@doschicos - she buys individual heath insurance off the exchange but ACA compliant so no supplement. Works for a very small business that doesn’t offer group insurance but her salary is adjusted to cover health premiums though she is taxed on that extra salary.
She is in need of a lot of advice which she isn’t taking from Mom. The majority of her savings (which is substantial for her age) is sitting in a savings account at her bank earning basically nothing.
Would she read books on investing or attend a session with a financial planner or class on investing if you gave if you gave her one of these as gift? I know young adults, in a quest for independence, can be reluctant to take mom and dad’s free but good advice.
Book suggestions would be great.
I’ll try to remember some books that are too dated (showing my age) but I would suggest subscriptions to Money and Kiplinger magazines. They are basic but good for getting going and increasing one’s investment IQ. Your daughter has the saving part down, which is the toughest battle for most.
@mom60, have her read https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29031758/If%20You%20Can.pdf. 16 pages geared to millennials.
In one of the rare instances where I disagree with doschicos, I would not get a subscription to Money or Kiplingers for someone who is not investment savvy. Those magazines know which side of their bread is buttered, and by whom. I know I’m a stuck record, but The Bogleheads Guide to Investing is a great book.
I might get that Bogleheads guide for my son. I noticed they had a Bogleheads guide to Retirement Planning, also.
Looks like an interesting read for millennials, Bob, however I don’t know about their recommendation to split their investments three ways into a total bond index fund, total stock index fund, and a total international stock index fund. I think I’d recommend US stock index funds entirely, if they don’t want to think much about it. Don’t think I’d go with bonds for a young person, nor an international fund.
@busdriver11, I don’t agree 100% with Bernstein, but I think it might be the most valuable 16 pages a young person can read about investing. I’m a believer that you shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
“Looks like an interesting read for millennials, Bob, however I don’t know about their recommendation to split their investments three ways into a total bond index fund, total stock index fund, and a total international stock index fund. I think I’d recommend US stock index funds entirely, if they don’t want to think much about it. Don’t think I’d go with bonds for a young person, nor an international fund.”
I agree with the bonds statement but not the international. When my kid opened an IRA this year, I told her to just buy VT and to put in more when the market drops and less when its going up.
@mom60, This from @AttorneyMother when I asked about book recommendations:
Somewhere earlier in this thread, I suggested Jonathan Clements 2015 Money Book. For years he wrote the Personal Finance column for the WSJ. He has common sense advice that’s a good start.
I bought a copy for my 25-year-old niece who’s a graduate student.
I’d vote for a little international and would pass on the bonds for someone that age. Time is definitely on their side.
I’ve been down on international funds because the ones I look at seem to have been doing pretty poorly for a long time. I don’t have a lot of faith in the long term prospects of many of these funds. I wouldn’t recommend to my son that he invest in anything that I wouldn’t want to. We got rid of all our international funds about 5 years ago, and I’m glad we did so.
Well, my Latin America fund is up almost 20% this year. My Global fund is flat on the year. You win some, you lose some. 
Dang, I should have checked out the Latin America funds! Hope you had a lot in it.
Not enough, no.
Agree about young person putting money into Roth IRA - all those years of it growing with taxes already paid.
Glad DDs are interested in following our sage investment advice. Agree that having them save is a good hurdle to have already crossed.
I do think reading Money and Kiplinger’s is a help to having a feel for what is going on with $$, investing, etc. I am the family reader of these publications. DH and I get info also from our guy Don.
How to get DD to put money into a fund - maybe is willing to open a Roth IRA TD Ameritrade account; can invest in an indexed fund. Key is to get it set up and have money going into the fund to max Roth contribution for each year. We set up an account for each DD and funded a little Roth IRA start for them.
Next step coming up is getting DD to purchase term life insurance for her future H; DDs already have.
Trying to help them in areas DH and I never got help in…
S1 is in the Vanguard 2055 age-targeted fund for his 401(k) –
1 Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares 54.0%
2 Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Investor Shares 36.0%
3 Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index Fund Investor Shares 7.1%
4 Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund Investor Shares 2.9%
The international portion is a bit high for my risk tolerance, but he’s 26. Has been in the 401(k) 4.5 years. He has non-retirement savings in a USAA corporate bond fund, which should generally get him a little more than the 1/2% it was making in a money market.
We have never held Vanguard, but it may be worthy for me to investigate for DDs.
The theoretical/historical sweet spot for international exposure in equities is 70/30 (i.e., 70% domestic). I bought some international years ago, but between mediocre returns, an appreciation that US companies already participate globally, an overweighting due to DW’s RSUs, debating hedged/unhedged currency risk, and a general distrust of some foreign accounting standards, I never stayed with it. I think I might change that this year.
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