Category: Investing Strategy

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?

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Investing Through the Inferno

A midyear check-in light on the data, some charts and how it all feels.

There’s no way we’re already halfway through 2025—you’ll just have to bear with me as I run it back to April. You remember her, right? A time before it was 90 degrees everyday, before I thought I would burst into flames right on the concrete.

April was the beginning of my tour, Nick Cave in Boston, St. Vincent in New Haven, pour me another tequila soda. Then May in Texas for one suffocating minute, then the madhouse, then the grave. Just kidding—June was another story, but we did it to death, avoided the rain and the heat almost took us out completely. The Kills killed it three times until we prayed for mercy from the sun. No longer our god, we watched it sink behind the stage while the heat tore through Queens of the Stone Age’s set. We don’t even have to talk about how much my credit card statement was after all that, you get the idea!

Net worth & portfolio in the green

April was also when the tariffs brought everyone to me, asking what they should do with their investments. I told my friends, “Don’t look at your accounts,” and then opened every single one of mine to calculate my net worth as of the end of March. My strategy won’t be stopped by the nonsense! At the end of June, my Charles Schwab brokerage account is not only back to where it was before the announcement, but it has now surpassed that amount. I said, “Everything will be fine in, like, two months,” and thankfully, the numbers didn’t make a fool of me like they usually do!

Despite the ongoing destruction of the Earth and the people who live here, my net worth is increasing and my portfolio is profitable. I haven’t been checking my investments as often because I know it doesn’t matter what they look like now. All that matters is I’m keeping my money in the market so it will continue making me more money.

My portfolio of sustainable exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is performing well. When I checked their grades on As You Sow as of the end of June, almost all the ETFs had A’s and B’s. The Amplify Etho Climate Leadership U.S. ETF’s (ETHO) gender equality grade improved from F to B, removing it from the probation it was placed on after my last review. My Schwab U.S. REIT ETF (SCHH) maintains its gender equality grade of C—come on real estate sector, let’s get that up! One of my latest additions, the Stance Sustainable Beta ETF (CHGX), is now on probation with a gender equality grade of F. If the grade doesn’t improve by my next review in six months, the ETF will be removed from my portfolio. Since no changes are needed, my portfolio will remain untouched until then.

Finance charts? Sure, why not?

I have some new resources to share with you all, in the form of charts! I promise I’ll keep it light, but if you’re looking for a free website to track your investments and their performance, FinanceCharts.com is a helpful place for beginners to start. Here’s the Schwab U.S. REIT ETF’s price over the last year. I can see exactly when the beginning of April sent the holding downward, and I can see its steady climb back up to around where it was in March. I can also see that the ETF has some more recovery ahead if it wants to get up to its last high price from September 2024. The charts are interactive and you can select the time period you want to analyze. I don’t usually do much price analysis with my individual investments, but if I ever need more insight, FinanceCharts.com is waiting.

Source: FinanceCharts.com.

A few months ago, I read the book “Stikky Stock Charts” by Laurence Holt. For full disclosure, I was sent this book for free so I would review it. You can read my full review on Goodreads, but I found “Stikky Stock Charts” a helpful introduction to using charts. I was able to understand the purpose of them with very simple descriptions of different chart trends. The book itself is quite image-heavy, with a chart on almost every page. It covers significant historical events, like the meme-stock craze, and how certain stocks reacted at the time. This grounds investing in the real world, where it belongs. “Stikky Stock Charts” will be another resource to consult when I’m looking at a potential ETF for my portfolio.

Putting my investments on snooze

AAII taught me well, I can sleep at night. I don’t think about my money much anymore. Of course, I want to save more of it, but I also have to stay realistic. Everything keeps getting more expensive. My life is expanding, allowing more experiences in. This is the life I’ve been working toward, and I get to see the dividends—both literal and figurative—that are being paid out.

Here’s to your portfolio going up in the second half of 2025. I won’t wait this long to check in with you again, but I will wait for the temperature to fall a bit!

Learn more about my investing strategy:
New Year, New Investments, Same Strategy
PRISM Step 4: Selecting and Managing Your Investments
Midyear Portfolio Review and Finding an ESG Benchmark

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Investing in Sustainable Gender Equality in 2025

A new year, another portfolio rule and two new sustainable funds.

Welcome to 2025! Fun fact, 2025 is considered a “square” year since it is the square of 45 (45 × 45). I bet you never thought you’d get a math-related fact from me, let alone a fun one!

I saw a lot more green last year since my portfolio generally did well in 2024, but that was mostly due to only rarely checking my balance. The less I looked at my portfolio, the better it performed. After election results were announced, I peeked at my Charles Schwab brokerage account and saw I was profiting from the outcome. This unfortunate aspect of investing is always in the back of my mind as I reinforce why I maintain a sustainable approach instead of giving more money to large, harmful corporations.

As of December 27, 2024, only one of my holdings is in the red over the long term: the VanEck Biotech ETF (BBH), down 2.6% since being added to my portfolio in early 2023. My best performer is the Tortoise Global Water ESG ETF (TBLU), up 17.6%. This fund used to be the Ecofin Global Water ESG ETF (EBLU), but has since changed its name and ticker symbol. It was one of the first exchange-traded funds (ETFs) I bought back in March 2022 when I started this sustainable portfolio, making it my oldest current holding. Here’s a closer look at what it invests in:

Source: Tortoise Capital.

Unfortunately, the platform I use to grade my holdings on sustainability, As You Sow, gives Tortoise Global Water a D for fossil fuels and gender equality, disqualifying it from my portfolio. At least I’ll be selling this one on a gain!

The rest of my ETFs still have mostly A’s and B’s. The Schwab U.S. REIT ETF (SCHH) has a gender equality grade of C, which still qualifies for my portfolio. My latest addition, the Amplify Etho Climate Leadership U.S. ETF (ETHO), has performed well but grades D for gender equality. If this doesn’t improve by midyear, it will be my next deletion.

To avoid too much turnover, I’m adding a rule to my investing strategy. Since gender equality is the most difficult grade for sustainable funds to earn, instead of removing a holding when only its gender equality grade slips to D, there will now be a formal probationary period of six months for this grade to improve (accounting for the time between my reviews). The rest of the grades—fossil fuels, deforestation, civilian firearms, military weapons, the prison industrial complex and tobacco—should remain at A or B, with a drop to C qualifying them for deletion.

During my last portfolio review, I determined that I wanted to add another holding to the mix to bring my portfolio back to six ETFs for diversification purposes. On my search for a new ETF or two for my portfolio, I went with my tried and true process. I began on As You Sow, filtering first by a gender equality grade of C or higher, then adding grades of B or higher for the rest of the criteria.

A few funds focused on weight loss drugs caught my eye, specifically the Amplify Weight Loss Drug & Treatment ETF (THNR) and the Roundhill GLP-1 & Weight Loss ETF (OZEM). I know these drugs are poppin’ off, and I’m glad those who have struggled to lose weight finally have something that works. But I’m still not clear on their sustainability for the long term. I’m not a huge fan of pharmaceutical companies either, or the advantages they take with people’s lives. Both ETFs were recently incepted in May 2024, so they don’t have much performance data to analyze. They might be better candidates in the future!

Instead, I stumbled on two other ETFs that fit my strategy: the Vert Global Sustainable Real Estate ETF (VGSR) and the AXS Change Finance ESG ETF (CHGX). Vert Global Sustainable Real Estate has an expense ratio of 0.45%, below my threshold of 0.60%. Though it has an expense ratio grade of C compared to its peers, I have noticed this with many of my past holdings. Ultimately, the expense ratio itself is more important. Sustainable funds are going to cost a little more than their peers, that’s part of the deal! AXS Change Finance also has a grade of C for a slightly higher expense ratio of 0.49%. Vert Global Sustainable Real Estate has favorable recent and long-term performance, while AXS Change Finance’s performance grades aren’t as hot compared to its large blend category.

On the sustainability side, Vert Global Sustainable Real Estate has all A grades on As You Sow save for its gender equality grade of B—I’ll take it! AXS Change Finance has a mix of A’s and B’s, with a C for gender equality. I’ll be keeping an eye on that one, but I’m thrilled that I was able to find these funds for my portfolio. The process has become less grueling over the years, partly because I have figured out what to look for, but also due to sustainability becoming more embedded in the finance industry.

Next time, I plan to update you on my retirement accounts (yes, plural!) and net worth. More good news to come!

Wishing you all a prosperous 2025!

Explore this topic:
A Look at Top Gender Equality Funds
I read this so you don’t have to! Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap
A (Very) Brief History of Women in Finance

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Midyear Portfolio Review: Rebalancing for Sustainability

When my midyear portfolio review came around, I knew I would be selling one of my holdings: the Global X Wind Energy ETF (WNDY). It’s my worst performer, and when I checked its sustainability grades on As You Sow as of July 1, 2024, the fossil fuels grade had slipped to C—time to kick this exchange-traded fund (ETF) to anywhere but my portfolio!

Since I’m removing a holding, I thought it best to find a replacement. I want to be able to maintain investments in at least five ETFs in my Charles Schwab brokerage account for diversification purposes. On the flip side, I have to keep in mind the limit on the benefits of diversifying my investments. Going way back to the first book I read about investing, fittingly titled “Investing 101,” author Michele Cagan, CPA, says that “it’s usually not advisable to have more than six or seven mutual funds at a given time, or you can start to counterbalance your efforts to construct a strong portfolio.”

I started my search for a new sustainable ETF where I left off—with the VanEck Environmental Services ETF (EVX). Last I checked, this ETF fit my strategy on As You Sow with all A’s except for a fossil fuels grade of B and a gender equality grade of C. It also had an attractive expense ratio at 0.55%. To my dismay, the gender equality grade fell to D, disqualifying it from my strategy. This solidifies why I review my portfolio twice per year. An ETF might be attractive one month and then quickly lose its sustainable standing the next. Performing a monthly or quarterly review would produce too much turnover for what I can afford with the size of my portfolio (around $6,000) and the time I want to commit to investing.

Instead of planning my attack via the fossil fuels grade, I chose a different approach. Since it’s difficult for funds to grade well on gender equality, I filtered based on high gender equality grades of A or B. The first few contenders I found were quite colorful, with gender equality as their only A grade.

The Impact Shares NAACP Minority Empowerment ETF (NACP) certainly has a goal in mind: gender equality in addition to racial equality, investing in large- and mid-cap companies “with strong racial and ethnic diversity policies in place, empowering employees irrespective of their race or nationality.” As vital as this focus is to improving the world we live in, there is less attention to environmental issues, with a fossil fuels grade of F. It has been hard to find funds that can do it all, but I know they exist!

Further down the list, I stumbled on the IQ Healthy Hearts ETF (HART), which has grades of A for fossil fuels, gender equality, military weapons and tobacco, and grades of B for deforestation, civilian firearms and the prison industrial complex. Its purpose is a bit more focused: It’s “designed to deliver exposure to global companies that help people prevent cardiovascular disease.” Somehow, it manages to have attractive sustainability grades while also improving people’s lives.

Gritting my teeth, I checked AAII.com to see what the expense ratio was: a cool 0.45% with an expense ratio grade of B. This fits my strategy, and it will save me some money! The ETF hasn’t been around long, but it has grades of A or B for three-year, one-year and year-to-date returns.

Now that I have my portfolio actions, I just need the money to make it all happen. I liquidated the SmartyPig high-yield savings account goal I set up for investment funds. Unfortunately, I didn’t reach my goal of $2,000, but we’re going with what we have—which is just over half of that. With the proceeds from selling Global X Wind Energy, I should also be able to add some shares evenly across the rest of my holdings to ensure the cash in my portfolio gets put to work.

Now that I’ve been able to successfully find a fund that fits my strategy, I have a bit more hope for the future of sustainable investing. Because of this, I expect to add another holding to the mix to bring my portfolio up to six ETFs at my next portfolio review. Stay tuned to see how it all goes!

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Digging for VanEck Sustainable ETFs

As I gear up for my next portfolio review at the end of June, I poked around As You Sow’s website to determine if there were any new candidates for my sustainable investing strategy. I began by looking for any mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with fossil fuels grades of A or B. This produced a list almost exclusively of mutual funds, which I am not currently investing in. I started considering a few of them, until I saw their expense ratios. My cutoff for expense ratios is 0.60%, and many of these funds were above 1.00% or even 3.00%—anything this high is the same as throwing my investment dollars into a pit and lighting them on fire!

Not to be defeated by how difficult it has been to find investments that are actually sustainable, I looked at my Charles Schwab brokerage account to see how my current ETF holdings were performing. One of my ETFs in the green, but not the best performer right now, is the VanEck Biotech ETF (BBH). It has all A grades on As You Sow—making its positive performance even better knowing that by investing in this group of companies, I am not killing the earth! This got me thinking that VanEck might have some other good candidates for my portfolio.

At the VanEck fund family page on As You Sow, it displays all funds that are gradable in its database. Since I’m searching based on a high fossil fuels grade, I can see that grade in the last column on the list of funds and narrow my choices based on it.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) has all A grades except for gender equality, which is D. No surprises here, the technology industry has a long way to go before it is equal for women and all genders, but I’m looking for a gender equality grade of C or higher for my portfolio. The VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD) looked promising with all A’s but an N/A for gender equality since there wasn’t enough data for a grade. Technically this fits my strategy, so I went over to AAII.com to determine if it was a good fit based on performance and expense ratio in the ETF Evaluator. Though its performance has been steady, its expense ratio is an alarming 11.17%! That performance is certainly not worth 11% of my portfolio’s value, so this ETF is off the list.

I scrolled further until I found the VanEck Environmental Services ETF (EVX), with a fossil fuels grade of B. The rest of its grades are A except for—you guessed it—gender equality at C. This fits my strategy, so let’s all cross our fingers and hope the expense ratio won’t eat into all this investment’s potential …

This expense ratio of 0.55% comes in just below my cutoff of 0.60%! VanEck Environmental Services has earned a potential spot in my portfolio, as it also has average performance over the long term (grades of C) and an A grade for the most recent quarter.

I will perform a similar search to see if I can find anything better when it’s time for my portfolio review. I have a little more peace of mind knowing that there are some hidden gems that will fit my strategy—I just have to do more digging!

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Financial Goals to Accomplish by Age 30

If you’re reading this on the day it comes out, I have officially turned 30. I’ve been ambivalent about turning 30 for a while now, wanting to stay 27 forever (unfortunately, I never found a vampire to make that happen). The last time I felt I hit a big milestone was when I turned 19. At the time, I was in college and co-running a YouTube channel with my best friend Ilana. I filmed a video about what people can do when they turn 19, the most exciting of which was being able to drink legally in all of Canada! Inspired by this, I looked at the most common financial goals people should achieve by the time they turn 30. Of course, everyone will be on a different trajectory, but I always find benchmarks helpful when it comes to money.

1. Build and Replenish an Emergency Fund

The decade of my 20s was all about saving, and I’m so thankful I was able to focus on this goal. Building an emergency savings fund is the first step you can take to achieve financial independence. A common guideline is to have at least six months of living expenses saved in this fund, but you can work up to this. I have my emergency fund in my regular savings account that is attached to my checking account. This means it’s not earning me much interest, but that’s quite literally the price I pay for this money to be easily accessible in an emergency. If you end up tapping your emergency savings, be sure to set up a plan for building that fund back up to the amount you maintained before. Whenever your financial situation changes, you should reassess this amount to make sure it will still cover six months of expenses.

2. Pay off Debt

Once you have money saved up for emergencies, you have increased your net worth and also your ability to pay off debt. If you were trying to pay down debt before building up your savings, you would slip further into the red, and it would be difficult to get yourself out of debt in the future. It’s best to focus on your high-interest debt first—anything above 6%—since that interest will compound and add more to your debt if you don’t get it under control. Examples of high-interest debt could be on credit cards, personal loans and private student loans. Federal student loans are usually lower-interest debt, along with mortgages.

3. Maintain a Good Credit Score

Not only do you need to get yourself into a good credit score range (above 670), but you also need to keep that credit score up while you live your life. Your credit score can change at least once a month, but this can vary depending on how many lines of credit you have. You can keep your credit score up by paying your credit card bills on time, keeping your card balances low and only applying for lines of credit that you need. Over the last year, my credit score has stayed within the range of 770 to 780, which is considered “very good.” Maybe I’ll try to sneak into the “excellent” range (800 to 850) during my 30s 😉.

4. Start Saving for Retirement

I know most of us young people don’t even want to think about retirement half the time, but if you are actively contributing to a retirement account, you shouldn’t have to think much about your balance. The best thing to do once you choose your investments for your retirement account is to rarely check it. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but unless you have concerns about your account not making enough or you want to reconsider how your portfolio is allocated, it’s best to just let your investments ride their gains and only periodically check your balance.

One rule is to have at least half of your current income in your retirement account by the time you turn 30, but I’m not sure how achievable this is in practice. Especially with inflation, millennials and Generation Z are struggling to even hit what is considered the minimum. It might be more reasonable to shoot for having one-third of your income saved for retirement by age 30. For example, if you’re making $45,000, this would equate to $15,000 in your retirement account. I can honestly say that I have less than one-third of my income in my retirement account right now, but I have multiple savings and investment vehicles that together would cover this amount.

5. Know Where Your Money Goes

This is just a looser way to say “budget,” but by age 30 it’s important to know how much money you are spending relative to how much you are making. You probably have a general idea when you look at your bank account and credit card statements, but if you still feel a dark cloud over your head when you think about your finances, it might be time to break out the spreadsheets and take a closer look at the numbers. I yo-yo between finding my budget helpful and hurtful, but the truth is there’s no emotion that I’m not projecting onto these numbers. On their own, they’re just numbers. The sooner you face them, the better off you and your money will be.

6. Begin Investing

If you haven’t started investing, there’s no time like right now! For me, the hardest part of investing so far was the beginning. If you’re struggling to figure out where to start, it’s helpful to determine how much money you have available to invest. If you want to go for something easy that won’t take much of your time, put that money into an index mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF). It won’t beat the market’s return, but it will ensure that you have investments making money for your future.

How Do You Score?

By age 30, I have pretty much everything I need for financial stability. Out of the six goals, I would say I have achieved five and a half, for 91.7%, or a grade of A–. This means I have places I can improve in my 30s, so I’ll be focusing more on my goal of saving for retirement and optimizing my budget. If you’re turning 30 soon or you recently turned 30, how many of these goals have you achieved? What has been the hardest one? Let me know in the comments!

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

How to Decide When You Need a Financial Adviser

Though I have primarily managed my own money and investments thus far in my personal finance journey, I know this level of involvement is not for everyone. Somehow, my detail-oriented brain can handle the information despite its inability to understand math! Plus, I have been exposed to this content all day, every day by working at AAII for nearly seven years. At this point, I dream in financial metrics (a new genre of nightmare!). My goal for this blog is to show you how I make educated decisions in the hopes that you will follow along and learn how to make the right decisions for yourself. But what if you can’t wrap your head around all this stuff?

I have friends come to me asking how they can save better; expressing how they, too, are afraid of going to tax jail; or concluding that they just can’t keep financial information in their brain. Believe me, I’m with you! If you feel like you don’t have the time or capacity to manage your own investments, don’t try to force it. I don’t want you losing your hard-earned money in some stock that Robinhood thinks is a good asset for maybe five minutes. You deserve to put your money to work just like everyone else.

If you’re having trouble implementing your desired investing strategy, or you don’t have a strategy at all, it may be time to look to a professional for help. There are numerous types of financial advice that you can seek. I imagine my fellow beginners will have less than $25,000 or even less than $10,000 in investments. Though advisers usually only work with people who have more assets, a certified financial planner (CFP) or Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is also qualified to help you.

When you decide it’s time for a financial adviser, there are two main types: fee- and commission-based advisers. You will want to avoid the commission-based professionals, since they will likely try to recommend investment products you don’t need just to make a little extra money for themselves. The fee-based adviser will charge you either an hourly fee or a percentage of your assets. Echoing what Ramit Sethi said in “How to Get Rich,” go for the hourly fee that will only be charged when you meet with your adviser. Over time, even 1% is too much for your adviser to take from your earnings.

If you would prefer not to work with a human being, in true millennial and Generation Z fashion, there are also robo-advisers. Robo-advisers will implement an automated investing strategy based on your answers to a survey. With some, you can choose your level of involvement if you want to have more of a say in what the robo-adviser does for you. According to Ken Schapiro of The Robo Report, the best overall robo-adviser in the industry has also been around the longest: Wealthfront. Be wary of robo-advisers that have just been developed in the last year or advertise that they are using new artificial intelligence (AI) technology. It’s best to use something tried and true in this industry so you don’t get ripped off by the robots!

A good relationship with a financial adviser should strike a balance somewhere between a colleague and a friend, but you should not be asking your friends for investing advice. My parents instilled this in me from an early age, and I remember meeting with their financial adviser around the time I went to college. He was very friendly and helpful, but he wasn’t someone they met or were recommended to work with through a friend. They found him independently, he had verified credentials and already had a long-standing career behind him. You can use the database provided by the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors to find someone reputable. Be sure to also do your own research and read reviews of anyone you are looking to meet with. Good luck, and happy, safe investing!

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

Adding a New Climate Leader and Evaluating My Net Worth

Happy new year, it’s time to check in on my portfolio! At the middle of 2023, my portfolio consisted of five index exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that fit my sustainable investing strategy. It has been pretty difficult to find investments for this approach, so I have had to learn as I go, stretching some of my rules to fit what is available to invest in. The financial industry is still catching up to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement, so some patience is required!

The two troublemakers I decided to keep in my portfolio last year have continued to be unimpressive: the Global X CleanTech ETF (CTEC) and the Global X Wind Energy ETF (WNDY). They have average As You Sow grades of B, but Global X CleanTech still has a gender equality grade of F and Global X Wind Energy’s fossil fuels grade remains at C—both grounds for deletion in my strategy. Though their expense ratios are favorable at 0.50%, they are the two worst performers in my portfolio, down 30.8% and 23.6% since addition.

When I searched for possible replacements for these two ETFs, I struggled to find even one that qualified. I began my quest on As You Sow, but the highest-graded ETFs on fossil fuels were severely lacking in all other areas: deforestation, gender equality, civilian firearms and military weapons, prison industrial complex and tobacco. So many had grades of D or F—a far cry from sustainable. I also used AAII’s ETF screener to see if I was missing anything, but the ETFs I found with low expense ratios had abysmal As You Sow grades.

Finally, I stumbled on the Etho Climate Leadership U.S. ETF (ETHO). It has an average As You Sow grade of B, with a gender equality grade of C. It has an expense ratio of 0.45%, which is below my 0.60% threshold. However, it has an expense ratio grade of C compared to its category. I’m trying to invest in ETFs with expense ratio grades of A or B, but I’m choosing to make an exception in this case. Ultimately, this expense ratio is lower than that of my two deletion candidates, meaning it will cost me less to hold it. Etho Climate Leadership also has decent five-year performance but significantly underperformed the market last year along with most stocks and ETFs.

Since I could only find one ETF to add to my portfolio, only one ETF will be deleted. The worst of the two, Global X CleanTech, has got to go! That gender equality grade of F has been dragging it down for too long, and it’s not even helping my portfolio’s performance—what’s the point?

Though I said in my blog post about reprioritizing my goals that I would invest another $2,000 in my Charles Schwab brokerage account if I made changes to my portfolio, I discovered that I should have enough between the proceeds from removing Global X CleanTech and the cash balance in my portfolio to invest an amount in Etho Climate Leadership that is equal to my other holdings. I’m choosing not to add more money this time because I’m also funding some other short-term goals. However, at my midyear portfolio review, I will invest more money into each position regardless of whether changes are made since I’ve been so consistent with my saving.

Speaking of saving, when I was evaluating my portfolio, I also calculated my net worth. I have been tracking my net worth on a quarterly basis consistently since October 2022. Since then, my net worth has increased by a cumulative 45.6%! I have added around $10,000 to my net worth, and I’m excited to see how the next year goes. Time to get even more competitive with myself!

Given all this traction I’ve made on my overall finances, I wanted to see how my net worth stacked up. According to The Hill, as of November 2023, the median net worth for those under age 35 is $39,000, while the average is $183,500. My net worth is below the median for my age range but not by so much that I couldn’t surpass it before turning 35. This gives me some idea of a goal to set for my rate of saving and increasing my net worth going forward.

Wishing you all a prosperous 2024!

Sign up below to be notified by email when I post something new! If you do not have a WordPress account, you will need to create one.

The Year of Financial Thinking: 2023 in Review

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant.”
—Joan Didion, “The Year of Magical Thinking”

It’s that time of year for everyone to compile their end-of-year list of tax and personal financial moves. AAII’s Tax Guide is now online for those who want to get a head start. My check-in is going to be a little different, with emphasis on the personal.

1. What goals did I achieve this year?

The year 2023 was not an easy one for most. I began the year reviewing my portfolio and my credit card habits, thinking I would be able to conquer the overspending of the holidays and get myself back on track. Though this didn’t happen immediately, I successfully did my taxes for the first time since I started investing. Taxes were my biggest anxiety about investing, because we all know nothing related to the government is easy. I managed to not commit tax fraud, and I no longer dread what 2024 tax season will bring. I also reached a behavioral goal of mine: looking at my brokerage account so infrequently that I saw it in positive territory more often than not.

2. What surprised me about my finances?

In 2023, I discovered that saving consistently is more important than saving the “right” amount each month. I became a little competitive with myself, so when I couldn’t put away the full amount allotted for savings in my budget, I still saved as much as I could from what I had left over. Because of this, and higher interest rates, I am significantly closer to reaching my short- and intermediate-term goals through my high-yield savings accounts than I was at the beginning of the year!

3. How did my relationship with money change this year?

Before this year, I had a lot of fear around money: running out of it, not saving enough of it, spending too much of it on rent and retiring with only enough for cheese and crackers in my later years. It took a while, but I discovered that money is malleable. When I wanted to make a large purchase but my usual means of spending weren’t available to me, I got creative and built room in my budget to take out a loan. Likewise, I lowered the goal amount I will put in savings until the loan is fully paid off. I granted myself so much freedom in this decision, and it enabled me to improve my current life while still improving my future.

4. What would make me and my money happier in the new year?

Now that I have my finances in consistent good standing, it’s time to take advantage of good ol’ compounding. By staying invested in the stock market through index exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the money my investments are making will continue to make money on top of that. Gaining more traction on my goals is my top priority for 2024, even if it means cutting back on spending in some areas. Though I am doing well on my short- and intermediate-term goals, my long-term retirement goal could really use some more attention—and money!

How was your 2023 in finances? Though it was a rough year for humanity and the majority of stocks, what are you looking forward to in 2024?

The Carrie Finances: Should I Stop Reinvesting My Dividends?

Back when I was uncovering my hereditary financial habits, I learned that my dad’s mom was an avid dividend investor. When my dad was 15, his mom bought him stock in IBM Corp. (IBM) to get him interested in investing. She also put him to work and had him oversee her dividends. My dad would have to maintain a manual bookkeeping spreadsheet to verify which amounts were going into her account and match the dividend depending on the company and the month. All of this was done on paper, adding another level of difficulty.

These days, the process is much more automated, to the point where you might not even know when you receive dividend income unless you regularly check your brokerage account. After years of reading about reinvesting dividends in articles for AAII Dividend Investing, I couldn’t help but wonder: Should I stop reinvesting my dividends for a little extra income in these hard times?

A dividend is a payment that companies make to their investors using excess profits, usually on a quarterly basis. Much like an annual cost of living adjustment in salary, companies are expected to increase their dividend annually to keep up appearances and keep their investors around.

My portfolio is invested in five environmental, social and governance (ESG) exchange-traded funds (ETFs). I don’t require any dividends as part of my investing strategy, but when I started investing, I chose to reinvest the dividends that each of my ETFs pays. The most common way investors reinvest their dividends is through an automated process called a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). These plans require that you hold at least one share of the dividend-paying security in a brokerage account.

The main advantage to reinvesting your dividends is the magic of compounding: An investment that reinvests in itself will make more money in the long run. When a dividend is reinvested, it means that you are buying more shares of the security with that dividend. I can tell which of my investments have dividends in my brokerage account by looking at the number of shares I own under “Quantity”:

Most of my share counts are not whole numbers, even though I initially bought whole shares of each ETF. Some investments don’t allow you to buy fractional shares, so this is another advantage of reinvesting dividends. There are also no fees involved in the dividend reinvestment process, which used to be more of a flex before most brokers made investing commission-free.

According to Investopedia, one of the times you should consider not reinvesting your dividends is when you are in or nearing retirement and need the extra income. Likewise, if an investment is not performing well, it’s not a good idea to reinvest more money in that holding.

Now for the moment of truth: How much dividend income is my portfolio receiving? In 2022, I got a whopping $4.03 in dividend payments. So far in 2023, I’ve received $20.08 in dividends, which was a direct result of adding more money to my investments. My Charles Schwab brokerage account estimates that I will receive a total of $48.53 in dividends this year.

Unfortunately, I don’t think $50 would make that big of a difference if I chose to stop reinvesting my dividends. (It certainly wouldn’t buy Carrie Bradshaw a new pair of shoes, but it might cover her drive-thru order below!) Regardless, the money would still be sitting in my brokerage account cash balance waiting to be invested, so I don’t see much of an advantage to interrupting the compounding process.

For now, I’m going to continue reinvesting my dividends and keep an eye on how that income increases as time goes on. If one of my ETFs performs so poorly that I don’t want to invest more money in it, it would be a candidate for deletion before I would consider stopping the dividend reinvestment process.