalytic converters.

Rhodium is my play as it was clearly tied to growth, when the recovery hits full swing and factories crank up again, it will rise.

[MilitaryToFinance]

- Precious metals: You're not going to get rich with them. Still, it won't hurt to buy a couple thousand dollars of gold or silver coins every few years. Wait until you get the bonus for that, unless you're feeling super aggressive. Gold's at an all-time high right now and silver's creeping up too. Silver has a few more industrial uses than gold, so right now I think silver's a better investment (and cheaper to get started with...) Precious metals are not really an investment, per se, but rather a hedge against inflation. If we ever get a 2001 Argentinean economy type meltdown, thats where having a some of precious metals comes in handy. On that note, my best investments have been copper and lead... in the 9mm, 5.56, and .308 varieties. I bought a bunch of ammo back between 2004-2006 for about 60% of what its worth now. For anyone living in Cali, I suggest loading up on handgun ammo before the new laws prohibiting mail order ammo purchases and requiring ammo purchase tracking goes into effect in Feb. Thank Arnold for signing that.

Most of what you said was good except for that last part. The price of gold in January 1980 was $850. If the spot price of gold had simply kept pace with inflation it should currently stand at around $2,100 yet it is currently at ~$1,000. Less than half of it's inflation adjusted break even level. The S&P500 on the other hand was at 115 at the same point in time. For it to have just kept up with inflation it should be sitting at 287 yet it closed today at 1,097 approximately 4 times it's inflation adjusted level. And that's with the catastrophic market performance over the last few years. So you tell me, where would you rather be?

[PolyestherDuck]

Most of what you said was good except for that last part. The price of gold in January 1980 was $850. If the spot price of gold had simply kept pace with inflation it should currently stand at around $2,100 yet it is currently at ~$1,000. Less than half of it's inflation adjusted break even level. The S&P500 on the other hand was at 115 at the same point in time. For it to have just kept up with inflation it should be sitting at 287 yet it closed today at 1,097 approximately 4 times it's inflation adjusted level. And that's with the catastrophic market performance over the last few years. So you tell me, where would you rather be?

I also believe gold is overinflated and set up for a pull back. Silver has a little room to grow still, particularly in the event of an economic recovery, given its industrial uses.

Regarding Rhodium, how does one invest in that?

[HeloDude]

Most of what you said was good except for that last part. The price of gold in January 1980 was $850. If the spot price of gold had simply kept pace with inflation it should currently stand at around $2,100 yet it is currently at ~$1,000. Less than half of it's inflation adjusted break even level. The S&P500 on the other hand was at 115 at the same point in time. For it to have just kept up with inflation it should be sitting at 287 yet it closed today at 1,097 approximately 4 times it's inflation adjusted level. And that's with the catastrophic market performance over the last few years. So you tell me, where would you rather be?

Here's the deal with gold (as it's been explained to me many time before)--gold HOLDS it value, that's all. The rising/falling prices of gold has to do with inflation, short term spikes in the economy, etc. That's why you see it fluctuate so much over time.

Someone once told me that if you had one gold coin back in ancient days, you could get a very nice tunic, robe, head piece, sandals, etc. What will one gold coin get you now?--a nice suit, shoes, etc. Grant it there are a lot more factors to look at, but it's a pretty interesting comparison.