What do you do with the money in your brokerage account?

[Anonymous]

So interesting that many of the answers are "I dunno." So many other money vehicles are specific (401k, 529, emergency savings) and this is just . .. a pool of money to maybe use or not?

[Anonymous]

Line go up.

[Anonymous]

We swept some cash out recently because we had a five-figure veterinarian bill. Other than that we let everything ride. We have one brokerage account that automatically reinvests the dividends, and another that hoards cash and waits for buying opportunities. We’ll just have less money to get into the next buying opportunity for a bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So interesting that many of the answers are "I dunno." So many other money vehicles are specific (401k, 529, emergency savings) and this is just . .. a pool of money to maybe use or not?

Yes! Think of it as an extra large security blanket. If you have money you have choices. It could be a bigger house, vacations, a new car, early retirement, etc. The point is that if you have a sizeable amount of money that you can access as needed, you don't need to worry about getting laid off or how you're going to pay for whatever happens. The money is just there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So interesting that many of the answers are "I dunno." So many other money vehicles are specific (401k, 529, emergency savings) and this is just . .. a pool of money to maybe use or not?

Yes! Think of it as an extra large security blanket. If you have money you have choices. It could be a bigger house, vacations, a new car, early retirement, etc. The point is that if you have a sizeable amount of money that you can access as needed, you don't need to worry about getting laid off or how you're going to pay for whatever happens. The money is just there.

The (relative) downside to this approach is there's no clear goal beyond "more money=more security." Which i guess is the point of wealth building, in general, so maybe a feature not a bug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So interesting that many of the answers are "I dunno." So many other money vehicles are specific (401k, 529, emergency savings) and this is just . .. a pool of money to maybe use or not?

Yes! Think of it as an extra large security blanket. If you have money you have choices. It could be a bigger house, vacations, a new car, early retirement, etc. The point is that if you have a sizeable amount of money that you can access as needed, you don't need to worry about getting laid off or how you're going to pay for whatever happens. The money is just there.

The (relative) downside to this approach is there's no clear goal beyond "more money=more security." Which i guess is the point of wealth building, in general, so maybe a feature not a bug.

Well we don't feel like we are scrimping-- in fact we don't really have a budget-- we auto invest monthly and then use what's left to pay bills.

[Anonymous]

We try not to pull out capital, only dividends.
However our stocks have done so well over the decades that we're not more comfortable taking out money these days. College, major home reno, etc.

[Anonymous]

we're *now* more comfortable...

[Anonymous]

Another idk here. We used a little bit when we unexpectedly bought a new house without selling our other one, but built it back up very quickly. We are loosely thinking about it as retirement money but since we're doing well on that front, we may use it for other things (renovations, helping kids with down payment) before that.

[Anonymous]

Idk is kind of a privileged response. Posters have full retirement accounts and somuch extra money they don't know what to do.

[Anonymous]

I thought we would use ours to buy a river house or something but DW doesn’t want to have to deal with a second house. So it sits out there in the market. At this point, if we retire early it will fund the years before taking 401K’s, SS, and pension.

It gives us options which is nice.

[Anonymous]

Ours has been piling up too..probably will use it for a down payment on a second home.

[Anonymous]

We just pulled from our investments for down payment on our house.

[Anonymous]

Private school tuition.

[Anonymous]

We are both around 45 years old at have about $4M in retirement accounts, $80K in HSA, $450K in 529 plans, and $300K in our brokerage. It’s pretty much our safety net – 12 months of net income – so we just watch it grow and pull dividends every so often. When a big house project comes along, we sell some stocks and use it to cover the costs.