if you had 10,000 to invest

[Tybee]

Thanks, everyone, we decided to go with 6k in VOO and we will invest the rest over time--it's a joint account. Thanks again,everyone, for the help!

[ljevtich]

May I suggest a different approach?
If there is any debt, Pay that off first. Get rid of it.
Then, I would invest in Municipal Bonds. Find one that is good, and you get interest payments coming for as long as you own the bond. I just bought (on the secondary market) a Muni bond for $5,500 and 5.5% interest rate for 4.5 years. Even paying the fees for it, I will get a good amount of money back each half of a year. That money can go back into a low fee Index fund or a payout.

You do not pay Federal taxes on Munis and I domicile in a state where there is no state taxes.

[Tybee]

May I suggest a different approach?
If there is any debt, Pay that off first. Get rid of it.
Then, I would invest in Municipal Bonds. Find one that is good, and you get interest payments coming for as long as you own the bond. I just bought (on the secondary market) a Muni bond for $5,500 and 5.5% interest rate for 4.5 years. Even paying the fees for it, I will get a good amount of money back each half of a year. That money can go back into a low fee Index fund or a payout.

You do not pay Federal taxes on Munis and I domicile in a state where there is no state taxes.

That is an interesting idea, Laura. He has no debt.
I went to schwab and looked up Munis and could find nothing with a YTM or YTW (yield to worst) like 5.5. Highest yield was almost that for a Puerto Rico electric bond. I thought that munis were a bit risky now. What is the YTM on the bond you bought?

They are also saying 5k minimum on the munis, and I would not want to put him into two munis for his portfolio. Maybe you have a much bigger portfolio?

[LDAHL]

That is an interesting idea, Laura. He has no debt.
I went to schwab and looked up Munis and could find nothing with a YTM or YTW (yield to worst) like 5.5. Highest yield was almost that for a Puerto Rico electric bond. I thought that munis were a bit risky now. What is the YTM on the bond you bought?

I was thinking the same thing. Five year Ba/BB (which is below "investment grade") general obligation issues are only yielding around 4.1% right now. You would probably need to get into industrial development or revenue bonds, which are backed by the projects they finance rather than the taxing power of the issuer to get a risky 5.5%.

[Xmac]

Bitcoin wil outperform any and all asset classes, all claims of bubble notwithstanding. I said it on this forum years ago when it was worth less than $200. 10,000 invested then would now be well over 100,000.

[Tybee]

Interesting point, Xmac.

[iris lilies]

I’ll dump all of my money in bitcoin when Ldahl does the same.

Xmac, you must have quite a large sum now, congrats!

[Tybee]

Bitcoin violates one rule of investment for me, to never invest in something you don't understand.
It's his money, so if he wants to invest it in Bitcoin, then he would need to do the learning and thinking to see if it would be a good investment.

[bae]

I have “friends” who are happily telling me about cool BitCoin investing consortiums they belong to. Apparently you deposit your capital in the account, you get Bitcoins, you participate in Bitcoin’s amazing profit making power, *and* the consortium pays you a 1% bonus *a day* on your capital. Plus you get bonuses for signing people up.

Sounds like a great opportunity...

[Tybee]

I have “friends” who are happily telling me about cool BitCoin investing consortiums they belong to. Apparently you deposit your capital in the account, you get Bitcoins, you participate in Bitcoin’s amazing profit making power, *and* the consortium pays you a 1% bonus *a day* on your capital. Plus you get bonuses for signing people up.

Sounds like a great opportunity...

That's what I meant, I don't understand. How do people buy bitcoins? That sounds like a Ponzi scheme--who pays 1% a day on capital?

I guess I don't understand what they are, as all I know is don't people use them to pay for things that are illegal? So how is this market regulated?

I am confused by bitcoins.