RetirementGuide
Roth or Traditional: The Decision Rule
It is one comparison: your marginal rate now against your expected rate in retirement. Everything else is a tiebreak, and at equal rates the two are identical to the dollar.
7 min read
Topic
Investing
Start investing without the jargon: what to buy, what it quietly costs you, and what to ignore.
33 posts
Editor's pick
RetirementGuide
The 401(k) Match Is the Best Return You Will Ever Get
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.
6 min read
Investing
Dollar-Cost Averaging vs Lump Sum
Investing all of it at once wins whenever the market rises, which is most of the time. That is a fact about averages rather than about you, and here is when averaging in is the right answer anyway.
7 min read
Investing
Target-Date Funds: What You Pay for the Convenience
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.
7 min read
Investing
Index Fund or ETF: Does It Matter?
For most people holding the same index, no. On $100,000 over five years in a taxable account the tax difference is $312.46, which is about $62 a year. Here are the three cases where it genuinely does matter.
7 min read
Debt PayoffGuide
Invest or Pay Off Debt First?
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.
8 min read
Investing
Expense Ratios: What 0.85% Actually Costs You
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.
7 min read
Investing
The Three-Fund Portfolio
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.
8 min read
Editor's pick
InvestingGuide
Index Funds Explained Without the Jargon
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.
11 min read
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