I recently posted our expenditures through the
first 3 quarters of the year with a promise to update, by category, what those disbursements
entailed. Thanks to paying off all of our debts a couple years ago, we are now able
to invest or save approximately half of our income. YTD, this category is 45%
of our bring home pay, which we hope will increase significantly the remainder
of the year now that travel and helping prepare for a grandchild is out of the
way 😊. And
while savings/investments aren’t REALLY an expenditure, it’s one of the main categories
we track, so here goes:
·
Retirement Accounts: To
date, 42% of our savings/investments have been retirement account
contributions. 30% of this money is invested in Vanguard’s Growth Index Fund (VIGAX)
which returned 23.9% through the first 3 quarters and 30% is invested in a
target date fund (VTHRX), which returned 14.3% during the same period. 25% of
accounts are invested with a Fidelity total market fund (FSKAX) returning 17.8%
and the remaining 15% is invested in a Fidelity total market bond fund (FTBFX) returning
9.7% to help even out market volatility. Get with your CPA or investment
adviser to understand how to maximize tax-free or tax-beneficial investments to
maximize investments and save your actual largest expenditure (taxes). This category
will increase significantly during the last quarter of the year for reasons I
will detail later.
·
Brokerage Accounts: We use
Fidelity and Robinhood for our brokerage investments, which make up 35% of this
outlay. For the Fidelity account, 75% is invested in FSKAX, a total market
index fund returning 17.8% through the end of the 3rd quarter. 15%
is in a 3 year CD returning a set 3.1% per year (not the biggest fan of CDs,
but it was hard to pass up this guaranteed payout at a time when the markets
were acting a bit crazy) and 10% is in a total bond fund (FTBFX), returning
9.7% through September. For our Robinhood accounts, we chose high dividend
paying companies with consistent, year over year payouts. And, excluding Coke,
we chose companies that were down at least 20% from 52 week highs but with
otherwise solid financials. Through September we were up 20%, with Western
Digital being our largest gainer (over 50%).
·
High Yield Savings/CDs: Our
final 23% was put into high yield savings and CDs with Synchrony, an online
bank. We are currently getting 1.9% returns on savings (was as high as 2.25%)
and 2.65%-2.8% on CDs. We currently have about 8% of our net worth in cash due
to looking for real estate opportunities (hopefully an announcement coming
soon). Someone please tweet President Trump and tell him that negative interest
rates aren’t in the best interest of most Americans.
Well, I hope this information is helpful to one of
the two people who read this blog. I’d love feedback, questions, or even silly
comments. Thanks for taking the time to read…..
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