Usaa

[Spaf]

USAA
Hey, check these folks out for insurance and investments!
https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_logon/Logon

[airlift]

Spaf,

I saved this site on my favorites. However, I have no idea if there is a benefit to FERS employees. What is your experience with this? Thanks for your opinion.

USAA

Hey, check these folks out for insurance and investments!

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_logon/Logon

[Spaf]

USAA I believe is open to everyone. However they do cater to the military and government folks. They do have some investing portfolios. Expense ratios were low to moderate the last time I looked. If I had to move my TSP, I would probably go with them, or vanguard. They were on my plan B list.

[airlift]

Thanks Spaf!

What do you mean when you say these two funds were on your plan B list. Are you saying that because you are managing your own nest egg?

USAA I believe is open to everyone. However they do cater to the military and government folks. They do have some investing portfolios. Expense ratios were low to moderate the last time I looked. If I had to move my TSP, I would probably go with them, or vanguard. They were on my plan B list.

[Spaf]

Yep. When I retired, looking over all options, so far I'm staying with TSP.
There very little expenses, they are good funds, no cost IFT's and the options of how to disburse funds are several. I only had to fill out one form, the TSP-70. OPM took care of the rest.

[airlift]

I will most likely follow your way. A few of you guys have addressed this issue in a retirement thread. I will check it out and learn from you all!

[James48843]

I've been a USAA banking and insurance customer for 20+ years, and they are the bestfolks in the world to deal with. I have my home mortgage, my car insurance, my homeowners, and had a plane insured through them as well.
For banking and insurance you had to be a military member to get started, but I didn't know they were open to everyone for stock trading.

Here is what their website says for membership info:

You may be eligible for membership:
Active duty officers and enlisted personnel.
National Guard, Selected Reserve officers and enlisted personnel.
Officer candidates in commissioning programs.
Recently retired or separated military personnel.
Children of USAA members.
Former USAA members.


I would recommend their services to anyone if they were open to the public.

[Fivetears]

USAA just announced last week they've outsourced internal retail company stores to the private contractor Sodexho. Employees thought it would be a cold day in hell before that would happen. Oh, how the times have changed. :(
http://www.sodexho.com/SodexhoCorp/jump_page_en

[nsjsaacks]

Does anyone hold - or looked into - the USAA Precious Metals and Minerals Fund (USAGX). Seems to have a pretty good track record over the last 10 years.

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=MUTF:USAGX

http://quicktake.morningstar.com/FundNet/Snapshot.aspx?symbol=USAGX

Thinking of jumping into this on a monthly investment plan via a Roth. Is this arena a good long term investment? I'm a newbie really just starting out building a portfolio, and it seems like it'd be a good fund to balance my TSP, which is all in L2040 for now.

[cbackous]

nsjsaacks, i aslo was looking at this fund. I have been wanting to open a roth IRA but most funds/companies require a $2,000 or $3,000 deposit to start.

with this fund you can start a roth IRA with $250 or as low as $50 if you do automatic monthly deposits of $50min. The expense ratio is barely over 1% which isnt bad either. The only downside i can see it that it is nondiversified with 96% in stocks, so i am not sure if this would be a good fund to start with, with a small amount like that its hard to diversify any balance any losses the sector takes.

Another option that USAA has, that i really like, is there index funds, ideally the S&P500 index fund. Very low expense ratio (.33% if i recall) but requires $2,000.

What i am thinking of doing, since i dont have the $2,000 to start with the index fund, i would find a somewhat safe fund to put my monthly deposits into, then once i have enough, transfer it over to the index fund.

Is this a good long term investment? the Fund has a great rating and has good potential with a good record, but of course having a balanced portfolio will take out the risk of being invested in only one sector.