haha omg...i mean i'm fucking drunknloaded of all people and even i know these things

[Edited on April 26, 2007 at 3:18 AM. Reason :

page 4

4/26/2007 3:18:10 AM

Quote :

"it is safe to assume you should never listen to ducksauce's advice regarding anything financial"

for page 4.

4/26/2007 9:18:44 AM

How did you guys learn so much about thins and how do you know/decide where to put your money in a 401K?

4/26/2007 8:17:50 PM

dzandrea - through ibm you have access to some pretty great tools to assist you - just spend a few hours on the netbenefits site

4/26/2007 8:23:57 PM

What else does netbenefits have? I haven't explored it too much except for the retirement estimator to see if I am on track. I called up my parent's financial advisor at UBS and got a lot of free advice about my 401k allocation. I also learned a ton of money stuff from my mentor at my last job.

4/27/2007 12:26:44 AM

it's actually a link off of netbenefits - i can't ever remember the 401k website so i always go there first...

4/27/2007 7:35:51 AM

Most 401k providers will have substaintial information available for research

i use ML and am kinda dissapointed about the amount of planning info and historical info available, but there are plenty of other sites that will help a lot too

4/27/2007 8:04:19 AM

our 401K is through Hewitt. NetBenefits houses pension and insurance information.

4/27/2007 8:20:46 AM

There are sites that suggest an asset allocaiton based on your age and other factors.

http://www.dinkytown.net/java/AssetAllocator.html

4/27/2007 9:20:25 AM

Asset allocation based on age

http://bankrate.com/brm/news/retirementguide2007/20070501_asset_allocation_chart_a1.asp?caret=1j

More general info

http://bankrate.com/brm/news/retirementguide2007/20070501_asset_allocation_a1.asp?caret=1b

5/1/2007 1:34:30 PM

Actually, Netbenefits houses different information depending on what company you work for. My employer runs that shit...

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 8:44 PM. Reason : clarity]

5/2/2007 8:44:24 PM

^^i never follow any of that. i go based on my feel. currently you have to be out of your mind not to see that foreign markets have nowhere else to go, but UP. they'll have dips, like everything else, but with so many jobs being outsourced and emerging markets rising like mushrooms, it would insane not to put more than 15% in foreign investments. i have 50% and plan to increase more.

domestics....small cap all the way. warren buffet said the same thing a month ago. if he had to do it all over again he would put most of his money in small cap. even if you have 50% of small cap going down, you need one or two innovative fields to explode and it will far outweigh any losses.

5/3/2007 12:16:42 AM

Quote :

"i go based on my feel"

5/3/2007 9:25:12 AM

My company does 401k through Fidelity so I just picked their fund that autoallocates based on my retirement date. I currently don't have enough knowledge/interest to manage it myself... so I don't.

I think I'm going to flip houses for a lot of my retirement money... Not to say I'll do it INSTEAD, but I wouldn't mind living in a few "fixer-uppers" and turning a profit after a year or two then moving on. Hell, if I got good at it it'd be nice to hold onto a few for residual income!

PS 6% because I'm paying off debt too but my company matches 3%

[Edited on May 3, 2007 at 7:27 PM. Reason : .]

5/3/2007 7:27:00 PM

More than 15% overseas?

I could see that.

But don't get stupid.

5/3/2007 8:00:16 PM

whatever maxes out the match.

5/3/2007 10:56:38 PM

i've seen some pretty high percentages listed (and some people doing the max dollar amount), but remember if you hit the dollar cap before your last paycheck you don't get the full company match so plan accordingly

if you hit your maximum contribution after 6 months, you only got half the company match, even less if your compensation is more at the end of the year

5/5/2007 9:08:35 AM

Quote :

"I think I'm going to flip houses for a lot of my retirement money... Not to say I'll do it INSTEAD, but I wouldn't mind living in a few "fixer-uppers" and turning a profit after a year or two then moving on. Hell, if I got good at it it'd be nice to hold onto a few for residual income! "

You need to rethink that business model. Fixer-upper turnaround needs to be 4 months or so for the prince point you can make cash on in a flip in this market, otherwise the interest carry wipes out your margin in a couple of months.

5/5/2007 9:10:58 AM

True, but 2+ years = tax free cap gains for 250K

5/5/2007 10:38:25 AM

i'd rather pay tax on a profit than lose money since the objective is to have more than you started with, but that's just me

guess you could rent it and start to roll 1031 money or somethig, but that's a lot more trouble than a flip

5/5/2007 2:14:56 PM

How does 1031 work?

5/5/2007 3:04:42 PM

Quote :

"i'd rather pay tax on a profit than lose money "

worth repeating. again and again. but some people treat uncle sam like their ex-wife, and they'd just hate to see any money at all going that way. i dunno.

2006 was a crazy year for me with benefits i got unexpectedly, and different tax stuff that i've never had to deal with before. there were a lot of "firsts" this year with it being my 2nd best year for W2 income even though it was only over 5-6 months. i dont think i had 1000 in gross income before june 06. being a fucking druggie with half the world enabling me didnt help me gain much financial momentum

but going across country and losing your ass and credit carding it back home, and monster legal fees when you get home, and finalizing estates, and wrecking your shit car and buying a new one, and how it almost costs more to be in combo/outpatient rehab for a year than it does to go to school out of state, and setting up here in my house... i didnt contribute shit to a 401k. i didnt even have time to check into it and i praise the jesus that i ended up financially able to avoid what should have been a catastrophic year and be in the positive after it was all said and done

5/5/2007 7:12:27 PM