how often do you guys invest

[Xesed]

I put away 10% of the money for investing from every salary. So I invest every month. Honestly, I found this strategy the most suitable because you can constantly invest and not spend that much money. Anyway, I am sure there are a lot of strategies that can bring you profit, so you just have to find the one which will work for you.

[Michael44]

About once per two months. Sometimes more often, sometimes less. Would love to try buying at least something every month, but when I see the big prices on the market I usually wait.

[myrdale]

To the title of the post "How often do you invest?"

The 401K is of course monthly.

For the IRA I try to hit all $6,000 at once, usually February or March. I've got a coworker who invest $500 per month in his. Either route gets you to the same place.

In myself, is daily.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding here, but when you have this money set aside for Roth IRA, do you mean its the money you need right now to live off of so you can contribute from your paycheck to Roth IRA?

I'm able to contribute $6,000 a year to my Roth IRA without going through payroll; I do this in a single lump sum from after tax money. I cannot contribute to Roth IRA through payroll due to my income and I don't get tax deductions for Traditional IRA contributions either. So every year I contribute $6,000 to my Traditional IRA (after-tax) and then I immediately transfer it to my Roth IRA (and don't have to pay any fees or taxes). However, the catch is you cannot have any remaining $ in all your Traditional IRA accounts by the end of the year you did this transfer, otherwise you'll face a penalty/tax. Fidelity allows me to do this and keeps track of it all so when I file taxes I have the appropriate paperwork for the IRS.

If this isn't your situation (e.g. you can still contribute to Roth IRA normally due to being below income limit), then yes you should max out payroll contributions to Roth IRA.

nope only backdoor roth every year

[sethmachine]

I have set aside $16k for next year 2 ESA and 2 Roth IRA.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding here, but when you have this money set aside for Roth IRA, do you mean its the money you need right now to live off of so you can contribute from your paycheck to Roth IRA?

I'm able to contribute $6,000 a year to my Roth IRA without going through payroll; I do this in a single lump sum from after tax money. I cannot contribute to Roth IRA through payroll due to my income and I don't get tax deductions for Traditional IRA contributions either. So every year I contribute $6,000 to my Traditional IRA (after-tax) and then I immediately transfer it to my Roth IRA (and don't have to pay any fees or taxes). However, the catch is you cannot have any remaining $ in all your Traditional IRA accounts by the end of the year you did this transfer, otherwise you'll face a penalty/tax. Fidelity allows me to do this and keeps track of it all so when I file taxes I have the appropriate paperwork for the IRS.

If this isn't your situation (e.g. you can still contribute to Roth IRA normally due to being below income limit), then yes you should max out payroll contributions to Roth IRA.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Check the Roth withdrawal rules, if you have enough in there to be an E-fund, and if you can discriminate contributions from growth.



This is tough, because it depends on interest rates. If they start to climb, BND's NAV will fall, and you won't have time for it to recover (due to higher yields).

A trailing stop-loss or trailing stop-limit order might mitigate that, though.

I don't know I didn't have time to invest our income. I probably should have invested the $300k DP for 1 year but then it seemed risky and we did buy within a year. We rented for 2 but the first year we were living off of cash savings so that seemed imprudent to invest it.

[Nutria]

I automatically invest every two weeks in my 401(k), and monthly in taxable savings.

[Nutria]

I was told that we have "too much cash" and that we should invest some of it, treating our ROTH as a "emergency savings a/c" but what if the market crashes and the "emergency fund" also dries up (even if temporarily)?

Check the Roth withdrawal rules, if you have enough in there to be an E-fund, and if you can discriminate contributions from growth.

As of now, home ownership looks to be several years out (3 - 5 years).

So, what do you all think? Should at least some of that "downpayment" be in the market in VTI or VOO OR BND?

This is tough, because it depends on interest rates. If they start to climb, BND's NAV will fall, and you won't have time for it to recover (due to higher yields).

A trailing stop-loss or trailing stop-limit order might mitigate that, though.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Why are you holding 16K for Roths? The current limit is 6K/person or 7K if 50+ so the most you'd need is 14K unless they raise the limit for 2022.

So it's $6k roth x 2 and 2 ESA $2k x 2 = $16k cash for 2021. Then I have $40k cash Capital One MM, $60k I bonds, and $8k property taxes. I don't know I guess we have $1-2k/month to invest after set aside our property taxes and sink funds. I am not sure exactly it's still a balancing game. I sent of $11k to the brokerage account.

I'm not sure my DH will freak out if we empty our cash EF. Yeah I told him we have 6 months in I bonds but neither of us see that it's just something I threw in there about 3 -4 years ago as a security net. We basically treat the $40k as our EF and forget about the i bonds (which I really do). And $40k is more like 4-6 months of our expenses depending on how lean we go. It's been a long time since we've had to watch our monthly expenses so carefully. Even before we had a lot of wiggle room because our mortgage and our bare bones expenses were low. Our house now is a lot more and the property taxes keep going up fast.

So I don't know if I should trim back our cash position and invest monthly and even invest our Roth IRA for next year.

[disneysteve]

I was told that we have "too much cash" and that we should invest some of it, treating our ROTH as a "emergency savings a/c" but what if the market crashes and the "emergency fund" also dries up (even if temporarily)?

Remember that a Roth is just a basket. You can put whatever you'd like in that basket. It can be super risky stocks, it can be government bonds. It can be a money market. It's totally up to you. So just the fact that you put money into the Roth doesn't automatically mean you're taking a bunch of risk with it. If you're counting on that money as your EF or a future down payment, then you'd probably choose more conservative investments.

As of now, home ownership looks to be several years out (3 - 5 years).

So, what do you all think? Should at least some of that "downpayment" be in the market in VTI or VOO OR BND?

There's no right answer to that. It depends on your risk tolerance. As you know, stocks and bonds have principal risk. You could find yourself with less than you thought when you're ready to buy which could delay your purchase. Of course, you could also find that you reach your goal much faster that way. It all depends how things play out and how flexible you're willing to be with your timeline.

What would I do? If we weren't going to buy for 5 years, I'd probably at least invest part of the money. I don't think I'd invest it all. And I'd lean to a conservative allocation, like 30/70 or something like that.

[Scallywag]

I've been ruminating on this for a while now. Ever since DH began to max out his 401K and we began to add to the "downpayment fund" (which is all cash in a savings a/c), we've been running low on our ability to contribute to our taxable every month as well.

I was told that we have "too much cash" and that we should invest some of it, treating our ROTH as a "emergency savings a/c" but what if the market crashes and the "emergency fund" also dries up (even if temporarily)? As of now, home ownership looks to be several years out (3 - 5 years).

So, what do you all think? Should at least some of that "downpayment" be in the market in VTI or VOO OR BND?

[kork13]

So if it were me, I would suggest that you invest most of the $40k MM. You can keep the sinking funds for your Roth (maybe), taxes/insurance, etc. But beyond a reasonable amount of cash for upcoming or unexpected needs, I'd suggest sending a healthy chunk of that into investments.

[disneysteve]

Why are you holding 16K for Roths? The current limit is 6K/person or 7K if 50+ so the most you'd need is 14K unless they raise the limit for 2022.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Trying to budget this year I set up sub accounts for stuff. So I have $8k in property taxes cash capital one, $16k for roth for January 2022 cash capital one account, then $40k cash in capital one another account. Property taxes are due october and home insurance in august so I have enough cash to cover both

[disneysteve]

So right now i have $40k MM, $16k cash Roth, $8k property taxes and I just sent $9k to brokerage. I have another $5k in checking account. I am sending 1x/month since the refi $720 the difference in the refi to a brokerage account (robinhood) not our normal account because they let you invest by $ instead of shares. I thought I'd also really like to watch and see how that investment does compared to the arm I'm doing.

When I looked at my cash savings I think we're at $140k. i don't mean to have so much but we have $60k ibonds, $40k MM which i'm starting to think is a bit excessive plus sink, property taxes, and now Roth savings for lump sum in january. I almost think I should invest the roth and instead draw from our $40k MM and let that be our Roth IRA savings. If it matters our expenses are large and for a 6 month EF i need $60k.

I'll admit to having a little trouble following your numbers. Do you have 16K already in your Roth in cash or is that 16K sitting in an account earmarked to go into the Roth in January? Is the 8K for property taxes sitting in a cash account until the bill is due?