There are benefits to having a hobby in personal finance. In a world where money moves products and services, understanding how it works is a powerful thing. When you enjoy learning about it, that makes things even easier. From complex tax law to convoluted retirement accounts, it is worth spending some time figuring all this stuff out. But there are also some basic things we should keep an eye on. One of the metrics that...
As it turns out, 2019 was a pretty great year for front-loading my 403(b) account. My low-cost VIIIX (Vanguard Institutional Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares) fund generally tracks the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The S&P 500 returned just over 30% in 2019. Thus, VIIIX put up a very similar return for 2019. On 12/31/2018 VIIIX was worth $227.57 per share and by 12/31/2019 is was worth $290.25 per share. That’s a...
After going on and on about front-loading over the last year, I have decided not to front-load my retirement account in 2020. You see, I had planned on it. I even put a request into my HR department in early December to set aside about 90% of my salary for retirement starting in January 2020. But then I canceled the request. There is really no telling what my Human Resources department thinks of me. They...