Investments Archives - Route to Retire

The HSA Benefits Just Keep Rolling In

I’ve written about Health Savings Accounts (HSA) before and how they are one the best retirement plans you can get your hands on. In fact, it might be THE best account out there. I thought I knew all the HSA benefits I could get out of this account, but in this post, I’ll tell you about a new one I learned about. If you’re not familiar with an HSA, it’s a medical savings account that’s paired with a high-deductible medical plan. Because you’re on a high-deductible plan, you usually pay less of a premium (the amount a lot of us see taken out of each of our paychecks). What usually gets people started in this is that they can then

What I’m Doing With My Money Right Now

I’m pretty excited to see that our net worth has grown over $70,000 in just three months since I wrote the post $1 Million Net Worth… Now What?. It’s great to see my money continuing to grow, but there’s still a downside to it. Most of the money is tied up in the stock market right now and it’s a bull market right now. No one has a crystal ball to tell us if this is only the beginning. The gains could just keep rolling in for years to come. It’s also possible, however, that we’re at the top of the market and a recession is just around the corner. I don’t know what’s going to take place in the

Why I Like Overdrawing My Checking Account

Once upon I time, a young man we’ll randomly call “Jim” was in college and barely had a dollar to his name… Ok, fine – that young man was me – dang it, you ruin everything! Anyway, like a good number of college students, overdrawing my checking account wasn’t too uncommon. In fact, it actually wasn’t uncommon for me to blow out my balance on a periodic basis for a year or so after graduating college as well. Eventually, though, I started to make some good progress on my finances over the years and overdrawing my checking account became a pretty rare occurrence, if it happened at all. Over the past year or so though, I’m back to overdrawing the account again. And

My Funding Strategy for Investment Accounts

I’ve had friends that have asked what my strategy is for funding my investment accounts. In other words, what order do I recommend contributing to various retirement accounts? This topic’s definitely going to vary based on your own specific circumstances. Things like employer matches and tax-advantaged accounts make a difference in which accounts make the most sense for you to fund before others. Depending on what your game plan is and what options are available to you can make all the difference in which investment accounts to fully fund first. Regardless, I thought I would share the strategy I’m currently using for our own investment accounts. Before we get rolling though, please note that I’m not a Certified Financial Planner, or

Four 401(k) Mistakes That Can Crush Your Retirement Savings

401(k) mistakes have the potential to easily ruin your retirement savings. If you have the opportunity to contribute to a 401(k) plan at work, hopefully, you’re taking advantage of it. But even if you do, most of us just hand over our money and don’t think any more of it. That’s a problem – potentially a big problem and one that can cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars if you’re not careful. The good news is that these 401(k) mistakes are easily avoided – you just need to know what to look for. So without further ado, here are… Four 401(k) Mistakes That Can Crush Your Retirement Savings Let’s start with the one you’ve probably heard a million times before…

Protecting Your Assets

So, you’re going down the right path on the road to financial freedom slowly but surely, but you want to make sure that you’re protecting your assets in the meantime? Well, hopefully, this post will help you with some ideas! I’ve noticed that as I’ve started to build up my assets, my needs have started to morph as well. I now have rental properties, multiple LLCs, and growing and expanding savings, investment, and retirement accounts. And, as the accounts continue to grow, a lot of the money is starting to work more for me instead of the other way around. But, I now have a lot more to lose than when I first started down this journey. Making sure that I don’t

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