Financial markets around the world are reeling following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe volley of tariffs, and the U.S. stock market may be taking the worst of it.
It’s good to have 3 months to a year of expenses saved in an HYSA to start with as a rainy day fund you can use in an emergency (i.e. lose your job/house, etc.). I think there are some studies that a huge portion of the population doesn’t have savings to cover even a surprise $1000 expense.
That’s more important than putting money in the stock market to start with but after you have that you can put your savings into an IRA or something preferably in a diversified fund. (Vanguard has a few tgat are specifically targeted for retirement at particular years).
At this point I think I have more like 18 months to 2 years in my HYSA right now. I aggressively paid down my debts and as of January this year my mortgage is the only one left, but I didn’t start having enough to seriously invest until the last few years (maybe 2020 or 2021) and I’ve been aggressively saving since while I figure out where to put the money longer term.
On the bright side, I’m making so much more than I spend that it’s likely I’ll have my 30 year mortgage (27 years remaining) paid off inside of 5 years while still being able to continue saving, and paying the mortgage off will accelerate my retirement options.
Congrats! I would say don’t sleep on the stock market, especially now since a dip/cliff is really the best time to invest to get a good return, but you shouldn’t touch it for at least a decade. Generally over a ten year period the market will give you a rate of return better than a HYSA but may be better or worse across short periods of time.
If there is some kind of economic collapse that happens, it’s going to affect a lot more than the stock market. Even regular bank accounts will be affected and if your bank doesn’t shut down your US currency may be worth nothing. Especially if they get rid of the FDIC like Trump and Musk want.
It’s good to have 3 months to a year of expenses saved in an HYSA to start with as a rainy day fund you can use in an emergency (i.e. lose your job/house, etc.). I think there are some studies that a huge portion of the population doesn’t have savings to cover even a surprise $1000 expense.
That’s more important than putting money in the stock market to start with but after you have that you can put your savings into an IRA or something preferably in a diversified fund. (Vanguard has a few tgat are specifically targeted for retirement at particular years).
At this point I think I have more like 18 months to 2 years in my HYSA right now. I aggressively paid down my debts and as of January this year my mortgage is the only one left, but I didn’t start having enough to seriously invest until the last few years (maybe 2020 or 2021) and I’ve been aggressively saving since while I figure out where to put the money longer term.
On the bright side, I’m making so much more than I spend that it’s likely I’ll have my 30 year mortgage (27 years remaining) paid off inside of 5 years while still being able to continue saving, and paying the mortgage off will accelerate my retirement options.
Congrats! I would say don’t sleep on the stock market, especially now since a dip/cliff is really the best time to invest to get a good return, but you shouldn’t touch it for at least a decade. Generally over a ten year period the market will give you a rate of return better than a HYSA but may be better or worse across short periods of time.
If there is some kind of economic collapse that happens, it’s going to affect a lot more than the stock market. Even regular bank accounts will be affected and if your bank doesn’t shut down your US currency may be worth nothing. Especially if they get rid of the FDIC like Trump and Musk want.