Official Investing Thread

In theory you should absolutely be able to send any cryptocurrencies to one wallet from another as long as the platforms you are sending to and from both support the certain cryptocurrency. That should be pretty easy to look up on cashapp and Coinbase.

 

As for sfh real estate my plan is to pay off my house within the next 9 months then buy rentals and just plow my mortgage payment into that and pretend we didn’t pay it off. Then just keep doing that as I amass more rentals. I imagine it will sound super basic but seems like an easy way to hedge whilst using leverage to grow wealth and not really change my life besides having to dick with tenants.

 

Id be surprised if there was a correction on the near term horizon, I could see maybe some sideways trading but to me the biggest risk to equities is inflation/interest rates in the next couple years.

 

Not aware of your specific situation or plan, but generally speaking...

Just be aware you are essentially grinding a savings account as most of all of your gain will be in the form of a tenant paying your principal balance each month, which you can only access by paying the house off.

As I stated recently in this thread, just be aware that if you are targeting a rent profile of $1,500-$2,500 per month in a suburban location of any size, your likely competition are huge PE firms who have several key competitive advantages over you.

 

That logic is correct but you might want to double check the math; the max for family coverage in 2020 is $7,100 and goes up slightly for 2021

 

My target is lower than that, especially at first. And my idea is to pay them off as quickly as possible with the rental income + my own money. Then snowball that into another property and so on.

 

I would highly recommend "The Psychology of Money" by Housel to most in this thread. It's basically a new take on the same concepts that Dan Ariely and others have uncovered; essentially that personal finance is not a purely quantitative exercise. In fact, the psychological components have far more impact on day-to-day financial decisions.

If your objective is to maximize your net worth, the financial decisions become pretty easy. If your objective is to maximize your happiness then the financial decisions become far more complex.

 

To extend on my last post, HSAs are easily the best investment vehicle available to most Americans. It is not tax deferred (like IRA or 401k) but completely tax exempt. In order of precedence, there is no reason to not max contribute to your HSA as the first priority.

 

Probably a dumb question and Im sure its not an easy answer, but how often do you use your HSA then? Is the thought to just stack as much money in there as possible and use if if/when a big expense comes up? Or are you using this for general prescriptions, etc.

 

Hah I started writing what I did with my HSA in that prior post but then deleted it. Personally, we max out our 401ks and backdoor IRAs, and we contribute about 60% of the max to HSA. We almost never touch it and basically consider it to be our long term healthcare "insurance" so I've tried to purely guestimate how much we will need for long term care (0 for me because I will die of a heart attack at 75, a bunch for my wife because she will live to 100+).

So far we have only elected to use it on the giant bill associated with having a child.

 

The one thing to watch out for to me is the potential for a passive investing bubble (as raised by Michael Burry and others). I have attempted to diversify some by investing in a few actively managed funds in my taxable brokerage account and a very small portion in alternative investments (btc/private companies).

I figure our 401k/IRA will be the backbone of our retirement and the taxable stuff can serve as a hedge if that all goes tits up.

 

Makes sense, I don’t come close to maxing mine out, but I guess the more I think of it there’s probably going to be a point where I use that money for healthcare reasons. Might as well have some stored away and reap the tax benefits of it too.

Only reason I ask is because it seems like most people that I know (or even reading on here) that have an HSA just kind of have one to have one, but never use it. One guy at work says he uses it for when his kids are sick/go to the doctor but that’s about all I ever hear.

 

People are insane with their personal finances. A colleague of mine had a kid about 6 months before mine and can't be bothered to figure out how to sign up for the dependent care FSA. He is basically walking away from a free ~$1000.

 

I don’t ever use my hsa for medical bills. I also haven’t had a large medical expense since it’s been open. Still think I’d be more inclined to use a CC depending on the expense. I’d rather keep my hsa as invested as possible. My 2c

 

I use my hsa for medical bills but only rack up $100-$200/year so don't see that as a significant hit on my overall returns.

 

Dependent care FSAs are awesome. I was depressed when I figured out the max is 5k per household and not 5k per dependent.

 

I guess you shouldn't try with the stock market either then? Aren't there bigger fish with more money and expertise that make it tough to compete?

With his attitude, real estate will be good to Bo Pelinis

 

There's not going to be a crash you negative nancies.

 

Am I being too loyal to Vanguard to go for VGT over QQQ? Love those sweet sweet low expense ratios

 

I've only had mine for a year, but I've been using it a little more actively than some of the guys above. It’s true that the ideal should be to never touch it, let it grow and keep receipts. But I'm on a true high-ish deductible plan with a family of four, so we are churning out some moderate medical bills throughout the year living life. I'm maxing the thing and obviously been getting some good returns, but probably taking back out 20% or so to help offset the day to day medical stuff.

 

I usually spent everything I put in for the first 4-5 years to pay for the kids. Now anything <$400-500 we pay with the credit card. I keep 10% in cash in it, the rest invested.

 

I’ll bite. A house isn’t liquid like a security. A house isn’t a passive investment. A house is (typically) more highly levered than a portfolio of securities. A house has unforeseen expenses that may require you to invest additional capital to maintain the viability of your investment.

That’s before the part where investing in the stock market can be done in a way that you are investing alongside the big boys, not against them.

I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying before investing in a levered, illiquid asset because it seems simple or an accessible alternative investing strategy to the stock market; be aware of the risk and reward.

 

someone here turned me onto QQQm recently, 25% lower expense ratio vs QQQ. Still higher than the fund you listed though.

 

I max out HSA and use it for everything that is eligible, even if it’s something like Tylenol.

I had no idea you could “invest” it, though and have thought of it as a tax-free pile of cash.

 

There's really no reason to buy the Q's with the M's now available.

 

I have to keep $1000 cash but have the other $30k+ Invested.

 

Now with a pregnant wife/kid on the way I hope to keep maxing my account but have enough that I make enough off Interest/etc to maintain/gain.

 

I own so much VGT

 

Every custodian has a minimum that must be kept in cash. Amounts above and beyond the minimum should be able to be invested in whatever your custodian allows. Personally I try and keep my annual deductible in cash and invest the rest.

 

I opened an HSA on January 1st and will most likely have dental expenses this month. How do you go about reimbursing your bank account from HSA?

 

Mine I just upload the receipt and put in the amt. and I’m reimbursed within a day or so.

mine has a mobile app which is used for investing/reimbursement of funds.

 

Eh, I thought the arguments were reasonable, although not a slam dunk. I think a diversified portfolio these days should have some Actives, some Crypto and some other Alts.

 

i just finished it this morning. Really great read, it’s on the reread list now.

 

Most have a direct deposit option to link your bank account. Mine does, and also lists all of your eligable medical claims, so getting reimbursed is literally just a couple clicks. For dental though, you'll probably have to manually enter the claim and upload an eob pdf.

You can't use funds before you have them in an hsa (which i think is different from an fsa). You may also want to consider saving enough in it to meet the cash minimum to invest, actually invest some, and later on reimburse yourself (probably after a few months, depending on how much you're contributing).

 

If I have a decent chunk of QQQ should I convert that to the vanguard equivalent mentioned above?

 

Judging by the phrasing of your question, my short answer would be no - you're going to trip a tax bill when you "convert".

 

Every $1,000 you have is costing you $1 year more in QQQ vs the Vanguard fund. Someone correct me if my math is wrong but it’s a .1 expense ratio difference.

 

That's right. If he wants to going forward do it, go for it. I don't know anything about this Vanguard fund, but I would question what the underlying holdings are more than expense ratios on the surface. The only reason I recommended QQQM over QQQ in this thread is they're identical with a lower expense ratio.

 

The Semis are such beast. Just consistently beating the market.

 

Big Day for JD, total breakout. I've been diamond handing these things and trying not to look, taking a bit of profit.

 

So I just looked and where I work offers an FSA account. That's one where I lose the money correct? So if I don't plan on using it, don't put money in?

 

Use it or lose it. You can use it for daycare though if that's something you use

 

FYI One of the pieces of legislation passed last week changed the FSA rules in response to COVID. Importantly, your plan has to elect to implement the changes. If the plan does so, then unused funds from 2020 can be carried over to 2021 and unused funds from 2021 can be carried over into 2022. So, ask HR what they're going to do and for their specifics, as it is not automatic

 

Good shit was actually getting worried for you there for a bit.

 

I spent most of my december out of cell service in the woods. Good decision bc I would have sold if I focused on it too hard