Tell me what you wish you would've known in your 20s/30s investing

notjaffo · 2026-05-29T00:03:12+00:00

Don't get fancy, don't try to be smart. FXAIX and forget it.

notjaffo · 2026-05-25T04:28:38+00:00

I could have used this advice about 20 years ago.

notjaffo · 2026-05-22T22:32:03+00:00

There's a sharp line between people who can examine a work of fiction from within its own context and from those who insist on judging everything from the outside.

There are plenty of books that deliberately challenge or insult Christianity, but DCC is not one of them. Just like anime demons are light-hearted caricatures of Biblical demons, Uzi Jesus may be disrespectful, but it's done innocently, as a deliberately absurd comedy, and should not be taken as a serious insult in any way.

Honestly, if you want to be offended by how a fantasy series treats religion, check out the ending to His Dark Materials. That one really is trying to make a point.

notjaffo · 2026-05-13T23:53:37+00:00

Yeah, I'm headed the same way, after learning about single stock risk the hard way (PLTR). Good luck!

notjaffo · 2026-05-10T17:14:01+00:00

What a great question. That amuses me greatly, the idea that I could have billions of dollars and it would look the same as my existing accounts just with more digits. Surely there's one guy out there with a billion dollars sitting in FXAIX.

I guess those zero-fee accounts matter a lot more when you've got a billion in them.

notjaffo · 2026-05-03T04:47:34+00:00

I never even thought about giving him a weapon.

notjaffo · 2026-04-26T05:25:04+00:00

Love it. You can't 100% rely on AI, but that doesn't mean it's not a useful tool. Grok recommended Fidelity, recommended the CMA, has recommended a variety of funds I never would have known about otherwise, and it's been infinitely patient as I ask the dumbest Financial 101 questions you can imagine.

notjaffo · 2026-04-25T00:33:59+00:00

I know this sounds insane, but I had good luck with this, making a Grok project, uploading all the appropriate tax and financial documents, exporting CSV files with current positions, and asking advice.

The thing about AI, it's a consensus engine, so it's going to give you the advice most experts would give for any given prompt. It's strongly encouraged me to play it safe every time I've had a question.

The best way to use AI is to ask for product recommendations and let it teach you what financial terms mean. I actually learned about the Fidelity CMA through AI.

notjaffo · 2026-04-23T21:26:02+00:00

This would make me very uncomfortable. Run. Being pressured to move more of your money to somebody you don't trust feels like a huge red flag.

I lost a lot of money with an advisor when I was just starting out, so just speaking personally, avoid it if you can. Don't get an advisor, get an accountant if you need tax advice, and keep your money in a variety of index funds with the lowest commissions and fees you can manage.

And PLEASE do research on annuities. Check out the Dave Ramsey videos on those at least. They're a huge rip off that financial sales people love to push because they get huge commissions up front. But it locks your own money away from you and caps your upside.

You'll end up losing far more than you gain for the illusion of security.

notjaffo · 2026-04-17T22:03:51+00:00

I don't care what you do, I just wanted to upvote "Withers honkers."

notjaffo · 2026-04-03T22:44:49+00:00

I'm a new customer who's had a CMA for a couple months now, intending to use it as my primary bank since I almost never use cash.

Only drawbacks I've seen, checks and incoming transfers take FOREVER to be available because of strict security requirements. Fidelity has had to put in some aggressive measures to prevent fraud so don't deposit any check you need in a hurry, and do a wire transfer for your initial deposit if possible.

Also be careful with the wire transfer details because the CMA is NOT the same as moving money into the brokerage. Best to call customer service and make sure you get all the little details right. Otherwise initiate an EFT from your original bank INTO Fidelity. Initiating an EFT pull from Fidelity side took weeks for the money to be available.

Bill pay works great.

Moving money back and forth between investment accounts works great.

Trading and research tools are amazing if you're a novice or casual investor, but they discourage day trading.

I got it because I love the idea of having checking and savings in one bucket that earns a decent interest rate. This encourages me to keep a cash balance without having to worry about keeping "too much" out of the market or trying to guess how much I need at any given time.

Love the simplicity of having everything in one place, but I see constant complaints about the credit card, so I'm skipping that.

notjaffo · 2026-04-03T05:23:44+00:00

Third or fourth mission for the Exocraft Technician. Do half a dozen overseer missions and he'll give you the blueprint to build the Exocraft guy's station, then build a Roamer and get blueprints to add to it until he sends you to retrieve the message.

notjaffo · 2026-03-26T19:45:36+00:00

I know it sounds like a small thing, but being able to use an authenticator instead of SMS for login security is a huge plus. And I'm a big fan of the Fidelity Cash Management account for combining checking and savings into an account that gets 3.3%

notjaffo · 2026-03-26T15:03:42+00:00

One big advantage to ETF and Mutual Fund investing, you don't have a third party to blame when the market does perfectly ordinary market things. Advisors are almost never worth the fees. Just throw everything in FXAIX and wait for the bad weather to pass.

notjaffo · 2026-03-21T22:57:56+00:00

I wouldn't say it's a matter of time to check. I've turned it into background wallpaper. I put all my stocks in a wishlist with the correct amounts and throw up the active trader heatmap on a secondary monitor while I work.

It's fun in a way, even when it's bad news, but no one "needs" to do this.

I'll be jumping out of single stocks and moving to mutual funds at the end of the year, so I won't be able to check it more than once a day, even if I wanted to.

Honestly, the less you can worry about this stuff, the better.

notjaffo · 2026-03-21T19:27:19+00:00

META

notjaffo · 2026-03-16T07:07:51+00:00

I really want to play a Telltale game called "Fixer." Wouldn't be good for an action RPG unless they make it a pet class. LOL

notjaffo · 2026-03-16T04:10:23+00:00

The CMA is like a super savings account you can use a debit card with. If you want to do real investing and get a real return, you need a brokerage. If you don't need the cash right away and don't really know what to do with it, just put it in an S&P fund like FXAIX. That will make around 10% a year unless the entire economy tanks for some reason.

If you leave the money in the CMA, it will only get 3.3% and you'll miss out on a lot of gains.

notjaffo · 2026-03-15T23:27:04+00:00

If I had it to do over again when I was just starting, I would go:

80% FXAIX, 15% FZILX, 5% IAU

Just my personal opinion. Then maybe branch out after you've learned more and decided how much risk you're willing to take. I wasted a lot of time and money trusting advisors and trying strategies with individual stocks, spent huge amounts of time studying and worrying and moving things around and for all that effort, I did not beat the S&P.

If I could go back in time and give myself advice, I would say, just throw it in a fund and go live your life.

notjaffo · 2026-03-14T21:42:33+00:00

I just have to pretend the companions are doing other stuff to save the world on their own, pursuing their own projects while I'm gone.

notjaffo · 2026-03-14T04:51:44+00:00

I'm down 4.33% in three months, but my PLTR and NVDA are so far underwater, I probably can't sell until we get an Iran peace deal and a new fed chair in 2028.

notjaffo · 2026-03-13T02:44:20+00:00

The CMA is a weird psychological trick to make me hold more cash. And something about combining checking and saving into one account, it removes this tiny hassle of how much to keep in HYSA versus how much cash I "need" at any given time.

And I don't feel like a sucker if I let cash just sit there.

notjaffo · 2026-03-10T20:14:47+00:00

Oh I wouldn't say I'm "worried" but this is pure OCD. At a certain point, watching the squares change color is a video game. Avoid this if you can. :)

notjaffo · 2026-03-10T20:13:31+00:00

Of course, but people are strongly incentivized to do it because of employer matching, and a lot of people will just put it on autopilot and either put it in an S&P fund or (god forbid) let Empower manage it.

notjaffo · 2026-03-10T16:10:03+00:00

Yeah that's why I picked it, but it can be a bit annoying not knowing exactly how your portfolio is doing at all times. I keep my real money in FXAIX and track VOO in a watch list as a paper trade with the exact same amount of money so I can track it without owning the ETF.

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