While I had heard this story in the past and was actually planning on doing a write up on it for this blog, but after reading the blog entry on Personal Finance Advice I decided there is no way I could do a better job. Check out the article here
This is a great example of the power of compounding interest.
“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest” – Albert Einstein
Maybe I should have mentioned this right away but I really have no clue what I am doing. I am not an expert, nor even that knowledgeable about investing or saving for retirement. I really have very little experience in financial matters and my career has absolutely nothing to do with financials of any sort (computer programming). Anything that I say on this blog is most likely just my opinion and has no scientific data or knowledge to back it up. Most of what I say will be a culmination of what I have learned so far or just some convoluted idea I came up with myself. If by chance I do state some fact or figure assume it is just some number I made up in my head. In instances where I am actually using valid data or viewpoints I’ll be sure to point that out for you and include the source.
Well I have been thinking a lot about some of the financial goals for myself and I think I will just list them all here and decide which one’s to fine tune and set for myself on this blog.
Accumulate $100,000 in retirement savings by the time I am 30 years old
I like this goal because one it is a nice BIG round number that would give me a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Note: Hopefully this will get prettier as time goes on
Traditional 401k Account Balance = $10,147.11
Roth 401k Balance = $0
My Roth IRA = $6763.21
Wife’s Roth IRA = $7706.61
Net Worth = $24,616.93
I’ve been thinking about how I am going to track my net worth. A lot of the blogs out there have very detailed records of their financial wherewithal (checking, savings, 401k, IRAs, taxable accounts, Home Equity, Mortgage, Student Loans, etc) Heck My Open Wallet even let everyone know that she has exactly $2.02 in her wallet and this balances out to her Quicken Cash balance. While I commend her for having such an accurate picture of her financial picture, I currently do not have a mastery of Quicken to that degree (just got it around Christmas) and nor do I think it will be necessary to track my financials that detailed as far this blog is concerned. While it is very important to know exactly where your money is and where it is going in order to successfully reach your goals, I’ve tended to shoot slightly more from the hip (at least that’s my perception of myself).
Well I didn’t exactly get to my follow up post as quickly as I would have liked to, but here goes. Well I ended up sending the form in and leaving my contribution at 14%. According to my calculations I had figured this would cost me an extra $124 out of every paycheck. Now I have our budget strung pretty tight as it is, but when it comes to saving for retirement I tend to act irresponsible like this and splurge on my retirement. I’ve done this a number of times in the past and I’ve never had cash flow problems yet, somehow there always seems to be enough money left over to pay the bills.
Well I planned on starting this blog with more introductory articles on the basics investing tools available, but my employer just decided to offer a Roth 401k plan and I have to fill out the form today so I figured I’d blog about my decision process when filling out the form.
For those of you who don’t know a Roth 401k is a new savings vehicle that the IRS is releasing as of January 1, 2006. A Roth 401k is very similar to a Roth IRA in that any money you contribute to the plan you have to pay taxes on. The good news is that because you paid the taxes on the money up front any money you make a long the way is tax free and when you withdraw any money from this account after age 59.5 the money is also tax free. …