Broker – My Investing Discoveries

To Think or Not to Think: The Financial Question

I hope you are all enjoying some crisp fall weather, wherever you are.

With my latest quarterly net worth check-in, I discovered that I have nearly doubled my net worth in the three years since I started tracking my progress! The beauty of compounding is at play here: The more money I have invested that is making me money, the more money it continues to make. It’s that simple!

Other than that, I want to update you on what I have been thinking about vs. what I have been (choosing) not to think about when it comes to my money lately. This is sometimes by design, as a behavioral finance trick. Each link in this list will take you to a category of articles on this blog for you to explore further.

Bank accounts—I think about them weekly, but don’t always check them that often. My checking account and regular savings account are my most visited; my two high-yield savings accounts are reviewed quarterly for my net worth update, and are regularly invested in whenever I have savings from a biweekly paycheck ✅
Budget—I don’t think about it as much as I used to; I have regular payments that aren’t accounted for in my budget ❌
Credit cards—I think about them a lot, sometimes multiple times per week. This is the primary focus of my finances: What am I spending and—when it comes time to pay the bill—how much do I owe? This is also a good way to prevent fraud, but your credit providers should be alerting you to any unusual activity ✅
Investments—I don’t think about them, but I check my Charles Schwab brokerage account periodically during market shifts (thanks for the heads up, AAII!) and review them for performance and potential deletions twice per year ✅
Retirement accounts—I don’t think about them because I check my progress quarterly, I have a system in place ✅

The aspects of my personal finance that regularly haunt me are my bank accounts and credit cards. These are top of mind since I handle them on a short-term basis, whereas my investments and retirement accounts are for the long term. The one area I need to improve is my budget, hence the “x” instead of the checkmark. At this point, it’s next year’s problem!

The state of my retirement accounts

My retirement accounts are doing well, especially when I don’t think about them! I still have my first 403(b) plan account with Vanguard from AAII, and it remains invested in the mutual funds I chose at the start of my retirement savings journey. My second retirement account is with Fidelity from my current job at Red Ventures. It’s a straight up 401(k), so now I have a fun collection of all these letters and numbers!

I’m actively contributing 5% of my salary to my Fidelity account on a biweekly pretax basis, meaning the money comes out of my paycheck before I even get to see it. Meanwhile, with my employer matching most of that contribution, I’m sitting on nearly $6,500 after over a year of steady contributions and positive returns!

I invested my Fidelity account in these mutual funds that were available to me, using the same weights I applied to similar funds in my Vanguard account: 30% invested in the T. Rowe Price Large-Cap Growth fund (TRLGX), 20% in the Fidelity Mid Cap Index fund (FSMDX), 20% in the Fidelity Small Cap Index fund (FSSNX), 20% in Emerging Markets II (ticker not listed) and 10% in the Principal Real Estate Securities Fund Class R6 (PFRSX).

When I invested in these funds back in fall 2024, two of them had higher expense ratios than I would like for my investments: the real estate fund’s was 0.81%, and the large-cap growth fund’s was 0.70%. My investing strategy is to find mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with expense ratios under 0.60%, otherwise we’re getting dangerously close to 1%, which is way too much to be giving any fund or money manager. Thankfully, the large-cap growth fund’s expense ratio has since decreased to 0.55%.

My petsitting venture

This year, I started petsitting cats and dogs. It took off when I started networking through the dogs, finding more animal friends to hang out with. My closest human friends also have some of the cutest cats ever, so I can’t resist spending scheduled time with them when they are required to pay attention to me 😂.

So far this year, I have made over $1,600 from this venture! Since I haven’t been as regular with saving this year as I would like, at the end of 2025 I plan to match the amount I’ve made from petsitting and move it into my emergency savings account.

When I initially drew up my rules for this savings account, I wanted to keep $10,000 in it at all times. However, I’ve learned since that I don’t really need that much money available, even for emergencies. I settled on maintaining my emergency savings at $7,000. In the current market environment, it makes more sense to keep money in my high-yield savings accounts so they can make more than the measly 0.01% interest my emergency savings will.

Some other financial decisions I made since we last talked:

I signed a two-year lease for my current apartment so I could lock in the increased rate of $1,450/mo. for the next two years to save myself another $50/mo. increase down the line
I chose my health insurance plan for 2026, and went with the lowest tier for around $30 per paycheck

I’ll be back in early 2026 for another portfolio review! Wishing you all a wonderful and safe holiday season.

More articles on rethinking retirement:
Retiring Early: Memoir or Fiction?
Should Young People Still Save for Retirement?
How Much Should I Contribute to My Retirement Account?

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Start Investing With $5!

If you think you need thousands of dollars to start investing right now, you’re not alone! Before I started working at AAII, I didn’t think I would ever do any investing by myself. And even then, I thought I would need at least $10,000 to start investing. But the good news is, you only need $5 to start investing right now. You can start yourself a tiny little portfolio! Like with anything, there are risks attached to investing with small amounts but here are some ways you can do it:

Micro-investing apps are those like Acorns, Stash and Cash App. These apps provide services like rounding up the charge when you buy something and investing that extra change. Acorns provides more of a hands-off approach, doing the work of saving and investing for you. But this also means there can be hidden transaction costs since Acorns is making the decisions.

I looked into Acorns as an option for starting something small, but the behind-the-scenes aspect of it concerns me. Since I chose my broker based on the lack of fees for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), I’m going to stick to my main Schwab brokerage account for now.

With Stash, you can control your investments and buy fractional shares of stocks, but there are a lot of other distracting bells and whistles like the Stock-Back card that invests in the stocks of the brands you purchase from. This strikes me as a bit of a leap, a whole new way of saying “Put your money where your mouth is.” Simply investing in the companies that you buy from already is not an investing strategy, and it’s just giving more money to corporations that could be doing more harm than good.

Cash App also allows you to choose what you want to invest in, including fractional shares. It’s not just for investing, so if you already use it to send money to friends it could be a multi-purpose app for you. I like that Cash App seems to be more transparent than the other two micro-investing apps.

Acorns invests mainly in ETFs, while Stash and Cash App have a focus on stock investing with some ETF offerings as well.

Keep in mind that Acorns and Stash have a minimum fee of $1 per month to maintain your account, while Cash App is free. Fees were a huge part of choosing my broker, so if you haven’t opened a brokerage account yet, check out my post and accompanying video on how I did it!

With these apps, you can start investing with very little, but with Acorns, for instance, you can also boost your savings to invest for your future as it squirrels away your spare change.

Purchasing fractional shares of stocks or ETFs can be one way to start investing if you only have a little to spare each month. If you want to invest in a stock that’s pricey but you don’t want to shell out the entire share price amount, you can buy a fraction of the share. You can also do this with ETFs, which can be an easy way to get better diversification for your portfolio right off the bat. Not all stocks and ETFs are available for fractional share purchases, leaving you with limited choices, and they can be risky in the sell process since your fractional shares have to be matched up with other fractional shares in order to be sold. However, it’s a great way to start out with your first stock purchase if you’ve been putting it off. It’s getting your foot in the door (and maybe just your foot for now). I made the decision to go with Schwab for my broker because it offers fractional share purchasing, so I might be playing around with that in the future!

Let’s Open a Brokerage Account Together!

Choosing and opening my first brokerage account was a huge hurdle for me. It was something I’ve been putting off for many reasons: 1) I didn’t think I had enough money to invest yet, so I kept adding to my savings account; 2) I had no idea what I would do to make the most of my invested money; and 3) how on earth was I supposed to know which broker to use? Which is to say, how could I be trusted to make this decision on my own?

Thankfully, the more I read AAII articles like “Comparing Discount Brokers and Apps Given Recent Industry Changes,” the more knowledgeable I felt to take the first step as you can see in the video accompanying this post.

Choosing a broker reminded me of when I had to choose which college I wanted to go to. It was a huge, daunting decision, but there’s always the peace of mind knowing that you can transfer if something doesn’t work out. When I was choosing my college, I had to make sure it was somewhere I could thrive, but also a place that I could contribute to. In the same way, I wanted to make sure my broker was a good fit for my money and what I want to do with it.

Fees were the biggest factor in my decision-making process, and I walk you through how I came to the conclusion I did, making sure my broker won’t be taking too much off the top!

If you’ve struggled with knowing where to invest your money, this video is for you! I hope it helps you determine the broker you want to use and eases your anxiety about the process.