Comments on: January 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/about-me/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:09:54 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: February 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth - The Sun’s Financial Diary - Accumulating wealth is like building The Great Wall, one brick at a time http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/about-me/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-3509 February 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth - The Sun’s Financial Diary - Accumulating wealth is like building The Great Wall, one brick at a time Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:19:13 +0000 http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/2007/02/02/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/#comment-3509 [...] the end of January, we had a total of $466,658 in our savings and investment (both tax-deferred and taxable) accounts. As of yesterday, February [...] [...] the end of January, we had a total of $466,658 in our savings and investment (both tax-deferred and taxable) accounts. As of yesterday, February [...]

]]> By: The Sun http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/about-me/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-2317 The Sun Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:33:15 +0000 http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/2007/02/02/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/#comment-2317 As for where to go for an account, it depends what you want to invest in. For a regular mutual fund account, I think the best way to go is getting it from the fund company directly. If you go through a third party, either a brokerage firm which sells hundreds of funds (mutual fund supermarket), or a mutual fund company such as Vanguard or Fidelity, it's very likely you will have to pay a certain amount of transaction fees (commission). This, however, is not the case with a mutual fund company which manages the fund. They don't charges any other fees for non-load fund except the expense. The problem with each individual fund company is that if you want to invest in several funds, you have to have a account with each of them, sometime make it a little bit difficult to manage. But I'd rather have these individual account than paying a fee every time I buy only a couple of shares using dollar-cost averaging. Firstrade offers no fee mutual fund investments, but I don't if they will change that policy. I used to Scottrade for mutual funds several years ago then focused to sell all of them when they started to charge fees. You can also check with Fidelity as they offers quite some fee-free mutual funds from other companies. As for IRA account, since the investments are supposed to be long term, you have to consider the cost of owning the fund. All 12 mutual funds in my regular accounts are actively managed, but four out of five funds in my IRA account are Vanguard funds. When it comes costs, Vanguard is hard to beat. However, with Vanguard, they charge $10 annual fee if your assets in one fund (not the entire account) is less than $5000. Due to the annual IRA contribution limit ($4000 for 2007), it may not be a good idea to spread that $4000 over several funds and pay fee for each of them if you decide to open an account with Vanguard. And Vanguard requires a minimum of $3000 to open an account for most of their funds. Some other companies require much less initial investment, but their expense ratio is always higher than that of Vanguard funds. As for where to go for an account, it depends what you want to invest in. For a regular mutual fund account, I think the best way to go is getting it from the fund company directly. If you go through a third party, either a brokerage firm which sells hundreds of funds (mutual fund supermarket), or a mutual fund company such as Vanguard or Fidelity, it’s very likely you will have to pay a certain amount of transaction fees (commission). This, however, is not the case with a mutual fund company which manages the fund. They don’t charges any other fees for non-load fund except the expense. The problem with each individual fund company is that if you want to invest in several funds, you have to have a account with each of them, sometime make it a little bit difficult to manage. But I’d rather have these individual account than paying a fee every time I buy only a couple of shares using dollar-cost averaging. Firstrade offers no fee mutual fund investments, but I don’t if they will change that policy. I used to Scottrade for mutual funds several years ago then focused to sell all of them when they started to charge fees. You can also check with Fidelity as they offers quite some fee-free mutual funds from other companies.

As for IRA account, since the investments are supposed to be long term, you have to consider the cost of owning the fund. All 12 mutual funds in my regular accounts are actively managed, but four out of five funds in my IRA account are Vanguard funds. When it comes costs, Vanguard is hard to beat. However, with Vanguard, they charge $10 annual fee if your assets in one fund (not the entire account) is less than $5000. Due to the annual IRA contribution limit ($4000 for 2007), it may not be a good idea to spread that $4000 over several funds and pay fee for each of them if you decide to open an account with Vanguard. And Vanguard requires a minimum of $3000 to open an account for most of their funds. Some other companies require much less initial investment, but their expense ratio is always higher than that of Vanguard funds.

]]> By: John http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/about-me/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-2314 John Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:59:12 +0000 http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/2007/02/02/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/#comment-2314 I'm thinking about open a Roth IRA account and a mutual fund account. Do you have any suggestions as of which broker/bank to go? Is Vanguard good for these - as I saw you moved your Roth IRA to Vanguard? I’m thinking about open a Roth IRA account and a mutual fund account. Do you have any suggestions as of which broker/bank to go? Is Vanguard good for these – as I saw you moved your Roth IRA to Vanguard?

]]> By: 1mil http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/about-me/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-2062 1mil Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:14:10 +0000 http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/2007/02/02/january-2007-score-card-%e2%80%94-part-i-net-worth/#comment-2062 You've got quite a bit of cash. You know cash loses value to inflation, so if you can get that working for you asap, you'd probably want to do that. $40K is a quite a lot to have stuffed under the mattress :-) your friend in finance, 1mil from millionster.com You’ve got quite a bit of cash. You know cash loses value to inflation, so if you can get that working for you asap, you’d probably want to do that. $40K is a quite a lot to have stuffed under the mattress :-)

your friend in finance, 1mil
from millionster.com

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