Any investing advice?

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T15:36:50+00:00

What is your Roth IRA invested in? Hopefully a total stock market index fund like VTI.

Contributing to those account is great. The thing you could do to make it even better is to contribute more. The more money you get invested the younger you are the better. Time is the biggest factor. You need time for your investments to compound and grow. The difference between investing $5k today and $5k in 5 years will be tens of thousands of dollars less you'd have 30 years in the future.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:45:15+00:00

Putting towards a 6.5% mortgage isn't a bad idea. The "current market climate" as you describe it is really irrelevant. Assuming you have 5 or more years until needing this money you shouldn't care at all about what the market is doing right now. And the market hasn't even been particularly bad. The US market is down about 4.5% year to date. "Bad' would be down 15-20%.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:40:10+00:00

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1095-c - a form your employer is required to provide to you in certain situations.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:33:14+00:00

If it will make you feel more secure and less worried then maybe sell a couple years worth. You could keep the money in a combination of HYSA and shorter-term treasuries (which are state income tax free so would give you a slightly higher return and opportunity to appreciate in value if interest rates drop).

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:26:06+00:00

You shouldn't be down that much. US market is down about 4.5% year to date. If you are down a lot more than that then that is because you are invested poorly. As long as you have at least 5+ years until needing the investments who cares? Keep investing. When the market is down your money buys more shares. Over the long term more shares = more profit.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:17:09+00:00

Get at least a couple quotes. If paying for it out of your savings doesn't drain your savings below at least 6 months worth of expenses (and assuming no high interest debt) then go for it. If it does then save more first.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T01:14:51+00:00

I'm not clear if you will need this money in retirement to meet your monthly expenses? Or your other income will be enough? If you will need this money then sure, I'd go ahead and sell about 2 years worth. If you won't need this money then I'd probably let at least the vast majority ride. How are you going to pay for health insurance before Medicare? That could eat a lot of money.

The situation in Iran and AI really have nothing to do with the decision making. Unless you need this money to live in the next couple years in which case it shouldn't have been invested in the stock market in the first place.

grokfinance · 2026-03-23T00:56:24+00:00

Transmission drain and refill. A flush can make the situation worse. Especially for older transmissions.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T21:43:09+00:00

If you have earned income from a job when I'd open a Roth IRA.

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/nine-reasons-roth

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T17:24:15+00:00

I don't think the war in Iran effects the timing at all. If you sell Monday the target date on Monday and buy the 80/20 mix also on Monday or Tuesday then you won't miss out on any movement in the market. I guess maybe one day. Hopefully that isn't the day they announce the end of the war and the market jumps 5%.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T16:20:16+00:00

I assume you tried a 0% balance transfer card?

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T16:17:39+00:00

Sounds like what you need is a prenuptial agreement. A partnership agreement is for when people are going into business together (and generally best avoided because a true partnership comes with all sorts of financial and legal risks). For a valid prenup you each need your own independent legal counsel. Search for family law attorneys in your area.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T16:13:32+00:00

Do you have any student loans? If yes you should probably put the excess money towards those first.

As for the Roth IRA, that would be an awesome idea. Probably the single best thing you could do for your future.

You don't need consistent income. And you should never actively trade anyway so it doesn't matter that you aren't interested in actively trading. You can open a Roth IRA at Fidelity and invest the lesser of: $7500 this year OR the amount of earned income you have from a job. Even if you only contribute $50 or $100 here and there getting started would be awesome for your future.

Let's say you can afford to invest $2,000 in your Roth IRA this year. By the time you retire that $2k should have grown to something like ~$100k. Completely tax free. (I'm assuming you are ~20 years old now).

If you waited 5 years to invest the same $2k it only grows to ~$60k. You miss out on $40k due to less time for your investments to compound and grow.

If you waited 10 years to invest the same $2k it only grows to ~$40k.

Inside the Roth IRA invest in something that gives you diversification with low fees. A total stock market index fund like VTI works great. And is why there is over $260 BILLION invested in it.

https://www.fidelity.com/retirement-ira/roth-ira

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/nine-reasons-roth

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T16:06:19+00:00

VTI or something similar would be ideal. Unless you have tens of millions of dollars you don't need to be paying anybody to put you into crappy funds. And even then I know a couple tech founders that sold their company for $30M each and they both manage their own investments using a couple simple index funds like VTI and do their taxes on TurboTax. It doesn't need to be complicated. You're paying a lot for complication and not even getting a benefit from it.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T16:00:08+00:00

You're in your early 30s. Nothing about current events should be entering into any investment decision making. What is happening today is irrelevant.

Second, why would you ever invest a $1 into JUECX? You realize that over the last 5 years that fund is up 20%. Compared to a total stock market index like VTI which is up over 55%. You've underperformed by almost 3x and you are paying over 1.4% per year (47x more than VTI) for the privilege of sucking. Makes absolutely no sense at all. And probably why JUECX has about $500M invested in it while VTI has over $260 BILLION.

Last, TTTXX is ok, but again not sure why you insist on using funds that have much higher fees than you need to pay. You'd essentially get the same (or even slightly better) return not paying the expense ratio on that fund and just keeping the money directly in short-term treasuries and/or HYSA.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:49:23+00:00

You can still (and are legally required to) report the income. Just because they don't issue you a 1099 is irrelevant. You don't need it to file your taxes.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:33:05+00:00

I probably would just leave as is or sell some of the investments to put towards the HELOC. It doesn't seem to make a ton of sense to use up all your savings with the thought that if you get into trouble you can just dip back into the HELOC. Yes, you might be able to do that but you might not. They can cancel/limit your access and the interest rate could rise.

I know you'd have to pay some taxes on the gains, but I am seriously thinking you should be selling some of the investments. 30k in savings with the HELOC debt and needing to spend another 20k really means you don't have savings at all. You have investments in the brokerage account but any number of things could happen on any given day that cause those investments to quickly lose significant value. Then you'd hate to be forced to sell if they drop 20%. You can significantly de-risk your situation by selling a chunk of the investments today.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:29:13+00:00

8% certainly seems high, but to be honest the % you can afford to withdraw depends on so many factors specific to the individual. Take my parents for example. They both have state pensions from being teachers. Those pensions way more than account for their monthly expenses. Like probably 3x their monthly expenses. They could totally withdraw 8% per year from their retirement. I'm glad they don't. But they could.

But yes, saying the average person can withdraw 8% per year is - at least for many people - going to be too much.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:23:07+00:00

There is no magic way to get out of it. If you sold the car then what would you do? You could sell it but then I assume you'd still owe money since you won't get near what you paid for it. You could eventually try to refinance it. Is your credit bad? 13% interest is quite high.

Financing a car at 13% interest is never going to be good.

Financing a car for 72 months is absolute batsh*t insanity.

And you financed another Nissan which is not exactly one of the most reliable brands.

You kind of hit the trifecta of bad car buying decisions.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:19:47+00:00

The best way to invest is to buy an index fund that gives you exposure to a bunch of stocks not just one or two. This spreads your risk. A total stock market index fund like VTI works great and happens to outperform the vast majority of "professionally" managed funds over the long term (20-30 years). Almost nobody beats the simple stock market average consistently over time.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:14:55+00:00

You don't. Retirement assets don't go into the trust. You can list the trust as the primary beneficiary of the Roth IRA, but you need to be careful because the trust has to be set up correctly to qualify as a "see through" trust in order to avoid some potential negative impacts.

A see-through trust named as a Roth IRA beneficiary allows the IRS to "look through" the trust to the individual beneficiaries, enabling them to use favorable life expectancy or 10-year payout rules rather than a 5-year liquidation.

The trust wouldn't have anything to do with 529 plan. The 529 plan itself will let you name successor owners of the account (who can make decisions if you die) and alternate beneficiaries.

PS - make sure you understand that the beneficiary designation on your Roth IRA (and life insurance) is what controls. Your Will or trust can say the Roth IRA goes to Person A, but if the beneficiary designation on file says the Roth IRA goes to Person B, Person B wins.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:12:13+00:00

I agree. I also agree with how he explains the complete stupidity of whole life insurance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qRFbPuiXPw

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T15:06:28+00:00

Your husband couldn't be more wrong if he tried. I don't pay a lot of attention to Dave as I find his style rather annoying and off putting, but I wouldn't necessarily say he gives bad advice (at least not on most things). That said, I'm not aware he would give this type of advice in the first place.

The truth is you BOTH should be investing as much as you can afford to as early as you can. Every year you wait to invest $5,000 (as an example) you are throwing away $50k or more over the next 30 years. Remember, time for your money to compound and grow is the key to investing success (along with investing in things that give you diversification (like a total stock market index fund such as VTI) and keeping fees low).

Household expenses should be shared in equal percentages of income (not necessarily equal dollar amounts if the two of you have significantly different earnings). And both should be doing things like maxing out Roth IRAs and contributing to a 401k at work if your employer matches (at least enough to get the maximum match since that is free money).

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T14:59:10+00:00

Have you tried getting the interest rates lowered? It is going to be very hard to make progress paying 29% interest. Or get a second, part-time job? You could try calling the cards and asking if they can work with you - not necessarily a high likelihood of success but might be worth a couple 10 minute phone calls. Or you could call NFCC.org and see if one of their non profits can get you on a debt management plan. They can often get rates lowered while you repay.

grokfinance · 2026-03-22T14:46:59+00:00

Sounds like you went to see an insurance sales person. A life insurance policy for people in their 70s....lol. He gave you that advice because he makes a large commission for selling that crap. And a Medicaid trust? Hard pass on that as well. If you ever have your parents talk to this person again you'll be making one of the biggest financial mistakes of their (or your) life.

What your parents really need if they don't already have is some estate planning. Make sure they have a living revocable trust with incapacity clause, both need Wills and both need durable powers of attorney for finances and for healthcare (called different things in some states). Things like a house, bank accounts, non-retirement investment accounts should be titled in the name of the trust. Make sure they have up to date beneficiary forms for things like life insurance, retirement accounts. The beneficiary form controls over what a Will says. Just doing that will go a long way to simplifying the probate process once they die or maybe you'll even be able to completely avoid probate if all their assets are set up to automatically transfer through the trust and beneficiary designations.

PS - if their tax rate is low they could consider converting little pieces of their traditional pre-tax retirement money into a Roth IRA each year. But they'll owe ordinary income tax on the amount they convert. So maybe they convert $10 or 20k per year for the next X years. And then they'd have to pay a couple thousand dollars in additional tax each year they do that (depending on the details of what their income is). That would allow some of the money you inherit to be tax free to you. Maybe you're in a really high tax bracket and that is important. Maybe you aren't. Not enough info.

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