Exactly – if we don’t have the time/care to do our own research, then we have to go with what’s second best for now. And who knows, maybe that really is 1st best had we done the research and learned so ;)

If being able to predict which way the market was going was easy, then actively managed portfolios would be the way to go, and index funds would be a fools investment tool. That, however, is not the currently ‘in vogue’ logic after the last two boom-bust cycles where actively managed funds got torn to shreds for lacking diversification and still not being able to move fast enough to get out before the markets cratered and getting back in before the markets took off.

Again, I’m just an investing noob and I could make all sorts of guesses as to why Target Retirement funds performed so poorly during the bust of 2007-2009, but the truth is I don’t know. We still use one for a sizable portion of our portfolio as it still (in theory) provides asset class diversification that would require research i just don’t have time for.

Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? A lot of people don’t even have $2,000 saved up. Once you’re able to, you can start filling it up to cover you for X # of months if you were to ever get laid off. But baby steps :)

I think of my E-Fund in the wrong way. I consider it available for unexpected big costs (car repairs) only. The problem is it’s not nearly enough to cover me if I lost my job. I’m assuming I’d qualify for unemployment and that unemployment would be enough. Very bad. I don’t expect to lose my job, but then again most people who have lost their job didn’t expect it.

You can pay your rent bill online! You can pay *any* bill online for that matter – all it is is adding the company and address into your “payee” sections at your bank, and then cut them a check manually through the site :) So basically you can just log in and then drop in the amounts and hit “send” instead of writing it out manually and putting it in the mail. Or walking it over to the drop box (which would def. be easier, but you could still have your bank mail it in for you too).

I pay a handful of individual people through online bill pay every month. You just set it up once and then login and click buttons :) Then your bank manually sends them a check on your behalf!

Now if your bank doesn’t have online bill pay, then yeah – out of luck. But most these days do.

Oh wow, I had no idea! That seems like a MAJOR issue – I’m surprised they haven’t done anything about that?? Man… yuck.

I actually never thought about not having access to our bank if something went wrong until today, haha… (or maybe I did in the past but just can’t remember :)). Def. smart in that regard, I’ll agree.

I’m glad you got that $2k E-Fund set up :) It’s def. annoying, but it’s soooooo good to have! The thing with debt is that once you send over payment you can never get it back which is frustrating. Whereas the money in your accounts can always be tapped which is cool. (as long as you don’t touch unless a true emergency is there a knockin’)

Also, I agree with “living on the edge” with retirement accounts while we’re young and have plenty of time to make up for losses. Though it’s hard to be REALLY risky with mutual funds since they contain so many companies, haha, but I get what you’re saying ;) They’re not the more conservative ones.

It’s a damn good goal to have though :) Make sure to work in insurance costs and other self-employed ones though – I avoided it on purpose as to not distract me from it, but boy does it come into play!