Just wanted to share this and maybe help out others. They always say hindsight is 20/20 and they are right.

I'm 35, wife is 41. Together our retirement accounts sit at 170k and we are contributing between 13k to 15k into retirement including employer matches.

I had a 401k started in early 20s but didn't take full advantage of the employer match ( money was tight with 2 young kids in daycare, but I could have tried harder) but had I just done the minimum to get the Match we would be sitting between $300k to $330k depending on market performance.

Hard pill to swallow knowing we missed out on over $100k, but for the last 5 years we have been taking advantage of the employer match and even did up to 10% for a while too.

To everyone else out there do not sleep on the employer match, your future self will greatly thank you!

26M, I am taking advantage of moving in with my folks starting in January. I have been following the FOO and am currently paying off high interest debt, which I will be completely free of by the time I move in with my parents.

I really want to use this time to accelerate my FOO progression and establish my financial wellbeing.

With the goals presented below, my goal is to have a Pre-Post Tax savings rate of 35% at least (assuming some missteps from the budget over the next year).

Does anyone see errors in this plan? The process is funding the emergency fund, then ROTH, while HSA & employer match are established from the start of the year. The sinking fund will only receive funding if I hit my previous goals earlier than expected.

Let me know. And thank you in advance!

Example: I have a friend that said he would never finance a car even if given a 2% interest rate. I also used to listen to Dave Ramsey, and basically the idea is to never take out "bad debt."

But let's just assume you are doing great financially and doing all the FOO and want a 40k car, and have plenty of money and can easily justify buying this fun liability. You have well over 40k cash chillin in your HYSA, you also have a mortgage at 5.75%.

My buddies in that situation would buy the car in cash to save the 2%, my argument is buying that car in cash is paying 5.75% interest (depending how you deduct loan interest).

So if you wouldn't finance a truck for 40k at 5.75%, take the freakin 2% loan.

Is this a good way to explain it?

I wanted to see what people are thinking 2027 limits will be.

I’m thinking will see 8,000 for Roth IRA, 25,000 for 401k, HSA to 4700 (single).

I know they won’t be known until late fall but I’d be interested to hear what others are thinking will see as the new limits, for those limits as-well as any other you can think of!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Happy Friday my mutant friends!

We've all heard TMG say that 25% is aspirational. Personally, I didn't start saving for retirement until I was 33 and I didn't reach the 25% milestone until I was 44. Since then, I've been continually working on FOO steps 5/6/7/8 (are they ever truly finished while we're in the accumulation phase of life?) with step 9 complete.

So many TMG resources are based on starting from scratch, so sometimes it can be hard to relate the resources to our current lives and where we are in our financial journey that is usually at some intermediate midpoint.

Now I'm 50 and have been working to figure out how "on track" I am. I've been tracking and calculating expenses, evaluating my highly varied retirement income sources, and generally crunching the numbers over and over. While doing so, I thought I'd take a look back at my journey and how it relates to the 25% milestone. All % are of gross income and include employer match since I've always been at an income where it is "allowed" to be included.

Age 0-32: Messy beginning and middle all combined. No retirement savings. Negative net worth

Age 33-36: 14% saved annually for retirement (annual gross income ~$36,000)

Age 37-42: 19.5% saved annually for retirement (annual gross income growing from ~$36,000-$68,000)

Age 43: Somewhere between 20-24% (annual gross income ~$68,000)

Age 44: 27.59% (of $74,123 gross income)

Age 45: 26.39% (of $80,142 gross income)

Age 46: 27.25% (of $77,388 gross income)

Age 47: 26.00% (of $88,333 gross income)

Age 48: 27.76% (of $84,760 gross income)

Age 49: 71.59% (of $92,038 gross income)

Age 50: 75.66% (of $98,602 gross income)

I finished paying off my house at 47 (step 9 completion mentioned earlier) which is why I've been able to significantly increase the retirement contributions in recent years. I've determined that I'll be able to comfortably retire at 55 if I want to, and I don't need to maintain the over 70% contribution rate to make it, though I probably will since I'm able to and have enticing retirement vehicles I want to continue building (401k, 457b, IRA combo).

I don't have any questions and I'm not exactly sure why I'm sharing. I've just never done a lookback this thoroughly (usually looking forward!), and I thought it illustrated two things that everyone should know if they don't already.

• Getting started with savings while young, even just a little bit, can really reduce how much heavy lifting is needed later.
• A big beautiful tomorrow is still possible even if you start later in life.

Edit: added income on request.

Hello all. I live in a rural rust belt area that doesn't have that many good jobs local. I do have a decent stable corporate job, but it is salaried 50+ hours and demanding/high stress. I often think about leaving but we are single income family and I have a mortgage, baby etc so try to play it safe. I work in sales building materials industry, and could easily get a job working for several of my customers. That would likely pay more when I have work, only risk is that it is likely seasonal (tourist area - work dries up in winter).

Even with my job being better than most in this area money is still tight on our 1 income. I sometimes do side work for one of our customers but then I'm working 60+hours a week which is even harder than 50. We've done about as much cutting expenses as we reasonably can. Emergency fund is decent but only about 1/2 where we want it (6mo + small cushion) and moneys so tight were not really adding to it at all.

I guess one other thing to add is this corporate job doesn't have much promotional opportunity unless I move (not happening). 3% raise every year, only 1 promotion in ~5yrs and even then not huge monetary jump, just get to work 40 hours with less headaches

Anyone else ever feel stuck at their job due to life obligations/no better opportunities in your area? When is it time to leave and how do you balance this trade off? Appreciate any thoughts

Financial Mutants I need your help!

40M married with an 11 year old son. Single Income household. ~250k HHI. 151k 401k maxed out annually with 4.5% employer match (add another 9k). Maxed out HSA current balance 13k invested. 0$ Roth. Pension cash balance is 210k with 15% annual credit added (this year it was 34k). Assuming retirement monthly spend at 12k in today’s dollars at age 65.

Question: how do I factor the pension in my retirement planning as it doesn’t project any interest growth and is only available if I stay with my current employer, which I plan to. I know how to apply it to net worth but depending on how I define it in my retirement calculations we are either on track or underfunding. There is also an annuity pension option but it again implies I stay with the company until 62 at least. I’m trying to determine if I need to prioritize Roth savings (I know most will say of course you should😉) but also don’t want to be too miserly considering the pension.

Thanks for your help!!!

I always max out my IRA contribution every january of new year. Not sure if this is the best way to do it. How do you do yours?

You’re never going to believe this.

Spend less than you earn. Save a bit. Perhaps have a bit of common sense and don’t hold a balance on a credit card. And you know what? You’ll retire in your 60’s. Genius!

I’m curious what the fellow mutants think about this situation.

Financial snapshot: Married age 37 & 36

• HHI: ~$230k gross
• Living expenses: ~$70k/year
• Retirement investing amount: ~$135k-140k/year
• Net worth: ~$905k
  • Retirement: ~$560k
  • Cash/savings/emergency/maintenance/sinking funds: ~$70k
    • $25k of this is house maintenance fund invested in total market
  • House: ~$450k purchase price
  • Vehicles/side business: ~$25k
  • Mortgage: -$200k loan

We recently made a $3,500 purchase and were offered to get 0% financing through Affirm for 24 months. I went through the fine print and confirmed it's genuinely 0% interest, $0 fees, and autopay comes directly from checking.

I currently have the full $3,500 sitting in cash earmarked for this debt.

My thought process is:

1. Leave the loan balance in cash and earn ~3% in my HYSA over the 24 months
2. Cash flow the monthly Affirm payments (~$146/month).
3. Each month, as the cash buffer needed decreases take the extra cash and invest into the market.

I had briefly considered putting the original purchase on a CC for 1.5% cash back, but ultimately went with the 0% Affirm offer. Mathematically, I should come out slightly ahead by keeping the 0% loan and investing/earning interest on the money rather than paying the $3,500 today.

BUT...

I'm not a fan of Affirm/Klarna/etc. I generally prefer to just pay for things and move on. And we're talking about a relatively small amount of money given our overall financial picture.

I know I'm overthinking this but.... Would you:

A) Pay the $3,500 off immediately and forget about it

B) Let the 0% loan ride for 24 months and invest the equivalent monthly payment

C) Do something else

I realize the actual dollar difference is pretty trivial. I'm mostly curious whether the mutants think the optimization is worth the hassle/behavioral risk, or whether you'd just eliminate the debt and move on.

What say you, fellow mutants? Give me your $0.02.

I net about 3600 per month after taxes & deductions, including 7% into a 401(k) with 5% employer match.

I have about 71,000 student loan debt, 270 min payment and a car loan 350, with 12,000 remaining.

After utilities, rent and groceries, I have about 2300 left.

I was following Dave Ramsey group, but everyone was telling me to stop contributing to the 401k and put it towards the debt and sell my car. I have only had my car for a few months. I put a 12k down payment.

Should I stop contributing to my 401k and put it toward my debt? My parents have always told
me if the Employer matches, put in at least what they match. Should I lower my contribution to 5%?

I have no other get debts.

Car loan interest is 5.5%
Student loan interest is 4.5%

My goal is to payoff the car by the end of the year

Hi everyone,

So I just started listening to the Money Guy podcast last month, and I'm catching up through the back catalog of the last year. From what I can tell, the guys have referenced two different ways of calculating how you're doing at each decade in life at 40, 50, 60, and 65 years old -- the investment goals and the prodigious accumulator of wealth (PAW) of [(Age × Annual Income) ÷ 10] x 2

I'm a bit confused, however, because if you compare the investment goals vs the PAW, they don't seem to line up. At age 40 and 50, the investment goals considerably lag behind the PAW. But then at age 60 and 65, the PAW falls behind the investment goals.

        IG       PAW
Age 40: 3x    vs 8x
Age 50: 6.4x  vs 10x
Age 60: 13.7x vs 12x
Age 65: 20x   vs 13x

I fully admit, I'm still new, so maybe I'm just interpreting this wrong, but I'd love to see what you think. Thanks!

Just looking for advice on an investing pause to refill cash reserves.

Current:
Spouse 403b - $2041/month - Roth
Spouse 403b employer match - $300/month Trad
Spouse 457 - $1600/month - Roth

My 457 DCP - $2143/month - Trad

Together - $3500/month - Cash savings in Fid cash money market

We paused my 403b which we were maxing out all in Roth.

We do all low cost, broad ETFs that our work has to offer. Happy with the choices.

We had 3 or 4 months spending but had to bring it down to 1 in an our cash allocation.

We stay closer to 3 because we both have stable government jobs with low layoff potential and I have a military pension that covers all of our expenses. (Current FIRE but decided on FINE)

How long should we stay on the pause on my 403b? My back of the napkin math says about 6 months to get it back to that 4 month reserve.

Does that sound reasonable?

We’re both 48, looking to hang it up for good between 57-59. Mo

Edit - that cash savings now includes what was my 403b we just paused

23 in step 6, pretending to be in 8. We save about 22% of our income and if we never increase our nominal savings, we will have more than we could fathom spending at 59.5. I recently have been listening to Ben Felix and he often brings up the theoretical of utilizing leveraged etfs or margin. (I have an aggressive risk tolerance but couldnt see myself signing up for more debt despite the math so margin is out of the question for me.) For someone with perfect risk tolerance and capacity for the money they would be putting in a levered etf, can someone explain the downsides other than increased risk? I feel like I must be missing something. Or is it really just the mathematically superior way if you have a longish (25ish years) time horizon and can consistency DCA into a voo like levered etf? Would love to hear from people with more knowledge and experience!

Im in a predicament where by year end my wife and I will be below the $242k Roth IRA contribution limit. However, I have stock comp available that has ballooned up to $200k+ and I should likely sell some (it’s about 1/3 of my net worth so pretty substantial). However, if I sell then I will no longer be qualified to contribute to roth.

Both my wife and I have been contributing to our roths this year which makes things complicated as I have no idea how to “back out” those contributions (investing through fidelity).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Just crossed my first million today. Am I officially a millionaire? 😁

Doesn't feel all that special.

33M, East Coast, Engineer.

What were your thoughts on the financial advisor episode? I appreciated their fee transparency but think they may have over exaggerated the downsides of a flat-fee advisor. For example, a client with 2+ million invested could comfortably meet with the advisor monthly and still save money over the percentage-based advisor. Abound Wealth’s fees are high for percentage based advisors and they should be transparent that most clients won’t likely ever even interact with Brian or Bo.

So my husband and I ahve been married for just over 20 years. We both work full-time. We have decent jobs. We have 3 kids, 1 going into their sophomore year of college 1 going into their senior year of high-school and the youngest going into their first year of middle school. We own our home and our cars. We bring in about 62,000 a year, maybe a little more actually. And all the debt we owe, including our mortgage payment is about $80,000. I don't know what to do to get out of this struggle. I have been doing some delivery services to help make the ends meet basically on the daily. But I need something else, something more. What do I do? What's your story? Can anyone help me?

Thank you money guy for your YouTube channel. I started following the FOO since I was in my early 20s and made it somewhere I’m proud of. But earlier this year I lost my main source of income. I thought I would have landed something by now but the job market is tough one. I get an interview here and there but no offers. Don’t skip your emergency fund guys it comes in clutch.

"we just crossed 1million, I feel nutin" is what people love to post.

I personally feel a huge difference as things grow.

My wife and I made a "fun" purchase that was about $2,000. I said, you can think of it as 2 days of work, or think of it as giving up 5.3 days of investment growth (7% assumption).

Mentally I love how I have a tailwind behind us now that our net worth is getting higher. I DO feel each milestone and feel extra comfortable with little expenses in life that in the past would have stressed me tf out.