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Career Resources
In a 401K you are limited to contributing $16,500, you should try to max this out. The rest should go into equities if you are young. For saving you should have $10-20,000 for cash flow purposes depending on where you live.
I have $0 in my savings account.
What's the point? Interest is basically 0. I keep all my working capital in my checking account/credit card and put the rest in my Roth (still in college, no 401k).
Start contributing to your 401k immediately, at least enough to gain your full employer match. Then start to build a cash savings account for emergencies, six months worth of expenses in an emergency fund is what is typically recommended. After you have that emergency fund in place, max out your 401k. Once you are maxing your 401k out, then open an IRA. After that (or before depending on priorities) you should open a brokerage account.
The danger of having all of your money in one account like a checking account vice a checking and savings is that if someone were to get their hands on your account or check card, you could loose it all.
Contribute enough to your 401k to at least get the company match. Then max out your Roth IRA.
401K/roth get maxed out every year. I'll say that.
Your first year, pay off all debt at greater than 10% before you go for the match. Then get the match. Then build up three months of emergency savings. Then pay off everything at 3-4% or higher. Then do a Roth. Then, if you still have money left over, do some combination of building up eight months of emergency savings and maxing out your 401K.
The decisions get very simple when you have an eight month emergency fund and no debt. You max out your retirement savings and then stick the rest into brokerage accounts.
Ally.com offers some fairly competitive rates. In particular, they're great for my emergency reserves in that they have very depositor-friendly early withdrawal provisions on their long-term CDs. But you will need to do the research for yourself- Depositaccounts.com may be a good place to start.
For my checking account, I still go with my local bank from Illinois. They don't charge me foreign ATM fees, I get a no-fee ATM at work, they don't pay interest, but their penalties are pretty darned fair. If I had to start off with a new bank, I would probably try to go with ideally a credit union or local bank that had an office walking distance from my home and treated its customers fairly.
Regarding the 401k idea, are there any circumstances where you might forfeit the employer match? i.e. if you leave your analyst gig prior to 2 years or if you transfer the 401k to a new company, etc. TIA
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