How I came across retirement accounts as a Millennial
Written By: Nick Nguyen | Read full profile
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Before we can get into what an individual retirement account (IRA) is, I have to give you a little walk down memory lane and how I happened to stumble upon retirement accounts.
Back in 2013, I was graduating high school and was just about to turn 18 when I started to get interested in finance. I mean who doesn’t want to know how to manage their money? I was this young punk kid with only a few bucks to my name, so I was looking up every way possible to get more. Companies weren’t interested in hiring someone who’d only stick around for 2-months (seriously, I had an interview with McDonalds and then didn’t get hired - it was that bad).
So I decided I’d look into stocks, wherein I was turned off because of commission fees. I mean dang, these fees were killer. I didn’t even have enough to buy a penny stock because of all the commission fees! On the bright side, I learned about the different investment vehicles and how you buy a stock through a brokerage and how you can protect yourself from taxes through a Roth IRA. Now, as someone who thought that TurboTax was all there was to filing taxes, I decided to leave it at that and be a broke high school grad going into college.
My first job in college was during the summer of 2014. I was only reminded of retirement accounts because I accidentally worked way more than I should’ve and Berkeley started to deduct 5% from my paycheck into a DCP safe harbor 457(B) - whatever that was.
All I cared about was getting money now so I could pay rent. When I called the financial company that was managing the account, they had no idea what I was talking about (really because I had no idea what I was talking about) and just said “yeah you have a retirement account, you’re working 40-hours a week, so you’re full-time, that’s just how it is.”
They don’t teach you about this stuff in school. Even at one of the most prestigious public universities in the nation, there isn’t someone who’s sitting around willing to guide you through...well life.
After tons of googling about DCP Safe Harbor and retirement accounts, I was reminded of the Roth IRA and saw again how those dang commission fees were just way too high (it was highway robbery)!
Each year after that, I’ve gone back to the idea of stocks and started seeing more and more people scream “you want to open a Roth if you plan on making more money in the future.” I posted this really stupid question asking about taxes and IRAs onto my Fraternity’s page and was so grateful when nobody called me out on my idiocy. But their responses definitely weren’t the most ‘warm and fuzzy, let me hold your hand through this you poor baby’ either, so back to the books I went.
Fast forward to December 2019, I finally have a job, I’m pissed at the world for paying me peanuts, and decided to figure out how to get ahead of the game. At the time I banked with Charles Schwab, so their checking account came with a brokerage account (check out my post on why you should have a Schwab account here). One ad pops up saying “$0 commission fees”, and I realize...it’s time.
After making the stupid decision to liquidate my 457(B) after graduating from Berkeley (read about how I got lucky and didn't get hit with a 10% early withdrawal penalty
here),
I realized this was my shot at redemption! My problem - I got stuck with analysis paralysis. Which brokerage to choose from??
Luckily a lot of great content from a lot of great youtubers was available (thank you
InvestingwithRose and
Graham Stephan), and I finally decided on Fidelity, which actually worked out great because had I jumped in any earlier, I would’ve seen all my hard earned coin start flying out the window as the economy started to tank in 2020.
So there you have it! That’s how I got involved in retirement accounts! Hopefully that was a quick and fun read to get to know a bit more about me - but if you’re looking for more “useful” content, check out my other posts!
*Nguyening Lifestyles is not a registered financial service provider and does not give financial advice. All information in these posts are for entertainment purposes only. Nguyening Lifestyles is not liable for any actions or outcomes that transpired after your reading of the following post.
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