Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Vanguard

How should I invest for retirement?

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:11:22 -0800

I am trying to figure out how to invest money for retirement and otherwise. I am in my late 20s, earn $55,000 annually, have no debt, and about $90,000 in savings. I am currently putting 5% of my salary into a 403(b) which is the maximum amount my employer will match. I know I should put about $20,000 into an emergency fund. I will probably leave my current city in 3-5 years. At that point I am likely to need to buy a car so I plan to keep another $20,000 in savings. That leaves $50,000. I saw an adviser from Vanguard who said that if I wanted to invest that money the best thing to do would be to max out a Roth IRA account, and then max out my 403(b) contribution and get money for living expenses out of the savings until the amount decreases. This also means I will get some dollar cost averaging through the periodic extra contribution.

The other thing to consider is that when I move I might want to buy a house, and if the money is all locked away in tax-free retirement accounts I may not be able to get to it for a down payment, or only with tax penalties. Knowing this, is it a better idea to invest the money through something

Anonymous because I don't want everyone to know how much money I make or have saved. You can write me at momoney.moproblems.08 on gmail.

Please help me decide between Fidelity and Vanguard.

salvia — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:37:09 -0800

Questions about opening a Roth IRA -- particularly, does it matter where I open it? If so, Fidelity vs. Vanguard? I want to open my first Roth IRA. I've read past questions and some online resources, but I still have some questions.

- First, does it even matter where I open it? If I figure out I screwed up, how hard is it to switch from one of these to the other?

- I will (very soon) have a 403b with Vanguard through my employer. Does that tilt things in favor of Vanguard for an IRA? Would I be able to "pool" these funds? It sounds nice to make one phone call rather than two. But is there some reason that tilts things in favor of Fidelity? Would it be better to have them both as options? Then I could hold, say, some of both group's target retirement funds.

- To make a good decision, do I need to figure out where I would invest the money first? They have different expense ratios even for their S&P 500 index funds (VFINX is .15% vs. FSMKX is .10%). I realize this isn't much of a difference, but if they differ on the simplest index fund, they're going to differ by more in other things, right? (I'd be deciding between S&P 500 index funds, some index fund with non-US companies, or a target-date retirement fund.)

- If you do think I should decide where to put the money first by actually looking at fees, how do I find that out? There are these scare stories (eg) about hidden fees. Are they still hidden if I look at Morningstar's front load %, back load %, and expense ratio? Or is there a better place to find all this out?

- All over the web people are saying that Fidelity's customer service is better and more informed. This has me leaning toward Fidelity. Do you think this still holds true?

- Lastly, what does this comment from jak68 mean, "Also -- in case you didnt know -- there is a small difference between buying funds via a trading account at a brokerage house (as with fidelity, schwab, ameritrade etc), VS. buying the fund directly from the fund family's website (vanguard, etc)?" Should this influence me in some way?

Thanks for your help. I'm interested in learning more over the long term, but I also have the feeling that I'm making this too complicated and should find a way to make this simple.

Should I put my Eggs in a Risky Basket?

ikahime — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 20:34:07 -0800

IRAfilter: Am about to get a traditional IRA to roll some retirement funds into from an expired employer plan. Got stuck when I was asked which mutual funds to select. I've probably got around $4K coming from an old emloyer in another state. I must roll it into a traditional IRA or take heavy tax penalties. I've decided on Vanguard, but know nothing about which mutual funds I should select. I guess I'm young enough to afford to be a little risky, but I'm taking any and all advice. Mid-caps? International Value Index? I'm so overwhelmed with choices, and I don't have a lot of time to whittle through them all.

Why a two-step login?

smackfu — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:15:51 -0800

Why are many financial institutions moving to a two-step login process, where you enter your username on one page and then your password on the next? For instance, Vanguard and ING. Their rationale is just that it's "more secure", but that's not much of a reason.

Fidelity vs Vanguard

rookiewookie — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:12:36 -0800

I need to roll over some 401K savings into an IRA account - any major differences and recommendations between Fidelity vs Vanguard?