Where to put my wealth
Finished my first year and all I’ve been doing is putting money into my ROTH IRA and 401K. I don’t put that much into my 401k right now but have been maxing my IRA. But besides that, haven’t been really doing anything else besides leaving my cash parked in a HY savings account with a shitty rate. Would love to hear what other people do in terms of their personal finances when it comes to investing and saving in IB.
If you're at a BB, it becomes a pain to trade individual names as everything is on some restricted list. Just get a brokerage acct and buy index funds.
Edit: would also definitely do an HSA if you have an eligible insurance plan. It’s the most tax advantaged account. But don’t pull money from it; think of it as a long-term investment account like your 401k
Priorities would be:
One thing to consider is the overall split of your brokerage vs retirement accounts since you’ll be limited as far as when you can touch retirement accounts. My money is about 60/40 between brokerage/retirement.
General piece of advice is automating everything makes life very easy. Figure out your budget / savings, allocate that between retirement / brokerage, identify funds / ETFs you like, allocate money across those funds, and set up automated weekly / biweekly / monthly investments into them
What ETFs are you investing in? Currently, I’m in Gold, TQQQ, EW, and a couple Vanguards…
I do a lot of vanguard ETFs and Fidelity mutual funds. I have a core basket (VOO, VT, VTI, VXUS, etc) that is just low cost index exposure. Then some active or more growthy funds (VUG, FSELX, Fidelity Blue Chip, etc). I have a tiny bit of TQQQ. I actually have an account called Speculation where I put some money in things like TQQQ, the 3x semi ETF, bitcoin, etc. I want to emphasize this is sized very small
How are you able to contribute to a Roth? Are you doing the mega back door Roth or are you just earning below $150k?
Just a simple backdoor Roth for the IRA. For Roth 401k, there’s not an income limit. You can go up to the IRS 401k limit all in Roth if your employer has that option
Open a brokerage and buy index ETFs. They're easy, almost guaranteed to make money in the long run and you never really have to touch it / worry about it, especially when you have a demanding job like IB.
Which ETFs are you currently investing in? I’m looking at gold and maybe Fidelity. I already have TQQQ, EW, and two different Vanguards. I’m trying to dump a lot of my stocks that have performed extremely well over the past two years and take the profit. I’m concerned about the government shutdown and what that will do to the market. I’m mostly in tech, because that’s my area of expertise; when I diversified into other areas, i’m mostly in a loss situation. Should I lose them now?
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New first year at a BB; just wondering for my own budgeting sakes how much you are saving roughly a month, given the high COL in NYC. Understand bonus is discretionary, so mostly just asking about the base, as I don't want to budget for uncertain cash flows.
Definitely max out Roth IRA if you aren’t going to hit the 150k threshold for this year (which I assume you aren’t as a first year). I’ve personally decided that I prioritize lifestyle and where I live as someone in my 20s so my rent roughly takes up a little less than half my monthly take home. Honestly, for 401k contributions, it’s totally up to you after hitting any matching benefit your bank may offer (the differential of contributing consistently now vs in your early 30s is pretty much negligible when you take into account the income differential). Lunch is an expense that shouldn’t be overlooked so maybe try to bring lunch some of the days to help lower it (unless you’re at a bank that partly/fully subsidizes lunch). In the end, my cash flows range from $300 free per month to $1000 where I roughly try to save $500 each month in terms of base. Honestly I think as long as you have enough money to last you 3-6 months of unemployment and you’re contributing to Roth IRA, I think being a bigger spender on experiences in your 20s is totally valid and worth it.
Great start, maybe add a brokerage account and keep some cash for flexibility.
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