I don't even know where to start.
I'm working on H1B visa right now but should be getting my green card this year. I'm 30 and I've been working in the US for almost 4 years now. I'm from a different country where we don't have 401k so I never took time to look into it because I thought that I'd just go back home upon visa expiration and might as well find a better use to my money.
Now that I have a chance to stay, I decided to reconsider my spending and planning and start investing into my future. Right now I'm taking home about 3k every month and barely saving anything because I travel a lot. At this point I have 3k on my savings account. My credit score history is based on a paid off car loan and a credit card with no outstanding balance.
My average expenses are: $750 rent $65 internet $30 utilities $130 car insurance $100 food (i prefer to cook) but I've been going out to eat a lot lately so in the last 3-4 months this number has been much higher.
I have a few questions:
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I'm totally clueless as far as 401k goes. I do understand I screwed by not starting maxing it out as soon as I got the job but what's done is done. My employer will match 50% on the dollar for the first 6% of pre-tax employee contributions. What is my best course at this point? Should I contribute just enough to max out employer's match or more? I've never dealt with 401k before and it's a completely new thing to me so I don't want to screw it up. Again, I'm 30 years old and considering the fact that most people start their 401k in early 20s, I think I'm very late.
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I've been lurking this sub for a while now and I figured that diversifying is a good and keeping all eggs in one basket is not. I noticed that quite a few people have expressed their regret about not getting into investing early in their life and missing out on a lot of money. What is a good way to get into investing (maybe some specific read you recommend?) and how to keep track of it? Investing (in terms of stocks and stuff like that) is looked at as bad idea back home and only accessible to rich people so I'm not educated on this matter at all.
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I plan on staying in this country so I will start looking at getting a home of my own at some point (probably dating my future wife right now but we don't live together yet). Considering all the above, what baby steps should I take towards this? Anything I can do right now to ease the pain of getting a mortgage later?
Thank you all in advance!
Submitted May 31, 2018 at 08:32AM by writing_from_mars https://ift.tt/2LaWQFE
