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30-year-old saved $30,000: what should i do with it?
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first, two preliminaries, to address good points people made in comments. as abracadaver noted, before you move your $30k to something that might lose money, make sure you have enough cash to serve as an emergency fund in case you lose your income. especially remember that big stock market crashes often go hand-in-hand with widespread layoffs. also, you mentioned that you're maxed out in a 401k. as joetaxpayer hinted, this could very well already be invested in stocks, and, if it isn't, probably a big part of it should be. regarding your $30k, you don't need to pay anybody. in general, fees and expenses can form a big drag on your investments, and it's good to avoid them as much as possible. in particular, especially with "only" $30k, it's unlikely that advisers can save you more than they cost. also, all financial advisers have a cost: the "free" ones usually push you into investing in expensive funds that make them money at your expense. in that regard, keep in mind that, unlike a lawyer or a doctor, a financial adviser is not required by law to give advice that's in your best interest. when investing, there is a pretty short list of important considerations that you should keep in mind: (if anyone has any other points they think are similarly important, feel free to suggest an edit.) practically speaking, i'd suggest investing in index funds. these are mutual funds that invest very broadly, in a "passive" way that doesn't spend a lot of effort (and money) trying to pick individual high-performing stocks or anything like that. index funds provide a lot of diversification and tend to have low expense ratios. (other, "actively managed" funds tend to be more expensive and often don't outperform index funds anyway.) if you're saving for retirement, there are even target date funds that are themselves composed of a small number of index funds (often domestic and international stocks and bonds), and will increase the proportion invested in bonds (safer) as they get closer to a target retirement date. see, for example the vanguard target retirement 2045 fund. a fund like that one might be all you need if you are saving for retirement. finally, you can invest online without paying any advisers. not all companies are created equal, however; do your research. i personally highly recommend vanguard, since they have a wide variety of no-load index funds and tend to have very low expense ratios. (no-load means you don't have to pay a fee to buy and sell.) part of why they are inexpensive is that, unlike most financial companies, they are actually a cooperative owned by those who invest in their funds, so they don't need to try and milk a profit out of you. (don't let that suggest that they're some "small-potatoes hippie firm", though: they're actually one of the largest.) i hope i helped. keep posting if you have more questions!
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