Investing 102

[jay72nova]

WoW!
alot of good advice here!

just to give another example, this is how I do things.
I own two houses the one I live in and the one I used to live in, I have the renters pay the mortgage and taxes and expenses on that one with thier rent.

outside of my mortages I save 20% of my income in invstment and savings of some sort. When I was single and when my wife and I were both working it was 30%
I lived in 300$ a month rentboxes and drove and old copcarbluesmobile for many years.

The only reason I bought a new car is becuase I got one tax free at invoice from Iraq...it won't happen again

I maxed out my 401k, (and I think everyone should) I like the HUGE boost it gets from the money coming out of my paycheck BEFORE it gets taxed....that garenteed growth right there!!! whatever your tax rate is you get an automatic growth boost the day it goes in the account..plus whatever the account makes....plus whatever your employer might put in.

I max out my IRA

I have all my money in my government TSP or my Schwab account which I have an IRA, individual investment account and a checking acount in. I use my investment account as my "savings"

Most of my investments are in index funds, no fees and they track the market....there are very few managers that beat the market and when they do its not year after year...and index funds don't have fees to pay which compounded turn out to be alot of money.

I have a couple high divedend stocks just for fun.

schwabb has some nice tools, one of which is an account analizer. you tell them your investment needs and it compares your needs to your account and tells you what they recommend you sell and buy...as in sell some large caps and buys some small caps because you said you could tolerate more risk than your account reflects. I use it.

anyway thats what I do.