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HomeFinancial ExperiencesIt's spirit week and Girl Ninja's school is matching!

It’s spirit week and Girl Ninja’s school is matching!

It’s homecoming week here for the local high school. I don’t know if your school was like mine, but during homecoming week each school day had a theme. One day you’d wear school colors, another a funny hat, or a costume, or my personal favorite….matching day. I’d always dress up to match my best friend….who was black….yeah it was awesome! Even though Girl Ninja is a kindergarten teacher, it seems her school is also joining in on spirit week. That’s right, they’re matching….

…..her 403B contributions that is. HA! How about that for a PF tie in?

For the first time ever, Girl Ninja will be directly contributing to her very own retirement plan (we are also in the process of starting up a Roth for her). She gets paid biweekly and will be socking away 5% of her gross income each pay period – which gets fully matched by her school.

She was so cute when she came home to tell me about it. She sat down, all professional like at the table, with a packet of information about her various investing options. She was talking to me about how her schools financial adviser recommended that she be relatively aggressive in her investments since she is only 24. I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time in our marriage, Girl Ninja was actually excited to talk about retirement! I think I fell in love with her all over again during that conversation 🙂

Anywhoozle, included in her financial packet was a worksheet designed to help assess how risky (or conservative) she should be with her investments. Check it…..

As you can see. Girl Ninja, on her own volition ended up ranking in the most aggressive category (makes me so proud). Here’s how the form recommends GN invest based on her “aggressive” assessment…

Not sure yet if we will follow their guidance 100%, but we’ll likely end up doing something close to it. I’m so stoked for Girl Ninja to start her 403B. I’m already making a list of all the things I’m going to buy with her retirement income; a boat, skis, new car, and of course… a unicorn 🙂

Where do you rank according to the first chart? Were you surprised by the results? Would you follow the recommended investing strategy on the second form? Why is saving for retirement such a turn on….meow.

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21 COMMENTS

  1. However aggressive either of you might be, there are at least two reasons to include a small percentage of bonds in a tax-sheltered portfolio (and this applies to you as well): 1, because they help cushion the blow when stocks take a downturn, and 2, because they give you funds to buy more stocks when stock prices are low. It is one thing to say you are aggressive in the abstract, but your true risk tolerance is tested only when the market takes a real beating.

    • Wouldn’t you consider the recession a beating in the market? We’ve stayed the course and have faithfully contributed to my Roth and 401K consistently. A down market doesn’t scare me. China taking over the US? Maybe, but not a market slump.

    • So with the stock market being low as it is now, would you recommend throwing all your savings into the stock market now, and when the market does better start buying bonds then? Pretend you are an aggressive 31-year-old.

  2. That second table is an abomination. No discussion of the underlying funds or the fees attached! Horrible. I hope that was somewhere in the paperwork.

    • I agree. The first thing I thought went I looked at that table was that those funds seem to scream fees and loads (I know, some of them are options in my own 401k). Make sure you don’t end up buying into a whole bunch of funds with 1-2% fees. Then again, a lot of 401k (and 403b too, I imagine) plans are loaded up with expensive funds with very little low-cost options, so GN might not have much choice in the matter.

  3. Bimonthly pay? So she gets paid every other month???? Or did you mean biweekly (every other week)?

    Based on the attached quiz…I fell into moderately aggressive (at age 36). I can buy that.

  4. Now you get to do the funnest thing yet: Optimizing a multi-account portfolio. You get to pick the best funds from your TSP, Roth IRA, her 403b, and her Roth IRA. It’s spreadsheet heaven.

  5. I got 43… moderately aggressive… I’m surprised… I’m normally way more conservative when it comes to our money. Maybe the questions on the sheet are different up here in Canada 😉

    • On our RSP’s, I’m Conservative (I’m 44), and Hubby’s Aggressive (he’s 37 today.. Happy B-Day, Hubby). Since I’ll likely retire before him, he has more time to invest before it’s needed

  6. I got a 45 – aggressive at 36 years old. I would invest more aggressively than I do, but DH is very conservative. Since I am the one who pays more attention to our investments and he trusts my judgement, we actually invest somewhere on the moderately aggressive scale. I keep about 10% in bond funds so that he is comfortable (even though it kills me)!

  7. 25 – HIGHLY AGGRESSIVE.

    I have however a play account on etrade that I trade stocks and write cover calls on — Looking to produce 12-16% annual return on that account. This year was tough, but I’m only down about 2% thus far.

  8. Aggressive as well. Yeah for being a 20-something! Love that opportunities like this give you a reason to fall in love with your wife all over again. So cute!

  9. 0 points 🙂 I don’t need to take that test. Capital preservation for my win. I like my savings account because wysiwyg! Minus inflation of course.

  10. Briefly looking at the options, their recommendation seem to be investing heavily in Non-U.S. companies. It looks like the Funds are through American Funds, a well respected company. After reading over all of the funds it looks like approx 42.24% of GN’s money would be invested in Non-U.S. Companies (not including the funds’ cash and equivalents). Do you and GN want that much international diversification/risk?

  11. Haven’t done the exact math but based on a quick run through and assumption I would either be moderately aggressive or aggressive.

  12. Honestly, the first question to ask is….What company is the 403(b) with?

    I think that is the single most important question, far ahead of risk tolerance worksheet. An absolute TON of 403(b) companies out there are insurance entities that bend you over in fees…

    I have seen upwards of 3% charged and I have seen 5.75% up front loads to get into the fund!

    Seriously, I would love to know which company you are using. It might be better to open up a Traditional IRA at Vanguard/Fidelity and select low-cost funds there!

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