If you have an HHI under 200k and no family money, where do you go for financial advice

[Anonymous]

DH and I sometimes struggle with finding good advice for things like saving for college, allocating retirement savings, financing a home purchase, etc., because so many resources are geared towards people with higher incomes or additional money resources.

Curious where others are going for guidance truly geared towards middle class people. Mid-40s, one kid. Own a home, both have 401ks plus we have money in Roth and brokerage accounts. And we have a 529 but college funding is still kind of a mystery.

[Anonymous]

This forum is great OP. Some of the people here have done very well and share great tips on debt, investment and saving. I am single and male $107k and I didn't start investing in Roth IRA until I was 45. It's late I know, but at least I am not doing marginally better and if I stay employed until retirement (I am 52) I may have a basic retirement.

Just ask any questions you have and someone will help.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Find a certified financial planner who gets paid by the hour (not assets under management).

I had a positive experience with this company:

https://keenerfinancial.com/

[Anonymous]

Basically, I go online for everything, and do enough research to make sure I am not taking some crackpot charlatan's advice.

Turns out that conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason:

Invest at least enough to get your full match in a 401K. Shoot for a minimum of 10%.
If early in career, Roth. Mid-career, start to move more towards regular IRA. Invest retirement funds in age-based mutual funds and don't mess with it.

Open a 529. Start investing early, at least enough to get the tax advantage from whatever state you are in. Increase your investment by $100 per month every year. By the time your kid is in college, you should be in good shape. Put your 529 in age-based mutual funds that will become more conservative as your kid gets closer to college age.

Some debt is OK, but don't take on credit card debt or debt for short-term things. Shop around for the best rates.

Anything left over? Put it in a taxable mutual fund, decide how risky you feel about whether you invest just in stocks or a mix of stocks and bonds.

That's pretty much all you need to know.

[Anonymous]

DIY. There is so much information out there and investing has never been easier. You have a good start. No professional knows your whole financial picture or your risk tolerance, which changes fast as you get more experience.
I cannot even tell you how many times I have had to undo their advice within months.
Involve your child and/or pass down the knowledge.
You don't want your child to think that this is something that needs to be done by a professional. You want them to be confident and open that Roth IRA the minute they get a job and are excited to invest the money they made.

[Anonymous]

What do you need advice about?
College? Save what you can but it won't be much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I sometimes struggle with finding good advice for things like saving for college, allocating retirement savings, financing a home purchase, etc., because so many resources are geared towards people with higher incomes or additional money resources.

Curious where others are going for guidance truly geared towards middle class people. Mid-40s, one kid. Own a home, both have 401ks plus we have money in Roth and brokerage accounts. And we have a 529 but college funding is still kind of a mystery.

Sounds like you're doing well! You have all the major bases covered (assuming you have health insurance): you own your home (so you've figured out the mortgage stuff); you're saving for retirement in your 401(k) plans and Roth IRAs; and you're saving for college in the 529 plans. You're more knowledgeable and better positioned than most Americans.

I've learned a lot over the years but all from open-source, free resources online. You don't need to pay someone when there is so much information freely available. What specifically are you trying to learn more about?

[Anonymous]

How old is your child and do you expect your income to go up substantially?

Do you live in a state where state college is an option, basically meaning not DC. If you are in DC you should know that DC TAG just went up to 15K/year towards the cost of out of state tuition and there are out of state schools where that can make a real difference.

What kind of student is your child? There are a lot of schools that “meet need” and also give merit aid. For merit aid, you generally have to be a student profile they need more of. For meet need, do not assume private schools are too expensive, meet need schools give aid to families in your income bracket.

[Anonymous]

Me. I give myself the advice. We invested decades ago in high tech stocks, and despite being lower income with no family money, now have a significant stock market portfolio. There's not much to do - we're buy-and-hold people. We saw that our brokerage account was doing so much better than our kids' 529s (in which you cannot handpick stocks, which explains the difference in outcome), and stopped contributing to the 529s. We sell stocks to pay for college and try to live within our incomes for daily life.

If your funds are more limited, you need to do your own research and be very thoughtful about your kids' college strategy. Kids in MD and VA need >4.5 weighted GPAs, advanced courses like APs and IBs, high test scores, to get into UMD or UVA, UVA being more selective than UMD at this time. They cost 30-40K a year, total cost of attendance, for state residents. Other state colleges can be cheaper and may be less selective. If your child has the necessary academic background, some out-of-state colleges may give merit aid that reduces their costs to in-state levels.

Or you can do what many families do, which is start at community college for 2 years, get good grades, and transfer to the state flagship for the last 2 years. This is the least expensive option for average-to-good students, and you still get the state university's diploma in the end. Financially it's the best deal.

[Anonymous]

Agree, this forum has good advice. I also read Bogleheads and FIRE on reddit.

Set all savings and investing on autopilot. Keep monthly expenses low and splurge on one-time items when you feel comfortable. Then, you can pull back spending anytime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree, this forum has good advice. I also read Bogleheads and FIRE on reddit.

Set all savings and investing on autopilot. Keep monthly expenses low and splurge on one-time items when you feel comfortable. Then, you can pull back spending anytime.

+1. The heavily moderated / verified Reddit forums like middle class finance, fire, etc. are a great resource. It’s also worth asking Claude or Gemini for ideas too by submitting the prompt you used above. Don’t trust anything 100% but it’ll give you directional ideas.

[Anonymous]

These days, I would also try feeding info to ChatGPT and ask what to do.

[Anonymous]

I’d fund retirement first— income under $200K ought to mean significant financial aid, and $$ in 529 count against you kinda.

Plus once kid is in college, any $$$ you throw to tsp/401k won’t count in most fin aid calculations.

If you’re expecting your income to go up considerably before kid starts college, that advice wouldn’t be as valid.

But either way, fund retirement first

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Me. I give myself the advice. We invested decades ago in high tech stocks, and despite being lower income with no family money, now have a significant stock market portfolio. There's not much to do - we're buy-and-hold people. We saw that our brokerage account was doing so much better than our kids' 529s (in which you cannot handpick stocks, which explains the difference in outcome), and stopped contributing to the 529s. We sell stocks to pay for college and try to live within our incomes for daily life.

If your funds are more limited, you need to do your own research and be very thoughtful about your kids' college strategy. Kids in MD and VA need >4.5 weighted GPAs, advanced courses like APs and IBs, high test scores, to get into UMD or UVA, UVA being more selective than UMD at this time. They cost 30-40K a year, total cost of attendance, for state residents. Other state colleges can be cheaper and may be less selective. If your child has the necessary academic background, some out-of-state colleges may give merit aid that reduces their costs to in-state levels.

Or you can do what many families do, which is start at community college for 2 years, get good grades, and transfer to the state flagship for the last 2 years. This is the least expensive option for average-to-good students, and you still get the state university's diploma in the end. Financially it's the best deal.

And for college, your choice of major can really have a massive return on investment if you go to a lower ranked or no name school.

Who here heard of Wichita State University? That's the school unattended and majored in Aerospace Engineering. The school is cheap and the AE major at Wichita is Top notch with huge industry connections. In my opinion, this is the route people should take for college. Sure I wish I went to Stanford, but my parents could not afford Stanford and I wasn't going to into debt for a degree that I can I can get elsewhere for much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Me. I give myself the advice. We invested decades ago in high tech stocks, and despite being lower income with no family money, now have a significant stock market portfolio. There's not much to do - we're buy-and-hold people. We saw that our brokerage account was doing so much better than our kids' 529s (in which you cannot handpick stocks, which explains the difference in outcome), and stopped contributing to the 529s. We sell stocks to pay for college and try to live within our incomes for daily life.

If your funds are more limited, you need to do your own research and be very thoughtful about your kids' college strategy. Kids in MD and VA need >4.5 weighted GPAs, advanced courses like APs and IBs, high test scores, to get into UMD or UVA, UVA being more selective than UMD at this time. They cost 30-40K a year, total cost of attendance, for state residents. Other state colleges can be cheaper and may be less selective. If your child has the necessary academic background, some out-of-state colleges may give merit aid that reduces their costs to in-state levels.

Or you can do what many families do, which is start at community college for 2 years, get good grades, and transfer to the state flagship for the last 2 years. This is the least expensive option for average-to-good students, and you still get the state university's diploma in the end. Financially it's the best deal.

And for college, your choice of major can really have a massive return on investment if you go to a lower ranked or no name school.

Who here heard of Wichita State University? That's the school unattended and majored in Aerospace Engineering. The school is cheap and the AE major at Wichita is Top notch with huge industry connections. In my opinion, this is the route people should take for college. Sure I wish I went to Stanford, but my parents could not afford Stanford and I wasn't going to into debt for a degree that I can I can get elsewhere for much cheaper.

This. This country is blessed with many universities. The choice of major is indeed really important. If you are a parent with a child who wants to be an engineer and you don't have a lot of money for college consider yourself lucky. There a lot of engineering schools that are very affordable and if your child starts doing internship after their freshman year and do so until their junior year, they will be very competitive on the job market.

Now if your child wants to be a lawyer or a doctor, oh boy good luck. The elitism in this country is very real when it comes to med school and law school. Your undergrad matters a lot.

I am an electrical engineer precisely in DSP and I have had interns from a wide range of schools. The Interns from the lower ranked schools were not unqualified at all.