Yesterday I came across a shocking article about TSP investors. With the recent bear market (of the past 6-8 months), TSP investors have been transferring their investments to the G Fund. This is exactly the kind of panic selling that I warned about in a recent post. Moving all your TSP investments from the S or C Funds to the G Fund right now is bad. If you are feeling the overwhelming urge to do…
The stock market is down 20% this year. A discerning eye may recognize this as not great! It’s not all doom and gloom though – and certainly not a time to sell off all our investments. Instead, this bear market presents another opportunity to reevaluate our personal risk tolerance. Let’s go through the difference between this crash and the last one. Then we can sort through the psychology behind investing and chart a course forward. …
I am a big fan of compound interest. You can find references to our friend compound interest in many other posts of mine. Those other posts also featured the compound interest calculators that are so fun to play around with. HOWEVA ————————————————–> There is something about compound interest that is a huge Bummer. A bummer with a capital B. It seemingly takes FOREVER to get going. He’s legitimately the most entertaining sports personality on TV…
In my continuous quest to grow this blog, I’ve been surfing around Quora. For those not familiar, Quora is a website that allows users to answer questions that have been asked by others. In a lot of ways it’s a spiritual successor to the wild world that was Yahoo answers (RIP). On Quora, I try to answer questions related to personal finance and investing, then link my relevant blog posts. In the investing section, I…
Federal Employees and military members, you’re in luck! You have access to one of the most powerful retirement accounts offered in these United States. The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is analogous to a 401k. Unlike many 401k’s out there, the TSP has rock bottom fees and very flexible options. There are very simple options for hands off investors, low volatility options for the risk averse, and plenty of index funds for folks like me. You…
In the early 18th Century, an Englishman started a joint venture with the Crown to help reduce the national debt. He would sell shares in the South Sea Company, which was given the same monopoly in the Caribbean/South America as the East India Company had in Asia. With the support of the powers of England, the general public bought in, in a huge way. The stock price soared and some early investors became rich overnight.…
The stock market went into a correction this week, meaning that the market fell 10%. I really didn’t notice until I saw people over on the Choose FI Facebook page asking about what to do when the market goes down. That Facebook group is really diverse in terms of financial knowledge and attitude. Many don’t even listen to the Choose FI podcast, which is why there end up being a lot of questions about situations…
My main college job during the summers was at an ice cream shop. My boss was very generous to the employees and allowed us to have an ice cream for free while on the clock. Unless it was too busy, I would typically enjoy a nice soft serve coffee ice cream cone with chocolate jimmies during my shift. So while I was still earning money while customers came to the window, I got a little…
The stock market has been all over the news in the past week or so because of the craziness surrounding GameStop stock. For a new investor, events like this do nothing except provide extra stress. The volatility of the market is already a stressful thing for new investors, without mentioning confusing market forces. Even worse, most explanations include so much technical jargon that it only adds to the confusion. So what can us regular investors…
Primarily, I invest in index funds. I was fascinated and scared of investing when I started learning about personal finance. I didn’t want to lose the money that I worked hard to save. My first experience with stocks went poorly and so I didn’t do any more investing for a great while. But then my aunt (who is very close to retiring early) gave me a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth and my investing…