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Personal Finance Creative Commons

This is an outline of our personal finance plan. I'm sharing this as a starting point for others to form their own plan, and also to gather feedback on what we can improve. If you have a suggestion, feel free to file an issue.

I'd like to make financial advice accessible to everyone

Looking for people to talk to and learn more about the problem space. I don't have anything to pitch, but would love to chat. Please email me at [email protected] or file an issue

Debt

  • Pay off loans, except ones with very low interest. e.g. 0.9% car loan. Builds credit, less than inflation.
  • Never keep a balance on credit cards, auto-pay everything in full
  • Ask for a credit increase every year, don't over do it
  • Carry less than 1/3 of credit limit in credit card balance
  • Check credit score once a year. CreditKarma has a better interface and suggestions for improving credit score.
  • Refinance for a lower interest rate on mortgages or large loans
  • Ask mortgage lender for a half dozen pre-approval letters in 25k increments up to the max. Prevents seller from seeing your max purchase power.
  • Consider 401k loans. Up to $50k, prime rate, and interest and principal are both paid back into the account
  • Consider personal loans or personal line of credit for debt consolidation. Example "First Republic Personal Line of Credit" 2.25 - 3.5%, interest only first 2 years, then amortized for remainder of the loan. Total terms from 5 - 10 years.

Liquidity

  • 12 months of expenses in a high interest savings account
  • Budget out large purchases into monthly amounts to save. e.g. car, wedding, vacation
  • "Liquidity access lines" to borrow against your portfolio

Compensation

Medical

  • Health Savings Account (HSA). Maximize employer contributions.
    • Do not invest until balance would exceed minimum to avoid fees
    • Choose a plan that allows investment in index funds like Wells Fargo or Health Savings Administrators
    • Continue to pay medical expenses out of pocket when possible to maximize tax deferred growth
    • No penalties for non-medical withdrawals after 65. Can use as another retirement account.

Retirement

Children

  • 529 plan. For non-qualified expenses, principal can be withdrawn without penalty, but withdrawals will be proportional principal and earnings. source
  • Vanguard 529
    • $3,000 minimum
    • Age based options. I'm using the "moderate" option: starts at 75/25 stock/bond allocation
  • Dependent care FSA. IRS publication 503

Tools

  • Review of spending with Mint or Personal Capital. Categorize spending, note any large differences in monthly trends. Link all accounts. Mint is better for budgeting, but Personal Capital does a better job with investment tracking. I use the latter now.
  • Vanguard brokerage account. Using this for our Roth IRA and IRA.
  • Setup direct deposit and auto-pay for all accounts.
  • FI planning tool. Interesting to play with, but no longer using it.
  • You Need a Budget - YNAB Displined walkthrough and awareness of all funds is of significant value, even if used only for the trial period.

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