Long Term Investment Strategies

[Barbatos]

I'm thinking of starting a Roth IRA next year as a way of having tons of money when I retire (or having tons of money even before that). I currently have a 401k though that's taken a bit of a hammering during the recession.

What kind of investments do you guys have? The disadvantages of the Roth IRA make it sound like I should perhaps consider other strategies, like a diverse portfolio or mutual funds, but one of my coworkers lost $50,000 in his portfolio due to the recession, and that doesn't sound very pleasant to me.

And if there's other guarenteed ways to make money through investing, please post them~

[Malignanttoe]

I have nothing. No investments. Unfortunately, my budget is too small to put into a 401k, even though I know I should be investing to one. Oh well. Retirement is the #1 killer of older people in the US any way.

[Barbatos]

I have nothing. No investments. Unfortunately, my budget is too small to put into a 401k, even though I know I should be investing to one. Oh well. Retirement is the #1 killer of older people in the US any way.

If your company offers a % match on the 401k, you're missing an opportunity for free money by not doing the 401k. :p But if you can't afford it and are living paycheck to paycheck, then I can understand (I was like that the first couple years of my job).

[Malignanttoe]

Even with annual raises, it seems like something else always comes up to use that extra income i.e. wife decides that she doesn't have to work as much, daycare, expensive preschool ect.
Ugh. Oh well. Retirement is for losers. :P

[Barbatos]

Well crack the whip on that woman and make her work extra~

[Raven The Dark Angel]

Yeah % matches are great. Try to find a small cut in anything. It's like $5 in a pay check. Usually it's like 1-2% of your paycheck is matched. So that $5 is equal to 10 a paycheck. Seems small but over time that's a lot of free money you don't even notice you had. It's also a good way to force you to save money. Most times you can also dip into this money after a year (2-4 times) in case you do get into a jam. So it's not like you can never touch the money either. If you do that and it's only $5 a paycheck you're getting $260 FREE a year and making a savings of $520 that is minimal in noticing paycheck to paycheck.

What do I invest in? I got a stock plan that my stockbroker is doing for me. He takes 9% of the profit so I don't have to pay attention to it and that's the only payment to him. So it's free pretty much through my bank. Of course all the money I mad is going to go to the Chiropractor~

[Malignanttoe]

My company matches up to either 4 or 5%.
The whole investment thing freaks me out too. No clue how to do that stuff :\

[Barbatos]

My company matches up to either 4 or 5%.
The whole investment thing freaks me out too. No clue how to do that stuff :\

If you're seriously considering it (and you should), just talk to your manager about it.

[Kojo]

Right now the best bet you've got is not getting into bed with just one investment. You've got to spread your money around, intelligently of course, but split funds so if one tanks, you've still got something. I don't know if the Roth IRA would be the best of bets right now.

[Raven The Dark Angel]

So what you're saying kojo is to make your money the biggest slut there is to those that will shell out the most cash. I got it XD

[Kojo]

Yes, every piece of advice I get can immediately be traced back to it's roots in prostitution.