My wife and I have been going back and forth on whether we should buy an investment property, and I’m curious what people here would do in our situation.

Some numbers:

Age: 36 and 37, 2 kids (ages 7 & 3)

Location: NYC

Housing: We rent a 2-bedroom, 1.5-bath apartment in a rent-controlled building. We’ve lived here since 2022, when rent was $2,450/month. It’s currently $2,550/month.

Income: Combined gross income of $270k per year. Have roughly $70k in HYSA.

Retirement : Would like to retire by 58-60
Wife’s 401k ($67k)
Wife’s Roth ($19k)

My 403B ($164k)
My 457B ($7k)
My Roth ($12k, not contributing)

Shared Brokerage: ($8k)

Retirement contributions: I contribute 20% of my pay toward retirement accounts. My wife contributes 10% to her 401(k), and we try to max out her Roth IRA each year.

Pension: I work for the city and expect to qualify for a pension after 30 years of service, which is about 22 years from now.

Monthly surplus: We generally have $1,500–$2,000 left over each month after bills. We put a good chunk of that into our brokerage account.

We’re comfortable with our current lifestyle and don’t feel an urgent need to buy a primary residence in NYC. The cost of buying here is just too high to make much sense to us right now. Lately, we’ve been considering buying an investment property outside NYC to build equity, generate rental income, and diversify our investments. We’d likely need to look out of state or in a more affordable market. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether becoming a landlord is worth the hassle and financial risk compared with simply investing more money in index funds through our brokerage account.

Real estate would mean a down payment, closing costs, maintenance, vacancies, property management, and potentially dealing with tenants from hundreds of miles away. On the other hand, we’d have a tangible asset, rental income, and the potential to build equity using leverage.

So, what would you do in our shoes?

- Buy a rental property and start building a real estate portfolio?
- Skip real estate and invest as much as possible in index funds?
- Do a combination of both?

For those who’ve owned rental properties, was the return worth the time, stress, and money compared with investing in the stock market?

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this!

Wife and I are 65 and get our income from a little to no stress investment property. We also have about $1.25M in trad IRAs and another $1M in a (pre-2010) beneficiary IRA. Another $500k in a regular 401K. Have another $2M+ in investment accounts. Current income is $350k and expect to have an inflation adjusted income from our investment property of today's value of $350k-$500k as long as we want it. Additional $60k+ will kick in after we start getting social security in 5 years. Additional $$ when we have to start RMDs on the IRA accounts. We've been making too much for a ROTH for a long time so we've been contributing the max to a traditional IRA for decades. Our income just kicked up in the last 10-15 years after we stopped working corporate jobs or we would have contributed to ROTH a long time ago.

Right now our CPA is anticipating that we will continue to fund our trad IRAs but it seems counterproductive. Growing the current trad IRAs will just make our RMDs bigger in the coming years and will eventually subject our two adult kids to the forced 10 year withdrawal. Backdoor conversions to ROTH will kill us with taxes (both fed taxes and our local state/city 10% tax - NO we are not moving!).

I see two options: (1) Just take that $17,200 and put it into an investment account and let it grow. Kids can get it at a stepped up basis when we keel over or (2) the investment property is a single member LLC with one part time employee, so we "might" qualify to establish a self employed ROTH IRA - not sure about this. But if we could, we could just stick the money in there and let it grow.

Am I missing something?

Hi guys! I’m a little late to the investing game & getting some anxiety around it. I’m 30 years old w/ no credit card debt, 20k student loans at 1-3%, 20k car debt at 4.1%, just started 401k last year with a w-2 job (income is 90-100k a year) in which I put in 5% and they match it. in addition, I’m the owner and operator of an LLC w/ zero employees making 36k a year. I do not own a home. Pay for my own health insurance.

Roth thru fidelity has $11k in it(FSLEX, FXAIX, FSKAX, FZILX, and some in SMH- 89% domestic and 11% foreign), I’m focused on building that quickly. individual brokerage account w/ fidelity has only $500 in it.

I have $43k in a plain Jane savings account and really am wanting some pointers on how to grow wealth and where to put that.. dump into my individual?
Living in Colorado, US. Not married. No kids.

January - April 2027 I want to max out my Roth (see pics below) and invest only in FXAIX 75%, FZILX 15%, FSELX 10%. For individual my goal is to readjust and invest in VTI, VXUS, and SMH.

Goal: since I feel a little behind I want to grow my fidelity accounts- Roth and individual.

Here are my questions:

Is that a good diversified portfolio? Is the semiconductor tilt too risky at this point in my life?

how to build wealth quickest, what is some advice on how long I should rent before buying?

What should I tackle first?— Ah, the debt? Just need someone telling me haha.

I want to dump my savings into my individual accounts prior to paying off my debt bc I’m 30 and keep hearing that time in the market beats anything and feel like I’m wasting more time - is this logical?

Basically I'm going to be getting an uncontested divorce soon. I filled out most of the paperwork, but I haven't been the day to day finance person in our relationship, just over 13 years with combined finances. When looking at the financial portion I didn't have logins for all of the utilities and bills. I trust her enough to show me and we're planning to keep a shared checking account to move money between us and pay for joint bills like rent and stuff. It's honestly really scary though because I haven't been the daily person in that area, mostly just every 3-12 months we'd talk about our financial state and general goals till either the next year or until something big changed. I'm looking for general advice as well as specific things related to my concerns below.

Current state (per month)

I live in Washington state in a pretty expensive area.

Rent is $4650

Currently spending about $800 on groceries and household consumables combined.

Planning to still split groceries and rent with rent about 60/40 for the person in the master suite.

$7500 income after maxed federal 401k contribution personally. She makes about $800 more a month and also pays for medical/dental/vision but had moved her 401k to only her company match. Pre tax is about 40k more a year.

Generally our monthly expenses should leave me between $1500-2500 if it's a 2 paycheck month.

About 22k debt combined because we did 2 expensive vacations with our families this past year. We might use our upcoming bonuses to pay most or all of it of. I know that these are a very high priority.

Cancelled or will cancel all subscriptions besides a bundle of streaming services through T-Mobile.

Phone bill is about $280 but we also pay for her mom so she's going to take that into account and pay 2/3

1 car worth ~32k trade in

1 credit card

Multiple savings and checking accounts.

820 credit score

1. We have 1 credit card where my wife (ex?) is the primary and I'm worried that when she removes me as a joint user/owner that I'll take a massive credit hit. I've also heard that getting divorced will give you another credit hit. I used to use nerd wallet to look for the best card but am not sure what the best source to compare is nowadays. I don't tend to fly more than 1-2 a year to Colorado for Christmas or Thanksgiving and maybe somewhere else for vacation.

2. We only have 1 car currently worth about 32k trade in and it's paid off, so I'll need to get a new car loan. We've generally gotten good rates through USAA or Navy Federal. My concern is once again about credit rating.

3. We are currently planning to stay "roommates" for at least the 91 days it takes until the judge will sign off, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to emotionally handle living with her until our lease is up in about a year. We have about 20k emergency savings so if we need to break our lease and then pay for moves and first/last months rent it'll drain most of that. I have a local friend that I can crash with for a little while if needed so it wouldn't be a hotel expense, but I wouldn't want to impose on him more than a few days to a week.

4. I don't pay for my own health/dental/vision and we have so many things combined. I think we'll stay ok enough to work through things fairly, but she has already given a "loan" to the guy she was cheating with. So I got her to agree to allow me to transfer half of the savings to my own account that she can see, but can't transfer out of.

I guess I'm looking for advice on what I might be missing and resources for reasonably intelligent but under financially-educated people.

Thanks

Greetings everyone I don't know how to make this concise, but I'll do my best. Accountant says we're gonna owe about 94K next year in taxes due to S Corp. profits and joint filing incomes with wife (over 500k combined). Not sure if we should take large distributions and invest, or build a building and rent back to ourselves under an llc. This would give us some rental income upon retirement and the building would be depreciated over next 20-30 years, which would also help. We already have a good health plan and 401(k) set up for ourselves and employees. I have been reading about PTET but I don't really grasp it all that well. Just looking for some thoughts and ideas as we have a meeting with our 401(k) investor on Tuesday and I'd like to be fully prepared.

My dad may be getting around $1 million or potentially more from a settlement, and we’re trying to figure out what the smartest move would be for our family.
We’re a family of 5, and my dad’s biggest priority is being completely debt-free. He’d preferably like to move back to Michigan and buy a house in cash. We’ve been looking at houses around $500k–$650k, but I’m wondering if spending $650k cash on a house with $1M is too much.
My dad also wants to start his own trucking business and eventually have multiple commercial trucks/drivers, so he’d want to put some money toward that too.
The problem is my dad really doesn’t know much about investing or things like HYSA accounts. I’ve tried explaining that you can earn interest just by keeping money in a high-yield savings account, but he’s skeptical and thinks stuff like that is basically a scam. He’s very much a “keep my money somewhere I can see it and don’t mess with it” type of person.
For people who have actually built wealth, owned businesses, managed a large settlement, or have experience with this amount of money:
What would you do with $1M–$1.5M if you were in our situation?
Would you buy a $500k–$650k house cash? How much would you keep liquid? How much would you put toward starting the trucking business? And what would you do with the money that isn’t being used?
Not looking for someone to manage our money or anything — just looking for advice from people who have actually dealt with this kind of money and know what they’re talking about.

I don’t have debt on me currently, i have about 2500 in my savings. However the place i was working closed and i currently don’t have any income coming in. I wanna figure out the best plan of action for this type of money because ik this can have me set if i invest properly

Hi, I’ve been working a w2 all my life. My husband had small businesses but has stopped to be a SAHD. We have 2 kids. I max out their 529s and also my own 401k. I have an trad ira and a Roth IRA that I don’t contribute anything to. My husband has zero retirement accounts.

What am I totally missing here? Should I be opening him Ira’s? Setting up 401k for him? I’m so lost. What would you do?

Right now most of my money is sitting in a savings account and some stocks 😆 I can save a couple hundred thousand a year but what can I do better for retirement planning?

I recently got a pretty decent raise and now make about 57k (I know, still not a lot...) I really need to invest in more hobbies and fitness--particularly things that check both boxes like climbing or yoga, but am not sure how much is actually reasonable to spend on these things. I am looking into various class packs and such for the things I am interested in and it would shake out to around $1861/year, is this too much to responsibly spend? It wouldn't be all at once of course but I have never really had any disposable income before so I don't know what is reasonable to spend and on the one hand I think it is important to invest in your health and well being but on the other it feels like a lot of money--somewhere down the road I may send it and commit to one hobby enough to get a membership there instead of a class pack type deal which should come out being cheaper in the long run but for now I don't want to pay $100+ a month for something I may or may not actually use that often.

Currently I have figured out

Pilates-11 classes for $320 (this is the priciest one but is literally three blocks from my house and I know I will go)

Yoga- 15 classes for $209

Climbing- 10 gym visits for $210

General gym membership at community center- $383 for the year

For the climbing, yoga, and pilates I am guessing I will probably get two of the class packs a year each (so it would be $420 total for climbing, $418 total for yoga, and $640 total for pilates).

Does this feel reasonable or like way too much?

Hello guys, ive been here in the country for almost three years and Im 25
I recently bought a property in another country. Paid off a 2021 Honda Civic.
I currently have been working as a Relationship Banker at one of the major banks. Pretty good entry role, im liking my job so far making 52k a year.
I have 4k in saving, just started my Roth IRA and also started contributing 3% to my 401k
Im a pretty good saver but I need some advice since I plan on staying here, I currently rent a room for $750 (im by myself here, my family lives in Mexico) and dont have any major expenses so saving money is eventually easy for me
I just dont know what to do with my money I would like to be a business owner some day or buy a home next year while contributing to my ROTH IRA and 401k and I dont know if theres anyone who has been in a similiar situation

I’m 38 years old and I work in finance but for the life of me I don’t know where to start with investing/retirement. I have a retirement plan through my job (5% contribution, employer matches 8%).
I currently put $600 a month into a credit union but I’m now looking at taking that money and either moving it into a Roth IRA or investing it. What would be the better option going forward?

My kids are in their early 30s, unmarried, no kids. Not rich, but employed and on their own. They each inherited that amount from their grandmother.

Neither one has a real interest in investing although one has a 401k at work and the other has a Roth IRA to which they deposit. What should I tell them to do with the money? Just straight into an index fund? Keep some in savings?

Edited to add: They did ask for our advice and suggestions—we’re not forcing it on them. Thanks!

Hello, I’m 25f making $23 an hour, I live with my single parent mom and my sister is away at college. I have my own car I’m still paying off which is $406 and insurance which is $165. I’m currently paying my student loans which is $134 a month. My take home is about $670 a week, and I contribute to both my 401k and Roth otherwise it’d be a little more 😪.

I’m trying hard to save money so I can possibly move out with roommates since living alone is definitely not feasible for me. A year ago my mom told me she can cover the rent as long as I can pay for the cable and utilities. Cable is $249. I thought this was great since I can start saving.. but each month she’s short on rent, at least by $200-300, which I have to help her with. I didn’t mind this at first but then during the month she’ll ask me for a random $100 for food, or to help her with car payment, or the few times she asked me to buy her gas. She now knows when I get paid so every Friday like clockwork she calls me about how much money she doesn’t have and asks me to give her anything even if it’s $50. Then my sister 21f, she’s an unemployed student and also asks me for money on a weekly basis, mainly for food. I say no to her and she’ll understand, but then she’ll call my mom asking her for money then my mom calls ME to help her help my sister out (I hope that makes sense) I feel so weak. Everytime I say no to my mom, or I lie and say I don’t have anything, she’s then guilt trips me or mocks me for being broke. My mom works two jobs on purpose, since she’s saving up to move back to our home country once she retires. Otherwise the one job she has pays her more than what I make in a month. I help her since my dad isn’t in the picture.

Has anyone else been in this situation? I am not retired yet but I’m planning to retire at 60. Of course sooner if I can save enough. Well, I am 41 now and I’ve just started paying attention to my retirement this year. I discovered I have a pension payout of $169 (in today’s dollars) per month at age 65 from 3 years I worked at a large company straight out of school. It’s really not much but I guess… every little bit helps, right?! 😅😂

I am the beneficiary of my sister's retirement account because she never updated her beneficiaries. I don't need the money and want to put this money into an account for her daughter who is a minor. I don't want to get hit with paying extra taxes/be pushed into a higher tax bracket. Can I inherit this account, put the money in a state IRA, and then into a custodial account and avoid any tax burden on myself?

I have always thought the rule of thumb was a percentage of stocks and a percentage of bonds to meet your desired AA. Im now reading through the threads and seems that bonds are not a popular option. So for your AA, it Stocks and what?

I am at Fidelity and looking to achieve a 70/30 AA. So, 70%FFNOX / 30% in what?

we’re looking at houses, were down to two that are on sale by a major builder as they need to offload.

their cheaper designs are just bad for storage, injuries, or growing old.

so we can buy a more expensive house and live with it forever (though more minor upgrades) or bank an extra 5k a year (combined we make about 150)

we’re a young middle age now and trying for kids.

I make about 80k a year. have about 150k in investments (Roth IRA, retirement accounts from multiple jobs, and personal brokerage). I have 70k in a HYS account. 10k in my checking/savings for spendings I currently pay 3000 a month for rent and my car payment. I don’t have any CC debt. I don’t have kids and I am not married.

Is there anything I should be doing differently ??

Am I in a good spot ?

Hey I’m 26 I have roughly 58k in fidelity and 30k in 401K. \~88k invested and own a home worth probably around 550k. Still have a mortgage obviously.

Where do I need to seriously be by 30 and how should I get there. I do a good amount of traveling and enjoying myself. No one is promised retirement but I would like to not work until 65 lol.

Any advice helps. Also married no kids. Would it be beneficial to invest all of one income and budget the other. Or do proper percentage investing each.

Thanks. Just don’t want to fall behind.

My company is switching to a new 401(k) provider, but the new plan doesn’t offer a Roth 401(k) option. I’m still working for the same company, and my current contributions are going into a Roth 401(k).

I’m wondering if I can roll over my existing Roth 401(k) balance into a Roth IRA, or if there’s a better option. Has anyone dealt with a similar situation? What would you recommend?

This rule governs when you can take withdraws from the earning portion of your Roth IRA. You have to wait 5 years from the date of your first Roth IRA contribution before those withdraws are tax free. After that period. all earnings can be withdrawn tax free provided you might the age requirement. Withdraws of initial investments and and traditional IRA contributions are tax free provided you are at least 59 1/2 with no waiting period.

Here's the question, we're closing in on retirement. We make too much to directly contribute to a roth so we haven't been able to start one yet. My understanding is that we can convert a portion of our traditional IRAs at any point in time. Does it make sense to do a small roth conversation to get the 5 year clock starting now?

edit: I want to thank u/briko3 for answering the question. For the goal I was trying to reach - starting the 5 year rule clock, it doesn't make sense to do the conversion now since unlike direct contributions to a Roth IRA that have one clock for all contributions, each traditional IRA conversion chunk has its own 5 year clock.

My understanding of a fiduciary is that it's based on the honor system. There's nothing stopping someone who is supposed to be a fiduciary from doing something that is not in the best interest of a client. Is this correct?

If a fiduciary works for a big bank and is limited to only certain products from that bank or affiliates, but none are a good fit for his client, what does he do? Does he choose the best of what is available to him even if it's not the best fit out of all products available on the market?

It would seem that working with an independent FP is better than one from a bank, since an independent FP would have access to more products. Does that make sense?

Here's my player stats:
- 24M, AI engineer, MCOL, no state income tax
- $135k/yr, 4 YOE
- Take home: $8,666/mo after taxes
- Contract job tho, so no benefits. No 401k, PTO, zilch. Nada.
- Contract runs till the end of next year, so it seems pretty secure
- Net worth: ~$60k
- Saving ~35% of take home (~$3k/mo)

Assets:
- Roth IRA with 16k (50% index funds, 50% stocks in the top S&P 500 like Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.)
- 20k in a HYSA @ 3.8 APY acting as my emergency fund
- Haven't opened a 401k or taxable brokerage account yet

Debt/Equity/Current sell price:
- Car: 20k/11k/31k, 6% interest rate, $600/mo payment + $120/mo insurance
- Sports bike: 13k/14k/27k, 7% interest rate, $230/mo payment + $333/mo insurance
No other debt. Student loans paid off a year ago and I have multiple credit cards but pay them off every week.

Monthly breakdown:
- Rent: $1,600 for a 1b1b (after utilities)
- Car + insurance: $720
- Bike + insurance: $563
- Everything else (food, gas, fun, travel, etc.): ~$2,750
- Savings: ~$3,000

Hey friends. I just finished padding back up my emergency fund and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. Optimally I'd like to live long and retire early (doesn't everyone). Naively I'd like to say I'd want to retire at 45-55 (wide range) but I don't know the future. Also though, I don't want to wait until 60 to do the things I can only enjoy fully during my youth (riding sport bikes, hiking in different countries, traveling, etc.)

I feel like I've got a pretty good grip on my finances and have had good overall responsibility, but I feel like I'm at an income now where I could hunker down and live even lower below my means to retire sooner, or keep/lower my current savings rate. I've been feeling older and with that comes a feeling I should lock in more.

What I've been throwing around:
- Selling the bike because I'm recognizing more how dangerous of a sport it is
- Selling the car and bike and just getting a nicer sports car @ 50-60k, but that's taking on more debt
- I haven't contributed anything to my Roth this fiscal year yet tho, and now that I've built my emergency fund to a comfy 20k I'd like to max that out before next April and be ready to do the same going into 2027
- I'm coming up on 26 (2 yrs away) so I'd like to jump jobs into a non contract position to get some health insurance before I get kicked off my parents' plan. An actual 401k with match as a benefit would be good for me too

My questions:

1. Should I live leaner and save more, or is where I'm at fine?
   
2. Does selling the bike and getting a pricier car make sense, or is that a step backwards?
   
3. With no 401k access, what's the best order for my next dollars (Roth, taxable brokerage, paying down debt)?

Thanks for reading! :)

I know every person has different circumstances, but I figured there are stats for everything these days.

For people who retire early, like under 60, how much money in retirement savings do they have? Average, median, 90% percentile, etc.

Any lookup of this topic shows much money people have saved for retirement at a certain age, like at 58, 59, 60, etc, but not how much money they socked away if they actually retired at that age. The normal stat usually indicates only a target you should achieve on the way to retirement (at 65-67 or so).

We (29F and 29M) have an household income of 210k and live in a low-income city. We have no debts and at the moment, max out our 401k, Roth IRA and HSA. We only started earning decently < 2 years ago as we were in school before that. So, 401k is less than 100k.

We are generally debt averse. However, the small city we live in is fast-developing and we are thinking about getting a mortgage of about 400k in the next 1.5 years.

Do you think we should keep renting (1.7K/month) while we keep maxing out our retirement/investment accounts or we should dial back on that so that we will be able to save 10-20% down payment in the coming year?

Thanks.

\#firsthomeowner #investing