What to do with earmarked cash that Husband won't spend?

[Chrissy]

We have a Money Pit on a pond three hours away.  Husband bought it at the turn of the century.  It's paid off.  It's also completely demo'd and has been in this condition for 3 years. 

There's no reason to think Husband will ever finish the house.

He's had $60k laying around, waiting to deploy, all this time:

$20k in cash in a chequing account
$30k in FTBFX which LOST 2%--arg!
$10k in a single stock investment (started as $5k)

I sold the single stock, and am in the process of putting it in FSTVX.  I'm tempted to sell at least $10k of the bonds, if not more, and also put that into FSTVX.

In this scenario, would you be comfortable with 50-60% FSTVX and 40-50% cash/bonds?  Or should I just stick with the current breakdown?  Or should avoid more stocks, but move the bonds to a savings account?  Does Fidelity have something like that?  I poked around their site, but am unsure about what I found... a Money Market account that's NOT FDIC insured?

What option have I not though of/discovered, here?

[inline five]

Staring in June I used money we had laying around to open up bank accounts for their bonuses. On about $15k in funds I made $2300.

Much better than the paltry 2%-3% you'd get buying CD's.

[Chrissy]

Shit, @inline five!  That's an awesome haul, and I'm definitely interested.  Where did you find the deals (like, Nerdwallet?) and which companies offered the most bang for the buck?

[Frankies Girl]

FTBFX is fine. Bonds do not generally show gains in a good economy and we've been in a very long bull run so stocks are performing well and bonds are just there. That's the point of holding them; they are your hedge when the economy/markets start performing poorly because they will start gaining as stocks tank. So to have expected a bond fund to be doing well in recent years is a basic misunderstanding of what bonds are and how they work.

As it is just 60K we're talking about and most all of it has either been lazing around a savings account or flatlining in bonds... I'd recommend going 50/50 on the stocks and bonds asset allocation. So FSTVX and FTBFX split 2 fund portfolio. It's not going to get you to early retirement on its own, but if you can do some more reading about market stuff in general if you could get comfortable with the idea of buying in while there are dips (like today for instance, market looks to be down day), and then let it ride for the next 20 years, you should be pleased.

No investment funds are covered by FDIC; that is for banking/savings/money market stuff. Fido covers all accounts in full against any malfeasance/hack and in the event that Fido itself goes bankrupt or has some rep decide to go on a crazy spree that wipes your accounts - you're still covered by SIPC:

https://www.sipc.org/for-investors/what-sipc-protects
https://www.fidelity.com/security/customer-protection-guarantee

[inline five]

Shit, @inline five!  That's an awesome haul, and I'm definitely interested.  Where did you find the deals (like, Nerdwallet?) and which companies offered the most bang for the buck?

Some were direct mail some were online I found via various money sites.

[ditkanate]

Shit, @inline five!  That's an awesome haul, and I'm definitely interested.  Where did you find the deals (like, Nerdwallet?) and which companies offered the most bang for the buck?

Doctor of Credit is the best site I've found for helpful information on bank account and credit card bonuses.  Best of luck.

[Chrissy]

Thanks, ditkanate!

[Chrissy]

FTBFX is fine. Bonds do not generally show gains in a good economy and we've been in a very long bull run so stocks are performing well and bonds are just there.

I was just hoping they would hold steady or keep up with inflation, so I've been disappointed.

As it is just 60K we're talking about and most all of it has either been lazing around a savings account or flatlining in bonds... I'd recommend going 50/50 on the stocks and bonds asset allocation. So FSTVX and FTBFX split 2 fund portfolio. It's not going to get you to early retirement on its own, but if you can do some more reading about market stuff in general if you could get comfortable with the idea of buying in while there are dips (like today for instance, market looks to be down day), and then let it ride for the next 20 years, you should be pleased.

Just to be clear, we're worth ~$900k.  This $60k is about half our taxable.  It's not invested according to our usual plan because it's supposed to be for the house remodel, but I just don't think he's ever going to hand it over to anybody.  Meanwhile, it's getting eaten up by inflation.

[Heckler]

YTD (Daily)* -1.24%

Average Annual Returns

1 Yr +0.13% 3 Yrs +2.55% 5 Yrs +2.99% 10 Yrs +4.71%


https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/ratings/31617K881


Hypothetical Growth of $10,000  (this is the important one to look at, not your short term capital gains)
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/performance-and-risk/31617K881

Bonds are a hold for maturity type investment.  Don't think short term.  Buy high, sell low does not fare well.