5 Questions: Vesting, Budgeting Styles and Starting a Blog

This weeks we are covering five listener questions are on vesting, budgeting styles, starting an opportunity fund, IRA's and starting a blog.

Question One: Balance between the spender and the saver

What I struggle with the most it getting my spouse to follow the budget. I have tried mint, and YNAB and a cash envelope system. How do I get her to follow a budget. Or maybe how do I 'trick' her into it? I'm not going to leave my spouse because of some money issues that don't cause us negative effect. We just aren't making gains in our life. What happens when your partner has a different view on budgeting that you do? How do you find a system that works for both styles?

Question Two: Starting a Blog

Better to start a blog sooner or wait till there is more content? Start now with 1 article, or wait 2 months and start with 15?

Question Three: IRA’s

Now a days people tend to make more and more lateral movements in their profession, collecting more and more IRAs. I was wondering if there was any research out there that suggests that merging IRAs to a currently higher performing IRA tended to outperform keeping a more diversified portfolio.

Question Four: Opportunity fund

Andrew has described the concept of an opportunity fund and has also mentioned that this current bull market run may be due for a significant correction.

I am 31 and currently have a 90/10 stock/bond split in my Betterment account. If its more likely than not that a correction hits the stock market soon and prices drop, would it be prudent to slide my Betterment portfolio to a more conservative stock/bond ratio (say 60/40 or 50/50) in advance of this future correction.

This would sort of be like a hedged "opportunity fund" within my Betterment account, and this extra money in bonds could then be used to buy more stocks once the correction has fully hit and stock prices are low. What do you think?

Question Five: Vesting

My employer enrolls all employees in an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan). Essentially, every year, each employee will receive a percentage of their base salary in stocks of the company, depending on how well the company does that year. 

After I have worked for the company for so many years I become fully vested in the stock I have been given. Before that time I am only partially vested (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%). Once I retire or leave company I will be forced to sell the stock back to the company at my vested percentage, I can't do anything with the stock before that.

My question is how would you incorporate an ESOP benefit into your Financial Blueprint?

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