retireadmin – Page 3

Committing Robbery – Borrow Money from your 401K

April 14, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

For many people, their largest financial asset is their retirement savings in a 401k account. I know it must be extremely tempting to borrow money from your 401K plan in certain situations and not everyone can resist these temptations.

Statistics say that since the year 2000 about 20% of all 401K participants had a loan against their 401K outstanding. Personally I feel that is very scary because not only does it stop people from saving money for retirement for a short period of time, but actually for a prolonged time because the 401K loan needs to be repaid and I think it is safe to assume that additions to the 401K balance are not happening either.

[Read more…]

50+? You’re Fired …

April 5, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

Just recently I was browsing a certain investment related discussion board for some information regarding a specific investment strategy when I found a discussion related to age discrimination. The discussion was specifically about the increased risk of being fired or made redundant at work when reaching the age of 50 and being on your way to 60.

The folks involved in this discussion not only talked about the age discrimination and the risk of being laid off, but also about the importance of having a) enough money in an emergency fund and b) ideally having enough money saved by the time one turns 50 to potentially retire. Now, most Americans neither have an emergency fund or enough money to retire, so I wanted to pick up this topic and talk about it here on the blog as well.

[Read more…]

Personal Finance for Generation X

March 27, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

Personal finance is one of the evergreen topics on the Internet. The genre has grown quite a bit since the financial crisis hit in 2008 and 2009. But a lot in the personal finance field has now turned in the so-called FIRE movement. FIRE stands for financial independence, retired early. Born from the (forced) minimalism stemming from the financial crisis, the FIRE movement took an old concept, re-packaged it, and “sold it” to the millennials who were hungry for a non-traditional way to financial independence. When I write “sold it” I mean this in a very good way.

[Read more…]

How a Generation X Stock trader messed up on Wall Street

March 26, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

I totally fell for it. I messed up. I thought – like so many others – that I could beat Wall Street and create bigger returns through very active stock trading – including day trading. I failed and I certainly lost some money along the way. I think I fit every cliche you might find to throw at a loser trader. I was in denial for too long. I was greedy.

[Read more…]

The 1-Year Experiment: Vanguard vs. Fidelity

March 26, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

Game on. I have been spending a lot of time reworking our investments and ended up with accounts at Vanguard and at Fidelity. I consolidated 401Ks and Rollover IRAs and also cleaned up our messy investment strategy. We have been following what I call now “Old-School Retirement Investment Advice” (OSRIA) and the results have been disappointing. More on that later.

Disclaimer: This blog post describes my investment plan. It is not considered investment advice. I am also using affiliate links in this blog post to support this website. I appreciate your support if you would buy any recommended products through these links. End Disclaimer

[Read more…]

Optimizing my Travel with a new Credit Card

January 13, 2019 By retireadmin Leave a Comment

Looking back at the last 12 months I have been traveling quite. Several trips within the United States and three trips alone to the UK with a quick add-on excursion to Germany – it adds up. While my flights have mostly to be booked using my employers travel portal, a lot of other travel expenses go through my personal credit cards and then I get reimbursed by my employer after travel. In the past I have been using the Chase United Mileage Plus credit card. United Airlines has been my go-to airline in the United States and the additional travel has helped quite a bit to bump up my mileage balance for my United Airlines miles account.

[Read more…]