[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to Invest Savings?
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       Ask HN: How to Invest Savings?
        
       After having sold my small business and having landed a well paying
       job, I find myself with some money to start saving for the first
       time in my adult life.  I'm in my late 20s, in a long term
       relationship, no kids, no money I can count on from my parents, and
       have ~70K sitting idle in my bank account. My goal is to preserve
       it, defend against inflation, and in general being responsible with
       it.  I could open a savings account and let the bank take care of
       it, but it looks to me that managing savings is not rocket science:
       ETF / index fund should do the trick. And I could save in fees.
       Also, I'd like to learn.  Am I right? How can I learn how to manage
       my finances? What tools to use, what simple strategies to pursue,
       and whatnot. Tried to Google it / find YT videos but it's all a
       huge content marketing mess. Everyone pitching "how to retire
       early" or "how to make money in the stock market". I'm not
       interested: I just want to be proactive and prepared with my
       personal finances, so that in 10 years from now I can buy a house
       (not interested in taking a mortgage now: I value flexibility more)
       and take care of my potential future family.  Would love to hear
       your strategies and your advice on how I can learn.
        
       Author : hansaw
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2022-05-30 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
       | dangle1 wrote:
       | I think you're on the right track with your thinking.
       | 
       | If your job is pretty secure, then I think it makes sense to put
       | much or all of your long term savings into an index ETF such as
       | (or exactly as) VTI. Make sure you guys are maxing out any tax
       | advantaged retirement plans available to both of you before
       | putting money into your taxable long term savings.
       | 
       | Savings for short term purchases/emergencies that exceed what a
       | couple of paychecks will pay for can go in things like CD ladders
       | or Series I bonds.
       | 
       | You're right, lots of people, many of whom mainly want to make
       | money from your money, will recommend more complex strategies and
       | products. I started saving before ETFs became a mainstream thing
       | I felt comfortable with, and ended up with a palette of mutual
       | funds before I switched to only buying more VTI, and some of them
       | have done better than VTI over time, and some worse, and each
       | costs more than VTI.
       | 
       | However, I've just coached my son to pile everything into VTI
       | while he debates adding home ownership to his mix.
        
       | manca wrote:
       | My advice is to read "The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing". It's
       | an amazing read written by people who strongly believe in Jack
       | Bogle's (founder of Vanguard) vision to democratize the
       | investment world and make average investors reap the benefits of
       | slow, compounding effects of the regular investments over long
       | periods of time.
        
         | rschachte wrote:
         | I second this advice. Best book and netted me a lot of money
         | since. It's a lifelong process, but bogle is a great start.
         | Also it's a fairly passive strategy that ignores media hype.
        
       | muttantt wrote:
       | $TSLA call options
        
         | leobg wrote:
         | For play money, yes. But know that if your timing is off,
         | you'll lose it all. With the stock, you at least have the
         | option of sitting it out if things go south.
        
       | chewz wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/c/Wealthion
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/c/cambridgehouseintl1
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/user/StansberryMedia
       | 
       | A mix of gold, energy companies and t-bonds should do well during
       | stagflation...
       | 
       | But with 10-year horizon it would be best to stay in cash and
       | patient and informed. There would be a couple of unique
       | opportunities - both macro and event driven. In other words don't
       | be invested in all the time.
        
         | nickff wrote:
         | Timing the market is basically impossible for a retail
         | investor, and I think it's an especially bad idea for someone
         | who has no idea what they're doing.
        
         | auxym wrote:
         | https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/150
         | 
         | The data shows that gold actually isn't that great of an
         | inflation hedge. It does keep a relatively stable real value,
         | but only on a timescale of centuries. For any investment
         | horizon on the scale of a human life, it's too volatile.
         | 
         | Highly recommend this podcast in general, though it does go
         | pretty deep into technical stuff sometimes. They recently had
         | an hour long interview with Nobel prize winner Eugene Fama (of
         | efficient market hypothesis fame) for their 200th episode. On
         | the topic of investing for retirement, I do recommend their
         | interview with Wade Pfau among others. They also had an arc of
         | a few episodes on the topic of the psychology of money and the
         | relation with happiness, which I thought was super interesting.
        
       | yuppie_scum wrote:
       | Set aside 3 months salary in savings for emergencies
       | 
       | Max out 401k
       | 
       | Max out Roth and Trad IRA as applicable
       | 
       | Then Vanguard, Vanguard, Vanguard
        
       | throwaway019254 wrote:
       | Put everything in SPY and and let it compound over long period of
       | time.
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | QQQ
        
       | mtmail wrote:
       | https://old.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ and as a start point
       | their wiki https://old.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index
        
       | fnordpiglet wrote:
       | Not crypto.
       | 
       | There's tons of robo investors that do fine. Indexes do fine.
       | Find tax advantages and save a lot more than you spend. It's
       | controversial but I also suggest buying a house and paying off a
       | mortgage, then buy a more expensive house and pay it off again. A
       | mortgage gives you leverage but paying the mortgage gives you
       | guaranteed returns. You live in your house which has intrinsic
       | value. And being relatively illiquid you won't be tempted to pull
       | it in a risky direction or spend it. Do it 20 years and you'll be
       | in a beautiful home that's fully paid off. If you do it right you
       | can keep the houses along the way and rent them out to build a
       | steady cashflow for eventual retirement.
       | 
       | These are the things I did. But by far investing myself into my
       | career earned me the most, most reliably.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-30 23:01 UTC)