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1. Contribute 6% of salary to 401k to get full company match
2. Max Roth IRA - $5,500
3. Save additional $15,500 - $20,000 for brokerage account
My long term goal for ages 30 - 55 is to put at least $15,000 - $20,000 a year into my brokerage account for 25 years and fully fund a Roth IRA. This is in addition to funding my 401K up to the company match. My hope is that doing all three will lead to me retiring on or before my 55th birthday. I started this in 2015 (When I turned 30) and have it accomplished for two straight years. I hope to make 2017 the third year.
Having the house paid off is a great feeling! Good luck to you with that goal. Now if I could just figure out how to avoid paying property taxes... LOL
WEll, my mortgage is not that steep, but the property taxes {high here in "NEW TAX York"} are only about 25% of the total mortgage payment, so I'd settle right now to reduce the mortgage payment to just 25% of what I'm paying, and except having to save it to pay them, only making TWO payment a year sounds great to me!
BUT DO let me know if you figure a way out of them!
My goal is to rid myself of any extraneous and frivolous monthly charges. Right now I am trying to get my husband to drop XM radio -- we don't even drive around that much and he has a CD player. I am also going to go through my bills and try to get discounts on things -- cable, newspapers, etc. My newspaper last year gave me a "senior discount" just because I called and asked. I also have some gift cards to restaurants and I am planning lunch dates around the bargain movies until I use them up. On Thursday in my area we have "baby boomer Thursday" at a really nice movie theater and all day the movies are $7. And lunch is so much cheaper than dinner.
Opened up some new mutual fund investments in my Fidelity account (Mid Cap Index and Small Cap Growth funds) and doing an automatic account builder (monthly investments on the same date) in these two funds.
My goal is to rid myself of any extraneous and frivolous monthly charges. Right now I am trying to get my husband to drop XM radio -- we don't even drive around that much and he has a CD player. I am also going to go through my bills and try to get discounts on things -- cable, newspapers, etc. My newspaper last year gave me a "senior discount" just because I called and asked. I also have some gift cards to restaurants and I am planning lunch dates around the bargain movies until I use them up. On Thursday in my area we have "baby boomer Thursday" at a really nice movie theater and all day the movies are $7. And lunch is so much cheaper than dinner.
One thing I've learned about cable is that most companies start to wheel and deal the moment you say, "cancel". They don't want to lose subscribers. My husband called Comcast last week and squawked about the increased fees. As soon as he said "cancel", the customer service rep found a "deal" for him. Doesn't hurt to ask, that's for sure.
we changed satalite program plan and changed internet providers which is saving us a little anyway. I am trying to cut back on my food budget: it is hard, I love to cook , but know I can save at least $50 a week by being more careful planning meals. My biggest problem is loving top quality meat and fish; have to start choosing less expensive cuts.
Having the house paid off is a great feeling! Good luck to you with that goal. Now if I could just figure out how to avoid paying property taxes... LOL
Simple.
Move to a low cost homestead exemption state.
My 2k sq ft home on 80 acres falls (well) under the homestead exemption for my local.
My annual income has ballooned from minus 20,000 to around 80,000 but my poverty level living expenses haven't changed and have never really bothered me to be honest. I really want to revamp my banking (most income comes via paypal) and figure out what to do with the mid 5 figure sum I stuck in a Fidelity cash management account when I quit my job.
It feels so fleeting, so unreal that I am not really counting on pulling in this kind of coin on the long term so other than the occasional concert ticket or whatever, I am not really in any hurry to start spending it.
Attempting to totally revamp my life but all I managed to do so far was cut my hair and quit my job.
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Doesn't hurt to ask, that's for sure.
