Money advice: Investing and such

[Demon Within]

whats a good way to get rolling on this stuff. My bills are minimal 250 rent 260 car 150 insurance 50 cell phone. 710$ gas and food not included. $900 a week to start gives me a decent amount a month to use for investments and such? Where do I learn? What do I look for? Someone on here must know.

 

[jaguarr]

Best thing you can do is find a reputable financial advisor who will help you make the right investment decisions. Mine is worth his weight in gold.

jag

 

[Handsome Rob]

Best thing you can do is find a reputable financial advisor who will help you make the right investment decisions. Mine is worth his weight in gold.

jag

I concur. Unless you've got the time to 1) learn how to invest and 2) stay on top of all things market-related, it's best to stick with someone whose job it is to do just that.

 

[Demon Within]

Best thing you can do is find a reputable financial advisor who will help you make the right investment decisions. Mine is worth his weight in gold.

jag

What makes them reputable? what do they do? Do you pay them a lot?

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

how much do financial investors go for?

 

[jaguarr]

What makes them reputable? what do they do? Do you pay them a lot?

how much do financial investors go for?

It can be difficult to find one you're comfortable with. I asked the ones I interviewed to show me their average gains for their clients over the course of a one year period. I also asked them where they feel their strengths and weaknesses lie (I know a little bit about money markets, mutual funds, insurance, Roth vs 401k, etc...enough to be dangerous and ask questions that will make them sweat). And, I leaned towards people who were associated with reputable financial investment firms (which takes a bit of research to know which ones are dodgy) rather than independent guys who were really sort of going it alone and not tied into as many financial information networks. The guy I finally chose actually taught an intro to retirement investing class at our local university. My wife took him up on his offer to sit through his class and he impressed me enough to make me want to do business with him. He's turned out to be a great financial services provider and my portfolio is doing very well because of his advice.

Some advisors will charge a flat fee per consultation (like mine does), some will charge a percentage on your gains (supposedly this is an incentive for them to do well for you, but there are too many ways for this to be abused IMHO), some will charge a percentage based on how much you are investing. I prefer the flat fee, personally because I want to know up front what the price will be.

jag

 

[Demon Within]

It can be difficult to find one you're comfortable with. I asked the ones I interviewed to show me their average gains for their clients over the course of a one year period. I also asked them where they feel their strengths and weaknesses lie (I know a little bit about money markets, mutual funds, insurance, Roth vs 401k, etc...enough to be dangerous and ask questions that will make them sweat). And, I leaned towards people who were associated with reputable financial investment firms (which takes a bit of research to know which ones are dodgy) rather than independent guys who were really sort of going it alone and not tied into as many financial information networks. The guy I finally chose actually taught an intro to retirement investing class at our local university. My wife took him up on his offer to sit through his class and he impressed me enough to make me want to do business with him. He's turned out to be a great financial services provider and my portfolio is doing very well because of his advice.

Some advisors will charge a flat fee per consultation (like mine does), some will charge a percentage on your gains (supposedly this is an incentive for them to do well for you, but there are too many ways for this to be abused IMHO), some will charge a percentage based on how much you are investing. I prefer the flat fee, personally because I want to know up front what the price will be.

jag

Im not trying to get crazy personal here but from what you have noticed what are respectable gains from investments per year? percent wise i guess since its an unknown amount of start off money and i dont want you to use your situation as that would be to personal.

 

[jaguarr]

Im not trying to get crazy personal here but from what you have noticed what are respectable gains from investments per year? percent wise i guess since its an unknown amount of start off money and i dont want you to use your situation as that would be to personal.

Honestly, it really depends on your personal goals, how much you're looking to invest, how diversified you are in what you're investing and other factors. Just as an example, though, he and I sat down and looked through my 401k that my company offers. He helped me maximize my contributions to get the most out of the company matching funds that are offered and then we tweaked all the different funds that are offered from the standard base mix that they offer to everyone who signs up. In doing so, my own 401k more than doubled in value after 18 months, which is extremely good; particularly in comparison with what my previous return was.

jag

 

[Demon Within]

Honestly, it really depends on your personal goals, how much you're looking to invest, how diversified you are in what you're investing and other factors. Just as an example, though, he and I sat down and looked through my 401k that my company offers. He helped me maximize my contributions to get the most out of the company matching funds that are offered and then we tweaked all the different funds that are offered from the standard base mix that they offer to everyone who signs up. In doing so, my own 401k more than doubled in value after 18 months, which is extremely good; particularly in comparison with what my previous return was.

jag

So basically financial advisor= maximun efficiency expert. Hmmm dammit. So many questions. Ill say this whenever you got some advice (this goes for anyone in the know) please post cause I will be looking.

 

[jaguarr]

So basically financial advisor= maximun efficiency expert. Hmmm dammit. So many questions. Ill say this whenever you got some advice (this goes for anyone in the know) please post cause I will be looking.

Sort of. A good financial advisor is going to be following the market trends and know where the best place to put your investments to achieve your goals will be. If you have a local college, university or community learning annex/community education, look for a class on retirement investing that you could take. Ours was a four week course, once a week for four weeks in the evenings. It was well worth taking and helped us a lot with figuring out what we wanted to accomplish and how to get there so that when we sat down with our advisor to talk through those goals, we had some clarity about where we wanted to be down the road.

jag

 

[Demon Within]

Sort of. A good financial advisor is going to be following the market trends and know where the best place to put your investments to achieve your goals will be. If you have a local college, university or community learning annex/community education, look for a class on retirement investing that you could take. Ours was a four week course, once a week for four weeks in the evenings. It was well worth taking and helped us a lot with figuring out what we wanted to accomplish and how to get there so that when we sat down with our advisor to talk through those goals, we had some clarity about where we wanted to be down the road.

jag

Do you do NYSE as well? Im thinking about that also. It seems to be a gamble, in a way but can pay off in big amounts if your right.

 

[jaguarr]

Do you do NYSE as well? Im thinking about that also. It seems to be a gamble, in a way but can pay off in big amounts if your right.

I dabble through etrade, but most of my investment dollars go into my mutual funds (which does touch the NYSE on certain things), 401k and Roth IRA. The stock market is pretty much like gambling, IMHO. You can make good money if you know what you are doing and have time to spend really researching how you place your bets (my uncle, who is retired, does that), but you can also lose a whole lot of money really fast, too.

jag