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[Neverwinter27]

Looking for some education on real estate investment, if anyone can point me to some beginner books they would recommend, as well as a dedicated website?

 

[Wellington]

Looking for some education on real estate investment, if anyone can point me to some beginner books they would recommend, as well as a dedicated website?

Bigger Pockets

 

[Neverwinter27]

Bigger Pockets

Looks kind of sketchy. You need to pay membership for this?

 

[ZackieChan]

Speaking of 4% rule, Mad Fientist recently did an interview with the father of the 4% rule, Michael Kitces. Awesome podcast episode if you want to nerd out.

http://www.madfientist.com/michael-kitces-interview/

Really enjoying this, thanks!
He's got me hyyyypppppeeeddd to save even more for retirement, actually. I need to make a serious budget plan and stick to it. Now, I kind of just put anything that's left over into my 401(k). I need to regiment this a bit more.
Especially happy with his discussion about side gigs and part time work in retirement. I can't ever see myself retiring, but at that point in my career (almost 20 years on, I could see myself easily doing consulting, coaching, or something like mediation to make at least $4-5,000 a month not doing that much work. Could make semi-retirement easy.

 

[GodParticle]

So I went with the advice here a little over a year ago and split up my 401k according to below. Is that still doing well? Should I adjust the percentages as I get older?

 

[tokkun]

So I went with the advice here a little over a year ago and split up my 401k according to below. Is that still doing well? Should I adjust the percentages as I get older?

Every few years you should incrementally shift money over to the bond fund, targeting something in the ballpark of 50 / 50 stocks & bonds by the time you are at retirement age.

Aside from that, leave it alone. This strategy of using broadly diversified index funds is designed around the idea that you do not need to care what is happening on a year-to-year basis, because you will just hold this set of funds for the long run. The easiest way to screw up in retirement investing is to try to beat the market every year.

 

[ZackieChan]

Speaking of 4% rule, Mad Fientist recently did an interview with the father of the 4% rule, Michael Kitces. Awesome podcast episode if you want to nerd out.

http://www.madfientist.com/michael-kitces-interview/

Great interview. It led me to his site and his financial independence calculator here: http://www.madfientist.com/financial-independence-spreadsheet/

Going to get it filled out this weekend. Have you done it?

 

[anonymous_abc]

.

 

[GodParticle]

Every few years you should incrementally shift money over to the bond fund, targeting something in the ballpark of 50 / 50 stocks & bonds by the time you are at retirement age.

Aside from that, leave it alone. This strategy of using broadly diversified index funds is designed around the idea that you do not need to care what is happening on a year-to-year basis, because you will just hold this set of funds for the long run. The easiest way to screw up in retirement investing is to try to beat the market every year.

I'll keep that in mind. It definitely seems to be better off since I moved stuff around. That and the market has been doing well from what I understand

 

[ferr]

I have been looking into re-allocating my portfolio to increase my bonds holding recently and settled on using AGG.

After doing so, I felt like I may have missed the point of using bonds as a risk aversion strategy. From the op,

Once I am 10 years or so from retirement I will start investing in Bonds though. The reason for this is that bonds are a lot less volatile than stocks, which means that if a stock market crash comes along, they won't less nearly as much, if at all any, as stocks (hell, they might actually go up).

As for what bond funds and what percentage of my portfolio, I am in favor of 50% Total US Bond market and 50% TIPS fund. Total bond fund should be self-explanitory, but I like the TIPS fund because it is inflation protected. Stocks themselves are inherently a hedge against inflation so moving into bonds you are losing quite a bit of that. Investing in TIPS takes care of that. As for the percentage of bonds compared to stocks, that really depends on how much you have invested. If you already have more than enough money invested for retirement, well, I would go heavily invested into bonds (like 80-100%). If you still need more money, you are obviously going to need to take on more risk, i.e. stock (so 40-60% stock maybe?)

There is another investment strategy, and that is holding your age in bonds, which basically means that you will increase the percentage of your bond holdings as you get older. I think that is way too conservative though since I think the purpose of investment is growth and you only need bonds until time stops being such a fantastic hedge and you need another one (bonds). Really up to you though and how much risk you can handle, because geting freaked up by a crash and selling all of your retirement low is FAR FAR FAR worse than taking a conservative approach to investing for retirement.

I have realized there is a giant difference in investment strategy when investing in the "bond market" versus buying individual bonds with relation to risk. I believe that while the volatility might be lower for bond market vs normal securities, there is still a giant risk involved when investing in something that could just have sudden volatility (re Greenspan's recent negativity towards the bonds market).

On the other hand, individual bonds, when held to maturity, allows for complete risk avoidance. Which I think was the real point of using bonds as a risk-free strategy in the first place.

I think once I considered this, investigating how to invest in individual bonds turned out to be pretty complicated. The best strategy seems to be to purchase highest yielding municipal bonds with good ratings within your own state to avoid taxation on interest returns and to buy at as close to the par price (if unable to purchase outside of secondary market) to avoid maturity losses (from premiums) or maturity taxation (from discounts). Selling prior to maturity should only be done if it creates a better opportunity than holding, but you should intend to hold until maturity to avoid selling at a loss.

Thoughts?

edit: I shouldn't say that municipals are risk-free, since the issuer could go bankrupt prior to maturity, etc.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Speaking of 4% rule, Mad Fientist recently did an interview with the father of the 4% rule, Michael Kitces. Awesome podcast episode if you want to nerd out.

http://www.madfientist.com/michael-kitces-interview/

Listening to the podcast now, but the entire discussion in the last third has been one hell of an epiphany for me. Because all of my retirement planning has been about saving toward a number, and then drawing it down.

Meanwhile, I've always planned to find some kind of work after I retire, though just part time work for dramatically less income. And my wife just started working again last year, now that the kids are old enough. But we've never factored that into our retirement plans. I'm going to go and crunch numbers tonight, but I'm pretty that modest income would reel in my retirement date by a decade or so. 0_o

Spoiler

Which would be five years from now.

 

[SecretMoblin]

Man, I was young at the time but I definitely remember in the mid-90s when the big daily headline was "S&P closes above 500 for the first time" and then just a few years later when it crossed 1,000 and seeing pictures of people throwing confetti and hugging each other at the NYSE.

Today was the first day it closed above 2500, hours after a major global economic power had a missile fired at it. We live in strange times.

 

[anonymous_abc]

.

 

[ZackieChan]

Listening to the podcast now, but the entire discussion in the last third has been one hell of an epiphany for me. Because all of my retirement planning has been about saving toward a number, and then drawing it down.

Meanwhile, I've always planned to find some kind of work after I retire, though just part time work for dramatically less income. And my wife just started working again last year, now that the kids are old enough. But we've never factored that into our retirement plans. I'm going to go and crunch numbers tonight, but I'm pretty that modest income would reel in my retirement date by a decade or so. 0_o

Spoiler

Which would be five years from now.

Yep, this is my situation, too. Couple that with drawing from social security and probably living somewhere cheap like Thailand, and my ability to retire early becomes more and more apparent.
Though I'm having a bit of difficulty finding calculators and such that take all of this into account.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

What I want to know is, how we all gonna retire early when Medicare doesn't start until you're 65 and you might need health care before you turn that age?

That's the one question I've been turning around in my head for awhile now.

 

[ZackieChan]

What I want to know is, how we all gonna retire early when Medicare doesn't start until you're 65 and you might need health care before you turn that age?

That's the one question I've been turning around in my head for awhile now.

Apparently you can purchase health care plans outside of Medicare...

There's always medical tourism, too.

 

[tokkun]

What I want to know is, how we all gonna retire early when Medicare doesn't start until you're 65 and you might need health care before you turn that age?

That's the one question I've been turning around in my head for awhile now.

Obamacare was a real gift for early retirees. The individual exchanges make it easier to buy plans, and since you are retired, there is a good chance your taxable income is low enough for you to qualify for government subsidies.

Of course, given the politics around the law, it's probably not something you can feel safe assuming in your retirement plan.

 

[GhaleonEB]

What I want to know is, how we all gonna retire early when Medicare doesn't start until you're 65 and you might need health care before you turn that age?

That's the one question I've been turning around in my head for awhile now.

Healthcare is the biggest variable right now. Whether we can just get insurance in the state marketplace or not, and at an affordable premium or not, is the huge question mark. We'll know by then if it's been gutted, if Trump is still in office, etc. Right now we're planning around having access to decent insurance, but that would obviously be a swing factor. I might have to work an extra year or two to build up savings to cover insurance depending on how things go.

We also need to plan out the funding by age. Regular investments from now until 59.5 when we could use IRA/401k funds, gap to Medicare/Social Security, etc.

 

[tokkun]

We also need to plan out the funding by age. Regular investments from now until 59.5 when we could use IRA/401k funds, gap to Medicare/Social Security, etc.

You really only need to wait 5 years to start getting access to your tax-deferred retirement money* if you use a technique known as a "Roth Conversion Ladder". If you search for the term, you can find any number of articles explaining how it works. If you did Roth contributions, the principle is available immediately.

It's still better to draw down the regular taxable investments first since they don't benefit from deferred tax on dividends or rebalancing, but they don't need to last until 59.5.

*Does not apply to HSAs.

 

[anonymous_abc]

.

 

[hockeypuck]

It's still better to draw down the regular taxable investments first since they don't benefit from deferred tax on dividends or rebalancing, but they don't need to last until 59.5.

*Does not apply to HSAs.

What if you don't realize any gains until withdrawal period and you offset those gains with previous realized losses to reduce the long term gains taxes? Is that up to $3000 a year you can offset? Or is the offset limit higher such that a retiree can potentially pay zero income tax during the early taxable account withdrawal years?

Also remember it is worth delaying social security till you are 70 because of the annual 8% increase.

I'm saving with the cynical belief that Social Security won't exist at its current state by the time I retire. I don't plan on relying on it.

 

[anonymous_abc]

.

 

[tokkun]

What if you don't realize any gains until withdrawal period and you offset those gains with previous realized losses to reduce the long term gains taxes? Is that up to $3000 a year you can offset? Or is the offset limit higher such that a retiree can potentially pay zero income tax during the early taxable account withdrawal years?

Capital loss deductions works like this:

Capital gains: an unlimited amount can be offset by capital losses
Normal income: Up to $3000 / year can be offset by capital losses *after* offsetting any capital gains for that year.

So to answer your question, yes, you could in theory bank a large amount of capital losses and use it to offset the entirety of your capital gains for X years into retirement. Keep in mind that due to the time-value of money, you are generally better off using those capital losses sooner rather than later, so I would apply them as early as possible rather than saving them for retirement.

Capital losses is a funny topic. The efficient market hypothesis would say that you should realize losses whenever possible, but a lot of people get very psychologically uncomfortable about doing so due to loss aversion. Every once in a while I will poke my head into the stock-age thread and suggest that someone ought to realize losses on an investment, and they are always totally against it. It is one of those areas that a lot of people who are otherwise informed about investing don't take much time to think through rationally.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If you expect the stock to recover, you don't want to sell it just to realize losses.

If you expect your losses to be permanent, then yeah sell ASAP so you can take the tax deduction.

I have the problem where I have no losses and only gains so all I can do is hold forever to avoid paying the capital gains taxes.

 

[tokkun]

If you expect the stock to recover, you don't want to sell it just to realize losses.

No, that's not true. You should only avoid realizing losses if

1. You expect it to recover at a much faster rate than the market as a whole and
2. You expect it to do so *very quickly*, like within 30 days

Otherwise you are better off realizing the loss. Unless you think the stock is going to rebound immediately (which probably is not the case; even if markets are not completely efficient, they generally do pretty well), you can always buy back in after realizing your loss and letting the wash sale window elapse. If the stock actually does recover, you get the best of both worlds. You only lose if it has huge gains within 30 days, and if you believe that will happen, you ought to be tripling down on it.

IMO, there are really few cases where it doesn't make sense to realize the loss absent some kind of insider information.

 

[hockeypuck]

Keep in mind that due to the time-value of money, you are generally better off using those capital losses sooner rather than later, so I would apply them as early as possible rather than saving them for retirement.

Thanks for the tip.

The silver lining about realized losses is you can buy a substitute index fund with decent correlation right after you sell the losing fund. You keep your asset allocation unchanged, and you harvest the loss (to carryforward).

 

[Makai]

I started a small speculative investment fund in addition to my normal retirement account. Should TurboTax handle tax loss deductions for me or is this something I need to manually optimize for?

 

[tokkun]

I started a small speculative investment fund in addition to my normal retirement account. Should TurboTax handle tax loss deductions for me or is this something I need to manually optimize for?

It can handle filling in the deduction form on your return, which is the easy part of the process. The hard part is still manual: you are responsible for determining whether or not any of your transactions qualify as wash sales.

 

[Yaboosh]

Just went over our budget and savings plan. We are attempting to contribute nearly half of our take-home to various retirement and investment accounts.

We are currently at 2.5x our gross take-home pay across various savings/retirement accounts. That feels good for being 33-34 years old.

Is it normal though to not be able to choose what your 401k is invested in? My wife's vanguard account says managed and it won't let us change out of some of the higher expense ratio funds (.33%).

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Is it normal though to not be able to choose what your 401k is invested in? My wife's vanguard account says managed and it won't let us change out of some of the higher expense ratio funds (.33%).

I wouldn't say that's normal at all. With 401ks, it's hit or miss whether you'll be stuck with bad options, but to be stuck with no options at all seems quite abnormal to me.

But then, what do I know, I haven't exactly worked for that many companies.

 

[GhaleonEB]

I wouldn't say that's normal at all. With 401ks, it's hit or miss whether you'll be stuck with bad options, but to be stuck with no options at all seems quite abnormal to me.

But then, what do I know, I haven't exactly worked for that many companies.

Until a few years ago, my employer only offered one fund for their retirement plan. A horrifying one. Years of employees screaming about it (mostly in finance, I suspect) got us Vanguard options.

 

[ZackieChan]

Just went over our budget and savings plan. We are attempting to contribute nearly half of our take-home to various retirement and investment accounts.

We are currently at 2.5x our gross take-home pay across various savings/retirement accounts. That feels good for being 33-34 years old.

Is it normal though to not be able to choose what your 401k is invested in? My wife's vanguard account says managed and it won't let us change out of some of the higher expense ratio funds (.33%).

That's awesome. I SHOULD be doing that, since my expenses are low, but I'm lame. You've inspired me to hit my budget hard and up my savings.

 

[Walter White Walker]

Further proving how passive investing is the way to go, Warren Buffet won his decade-long bet against active fund managers and will win about $2 million.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/warren-buffett-won-2-million-from-a-bet-that-he-made-ten-years-ago.html

Warren Buffett has made billions thanks to his ability to bet successfully on investments over the years. Now, it looks like he's about to win $2 million more.

In 2007, Buffett made a bet that the S&P 500 stock index would outperform hedge funds, which he describes in a 2016 letter to Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders. He argues that over a period of time, active investment management by professionals would underperform the returns by amateurs who were passively investing.

The money will be donated to Girls Inc. which is a nonprofit that advocates for girls and provides them with resources.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Further proving how passive investing is the way to go, Warren Buffet won his decade-long bet against active fund managers and will win about $2 million.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/warren-buffett-won-2-million-from-a-bet-that-he-made-ten-years-ago.html



The money will be donated to Girls Inc. which is a nonprofit that advocates for girls and provides them with resources.

Ten years later, Seides' five funds have gained only 2.2 percent a year since 2008 compared with more than 7 percent a year for the S&P 500. That means Seides' $1 million hedge fund investments gained $220,000 in the same time period that Buffett's low-fee investment earned $854,000, according to AEI.

Buffett's index investment bet is so far ahead of Seides' that the hedge fund manager surrendered the wager, which technically doesn't end until Dec. 31.

Though, hedge funds are a nice scam if you can run one. 2% fees, 20% of any gains? Yeah, let me run some of that. Invest, not so much.

 

[SecretMoblin]

What's great is that the S&P 500 was already so far ahead years ago that barring some bizarre disaster it was bound to easily coast to victory, and it wasn't interesting enough to write articles about anymore. Everyone was taking sides those first few years.

I think Bogle made a similar bet (that ended the same way) at some point but I'm having difficulty remembering where I read that. Might be one of his books.

Good charity, too.

 

[Walter White Walker]

Though, hedge funds are a nice scam if you can run one. 2% fees, 20% of any gains? Yeah, let me run some of that. Invest, not so much.

I was listening to "Talking Real Money" while walking this morning (which is a great radio show and podcast btw) and they were talking about another financial radio show host in the Seattle market who - get this - charges 3.5% a year and 20% of gains. That's beyond insane. And yes, of course, he doesn't even come remotely close to beating the S&P 500.
I don't know. I'm a DIY when it comes to investing since I fired my financial adviser several years ago. I'm good with .03% a year on my main investment and not much more than that on the other stuff just investing in most every company everywhere there is and calling it a day.

 

[Very Berry Sunday]

Are there taxes for investing in Vanguard?

I have $5,000 and I never invested before.

 

[Yaboosh]

Are there taxes for investing in Vanguard?

I have $5,000 and I never invested before.

If you sell the shares you invested in for a profit you will be taxed on those profits.


Or if they pay a dividend.

 

[Smiley90]

If you sell the shares you invested in for a profit you will be taxed on those profits.


Or if they pay a dividend.

Depends on the country/account.... There's tax-free savings accounts (TFSA's) in Canada in which you don't get taxed on profit. (capital gains and/or dividends)

 

[Einherjar]

I've been thinking to start investing (Canadian).

From the linked post in the OP, I'm supposed to start a TFSA and contribute the maximum each year?

Do I just go to my bank to start the TFSA? How do I contribute? Seems like I need to start a Questrade account and get Vanguard ETFs? How does that link to the TFSA account?
Is there a step-by-step guide anywhere I can just brainlessly follow?

 

[Mr.Mike]

I've been thinking to start investing (Canadian).

From the linked post in the OP, I'm supposed to start a TFSA and contribute the maximum each year?

Do I just go to my bank to start the TFSA? How do I contribute? Seems like I need to start a Questrade account and get Vanguard ETFs? How does that link to the TFSA account?
Is there a step-by-step guide anywhere I can just brainlessly follow?

http://canadiancouchpotato.com/ is the closest you'll get.

Simplest thing to do is probably the Tangerine mutual funds you can apply online for.

 

[ThanksVision]

need some advice and info. so I worked full time at my last place and contributed to a target retirement 401(k) with Vanguard. only worked there for a couple months so I have just under $5000 in it. now I'm on to a new job and have a new 401(k) set up with fidelity. i don't have any other saving funds outside of these two things.

so in a couple weeks my vanguard savings will automatically rollover to an Ascensus IRA if I don't do anything. otherwise I can move the money myself beforehand. the thing is, I'm not sure what/how I should do i.e. let it rollover or take all the money out and start a new IRA with vanguard or something...

i'd like to bump this and add my own goals as that might influence an answer or two... essentially I'd like to continue bumping employer match with my current employer at Fidelity 401(k). in addition to this I'd like to open a roth IRA and contribute $5500 a year to it.

the leftover money at vanguard is being rolled over to an Ascensus IRA in 10 days. would it be smarter for me to roll that money over to the fidelity 401(k) I have now and open a separate Roth IRA on my own terms later on? Or will this Ascensus IRA be fine? It's not much money because I only worked there for a couple months, a little less than $5 grand. i can either withdraw it and take a huge tax hit on it, let it roll over automatically, or roll it over to the fidelity account.. any advice?

 

[Aruarian Reflection]

I just opened up a roth IRA with Vanguard and put in $5500. I was planning on doing a blend of VTSMX, VGTSX and VBMFX but it looks like each account requires a $3000 minimum each. So for now I put it everything into a target 2040 fund since the allocation was closest to what I was planning. Is there any downside to keeping everything in the target fund forever since the expense ratios for these funds are all about the same?

 

[Chris R]

I just opened up a roth IRA with Vanguard and put in $5500. I was planning on doing a blend of VTSMX, VGTSX and VBMFX but it looks like each account requires a $3000 minimum each. So for now I put it everything into a target 2040 fund since the allocation was closest to what I was planning. Is there any downside to keeping everything in the target fund forever since the expense ratios for all these funds are all about the same?

The 2040 fund is made up of VTSMX and VGTSX mostly, with 10% in bonds.

The target fund will adjust to being more conservative as it gets closer to 2040. That might be exactly what you want, but for now, it's not a bad choice.

 

[hockeypuck]

I just opened up a roth IRA with Vanguard and put in $5500. I was planning on doing a blend of VTSMX, VGTSX and VBMFX but it looks like each account requires a $3000 minimum each. So for now I put it everything into a target 2040 fund since the allocation was closest to what I was planning. Is there any downside to keeping everything in the target fund forever since the expense ratios for these funds are all about the same?

There is no real downside to choosing a target fund from a trusted company. If everyone just did Target Date funds (with reasonable costs, of course), the average retiree would be better off.

I didn't choose a Target Date fund because I like having the freedom to choose which funds I want to put my next savings dump into. It's kinda fun once you understand the basics. But I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I can beat a Target Date's results.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It can handle filling in the deduction form on your return, which is the easy part of the process. The hard part is still manual: you are responsible for determining whether or not any of your transactions qualify as wash sales.

Your broker knows if it's a wash sale or not and should provide you with the correct data you need on your form whatevers. When I'm looking at my Schwab brokerage account, it clearly lists for me which of my transactions are wash sales.

I don't even know what the forms are because most brokers are now electronically connected with Turbotax, you just give your credentials to log into your broker to Turbotax, it logs in, downloads the information you need, and automatically populates your tax forms. It's hard to do your taxes wrong these days because of how automated this process is.

 

[tokkun]

Your broker knows if it's a wash sale or not and should provide you with the correct data you need on your form whatevers. When I'm looking at my Schwab brokerage account, it clearly lists for me which of my transactions are wash sales.

I don't even know what the forms are because most brokers are now electronically connected with Turbotax, you just give your credentials to log into your broker to Turbotax, it logs in, downloads the information you need, and automatically populates your tax forms. It's hard to do your taxes wrong these days because of how automated this process is.

The information you get from your broker is incomplete.

First, as far as I've seen, they will only report wash sales for transactions with identical ticker symbols. However the wash sale rules say they apply to any substantially identical securities. Second, wash sale rules apply across all of your accounts, including your retirement accounts. And if you are married, they also apply across all of your spouse's accounts as well. However, brokerages only report wash sales based on activity within a single account.

So for instance if you sell SPY in your brokerage account and your husband buys VOO in his 401K the same month, that is a wash sale, but I guarantee you that neither of you will have it correctly marked on the 1099B you get from your broker. This is the reason that robo-advisors that do automated tax loss harvesting like Betterment and Wealthfront will not guarantee they are doing it correctly unless you turn over control of all of your accounts (and your spouses, if married).

tldr; If your 1099B says something is a wash sale, it probably is. However, it does not report all wash sales. Now, some people are content with this, because omitting wash sales from their tax returns mean they get more money. But if you ever get audited, the legal responsibility for those missing wash sales will fall on you.

 

[tokkun]

i'd like to bump this and add my own goals as that might influence an answer or two... essentially I'd like to continue bumping employer match with my current employer at Fidelity 401(k). in addition to this I'd like to open a roth IRA and contribute $5500 a year to it.

the leftover money at vanguard is being rolled over to an Ascensus IRA in 10 days. would it be smarter for me to roll that money over to the fidelity 401(k) I have now and open a separate Roth IRA on my own terms later on? Or will this Ascensus IRA be fine? It's not much money because I only worked there for a couple months, a little less than $5 grand. i can either withdraw it and take a huge tax hit on it, let it roll over automatically, or roll it over to the fidelity account.. any advice?

From a purely practical standpoint, I think a good general rule of thumb is to try to minimize the number of accounts and number of brokers you have to deal with. Currently all of my accounts are with Vanguard, and it means I only have to log in to one website to see all of my accounts, and it can sum my balances across them. It also makes it easier to keep track of my tax forms when I file each year. It's a small convenience, but the small conveniences add up if it is something you're going to be doing for most of the rest of your life.

So, since we're not talking about a huge sum of money here, I would suggest that you consolidate accounts by rolling the existing 401k into your current 401k.

 

[ThanksVision]

From a purely practical standpoint, I think a good general rule of thumb is to try to minimize the number of accounts and number of brokers you have to deal with. Currently all of my accounts are with Vanguard, and it means I only have to log in to one website to see all of my accounts, and it can sum my balances across them. It also makes it easier to keep track of my tax forms when I file each year. It's a small convenience, but the small conveniences add up if it is something you're going to be doing for most of the rest of your life.

So, since we're not talking about a huge sum of money here, I would suggest that you consolidate accounts by rolling the existing 401k into your current 401k.

Thanks so much. I will look into rolling the money from Vanguard into Fidelity tonight. Then I'm going to open a ROTH IRA with Fidelity and begin pumping $5500 into that every year

 

[demosthenes]

Thanks so much. I will look into rolling the money from Vanguard into Fidelity tonight. Then I'm going to open a ROTH IRA with Fidelity and begin pumping $5500 into that every year

FYI, you can transfer $458 from your checking account to your savings account each month. When January 1, 20XX hits you can fully fund your IRA. This is what I do and what's you're in the habit of it, you won't miss the money.