What You’re Saving For

This is the fourth part  of a four part series on personal finance basics. Check out parts one, two, and three when you get a chance.


There are a multitude of reasons to save, such as; a down payment on a house, your child’s college tuition, and retirement. Priorities will change over time, but saving is always a prudent idea. The issue arises when you don’t know what you’re saving for, it needs to feel important so give yourself some objectives.

Priorities

1. Emergency Fund
What happens if you lose your job or are injured and can’t work for 8-12 weeks? Can you support yourself? Recent surveys have indicated that more than 50% of Americans do not have enough in the bank to cover three months’ expenses. This should be your first and most pressing priority. 

Experts generally recommend having six months worth of living expenses in your emergency fund, but you should have even more if you are starting a family or have a significant mortgage.

Cut back on all your expenses and tighten the budget until you get this done. Once you’ve put together the 6 months of dough, put it in a separate account that you can’t touch for everyday expenses.

2. Investing in Assets
Assets are the opposite of disposable goods (toilet paper, food, cleaning supplies). They are going to stick around and make a positive impact on your balance sheet. Assets can come in many forms, think stocks, bonds, real estate, etc., and starting to build assets will benefit you years down the road. 

3. Opportunity Fund
Are you going to be buying a house, proposing to someone, or paying for a wedding sometime soon? Those are all expensive propositions and you should start setting money aside now.

You might be thinking to yourself, “that’s all well and good, I have an emergency fund and want to start investing, but I have no idea where to start.”

You’re not alone.

Lots of people feel out of their depth since this isn’t something you usually learn in school. Plenty of people dedicate their lives to learning how to invest in stocks and bonds, but the most important thing is that you stick to a plan once you get started.

The biggest investing mistakes are made when investors don’t have a plan and make emotional decisions.

Investing Basics

Investing is its own unique language. Roth IRAs, 401ks, brokerage accounts, the list goes on and on. What do you need to know?

There are entire books written on the subject so don’t expect a sufficient education here. To start:

• Roth IRAs are an extremely tax-efficient vehicle only available up to a certain level of income. If you are single, you must make less than $116,000 to contribute to a Roth IRA. If you are married, you must make less than $183,000.
• If you have a retirement savings plan through work, make sure you contribute enough to maximize any matching program your company offers.
• Roth IRAs are best at the beginning of your career, when you’re usually making the least amount of money relative to the rest of your career. IRAs and 401ks are best when you are at the height of your earning power or taxes are the highest. The whole goal of investing in different vehicles is to avoid taxes. Keep Uncle Sam out of your investments and you win the game.
• When you choose a fund to invest in, be conscientious of fees. 1 or 2 percentage points is a huge amount of your wealth over 20-30 years and shouldn’t be going in a broker’s pocket. The lower fee option is usually just as good, it isn’t an indicator of quality.
• If you are looking to decide how to allocate your investment dollars, there are tools that can calculate an appropriate allocation of funds for you. Try this Vanguard one as a starting point.

Odds and Ends

It’s best to save at least 10% of your income. Over the years, try to work up to 20% before you get married or have kids.

Take more risks in your 20’s and 30’s as long as you pledge not to sell out of your positions when the market inevitably corrects every 5-7 years.

Life insurance is a must-have for anyone with a family or a co-signer on private loans. Make sure your loved ones are taken care of.

Further Reading
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel
A Wealth of Common Sense by Ben Carlson

This has been a four part series on personal finance basics. Check out parts one, two, and three if you missed any of them.