Doing life better part 1: Investing

Hey Everyone, 

It's been a long time since I've posted anything as I wanted to focus on some changes that were going on in my life. So for 2020 I have been learning new skills, getting better saving habits, investing, and cycling. In this first post, I want to dive into my investing habits for the year and some resources I have been really getting a lot out of. *A disclaimer I am not a financial advisor of any sort and anything I say you may choose to listen to at your sole discretion. 

1. 401 K savings

    I am sure most people at this point are familiar with taking part of their paycheck and moving it into their savings. But this year I decided to move an additional 3% into my 401k as I have been making pretty decent growth over 12% a year on the money that has been building in my account. 

2. ROTH IRA

    This is something some people agree with and others do not. But I feel like why not take advantage of an extra $6000 / year you can put away to contribute to your retirement savings. I opened one of these years ago and have not really started making contributions until this year. This is where automatic transfers through your bank can help you automate this process so you stick to it without thinking about it. Right now using auto transfers once a month I am going to contribute about $400 this year. I know this is not a lot but it's $400 more saved for retirement than I would have otherwise. 

3. Robinhood

    A big change for me this year was moving away from my traditional investment account at Merrill Lynch and trying out Robinhood. I was surprised at the variety of stocks available to purchase, no annoying ads trying to push you into paid investing services (because they don't have any at this time), and the best part of all, commission-free trades. I don't invest heavily, I take a few hundred dollars here and there and purchase dividend-yielding stocks. So saving $7 per trade allows me to invest even more of my money into share and fractional shares. The reason I do this is to continue building my passive income stream. 

    Dividend investing is not a get-rich-quick stream by any means, but it is fulfilling at least for me, and using sites like trackyourdividends.com is a great way to monitor what your return is on a yearly basis. It's amazing to see how you can go from making $10 a year on dividends to $100 to several thousand if you are diligent. To me, a passive income is important as it gives you the ability to be less reliant on your w2 job for income. Also once you retire this revenue stream does not go away like your w2 job. For those who want to retire in another country if you have enough residual income from dividends, you can apply for a visa to live and retire in another country as you have a source of income to take care of yourself. 

2021 Update: No longer using Robinhood but that shouldn't affect your decision. 

Thanks for reading