Invest
Who Should Contribute to a 529 Plan?
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Gone for Chautauqua in Greece! - October 15, 2018
- Reader Case: Okee from Muskogee - October 12, 2018
- Reader Case Update: How Do I Stop The Bleeding 2 - September 28, 2018
Continuing from my last article about saving for your kids’ college education, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading, learning, and MATHING SHIT UP on this topic, and what I’ve discovered is that, as usual, while the Canadian college savings plan known as the RESP is relatively straightforward to understand and use, the American college savings plan known as the 529 is not. So today I thought I’d share my thoughts on how best to use a 529 plan to save for your kids’ college expenses. Should I Even Have One? The big question we have to ask for […]
Investing For Your Kid’s College Education: The Rule of 5
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Gone for Chautauqua in Greece! - October 15, 2018
- Reader Case: Okee from Muskogee - October 12, 2018
- Reader Case Update: How Do I Stop The Bleeding 2 - September 28, 2018
We write a lot here on this blog about retirement, but one area I haven’t covered at all up to now is saving for your kid’s university education (or college, as you Yanks like to call it). The reason for this is simple: we don’t have kids, so we never looked into it. But lately, we’ve decided to set up a university savings account for my nephew, and because this forced me to learn how all this stuff works, I figured now would be a good a time as any to start writing about it. How It Works So first […]
Fidelity’s Zero-Fee Index Funds: What’s the Catch?
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Gone for Chautauqua in Greece! - October 15, 2018
- Reader Case: Okee from Muskogee - October 12, 2018
- Reader Case Update: How Do I Stop The Bleeding 2 - September 28, 2018
Earlier this month there was an uproar in the financial news media that was interesting because: For once, it had nothing to do with Trump and It wasn’t bad news Fidelity, the Boston-based investment group with $2.4tn under management, last week announced that it was cutting the cost of all its passive, index-tracking mutual funds, and introducing two new ones that boasted an expense ratio of zero — in other words, the first free investment funds. ~~Fidelity’s no-fee fund triggers mix of alarm and calls for calm, Financial Times Fidelity Investments just beat all of the low-fee index fund competition […]
How to Retire Early with a Locked-In Pension
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Gone for Chautauqua in Greece! - October 15, 2018
- Reader Case: Okee from Muskogee - October 12, 2018
- Reader Case Update: How Do I Stop The Bleeding 2 - September 28, 2018
For some odd reason, we’ve gotten a recent flood of emails asking us about how to pull off this whole FIRE thing if they have some kind of locked-in retirement account (eg. pension), so I thought I’d use today’s article to address this. What is a Locked-In Account? A Locked-In account is the catch-all term for any retirement account that has an age limit on when you can withdraw. Note that there is a distinction between an actual Locked-In Account versus a supposedly Locked-In Account that you can access using some form of loophole. The American 401(k)/403(b)/TSP is a good example of […]
Why You Shouldn’t Buy Target Date Funds
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Gone for Chautauqua in Greece! - October 15, 2018
- Reader Case: Okee from Muskogee - October 12, 2018
- Reader Case Update: How Do I Stop The Bleeding 2 - September 28, 2018
For some reason lately I’ve been getting a bunch of emails asking me what I think of a particular Target Date Fund, so I thought this would make a good article. But before we get into what I think of these things (hint: It’s in the title of this article), let’s first talk about what these things are. What is a Target Date Fund? Target Date funds are also known as Lifecycle Funds, Age-based Funds, or Dynamic Risk Funds. That last one sounds makes it sound pretty cool, but basically what Target Date funds do is adjust your asset allocation […]
