Stacking Pennies . . .

My 401k lost 100 dollars today, and my Roth about the same. However, my 401k has 3 times what my Roth does! Not that you are supposed to check your gains and losses daily, but NPR was all abuzz with news of the Dow Jones slipping, I couldn't resist.

Oh, who am I kidding, I check almost everyday. But I remain level headed. Really, I do.

Still, I have been planning to reallocate my 401k for several days now, after realizing how little I knew when I made the choices I did. I still don't know that much, but now I am ready to learn.

I am a big fan of buy and hold, of picking some asset classes and rebalancing about yearly. But buy and hold does assume that the original choices were well thought out! Were mine? No they were not. Over the next week r so, I'm going to investigate where my 401k money is going, and where it should be going, and figure out an approach on how to get it where I want it to be.

My Roth IRA is secondary for three reasons. First, it has less money by about 1/3. Second, it is in a target date fund for 2040, and I'm fairly comfortable with that. Third, the choices there are infinite (!), and it seems like a harder fish to fry! Though I heard a rumor that Vanguard's target date funds had a much lower expense than Fidelity, my current broker. I must investigate switching in the future.

First things first, where is my 401k money invested? Last night I made a new tab in my finance spreadsheet for investments. Now that I've done it, I'm shocked that tab never existed before! There are some fees and expenses that I have never (not even once) glanced at, and honestly, I have no solid logic for picking the asset classes I did. I'm almost embarrassed to post them, actually, but here they are. I realized I had a whopping 5% in a stable value fund! I do not mean a bond, I mean stable value, with a goal to make $1 always worth $1. Oh my.

My 401k lost 100 dollars today, and my Roth about the same. However, my 401k has 3 times what my Roth does! Not that you are supposed to check your gains and losses daily, but NPR was all abuzz with news of the Dow Jones slipping, I couldn't resist.

Oh, who am I kidding, I check almost everyday. But I remain level headed. Really, I do.

Still, I have been planning to reallocate my 401k for several days now, after realizing how little I knew when I made the choices I did. I still don't know that much, but now I am ready to learn.

I am a big fan of buy and hold, of picking some asset classes and rebalancing about yearly. But buy and hold does assume that the original choices were well thought out! Were mine? No they were not. Over the next week r so, I'm going to investigate where my 401k money is going, and where it should be going, and figure out an approach on how to get it where I want it to be.

My Roth IRA is secondary for three reasons. First, it has less money by about 1/3. Second, it is in a target date fund for 2040, and I'm fairly comfortable with that. Third, the choices there are infinite (!), and it seems like a harder fish to fry! Though I heard a rumor that Vanguard's target date funds had a much lower expense than Fidelity, my current broker. I must investigate switching in the future.

First things first, where is my 401k money invested? Last night I made a new tab in my finance spreadsheet for investments. Now that I've done it, I'm shocked that tab never existed before! There are some fees and expenses that I have never (not even once) glanced at, and honestly, I have no solid logic for picking the asset classes I did. I'm almost embarrassed to post them, actually, but here they are. I realized I had a whopping 5% in a stable value fund! I do not mean a bond, I mean stable value, with a goal to make $1 always worth $1. Oh my.

My 401k lost 100 dollars today, and my Roth about the same. However, my 401k has 3 times what my Roth does! Not that you are supposed to check your gains and losses daily, but NPR was all abuzz with news of the Dow Jones slipping, I couldn't resist.

Oh, who am I kidding, I check almost everyday. But I remain level headed. Really, I do.

Still, I have been planning to reallocate my 401k for several days now, after realizing how little I knew when I made the choices I did. I still don't know that much, but now I am ready to learn.

I am a big fan of buy and hold, of picking some asset classes and rebalancing about yearly. But buy and hold does assume that the original choices were well thought out! Were mine? No they were not. Over the next week r so, I'm going to investigate where my 401k money is going, and where it should be going, and figure out an approach on how to get it where I want it to be.

My Roth IRA is secondary for three reasons. First, it has less money by about 1/3. Second, it is in a target date fund for 2040, and I'm fairly comfortable with that. Third, the choices there are infinite (!), and it seems like a harder fish to fry! Though I heard a rumor that Vanguard's target date funds had a much lower expense than Fidelity, my current broker. I must investigate switching in the future.

First things first, where is my 401k money invested? Last night I made a new tab in my finance spreadsheet for investments. Now that I've done it, I'm shocked that tab never existed before! There are some fees and expenses that I have never (not even once) glanced at, and honestly, I have no solid logic for picking the asset classes I did. I'm almost embarrassed to post them, actually, but here they are. I realized I had a whopping 5% in a stable value fund! I do not mean a bond, I mean stable value, with a goal to make $1 always worth $1. Oh my.

My 401k lost 100 dollars today, and my Roth about the same. However, my 401k has 3 times what my Roth does! Not that you are supposed to check your gains and losses daily, but NPR was all abuzz with news of the Dow Jones slipping, I couldn't resist.

Oh, who am I kidding, I check almost everyday. But I remain level headed. Really, I do.

Still, I have been planning to reallocate my 401k for several days now, after realizing how little I knew when I made the choices I did. I still don't know that much, but now I am ready to learn.

I am a big fan of buy and hold, of picking some asset classes and rebalancing about yearly. But buy and hold does assume that the original choices were well thought out! Were mine? No they were not. Over the next week r so, I'm going to investigate where my 401k money is going, and where it should be going, and figure out an approach on how to get it where I want it to be.

My Roth IRA is secondary for three reasons. First, it has less money by about 1/3. Second, it is in a target date fund for 2040, and I'm fairly comfortable with that. Third, the choices there are infinite (!), and it seems like a harder fish to fry! Though I heard a rumor that Vanguard's target date funds had a much lower expense than Fidelity, my current broker. I must investigate switching in the future.

First things first, where is my 401k money invested? Last night I made a new tab in my finance spreadsheet for investments. Now that I've done it, I'm shocked that tab never existed before! There are some fees and expenses that I have never (not even once) glanced at, and honestly, I have no solid logic for picking the asset classes I did. I'm almost embarrassed to post them, actually, but here they are. I realized I had a whopping 5% in a stable value fund! I do not mean a bond, I mean stable value, with a goal to make $1 always worth $1. Oh my.