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250K is not nearly enough to "be fine in California", especially not if you account for CoL, taxes, and overall California lifestyle (lots of driving, going out, friends many miles away, having a family and some hobbies/activities cost more than elsewhere). If you are only looking at property in California as a safety net (not being homeless) and/or as an investment - I would consider it.

Otherwise - invest the money (not necessarily all of it, depending on investment) and keep your current gig. I know people who founded their own company, bought into successful franchises or laundromats in good locations, (..) while they were working and they made a profit. 250K is on the lower side for most commercial investments (I looked into QSR franchises a while ago and was shocked how much a McDonald's or Wienerschnitzel costs), but it should work out. Just make sure you do your research.

 

You don’t really have 250k - that 401k money should absolutely not be touched. It’s definitely not worth it’s gross value if you want to use it today. So discount that 40% and now you’re there.

 

That makes sense. I am in RE so it may seem easier for me. One thing I do know is that RE returns can be improved significantly if one can self manage, organize their own management instead of paying for it. paying for management ensures two things:

  1. your money is going somewhere else.
  2. they wont care about the business as much as an owner would.

People are enthralled by "passive" income, but you spend a lot of money for "passive" with just a little bit of "active", things get better... unless you have scale, then you are a big fish to the management companies who will take your properties seriously.

The other thing I will say about REIT investment is they dont care about the after tax returns to the investor. Part of the significance of real estate is writing off interest expense and depreciation, done correctly, the after tax returns are significant.

my 2 cents.

 

keep working...it takes 2mm to comfortable retire in the United states, and maintain a comfortable standard of living (buy and furnish an avg home, eat at normal restaurants, car lease payments, real estate taxes, utilities, pay for children's care, medical, education at a basic level, summer vacation for the family, etc... So, until you have 2mm saved, you are just not there yet. However, if you have 250k at 25, then you should be able to retire with 2mm in about 4-5 years assuming some avg earning progression ...which would put you in the top 1% of the population....so my advice is..go do that.

just google it...you're welcome
 

Being imprisoned in a 401k, it basically doesn't exist. You screwed up. Retirement accounts are basically a joke and do nothing more than hold your money hostage and restrict your investment choices for the dubious benefit of "tax-deferred" earnings, and possible employer contribution matching for 401ks. You only pay taxes on realized gains anyway, not paper gains, and the employer matching is not enough to justify not being able to access your own money whenever you want, so the whole concept is pretty worthless IMO.

Thus, the unfortunate answer to your question is: nothing (unless you want to take a massive "early withdrawal" loss).

 

401ks have a carrot and a stick. The carrot is that you get to defer taxes on the contribution and the growth from your peak earnings years until retirement when you have no income, and in the US, generally the more that you make in a given year, the bigger % of the total that you pay in taxes. (or get tax free growth in a Roth 401k) The stick is that you are locking up the money until 59.5+ in most cases or paying a significant penalty. Rarely does it make sense to pull money from a 401k early, presuming that you have enough liquidity to meet your daily needs. (and if you don't, then you have bigger problems)

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.
 

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