I am 30 years old making 57k as of July 1. I have been in the same job but progressing up in the same company since college, so I feel under paid relative to some of my peers now who have job-hopped. I am also unsatisfied with my current job and have been looking to do something different for the last 6 months. Unfortunately, I am unable to leave the company right now (or the next 2.5 years) because I am working towards my MBA and the company is paying for it (Fortune 500 company). I would like to make more money and have applied to higher paid jobs internally, however, I am looking to diversify my income sources. My job is very stable and my company came out to say that there would be no lay-offs this fall for anyone (though I did not expect to be on that sort of list). Though I am hard worker and try to make myself invaluable I do not trust my company in this regard. Instead of working another job, which is tied to my time, I would like to make income that is not based on the amount of time I put into it. This leads me to investing as being the best option for me, however, I have some questions surrounding this.
- I am not maxing my retirement accounts yet. I max my HSA, and I will start contributing $100/month to my Roth IRA this month. I receive the full match for my 401k from my employer (and I am increasing this 1% as of July 1 as well). If you are curious my savings rate is approximately 29.4% pre-tax or 38.8% post-tax.
- Where would this fall in the order of operations? I am on the step to max my Roth IRA and have covered the other steps prior.
- My new budget during the pandemic is significantly lower than previously since it is easier to not eat out and recreational activities are reduced, however, this will change in the future I'm sure but I want to keep to reduced eating out schedule. I think I can set aside (estimated) $700/month for savings outside of my Roth IRA contributions. This would represent the total going to my savings account each month. This is a bit uncertain because I just paid off my credit cards and it will be easier to tell on my new salary and savings next month.
- I was thinking that this would be through a brokerage account (I use TD Ameritrade for my Roth IRA and it has $0 trading fees on most ETF's and stocks, sound like a synergized solution or would Robinhood/Vanguard be better?).
- I was considering using the ETF's VNQ and PFF as possible funds which have larger dividend rates which I would re-invest for the time being, this is more of a way that I can make extra money but I don't have to use it. These are different asset classes (REITs and preferred shares), so there should be very little cross-over and plenty of diversification.
Any ideas you can give would be helpful. I have many goals of saving for a house/wedding/children as well but I am more worried about increasing and diversifying my income currently, so I would probably split my savings towards these multiple goals.
