31 plain-English reads on budgeting, saving, investing, debt, credit and taxes. Newest first unless you say otherwise.
Your contributions are always yours. The employer's may not be for six years. On a three-year cliff, resigning in month 35 leaves $14,200 behind and resigning in month 37 does not.
A 50% match is a 50% return before the money is invested in anything. On a $70,000 salary, not contributing enough to capture it leaves $2,100 a year on the table, which is $132,823 over a career.
They cost more than building it yourself, and they are still the right answer for most people. On $500 a month over thirty years the difference is $55,068, and here is who should pay it.
There is a rate above which paying the debt wins and below which investing does, and it sits exactly at the return you expect. Three households, $500 a month, ten years, and three different answers.
0.85% sounds like nothing, and for the first year it is: about $19. Over thirty years of $400 a month it is $70,624, which is more than fourteen years of the contributions themselves.
Total market, international, bonds. What each one is doing, what the ratio changes on $50,000 in a bad year, and why a fourth fund usually adds cost rather than diversification.
An index fund is a rule, not a manager. What the rule costs, what it buys, and why 0.85% instead of 0.04% takes $70,624 off a thirty-year balance.
One short email each week: a money move worth making, a number worth checking, and a trap worth dodging.