Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
I am an inveterate saver, and due to a dirt-poor upbringing I am probably more financially conservative than 90% of the people on this board.
That said, I am trying to change that, and I'd like to take a few grand of my savings and put them to better work.
If you had ~$3,000 right now that you could use to try and get a better than 3.8% return from, what would you do with it?
Right now I can get 4.10% from a 9 month CD. I could, in theory, invest it, but I have some concerns about the economic fundamentals of the market right now.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Buy VTI with all of it as soon as you can. You should own assets, not dollars, unless you think the USD is going to deflate meaningfully in your lifetime.
People have been saying this since the instant the major indexes broke through the dot-com highs in 2013 or so. I (and many others!) have more than tripled what I socked away during the 2016 election cycle when others who are too smart for their own good were concerned about what Trump would do to the economy.
My sister sold everything in November 2016 and she is much poorer for it.
I gave aiislove similar advice, and I really hope he took it.
Can you explain your post for dumb people? I started working 2 years ago, but I haven't invested anything yet. What website do you use?
Not OP, but I use Vanguard.com. I barely know what I'm doing or how to adult, but I stuck a bunch of money in VTSAX (which is similar to VTI but slightly different in some way that I don't really understand), and it mostly sat there doing nothing for 4 years and then suddenly shot up a bunch making it worthwhile. I think right now I have an average gain of like 12% per year or so. I should probably stick some more money in it at some point.
My brother uses Robinhood a bunch for buying and selling individual stocks, but I don't have the mental or emotional energy/motivation to spend researching and buying and selling daily. I just stuck a bunch of money in there and then forget it exists. Vanguard is great for that. I can't speak to comparisons to other websites, since I've only ever used this one, and I can't say much about quality of use for most purposes since I do stuff on it less than once a year. But I stuck money in, and 5 years later I have almost twice as much money in there. Yay.
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