179-Friday Q&A: Where to Keep An Emergency Fund, Should I Make a 50% Down Payment, How to Pay For a Master's Degree, How To Prepare For An Overseas Trip
Radical Personal Finance
Joshua J. Sheats, MSFS, CFP, CLU, ChFC, CASL, RHU, REBC, CAP
4.2 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2015
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This morning, I put out a note on the Patreon page for questions from the patrons and I received four:
- 02:38 I'm currently in the "Financial Stability" stage of building wealth. Where do you recommend keeping an emergency fund &/or savings for large purchases?
- 17:36 My only major financial goal is to buy a small condo in Hollywood in about 6-7 years. I am 33 years old, single and don't plan on starting a family. I have about $170K in investments/retirement and am on track to have an additional 80-90K saved for the condo in about six years. I want to make a 50% down payment on a $200K condo (so basically a 100K down payment). My dream is to have a super low monthly mortgage payment (around $500 - 600 per month). That would be very freeing for me! I want the flexibility in life + career that low monthly expenses would give me. Am I crazy to make such a big down payment? I know its almost half of my net worth, but it feels right for my lifestyle choices. I'm tired of being stuck in the super-high trendy-city apartment renting hamster wheel ;)
- 30:19 I have a 529 for my oldest son. I am planning on transferring that to my wife as she will be going back to school in August of 2016. She is a teacher, once she graduates with a specialist degree she will receive an automatic $5,000 annual pay raise. We estimate the program will cost $15,000 and can be completed in 18 months-24 months. The 529 plan is currently invested very aggressively (based on our oldest son's age of 6). I am planning on immediately changing the investment to the guaranteed option (1-1.25%). Am I missing any other investment options? We use Georgia's 529 plan which is TIAA-CREF based. It seems an easy choice to me. What else am I missing? Any other thoughts? The current value is $12,700 and we contribute $600 per year. If we are short during the last semester or two, we plan on paying with excess cash flow we hope to save up by then.
- 40:34 If you were at a "Financial Stability" stage 3.5 in the US (debt is eliminated and about 50% of basic items are addressed) and were planning on moving overseas for 2 years (in 2 years), what steps would you take to secure your financial future?
Enjoy the show!
Joshua
- New Charter University http://new.edu/info/tuition/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Radical Personal Finance is 100% listener supported. |
| 0:05.0 | There are individual listeners who voluntarily step forward and say, |
| 0:10.0 | I find value in the content of this show, |
| 0:12.0 | and I'd like to become a patron of the show financially. |
| 0:17.0 | If you find value in the content of this show, consider going to radical personal finance.com slash patron and letting me know with your checkbook. |
| 0:29.6 | Today we're going to do some Q&A and I've got four questions lined up. What and how and where should we keep our |
| 0:39.7 | emergency funds? Would it make sense to take a bunch of money and put it down on a condo in |
| 0:45.3 | Hollywood? Is a 529 a reasonable way of paying for my wife's education and what would Joshua Sheets do if he were planning on |
| 0:57.4 | moving abroad for two years? And the Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host and today we do Q&A. |
| 1:22.0 | It's actually not Friday as I record this and this is going out as Thursday show |
| 1:25.6 | So we won't call it Friday Q&A, but who knows? Practically the same thing |
| 1:29.7 | All of our questions today come in from the Patreon page, individual patrons of the show that I polled just this morning |
| 1:36.5 | and they've all stepped forward and just needed to didn't have my |
| 1:54.5 | outlines put together for any of the other topics that I'd like to bring you. |
| 1:57.4 | So I'm doing the Q&A show and we'll see I'm going to be out of the house all day |
| 2:01.2 | tomorrow so there may not be a Friday show, so that's why we're doing |
| 2:04.2 | Q&A today. So let's get into it. And we're going to kick it off with Dustin's question. |
| 2:08.8 | Again, this was this morning I put out for the patrons of the show and I said hey you guys are paying me money and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have |
| 2:17.2 | Go ahead and let me know and so here are four questions lined up that I'm going to answer and these all come in from the patrons of the show. |
| 2:23.3 | By the way, if you are a patron of the show, thank you very much. |
| 2:26.8 | And also by the way, if you've emailed me in the last three weeks, I'm sorry, I haven't responded |
| 2:30.8 | to emails in a few weeks. Soon I will. |
... |
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