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| financial_advice [2012/01/02 16:56] – Remove broken link, add FIXME peterwilliams | financial_advice [2013/05/06 06:17] (current) – [Bottom line advice] james_mcbride |
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| Right now: | Right now: |
| * Pay off your credit card bills. If possible, make this your most important financial priority after school, food and shelter. | * Pay off your credit card bills. If possible, make this your most important financial priority after school, food and shelter. |
| * Open a [[http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/mmmf_highratehome.asp?params=US,416&product=33&sort=2|high yield internet bank account]] and keep spare cash there. | * Open a [[http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/mmmf_highratehome.asp?params=US,416&product=33&sort=2|high yield internet bank account]] and keep spare cash there. |
| * Open a Roth IRA mutual fund at T. Rowe Price (start with [[http://www.troweprice.com/common/indexFundFacts/0,0,ticker=74149P762,00.html?rfpgid=7155&ddown=Fund_by_Name&scn=Find_a_Fund|Retirement 2050]]) and set up automatic, monthly contributions of at least $50. Aim for maxing out your IRA, if you can afford it, at $412 per month. (FIXME as of January 2012: is Vanguard a better IRA custodian these days?) | * Open a Roth IRA mutual fund. A simple thing to do is invest in a target retirement fund, something offered by most investment management companies. Assets in these funds are invested according to how close you are to retirement (higher risk, higher reward if you are retiring in the distant future, and then safer, lower return investments as you near retirement). In choosing where to open an account, pay particular attention to how much the investment company charges for managing the investment. In addition to the obvious thing like fees for having an account, look for the expense ratio of any mutual funds, which is the percentage of your investment that the company takes each year for managing the fund. Vanguard offers target funds with a 0.18% expense ratio, compared to an industry average closer to 1% ([[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0699&FundIntExt=INT|Vanguard 2050 Target Retirement]]). |
| * If you've worked here for a summer already, [[https://login.fidelity.com/ftgw/Fidelity/NBPart/Login/Next|move your DCP savings]] into something like the Spartan S&P 500 [[http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=financial_advice:glossary#index_fund|index funds]], where it can start to grow for you. | * If you've worked here for a summer already, [[https://login.fidelity.com/ftgw/Fidelity/NBPart/Login/Next|move your DCP savings]] into something like the Spartan S&P 500 [[http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=financial_advice:glossary#index_fund|index funds]], where it can start to grow for you. |
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