Invest
Our 2018 Finances Part 2
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Can this 24-year-old from DC Retire Early? - January 18, 2019
- Our 2018 Finances Part 2 - January 14, 2019
- Reader Case: Does FIRE Math Apply to the Elderly? - December 21, 2018
Our 2018 financial review continues after Part 1, where FIRECracker detailed our annual spending. Today, we’re going to talk about how our portfolio did, and the transactions we performed to fund next year’s living expenses. How did it perform? At the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, the financial media tried to sum up the overall year for stock investors. The more polite ones called it “challenging.” The less polite ones called it a cluster-fuck. And with good reason. December was an especially wild ride, with the Dow swinging up and down 300+ points more times than I […]
Why You Should Be Happy The Markets Are Crashing
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Can this 24-year-old from DC Retire Early? - January 18, 2019
- Our 2018 Finances Part 2 - January 14, 2019
- Reader Case: Does FIRE Math Apply to the Elderly? - December 21, 2018
One of the nice things about being sequestered away in Greece for two weeks was our rather serene and much appreciated seperation from the daily news cycle. For two weeks, we were completely sheltered from the day-to-day shootings, terrorist attacks, and whatever the Hell Trump said/did/Twittered that day, and I gotta say, it was awesome. So it was a with a great deal of trepidition that I returned back to the real world last week and turned on my phone again. And as I feared, I got inundated with emails like this. “OMG, are you seeing what’s happening in the stock […]
Who Should Contribute to a 529 Plan?
Wanderer
Latest posts by Wanderer (see all)
- Reader Case: Can this 24-year-old from DC Retire Early? - January 18, 2019
- Our 2018 Finances Part 2 - January 14, 2019
- Reader Case: Does FIRE Math Apply to the Elderly? - December 21, 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)
- Reader Case: Can this 24-year-old from DC Retire Early? - January 18, 2019
- Our 2018 Finances Part 2 - January 14, 2019
- Reader Case: Does FIRE Math Apply to the Elderly? - December 21, 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)
- Reader Case: Can this 24-year-old from DC Retire Early? - January 18, 2019
- Our 2018 Finances Part 2 - January 14, 2019
- Reader Case: Does FIRE Math Apply to the Elderly? - December 21, 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 […]
