The other week when my sister was visiting, she tried to freak me out by reminding me that I turn 30 in about a year. I shrugged and went, yup, I know. She, of course, instantly got angry at me for not freaking out a little bit more.
Honestly, I’m not that freaked out, or at least, I wasn’t until I read this article.
TLDR: this article is about how much you should save at every age. Or at least, how much you should have saved by certain age milestones.
To be frank, I’m not where this article says I need to be. Or close. In case you haven’t clicked it, it says that by 30, you should have at least one year’s worth of salary saved for retirement.** I could blame it on student loans (which definitely don’t), but it’s primarily my fault for not doing the research. There’s no course in college or high school that sits you down and explains to you about your retirement funds or putting money away. Then, by the time you finally learn the things on your own, you feel like you’re miles behind.
Well, the good news is that you’re hopefully joining me in trying to catch up. I thought that today would be a great time to follow up on my investing 101 post from earlier this year.
As a reminder, I’m signed up for 3 “easy” investment accounts, with the purpose of learning how to invest without going too crazy, making stupid choices, or breaking the bank. I did want to add this note though: These are not my only forms of savings and/or retirement funds. With all of my full time jobs I’ve taken advantage of my company’s 401K/403B opportunities. This is simply another way for me to learning about investing and take part in it.
Anyways, let’s look at what happened.
Stash
I started Stash around the same time I did my first post. I chose to do two types of automatic withdrawals every two weeks. A straight cash one that I can use to make a purchase at any point and a moderate mix investment. The moderate mix investment has $10 added to it every two weeks. My current returns on that one is down right now, but only recently, so I’m not that concerned.
Stash has done a fairly decent job of describing my moderate mix to me, but I still want to dive more into their Learn section.
Acorns
I understand the concept of Acorns, but I still feel like I’m trying to understand their site. I know I have a balance, I have a moderately conservative portfolio, and a small monthly dividend. Other than that, I’m lost. They have a space to ask questions, but right now, I don’t even know where to start.
Ellevest
Unlike the other two, Ellevest looks more at bigger or more long term financial goals. They’re very interested in helping women secure a financial future, so they don’t want you to just play around with numbers. For that, I wanted to really wait until I had a more substantial amount to use.
I received a decent tax return this year, so I decided I was going to invest a portion of it with my Ellevest account. I just did that the other day though, so I won’t have a report on this until my next post.
If you’re interested in trying out Ellevest, let me know. I still have a few invites left.
That’s all I have for my investing updates now.
Some small losses, but some small learning gains. Also, some major learning and investing goals. Now that these accounts have all been set up, I want to spend the next quarter really learning more about each. I think that qay I can potentially utilize them better and maximize their full potential.
**I should be nice to myself here. If you keep reading the article, I have time to the next milestone and can totally catch up. Also, these are suggestions, not rules.
