Hit my first $100k year through a brokerage instead of the bank savings

I had about $80k sitting in a regular savings account earning maybe 0.5% for like 3 years. My buddy Mike who does real estate told me to check out Vanguard for a basic brokerage account. I put half of it into a total market index fund last July and I'm up 12% already. Anyone else wake up late to how much the bank was just pocketing your money?

2 comments

2 Comments

ninah1010d ago

Right, because nothing says "savvy investor" like finally realizing the bank was basically paying you in lint and pocket lint. Twelve percent on that split sounds great now but wait until the market decides to take a nap for a couple years. Still beats watching your money rot at 0.5% while the bank buys another yacht though.

miab1610d ago

Did you ever actually have to call your bank to ask why they were charging you a fee just to have an account? Because that's what finally got me moving. I split my money between a high-yield savings account and a basic index fund. The savings account gets me 4% right now and I can pull it out next week if I need to. The index fund is for the long haul, I just let it sit and forget about it. The hardest part was just getting over being lazy about it.