Stacking Pennies . . .

After yesterday's post on being impatient to enroll in my company's 401k, today I found that I was finally "in the system" and could enroll! I eagerly got to the screen where I could indicate I wanted to save 15% of my pretax income. Then came the fund allocation screen....

Crap. I wasn't 100% prepared for this despite it being on my to-do list from about a week ago. I do have a loose plan of what I want to do, but haven't figure out how to align my three accounts into one asset allocation.

My overall goal for my asset allocation goal is as follows:

• Stocks/Bonds: 88%/12%
• Within stocks, Domestic/International: 60%/40%
• Within Domestic, Large Cap/Small Cap/REIT: 75%/15%/15%

I also would like 10% of my international allocations in emerging markets, and someday I may want to do something fancier with bonds as I hear a lot about TIPS and Treasury and things I don't know anything about (right now I just use a bond index fund).

Overall, this breaks down to 6 funds allocated as follows:

• Large Cap 37%
• Small Cap 8%
• REIT 8%
• Int. Index 32%
• Emerg. Mkts 4%
• Bond Idx 12%

Do you think I'm missing anything important?

There are some issues with this right now. It is pretty impossible for me to actually get the 4% emerging markets allocation or even the 8% REIT allocation. I don't have those options in my 401k, and Vanguard requires minimum investments of $3000, which is currently 15% of my portfolio. Besides, I don't really know exactly what my current allocation is, mostly because Fidelity's 2040 fund has about a zillion different holdings.

So, what is my plan? First, I need to move both my Roth IRA and old 401k to Vanguard, while rolling the 401k to an IRA. Then I want to roll $5000 of the 401k into the Roth. Why just $5000? Because I don't want to get hit with taxes on the full $15k this year. I figure I'll roll it into my Roth over a period of 2-3 years, hurrying it along if it becomes necessary (meaning, if I end up planning to get married before then, as the income limits are harder to meet if you aren't single). Perhaps more on the rollover later, as I contemplate all the implications of it.

Within the Roth, I want to buy $3000 of the REIT index fund, and put the rest in the Vangaurd 2040 fund (which does have a small percent emerging markets). I'll then set my future contributions to the 2040 fund and most likely put my old 401k into the 2040 fund as well. When my portfolio grows more, I may invest more into the emerging markets fund, but probably not any time in 2008.

Last I'll use the index funds in my 401k to balance out my other allocations (small cap, large cap, index, and bonds) as closely as I can to my goal.

What do you think? I do want to have real estate be part of my portfolio, as I don't own property and don't plan on it soon. Should I just wait on the REITs until I can keep them a smaller percent of the portfolio? Or, given the housing market, will they decline all on their own, so I won't have to worry?? :)

In a side note, I temporarily regretted posting anything about my relationship yesterday. People sometimes jump to conclusions based on limited information. I wrote a post detailing things, intending to "clear up" some things. It was wordy and not very personal finance related anyway, so I'll just say it in a concise fashion. It's been 3.5 years. When we were both students, we split things fairly evenly. He would never need a loan from me and is good with money, and will most likely be very successful (someday). He really is on a tight budget as we live in an expensive city. He does pay for things now and then, including dinners, just not this weekend. He spent hours helping me set up my furniture and hang pictures and is really helpful with that kind of thing. I eat his food when I'm at his place (but my food is so much better!) We discussed it briefly, he acknowledged it, and I'll see if it is an issue in the future. If so, I will write about it, but I have to remind myself not to get (too) defensive about the comments!

I still can't sign up for my company's 401k, but not because I'm ineligible. You are eligible immediately (and vested immediately too!), though they a pension plan too which takes a year to be eligible and 5 years to vest.

I can't sign up because the website doesn't recognize my userid. I'm not "in the system" despite already getting a huge packet of information from them. Since I'm not in the system, when I call them, they are totally helpless:
"I can't take your password over the phone, you have to go through the system and punch it in"
"I did. But I wasn't given any menu options, so I pressed zero for help."
"Well. I can put you back through the system, and you can enter your password."
". . . But that obviously didn't work."

Gah! They did say it may take 7-10 days to become active. If they mean business days, it has been seven. If they mean actual days, it has been 11. I'll give it until the end of the week....

But I'm really anxious to start contributing! I'm going to see if I can handle contributing 15% of my income. If I do that, I'll be able to get about $10k in my 401k and 5k in my Roth, for a total of 15k of my money in retirement contributions for 2008, just over 21% of my gross income. There also should be roughly 4k from the company match. Barring an ever declining market, that should almost double my account value in 2008! However, with such a shaky market and all this recession talk, I specifically set my goals in dollars of contributions, not account value. Go long term investing!

I think 15% will be a stretch for me, at least while I'm growing the e-fund. I varied between 12% and 15% at my last job, and rent was much lower. We'll have to see how it goes. My budget says I can do it, but I'm not much of a budgeter.

While I'm waiting, I've been putting a little extra in my Roth IRA to get the year started off on the right foot.

I get paid tomorrow (yes, on Thursdays) and finally was able to view my paycheck online. Though I only am being paid for 40 hrs instead of 80 this period, they did process my signing bonus in the first check (yes!) so I finally have some money to work with. They got all my direct deposit stuff set up in time (nice work!). I have it split between three different accounts, checking, short term savings (insurance, travel, car) and a long term savings (e-fund, maybe house/condo fund one day). I still may have to transfer between these, but this should minimize that. Make savings automatic!

I'm still not ready to finalize a budget, as I'm not certain what my take home pay will be. I tried to figure out exactly how much I'll be paying in taxes each month by taking total taxes paid divided by total gross pay in this check. I came up with about a 39% tax rate! Yikes, that can't be right! Google tells me that taxes on bonuses, while calculated as normal income, are withheld at a different rate, up to 40%. Well, that makes more sense! Good to know.

Is it logical to just use 25%, my marginal tax rate? Then again, what about FICA, Social Security, etc? If I do that, I come up with about $1700 after 401k and medical or $1500 if I go all the way up to 20% in my 401k. It isn't likely I can live off the $3000/month, at least not if I want to grow my cash savings. Though the way some people dream about buying a house, I dream about maxing out my 401k....

My 401k still isn't ready for me to enroll. I hate when systems are not automated enough. My last job I could enroll in my 401k on the first day (through Fidelity). It has been a full week and CitiStreet still isn't recognizing my user ID. When I called the number to ask if this was normal, I was told "Please listen carefully as options have recently changed." Then, there was a single ring, then silence. More silence. I was never given any options! I hung up and tried again, only to have it happen again. I pressed all the numbers and was directed to an operator who could not help me unless I "went through the system and entered my PIN" (which I did!). He suggested waiting another week, or trying the number again. Lame.

I was going to go hang out with the boyfriend tonight, but I think I'll cancel. He has a lot of school work, and I have needed to do laundry for at least a week. This will give me time to start working on yesterdays to-do list. First up, taxes!

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

I took $1000 out of my high yeild savings account and directed it into my Roth IRA for 2008. Really, for true dollar cost averaging, I only contributed $585 above what I would normally contribute for a month. My Roth is fully invested in a 2050 target date retirement fund for now.

I could have funded the whole year with savings, but I don't feel that I have the approrpriate cushion in my savings, especially with a cross country move coming up. Besides that, with markets being so shaky, I'm not sure I want to throw dollar cost averaging out the window this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the market recovers nicely, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it declines as well. I'm not an expert.

Since I'm leaving this job, I'm going to have the option of rolling my 401k (about 16k) into a regular IRA. Since my MAGI is less than $100k, I will also have the opportunity to convert it to a Roth IRA. I'll have to look at whether or not I can take the tax hit in 2008, and the pro's and cons of doing this.

Another thing I want to look at once I'm settled in Cali is moving a large chunk of my HYSA to a money market fund, specifically the tax exempt California one offered by Vanguard. My after tax return might be able to beat out my current high yeild savings accounts, especially since I'm not rate chasing. This article by The Finance Buff which suggests it may be so. It'll make more of a difference if I itemize deductions (I usually take the standard), so I'll have to do a little research on this. Or another option: TIPs? I have heard a lot about them, but my knowledge is limited. A high yield savings account is a great start, but I think I'm ready to see what else is out there and make sure I'm getting the best deal.

I was hoping to wait until 2008 to talk about my goals and plans for 2008. However, I'm a planner to the extreme and I can't help myself from starting now.

There are a lot of unknowns in the first part of next year. I'm moving to a new city with expensive rent. While I have one job offer, I'm waiting on the one that I want more (tomorrow? Very soon!) so I'm not sure what my salary will be. Still, no matter what, there are some goals I can set right away, and adjust as needed.

First, I want to max out my Roth IRA again. That is about $415 a month of post tax money to be directed into savings immediately. In my first year and a half of working, I've already saved about $20k in retirement accounts. As my salary increases, I'll be able to contribute more each year. I think I'm on track to have a comfortable retirement. I have a vague idea of retiring early, but still am not ready to make a plan for that goal.

In that same vein, I want to contribute at least 10% to my 401k. This is pretty painless and will get me a full match of (probably) 6% total from my company. Based on my first job offer, that will mean I'll save about $15000 in 2008 for retirement. If I feel that I can afford it, this will be increased, with a stretch goal of 15% towards 401k.

I also want to pay a little extra to my student loan account. My goal is only going to be $1000 extra this year. I'm required to pay about $1500. In 2007 my goal was $4000 total. This is really cheap money so paying it off is more for the mental benefits. That means my month payment will increase to $215, though I'll likely pay it in chunks rather than automatically every month. If any of my goals are faltering, this will be the first to go, as it is the least cost effective.

Next, I want to continue (but decrease) to auto-contributions to my emergency fund, and really turn it into an emergency fund. I have a general purpose high yield savings account which is my efund, but I don't treat it as an efund. It's just a savings account with a continually increasing balance. I think contributing $50/week to this account will be sufficient. I pretty much grew it to 10k from scratch this year, so it is a big decrease. I'm excited to have a base fund so I can focus on other goals.

Now... the "boring" goals are out of the way!

For my fun goals, I want to add $25/week to my "travel" fund. If I have extra money, I'll increase this amount, but it is a start. I have a travel fund earmarked, but it has had really stagnant growth. I also want to start saving up for a newer car. My car has about 75k miles on it and will last another couple years... but I need to start building up some money to purchase my next one. I want to pay for my next car in cash, and I will be spending at least 10k, maybe more. If my budget works out, I'd like to save $100/week for this, giving me just over 5k by the end of the year.

So that is it! These goals will be tweaked once I'm settled into my new apartment, new city, and new job.

In unrelated news, they are announcing who replaces my current manager at work today. I hope they promote from within the group and that Bryan is it. I think that he would have the job if he wanted it, but I'm not sure he is interested in management.

I've done some research and came up with something I'm comfortable with.

This is what I'm thinking of:

Fidelity U.S. Equity Index Commingled Pool	55
Fidelity Spartan International Index FSIIX 20%	15
Fidelity Spartan Extended Market Index FSEMX 15%	15
Morgan Stanly International EquityA, MXIQX	5
Fidelity US Bond Index FBIDX	10

It is quite loosely based on this article from kiplinger, however I don't have access to an emerging markets fund in my 401k, and I thought that having nothing in bonds was a bit risky for my preference.

I'm 24, so a long way from retirement and I don't mind some risk. Am I missing an important asset allocation? I do have access to a variety of other funds, which I will list here in a word vomit fasion: Fidelity target date funds, Low priced stock, blue chip growth, capital and income, dividend growth baron growth, Wells fargo mid cap, Alliaz small cap, diversified international, equity income...

Does my asset allocation seem sensible? Any glaring mistakes? Anything I need to look into in more detail?

Thanks for any feedback!

After yesterday's post on being impatient to enroll in my company's 401k, today I found that I was finally "in the system" and could enroll! I eagerly got to the screen where I could indicate I wanted to save 15% of my pretax income. Then came the fund allocation screen....

Crap. I wasn't 100% prepared for this despite it being on my to-do list from about a week ago. I do have a loose plan of what I want to do, but haven't figure out how to align my three accounts into one asset allocation.

My overall goal for my asset allocation goal is as follows:

• Stocks/Bonds: 88%/12%
• Within stocks, Domestic/International: 60%/40%
• Within Domestic, Large Cap/Small Cap/REIT: 75%/15%/15%

I also would like 10% of my international allocations in emerging markets, and someday I may want to do something fancier with bonds as I hear a lot about TIPS and Treasury and things I don't know anything about (right now I just use a bond index fund).

Overall, this breaks down to 6 funds allocated as follows:

• Large Cap 37%
• Small Cap 8%
• REIT 8%
• Int. Index 32%
• Emerg. Mkts 4%
• Bond Idx 12%

Do you think I'm missing anything important?

There are some issues with this right now. It is pretty impossible for me to actually get the 4% emerging markets allocation or even the 8% REIT allocation. I don't have those options in my 401k, and Vanguard requires minimum investments of $3000, which is currently 15% of my portfolio. Besides, I don't really know exactly what my current allocation is, mostly because Fidelity's 2040 fund has about a zillion different holdings.

So, what is my plan? First, I need to move both my Roth IRA and old 401k to Vanguard, while rolling the 401k to an IRA. Then I want to roll $5000 of the 401k into the Roth. Why just $5000? Because I don't want to get hit with taxes on the full $15k this year. I figure I'll roll it into my Roth over a period of 2-3 years, hurrying it along if it becomes necessary (meaning, if I end up planning to get married before then, as the income limits are harder to meet if you aren't single). Perhaps more on the rollover later, as I contemplate all the implications of it.

Within the Roth, I want to buy $3000 of the REIT index fund, and put the rest in the Vangaurd 2040 fund (which does have a small percent emerging markets). I'll then set my future contributions to the 2040 fund and most likely put my old 401k into the 2040 fund as well. When my portfolio grows more, I may invest more into the emerging markets fund, but probably not any time in 2008.

Last I'll use the index funds in my 401k to balance out my other allocations (small cap, large cap, index, and bonds) as closely as I can to my goal.

What do you think? I do want to have real estate be part of my portfolio, as I don't own property and don't plan on it soon. Should I just wait on the REITs until I can keep them a smaller percent of the portfolio? Or, given the housing market, will they decline all on their own, so I won't have to worry?? :)

In a side note, I temporarily regretted posting anything about my relationship yesterday. People sometimes jump to conclusions based on limited information. I wrote a post detailing things, intending to "clear up" some things. It was wordy and not very personal finance related anyway, so I'll just say it in a concise fashion. It's been 3.5 years. When we were both students, we split things fairly evenly. He would never need a loan from me and is good with money, and will most likely be very successful (someday). He really is on a tight budget as we live in an expensive city. He does pay for things now and then, including dinners, just not this weekend. He spent hours helping me set up my furniture and hang pictures and is really helpful with that kind of thing. I eat his food when I'm at his place (but my food is so much better!) We discussed it briefly, he acknowledged it, and I'll see if it is an issue in the future. If so, I will write about it, but I have to remind myself not to get (too) defensive about the comments!

I still can't sign up for my company's 401k, but not because I'm ineligible. You are eligible immediately (and vested immediately too!), though they a pension plan too which takes a year to be eligible and 5 years to vest.

I can't sign up because the website doesn't recognize my userid. I'm not "in the system" despite already getting a huge packet of information from them. Since I'm not in the system, when I call them, they are totally helpless:
"I can't take your password over the phone, you have to go through the system and punch it in"
"I did. But I wasn't given any menu options, so I pressed zero for help."
"Well. I can put you back through the system, and you can enter your password."
". . . But that obviously didn't work."

Gah! They did say it may take 7-10 days to become active. If they mean business days, it has been seven. If they mean actual days, it has been 11. I'll give it until the end of the week....

But I'm really anxious to start contributing! I'm going to see if I can handle contributing 15% of my income. If I do that, I'll be able to get about $10k in my 401k and 5k in my Roth, for a total of 15k of my money in retirement contributions for 2008, just over 21% of my gross income. There also should be roughly 4k from the company match. Barring an ever declining market, that should almost double my account value in 2008! However, with such a shaky market and all this recession talk, I specifically set my goals in dollars of contributions, not account value. Go long term investing!

I think 15% will be a stretch for me, at least while I'm growing the e-fund. I varied between 12% and 15% at my last job, and rent was much lower. We'll have to see how it goes. My budget says I can do it, but I'm not much of a budgeter.

While I'm waiting, I've been putting a little extra in my Roth IRA to get the year started off on the right foot.

I get paid tomorrow (yes, on Thursdays) and finally was able to view my paycheck online. Though I only am being paid for 40 hrs instead of 80 this period, they did process my signing bonus in the first check (yes!) so I finally have some money to work with. They got all my direct deposit stuff set up in time (nice work!). I have it split between three different accounts, checking, short term savings (insurance, travel, car) and a long term savings (e-fund, maybe house/condo fund one day). I still may have to transfer between these, but this should minimize that. Make savings automatic!

I'm still not ready to finalize a budget, as I'm not certain what my take home pay will be. I tried to figure out exactly how much I'll be paying in taxes each month by taking total taxes paid divided by total gross pay in this check. I came up with about a 39% tax rate! Yikes, that can't be right! Google tells me that taxes on bonuses, while calculated as normal income, are withheld at a different rate, up to 40%. Well, that makes more sense! Good to know.

Is it logical to just use 25%, my marginal tax rate? Then again, what about FICA, Social Security, etc? If I do that, I come up with about $1700 after 401k and medical or $1500 if I go all the way up to 20% in my 401k. It isn't likely I can live off the $3000/month, at least not if I want to grow my cash savings. Though the way some people dream about buying a house, I dream about maxing out my 401k....

My 401k still isn't ready for me to enroll. I hate when systems are not automated enough. My last job I could enroll in my 401k on the first day (through Fidelity). It has been a full week and CitiStreet still isn't recognizing my user ID. When I called the number to ask if this was normal, I was told "Please listen carefully as options have recently changed." Then, there was a single ring, then silence. More silence. I was never given any options! I hung up and tried again, only to have it happen again. I pressed all the numbers and was directed to an operator who could not help me unless I "went through the system and entered my PIN" (which I did!). He suggested waiting another week, or trying the number again. Lame.

I was going to go hang out with the boyfriend tonight, but I think I'll cancel. He has a lot of school work, and I have needed to do laundry for at least a week. This will give me time to start working on yesterdays to-do list. First up, taxes!

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

I took $1000 out of my high yeild savings account and directed it into my Roth IRA for 2008. Really, for true dollar cost averaging, I only contributed $585 above what I would normally contribute for a month. My Roth is fully invested in a 2050 target date retirement fund for now.

I could have funded the whole year with savings, but I don't feel that I have the approrpriate cushion in my savings, especially with a cross country move coming up. Besides that, with markets being so shaky, I'm not sure I want to throw dollar cost averaging out the window this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the market recovers nicely, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it declines as well. I'm not an expert.

Since I'm leaving this job, I'm going to have the option of rolling my 401k (about 16k) into a regular IRA. Since my MAGI is less than $100k, I will also have the opportunity to convert it to a Roth IRA. I'll have to look at whether or not I can take the tax hit in 2008, and the pro's and cons of doing this.

Another thing I want to look at once I'm settled in Cali is moving a large chunk of my HYSA to a money market fund, specifically the tax exempt California one offered by Vanguard. My after tax return might be able to beat out my current high yeild savings accounts, especially since I'm not rate chasing. This article by The Finance Buff which suggests it may be so. It'll make more of a difference if I itemize deductions (I usually take the standard), so I'll have to do a little research on this. Or another option: TIPs? I have heard a lot about them, but my knowledge is limited. A high yield savings account is a great start, but I think I'm ready to see what else is out there and make sure I'm getting the best deal.

I was hoping to wait until 2008 to talk about my goals and plans for 2008. However, I'm a planner to the extreme and I can't help myself from starting now.

There are a lot of unknowns in the first part of next year. I'm moving to a new city with expensive rent. While I have one job offer, I'm waiting on the one that I want more (tomorrow? Very soon!) so I'm not sure what my salary will be. Still, no matter what, there are some goals I can set right away, and adjust as needed.

First, I want to max out my Roth IRA again. That is about $415 a month of post tax money to be directed into savings immediately. In my first year and a half of working, I've already saved about $20k in retirement accounts. As my salary increases, I'll be able to contribute more each year. I think I'm on track to have a comfortable retirement. I have a vague idea of retiring early, but still am not ready to make a plan for that goal.

In that same vein, I want to contribute at least 10% to my 401k. This is pretty painless and will get me a full match of (probably) 6% total from my company. Based on my first job offer, that will mean I'll save about $15000 in 2008 for retirement. If I feel that I can afford it, this will be increased, with a stretch goal of 15% towards 401k.

I also want to pay a little extra to my student loan account. My goal is only going to be $1000 extra this year. I'm required to pay about $1500. In 2007 my goal was $4000 total. This is really cheap money so paying it off is more for the mental benefits. That means my month payment will increase to $215, though I'll likely pay it in chunks rather than automatically every month. If any of my goals are faltering, this will be the first to go, as it is the least cost effective.

Next, I want to continue (but decrease) to auto-contributions to my emergency fund, and really turn it into an emergency fund. I have a general purpose high yield savings account which is my efund, but I don't treat it as an efund. It's just a savings account with a continually increasing balance. I think contributing $50/week to this account will be sufficient. I pretty much grew it to 10k from scratch this year, so it is a big decrease. I'm excited to have a base fund so I can focus on other goals.

Now... the "boring" goals are out of the way!

For my fun goals, I want to add $25/week to my "travel" fund. If I have extra money, I'll increase this amount, but it is a start. I have a travel fund earmarked, but it has had really stagnant growth. I also want to start saving up for a newer car. My car has about 75k miles on it and will last another couple years... but I need to start building up some money to purchase my next one. I want to pay for my next car in cash, and I will be spending at least 10k, maybe more. If my budget works out, I'd like to save $100/week for this, giving me just over 5k by the end of the year.

So that is it! These goals will be tweaked once I'm settled into my new apartment, new city, and new job.

In unrelated news, they are announcing who replaces my current manager at work today. I hope they promote from within the group and that Bryan is it. I think that he would have the job if he wanted it, but I'm not sure he is interested in management.

I've done some research and came up with something I'm comfortable with.

This is what I'm thinking of:

Fidelity U.S. Equity Index Commingled Pool	55
Fidelity Spartan International Index FSIIX 20%	15
Fidelity Spartan Extended Market Index FSEMX 15%	15
Morgan Stanly International EquityA, MXIQX	5
Fidelity US Bond Index FBIDX	10

It is quite loosely based on this article from kiplinger, however I don't have access to an emerging markets fund in my 401k, and I thought that having nothing in bonds was a bit risky for my preference.

I'm 24, so a long way from retirement and I don't mind some risk. Am I missing an important asset allocation? I do have access to a variety of other funds, which I will list here in a word vomit fasion: Fidelity target date funds, Low priced stock, blue chip growth, capital and income, dividend growth baron growth, Wells fargo mid cap, Alliaz small cap, diversified international, equity income...

Does my asset allocation seem sensible? Any glaring mistakes? Anything I need to look into in more detail?

Thanks for any feedback!

After yesterday's post on being impatient to enroll in my company's 401k, today I found that I was finally "in the system" and could enroll! I eagerly got to the screen where I could indicate I wanted to save 15% of my pretax income. Then came the fund allocation screen....

Crap. I wasn't 100% prepared for this despite it being on my to-do list from about a week ago. I do have a loose plan of what I want to do, but haven't figure out how to align my three accounts into one asset allocation.

My overall goal for my asset allocation goal is as follows:

• Stocks/Bonds: 88%/12%
• Within stocks, Domestic/International: 60%/40%
• Within Domestic, Large Cap/Small Cap/REIT: 75%/15%/15%

I also would like 10% of my international allocations in emerging markets, and someday I may want to do something fancier with bonds as I hear a lot about TIPS and Treasury and things I don't know anything about (right now I just use a bond index fund).

Overall, this breaks down to 6 funds allocated as follows:

• Large Cap 37%
• Small Cap 8%
• REIT 8%
• Int. Index 32%
• Emerg. Mkts 4%
• Bond Idx 12%

Do you think I'm missing anything important?

There are some issues with this right now. It is pretty impossible for me to actually get the 4% emerging markets allocation or even the 8% REIT allocation. I don't have those options in my 401k, and Vanguard requires minimum investments of $3000, which is currently 15% of my portfolio. Besides, I don't really know exactly what my current allocation is, mostly because Fidelity's 2040 fund has about a zillion different holdings.

So, what is my plan? First, I need to move both my Roth IRA and old 401k to Vanguard, while rolling the 401k to an IRA. Then I want to roll $5000 of the 401k into the Roth. Why just $5000? Because I don't want to get hit with taxes on the full $15k this year. I figure I'll roll it into my Roth over a period of 2-3 years, hurrying it along if it becomes necessary (meaning, if I end up planning to get married before then, as the income limits are harder to meet if you aren't single). Perhaps more on the rollover later, as I contemplate all the implications of it.

Within the Roth, I want to buy $3000 of the REIT index fund, and put the rest in the Vangaurd 2040 fund (which does have a small percent emerging markets). I'll then set my future contributions to the 2040 fund and most likely put my old 401k into the 2040 fund as well. When my portfolio grows more, I may invest more into the emerging markets fund, but probably not any time in 2008.

Last I'll use the index funds in my 401k to balance out my other allocations (small cap, large cap, index, and bonds) as closely as I can to my goal.

What do you think? I do want to have real estate be part of my portfolio, as I don't own property and don't plan on it soon. Should I just wait on the REITs until I can keep them a smaller percent of the portfolio? Or, given the housing market, will they decline all on their own, so I won't have to worry?? :)

In a side note, I temporarily regretted posting anything about my relationship yesterday. People sometimes jump to conclusions based on limited information. I wrote a post detailing things, intending to "clear up" some things. It was wordy and not very personal finance related anyway, so I'll just say it in a concise fashion. It's been 3.5 years. When we were both students, we split things fairly evenly. He would never need a loan from me and is good with money, and will most likely be very successful (someday). He really is on a tight budget as we live in an expensive city. He does pay for things now and then, including dinners, just not this weekend. He spent hours helping me set up my furniture and hang pictures and is really helpful with that kind of thing. I eat his food when I'm at his place (but my food is so much better!) We discussed it briefly, he acknowledged it, and I'll see if it is an issue in the future. If so, I will write about it, but I have to remind myself not to get (too) defensive about the comments!

I still can't sign up for my company's 401k, but not because I'm ineligible. You are eligible immediately (and vested immediately too!), though they a pension plan too which takes a year to be eligible and 5 years to vest.

I can't sign up because the website doesn't recognize my userid. I'm not "in the system" despite already getting a huge packet of information from them. Since I'm not in the system, when I call them, they are totally helpless:
"I can't take your password over the phone, you have to go through the system and punch it in"
"I did. But I wasn't given any menu options, so I pressed zero for help."
"Well. I can put you back through the system, and you can enter your password."
". . . But that obviously didn't work."

Gah! They did say it may take 7-10 days to become active. If they mean business days, it has been seven. If they mean actual days, it has been 11. I'll give it until the end of the week....

But I'm really anxious to start contributing! I'm going to see if I can handle contributing 15% of my income. If I do that, I'll be able to get about $10k in my 401k and 5k in my Roth, for a total of 15k of my money in retirement contributions for 2008, just over 21% of my gross income. There also should be roughly 4k from the company match. Barring an ever declining market, that should almost double my account value in 2008! However, with such a shaky market and all this recession talk, I specifically set my goals in dollars of contributions, not account value. Go long term investing!

I think 15% will be a stretch for me, at least while I'm growing the e-fund. I varied between 12% and 15% at my last job, and rent was much lower. We'll have to see how it goes. My budget says I can do it, but I'm not much of a budgeter.

While I'm waiting, I've been putting a little extra in my Roth IRA to get the year started off on the right foot.

I get paid tomorrow (yes, on Thursdays) and finally was able to view my paycheck online. Though I only am being paid for 40 hrs instead of 80 this period, they did process my signing bonus in the first check (yes!) so I finally have some money to work with. They got all my direct deposit stuff set up in time (nice work!). I have it split between three different accounts, checking, short term savings (insurance, travel, car) and a long term savings (e-fund, maybe house/condo fund one day). I still may have to transfer between these, but this should minimize that. Make savings automatic!

I'm still not ready to finalize a budget, as I'm not certain what my take home pay will be. I tried to figure out exactly how much I'll be paying in taxes each month by taking total taxes paid divided by total gross pay in this check. I came up with about a 39% tax rate! Yikes, that can't be right! Google tells me that taxes on bonuses, while calculated as normal income, are withheld at a different rate, up to 40%. Well, that makes more sense! Good to know.

Is it logical to just use 25%, my marginal tax rate? Then again, what about FICA, Social Security, etc? If I do that, I come up with about $1700 after 401k and medical or $1500 if I go all the way up to 20% in my 401k. It isn't likely I can live off the $3000/month, at least not if I want to grow my cash savings. Though the way some people dream about buying a house, I dream about maxing out my 401k....

My 401k still isn't ready for me to enroll. I hate when systems are not automated enough. My last job I could enroll in my 401k on the first day (through Fidelity). It has been a full week and CitiStreet still isn't recognizing my user ID. When I called the number to ask if this was normal, I was told "Please listen carefully as options have recently changed." Then, there was a single ring, then silence. More silence. I was never given any options! I hung up and tried again, only to have it happen again. I pressed all the numbers and was directed to an operator who could not help me unless I "went through the system and entered my PIN" (which I did!). He suggested waiting another week, or trying the number again. Lame.

I was going to go hang out with the boyfriend tonight, but I think I'll cancel. He has a lot of school work, and I have needed to do laundry for at least a week. This will give me time to start working on yesterdays to-do list. First up, taxes!

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

I took $1000 out of my high yeild savings account and directed it into my Roth IRA for 2008. Really, for true dollar cost averaging, I only contributed $585 above what I would normally contribute for a month. My Roth is fully invested in a 2050 target date retirement fund for now.

I could have funded the whole year with savings, but I don't feel that I have the approrpriate cushion in my savings, especially with a cross country move coming up. Besides that, with markets being so shaky, I'm not sure I want to throw dollar cost averaging out the window this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the market recovers nicely, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it declines as well. I'm not an expert.

Since I'm leaving this job, I'm going to have the option of rolling my 401k (about 16k) into a regular IRA. Since my MAGI is less than $100k, I will also have the opportunity to convert it to a Roth IRA. I'll have to look at whether or not I can take the tax hit in 2008, and the pro's and cons of doing this.

Another thing I want to look at once I'm settled in Cali is moving a large chunk of my HYSA to a money market fund, specifically the tax exempt California one offered by Vanguard. My after tax return might be able to beat out my current high yeild savings accounts, especially since I'm not rate chasing. This article by The Finance Buff which suggests it may be so. It'll make more of a difference if I itemize deductions (I usually take the standard), so I'll have to do a little research on this. Or another option: TIPs? I have heard a lot about them, but my knowledge is limited. A high yield savings account is a great start, but I think I'm ready to see what else is out there and make sure I'm getting the best deal.

I was hoping to wait until 2008 to talk about my goals and plans for 2008. However, I'm a planner to the extreme and I can't help myself from starting now.

There are a lot of unknowns in the first part of next year. I'm moving to a new city with expensive rent. While I have one job offer, I'm waiting on the one that I want more (tomorrow? Very soon!) so I'm not sure what my salary will be. Still, no matter what, there are some goals I can set right away, and adjust as needed.

First, I want to max out my Roth IRA again. That is about $415 a month of post tax money to be directed into savings immediately. In my first year and a half of working, I've already saved about $20k in retirement accounts. As my salary increases, I'll be able to contribute more each year. I think I'm on track to have a comfortable retirement. I have a vague idea of retiring early, but still am not ready to make a plan for that goal.

In that same vein, I want to contribute at least 10% to my 401k. This is pretty painless and will get me a full match of (probably) 6% total from my company. Based on my first job offer, that will mean I'll save about $15000 in 2008 for retirement. If I feel that I can afford it, this will be increased, with a stretch goal of 15% towards 401k.

I also want to pay a little extra to my student loan account. My goal is only going to be $1000 extra this year. I'm required to pay about $1500. In 2007 my goal was $4000 total. This is really cheap money so paying it off is more for the mental benefits. That means my month payment will increase to $215, though I'll likely pay it in chunks rather than automatically every month. If any of my goals are faltering, this will be the first to go, as it is the least cost effective.

Next, I want to continue (but decrease) to auto-contributions to my emergency fund, and really turn it into an emergency fund. I have a general purpose high yield savings account which is my efund, but I don't treat it as an efund. It's just a savings account with a continually increasing balance. I think contributing $50/week to this account will be sufficient. I pretty much grew it to 10k from scratch this year, so it is a big decrease. I'm excited to have a base fund so I can focus on other goals.

Now... the "boring" goals are out of the way!

For my fun goals, I want to add $25/week to my "travel" fund. If I have extra money, I'll increase this amount, but it is a start. I have a travel fund earmarked, but it has had really stagnant growth. I also want to start saving up for a newer car. My car has about 75k miles on it and will last another couple years... but I need to start building up some money to purchase my next one. I want to pay for my next car in cash, and I will be spending at least 10k, maybe more. If my budget works out, I'd like to save $100/week for this, giving me just over 5k by the end of the year.

So that is it! These goals will be tweaked once I'm settled into my new apartment, new city, and new job.

In unrelated news, they are announcing who replaces my current manager at work today. I hope they promote from within the group and that Bryan is it. I think that he would have the job if he wanted it, but I'm not sure he is interested in management.

I've done some research and came up with something I'm comfortable with.

This is what I'm thinking of:

Fidelity U.S. Equity Index Commingled Pool	55
Fidelity Spartan International Index FSIIX 20%	15
Fidelity Spartan Extended Market Index FSEMX 15%	15
Morgan Stanly International EquityA, MXIQX	5
Fidelity US Bond Index FBIDX	10

It is quite loosely based on this article from kiplinger, however I don't have access to an emerging markets fund in my 401k, and I thought that having nothing in bonds was a bit risky for my preference.

I'm 24, so a long way from retirement and I don't mind some risk. Am I missing an important asset allocation? I do have access to a variety of other funds, which I will list here in a word vomit fasion: Fidelity target date funds, Low priced stock, blue chip growth, capital and income, dividend growth baron growth, Wells fargo mid cap, Alliaz small cap, diversified international, equity income...

Does my asset allocation seem sensible? Any glaring mistakes? Anything I need to look into in more detail?

Thanks for any feedback!

After yesterday's post on being impatient to enroll in my company's 401k, today I found that I was finally "in the system" and could enroll! I eagerly got to the screen where I could indicate I wanted to save 15% of my pretax income. Then came the fund allocation screen....

Crap. I wasn't 100% prepared for this despite it being on my to-do list from about a week ago. I do have a loose plan of what I want to do, but haven't figure out how to align my three accounts into one asset allocation.

My overall goal for my asset allocation goal is as follows:

• Stocks/Bonds: 88%/12%
• Within stocks, Domestic/International: 60%/40%
• Within Domestic, Large Cap/Small Cap/REIT: 75%/15%/15%

I also would like 10% of my international allocations in emerging markets, and someday I may want to do something fancier with bonds as I hear a lot about TIPS and Treasury and things I don't know anything about (right now I just use a bond index fund).

Overall, this breaks down to 6 funds allocated as follows:

• Large Cap 37%
• Small Cap 8%
• REIT 8%
• Int. Index 32%
• Emerg. Mkts 4%
• Bond Idx 12%

Do you think I'm missing anything important?

There are some issues with this right now. It is pretty impossible for me to actually get the 4% emerging markets allocation or even the 8% REIT allocation. I don't have those options in my 401k, and Vanguard requires minimum investments of $3000, which is currently 15% of my portfolio. Besides, I don't really know exactly what my current allocation is, mostly because Fidelity's 2040 fund has about a zillion different holdings.

So, what is my plan? First, I need to move both my Roth IRA and old 401k to Vanguard, while rolling the 401k to an IRA. Then I want to roll $5000 of the 401k into the Roth. Why just $5000? Because I don't want to get hit with taxes on the full $15k this year. I figure I'll roll it into my Roth over a period of 2-3 years, hurrying it along if it becomes necessary (meaning, if I end up planning to get married before then, as the income limits are harder to meet if you aren't single). Perhaps more on the rollover later, as I contemplate all the implications of it.

Within the Roth, I want to buy $3000 of the REIT index fund, and put the rest in the Vangaurd 2040 fund (which does have a small percent emerging markets). I'll then set my future contributions to the 2040 fund and most likely put my old 401k into the 2040 fund as well. When my portfolio grows more, I may invest more into the emerging markets fund, but probably not any time in 2008.

Last I'll use the index funds in my 401k to balance out my other allocations (small cap, large cap, index, and bonds) as closely as I can to my goal.

What do you think? I do want to have real estate be part of my portfolio, as I don't own property and don't plan on it soon. Should I just wait on the REITs until I can keep them a smaller percent of the portfolio? Or, given the housing market, will they decline all on their own, so I won't have to worry?? :)

In a side note, I temporarily regretted posting anything about my relationship yesterday. People sometimes jump to conclusions based on limited information. I wrote a post detailing things, intending to "clear up" some things. It was wordy and not very personal finance related anyway, so I'll just say it in a concise fashion. It's been 3.5 years. When we were both students, we split things fairly evenly. He would never need a loan from me and is good with money, and will most likely be very successful (someday). He really is on a tight budget as we live in an expensive city. He does pay for things now and then, including dinners, just not this weekend. He spent hours helping me set up my furniture and hang pictures and is really helpful with that kind of thing. I eat his food when I'm at his place (but my food is so much better!) We discussed it briefly, he acknowledged it, and I'll see if it is an issue in the future. If so, I will write about it, but I have to remind myself not to get (too) defensive about the comments!

I still can't sign up for my company's 401k, but not because I'm ineligible. You are eligible immediately (and vested immediately too!), though they a pension plan too which takes a year to be eligible and 5 years to vest.

I can't sign up because the website doesn't recognize my userid. I'm not "in the system" despite already getting a huge packet of information from them. Since I'm not in the system, when I call them, they are totally helpless:
"I can't take your password over the phone, you have to go through the system and punch it in"
"I did. But I wasn't given any menu options, so I pressed zero for help."
"Well. I can put you back through the system, and you can enter your password."
". . . But that obviously didn't work."

Gah! They did say it may take 7-10 days to become active. If they mean business days, it has been seven. If they mean actual days, it has been 11. I'll give it until the end of the week....

But I'm really anxious to start contributing! I'm going to see if I can handle contributing 15% of my income. If I do that, I'll be able to get about $10k in my 401k and 5k in my Roth, for a total of 15k of my money in retirement contributions for 2008, just over 21% of my gross income. There also should be roughly 4k from the company match. Barring an ever declining market, that should almost double my account value in 2008! However, with such a shaky market and all this recession talk, I specifically set my goals in dollars of contributions, not account value. Go long term investing!

I think 15% will be a stretch for me, at least while I'm growing the e-fund. I varied between 12% and 15% at my last job, and rent was much lower. We'll have to see how it goes. My budget says I can do it, but I'm not much of a budgeter.

While I'm waiting, I've been putting a little extra in my Roth IRA to get the year started off on the right foot.

I get paid tomorrow (yes, on Thursdays) and finally was able to view my paycheck online. Though I only am being paid for 40 hrs instead of 80 this period, they did process my signing bonus in the first check (yes!) so I finally have some money to work with. They got all my direct deposit stuff set up in time (nice work!). I have it split between three different accounts, checking, short term savings (insurance, travel, car) and a long term savings (e-fund, maybe house/condo fund one day). I still may have to transfer between these, but this should minimize that. Make savings automatic!

I'm still not ready to finalize a budget, as I'm not certain what my take home pay will be. I tried to figure out exactly how much I'll be paying in taxes each month by taking total taxes paid divided by total gross pay in this check. I came up with about a 39% tax rate! Yikes, that can't be right! Google tells me that taxes on bonuses, while calculated as normal income, are withheld at a different rate, up to 40%. Well, that makes more sense! Good to know.

Is it logical to just use 25%, my marginal tax rate? Then again, what about FICA, Social Security, etc? If I do that, I come up with about $1700 after 401k and medical or $1500 if I go all the way up to 20% in my 401k. It isn't likely I can live off the $3000/month, at least not if I want to grow my cash savings. Though the way some people dream about buying a house, I dream about maxing out my 401k....

My 401k still isn't ready for me to enroll. I hate when systems are not automated enough. My last job I could enroll in my 401k on the first day (through Fidelity). It has been a full week and CitiStreet still isn't recognizing my user ID. When I called the number to ask if this was normal, I was told "Please listen carefully as options have recently changed." Then, there was a single ring, then silence. More silence. I was never given any options! I hung up and tried again, only to have it happen again. I pressed all the numbers and was directed to an operator who could not help me unless I "went through the system and entered my PIN" (which I did!). He suggested waiting another week, or trying the number again. Lame.

I was going to go hang out with the boyfriend tonight, but I think I'll cancel. He has a lot of school work, and I have needed to do laundry for at least a week. This will give me time to start working on yesterdays to-do list. First up, taxes!

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

I took $1000 out of my high yeild savings account and directed it into my Roth IRA for 2008. Really, for true dollar cost averaging, I only contributed $585 above what I would normally contribute for a month. My Roth is fully invested in a 2050 target date retirement fund for now.

I could have funded the whole year with savings, but I don't feel that I have the approrpriate cushion in my savings, especially with a cross country move coming up. Besides that, with markets being so shaky, I'm not sure I want to throw dollar cost averaging out the window this year. I wouldn't be surprised if the market recovers nicely, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it declines as well. I'm not an expert.

Since I'm leaving this job, I'm going to have the option of rolling my 401k (about 16k) into a regular IRA. Since my MAGI is less than $100k, I will also have the opportunity to convert it to a Roth IRA. I'll have to look at whether or not I can take the tax hit in 2008, and the pro's and cons of doing this.

Another thing I want to look at once I'm settled in Cali is moving a large chunk of my HYSA to a money market fund, specifically the tax exempt California one offered by Vanguard. My after tax return might be able to beat out my current high yeild savings accounts, especially since I'm not rate chasing. This article by The Finance Buff which suggests it may be so. It'll make more of a difference if I itemize deductions (I usually take the standard), so I'll have to do a little research on this. Or another option: TIPs? I have heard a lot about them, but my knowledge is limited. A high yield savings account is a great start, but I think I'm ready to see what else is out there and make sure I'm getting the best deal.

I was hoping to wait until 2008 to talk about my goals and plans for 2008. However, I'm a planner to the extreme and I can't help myself from starting now.

There are a lot of unknowns in the first part of next year. I'm moving to a new city with expensive rent. While I have one job offer, I'm waiting on the one that I want more (tomorrow? Very soon!) so I'm not sure what my salary will be. Still, no matter what, there are some goals I can set right away, and adjust as needed.

First, I want to max out my Roth IRA again. That is about $415 a month of post tax money to be directed into savings immediately. In my first year and a half of working, I've already saved about $20k in retirement accounts. As my salary increases, I'll be able to contribute more each year. I think I'm on track to have a comfortable retirement. I have a vague idea of retiring early, but still am not ready to make a plan for that goal.

In that same vein, I want to contribute at least 10% to my 401k. This is pretty painless and will get me a full match of (probably) 6% total from my company. Based on my first job offer, that will mean I'll save about $15000 in 2008 for retirement. If I feel that I can afford it, this will be increased, with a stretch goal of 15% towards 401k.

I also want to pay a little extra to my student loan account. My goal is only going to be $1000 extra this year. I'm required to pay about $1500. In 2007 my goal was $4000 total. This is really cheap money so paying it off is more for the mental benefits. That means my month payment will increase to $215, though I'll likely pay it in chunks rather than automatically every month. If any of my goals are faltering, this will be the first to go, as it is the least cost effective.

Next, I want to continue (but decrease) to auto-contributions to my emergency fund, and really turn it into an emergency fund. I have a general purpose high yield savings account which is my efund, but I don't treat it as an efund. It's just a savings account with a continually increasing balance. I think contributing $50/week to this account will be sufficient. I pretty much grew it to 10k from scratch this year, so it is a big decrease. I'm excited to have a base fund so I can focus on other goals.

Now... the "boring" goals are out of the way!

For my fun goals, I want to add $25/week to my "travel" fund. If I have extra money, I'll increase this amount, but it is a start. I have a travel fund earmarked, but it has had really stagnant growth. I also want to start saving up for a newer car. My car has about 75k miles on it and will last another couple years... but I need to start building up some money to purchase my next one. I want to pay for my next car in cash, and I will be spending at least 10k, maybe more. If my budget works out, I'd like to save $100/week for this, giving me just over 5k by the end of the year.

So that is it! These goals will be tweaked once I'm settled into my new apartment, new city, and new job.

In unrelated news, they are announcing who replaces my current manager at work today. I hope they promote from within the group and that Bryan is it. I think that he would have the job if he wanted it, but I'm not sure he is interested in management.

I've done some research and came up with something I'm comfortable with.

This is what I'm thinking of:

Fidelity U.S. Equity Index Commingled Pool	55
Fidelity Spartan International Index FSIIX 20%	15
Fidelity Spartan Extended Market Index FSEMX 15%	15
Morgan Stanly International EquityA, MXIQX	5
Fidelity US Bond Index FBIDX	10

It is quite loosely based on this article from kiplinger, however I don't have access to an emerging markets fund in my 401k, and I thought that having nothing in bonds was a bit risky for my preference.

I'm 24, so a long way from retirement and I don't mind some risk. Am I missing an important asset allocation? I do have access to a variety of other funds, which I will list here in a word vomit fasion: Fidelity target date funds, Low priced stock, blue chip growth, capital and income, dividend growth baron growth, Wells fargo mid cap, Alliaz small cap, diversified international, equity income...

Does my asset allocation seem sensible? Any glaring mistakes? Anything I need to look into in more detail?

Thanks for any feedback!